To Eat!

A couple of weeks ago (as I forgot to post this at the time!) a friend from Sydney and I went to Maha for dinner.  The style & cuisine of this restaurant is Mediterranean/Middle Eastern.

Now I had been there before, as I had booked there for our office Christmas Lunch 2010, and had been impressed with it then.  So we both chose the 5 course Soufra with wines to match.  As Anthony is vegetarian, I chose to have the vege option as well.  Upon reflection I don't think I would have eaten as well with the meat dishes!

It was superb!  We started with a pumpkin soup, but not just any old pumpkin soup!  In the bottom of the rather large bowl/dish, were roasted pine nuts and something green (which I can't remember what it was), and a small swirl of feta cheese.  There was also a small roll made with cinnamon filled with feta cheese on the side.  The soup was them poured over the nuts & greenery.  It was absolutely delish!!

The second course was an antipasto style, there were bowls of olives marinated in chilli and a Maltese cheese (Name of which I didn't catch), a bowl of white cannelli beans with olive oil & garlic, a bowl with thinly sliced zucchini, olive oil & spices and a beetroot & sour cream dip, all served with individual Turkish bread rolls.

While we were still eating that, out came course No.3.  This was a spring roll filled with roasted red onion and garlic, and a tahini sauce (I think!), a bowl of lentil in olive oil with caramelised onion and feta crumbled over the top.  They were beyond words yummy! 

By this point we were onto the double glasses of wine with the food. I cannot even remember what I was drinking! I know they were white wines and were very good.  The main course was accompanied by 2 reds, one of which happened to be a Shiraz. I cannot drink Shiraz or any blends with that grape variety, as it just doesn't like me. So not wishing to ruin my meal, I asked them to take it away.  The somelier then gave me some VERY nice Pinot Noir which also suited what we were about to eat.

So main course was pumpkin & feta (me thinks) ravioli, with a nutty foam of some sort.  I tell you it was a different taste sensation! Some fatoush, and a rice dish with apricots, pine nuts and something else.  The final dish of the mains was turnip & mushrooms, cooked I think on the grill with some sea salt and olive oil.  I'm not really sure what else was with it, because at this point I'm enjoying the food too much to pay attention to what our attendant is telling us about it!

After all that, we still had the dessert/sweets to come.  We opted to wait for about 30 mins before even contemplating eating again!  So we sat and chatted and finished our wine. 

I tell you it was worth the wait!  Out came a board with 3 small dishes/glasses.  The first was a cone of very fine pastry, made by piping and swirling it around to create the cone shape.  It was filled with a white chocolate mousse, that I think m ay have had some sort of nut in it.  Drizzled over this was an orange syrup. OMG YUM!!!  It was but a mere mouthful, but it was heaven.  The second was a shot glass, and according the the attendant was their version of a 'Golden Gaytime' ice cream.  The inside of the glass was smeared with salted chocolate and nuts and roasted cous cous, yes you did read that right.  At the bottom of the glass was a layer of salted caramel, on top of that was a dark chocolate mousse, and on top of that was a foam of some sort.  It was toe curlingly yummy.  The last was the signature sweet for Maha, Greek style donuts filled with Turkish Delight, and drizzled with Turkish Delight syrup.  We also had 2 dessert wines to go with them, but I only managed to finish one of them, the other wine was way too sweet for me.

After all that we waddled home!  It was a great dinner!  I cannot recommend Maha enough, so if you come down to visit Melbourne, see if you can go for lunch or dinner!

To Craft at the last minute!

So it's Godboffin's Birthday on Monday next week.  Time got completely away from me and I failed to make the fun bag I was going to do. So was in a panic at the beginning of this week, as I had no idea what to get her!  I remember Karen showing me a few "Mug Rug's" she had made.  So I went searching the internet for inspiration.  I found it here.

I found some scrap pieces that were already sewn together and cut them up, and put them together as shown below.  Now my 1st Mug Rug is a little longer than was advised in the instructions, but I think it adds character! :D 

It took me just over 4 hours due to the ironing and cutting then sewing the decorative quilting and the binding.  The instructions said the sew the binding on by machine, and I would have happily done that, had I not decided to try something different.  And by different I mean sewing on all 4 side as separate pieces.  Note to self - DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!!!

 I did however, have fun putting it together and may make some more later on.

To Cook ...

Last night I made 3 dishes!

I first prepped the ingredients for a Slow Cooker Casserole. Sliced some spuds, some bacon and some pumpkin. Then browned the bacon with chicken thigh pieces which had not really thawed very well. So I browned them very slowly. Piled it all into the slow cooker, and set it to high for 4 hours.

