A Byootaful Life » Food

Bacon Hock Soup

Katie — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:37:23 +0000

The days are getting shorter and the nights colder – by 5:30pm it’s dark and I’m in my track pants and ugh boots (attractive, I know). We pulled out our down doona about a month ago – it’s too cold for our usual blanket. Puddy has decided it’s too cold at night too, because she comes into our room in the early hours of the morning and taps on my arm. Automatically, I lift the doona and she crawls underneath, flopping on the bed, pressed up against my side. She’s like a living, purring hot water bottle … with claws!

So while winter is cold and miserable, it’s the perfect weather for homemade soup.

I don’t often make soup but I was feeling confident one grocery shop, so when I spied some bacon hocks in the deli department I knew I wanted to get one and make a hock soup. I was originally looking for a ham hock but I’ve read that they’re quite similar, so I figured a bacon hock would be fine. I picked up some carrots, celery and an onion to go with it. I wanted to try leek but frankly, it was just too expensive to justify. Damn, because leeks are delicious.

The veggies were chopped up and put in my favourite pot. It’s small but really fat, which means it holds much more than you’d think. I use it to make pasta and big pots of mince and stews – it’s my comfort pot! I cooked the veggies until they were a bit soft and then added two litres of vegetable stock. It was at this point that I realised my pot isn’t as big as I thought – the stock almost reached the top of the pot and I was concerned when I added the hock it might overflow!

(Sorry about the terrible quality photos – I didn’t realise they were a bit blurry until after I saw them on the computer)

I added some soup mix I’d soaked for an hour in some hot water, covered with alfoil to keep the heat in. It looked really healthy and I’d never cooked with a soup mix before so it was a bit intimidating. The instructions on the soup mix packet were rather fussy and required hours of preperation, so I figured I’d just simmer the soup for longer if my pre-soaking time wasn’t adequate.

I just love that photo – you can see all the healthy peas and beans and lentils and stuff. You know, stuff we don’t normally eat! Once I’d trimmed the fat from the hock, it went into the soup. It took half an hour to bring it to the boil because the pot was so full(!!) and then I let it simmer for about three and a half hours all up. It started to smell deliciously wonderful and I was soooo hungry, I just wanted to eat it but I knew it would take a long time to cook through the soup mix and the veggies, and there’s nothing worse than hard bits in soup (unless it’s bacon, of course!).

Once it had simmered for what seemed like a lifetime, I pulled the hock out and cut off all the meat I could find. (I seemed to forget that a hock taken straight out of boiling water would be hot and burned my fingers). There wasn’t that much meat on it – perhaps that’s where a ham hock and bacon hock differs? If I was going to do this again, I’d probably put two hocks in there. The meat was really pink, which made Phill think it might not be cooked but it had been simmering for three hours – it was definitely cooked.

It tasted really good – I was quite impressed with it. The veggies were melty but still held their shape and the soup mix had swollen up and really helped to give the soup a bit of body. The weirdest thing was seeing the peas in there – they started off as dried peas and now they were plump little green balls – weeeeeird!

There’s no recipe because I didn’t follow one – I just chucked everything in and let it simmer until it was done.

What’s your favourite soup? I’d have to say pumpkin!

The Simpsons Cake

Katie — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 04:01:43 +0000

My favourite thing about birthdays is the cake. I love putting time and effort into making something that makes people go “WOW!” – even if it’s not fantastic, I think it still means so much because of that time and effort. You might remember the “boob cake” I made for Phill for his 21st in 2007? It was lost in the great blog explosion of 2009 so the post about it no longer exists, but it was quite a hit for a while there and I was pretty proud of myself. Professional I am not, but I do enjoy spending half a day in the kitchen making a big mess and making a cake.

This year, I decided to do a Simpsons-themed cake. Phill is a huge Simpsons fan and I normally buy him a Simpsons gag gift, just a little something Simpsons-related as a sort of tradition. This year, there was no Simpsons gift, so I figured, why not do a cake? I searched the internet for some inspiration and found this:

This cake was made by Meg of megscakes and I was absolutely blown away by her amazing skills! I decided to use this as my inspiration and I’d see how close I could get (HA, not very close!). I knew I wouldn’t be able to create something as professional as Meg’s but I’d at least use the characters as inspiration.

