gotta bake a cake for my partner's father's 60th.... desire to bake is strangely non-existent.  Need inspiration... help?
  

Sourdough is not a pizza cake

I am so rubbish at witty and/or pun-tastic blog titles.  But I am good at showing up on time for awesome bread and pizza making classes @ awesome bakeries such as Brewbakers at Albion!

On Tuesday night I had the pleasure of attending a very informative and delicious class and learnt all about sourdough, stretching pizza dough, and the skills involved in rolling a bagel.



Richard from Brewbakers filled us up with wine and explained the science behind baking (or maths? So many percentages, brain could not compute) sourdough and the other delicious breads and things he churns out regularly.

We got to play with our own soft smooshy lump of pizza dough, and smother it with delicious ingredients which he then baked for us, and I have to say was one of the most delicious pizzas I've ever eaten.


I discovered that I posses the seriously cool ability to eyeball a giant lump of dough and precisely cut off 400g in one go (?!? missed my calling??) which became a delicious crunchy ciabatta that didn't even last the night in our house. Before:


After:


The ugly duckling has become a delicious swan!!

Best part of the night (besides the maths) was eating the spoils. You don't even need to be a culinary genius like me to sample similar delicious treats, just visit Brewbakers (337 Sandgate Road, Albion) and stock up. I've heard the sourdough donuts are to die for. They're definitely on my list to try once I recover from this carb induced coma.

That's a club I wanna be in!

One of my favourite foods on earth is malaysian. If I could have my way, I'd move to malaysia truly asia (MTA) in a heartbeat. I love a good curry laksa like I love fluffy little ducklings. Coincidentally, I had duck laksa for dinner on Friday night!

I met my partner, Kim the Koolman (he made that up, not me!) after work on Friday for a spot of light retail therapy (I got new sunnies, ILU dj's sale) and then some dinner. KK is rubbish at making serious decisions like where we should eat, so I decided on Satay Club in Charlotte street. Fast service, delicious food, cheap price.

Since it was fairly early evening, we didn't bother with starters, but if you do, the satay is awesome! Diving right in to the mains, KK chose the duck special dry noodles (another firm fav of mine) and I ordered my laksa 'medium' having been ballsy enough to order it 'hot' in the past and barely surviving to tell the tail. They let you choose the noodles for your laksa and I opted for rice vermicelli.

Food arrived about 5 mins later along with a pot of tea we also ordered. IDK what sort of tea it is, but I become obsessed with looking in the teapot every time we go there. It has these flowers in it! Maybe next time I'll ask.




My laksa was, as always, very delicious! Lots of plumb juicy duck with crispy skin and NO BONES. My only complaint would be that it wasn't very spicy, but I choose less spicy over too spicy.




KK's dry noodles were also quite delicious (I snaffled some). He is a big eater but couldn't finish them off. He said they were a bit oily this time which he didn't really like.

2 meals and tea for two cost something ridiculous like $24. Told you it's cheap! Serves are huge and food is quite authentic. We followed dinner with a Japanese cupcake from my fav Japanese bakery 2-in-1 at Post Office Square (pre purchased before dinner). So fluffy and delicious!! The cake had a slight orange flavour and a fluffy creme pattisiere filling. Yum!





Satay Club
Charlotte St
Brisbane

2-in-1 Japanese Bakery
Post Office Square (outside next to Coffee Club)
Brisbane

You don't win friends with salad

Another day, another lunch rant. Once again forgetting to bring my lunch, I was forced to venture out into the wastelands of south bris for something to munch on. Again, restricted to a 30 minute window, I couldn't make it down to west end markets for a trusty chicken kebab.

So, what will it be today? Another overpriced foccacia? A potentially salmonella-ridden chicken sandwich from a not to be named dodgy local cafe? A chikko roll from the paul's canteen?? No, no - a salad from Oliver and Co, some deli come providore come cafe thing down and across the road from my office.

