A is for April like April is to Lemons: Lemon Yogurt Cake

OK first things first- I am covered with sugar syrup, and by covered I mean imagine those girls at those lesbian mud wrestling contests, now dim down the sexiness and made the mud something sweet and edible and you have me at this very moment. It is DISGUSTING. My feet are sticking to the floor, my fingers are glued to each other- and I can feel it between my toes...

You may be wondering why I am covered in sugar syrup, and no its not some weird perverted sex kink, and to those who like being covered in sugar during sex, well hey thats your business.

ANYWAY I digress, I am covered in sugar syrup because I tried my hand at making Lemon Yogurt Cake for my first application into the Sweet Adventures Blog Hop and Lemon was the chosen ingredient for this fine month of April. I used so much sugar. So much. My teeth want to kill me as much as my tongue wants to kiss me (yea! try thinking that one through)

But anyway this is my (slightly stolen from Ina Garten) Lemon Yogurt Cake.


You need:

1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup plain full fat yogurt
2 1/3 cup sugar, plus more for coating the outside of the cake
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup lemon juice (preferably freshly squeezed, if not thats cool too)
1 lemon


The Harder Bit:

Preheat the oven to about 180C and prep a cake pan.

Sift together the flour, sugar and salt into a bowl.

In another bowl whisk together the yogurt, eggs, 1 cup of sugar and vanilla essence. Make sure that as soon as the sugar and eggs touch you mix them immediately, as one of the properties of sugar is that it can chemically cook the eggs :/

Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet, and using a spatula fold the vegetable oil into the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick slid into the middle comes out cleanly. If your cake starts to get burnt at the top, but isn't finished yet you can always put some aluminium over the top, like so:

Meanwhile, slice up your lemon into teeni tiny slices, wrench out the seeds and fit them into a frying pan and cover them with 2 1/2 cups of water. Bring to the boil then leave to simmer for about 35-40 minutes, if you have to refresh the water to keep them all below the surface do so.

MEANWHILE, combine 1/3 cup of sugar with 1/3 cup of lemon juice and bring to the boil over the stove, leave to simmer until the sugar is dissolved and the liquid is clear. Set aside for later. 

45 minutes later: Take out your lemons and place them on some paper towel and pat them dry.

 Pour in the final cup of sugar into the lemon water stuff in the pan and bring to the boil, re-add your lemons. Let those two simmer together for the next 10-15 minutes. (let them get all hot and sticky together ;D) 

I digress: after the 15 minutes remove the lemons from their spa and place them on a wire rack over the sink. (Don't even think of putting them on paper towels to drip dry- they will STICK! and you will have to eat paper towel along with your candied lemons)

Your cake should be out of the oven by now, and if it isn't, my god, you better go check on it. Let it cool for about 10 minutes in the pan, then transfer it to a wire rack. 

While its still warm, pour over the lemon juice and sugar combination and let the syrup sink into the cake (make sure you have a container underneath the wire rack!!) , I've also found using a brush and brushing down the sides of the cake with the syrup helps with the absorption. Let it cool completely. 

Next move: cover the cake with sprinkled sugar, all over, on every single side, then cover it with your candied lemons.  

and you are done! one beautiful lemon yogurt cake on its one way trip into your stomach. 

SO fellas at the Blog Hop, I hope you enjoy (:

L+O+N+D+O+N- Borough Markets

I... am in London. It... is amazing. I... am amazed.

I realise that to some people, such as people that live in London, or around London, or can get to London easily, this is not as amazing. However to me, whom lives in the hot, red, southern Perth, where we have the population density of, like, 5% (maybe an exaggeration I have no idea) this is pretty awesome.

However the flight over, not so much, I do like flying ( really I do) however when its 10+ hours I get a bit sore (doesn't help being 6ft tall either)

But anyway, the other day, after getting a sufficient, maybe slightly longer then healthy sleep, me and my beloved sister went off to Borough Markets. Only one word can describe it "Awesome"

There were mushrooms everywhere, and in so many different varieties! And not only at the Markets, but also just in the local Sainbury's, in Australia we really only have button and field, maybe others if you look harder.

And there was a fish monger, where the fish was so fresh that its didn't smell fishy!

And there was this scary thing staring at us.

