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Archive for the ‘Food & Friends’ Category

BattleTech and Butterscotch Bars

Posted in Food & Friends on February 6, 2011| 27 Comments »

During a recent tidy up, Big Boy uncovered this old board game of Pete’s.

It was last played in 1988. For all the gaming geeks out there, this is the board game precursor to the popular MechWarrior video game series. (Hmm. I wonder if any gaming geeks actually read my blog? Please do let me know.)

A flurry of excitement ensued, as Big Boy and his mate Tim made plans for a board game evening.  Tim’s lovely parents were kind enough to let five noisy young men occupy their dining table all night, so I thought it only fair that I contribute some baked treats for the occasion. What better for sustaining armoured warriors locked in mortal combat than butterscotch bars?

There’s nothing I enjoy more than baking for my sons and their friends.  In this case though, as Big Boy sat around a table with his friends, playing the same game that Pete had played with his friends over twenty years ago, it was even more special!

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Chinese New Year

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , , on February 3, 2011| 28 Comments »

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Wishing you all a happy and prosperous Year of the Rabbit!

To celebrate the occasion, I’ve been making lanterns.  I made a Year of the Rabbit lantern (note the bunnies on the wrappers) to hang in our hallway. If you’d like to make one of your own, I wrote a step by step tutorial here last year.

This year I added these sweet shell-shaped lanterns, easily made from a single ang-pow (red envelope) packet.

Begin with an ang-pow wrapper or similarly sized envelope or piece of thin cardboard…

Fold the wrapper in half lengthways.  With a sharp pair of scissors and cutting from the folded edge, snip into even strips, cutting almost to the edge.

Turn the angpow wrapper over and curl the opposite corners towards each other.  Bring corner A to corner B, overlapping one onto the other…

Join the two corners with a staple…

Finish by stapling a red cord or string to one corner. Now find a good spot to hang your lanterns for the fifteen days of Chinese New Year!

 

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Weekend Sourdough

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , on January 31, 2011| 48 Comments »

Breadmaking is a wonderfully therapeutic process.

Life has been crazy busy lately, but my weekly Saturday breadmaking always affords me a little downtime.

I’ve been baking bread at home for over four years now, and the routine has become both comforting and easy. And since we don’t buy bread (with the exception of Lebanese pita bread), I have no choice but to bake at least once a week, often more.

I fed my starter up on Friday night, spent twenty minutes making the dough the following morning, then another twenty minutes or so shaping the dough after lunch.  The sourdough process takes a long time, but very little hands on involvement is required on my part.  Yeasted breads are even faster!

As the new school year is about to start, I baked a large  (90cm/36″) tray of sourdough focaccia for Small Man.  He takes a substantial slice for lunch each day, spread with Vegemite…

I also knocked up a very large batch of sourdough (half spelt, half bakers’ flour). The finished dough weight was 2700g (nearly 6lb), and it became two pointy-eared epi…

…six oversized lunch rolls…

and three baguettes.

If you’ve never made bread before and would like to give it a go, you might find this basic tutorial useful.  But be warned, breadmaking is addictive!

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Lucky Bread

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged on January 25, 2011| 37 Comments »

I was despairing over the huge cavern in my most recent sourdough spelt loaf.  I suspect I underproved the shaped dough, which resulted in excessive oven spring, producing this giant hole.

However, when my parents arrived for dinner, my mum took one look at the sliced bread, and exclaimed, “Holey bread!  That means you’re about to come into some money!”.

Whilst I’m not a believer in luck, that one made me smile a lot.

Just for fun, do you know any bread related sayings or superstitions?  The only other one I could recall was the plea to small people to eat their crusts to ensure their hair would go curly!

What about any related to baked goods in general? You can’t have your cake and eat it is the only one that comes to my mind.  Do you know of any others?

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D to D Café

Posted in Food & Friends, tagged , , , on January 18, 2011| 24 Comments »

Our foodie friends Cliff and Kathy, with whom we explore some of Sydney’s more unusual restaurants, own the D to D Café in the southern suburb of Beverly Hills.  Between Christmas and New Year, they were closed for renovations, and we couldn’t resist driving down for a meal to check out their new look.

The cafe was packed last night, so I didn’t get to take pictures of their pretty new decor, but we did have a  great feed, including selections from their new tapas menu. There were garlic king prawns, which came out sizzling…

…salt and pepper squid…

…garlic and herb roasted potatoes..

and these very moreish soy sauce chicken wings.

The well-stocked dessert cabinet boasted a mile high lemon meringue pie…

and a Mars Bar and Nutella cheesecake, which I’ve never been game to try!

The café is right next to the Beverly Hills Cinema complex, and it’s a great place for a quick meal before a movie.  If you do have a bit more time though, it’s always worth checking out Cliff’s wine and beer lists.  As a serious wine buff, he always has some interesting bottles on offer!

. . . . .

D to D Café
457 King Geoges Rd
Beverly Hills  NSW 2209
Tel: (02) 9580 3328

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