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(this post was written a few weeks ago and was languishing in my drafts)

Poor little blog, how much neglection can it take? How many words can I make up?

I saw some Handel on the weekend (Alcina). It was long, so long that the opera started a full thirty minutes earlier than any opera I’ve ever been to. Of course, I hadn’t bothered looking at the ticket until I started packing my bag, so I had the fright of my life when I realised that it was about to start in 40 minutes and counting and I hadn’t even left the house. Fortunately, a taxi was found with no time to spare because if you miss the doors closing they make you wait outside until the intermission. They give you a telly to watch it on kindly.

I was a little crochety by the last act because of the length, but it was was lovely. The staging was wonderfully imaginative and gorgeously intricate. They had columns carved with beasts and men and the chorus (painted up like stone) would poke their heads out of removable panels. They had a mirror backdrop with separate scenes that would occasionally reflect what was happening on the main stage but with some detail changed (ie timing or the roles reversed in gender) so it was disconcerting.

Another thing about the opera, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a fat opera singer. There was a time when most women were fat and the odd skinny person was a big star purely because they could do tele-movies with Placido Domingo. But I strain to think when was the last time I saw a fat person on stage. Unfortunately, I think that they now preference appearance over voice, because the voices are just not of the same standard as they used to be. As far as I remember anyway, for what that’s worth. I was also hoping for a counter-tenor or two but it was not to be. There were some definite giggles in the audience in some of the steamier scenes as the “hero” was getting it on with another woman.

The music was divine, the conductor was Richard Hickox so it was no surprise that it was executed superbly. I can understand how Beethoven named Handel as the greatest composer that ever lived, his music is just so exquisitely beautiful. It’s a pity that his music fell out of favour but great that we have started rediscovering him. I think this was the first time ever that the Australian Opera performed. Got me inspired to read all things Handel, though it is not the easiest task trying to find anything Handel in bookstores. I ended up going to the library and getting a large pile, though it will be quite a few weeks until I have time to delve into them.

Anyway, what has this got to do with potato salad? Not much except that I went to the Belgian Beer Cafe afterwards and ate tasty potato chips and cheesy balls, got a hankering for potatoes and then made this very easy potato salad with the stuff closest to me because I’m lazy. I don’t put quantities because it really is up to taste, how much you need and what you have.

Baby potatoes
Fresh sage
Good Extra Virgin Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Garlic crushed (optional)

I got a new Panasonic microwave that I’m just in love with. It automatically cooked my potatoes perfectly by just pressing three buttons. Anyway, microwave them or boil them until cooked (ie you can poke a fork into them and not feel hard nasty raw bits) and then cut in halves or quarters if they are a big bit. Place in a bowl and tear up sage leaves over them. Drizzle with some tasty olive oil and salt/pepper to taste. You could also add a clove of crushed or chopped garlic but I didn’t feel like it strangely enough.

It’s not really much of a recipe, but it was very tasty, the sage cooks slightly with the heat of the potatoes.

While I was whipping the cream for the tiramisu, it reached the most lovely consistency early on and I had to note it down to remind myself so that I can do something with it later. I think it would make a delectable sauce for fresh fruit (berries and stone fruit, something with a little bit of tartness to offset the sugar).

Whip 250ml plain/whipping cream and 2/3 cup sugar until it starts to thicken and has the consistency of pumpkin soup (best way I could think of to describe it, sorry if it’s crap!).

Also if you have the misfortune of over-beating your cream and it starts to curdle, don’t throw it out! Rejoice at the opportunity you have been given, continue beating it and you’ll find that you start making butter. There will be a lot of liquid produced but once you drain it, you’ll have the wonderful satisfaction of having homemade butter. It tastes better too (a lot of salted commercial butter has water added which is why many recipes specifically ask for unsalted butter).

Had a bit of fun last night with the electrical storms knocking out half of my electrical boards. I also realised (again, happens every time something goes wrong with the electricity… I forget again soon enough) how pathetically dependent I am on power. Not only all the fun things like TV and the Internet but I went to clean up the house when I was looking for something to do while waiting for the electrician and I couldn’t do it. Because I couldn’t play a CD (obviously it must be an integral part of my cleaning up rituals). Very sad. Still with all electrical black clouds there’s a silver lining. I went recipe searching and found an absolutely delicious recipe for chocolate tiramisu. It’s from “Everyday Italian” by Giada De Laurentiis who is an impossibly attractive Italian on the US Food network (at least I can giggle at her name though… I can’t help adding an extra vowel…. hmmm maybe not the best subject for this post… just ignore this aside).

