Festive Season Food Diary

I'm always a bit bemused about the Christmas/Festive Season hysteria. And yes, it really is hysteria. Why people blindly buy in to it and put themselves through the ringer about this time of the year I just don't know. In our household we take a very laid back approach to the whole thing. For us, it's less about parting with large amounts of cash to buy "stuff" most people don't want, or putting pressure on yourself to cook what all the glossy mags or smug TV chefs tell you that you should be cooking - and more about having much valued time off work and enjoying each other's company. Usually we bypass the traditional Christmas palaver altogether, by heading off on our own somewhere quiet, and staying there till new year. The downside to this of course is that it tends to be expensive staying anywhere in December, and as we are currently in saving money mode, (to buy our longed for plot of nature in Tasmania) we stayed home this time around.

Instead, we headed up to the NSW Central Coast to enjoy a laid back Christmas Day with my in laws, Kate and Peter. I volunteered to cook the four of us Christmas lunch, and thought that I would take a "mystery box" approach to the cooking, bringing with us a selection of seasonal ingredients that I liked, and then making up a menu pretty much on the day. Until Christmas morning I wasn't 100% sure what I was cooking - I had a few ideas in my head - but I just ended up cooking according to the ingredients and my mood. The exception to this was the dessert, which I did make the day ahead. Having one of the courses already sorted made the rest quite easy. Only cooking for four people also helped a lot too of course, and I could focus on quality over quantity.

Kate had requested a fairly light menu, so I thought that seafood and a fruit based dessert were obvious choices. We have recently returned from Western Australia, and thanks to my Mum's boyfriend John, had been given some beautiful W.A Rock Lobsters that he had caught for us. These became the basis of the main course. We grabbed some fresh local prawns on Christmas eve from the local fish lady at Ettalong Beach, and along with an esky full of bits and pieces - and what was growing in Kate's garden, created our lunch menu.

First up was a bit of a take on the Prawn Cocktail, but with a salsa of home grown tomatoes, avocado, lime, chilli and herbs from the garden. As I was preparing this, I noticed a leftover bread roll from lunch the day before in the bread basket. I turned this into crispy, oven baked parmesan toast to serve on the side. It was tasty and gave a nice crunchy textural element to the entrée. I served the cocktails in insulated coffee glasses that I found in the cupboard. Great to keep the cocktails nice and cold.

Prawn Cocktail with Avocado Salsa

and Crispy Parmesan Toasts

Main course was based around that gorgeous W.A lobster. I didn't want to mess with it too much, so just sautéed it gently with a little butter, a touch of olive oil, salt, pepper and a small squeeze of lemon. I served this with grilled asparagus, a super velvety cauliflower puree spiked with a little cream, and Red Oak and Sorrel micro herbs. I drizzled the pan juices over the lobster just before serving. It was really delicious and a big hit with the family.

Sauteed W.A Lobster

with Cauliflower Puree, Asparagus and Micro Herbs

My do ahead dessert was based on mangoes and passionfruit, which are great at the moment. I made a passionfruit and mango mousse and layered it in a big bowl, with fresh mango and Savoiardi sponge fingers soaked in Limoncello (from New Zealand, that I had picked up at the Sydney Food and Wine Show last year.) I served the dessert with some fresh cherries and raspberries for a bit of a festive touch.

Mango and Passionfruit Mousse

with Italian Sponge and Limoncello

 

 

So that was Christmas day. Two days later, we ended up having what looked a lot like a traditional Christmas dinner when I decided to cook some free range, organic turkey breast that we had bought from our favourite meat supplier, Feather and Bone. I stuffed the turkey breast with some left over zucchini and parmesan stuffing I had in the freezer (I always do a big batch of stuffing when I make it and freeze some. Really worth doing, and it freezes very well) Served it with all the trimmings - vegetables, cauliflower and broccoli gratin and gravy -  and also invited friends over to share it with us. It was really delicious and made us all ponder why we don't eat turkey more often.

 

 Stuffed Turkey Breast

with all the trimmings

 

 

Andrew has been asking me for what feels like forever (years!) to a make pavlova, so I thought I would finally give it a try. I was a bit unsure about it, so consulted Stephanie Alexander's "The Cook's Companion" (aka "The Bible") to find out what to do. I was really thrilled with the result - crispy on the outside, marshmallow on the inside, just as it should be. Stephanie rules. I topped the pavlova with a vanilla cream, and more mangoes and passionfruit.

