2008 Orphan's Xmas with the KKC

This year, we had our usual Orphan's Xmas with the Kiwi Kensington Crew - me and the Boys, plus Dany, Scott, Ben, Lisa and honorary member Nate.

Previous years have taught us we never have an appetite for a full meal, so everyone bought a selection of nibbles. As you'll see, there was a fair amount of food, but considering the small amount of leftovers, we catered rather well.




There were ribs, smoked salmon on toasts, devils on horseback (prunes wrapped in bacon) and ham.




There were also chicken wings, chicken nuggets, cheese, olives, peperonata, roasted cherry tomatoes, marinated mushrooms, and leek and sundried tomato empanadas. PLUS, there were spicy koftas, a couple of dips, sweet & salty nuts, candied pecans and more cheese (most of which hasn't been opened and will probably be eaten on NYE!).




Moving on to the sweet stuff - gingerbread cookies, cherry tarts, almond crescents, chocolate dipped strawberries, plus fruit (cherries, grapes) and pavlova (not pictured).



After a couple of rounds of eating, there was "cricket" in the park.



As well as some board games - Operation and Cranium.



The mess we created on the floor was VERY impressive. This wasn't even half of it.



Hopefully everyone else had a great Xmas too! Recipes for some of our Xmas food to come.

Messy corn, neat corn

Merry Xmas! I hope everyone had a good one. We had our traditional Orphan's Xmas with the Kiwi Kensington Crew (KKC). There was food and booze aplenty.

At Xmas I was admonished by Dany for not posting the following photo of corn cobs taken at my Birthday BBQ. Since the internet is poorer without it, I've finally taken the time to put it up.

See Exhibit A: on the left is corn eaten by a normal person (Alastair) and on the right is corn eaten by Dany.

Exhibit A: Messy corn, neat corn

Freaky Amazing, right? It takes talent and dedication to be so neat.

Cherry coconut mud cake

As mentioned previously, it was my birthday last weekend. It rained allllll day but despite the rain, I had a pretty good day. It started off with brunch at Plum (which was great, as always), and then afterwards Alastair took me shoe shopping as part of my birthday present. Those who know me in real life (particularly my colleagues) know that I have a shoe obsession, so it was a particularly good gift!



What's a birthday without cake though? Before the weekend my colleagues surprised me with a gorgeous chocolate mousse cake. I wish I had thought to take a photo of it! Then on Friday I baked (yes, I made my own birthday cake) and made a cherry coconut mud mud cake. Good cake, but oh my, it's certainly not one for those on a diet. Check out some of the ingredients! 250g butter, 2 cups of sugar, 200g chocolate, a can of coconut milk, plus two king-size Cherry Ripe bars.

I'm not a Cherry Ripe fan, so I thought about using real cherries. But I didn't want to go to the market on my birthday and I refused to pay supermarket prices for cherries, so Cherry Ripe it was!

Fortunately, despite my dislike of Cherry Ripe bars, I liked the cake! It was delicious but very sweet and rich. Good in small slices only! If you try it, I would recommend warming it up a bit before serving. The original recipe included a dark chocolate icing as well as dark chocolate panels, but I left the icing off. Thank goodness I did, otherwise it would've been incredibly sweet! I decorated with white chocolate panels and coloured shredded coconut and I think this was fine although I must admit I didn't eat the white chocolate.



Cherry coconut mud cake

From Australian Women's Weekly "Bake"

250g butter, chopped
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
1 & 2/3 cups (400ml) coconut milk
20g dark eating chocolate, chopped coarsely
2 cups (440g) caster sugar
1 cup (150g) plain flour
3/4 cup (110g) self raising flour
1/4 cup (25g) cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 x 85g Cherry Ripe bars, chopped coarsely

Chocolate panels

300g chocolate Melts
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 150°C fan-forced. Grease deep 22cm round cake pan, line base and sides with baking paper.

Melt butter in a large saucepan; add coffee, coconut milk, chocolate and sugar. Stir over heat until chocolate melts and sugar dissolves; cool to room temperature.

