Category: Eggs

Anne’s Poetical Egg Salad Sandwiches

One of the absolute delights of my childhood was discovering the Anne of Green Gables set of books by Lucy Maud Montgomery.  They were my favourite books for years!  And to be honest, although I haven’t read one in forever, I still have the entire series and it wouldn’t take much for me to be again drawn into the world of Matthew and Marilla, Diana Barry and Gilbert Blythe and the adorable red-haired, high-spirited feisty girl known as Anne of Green Gables.  And that’s Anne with an E and don’t you forget it!

Anne Books

These books taught me so much about the world – about love, about friendship and family, about how it’s okay to be different (and how to embrace that difference).  Oh, and how I wasn’t the only person in the world who constantly had to spell their name to people to ensure that they got it right!

So I was overjoyed to find out that there is an Anne of Green Gables Cookbook.  And beside myself to be given a free ARC from NetGalley and Race Point Publishing to review!  Thank you so much!

First up, this book is gorgeous!  The illustrations and the photos are beautiful.  And all of the recipes are referenced to the exact place in the books where they occurred..which a pedant like me totally loves!

I choose to make Anne’s Poetical Egg Salad sandwiches.  And they were delicious.

Anne's Poetical Egg Salad SandwichesOMG…these were so good!

I think sometimes it’s hard when blogging to present something as simple as these sandwiches because…..well…it’s egg salad right and everyone knows how to make that.  so why bother?  But this is also real food, the kind of food I want to make. Eat. Repeat.

Recipe?  Here.

And you can also fancy these up.  The version you are looking at has some chives in the mix.  It’s great with lettuce in the sandwich.  To make it really fancy, a slice of smoked salmon is divine!

Poetical Egg Salad Sandwich5

I adored this book almost as much as the novels that inspired it!

Poetical Egg Salad Sandwich7

And as we head into the new year, some rules for living from Miss Anne Shirley:

ON FRIENDS

 

ON MAKING MISTAKES

1985AnneGreenHair

ON MAKING AN EFFORT

Anne effort

ON ATTITUDE

Anne and Marilla (1)

ON LOVE

Gilbert

THE FUTURE

Anne2

And on that note sweet people, I’m going to bid you adieu for 2017.

Thank you for reading, commenting, liking, sharing.  You’re the best and most wonderful kindred spirits ever!

And for all of you, all my very, very best for a joyful 2018!  May it bring it everything you wish for!

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Cowboys, Caviar, Casseroles and Cocktails

Dear readers

I had such high hopes for this post.  Then they were totally dashed by a twist of fate that…well…I guess if I’d seen it coming it wouldn’t be a twist would it?  But I’m jumping ahead of myself.  First, I was totally delighted when Greg from Recipes4Rebels asked if I would join in a cookalong for Cowboy Day!  This event occurs on the fourth Saturday of July each year and is celebrated all over the world!

Cowboy Caviar 1Obviously, this is not the fourth Saturday in July, however, as I will be sunning myself on the beach at Sanur in Bali that day, with Greg’s blessing I am posting my ventures into Cowboy Cookin’ early!  And it’s a three course meal y’all. (Because 1 that’s how cowboy’s talk and 2 cocktails are a course aren’t they?  This one is almost a meal!  But again, getting ahead of myself!)

So now onto my foiled grand plans.  My idea was that I would find a cocktail called a Bali Cowboy – possibly a more tropical version of this cowboy cocktail and I would make it for my post and then, on the day itself, I would tweet another picture of me in Bali with with my Bali Cowboy and it would in a glass as big as my head and it would be blue and loaded with umbrellas and pineapple wedges and all the other tropical cocktail paraphenalia.

Cowboy Caviar 2A quick google soon showed me that there is such a thing as a Bali Cowboy.  It is NOT a cocktail.  Turns out that a Bali Cowboy is a male prostitute who hangs around Kuta Beach willing to sell his services to any rich (ie all) Western women who care to pay for them. So, whilst I’m not 100% ruling out a photo of me with a Bali Cowboy on Cowboy Day, the likelihood of it happening has dropped significantly!

So, new ideas had to be found.  Starting with some caviar.  Because we’re classy cowboys!  It’s Cowboy Caviar of courseCowboy Caviar 4Where has this salad / dip been all my life?  If this is what cowboys eat, then I want to be a cowboy.  It’s all kinds of beans and corn and tomatoes and avocado . Truly delicious!  I loved this!

So, for the second course, I went straight to the top.  And by that I mean Mr John Wayne himself.

