Earl grey tea cookies and truffle fries with parmesan

Earl greys cookies are lined up to report for duty

Today was a baking day. My first exam is 15 days from now and so far I have been procrastinating 2 days straight. Not good. Although... today has BEEN quite productive if at all in different ways. These days I really like baking cookies, they're so cute and simple, the process destresses me, and it makes me happy to see people happy when I give them and eat my cookies. Oh, and I don't pile on the calories. 'Happy days' as Jamie Oliver would say.

To explain the truffle fries, it started because a week or so ago ieatsweet and I were at Westfield on Pitt St. Mall where we ended up having Charlie & Co.'s truffle fries and parmesan. It costed us almost $20 and it dawned on us that we could make this our own! Sometime at the end of last week I got this message from ieatsweet that she already gotten the truffle oil and sent an invite for me to come bearing parmesan cheese and fries. Well, it didn't happen last week, but it did today. So to make your own truffle fries and parmesan? Simple, get these ingredients, oven bake the fries or fry depending your preference, drizzle the truffle oil, grate the cheese - and enjoy =D

Here's the recipe for the earl grey tea cookies:

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

2 tablespoons finely ground Earl Grey tea leaves, (from about 8 bags)

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 (8 ounce) sticks unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest

Instruction:

1. Whisk together flour, tea, and salt in a small bowl; set aside.

2. Put butter, sugar, and zest in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low; slowly mix in flour mixture until just combined.

3. Divide dough in half. Transfer each half to a piece of parchment paper; shape into logs. Roll in parchment to 1 1/4 inches in diameter, pressing a ruler along edge of parchment at each turn to narrow log and force out air. Transfer in parchment to paper-towel tubes; freeze 1 hour.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut logs into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Space 1 inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets.

5. Bake until edges turn golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks.

This recipe is taken from Martha Stewart's book but is also available here. So far, I really like the earl grey cookies because it's so simple, yet so fragrant both from the tea and the orange zest. It also has a lightness to it that makes me less guilty than eating other cookies such as the dark choc sour cherry biscuits I made previously.

Awww... broken hearted cookie (for the record: I thought this was cute, despite ieatsweet's initial [or maybe still] disagreement)

For some lucky people, these little sweet hearts are yours to devour

Cooking lesson with i eat sweet

Sour Cherries Dark Chocolate Cookies Bourke St Bakery Style

One morning at the beginning of the semester, I managed to talk Cleony from i eat sweet to have a morning sugar rush at Zumbo. The story of my first ever Zumbo experience after a year living in Sydney would have to wait for another post. Then on the way home, somehow, I got talked into spending the day with her baking.... because I really suck at baking and she wanted to transform me one recipe at a time into a domestic goddess? Whatever the reason, I ended up making 2 recipes that day. Under close supervision of course.

The ingredients

So the first batch is Bourke St Bakery's sour cherries dark chocolate cookies, my favorite cookies of all time. I have been meaning to bake this well, August last year... Before you shake your heads, listen: I broke my foot last year in September, remember?

Cleony has the book with the recipe, but if you're interested you can access it from Almost Bourdain's blog. I was really proud with the results. They were really gooey on the inside. A perfect hybrid of brownies and cookies. I can't wait to bake the next batch. Must wait for the baking mistress to come back from her overseas travel though...

Piglet face muffins

Then, we tried out her new muffin pan which I brought back from Hong Kong. We decided to make blueberry muffin. Wrong decision!!! The blueberries burst during the process and deformed some of the piglets' faces.

Muffin piglets

Baking turns out to be fun, provided I have an expert beside me. At the end of it I had so many food I didn't know what to do. So some lucky people got some muffins and cookies.

Thanks Cleony for the flour, sugar, equipments, your time and patience ;)

BBQ Baby Octopus at home

Grilled Mediterranean style Baby Octopus

Inspired or rather haunted by the memories of the yummy BBQ baby octopus from Capitan Torres last Monday, I made a trip to Sydney Fish Market yesterday to get some fresh baby octopus. Imagine this, 500 grams (approx. 12 pieces) of baby octopus cost me a mere A$5 compared to the 8-10 pieces for A$16 ish at the restaurant.

However, because there is nothing more I hate than cleaning I improvised a few things so that I have minimal dirt in the kitchen. I lined up the pyrex with baking paper so that I don't have to scrub the dried crusty olive oil later as you can see below.

Pre-grilled marinated baby octopus

Here's the recipe. Let's call it Mediterranean style BBQ Baby Octopus.

500 grams of baby octopus (cleaned)

Marinade:

4 cloves of garlic (chopped finely/pressed)

5-6 tablespoon of olive oil

1/2 a lemon

salt (to taste)

black pepper (to taste)

2 small/medium sized tomatoes (not baby tomatoes - if using this you might need 8-9)

1/2 bunch of corriander (chopped)

1 medium spanish onions (sliced finely)

5 tablespoon of apple vinegar

1. Get a small bowl and mix sliced spanish onions with apple vinegar. Make sure that the onions are submerged and leave it be till step

2. Put finely chopped garlic in a small bowl with olive oil and salt. Mixed together and press the garlic so that the olive oil is infused. Add lemon juice, taste and add salt or olive oil or lemon accordingly.

