30 before 30...Crossing some stuff off! Episode 2 - All the foods

Ok, I'm aware that 2015 isn't over and I couldn't have tried a new restaurant every month...but... I've tried more than 12, so that's every month. I've just been super efficient at eating all the foods. 

I have blogged about the following 11:

Longroom in Ponsonby
Red Earth in Papakura
Paasha Turkish Cafe in Pukekohe
China Yum Cha in Auckland CBD
Karaka General
The Langham
Nishiki
Mikano
Miss Clawdy
Mecca Stonehouse
Calendula Cottage

And there are a few others I know I haven't written about, plus the two I'm going to share today.

Portifinos has a few spots around Auckland. We visited the one in Howick. Delicious seafood plate I had, and everyone enjoyed their meal. My only gripe is I think it was sliiiiightly over priced.
I thought the desserts were adorable and had to take a photo of everyones before they ate!

I also recently had High Tea at TriBeCa in Parnell. This place seemed very fancy and the food was delicious, BUT.. in comparison to the Langham High Team - this is a bit disappointing. The white chocolate lollipop was super dooper cute though right?

This has been a great goal because I got to eat a whole lot of food, which I'm fond of. No seriously, it was great to be conscious of finding and eating at new places and not just going to the same old same old. I'd love to continue this, and in fact my book club now meets at restaurants - which has been very helpful. I've got a group of workmates who love this as well and we've began a little list of places we'd like to head out to every couple of weeks or so. Gotta love fellow foodies.

There are some fancy schmancy places that I'd still like to eat at - like Euro, but all in good time. I have a 40 before 40 list encroaching...maybe I can add that to my new list.

Tasty Tuesday

Some more recipes from my culled cookbooks. I've been surprised at how easy they were. A lot of the recipes I pin are quite complicated and have a tonne of ingredients, but these are simple and mostly use the things I already have in my cupboard or fridge.

I thought I'd do a couple of sweets to start off...

Hazelnut Caramel Slice
200g butter, chopped
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1t vanilla extract
2 eggs, beaten lightly
1 1/2 cups plain flour
200g dark eating chocolate, melted, cooled

Caramel Filling
180g butter, chopped
1/2 cup caster sugar
2T golden syrup
3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 1/4 cups whole hazelnuts, roasted

Preheat oven to moderately slow. Grease 20x30cm pan, line base with two long sides.

Combine butter and cocoa powder in medium saucepan; stir over a low heat until smooth. Add sugar; stir until dissolved. Remove from heat; add vanilla, egg and sifted flour, mix well. Spread mixture into prepared pan. Bake in oven for 20 minutes, cool.

Quickly spread caramel filling (see below) evenly over base; refrigerate at least 30 minutes or until firm. Combine chocolate and oil in small bowl, spread over caramel filling; refrigerate until set.

Caramel Filling
Combine butter, sugar, syrup and condensed milk in medium saucepan; stir over low heat until butter is melted. Increase heat to medium and simmer, stirring about 10 minutes or until mixture is a dark caramel colour. Remove from heat and stir in hazelnuts.

I whacked this next yummy slice together in a morning with two whingy girls hanging off me and it was still yummy. Gotta love anything lemon.

Tangy Lemon Squares
125g butter
1/4 cup icing sugar mixture
1 1/4 cups plain flour
3 eggs
1 cup caster sugar
2t grated lemon rind
1/2 cup lemon juice

Preheat oven to moderate. Grease a 23cm square pan, line base and two opposite sides of pan with baking paper.

Beat butter and icing sugar in a small bowl with electric mixer until smooth. Stir in 1 cup of flour. Press mixture over base of prepared pan. Bake in moderate oven about 15 minutes or until browned lightly.

Place eggs, caster sugar, remaining flour, rind and juice in medium bowl, whisk until combined. Pour egg mixture over hot base. Bake in moderate oven about 20 minutes or until firm. Cool in pan.

Lift slice from pan and cut into pieces. Dust with sifted icing sugar.

