Category: Nuts

30
Sep
2023

September 2003 – Birthday Party, Cheesecake, Jelly Bean, Boom!

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Almond, Cake, Cocktail, Drinks, Pizza, Savoury Pies and Tarts, Super Food Ideas, Tequila

“That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane”…so begins the fabulous REM song, “It’s The End of The World As We Know It”. And for me, this year actually began with a 7.6 magnitude earthquake when we were holidaying in Darwin. Last month we celebrated my birthday in absolute chaos (more on that later) whilst on holiday in Port Douglas. And when I say chaos, I mean a total f*cking nightmare. So when the random number generator chose “Birthday Party, Cheesecake, Jelly Bean, Boom! I thought it might be a good chance to reset and have a little party to make up for the day that was ruined! The vehicle of choice for this month is Super Food Ideas, from September 2003 and I went in search of party food.

But first, let’s take a little wander down the memory lane to the heady days of September 2003. R Kelly’s Ignition (Remix) was #1. Less said about that the better I think. Finding Nemo was top of the box office and The Da Vinci Code was still the most popular book!

The Menu – September 2003

Margarita

Now, I can’t think of a much better way to kick of any birthday celebration than with a classic Margarita! And this one was perfection!!!!! I

The cocktail napkin you see in the above photo was one of a set of napkins I bought in Port Douglas. They are all super cute and also an inspiration to make the rest of the cocktails featured on them!

And as with the margarita, the first four days of our holiday were wonderful. Port Douglas is such an amazing place. Rainforest, reef and beach – great restaurants, perfect weather….the only downside is the crocodiles…and the murder birds!

Margarita Recipe

Seafood Pizza

As you may have noticed, I love my seafood! This nicely leads me to where our holiday turned paradise into a nightmare. Day 5 of our holiday, which was my actual birthday we had planned to move from our PD central apartment to a house around 10km out of Port Douglas. It was also the night of The Matildas v England final of the Women’s World Cup. We had been out for a lovely dinner the night before so the plan for my birthday was to grab a seafood platter from Port Douglas when we left and then enjoy the evening in our house. Dip in our private pool, , bit of football on the telly, champagne on ice, and our gourmet seafood platter…could life get any better?

Better? No. What we hadn’t figured was that it was about to get a whole lot worse!

We turned up at the house, for which we had a confirmed booking from one of the largest, if not the largest booking agencies in the world. The Fussiest Eater sends a text to the owner asking for the keypad number as the gate is locked. We are there for about 5 minutes when a woman comes out of the house. “Can I help you?” she asks. “Oh, yes, you probably just got our text. We’re here for our holiday”

Apparently we weren’t.

In the time that we had made our booking and our actual holiday, the house had been sold. It was no longer holiday accommodation.

It was now 3:00pm on a Saturday, we had no place to stay for the next four nights and we had a rapidly warming seafood platter on the back seat of the hire car.

Seafood Pizza Recipe

Party Pies

You know this is an Aussie Meat Pie because the secret ingredient is a spoonful of Vegemite! I made mini versions of this pie – in Australian we call these Party Pies so they were perfect for my Birthday Party Menu!

Now back to Port Douglas. The Fussiest Eater began calling the owner of the house. He confirmed that he had sold the house and had told the booking agency to cancel all future bookings. I started trying to find us accommodation. The first place I found wanted $15,000 for the four nights. The second $6000. Finally, we were able to find a studio room back in Port Douglas for the four nights for a price that we could actually afford. And that had a fridge in which we could put the seafood platter! From there we called the booking agency who offered to not only refund the cost of the house but also to pay for the emergency accommodation.

The following day we were also able to move into a one-bedroom apartment in the same complex which was a lot better than the studio but still how we had wanted to spend the last few days of our holiday.

As of today though, the booking company have yet to refund us the money for the second Port Douglas Apartment. We are idiots who did not get their OG offer in writing and they are now saying that as the second apartment was cheaper than the house technically we are not out of pocket.

Technically they ruined my birthday and did not deliver on the holiday we paid for and expected.

Technically I could have chosen the house that cost $15000 instead of that studio apartment as our alternative accommodation and technically they would have had to refund us the difference.

I didn’t want to be an arsehole.

I’ll leave that up to them.

