Vietnamese Marble jelly!!

Hi everyone,

My little cousins came over on the weekend and wanted me to help her make a simple Vietnamese dish so she could bring to her school's multicultural day! Awww I remember those days back in primary school, I remember my mum would make spring rolls or prawn crackers when she didn't have time, for us to bring to school on our multicultural days hehe

We decided to make a colourful Vietnamese style jelly using Agar Agar powder which is very commonly used instead of Gelatin to make jelly in Asia. Agar Agar makes the jelly firmer than the usual jellies you might eat such as aeroplane jelly.

Use one satchet of 25g os Agar Agar Powder and dissolve in 1 cup of cold water for 5 minutes. Bring 6 cups of water to the boil in a large pot, and add about 1/2 to 3/4 cups of sugar and stir until sugar has dissolved. Finally add the 1 cup of water with dissolved Agar Agar powder to the pot and stir until water has boiled again.

To make marbling on the jelly, I used green, red, blue, yellow food colouring aswel as sweeten condense milk to make white. You can also use coffee and condense milk mix together to add a unique flavour to the jelly (this is our family favourite)! Add a few drops of the different colours into seperate bowls and slowing spoon the Agar Agar water into each bowl and stir gently.

Using a 30cm cake tin, spoon about 1-2 large spoons of the clear Agar Agar mix into the cake tin to create a clear base to work with, allow this to set slightly before proceeding to add the different colours and layers to create a beautiful marble effect. Work quickly as the jelly will set quite quick.

Once you are done, refrigerate for a few house to set completely. To serve, cut into diamond shapes using a texture cutter or simply use a fruit knife.

I hope all the little kids at my cousins school likes the jellies as much as we did!!

Have a wonderful week and happy eating!

Fat Pom Pom

Kebab time!!

Hi everyone!!!

A few months ago, I attended a friends house warming party where they had Chicken kebabs on the spit!!  For me, I thought this was the greatest idea ever for a party dish, its easy, convenient and delicious!!! hehe all you had to do was chop the salads, buy the sauces and pita breads, and light the spit, and the rest should take care of itself!!  I couldn't stop thinking about the kebabs when I got home and telling my family how great it was if we could set one up at home for a weekend family gathering : )

I did alot of research about the costs to buy versus renting a spit roast machine! And also asked my friend where she got the meats for the kebabs from. Turns out she pre-order over 10 kilos of meat and around 50 bags of pita bread and turkish bread from a wholesaler specialising in kebabs.

Though my family was large, I doubt we would be able to finish the same amount of meat and bread as my friends party LOL and the costs of the spit roast was just not worth it for a small family gathering!! Suddenly it came to me that I could find a recipe for the chicken kebab marinade online and then bbq the meat on our old traditional coal bbq to create the same smokey flavours on the meat...GENIUS!!! LOL hehe

After many days of research, I gathered a few of the highest rated recipes and decided to pick the most commonly used ingredients of all the recipes to make my own marinade!!

Here it is:

Chicken Kebabs
1 kg of skinless boneless chicken thighs, chopped into 2 cm long strips to allow for faster cooking and the marinade to coat more surface area of the chicken (be as rustic as possible, its better if they don't look all the same size)
1/2 cup olive oil
4 tbsp of lemon juice
2 tsp of oregano
1 tsp of thyme
5 garlic cloves minced
1 cup of plain greek yogurt
2-3 tbsp of paprika
1-2 tsp of sumac
salt and pepper to season

Combine all the ingredients above to make the marinade. Marinade the chicken for minimun of 4-6 hours.
To serve:
Bbq the meats until cooked and slightly charring. Serve with pita bread or turkish bread, lettuce chopped, tomatoes sliced, red and brown onion finely sliced, garlic sauce, tzatziki, chilli sauce...and any other toppings you desire!!

Garlic Sauce:
1 and 1/2 cups of greek yogurt
4 cloves of garlic minced
3-4 tbsp of lemon juice
2 tbsp of olive oil
season with salt & pepper if needed
Blend or whisk ingredients together for a few minutes until smooth.

Tzatziki :
Same as above, but use 2 medium cucumbers, finely shredded and remove excess juice from the cucumber with absorbant paper towel. Mix well with the spoon until combine.

