Happy again

Happy with teeth...

Life's a breeze with calabrese

In homage to a vegetable of class.

I opened my veg box. "apples, carrots, fennel, pears, mushroom and the leeks. Wait a sec those are some funny looking leeks damn"

My first experience with Calabrese. Somehow Calabrese had replaced my leeks. I didn't know it at the time but this was a good thing, a very good thing! I admit i hadn't heard of Calabrese. From the name, perhaps they're a funk band, big in the 70's but no Calabrese is a mathematical type of broccoli full of helixes and spirals. A thing of beauty.

I found the mild flavour of the Calabrese went well with Greek yogurt and the crunch of almonds. Enjoy.

Ingredients:

Calabrese 

50g blanched roasted almonds

Squeeze of lemon juice

Knob of butter

Pinch of chilli and salt

$ spoons of Greek Yogurt

Directions:

Steam the Calabrese like Broccoli, for around three to four minutes. Empty straight into iced water to preserve its colour. Heat the butter in a pan. Dry the Calabrese and add with the chilli and salt. Saute until warm , add the lemon juice and then serve with the almonds and Greek yogurt. Alternatively you could serve the salad cold.

Birthday Cake

I've fine tuned the icing recipe so we're ready to go !!! I've used glucose syrup as its not quite as sweet as sucrose and it won't crystalise. This'l make the icing sticky and glossy.

Ingredients:

70g of dark chocolate melted
1.5 tbsp of glucose syrup
2.5 tbsp of water

Directions:
Melt the chocolate in a bowl over hot water. Add the glucose syrup and stir with a spoon. Slowly add the water while still hot and stir in until incorporated. The chocolate should start to look glossy. Leave to cool a little before spooning over the cakes.

Flourless Dark Chocolate Ground Almond Amaretto Cake
The balance of flavours and the moist firm texture make this the best cake recipe i have made !!!


Ingredients:
100g butter, 100g caster  sugar, 150g 70% dark chocolate, 100g ground almonds, few drops vanilla essence, 2 tbsp coco, cap of amaretto liqueur, 3 eggs (2 separated)

      Directions:
       Preheat an oven to 170 deg. C.  Brush melted butter inside five kugelhopf tins before putting into the fridge. Break up the chocolate melt over alongside the butter. Allow to cool.  Separate two eggs. Beat the 3rd egg with the two egg yolks before adding the sugar. Mix well. Now use a spatula to fold ingredients (no mixing). Add the chocolate, alcohol and vanilla to the eggs and sift in the coco. Fold in the ground almonds. Whisk the egg whites until you have firm peaks then fold in gently.  Fill the kulf tins until 1 cm from the top and put into the oven for 20 mins until a knife comes out nearly clean.  Allow to rest for ten mins then turn out and cover with icing.

Cake ?

Its my birthday soon and tradition dictates that i make a cake. This time its going to be special, i've been practicing for a while now and i have a prototype. A flourless ground almond, dark chocolate cake. I'm going to put up the recipe when i've got the perfect icing. I'm thinking a chocolate glaze with apricot jam raspberry coulis and whipped amaretto cream. Two days to go.

Face off

Cards are about two people, someone saying and someone recieving. I'm experimenting with a scrapbook two face theme we'l see where this leads......

Suppliers need love

A wise man once said 'one who gives you free food should be loved' i am that man. The people's kitchen is supported by people who donate food (that isn't selling), they need some thanks.

Thanks !!

I owe some people thanks. Thanking someone is pretty simple and sincere, you just let the words speak for themselves. I'm going to use a black (simple) and white (sincere) theme. I still want some hippy curves but i'm going to tone the whole thing down and keep to one colour outside and one inside. Saying that i still want it to be a surprise when the colour changes as you open the card. Thanks.