238/984 - Mojo verde (Green sauce)

Served alongside the lovely Greek salad was pan fried fish, topped with this intensely flavoured green sauce. Not a neat cook at the best of times, I certainly learned a lesson about wearing aprons whilst cooking with green things! 

I was inappropriately attired in a white t-shirt during the mojo verde construction, but it was certainly not white by the time this recipe was completed. My Thermomix also took a green battering throughout the process.

I opted to use sherry vinegar rather than red, however next time I will add it a little at a time. Once blended, I found the taste of the mojo verde to be very tart, but I was able to balance it with some more oil and a handful of Vietnamese mint. On reflection, I think the problem may have been a slight lack of coriander, my bunch being a bit on the small side. Once adjusted, the sauce was absolutely divine and incredible on fish.

But the fun didn't stop there! The next day we drizzled the mojo verde on roast pork and almost fell over with happiness. What an incredibly versatile sauce! After dunking many pieces of pork and still having a hefty swig of sauce left over, I decided to make egg bites with mojo verde, tomato and kangaroo chorizo. The only devastating thing about the egg bite recipe was that I didn't write it down. I wasn't alone in my love for this little treat, with the entire tray being devoured by party guests. 

My dinner guests voted the mojo verde the highlight of their night, and after eating it three ways I am now officially in love with this simple, tasty little recipe. Stephanie, you continue to rock my world.

Egg bites with tomato, mojo verde
and kangaroo chorizo

237/984 - Greek country salad

I have had a very busy few weeks, which included an overseas trip, and I have taken my eye off the cooking/blogging ball in a big way. I didn't realise how behind I was until I checked the calendar and realised I ate this gorgeous Greek salad three weeks ago! 

This beautiful salad was made for two very special friends of mine who came over to share a meal with my family. The three of us are lovers of good food and so the pressure was on to make an excellent meal for our catch up. I was pleased that this recipe created quite a large amount and expected to have some left over for the next day. I was quite surprised, and quietly pleased, that there was not a skerrick left after the meal! 

I followed the recipe to the letter except I did not add any salt at all. We are not big salt eaters here and judging by the empty bowl after dinner I think everybody agreed that this salad was perfect just as it was.

236/984 - Pea and ham soup

There used to be a café around the corner from us that served a great ham hock soup. Henry has been obsessed with it since his first taste and so he was thrilled when I pulled a smoked hock out of the freezer and told him I was finally going to make a soup with it.

I realise hearty soups are usually reserved for cold winter evenings, but being somebody who doesn't mind the heat I tend to serve them to my little family all year round. My boys don't mind but if truth be told, Trev is not the biggest supporter of a hot meal on a warm day. Luckily he was overseas on the day I made this, and so while my cat's away this mouse makes soup!

I was amused to read that this should be served with sippets, mainly because I had not heard of them before. It turns out they are just cubes of bread fried in olive oil. Happy to oblige!

Yummo.

235/984 - Joe's spaghetti with prawns

Well actually I made Joe's linguine with prawns rather than Joe's spaghetti...with a few fettuccine strands thrown in for good measure. The small amount of fettuccine was made because I started to get frustrated with the linguine not cutting properly and taking forever to separate. I am a very patient person but even I have limits! 

My favourite thing about this dish was how lovely the prawns looked. They were sliced lengthways and once they had been cooked they curled in the sweetest way. 

The boys and I ate this while Trev was away and so there was no need to double the recipe. Which was fortunate really because it was only as I was halfway through making it that I noticed it only served two people! Jules is a sparrow when it comes to dinner so I was quite sure there would be enough for the three of us.

If you don't make your own pasta this is a very quick meal to put together, and of course fabulously yummy! Although home made pasta really does take this dish to an amazing place...

234/984 - Guacamole

This is the first guacamole I have made without tomatoes. It broke my heart to leave them out, with a bowl of home grown juicy ones staring at me from their little bowl on the bench as I made this. I almost cheated and added some in but decided to be strong and stay true to the recipe. 

This was made as a pre-dinner snack, at the request of my guacamole loving twelve year old. He gave this the thumbs up, demolishing most of it almost immediately. I liked it very much but couldn't get the tomatoes out of my head and am still not convinced that they would not have added an interesting flavour to the final product. 

