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Friday, April 30, 2010

more cooking

it's friday night and time to start the cooking and preperation. after reading alot of southern recipes, i think i have landed on a menu for tomorrow night...stay tuned.

as for now i need to start preparing the desserts. i think i am gonna crank up my music and try and get into the groove. i spent the day out and about with my dear friend thora and am feeling a little tired, hmmmm maybe will have to make myself a cup of tea.

at this stage i am convinced i want to do a dessert trio, so a little taste of a few things. so far pumpkin creme brulee is on the list, petit derby pies and i am still deciding on the third. it has to be small and maybe fruity? hopefully it will come to me while i am making the other two.

okay time to get to work. i will post the menu and pics tomorrow.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

just thinking

I am trying to create my menu for this coming Saturday. My first official Tablenosh. Southern foods...unfortunately I am running very low on grits and you cannot buy them in Australia. So am dreaming of fried chicken, cornbread and squash casserole...or maybe a seafood theme with some shrimp and crabcakes...dessert of course will be hard to choose, pumpkin brulee, keylime pie, oh there is so much yummy stuff! Maybe mini grits souffle's w/ shrimp for a starter? I guess I better start reading recipes.

I really just hope the night goes well. Getting this 'in-home' dining concept out to strangers has been rather difficult. I am not sure if people just feel wierd inviting their friends to come along or if nobody is interested. Hopefully after this weekend I can get a better feel and push it all along a little more.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

red velvet cake


I made this for my friend Carly's birthday party. I was very pleased...I think she was too.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

healthy muffin recipe (i made this one up)

We have joined a fruit and veg co-op! I am very excited about this, however it does mean I have more carrots than I know what to do with! So, this morning I decided I would make some healthy muffins and use carrot. I looked at a few recipes and then fudged one together myself:

3/4 cup Plain Flour
3/4 cup Wholemeal Flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tbls butter
1 egg
3/4 cup of juice (apple & strawberry)
1/4 cup milk (I used non-dairy oat milk)
1 shredded carrot (about a cup)
1 shredded apple
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
a sprinkle of flax seeds

Mix it all together. And bake on 400 (205) for about 20 minutes. They are pretty good, very moist. I made a little cream cheese spread to go with the one I ate. I suppose I could make them into mini-carrot cakes if I wanted to serve them for dessert.

tablenosh caters??

I am doing the food for a small cocktail & canapes party this Saturday night. I am thankful the numbers are small because my energy is coming back very slowly! Hopefully by Saturday I will be ready to go.
As per usual I am going to try a few new recipes as well as some old favorites. One thing I have in my head to make are individual pumpkin pie brulee's. Pumpkin pie is not a very common dessert in Australia, in fact it is a rare find and if you have had it, it most likely because some American forced you to eat it...the good news is, most Australians end up liking it once they give it a try.
In Australia, pumpkin is much more commonly eaten as a savory food, roasted or used in soup. Which I have decided I quite like as well, now I enjoy the best of both worlds, pumpkin sweet and pumpkin savory.
Okay so anyway am thinking pumpkin pie brulee...basically similar to pumpkin pie with a hard sugar coating on top and served in a little pie shell. I can imagine it, we'll just wait and see if I can pull it off, I want to practice making it because I am thinking about serving it for dessert at the next tablenosh, southern style dinner.
So whether I will continue to cater for other parties, we'll see how this goes and whether anyone wants my help. I am just charging the cost of food and if they want to make a donation towards tablenosh then I suppose that is okay too :)

Friday, April 9, 2010

cooking cake with Sam


Yesterday I had the pleasure of making an 'Apple Crumble Coffee Cake' with Sam! She has been visiting from Broken Hill and staying with us for the week. It was such a treat to be able to cook with her (she is the same friend that my original blog was with). She loves making cakes, so it was fun for her to bring this recipe along and do it my kitchen.

Coffee cake is a very american thing to make and it does not mean that there is 'coffee' in the cake! It just suggests that it is a nice cake to eat with a cup of coffee. Therefore it is very common to make a 'coffee cake' for a brunch or morning tea type occasion. This coffee was delicious and along with the layer of crumble through the middle of the cake you also put an apple. It was very moist and delicious, we served it with icecream and a warm apple compote for dessert. But I also had it for breakfast this morning with a cup of coffee :)
Thanks Sam for coming to visit and adding another recipe to my list!

Saturday, April 3, 2010

e-newsletter?

So, I have been working on designing alittle E-newsletter to send out once a month about 'tablenosh' happenings. I am just wondering whether or not this would be helpful to people or a good idea to get the word spreading and get the dates out each month. I need some feedback...maybe I will do a test run and see what people think, let me know if you want me to send it to you.

Ok so this recovery stuff is hard...too much time to lie in bed and think. And of course scheme and dream up recipe and menu ideas. I am bummed I cannot do much for Easter lunch tomorrow, but a few friends are still coming over and I am still trying to concoct up a yummy dessert...an 'orange berry trifle' (a total leila concoction, so who knows how it will taste!)

Friday, April 2, 2010

alas the launch pictures!

It was a fabulous night indeed...

































































photos by Carly Laird

Thursday, April 1, 2010

on pause

so, yesterday i had to have some surgery done and it looks like there will be NO cooking for a little while. thank goodness for lovely friends who cook for you...my friend sam and i made a huge veggie lasagna on tuesday night and it is in the fridge for me to enjoy over the next couple of days...as well as a yummy pasta bake from carly and the remains of tiramisu i made on monday.
the sad news is i think april will be a write off for tablenosh but, will pick it back up in may. hopefully i can learn some new recipes before then and maybe do a little promotion.
and as soon as i get the pics from the launch i will put them up!!