Just a quick post tonight, since yesterday’s post was a marathon!

I came across the beautiful blog Diamonds for Dessert tonight, and I’ve spent the past half hour drooling over all the photos.  How talented is this girl?

Ukelele shortbread – complete with a detailed “how to”.

Wii controller cookies – instructions for making the buttons are included too!

Yup.  That’s a “manly cupcake“, for last year’s Movember.  And it’s on fire.

It’s on FIRE, you guys.

I could spend ages showing you all of the incredible cookie creations on Diamonds for Dessert, but I recommend heading over there yourself to check it out.

Would you be able to handle seeing somebody eat your amazing BBQ or wii controller?  I think I would cry.

Boston taught me several things during my 3-month stay in New England: Baseball is a religion (and Fenway Park is holy ground); walking across the Charles River in early January will leave you so cold that you lose all sensation in your legs; and…

… one of the best ways to warm up again is with New England Clam Chowder.

Photo from Portland Mercury

A few months ago Tim and I discovered the tinned Campbells variety in the imported food section at David Jones. It was a surprise discovery, after searching high and low for it throughout the city. However, at $7 per can we were only dedicated enough to buy two, and we savoured every last drop.

It was good, but it wasn’t exactly the same as the stuff we ate in Boston.

I pledged to make it from scratch one day, but problems arose when I went searching for a recipe. There are so many varieties of this chowder – even within New England itself – and no two recipes were ever the same! After reading pages of debate on the topic of fresh vs tinned clams, I think I lost heart and forgot about the whole thing.

Until a couple of days ago, when I discovered tinned baby clams and threw them in my shopping trolley. It was time to just pick a recipe and run with it – and this is the one we made tonight!

Warning: Your arteries will hate you for even reading this.

INGREDIENTS
Serves 4 people as a main course

3 x rashers middle bacon
2 x 200g tins of baby clams (drained, juice reserved)
1 x finely chopped onion
1 x large stalk celery, diced
4 x medium potatoes, cubed
2 x medium carrots, diced
3 x bay leaves
130g butter
70g plain flour
2 x 300mL cartons of single cream (or light cream)
150mL milk
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh parsley, chopped

METHOD

• Fry the bacon until cooked. Remove the bacon from the pan to drain, and add the potatoes, onion, celery and carrot to the remaining bacon fat. Cook for a minute to soften.
• Add the reserved clam juice, and extra water until the vegetables are just covered. Add bay leaves, and simmer gently until the potatoes are tender.
• While the vegetables simmer, melt the butter in a large saucepan. Whisk in the flour to create a smooth mixture, and then add the cream and milk. Combine until smooth, being careful to not bring the mixture to the boil.
• When tender, pour the vegetables and clam juice into the cream. Gently combine ingredients, and remove the bay leaves. Add salt, and generous amounts of cracked pepper.
• Add clams, sliced bacon and red wine vinegar, and continue to stir over a gentle heat until the clams are cooked through. Be careful not to overcook, as the clams will become tough.
• Serve, and garnish with fresh parsley and extra pepper.

Were you thrown by the red wine vinegar? I know I was. The recipe that I followed (and modified) promised incredible things from this ingredient, but I really wasn’t convinced until I tried it myself. I thought that the chowder was very bland and uninteresting until the addition of that last ingredient, and somehow it managed to tie everything together and give it all a butt-kicking. Don’t be put off by this strange addition!

Luckily for me, I have ready access to the critique of a true New Englander who really loved it. I’m so happy to have found this recipe, and to have crossed another country off my recipe challenge!

Part of my 101 Things in 1001 Days challenge.

This morning, with the help of the Fabulous Ms J and her wheels, we bought our new BBQ!

It’s a Weber One Touch Silver charcoal BBQ, which means that it’s essentially an outdoor oven. You almost never cook with the coals directly underneath the food (unless you’re cooking steak or using a wok), and it will probably replace the oven in our kitchen for roasts and stuff. The BBQ came with a terrific cookbook that is packed with fantastic ideas – including recipes for cakes, breads and pancakes!

