Frostfest in Orange

Pre-Note:

On the day that I finished this entry, our darling dog Georgie suddenly died on 8 August 2009. She was only 9 years old. It has taken me a while to come back to this blog, as it brought back memories of that wonderful and awful last holiday day in Orange.

This is for you, my baby.

After missing out on Orange Food Week in April, I was determined that we were not going to miss out on the inaugural winter food festival, Frostfest.

Orange is a foodie's dream region that's 3.5 hours drivewest of Sydney - a lovely drive across the Blue Mountains and rolling pastures and green, green hills. It's a region well known for its cool climate wines (we've tasted beautiful sauvignon blanc and pinot noir from both Bantry Grove and Printhie wines) and fabulous produce that includes apples, cherries and hazelnuts.

We've been staying in a wonderful place called Keronga Park managed by Annie and Jim Simpson, and we and our doggies love it so much we're planning to come back very soon and hope to have many more visits in the future. The fact that they have a wood fired oven on the property is a huge drawcard (and yes, I did go a bit crazy cooking in the thing), but it's also the fact that the cottage is comfy, cosy and gorgeous set among their hazelnut and cherry orchards. Annie and I stayed up late last night plotting a 100 Mile Feast fundraiser potentially in February next year, so watch this space for more information as the planning gets underway.

We've been in Orange for a week, and only this morning did we actually get some frost on the ground. Still no snow - well, it kinda snowed for 2 minutes yesterday afternoon amidst a winter downpour but the hubby says it doesn't count - but I haven't given up hope yet.

Quite a number of the stallholders at the North Sydney Produce Market come from Orange, and we'd been getting invitations to come and visit the source of all this good stuff.

We've been bowled over by the hospitality of Fred, Zanzie and of course Raewyn of Trunkey Creek Pork. Fred gave us a detailed tour of their processing plant where we got a real appreciation for all the hard work that goes into a such a high quality product. The massive smoker machine was a revelation (they use beech wood to get that great flavour - I would drool every time I sniffed my jumper afterwards), and the hubby and I couldn't believe how bloody expensive vacuum sealer machines were (had to keep the hubby's itching hand from trying out the machine). We also got to see how the world-famous Trunkey Creek sausages were made - Fred offered to let me have a go, but I was too chicken to try as I bet it wasn't as easy as it looked!

We saw Raewyn at the Orange Farmer's Market where she made sure we got to meet all the stallholders, and get to sample their incredible bacon and egg rolls. Of all the farmer's markets we've been to, this one felt the most local, where everyone knew everyone and bought each other's stuff. Our haul included beautiful veggies, local bread from Anna's Cuisina (we ate four loaves between the two of us in the past week!), salt-dried Manzanilla olives that amazingly don't taste briny and olive-y, and sylvanberry jam (similar to blackberry) which was fabulous on freshly baked scones.

We're off to Selkirk's* tonight for their 4-course Wagyu beef dinner with local Twin Oakes Wagyu beef and local wines to round out a fabulous food-focused week. I think I'll be crying tomorrow when we drive down the Mitchell Highway back to Sydney, but will comfort myself with the thought that we will back very soon!

*We never managed to get to Selkirks that night. And yes, we were crying on the way home, but for very different reasons, and one which we didn't think would happen so soon. I've now since heard unconfirmed reports that Selkirks is gone, so that's one famed regional restaurant we need to take off our to do list.

Menu for the Week - 23 to 29 March 2009

One of the reasons why I decided to start this blog was to keep track of the weekly dinner menus. It's been a bit of a ritual for the past few years - pretty much every Saturday morning, I lay out the latest editions of my food magazines and a selection of cookbooks, look at what's in season (or what I bought from the markets) and plan what we'll be cooking and eating over the next week. I then compile our shopping list - grocery separated from fruit and vegetables, with special sections for the butcher, bakery and deli when required.

I now have around 8 notebooks (handwritten) of weekly menus and most of our dinner/lunch party menus. People seem to find it strange that I do this, whereas I just cannot imagine NOT doing it. Imagine how long it would take to do the shopping! And I just couldn't bear the thought of visiting the shops *every* *day* to get what I need for that night's dinner. Ugh.

We aim to cook five to six times a week, with a day or two for either a take-away or eat out. Sure, there are weeks when I just can't be bothered and we end up taking away or eating out more times that we'd like, but most weeks I like to be good and use up what we've got in the fridge and pantry.

