Tag: Spice Peddlers

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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[yumprint-recipe id=’18’] 

Grapefruit, Thyme and Pepper Cocktail aka the Mexican Standoff (Spice Peddler)

Ay Carumba this was good!!!

Spice Peddler Grapefruit, Thyme and Pepper Cocktail

Yeah, not for me the humblebrag…This was awesome!

I was really worried that it would be an epic fail…It was the garlic in the spice rub that threw me, how would that work in a cocktail? However, in the end the strong flavour in the simple syrup was the thyme with the pepper and spices providing more of a background notes and warmth.  (Yes, I’ve been reading wine labels again!)

I based this on a recipe from Martha Stewart which you can find here.

I also used tequila not vodka.  Just because I had some that has sat on my drinks trolley for about 10 years.  Seriously.  I think it was given to me as a housewarming present for the last house I moved into.

The all important drinks trolley

I really, really wanted to use the Spice Peddler Big 5 mix in a cocktail but I  thought it would be better to infuse the mix into the simple syrup.  So, I mixed a teaspoon of the pepper mix into the sugar and water, and then I threw the thyme in as well to make a thyme and pepper simple syrup.  Dammit, I should have thrown the grapefruit rind in as well…ah well, next time! Maybe some chilli too…

 

Grapefruit, Thyme and Pepper Cocktail

Then I kind of completely forgot about it as we were trying to hang some pictures in the new house and either the beloved or I have a skewed view of reality because it took us over 30 minutes and the use of  spirit level before we could agree that a painting was straight….and this was before we started on the cocktails.

Thyme and Black Pepper Simple Syrup
Thyme and Black Pepper Simple Syrup

So what I ended up with was the thick black syrup you can see in the photo above.  What you can’t get from the photo is that this mix of thyme, sugar and pepper smelled ridiculously like marijuana.

Or so I was told.

By the complete stranger who just  happened to knock on the door at that exact moment.  Then disappeared equally as quickly.  Didn’t catch his name, Officer.  So sorry.

Which in turn reminded me of something that never happened and is a total figment of my overactive imagination.

So imagine if hypothetically you turned up unannounced at your parent’s house.  And the imagine that said house smelled overwhelmingly of….erm…thyme and pepper infused simple syrup.  And imagine they were being a little silly and giggly.

Move over Quentin Tarantino, I think I just bested you in the Mexican Standoff stakes…

The  problem with accusing your parents of  “imbibing the thyme and pepper simple syrup”  is that then then they know that you are also familiar with “thyme and pepper simple syrup”.

So, what do you do?

Borrow the drill you came to get and GTFO of Dodge is what.

Cos, you know  possibly they were also just  making cocktails.

I mean, if that had ever happened.

Which it didn’t.

Grapefruit, Thyme and Pepper Cocktail3
Grapefruit, Thyme and Pepper Cocktail3

Wow, this post is making my head spin.  What will not make your head spin, or spin only in the right way is this cocktail.  Which is super. – tangy from the grapefruit ,zingy from the pepper, aromatic and resiny from the thyme….

Drink it, enjoy, have a fabulous, fantastic Christmas everyone!

Special thanks to Mercy and the team at The Spice Peddlers for their trust and belief in me.

And major thanks to everyone for reading and your kind words over the year.

Without you, this would just be fun.

With you,  it’s super awesome.

 

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Friday Night – Pepperoni Pizza with Mozzarella and Mint (Spice Peddlers)

Hands up who loves a pizza on a Friday night?

Just as I suspected. Everyone

(If you didn’t put your hands up, you’re dead to me)

Chef Boy-ar-dee Pizza
Chef Boy-ar-dee Pizza

And what’s better than a pepperoni pizza?  Nothing!Except maybe this:

Vintage Pizza Party 3
Vintage Pizza Party 3

And what’s better than this recipe for Pepperoni, Mozzarella and Mint  Pizza?  Absolutely nothing! Although The Gaylords come a very close second.

I adapted this recipe from My Table: Food for Entertaining by Pete Evans, mainly just to make it a bit quicker.  I’m far too lazy to make pizza dough on a Friday night so my base of choice is pita bread and I use a bought tomato paste mixed with some garlic and herbs for the base. If you want to be entirely DIY, Pete’s recipe is here.

Pepperoni Pizza with Bocconcini, Olives and Mint
Pepperoni Pizza with Bocconcini, Olives and Mint

My quick version is here:

"Pepper"oni, Mozzarella & Mint Pizza

This is so good – the combination of the pepper mix and the mint just lift this out of normal pizza realm into a taste sensation that wil get your tastebuds dancing just like the hipster groovers in the photo below.

Vintage Pizza Party Chef Boy-Ar-Dee
Vintage Pizza Party Chef Boy-Ar-Dee

And if that plain old thing got them going,  I guess my version would have had them doing a bit of this…

Or maybe some of this:

 

Just not this…

Yep, this is Friday night perfection on a plate!

Pepperoni Pizza with Mozzarella and Mint
Pepperoni Pizza with Mozzarella and Mint

Yay, it’s Christmas!  I’ll celebrate with a very special cocktail next time round.

Have a great week!

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