My first hurdle was the black fondant. I decided to buy ready-made icing and colour it myself, but I know black is a difficult colour to make and I hadn’t left myself enough time to buy some online. I spent a few hours racing around the local shopping centre trying all the bakeries and kitchen shops to no avail and alas, I decided last-minute that Snowball II would have to be sacrificed. The frame also went. I didn’t want to over-do the icing so I decided to just make the characters and stick them onto a chocolate buttercream, so they’d be easily peeled off if people didn’t like the taste.

It took me a good four hours (!!!) just to do the Simpsons characters. This didn’t include making and baking the cake, making the chocolate buttercream and getting the cake to the point of being ready for the characters to go on.

I basically tore off bits of icing, dyed it and then shaped it to mimic Meg’s characters. I used grease-proof paper which I found stopped the icing from sticking and kept a knob of butter nearby to keep my hands greased. Of course, I had forgotten to buy gloves so by the end of it all my hands had turned a funny shade of red/green/blue/yellow, but that came out after a few rounds of hand-washing. I didn’t take a lot of photos during the character creation process (because my hands were so dirty), but here is the end result:

Vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream icing, with Simpsons characters made out of coloured icing. I was actually quite happy with the end result. The only thing that really bugged me was the length of Lisa’s neck. I had originally prepared all the characters on some grease-proof paper and was happy with the size, proportion and colours but once transferred to the cake (the point of no return!) I realised Lisa’s neck was huuuuuge! I wasn’t sure how that slipped by me, but oh well, I decided to leave it because I didn’t want to make a mess trying to fix it.

There were little creases and dints everywhere, but overall I was pretty happy. You should have seen how tall Marge’s hair started off as – once I’d got all the characters together, I realised it was pretty massively out of proportion, so I trimmed it off. There were a few (polite) comments from party-goers that they resembled the Simpsons cast from when they appeared on the Tracy Ullman show and I smiled and said that was what I was going for (ha).

I think my favourite character turned out to be Santa’s Little Helper, with his turned-up nose and sticking-out tongue and crazy eyes. I wish I’d been able to figure out the black icing for Snowball II because she’s slightly crazy too and her fangs would have been cool to make. Maggie turned out ok too (I was worried her dummy would look like a crazy red zit on her face or something but I think it’s passable). The hardest part of the characters would probably be her bow. Every time I prodded the sides in, it pushed the middle out – I couldn’t make it small and keep it proportional – it took forever, but I was happy with the end result.

So what do you think? I’m no whizz in the kitchen, but it was a really fun way to spend the majority of the day. When Phill came home and saw it, his eyes lit up and he was so excited – and that made all the stress worth it! Now to start planning next year’s cake…

Home-Made Pizza Dough

Katie — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 07:47:35 +0000

One of our latest obsessions is home-made pizza, usually a special treat towards the end of the week. We’ve been buying bases for a while and it’s starting to add up since they’re about $4.50 for two. They’re not the frozen ones, they’re fresh and found in the bread aisle – they’re really quite delicious but I was thinking about how to cut back and save some money. I figured, we’ve got a bread maker, why not make our own dough?

I found a simple recipe on Best Recipes that claimed to be “super easy” and, since there wasn’t going to be any practice runs, I needed something fool-proof. I must admit, I cheated a little. I had a lot of stuff to do before lunch and I had a bread maker in the cupboard so, instead of doing everything manually by hand, then allowing it to rise, I decided to throw all the ingredients in the bread maker and let it do it instead.

In goes flour, yeast, caster sugar and salt, then oil and water. Select the “dough” setting, press start… and walk away.

From memory I think it took about one hour fifteen minutes all up. It plays a nice little tune when it’s ready, just like the washing machine does. Ha, that reminds me of yesterday when I was outside taking the clothes off the line and I heard the neighbour’s washing machine finish. It beeped an alarm, like a truck reversing. I remember thinking how much nicer my little tune was. Puddy has even memorised the tune – as soon as she hears it, she comes running into the laundry because she enjoys flopping around in the sun as I hang out the clothes.