John wayne casserole recipeTurns out The Duke and I share a love of eggs, cheese and chillies.  Now, just one thing about the John Wayne casserole…. To my mind, when you combine egg yolks to beaten egg whites with other stuff, in this instance cheese and chilli and you them put that in an oven and cook until it’s all puffed up and golden, that’s not so much a casserole as a soufflé.

You be the judge:

John wayne casserole1I’ll sit quietly over here and let my case speak for itself.

By the way, cooking this for an hour would be way too much.  You are seeing about 35 minutes and I think it was over.  I would cook this…half an hour max.  Also, the tomato didn’t do much.  I would actually leave it out and cook this for 20 minutes total.

John Wayne casserole2The soufflé casserole was good but I think I was so blown away by the Cowboy Caviar that it kind of paled by comparison.  I will definitely make it again though!

John Wayne casserole3And now for my grand Cowboy finale, I am turning to to person who started all of this, yep, Greg.  This cocktail /dessert  is A-MAZING!  So, so good.  Cowboys and cowgirls, can I present, the Giant Martini!

Giant Martini2There is no other word for this but absolutely divine! The giant in the Giant Martini doesn’t refer t to it’s size (but you could scale it up very easily)  but to the fact that it was created on the set of Giant by Liz Taylor and Rock Hudson.

Git along little doggie, this cocktail is all mine!

Giant MartiniAnd you too!

Giant Martini3jpgAh yes, Greg’s site on the PC, a cocktail in front of me and The A-Z of Cooking behind it.  Just a regular day round these parts!

Many, many thanks to Greg, this was so much fun!  Thank you so much for including me!  I always say this but you hear so much about the internet being a a horrible vicious place, I am always delighted and totally honoured to make new friends, like Greg, on here.

Ok, I’ve gotta go, 5:30am start tomorrow!  But I’m loving and leaving you with some some super rhinestone cowboy singing!

Find out all about the Cowboy Day Cook A Long here.  Hopefully my attempts will inspire you to bigger and better things on the day!

The recipe for Cowboy Caviar I used came from Cookie and Kate.

The Giant Martini recipe is here.

Kiss me and smile for me, I’ll be back here in a couple of weeks but if you can’t smile without me, I’ll be tweeting and instagramming from Bali throughout.

Loving you, leaving you, now!

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REPOST – Speedy Soufflé for Valentines Day

Hello friends, I am in the middle of cooking something new for you for Valentine’s Day, however, it is 4:00 pm and I just read the part of the recipe that says part of the recipe needs to set overnight.  As tomorrow is a working day, I am not sure if I will be able to finish cooking and write up a post in time, so like all good tv cooks, here is one I prepared earlier.  This post for Passionfruit Soufflé was originally published in 2014!  However, it somehow made its way back into my drafts folder.

Ready to take a trip back to 2014?

Lets do it!

I made my very first soufflé.  For you, for Valentine’s Day.

And it’s filled with passion – fruit.

Passionfruit Souffle 3Passionfruit Souffle 9

I’m not sure why it has taken me so long to make a soufflé.  I have some vague childhood memories of eating cheese soufflés and them not being very nice.  Then again, I ate nothing for two years except vegemite sandwiches so my judgement was possibly awry.  But those memories and the soufflé’s reputation for being notoriously temperamental might be the reasons I have stayed away.  After all, the soufflé come with more rules and regulations than the driving handbook:

  • Don’t beat the eggs too little
  • Don’t beat the eggs too much
  • Don’t fold the egg whites too roughly
  • Don’t open the door of the oven
  • Don’t make loud noises or sudden movements
  • Don’t look it directly in the eyes

Etc, etc.

What they don’t tell you is this.  You can have a decent soufflé cooked from scratch and on the table in less than 20 minutes. So let’s get started.

Butter and sugar coat your soufflé dish.  When you butter your dish, brush the butter from the middle of the dish to the rim and then up the sides of the dish.  This creates tiny channels that helps the soufflé to rise.   Seriously this works.

Passionfruit Souffle

When you are ready to start mix your egg yolk, half the sugar and the passionfruit juice in a bowl until light and creamy.

Then mix your egg white and sugar to soft peaks.

Passionfruit Souffle 5Then fold the yolk into the white.  Gently does it here.  A little streaky is fine.  Then pour into your prepared soufflé dish.

