I went to IKEA last week. This was a momentous occasion for me, because despite 4.5 years living here in Perth, and driving it past it frequently, this was my Very First Visit at the only WA IKEA store. I have been to IKEA in Victoria and South Australia, but many years ago.
Although I didn’t actually buy any furnishings, we did take a lot of photos with our phones, of things we want to go back and get when we move in to the new apartment shortly. It was exciting! Also very, very crowded – 5 minutes before opening time when we arrived, there were about 200 people waiting outside for the doors to open. Lots of people with kids too. Ugh. Once the place opened, however the crowds thinned out pretty quickly (yay for childminding and a ball pit!), and moving through the store was actually fairly painless.
I bought a silicone pot stand thing, a jar of herring roe (mmmmmmm) and at the last minute picked up a carton of Brödmix Flerkorn to try. I am a sucker for all things bread-related, especially dense, dark, chewy, thick, grainy chunks of bread, that have soooo much more flavour than dreary white bread.
I can’t believe how simple this bread was to make! It’s like pancake mix – just add water, shake it all up, pour, let it rise and then pop it into the oven. I really expected it to be a bit of a flop, although online searching turned up a LOT of big fans of this bread mix, all over the world.
The loaf came out quite heavy, and the edges were very crunchy – I thought it might taste very dry – possibly I left it in the oven for 5 minutes too long I think – a lesson for next time but of course it depends on the oven, and shortly I will be trying to get used to my lovely new one 🙂 Inside, however it was perfect – nutty, moist and VERY moreish! It was perfectly suited as an accompaniment to risotto, made with the Huon hot smoked salmon that I won on Valentine’s Day 🙂
I have to go back to IKEA soon (yes, I HAVE to, right???) to buy a couple of the things that we earmarked the other day……I shall definitely be going back to the Swedish food market section, for more delicious Brödmix.
I felt like soda bread one day this week, and decided to see if the recipe I’ve had for years worked in the bread machine, because things are so easy that way. It did work, really well, and made great open sandwiches with olive/feta dip, jarslberg cheese, roast beef & alfalfa sprouts on top.
For something different I added a small can of corn kernels and some caraway seeds – you can add lots of things to bread recipes to jazz them up a bit – sun-dried tomatoes, chopped olives, walnuts, poppy seeds, herbs etc.
Soda Bread
3 cups plain flour
1 1/2 tsp bi-carbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp caraway seeds (optional)
125 gm can corn kernels, drained (optional)
1 1/2 cups buttermilk or low-fat Greek yoghurt
Regular Method:
Mix dry ingredients, seeds & corn (if using) together with a whisk. Make well in the centre and add 1 cup of buttermilk/yoghurt. Mix with a fork then gradually add more of the remaining buttermilk/yoghurt until a soft dough is formed.
Knead dough lightly on floured surface for 1 minute. Form into an oval shape and place in a greased/lined loaf tin or on a greased/lined baking tray.
Bake at 190C (170C fan forced) for 45 minutes.
Bread Machine Method:
Place all ingredients in machine. Cook on Damper setting. After the first five minutes, scrape down the sides of the mixture with a spatula to make sure it all gets mixed in properly.
Yummy Lunch!
As with all quick breads, this is best eaten on the day of baking. Use leftovers for great toast!
Really enjoyed watching this 3 part documentary, on my favourite subjects – food, history and England. So interesting to watch (and makes you want to rush off and roast some eggs!).
I had a spur of the moment brunch yesterday, whilst wandering the antique/coffee strip at the historic town of Guildford. It is only 15 minutes drive from me, but I went there by train, as it is their monthly craft market day and I expected parking to be an issue. I have never been to this market before, and was expecting big things….only to be pretty disappointed. It was just one room (the old town hall) with about a dozen stalls selling value-priced but not very exciting stuff. I could easily have found a parking space as well, but it was still nice to just wander up and down browsing – there are several antique/curio/collectibles shops and an excellent secondhand book shop – always worth a delve into.
As usual I had a book with me, so I decided to stop and have an early lunch at Jezebelle, a fairly new tapas bar/cafe. It was too early for tapas so I had brekky instead, which was absolutely delicious. I had the “hot smoked salmon cake, poached eggs & avocado”. There were 2 eggs, perfectly poached, except a bit cold by the time I finished mucking about taking photos haha, but that was my own fault and I am quite happy with cold food anyway. The salmon cakes (x2) were baked rather than fried, so not greasy and kind of like a mini hashbrown/frittata thing. The dish didn’t come with bread apparently so I asked for some rye toast with it, and this came with a tomato/onion salsa on top that was quite spicy and blended perfectly with the other flavours.
