ELLI LUCA

Anybody who knows me well knows I'm obsessed with lip balms and glosses so I'd thought I'd try my hand at making some. They were / are amazing a few people have expressed an interest in buying some. So I purchased the ingredients and packaging in bulk and waiting for it all to arrive so I can make some more batches. It's looking like mid October they will be available. I'm pretty excited! Lip Balms: MINT/ BERRY / ORANGE / VANILLA Made with Organic Coconut oil, Golden Yellow Bees Wax, & a few other delicious ingredients.

1. What's your worst food memory So in preschool it's not really expected that the food will be great, but mine really took the spice cake. Every two weeks or so we would be served "beef and rice" which, as I remember it, consisted of of rice and beef of equally grey and mushy consistency. I could barely choke it down with my small cup of milk and was once told I was hurting the cook's feelings by not finishing my portion of the stuff. Beef and rice will forever symbolize the gastronomical and emotional trauma of early childhood. 2. Best food memory Hmm, a more difficult question. Like my worst food experience, by best ones are tied up with emotions. I remember my first dinner out with just my dad to a steakhouse in Denver, CO while we were away for a soccer tournament. He bet I couldn't finish my t-bone steak so I attacked it like a starving wolf and remembered it as the best steak ever when I actually finished it (and no doubt had indigestion in the ho...

So I saw this morning my friend Liz had made homemade freckles and I just had to do it.  Took 5 minutes and looks great and tastes delicious.  What a great idea, thanks.

1. What's your worst food memory This is a tough one to answer, right off the bat too! It's a toss up between three events ... but I guess the most colourful one would have to be in the late eighties.  It was the first time I was invited to dinner outside of the extended family and it was to the home of  ... I wish this could be put more delicately ... a culturally clueless and more than slightly bogan Anglo-Saxon family.  They made a special effort, they told me, to make something that I would appreciate seeing that I was from an "eye-tie" background. They had made "spag" for dinner. This, apparently, was served in the traditional way: spaghetti from a can, served over toasted white bread that had been "buttered" with margarine, coated in White Crow tomato sauce and topped with a Kraft Cheese slice. I felt like, what I can only imagine, a vegetarian Muslim being served pork would have felt. I was shocked, horrified, culturally m...

Scanned an old page of apple recipes that was loose in a cookbook I purchased.  I want to give the Apple Brown Betty a try.

INGREDIENTS Serves: 25 BISCUITS 250g icing sugar 50g cocoa powder 450g plain flour pinch bicarbonate of soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 350g unsalted butter, chilled and cubed 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 eggs 175g chopped milk chocolate  Nuts chopped (I like macadamias)  GANACHE & METHOD 115 gsm milk chocolate, chopped 5 tablespoons heavy cream 2 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup 2 tablespoons crème fraîche Put the chocolate in a bowl. In a saucepan, bring the cream and corn syrup to a boil; pour over the chocolate and let stand for 1 minute. Whisk until smooth. Whisk in the crème fraîche. Refrigerate the ganache, stirring occasionally, until thick and spreadable, 1 hour. BISCUITS METHOD Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. In a large bowl, stir together the icing sugar, cocoa, flour, bi-carb and salt until well blended. Cut or rub in the butter until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add eggs and vanilla; mix until a stiff dough forms. It may take a minute to come together....

One of my favourite home made junk foods. RECIPE here

1. What's your worst food memory A toss up between my mum's overcooked steak or her lamb stew with kidney. *shudder* 2. Best food memory Lunch at Eleven Maddison Park in New York City. Definitely the most amazing meal of my life. 3. My signature dish is. Oh that's hard... might need to ponder that for a bit. I'll ask the taller half and get back to you... although my recent rabbit ragout was a winner. I also make a mean snapper pie. 4. One of my favourite food photographs. (please see below) 5. Ingredient I'm currently obsessed with is Congo potatoes. The flavour and texture is so beefy in a potatoey kind of way. 6. Worst kitchen injury I stuck my hand through a fridge fan working after school in a kitchen in my teens. Mangled a few fingers. Not seriously thank goodness. 7. Cake I ask for on my birthday Bourke Street Bakery's flour-less sour cherry chocolate cake. Heaven/ 8. Favourite Chef A toss up between Heston and Maggie Beer. Both self taught and both ...

A little something I was working on for a personal project & I thought I may as well share the file.  So here you go: Click image for higher resolution

Having one of those days where it is easier to make bread at home than to leave and buy some. (Between tending to junior, doing laundry and tidying up!) I tossed all of the ingredients into the bread maker to make dough, added all the seasonings and flavourings then I'll bake it just before dinner tonight. Olive and dukkah - perfect accompaniment for felafel with tahini and salad for dinner.

Those who know me well know I'm obsessed with trying new ingredients. I found maple sugar online and had to buy it.  I've used it on pancakes before but thought it would be better in and on baking. Maple sugar is a type of sugar that is prepared with the sap from a maple tree.  To produce it, the sap is boiled until almost all of the water has been removed from it and the remaining product has crystallized. The sugar can be sold in large blocks, molded into small shapes or simply ground into a granulated version that can be used like regular sugar. It has a strong maple flavor and aroma to it, just like maple syrup.Maple sugar can be used in recipes in the same way as cane sugar is used. It can be used to sweeten drinks, top oatmeal or incorporated into a flavorful rub for meats.  When using maple sugar in baking, it acts just like regular granulated sugar and can be creamed with butter for cookies and cakes. It is almost twice as sweet as regular sugar, so when...

INGREDIENTS: Piece of corned beef- silverside (rinsed well in cold water.) 4 cloves garlic, crushed 12 peppercorns 6 cloves 2 cloves of garlic, smashed with a knife 1 lemon, cut in half (including rind) 4 fresh bay leaves (well worth the effort of maintaining your own tree) crumpled 1 Tbsp grated ginger 1 Tbsp brown sugar 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce 2 bay leaves METHOD Into a large, heavy based casserole/steamer, place sufficient water to cover the beef Add all of above ingredients Bring the pot to a quick boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cook for approximately one hour to one and a half hours - depending on size of joint. Generally, when the beef is fully cooked it will start to 'float' towards the surface. Turn off the heat and leave to cool off in liquid for a while before serving. Once cold place into an airtight container, or cover with aluminum foil. Try not to boil the blazes out of the meat and allow it it come to room temperature in the cookin...

It was my mother in laws birthday yesterday. So I made her a white chocolate / passion fruit / vanilla cake.  This was done over two days as many of you know I have my hands full at the moment.  I'll post the recipe on the blog next week. Quick and easy decorations were chocolate. Excuse camera phone picture DSLR pics to come.

Tonight I'm going to make this for dinner. Easiest way to roast a chicken. I throw all the vegetables in the baking tray with a whole head of garlic, olive oil and rosemary. Place the chicken (which I stuff with breadcrumbs, chopped shal lots, water, a little melted butter, oregano, lemon zest, dried garlic, & fresh thyme) on the rack above and roast on 180 for an hour and a 1/2. No need to turn chicken & the juices / dripping cook through the vegetables & they taste divine. Bonus - only 1 pan to clean!   A good free range chicken needs little too no seasoning, I just rub in a dash of olive oil and a little freshly cracked salt and pepper.