Epicure Recipe Card #11: Wild Mushroom Soup

With the evenings becoming noticeably cooler lately, it makes for perfect soup weather. We are also in the midst of autumn when mushrooms are at their best. I was a bit lazy when I happened upon some nice Portobello mushrooms instore so I ended up buying only these, which doesn’t qualify my resulting soup as ‘wild mushroom’. Ideally I would have liked to have eaten the Portobellos grilled or stuffed but the recipe card says soup, so soup it was.

This soup is quite watery as it is very low in cream content. This suits the likes of me as too much cream upsets my digestion unfortunately. The mushrooms aren’t required to be pulverised either, so the end product is quite thin. Definitely something to serve with crusty bread or with cooked orzo/risoni stirred through to bulk it up as a meal. I served mine with some grilled cheese on toast.

Mushroom Soup (serves 2)

(adapted from The Age – Epicure 50 Best Recipe Cards, recipe by Jill Dupleix)

Ingredients:

·         1 tbs butter

·         ½ tbs olive oil

·         ½ onion, finely diced

·         500g mixed mushrooms, finely sliced

·         1 garlic clove, crushed

·         1 tbs tomato paste

·         500mL chicken or vegetable stock

·         2 tbs thickened cream or sour cream

Method:

1. Heat oil and butter in a saucepan over medium heat and cook onion for around 10 minutes until soft.
2. Add mushrooms and garlic and cook for 5 minutes. Add tomato paste and stock then simmer gently for roughly 20 minutes until mushrooms are tender.
3. Whisk in cream and season to taste. Dollop with extra cream/sour cream to serve, if desired.

happy cooking!

Twelve, 15 Jan 2010

Monsieur Poisson and I have been eating at Twelve for years. The first year we were dating we spent my birthday here. When I left my last job, knowing that I like the place, it was here that colleagues chose to hold my farewell. That same year I gathered a large group of friends together to help me celebrate a significant birthday. We first ate at Twelve when the restaurant frontage was brown and now it’s red, although the blackboard wall featuring the specials is still here as well as their reasonable prices. The funny thing about us having eaten here so many times is that we have not actually sampled much of their menu. We are far more often than not attracted (or distracted) by the description of something on their specials board which changes on a regular basis.

Today we’re here to catch up with Ms Japan and we expect it to be a long dinner – when you get Ms Japan and I together the conversation can last absolute hours upon hours. Ms Japan settles back with a glass of red wine (unpictured) while I order a lemon, lime and bitters which arrives in a tall glass and is the colour of a beautiful, golden sunset – a reassuring sign that the bitters have not been skimped upon.

I am lucky that I know so many friends who are happy to share their food rather than digging into their individually ordered dishes. (Just as an aside, I’m always surprised and intrigued when I spot couples dining who both order the exact same thing. Most funny when I once saw a couple eating a pizza each, both with the same toppings!) This practice, of course, allows for a much more varied dining experience and a greater ability to taste-test different things. And thus we start our dinner with the ‘Risotto with prawns & porcini cream’ from the specials board.

Prawns and porcini is not a coupling that springs to mind when I think of risottos. The mushroom brown dish arrives with a slightly wet and sticky appearance punctuated by orange curls of shelled prawns. But then it somehow seems to work – the sweetness of the slippery prawns, the earthiness of the porcini and the mushroom-fragranced al dente rice. I’m surprised!

This is followed by another offering from the specials board: the ‘Spaghettini with crab, napolitana, basil & chilli’. This is a real summery pasta for me with the strands of sweet crabmeat, which is light in texture, tossed through the thinnish pasta and bound together by a sweet tomato sauce given a bit of a kick with the addition of chilli. The pasta is perfectly cooked and I keep digging in for more.

And then finally for something from Twelve’s standard menu! It’s their ‘Pumpkin & fetta pizza’ and pizzas are something that are done consistently well here, especially if you like your bases thin and crisp. Unfortunately you’re out of luck if you prefer a doughier or fluffier base but no complaints can be made about the toppings which usually revolve around a couple of starring ingredients which are always evenly spread with care.

