The Ice Iced Vovo with Ancho Sorbet

Ice Iced Vovo 4

 All right, Stop.  Collaborate and listen, I am back with a brand new invention….

Thanks to my lovely friends at the Spice Peddlers we are mixing up the flavours of Mexico with an Australian icon to create a dessert that has more contradictions than a Katy Perry song.

This baby is hot and it’s cold, it’s sweet and it’s sour,it’s crunchy and gooey, it’s pretty in pink but it packs a wicked punch and it’s fruity and boozy…ok, technically, those two aren’t opposites but this is awesome and fucks with your head in the best  possible way. Et voila, the Ice Iced Vovo.

Ice Iced Vovo 4
Ice Iced Vovo 4

  But first, for those of you not familiar with the Iced Vovo, it is probably the most legendary biscuit in Australia. 

Well….right behind the Tim Tam. And the Anzac.

We are a nation of biscuit lovers.

Anyhoo..it’s right up there. 

Iced VovoAccording to the Arnott’s Biscuits website:

An Iced VoVo is a lovely biscuit topped with two strips of pink fondant and a strip of strawberry jam, all sprinkled with coconut – a symphony in pink!

A much smaller symphony in pink than what I remembered from my childhood but a symphony in pink nonetheless.  Anyway, forget about them for a while.  Think of this as a play. Australia has exited stage left.

Because we need to talk about sorbet.  More specifically this sorbet which I made from some ancho chillies (sent to me by my friends at the Spice Peddlers), some raspberries, tequila and lime.  Enter Mexico stage right….

Ancho Sorbet

So I whipped up the sorbet.  And it was delicious Mind you, with those ingredients how could it not be?

It is really good just on it’s own. 

Ancho Berry Sorbet
Ancho Berry Sorbet

 But anyone can have ice cream in a cone.  It tasted great,  but I was feeling a bit blah about the presentation. I actually made this ages ago but because I didn’t love it, I found it really hard to write about.  When I feel that way about most things, I just don’t write about them.  But this one haunted me, I had to write about it but the cone just seemed so boring.

So, after pondering about it for a few weeks, I thought maybe an ice cream sandwich would be a bit more interesting.  So I hightailed it down to the supermarket to buy some biscuits.  I had in my head something like a shortbread or those cats tongues?  And then I saw the Iced Vovo’s. 

So I had my components.  My first idea was a very simple ice cream sandwich:

Ice Iced Vovo 1
Ice Iced Vovo 1

 This looked great and was pretty much what I wanted.  However, the main problem with it was that when you bit into it all the sorbet oozed out over your hands.

Ice Iced Vovo 2But it was good, it had the flavours and a normal person would have probably left it there.  Luckily for you, I ‘m not normal.  I liked the sandwich better but was still not absolutely inspired.  Then, this morning I was writing my journal and it came to me….

The strip of jam down the middle of the vovo was the same colour as the sorbet….so what if…..you took a biscuit, any biscuit and you put a  little line of sorbet down the middle?  Then instead of fondant what if you took some of those little baking marshmallows….hmm…how would you stop them rolling off?  What if you toasted them?

If there was a problem, yo, I’ll solve it. Check out the hook while my djay revolves it.

Ice, Iced Vovo

Ice Iced Vovo 3
Ice Iced Vovo 3

These are best eaten straight away, when the marshmallow is still gooey and before the sorbet melts…so good…and once you’ve made the sorbet it takes about 3 minutes to make. Super easy, super good.  Seriously the hardest part is making sure the marshmallows don’t fall off the biscuits as you put the tray in the oven!

I ‘m going to be thinking up some more kooky recipes for the rest of the month of crazy.  Have a great one whatever you do.  Meanwhile, enjoy the duclet tones of Mr Robert Van Winkle AKA Vanilla Ice.

 

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Cucumber Catamaran with Carrot Paprika Balls

They say the devil will find work for idle hands to do.

And when I say they, I mean Messrs Morrissey, Marr…and….ermmmm…. the other two.  AKA The Smiths.  I’m not sure where the original quote for that comes from.  Shakespeare? The Bible?

Wouldn’t it be fabulous if I had a little box and I could type questions into it and get almost instantaneous answers to questions like who were the other two and where did that quote come from? 

But, no time for that sort of sorcery right now….these idle hands built a boat!!!

Not a real boat, I haven’t spent my holidays tinkering around the backyard with a hammer and some hickory barky bark, but a boat nonetheless.  A catamaran to be exact!

Remember when I made the Hayman Island Chicken Salad? That post contains this photo amazing photo of a catamaran table. 

Hayman Island BuffetAnd now, in the spirit of a Russian Doll, imagine a  smaller catamaran.  Maybe one that could be placed on the catamaran table, filled with some cheesy balls o’ goodness.

Et voila…

Cucumber Boat 4The cucumber catamaran. 

Now, I”m not saying she’s the best looking boat in the world.  She’s a bit wonky.  But she is quite obviously a boat. 