Chocolate “Electrical” Tiramisu

This is a little complicated in that you have to prepare the chocolate zabaglione, but it’s not very hard. Also if you are more a traditionalist then just leave out all mention of chocolate, it will still make a damn fine tiramisu.

First make up a batch of Chocolate Zabaglione with the following ingredients:
1/4 cup cream (the whipping variety rather than the whipped versions)
1/2 cup good quality dark chocolate chips
2/3 cup sugar
8 large egg yolks (freeze the whites to make a pavlova later!)
pinch of salt

Put the cream in a small saucepan (preferably a good quality one with a heavy bottom) and heat until it almost simmers on a medium heat. Take it off the heat and stir in the chocolate until it melts and there are no lumps. You can stick it back on a low heat very quickly (10 secs bursts) if needed or if it hardens before it’s needed next.

Bring an inch or two of water to simmer in a large saucepan.

Whisk the sugar, Marsala, egg yolks and salt until mixed in a metal bowl, preferably sized so it can sit on top of the saucepan without touching the water (ie an improvised bain-marie… if you have a proper bain-marie then this is irrelevant, just use that). Sit the bowl (I ended up using another smaller saucepan because no adequately sized metal bowl was on hand) on top of the larger vessel and whisk the eggy mix until it is “thick and creamy” (I found that a good deal of it became very frothy with the whipping… this ended up being a good thing because it gave the necessary air and lightness to what could be a very heavy dish).

The recipe says to mix until it reaches 160C but who uses a thermometer in the kitchen? (shhh… all you professional sweet makers!) I was happy with it when most of it was frothy and the underlying syrup felt heavy and thick. Once it’s done, take it off the heat and fold in the chocolate mixture with a spatula or similar flat instrument. The trick is not to beat it because then you’ll also beat the air you’ve lovingly whipped in, thereby destroying its ephemeral body.

It is in itself a worthy dessert. Giarda suggests keeping it in the fridge for at least 8 hours or serve it hot and straight away. Either way do it with lots of strawberries.

This isn’t its destiny today, however, we still have a (little) way to go. We’ll have to collect some more ingredients though:
1 normal container of mascarpone (will have to update this)
3/4 cup plain/whipping cream
1/3 cup sugar
Chocolate Zabaglione prepared earlier (supposed to be cold but I didn’t bother, it worked fine cooled for about 15 minutes)
2 cups of Hot Chocolate made up thickly (2x or 3x normal) and with water not milk (you can also use coffee here if you prefer, I don’t, if so remember to sweeten it. You can also try some varieties of cocoa, I’m tempted to try it unsweetened to emphasis the bitterness)
Cocoa powder (I just used the hot chocolate from above
1 packet Savoiardi biscuits (also known as lady fingers)

In a large bowl, stir the mascarpone two or three times until smooth (be careful not to mix too much, apparently it can make it hard… yuk!). Meanwhile, in another bowl, whip up the cream and the sugar to soft peak stage (ie it will hold its shape a bit but not so that you can tip the bowl upside down and it will stay in it… that’s hard peak stage). Fold this cream mix into the mascarpone and then fold in the chocolate zabaglione.*

Finally we are at the assembly stage (and I’m falling aslepp so ignore any ty3pos Sic!), get yourself a nice little dish and layer the goods as follows (if it’s smaller, you’ll have more layers, if it’s wider, you’ll have less):

Layer 1: Dip biscuits into hot chocolate/coffee and place, side by side, so that they fill up a layer of your chosen container.
Layer 2: Cover the biscuits with the cream/mascapone/zabaglione mix

Repeat until you get to the top of your container. It’s then best left overnight in the fridge so that the flavours soak into the biscuits, but you can serve it once it has been refrigerated for a few hours and it a bit more set.