 

Stephanie Alexander's Classic Pavlova

Only down side to my pavlova success is that now I think I am going to have to add it to the regular cooking repertoire. Andrew loved it. I have an idea to do one with a salted caramel and fresh fig topping at some stage.

Ready to eat - Summer Pavlova

Now, I really hate wasting food, and I am the queen of recycling ingredients and turning leftovers into another meal. After our turkey dinner, we had turkey and some of the cauliflower and broccoli gratin left, so I turned it into brunch the next day - made into fritters with the addition of sweet corn and herbs from the garden. Served with a quick tomato salsa and a spoon full of light sour cream, it made a lovely tasty summer dish.

Turkey and Corn Fritters

with Tomato Salsa

So that is what I have been cooking and eating over the festive season. There is a whole lot of really wonderful produce in season at the moment, and I would encourage you all to enjoy it while you can. The season will be over before you know it. My favourites are stone fruit, berries, cherries, mangoes and fresh pineapple - and seafood of course.

New Year's Eve is only a few days away, and we have a tradition of ringing in the new year by having dinner at Restaurant Atelier, our favourite local eatery and an exceptional place to dine. This year will be a little sad as the evening of 31 December will be their last service ever, after over a decade of consistently serving magnificent food and wine. This restaurant is very special to us, as they have shared in so many celebrations and great meals - we even visited on the night before we were married. We will be sitting at our favourite table on New Year's Eve and raising a toast to Chef Darren Templeman and his wife, Maitre d' and Sommelier extraordinaire Bernadette in gratitude for the amazing meals and evenings we have spent at Atelier. They will be sorely missed. Word is, they may be heading south to Melbourne. Lucky Melbourne!

I wish all of my Gourmet Goddess readers a very happy, healthy and delicious 2014. May it bring you all of the good things.

Me, enjoying a swim in the rain on Christmas Day,

 while everyone else was having a nap

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A Christmas Choc-Berry Bonanaza!

Every year, my work colleagues and I get together for a big Christmas morning tea. A lot of us really enjoy cooking, so people tend to bake up a storm with all sorts of tasty delights to share (and we always over cater, so we inevitably end up inviting everyone in the building to come down and join us so nothing goes to waste) Usually I make something savoury - a vegetable tart, savoury muffins, little meatballs and dipping sauce - stuff like that.

This year I looked in the fridge and realised I had lots of beautiful seasonal fruit and thought I would base my dish around that and do something sweet. I also wanted something that looked a bit festive, so my first thought was a traditional trifle, made with jelly and custard - just like we always seemed to have at Christmas when I was a kid. Then I was thinking that a rich berry mousse might be nice. In the end I came up with my version of a trifle that merged both ideas - a white chocolate and berry mousse trifle. I was really happy with how it turned it, and it tasted really delicious. It is pretty rich, and you would serve smallish portions, so you could feed quite a big group of people with a trifle the size of mine - not that big.

Although it was really easy to put together, ideally you need to start the recipe a day ahead. This means that everything can set properly. This is important, as the mousse is not one of those super firm style mixtures. It does not contain gelatin, so although the mousse does firm up enough to hold together nicely, it has a fairly soft texture that requires chilling overnight.

So, what did I do? First, I used a couple of packets of good old fashioned Aeroplane Port Wine Jelly and made it according to the instructions. I poured this into a trifle dish and added a handful of berries over the bottom. Then, I let the jelly set until firm.

Next, I made up a big batch of white chocolate mousse. (You will find the recipe below) When it was done, I divided the mixture in half, and to one of the bowls of mixture I added just under a cup of fresh, pureed raspberries. You could probably use frozen ones, but I would drain them really well before pureeing them, as all of the extra moisture may cause issues with the mousse setting. The next step was to cut 2 pieces of sponge cake to the size of the trifle bowl, and gently push it down onto the jelly layer, brushing it with some strawberry liqueur when I was finished.

After the first sponge layer was in place, I poured the raspberry mousse into the bowl - then the second layer of sponge, a brush with the liqueur again, and then the plain white chocolate mousse over that. The trifle then went in to the fridge overnight to set, covered in plastic wrap. I decorated the trifle just prior to serving with fresh strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries.