Passionfruit Souffle 6

Now, into a preheated oven for 12 minutes.  So we’re not tempted to open that door and ruin our “ahem” hard work, let’s talk about romance.  After all it is Valentine’s Day.

True Romance

The last few Valentine’s Days I have given you some horror stories.  Not so this year.  This year we are talking about two very special romantic moments in my life.

Let’s start with my first ever boyfriend.  We started going out when I was 15 and he was 16.  There was a local park we used to frequent to get away from prying parental eyes and ears.  So, one Sunday afternoon we rode our bikes down to said park and headed towards our favourite bench to have a kiss and a cuddle.  We had not been there long when, from down the hill we heard some children screaming “Help, help, Angus has fallen in the lake”.

Passionfruit Souffle 7Well, he took off down that hill, and jumped in, fully clothed to save what we assumed was a drowning child.  Turned out Angus was a labrador puppy who had been quite happy paddling around the shallows and had not even noticed the distress of his young owners. Semi disaster averted and there was a little swoony dripping wet with tight tshirt moment.  Made only more adorable by the squirming puppy in his arms!

Young love.  My hero.  And a puppy.  Life did not get much better!

Passionfruit Souffle 8So move forward…..a few decades years to the fussiest eater in the world.  A few weeks ago we were walking the dogs by the lake and noticed that one of the ducks had become entangled in some fishing wire and was only able to move in a tiny circle.  And cue the second Mr Darcy moment of my life.

Passionfruit Souffle 11

Not only did he jump into the lake (it was only calf-deep so no wet shirt here) but he unwound the fishing line from the duck’s leg then we noticed there was also some line knotted around its beak and neck. It was really knotted and tight he ended up having to bite through it!  It was both amazing and kind of gross.  That lake water is pretty dirty and I was expecting him to get sick from swallowing even a little bit of it. (He didn’t).

These moments may not have involved hearts and roses but for me were two of the most generous-spirited and selfless acts I have seen.  And that is true romance!

(2022 note, the beagle in this picture is Lulu, not Holly.)

Passionfruit Souffle 10

Back to the Soufflé

OK, our 12 minutes is up and the soufflé is out of the oven.  Quickly dust with icing sugar, add a  dollop of passionfruit pulp over the top and serve immediately.  Your souffé will start to deflate from the time it comes out of the oven so speed is of the essence here.

Passionfruit Souffle 9

And then tell me when the love heart lollies of our childhood took a step into the digital age?  Not only are they now using Twitter….

Passionfruit Souffle 12

But also Tinder!

Passionfruit Souffle 13

Swipe left on that! But swipe right on my Passionfruit Soufflé!

The Recipe – Passionfruit Soufflé

Print

Passionfruit Soufflé

A delicious passionfruit souffle that can be on the table in about 15 minutes!

  • Author: Taryn Fryer
  • Prep Time: 4
  • Cook Time: 12
  • Total Time: 16 minutes
  • Yield: 1 1x

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 egg, separated
  • 21/2 tbsp caster sugar
  • 1 can passionfruit in syrup, you will need 1 tbsp of syrup
  • icing sugar to dust
  • melted butter to grease the souffle dish
  • 1 8cm souffle dish

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 180C.
  2. Butter the souffle dish, spreading the butter from the middle of the dish up the sides. Scatter a tablespoon of sugar into the dish tipping it all around the insides until it is entirely covered.
  3. Strain the passionfruit syrup into a dish, you will need a tablesppon of liquid. Reserve the seeds for later.
  4. Place the syrup with the egg yolk and half a tablespoon of sugar into a bowl and beat with an electric beater until light and creamy.
  5. In a separate bowl beat the egg white to soft peaks, then add the remaining sugar, a little at a time until the mixture is glossy and holding it’s shape.
  6. Using a metal spoon, fold the whites into the yolks. A light touch is needed here, you want to keep as much air in the mixture as possible. It is better to have the mixture a bit streaky than to have it over mixed!
  7. Spoon the mixture into the prepared dish to just below the rim then run your thumb around the rim to totally clear it of any sugar, souffle mix etc that will prevent rising.
  8. Pop the dish onto a baking tray and bake for 12 minutes.
  9. Do not open the oven during this time.
  10. Remove from oven. They are done when a finger touched lightly on the top comes away clean but there is still a slight wobble in the middle.
  11. Quickly dust with icing sugar and add a dollop of the reserved passionfruit seeds and some additional syrup.
  12. Serve immediately.

