So it was a very busy month in March. First, let me explain the photo above.

Our good friend Anne-Marie had a birthday party (one of the important ones) and so we went to Melbourne to attend. As you may be able to work out from the photo- a 70's theme was declared; I grew a beard and man-scaped down to the Lemmy seen above, Zoe went onto TradeMe and found the kaftan for $10. All set.

And of course visiting Melbourne means visiting other friends as well - and eating. Of Course.

So we arrived on the Wednesday afternoon and headed to the Melbourne offices, then out around the corner to a little place called Pekopeko (181 Wells St, Southbank) where Zoe had got takeaway from on a couple of occasions. They were full but would hold a table for us in 20 minutes. No problem, after a flight, shuttle and sitting in the office a brisk walk would be good. So we wandered for the 20 minutes picking up a Yalumba Viogner at the local IGA on the way.

Seated and menus in hand, I was spoilt for choice, a very large list of options all looking great. A quick check with the waitress and she suggested a 2nd option to my choice as that one was crisp fried in a flour batter, and we started with Gyoza. Large and yummy with a good chilli sauce to dip into.

My box meal of honey chicken came as below (sorry photo taken on the IPhone) with a side of steamed broccoli in a peanut / chilli sauce (I was told the chef there created this and won't share the recipe) steamed rice and a nice sized chunk of tofu, beautifully cooked chicken pieces and I wiped the compartments clean and attacked Zoe's meal as well.

Finished off with the green tea icecream on a black rice pudding

Day two we met friends at St Ali - http://stali.com.au/outpost.php a super cool cafe down a side alleyway, one of those ones you find in Melbourne with the cobblestones and interesting little workshops etc. It was close to lunchtime so I went with the dish that seems to have become a staple of the Melbourne cafe scene, steak with a green salad or variants of that.

The St Ali version is decent sized sirloin, cut slightly thinner than standard served with a mixed greens salad with a mustard dressing. Perfect protein boost for midday along with a couple of long blacks and got to meet Julie and mark's new son, Wilbur while their first climbed under the roller door into the street and got chased by his aunt.

Both Julie and Angela enthused about a restaurant they thought may be close to where we were staying, called Los Latinos which serves a mix of South American dishes, a mix of Mexican, Chilean, Salvadorian, and Costa Rica.

Later that day when I went down that street there it was, barely 500m from our friends house and perfect for dinner that night. http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/restaurants-and-bars/los-latinos-20101004-163lr.html This place is amazing, tucked into a slightly dingy strip of shops of the side of a busy street is a bright and shiny and little cafe that when we arrived was almost full with a large very obviously South American family all the way from grand parents down the very latest addition to the family.

A table for two though - no problem and in minutes after a quick consultation with the waitress we'd ordered the nachos as a starter and I'd ordered the Pupusas as my main; these are hot round discs made from maize flour, stuffed with deep-fried pork or refried beans or two cheeses (or a combination of all three fillings) and cooked on a hotplate.

They're served with pickled cabbage (curtido) and tomato salsa and are mighty tasty. I asked for and got a mixed plate of four - that for $10 and was more than enough though I made sure I finished the plate. Zoe had the tacos which she told me were very good indeed!

Lunch the next day was with Julie and Angela and their folks - refugees from Christchurch who had taken up the Air NZ chance to get away and also visit the new baby. The Cafe up the road - Le Chien is their local and we wandered up there for lunch. Again the steak option was there and this time with a side of a potato and beetroot dauphinoise, something I'd not considered before. I'll have to take a shot at this at some stage.
 
Then after a quick bite to eat we headed to the big party! I'll deal with that in a separate post.
 

Saturday we visited more friends, Mark and Lynne adopted three Indian children late last year, two sisters and a brother so we went and had lunch and a wine or two there, then went to AAMI stadium to watch the Melbourne Storm thrash the Titans.

The kids, are fabulous with the youngest (only 4 and she re-programmed my IPhone for me) likely to rule the world at some stage.

 

A very late dinner at China Bar was next on the list. http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/71/760455/restaurant/Victoria/CBD/China-Bar-Melbourne

 

Again Zoe was the instigator, this place is one of those Melbourne eateries where the basics are done well, very well. A rapid fire menu, even faster service and bare floors, formica tables etc. and lots of options. Braised brisket with rice arrived inside of 5 minutes of me ordering, obviously simmering away in a huge pan out back this was moist, spicy, sweet and perfect, followed it up with the seafood fried kueh tiaw with extra chilli sauce while others around me had all sorts of mixed dishes along with custard buns to finish.