Whisk in sifted flours and cocoa, then eggs and extract; stir in half of the Cherry Ripe. Pour mixture into pan. Top with remaining Cherry Ripe; bake for about 1 & 3/4 hours. Stand cake for 10 minutes, turn, top side up, onto wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile, make chocolate panels: Stir chocolate and oil in a medium heatproof bowl over medium saucepan of simmering water until smooth. Cute two 6cm x 50cm strips of baking paper. Spread chocolate evenly over strips; lift strips to allow chocolate to drip off paper. Allow chocolate to set, then, using ruler as guide, cut chocolate into 4cm panels with sharp knife. Carefully peel away baking paper and place chocolate panels around side of cake.

Soy sauce chicken wings

So it was my birthday in the weekend. I organised a low key BBQ to mark the occasion – and of course it was the wettest day this year. It rained ALL FREAKING DAY. Nevertheless, I sent Alastair out in the rain to tend the BBQ.

Whenever we host a BBQ, I prefer not to cook raw chicken. No side of food poisoning for me thanks! So if I do chicken - normally wings - I poach them beforehand in a soy sauce mixture.

This is my favourite way of doing wings because they are sooooooooooooo good. The poaching ensures that the meat is tender and slides off the bones, and the soy sauce and star anise gives it a wonderful flavour. The wings don't have to go on the BBQ either - whenever I make a batch I always eat a couple that have just been poached. I can't resist them!

The poaching liquid can be reused and will develop more flavour as it ages. To store the sauce just boil it for about 5 minutes afterwards, cool completely, and store it in the freezer. The recipe calls for rock sugar (you can buy it from an Asian supermarket) but if you don't have any you could use brown sugar. I would recommend tracking down rock sugar though, it seems to have a different sweetness (or maybe that's just in my head...).




Soy sauce chicken wings

Adapted from the Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen

About 2 kilos of wings (or you could use a whole chicken if desired)
3 cups thin soy sauce
2/3 cup black soy sauce
2/3 cup Chinese rice cooking wine
500g yellow rock sugar
1 & 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 heaped teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
8 star anise
3 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly crushed

Rinse the wings under cold water and pat dry with paper towels.

In a large pot, combine all the other ingredients. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

When the rock sugar has completely dissolved, taste it. It should be fairly salty, but also have a touch of sweetness. Add more sugar if necessary.

Add the wings (do this in two batches if you can't fit them all in the sauce) and return the sauce to a boil over medium-high heat. As soon as it boils, reduce the heat to a gentle simmer.

Cover and cook for about 20 minutes (longer for a whole chicken - approximately 40-45 minutes. A whole chicken will also need to be turned halfway through).

If not doing another batch, turn off the heat and let the wings sit in the sauce for another 20 minutes. They can now either be eaten or cooled and saved for a BBQ.

Pistachio and polenta cake with orange blossom syrup

A wee while ago now, Alastair and I went over to the lovely Jo's place for lunch along with our usual dinner/lunch group. She made a delicious Moroccan lamb stew on cous cous, and I contributed dessert.

Since I hadn't flicked through the Australian Women's Weekly "Bake" in quite a while, I allowed myself to have a look at it again. I found a recipe for a blood orange and syrup polenta cake and made a couple of adaptations.



The resulting cake was rather interesting. The addition of the polenta, and this may sound strange, gives it a different but pleasing grainy texture. While it sounds weird, it actually was good! Unfortunately I broke the cake turning it out (check out that large crack!) hence my trying to cover it up with icing sugar and pistachios.



Pistachio and polenta cake with orange blossom syrup

Adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly "Bake"

125g butter, softened
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
300g sour cream
2 cups (300g) self-raising lour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2/3 cup (110g) polenta
3/4 cup (180ml) water
2/3 cup (100g) shelled pistachios

Orange blossom syrup

1 cup (220g) caster sugar
1/2 cup water
1-2 teaspoons orange blossom water

Preheat oven to 160C/140C fan forced. Grease a deep 20cm round cake pan; line base and side with baking paper.
Beat butter, sugar, sour cream, sifted flour and soda, polenta and the water in a large bowl on low speed with an electric mixer until combined. Increase to medium speed, beat until mixture changes to a paler colour. Stir in the nuts. Spread mixture into the pan.
Bake cake for about 1 hour. Stand cake in the pan for 10 minutes and then turn out on to a wire rack to cool. Serve cake warm or cold with the warm orange blossom syrup.

Orange blossom syrup

Stir the sugar and water together in a small saucepan; bring to the boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for about 15 minutes or until the syrup thickens. Stir in the orange blossom syrup to taste.