Yes, I realize I should pick better backdrops than my sink and microwave for my photography, but last night it was 'take a picture before it gets cold.


Pear and apple crumble. 

There is leftovers of this in my fridge.  I think I must go eat them now.

(crossposted to my journal)

I've been dying to try quinoa for the longest time. I found a recipe for a cold quinoa salad and decided I would give it a shot. It came out AMAZING. I apologize for crap quality pics.

( Recipe and pics )

Chocolate Chip Victoria Sponge Buns



( Two More & Info )

I know this totally isn't the season for these, but I've had this idea in my head for forever, and I wanted to try it out. This is the first time I've actually kind of experimented with flavor and made almost my own recipe.

( larger pictures + recipe )

It's a Mario Batali recipe, it contains insane amounts of chocolate, butter, and cream, and it tastes even better than it looks.

 A summer salad! Posted just in time for the sky to darken, oh dear. Think I've jinxed the weather?

Recipe and more photos here. ^__^

My friend and I made a batch of "Out of the Pantry Chili and Rice". We used lean ground beef, onions, garlic, zucchini, roasted tomatoes and four kinds of canned beans.



( Finished )

I've been waiting a long time to post this recipe. The first time I made it I photographed the results but then never got around to writing down the recipe. I made them again last night and this time I remember what I did. So, here we go:



This recipe is adapted from More From Magnolia: Recipes from the World Famous Bakery and Allysa Torey's Home Kitchen, but I tried to healthy it up a little bit by eliminating the shortening, using 1/2 whole wheat flour and subbing 1/2 of the refined sugar with raw sugar. Richard's trying to avoid sweets and stuff this but I always want to share my food with him, so I try my best to make him feel less guilty about eating it.

( another photo and recipe under here. )

To see more of my food photography, visit my website: Robin Sharp Photograhy

I adore this dish because it turned out beautifully the first time I tried this recipe. I used 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper for the chile flakes and that provided just the right amount of spiciness heat without being too much for those of us who don't like spicy foods. I was nervous about using tomato paste since the first (and only time) I had tried tomato paste before, I thought it had tasted funny. But nope. That must've been user error the other time. This time...this time I got to enjoy a beautiful blend of flavors. It was also my first time cooking with fennel. So perhaps the newness of that anise flavoring added to my enjoyment.

My boyfriend Brian arrived home with another foodie friend in tow just as I was finishing preparing dinner. As we carried all the food to the living room to eat, the lights went out. Our third roommate whipped out a bunch of candles. I opened a bottle of Montepulciano that I had been waiting for someone to drink with me since neither Brian nor our roommate drinks alcohol. This was the first multi-course meal I'd ever planned for a small group. We had prosciutto-wrapped melon for an appetizer and Brian set up a cheese plate for dessert. I was very pleased to have good friends over for good food and I sat in the candlelight, very content.

Baking from a May 2008 Gourmet magazine recipe:



More pictures and recipe here.

And yes, it's SO delicious!  If you have a biological cheese quota like I do, you'll love it!  :-)  It's made with havarti and mozzarella cheese, and the dough has a nice consistency.

Happy Friday everyone!

 

I am a huge fan of Krispy Kreme Donuts…. I think they are little pieces of heaven.Unfortunately, Krispy Kreme isn't in Singapore, so to satisfy my occassional craving, I have been working on a donut recipe….I wanted something different. I wanted a little asian twist to it…give it a little something extra.

I have come up with these little babies…it has a matcha glaze to it, and I must say they are pretty good! 

Click here for the recipe and step by step pictures

This is Teeside's famous Parmo. I've lived in Teeside (Durham University Queen's Campus, represent) for three years and had yet to try Tees' only contribution to the gastronomic world. After a pretty horrific exam, my housemates and I decided to go to the takeaway (for the Parmo enthusiast, Mandos on Westbury St, Thornaby) and I decided to take the plunge. Well, I've been good recently.

Remember that episode of the Simpsons when Homer is watching an advert for the ultimate burger? "We take eighteen ounces of sizzling ground beef, and soak it in rich, creamery butter, then we top it off with bacon, ham, and a fried egg..." Its impossible not to describe the Parmo like that, as well as the dulcet tones of the M&S food porn voiceover woman. Take one chicken breast, deep fry it in breadcrumbs, top with smooth, buttery béchamel sauce, and then cover in rich, bubbling cheese... With chips. And Garlic Sauce. You can also choose to have pepperoni, bolognaise sauce or any number of extra things on it, but I wasn't feeling that adventurous.


I was supposed to be sharing it with my housemate but he changed his mind and ordered a pizza, so I ended up eating it all. They are delicious, but in the same way a deep fried mars bar is delicious, in that it is good that the general public turns its nose up at it as decadently disgusting, because if they didn't the obesity levels in this country would probably be even higher. I feel though, for an authentic Teeside experience, a parmo is a must.

Green tea cookies, very easy, mildly flavoured and a lovely little sweet to finish off a meal.

(Apologies for not replying to comments - I am slack at the moment as I have to wake up at 4-4:30am for work and am wrecked by the time I get home :( )

MMMMmmm I love me some tofu Adobo. I know how to make it just right so that the tofu isn't soggy and the sauce is delicious, but it's a secret so you can't know how I do it.


( Click for Porn )

I've recently started getting my veggies delivered by a company who sources all their produce locally. For $30 I get a pretty decent variety of fruit and veg. There are standards that you get in every box, and a seasonally changing surprises. This week yielded a butter lettuce.

So I got out my usual salad fixings. A bit of left over red capsicum, mushrooms, a few leftover cherry tomatoes and about two thirds of a regular tomato I'd sliced some of for a sandwich. Cheese. Italian salad dressing.

Placed into a bowl, the lettuce, tomatoes, capsicum, mushroom... hrm, needs a bit more mushroom. I wonder if my ones growing outside are big enough yet (I have a mushroom farm). Turns out that yes, 2 were at a quite edible button size, so they were picked. As I headed back inside I glanced at my newly planted veggie garden (mostly still seedlings that won't yield for a month or so). Hrm, I think I'll stick a few spinach leaves in it too!

Hey! I wonder if my newly reseeded rocket will withstand me pilfering a few leaves... oh, I just HAVE to have a bit of this coriander and that basil. *snip* *snip* I go back inside with a handful of homegrown greenery and two mushrooms and add them to the salad.

Hrm, I think cheese will spoil a fresh salad like this. *puts cheese back in fridge* And pre-made salad dressing? Naah. *puts dressing back in fridge, takes out a bit of lemon juice left over from when I made lemon cake for Mother's Day*

Splash of olive oil. Splash of Balsamic vinegar. Splash of lemon juice. Sprinkle of Maladon sea salt.

*toss*

*pause*

Needs one more thing... *grabs container of pine nuts and almond slivers, sprinkles some on top*

There!! *eats*

My friend Dan's favorite sweet is cheesecake, so every year for his birthday, I make him one of a different flavor. The basic recipe I use takes three pounds of cream cheese, so the resulting cake serves anywhere from 16-20 people, unless one of them is Dan. That rake-thin fellow can certainly put away large amounts of creamy, cheesy, delicious cake. His abilities astound me.

This year's version was much simpler than usual--flavored with vanilla bean paste, lemon zest and juice and swirled with blackberry-flavored batter, then topped with berries flavored with rosewater with rubine droplets of thickened juice dripping down the sides of the cake.

It is very photogenic in a food-pornish way, and the recipe is quite simple.

As an added bonus, the post has links to all of my cheesecake variations I have posted about in the past, include strawberry, pomegranate, Irish mocha, and chocolate raspberry.

Recipe and photos here.