 

After all of that it was back onto a plane early the next morning and back to Wellington - a great mini break away, enough new foods to spark up the cooking juices and get me going again, so here's to travel and friends, the best excuse I've found to eat a lot in a very short time frame.

 

cheers all.

Heat in the backyard

In the past two years I've been lucky enough to travel to a couple of places where heat is an integral part of the cuisines on show, Bangkok in 2010 and Delhi-Agra-Jaipur-Mumbai in 2009.

Each country and indeed each region within each country weaves this into their dishes in differing ways, but in most cases the humble chile plays a main part. So this year in a visit to the garden centre I grabbed a few plants and some planter bags and got growing.

this one's a Thai version, Thai Dragon;

Cayenne, Jalapeno and Sweet Banana peppers round out the mix. The Jalapeno are back left, not showing much in the way of chiles as yet.

Thai Dragon, top in the blue bowl, the Cayenne in the green one, and no prizes for guessing the Sweet Banana peppers in the red bowl. The Jalapeno seem to be slowest to come through and are still at the 'just started' point, but I've started harvesting the others.

Checking on the internet I've discovered the following about what I've grown;

Thai Dragon: Scoville units 75,000 - 100,000 meaning 'very' hot, each plant can produce up to 200 chiles in a single season

Cayenne: Scoville units 30,000 - 50,000 meaning hot enough

Jalapeno: Scoville units 2,500 - 5,000, so warmish if you believe the scale and the

Sweet Banana: Scoville units negligible so downright cool

and here's a run down on the Scolville units as advised online

Scoville Units

15,000,000 Pure Capsaicin
5,300,000 Police-Grade Pepper Spray
2,000,000 Common Pepper Spray
855,000 Naga Jolokia
580,000 Red Savina™ Habanero
350,000 Habanero Pepper
325,000 Scotch Bonnet Pepper
200,000 Jamaican Hot Pepper
100,000 Thai Pepper
50,000 Cayenne Pepper
30,000 Manzano Pepper
23,000 Serrano Pepper
10,000 Chipotle Pepper
8,000 Jalapeno Pepper
5,000 Tabasco™ Sauce
2,500 Rocotilla Pepper
2,000 Ancho Pepper
2,000 Poblano Pepper
1,000 Coronado Pepper
500 Pepperoncini Pepper
500 Pimento
0 Sweet Bell Pepper

So based on this it now looks like I'll have a whole heap of very hot chiles available to me to use, looks like some trawling through the internet is ahead of me, any ideas, I'll happily take them.

cheers all

Missed my first blog of the year? the January one, yes I did miss writing it......

So I sat down in late December 2010 and said that one of my goals for 2011 was to be more efficient at adding new posts to this blog, at least one per month I comitted to, and here it is the 21st of February and I'm just starting the January post. How did that much time go by?

Well for starters, since we got back from Miami it's been a blur, Zoe jetted off almost straight away for her final training and then she was signed off by Cathy and so is now leading Advanced Courses, the Communication Course and is still the Operations Manager, which means that last weekend was the one she was home for out of the seven weekend prior to and following (three each side)

And last weekend we also had friends in from Brisbane (ex-Wellingtonians) so the foodie tour went into full swing. Apparently Brisbane is a bit of a foodie wasteland which seems strange to me but if anyone was going to find good food it would be Lydia. And she reports back that Yum Ch is poor there, the markets and stores well short of the Moore Wilson and open weekend markets we have.

So anyway, having established my reason why not and having bored you with "I'm so busy" heres an update.

While Zoe travels the kids and I often indulge in sticky chicken wings, not really a recipe, much more a mindset. (Zoe's not keen on this option as she doesn't like 'sweet sauces on meat')

It's always fairly simple, a tray or more of nibbles, wings or even small drumsticks marinated in a combination of sauces, herbs, spices and flavours (normally in a snaplock bag as that allows me to roll the chicken around and get everything coated completely) for several hours and then baked slowly in a medium heat oven or on the barbeque

(useful hint here - use a tinfoil baking dish, they are cheap and easy to use and you can just throw them away at the end)

The latest lot were a tray of nibbles ($15 the tray at AE Prestons in town), the marinade included, sokey BBQ sauce, a Jamaican chicken and honey baste), crushed garlic - about a tablespoon, Hoisin sauce (makes it quite sticky) a chilli sauce from the back of the fridge I re-found recently, lots of freshly ground black pepper and some Sambal Olek to punch it all up a bit.

