Roses once again!

Perth had an amazing weekend... the weather was perfect! That's one of the things I love about Perth! You appreciate fine weather all the more when you are stuck in an air conditioned office for the majority of theweek!

EH and I decided it was time to learn to prune from a professional and with the promise of fine weather, we decided to go to the Melville Nurseries on Saturday morning and learn a few tips from the expert!!! It was a lot better than I imagined... for those who know me, I'm not exactly one with nature.... I know very little about the garden but EH inspired me and also I was keen to be good at keeping my roses alive! But really it was fun! The guy was so funny, and basically the key is to THINK, prune down your roses to 50% and think about mother nature. No kidding!

Our friends A & G came along for a fine morning of rose viewing and photo taking... unfortunately there weren't that many roses, but nevertheless, they took these amazing photos. Doesn't the food look so delicious???

This was the Ciabatta that I had the last time... very yummy... loved the marinated and grilled red peppers...

Chicken pesto penne - apparently not good... not tasty enough... so yeah perhaps dont try this if you go to the rose farm!

Salmon bagel - apparently good!!!

Chicken caesar salad - yummy!!! See previous review.

Scones and tea and coffee... perfect way to spend the weekend... :)

We quickly took the shots before they pruned down these flowers!
We'll be BACK!!! :)

A Fruity Strudel!

I have been wanting to try this recipe/idea for ages and ages and ages!!! Perth is well known for their apple strudels - fluffy puff pastry, with a layer of apple and custard and fresh cream. SOOO YUMMM!!!

But this is a slightly different version - instead of custard, there is a passionfruit curd (and by itself it may seem slightly too sweet, it is a perfect combination once you eat it all together!), and fresh whipped cream, and I added in slices of fresh strawberries - mango was the recommended fruit! But now isn't the season - however, I think the strawberries does make it a lot more tempting and attractive...!!! I love strawberries, it would be on every dessert if I could have it my way!!! :)

A dessert definitely worth serving up for your friends!



(P.S. Stay tuned for some savoury and flower updates....)

3 Nut Butterscotch Tart!

There is something about tarts that fascinate me! I have a feeling it is the thought of how cute it will look on the plates, the 3 tiered cake displays... cuteness in a pastry! :P

These honestly are so simple to make - choose your favourite nuts, I chose almond, macadamia and walnuts and you heat it over a pan with honey and cream and brown sugar. Really, that's all you do, and just simmer it till it is well coated and it starts to caramelise.

In the meantime, warm up your ready made short crust sweet tarts in the oven, and when ready and cooled, place a generous serve of the 3 nut butterscotch mixture.

Serve with cream if you are feeling extra naughty!
Enjoy wth a cup of nice Twining English/Afternoon Tea!

Some fingerfood!

Despite the lack of entries in the past week or so, the kitchen has been working extremely hard!!! Last Thursday, my friend wanted to bake some goodies for her colleagues, so we came up with the following "quick" goodies seeing that it was a weeknight!

Quiche, sausage rolls and a chocolate cake! We both didnt get to try the quiche - but it looked pretty good. We bought the ready made short crust pastry in the aluminium foil - quiche is basically eggs and cream :) Haha! I sauted some onions, mushroom, red and green peppers and bacon as the filling.

These sausage rolls - or otherwise affectionately known as "Puffy dogs" - are really simple to do if you need to make something quick and savoury! Just buy the frankfrut (sp?) sausages and wrap them in the puff pastry. However, ours seems to burst at the seams... not quite sure why... does anyone know how to prevent this?!!! :)


(P.S. Flowers from the garden!!!)

Creamy pasta with a touch of mustard!

This is one of the simplest pastas ever! But really tasty and a real comfort food (just dont think of the calories!) - perfect for winter and if you're in a rush!

To make the cream sauce, all you do is saute some onion and fresh garlic in butter, and after a couple of mins, throw in the fresh mushroom and the fresh single cream (now you know what I mean about the fat content! So don't eat this all the time! - just when you want to treat yourself or really need that extra sense of comfort!) and let the sauce simmer. Now, what I think is the real star of the sauce is the wholegrain mustard. Flavour the sauce with this and season with salt and pepper. I love adding in the gourmet baby spinach into the sauce - do this at the end. Then toss in your al dente fettucine and add in some of the pasta water if you need to losen up the pasta.

Serve piping hot. Honestly, it won't take you more than 30mins, and you will be quite satisfied and comforted (worry about the gym tomorrow!!!).

2 Types of Fruits!

Apple and cinnamon pie! There is something about this that always tempts me when I see it in magazines... I'm not really an apple fan... but it must be the "homely" feel an apple pie expresses!!!

