One year!

Today marks the one year anniversary of starting this blog... how exciting!

Posts have been a bit slow lately, unfortunately. A myriad of things have kept me from posting as regularly as I would like but once I find the time again I have plenty of things to blog about.

The Cookbook Challenge has also finished. I think I kept up with it pretty well to start with, but drifted off a bit, especially in the last couple of months. I'll post a summary of what I cooked soon, and a list of the weeks that I missed but still plan to catch up on.

Anyway, thanks for reading :)

Hello, beautiful!

I'm in love.

Rekorderlig Strawberry and Lime cider

This stuff is my absolute favourite drink at the moment. It actually tastes so much like real strawberries (and not that horrible artificial strawberry flavour) that I expect to find strawberry seeds at the bottom.

The same brand also has Apple and Pear ciders available in Australia, which are also pretty enjoyable. But through the power of google I have just discovered that there are a heap of other flavours overseas: Passionfruit! Forest berries! Apple & Elderberry, Raspberry & Starfruit, Pomegranate, Gooseberry, Melon, Elderberry... I want to try them all!

Bits and pieces

J and I went to Bruny Island for some R&R last weekend, and stayed at a nice little holiday house called The Don in Allonah. Our booking included breakfast and we were presented with this wonderful assortment of food: bacon, fresh farm eggs, half-cooked croissants that were amazingly delicous when finished, breadmaker bread, fruit cups, muesli, tea, coffee, milo, local jams and other condiments. It was gorgeous.



We enjoyed some cheese - the green one is the vine-wrapped Oen from the Bruny Island Cheese Co., plus some raclette and a peppercorn-studded variety from the Italian Pantry. At the front are Bruny Island Cheese Co.'s spiced cherries in pinot noir. I think I'll try to have a go at pickling cherries when they are in season again.



An easy and delicious soup made from pumpkin, carrot, parsnip, leek, onion, garlic, cumin, peppercorns, chicken stock and a dash of cream:



A bay tree that I am going to plant in a pot:



My mushrooms haven't made much progress yet, but I hope to see them appearing soon, fingers crossed!

Finally, what we bought from the Hobart farmer's market today. Daikon ($1.50), gorgeous little Viking potatoes ($1.20), coriander ($3), spiced pumpkin dip ($2.20) and rocket and cashew dip ($2.50). I really wanted to get some goat meat to make a curry with, but unfortunately that stall wasn't there this week.

Tetsuya’s Pursuit of Excellence

The show 'Tetsuya’s Pursuit of Excellence' screened on SBS on the 17th of June.

It was such a good show, I was spellbound. I already loved Tetsuya, he's my favourite Australian chef, but I now love him just that little bit more after watching this! It was a great ad for Tassie produce too. There's a great write-up about the episode on another local food blog here.

If you missed the show, you can watch it online here.

I'm hoping to get to his restaurant next year, fingers crossed!

Aww

:)

Back in Hobart!

J and I spent three-and-a-bit weeks in Thailand and had an amazing time. Posts on Thailand food will be coming soon!

We've been home for two weeks and it took me a little while to get back into the swing of things, but I'll be cooking and blogging regularly again soon.

In the meantime, some food-related snippets:

Cold Rock in North Hobart is open! We had our first cups last night and I very much enjoyed my Bailey's and scorched almond icecream with Ferrero Rocher and peanut M&Ms mixed in. There was a considerable queue when we arrived - it's popular!
Next door is the new Pretzel World, which was closed but they had pretzels on display in a counter in Cold Rock. I didn't think pretzels were something I like, but the ones on display looked (and smelled!) pretty tasty.

An Asian grocer, Sandy Mart, has opened in Elizabeth Street in the city, just up from Island Cafe. This is fantastic - I always forget to visit the grocers in Sandy Bay or Moonah on the weekend. I'll be checking it out soon!

Dinner at the New Sydney Hotel is as good as ever. I've recently enjoyed the lemon chicken with asparagus, rosti and sauce béarnaise (pictured below) and the pesto chicken tagliatelle with pine nuts and white wine cream sauce (although I think they forgot my pine nuts!). Apparently they'll be changing to a winter menu soon.



I went to the Bund in Shanghai, Sandy Bay, for the first time. We opted for the $48 banquet which came with the following: Spring Rolls, Chicken & Sweet Corn Soup, Strawberry Pork Ribs, Sizzling Garlic King Prawn, Shredded Beef in Peking sauce, Famous Kung Bao chicken, Cantonese Roast Duck, Stir Fried Fresh Vegetables in Ginger & Garlic, The Bund Special Fried Rice and Fried Ice Cream.
I particularly enjoyed the duck (amazing crispy skin!) and the strawberry pork ribs. It was a lot of very tasty food and generally very good service, considering we were a large group.