 White Chocolate and Berry Mousse Trifle

 

This would be a really nice do-ahead Christmas dessert - either as a large dish, or in small individual serves. I was thinking of lots of summery variations to this - passionfruit and mango, coconut and lime, peach and raspberry. Alternatively, you could ditch the fruit focus and make it with dark chocolate, kirsch liqueur and cherries, to make a sort of black forest trifle. All of that would be easy to adapt.

Here is my basic white chocolate mousse recipe to get you started. You could easily serve it as a mousse on it's own - or do what I did and make it the basis for another dessert.

White Chocolate Mousse

You will need: 350g White Chocolate, 1/3 cup milk, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (the good stuff - not the faux "essence"), 3 large eggs separated, 375ml Cream.

Method: Melt the chocolate, milk and vanilla in a double boiler (or do what I do and use a small metal mixing bowl sitting over a pan of boiling water. Make sure the water isn't touching the bowl, or it will be too hot and the mixture may go too far and harden) Allow the chocolate mixture to cool for about 10-15 minutes.

While the chocolate is cooling, whip the cream until firm. Set aside.

Add the egg yolks to the chocolate mixture and whisk together well - the warmth of the mixture will gently cook the eggs to form a sort of custard like consistency.

Take a very clean and dry metal bowl and beat the egg whites until firm. Remember that egg whites will not firm up when beaten if there is even a tiny amount of oil/butter or other fat in the bowl - even some residue in a plastic bowl will ruin them - which is why we never whip our egg whites in plastic. It doesn't hurt to be a bit OCD with your metal bowl either and give it a couple of good washes to make sure it is super clean.

Now fold the cream and the chocolate mixture together until combined.

Next, gently fold through the egg whites through the cream/chocolate mixture. Spoon into dessert cups or use as part of a trifle or gateaux like I did.

Variations: You could of course use dark chocolate or any other kind that takes your fancy for this mousse. You can also turn this in to a fruit flavoured mousse by making up the white chocolate version, but adding about a cup of fruit puree to the mixture. I used just under a cup of fresh pureed raspberries for the raspberry mousse in my trifle. Mango or passionfruit would be a lovely alternative.

This recipe serves 6 people as individual servings. Double the recipe if you are using the mousse for a trifle or dessert like mine, and you want a couple of layers.

 

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Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas everyone! I've just woken up from the mandatory post Christmas lunch nap (2 hours is still just a nap, right?!) and thought I would get in early with posting the pics and the menu from our lunch today. With this being the first Christmas that I have had with Andrew and my lovely inlaws Kate and Peter, I wanted to do something special and a little luxurious. Degustation was the obvious choice, offering variety and the chance to use a great selection of the wonderful seasonal produce availabe right now. So, here is my Christmas menu for 2010....

The Christmas table -

and my first hand at flower arranging!

No celebration is complete without bubbles, so we started with a bottle of Moet & Chandon Champagne, served with a starter of Pacific Oysters with a blood plum and chive dressing.

Next was handmade Prawn and Scallop Ravioli which I served with sauteed asparagus and a butter sauce. To make it something super luxurious, I topped the dish with a sprinkling of Tetsuya Wakuda's truffle salt - you can't get more luxurious than flecks of gorgeous aromatic Italian truffle to take a dish to another level.

The third dish was a salad of pan seared quail breast which I had marinated for 24hrs in olive oil, lemon verbena from our garden, bay leaf, garlic and juniper berries. The quail was cooked quickly over a high heat to create a dark crust and was served with baby spinach, ruby grapefruit and a citrus dressing.

Course number four was twice cooked pork belly with a decadent creamy cauliflower and potato puree which I flavoured with parmesan and a sinful amount of butter and a splash of cream. Instead of a traditional gravy, I made a salsa verde of fresh herbs, adding plently of capers, lemon and a touch of anchovy. The pork went through two cooking processes - the first the day before serving - when it was poached in a broth which included fennel seeds, lots of onions, parsley, garlic, black and white peppercorns, lemon rind and lemon thyme. After poaching, I allowed the pork belly to drain and dry out a little, before scoring the skin and putting it in the fridge ready for process two. Step two was easy - I just rubbed the skin with olive oil and plenty of salt and cooked the pork over coals (I used a coal BBQ with a lid) until it was succulent and the crackling puffy and golden. I basted the pork a few times during cooking and allowed it to rest for 10 minutes before carving it.