Cucumber Boat 3In case you need some work for your idle hands, here’s how to make your own:

 Cucumber CatamaranThe paprika carrot balls weren’t bad either…recipe below…

The Smiths are one of my favorite bands ever.  I spent countless hours of angsty teenage emotional turmoil locked in my bedroom listening to “How Soon Is Now” and “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”,  countered only by and the sheer manic malicious exuberance of “Panic”.

So here’s a little treat for me you!

This week,  I’ll be “spending my warm summer days indoors, writing frightening verse to a buck tooth girl in Luxembourg”…

Otherwise known as doing this. Which I guess makes you my bucktooth girl. 

Where ever you are.

Have a great one!

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The Potato Salad Roll That Rocks!!!

 I think this recipe is awesome!

Sadly, I am currently alone in this. 

But I have a dream.  And that dream is to bring the potato salad roll to the world. 

Hmm,so  I guess I can cross that one off the list and bask in the smugness of a goal for 2015 achieved. And it’s only January 2nd!!!! 

But before we get to the Potato Salad Roll…

Happy-New-Year-Banner-2

I’m sure better bloggers than me really think about the  messages they want to send when they post their first post of the year…you know, those super organised people who have a theme and a word for the year?  And the first post reflects that dream and vision? 

I wish I was one of those people.  I really do.  Because I pretty much know everything I’m going to write about this  month and believe me…if we were going to run a theme around January, it would have to be supercalifragilisticexpialidociouslly insane. 

Although…maybe getting the crazy out at the start of the year is a good thing.  Maybe by the end of the year I’ll be ever so high-brow and Julie and Julia-ing the Larousse Gastronomique…

Yeah, I doubt that too.  But you never know…I do own a copy….

 Bookshelf2And the highly observant of you will notice that it is also still in it’s plastic wrap….

So…the potato salad roll.  Hands up how many of you thought this would be potato salad in a bread roll? 

Yep, that would be about all of you. Because that would make sense.  But remember when I said this month was going to be all about the crazy stupid?  I don’t even know where to start with this but they say a picture paints a thousand words so, world, here is the potato salad roll…

Potato Salad Roll
Potato Salad Roll

 Yeh, it’s kind of a Swiss Roll of Potato Salad.  Except without the jam.  Not even I’m that weird. 

Potato Salad Roll
Potato Salad Roll

 Basically, it just a potato salad rolled into a log with the dressing on the outside.

Which in no way explains the absolute spontaneous hatred my family felt for it when I brought it for Christmas.  The comments ranged from “What the fuck is that? ” to “Who laid the big white poo in the middle of the table?”

I tried to explain that it was potato salad. Comments ranged from

“Not in my world”

To:

“No. It’s not.  Potato salad looks and is, delicious.  That looks like a big white poo”.

And then there was:

“Why can’t you make normal potato salad? Are you on drugs?  I saw a documentary on people taking ice…do you have a problem with methamphetamines?”

I saw the exact same documentary. 

There was a  man injecting himself in his penis because “it was the only good vein he had left”.  ‘

I made a slightly off beat potato salad.

I’m struggling to find the connection. 

I was the only person who ate the potato salad roll on Christmas day which was a real shame because despite it’s rather unconventional appearance it was a damn good and tasty potato salad. 

Potato Salad Roll 3
Potato Salad Roll 3

On Boxing Day, I made a roll within a roll by wrapping part of the original roll in prosciutto and the same people who has scoffed at the original roll could not wolf it down fast enough. 

Go figure….

Potato Salad Proscuitto Rolls
Potato Salad Prosciutto Rolls

 It was kind of nice to end the year with a badly written retro recipe.  It’s been a long time between drinks for one of them. 

Potato Salad Roll Recipe
Potato Salad Roll Recipe

 

First line.  Prepare the gherkins, parsley, pimento, eggs and onion…

Onion? What onion?  Would that be one of those special invisible onions that don’t appear in the ingredient list?  And what I am I supposed to do with my half a cup of diced celery?  Use it to pelt my ungrateful family to death?

Despite the shortcomings of the recipe, I am utterly obsessed with the idea of the potato salad roll.  I already have two more versions in my head which I will make and post some time in the future.   Maybe I will make 2015 the year of the Potato Salad Roll….huh…maybe I am, albeit unwittingly,  one of those people who have a theme.  And a vision. 

I mean, yeah, I totally am.  This was all planned.  Months in advance….

I will be spending my week preparing my potato salad roll vision board. 

Have a fabulous one whatever you do!!! 

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Nothing But Blue Skies…Happy 2015

Now it’s not often I get all immersive and Heston on you but I really think your experience of this post and the Blue Skies Cocktail would be best achieved if, before you kept on reading, you clicked on the link below and cranked up the volume….

Ok…are we there yet?