*I thought that you could also serve the zabaglione as a separate layer to the mascapone/cream mix. I would probably go biscuits, zabaglione and then mascapone/cream mix. Also when I was folding in the chocolate zab, I thought (too late) that it would be nice to only very roughly and very slightly fold it in so that it kept a swirly marbled look. Two ideas for next time as I will definitely be making this one again.

Another Tuesday, another cake. This time we had leftover plums, I bought a little bucket’s worth at the markets and after eating several plums a day for a week, I still had a small bowl of them. They were just a little too ripe for me so, given that it was that day of the week and a cake was due, I thought I’d kill two birds with some plums.

I googled “Plum Cake” and found a number of recipes: a Lorraine Plum Cake, a German Plum Cake and a Pflaumen Kuchen (German Blue Plum Cake), but I settled on another German style plum cake recipe from the Age, sweetly named “Mieze’s plum cake”. Here’s the recipe with my changes

180g softened butter
150g caster sugar [again I used the raw caster sugar
135g plain flour
135g self-raising flour
pinch of salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
70ml milk
1/2 cup ground almonds (or fresh breadcrumbs) [I used ground almonds]
10-12 ripe blood plums, halved and stoned [I only had about 6 or 7 left but it was plenty]

Topping:
60g butter
1/2 cup castor sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 large eggs, whisked well

Preheat oven to 200C and lightly grease a 26cm spring-form tin.

Prepare the topping: melt butter and stir in sugar and cinnamon, when cool stir in whisked eggs.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then mix in flours and salt. Separately, mix eggs with milk, then add this to the butter/flour mixture and mix well. Spoon into your tin where it should be no more than 1/4-/13 the depth as it rises quite a bit. Smooth the top and evenly sprinkle over the ground almonds.

Cover the mix with the plums (cut-side up). Spoon topping over and around plums on the cake. Place cake in oven and reduce the temperature to 180C.

Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until a fine skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. [I ended up having to cook it for 1 hour 15 minutes because I used a narrower and deeper dish].

It’s still cooling so it will probably be my breakfast. The instructions say to serve warm with cream or ice-cream, but I think it will be just fine at room temperature too.

I made Chocolate Chip Biscuits/Cookies just before Christmas and felt super domestic goddessy when last week I grabbed some left overs frozen in a roll and had a tray of cookies ready in under 15 minutes. Unfortunately, I’m still addicted to them so I had to make them again. Cake Tuesday ended up being Cake Monday this week because I couldn’t wait. I used the simplest recipe I found on the internet (here), I was surprised how many bizarre chocolate chip biscuit/cookie recipes there are in the world (including one with peanut butter, wouldn’t that be a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie then? I’m just a purist). Anyway, enough rambling, here it is:

• 2-1/4 cups plain flour
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 250 gm butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup sugar (I used brown caster sugar because that’s what I had)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1-2 teaspoons vanilla essence
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup chocolate bits

Preheat oven (190C). Mix the plain flour and bicarb in a bowl. In a separate bowl, cream butter, sugars and vanilla until fully mixed. Beat in the eggs one at a time and then gradually add the flour. Fold in chocolate bits. Drop blobs of cookie dough on greased trays and bake for 10-12 minutes. I tend to prefer them soft on the inside so I pull them out when they are golden rather than golden brown.

If you make too much, the dough freezes really well, it’s easiest if you freeze them in rolls wrapped in baking paper, you can then slice off pieces and bake until golden/golden brown.

Oh I almost forgot, here’s a picture of them with vanilla ice cream, a very tasty combination.

On Saturday, I had a very lovely morning. I went to the growers’ markets with a friend and had the tastiest mango and peach fresh fruit juice. We also got some yummy dense pumpernickel bread, gooseberry jam and goats curd and had a very nice breakfast indeed. After that, we went to visit a nearby community garden close to the harbour and it’s wonderful being in the middle of summer because everything is producing harvest everywhere. We picked tomatoes, zucchinis (with their flowers still attached), beans and lots of herbs. Later that evening, I had a very tasty dinner with the fruits of my not so intensive labour.