Sadly it is much more difficult when it comes to sharing the desserts. We order two and the first to arrive is the board special of ‘Trio chocolate - mousse, sorbet & tart’. We have been given individual plates to aid our sharing but they’re warm, so the mousse and sorbet melt almost instantaneously upon contact. We all like the mousse which is light and airy but the sorbet is a little heavy on the cocoa which gives a slight bitter and powdery aftertaste. The tart is rich and dense with a firm texture and is encased by a crunchy biscuity base.

The other dessert falls under my husband’s category of favourites – it’s a dessert pizza and features banana. A crêpe-like base is the vessel for banana sliced thinly on the diagonal and dotted with chocolate chips. A dusting of icing sugar and scoop of vanilla ice-cream following the pizza’s stint in the oven and the dessert is complete.

Along with some coffees (unpictured) we are thoroughly stuffed full of food. We linger on with our conversation and have our water glasses diligently and continually refilled by the waitstaff.

Twelve

222 King St (btwn Brown & Whateley St), Newtown NSW

Tel: (02) 9519 9412

Opening Hours:  Sun & Mon  CLOSED

Tues-Sat  dinner only from 5:30pm

happy eating!

Bourke Street Bakery, 9 Jan 2010

Normal people, after enjoying a substantial meal, would just go home satisfied. People who love food like us, given available time, will try to fit in another meal elsewhere. Where? Not far from where we started – only a suburb away at the famed Bourke Street Bakery. How could we not visit when we were in the company of one Ms Sourdough?

It’s early afternoon and there is only a short queue sitting in the doorway to the tiny store. Inside many hands speedily serve customers and I emerge with a large sourdough and pain au chocolat to take home. The thing about sourdough is that it always seems to me that it is more mould-resistant than commercial loaf bread but it doesn’t dry out as easily either. These qualities make it perfect for slow bread eaters such as Monsieur Poisson and myself. And just look at that beautiful blistered crust!

The pain au chocolat I have for a late afternoon tea as I can’t handle the thought of its flaky layers slowly deflating whilst sitting in my kitchen. Although some of the oils have been absorbed into the paper bag, it still makes for a wonderfully buttery treat with my cup of tea.

Unfortunately we aren’t as restrained as it seems – I have also bought a bacon and gruyère quiche which is still warm and is just screaming to be eaten. To not do so would have been a travesty and it definitely isn’t a hard task splitting an individual-sized quiche between four people. Especially not when there is creamy, eggy filling with salty batons of bacon encased in a flaky pastry case which somehow doesn’t flake all over you upon eating. Ahhh, the miracles of great baking!

Bourke Street Bakery

633 Bourke St (cnr Devonshire St), Surry Hills NSW

Tel: (02) 9699 1011

Opening Hours:  Mon  CLOSED

Tues-Fri  7am-6pm

Sat & Sun  8am-5pm

happy eating!

Epicure Recipe Card #6: Mozzarella with Fresh Tomato Pesto

I usually have a few of these recipe cards cooked and photographed so that I have some material up my sleeve for those weeks where I either get waylaid by life or am seriously lacking in motivation. Last week I didn’t post a recipe card (due to pre-wedding madness) and this week I had nothing. So over the weekend I asked Monsieur Poisson to choose a recipe card which he’d like to eat and I would make that. He chose this one but followed it up by saying he didn’t feel like anything cool and salad-y. And thus the great mangling of a perfectly fine recipe card began! Out the other end came a margherita-esque pizza.

That classic Italian tricolour combination of basil, mozzarella and tomato works so well on pizza, tossed with pasta or simply as insalata Calabrese. I unfortunately left my grocery shopping a little late and couldn’t get my mits on any fresh mozzarella balls. I had to use packaged cherry bocconcini instead and somehow didn’t put enough of it on the pizza as well! Of course this flavour combination is better in spring when the tomatoes and milk are sweet and the basil is extra green and fragrant, but it’s pretty good otherwise as well – the Italians really know their stuff.