Anyway, here’s the finished dough:

Please ignore my creepy fingers. Let’s just say lighting isn’t my strong point.

The dough was nice and warm and a little strechy. I lightly floured the bench, tore the dough in two and rolled out two pizza bases. The amount of dough was perfect for two thin bases, but if you like your pizza bases a little thicker, you might want to make more. I think the recipe creater uses this amount of dough for one pizza, so I guess it just depends on your personal taste.

The speckles in the dough is some sort of herb – I can’t remember! We added it right at the beginning when we put all the ingredients in the bread maker. You can see the dough was quite thin in places, but we didn’t have a problem with it tearing or anything like that – in fact, it probably made it more crispy.

Toppings went on: tomato pizza sauce, mushrooms, cheese, red and green capsicum, mini pepperoni and some shredded shoulder ham (a old favourite from my childhood) and we popped it in the oven at about 200 degrees celcius for about 15 minutes. Keep an eye on it, once it’s golden brown it’s ready.

It was absolutely delicious! The darker bits around the crust aren’t burnt – I think we just managed to get the pizza sauce all over the place and it was cooked on. To get a crispy crust, you need to cook it for a little longer than a store-bought crust because then the pastry is cooked through and you don’t get that doughy taste.

We’ll definitely be making this dough the next time we have pizza and I think we might experiment with different herbs and seasonings – some basil or rosemary would be nice in the dough.

SUPER EASY PIZZA DOUGH
from Best Recipes

Ingredients:

2 cups plain flour
1 x 8g sachet dry yeast
1 teaspoon caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup warm water

Method:

1. Combine dry ingredients in large mixing bowl and add oil or water. (If using bread maker, now select dough setting and leave it to do it’s own thing. If not using bread maker, continue to step 2)
2. Mix to a soft dough.
3. Knead on a floured surface until soft and pliable.
4. Return to the mixing bowl and cover with cling wrap and leave in a warm spot for 30 minutes. The dough should double in size.
5. When it has risen, “punch” the dough once to remove air bubbles.
6. Remove from bowl and knead gently for 1 minute.
7. Roll the dough out to desired size and add favourite toppings.

Note: This is where the recipe ends. As for cooking, I just went off previous pizza recipes and guessed 200 degrees celcius for about 15 minutes. It depends on your oven, you just want it hot so the base fully cooks and goes crispy. Some people have suggested adding some oil to the pan before cooking – this helps the base crisp up.

Mmmm, now I’m craving pizza for dinner!

Our Little Veggie Pots

Katie — Fri, 21 May 2010 02:16:19 +0000

I struggled with the title because, seriously, what do you call two pots of vegetables, one pot of herbs and one pot of fruit – it’s hardly a garden or a patch. And they live on the BBQ. Whatever they are called, they are my latest obsession. You might remember me mentioning going to Bunnings and buying some plants? Well, let me tell you – they are doing really well (except the strawberries because well, apparently they’re not going to fruit for a while).

So let me introduce you to my little selection of plants:

Cherry tomatoes! This is how it looked when we first bought it, with heaps of little green tomatoes already growing. You can see the little flowers that bloom, then die which allows the tomato to grow. It took just less than one month for us to start picking, but our only (tongue-in-cheek) complaint is that they don’t all ripen at the same time! They taste delicious though – like tomatoes, which is always a good sign when you’re growing them yourself.

I love the green unripe tomatoes because they’re slightly fuzzy all over and as they ripen, they lose that fuzziness. Just yesterday I was able to pick three more tomatoes – one a good size, the others rather small.

Please ignore the dirty bench. Thankyou.

There’s something incredibly satisfying about growing (and eating) your own food. When we end up buying a house and settling down, I want a full-blown veggie patch with all sorts of food – lettuce, tomatoes, chili, peas, beans – anything and everything!

