This is the perfect winter staple, served with crusty bread, as a tapas or on their own. You really can't stop at one, this recipe with convert anyone to mussels!
Shopping trolley.
1Kg fresh mussels
4 cloves garlic sliced thin
Handful fresh parsley, chopped roughly
2 tins diced tomato
2 cups white wine
1 birds eye chilli diced
2 cups vege or fish stock
Zest of one lemon (optional)
1 onion thinly diced
Preparation.
Debeard and clean mussels, discarding any open ones.
Saute onion, garlic and chilli. Add white wine, stock and tomatoes. Simmer for fifteen minutes. Add lemon zest and season to taste. When broth is ready (according to taste - EVERYTHING is according to taste!!!!) add mussels and steam with lid on for 5 minutes, making sure all mussels are covered.
Remove open mussels to serving bowl and continue steaming the rest. Continue checking for open mussels and returning lid for another ten minutes. Discard any unopen and coat mussels with remaining broth and parsley.
So decedent but so cheap! I want to eat. NOW.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Quan 88
From work to pub... hungry tummy not such a good idea with $2 pots in mind. Decided on quick viet dinner on Victoria St before heading to The Vic (281 Victoria St) for happy hour.
After hours and hours of trolling through blogs, reviews etc etc. I decided on a list of top Viet restaurants on Victoria that would be acceptable, but decided on Quan 88 due to it's proximity to The Vic. So glad that we did cos it was really good!
We ordered the Chilli Lemongrass squid, a tofu and vegetable stir fry flat rice noodle, rice noodle and braised beef, prawn springrolls and prawn stuffed eggplant.
All up our meal for four came to $60, came out fast, hot and cooked to perfection. Of all the dishes I absolutely loved the prawn stuffed eggplant and thoroughly enjoyed the stir fried flat noodles - although a vietnamese staple in Melbourne, the flavours were so much more vibrant and fresh than what you'd get at other cheap restaurants - such a yummy smoky flavour.
I could take or leave the prawn spring rolls, no one does them as well as Vy Vy on Racecourse Rd, Flemington but will go back for seconds soon!
Oh and my other Viet picks on Victoria Street - Thanh Nga Nine (160 Victoria Street) and Minh MInh (94 Victoria Street).
Quan 88
88 Victoria St Richmond VIC 3121 - (03) 9428 6850
Open Mon-Wed,Sun 11am-10pm; Thu-Sat 11am-11pm
Vy Vy
318 Racecourse Rd Flemington VIC 3031 - (03) 9372 1426
Easter Sunday Dinner for 17...
Mum offered to help in the kitchen, but being the control freak that I am I opted to do it alone. Thankfully though, V realised before I what a massive undertaking this was and nominated herself for dishes duty - and whatta task!
Each of these pastas are pretty easy but are so distinct from one another that they complement the others quite well. Just tackling this post is making me feel all anxious and tired though.... it was pretty funny - I felt like a professional chef, thank god there was enough for seconds and everyone seemed really happy with the meal. It was so funny everyone rushing into the dining room to line up with bowl and fork in hand, someone calling out "we need more parmesan" and "who made this?". V and I standing back in awe!
Zucchini and Parmesan chilli linguine
2 large zucchini - sliced into 4mm slices length ways.
1 birds eye chilli
2 cloves garlic
handful chopped parsley
Grated parmesan
Salt and pepper to taste.
Saute zucchini over medium heat with garlic and chilli. Add parmesan and parsley and stir through pasta.
Meat lovers Linguini
This is great for holidays because you always have left over BBQ meat in the fridge, it's such an easy way to get rid of it. The trick is to let it simmer for a while so the meat gets all tender, the tomato sauce takes on the smoky flavour of the meat while still retaining the fresh sweet tang that only comes with good quality or fresh napoli sauce.
Tip: For this sort of napoli, I either deseed and blend fresh tomatoes, garlic and onion with a little veg stock to thin it out a bit, or blend garlic and onion with pureed tomatoes and a teaspoon of sugar)
Left over bbq'd sausages, cooked diced bacon and steak - roughly chopped into bite size pieces.
fresh/home made napoli pasta sauce
Saute garlic slightly before adding napoli sauce. Simmer meat in napoli sauce for 1/2 hour before stirring in linguine.
Prawn Linguini in a white wine reduction
750g green prawns, deshelled (with or without tails)
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 tomatoes - deseeded and chopped finely
2 big handfuls chopped parsley
2 cups reasonable quality white wine (sav blanc is good)
6 shallots - sliced
basil leaves
This is the more time consuming pasta but it's totally worth it.
Saute garlic, chilli and shallots for five minutes before adding enough white wine to cover onion mix. Turn heat down and simmer until white wine thickens slightly. Add a little wine at a time, adding seasoning to flavour. The sauce is intended to coat and flavour prawns and should be sweet rather than salty or sour (takes about 25 minutes to add white wine and cook out all the alcohol). When your happy with how the sauce tastes, raise heat and add prawns. Stir constantly making sure all prawns are cooked through - about three minutes, add parsley before stirring through linguini. Sprinkle with parmesan and basil.
Eggscellent Easter
Easter overload! See the finished eggs on the left - I filled them with mini m&m's!
I know. I know... but bestie came out with it over the weekend away and I just couldn't help myself!