3. Mix the spanish onions some more, then take it out while squeezing out any excess vinegar in it. In other words, take out the vinegar.

4. Get a container and put baby octopus, diced tomatoes, garlic infused olive oil, spanish onions and black pepper all inside and mix thoroughly.

5. Add chopped coriander on top, close the lid and let it marinade in the fridge for 4-5 hours, half a day or even better a night.

6. Heat your oven to 220C.

7. Lined your pyrex with baking paper (or you don't have to if you don't want to), put everything inside and popped the dish in the oven.

8. Let it grill for about 20-30 minutes and check them once in a while.

And now you should have a fresh off the grilled Mediterranean style baby octopus. I love the freshness of the lemon, tomatoes and olive oil.

Remember: always buy fresh seafood and not store them in the fridge for too long. Try to use it within 2-3 days.

Sydney Fish Market

Pyrmont Bridge Rd.

Pyrmont, NSW 2009

Cooking garlic shoots

I have just recently discovered garlic shoots and I love it. It has become one of my favorite vegetables. It's super easy to cook too and especially delicious for stir frying. It's crunchy and sweet, and its fiber! It's also nice to have a home cooked meal on this winter days. Here's my recipe if you're interested.

Ingredients:

1 bunch of garlic shoots - cut in 4 cm length

3 cloves of garlic - minced

100 grams of minced pork (or substitute it with meat/chicken/tofu)

2 table spoon of oyster sauce

2 table spoon of Worcestershire sauce

1 tea spoon of sesame oil

3 table spoon of olive/vegetable oil

1. Heat olive/vegetable oil on a frying pan and enter the minced garlic, still till browned and you can smell the fragrant

2. Put in the minced meat and stir till browned, then throw in the garlic shoots, mix them together

3. Put in the oyster sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and sesame oil in the pan, mix them together. What I usually do is put a the lid on and shake everything to make sure that everything is mixed in together. It also ensures that the meat cooks faster.

Then, just serve yourself a nice meal with freshly steamed rice. Buen Provecho.

Penne in pumpkin sauce

I read somewhere that Australians don't eat as much veggies and fruits as they should which made me think about what I had put in my stomach recently. Sadly, I cannot list many veggies or fruits. So, I marched to my local groceries to get some veggies to whip out some healthy meal for the day. I decided on garlic shoots and mushrooms.

And here's the recipe:

2 table spoons of olive oil

4 cloves of garlic (minced)

2 cups of mushrooms (quartered)

1 bunch of garlic shoots (cut in 2.5cm length)

2 cups of penne

2 tea spoon of salt

1 packet of ready made pumpkin soup

parmesan cheese (to taste and garnish)

1. Boil water on a separate pot and put in the salt. After the water starts boiling, dump in the penne and turn down the heat to medium and wait till it boils again.

2. Heat the olive oil on a frying pan and throw in the minced garlic stirring till brown.

3. Throw in garlic shoots and mushrooms, stir till they are a little browned, but not too much

4. Put in the pumpkin soup, stir and taste. Add in salt or pepper to taste if needed.

5. Check for penne and if its ready, strain the water out.

6. Put penne on a serving bowl and pour the sauce on top.

7. Garnish with parmesan cheese.

And there it was, pasta with THREE different veggies... Healthier than what I normally eat for sure.

Sick day comfort food

The weather in Sydney this last week has been downright disgusting; cloudy, rainy and windy. I still was caught off guard when I started shivering on Monday night with headache and tummy aches coming soon after. It lasted the whole night, till 5 a.m. and to top if off, my alarm didn't go off at 8 because my phone's battery died. Finally looked at 10.10 a.m. slightly panicky because I had class at 11 but I was totally drained. To save you from a long winded story, I skipped my lecture, went to class, my meeting got cancelled as my professor had an urgent personal matter and a friend was kind enough to drop me home. By that time, I knew I need to make some warm, bland but tasty and comforting food. One thing came to mind, a minced beef soup that I always have at home whenever I felt under the weather.

And here's the recipe:

150 g minced beef

4 cloves of garlic (pressed and minced)

a small bunch of coriander (chopped)

soy sauce

salt

pepper

1 tea spoon of sesame oil

1 table spoon of vegetable oil

3 cups of hot water

1. Place your pot and let it heat for 20 seconds before putting in vegetable oil. Let it heat for another 15 seconds then pop in the pressed and minced garlic stirring till they start to brown and release their fragrant.

2. Get the minced beef in and stir till brown.

3. Pour in water and add soy sauce, salt and pepper to taste.

4. Add in sesame oil

5. Add half of the chopped coriander

And, you're done! Just get your rice in a bowl or vermicelli and ladle in your freshly made soup. Use the remainder of the chopped coriander as a garnish. Grab a cup of warm chamomile tea, sit in front of you tv while you eat. Rest and get better.