My recent cooking attempts

In the past couple of days I have attempted to do some cooking.

On Sunday I was having some friends over for a picnic and I really wanted to show I was capable of cooking so I decided to bake a cake. Now, I have this recipe for the birthday cake my mum always made me every year so I thought I would give that a go. All seemed to go well at first - the mixture tasted right. But then...I put it in the oven. The recipe said medium oven for 35-40 minutes...and since I had no idea what temperature was medium I just selected around 150 degrees. The cake...did not rise. I used self raising flour by the way so it should have. And it seemed to take ages to bake. In the end my cake was 1 cm in height! It tasted great though and I ate 75% of the cake myself over 3 days!

As my boyfriend is in Antartica they don't have a lot of fresh produce, including yoghart. So they make their own yoghart using Easiyo. Since he liked the yoghart so much - and got really excited about it - he decided to buy me a easiyo youghart maker and lots of yoghart making supplies. SO finally on Monday night I made the yoghart. And so far it seems I have succedded. The yoghart tastes and looks like normal yoghart and last night I made some tzakiki dip using it. The dip is a bit stronger than I am used to but is tasty enough :)

So yay - I have kind of managed to succed in some cooking.

Hot Cross Buns and Easter

Hot Cross Buns have to be my favourite part of easter. I can eat a pack a day they are so tasty. I also like the chocolate ones (the ones with chocolate chips instead of sultanas) but the normal one are still my favourite. Yesterday my mum made some fresh ones and I ate all eight of hem over the course of the evening!!! They were my dinner!

I love the smell
I love the hotness
I love peeling the cross off


http://z.about.com/d/britishfood/1/0/A/-/-/-/hotxbuns.jpg

What is your favourite thing about easter?

A visit to my indian friend's house

On Friday my friend arrived home from India and Europe. So of course she gives me a call to come round :)And as usual she feeds me up with tasty indian food :) I love going to her house for this very reason. My usual favourite is something called chaat. So tasty but hard to explain. But on Friday she introduced me to a new dish. It has this kind of steamed bread/cake stuff which you heat up and pour some sauce on it. The sauce is kind of spicy with a lemony taste. It is also good with yoghurt (in my opinion).

I wish I could cook like that. When she comes to my house I cannot feed her such tasty food.

Do you enjoy visiting your friends to taste their dishes? What is your favourite cuisine?

Sydney Festival First Night + Photos

Last night I went to the Sydney Festival First Night. Crazy stuff going on.

First we went to this quirky japanese restaurant near the entartianment centre where you order off a screen not through a waiter. Heaps of fun. And then you can tell the progress of your order - if it is ready and coming towards you or if it is still being made. We ordered lots of tasty things - takoyaki balls (octopus), octopus pancake, weird deep fried cheese, sushi rolls, tempura vegies, sushi roulette (one is completely filled with wasabi and you can't tell which) and deep fried tofu amongst other things. I can't remember the name of the place but is near cold rock and you go up stairs.

Then we went and looked at stuff in hyde park - cool lights, smoke machines, music, acrobats and an enormous balloon which changed colour.

Photos of me and my friends below :) (I'm the one in the purple dress)





Everyone should have a think of going next year :) Though it was very crowded.

Guilty pleasures - Part 1

Food




I love eating. Here are some of my food guilty pleasures.


Eating an entire mini wheel of camembert cheese in one sitting.


Microwave popcorn - so unhealthy but so tasty



Smoked salmon - I can eat strips of this stuff by itself.



Coffee gelato




Glutinous rice balls (the onese filled with seasame)

And salsa and corn chips (I can eat an entire packet of corn chips with salsa in a city as my boyfriend found out to his loss).


Others include:
olives
feta cheese
cheds (so good)
strawberries
marinated eggplant, mushroom etc
CAPERBERRIES (not capers...but caperberries..there is a difference)


These are just a small sample of my foody guilty pleasures


What food guilty pleasures do you have?

Food in compartments

I love having a meal with lots of little compartments. Like...japanese bento boxes. Sometimes when I am at work and i feel like a different meal to my usual sushi roll I will go to somewhere slightly more fancy and have one of these. Not the sushi bento boxes...but the really cool ones with a mini main meal and salad and sometimes a desserty thing and miso soup and yay!!!!

I also discovered on Little Sooti (http://littlesooti.blogspot.com/2009/11/dylans-candy-bar-new-york.html) a really cool lolly tacklebox by Dylans Candy Bar New York which was also pretty groovy.

Yum cha is also pretty kind in a compartmently way...lots of small little dishes.

Hmmm...i think I should do a cheese compartment dish someday for a picnic :)