I didnt have time to make the above sauces, so I bought them premade from a kebab store hehe I would definitely make the sauces next time and see how that turns outs : )

 

I doubled the ingredients for my family for about 10 ppl... but I would definitely make 3 times the recipe next time as everyone was having seconds and thirds and there wasn't any meat left over hehe

I guess that means that the recipe is a success then!!! The pictures didn't turn out as good as I hope them to be, but thats ok, as long as the food tasted good.
It was a very fun evening and everyone helped with prepping and cooking... and cleaning afterwards!!

Hope you enjoy reading my blog so far and a special thanks to everyone who commented!
Happy readings!!

Fat Pom Pom

Red Hill!

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the delays in posting! Im not as consistent as I hope to be, hehe juggling life, work, leisure and blogging is much more difficult than I expected : )

But I did manage to get a short break from work over Labour day long weekend!!! I have been planing for quite some time to take this opportunity to visit Red Hill in Victoria for a day to enjoy some peaceful time away from city life, aswel as a chance to indulge in some of the finest produce and wine! Did I mention the weather was perfect on Saturday : )

I started my day with a 1 and a half hours drive to Red Hill, our first stop was Red Hill Cheese, a little cute cottage snuggle in the middle of the mountain side, with beautiful greenery from every angle.

Me and my boyfriend are big lovers of cheese!!! The tasting plate consist of 8 different of types of cheeses ranging from the pecorino, marinated goats cheese, white mould cream cheese and blue vein cheese!!!

Mmmmm...the cheese were delicious!!! I had many favourites but the outstanding one would be the feta style goats cheese mmmm....one that surprises me was the blue vein cheese called 'Granny's Blue'. Im usually not a big fan of blue cheese, but this one had a milder smell than usually and the texture was really smooth and buttery, very unique!! It was my boyfriends favourite! We ended purchasing a few of our favourites for taking home!

Our next stop was lunch at Montalto Vineyard and Olive Grove. The scenery there was breathtaking, with vineyards stretching as far as the eyes can see. We opt to have pizzas for lunch at the outdoor 'Piazza' amongst the vineyards. We had the lamb, rosemary, potato and bacon pizza, and the salami, buffalo mozzarella, and rocket pizza. I also had a glass of Pennon Hill Rose Moscato! mmmmmm....absolutely delicious!

We had a walk after lunch down the vineyards and had a rest by the lake and rose garden!

Our next stop was a visit to the Red Hill general store for some local made jams and chutneys! I didn't take a picture of the strawberry conserve that we bought, but it was delicious also!

Our last stop was Mocha My Day cafe, for some chocolates and cakes and tea:

We had the coconut, shiraz and passionfruit chocolate pieces, the passionfruit cheesecake, and jasmine green tea! All the chocolates and cakes were hand made! Once again, I am running out of words to describe how delicious these were : )

Overall, we had a beautiful, peaceful and relaxing day!!! I could see why people choose to move to country side to live after years of busy life in the city!! Life moves at the same pace you do here : )

Thanks for reading my blog, and I hope you all have an opportunity to visit Red Hill someday!

Happy reading!

Fat Pom Pom

Mini Chocolate mountains and Violet Crumble icecream!

 

Hi everyone,

I bet you all have been waiting to see what I had for desserts from my previous posts : P

Well here is........our Mini Chocolate mountains!!!!!!!! Tada!!!!

Hehe I am very please by the way these little mountains turned out, special thanks to my assistant that night, 'little Hanna', I hope she doesn't mind me giving her a special mention in my posts but she was a great help!!!

These are absolutely delicious and adorable to look at : ) 

Here is the simple recipe!

Mini Chocolate Mountains

Ingredients:

1 packet of White Wings Moist Chocolate cake, 370g

2 eggs

250ml milk

60ml of oil oil

200g of white chocolate

Mini M & M's 

Cupcake holders

2-6 waffle cones (depending on how many mountains you wanna make)

baking paper

old used tins (can tomatoes tins and remove the paper)

Method:

1. Make the moist chocolate cake mix according too instructions on box (using eggs, milk and oil)
2. Distribute half the cake mix into the cupcake holders. Line the waffle cones with baking paper and place cone in the use tins. Pour remain cake mix into the waffle cones and fill halfway.
3. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for approximately 20-25 minutes until a skewer comes clean from the cake.
4. Remove from oven and cool on cooling rake.
5. Meanwhile, melt the white chocolate in the microwave for a minute or double boiler.
6. Once cakes have cool down, add some white chocolates to the cupcakes and gently place the conecake on top, hold into place until chocolate has set slightly.
7. Repeat the same for the remaining cupcakes and conecakes, you may also have just little cupcakes by itself without any cones (see my pictures below).
8. Gently spoon some melted chocolate to the tip of the cone and let the chocolate run down the sides naturally to create the illusion of snow! 
9. Decorate the cupcakes and mini mountains with mini M & M's.
10. Enjoy!!