So now for pot number two…

Chili! Aren’t the flowers beautiful? They follow the same theme as the tomatoes – flowers bloom, they die miserably, then drop off as the chili grows through the centre of the dead petals. You can actually see the start of a chili in the big flower, that little green thing poking through the centre. The white bulbs are flowers that will bloom within the next couple days. As you can see, there’s a lot of chilis coming!

And come they did – here’s what the chili plant looks like now. I couldn’t believe how fast they were growing. They all (except for one stubborn tiny one) started out green and are only just starting to tinge red. Apparently they will ripen to a deep red. I have no idea why the tiny one is already red – maybe it will be the first one we’ll eat? I’m already thinking of dishes to make with the chili – there’s going to have to be some sort of Thai stir-fry!

The chili plant is in a little pot, so it needs frequent watering because it seems to gulp up the water like crazy. We’re thinking we might re-pot in a larger pot this weekend to give it a little more room because, well, it’s very busily making us chilis so we should look after it.

Pot number 3 isn’t too exciting, it’s just…

Chives! Good ol’ chives – you can do so much with them. I think these are a garlic version, which adds a nice flavour (I love garlic) and also helps to prevent Puddy from chewing on them. I think my favourite dish with chives is simple mashed potato with butter and chopped chives – YUM. I think I might have to start looking for more dishes to make, since the chives are growing at a rapid pace! It seems that when you chop it back to use it, it grows back twice as fast!

And finally, the last pot in our collection:

Strawberries! We were so excited about growing strawberries, but we’ve discovered that, while the plant itself is doing quite well, we probably won’t see fruit for another few months (booooo). We’ve also had to battle with hungry grasshoppers which seem to love the strawberry plant – we awoke one morning to discover one had eaten almost completely one of the plants (there had been four in the punnet). Luckily it grew back quickly and we’ve been keeping the grasshoppers under control by, well, disposing of them.

I keep checking for fruit but nothing yet – don’t worry, when they start to grow strawberries you’ll all know!

So that’s my humble little experiment. I’m lucky in that Phill used to work at a nusery so he had a fair bit of knowledge about repotting plants and the how to care for them – let’s just say the only plant I’ve managed to grow is a cactus. So far so good, and I’ll definitely keep you all updated on their progress. Come on strawberries – you can do it!

Egg Custard Tarts

Katie — Tue, 18 May 2010 00:38:46 +0000

I just wanted to say thankyou for all your kind and encouraging comments on my last post.

________________________________

One of Phill’s favourite desserts are those little egg custard tarts you can buy from supermarkets. They are beautifully yellow in a little pastry case, with nutmeg sprinkled on top and they are usually delicious. However, we bought some last week and while we were eating them, we realised there was just something lacking. I found them to taste watery. We were disappointed and I decided I was going to try to make my own.

After a quick internet search, I discovered most egg custard recipes called for nine eggs and I only had four on hand. Luckily, I found a recipe that asked for three, so that’s the one I went with. It seemed simple enough, with only a few ingredients: three eggs, two cups of milk, two tablespoons of caster sugar and a cap of vanilla essence (I used extract).

For the pastry I used Pampas pastry cases, bought from the freezer section of my supermarket:

They require cooking at 160 for fan forced, or 180 for regular oven, for ten minutes, then allow to cool. The thing I noticed about them was how shallow they were. Since my custard mixture was quite thin (perhaps I should have somehow made it thicken?) I couldn’t fit much of it into the tart cases because it would quickly overflow. Is that what I get for being lazy and buying pre-made tarts? Perhaps.

Straight out of the packet, they’re quite yellow and raw. It’s recommended that you leave the alfoil cases on while cooking – I guess this might be partly so they won’t collapse? I’m so paranoid about these fragile cases – even while at the shops, I was willing the cashier to pack them separately so nothing would squash them (and he did, thankyou!) and the only casualty was one with a tiny bit of the crust missing – nothing too severe and it was obviously damage that had occured while in the bag.

After cooking, they are paler with a lovely crisp crust – YUM! I could eat them straight away, but I had to be patient and let them cool before filling them with the lovely egg custard. You can see in the photo how shallow they are. I had literally just started pouring when they began to overflow through the dimples in the crust, dammit.

