Jamaican brown stew part one: Rice with beans



At the moment, it’s just one killer day after another. Tommorow I am flying across the country again, and I’m hoping to use the plane time to catch up on my recipics. (I missed yesterday sorry!)

Tonight is the first of a two part series. This is Alex’s Jamaican brown stew with rice and beans. It’s hot, spicy and everything a good Caribbean stew should be.
Take it easy mon.

Ingredients

  • 1 can kidney beans
  • 1 can coconut milk
  • 2 green capsicum
  • 1 whole hot pepper
  • ½ teaspoon dried thyme
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 cups rice
  • 1 Tbsp. margarine

Cooking time: 45 mins

Lotus root chips



A few months ago when Chelsey and I were hit with Masterchef fever I saw a recipe for Lotus root chips on the show.

This recipe isn’t an exact match, but when I saw the little frozen lotus root slices in the local Asian grocer I just couldn’t resist the urge to try them. Alex gave them 2 thumbs up, so they can’t have been all bad. I’ll try anything once. And in this case, twice.

Ingredients

  • lotus root
  • cajun seasoning
  • sea salt
  • canola oil for frying

Cooking time: 15 mins

Eggs Benedict Part 2: Poaching the perfect egg



Anyone who has ever had a weekend cafe breakfast with me more than once knows that I am the most predictable person ever born. “Eggs benedict with an iced coffee thanks” is my usual order, without so much as a peek at the menu.

This weekend I’ve decided to do an eggs benedict post over Saturday and Sunday. Today we learn how to poach the perfect egg.

Ingredients

  • egg
  • smoked salmon
  • hollandaise sauce (see recipic)
  • english muffin
  • butter
  • 2 tsp. white vinegar
  • 1 tsp. salt

Cooking time: 15 mins

Eggs Benedict Part 1: Hollandaise Sauce



Anyone who has ever had a weekend cafe breakfast with me more than once knows that I am the most predictable person ever born. “Eggs benedict with an iced coffee thanks” is my usual order, without so much as a peek at the menu.

This weekend I’ve decided to do an eggs benedict post over Saturday and Sunday. Today we learn how to make hollandaise sauce!

Ingredients

  • 2 egg yolks
  • 110 g Butter cut into cubes
  • squeeze of Lemon Juice

Cooking time: 15 mins

Curry Pasta Salad



Today in Perth it was hot, and not just any old kind of hot, but dry, West Australian, sucks-the-life-out-of-you sweltering heat. So I decided to make one of my favourite summer meals. It’s simple, quick and fresh. Perfect for lazy summer heat.

Ingredients

  • 1 red onion
  • 1 green capsicum
  • 1 red capsicum
  • 1 apple
  • 1/2 bunch celery
  • 1/4 cup sultanas
  • 500g pasta spirals
  • 1 cup mayonnaise
  • 2Tbsp. Keen’s curry powder
  • salt and pepper

Serves: 4
Cooking time: 15 mins

Alex’s spag bol



I can’t believe it’s Thursday night and another week is almost over. Alex has been the greatest housemate ever, and taken care of dinner for me two nights in a row!

Tonight we had his version of “late-home-from-work-and-tired” which was an impressive three dish spread consisting of Spaghetti Bolognese, Rocket and Parmesan salad, and Garlic Bread. Of course Alex’s lazy meal puts us all to shame. (Like I would have expected anything less from that over-achiever.)

…And naturally it was delicious. Big tired thumbs up from me!

Ingredients

  • 1 onion
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 Tbsp. olive oil
  • 500g minced beef
  • 1 tin crushed tomatos
  • 2 Tbsp. tomato paste
  • 3 Tbsp. Italian herbs
  • 2 cups water
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
  • 1 Tbsp. sugar
  • salt and pepper

Serves: 4
Cooking time: 1 hour

Jug of Danger (a.k.a. Pimms Cocktails)



Last night was one of those nights where you totally don’t plan on having a big night, and the next thing you know it’s midnight and you’re eating Macdonalds in the back of a taxi wondering why the road is spinning.

That said, the jugs of Cocktails at Madame Brusells were refreshingly, deliciously, amazing. We started with a jug of Pimms and though I can’t remember what else followed, my iphone pictures tell me that the colours of the liquid delights were every shade of rainbow.
My thumping head this morning tells me that I defenitely sampled the entire menu.

I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did!

Apologies also for the delay (I know I should have posted this last night) but I was in no state to be working the tools palette in Adobe Illustrator, and then today was a whirlwind of waking up early, flying across the country and then working my day job. I promise to do a double-post tommorow to make up for it.

Ingredients

  • 1 orange slice
  • 1 apple slice
  • 1 lemon slice
  • 1 strawberry sliced
  • 3 cucumber slices
  • 1/2 cup Pimms No.1
  • 1 cup ice
  • 1 cup lemonade
  • 1 mint sprig

Serves: 1

Roasted Quail



After a long day of usability testing I enjoyed dinner tonight at Melbourne’s famous tapas bar, Movida.

The project team let the two project managers select the dishes, allocate the portions and divide up the bill, which suited me just fine. All I wanted was a never ending glass of sangria and some respite from the 43 degree heat, that is still raging even now at almost midnight.

One of the dishes I managed to snap a picture of, before it was devoured, was the delectable pan roasted quail on a bed of chickpeas. This recipe isn’t an exact match, but I’m sure you will find it just as succulent.

Ingredients

  • 2 Quails
  • 1 Tbsp. Butter
  • 1 tsp. Dried tarragon
  • 2 Turns of pepper

Serves: 2 as an entree
Cooking time: 30 mins

Rigatoni Sardi a Mari



Today I went to Melbourne’s Southbank to have lunch with my Aunt Pat. She’s pretty much one of the most inspiring people I know. We had her favourite cuisine for lunch, which is of course Italian.

We both had Rigatoni Sardi a Mari, which was quite adventurous for me, seeing as I never normally eat anchovies. But I found the meal to be surprisingly good with the perfect combination of flavours and textures. I look forward to adding it to my repertoire of quick dinners, and I hope you do too!

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup sultanas
  • 3 Tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 4 anchovy filets, minced
  • 1 tsp. fennel seeds
  • 6 Tbsp. minced parsley
  • 500g rigatoni
  • Salt
  • 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts

Serves: 4
Cooking time: 20 minutes

The Cocktail with No Name (Bar None, Melbourne)


Apologies for the poor image quality, the iphone 3GS camera is no DSLR.

It’s Saturday night (well… technically it’s Sunday morning, but at this time of the day that’s really an insignificant detail) and I’ve been out. I didn’t really eat much tonight so I figured you might like a recipic of the signature cocktail that I tried at Bar None

It took everything I had to get the secret recipe from the bar (well… it was more like me rambling on about a blog, Pon waving around his iphone saying “It really exists… see isn’t it cool? SEE?!” and Chris throwing in a little quip about it being mentioned in the New York Times.) But they gladly shared the recipe!

The cocktail waiter assured me that this is their most popular drink, and I have to say that it lived up to the hype. As one of my drinking compadres said tonight “On a scale of 1-10, this drink definitely rates at 100%, and you can quote me on that”.

Ingredients

  • 30ml mango vodka
  • 15ml peach vodka
  • 15ml creme de peach
  • 30ml passionfruit pulp
  • 30ml ruby red grapefruit juice
  • squeeze of lime
  • blue singapore orchid and lychee to garnish