Australia Day is next Saturday, so it will definitely be put to use then. You’ll find us sitting out under the tree in the backyard, drinking beer, turning the lamb chops and listening to Triple J’s Hottest 100. I’m pretty sure Tim won’t forget his first Australia Day, it’ll be awesome.

But we weren’t going to wait until next weekend to test out our new toy. It needed to run for a couple of hours while we seasoned it, so while I waited to start cooking I had a flick through the cookbook. I found a great recipe for damper, and since it’s so quick and easy to make I decided to give it a try.

It was SO GOOD…

BBQ DAMPER

Ingredients
45g softened butter
3 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 tsp salt

Method
Combine all the ingredients and mix them to form a sticky dough. Knead it lightly on a floured surface. Place it on a small, greased baking tray, and cut 1cm slits all over the top of the dough. Brush with extra milk, and dust with a bit of sifted flour.

Cook for 20-30 mins, with the lid on.

(Of course, this is also great in a medium oven – or wrapped in tin foil and cooked over the coals of a campfire!)

While the damper was cooking we added some frozen fries to the BBQ, made a salad and Maitre D’Hotel butter. It was intended for the steak, but turned out to be awesome on the damper as well.

MAITRE D’HOTEL BUTTER

Ingredients
125g butter
1/2 cup chopped parsley
Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Method
Using an electric mixer, beat together the butter and parsley. Add the lemon juice, and beat everything together. When creamy, form the butter into a roll and refrigerate until firm.

Finally we rearranged the coals in the centre of the BBQ, and cooked the steak. I am not kidding when I say that it cooked the best steak that I’ve had in years. It was juicy and pink in the middle, but beautifully seared out the outside. I am completely smitten with this thing now.

So it was a huge success. I’m really looking forward to trying some of the ideas I found in the cookbook, and finding out what else it can do! My friend Sally is staying with us next weekend, so we have an excuse to get a bit creative.

Side note: when we were at college together, Sally and I made a cake in my electric frypan – on the floor of my dorm room. I don’t think it will be too hard to convince her to try it again, BBQ style!

Rather than type out the recipe, I thought I’d try something new and record video instructions instead. This took forever to put together, so I’m looking forward to hearing your feedback.

Big thanks to Tim, who is the true star of this video. Enjoy!

And for completely unrelated reasons, thanks Ralf

These are, without a doubt, the yummiest scones in the world. They’re quick and easy to make too, and I bet you could have heaps of fun varying the flavours. Strictly speaking, a scone should be made up of 3 parts dry ingredients and 1 part wet. But you know, rules schmules.

This recipe made about 12 scones. Thanks to Karen Cheng for the original recipe, which I modified a little on the spur of the moment!

INGREDIENTS

2.75 cups self-raising flour
75g butter
1.25 cups grated cheese
1/2 tsp sea salt
2-3 Tsp chopped fresh chives
1/2 cup milk

METHOD

Sift the flour, and rub together with the butter. Add the cheese, chives and salt, and stir well. Add the milk, combine well until it forms a soft dough. If the mixture is too sticky, add a little more flour.

Knead the dough lightly, and spread it flat with your hands to a thickness of 1-2cm. Use a scone cutter to cut circles from the dough (I couldn’t find mine, so I used a glass!) and place them onto an oiled tray.

Cook for 10-15 mins at 230ºC/450ºF, or until golden brown. And if you don’t eat them hot with a little butter you’re crazy.

These are incredibly good, for such minimal effort!

Two of the easiest recipes ever invented – just mix all the ingredients together and leave them to set in the fridge.

