Beak and Sons Butcher Style Sausages

Sausages have been underestimated, I think. Relegated to Sunday sausage sizzles, and often served up smothered with ketchup, the humble sausage is often associated with "kid food" and "mystery meat".

But really, not all sausages are created equal.

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Pepsi Next, Product Talk by Nuffnang

When the days are hot and stifling in its humidity, I always crave a cold sweet drink to quench my thirst. Which is why I was really excited when Nuffnang offered me the opportunity - as part of Product Talk by Nuffnang, to try the new Pepsi Next.

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Product Talk: Maggi Stir Fry Creations

As part of Product Talk by Nuffnang I was sent some Maggi Stir Fry Creations to try. And we all know how I feel about receiving things in the mail. =)


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Easy Lemon Tiramisu - no sabayon!

I've still got some Anatoth lemon curd that was sent to me by Beyond the Square - thank you Carrie! I think fruit curds are a fabulous way to recapture that sensation of summer, and the tart lemon curd just brings a spot of brightness to my day.

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Roses and Pearls

Mother's day is just around the corner, and it can be hard to find just the right gift. The most common thing to get is a bouquet of flowers - roses, carnations - but I really don't like the idea of flowers wilting in a vase on the dining table.

So why not an edible bouquet of flowers?

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Passionfruit Curd Filled Muffins

More stuff in the mail! The lovely people from Beyond the Square has sent me more interesting product to try, and this time I've got fruit curds from Anathoth! Now I've already blogged about their amazing jams, and I'm a big supporter of preserves, because it gives you a little taste of summer when the fruits are no longer in season!

So with the passionfruit curd I thought it might be interesting to make a filled muffin, because I think that provides the best muffin-to-curd ratio with every bite!
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Jel-it-in, Queen Fine Foods

I LOVE receiving mail!!! So just imagine my surprise and delight when I received a box of Queen Fine Food's Jel-it-in!



Jel-it-in is a vegetarian alternative to gelatine. Because gelatine is, by definition, made from animal products (you know how really good stocks set into a jelly? It's thanks to gelatine!), many vegetarians cannot eat it. Imagine life without jelly! Well, besides agar agar as an alternative, which set much harder and more brittle than gelatine and so gives you a different effect, Jell-it-in is made from Carrageenan, which is extracted from seaweed, and locust bean gum, which is a thickener. The reason why it's a mixture (I think), is because the carrageenan sets slightly harder than gelatine and the thickener gives it a slightly softer finish.

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Queen Make-At-Home Gelato Kits, Part 2

From top: Vanilla and Vegemite, Strawberry and Balsamic Glaze swirl

I was recently sent 4 flavours of Make at Home Gelato Kits from the lovely people from Beyond the Square Communications and Queen Fine Foods. But rather than have the usual - straight vanilla, strawberry, chocolate and lemon - I wanted to do something special, something interesting.

To get inspiration for what I wanted to do with the strawberry gelato, I got a punnet of ruby red strawberries - I'm so happy that they're in season now - and thought about what I'd usually eat with them. Then it clicked. Balsamic Glaze. I absolutely adore strawberries macerated in balsamic vinegar and a sprinkle of sugar, and a glaze would swirl gorgeously into the strawberry gelato.



The balsamic glaze is dead simple to make. Simply heat up a cup or so of balsamic vinegar - this is going to reduce by about half, so just double the quantity of however much glaze you'd like to make - until it's reduced almost to half, then add about a third of a cup of densely packed brown sugar. Continue heating - making sure that the mixture does not burn - until you reach a thick, syrupy consistency.



And there you go, a dead simple balsamic glaze to add to your strawberry gelato.

Making the gelato was also really easy:

I loved the little pictures that came on the back of the box, and it simply involved whisking in your liquid of choice - in this case it could be milk for a gelato or water for a sorbet - and churning it in your ice cream machine of choice.





It's a really good idea to make space in your freezer to chill the mixture slightly before churning, just because the little churners with the insulated bowls aren't always the best at bringing your ice cream all the way. After about 35 min of churning (the machine manufacturers recommend 40 min max) I ended up with this:



It was slightly thicker than when I first started, but not by much. It provided me just enough thickness to swirl the glaze through, but if I wanted to put anything thicker through, it simply would not have held. As mentioned in the previous post, DO NOT place the ice cream mixture in the churning bowl and leave it to chill in the freezer. The mixture will start freezing solid and you'll have a real issue getting the paddle of the churner to turn properly. Place the mixture in a bowl and into the freezer for about 20 minutes. Then churn it according to the machine's instructions.