And awesome decorations, dead pufferfish...

And the butchers, I have an obsession with butchers... weird huh...

Dried Chillies just chilling out on a door.

and, what are gourd?

over all, if you go to London, go to Borough Markets, I mean, i found pickled garlic- never heard of that before- you can just eat it from the jar!

Awesome Sauce! Literally, this sauce is awesome...

Just a simple, dessert sauce that in my opinion goes best with plain ol' vanilla ice-cream, it will never steer you wrong.

This sauce is so simple to make, so very very easy that if you didn't try it I would have to condemn you to the lowest, deepest, coldest part of Hell- oh yes thats right, Hell is cold, trust me.

But yes, *ahem* back on topic, Mars Bar Sauce.

What you need:

4 Mars Bars

90ml of double cream

(realistically you can mess with the measurements all you like if you want the sauce thicker on thinner, it all depends on how you like it.)

And the hard part:

Chop up the mars bars, (it'll help with the melting process) and melt them in a double broiler, or just a glass bowl sitting on top of a pot of simmering water.

When the chocolate is all melted and the nougat all gooey gradually add in the cream, stiring the entire time to make sure it doesn't burn at the bottom.

And there you have Mars bar sauce, in absolutely no time, all you need to do now is make sure you have some ice-cream handy

Variations include:

snickers/any other chocolate bar instead of the Mars bars

addition of brandy or a liquor for an extra punch

again realistically this recipe is so simple that you can do anything to it, so do it, give it a try...

taxi xoxo

These Suprêmes are Supremely... Seriously

Julie and Julia, is by far one of the best movies I have seen in my life; and consequently has sparked my interested in the individual Julia Child (Julie Powell was just a bit too melodramatic for me ><). And in my obsession stage, when I saw her "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" two volume set, I simply couldn't help myself, however my bank account does want to slap me...

And the first recipe that i've chosen to try is Suprêmes de Volaille aux Champignons, or in layman (aka english) terms, Chicken Breasts with Mushrooms, Red Wine and Cream.

It was DELICIOUS, however I did mess with it a bit, I am ever terrible at following recipes...

so here we are, Julia Child's Suprêmes de Volaille aux Champignon:

Ingredients:

Le (la?) Poulet:

4 Chicken Breasts, or 2 large ones in my case.

a few drops of lemon juice

pinch of salt

pinch of pepper

Butter, alot. (ALOT) like 4 tbsp O.O

Le (la?) Jus:

5 tbsp of butter (however I just reused the end of the chicken butter, just adding a bit more if needed)

1 tbsp minced shallot, or spring onion ( I just used a small handful of green onions)

250g sliced mushrooms, or really however much you want in the sauce to mushroom ratio.

some salt, if you want

1/4 cup dry red wine

1/4 white, or brown stock

1 cup cream

salt and pepper

lemon juice, as needed

(I forgot the wine >> and the stock completely until I was writing this up)

And how you do it:

Rub the chicken breast with a few drops of lemon juice, depending on your taste buds, and the salt and pepper.

Heat the butter in an oven proof dish until foaming, roll the chicken in the butter, (from here i changed the traditional recipe, Julia's way-) cover the chicken in baking paper and put into a HOT oven. After 6 minutes touch the top of the breast, of it's still soft, its not done. You want it to be springy to the touch. Set it aside covered in al-foil.

Taxi's way- simply fry the chicken over the stove, until just done. DON'T over cook it because breast has a tendency to become very dry when over cooked. ( I simply found that, maybe it was my breasts, but it took 12 minutes for the chicken to be half cooked, I figured it would just be easier to fry it, because then you also brown the chicken, instead of having a pale white fillet to serve.)

Anyway, with the chicken to the side, if you need more butter melt it into the pre-used skillet, and add your shallots/ spring onions, and fry for a few moments, then add the mushrooms. Saute for a few minutes without browning.

Pour in the wine and stock on a high heat, quickly boiling the liquid away until it is almost syrupy. Then add the cream and boil until slightly thickened.