Here are the recipes:

RUM BALLS

Ingredients

1 packet arrowroot biscuits (another bland, sweet biscuit would do)
3 Tbs cocoa
1 cup finely desiccated coconut
3 Tbs rum (okay, I used about 5…)
1 tin condensed milk
chocolate sprinkles, cocoa or extra coconut for rolling

Method

Crush the biscuits into fine pieces (this is where a food processor would have come in handy!) and mix the ingredients together. Shape into evenly sized balls, roll in chocolate sprinkles (or extra coconut) and refrigerate until firm.

APRICOT BALLS

Ingredients

500g diced apricots
2 cups finely desiccated coconut
1 tin condensed milk
1/2 cup of chopped macadamias or almonds
extra coconut for rolling

Method

Take it from me, buy your apricots pre-diced. Apricot balls look best when all the ingredients are chopped fairly finely, including the coconut they’re rolled in.

As above, combine all the ingredients and roll into evenly sized balls. Roll in extra coconut, and refrigerate until firm.

Tonight was spent making food for Christmas.

Want the recipe? Of course you do. Here.

INGREDIENTS

250g butter
1/3 cup castor sugar
2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup rice flour or ground rice

METHOD

Have butter at room temperature. Beat butter and sugar in a small bowl with electric mixer until combined. Add large spoonfuls of sifted flours to butter mixture, beating between additions. Press ingredients together gently, knead on lightly floured surface until smooth.

Shape the dough, and bake in a slow oven for about 30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack, and store in an airtight container. Freezing is a must, and air is their #1 enemy. Keep ‘em sealed up, and eat them straight from the freezer!

I know this is in danger of turning into a recipe blog, but I can’t help that I keep coming up with awesome creations! Tonight I made a baked custard, modified from one that I found in an ancient Woman’s Weekly cookbook, and it’s AMAZING. It’s also really, really simple and not entirely bad for you.

So since I’m in such a giving mood, here’s how you do it.

INGREDIENTS

2½ cups milk
3 eggs + an extra yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1/3 cup caster sugar
nutmeg

METHOD

Slowly heat the milk in a medium saucepan, stirring continuously. Bring the milk almost to the boil, and remove it from the heat.

Whisk together the eggs and vanilla essence. Gently add the sugar, and then whisk in the hot milk.

Pour everything into a 4-6 cup (1-1.5L) shallow ovenproof dish, and sprinkle with nutmeg. You can also place small slivers of butter evenly around the dish, which can help the top to brown. And make you fatter.

Then place this dish inside a larger one. Pour boiling water into the larger baking dish until it comes halfway up the sides of the smaller dish.

Cook at 160C (or 140C for fan-forced) for 45-60 mins. Custard is cooked when the centre gets wobbly.

I served mine tonight with pears, peaches, cinnamon and caster sugar that was heated for 5 mins on the stove. There were no leftovers! I probably would have added sultanas to the custard if it wasn’t for the fact that we’re babysitting tonight, and sultanas may have been a dealbreaker.

Once I’ve posted this I’m going to go and do one of my favourite things – eat chocolate during The Biggest Loser. Watching them do all that exercise makes me hungry…

Seriously. I’ve tried every other type of banana bread and this is The Best. Actually, I modified another recipe and made it even better than it originally was. I mean, who makes banana bread without walnuts? Come on.

You should make it.

Here’s how.

INGREDIENTS

1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
375ml sour cream
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
125g unsalted butter (melted)
1 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup walnuts
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 3/4 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 ripe bananas, mashed

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180C.

Mix the sour cream and bicarbonate of soda, and let it rest for 5 mins. Stir in the melted butter, caster sugar and the eggs.

Combine the flour and cinnamon in another bowl. If you’re dying to use your new kitchen gadgets like I was, you’ll even sift the flour. Fold the sour cream mixture into the flour, and then add the bananas.

Pour the mixture equally into two bread tins, and sprinkle generously with the brown sugar and any leftover walnuts.

Bake for 1-1 1/2 hours or until a skewer comes out clean. My bananas sunk to the bottom a little, so I found it best to flip the bread over for the last 15 mins to harden it up.

Buy ferocious dog, train to fend off your hungry boyfriend.

Enjoy!