Of course I am incredibly biased. From the moment they began sprouting their juicy little bodies onto our vines, I have wanted to add tomatoes into every savoury dish I have created. Tomato fetish aside, this was a really lovely chunky dip that I am sure will be created again and again.

232&233/984 - Tomato and maple syrup glazed barbecued belly pork

Belly pork makes me go weak at the knees...

In the rainbow version of the book, this recipe is separated into two; Glazed Barbecued Belly Pork and Tomato & Maple Syrup Glaze. Making the glaze was straightforward once I got past my least favourite job of peeling and seeding the tomatoes. We had grown the tomatoes in our very own garden and so I couldn't bear to discard the seeds, saving them to cook with my scrambled eggs for breakfast. (Which was fabulous by the way!).

I found some gorgeous belly pork from Bundarra Berkshires that I had tossed in the freezer and forgotten about. For me it's a bit like winning lotto when I discover a forgotten treasure such as this! The lovely belly was painted and cooked in the oven, whilst being periodically re-glazed with this magic syrup. The pork was cooked again on the BBQ, but not before being slathered in more glaze. Yummmm....

The bok choy was also from our garden and was beautiful eaten together with this decadent dish. I had some glaze left over which I used in a stir fry a couple of days later which was again magnificent. 

We love Bundarra Berkshires pork and I am proud to be able to give them a blatant plug here*. The pork we buy from them tastes incredible, but most importantly comes from animals who have been treated well. It makes me smile whenever we eat piggy products and before he takes his first bite, Jules always asks me if we are eating pigs that were happy. Whilst I am aware of the irony here, we are not keen to give up eating meat and so eating pigs that have been thoughtfully raised is for me a wonderful choice. 

*Not a paid plug, just a plug because we love them!

231/984 - Anna-Maria's zucchini slice

There hasn't been much Stephanie action going on here since the night of the 8 course feast!

I decided to cook this slice at the last minute for dinner one night, and learned a very amusing lesson in how well I (do not) work under pressure. 

Our little vegetable gardens are doing beautifully, the premise behind having four beds being that we would each have one to look after and be proud of. At this point I would like to thank Trev for tending to all four garden beds (and also my shiitake log) while the rest of us look on and hand out periodic pats on the back for a job well done.

These A-M-A-Z-I-N-G Black Russian tomatoes came from Henry's plot and I am not exaggerating when I say they were the best tomatoes I think I have ever tasted. I am kicking myself for not taking a picture before I cut them up and have vowed to get better at photographing my special ingredients as well as the finished products. 

The zucchinis for this recipe also came from the garden. There were not many available for picking and so I halved the recipe to accommodate. All was going well until I combined the ingredients, completely ignoring the instruction to omit the oil. In went a quarter of a cup of olive oil that was supposed to be drizzled over the top. Whoops.

I was a bit worried about how this would turn out, particularly as I watched the mixture bubble like crazy in the oven. While it was cooking, I steamed a beautiful rainbow trout to serve alongside what I thought was going to be an oozy, oily mess. 

As it turned out, the accident was not as bad as I thought. The additional oiliness worked beautifully with the fish, and along with the ridiculously juicy tomatoes, we ended up with a really lovely meal. My favourite part was Jules asking me at the end of the meal if I could please make the slice again and to make sure that I made the same mistake with the oil next time.   

Masterchef I am not, but at least I make my children happy.

Post Script: I found another Black Russian tomato on the vine and thought I would share a picture. Beautiful, no?

A photo taken after the fact.
This tomato was not harmed in
the making of this recipe.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

I love entertaining. If I had my way (and more time on my hands) I would host a dinner party every week. I have hosted many in my time, but something I have not yet done is to mix up the guests, inviting people not from the same circle of friends. 

A few weeks ago I decided that 2013 would be the year of the dinner party in our house. I like the idea of giving my guests the opportunity to enjoy a meal (of course), but at the same time to meet new people, and as my friend Dave used to say, "to delight in their sparkling repartee". 

To further enhance this experience, I have decided to open my house to a special, honorary guest at my next dinner event. I have never been interested in opening a café or restaurant, feeding hordes of people I have never met. However I do think it would be fun to include a brand new person to my dinner party mix. After all, why should my guests have all the fun of meeting new people?

So who is this mystery guest to be? 