Take your sauce off the heat and add salt, pepper and lemon juice as needed ( I was scared to add in the lemon juice (I mean whaaat?) but it's actually quite nice!)

serve over the chicken, or the chicken in the sauce, or the sauce in the chicken anyway you want really (:

Taxi xoxo

Inspiration and Crumbles

Inspiration, when found, is better then sex. And this guy, Foodie at Fifteen is inspiration; or too me at least. See me and him = same boat... almost, was in the same boat ( he has succeeded mostly) , but anyway he is the person that I want to be one day.

He was fifteen when he started his blog, i'm sixteen; he wants to be a chef/ pretty much is a chef now, i'm starting my apprenticeship next year; he is a foodie, lo and behold I'm a foodie too!

The only thing different is that he's a much better blogger then me, and he manages to find himself in positions that further his education and experience, I mean he meets the coolest people almost by accident.

But maybe i'm just being jaded, because life is what you make it right, if i don't think i'll ever meet people then I won't right? or atleast that's what i've been taught... that could just be my hippie parents though :P

But anyway, back to my main point, this guy, "Nick" i think his name is, is awesome and you wouldn't be harming yourself one bit by checking out his blog that i've tagged up the top of this post.

Also; today, driven by my hunger and desire to use up all vegies from the Subi Street Markets (still so in love with them all) I made Apple and Rhubarb Crumble; not the best creation i've concocted, I think maybe more butter in the crumble next time, or melted butter.... hmmm... food for thought (no pun intended)

Anyway here we go!

What you need: (in picture form)

Filling:

A few apples, I used 4 ( I got too excited and peeled the one on the end before taking the photo...oops..)

Rhubarb, I had two stalks, however in hindsight with 4 apples maybe use 2 and 1/2 or 3 stalks...

Sugar

Butter

Cinnamon (just a touch for flavouring)

For the Crumble:

Some Flour

Butter

Some brown sugar if you really want it...

Method:

Peel and cut your apples, cut them anyway you like (I stood in front of the pan with a small knife and just cut any which way, however personally I like big chunky pieces)

Cut up your Rhubarb, again anyway you like.

Mean while, you'll need to melt some butter, a good chunk, with a nice sprinkling of sugar, stir them together.

(side note: half my butter had melted by the time i'd taken the photo- so don't take my photo as a reference to the sugar butter ratio)

Once all the butter is melted, and the sugar is incorporated, add your apple and cook it for a few minutes, giving it a good shake every now and then, next dump in the rhubarb.

stir that through with a sprinkling of cinnamon, now you'll just want to cook that for another few minutes until the fruits start to give off their own juices. Let them cool after that.

While your fruits are cooling start making the crumble ( as I said before, my crumble didn't turn out to perfect, try and add melted butter instead and give it a shot- I know I will next time)

combine all the ingredients in a bowl, then all you need to do is rub all of it together, till they resemble bread crumbs, adding each ingredient to the ratio that you think is right.

However if you are a wet blanket and don't want to get butter and flour under you nails (my god it's hard to get out) feel free to use a fork and the side of the bowl, using a press and slide motion, rubbing the butter and flour and sugar together.

I've just found out that i've been making crumble the wrong way my entire life, i've only been putting the crumble on the top! can you believe it? The other day, my friend came into the art studio with a home baked pear crumble from his darling mother, imagine my surprise when I took a chunk with my spoon ( we're teenagers, we don't need plates) and found out that she'd crumbled both sides! Top and bottom! It was a revelation, no longer will i have to hoard the top coating of crumble and annoy my entire family when they get only apple! it was amazing! .... ok so i just went on a bit of a tangent; but the moral of the story- layer the crumble! are you listening?

(oh my god! double the crumble!) ( and you have to wonder why i've put on 3 kg lately)

now you need to whack it in the oven, feel free to plop some butter on the top for the nice golden melty effect, at 180C for about 20 minutes, or atleast until golden, it shouldn't matter too much because your fruits are already cooked (:

Mine didn't turn out as golden as i would have liked, and the crumble was a bit floury, so next time melt the butter, or just add more butter, or maybe if i added butter on the top before baking it... oh well only the next time will tell :P

taxi out xoxo

Welcome to Experiment House!

One place that you totally have to go to if you ever come to Perth, Australia, or god forbid if you live in this city already, one place you simply must check out is the Subiaco Markets- and take a word from the wise the earlier the better, in timing I mean, because boy after 9 am those lines get massive!

