KThxBai 2013

No Christmas post - the reindeer has left the building.  No Birthday post - that should have been in early October.

It's not because I don't love writing.  It's not because I've stopped eating.  It's just... 2013 was a rollercoaster.  The kind that has you scrabbling in your seat, screaming in the wind and shaking afterwards, looking for a trashcan to heave your stomach contents into.
Some parts were amazingly great, others not so.  Some days were white Negronis, laughter and kind company.  Some days were espressos in succession, rounded out with a menthol cigarette and a raggedy soul.

From photoseries "Be A Woman" by Hanna Seweryn

But it's all learning though, isn't it?  And there was a lot of that.

The Practical Applications Of Forensic Eating

Sunlight fills the restaurant.  It's one of those days that give hope for the potential spring to come; bright, crisp and sunny.  It is still necessary to don extra layers (we Melbournians are very fond of cardigans and blazers) yet cheerful enough feel the sun's warmth on your face, your nose, the tops of your ears.

Lunch is near it's end and today and I have dined solo.  It is not a heavy meal - a slice of pig's head terrine accompanied by good bread and a host of small pickled items - cornichons, walnuts, piccalilli and some type of onion relish.  

Simple Cakes For Complex Times

Ch-ch-change.  Scary, no?  Economies churn, technology overruns, we change jobs and cars, we acquire new smartphones, pets and even the occasional child.  And don't even get me started on hair!
Mine went from auburn to pillar-box red and is now black/purple - ombre shades of Maleficent.

In the midst of madness, we find sanctuary in small things.  Now, I use the word 'small' with some hesitation - 'small' does not infer meaninglessness or unimportance.  Ever had your favourite tinned soup disappoint you with a "New, Improved Recipe!" or favourite nail polish discontinued?
Sure, it's technically a small matter... but it still feels big.  That kind of stuff stays with you.

Quick And Dirty Cake Post

There's been quite a bit of upheaval going on here at Casa De Panda (yes, Panda is my nickname, or Miss Panda if you're feelin' all curtsy-ish and formal).  The Supreme Overlord Of All He Surveys aka Manic The Cat got ill and died quite suddenly, and frankly I've been quite exhausted and unwell too.
All my food intolerance seem to have acted up and I am currently surviving on rice, natto, scrambled eggs and black tea.  I could kid myself and say I'm on a detox regime, but the truth is far more depressingly monastic.  Tea is wonderful, but what would be even more wonderful would be a creamy hot chocolate laced with Baileys and cream.

So this post is just mainly photos of cakes I baked last month.  While I've provided links for the recipe and icing for the tres leches cake, I absolutely promise I'll provide the recipe for the Alladin Sane-iced gâteau aux noisettes in my next post.  As for the black forest cake - it tasted delicious, but the recipe for it is quite temperamental and needs quite a bit of tweaking.
May I suggest we just enjoy it with our eyes?

Tres leches cake for Miss Izbit's 1st Birthday.

Frozen Bread And Salty Yolks - The Cheapskates Guide To Groceries

Like most people, I go food shopping once a week.  That's when the big list gets made and when I know it's time to get more self-raising flour, eggs, bread or tomatoes.  Sometimes though, stuff just dies mid-week.  Got a bunch of spring onions?  Most of 'em floppy by Wednesday.  Ate half a baguette?  The other half goes stale, languishing in the bread bin.  NOOOooooo!

It took most of my adult life, but I finally became a Grocery Scrooge.  No more shall my onions wilt!  Yes, I shall freeze my perishable seafood!  Yeah, I'm making it sound like a bigger deal than it really is, but the truth is I hate wasting food because it's money down the drain... or in the bin.
Money that could be spent on shoes, illicit street drugs nail polish, or a can of Ortiz anchovies.

So here's what I do to get more food in my mouth, while saving some sweet sweet dirty cash.

1. Italian Week = YES.  Italo-Mexi-Thai-Grecian-Chinese Week = Aww hell NO.
   I get that in the 21st century we home cooks are supposed to be as schmancy and cosmopolitan as James Bond's flight itinerary.  We've Got Skills and can wield both a wok and paella pan with equal dexterity.  Damn, has Marvel made a comicbook about us yet, because they should.  The ability to cook food stemming from different cultures and regions is a fabulous undertaking.
   However, I assure you there is no pressure to cook food from wildly different etymologies every night of the week.
   

Beyond Existentialism, Now At Your Grocery Store

Two Chicken Soups

The weather here in Melbourne has turned properly autumnal. Summer is a memory, and the with the turning of the seasons come the usual rituals - woolly jumpers resurrected from the back of the wardrobe, sales of hot water bottles and electric blankets start to rise as the temperature drops and alas, the inevitable cold besmirches your body.  Or it's the 'flu.  Or some random virus that's going around.