In the mean time I mixed 500g of ricotta cheese with 4 eggs and a handful of shredded tasty cheese, salt & pepper. I put this back in the fridge while the frozen puff pastry thawed. I took out 2 sheets thinking my pie dish needed the 2, only to find it did not, once I had lined it with one.  I had had the oven pre-heating, so once the pie plate had been lined with the pastry and filled with the cheese mixture, into the oven it went.  Now I've cooked this dish before, all with varying degree's of success, as it was a verbal recipe given to me by my Nana over 20 years ago. I have finally sussed out the correct timing for a perfectly cooked cheese pie! I was sooo happy!

While the cheese pie was cooking for the initial 25 minutes, I cut the 2nd piece of puff pastry into for and got out my silicone muffin tin and lined 4 of the holes with the pastry.  I also had some bacon left over and so used my scissors to cut up 2 of the 4 remaining pieces.  I placed the bacon in the bottom of the 4 pastry holes, then cracked and egg directly into each one.  Topped it off with some shredded cheese and placed it into the oven with the cheese pie .

So I baked the cheese pie for a total of 45 mins, 10 of which it shared the oven with the egg & bacon pastry muffins.  I then cooked the pastry muffins for another 15-20 minutes to make sure the egg & the pastry were cooked through.  Surprisingly the egg wasn't over cooked and didn't develop that green line around the yolk.  I know this cos I had to test one. ;D I also had a slice of the cheese pie with some fresh tomato & lettuce for dinner.

So now I have chicken casserole for dinner for the next couple of nights with added vege's, and cheese pie for lunch, and pastry muffins for breakky!

Now to face all the washing up!!!!  NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! LOL!

To Bead ...

I suddenly got inspired to create a necklace for a Birthday pressie.

I used black and white glass beads, along with plastic metal look bead, AB round beads & small black round beads.  Tiger tail, antiqued silver crimps & a toggle clasp.

To construct the necklace I used a random pattern to place the beads along the piece of tiger tail.

To Cook ...

So I decided to try using one of the flan pan's I bought before Christmas last night in making something for the office.

I had bought a home-brand chocolate cake mix, some butter puff pastry & a tin of pear halves.  It was a very basic thing to put together.

I first semi defrosted 2 sheets of puff pastry and molded then to the pan shape. I then blind baked the pastry with rice as weights.  I found that this doesn't always cook the bottom, so after it had been blind baked I then removed the rice weight and placed it back in the oven.  This of course made the pastry puff up from the base, but this was okay. Why? I hear you ask? Well I then used the damp tea towel to gently press the base flat, like you would if you were making the pastry layer for a Vanilla Slice.

I had already drained and sliced up 4 pear halves. All that was needed was the cake mix to be done.  With that done I proceeded to layer up my flan/tart. Firstly I spread a thin layer of cake batter over the base of the pastry. Then I placed the sliced pear all along the pan, and top filled with some more cake batter.  Baked it for about 25 mins, and this is how it looked. It was very light, not too sweet and yummy!!

To Craft!

Okay so this post is going to combine 3 things I've crafted. One very recent, one not so recent, and the other quite a while ago.

So I should start with the item I crafted quite a while ago.  This was a free form pouch that I Sashiko stitched after I finished the bag.  I needed something to keep my usb cord & memory cards in for my camera, as they were starting to scratch the screen.  I already have a camera case but this was to go inside it, as my camera is small and the case was just that little, okay make that a lot too big.

The next item is something I made for my niece's 3rd Birthday.  She has been wanting to help out in the kitchen for a while now, so I though it only fair that she have her very own apron. I used a heavier calico, pale pink tape and some ribbon Mum & I found at the Australasian Quilting Convention in April this year.  The pattern comes from ... (To be advised).  It was very easy to sew, the tricky part for me was attaching the ribbon.  I had to make sure it was straight and didn't move while I was sewing the side seams together.  So I used a number of pins, and did prick myself a number of times while turning it out! The same thing applied to the tape for the straps and the 'D' rings at the side.  I also stitched the ribbon down along the long side, once I had turned the apron out the right way, to make sure it stayed straight! This was the first time I had sewed an apron pattern too.

I also hand stitched my niece's name on the pocket in pink variegated DMC cotton. You can't see it on the photo, because I took the photo before I did it.

An the final item is another Chook! It will have a twin, I just haven't finished it yet.  I made this for a friend at work for her Birthday, as she requested them!