But anyway, as I'm sure you can guess I have been recently been aquatinted with the marvellous Subi Markets, this Sunday in fact my family decided to be unpredictable for once in their lives and dragged me with them to the markets for a croissant and coffee from the La Galette De France.

Of course when I got there and saw the largest range of fresh fruits and vegetables i'd ever seen in my life, and for prices that were beyond reasonable, I stood there (embarrassingly) gaping like a fish for a good 3 seconds...

Needless to say I grabbed my parents and dragged them into Subi Markets, before going completely spastic surrounded my vegetables... My parent's could only look on with a confused, dazed look on their faces while I picked up vegetables left and right going "OMG its OKRA!", "the fuck? TARO!" "RUBARB! I can never find you anywhere!" "FENNEL! my LOVE!" "mmmmmm artichokesss...mmmmm..." and so on and so forth...

We took a lot of vegetables home that day... and so now, I have a lot of vegetables in our fridge and with some not the faintest clue how to cook them... Okra, for example.... O.o whaaaat?

And so this is where i've dubbed this week "Experiment Week"

Day one: aka today

On the menu this evening was a beef steak (yeah I know not very exciting but we had to use it up ): ) Stir- fried Okra with tomatoes, and Tempura Fennal with candied Chillis.

p.s. I stole both these recipies from the internet, the Okra just from taste.com, however the tempura fennel was from The Kitchen Crusader, whom I suggest you go check out.

Stir- Fried Okra with Tomatoes

you will need:

2 cups fresh okra, washed, trimmed and sliced.

1 large tomato, peeled and sliced into 8 thin wedged

1/4 cup spring onions, sliced

1 1/2 tsp lemon juice

salt and pepper

butter and oil to fry in

What you need to do:

Melt the butter and oil in a skillet or wok.

Dump all the ingredients into said wok and toss around for a good 5-8 minutes

(as you can probably tell i'm not too confident with this recipe, as i've never cooked, or seen anyone cook okra and am sticking to the recipe quiet closely, at least in relation to timing)

I also realise that i forgot to take photos >.>

The end result: It...tasted good shall i say, the parent's loved it... however I felt like I was eating snot... literally, Okra has the consistency of snot... it wasn't too bad however...

Tempura Fennel and Candied Chillis

What you need:

Fennel part:

a large bulb of fennel

2 egg yolks

1 cup iced water

1 cup flour

pinch of salt

oil for deep frying

Chilli bit:

1/4 cup sugar

a cup non-alcholic ginger beer ( or a cup of water and 1/4 cup of sugar)

2 large red chillies, that have been thinly diagonally sliced

What you need to do:

Fennel part:

Heat the oil.

Thinly slice the fennel.

Whisk together the water, salt, flour and egg yolks into a batter.

Dip the fennel slices into the batter, and cook them in the hot oil.

Drain on a paper towel.

Chilli Bits:

Put all the ingredients into a saucepan, bring to the boil, the let simmer for 5-10 minutes stirring occasionally.

End result: OMG AMAZINGI'd never deep fried anything before so i think it turned out rather well thank you very much; fennel has a very strange taste might i say, it could almost be minty at times... you can;t have too much or it gets over powering. But the chillies, oh my FUCK! they were so good, adapting from Julie Powell "Candied Chillies are a revelation, I'm obsessed" (of course in the movie she says braised cucumbers but who cares about that) that pretty much sums up my relation to candied chillies at the moment. OBSESSION

and beef steak is beef steak, just slather it in oil, salt and pepper and let it fry on a really fucking hot pan (:

So hopefully over the next few days i'll be making a mango ketchup ( again from the lady crusader), a rubarb and apple crumble pie thing, i'm not too sure yet, artichokes with... something... maybe hollandaise sauce? homemade hollandaise sauce ;) and asparagus... and some other vegetables that i can't remember...

anyway this is me

taxi xoxo

TOAST!

So this fine morning, we decided to go to Toast for breakfast, has anyone heard of this little cafe?... For those who live in Perth, and do want to go to this awesomely cute little thing its in East Perth, on Royal street, over looking Claisebrook cove (a truly calming site).