I opt for the 'medium' sized salad which gives me the option of 3 different salads from the soggy selection of about 6 salads on display. I thought to myself "what looks most edible??" it was a tough call, but I eventually decided on the mushroom pasta salad, and the green bean and roasted cherry tomato salad. Said salads set me back a whopping $8.90 which seemed a bit rich for the size, compared to design your own salad sort of places in the city.

But I digress. I took my salad back to my office and proceeded to wolf it down. The mushroom pasta salad was actually really delicious! The only slight was the addition of very gritty black cloud ear fungus. Do not want in pasta salad thanks. Save that one for a stirfry or something, thanks Oliver. The swiss brown, button, and enoki mushrooms were all good though. And the pasta was nice and al dente. The dressing was quite zingy and fresh. Yep, that mushroom pasta salad went all right!





The green bean salad was a bit of a different story. Drenched in oil and soggy tomato gizzards, it was not a pleasure on the tastebuds at all. After 1 mouthful, I had a gross oily coating throughout my mouth. I don't know what the story was, but when I eat salad, I like to at least -pretend- it is healthy. 3 litres of cacky oil and a few beans and soggy tomatoes does not meet this criteria. Do not recommend this salad.

Did I think this lunch was delicious? I give it 5 out of 10, because the pasta salad was pretty good but the beans SUCKED, and I usually love beans.

Do I think this lunch represents good value for money? Nuh. It's pretty typical for south brisbane, but it's still a bit of a rip.

Will I get lunch from Oliver and Co again? Maybe, if I'm really hungry and feeling cashed up. I'm actually keen to try their yoghurt which I've heard is pretty good, but yoghurt is more of a breakfast time food.

Oliver and Co
108 Melbourne St
South Brisbane

Zen, and the art of finding an affordable lunch in South Brisbane.

Until I couple of months ago I was a city girl. I loved working smack bang in the middle of the cbd because I could always get something cheap and delicious for lunch, aka I never had to make lunch. In July, I moved offices to South Brisbane... and not even a good part of South Brisbane, I am in the middle of nowhere, it's a good 15-20 minute walk to southbank! I have been bringing my lunch to work, which is ok, because it's usually leftovers and I'm a pretty rad cook (high self esteem, isn't it), but sometimes I forget to bring it, or don't make enough for left overs, or can't be bothered making a sandwich or salad to take. I hate frozen meals, so I have to venture out and find something to eat, and this is usually punishing on the wallet.

On Thursday I forgot my lunch, and had a strict 30 minute timeframe to fit it into, so had to venture not far from work to get something (or get a packet of 2 minute noodles from the vending machine, but they only had the 99% fat free ones, yeurgh). I decided to hit up Raw Space Cafe which is only about a 5 minute walk from my office. After perusing their display cabinet of overpriced sandwiches and limp looking salads I decided on a Chicken Turkish, toasted. $8.50! Seemed like a bit of a jip compared to the awesome sandwich place near my old office where I could get basically the fanciest sandwich every for $5. Anyhoo, I was given this blue buzzer which started beeping, flashing, and vibrating madly after the 12 minutes it took to toast my fricking sandwich, and it was already made up, so I don't know why it took so long.

After what seemed like an eternity (but as mentioned above was only in fact 12 minutes) it was ready to go! I grabbed it and hot footed it back to my office to scarf it down in 8 minutes.



Ooooh brown paper bag, totally worth the exxy price.



The filling included some actually really tasty chicken, baby spinach, some kind of melty cheese, and some tomato-y pesto-y tapenade-y stuff. It was a really tasty sandwich, but it wasn't very big and I was still hungry after I woofed it down so quickly. I think I probably would have been satisfied if it was 2 bites bigger. I like to measure my food in bites.

So, at $8.50, bit of a rip off I reckon. Not that I should be complaining because it's certainly not the biggest lunch ripoff scam around my woods! Friday's lunch was an even bigger jip, but that's a whole other blog post.

I also occasionally get a coffee from here, and it's passable. Except for the time they gave me soy milk (WTF???) and for that I punished them by not buying coffee there for 3 weeks. I'm sure they were very concerned.