Combine all of that (and the additions are endless, soy, oyster sauce, garlic and black bean, Char Siu, worcestershire, mustard - either as a powder or a made variety etc etc) with about 1/4 cup oil to prevent the chicken to stick to the pan too much and then pour the marinade over the chicken in the bag.

A couple of hours later, I poured all this into the big pan and placed in the oven, pre-heated to 180. Gave it all about 30 minutes, then mixed it through, getting the nibbles coated again.

Another 30 minutes and I then poured off the extra fat/oil that's released and lowered the heat to about 100 degrees and gave it all another 30 minutes.

One final mix and then let the chicken 'rest' in the turned off oven for 15 minutes and served up with with a simple green salad Bryn and I had dinner and leftovers for the next day.


As I've said above, the options are endless and I have never writen down a recipe for this as I dont always have the same sauces or herbs etc each time I make - but here are my basic rules;
1 - make sure there's a base sauce, normally a tomato or steak/bbq style
2 - some level of sweet sauce, Asian preferably, something that will add the 'sticky'
3 - something spicy, Rocket sauce, a chilli paste, this will blend down unless you overdo it, but should be a lingering sense on the mouth
4 - spices, garlic, ginger, pepper etc
5 - let it all sit blended then add to the chicken and let the mix sit for as long as you can
6 - the resting in the oven at the end allows the final glaze thicken slightly

and finally - eat with your fingers and have a wet napkin at hand, you should need it if it's all worked out well

cheers



Miami - a fleeting vist, part 1

Hi all, writing this sitting in the JW Marriot hotel, it's the location for the Landmark Forum Leader Forward and I'm here because my darling Zoe is to be accepted as a Landmark Forum Leader Candidate during the 3 1/2 days we are here. that's right we are here for three and a half days only but it's the most important place to be.

Well, it takes some time to get from Wellington to Miami, 1 hours flight to Auckland, then wait 4 hours for the flight to Los Angeles, that's 12 hours and 30 minutes, then wait 3 hours (though most of that is the security process on arrival) then another 4 hours and 50 minutes to Miami.

Total elapsed time - just over 24 hours and we left Wellington at 9.15am the 26th and arrived Miami at 5pm the 26th, no wonder the brains slower than is usual.

Apart from the lack of a requested GF meal on the Auck - LA leg all went very well, even managed some sleep on the flights. And we faired better than those on the LA flight who had plans to fly onwards to New York, an hour out of LA they got told that they'd be set up in LA hotels for at least two days as NY was under blizzard conditions and all airports closed.

That was the 26th and today (28th) JFK is just beginning to accept inbound flights. Watching the news here the attitude is much the same as what I've seen from the UK news services "how could this happen?" "why aren't we better prepared?" etc as roads close, airports get shut down and so on.

Seems like when an unusual occurrence happens everyone expects 'someone' to fix it for them without specifying exactly who that would be. I'm sure that northern US states experience snowfall most years, that it's this much this early may be unusual but really?

Weather worldwide is different than it's been recently, yes, that's a given, but if you read back these conditions are within normal parameters, maybe the global weather is resetting itself somewhat, getting back to where it was and we've just had it easy for the last while?

Whatever, it would be nice if some of the snow made it's way south for the 2011 winter season in NZ, we have season passes for the mountain and want to get as much time in there as possible.

Miami, so far, what I've seen is big buildings, and a Mall. Shopping here is a pastime and at this time of year, it's sales season. The Dolphin Mall has 250+ stores and all are at 50% sales or more. I've benefited by two Ralph Lauren shirts, another two from Kenneth Cole and Bryn has new size 15 FootJoy golf shoes. Those alone saved me enough to cover the costs on the shirts as the pair in NZ he wanted were over $200, these $53US ($70NZ)

So far, spent approx. $166NZ - $125US so not bad going.

Today's I'm hanging out with David, he's married to Jane, the other NZ Landmark Forum Leader, he's got a car so we are going to head to the Cuban quarter, somewhere I probably wouldn't get to otherwise and there's a promise of Cuban food (Versailles restaurant) which will be great. So far the foods been way better than expected.

The lamb chops (French cutlets x 8) and chips, in the bar last night cost $16, and when I mentioned I'm a kiwi, the chap taking my order immediately said, you'll want them rare then!

