Things you've never dreamed of

June 16th, 2013

Art and sharks and donuts, oh my

This post is a bit overdue, but well, it’s not like I’m disappointing any readers. I also had a draft of this entry in my head but I forgot to write it down and have had a couple of heavy drinking sessions in the last week so you’re not exactly getting Shakespeare here.

First off, me and Mr Gif (formerly known as Pork Ribs Guy) are a thing. Not sure how this is going to go and how long this will last but I’m trying very hard not to let my neuroses get the better of me. I think I’ll be relatively happy even if it ends tomorrow – it’s been pretty amazing.

To celebrate the Queen’s birthday I had a dirty weekend padded out with some stuff (thanks, Queen!). There was art:

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Ryoji Ikeda’s Test Pattern no. 5 at Carriageworks. If you hurry you can still make it – this one finishes up on the 1st of July. Dunno about the other stuff at Carriageworks. One of the installations is a dude in a gold spandex bodysuit undergoing his daily dialysis treatment. Idgi.

Then Mr Gif took me to Sydney Aquarium because I told him I like sharks. Here are some motherfuckin carpenter sharks.

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And this here is a fish I can’t remember the name of, but it’s apparently v. poisonous:

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That’s pretty much all the photos y’all are gonna get cos the rest of the photos are a bit shit even with heavy GIMPing.

Then in the morning we made some bacon and egg Krispy Kreme roll:

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This was his idea, and I fell in love with him that little bit more.

Mmmm sexy:

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The best I can say about it is that it’s not as bad as I’d expected. It’s pretty much a sugar coated cholesterol roll so I won’t be making it again anytime soon.

May 27th, 2013

Success!

Recipe from Grab Your Fork. Thanks for helping me get laid, Helen!

Ribs for your pleasure

 

January 15th, 2012

Stuff what I’ll try and cook in 2012

  1. Chocolate and Nutella cupcakes
  2. Hainanese chicken rice
  3. Macarons (eek)
  4. Chicken briyani
  5. Laksa lemak
  6. Corn fritters
  7. Coconut and kaya sponge cake (storebought kaya, I’m not that crazy)
  8. Almond milk (not technically cooking but w/e)
  9. Rendang using my turmeric leaves
  10. Ricotta cheesecake
March 28th, 2010

Art, Booze and Carbs: The ABC of Happiness

Guys, I had a great weekend. Granted, most of today was spent trying to sleep off the greatness of yesterday, but even a level 7 hangover can’t dampen my spirits. Unless I puke on it (and I didn’t, hurrah for me!).

My good friends May and Cam hosted an Arty Party on Saturday as a belated housewarming. Our gorgeous hosts supplied the canvasses, oil and acrylic paints (some salvaged from Cam’s bludging fine arts days in uni) and paintbrushes while everyone else brought with them alcohol and imagination. Everyone really got into it – the room was silent as creative juices churned from brain to paper, broken only by the occasional “Who’s got the Burnt Umber?”

Of course, creativity has to be well-fed. May’s mum generously contributed baked goods for us starving artists:

Best apple pie ever, fat with chunks of spiced apple and sultanas. May said that her mum only learned how to bake recently. “Unpossible!” I said through a giant mouthful pie, clumsily spraying bits of buttery flaky crust everywhere.

May’s mum also made a zingy, creamy lemon tart. May served it with some lemon sorbet.

I’m a bit hesitant about putting everyone’s art up because I forgot to ask if it’s OK, but here’s my finished masterpiece: Read the rest of this entry »

March 16th, 2010

Awww Yeah

I’m back, darlings. Life got in the way, then WPMU shat itself and it took me 3 minutes to load each backend pages. Pimento has generously helped me to move all my stuff to a new space with brand spanking new versions of everything, so things are now running smoothly. Nothing’s changed except that I’d gotten rid of the www in front of my URL. Ooh scandal.

Sweeties, I have SO much to tell. First, here’s a recipe for you – consider this an apology for being absent for so long.

Sambal Kicap (Sweet Soy Sauce Sambal)

I can probably dress that picture up a bit more so it doesn’t look like tar in a bowl, but trust me, it’s delicious. Sambal kicap is a delightful condiment often served with anything soupy (e.g. noodle soups), grilled seafood, fried eggplants, banana fritters – anything fried. Shit, serve it with marshmallows if that takes your fancy.

Most recipes leave the garlic and chillies raw, but the recipe where I adapted this one from says that frying them lightly first will help the sauce keep for longer in the fridge. I also like the fact that it mellows out the garlic flavour.

Ingredients:

Two cloves of garlic, peeled, left whole
Bird’s eye chilli – amount differs according to how hardcore you are. You can also replace with bigger chillies if you’re not too keen on burning your tastebuds off. If using small chillies, leave whole. If using large, roughly chop. Both green and red chillies are fine depending on what you want that day.
Approx 1/4 cup kicap manis/sweet soy sauce. I use ABC brand kicap manis
Kalamansi/lime juice (optional)

Open all windows.