Pizza Margherita (makes 4 medium-sized pizzas)

(adapted from The Age – Epicure 50 Best Recipe Cards, recipe by Jill Dupleix)

Ingredients:

·         1 quantity of Pizza Dough

·         pizza sauce – made from 1 tbs tomato paste, 1 tbs tomato passata, salt & pepper to taste

·         1 medium tomato, thinly sliced

·         mozzarella/bocconcini, sliced (don’t put too much on or the pizza will be weighed down and soggy)

·         2 tbs shredded basil

·         small basil leaves for serving

Method:

1. Divide the dough into four balls and roll each out on a floured surface to desired thickness. Prick all over with a fork before spreading on a thin layer of pizza sauce.
2. Arrange tomato slices on top of pizzas evenly and sparingly before scattering over shredded basil and topping with cheese slices. Season.
3. Bake for around 5-7 minutes at the hottest setting on your oven (around 270°C on mine) until toppings are cooked and cheese is bubbling. Remove from oven, scatter with small basil leaves and let sit for a couple of minutes before slicing to serve.

happy cooking!

Danks Street Depot (again!), 9 Jan 2010

There are some friends whom you are more likely to dine with at ‘special’ places. By special I don’t necessarily mean fancy or expensive, but rather places that do certain things particularly well or who source particular ingredients which you know only some friends of yours will appreciate. There is nothing worse than excitedly taking friends to a place you deem ‘special’ only to have them be all blasé about it. Luckily, between Monsieur Poisson and myself, we have many friends who appreciate the finer details of food. Two of these friends are Weirdo and Ms Sourdough whom we decided to have brunch with at Danks Street Depot to celebrate their newly married status after having returned from holidaying overseas.

Ms Sourdough has heard me rave about Danks Street Depot previously but unfortunately has had limited opportunity to dine out in Sydney due to having been based in Canberra for work for the past few years. So now begins not only a new phase of life together with Weirdo, but hopefully some newfound food adventures in Sydney as well!

We are lucky to score a table in the corner of an otherwise packed out café not long after some people leave. Ms Sourdough and Monsieur Poisson both decide to have the ‘Poached eggs with bacon hash, herbed tomato and sourdough toast’. The eggs are nice and soft but the bacon hash is pleasantly not quite what we expect. Instead of the commonly seen grated potato ‘pancake’, this is a fry-up of chunky potato and big cubes of bacon – very hearty indeed.

Weirdo gives in to our slight persuasion (read: pressure) to order the ‘Pepperonata with eggs and lamb merguez sausages’. There’s just something so attractive about a one-pot dish involving sauce with eggs cracked in at the end. The sausages are spicy and firm but not too ‘lamby’, to borrow Weirdo’s words.

I’m not feeling terribly hungry which is most unusual so I order a serve of ‘Garlic bread with nut brown butter and fresh parsley’ for the table to share as well as the ‘Saucisson sec with cornichons’. The garlic bread is from Brasserie Bread and is studded with whole cloves of roasted garlic which are sweet, mellow and earthy. Combined with the nutty butter and deep green parsley, this is heaven on a plate and – I would like to theorise – a perfect cure for a hangover.

The ‘Saucisson sec with cornichons’ is like part of what makes up a Ploughman’s lunch but done French-style. I have a long standing love affair with cured meats and this salami-style sausage with its visible globs of fat and whole black peppercorns does not disappoint. Cornichons, in my book, apart from being rather cute to look at also provide a much needed tartness to cut through the fattiness and strong flavours of most cured meats.