And for the finale? A creamy white chocolate, pistachio and morello cherry semi freddo which I served with fresh cherries and Persian fairy floss. A frozen dessert is a great option, not just because everyone loves icecream, but also for it's versatility and the bonus of being able to make it the day or even a week ahead. It really frees you up in the kitchen and you have a sophisticated dessert in minutes - no last minute fussing. I chose the sour morello variety of cherries for this dessert, to balance the rich sweetness of the white chocolate. Serving the semi freddo with fresh cherries and delectable Persian fairy floss added new textures and flavours to make this dessert something out of the ordinary.

We all really loved our first Christmas together and I was happy with how the menu panned out - you will recall that I was having trouble settling on what to cook right up until a day or so ago! To drink, we enjoyed a few of bottles of Moet & Chandon champagne and Italian sparkling mineral water. With people having to drive home, wine matching was out of the question - but if you are going to have a celebratory drink, why not make it French fizz? After all, it's bloody Christmas!


And look what I got!!

Both volumes of Julia Child's iconic culinary classic - "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". I think I see more French dishes in my future! The books are chock full of fantastic French recipes that take me back to earlier in the year when I had the privilage of visiting Paris, attending cooking class in Montmarte and sampling the delights of French cuisine. Right now, I'm planning on doing a bit of holiday reading with Julia!

Well, that was Christmas 2010 - hope that yours was fabulous and that it involved plenty of laughter and tasty morsels. Now I'm off to fossick around for leftovers. I'm sure there is more of that pork belly in the fridge somewhere....... Bon appetit!

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Christmas Eve in the Gourmet Goddess Kitchen

Well, Christmas Eve is here and I have finally settled on the Christmas menu! Don't know why, but I found it hard to choose what to make this year as I had lots of ideas, but it was a matter of working out what would work together - always the challenge in putting together any menu. I never do the traditional turkey/ham/pudding thing - although I love both, I prefer to eat these kinds of dishes in Winter, not the Southern Hemisphere Summer. So, Christmas lunch this year will be a 5 course degustation style affair with a bit of an Italian vibe to it, featuring seafood, pork belly and quail - along with plenty of seasonal fruit and vegetables and the luxurious addition of Tetsuya's truffle salt (which contains beautiful Italian truffles) served with one of the dishes. I will be posting the full menu with pics in the coming days.

I like to have most of the preparation done well ahead so that I can relax on the day, so I will make the dessert this morning and prepare as much as I can ready for tomorrow. First task this morning though, will be a visit to the grocer and fishmonger to pick up the fresh produce I need (all the non-perishable stuff was purchased last week - much easier than doing a big shop on Christmas Eve) Because I shop locally and avoid anything that even looks like a large shopping centre, I find that I avoid the crowds and a lot of the Christmas agro that seems to be rife in the shopping malls. I figure that this time of the year is meant to be enjoyable - why torture yourself? I do realise that I am very blessed with a fantastic local shopping strip, which gives me the choice of saying no to Westfield and Co. Which I do - frequently!

Well, I had better get organised and grab my shopping bag so I can start preparations. To all of my readers I hope that you have a wonderful day tomorrow, no matter where you are or how you choose to spend it. Most of all, I hope you get to eat something delicious!! Thank you for sharing my food adventures with me this year and all of your fantastic feedback. It has been an absolute pleasure.

Big Christmas Love
From the Gourmet Goddess
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Gourmet Goddess Christmas

This year I hosted Christmas lunch for the first time in well over a decade and I really enjoyed putting together the menu. There were seven of us, including two vegetarians and I decided to not do the traditional thing (frankly, I would much rather eat roasted turkey, ham and pudding in winter than at the height of an Australian summer).  I also dumped the idea of a formal setting - I wanted the day to feel relaxed, so I served the starters and desserts in the living room, where everyone could just help themselves. I set up the main courses as a buffet in the dining room and we just moved there when we were ready. The menu has a distinct slant towards vegetarian dishes and I think this worked on two levels - one, that the vegos were well catered for and two, that the meal was a lot lighter than a traditional Christmas menu, so you didn't feel hideous and over fed afterwards. As my guests arrived they were served a cocktail based on the Lychee Blush (see recipe posted on 4 December)