I had English Breakfast tea (it was the silk bags from Tea Drop, who seem to have a completely monopoly on coffee shop/restaurant supplying here in WA these days – it is nice tea, but I would prefer it a little stronger – I don’t think they put enough tea in the bags) and a glass of house sparkling. After all, it says on the menu that champagne is okay to drink any time, as it is always 12.00pm somewhere. I took them at their word.
The decor here is very modern – posh toilets! – and the service was good. The staff were all “young and hip” and very friendly. There was a family group arriving at the same time as me, and they were the customers from hell – they asked to be moved to a different table 3 times (just to be painful, as there was nothing wrong with any of the seating/view/light/temperature arrangements and you could choose to sit outside or inside) – I could see the poor staff doing their best to please them and no doubt wishing they would just go away! Thankfully, this lot only had coffees and didn’t stay all that long, as they were loud and had snivelling whiny kids with them, right behind me. When you are alone with a good book and have ‘been there, done that’ you don’t want rude, noisy kids mucking up your quiet Sunday morning! That’s my ‘old person rant’ over with anyway lol.
Prices were comparable to elsewhere in Perth: $16 for my main dish which is pretty good considering there was no charge for the toast (not sure if that was a mistake or not) and $4.50 for the tea. The only thing I realised when I got home and checked the bill, was that they actually charged me $18 for a premium glass of champers, when I asked for the house sparkling which should have cost $9.00. The reason I didn’t notice at the time, was that 1) I thought they were charging me extra for my toast, and 2) I had a 25% off discount by using the Entertainment card, so in my head I thought the total was about right, at the time. Hmmm, well my fault for not checking the bill properly at the time I suppose.
Had I been there a bit later in the day, there is live music from 1-3pm on Sundays, which would have been very nice alongside a few tapas dishes.
I am amazed at how great these dairy-free Fruit Cocktail Muffins taste – this recipe is from the 4 Ingredients: Kids recipe book, and in fact only has 3 ingredients in it! I wasn’t expecting too much of this, but it turned out brilliantly. Mind you, the blurb in the book says “these are ideal for breakfast when in a hurry” …..well, considering the sugar content from the caster sugar and the fruit/liquid, I’m not sure I’d encourage children to eat this in place of other breakfast options – but certainly as a supremely easy morning tea or after school snack this is ideal.
Kids could easily make these themselves with very little assistance, and all you need is to have a can of fruit cocktail in the pantry and you can whip them up and have them in the oven in literally 2 minutes.
For a more decadent version, I might add some choc bits next time. And a bit of cinnamon in the mixture would be good. Or if you have any leftover tiny Easter eggs lying around (unlikely I know!), you could press one into the centre of each muffin before cooking – caramel-filled eggs would be even better.
I’ve frozen some to see how they taste when thawed – possibly they’ll be quite dry and might need butter or jam spread on them. And I’ve realised just how similar this recipe is to the Pineapple Cake I’ve made before – in fact, almost identical – so that means you could easily substitute a particular fruit in this (or the cake recipe), rather than the mixed fruit cocktail. Lots of scope!
Fruit Cocktail Muffins
2 cups SR flour
1 cup caster sugar
410 gm can fruit cocktail, undrained
Preheat oven to 150C (140C for fan forced). Grease or line a 12-capacity muffin pan.
Sift flour and sugar into a large bowl and stir well.
Add the undrained fruit cocktail an stir until just combined (if a little dry, add 1 tbsp milk).
Spoon into muffin pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until tops of golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Small but delicious, this bread machine recipe is from a new cookbook that crossed my path at work recently, Brilliant Breadmaking in Your Bread Machine, by Catherine Atkinson. The quantities are for a smaller loaf than I usually make, in fact it was less than half the size, but the flavours were really good – the lemon & dill was definitely present, but not overpowering – and the texture was light and fluffy.
I made sandwiches for lunch with some of the slices, but this would make an idea nibbles platter – cut the slices in half so that they are small squares, and top with cream cheese, smoked salmon, capers and a garnish of fresh dill.
To make, just place the ingredients in the bread machine in the following order:
325 mls water
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup wholemeal flour
1 cup white bread flour (or plain flour if you can’t get bread flour – if the flour is good quality it shouldn’t make a difference)
3 tbsp fresh dill, chopped finely
grated zest of 1 large lemon
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 1/4 tsp dried yeast
cracked pepper, to taste
Cook on a basic white loaf setting.
Slices of lemon fluffiness
If you don’t have a bread machine, you should invest in one as they’re awesome!!