1. I want to hear from anybody who is interested in coming along and playing the part of 'guest of honour'. Let me know via Twitter, Facebook or simply comment on this post.
2. I have no idea how we are going to select our guest, or for that matter if anybody will want to come! If I do happen to garner some interest, the kids and I might simply throw the names in a hat and decide the old fashioned way. 
3. Food allergies or preferences are not a problem. I can work with anything you can throw at me.
4. I promise I will not cook offal or anything else controversial.
5. Of course all three courses will be from The Cook's Companion.
6. The date will be selected by myself and the mystery guest.
7. The dinner party will be made up of my little family of four, the mystery guest, and three of my friends who will also be new to one another. I may even invite friends who have not met Trev just to increase the "getting to know you" factor! I am sure everybody says this, but my friends are all fabulously lovely people...

Bring on the year of the dinner party. 

230/984 - Fig and rum chocolate truffles, Turkish delight and cinnamon crème anglaise

Well this is it folks, the eighth and final course of  our magnificent feast. 

When I found this truffle recipe, I loved it so much I just knew I had to turn it into a dessert. The use of dried figs turned my mind immediately to the Middle East and so of course Turkish delight was my very next thought. The consistency of Turkish delight is the complete opposite of this dense, chewy truffle and so it seemed a lovely pairing in my mind. And of course I knew it would bring a lovely colour to the plate.

The final element almost certainly had to be cinnamon based and originally I thought of making cinnamon ice-cream. As I trawled the web for a recipe, my mind turned to custard (not literally of course) and I quickly found a wonderful recipe for cinnamon crème anglaise. Dessert sorted! 

My Thermomix made the truffles so easy to prepare, first whizzing the dried figs to a paste, and then combining them with icing sugar and rum. The mixture was rolled into balls and left overnight to dry. The next day I toasted my ground almonds although I must confess I burned the first batch, which is terribly unlike me. I put it down to having 35 things to do at once as I was in the home straight of preparing all eight courses. The beautifully browned almond meal (the second batch of course) was mixed with melted chocolate and my lovely fig balls were dipped and dipped until every one of them was shiny and brown. I was concerned that the fork would leave marks as I pushed the dipped balls from the skewer, but my fears were unfounded. 

I was very, very organised on the big day, and so had a few attempts at plating this dish. I tried a few different options but something just didn't look right. I couldn't figure out what it was at first, but eventually realised that the dried rose petals I was planning to use as a garnish were the problem, making the plate way too busy. I finally settled on pistachio dust for the finishing touch, which I had left over from the chopped pistachios that topped my lovely, and very pink, Turkish delight. 

The guests were all very happy with dessert, and after seven savoury courses, were pleased I had taken a minimalist approach with the sweets. The fig truffles were out of this world, and although I sent my guests home with a container of Turkish delight, I sneakily kept the remaining truffles for myself. And as it turned out, for the rest of my family who also fell in love with them!

Well that's it, my first Cook's Companion degustation done and dusted. I was certainly proud of the meal, but most of all I was proud of the absolute lack of stress I felt throughout the entire planning, preparation and execution process. 

And did I mention how well I slept the following night?

229/984 - Kibbeh Nayeh

Degustation course number seven, the last of the savoury dishes.

Kibbeh Nayeh is the traditional way to eat kibbeh and is essentially lamb paste mixed with cracked wheat, onion and spices. No mess, no fuss, no cooking. 

I am not sure why I decided to add such a controversial dish to this special feast. In my defence I didn't cook tongue. Or brains. I think I was quite keen to pull my guests outside of their comfort zones, and figured raw meat should not be such a shock to the modern diner. After all, who hasn't eaten a steak tartare nowadays? Well probably plenty of people, but not the guests who were sitting around my table. 

I knew I could only serve raw lamb if it was the best and freshest, and so was thrilled to discover that Poon Boon Lamb co. had a Melbourne delivery run on the day of the degustation. What perfect timing! Baden turned up right on time (a bit early actually!) and I excitedly dug through my box of goodies looking for the mince.  

I loved this dish and would eat it again in a heartbeat. The guests all liked it, but general consensus was that I had put too much on the plates. I didn't agree and interestingly neither did the kids! My well mannered guests cleared their plates anyway, probably to ensure I would not withhold their dessert. 

There was a good amount of kibbeh left over (I didn't want to pile the plates too high!) and so Trev made burgers the next day which were beautifully seasoned and fabulous.

Ta da!! That was the last of the savoury courses! A very special dessert to follow.