Nutrition

  • Serving Size: 2

Have a wonderful Valentine’s day!  And don’t forget to spare a moment to moment to say thank you to the everyday heroes in your life, the people saving dogs and ducks and generally making the world a better place.  If you have a spare 15 minutes  why not make them a soufflé?

 

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REPOST – History Happy Hour – 1959 – On The Beach

+Hello and welcome to a very special history happy hour.

Because today, December 17, not only do we have a super fruity and delicious cocktail to celebrate today’s event but also two yummy recipes courtesy of one of my (and hopefully your) favourite bloggers, Jenny from Silver Screen Suppers.  Jenny is also making the same trio of recipes so when you have finished here, please head over there to have a look.

But what, and how are we celebrating?

On The Beach CollageOn The Beach – The Film

December 17, 1959 saw the première of the film On The Beach.  And just look at this for a cast list – Ava Gardner, Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, Anthony Perkins.   There’s galaxies that wish they were that star studded!!!!  Oh and just for fun, Frank Sinatra came along too.  Not to be in the film,  Just to hang out with Ava.  On the beach.

 

And that beach was in my hometown of Melbourne!  Or in a place called Frankston on the outskirts thereof.  In fact, for many a year, there was a scurrilous rumour that Ms Gardner had made the snarky comment that Melbourne was “the perfect place to make a film about the end of the world.”  Not true my friends,  not true.  Said quote was totally invented by a junior reporter from a Sydney newspaper, obviously miffed that we got Ava, Gregory, Fred, Tony (and Frank) and all they got was a bridge and an Opera House.

 

On The Beach, based on a novel by Nevil Shute (which I have not read but now really want to) is a post-apocalyptic romance in which Australia is the only country to survive a nuclear war.  However, it is only a matter of months before radiation clouds doom the survivors to the same fate as the rest of the world.  Unless…Dah dah da dah….

This is a film worth seeking out. A stellar cast, some superlative acting, and an engrossing storyline, which although somewhat dated has much to speak to us about our current situation.  And, if you can watch the scene with Tony Perkins and Donna Andrews without welling up?  You’re already a little dead inside.

On The Beach – The Drink

What more appropriate way to celebrate the release of On The Beach than with the classic cocktail Sex on The Beach!  And it’s so good.   Peach schnapps where have you been all my life?

Sex On The Beach 3

This is fruit, fruit and more fruit – peach from the schnapps, cranberry, orange juice and pineapple juice all playing a role.  With a hit of vodka to give it some backbone.

Sex On The Beach 2

This is the best summer you have ever had, in a glass.  And unlike its namesake you don’t have to worry about getting sand in your privates if you have one. And you can have two, maybe three in one night with lots of different people without anyone looking askance at you!

On The Beach – The Food

Jenny (this woman is a marvel!!!)  sent me a host of recipes by the stars of On The Beach but there was one that stood out for me above all others.

Gregory  Peck’s recipe for Happy Pappy Eggs.  Oh my…..it’s not often that words fail me.  But….first up how you could you not love something called Happy Pappy eggs and second…the recipe came from Gregory Peck.  AKA Atticus Finch (pre Go Set a Watchman). And then I also chose a Gregory Peck recipe for ratatouille.

Happy Pappy Eggs

The Happy Pappy Eggs were scrambled eggs with some slow cooked onions.  Simple and delicious!!! But oh man, that rataouille was amazing!!!  I have no idea why I don’t make it more often.  It went really well with the eggs. And together they would make a super brunch dish after a long night of Sex on The Beach (either way).

I also ate the rataouille for lunch for a few days with some cheese in a toasted turkish roll and OMG…it was a revelation!  So good!

Ratatouille Cheese Roll

On The Beach – The Recipe

There were some rather frightening copyright restrictions on the Gregory Peck recipes so we  decided not to print them.  However, I’m sure if you asked Jenny very nicely she would send you a copy.  For personal use only. Don’t let us find you in a dingy alley handing out illegal copies of the recipe of Happy Pappy Eggs!

There are also a myriad recipes and variations for the Sex On The Beach Cocktail.  This is a fairly classic take on it.

Print

History Happy Hour – 1959 – On The Beach

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1.5 oz (45 ml.) peach schnapps
  • 1.5 oz (45 ml.) vodka
  • 2 oz. (60 ml.) cranberry juice
  • 2 oz. (60 ml.) orange juice
  • 2 oz. (60 ml.) pineapple juice
  • Orange slice for garnish
  • Maraschino cherry for garnish
  • Ice cubes

Instructions

  1. Pour peach schnapps, vodka, cranberry juice, orange juice, and pineapple juice into a shaker filled with ice.
  2. Shake until the outside of the shaker gets frosty – about 20 seconds.
  3. Strain the mixture into a glass filled with more ice cubes.
  4. Garnish with an orange slice and a maraschino cherry

This was so much fun, it was great collaborating with Jenny and getting to watch a fabulous movie to boot!  Thank you Jenny for the awesome recipes, I can’t wait to see what you have dome with them!