You know, it wouldn’t be Retro Foods for Modern Times if we didn’t have a luridly coloured cocktail to end the year so, here ’tis…The Blue Skies…and I defy anyone not to start humming along with The Chairman of The Board….

Blue skies
Smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see….

Blue Skies 1
Blue Skies 1

 It sure is blue.  And…dontcha think the ice cubes look a little bit like clouds?

If you said no to that.  Have one.   And look at the picture again.  Still no?  Have another.  REALLY crank the Frank up. And have another look.  Repeat. 

It will happen.

I can’t remember if I ever introduced you all to the third canine in our house.  F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Scotty as we like to call him, may be quiet, but much like his namesake, he knows how to sniff out a good cocktail.

Blue Skies 2
Blue Skies 2

 And when he sees one he likes? Oh boy, does he light up!

Bluebirds
Singing a song
Nothing but bluebirds
All day long

BlueSkies 3
BlueSkies 3

 From all of us at La Maison de la Retro Foods to you and all of yours, all the very best for a fantastic 2015…

Blue days
All of them gone
Nothing but blue skies
From now on…

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Blue Skies

It’s a delicious blue cocktail..with maybe ice that looks like clouds

Ingredients

Scale
  • 15 ml Blue Curacao
  • 30 ml gin
  • juice of 1/2 a lemon
  • chilled tonic water
  • ice cubes
  • 1/2 lemon circle for garnish

Instructions

  1. Fill a martini glass with ice.
  2. Pour over the Blue Curacao, gin and lemon juice.
  3. Top with tonic water.
  4. Garnish with a half moon lemon.

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Cranberry Party Salad

If Christmas has an official fruit, to my mind it would have to be the cranberry.  We smother our turkey in it, serve it up with some brie for an oh so yummy canapé and knock it back by the bucketful in Christmas inspired cocktails. 

If retro cooking had an official dish, it would have to be the jellied salad.

And if these two met at a party and got a little tipsy on a few too many festive sherries and had their very own love child?  It would look  a little like this:

Cranberry Party Salad
Cranberry Party Salad

 And you know what?  If there’s any rationale for hiding your love children in the attic?  The Cranberry Party Salad from Salads For All Seasons could well be it. 

I wasn’t the worst thing I made this year.  Oh, no, that is a dead heat tie between the Paleo Muesli and the Paleo bread…

Sprouted Seed Bread
Sprouted Seed Bread

 It wasn’t awful like these, it was just way too sweet for my taste to have as a savoury dish.  It’s a problem I have in general with Cranberry sauce.  Sometimes it feels as if someone snuck up whilst I wasn’t looking and smeared my turkey with jam. To me, the thing, the whole raison d’etre of the cran is the tang.

Cranberry Party Salad2
Cranberry Party Salad2

 I was also a little disappointed that the fruit and nuts and…yep ok…spoilers ahead…celery…floated to the top which became the bottom once I turned it out.  Then I looked at the picture in the book and it looks like her fruit is all chunked at the bottom too.

Original Cranberry Party Salad
Original Cranberry Party Salad

 Also, look at her terracotta water cooler in the background.  And look at my Kris Kringle present this year…we do the one where you can steal gifts and believe me, there was nothing coming between me and this baby.  Sadly, I stole it off one of the nicest people in the world.  And she really wanted it because she had stolen it from one of the boys.  Caitlin, if you read this, I’m sorrynotsorry. 

Kris Kringle 2014
Kris Kringle 2014

 I am seriously a couple of oddly placed copper moulds away from having that retro kitchen!!!  That woman also has weirdly large man hands like me too.  And that blue salad?  Will be made. I promise.  I have to see how that particular combination of ingredients becomes blue…we will find out together in 2015.   I may even wear a badly fitting blue dress and have my water cooler in the background for some happysnaps.

Cranberry Party Salad Crackers
Cranberry Party Salad Crackers

Rosemary says this is to be served with light meats and poultry.  But how?  You have to remember that this type of dish is most definitely not in any kind of ancestral memory I have.  Well, having said that, I did ask my mother WEEKS ago to give me the recipe for a salmon and jello type thing she used to make.  Which, I have STILL not got.  Someone’s game needs to be lifted….

Given the spread between chunky at the bottom and clear at the top, it seemed sensible to slice it.  To my mind that just looked way too weird on the plate.  In the end, I treated it like a cranberry sauce and ate it on crackers with ham and cheese.

Cranberry Party Salad and Cheese
Cranberry Party Salad and Cheese

 

Cranberry Party Salad and Ham
Cranberry Party Salad and Ham

 Huh…it doesn’t look too bad in the photos and, in all honesty, this wasn’t awful….just waaaaaayyyy to sweet for my taste.  And I tarted it up by adding fresh cranberries into the mix….

Leave this one with me.  I’m going to ponder it over the next 12 months and next year, I’m going to bring you the best cranberry party salad ever!!!

Cranberry Party Salad Recipe
Cranberry Party Salad Recipe

Any suggestions, you know where to send ’em.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

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