Raw Space Cafe
99 Melbourne Street
South Brisbane
www.rawspace.org
(it's also a gallery)

Pinxto Tapas Train

I always struggle deciding what to order at restaurants, and usually as soon as my meal arrives I feel remorse. That's why I love tapas, so many options, and I get to EAT THEM ALL!

Pinxtos at New Farm is awesome for tapas. They have a frikkin TRAIN of tapas, that's how awesome they are. Like sushi train, but tapas, which are like a million times better than sushi (despite living in japan, I've never really felt the sushi love, weird huh). So, my awesome friend Jayde is up visiting from Melbourne, and Pinxto have 2-4-1 tapas on tuesdays, so I booked us a seat on the train!

I was running late, because I got sidetracked looking at heavily discounted Poetic License shoes in DJ's (btw do I want a pair of black velvet heels with a cute metallic snakeskin heel?? y/n?) so when I arrived, my mate was already seated and knocking back sangria by the carafe, and smashing a bowl of mixed olives. I then commenced smashing sangrias and olives also. In the next 10 mins or so, we worked our way through skewers of manchego cheese, jamon serrano and quince paste, bread topped with tomato and chickpea puree and pickled garlic, tortilla, and a few other things I can't even remember but it was all awesome.

Then we started ordering hot delights from the menu, our waitress could see the hunger in our eyes and kept the food and service (and sangria) coming like our true savior. We worked our way through 2 plates each of croquettas, patatas bravas, calamares, scallops, chorizo and caramalised onion, prawns wrapped in jamon, and spinach and mushroom empanadas. ZOMG between us we ended up smashing about 16 plates of tapas, a litre of sangria, and the total bill was only about 60 bucks! ILU 2-4-1 tuesdays, and ILU Pinxto Spanish Taperia! Although now I can hardly move due to my enormous amount of overeating, but it was so totally worth it.

Check it, this isn't even all our plates!



Totally recommend you give Pinxto a shot, they have good deals on all the time, like $5 dessert nights, and $12 lunch deals which includes a spanish beer! Highly rated by Hungry-Hungry!! DO IT!

Pinxto Spanish Taperia
561 Brunswick St
New Farm
www.pinxto.com

Brunswick Stew, for veggies! - Daring Cooks Challenge

My second Daring Cook's challenge!

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

 
Brunswick Stew is traditionally made with 2 or more kinds of meat (like chicken, rabbit, bacon, etc) but I really wanted to make a vegetarian version, since we're trying to eat less meat these days.


I used the following recipe, sans meat:


Serves about 12
1/4 lb / 113.88 grams / 4 oz slab bacon, rough diced
2 Serrano, Thai or other dried red chiles, stems trimmed, sliced, seeded, flattened
1lb / 455.52 grams / 16oz rabbit, quartered, skinned
1 4-5lb / 1822.08- 2277.6 grams / 64-80oz chicken, quartered, skinned, and most of the fat removed
1 Tablespoon / 14.235 grams / ½ oz sea salt for seasoning, plus extra to taste
2-3 quarts / 8-12 cups / 64.607-96.9oz Sunday Chicken Broth
2 Bay leaves
2 large celery stalks
2lbs / 911.04 grams / 32oz Yukon Gold potatoes, or other waxy type potatoes, peeled, rough diced
1 ½ cups / 344.88 grams / 12.114oz carrots (about 5 small carrots), chopped
3 ½ / 804.72 grams / 28.266oz cups onion (about 4 medium onions) chopped
2 cups / 459.84 grams / 16.152oz fresh corn kernels, cut from the cob (about 4 ears)
3 cups / 689.76 grams / 24.228oz butterbeans, preferably fresh (1 ¼ lbs) or defrosted frozen
1 35oz can / 996.45 grams / 4 cups whole, peeled tomatoes, drained
¼ cup / 57.48 grams / 2.019 oz red wine vinegar
Juice of 2 lemons
Tabasco sauce to taste

The veggies I used were carrot, potato, fresh corn (3 cobs worth, de-cobbed..?), butter beans (1 tin), 1/2 cup lentils, celery, onions, and whole peeled tinned tomatoes. I used veggie stock in a tetra-pack in place of the chicken broth.

