Garden Instalment #3

Up to my 4th bed... potatoes looking good, and surviving (just)  the mad dashes of one red heeler puppy called CC.  Can't say the same for the silver beet, although fennel seems indestructable.

I got one tomato from all my healthy bushes (see below), and it was fab.... but way too much effort for one tomato (a couple of small ones).. although this ox-heart variety tasted fantastic... check out the colour and the flesh.  Served here with a splash of olive oil, parsley (sadly no basil) and some wet sea salt.  I am currently pulling out my vines and getting read to plant more seedlings.. 

  From now on, I will plant according to the Alice Springs calendar, rather than assume I know better... I don't.

Fennel Head below...is a champ!   Already sick of fennel and dog can't seem to destroy it.

And here are my carrots... very proud of this effort.  Got purple ones in at the moment...

But really, what I am most happy with is my daikon radish (below)... I can't begin to explain the joy of planting seeds and growing a particular vegetable you can't get locally so you (me) can cook a particular dish... In this case: Agedashi Tofu.. yum!

Cannoli ... first try

I made my first (not quite the last) attempt at Cannoli (evening of the macarons... cooking Sunday!)  I had finally purchased some cannoli tubes in Melbourne, in between meetings, and had my heart set on trying these delightful treats.

I found a Gourmet Traveller recipe which used a chocolate/marsala pastry and a pasta machine for rolling out.

Now, I was disappointed with the pastry... quite fragile and easy to burn, and just didn't crisp up like I wanted.  Cooking these pastries is also a bit tricky....  Also the filling was just not right... next time, I think I'll do chocolate custard.

Stay posted for the my next attempts.

my best macarons yet....

Yes, I feel I've finally achieved a significant Macarons goal.. I made salted caramel macarons, and they were divine...

As you can see, Jorge was also delighted.

Now the recipe for them I got from two websites, which I highly recommend:

For the macarons, go to the food geek.  He uses Italian meringue, which is the key.  I've used recipes with the French meringue, but the results are nowhere near as good. (I also used a natural food colour here...)  Zumbo also uses Italian meringue.  (One tip I just read from Zumbo, is to add your food colour to the toffee!  Check out Zumbo here.)

For the salted caramel, I found this lovely site called Honey & Soy..  I kept thinking I was making honey and soy macarons... now there's food for thought!

Yes, macarons are tricky but well worth the effort.  Wanting to try passionfruit macarons this weekend, and maybe perfect my cannoli.

Joy!

Melbourne, macarons & other joys...

Lovely tea-house in Block Arcade, can't remember the name, but never seem to have the time or right head-space to go in and try the treats and have a cup of tea.

 Not sue where this one was....

For some reason I took very few photos of macarons when recently in Melbourne on a short stay... but I did taste a lot, not just macarons but many other joyful foods.

The cakes above and below are from one of my favourite pastry shops in Little Collins Street.  Yes, they had macarons as well.

Melbourne & Macarons... and many other delights

Macarons..

I am joining the growing number of people pre-occuppied with French Macarons.  Now, I have seen them in pictures and on television, and have now attempted them three times. See below:

I have not been happy with any of these attempts, although the second picture (third attempt), was much more successful (next time I will pipe the filling onto the macaron. )  I used this recipe from 'my food geek' which I highly recommend as it uses Italian meringue which seems to give more lift to the macarons.  The macarons I made were raspberry and white chocolate, and orange and chocolate.. However, living in Alice Springs, I am still not sure what they should taste like, ie. have I been successful.. I need to compare them with something other than an image...  I need to know whether or not the macaron  should be a bit chewy, or dry and crunchy... and how important is that gloss, not to mention colour.

Well... in a fortnight I am going to, not to Paris, but to Melbourne (for work), and I have set myself the task and seeking out, and buying, and tasting the best macaron that Melbourne can provide - and taking photos of course.

Sourdough #1 in pizza oven

I tried my first sourdough batch in my pizza oven last week... I worked out all the timings.  Started feeding the sourdough on the Friday, made the dough and knocked it back a couple of times on the Saturday, created three batards on Saturday night (technique thanks to youtube) which sat in the fridge overnight, and then Sunday morning... well things fell apart.  The air temperature was over 20 degrees (more like 30) and I took the loaves out of the fridge too early, and then the pizza oven wasn't ready... so I knocked them back.  Got the pizza oven to the right temperature with the help of  my new laser thermometer, sprayed the interior with water and placed an oven tray full of wet rags in the back of the oven, and then placed my batards in the oven.  Twelve to fifteen minutes later I checked them out and was..... disappointed... same old, same old sour dough. No caramel top or large gaps of stretched dough.. none of that special wood fire taste and texture I was hoping for.

What did I do wrong?  What will I do next time?

Next time, I will use a strong (possibly not organic), high protein flour.

I will use small pieces of wood which will burn quickly (rather than the large logs of gum I used this time)  and make a mother of a fire in my pizza oven.

And, I will use my new hose wand to get more water/steam into my oven...

That's about it.