We also had the luxury to have a second dessert:
mmmmmm.........I call this masterpiece the violet crumble icecream with lychees and waffle.....lol.....yes im not very creative hehe

This one is a simple mix of 1 small tub of creamy vanilla icecream, caramel sauce and a few chopped up violet crumble. Leave icecream at room temperature for 5 minutes in a mixing bowl, add the violet crumbles and mix well, divide into four portions, add the first portion back into the tub and top with a few tablespoons of caramel sauce, repeat the same for the next 3 portions. Put tub of icecream back into the freezer to chill overnight. Serve with some waffle cone pieces and your favourite fruits (in my case...they were lychees).

I hope you enjoy this posts as much as I did (and eating them too...mmmmmmmm)!!!

In the mean time, enjoy life and yummy desserts : )

Happy eating!

Fat Pom Pom

Jamie Oliver's Sausage Ragu Pasta - My version

 

Hi everyone, 

I have been really into watching Jamie's 30 minute meals these days. I am a really big fan of Jamie Oliver's cooking as they are really simple to make yet full of flavours!!!

This is my variation of the pork sausage ragu which he makes for his wife when she was pregnant (Jool's pregnant pasta dish).

Ingredients:

4 spring onions, finely chopped

1 onion, finely chopped

1 carrot, grated

1 stick celery, grated

1-2 fresh red chillies, finely chopped

1 x 6 pack good quality sausages (approx. 500g) (I used Coles Angus Beef sausages with garlic and removed the sausage meat from the skin, in Jamie's original recipe, he used pork sausages and added 1 heaped teaspoon of fennel seeds)

1 teaspoon dried oregano

500g Penne

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes

2 tbsp of olive oil

Grated Parmesan and chilli flakes to serve

a few sprigs basil

Method:

1. In a large frying pan on high heat, add olive oil, onion, spring onion, carrots, celery and chilli, sausages and oregano. Cook for about 10 minutes until meat is brown. Remember to keep breaking down the sausage meat as you are cooking.
2. Meanwhile, cook the Penne pasta in boiling water with a bit of salt until cooked to your liking.
3. Add crush garlics and balsamic vinegar to the sausages and cooked until balsamic vinegar reduces and thickens.
4. Add can tomatoes to sausages and season with salt and pepper if need. Simmer for another 10 minutes until pasta is cooked. Add cooked pasta to sauce and about 1/2 cup of the starchy water from cooking the pasta to help the sauce and pasta stick together better.
5. Garnish with basil, grated parmesan cheese and chilli flakes if desire.

We made 3 times the quantity for a family gathering and it was absolutely delicious : ) !!!

Il be posting up the desserts we made that night in my next post so remember to keep following me k!!

Happy eating!!

Fat Pom Pom

Passionflower!

 Hi Everyone!!!

Last weekend me and my friends went to a new desert place in Melbourne called Passionflower!

The desserts here are like a dream come true for me!!! I have always been a big fan of asian desserts. At Passionflower, they have icecreams of all different flavours you can ever think of.....yes even my worse enemy....the durian hehe not to mention heaps of different variety of mix icecream flavour combo and mini desserts, crepes, chocolate, waffles, jellies, pancakes and all the strange combination of asian desserts you can think of hehe and heaps of warm and cold drinks to choose from!!!

As you can see from below, we had one of the special combos prepared in the menu, this consist of pancakes with jam and whip cream, 3 scoop icecream in waffle bowl (taro, red bean and coconut flavoured icecream), mini tiramisu, mini green tea moose, chocolate flavoured crepes filled with bananas and topped with melted chocolate and icing sugar!!! Oh i almost forget to mention they also had these strange chewy glutinous balls covered in black sesame!! What a combination! This was absolutely delicious mmmmm.......i couldn't say a bad thing about this one!

 

 
This killer one below consist of 4 scoop of icecream (jackfruit, durian, coconut and pandan flavoured icecream) topped with coconut jelly and those glutinous balls and more coconut milk!!! Looks absolutely delicious but I dared not to try this one for the durian hehe

So if your ever in the Melbourne CBD and are looking for an awesome dessert place, give this one a try!! The wide selection of icecream and desserts will keep you coming back for more : )

Autumn is here so have as much icecream as you can before it gets too cold hehe

Happy eating!
Fat Pom Pom