Directions-




1-In the largest stockpot you have, which is hopefully larger than the 5 qt ones I have, preferably a 10-12 qt or even a Dutch Oven if you’re lucky enough to have one, fry the bacon over medium-high heat until it just starts to crisp. Transfer to a large bowl, and set aside. Reserve most of the bacon fat in your pan, and with the pan on the burner, add in the chiles. Toast the chiles until they just start to smell good, or make your nose tingle, about a minute tops. Remove to bowl with the bacon.


2- Season liberally both sides of the rabbit and chicken pieces with sea salt and pepper. Place the rabbit pieces in the pot and sear off all sides possible. You just want to brown them, not cook them completely. Remove to bowl with bacon and chiles, add more bacon fat if needed, or olive oil, or other oil of your choice, then add in chicken pieces, again, browning all sides nicely. Remember not to crowd your pieces, especially if you have a narrow bottomed pot. Put the chicken in the bowl with the bacon, chiles and rabbit. Set it aside.

3- Add 2 cups of your chicken broth or stock, if you prefer, to the pan and basically deglaze the4 pan, making sure to get all the goodness cooked onto the bottom. The stock will become a nice rich dark color and start smelling good. Bring it up to a boil and let it boil away until reduced by at least half. Add your remaining stock, the bay leaves, celery, potatoes, chicken, rabbit, bacon, chiles and any liquid that may have gathered at the bottom of the bowl they were resting in. Bring the pot back up to a low boil/high simmer, over medium/high heat. Reduce heat to low and cover, remember to stir every 15 minutes, give or take, to thoroughly meld the flavors. Simmer, on low, for approximately 1 ½ hours. Supposedly, the stock may become a yellow tinge with pieces of chicken or rabbit floating up, the celery will be very limp, as will the chiles. Taste the stock, according to the recipe, it “should taste like the best chicken soup you’ve ever had”.

4- With a pair of tongs, remove the chicken and rabbit pieces to a colander over the bowl you used earlier. Be careful, as by this time, the meats will be very tender and may start falling apart. Remove the bay leaf, celery, chiles, bacon and discard.5 After you’ve allowed the meat to cool enough to handle, carefully remove all the meat from the bones, shredding it as you go. Return the meat to the pot, throwing away the bones. Add in your carrots, and stir gently, allowing it to come back to a slow simmer. Simmer gently, uncovered, for at least 25 minutes, or until the carrots have started to soften.

5- Add in your onion, butterbeans, corn and tomatoes. As you add the tomatoes, crush them up, be careful not to pull a me, and squirt juice straight up into the air, requiring cleaning of the entire stove. Simmer for another 30 minutes, stirring every so often until the stew has reduced slightly, and onions, corn and butterbeans are tender. Remove from heat and add in vinegar, lemon juice, stir to blend in well. Season to taste with sea salt, pepper, and Tabasco sauce if desired.

6 You can either serve immediately or refrigerate for 24 hours, which makes the flavors meld more and makes the overall stew even better. Serve hot, either on its own, or with a side of corn bread, over steamed white rice, with any braised greens as a side.

As I wasn't using any meat in the dish, I started by sauteing my onions, carrot, and celery, and then added the stock and other ingredients.  The end result was a delicious thick and hearty veggie stew which was perfect for dinner as the weather is getting a bit cooler now.

As per Wolf's original post, "most agree that, Brunswick stew is not done properly “until the paddle stands up in the middle.”"

so here is my obligatory spoon standing up in the stew photo :)

Yet another great challenge for The Daring Cooks, and certainly a dish that we'll be enjoying for the next few days because we have LITRES of the stuff (good thing it's so yummy!).