I enjoyed a lovely breakfast at the New Town Station Nursery Cafe. I don't usually order sweet things for breakfast but I thoroughly enjoyed their French toast with bacon, banana and maple syrup. Excellent service, too.

Mt Elephant Pancakes are great. I've had their chicken, camembert and blueberry pancake as well as their satay chicken, and both were fantastic. They also happily cooked egg-free pancakes for an allergic friend.

Masterchef is back! I happily admit to loving this show. Sure, it's reality TV but there is plenty of insight into the food and cooking processes (unlike another show that recently aired), no viewer voting, and likeable hosts and judges (I love Matt Preston!).

Magners Pear Cider

My new pub favourite!



I went off beer a couple of years ago and cider has neatly replaced it as my refreshing drink of choice. There are some pretty average ciders out there, but there's just as many really interesting ciders, you just need to hunt them down (and pay a bit of a premium).

Pear cider can be hard to find here in Hobart. I love St Helier's, and now Magners have recently released their pear cider in Australia. It's great - not quite as smooth as St Helier's, but still completely drinkable!

Cold Rock!

Seeing this sign in North Hobart makes me very happy!



There's also a sign for Pretzel World as well, but who needs pretzels when you can have icecream? :)

Creative tea bags

A clever list of creative tea bags on toxel.com.

My favourite would have to be the origami one: it's so pretty!

Tasmania's Table

I want this book:



I flicked through a workmate's copy and have completely fallen in love with it. I really enjoy supporting local products and businesses and this book is pure Tasmania. Even with a brief look I've already found some new producers that I want to visit, and recipes to try. Most (if not all?) of the recipes come from restaurants and cafes all around the state. There's recipes for dishes I've eaten when dining out! It's fantastic.

Check out the website for the book here. If you work in the industry, this page might be of particular interest to you.

Tasmanian Farm Gate

The Tasmanian Farm Gate farmer's market is held every Sunday in the Melville Street Carpark (just down from Island Cafe). It started at the end of October last year, and showcases fresh, local produce.

I really like the concept of farmer's markets and seasonal local produce, and was quite excited when I first learned about this new market. We haven't really have such a thing here in Hobart - Salamanca Market does have some decent local produce, but I don't really like battling tourists and dodging the craft stalls to find what I'm after.

The market is probably still somewhat in its infancy, but I hope it continues to grow and more people start to go there regularly to encourage that growth.

Here are some pictures from my most recent visit.

Some of the market, from Elizabeth Street:


My purchases:

• Companion Bakery country batard sourdough ($5.50)
• Hmong squash ($3)
• Zucchini flowers ($2)
• Grandvewe Friesland Fog sheep's milk cheese ($10)
• Rare Food pork rillette ($8)

I sampled all three of the Grandvewe cheeses on offer. Birchs Bay Blonde was absolutely amazing - I'll definitely buy it in the future, but at $20 for a small wheel it'll be for a special occasion! I also sampled their vanilla whey liqueur - wow. I wasn't expecting to like it, but it was sublime - refreshing with just the right amount of sweetness and a lovely hint of whey.

I bought the pork rillette from Matthew Evans himself, and felt like a bit of a fangirl, he's quite charming :)

J and I enjoyed some of the bread and rillette as a ploughman's lunch, complete with rocket from our garden:


The bread is fantastic, and has re-inspired me to try my hand at sourdough sometime. I'd love to try growing my own 'mother' (starter), though I know it's unlikely I'd get results anywhere near this without a wood-fired oven. It had a wonderful chewy crust.

Tonight we had some of the cheese on the sourdough, which was a fantastic combination.

This weekend is the official launch of the market - a great opportunity to check it out if you haven't done so yet (click on the photo below to enlarge)

Gingerbread houses on cups!

How gorgeous are these mini gingerbread houses from Not Martha? I love them!

Gourmet Farmer with Matthew Evans on SBS tonight

This new show starts on SBS at 7.30pm tonight, and I'm certain it will be worth watching. Matthew Evans used to be a reviewer, and now lives in Tasmania. He (along with another guy, Ross O’Meara) makes artisan meat products under the name Rare Food, sold at Salamanca Markets at a stall shared with the Bruny Island Cheese Co.

Read more at his blog here, and be sure to watch the show tonight!

