Holidays mean Kitchen Duty

I'm in charge of kitchen duty these holidays and have been busy making dinner for the fam bam every night since this Monday.

It's been extremely fun and I've experimented around with my different cookbooks. They're not Matt Moran's cookbooks or Nigella Lawson's, but they're your simple Junior Masterchef Official Recipe Collection and your Woman's Day Main Meals recipes but nonetheless, the meals were fantasticals, like a rainbow on a rainy day.

Monday Night Dinner:

"One Pan Roast Chicken with Vegetables"

Defrosted some marylands, gathered my herb army consisting of General Rosemary in charge of the beautiful aroma of the finished dish, supported by Lieutenants Thyme and Parsley and private Garlic. 

Fresh vegetables included potatoes, onion and some carrots.

Not a big fan of carrots, following the recipe and drizzled honey and olive oil to the vegetables, the carrots turned out sweet and absolutely delicious that it suddenly became my favourite vegetable...for that night, anyway.

Yummy dinner and dear dad loved it too. Sweet! And I didn't have to wash the dishes. ;)

Recipe: Junior Masterchef Official Recipe Collection

-I actually really recommend people to get it because it has fantastic recipes that are easy and simply delish.

Tuesday Night Dinner:

"Fish Parcels with Shallots"

Do not underestimate de la mer for it's not only a blue wonder, it's also home to delicious fishies that are fantastic for dinner. Jumping on the computer, I searched some recipes for a quick and easy fish dish and stumbled upon the said title.

I left the fish fillets to relax on one side while I prepared some shallots and ginger then hopped on the car to buy some sesame oil and threw in some white chocolate there for a later dessert and continued on.

"Fish are friends not food" my bum. Definitely going to be cooked again that's for sure, Mr. Bruce who never knew his father.

Recipe: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/24120/fish+parcels+with+shallots

Wednesday Night Dinner: 

"Roast Chicken"

Chicken and roasted.

Kidding! Just grab yourself some everyday butter and rub it on the chicken to create that perfectly crispy skin and afterwards, season it with some salt and pepper. Be generous... the sea has an unlimited supply anway.

Recipe: Woman's Day Main Meals Recipe Collection

Thursday night, dad and grandma cooked delicious potato and prawn soup sided with beef stir-fry and steamed vegetables with soy sauce.

Friday, today is lasagne night. Weee... love food!!

For easy and delicious recipes try: www.taste.com.au. It's a favourite website I'd like to go on to for quick and easy recipes both for lunch and dinner. 

Double M: Red Velvet Cupcake Recipe

Browsing for the perfect red velvet cupcake recipe, I stumbled upon 2 that was considered by the masses as the best recipes they've ever tasted. They were from Magnolia and McCormick. 

Many, however, had problems with both recipe and though McCormick proved the superior recipe, there were still problems in it that made people think otherwise.

So, I decided to combine the two recipes together, tweaking it here and there to present to you the tastiest and by the far one of the best cupcakes I've ever made.

I'm supposed to call it Mag & Mack: Red Velvet Cupcake Recipe but decided against it and stuck with Double M instead. 

Enjoy my very first recipe! :D

Double M: Red Velvet Cupcake Recipe
-Makes 30

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 1/2 cups plain flour, sifted
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups sugar (preferably caster sugar)
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons white vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3 tablespoons cocoa
• 2 teaspoons vanilla essence (or 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract)
• 6 tablespoons, red food colouring

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:

• 300g cream cheese
• 1/3 cup unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups icing sugar, sifted

DIRECTIONS:

• Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Grease and lightly flour 2 cupcake pans or place the cupcake liners.
  
• Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with electric mixer for about 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
• In a small bowl, whisk cocoa and vanilla together. Add to the batter along with the red food colouring. Beat well. 
• Beat in the flour, alternating with the buttermilk until the mixture is incorporated well.
• In a small bowl, stir the vinegar with the baking soda and add to the mixture. Mix well. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter and make sure that all ingredients are blended well.
• Spoon the batter onto the prepared cupcake pans, filling each about 2/3 full.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the tester (toothpick or skewer) comes out clean.
• Cool the cupcakes for about 10 minutes before icing.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING DIRECTIONS:

• Beat the softened cream cheese and butter until smooth.
  
• Pour the vanilla and icing sugar.
• Beat until mixture is light and fluffy.
• Fill a piping bag or just use a spoon and spread over the cupcakes. 