Grilled chicken, brie and avocado on ciabatta
2 chicken breast fillets
4 thick slices ciabatta
1/3 cup sweet chilli sauce
50g baby rocket leavevs
100g brie, cut into 4 slices
1 small avocado, sliced thinly

Halve chicken pieces diagonally and slice through each piece horizontally (to make 8 pieces). Cook in heated, oiled grill pan until chicken is browned both sides and cooked through.

Toast bread, both sides in the same grill pan.

Spread half the sauce over toast slices; top with rocket, chicken, cheese then avocado. Drizzle with remaining sauce.

Grilled pork chops with apple and onion plum sauce
2 medium apples
1T olive oil
1 medium red onion, cut into thin wedges
4 pork loin chops
1/2 cup plum sauce
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup chicken stock

Cut each unpeeled, uncored apple horizontally into four slices. Heat oil in grill pan; cook apple and onion, turning until softened.

Cook chops in heated oiled grill pan until cooked.
Stir sauce, juice and stock into apple mixture, simmer 1 minute.
Serve Pork chops with sauce.

30 before 30 progress report

I have wanted to do a progress report for some time, and now I've gotten around to doing it, a lot of the photos I wanted to use are potentially lost with a broken phone... hrmph.

In the meantime I will update what I can.

My sleeve got underway about a month ago and I'm SO happy with the start. I love it. Will be booking in time during the October holidays for installment #2 - a dream catcher.

 Of all my goals, the restaurant one has been the most pleasant I think. Lol. Albeit in competition with my goal to lose weight! I've lost many a photo of a few meals but have found these of my trip to Longroom in Ponsonby. What a yummy lunch!

We ordered a few plates to share - pork belly in miso sauce, hot wings, sliders and we also go salt and pepper squid (which I didn't get a photo of). The pork belly was to die for and even though I live about an hour out of Ponsonby, I would travel there happily for that dish alone. A very cool little place with very yummy food. Would highly recommend it to any and everyone.

I've also visited Red Earth. I do like the tapa style of eating, but felt like this place was over priced, especially considering where it is. In comparison to restaurants in town where I've had tapas in particular. The food was OK, I would have felt a lot better about it if it wasn't so over priced. I did like how the waitress looked after my little wriggler by offering a complimentary fluffy. She loved the chocolate fish! A very average meal though.

Cocktails! Because no great stories start with someone drinking water...

Goal number 28 in my '30 Goals before 30' is to Learn how to make 5 cocktails.

I'm not even much of a drinker, which is funny. Cocktails are just cool though right? Mr Man laughed his head off when I said I wanted a more prolific alcohol cabinet so I could feel like more of an adult. I always associate a knowledge of alcohols and drinks with a together, hip adult. Haha, how sad is my outlook on the art of being an adult, right?

 Whether I'm right or not, our alcohol cabinet has been fluffed out a lot in the last few months, and is looking quite healthy. Which is what you need for cocktails! Yay.

I'm also two fifths through this goal. I have a huge list of cocktails I'd like to make, but am taking it slowly - like I said, I'm not a big drinker. So far I've made the classic 'Cosmopolitan' and a very tangy 'Japanese Slipper'.

It's been a fun experience. A couple of side goals I'd like to work on is enjoying the cocktails with someone else (Mr Man isn't terribly interested), my best friend has been begging to come over and cocktail it up with me - I owe it to her to oblige, and to make them look more pretty - garnishes etc - as I like to go over the top with anything I do and presentation is never my strong point so it'd be good to improve here.

In any case, here are the cocktails and their mix ratios for you drinking pleasure.

Comso:
2oz Vodka
1/2oz Triple sec (cointreau)
3/4oz Cranberry Juice
1/2oz Lime Juice
Ice
 Fill a cocktail shaker with ice then add vodka, triple sec, cranberry juice and lime juice. (We like the extra bite of extra lime juice, so we use 1/2 an ounce in our cosmopolitan cocktails. However, use what is best for your taste).Shake the cocktail shaker for about 30 seconds until well chilled. Then, strain into a martini glass.Garnish with orange peel/twist. For an extra burst of flavor, peel the orange twist over the filled cocktail glass. This way, the orange oils spray into the glass.