So OK. I had to take a week off work and had no idea how I would entertain myself on Thursday and Good Friday. How would I fill my time productively? With Easter approaching I realised I had to get two family Easter egg bundles together. Well Easter eggs get a bit expensive and can end up being a bit generic, so with all this time on my hands, what else would I do but endeavor to make Easter eggs for everyone?
Getting the moulds proved a challenge, as no one was selling them! One cooking supplies shop had stocked a handful but had sold out Melbourne-wide! Next step - internets! I stumbled across Roberts Confectionery website and put an order in for some moulds to pick up the following day.
Deciding on these: (images courtesy of Roberts Confectionery)
Making easter eggs was a little bit harder (okay alot) than I initially thought, I mean I basically stood in the kitchen for two days and went through a bucket load of chocolate. I mean it's my own fault I thought the filled eggs were so cute and just had to get them - requiring chocolate colouring (oil based powder), I also decided to fill some medium eggs (came in the bunny mould case) with caramel).But you know what? In the end it was cheaper than buying that many eggs and totally worth it - everyone felt really special and thought they were gorgeous- and you know what else? - I didn't eat one single easter egg!
I used a smaller paint brush to fill the decorative designs and a medium brush to layer the chocolate in the eggs.
I made far too much caramel,but it was exciting to see it turn from clear to caramel! 
Home made caramel
So yes - I'm waiting on more photos of the little bundles I handed out to friends and family and I'll post them when I get them.
In addition to the egg bundles I made some yummy chocolate cupcakes with green icing and chocolate bunnies on top! They were so gorgeous and really easy to make - I'll definately do them next year.
Icing tip: Along with the green colouring, I added peppermint oil and fresh lemon juice (boyfriend's mum gave me the suggestion!) to the butter icing. Absolutely delicious, the lemon juice added layers to the butter icing mixture and softened the peppermint very nicely. We ended up with the juice of 1 whole lemon into the mixture for 48 cupcakes. So good.
P.S If you've got photos of my eggs please email them to me so I can post them up! This post feels a little incomplete :S
I heart Julie and Julia
Not just because it's a true story about how a women gets her life together through the aid of a cooking master and a blog, but because the food looks beautiful. I especially like the Bruschetta that Julia makes while she and her husband decide she should start a blog. It's so vibrant and looks so yummy I had a craving to make it while watching the film just before the easter weekend.
Mummy and I met up for an afternoon of shopping at the Queen Vic market; in preparation for the long weekend festivities in the country, so I decided to get supplies for bruschetta!
Shopping bag:
2 fresh firm tomatoes - diced (yellow or black tomatoes as well if you want!)
4 cherry or baby roma tomatoes - halved
1/2 small yellow capsicum (for color)
1/2 small red onion - thinly diced
bunch basil leaves
lake salt flakes and pepper to taste
good olive oil
crusty white loaf sliced into 4 thick pieces
sprinkling parmesan.
(serves 2)
Preparation.
Combine all ingredients (sans bread and butter). I like to use a good sprinkling of salt and olive oil, but it's really up to you how much you want to use - the salt and oil mixture combined with onion juice soaked into the bread and tomatoes is so yummy and absolutely addictive!
In a heavy pan, melt plenty of butter (I never said this was healthy). Once melted and bubbling nicely coat one side of the bread with the melted butter and then turn over to coat the remaining butter onto the other side of the bread. Over a low-medium heat toast each side of the bread until golden-brown and crunchy. Continue until all servings are done, making sure to wipe excess butter out of pan each time so that the butter doesn't burn - it looks yucky on the bread!
Scoop a nice helping of tomato mixture on top each slice of bread.
Dinner is served and amazing!
Just do it.
Boyfriend's camera sucks, but I find it difficult to replace something that still works. I have never bought a camera - I guess I've never seen the necessity. I am not particularly photogenic (instead tend to adopt an extra chin) and never feel the urge to pick up a camera and start snapping.
On a recent trip to my parent's arty-farty house in Central Victoria, I learnt exactly how bad I am at taking photos - sitting on the sun deck watching my parent's friends play fiddle and sing blue grass I became inspired to capture the moment- which I didn't do at all. It's really hard to take a good photo when you don't have the patience to learn.
Anyway the point of these ramblings is that I've eaten out alot and been in the kitchen almost constantly (i havent sewn anything though) and have quite a few posts that I need to write - gingerboy, Cafe Vue Cocktail Night, Madame Brussels, Campari House.... Easter weekend feasting.... I just need some good photos to accompany my posts - apart from taking scrutiny away from my rusty writing skills, it's pretty rare to see a food post without photos of the reviewed meals so it'd look odd.
I think my biggest problem is that I have no patience - I get so excited by food that I've already half finished by the time I've remembered to take a shitty iphone shot. And really does anyone actually wanna see my half-enjoyed food?
Probably another reason I haven't been posting is that I've become a little embarrassed by my little lonesome food/craft blog - so impressed by others that I've felt a bit disheartened. Then I remembered that I am actually doing this blog for myself and for my friends and family - so they can find all my recipes really easily. So suck it self I love cooking and I won't let your paranoia and uncertainty get in the way!
Making dinner for 17 people at mum and dad's house over Easter weekend - post to come
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