The Christmas Menu

Starters

Potato pancakes with hollandaise and asparagus

Prawns with chive and garlic aoli

Shitake and swiss brown mushroom pies

Turkey, cranberry and mustard pies

Roasted tomato and red pepper gazpacho
with lemon and mint gelato

Mains

Boned, roasted free range chicken
with macadamia and lemon stuffing

Twice cooked spinach and leek roulade
with cauilflower and parmesan cream

Sumac roasted pumpkin salad
with spiced almonds and pomegranate

Salsa Verde

Roasted kipfler potatoes with fennel and red onion

Sauteed asparagus with garlic butter

Desserts

Balsamic strawberries with basil icecream

White chocolate, limoncello and passionfruit petit fours

Choc dipped strawberries with preserved orange rind

 I was very lucky to receive some beautiful food related gifts this year, which I thought I would share with you. Michael and I both received gift certificates for Aria Restaurant - I'm very excited about sitting in that beautiful dining room overlooking the Opera House and partaking of Matt Moran's gorgeous menu!  http://www.ariarestaurant.com/default.asp?action=article&ID=21609

I also scored the iconic Spanish cookbook by Simone & Ines Ortega - "1080 Recipes". This huge tome was translated into english and has been considered the authority on spanish home cooking for over 40 years. (I think of it as the equivalent to Australia's "Cooks Companion" by the brilliant Stephanie Alexander) I spent some of yesterday flicking through it and there are just so many fantastic recipes. I have already decided that my next dinner party is going to have a Spanish theme.

Now, some may think that I might be a little mad, getting excited about receiving three lumps of salt for Christmas. But I did, and I am!! "Diamond Salt" is pure, fossilised sea salt, formed over 260 million years ago. It looks like chunks of rose quartz and needs to be grated into food. (If you have it as a table salt, you provide a small grater, so that guests can grate their own) The flavour is sublime. My lovely friend Mark brought this back from France for me and it is a very welcome adittion to the Gourmet Goddess kitchen.

Foodie Gifts

I hope all of you got spend Christmas day the way you wanted to and that you got to share some delicious food with good company like I did. And yes, I'm keen to host Christmas lunch again next year :)

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Gourmet Goddess goes festive!

I cook a lot, but baking has never really been my thing - possibly something to do with that fact that I would rather have cheese and olives than a piece of cake or a biscuit any day. Another factor could be my aversion to sticking to a recipe and measuring ingredients properly, something you need the discipline to do if you are a baker or pastrychef. I'm not very good at taking instructions :) But tonight I thought - what the hell! I felt like hitting the kitchen and doing something a bit festive (unusual for me, as I tend to give the whole Christmas thing a miss most of the time) I cranked up Duran Duran's Greatest Hits - I always cook better with Simon Le Bon -  donned the apron, headed to the kitchen and whipped up these very Christmassy biscuits, full of white chocolate, beautiful green pistachio nuts and garnet red cranberries.

These would be ideal as Christmas gifts - bake a batch, tizz them up with cellophane or some pretty boxes, tags and ribbons and voila! Instant gift. These biscuits will last for about a week in an airtight container (if you don't scoff them all before then) My recipe will make about 40 small biscuits.

The little pink baking cups in the picture are by Paper Eskimo, who specialise is quirky kids party products. You can actually bake cupcakes or muffins right in them and they keep their colour. I loved these when I saw them and bought them in green too, they cost around $5.00 for a pack of twenty.  I found them at Octopus gift store on King Street in Newtown, NSW. To find your nearest stockists and to check out other Paper Eskimo products go to their website :  http://papereskimo.com/theretailers.php

White Chocolate, Cranberry and Pistachio Biscuits

You will need: 250g butter (at room temperature), 1 tsp vanilla essence, 2 cups plain flour, 1/2 cup dried cranberries (sometimes called craisins), 200g white chocolate chopped quite finely, 2 tablespoons shelled, chopped and unsalted pistachios, 3/4 cup icing mixture.

Method: Preheat the oven to about 160C. Line baking trays with non stick paper.

Cream together the butter, icing sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer until it turns pale and is very creamy. Stir in the flour, half of the chocolate, pistachios and cranberries. Mix until the dough comes together. If the dough is very sticky, or the weather is hot, put the mixture in the fridge to firm up a little for 20-30 mins.

Roll the dough into small balls the size of a walnut and place about 3cm apart on the baking tray. Flatten slighty with a fork.

Bake for 15-18 mins until lightly golden. Allow to cool on the trays for a few mintues before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

When your biscuits are cool, melt the remaining white chocolate and drizzle over the top. Allow to firm up before storing them in an airtight container.


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