Heat a teaspoon or so of oil in a small pan or wok over medium heat. Bung in the garlic and chillies. Fry until chillies start popping (explode more like) and scare the shit out of you. It didn’t take me long, probably about a minute or two? Note that frying chillies will give off fumes that make you sneeze, cough and feel unhappy.

Drain chillies and garlic on absorbent kitchen paper if you really care about the bit of oil clinging on to these things. Leave to cool.

Pound garlic and chillies together with a mortar and pestle until you get a paste*. You can add some sugar at this stage if you like your sauce sweeter (I don’t). Stir in the garlic-chilli paste with kicap manis. The kalamansi/lime juice is especially good if you’re going to use the sauce with seafood – just squeeze in a little bit at first, stir and taste. Keep adjusting the taste by adding more kicap or lime juice to taste.

*If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, combine the garlic, chillies (chop these up a bit first) and soy sauce and use a blender to make a sauce, adding a tiny bit (like half a tsp or so) of water if you need it.

I served it alongside KK-style beef soto:

As a bonus, here’s what I had for dinner the last two nights:

Vietnamese beef stew – recipe from the amazing Wandering Chopsticks blog. Try it out, it’s seriously good. The two pictures above aren’t me trying to be artistic – I only found out that the bowl I used for both dishes was chipped so I had to crop it out.

February 6th, 2010

(Part of) Tonight’s Dinner

Look at these goddamn deep fried zucchini flowers. They’re stuffed with ricotta and goat’s cheese and chives and fancy shit your B-grade celebrity chefs get their pants wet over. You know you want to eat the shit out of these fuckers goddamn

(Props)

December 6th, 2009

Pistachio and Rosewater Cupcake

Food porn post coming, but just needed to post this first:

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Pistachio and rosewater cupcake, recipe from 500 Cupcakes.

I’ve only started learning to bake so I was well chuffed when this turned out OK. The cake bit is delicious – very fluffy and moist. Dunno about the icing though. I’m not a huge fan of cream cheese icing but it goes well with the rosewater. Also, I need to invest in a dropper for food colouring. That’s some lurid pink right there.

November 15th, 2009

Bits and Pieces

If you’ve been paying attention, you’d know that I bought a red capsicum chilli relish from the Newtown Festival. It’s by a company called relish this.

Capsicum chilli relish
I fell in love immediately with the packaging, because I’m a sucker for well-designed product packaging (I once bought a $4 “water for women” because it was purple – marketers take note). I mean geez you’d have to be made of stone to not smile at a logo with love hearts on it. Also I’d buy any food products with the word “feisty” on them (marketers take note).

When I was at the festival I had a bit of the relish on a cracker with cheddar cheese. This stuff is really damn good. It was sweet but not cloyingly so and the sweetness nicely complements its spiciness. The relish has bits of currants and apples that will go nicely with anything cheesy or salty. This particular relish is available in both mild and feisty, but to be honest I wouldn’t get the milder version because I find most relishes too sweet for me if it’s not spicy. Still, I love the product and you should buy truckloads of it because (a) it’s delicious and (b) the people behind it seem awesome. Go forth and spend!

Once I tasted the relish I knew what I wanted to do with it. Here’s tonight’s dinner:

Lamb burger
Lamb burger made with tagine spice mix and fetta cheese, topped with capsicum chilli relish. Man everything went so well together I feel like another one even as I’m typing this.

In other news, The Cupcake Factory recently opened a store in Balmain. I bought a cookies and cream cupcake today.

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It’s very pretty, and the cake bit is OK but the icing is too sweet for me. This was $4.

My favourite cupcake place is still Ghermez as it’s the only place I found that doesn’t use overly sugary icing. Sorry Cupcake Factory, I really wanted to like you.

September 17th, 2009

Today’s Dinner

Just to prove that I don’t just post backlogs of pics, here are some pictures of tonight’s dinner. My partner is home now after two weeks of being in Europe and he requested Asian food. I am of course awesome enough to indulge him.

The pictures are pretty awful because I’m a shit photographer the lighting in my kitchen is wonky. Behold my ghetto plating skills!

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The platter in the middle is stir fried long beans with dried shrimp and chilli. It really was for me but Rob ate it with no complaints. Yes, I know the platter is too big.

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Chicken rendang. It’s not the prettiest dish but it’s v. delicious. It takes 3 hours to cook so it should taste like it’s worth the effort!

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Acar mentah (raw pickles) made with cucumber, pineapple, shallot and chilli.

September 12th, 2009

Dinner at Jenny & Phuong’s

17 May 2009

My good friend Jenny is an amazing cook. She kindly let a bunch of us riff-raffs into her home to eat her food and watch the Eurovision finals.

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Beautifully presented entrees

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Banana flower salad – one serving garnished with dried beef

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Deep fried soft shell crabs. I nearly wet my pants eating these, they’re so fucking good.

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Pho accompaniments

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Best pho I’ve ever had, and that’s saying a lot.

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Dessert. Clockwise from top – black sticky rice with coconut cream, glutinous rice ball and black sesame ice cream.