The thing about Toast was that you need to know where to look to find it, that is its not really on Royal st, but if you walk down the stairs from Royal st and onto the cove area we found it by the mass of people that were sitting outside bathing in the spring sunlight. And a big crowd usually means that its good right? Yea thats what we thought too (:

But really, it was adorable- the staff were friendly (and awesomely dressed ^^), the coffee was absolutely divine (!!!) and the food was...unique... to say the least, unique and pretty damn tasty too.

What was also cute about the place was that it looked like someone had gone to the Paris flee market, bought a whole heap of shit (posters, cups, books, empty Ricard bottles) and sent it back to Perth to be a decoration in a cafe called "Toast" though I think it should be called "Baguette" instead to carry on with the french theme ><

(the only let down for me was the plastic Ikea cups... I don't really like to drink out of plastic cups if you get me drift...)

(ooooh and see a Ricard and a Martini bottle!! )

And here we have (on the left) Crab and Dill omlette, and to the right is the trout pate on potato and parmesan bread with avocado and poached egg (: and you can see some coffee also THEY HAD MISMATCHING SAUCERS <33333 :D

And finally we had my main meal of the morning Avocado, poached eggs and hollandaise sauce atop yummy corn fritters. (this really amazed me seeing as i don't usually like corn too much... however if I could say one thing, after a while the corn did get a bit over powering just because there was SO MUCH OF IT... but besides that this get the thumbs up.)

not to mention i saw capsicum growing in the pot in the corner, i mean really capsicum? awesome!

If your in the area you should totally give this place a try, its too darn cute to miss out on ^^

also this is my first time giving a restaurant review so... thats for reading (:

taxi xoxo

Creme Caramel!

wow... this has been a while... my dear apologies to those who actually read this every once and a while. :D

anywhoo today, on the bus home from school I was over come with the sudden urge to eat something really really sweet! (and really with my lit teacher The Sharpie talking about Red Velvet wedding cakes all afternoon, who could really blame me?) and since I'd become addicted to this awesome guy called The Aubergine Chef (seriously go check him out www.theauberginechef.com, this is his recipe)

I thought I'd try my hand at making my own photo recipe post...thing....

SO, this is what has been shat out of my wednesday afternoon (when I really should be doing homework due tomorrow...><)

First! you will need:

milk - 13oz

eggs - 6oz (or just 3 large ones)

sugar - 3 1/4 oz

then some extra sugar to melt for the carmel bit (:

( I haven't converted the measurements because I thought I didn't want to confuse them, like 13 oz is 384.45 ml, now who really want to pour that out to the exact measurement ><)

Second! what you need to do:

Put the extra sugar into a pot on the stove over a low heat and melt the sugar, giving the saucepan a good shake every once and a while to make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom and BURN!! This process is called "caramelisation" as my Food Science teacher continues

to tell me. Now make sure it doesn't get too brown, other wise it will just taste bitter, you wan

t a nice golden rich colour- I let mine get a bit too brown ):

Once the sugar is nice and in a liquid state, you wanna pour it into an oven proof dish, suitable for Creme Caramel, and swirl it around the bottom and a bit of the sides, this makes the lovely caramel sauce over the top of the baked custard.

Next thing you will have to deal with is the heating of the milk, ( a very hard task i'm sure of) remember don't let it boil, just heat it to below the point.

With your milk slowly heating up, and your sugar setting up to the side now is the time to whisk the egg and sugar together to make a uniform consistency. But beware, you will have to stir in the sugar immediately or the sugar might chemically cook it, and sorry guys but the cooking process is coming up a bit later in this recipe, and if the egg is premature it will just be awkward on all of us (*seeedy eyes*) ( oh god there's something wrong with me if I can be dirty with chemically cooked eggs (oh god the images!!!))

Ok so once your eggs have been whisked and your milk has been sufficiently heated you will temper the hot milk into the egg mixture, and 'temper' is just a fancy word for saying pour the milk in slowly at first while whisking the eggs at the same time, so as to make sure the whisked egg doesn't turn to scrambled egg because of the heat of the milk (man there are so many things that want to cook this egg! poor thing :3)

Once it has all been combined you can now feel free to pour it into the previously prepared oven dish that the egg will finally be legitimately cooked in. yay!

Then you will want to put this dish into a water bath, that is put it in a bigger container and fill it up with hot water till half-way up the sides of the oven proof dish that we're using.

