Ingredient
- Cheat's Chocolate Mousse and Banana Ice Cream
You’ve heard of four ingredient recipes, right? Let me introduce you to one and two ingredient recipes. The first is a chocolate mousse that only uses chocolate and water and the second is a banana ice cream that only uses bananas. In the spirit o...
- Udder Delight
Milk is getting some old-school treatment up in the Hunter Valley. Family operated Udder Farm Dairy at Luskintyre is packaging up non-homogenised cow’s milk in glass bottles and by-passing Coles-worths to sell direct to local corner stores. When c...
- Mango Sorbet
Ever since Sienna started on solids at six months of age she’s had a thing for mango. When she was that little I would let her go to town on the cubes of mango cut from the cheeks. More would slip out of her chubby little fingers and onto the floor t...
- Lamingtons
Every national dish is surrounded by contentious debate about what ingredients form the official recipe. I’ve already had the inclusion of carrot in meat pie questioned and now on making lamingtons I was asked by more than one person why there wasnâ€...
- Nicola & Gerry's Tomato Chilli Jam
I had a plan to make tomato chutney as Christmas gifts when a funny thing happened. On returning Gerry’s great-uncle’s confectionery recipe book I inadvertently stumbled into an annual tomato chilli jam cook-off. One of Gerry’s friends...
- Our Gingerbread House
Our house is unlike any other in our street, as it sports a distinctive front portico. When we attended the local Christmas street party recently and the inevitable question of where we lived came up, we’d give directions and invariably receive a res...
- Crackle & Crunch
Christmas Day is not Christmas Day without a full roast pork lunch – at least that is the case in our family. After a decidedly Australian starter of fresh cooked prawns with squeezed lemon and icy-cold beer, an early afternoon pork roast has been th...
- Lost Confection
My friend Gerry had a great-uncle, Norman Thomas Brown, who was a confectionery maker in Sydney. Mr. Brown was born into a family with a long food lineage that included bakers, pastry cooks and cordial manufacturers. He catalogued all his recipes in a ...
- One Year On
This month marks one year since I started writing Cooking From The Heart (with a post on spanakopita strangely enough). Starting this blog has given me a gentle push to continue exploring recipes and ingredients that would have otherwise ended up on th...
- Sushi Homework
Sienna’s kindergarten class has been learning about planning and building projects, so it was with much excitement when she announced her first ever homework project would be planning on making sushi. I may or may not have beamed with pride from the ...
- Zucchini Flowers
I’ve wanted to make stuffed zucchini flowers since the first time I tasted them at an Italian restaurant in Leichhardt many, many years ago. They used to be so hard to come by at the shops and then every time they were around I wasn’t sure what els...
- Fresh Ricotta
OK, so I am making my way through some homemade goodness this year. So far I’ve mastered yoghurt, labna, jam & scones and ramen. Now I can add ricotta to the list. Man, oh man! I can’t quite believe I’ve waited this long to discover homemade rico...
- Comfort Food
It’s no secret that food provides people with comfort and a sense of security. When we’re feeling our most fragile, emotionally or physically, there’s more to a meal than just in the eating, particularly when a meal is given as a gift. And while ...
- Making Holubsti
You might recall my visit to the local Ukranian Church hall I made a couple of months ago to learn how to make highly addictive varenyky. Well, I went back again, this time to get my head around holubsti; seasoned minced beef and pork wrapped in a ciga...
- David Chang’s Ramen from Lucky Peach
Maybe you’ve heard of charismatic Korean-American chef, David Chang. You might be accused of living under a rock if you haven’t. His much-hyped Momofuku (translation = Lucky Peach) restaurants in New York are notoriously difficult to secure a rese...
- Intimidating Artichokes
Aaah the artichoke. An intriguing vegetable that often gets overlooked mostly out of timidity. Well, in my case anyway. The layers of intimidation began many, many years ago when I was confused about exactly what an artichoke was. Determining that art...
- Shaun Presland at Millfield Hall
This week has an inadvertent Japanese theme that I am really excited to share. My experience cooking Japanese food to date includes a grand total of two dishes: miso soup and sushi rolls. So I was really excited to learn that Shaun Presland, Executive ...
- Varenyky
About five years ago I researched my family history to determine if there was any truth to the family rumor that there was Chinese heritage on my father’s side. It turns out that my great-great-grandmother was illegitimate and the father’s name was...
- Bistro Dalby: Chef Justin Rose
So, I’ve managed a second special lunch out in as many weeks, this time with my mother-in-law. Any feelings of guilt went out the window when I reminded myself that I haven’t had a meal that doesn’t involve ordering a kid’s chicken nuggets and ...
- Alka & The Carrot Fritters
Before we moved to Newcastle, we were juggling full-time work, daycare and traffic jams in Sydney. During that busy time, we were (and still are) so grateful for our family day-carer, Alka. Alka was born in India and together with her husband, Raj, imm...
- Margan Estate: Chef Josh Davidson
In a quest to explore areas of the Hunter Valley besides Pokolbin, my Mum and I headed off on a road trip last week to Broke, population 540. Word on the street was Margan Estate have marvelous wines and an exceptional restaurant that benefits from a o...
- Stinging Nettles Sting
I should know. Despite being told I should wear gloves to handle nettles, I thought removing a stem or two while wilting them down in a pan couldn’t do too much damage. Oh, how wrong I was. A brush with those little hairs caused my index finger to th...
- How To: Pate
Offal is not for the faint-hearted. A dicey subject from the moment it is revealed, often at the just-starting-school-asking-lots-of-questions age, that the lovely crumbed rounds you’ve been happily guzzling for dinner are, in fact, lambs brains. Or ...
- Dean and the Meat Pie
It seems a prerequisite for any tradie profession is to be able to distinguish a good pie from a bad one. Dean, being an electrician with over 20 years experience, has exemplary qualifications in determining such important culinary questions of our day...
- The Passed-On Recipe
This is the table that sits behind my desk. It was once clean and clear, but like most flat surfaces in our house, it has since become a refuge for ‘good things’. In this case it’s the cookbooks that I refer to most. There’s one tome in the pil...
- In Season: Cauliflower
The ill-will towards some vegetables like squash or brussels sprouts is hardly defensible when, with a basic pairing, they shine with flavour. Case in point, cauliflower and cheese. I’ve let one of the cauliflowers in the garden go, harvesting it ...
- In Season: Oranges (Sort Of)
I’ve been waiting in vain for blood oranges to appear at the market. Although I know the season isn’t in full swing until August, I hoped I’d be able to get my hands on a few by now. It’s comforting to be reminded that real food comes when itâ€...
- A Warm Hug
As sure as the weather turns from summer to winter, I turn from granola to porridge for my breakfast. It’s easy to get porridge wrong. I’ve seen my fair share of grey-looking stodge, which is made all the more frustrating by the simple fact that it...
- Winter, Chocolate, Sofa
Are you feeling this bone-chilling cold weather? For the first time I can remember, the Snowy Mountains have lived up to their name before the June long weekend. It’s time for some serious fingertip defrosting food. Being stuck in the house with a...
- Sharing: Mal's Pork Belly
Personal experience has me convinced that an open-minded enjoyment of food is influenced primarily by the company you keep. This could not be more apparent than with my husband, Dean, who, in his heyday was a meat-and-three-veg kind of guy. After tr...
- Fish Supper
It’s been a while since I cooked a whole fish. In fact it’s been a while since I cooked a whole anything. Boneless fillets are just so easy with the kids, but there’s a certain sense of accomplishment in getting your way around a whole piece of f...