We enjoy some further conversation following our food but, despite us all claiming that we’re full, decide to drive up to Bourke Street Bakery for a bit of a look-see…

Danks Street Depot

2 Danks St (cnr Young St), Waterloo NSW

Tel: (02) 9698 2201

Opening Hours:  Mon-Wed  7:30am-4pm

Tues-Sat  7:30pm-10pm

Sun  9:30am-3pm

happy eating!

Koi (again!), 8 Jan 2010

With the array of wonderful food choices in Sydney it can sometimes be difficult making return visits to those that are extra spectacular. So when Ms London was back in town, we absolutely had to take her to Koi as she loves her Japanese food. The fact that she is also an avid photographer meant that I knew I wouldn’t be the only one taking photos of the beautifully presented food on their rustic plates. Yes, friends can serve so many purposes aside from providing enjoyable company.

With us being firmly ensconced in summer, I get a better appreciation of Koi’s entrance compared to our last visit in the darkness of winter. The pair of stone lions at the doorway seem less menacing but the daylight doesn’t take anything away from the dark wooden interiors under their soft, warm lighting.

Our square table in the corner has a beautiful floral centrepiece and we start our evening, as we did on our previous occasion, with ‘Seared scallop carpaccio with soy butter.’ The fragrance of butter drifts up to us and we dig into the scallop slices with their smoky seared surfaces and decoration of salmon roe and snipped chives.

This is followed by the ‘Tuna Tartare’ presented in a martini glass. A gentle prod of the egg and golden yolk is released from its centre to coat the springy tuna ‘mince’ in a lather of creamy, sticky goodness. The caviar on top provides some salty and almost crunchy contrast but this is a dish which we discover is rather hard to share!

There is no chutoro nor ootoro available when we enquire and Ms London orders the ‘Whiting usuzukuri with ponzu sauce’ instead. It is something that neither Monsieur Poisson nor I are familiar with and we are met with thin, almost translucent, slices of whiting arranged in a radial pattern. With a squirt of lemon and a quick dip into the ponzu, the thin yet firm flesh of the whiting is sublimely refreshing.

And because we are greedy, we order the ‘Large mixed sashimi’ (21 pieces) even though there are only the three of us. A long wooden plank makes for a dramatic entrance and Ms London and I snap away with our cameras in a flurry. Closest to my end is the snapper arranged as a rose petal atop a slice of lemon, followed by oyster with ponzu, kingfish and salmon before the intricate centrepiece of cuttlefish pinwheeled on top of a lime. The cuttlefish is sliced so thinly that it takes on an almost creamy texture.

The other end of the wooden plank plays host to sashimi of tuna, bonito, scampi, seared scallop arranged on a slice of lime, and cod. The lime and lemon which support several sashimi arrangements impart a subtle fragrance without their tartness dominating the fish in flavour.

Our gluttony is followed by my husband’s favourite uni sashimi which arrives atop a thick slice of grapefruit with half the peel pared back and tucked back on itself. It’s still not my favourite thing but I trust Monsieur Poisson and Ms London when they say it is fresh, creamy and sweet.

We then finally move onto our warm dishes of the meal with ‘Miso grilled silver cod’ which has a sweet miso ‘crust’ balanced by the peppery side salad of baby rocket dressed with an apple-y vinairgrette and sweet, stuffed zucchini flowers.

This is followed by our soft-shell crab roll which is served warm with a filling of finely shredded cucumber, avocado, tobiko and mayonnaise.

We decide that we can, indeed, squeeze in dessert and this is preceded by a palate cleanser of watermelon granita with chamomile and citrus foam. Oh, how I could just eat more of this as an actual dessert! So refreshing and fragrant and perfect for the season.

We order three desserts; all of which must be different of course. The ‘Single bean chocolate marquise’ is served with a sesame tuille which is chewy and nutty but not crisp or crunchy as we expect. Short rounds of coconut pudding adorn the plate with a texture akin to pannacotta and reminds us of the coconut pudding/jelly which is often seen at yumcha.