228/984 - Grilled flathead tail with fancy coconut and spinach rice

Degustation course number six!

This is just one of the recipes that features in the new rainbow book and not in the original. I followed the instructions until the part where I was supposed to remove the saucepan from the heat and place a tea towel under the lid. I had the tea towel part covered (pardon the pun) but accidentally left the heat on for the 10 minutes of absorption time. 

There was a shriek and possibly some utterances of "no, no, no!" when I discovered my rice still slowly cooking away. I nervously stirred it to see how bad the damage was and discovered that the bottom was only slightly brown, and in fact when I stirred it through it seemed to add an extra hint of flavour to the rice. I must have been due for some nice karma to come my way...

I packed the cooked rice away in the fridge and on the night of the feast used the microwave to heat it through while grilling the fish. It turned out light and fluffy, so definitely a recipe to remember when I need one that can be pre-prepared. 

Coconut and spinach rice may not sound amazing but this recipe was so fabulously good the birthday boy insisted on taking the leftovers home! The secret ingredient is definitely the dried shrimp, although I actually had to substitute this for shrimp paste because it was all I could find at short notice. The flavour was still amazing so obviously it was an appropriate substitution!

227/984 - Individual tomato and mustard tarts

Degustation course number five.

I had to be careful to balance all of the lovely seafood in this meal with a couple of protein free dishes. This little vegetarian number caught my eye and I decided to make individual tarts rather than one big one to ensure they would look as pretty as possible on the plates. I would have loved to have made the puff pastry myself, but given the amount of preparation I already had to do, I decided to take the sensible option and go for the packet variety. 

I wish I had taken a picture of my first attempt at baking the tart bases. Somehow I managed to end up with ridiculously puffed up discs covered in burnt dijon. My second attempt fared much better, after I made sure the bases were properly pricked and I turned off the fan inside the oven. 

I deliberately searched my drawers for a round cutter than would be just the right amount larger than the tomato slices. Except the cutter I picked wasn't a cutter at all and so I had to engage Trev to put some muscle into pushing it through the pastry.

I was very worried that these little tarts would not be appreciated by my guests, particularly as they were following the wontons sent straight from heaven. Thankfully the tarts were loved by all, the shallots imparting a delicate sweetness to the dish  that I did not foresee. 

More than halfway through the meal and so far so good!

226/984 - Prawn mousse wontons with basil and burnt butter sauce

You know that feeling you get when you cook something and it tastes even better than you expected? 

This was the fourth degustation course and definitely my favourite by a mile. When I found the prawn mousse recipe I knew immediately that it would be a part of this special meal, and also that it would be stuffed inside wontons, given my love of Asian food. 

The prawn mousse itself was very simple to make, especially with a Thermomix on hand, though I did end up with much more than I actually needed. Given there were eight courses I was careful to keep the size of the serves modest, in this case with only three wontons per person. So once I had made 19 (one for testing purposes of course!) I was not quite sure what was to become of the half bowl of left over squidgy prawn mousse. I decided that mixing it with eggs and scrambling it would be a good idea as prawns and cream are both lovely partners for eggs. Trev and the boys gave it a huge thumbs up! 

The day before the big meal I decided it would be a good idea to try making my first batch of wonton wrappers. I figured it couldn't be too difficult and not too much different from making my own pasta. It turns out that it takes much, much longer, especially if you decide to hand roll it (why didn't I use the pasta machine?) and then become just a bit too obsessed with making sure each square was the perfect thickness and well, square. 

It was a lot of fun making them though and the taste was absolutely worth the effort. On the big night I cooked the wontons in the style taught to me by my lovely friend Venus who took charge of the dumpling cooking at my birthday celebration last year. You put a splash of oil in the pan and wait for it to heat. Gently place the wontons in the pan and add some water to create steam. Keep adding water as required to keep the steam going, and an occasional extra splash of oil. 

The result is gorgeous crispy wontons that are not heavy at all and are perfectly cooked throughout. Needless to say my guests were very happy after eating this dish, although I think we all wished I had made many more than I did.

225/984 - Thai rose-petal and cucumber salad

Degustation course number three...

I was intrigued by the inclusion of rose petals in this salad and couldn't wait to make and eat it. On our trip to the Queen Vic market we stopped to pick the perfect little bunch of red roses for the table and for dinner!