When you're done, simply pour it into your freezing container of choice - mine was a one litre capacity plastic container - and swirl the glaze through.



Then simply cover the ice cream in cling wrap, ensuring that the cling wrap touches all the surface of the ice cream and that there aren't any air bubbles, put on the lid, and then into the freezer to freeze the rest of the way. The reason that the cling is so important is that the freezer actually dehydrates your food by having the water in your food freeze into ice crystals on the surface, ruining the texture, and causing you to have 'crunchy' ice cream.

It also makes your ice cream look like a funky marble watercolour. =)

After leaving it sets in the freezer, simply serve on pancakes with some fresh strawberries, or dig into it with your favourite ice cream topping.



Only the Vanilla was left, and in my search for interesting sweet/savoury combos I decided to make a leap and try Vanilla and Vegemite. It's dead simple - after churning the vanilla ice cream, simply swirl in the vegemite. I used vegemite from a squeeze bottle just to make things simpler.

I think it's one of my favourites - the salty, umami flavour of the vegemite complemented the creamy sweetness of the vanilla bean gelato perfectly. Very addictive.

This is absolutely a great easy way to make your own flavour combinations without having to worry about making the ice cream custard etc. Yes, it's not as flexible as infusing the custard with really cool flavours (I'd love to make a savoury ice cream next with garlic infused cream) but it's also something easy and creative that you can make on a week night to treat yourself on the weekend.

I'm still treating myself to that rich chocolate gelato. I love salted butterscotch. That is all. Yum.

Note: Tammi Kwok of Insatiable Munchies was given Queen Make At Home gelato kits by the nice people at Queen Fine Foods and Beyond the Square Communications.

Mary had a little lamb...

...and I'm sure she wished that she ordered more. 

I think we have established that I love being fed. No matter how foul a mood I'm in, I generally get happy when I get fed. So when I received this invite from Subway in my inbox - especially during a difficult week (I got hit by a car, amongst other things) - I was extremely excited to attend.

The dinner was held in Moroccan Feast, a restaurant in Randwick with a great atmosphere and very friendly chef (more about him later). I arrived to long tables laid out with candles and salt and pepper bowls shaped like little tagines (how cute!) and was immediately offered refreshing cocktails to start the evening with. Soon, the all seats were filled, and hungry hungry people eagerly awaited the first round of deliciousness.



A selection of dips were first laid out in front of us - Matbouha, which I understand is a capsicum relish, eggplant and aioli, and marinated green olives. And while the dips were extremely tasty, the standout part of all of it was the bread.



Soft white bread surrounded by a crispy crust with a glass-like crunch was the perfect accompaniment to the dips. Many of us actually had to consciously stop ourselves and remember that this was just the starter, to leave room in out bellies for the rest of the food.


As this dinner was to introduce Subway's new Moroccan Lamb Sub, there was sure to be lamb in the menu.



And the first manifestation of the lamb theme was in the form of spiced lamb cigars. These were served on a platter with vegetarian pastiles and mint yoghurt. The vegetarian pastiles were okay, but the lamb cigars were curiously addictive. I didn't detect much spices in the cigars, but I really like the luxuriousness the mint yoghurt added to the dish. Yes, the yoghurt wasn't particularly minty either, but it's just really tasty! Besides, I'm not much of a mint person (I really don't like mint chocolates that are all about the mint and kills most of the chocolate taste), so this combination suited me just fine.

Just as the conversation was buzzing and the food was flowing, lilting music came on and we heard the sound of bells. Just as the thought of reindeer landing on roofs crossed my mind, this lady, resplendent in a blue jeweled and tasseled outfit, came dancing out. 



On top of being extremely skilled at what she does - how did she manage all those belly rolls???? - she was extremely HILARIOUS and entertaining. She even got many of us up and dancing with her. Makes me want to take belly dancing lessons - I've already got the first bit, right? =)

All this excitement, and that was even before the main.