Japanese Slipper:
1 part Triple sec (cointreau)
1 part lemon juice
1 part midori
Mix together in a shaker with ice. Strain into glass, garnish and serve.

 

New Restaurant Update

Ain't that the truth! Goal #22 in my 30 before 30 is to try a new restaurant every month. I've tried a tonne already and instead of going for one a month I'm just trying to knock out as many as I can. Every time I'm planning on eating out. I try to go to a new place, if it's feasible (read: it's always feasible to eat).

There are still some definite places that I'm dying to try and I want to make a plan to make sure I get there - fancy schmancy places!

For now, here's where I've been to in the last little while.

Paasha Turkish Cafe ticked a lot of boxes for me, heaps of people from around the area love it, it was a cuisine I don't normally have (or have ever possibly...?) and it was an excuse to get out with my book club, talk about books, and just have a general chin wag.
Everyone at the table was super impressed by the size of their meals and thought it was good value for money - definitely a place I can take my husband where he won't moan about big plates and small meals. The atmosphere and environment was lovely (those pretty lamps!) and allowed the book club to have their much needed chat, when we weren't scoffing food in our mouth that is.
I had a seafood casserole and it was YUM. Big flavours, lots of seafood and very hearty - warmed me up on a cold night. Dessert was a lovely chocolate hit. It was a great place to pop my Turkish cherry.

Keeping along the local (to me that is) theme, the next place is the Karaka General Store & Cafe. We stopped here for Mother's day lunch last month and I was certainly happy with my meal.

It's not fine dining, but it's nice enough, and (must be the theme of this post) the meals are HUGE and well priced. Since going on Mother's day I've stopped in to get a hot chocolate and hubby has stopped in for breakfast and loved both. Here is my seafood platter from our first stop. Too many hot chips for even me to eat!

Last but not least was China Yum Cha in Auckland City. A great place to go if you are heading to Vector Arena for a concert (FYI - Backstreet Boys was AMAZING, thanks for asking...I may need to do a blog post on this...). I like the tapa style of yum cha dining and all of our meals delivered on flavour. I was super stuffed by the end of it, opting out of something sweet. Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that's a feat. The best dish of the night was the pork belly, picture below. NOM! Apologies for the bad photos - yucky lighting.

My school holidays are coming up shortly and I'm planning on dining out at a few fun and funky places during that time. Mr Man and I are having a childless weekend in Rotorua so there might even be a gem there for my next restaurant update. SUPER excited to be going to The Auckland Fish Market for a tasting platter and wanting to plan some trips to fancy restaurants too.

God I do love food.

Which menu do I choose?

This week I had a look into recipes for my 5 course gourmet meal. First I had to find out what a 5 course meal entailed exactly.

I found this out:
Course 1: Soup
Course 2: Entre'
Course 3: Main
Course 4: Pudding
Course 5: Cheeses

Which gave me a decision to make. We don't really like soup and I wasn't really fussed on the cheeses as it was putting together produce rather than doing anything technical with food. I was either chucking out the 5 course idea in lieu of a 3 course meal, or changing up the courses somewhat. I decided on the latter.

I've come up with 2 menu ideas. Mostly because I really want to do the beef wellington, but my husband (who I'll be cooking for) doesn't do mushrooms (idiot).

So, I'm asking, which should I do? Which do you like. Do you like them as a whole or should I swap one out for something else?

Option One:
1. Caprese Tartlets http://www.kitchme.com/recipes/caprese-tartlets
2. Steak Rolls http://picturetherecipe.com/index.php/recipes/balsamic-glazed-steak-rolls/
3. Herb crusted pork loin http://littleleopardbook.com/2011/11/09/whats-for-dinner-rosemary-balsamic-pork-tenderloin/
4. Lemon Possets http://whatjessicabakednext.com/2015/04/20/lemon-possets-with-berries-shortbread/
5. Baked Brie http://www.willcookforfriends.com/2014/01/baked-brie-with-rosemary-honey-candied-walnuts.html
 