This salad was strategically placed near the beginning of the meal so that my guests could continue to snack on it in between courses. I put it together at the last minute, heading back to the table to select the rose that would finish this pretty masterpiece. I wasn't alone in my fascination, my guests appreciated the drama of the moment too!

I am aware that eating flowers is not a new thing. I have certainly eaten flowers before myself, including lovely dried rose petals, but this is the first time I had eaten rose petals fresh, and certainly the first time I had included them in a recipe straight from the dinner table centrepiece.  

The salad was more popular than expected! The freshness of the cucumber was obviously appreciated in between my other, slightly heavier, dishes. By the end of the meal the plate had been wiped clean. I was almost certain I would have at least a small serve left over for my lunch the next day. 

Not a bad thing to be wrong about really. 

224/984 - Rolled sardines with pine nut and currant stuffing

Degustation second course!

I know I have said it before, but I love cleaning sardines. Being covered in slimy bits and having perfect little fillets of fish at the end...surely that's what cooking is all about.

I checked with the birthday boy before putting sardines on the menu because they seem to have their fair share of detractors. He gave the OK and I am so glad he did! The last sardine recipe I made which can be found here was absolutely fantastic and I didn't think it could be topped. I was wrong.

Lots of fried yumminess went into this recipe - breadcrumbs, pine nuts, garlic. All great once they have been in a pan with a bit of oil. The bits that joined them in the blender were not bad either - a bit of parsley, a small mountain of grana padano cheese and some freshly cracked pepper.

This lovely concoction was rolled in the sardines and secured with toothpicks. I added a bit of extra oil to the mixture to help it stick together but still found it quite crumbly to work with.

I decided to bake rather than fry my little fish on the night of the feast as frying means watching the pan to make sure they don't stick and also turning them mid-way. Baking is so much easier and of course I wanted to relax with a glass of wine between courses. We stayed with the Monkey Bay Chardonnay for this course and it didn't take much coaxing to ensure the glasses were drained in readiness for the next.

This dish actually evoked groans of pleasure from the diners and even the littlest participant came back for his second and third little fishy parcel after telling me how much he did not like sardines!

The only thing that stopped the adults fighting him for them was the knowledge that there were six fabulous courses to come.

223/984 - Allan and Michele's asian-inspired pumpkin soup

A friend of ours turned forty a little over a month ago and we were faced with the predicament of what to buy the man who has everything. This is a particularly special friend who is close to both myself and my husband and who always manages to buy the most spectacularly fantastic gifts to mark our special occasions. After much searching and thinking we finally settled on a gift that money can't buy - an evening with friends and a home made eight course degustation with matched wines. 

I had so much fun scanning my new rainbow book for recipes. With hundreds of new ones to choose from I was like one of my children with a Toys'R'Us catalogue, madly selecting things I liked and periodically letting out small yelps of excitement. Unfortunately I had so much fun I ended up with a list of near thirty recipes and had to spend quite some time paring it back. The criteria I had set was that each dish had to be fabulous, but also able to be prepared in advance with minimal effort required on the night. There is nothing worse than having people over for dinner and then spending the entire night in the kitchen! 

So after a few days of preparation and an early morning trip to the Queen Vic market, last night was the night! The first course was Allan and Michele's Asian-inspired pumpkin soup which I had made two days prior. On the night I simply needed to bring it to the boil and whisk in some coconut milk. Too easy.

As per Stephanie's suggestion I decided to fancy it up with the addition of one lovely little seared scallop in each bowl. Unfortunately the scallops sank to the bottom (I have no idea why I thought they would float!) but they were absolutely fabulous and worth the extra little bit of effort on the night, even if they didn't enhance the appearance of the presented bowls. 

Trev was in charge of the matched wines and this course was served with a New Zealand Chardonnay which we all agreed was a fabulous choice.

Stay tuned for an overview of the remaining seven courses! As for me, I am exhausted after a busy few days in the kitchen and think I will be saying hello to my pillow very early tonight. 

222/984 - Stuffed bush marrow with yoghurt sauce

222/984 - how impossible does that sound?! Forgive me as I get used to this new challenge total...

There were so many firsts with this recipe. Of course this is the first post of the year, but I also used the first zucchini from our garden, and to round out the trio of firsts, it was also the first time I had made a Stephanie recipe in a kitchen other than my own. 