So here are suggestions for two types of chicken soup, both pretty low-effort.  Because no-one feels like cooking when they're sick (or at least, I don't) they're 'cheat' soups - so make sure you've got some powdered chicken stock or bouillon cubes in your pantry.
I was pretty ill last week and trust me, you don't feel like doing much other than wrapping yourself in blankets and groaning a lot.  Making soup from scratch is for healthy people.

Animated GIF from Nerdy World

Watch Out, We Got A Badass Over Here

Sure, I might look like some small-time city gal, but ya know what?  Life's for livin' dangerously, and I know what it's like to live on the edge.

Why, just tonight The Boyfriend went out with his pals and I went crazeee, baby.
Got myself not one, but TWO lots of deep fried deliciousness - some veggie balls and a serve of confit duck spring rolls.  Got 'em from Ebi Fine Food down there on Essex Street.  Sure, they got the healthy stuff too, soba noodle salad, some real fresh fish, but tonight... I'm dangerous.
I even got the "strange but good jap icy pole" which I ain't seen before.  In this cold weather!
No clue about the contents - could be green tea and grape Jell-o for all I know.

Now, here's the kicker; I sat down in front of the teevee, then ate it all with my bare hands.  Like a savage.

Image from Sentient Machinery

That ain't the only thing I done.  The list of crimes is long and deep.  The kitchen police are gonna bust down my oven door and burn me in the crusts.

There's a place for me in Hell's Kitchen somewhere...

Greed, Inadequacy... And A Recipe For One Mad, Bad Chocolate Pavlova

A lone blueberry flops to the left of the pavlova, a criminal fleeing the scene.  The raspberries are studded unevenly across the surface.  Some are huddled together like hostages, while others lie solitary and stranded, lost and away from the herd. The strawberries are leaking their dark balsamic syrup, sullying the white skirts of cream with rusty drips.

As I poke another errant blueberry into the Sorry Heap it dawns on me that I possess the plating skills of a toddler drunk on laudanum.

Plating is like sex.  If you think about it too hard, too much, or generally obsess about it, it's probably going to be awful.  Or perhaps I've just conjured up this platitude to comfort myself;  the correct placement of fruit eludes me so thoroughly and I am very, very bad at it.  Either way the facts are unassailable - I cannot make food look pretty.

I'm ashamed to admit this but... the great thing about a Quarter Pounder, some fries and a Coke is that all can be consumed one-handed while watching Doctor Who.

Because two-hearted, time-travelling aliens in blue boxes are more interesting than my dinner.

I'll walk myself to the gallows, thanks.

Science! Acids - Taming the Onion

Today I'm going to talk to you about the sour stuff.  Sugar, spice and everything nice is all well and good, but we need the tart stuff, the zingy stuff, the stuff with bite.  Take a mojito, for example.  It's the lime which gives it that satisfying sourness, a good square kick in a sea of sugar.  Sometimes, you need that in a drink.  Or a salad.  Or even a cake.  

Food acids are our friends, because they provides a pleasing balance in each mouthful.  Growing up in Malaysia, I recall rich, bombastically flavoured laksa always served with a side of green calamansi.  You'd squeeze it onto that bowl of hot raging deliciousness, much like you'd squeeze lemon onto battered fish.

If a mouthful of food were a discoball (stay with me here) the various flavours of the food - salty, sweet, pungent, earthy, umami, etcetera, would be the little mirrored tiles.  The sourness, the acidulant in that mouthful would be the flashing lights bringing all those flavours to life.

Red onion... only better.

Part of the reason I'm so happy that Khristianne Uy won 'The Taste' is because she and her partner remind me of Hazel and Foxglove from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series.  

Hazel (also a chef) was a slightly more minor character than Foxglove and the thought of her groovy flesh-and-blood doppleganger winning a cooking show on the teevee makes my dorky heart melt.

Ham and Cream Cheese Ramen

Oppan ramen time! Heyyy, sexxy lady... *horsey dance*

Welcome to Ramen Atrocities 101.  I'm your host and today we will be consuming -

Ham and Cream Cheese Ramen!

Broke?  Bits & pieces in your fridge which won't make a proper meal?  Folks, ramen (or ramyun, or rameyon) is your friend.  It is kind, forgiving and hides the dead bodies for you gets along well with even the most improbable accompaniments.  It's almost the Mother Teresa of noodles.
It's especially parent-friendly, being fast, cheap and you can hide a myriad of vegetable and proteins in it.  So bugger feeling bad for not feeding your teenagers organic quinoa-and-samphire salad sourced from you local farmers market... or something.

"But a dairy product in soup noodles?  Madness I say!"  Or... madness, I said... until I actually tried it.