I’m in Melbourne now, for Christmas with the family, and am more in party mode than cooking mode! Lots of socialising and catching up with people going on this week. I have cooked one meal for my mum and son, my delicious and sooooooo easy Beef Rendang, but apart from that I’ve been eating out or having a sandwich.
I’ve had a lovely lunch at Red Fire Lounge (see pic below of yummy calamari stirfry with hokkien noodles – the calamari was ultra-tender and it was a HUGE serving, no way could I eat it all), and a wonderful brunch in the sun at Barmah Park Winery, complete with champagne at 10.00 in the morning!! It is Christmas, after all, and I’m on holidays. In fact, my friend and I spent 3 hours there yackety-yacking, and the waitress asked if we’d then like to order lunch as well lol. I’ve eaten there before but never ordered from the breakfast menu, and it was divine. Sitting outside on the verandah, looking out at the vineyard – supremely relaxing and fun.
Mum and I have written our grocery shopping list for this weekend, and we’re pretty well organised, so it should be fairly stress-free. We will do most of our cooking and a lot of other preparation on Christmas Eve, so that on Christmas Day it’s all just a matter of throwing a few easy things together and slicing things up. Chilled out and relaxed, is the aim.
The Christmas ham is all ready to be hacked into, and I’m sure that will happen in the next day or so – after all, it’s so huge there will be more than enough for Christmas Day (along with roast turkey, rolled/stuffed pork and a myriad of vegies and salads….not to mention nibbles and dips beforehand and LOTS of desserts later on….let’s face it, it’s just one big food-fest ALL day!!).
So…whilst I might not be doing too much actual cooking this week, I’m certainly doing some fabulous eating!
I had a go at making these last week for a quick dinner after work. This was SO easy and I thought for sure it would be a winner, but for me the flavours didn’t quite work. I found it too greasy tasting, and mine did not come out as perfect looking – in fact they sunk when cooling down, into concave little cheesey blobs really. I had trouble getting them out of the tin, despite it being non-stick and oiled, and the taste just didn’t do anything for me. I ended up scraping it all into the bin and ordering a szechuan prawn Crust pizza instead!
I do think this is a great recipe for kids to make though, and I think little taste buds would enjoy the flavours more than I did.
Last week I shared with you my (well, not mine, but my friend’s) Italian Bread Baskets, and mentioned that the options for other fillings were endless. Well, I’ve had a go at serving poached eggs in them (using Poachies, which I am totally hooked on) – and it worked really well!
One with smoked salmon (that one’s mine of course) and one topped with red casicum strips – what a great serving idea, and it only took a few minutes to trim/flatten/bake the bread pieces. Don’t they look great!
This frittata was SO easy, I was very impressed. It is based on a recipe from the new River Cottage Veg cookbook, and this particular recipe was recommended to me by a work colleague.
The vegies you use are completely up to you, and I didn’t have the right size baking dish as most of mine are currently still packed (and will remain so while I am living where I am at the moment – no room to put them anywhere!). This is a very forgiving dish though – you could make it in a dish of any shape or size I reckon and it would still come out fine.
I do love roast beetroot and it was perfect in this; I was thinking maybe I’d make one just with beetroot and pumpkin next time, as the two go well together and the colours look great too.
Roast Veg Frittata
~600 gms mixed Winter veg (I used beetroot, pumpkin, carrot & potato), cut into 2-3cm chunks
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp olive oil (or use olive oil spray)
7-8 eggs
3 spring onions, chopped
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 tsp dried thyme
cracked pepper, to taste
30 gms parmesan cheese, finely grated
Preheat oven to 190C.
Toss the vegies in a bowl with oil and garlic, then spread out on a baking tray. Roast for about 40 minutes, until vegies are all tender and starting to caramelise in places.
Beat the eggs together with the herbs and cracked pepper.
Transfer the vegies to a 23cm square ovenproof dish, and pour the egg mixture evenly over. Scatter the parmesan cheese over the top and return to the oven for 20 minutes, until the egg is all set and the top is puffed up and starting to colour.
Serve warm or cold.
Serves 6
The original recipe called for the vegies to be roasted in the ovenproof dish, and then the egg mixture simply poured over the top; however, I wanted to spread my vegies out more, so I have cooked them on a separate oven tray first and then transferred to the final dish. I do think this would be a great party or picnic dish, as you could quite easily double it and make it in a large lasagne type dish, and cut it into small squares. A good one to make ahead too, as it’s yummy cold (I should know, I had a leftover bit for brekky the next day!).
Don’t forget to enter the Poachies giveaway, by liking my previous post!
Salmon & Avocado 