We stayed at a friend's beach house this week and I couldn't resist dragging along my Cook's Companion and this whopper of a zucchini that was just crying out to be picked and eaten. Our garden is looking wonderful and I am looking forward to using many of the gorgeous little vegetables that are getting brighter and fatter by the day.

The holiday house we stayed in is very well decked out, but there are some kitchen implements that are just never going to be found in a beach escape where the majority of the guests choose take away meals over home cooked, and any cooking that is done tends to be on the barbie to keep the heat (and the mess) outside. Because of this the cumin for the filling was crushed with a knife (and not very well!) and the onion was diced finely rather than minced.

There was also a brief delay in proceedings when I made the yoghurt sauce and realised I was heating the house even further on an already sweltering 42° day. I put the sauce in the fridge and waited a couple of days for the heat to die down before proceeding. It didn't seem to harm the sauce although I am not sure if the consistency was altered.  

I really liked this dish although I really should have taken Stephanie's advice to fry off a bit of the meat to check the seasoning before putting it together. The final dish had a lovely flavour, but really could have done with more of it. I am sure it didn't help that my cumin seeds were only half crushed and the onion not properly minced.

But for a holiday dish I thought it was pretty good!

A fantastic challenge upset

A thousand years ago I was given a very special orange book. Way back when I didn't know my way around a kitchen and was terrified by recipe books devoid of pictures. Back when I regularly botched simple dinners and the thought of feeding anybody other than my nearest and dearest scared me witless. 

I have come a long way since then. These days I prefer my recipes complicated and can spend hours planning a dinner party menu or an 8 course degustation for someone dear. 18 months ago I decided to share my love of cooking with the world, in the form of this blog, tracking my new hobby of cooking every recipe in the special orange book, the iconic Australian kitchen bible, The Cook's Companion.

Expecting only a shiitake log for Christmas this year (I had dropped some heavy hints for that one!) I ripped open my surprise second present only to see a very familiar rainbow cover! I had ogled the updated version of TCC in bookshops, all the while feeling a sense of betrayal to my tatty but loved orange friend. My first thought when I opened my gift was WOW! which was immediately followed by the realisation that my challenge had just been extended by several years. Yikes.

Anybody who has the original version of this book needs to SERIOUSLY consider upgrading. There are so many fabulous new recipes and as the wonderful Stephanie herself pointed out, the marginal recipes are now indexed! I briefly entertained the thought of adding the marginal recipes to the challenge...but I am not completely insane and would like to finish this in the next decade. I have other recipe books that are suffering terrible neglect for which I feel a constant guilt.

So of course I have spent my quiet moments over the last few days updating my challenge spreadsheet (read: geek heaven). I was simultaneously amused and afraid to discover;

• I am no longer a third of the way through the challenge. In fact my progress has now slipped back to  my being less than a quarter of the way through 
• instead of 114 chapters of recipes, there are now 123
• I have gone from having 3 chapters completed, to a big fat zero. There are additional recipes everywhere you look! 
• there are now dedicated chapters for abalone, venison and pomegranates. There are more new chapters but these are the ones I was most excited about
• And the best one of all....instead of 656 recipes I now have 984 amazing recipes to complete.

Bring it on!

221/656 - Cold chinese white-cooked chicken with seared spring onion sauce

I paid a flying visit to Fairfield Farmers' Market a couple of weeks ago and happened across Yapunyah Meadow Grazed Chickens, who were set up conveniently alongside my milkman. I happily relieved them of a whopping 2kg chicken, wondering how on earth my little family of four would get through such a wonderfully large bird. Skimming through the book I was very excited to find this recipe in the chicken chapter that required a 2kg free range chicken. How perfect!

We tend to roast our chickens when they come to us all in one piece, and so I was very keen to see how a boiled chook would taste. The behemoth was boiled in water flavoured with ginger and spring onion (which smelled incredible!), but interestingly only for a very short time. It was then left to sit in the hot water for 45 minutes and finally, was dunked in a tub of ice cold water where it hung out for another hour. I will admit I was worried that it would not be cooked, and was pleasantly surprised at the amazing colour of the skin and meat when it was done.

If the chicken wasn't gorgeous enough, the spring onion sauce took it to a whole new level! I was so pleased I cooked rice to go with this dish as the sauce was way too fabulous to be left on the plate without anything to soak it up. 