Now all you have to do is shove it in the oven at 325F (or about 160C) for 30-40 minutes, this of course depends on the size of your creme caramel, but if you keep an eye on it i'm sure it'll be fine (:

You can tell its done when, if shaken, the entire top has a uniform wave motion. When this occurs, take it out of the oven and let it cool.

Once nicely chilled you can see that it will have set a bit, take it out of the water bath and run a knife around the edges of the dish and invert the custard carefully onto another plate, and voila! you have creme caramel!

Now to the final and most important step, GET A SPOON OUT OF THE DRAWER AND EAT THE JIGGLY BAKED CUSTARDY GOODNESS!! omnomnomnom

taxi out xoxo

Roasted Lamb with Fig seasoning atop Pea and Potato Mash

Ok- So I just made this up on the spot but I loved it so much that I thought it should be published here (absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I haven't updated in a few months >>) Anyway, its quick, easy and minimal washing up - which in my eyes makes it totally worth it :D

What you need (measurements are all relative to how many people your serving, I'm sure you can estimate it ^^)

Lamb, be it fillets, chops whatever you want.

Fig paste

Potatos

Peas

Butter (for the mash)

Milk (for the mash)

salt and pepper ( as you want it)

And how to do it:

Bring water to the boil in a pot and add your Potatoes let them boil for a little bit, when they're almost done throw in your peas into the same water and let them complete the cooking process together like good little vegetables :P

meanwhile, arrange your lamb on a baking tray, season with salt and pepper if you want, before chucking them under a hot grill... on my oven I put it to around 190C, but its really up to you (:

Let them cook on one side for about 4-5 minutes (this again depends on the thickness of your meat/ how much you want it cooked)

When the beeper goes off, take the lamb out of the oven. Turn the meat over and spread the fig paste on the uncooked side of the meat, once done so put it back in the oven for another 4 or so minutes.

By now your potatoes and peas should be done. Strain the veges, then mash up roughly- adding butter, milk and salt as you want.

and then simply wait for the oven to go off and serve the Lamb placed on top of the pea and potato mash.

Viola! and your done (:

Taxi xoxo

Grape Juice with....what!?

Ok, very very immature of me- trust me I know... BUT this to me just has to be mentioned.

Grape juice, absolutely delicious, best drink in the entire world. I scavenge my local asian shops just to find the (stupidly) tiny cans of sweet elixir... and this is when I came across this...

Lets just say I did a double take....

Its new....with Sac....lets say that though it did taste delicious I couldn't help but feel kinda weird as I drank it xD Gotta love asians ^^

Taxi xoxo

My Current Favourite Recipe: Osso Bucco

Ok- so I have a bit of an obsession with cooking among other things.
so I'm probably gonna be putting up different recipes and my other obsessions onto this e-diary.
the first contestant seems to be my current favourite dish- Osso Bucco- Taxi style (:

so what you need is *cue drum roll*

Osso Bucco Meat (or gravy meat)
Some flour
1 onion
garlic
1-2 carrots
some mushrooms
1ish cup of dry red wine
2-3 cups beefstock
celery
chilli are good in there too and
some rosemary usually about 4 sprigs

(There is no real set way of making this- I'm constantly adding new ingredients and changing it around, so like you hate mushrooms but love potatoes its not really gonna make much difference in the end aka its still gonna be damn tasty)

Now here's to actually make it:

cut up your meat and roll it enough flour to coat it, then in some oil in a pan brown the little mofos. Remove then from the pan, add a little more oil and brown your onion and garlic till fragrant( I love saying that "brown till fragrant" you sound so...sophisticated)
once fragrant *giggle* pour in your mushies and twirl them round till they turn a different colour; then chuck in your carrots and chilli, then y'know cook em for a bit.

Next comes the liquids, just pour them in, then re-add the meat. ok- almost there guys, tear off the leaves to two sprigs or rosemary and sprinkle them in, then add the other 2 ( or however much you want) whole.

Put the lid on, and put it in the oven at 180C for like 1 1/2 hr to 2 hrs - the meat should be tender by then.
And Voila! you have the tastiest stew- usually I have it with mash or bread- haven't tried it with polenta but I can imagine it to be sweet ( and not as in sugar sweet if you get my drift)