The ‘Macadamia cake with salted caramel mousse and wattleseed honey ice-cream’ is unfortunately the least attractive of the three desserts chosen and is very brown to photograph. However the cake is dense with a fine nubbly texture and is great with the wattleseed honey ice-cream and its smoky, charred flavour. The revelation is the salted caramel mousse which reminds both Ms London and Monsieur Poisson of Columbines!

I, of course, order the ‘White peach soufflé’ which is served in a copper pot and a side of raspberry sorbet. The soufflé is thinly crusty on top and is marshmallowy in the centre with the subtle flavours of white peach.

Full to the brim and feeling very happy with our efforts, no meal is complete at Koi without their complimentary fish-shaped chocolates served on a chilled stone platter.

We chat a little more while our green tea is continually topped up. It is dark by the time we leave and we wander down the road in search of our cars with satisfied bellies, wondering when we’ll be back at Koi once again.

Koi

102 Woolwich Rd, Woolwich NSW

Tel: (02) 9817 6030

Opening Hours:  Mon & Tues  CLOSED

Wed  6pm-10pm (dinner only)

Thurs  12pm-3pm (lunch)

           6pm-10pm (dinner)

                        Fri & Sat  12pm-3pm (lunch)

                                       6pm-10:30pm

                        Sun  12pm-3pm (lunch)

                                6pm-9:30pm (dinner)

*EDIT*: As at mid-2011, Koi has been "temporarily closed" according to their voicemail message.

happy eating!

Healthy Eating Month on Gastronomy Gal

This is a bit of a different post as my post won’t actually be appearing here. Allow me to explain: the lovely Gastronomy Gal had the brilliant idea of featuring a month’s worth of healthy recipes on her blog and invited me to contribute something as part of it. And after jumping up and down for a bit at the prospect of appearing elsewhere other than in the comfort of my own confines, I had to decide what recipe I would be cooking.

I’m being featured on her blog today so, to find out what recipe I settled on, please swing by here to have a read.

happy cooking!

Epicure Recipe Card #39: Asparagus Risotto with Scallops

My husband loves scallops – grilled, sashimi, carpaccio – so imagine his delight when he found out the next recipe card would be featuring them. Buoyed by my recent risotto success, I decided to try making another one to make sure the last attempt wasn't a fluke. And there is nothing quite like the comfort of a slightly mushy, but far from sloppy, easy-to-eat one-pot meal. It’s the sort of meal you want to cup in your hands on a cool rainy day, curled up on the couch, perhaps with a good book, magazine or a blanket laid across your lap.

As asparagus is of fluctuating quality and prices throughout the year, frozen peas make a great substitute. Their sweet taste of spring – think risotto or pasta primavera – work just as well with scallops and there is the added advantage that almost everyone will have a bag of them in the freezer at the ready.

Asparagus Risotto with Scallops (serves 2)

(adapted from The Age – Epicure 50 Best Recipe Cards, recipe by Jill Dupleix)

Ingredients:

·         1 tbs olive oil

·         scallops (as many as you like)

·         ½ onion, finely diced

·         1 cup risotto rice, unwashed

·         700mL hot, simmering vegetable or chicken stock (you may need more or less than this)

·         1 bunch of asparagus, tips lopped off and the stalked sliced into thin rounds

·         1 tbs butter

·         1 tbs grated lemon rind (optional)

Method:

1. Heat ½ tbs oil in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat and cook scallops until lightly browned on either side. Remove from pan and set aside.
2. Reduce heat to medium, add the remaining oil then add onion to the pan. Cook until onion is soft and translucent before adding rice. Stir rice to coat well before adding two ladles of stock. Allow to absorb almost completely before adding more stock, a ladleful at a time. Stir gently and keep adding enough stock to keep the rice wet.
3. In the meantime, drop asparagus tips into simmering stock until tender then remove and set aside. Add sliced ends into the stock until bright green before stirring into the rice.
4. Take a grain of rice and check for doneness – it should be soft and sticky but still retain a little bite. When rice is just about ready, stir butter through risotto before returning scallops and asparagus tips to the pan to heat through. Season to taste.
5. Serve risotto topped with grated lemon rind, if desired.

 happy cooking!