I realised I had a lot of mixture left over, so I grabbed a sheet of puff pastry from the freezer and a quiche dish from the cupboard and made another pie. I realised we’d be having egg custard tarts for a few days (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). I pre-cooked the puff pastry for a few minutes before adding the custard mixture and returning to the oven for 15 minutes. It came out really nicely and the deepness of the dish meant the custard mixture was more substantial.

Oh my goodness, these were delicious! The nutmeg on top absolutely made them – added that extra flavour. I really enjoyed them, expect next time I’ll have to make my own pastry so I can fit more of the egg custard in, because while they tasted lovely, it was mainly the tart case flavour with a little egg custard and nutmeg, instead of the other way around. The puff pastry tart came out nicely too:

They were just so yummy and home-made, not like the watery mass-produced tarts you buy at the supermarkets. Phill asked why mine weren’t as yellow as the ones in the store and I thought perhaps they add a colour to make theirs look more appealing? Either way, mine were better hands-down (and that’s saying something, since I’m not the world’s most confident or capable cook!).

EGG CUSTARD TARTS
from Best Recipes (link also includes pastry recipe, which I didn’t use)

Ingredients:

3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 tablespoons caster sugar
2 cups milk

Method:

1. Whisk eggs, vanilla and sugar in bowl until combined
2. Heat milk until hot, then quickly whisk into egg mixture
3. Pour the custard into pastry case and cook for 15 minutes (for one large tart or about 5-10 for smaller tarts)
4. Sprinkle custard with nutmeg and cook for a further 15 minutes (once again for larger tart or about 5 minutes for smaller tarts)
5. Refrigerate until cold

Enjoy!

BLT English Muffins

Katie — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 07:52:18 +0000

Sometimes I throw together a lunch that looks so delicious and yum that I just have to blog about it. That’s normal, right? You’ve done that before? This particular lunch was freshly made BLT English muffins with mayonnaise and everything was just so crisp and fresh and delicious.

Look at how perfect that looks? And if you want a close-up…

Look at that mayonnaise ready to gloop down the sides, yum! The stemmy bit of the lettuce doesn’t look too appealing but I enjoy eating it – it’s a bit sweeter than the leaves. Of course, if there’s a big stem it’s often bitter so I’ll throw that out. I’m going through a mesculin mix phase – much more exciting than the normal cos or ice-burg lettuce.

Mmm bacon! The only thing these muffins were missing was a thin slice of cheese. I have a love/hate relationship with cheese – I go on or off it really easily. That day I was keen for cheese but we’d run out. Boo.

At this point I realised I was rather hungry so I put down the camera and ate my lunch.

It was awwwwesome.

P.S – I recently adopted an iPhone which means you can expect more food blogging from me, since now I’ll always have a semi-decent camera on hand (and won’t be able to forget to take it!).

The Search for the Perfect Fish & Chips

Katie — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:12:09 +0000

I confess – I am a fish & chips addict. I can’t go past a delicious dinner of crispy fried fish and crunchy chips, served with an aoli or tartare sauce and of course, green mushy peas, yum! So when Phill and I decided to travel to England, I knew I had to give myself a mission – to find the perfect fish & chips. Where else would I find this than in the pubs of England? I knew this mission would be risky – after all, I’d be hoping to get through numerous plates of fried food, but I just couldn’t help myself. The diet could start as soon as I was back in Australia. Until then, bring it on!

My first taste of real English fish & chips was at a pub in London. We ate lunch in the beer garden, which had a fantastic atmosphere. Sadly, the fish & chips were not impressive. As you might be able to see from the photo, the fish batter was extremely greasy, resulting in little pools of yellow-coloured grease on the plate. Now, I’m not shy of a little grease, but I do have my limits.

The fish was actually quite nice – inside the greasy batter was white, fluffy fish which tasted delicious. I ended up pulling the fish meat out of the batter so I could eat it while avoiding the oily casing. The mushy peas were wonderful – I think it’s almost impossible to ruin mushy peas. Almost.