I took the easy way out and decided to buy the Pampus short crust pastry... good idea? No... it was okay but not as good as the sara lee apple pie pastry! However, the filling was good - it's really simple, just very finely sliced fresh green apples (core and skin it), with sultanas, sugar and ground cinnamon - and a little butter... simmer it till apples are tender, then a bit of cornstarch and water stirred to form a bit of a paste and then mix it into the mixture. Cool. Then line the tart tins with the short crust pastry and fill. It's time consuming to make the mixture - because of the slicing - but you avoid all the extra "sauce" or rather starch that often comes with storebought apple pie! Perfect with whipped cream! :)



My friend (Joey Poey) a few weeks ago surprised me by buying me the "Better Homes and Gardens" magazine - not only was it so very thoughtful (there was a section on roses!) but opened my eyes to a new set of magazine subscriptions I am contemplating subscribing to! :P Anyway, they have a range of articles from the garden to the kitchen. I have to admit I found myself reading the cooking section a lot more than the other sections, but I liked how they had sections on how to decorate your house yourself etc etc... anyhow my eyes found the recipe on "Chocolate Prune Spice Cake" - I thought... how interesting... chocolate and prune... we know anything with chocolate is fantastic... but I substituted the prunes with pitted dates and the port with rum and left out the spice as I couldnt find any in the pantry!

It was a moist cake - and I added in 1/3 of a chocolate bar just incase there wasn't enough chocolate in it (this was an addition!) - I think we could do with another 1/3... it was quite nice... I'm not sure if I would call it a favourite, not because it wasn't good because it was a good recipe, the proportions and moisture level etc was good... but I think I prefer my dates in a sticky date pudding!


Stay tuned for this weekend's food update.... there will be more! :)

Ohhh Ohhh.... the discovery......

It is not good... ohh ohh... I can hear myself groaning... for many years, I have not kept up with the times, and being quite the risk adverse person that I often am (so evident when I always order the same dish at the same restaurant, and even at different restaurants, because I like it and I know it will be good... I have never been one to experiment with new dishes or weird ingredients...), however I think it is all about to change...

Whilst it seems like the majority of the world have hopped eagerly and even become addicted to ebay.com, online shopping etc, I have been quite the tradition shopper - preferring to buy items face to face :) However, I have found that it is very difficult to buy really cool, interesting and internationally acclaimed cookbooks in Australia and/or in Singapore. I suspect they are all in the US (sadly!) - however, Amazon.com is the answer to my prayers... and now, I think I shall be taking that step forward and will be doing some "clicking"!

Now, I am eagerly wondering which book I should buy to christen my entry into the world of Online Shopping. I can't decide... there are a million wonderful books out there...and I do fear that once I start, I won't be able to stop!!!

I'll let you know my decision soon.... *grin*

(Btw - yes there will be a food entry happening soon... once I get the pictures!)

Hope you had a very happy and warm weekend! :)
(It is raining like cats, dogs and even elephants in Perth, WA now!!!)

A Feast with Old friends...

I really love roses.... there is something very perfectly sweet about them... this breed above is called Flamingo hybrid tea roses - we got them from the rose farm and this blossomed in my very own garden!

Had a cosy dinner with some old friends last night - combined with good food, plenty of laughter and weird jokes and moments, it was a great way to end the weekend! The theme was Italian.. so we had lasagne, cheesecake, and even started to celebrate Christmas in July with Turkey, yum yum!


This was caesar salad - the full works! I pan fried chicken tenderloins which was lighted marinated with salt and cracked pepper and white wine, pan fry till golden in colour. Then with the remaining oil in pan, pan fry bacon strips (I used short cut bacon, has less fat!). Keep this warm in the oven whilst you prepare the rest. Anyway, basically it's caesar dressing, cos lettuce, hard boiled eggs and parmesan cheese! Although, I feel this isn't exactly cooking as I didnt really make anything from scratch, there is something really nice about presenting something green on the dinner table! And honestly, for a proper caesar salad, you must use fresh chicken and bacon - personally I prefer to buy the bacon rashes and slice them rather than the bacon bits from the bottle (eww!) or even the diced bacon bits from the deli... use fresh whenever possible! It's so worth it!



I made bruchetta (spelling?!) for entrees... there is something very healthy and refreshing about it... and to make things a little different, I used an olive bread instead of a sourdough... not bad :)


Photography wasn't so good last night - we just wanted to dive into the food! This is an eggplant pasta... it does taste better than it sounds!!! Really nice for a vegetarian pasta... to be honest, Im apprehensive about vegetarian stuff... ie I hardly ever will order a vegetarian dish, I feel a dish needs to have meat or seafood... if it's just veggies it should be an "extra" or a side dish... however, really this eggplant pasta can be quite the winner! I threw in some chilli flakes for extra kick!