Scary place for food though was the mall, a huge food court, all selling immense portions of fried stuff, either that or claiming they sold the biggest, the cheesiest, the beefiest, the bestest etc. etc.

I'll throw up some photos later on, haven't really had the camera out so far, just a few shots on the phone so far, cheers

Miami, that's right, Miami

Boxing Day (26th Dec) morning 9.15am, Zoe and I will be lifting off the tarmac at Wellington Airport headed to Auckland, from there the next step is Los Angeles and then onto Miami.

Zoe's in sessions each of the 3 1/2 days we are there while I get to spend tourist time and shop and so on.

So I'm hoping to be able to take heaps of photos, taste some decent food and ride an airboat in the Everglades!.

So if you're interested, swing by over the break and I'll share what I see, taste and experience on the trip, and if you're in Wellington on the late afternoon / evening of the 1st of January 2011, we'll in back and barbecuing in the backyard - all welcome.

cheers

Caramelised Lemon Rice Pudding

I know, I know, I know, for some of you, Rice Pudding brings back some old sad and scary memories of childhood and perhaps this may be a post that you want to skip straight past and move onto something else.

But this may be an option to change your life because this option may just bring your taste buds back into line with those of us who enjoy and love this dish.

So be brave - here goes, step into the future because this ties in several variances that may just do it for you.

Caramelised Lemon Rice Pudding (with options)
and feel free to run wild, I used Tangeloes as the citrus option recently (the photos below) and am wanting to have a crack at grapefruit soon.

200g short grain rice (arborio works really well as an option)
600ml each full cream milk & thickened plain cream
Zest of 2 lemons or 3 oranges (avoid the pith - bitter)
Juice of 2-3 lemons or oranges (make sure you sieve - no pips)
1 ½ cups caster or white sugar (I often use vanilla sugar if I have on hand - see below)
Pinch salt

2 tablespoons icing sugar mixed with 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon for dusting

Preheat oven to 150c.

Put all ingredients into an ovenproof dish with a tight fitting lid, mixing the cream, juice, zest and sugar well through.

As you can see I've used a Le Crueset casserole dish, nice and deep and able to go from the oven to the table.........

Let the mixture sit for 10-15 minutes to allow the ingredients to combine fully. The rice will glug up a touch - just stir and it'll be fine.

Mix well and place in the oven, bake for two hours at about 180. I usually check it every 30 minutes or so, stirring occasionally but leave undisturbed for the final 30 minutes.

The mix will occasionally look as if the liquid has curdled but this is part of the process, simply mix well again and replace in the oven.

It's really important that the mixture thickens as the pudding cooks.

Remove from the oven, sprinkle with the lemon or orange juice and serve with scoops of ice cream along with the icing sugar and cinnamon.

 

 

Serves 6-8

Variation – spoon the rice pudding mix into individual ramekins and sprinkle with soft brown or muscovado sugar, either run under a hot grill to brulee or use a blowtorch to do the same.

This pudding may well remove the stigma rice pudding carries with some - enjoy!

Wine (well food) and roses

When we rebuilt (and by that I mean paid othesr to do it) our front wall we lost the plants and trees that had been planted over the years and the most missed was an old Daphne bush in that far right corner.

Despite all sorts of entreaties to the builders, their subbies didn't get the request and it along with an olive tree gifted to us few years earlier they all finished up bare rooted and dieing on the back lawn.

So once the wall was back in place and the soil back filled we had a virgin garden to re-plant. Year one, the veges went in, leeks, cabbages, lettuce and spinach in the main. But once that was done, what next?

Zoe said - white roses please, so here we go.  And job one, prepare the ground, and lay out the planting plan.

And in they go, and into my fingers go the thorns (it takes me two weeks to get one of them out of my finger) damn things. Anyway, as I go I also plant out two varieties of strawberries between the roses so as to provide Bella with berries when she comes over to visit.

And to make sure all grows nicely the irrigation system is being installed around the roses and to cover the berries as well.

As of today - how do they look, well pretty good so far (and I ate the first berries today - Chandler variety)

and the whites are just about there



and room in the far corner for the standard yellow that's been pining away in the container in the backyard - root bound and no matter how much water we pumped into it, always looking dry, with a little love and irrigation hopefully this will also kick back into bloom.

Also added two Guatemalan Guava plants between the roses, according to the wording on the plants they have lots of yummy little berries that are good to eat straight from the plant or even better as jam or as a compote, can't wait.

cheers all