Hey everyone! I got an apprenticeship!
Its at a little restaurant in Armadale called The Orchard. It does European style food and has a shit tonne of wine and beer.
Its really awesome! I've been there two days and I'm already made some pretty cool stuff.
The head chef is called Steve and he reminds me a lot of our family friend Terri, who was the one who inspired me to consider cooking as a career almost 3 years ago.

Yesterday I just went in for all the menu prep, I made onion rings and pastry and grissini and picked heaps of herbs. Today I was in for lunch service, which was pretty quiet. I made potato and carrot batons, and mashed potato and picked MORE herbs. Then came home and went back for the dinner service which was pretty hectic. I did a lot of dishes, and made a champagne sabayon and assembled a raspberry tart and a platter of amazing things (pictured), and got to see heaps of the dishes from the menu.

So yeah! If you ever had a heap of money to spare (appetisers go up to $20) come have dinner at my work!

Pizza

So easy. You probably don't really need a recipe, but here's some inspiration :)

You will need some bread dough. Flatten it out on a slightly greased tray, and you have your base!
Then top it with whatever you want.







Tonight I had a couple of friends over and decided pizzas were a great way to make something fun and delicious that everyone can personalise with their own favourite toppings.
I did a tomato base, sliced tomato, ham, rocket and baby spinach, sliced mushroom, sliced cooked potato, crumbled feta, and some vintage cheddar.
I cooked the potato by slicing it up, then microwaving it for a couple of minutes spread out on a plate, then frying it a little to get it nice and crisp and delicious.


One of my other favourites is BBQ chicken.
I get a chicken breast and cut it into small cubes, then fry them until cooked.
Grate a whole lot of cheese, then flatten the edges of the pizza out super thin, sprinkle a line of cheese on it, then roll it over - and you have yourself a delicious stuffed crust.
Then I put BBQ sauce over the base, then sliced tomato, then the cooked chicken, then pineapple, then mushrooms, then caramelised onions, then heaps more cheese.

Have fun!

Cinnamon syrup

So I'm currently halfway through a blog for cheesecake and needed to link this recipe in!
A friend of mine made it for a dinner party and its amazing, perfect with apple pie or crumble or even just on icecream.

I don't have any photos of it, but one day I will make it and put up a photo.

I cup caster sugar
1tbsp cornstarch
1cup boiling water
1tbsp butter
Cinnamon - to your taste (abut a tsp or a little more)

Mix sugar, cornstarch, and cinnamon in a small saucepan. Add boiling water and cook on low heat, stirring until it thickens. Add more cinnamon to taste, then add butter and continue cooking until melted.

Apple cheesecake with Caramel

My wonderful Aunt Naomi gave me some money for housewarming/christmas to get some more things the house needed, I figured even though I don't make cheesecake very often, it would be wise to have a spring form tin just in case.

I went to the General Trader at Chadstone and got a big one, 22" I think. But also two really small cute ones.
So figured I better make some cheesecake to use them!


My recipe is:
500g cream cheese
300ml sour cream
3/4cup caster sugar
3 eggs

Put the cheese, cream and sugar in a food processor and process it, then add one egg at a time and process til its nice and smooth.

For the base I use a packet of chocolate ripple biscuits or marie biscuits crushed up with 100g of melted butter and then press it into the base, then refrigerated.

From here, you can add anything you want. Take a third of the cheese mix and add melted chocolate, then dollop it over the plain mix and marble it. Add a swirl of stewed fruits. Once set put some jelly over the top. Make the entire thing chocolate. Add crushed oreos for cookies and cream cheesecake.
Really, anything you can think of a way of doing, you can do it. I'm not promising it'll turn out good though :P

Have the oven preheated to 160. Put the cheese mix in the base and bake on the bottom shelf for about an hour, depending on the size of the tin and such. Just make sure the middle is set.

For mine, I stewed some sliced apples in a stock syrup with cinnamon, and lay them over the base under the cheese mix. I didn't think of it at the time but it would have been really great with cinnamon syrup swirled through as well.

I made caramel to go with the cheesecake:
1 1/2 cups caster sugar, 125ml water, 2/3cup brown sugar, and 300 ml cream.
Sugar and water in saucepan over low heat until dissolved, then high/medium heat until boiled, then boil on medium heat for about 10 minutes. Then add the brown sugar, then remove from heat and add cream, then put back on heat and cook for a couple of minutes.

I don't think I boiled mine for long enough the first time, I got impatient and 'cause we use raw caster sugar it was hard to tell if it was getting too dark.. so it wasn't very thick, but still tasty.

I just found an amazing photo gallary of breakfasts from all over America.
Its amazing, makes me excited to cook breakfast.

See it here!

Curry

Another really great, cheap, easy meal.