Mocha tarts! This was the most work! I made this on Saturday night! But there is nothing as satisfying as baking or cooking something from it's raw form! I made the pastry from scratch, and I wont bore you with the details, it was fun for quite awhile... it is a bit like play dough, except you get to eat the end result! The filling was a rich chocolate and coffee mixture which you bake... this is totally baked... my friends liked it, so that made it all very worth while!

Hope you had a very happy weekend too!

Tagged by Joey Poey!!!

Okay, Im not sure how exactly this works... so I hope Im playing by the "Tag Rules"...

The rules:
1) The person tagged has to write 7 facts about themselves, along with a copy of the rules.
2) The chosen one then needs to tag 7 others and make a note of whom they’ve chosen as the next ‘taggees’ on their blog.
3) And finally? Leave a comment for those that they’ve tagged, giving them a heads up to read their blog and find out what it’s all about.

Liz's Facts!...
1) I read my cookbooks on the way to work, before I sleep, whenever I have a moment ... :) I'm always thinking about what to cook, how to cook that particular dish or a dish I have read... I started cooking at about 8 or was it 10 years old.. I remember helping my aunt make sushi

2) I was a Barbie doll fanatic, and I think I owned about 13 barbies... and sadly, only 1 ken - I wanted a barbie house too but I never got one... :P

3) I played the piano till Grade 6, the flute for awhile and was born in London, UK. I have been abseilng, flying fox, canoeing, white water rafting, what's the other one where you use a compass... some navigation thing, believe it or not, I have actually done these things! :P

4) When people try to scare me, I often scare them back with screaming back in fright louder than their "boo!" (often though, I have about a 3sec delay lag... ie "Boo" silence than "AHHHH")

5) I always wanted to be the youngest in the family - my sister says it's not that fun though! Hmmm... :P I also wanted to be a doctor :)

6) I too thought the idea of wearing glasses were very cool (like Joey Poey) but totally regret it now!!!

7) I love peppermint - I love peppermint chocs, milkshake, ice-cream and once at camp, we stayed up talking at night and I managed to just lick away at the toothpaste... much to the disgust of my friends!

Friends to Tag (that havent been tagged before!):
1) Thomas
2) Seng
3) Gerard
4) Edwina
5) Jason
6) Steph!
7) Shona & Jimmy

Those who have a blog, post it on your blog and those who don't have a blog, email it to me :)

A Family Feast!

Hello hello! How was your weekend? Mine was great!!! Baked a chocolate cake on Friday night with my friend - it was actually a pretty good recipe (sorry no pics... I forgot!) - the chocolate sponge was real TASTY! How do you describe it... when you taste the cake, you FULLY taste the chocolate... you know how sometimes it's like half the taste, and before you finish it, it seems like the taste did not fully develop, and you wonder whether it was a chocolate cake you just ate? Well this wasn't that type of cake, it was really chocolatey, yet not too sweet, light and perfect texture for a creation I am already thinking of! The icing was simply melted dark chocolate with thickened cream... this is heaven!!! (btw - use Cadbury's dark cooking chocolate, it has 60% cocoa solids and I think much much better than the Nestle brand...)


On Sunday, my family came to my place for a Sunday dinner - cooked by me!!! So the menu was brushetta, spaghetti marinara, Spanish Tasty Roast Chicken (this is actually the name... I didnt name it!) and for dessert chocolate souffles with thickened cream drizzled on the top! :)

I used fresh roma tomatos, get rid of the core and seeds, toss with purple onions, fresh basil, season to your liking, olive oil and basil :) We used a thick type of bread... I forget the name... either ciabatta or a sourdough would be good!





Okay, not the most flattering picture of the chicken, but yes you basically stuff the chicken with a hot lemon that you have pierced... boil the lemon with the potatos in a pot for about 5mins... the different ingredients used here besides the whole lemon, is this italian dressing which is italian parsley, lemon zest and garlic - which you throw over the chicken once cooked :)


I have never made souffles before... so had NO IDEA what to expect... but they turned out really yummy... think a warm chocolate mousse... this must be perfect for Winter :) The ultimate comfort food and also something to eat when you're happy as well. I imagine it must be nice to tuck into this warm full of chocolate type pudding when you are not feeling the best! Yet, on good days, this also goes down real well. Souffles deflate real fast! So basically once baked, serve straight to guests! It also deflates once you microwave them (as I found out tonite!) - but the taste is not at all stolen... :) Still there, still comforting... worry about the calories another day... there is always tomorrow....

Hope you had a happy weekend!!!


p.s. Exciting weekend of food will be coming up.............. stay tuned! :)