Win Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets!!!

Dorie Greenspan??? Who's that?? Well, I haven't tried any of her recipes but have heard good stuff about her from various baking blogs....

So how do you win the book??

Simple!!

Marye of Baking Delights needs a new tagline for her blog...and if u'd just blog about her contest and leave her a comment with a link to your post...u're in the running!

And if u come up with a tagline, u'll get another entry in the contest...!

The writer of the winning tagline also gets a $10 amazon voucher!

sounds interesting??? Get your creative juices flowing and hop on over to Marye's!

:) Thanks Cookiedoc for sharing the news!!

Recipe suggestions for hot days

if anyone has any, I really would appreciate some suggestions...hopefully less than 30 mins in the kitchen..satisfying and doesn't heat up the place/ has strong smells...(feeding 6/7 for catering business next week......)

Adelaide's got a heat wave again...til next Friday.. hot hot hot!!

these are supposed to be good for you...

"eeeeeeiii..but what are they????!!!"



If my parents didn't start me young, i most probably would not dare to try them too. Sea cucumber, as written about previously. Thus named for their shape. Some call them sea slugs but i reckon that won't make for good marketing... :P

see the cut up pieces...need to get rid of the grit inside


cooked it a long while back....for the CNY gathering....i followed Amy Beh's recipe on Kuali (the server seems to be down atm) but made a number of modifications.....and i forgot to write them down...tasting the dish and adding stuff until it tasted just like my mom's....('au pif' new term i learnt from this blog today....for 'cooking by taste').

the completed dish...yes, it looks like that usually...brown and gooey... :P

steamed banana cake

I have a sneaky feeling that alot of dishes were invented to use up ingredients which were either rapidly going bad (happens alot to me) or were readily available and abundant in the backyard (my grandma had a farm..i think she grew a lot of plants and spices and almost didn't have to buy anything from the market at all..other than fish...oh...but fish, u can catch from the rivers as well...mmm...now i wish i live on a farm!!)

Anyways!!! Faced with 3 almost black bananas, i started a quest for banana recipes...banana bread and muffins are the fail-proof fall backs..but having no special occasion/ the presence of many friends to share the calories, i wanted to make something without additional fat... and ta-dah!!! Steamed banana cake!!



The main rising agents were baking powder and bicarb...and i think that might have contributed to the 'thirsty'/ dry lips after taste...but on the whole, quite nice..very easy and relatively guilt-free....sugar, as advised by Zu, can be reduced, to i think around 1/3 cup or even less. Next time, i might omit the bicarb altogether and see if that helps...

Golden Olivale

This bottle of cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil was bought at the Farmers' Market...

the stall selling it looked very plain and unadorned so i wasn't expecting anything special..but it's one of those foods, which u after tasting, do a double take...! Aira once told me about one of her friend's father who imports olive oil from South Australia to Japan. Apparently that extremely premium olive oil is meant for drinking straight...a shot every morning (confers a myriad of health benefits of which i m not entirely sure).

I reckon u can do the same with this one. It is that good. :)
Fruity and fragrant with an extremely pleasant aftertaste. Perfect with fresh bread and dukkah!!

By the way, this oil only won the bronze prize in last year's Olives South Australia competition. I wonder how the ones which won the Gold must taste like.....Mmmmmmmmmm.

Contacts:
Golden Olivale
0412 796313

Mee Hoon Kueh

sometimes i think this blog should be renamed "Review of Lily Ng's recipes" cos i try out so many of her recipes...(and they are fantastic, each and everyone of them..)

last week it was her tien tsin pau...which took much longer than expected and made me stay up til 1.30am..but when i tried the first bite, the 3 hour effort was all worth it!!! It reminds of xiao long bao/ soup dumplings...it was that juicy!

today i made mee hoon kueh/ handmade noodle pieces in soup...
also quite time consuming..the rolling out of the dough mainly....i think these were invented in the days before machines...
aye...yar...pre-packaged noodles will perhaps suffice..but hey, nothing beats home-made anything right??



made almost exactly as per Lily's recipe...down to fried shallots and garlic (something new) with chili padi, soy sauce, vinegar and sugar. Bought soy beans absentmindedly so used that in the stock as well. Next time, i will just get premade noodles...though these tasted more like italian egg pasta cos they were quite 'Q' (firm/ springy to the bite).

Adelaide Showground Farmers' Market

this is a post which i have been meaning to share for quite a while...the Adelaide Showground Farmers Market!

Fresh produce straight from the farmers,(not always cheaper but definitely fresher and good quality), gourmet food gift options (olives, nuts, jam, almonds), cooking demostrations, extraordinaryly delicious busk tucker ice-cream not available anywhere else in Adelaide, throw in an occasional 2 piece jazz band...ahhh...my idea of heaven...

If i remember correctly, they only used to open during the warmer months, which may explain why u will find mainly locals there cos most of the international students were holidaying at home...BUT as of last year, the organisers have decided to make it a year round event..!! Yippee!!
Every Sunday, 9-1pm...like it says on the banner..


organic bread



un-homogenized milk (means that the milk is in two separate layers...cream on top)..never seen it in supermarkets before!!


crisp fresh herbs



Pates and spreads


assorted goodies...mmm...


Visit the Market's official website for more details! Hope to see you there!!