Option Two:
1. Pepperoni Caprese Bites http://authenticsuburbangourmet.blogspot.co.nz/2014/01/pepperoni-caprese-bites-with-basil.html
2. Chicken artichoke bites http://www.homemadeinterest.com/chicken-artichoke-bites/
3. Beef Wellington http://www.kitchme.com/recipes/individual-beef-wellingtons
4.Brownie Caramel Cheesecake http://www.kitchme.com/recipes/brownie-caramel-cheesecake
5. Baked Brie http://www.willcookforfriends.com/2014/01/baked-brie-with-rosemary-honey-candied-walnuts.html
 

Tasty Tuesday

It's been a while between Tasty Tuesdays, mostly because I haven't been doing anything amazing in the kitchen. But thinking about it, I should really share what I've found amazing over the last few months....more to come.

But first!

A few weeks ago we had these Skinny Thai Meatballs and they were delicious!

Tomorrow my mum is coming over for dinner. I'm going to attempt the Stuffed Pork Tenderloin from this post (Uhhh, YUM!) and this decadent dish for dessert (DOUBLE YUM!)

Now, I haven't really been doing anything new in the kitchen lately for a few reasons...
One being that it's been a hectic few weeks and we've either been out a lot or too exhausted to cook anything new or exciting so we go back to the same old, tried and true dishes. The other main reason is that many of our current recipes come from the 'Fit Girl' Cookbooks.

They're great! But I can't share any with you on here because they're all from paid for cookbooks...or can I? What I can do is promote the books here, because they're amaaaze balls in terms of motivation (and just for a bit of a giggle) and tell you our favourite meals thus far.

There are currently 3 cookbooks - 28 Day Jumpstart, Fitkini Body Challenge and The Fit Girls Cookbook Our faves are the Sweet potato wraps and blueberry pancakes. My personal favourite are the pizzas. I can attribute the sentiment behind these books (which is clean eating and being active basically) to my 17kg weight loss. Thoroughly recommend. :)

Eat something yummy this week.
xox

30 before 30 Progress Update - Restaurants

Goal #22 in my list of 30 goals before I turn 30 is to visit a new restaurant a month in 2015.

I began this early and went to my first new restaurant in December. Nishiki is a yummy Japanese restaurant that has Tapa style meals - you order 2 or 3 small dishes (or for me it may have been 4 as it was sooo yummy) instead of one larger one. It's great because you get to try lots of different things. I was quite tame in my choices but I was able to taste the grilled eggplant that my friend had ordered and it was ridic amaze balls.

In January my best friend and I ventured to Mikano as we had a special lunch tapas meal voucher. Although they didn't really deliver on the 'tapa' promise, the food was yummy and it's in a very unique spot. While we were waiting for out meal we got to see a helicopter land, pretty cool!

Miss Clawdy is my new favourite place. It's very fortunate that we live just under an hours drive away from where it's situated or I'd be there on a daily basis. It's well priced, delicious, family friendly and the service is fan-freaking-tastic.

For my birthday in January we visited the Mecca Stonehouse in Mission Bay. I'd wanted to go there for years. It's always somewhere that I'd driven or walked past but never went to. Our meals were very yummy and Mission Bay is such a nice place to eat and then take a stroll. Was a lovely evening.

Even my first Teacher only day allowed me to add to this goal - and it's close to home! Calendula Cottage is a lovely little garden cafe in Glenbrook, about 45 minutes drive from central Auckland.If you go, get. there. corn. frittas! So friggin' good!

I love eating, so this is a great goal for me, but it's great for other reasons too. Food really brings people together. It's allowed Damien and I to have some 'us time', our first since Willow was born and it's strengthened my friendships with a few people, because we're out together eating. I've also made a point of going out and doing stuff because of this goal. When you live as far out as we do, it's good to hit a few birds with one stone when you're out and if I'm venturing somewhere to try out a new restaurant it's a great excuse to visit other places that are near.

Just lovely good vibes all round!