Have a great week you lovely people, happy drinking (and eating)!

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Vincent Price’s Buckingham Eggs Jaffle

You made a what???

For for those of you who are already totally confused, let me explain.  A Jaffle is an Australian term for a toasted sandwich. And it is a much loved food for breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, supper, a midnight snack or any of the times inbetween.

And I made one based on Vincent Price’s Buckingham Eggs.  And it was very good!

Buckingham Egg Jaffle2Like I guess many of my generation, the first real inkling I had of Vincent Price was as the voice in Thriller….

I had no idea he could not only cook, but cook like a boss,  until I started blogging.  It’s one of the reasons why I am so excited that the 50th edition of Vincent and Mary Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes is about to be released.  And I am reliably informed by Jenny of Silver Screen Suppers that, in her view, it is the best cookbook ever written!  And Jenny knows her stuff!!!

Only a few more sleeps ’til that happens but first, Jenny invited her blogging pals to take part in a cookalong with some of Vincent and Mary’s recipes.

I hadn’t really intended on making the Buckingham Eggs for the cookalong .  I was totally primed to make Vincent Price’s Champagne Chicken but, it was only 10:00am. Possibly a little too early for a roast dinner.  But I was hungry and a jaffle seemed like the perfect thing to tide me over til dinner time. A quick glance at the fridge revealed eggs, cheese and anchovies. I had a thought process that went something like this:

  • You could make the Buckingham Eggs
  • But I want a jaffle
  • The Buckingham Eggs sound really good.
  • So does a jaffle.
  • Anchovy and Mustard butter…-
  • Egg and Cheese Jaffle
  • Hmm…what if we…
  • I like where you are going with this

And thus the Buckingham Eggs Jaffle was born. I’m sure neither Jenny or Vincent would disapprove of my tweaking the recipe slightly to satisfy both the devil and the angel on my shoulder!  For the purists, here is a link to the original recipe as cooked by Jenny:

Buckingham Eggs

For my version make an English mustard and anchovy butter.  I could not find any anchovy paste so I mushed up an anchovy.  The mustard adds  some heat and makes it a beautiful colour!Buckingham Eggs1I could just eat this on toast forever and be totally content!

But, wait, there’s more!

Eggs and cream and cheese and onions. I meant to add some Worchestershire Sauce but I totally forgot!  Oh well, all the more reason to make it again next Sunday!

Buckingham Eggs3Now, add the onions to the egg mixture and scramble them really lightly.  You need them to thicken up but still be quite moist as they will continue to cook once they are in the jaffle iron.

Now, butter both sides of the bread (if you’re feeling decadent ) or the one side if not.  Place the buttered sides on the surface of the jaffle iron. This is important otherwise your bread will stick like crazy. Place the cheese on one side and the thickened egg mixture on the other side.

Buckingham Eggs4Fold The Iron over.  Trim any bits of bread hanging out of the iron and place over a low heat.

Jaffle 3

The only tricky bit is that once the iron is closed you have no way of telling how much the inside has cooked unless you open it up and have a little peek.  Make sure you turn it over at least once so both sides get toasty.  As a general rule, once the outside is a dark golden colour, the inside will be perfect.  This is the colour you are aiming for:

Buckingham Eggs5At the risk of sounding a bit hippy dippy, when cooked like this, the egg and cream mixture and the cheese become one in a gorgeous creamy melange.  This is surrounded by crispy, salty, slightly spicy bread…..OMGZ delicious.

Buckingham Eggs6This made a super brunch, but if darkness is falling across the land and the midnight hour is close at hand, this would also make a super late night snack!

A massive thanks to Jenny for including me and to Vincent and Mary Price for the recipe.

For all the deets on the cookbook launch and activities around it, click any (ALL) of the links below:

Vincent Price Treasury Cookalong with Silver Screen Suppers
Vincent Price Legacy Tour – for details of celebratory events in the UK
Amazon Page for the 50th Edition of A Treasury of Great Recipes
Champagne chicken up next!  Stay tuned….

 

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