The next fish & chips I tried was in Brighton, on Brighton Pier. While the pub we’d visited for the first round of fish & chips was quite out of the way, down a random quiet street, Brighton Pier is a major tourist attraction so I was weary that the fish & chips were most likely going to be mass-produced and disappointing.

I wasn’t wrong.

Greasy fish, disappointing obviously re-heated chips and cold mushy peas that tasted old and flavourless. After a few minutes tackling this meal I decided I owed my body enough to stop eating fish & chips – all this grease was a little nauseating. I didn’t end up finding the best fish & chips in England, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there somewhere. I just didn’t stumble upon it, so let me ask you:

Where can I find the best fish & chips?

Junket FAIL

Katie — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:29:38 +0000

I generally do a grocery shop once every two weeks or so. Some women like to shop for clothes, or shoes – I shop for groceries. I really enjoy it and I can spend a good hour wandering the aisles with my trolley (yes TROLLEY!) deciding whether we’re going to be healthy or naughty. Healthy usually wins. As an extra challenge, I always aim to bring home at least one item of food that we haven’t tried before.

The most recent “mysterious” item was… Junket.

What is Junket, you might ask? According to Wikipedia, Junket is a milk-based dessert made with sweetened milk and rennet, the digestive enzyme which curdles milk. Sounds delicious, right? Err… right?

I remember having Junket as a child once or twice – I believe a friend of my Mum’s brought it around and I remember it being delicious. I think it was frozen. I don’t know, it was a long time ago. I figured what’s the harm in buying some and giving it another go? Maybe Phill and I will love it. You don’t know unless you try!

Junket comes in tablet form. You pop open two tablets, drop them in a glass and mix with two tablespoons of cold water. The tablets start to dissolve the instant the water hits them and it turns into a cloudy liquid.

You add the dissolved tablets to 500mLs of lukewarm milk, sweetened with a drop of vanilla extract. This is the hard part – the milk can’t be too hot or too cold or it won’t set properly. It’s got to be perfect. Another essential part of the recipe is that you can only stir in the dissolved tablets for a few seconds, then you have to stop stiring and pour the liquid straight into a dessert bowl. You have to stop stirring because it doesn’t take long for it to start to set and you don’t want it to curdle.

So I poured it into a dessert bowl…

… and realised I hadn’t added sugar! The particular recipe I was using was to make Junket custard and a tablespoon of sugar was required to be added to the milk while it was heating. Damn! I glanced in the bowl and decided it wouldn’t hurt to just add the sugar to the dessert now. I’d quickly stir it. What could go wrong?

Uh… this?

Dammit! The instant I stuck a spoon in it, it completely curdled into a chunky, watery mess. Apparently the packet wasn’t lying when it said you only have a very limited time to stir and transfer it to a bowl once you’ve added the dissolved tablets – it was literally seconds! This was obviously ruined, so I tipped it out and, determined, started again.

This time around, I added the sugar to the milk and, once it had dissolved, I added the tablet water. I transferred the liquid to the freshly washed bowl and, well, I stared at it for a while, intrigued. After a few seconds I gently wiggled the bowl and observed how the surface of the Junket had already set into a jelly-like state.

I left the Junket out for 10 minutes to set, then transferred it to the fridge, where it remained all day until I was ready to serve it for dessert. Uh, which didn’t go so well. I guess it hadn’t totally set because when I put the spoon in it, it was a lot more liquidy and less stable than I remembered from childhood. I served it anyway and … it was as expected. It tasted like liquidy milk with a texture like tofu.

Oh well. Maybe I’ll get the tablets out in a month or so and try again, but until then I guess I will classify this as a Junket FAIL. Has anyone tried Junket before? Had any success?

Wedding (Cup)Cakes

Katie — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 09:41:57 +0000

It’s hard to believe, but in a space of only two years, Phill and I will have attended four weddings together. Is there something in the water? Two weddings have already taken place and the other two are in October and November, which gives me plenty of time to find new dresses. That’s the only “problem” with attending friends’ weddings – many of the same people will be at both weddings which means me wearing the same dress is not going to be an option. The boys are lucky – all they have to do is change the colour of their ties and they’re set!

