Oct 29th

coconut & palm sugar creme caramel

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After being a little slack with my blogging for the last few months, my inspiration has been revived by the characters in the movie ‘Julie & Julia’ with their JUST DO IT attitude!

So here I am – sharing the recipe that got me through to the 3rd round of auditions for a spot on Masterchef 2.  No I didn’t make it all the way but please don’t let that (or this crappy iphone photo that doesn’t do this dish justice) deter you from making this yummy creme caramel. This is the photo I took after plating my dish up at the master chef audition.

coconut creme caramel with palm sugar syrup, pineapple chips & pandanus foam

Props to Beth for sharing the coconut creme caramel recipe with me, and for executing a succesful trial run of this dish with me in her kitchen. The palm sugar, pineapple chips and pandanus mousse / foam are ideas that developed along the way.

Props to Gerard, Louise, Ben, Will & Gabe for lending me their kitchen (my oven exploded a week or so before) and along with Mum, Nic, Candy, Josh & Steve for being my guinea pigs.

You will need to do the pineapple chips a day ahead, and it is best to do the creme caramel and pandanus foam a day ahead too as they need quite a while to chill.

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Aug 28th

sardine tin

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sardine-tinSimon Livingstone now has a finger in every pie when it comes to the restaurant scene, with the opening of his latest addition to an ever growing clan of cafés and restaurants; ‘sardine tin’.

It is a small, understated eatery/drinkery overlooking the parklands, located just across from Simon’s french bistro ‘Piaf’.  Serving tapas size meals and offering a select list of wines, sardine tin is a great place to have a drink and tasty morsel, or conveniently, a great place to perch while waiting for your table at the ever busy Piaf.

sardine tin wall

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Jul 31st

crunchy roast potatoes

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crunchy golden herby roast potatoes

I’m sorry – I have been extremely slack with my blog the last few weeks.  but what can I say… I swapped my frypan and spatula for my snowboard and beanie and have been carving it up with Josh (or atleast trying my hardest to) on the slopes of the Remarkables and Coronet Peak in Queenstown, New Zealand.  We had a great time, but I brought home a terrible flu which I can’t manage to shake… and which interestingly enough, rendered my fingers unable to type??

I hope my secret recipe for crunchy potatoes will make up for it. What is a lamb roast without roast potatoes?  And they can’t just be any roast potatoes – they have to be crunchy, golden potatoes with soft, fluffly centres.

So this is how I do mine…

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