So I suppose one way to make sure I keep this blog regular is to put in our weekly menu. Yeah, some people might find this wanky or just plain weird, but what they hey - I'm really doing it for me, so there. :)

Here's what we're cooking this week:

• Pork cutlets (on bone) salt-rubbed with parsley, grape and chorizo salad with stir-fried snake beans and oyster sauce
• Fish fillets (lightly spiced) with almond basmati rice with cinnamon and green salad OR sauteed cavolo nero with pistachios
• Pecan crusted Scotch fillet steak with sauteeed nicola potatoes with garlic and mixed cherry tomato salad with purple basil mini cress
• Thai-style sweet pork with stir-fried sambal water spinach (kangkung) plus steamed long grain rice and extra Asian veggies
• Boiled lamb shanks with star anise broth with pearl barley or couscous salad
• Beetroot tagliatelle pasta with pork and fennel Italian style sausage, lemon and nutmeg with salatini salad and mixed cherry tomatoes

So 'til the next post, happy cooking and eating!

My Forays into Baking (or My Pecan Nut-Fest)

I'm really not that into baking. It's fiddly (all that measuring and weighing), it's messy (I can't believe I've used all those bowls and implements!) and I have had spectacular failures (the attempt and accompanying tantrum to make brazo de mercedes - a classic Filipino meringue and custard concoction - still gets talked about in my household).

However, for the past couple of weekends, I've been bitten by the baking bug and have produced three very different baked goods.

It started with the challenge to do an American-themed dessert for a get-together with friends last weekend. I normally cook the mains, but this time, someone (yes, I'm looking at you, Tim) decided it would be fun if we mixed it up a bit and everyone cooked what they normally didn't cook. So I got lumbered with dessert.

After a few weeks of agonising, looking through my back issues of Fine Cooking magazine and lots of Googling, I decided to go with pecan pie. It helped that one the recent episodes of SBS Food Safari had a video demonstration of a pecan pie recipe. What didn't help was the recipe text got the measurements of a couple of fundamental ingredients wrong - no way can y0u make a pastry with 10 grams of butter (it was 110 grams) and you'd end up seriously gluggy pie filling with one cup of corn flour (corn starch) which from the video looked like it was more like a tablespoon. Attempts of the Hubby to help by digging out Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food:Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking book and looking through Stephanie's Cook's Companion were appreciated but made me somewhat confused when I made my first pastry dough and got all the measurements wrong. It was so disgusting I couldn't bear to take a photo of it. I decided to trust my instincts this time and made a second dough which came out perfectly. I had buggered up shortcrust pasrty before so was very apprehensive, but breathed a sigh of relief when none of the thick pecan pie filling oozed out from the pastry. Success!

I was so buoyed by confidence that I decided to make double-chocolate brownies with pecans (I mistakenly ordered two kilos of the buggers so need to use up as much as I can!). I have made brownies before so was reasonably confident it would turn out o.k., and they did.

What wasn't o.k. was I left out the box of Dutch cocoa powder which still had around a tablespoon of powder left in it out of the kitchen bench, and we left the doggies the run of the house while we were out to dinner. Bloody Labradors! We got home to a demolished box and smears of cocoa all over the beige carpet (disturbingly looking like poo...) The Hubby was extremely upset with me, not because of the carpet but because of the possibly lethal ingestions of cocoa that the dogs may have had which of course leads to theobromine poisoning. Needless to say, the dogs are all right, although Georgie was mighty thirsty in the morning and was apparently a bit hyper in the park.

The baking bug bit again this weekend and I made a cranberry, zucchini and pecan bread to have for Sunday lunch. The photo in the March edition of delicious. magazine was so yummy looking that I had to make it. It took a lot longer to bake than the recipe said though (that darned skewer just didn't want to come out clean) - more like 1 hour 45 minutes than just an hour or so, but good things are worth waiting for. It was seriously yummy, with smearings of King Island triple cream cheese, slices of salami and ham and the leftover roast lamb we had last night with a green salad for lunch.

To bake or not to bake...I still have 1.5 kilos of pecan nuts to go so the baking forays may not be completely over yet!

The Half (House) Warming

So why a half-warming?

Because our fab friend Mike is half as old as he used to be when he first had his housewarming 15 years ago - that is, when he bought his house the first time around, then bought it again last year. Naturally, such a spesh occasion needs a spesh menu.

This was quite a fun challenge on a few fronts. It would be the second biggest group we would cook for (the biggest is 80 for my bro-in-law's 30th, which is also notable as we fed all of them on around $300. Apparently the guests still remember the oven baked beef ribs and the cheat's sushi with wasabi suprises - amazing really, considering the copious amounts of alcohol consumed that night!)