Following this show, is another episode of Oz and James's Big Adventure, featuring James May of Top Gear fame. It's very entertaining look at wines and the wine industry.

Foodie flags!

This is pretty clever - Flags made from food. I could pick almost all of the countries!

Simple pleasures

Just a nice, simple platter that we enjoyed with a glass of wine.
We sat outside to celebrate the first evening of nice weather that we've had in the past week or so.

Strawberries, antipasto mix, cracked pepper crackers and a Heidi Farm blue.

Camembert update

My lovely (and stinky!) little camemberts have been riping away in a cool cupboard. Last night, 9 days after making them, I wrapped them in greaseproof paper and put them in the fridge to continue their ripening process more slowly.

They've developed a nice white fuzz and are squishy around the edges. In the next couple of weeks the squishy-ness should work it's way into the middle of the cheese. Ever purchased a soft cheese that was too hard and tasteless in the center? That's because it's too young. Leave it out of the fridge for a little while and it will soften up.

I'm looking forward to sampling my cheese, although to be perfectly honest I'm hoping they're ok - I'm not entirely sure! They are really quite pungent, and I hope this isn't a bad sign. They haven't had any black mould spots, which from my reading is the most common bad thing to happen, but there is a slight hint of orange. I'll keep an eye on them, and sample them cautiously ;)

Photography

Most of my cooking shots are taken using my Canon IXUS 850IS. I'm a huge fan of Canon point-and-shoot digital cameras, and this has the added bonus of a relatively large amount of control over manual settings.

The rest of my shots are taken with the camera in my mobile phone, which is a Sony Ericsson C902. It takes pretty decent shots for a mobile phone.

As times goes on, I hope to remember to carry my proper camera more regularly, and avoid using my phone except in desperate circumstances.

And eventually I'll get myself a digital SLR, and use that for the majority of my photos. Time to start saving!

Camembert workshop

Yesterday I attended an Adult Education course, called Camembert Workshop, in Woodbridge. It was taught by Nick Haddow, of Bruny Island Cheese Co. fame, and he was assisted by Christine Worley.

Adult Ed courses are great. I've done a number of them over the years, and enjoyed each thoroughly. They aren't cheap, but cost cover materials and are definitely a worthwhile investment. I've refined my cooking skills in Japanese, Thai and Indian cuisines, to name a few!

Classes can be browsed on the Adult Ed website. Classes are updated quarterly and fill up pretty quickly - keep an eye out for the quarterly updates.

Nick Haddow was a great teacher. Extremely passionate, entertaining, and patient - he happily and respectfully answers all questions asked of him. I was a big fan of his cheeses before the class, and I'm now a fan of him as well!

In yesterday's course we learned how to make raw milk camembert (pasteurised is also an option, but I don't think anyone did this) over a period of 6 hours. I won't post the details here - sign up for one of the classes to learn the process yourself :)

Here's Nick pouring off the whey from the curds:

The curds are we what use to make the camembert with. We also used the whey: the addition of vinegar, salt and heat transformed this murky yellow liquid into warm, delicious ricotta. You expect fresh cheese like this to be good, but it exceeded my expectations by far! It was soft, salty and comforting. Given the chance, I'd happily eat it by the spoonful, but it would also be fantastic over pasta, or sweetened with jam and served on thick sourdough toast.

I took home a little sample of the ricotta, plus 6 camembert cheeses in plastic molds:



Tonight I'll remove the camembert from their molds, wash them in a brine solution, then they'll sit and develop a crust and white fuzz on the outside and soften inside. I hope to have some great cheese ready in a few weeks - just in time for Christmas!

Stay tuned for updates :)

The post in which I introduce this blog

What do you write in the very first post on a new blog? I'll try to keep it short and sweet!

I love reading food blogs (actually, lots of different blogs but food blogs especially), and decided to create one of my own to document the food I eat and cook. Hobart has several fantastic food blogs, but I think there's always room for more to be posted about the Hobart (and Tasmanian) dining scene.

I've also set myself a cooking challenge in 2010 - see here for the challenge posts.

I'm by no means a professional cook and haven't had any training. I've got lots to learn and I have fun experimenting with new cooking techniques and flavour combinations, and I get a buzz out of cooking for other people. And of course, I love eating out and do so as much as I can. I don't 'review' restaurants here as I don't really have the experience or knowledge to do so properly, and I'm not much of a writer, but I do like share photos of the delicious (and not so delicious!) food I encounter.

Welcome, enjoy the view :)