Meat Pie Recipe

Chewy Almond Crescents

We now turn to the sweet part of our birthday party menu. These were great! Really tasty and not overly sweet. You couldn’t really taste the apricot jam which was a shame. When I make these again, I will maybe add some chopped-up dried apricots into the mix. Or maybe add a glaze with the jam. They were delicious regardless. These would be great with a cup of tea or coffee or equally with a little glass of Baileys! This was probably my favourite thing on the menu. I also loved the butterfly cakes but they were similar to cakes I had made before. These were all new and I was so happy to discover them!

Accomodation saga continued….As of today though, the booking company have yet to refund us the money for the second Port Douglas Apartment. We are idiots who did not get their OG offer in writing and they are now saying that as the second apartment was cheaper than the house technically we are not out of pocket.

Technically they ruined my birthday and did not deliver on the holiday we paid for and expected.

Technically I could have chosen the house that cost $15000 instead of that studio apartment as our alternative accommodation and technically they would have had to refund us the difference.

I didn’t want to be an arsehole.

I’ll leave that up to them.

Chewy Almond Crescents Recipe

Lemon Curd Butterfly Cakes

These were so pretty and also delish. I loved the tanginess of the lemon curd with the sweetness of the cupcake!

The one-bedroom apartment was great. However, on the first night, I was woken at around 2 a.m. by the sound of what sounded like a woman screaming. Channelling my inner Nancy Drew, I got out of bed and looked out the window but the side street the room looked out on was deserted. I was just getting back into bed when I heard it again. This time I went to the main room to look out of the front windows but the main street which we overlooked was also quiet. I went back to bed. I heard the same noise once again at around 5 a.m. This time I wondered if maybe someone in the neighbouring rooms was having an argument as again there was no movement on either street.

There was no mention of any attack on the news the following day so I went about my business. As we were walking back to the apartment from dinner I heard the same noise. This time though I was able to see that it was coming from a bird that we had just walked past. A quick Google Search identified these murder birds as Bush Stone Curlews. Thankfully no Nancy Drewing needed for me on the second night. Or thereafter.

Lemon Curd Butterfly Cakes Recipe

My Nigella Moment – Passionfruit Glazed Shortbread

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious. In the context of these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in either because I made it and it was really good, or I just didn’t have time to make it but it was one of the most appetising things in the mag!

I love shortbread and passionfruit so these were high on my list of things to make. They would have also fit in nicely with my birthday party theme but I ran out of time and had to choose between the Almond Crescents and these. In the end, I have eaten Passionfruit Shortbreads before whilst the Almond Crescents were something new to me so I chose them. These though? High on my list of things to make! And believe me, when I do…I will definitely be popping back to the biscuit tin, Nigella Style, for just one more!

Super Food Ideas really came through for my birthday-themed menu! As did Port Douglas for my birthday holiday. Despite the…ahem…hiccup with the accomodation, PD remains one of my favourite holiday destinations!!!!

03
Jul
2021

Ratafias

categories: 1950's recipes, Almond

One of the frequent debates we have at our Tasty ReadsCookbook Club is whether cookbooks should have a photo for each recipe. Most people like something to judge their efforts against. I prefer a photo but I am content to fly blind if required. Which is a good thing because when making these Ratafias from The Daily News Cookery Book (1953) I had no idea what I was going to end up with!

Thankfully, it was these:

But as both Julie Andrews and I are wont to say…let’s start at the very beginning. Ratafiaa are almond flavoured cookies. If you can imagine an amaretti and a macaron had a love child? It would be a ratafia. Not as chewy as a macaron, not as crunchy as an amaretti.

The Ratafias Recipe

A few notes about this recipe.

It calls for soft sugar. I used normal caster sugar in my recipe but in retrospect, I wonder if they meant icing/confectioner’s sugar.
It also calls for Ratafia flavouring which I could not find for love or money The closest thing I could come to was a Ratafia flavoured liqueur but they were 1) a bit spendy and 2) not readily available locally so I used almond essence.
Finally, you can roast your rice flour for around 10 minutes in the oven, until you just see the colour start to turn. Alternatively, if you have an Indian / Sri Lankan grocery near you, they may sell it as roasted rice flour is used to make hoppers.

The ratafias were really yummy and very easy to make. They will defintely be on high rotation here. Also, they are a great way to use up left over eggwhites!

Have a great week friends, sorry I have been so absent from here. It’s been a busy few months. Hopefully I will start to be able to post more regularly now as things, particualry workwise are starting to calm down!