It was also the kind of party where the 35 or so people would drop in over the whole day, so we had to stagger out the food plus have a cold and hot selection for the canapes and possibly the lunch mains. Oh, and did I mention that today was one of the hottest days in Sydney, hitting the high 30s in the City and mid 40s in the west? Thank God for airconditioning! So we had to make sure the food was going to be hot and humid-friendly and still manage to be appetising.

A few lessons learned:

• The K.I.S.S. principle (keep it simple, stooopid!) applied more than ever. Take advantage of pre-made stuff - the rare roast beef on multigrain pepper crackers with beetroot and a tiny dollop of horseradish cream topped with a sprig of parsley was made completely with store-bought ingredients but looked and tasted fabulous.
  
• Big is beautiful - I was amazed how the 4-kilo ham cooked the way my Mom cooks it just disappeared, and the roasted whole sides of ocean trout with walnut and coriander salsa worked really, really well


• One (or two) unusual dishes adds a bit of "wow" factor, and gets people to try new tastes and textures - the ajo blanco in shot glasses did the trick


• A pail-ful of punch was essential on such a hot day
  
• Don't let a seeming failed dish get the better of you - the slightly fermented vodka-fed watermelon ended up in the punch, which was quite fabulous

So the next big one to cook for is a house and another two-thirds warming and an even number! Note: possibly only nerdy maths types will get this.

Food Finds at the Market

Every third Saturday morning of the month is sacred on our calendar - it's when the North Sydney Produce Market is on. I have been known to organise our holidays to make sure we don't miss the market, or that we make sure we go to the market to stock up on quality produce before we head off.

Today was pretty special, as not only was it the first market of 2009, but I went earlier than I have ever been, as the Hubby was off to do an early run and I wanted to still be able to have brekkie with him afterwards. I arrived at 7:00 a.m., just when most of the stallholders had just finished seting up. The normally bustling lanes between the stalls were quiet still, and there was a really lovely camaraderie as the stallholders helped each other put up signs and exchange Christmas holiday stories over steaming cups of coffee. Naturally, the coffee stands were among the first to be set up.

So after getting my own cup of coffee from Whitham's, I proceeded to shop and chat with all the stallholders (good thing I didn't have the Hubby getting impatient by my side!) and found some real gems amongst the beautiful produce that was around.

First stop (as always to make sure the mesclun and choice herbs don't run out) was at the Darling Mills stall. Amongst my usual purchases, I found the most amazing bunch of Thai basil that I have seen. The bunch was big and lush, with every single leaf in pristine condition. Usually, bunches of this herb are pretty sparse and wilted, with lots of tell-tale black spots on the leaves that say this ain't a fresh bunch. I'm planning to try out David Thompson's mussels with Thai basil and possibly sneak in a few leaves in an orange curry with prawns.

These beautiful mixed berries were just too good to give a miss. It's the height of berry season at the moment, and I've lately been addicted to Whisk and Pin's Summer Muesli with cinnamon and honey yoghurt and strawberries. I can't wait to have breakfast with these berry gems sprinkled on top!

I then found a bunch of water spinach, also known as Siamese watercress in Thai cooking, and kangkong in Philippine cooking. I know, it's sad, but I got pretty excited as this veggie can be hard to find outside of say Chinatown and Asian fruit and veg shops. It also reminded me a lot of home, as I was quite fond of it when I was a kid - one of the few veggies that I actually ate and enjoyed. Mind you, I best enjoyed it with the leaves battered and deepfried - almost tempura-like in texture, so it's not a big surprise I loved it. I'm still deciding on what to do with it, but will quite likely keep it simple as a stir-fried side veggie to one of the Asian dishes on this week's menu.

The Hubby and I are tomato freaks, so I can't really go past punnets of really, tiny baby toms when I see them. I specially pounce on yellow tomatoes when I see them, as again they can be hard to find. They are a bit more common now than they used to be, but still a real taste and sight sensation when you've got them through a simple garden salad or through orechiette pasta with feta cheese, or even through couscous.

Finally, I found something I've never seen before: Spanish bulb spring onions! I'm a bit funny with onions - I only tend to cook and use red Spanish onions. I just prefer their flavour - they're sweeter and milder, and they're pretty versatile across cuisines. On the odd occasion I will buy brown or white onions, and of course, white bulb spring onions but only if the dish *really* needs them. So it was such a delight to see these gorgeous Spanish bulb spring onions. Problem is they're so gorgeous, I just want to look at them rather than cook them! I'm still looking for a way to use them, and will let you know how I go.