Tasty Tuesday - Getting rid of my baking

This healthy eating thing is great, don't get me wrong, but my love of baking has taken a bit hit since I began. This is because I don't want rouge sugar laden goodies hanging out in my fridge and pantry for Damien and I to devour. Out of sight, out of mind. The problem being that I really miss it. The baking that is (OK, and eating it too) and I want to continue to refine my baking skills. 

So because of this my poor workmates are being targetted.  I informed them this week that I need them to help me continue my good blogging of recipes and eat these sugar laden goodies. They were most upset... not. It's good because 1) I still get the make the things, 2) I'm even able to have a weeny bit and a taste and 3) it makes those around me larger thus making me look thinner.... right? Lol.

This week's sugar laden goodie comes to us courtesy of a site entitled 'Chocolate and more' so you know it's good for you. I made these delicious Turtle bars which are super easy to slap together and (the reports back tell me) are absolutely delicious (just kidding, of course I tried it! Twice!).  You can find the recipe for them here.

Tasty Tuesday

Man has it been a busy week or two (ten?!?) I've been living the busy life. So much so that I've been unable to blog about it! I have been making some scrummy food to share with you though. Two pretty good recipes today and one totally naught (Read: delicious) one.

Let's start with the naughty but delicious number. For my birthday I ate cake! And because I made this exception to have a treat I had to make the best cake ever, and I think I nailed it! I googled the phrase 'best chocolate cake ever' and this link from 'Add a pinch' was the first hit. Man it delivered. Yum! I even made it with relatively healthy ingredients (bar the TWO cups of sugar), substituting white flour for wholemeal and using coconut oil. Was very decadent.

Next, a sweet treat that you can eat pretty much every day based on it's low calorie count and with a good balanced diet it's a great snack. My husband LOVES these muffins.

And last but not least a super yummy lunch meal that is so super easy to make. My friends from university and I catch up every school holidays. We each bring a plate (or two) of food and have a wee korero. This slice is often bought by another friend and I just have to share the recipe because it is just that good. We love lunch cake!

Courgette Slice (Lunch cake!)
1T Olive oil
1 onion finely diced
2 rashers of bacon
5 cups of grated courgette (around 4 medium sized ones)
1/2 cup cheese (tasty is good)
3/4 cup self raising flour
4 eggs
1/2 cup plain oil
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius and line a 25x17cm baking dish.

2. Heat the olive oil in a pan and saute the onion and bacon until the onions are golden and the bacon is crispy.

3. Squeeze any excess moisture from the courgettes.

4. In a large bowl combine the courgettes, cheese and flour.

5. In a separate bowl beat together the eggs , oil and seasoning.

6. Combine all 3 mixtures and mix together well.

7. Spoon into baking dish and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden and set. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes before cutting.

Easter Traditions

In December I wrote about our Christmas Traditions as a child (or there lack of) and the new ones that I'm starting with my own little family. It was inspired by Baker's Delights delicious goodies they provide me at Christmas.

They also provide me with delicious delights at Easter too. So, in keeping with the tradition theme. Here I am. Again, I don't recall a lot of traditions from when I was a kid. We always got an egg (or 7) and all I really recall about Easter is that I used to gobble my eggs down super quick and my brother was (is?) one of those annoying people that makes treats last forever - nibble by nibble. Which made me very jealous come Easter Sunday or Monday when my goodies were all gone.

As with the Christmas traditions, I am very conscious of making traditions for us. Easter egg hunts are our tradition. At this stage they have been different each year for Leah, but I'm sure as our family grows they will gain some substance. I had a very funny chat with Leah today about Easter and what it's all about. She seemed to think it was like Christmas, but with chocolate and a bunny instead of santa. Well, yes... I suppose in our religion free family I suppose that is what it's about (and 4 day weekends!).



The goodies we recieved from Baker's delight were gobbled up weeks ago! I'm just slack at getting my post up. Because of this, I've also missed the boat on the 'Bundraiser' day that Baker's Delight was promoting with their hot cross buns. Although, I don't see why you couldn't still have a lovely hot cross bun morning tea and raise some money for a good cause, ala' the intent.