My general base is:
A potato or two (or three, or four, depending how much you want to make)
A carrot or two
An onion
Brocolli or cauliflower
A big tin of coconut cream
A small amount of chicken stock (1/4cup ish?)
Chicken peas, I used a tin of them but fresh ones are nicer!

Now, I use my mums curry powder which she makes from her own ground up spices, I have no idea whats in it, but its delicious.
I'm sure you could use any other kind of store bought curry powder or paste, or make a mix of your favourite ground spices to put in.
I also used one chili from my garden, but you don't need to put one in. Mine was pretty little and isn't very hot, it just gave it a little kick.

Cut the potato and carrot into cubes, around 1cmsq but whatever you want really.
Dice the onion.
Heat some oil in a large frypan or saucepan and saute the onion.
Then add the chilli and curry powder and cook a little more.

Then add the stock and vegetables and cook off for a while, until they start to soften.
Then add the coconut cream and chickpeas and cook furthur, until the vegies are cooked and its gotten nice and thick.

Once the coconut cream has gone in I started cooking the rice to go with it, you can do whatever you want with it.

And that's about it! You can substitute pretty much anything in it if you wanna make changes.

Cheeseymite scrolls

My favourite musician doesn't like Vegemite.

So when a few other fans and I got together and had a picnic we decided to make all the food we could Amanda Palmer themed. We made wicked sandwiches (For the line: Who needs love? When the sandwiches are wicked and they know you at the Mac store) Chocolate cake with Maps of Tasmania on them (For the song: Map of Tasmania) and of course cheeseymite scrolls (After: Vegemite - The Black Death)

And I usually don't like the cheese and vegemite combo, I don't know why, but I never got into it. But these were delicious.

I made some bread dough and once it had risen and was ready to bake, I tore off small handfuls and flattened them out into a longish thin strip. I spread a little vegemite on (probably about as much as you'd put on your toast, or just a little more) and then sprinkled grated cheese over the top.

Then I rolled them up and put them in an oiled tray and let them have their second rise. Then I baked them as I would a normal loaf of bread (but not for as long).

Sushi!

Sushi is wonderful, and super easy to make.

You need:
Seaweed paper, sushi rice, and rice wine vinegar, and a sushi mat (all of which you can easily find in Asian sections at most shops, or any Asian grocers)
and whatever you want to put in them.


We used:
Carrot, peeled into strips with a vegetable peeler
Cucumber, cut into long sticks
Lettuce, which we just ripped up as we wanted
Chicken, coated in flour and then fried
Avocado, cut into strips
and mayonnaise (you're supposed to use Japanese mayo but we couldn't find any)

Cook the rice as per packet instructions (Something like one cup of washed rice to one and a half cups water brought to boil and then simmered until no water is left, then let to sit for ten minutes) Then add a tbsp of vinegar at a time until its a bit sticky and tastes okay (the vinegar taste shouldn't be too strong, but present) I'm sure there's a proper amount you should add which you could find on the internets, but I just estimate.

Then get your sushi mat and seaweed ready and spread some of the cooled rice over it leaving a few cm on one edge, then put your filling in along the side opposite it.

If you put too much stuff in its really hard to roll up, so try to restrain yourself (I know its really hard, but rolling a fat sushi roll is harder). Then (using the sushi mat to help) roll it up as tightly and evenly as you can. (There are probably youtube videos that could help with technique)

We ate it straight away but its pretty nice if you refridgerate it for a bit before consuming so it cools down, however the seaweed gets a soggy and not as nice quite quickly..

Its also really nice with strips of fried tofu, and spring onions, chives, even tomato or ANYTHING you want to put in it. I guess its supposed to be a bit asian themed but I'm sure you could even make ham tomato and olive ones if you wanted.

Breakfast.

This is very simple and I expect many people don't really need a recipe or instructions, but I thought I may as well make it a blog anyway.
Got inspired this morning to make a big fry up for breakfast, it was wonderful.




I used:
Eggs
Cream
Spinach
Mushrooms
Bacon
Tomato
Bread

Mix one egg per person with about a tbsp of cream per person (feel free to estimate the cream, and if you like scrambled eggs very creamy add extra), cut up the mushroom however you fancy, slice the tomato, get the bread ready to toast, have a couple of frypans starting to heat.

I started with the bacon, put a little bit of butter in the pan and let it melt and spread around, lie the bacon in it and let it fry. Once its starting to go a bit brown and cooked on the first side flip it and let it get the same on the other. Let it get really crispy if you want but I like mine still a bit soft.

While I was waiting for the bacon I put the mushrooms, tomato and spinach in another little frypan with some butter and let them cook.
Then I did the eggs in another buttery pan (this is also when I put my toast in the toaster and start making the coffee), pour in the mix and then stir it and push the sides into the middle as the bottom cooks to scramble it.

Butter the toast and serve everything on a nice big plate.
Of course you can easily do the eggs however you want them, or substitute things you don't like with things you love, its awesome with hash browns and beans too.