We cut up the chicken as Stephanie suggested, in the Chinese manner with a very large, very sharp cleaver. I actually had Trev perform the dissection because I enjoy having two hands and my aim is not at all good. We were very amused at the level of spatter that ensued, and I would highly recommend the use of an apron, and possibly a face mask when performing this activity on such a juicy beast.  

Needless to say it was amazing and as suspected we were left with a small pile of yummy leftovers. Stephanie advised that the cooked chook will last for up to four days. I am a couple of weeks from hosting my second degustation 'event' so of course this has been added to the menu! 

220/656 - Green beans with fermented black beans

Fermented black beans are hard to find! 

Of course I took myself down to Victoria Street in Richmond on a fermented bean search but had to scour at least four Chinese grocers before I struck gold. They are very smelly (the beans not the grocers) and so I have been storing them wrapped in a plastic bag and away from the other food in my pantry. And that's before the packet was even opened!  

I loved this recipe, very quick and full of tasty flavour. I will make these beans again soon, if only to prove to myself that I can cook them without nearly burning them to a crisp! We ate these lovely spicy beans in a very unconventional manner - inside Vietnamese rice paper rolls. They were a fabulous addition to the rolls, tucked inside with some seasoned vermicelli, cucumber, spring onion and wok fried marinated chicken. Rice paper rolls are one of my favourite things to make for dinner, mainly because we all roll our own and it's so EASY!  

I would have liked to take a picture of a gorgeous rice paper roll with lovely spicy beans poking out the top, but alas they disappeared so quickly there was just not the time.

219/656 - Tom Yam Goong/Sour prawn soup

I am officially one third of the way through the book, hurrah!! Apart from Stephanie, I wonder if I might now own the most well used copy of The Cook's Companion. An amazing thought!

I made this soup on what was quite a hot day. An interesting choice given that it was a hot meal in more ways than one, with 10 fresh chillies and two teaspoons of chilli paste in there! The only change I made to the recipe was deciding not to leave the heads on the prawns. This was a decision that promised less mess at the dinner table and so while the soup was not as pretty to look at, I think the decision was a good one.  

Jules is not usually fabulous with hot food, but on this night he jumped in boots and all. There was a testosterone fuelled discussion between the boys over dinner regarding whose mouth was burning more and of course who was best at handling the heat. When Jules saw the picture of the soup on my screen he said, "That's the soup that made me like chilli!"   

Music to the ears of a mother who loves a bit of heat in her food. Bring on the vindaloo. 

218/656 - Date and walnut biscuits

 

Social media is great for connecting with new people and I regularly chat with strangers online, usually about all things food! But until a couple of months ago I never imagined I would be busily mailing sweet treats to three people I had never met. Enter The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap.

The rules of the swap were simple; make three dozen cookies and send 12 to each of your selected matches. I made 37 of these beautiful biscuits (an extra one for tasting of course!) and sent them off to Amanda from Chewtown, Faaiza from Modest Munchies and Erin from Cut the cookie. It's a nerve-wracking thing sending your cooking to foodies you have never met! 

In return I was lucky enough to receive three wonderful packages myself. Two varieties of  beautiful shortbread from Sara of Belly Rumbles, three varieties of traditional Chinese cookies from V Vien of We Dare Food and cranberry and white chocolate cookies from Daisy of Never too Sweet. A whole lot of yum going on in this house at the moment!  

I used some old Leunig wrapping paper to wrap my cookie gifts. I have been hanging on to it for years waiting for the right time to use it and this felt like a special enough occasion.  

I normally don't post recipes, but of course I have made an exception this time so that the deliciousness of these biscuits can be experienced by all. 

Date and Walnut biscuits 

250g dates, stoned

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

75g butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

3 tbsp sour cream

175g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Preheat oven to 180° C (350° F) and grease baking trays, or line them with baking paper. Cut dates into pieces using scissors (I used a knife) and mix with walnuts. Cream butter and sugar (in a thermomix if you have one!) and beat in eggs until light, then beat in sour cream. Mix a third of the flour into the dates and nuts to coat them well. (I spent some time making sure all of the date pieces had been separated and coated at this point.) Combine remaining ingredients and stir into egg mixture with dates and nuts. Drop spoonfuls of batter onto baking trays. Bake for about 10 minutes until browned. Cool on a wire rack.

What a fabulous experience. Many thanks to Love and Olive Oil for making this fun Christmas activity possible. Bring on Cookie Swap 2013!