Oh, I also got finger limes from the markets, strange little things:

You can see the pulp comes out like caviar. It’s supposed to be interchangeable with lime but it does taste different. Almost beany. Wasn’t a big fan until I made a salad with it:


Chopped up tomatoes, beans, garlic, good olive oil and half the pulp of a finger lime. There was something in the beans and garlic that just went heavenly well with the finger limes, I’m embarrassed to say that I licked my plate totally clean after (it mixed in very nicely with the juices from the saltimbocca which I just had to make again).
Also in a fit of decadence, I stuffed the zucchini flowers with the goat’s curd and fried them up. Mmmmmmm…


Btw, listening to the Pax de deux from the Nutcracker as I’m writing this, this version is on Swooning, part of the ABC’s Swoon series. It’s just so damn passionate and romantic. Loves it! I just love that the whole Swoon series (esp vols 1-3).

So much ham! I bought 1.5kg of the stuff and we only got through about half of it on the day. Fortunately, I didn’t buy a leg, last time I did that we had ham for a month afterwards. Anyway, here’s a quick recipe from my leftovers:

Ham (about 100-200g) - cut into strips 1″ long
2 garlic cloves - chopped/crushed, however you like them
Can of chopped Italian tomatoes
Roasted capsicum - sliced thinly (optional, I just had some because I cooked up some old capsicum)
Good extra virgin olive oil
Cream

Fry up the ham and garlic until lightly browned, add can of tomatoes (drained if whole tomatoes, I don’t know why they are so much more watery), capsicum and a tablespoon or two of the olive oil and simmer until the tomatoes smell cooked, add cream to taste (not too much though, don’t get it too watery). If it is too watery, simmer until reduced to a desirable consistency.

Serve with whatever pasta you have in your cupboard (I had penne which was perfect).

Christmas was a bit of a write-off due to my having caught a yucky cold from work, but I did manage some food prep. Christmas day lunch was fairly simple, mainly cold meats, prawns and salads. Anyway, here was the spread:

• Ham and salami: Norton St grocers in Leichhardt (Sydney) was NOT the place to be on Saturday 23rd Dec 2006. They should have actually stopped people coming into the store (like they did in Myers on the Boxing Day Sale yesterday) it was stupidly crowded at 9am. I got my ticket for the deli counter and went off and bought my wrapping paper at the newsagents and some meat, dropped it off in my car and came back with plenty of time.
• Prawns: Somehow I managed to find prawns that weren’t imported or farmed, they were even a completely different colour to the farmed stuff (pale pink as opposed to a lurid orange). We first went to the fish markets and there was nothing labelled “ocean” so went home in despair, mainly for my Abyssinian Simby who LOVES them. In the end I found them in the fish shop in Market town (Leichhardt) which has the most bizarre fit out, the counters are all about 5 and a half foot high so you have to get on your tippy toes (I’m short) to order or pay. Very strange. Made up some lime aioli with eggs from the organic market in Rozelle.
• Tomato and basil salad with buffalo mozzarella instead of the usual cow stuff, so tasty (even with my snuffy nose blocking half of my ability to taste). This was also purchased from Norton St grocer at huge cost. I didn’t check how much it was before I ordered so was rather shocked to find two, albeit large, balls of the stuff turned out to be over $16 (which wouldn’t have been surprising if I knew the stuff was $50/kilo). Oh well, now I know what it tastes like. The tomatoes were from the organic market but they weren’t organic
• Beetroot and lettuce salad: I had to check up on the chickens at my community garden on Christmas morning so I picked up a few organic lettuce leaves and herbs, anyway, this was arranged on an old but pretty Italian pottery plate we have and then I put a previously prepared beetroot salad in vinaigrette on top. It was very pretty, the randiant but deep maroon of the beets, green of the leaves and the midnight blue of the plate.
• Smoked Salmon bits: don’t know what to call this, got little strips of smoked salmon and put blobs of this fresh goats curd (tastes a bit like cream cheese but fresher and goatier… could substitute though) with bits of roasted tomatoes, topped it with a sprig of flat leaf parsley and wrapped them into little rolls. Most tasting!
• Christmas pudding: From the Newcastle pudding lady who makes one of the nicest puddings that you can buy. It’s been a couple of years at least since I’ve made my own, I used to have the perfect recipe but I’ve lost it (ah sorrow) and the last attempts at a replacement were sorely lacking. We all have our particular tastes and I like mine both rich and mild which is a hard balance to get perfectly right. The Newcastle pudding lady comes pretty damn close though. My day bought it at the beginning of the month and had actually eaten HALF of it before Christmas day and then blamed it on my mother. Incredible! Fortunately, he got the large one so there was still plenty.
• Various fruit from the organic fruit market at Rozelle.
• Some french chocolate (Delfin?) which came in the wonderful combination of dark chocolate and lemongrass. They also had lavender but I didn’t get that.