PS: The buns are delicious. I have bought a tonne more and although they may cost a wee bit more than your supermarket made, they are very much worth it. I went to Baker's Delight today and the traditional buns were SOLD OUT! But that's OK because I prefer the chocolate... I mean, baby prefers chocolate.. yeah, the baby. <3



Have a lovely long weekend everyone.
xox

Baker's Delight was a delight

I was lucky enough Some teachers at school today were lucky enough to get to try some free Christmas cake courtesy of Baker's Delight. Just with a wee proviso that they needed to tell me how it was.

See the thing is, I was offered to sample some lovely Christmas delights and review them on my blog. Only problem? I don't do Christmas cake or mince tarts, but I did really want to do the review, so said I would definitely be able to find some people keen on being guinea pigs. Enter school staff! Hungry, ravenous creatures who will devour anything offered up on the staff room bench.

We were delivered 3 little Traditional Christmas cakes. One slightly larger which would serve around 6-8 people and two teeny weenys which I think are a great size for giving as Christmas presents...so that's what I'm doing!

They were beautifully decorated on top with nuts, cherries and a glaze. The cake was very moist (which got points) but really fell apart when we cut it up, almost like it was undercooked. Luckily for our close knit staff we didn't mind picking at bits and pieces of the cake as picking up a whole nicely cut piece was impossible.

Free edibles go down a treat at school and the reaction to the cake overall was a good one. Apart from the cake being very 'crumbly' from the undercooked nature of the mixture everyone loved it - it was moist, sweet and delicious! Our lovely local reliever said that it was nice that it was a Christmas cake without the yucky almond and marzipan icing and I couldn't help but to agree... ew, how 80s. Good work Baker's Delight.

Inside the cake itself were only currents - which got mixed reviews, "I would have liked more variety of fruit in the cake" to "it's great that it only has raisins because I hate all that other rubbish". Another critisism was that it wasn't really very Christmassy and lacked a teensy bit of spice.

One cheeky colleague did comment there was no booze in the cake, or not that she could detect...and she's good at detecting those sorts of things. Lol

But the big feat was that I tasted some and actually liked it. So if you're not really into fruit cake like me then give this one a go. A few staff commented that, like me, they weren't really fruit cake people but thought it was the bees knees!

Kia Ora Baker's Delight. Thanks for the opportunity.

Merry Christmas all xox

“The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude.”

This was a cool challenge on many many levels. It got me to look through and assess the value of all my cookbooks (which as subsequently created a new challenge for the 52 in 52 challenges for next year), it's made me actually use some of my physical cooking books when I usually just search the internet and most importantly, it's added heaps of new recipes to my repertoire.

I haven't blogged about all of them, mostly only the ones I want to use again. Here are the ones I have blogged about;

Lemon and herb stuffed chicken
Chicken Maryland
Dark and Saucy BBQ Ribs
Chicken Parmigiana
Morrocan Beef Salad Wraps
Crisp Chicken
Chilli Con Carne
Chicken Dippers
Chicken Supreme
Easy Peasy Chicken Pasta
Thai Chicken Meatballs
Black Forest Cake
Red Salmon Dip

I've now completed all the recipes in the book bar one - a fruit salad mix which I want to try over the warmer summer months. Yummy!

Double Choc Muffins

Took these to a Guy Fawkes picnic this past weekend. Were yum!

Double Chocolate Muffins
3 cups plain flour
 6t Baking Powder
3T Cocoa
Pinch of Salt
1 cup sugar
1 cup chocolate chips
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup oil
1t vanilla essence

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees celcius. Grease or spray the muffin pans.

2. In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, cocoa and salt. Add the sugar and chocolate chips.

3. IN a separate bowl beat the egs lightly. Add the milk, oil and vanilla and stir to combine. Tip the egg mixture into the dry ingredients and stir gently to combine.

4. Spoon the mixture into the prepated muffin pans. Bake mini muffins for 15 minutes and medium-size muffins for 25 minutes.

Makes 30 mini or 20 medium muffins (or in our case 12 HUGE  muffins).