Of Cookbooks and Suckling Pig

Went cookbook shopping with the Hubby on the weekend and realised that we hadn't bought a new cookbook in *ages*! We often get given cookbooks as pressies, so really haven't had the opportunity to buy any in recent years. A book voucher as a Christmas present (thanks, Little Grannie) presented an opportunity to go shopping.

And go shopping we did - we ended up with not just one but two cookbooks out of the seeming millions of titles that were on offer. Quite overwhelming actually - the cooking section spanned half a dozen shelves that wrapped around a corner of the bookshop, not to mention the tables of cookbooks on discount or specially featured. I frankly found it a bit deflating rather than exciting, seeing so many titles and authors (many so-called "celebrity chefs"). Don't know really know why - maybe it was a classic kid in a lolly shop with indigestion syndrome.

In any case, we were mighty pleased with our selection - we got Michel Roux Jr's "The Marathon Chef" cookbook which will inspire me in feeding the Hubby good food while he trains for the Can Too half marathon in May. It was only when I read the book at home that I realised he is the Michel Roux of Le Gavroche in London so that was pretty cool, and his recipes are really interesting - can't wait to get cooking.

And I capitulated to finally getting Anthony Bourdain's "Les Halles" cookbook. I've kinda been resisting buying his cookbook, as we are quite avid readers of him since "Kitchen Confidential" and even went to see him speak at a previous Sydney Writers' Festival. I didn't want to come across as too much of an Anthony Bourdain tragic or food groupie. But his writing was too much to resist (the entry for making hollandaise sauce was hilarious), plus I can't wait to make his steak with bone marrow - mmmmm.... I hope Sarah my nutrionist isn't reading this! I am supposed to be aiming to lose 15 kilos in the next 6 months or so. I'll have to make more of Michel's recipes then and occasionally splash out with a classic French recipe from Anthony once a month!

Aside from cookbook shopping (and speaking of nutritionists - stop reading now, Sarah), another highlight of the weekend was cooking a shoulder of suckling pig. I just couldn't resist - I walked into my current favourite butcher Hudson Meats on Friday and saw the beautiful pre-marinated shoulder of suckling pig just crying out to be taken home and roasted for 2.5 hours in 150 degrees C. It was such a find, as normally Hudson requires a week's notice for the suckling pig as they source it from a specialty producer. How can any self-respecting foodie not pounce on such an opportunity? Unless you happen to not like pig, which would be such a shame.

And I have to say the pig was so beautiful and worth the wrath of Sarah - the marinade of rosemary, thyme, chili, garlic and olive oil just worked an absolute treat, with the skin crisping up deliciously and the flesh so tender and moist. We devoured it with baby potatoes pre-boiled and chucked into the roasting pan for the last hour of cooking, and with steamed baby green beans and sliced zucchini. The pork didn't really need the salsa verde that I whipped up, but it was nice to have it on the side anyway. I am a bit of a lily gilder after all!

Suckling pig prior to cooking

Slicing the piggy-poo

Pig, potatoes and greens plated - yum!

Rachey Cooks for Family, Friends and Charity

The Hubby says not to waste blog space talking about what a slack-arse blogger I am, so I won't. Suffice it to say that although the blog has been a bit idle, the cooking front certainly hasn't been!

Since being on holidays in August (such a long, long time ago!), I've cooked...

• for workmates (Melbourne Cup Lunch and a farewell, plus a bread and butter pudding)
• for charity raising money for cancer research through Can Too and for Cure Cancer Australia while the Hubby gets professional training to run around Sydney
• for friends at the M's House and Mr Testicles' and the Pie Lady's housewarming
• and for family over the Christmas and New Year hols, and had the pleasure to see my one-year old nephew eat cherries, basil pesto and barbecued pork ribs for the first time (and no, not all together!)

In the meantime, the Hubby survived almost a week without me while I went interstate on our annual conference AND managed to make a very respectable dinner using the Cooking for Engineers tabular format for following recipes (that one of my workmates witheringly called a Gantt chart for cooking, much to the Hubby's ire).

And yes, there are photos of dishes I've cooked and just haven't had the chance to post, while friends and family clamour for the recipe of this and that, and for God's sake please update your blog! (yes, Mike, I hear you).

So in the spirit of new year's resolutions, I will work on being a better blogger - whatever that is! Quite likely updating blogs more than just once a few months would be a start. It's probably totally against blogging etiquette, but I will be posting some articles retrospectively as there's some stuff that I'd really like to share. But I'll try not to post them all at once. :)