I don’t mind though – I love weddings! I especially love how different they can be from couple to couple. Our friends S and C’s wedding was a beach wedding in March, where guests stood for the ceremony in the lovely warm sun and the bride and groom poured black and white sand into a vase to commemorate their union. There were photos taken on the beach in the sunset, followed by a cocktail reception in the surf club. The other wedding we attended, my sister’s, was a Catholic mass in a beautiful chapel, followed by a cocktail reception at a mountain lookout.

While they were very different, there was one thing the same – the wedding cakes.

Or should I say, wedding cupcakes.

Both weddings had cupcakes instead of a wedding cake, which I thought was pretty awesome. How easy to just help yourself to a cupcake? There’s no need for cutlery or plates, although you are left with the cupcake wrappers. One of the weddings had a small cake decorated the same as the cupcakes so the bride and groom could still “cut” something together, which I thought was a nice touch. It also meant they had something to save in their freezer for their 1st wedding anniversary, if they wanted to.

I’m torn – I really like the idea of a traditional wedding cake, but I also like the practicality and cuteness of wedding cupcakes. I think for my wedding, I would go with the cupcakes with the small cake to cut and save. No, I’m not engaged, but a girl can plan, right? Especially if it’s planning CAKE!

What about you? What do you think of wedding cupcakes versus the traditional wedding cake? And the BIG question – what flavour?

Anniversary Dinner

Katie — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:10:49 +0000

About a week ago, on August 1st, Phill and I went out to dinner to celebrate our five year anniversary. I can’t believe it’s been five years since we started dating – it’s absolutely flown by! Due to a rostering error, I luckily had Saturday off work, so we were able to spend the entire day together, starting with a visit to the movies to see Transformers 2, followed by chocolate by the bald man (our first visit and OH MY GOD it was fabulous – we had fondue for two) and then a romantic dinner at a classy restaurant.

I decided on the scallops for an entree and, as neither of us had tried scallops before, we decided to share it. Phill isn’t a big seafood eater, but I am trying as hard as I can to get him to experience new tastes. I’ve always wanted to try scallops but I guess in a way I’d been putting it off, waiting for that perfect dish to jump out at me.

The scallops were served on a bed of pea puree and topped with a crispy slice of pancetta. At first glance, the scallops seemed to really vary in size and shape, which I noticed perhaps only because I am a bit of a perfectionist – is it normal to have irregular-shaped scallops on the one plate?

The scallops tasted really nice and not at all how I had expected – they were firmer than I had thought and not at all sticky or gooey. The contrast in textures between the scallop, the pea puree and the crispy, salty pancetta really worked together and both Phill and I loved this dish. I’m glad we tried them and I’m keen to try them again, maybe in a pasta dish? I’m working towards tasting everything involved in a paella so one day I can eat one without worrying about having to pick out a certain seafood.

For our mains, we had very contrasting dishes. As the restaurant specialises in steak, Phill had a steak cooked medium, with a pepper sauce. I must apologise for the fuzziness of the photo – it was the one photo I asked Phill to take! I guess by this point we were rather hungry and eager to dig in. We were very impressed with his steak knife (unfortunately not pictured) which was Japanese, steel and very sharp.

My main was asparagus risotto which was absolutely delicious. I’ve never had risotto before and I was tossing up whether or not to go with a steak, but I am glad I decided on the risotto because I thought the flavours were more impressive than Phill’s steak. The only downside about an asparagus risotto is the resulting, err, smelly asparagus pee that I have discussed here a while ago. That night, it was particularly strong. While Phill can’t smell anything, I really can and it actually hung around for quite a while.

At the end of the meal, instead of dessert, we had a special plate delivered to us:

It was actually a perfect size for the two of us to share instead of ordering a dessert each because, by this point, we were absolutely full from dinner. It was a brownie chocolate cake served with strawberries, a huge dollop of fresh cream and some strawberry coulis dots, with “Happy Anniversary” written in chocolate sauce. It was delicious, although we felt a little bad “ruining” the writing – but I’m glad we did because that chocolate sauce was very smooth and rich and went really nicely with the cream and brownie.

It was the perfect end to a really lovely day.