10
Feb
2020

Devilled Cashew Nuts

categories: 1960's recipes, Cashew Nuts, Nuts, Snacks, Sri Lanka

Helloooo friends! Ttoday’s recipe is nuts! But not just any nuts. These are devilled cashew nuts and damn they are the tastiest, most more-ish little morsels around!

The recipe for my devilled cashew nuts is based on a recipe from The Daily News Cookery Book. First published in 1929, this book is probably the book of Sri Lankan cooking. It’s also bonkers in parts. I have two copies of the Daily News Cookery book – one that was given to my mum as a wedding present and a new version that I bought in Sri Lanka a few years ago. I would have loved to do a Julia and Julia cook through of this book but there are ingredients I would not be able to get hold of and some of the measurements are based on weird Sri Lankan things that no longer exist. Chhudu anyone? So I might take you all on a limited express rather than a stopping all stations journey through this book.

These devilled cashew nuts ( or cadjunuts as Sri Lankans call them) are relatively straightforward to make so are a good introduction to this book.

They are also a great little snack, but when combined with a beverage? PER-FEC-TION!!! 😍

Here is the recipe from the Daily News.

The recipe calls for ground saffron. I tried to do this but I only had a small bit of saffron and it just disappeared into nothing while I was grinding it. So, what I did was to soak the saffron in a small dish of warm water and then, after about 20 minutes, I tipped the saffrony flavoured water over the nuts. I’m sure this activated them or some such too. I let them soak in the saffron water for about 4 hours then tipped them onto a sheet of paper towels and let them dry for around the same amount of time.

Once dry, I rubbed in salt and cayenne pepper and then followed the recipe to cook them. If you were in a hurry, you could grind the saffron as per the recipe or leave it out.

The smell of the toasting cashews was heavenly!

And eating them still warm from the pan was a moment of pure joy! It was hard to save some for my cocktail but, it was going to be a long while between drinks as I am doing dry February so I did my best to save a few for the sipping. And it was worth it!

Match made in heaven!

I’ll post the cocktail recipe separately but damn it was good too!

These Devilled Cashew Nuts are so easy to make and definitely something you’ll go nuts for

Enjoy!

And have a great week,

05
Oct
2018

Time Poor Plum Salad and A Supposedly Fun Thing….

categories: Blue Cheese, Pistachio, Plums, Prosciutto, Salad

Hello, people of the world!

I’m back from my travels through England, France, and Russia…actually I’ve been back nearly four weeks now but things being…well things…have not had the time to put virtual pen to paper to blog. Until now.

Why? Well, first up there was a double whammy of jetlag (landing late on Friday night) and starting a new job (Monday morning). One of those things is exhausting. Both in four days is utterly overwhelming. I spent at least the first ten days in a head-spinning daze and utter exhaustion

Then the last two weeks I have been hitting the gym pretty hard. You know what Charles De Gaulle said about France being a nation of 246 kinds of cheese? Well, I think I tasted every single one of them. With wine to match…and, as a result, I came home a little….ummm….shall we say rounder than when I left? So more exhaustion but of the physical, not the mental kind this time. So, it has felt that there was just no time to write.

But then today I had a revelation ….I could write at lunchtime! So I packed my notebook in my bag and walked down to the riverside to write. I decided the river was the best place because where I work now is kind of a tourist area and you can never find a place to sit in the food court. And I to am too stingy to buy my lunch every day and hence be able to sit in a café to write. So down to the river it was!

We’ll come back to that but whilst we’re talking about being time poor, I thought I would share one of my favourite meals that takes less than ten minutes to prepare. In summer, I eat this, or a version of it at least once a week after the gym.

The ingredients are inspired by a very cute appetizer I read about in a magazine where you wrap slices of plum and slivers of blue cheese in strips of prosciutto. But when we need a meal on the table in under ten, there’s no time for the niceties of wrapping. We’re going to dump some lettuce on a plate (I used rocket, or arugula to my American friends) then add some slices of prosciutto, some slices of plum, some chunks of blue cheese and some pistachios. Dress with a drizzle of oil and balsamic vinegar.

So, my dance class runs from 8 pm to 9 pm, by the time I get home and into the kitchen it’s usually about ten past nine….and voila…here is a salad made and ready to eat by around 18 minutes past. It’s fast, it’s pretty to look and healthy to eat…well-ish.