As you can see, the cream cheese frosting didn't work out as I wanted it to be because of time so when you make it, make sure to have enough time in your hands. If I was to re-decorate it, I have one rule: Big and Swirly.

Hope you love the recipe, I can guarantee that the cupcakes will be moist and super delicious.It was a success knowing that the birthday girl I made it for, loved it. You can probably tell that the decorations were actually shaped to form letters.

Cooking's got swag.

Melbourne Good Food & Wine Show 2011 + Photos

My lovely friends and I went to the fantabulous and amazing Melbourne Good Food and Wine Show this year, Saturday June 4.

We originally started as 3 people but one had to leave early, too early that she practically missed out on all the fun, sadly enough, which left me with my friend G to take down the exhibition centre filled with delicious, free and amazing goodies it had in store for us. 

To start, we went to watch My Kitchen Rules judge and famous French Chef, Manu Feildel, to cook up a storm in his cooking demo at the Fisher & Paykel Celebrity Theatre. We arrived 30 minutes late and we almost begged the ticket box officers to let us in. They not only let us in, with a fair warning that it's almost over, but they also gave us free tickets to see him again on his next demo. Fantastic start to the day!

We watched him finish his main meal and his scrumptious looking dessert of poached pear placed in a 'sexy' dessert glass with vanilla ice-cream and melted chocolate (sorry it doesn't sound as good as it looked). After coming out of the theatre, full of smiles and still in the state of what I call 'gobsmackery', my friends and I headed out to have something to eat.

Photos: Manu Feildel Cooking Demo and Book Signing

We tasted a couple of samples from different stalls including chicken on crackers, roasted lamb on crispy bread with goat's cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, those delicious appletisers that we kept coming back for, before deciding to have a proper brunch. 

We decided to grab two main meals to share between the three of us at the gorgeous Oxford Landing Estates Restaurant located, somewhat in the middle of the exhibition centre. Funny, to buy the food, we had to buy this cute little cards that represented $8. 

What was on the menu? 

Two main meals that absolutely blew me away. 

Dong Do Pork with Chop House Fried Rice

This dish was Poh Ling Yeow (Masterchef Season 1)'s recipe. It's an absolutely delicious dish and all the elements complemented each other.

Dish of the Day: Confit Duck with Star Anise Sauce and Potatoes

This dish was Marion Grasby (Masterchef Season 2)'s recipe. I really, absolutely, ridiculously love this dish. It was the most delicious dish I've ever tasted in my whole life. 

The duck was perfectly cooked, the potatoes were nice and crisp but soft in the inside and that Star Anise sauce... don't get me going. This dish is plain WOW. Nothing else, infinity more.

Kaffir Lime Panna Cotta with Strawberries and Lime Syrup

After that ridiculous shake-up-of-the-pallet session, our friend finally left and G and I tasted an abundant more of things including that yummy minimelts where the guy behind the counter asked us to scream, "Mini Melts Dot Com Dot A U!!" before giving us a sample, which tasted divine!

Some of my dreams came true as well when I managed to take a photo with MKR judge Manu Feildel, Masterchef's Poh Ling Yeow and managed to laugh out loud watching Masterchef funny boys/judges Gary and George in their cooking demo, see a cook-off against My Kitchen Rules Grand Finalists, Kane and Lee and the gorgeous sisters Sammy and Bella. What a fantastic day!

Some not so great photos can be viewed here:

My Kitchen Rules Contestants Cook-Off
(Sammy & Bella, Kane & Lee)

Gary & George Cooking Demo and Book Signings

Tobie Puttock Cooking Demo and Book Signing

Food part: Top Class! Wine part: Underaged. Ha, G and I could have been rebellious but decided against it.

Watch out Melbourne Good Food and Wine Show 2012, I'll be back...that is, if the world hasn't ended yet.

Fingers Crossed.

Homecooking: Chicken Kiev with Chive Butter and Lemon Curd Tarts

Pretending that we were contestants in My Kitchen Rules, since the TV show just finished and we both absolutely loved watching it, R and I decided to make a two-course meal in a time constriction.

Of course this didn't exactly go as planned since we constantly got distracted; me always changing the background song as we cooked and she with the little sister.

But we had fun. Lots of fun! I learned how to make chive butter and I hammered 4 pieces of chicken fillet till they were flat. That was awesome!

Chicken Kiev with Chive Butter and a side of Sauteed Potatoes

Lemon Curd Tarts with a Macaroon base.