I made some gingerbread and shortbread as presents from the latest Jamie (how I cook?) cookbook. I’ll post the recipe later.

For boxing day, we ate leftovers and dinner was Saltimbocca: I used this recipe from Serge Dansereau as a starting point. Got some thin slices of veal from AC Butchers in Leichhardt (any European/good butcher will do them for you - can ask for veal for schnitzel too) and pound them until they are v. thin (Serge suggests 1/8th of an inch). Crush some garlic and mix with salt, rub this into one side of the meat, cover with 3-5 sage leaves and then press 2-3 fine slices of proscuitto on top so the sage is completely covered. If you have toothpicks you can use them to secure the proscuitto/sage to the veal but I couldn’t find any so I just fried them anyway… if you press the proscuitto on to the veal hard enough, it just sticks. They only need a couple of minutes on each side if your veal is thin enough and then they are ready to serve. The proscuitto sort of welds itself into the veal so it becomes one tasty little parcel.

White peaches are in season, I bought a few from my local greengrocer and my are they tasty! I think the last time I had white peaches they weren’t completely ripe or something because I don’t remember them being anything special, maybe just a tarter version of a normal peach. These ones were ambrosial, so sweet and fragrant! I’m sure the original recipe for the Bellini made at Harry’s Bar in Venice was to contain white rather than any other type of peach puree. Anyway, here’s a recipe for the original cocktail:

2/3 cup white peach puree
1 teaspoon raspberry puree
1 bottle chilled Italian sparkling wine such as Prosecco or Asti Spumante Brut

Place 1 1/2 tablespoons puree In the bottom of each flute and add 2 - 3 drops of the raspberry puree. Add sparkling wine and serve.

I also bought some raspberries which were very yummy. Pity I don’t have any Prosecco on hand…

Also discovered the hi! monkey today, this funny little white stuffed monkey toy that gets up to lots of recipe hijinks, including fruitcake, cranberry relish, potato laktes, apple crumble and chocolate cake. Yummy AND cute!

It’s a bit of a tradition in our household to make a cake on a tuesday (it is actually known as “cake tuesday”) and this week I tried an upside-down pear and almond cake and it was quite yummy. I got it from Seriously Simple: Easy Recipes for Creative Cooks by Diane Rossen Worthington. She suggests to do it in one cast iron deep pan but you can cook the pears separately and then add them to a flan or casserole dish later (I used a springform pan)

Ingredients:
1 cup almond meal
2/3 cup plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp (150g) unsalted butter (room temp)
1 cup caster sugar (I used 1/2 normal and 1/2 raw caster sugar bc that’s all I had)
2 large eggs
1/4 cup fresh orange juice

Pears:
2 tbsp (50g) butter
3 tbsp packed light brown sugar
2 pears, sliced thinly (1/2cm-1/2inch)

Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). In one bowl, combine almonds, flour and baking powder - mix to combine and set aside. In another bowl, beat the butter until creamy and then beat in the sugar until the mixture is thick and pale. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until incorporated. Gradually beat in the flour mix and the orange juice until combined and set aside.

In a deep cast iron pan (or just a normal one), melt the butter and then add the sugar and allow to dissolve on a med-high heat. Add the pears and let them caramelise for about five minutes. Be careful not to overcook the sugar! Let it cool for at least five minutes.

If your pan is deep enough and oven proof, tip the cake mix straight over the pears, otherwise first transfer the pears to the baking dish and cover with the mix. (If you are using a springform pan, make sure you wrap the base and sides with aluminium foil because the toffee liquid will leak otherwise.) Transfer to the oven and let bake for 50-60minutes, when a skewer should come out clean. Let it cool for a further 10 minutes before tipping it out, pear side up, onto a plate.

*I accidentally put in a cup of orange juice somehow… It was fine, more of a pudding texture and moistness but yummy!