There’s no real recipe – use whatever greens and cold meat you have. You can sub in peaches or apricots for the plums, goat’s cheese or any other soft cheese for the gorgonzola, and your favourite nuts for the pistachios.

So, let’s head back down to the river to see how the al fresco writing went. It must have been a success because you’re reading this now right?

Well…it was a gorgeous day and so pretty down there. It was exciting. I could be like the impressionist painters who sought inspiration “en plein air”. And I finally I could get some words out. So I wrote a bit. Ate my lunch. Then I got a bit distracted by all the people jogging or running along the path and wondered if maybe that’s what I should be doing. The short answer to that is no. Because not only do I sweat like a maniac when I run but my face goes bright red for about two hours after. I could shower to get rid of the one but there is no getting over that red face. And it’s a new job. I don’t want to be known as the tomato face girl. Then I realised I was there to write, not to get distracted by people going by.

But first, I had to move because I was being attacked by ants.

So I moved. Wrote a bit more. Ate a bit more. Thought about how coincidental it was that I was writing about a salad I make when I am time poor at a time when I was time poor and had to sit by the river to write at lunchtime.

Then I had to move again because a very aggressive seagull kept trying to steal my lunch. It was some leftover turkey meatballs and salad. I don’t think seagulls should be so keen to eat turkey. It’s kind of cannibalism. If I didn’t already hate them, that would have turned me against them. Plus I once saw them trying to attack ducklings at the lake near my house. They are the worst.

So. Third location lucky right? Wrong. I had barely sat down when I put my hand in something that…I really want to say it was a piece of rotten fruit. And you know it’s bad when that’s the best case scenario. I think it was far more likely to be something that a seagull or duck had left behind. Thank goodness I never go anywhere without a handy supply of anti-bac and tissues…

And there ended the great “Let’s see if we can write outdoors” experiment of 2018. Epic fail.

On the upside, on the way back from the river I spotted a far-flung corner of the food court that looked relatively empty. ‘Til next week.

Enjoy the salad!

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05
Sep
2017

Tiny Waldorf Salads

categories: Apples, Celery, Grapes, Salad, United States of America, Walnuts

Is there a salad both more famous (and more mangled) than the Waldorf Salad? I doubt it. And because, pretty much since it’s inception, people have been mucking around with it, I thought I would put my stamp on it. As I have a predilection for little food, I shrank my Waldorf Salad into individual serving sizes.

Waldorf Salad – History

The Waldorf Salad was first made at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 1896 and was, a huge success. The original recipe only contained apples, celery and mayonnaise The grapes and walnuts came later but are now considered integral ingredients.

The Waldorf precedes the other classic “American” salad, the Caesar, by 28 years.

The Waldorf Salad was also immortalised in an episode of Fawlty Towers. I wonder if this is the only salad to ever have a sit com episode named after it. If you have not seen this you must. It is hilarious. But here’s a taste!

So, celery, apples, walnuts grapes…in a mayonnaise sauce. Which is pretty much what mine consisted of.

So how did they manage to get it so wrong in the ’60’s?

Well, the top three reasons of what went wrong in the 60’s in general are:

Charlie Manson
Massive amounts of drug taking
Gelatine

Now,Manson may be all kinds of crazy but I don’t think we can blame him for this:

Retro Waldorf via Bon Appetit Or this (even though this is kind of pretty)

Or, Good Lord, even this:

Nope, the blame for that lies squarely with 3). Possibly with a large dose of 2) thrown in

After those horrors i totally understand why the poor old Waldorf Salad is not nearly as popular today as the Caesar salad. The graphs below show internet interest in the words as search terms.

Kind of makes me wonder why I am bothering to post on Waldorf when it’s so unpopular. Next week – Caesar Salad! And hit city!

The thing is, Caesar salad is often awful and the Waldorf salad tasted good. It’s crunchy and crisp and sweet and nutty. Nothing wrong there. The buttermilk dressing I used adds a little tang without being too cloying. It’s delicious. And easy to make. And healthy. And it’s fun to wrap up the main ingredients in a lettuce leaf like a salady sang choy bau.

What more do you need?

Go and make one now. You already know how….it’s celery, apples, walnuts grapes…in a mayonnaise sauce.

Pop it all into a lettuce leaf, wrap it up and enjoy!

[yumprint-recipe id=’98’] Have a wonderful week!

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