Betty and I shared the Moroccan Lamb Meatballs and Aubergine Tagine, and the Moroccan-style Barramundi with chickpeas. The lamb meatballs were sandwiched between 2 thick sliced of spiced aubergine. The bed of cous cous that it was served on was lovingly drenched in thick tomato-ey sauce and in turn, mint yoghurt was poured with a generous hand over rich meaty lamb. The barramundi - bottom photo - was nice and flaky, but the best part about it was the generously flavourful chilli and spices reduction. I could have just eaten a bucketful of the the reduction ladled over a bed of cous cous.

The salad was another highlight of my evening. Sometimes, lamb can get a little bit...rich, and the two salads really lifted the tone and colour of the meal. While the rocket with citrus vinaigrette was nice, I absolutely adored the red cabbage with haloumi and pomegranate! Crispy red cabbage was dotted with little jewels that explode with a tart sweetness and was the perfect accompaniment to the hearty lamb.

At this point, I'm sure you - as I was - are wondering what this meal has to do with Subway. Almost the entire evening has passed and there hasn't been a sandwich in sight. Well, remember how I mentioned the extremely friendly chef? Well, Subway - in the spirit of "doing it your own way" - had asked him to take the new Moroccan Lamb Sub and to make it into a sit down meal. What we had eaten so far contained elements of the lamb sub!

Remember the gorgeous white bread that came with the dip? Well apparently that was Subway's white bread that had been toasted and sprinkled with rock salt. The lamb was pretty obvious, and the mint yoghurt is the sauce that would be poured over the meat in the sub! I'm quite excited that the salad will be in the sub as well - I think I've found a new love in pomegranate.

But there's one thing that Subway is famous for that hasn't made an appearance yet. Something that many people go to Subway for:

The Subway Cookie.




Besides the selection of fresh fruits that arrives - ripe figs with honey anyone? - tall martini glasses with a luscious scoop of pistachio ice cream, raw tahini and subway cookie crumbs come marching out. There's not much to say about a Subway cookie though, besides OM NOM NOM.

I must say that the nice people of Subway and Hills+Knowlton Strategies really know how to throw a party. By the end of the night I was filled with delicious food, happily nursing a food baby, and my taste buds were tingling. It would be interesting to see how the Sub form of the food will taste, but with so many great elements, surely you can't go wrong. Added to that the rousing company in the form of Betty, Karen and Shan, good times were had all around.

Tambourine of insatiablemunchies attended The Tastes of Morocco courtesy of Subway and Hills+Knowlton Strategies.

Cocobella

Guess what I got sent in the mail!!!! Product talk by Nuffnang is where brands get in touch with Nuffnang and Nuffnang in turn, sends product out to bloggers (like me!) to review!

Cocobella is a new Australian company that bottles pure coconut - and some flavoured - water in convenient tetrapack!

Coconut water contains lots of nutrients and anti-oxidants. Water from young coconuts have very mild flavoured water, and the flavour gets stronger as the coconut matures. Coming from a tropical country, I love the refreshing taste of fresh coconut, and this surprisingly tastes remarkably close to what I remember! I've been looking for suitable and convenient ways to get my coconut fix, and there are some products out there that just taste plain weird.



And simply because I love fresh coconut, Straight Up is my favourite flavour of the lot. It's very light, and it's only 54 calories! I think it's great for a sweet drink fix that's not bad for you.



The Pink Guava is Sean's favourite of the lot, partially cause you can't actually really taste the flavour of the coconut. It's got a nice fruity flavour, but it's more like guava juice rather than coconut juice that's mixed in with some guava.



The Mango is quite similar to the Pink Guava in that you can't really taste the coconut flavour, but the mango is still light and refreshing, and not 'heavy' and saccharine-ly sweet like some other mango juices can be.



And finally, the Pineapple. This one tasted a little odd to me. The pineapple flavour seem to bring out a slightly metallic aftertaste in the coconut water. Not sure though, it could be just me.

Likes: Great refreshing taste, and amazing low in calories! Great for that quick fix in the middle of a dreary afternoon.

Dislikes: I didn't like that the flavoured coconut waters had added sugar - to me most of the fruit that it's paired with has natural sweetness. But, then again, there are quite a few juices out there that have sugar added, so....I'd stick to the Straight Up, which is my favourite anyway!

Cocobella Pure Coconut Water is available at leading supermarkets. Visit Cocobella for more information.