Garfish Crows Nest, 27 March 2010

Never before have lighting and shadows mattered so much when taking photos of food whilst dining out. Sure, there are plenty of restaurants with ‘romantic’ lighting about the place but this was Earth Hour 2010 we’re talking about when participants are encouraged to turn off their lights for one hour. Sydney is where it all started and Garfish were doing a dine-by-candlelight evening in honour of it.

I needn’t have worried about the lighting as we were fortuitously seated at a table directly in front of the open kitchen and bar which was not operating under candlelight, we assumed, due to workplace safety reasons. I first read about Garfish on tangerine eats (albeit the one at Kirribilli – there are three locations) before driving past the one at Crows Nest a month later after a particularly late evening at work. Coincidence would have it that I had a friend visiting from overseas last weekend, and we needed somewhere for dinner, when Garfish announced on Twitter that they would be conducting a candlelight evening as part of Earth Hour.

This concept appealed to our inner romantics and so dinner at Garfish it was. In a way it is quite fortunate that Garfish does not take table reservations for after 6:30pm, instead adopting a phone-ahead system for tables, as our dinner party suddenly expanded from four people to seven in the hour leading up to our intended dinner time. At least this meant I didn’t need to make an embarrassing phone call to the restaurant requesting to have a prior reservation changed to a table almost double the size.

The Crows Nest restaurant has open frontage with a few tables on the footpath. The décor is clean and simple, although admittedly I didn’t get a very good feel for the interior due to the reduced lighting. The menus are printed on large sheets of brown paper which, when folded up, double as napkin-holders resting on plates at each table setting.

We order some ‘Grilled Ciabatta’ to munch on while we consider the menu and go with a slightly larger serve than normal so that there’s enough for all seven of us at the table. The grilled ciabatta comes topped with either garlic butter or sun-dried tomato pesto and we opt for half-and-half for variety.

My friend who’s visiting particularly likes oysters so we order the ‘Oyster Plate’ containing a dozen oysters available either natural, crisp fried, as an oyster shot or the dozen can be a combination of any of the three styles. The oyster shot which the menu describes as being served in a spiced tomato juice and vodka doesn’t appeal to us so it’s six of the natural which come with a side of mignonette dressing and six of the crisp fried served with a soy, mirin and ginger dressing. The oysters are small but plump and sweet, and not overly creamy which pleases my palate. My preference is for the crisp fried oysters, but that’s only because I have a bias towards the natural variety being slimy.

When it comes to mains, four people at our table order the kingfish with three of them choosing the same accompaniment. Garfish’s daily blackboard menu is distributed to diners on little strips of paper outlining which types of fish are available, their suggested cooking methods, their prices and a selection of sides which can be mixed and matched amongst the fish varieties. Monsieur Poisson, along with two others, has the roasted kingfish with zucchini, spiced pearl barley and pine nuts. The generous serve of fish arrives moist and succulent with a crisp layer of skin on top. The zucchini ribbons are sweet and crunchy whilst the pearl barley is chewy and nutty with the spices evoking mild Moroccan flavours. The pine nuts taste freshly toasted and I surprisingly enjoy the combination of these flavours with the plump sultanas as I often dislike their squishy, bursting texture.

I go for the ‘Fish & Chips’ although I don’t know what fish is being used, but there are three fillets which come in an aged beer batter. I normally prefer crumbed fish (which is how the garfish on the menu is served) over battered but this is a light batter with minimal oiliness and a satisfying crunch when you cut into the fish. The chips are thick-cut and lightly salted with plenty of creamy tartare on the side.

After enjoying our meals while sharing a crisp bottle of sauvignon blanc from Marlborogh, New Zealand (unpictured), we move onto one of the reasons this restaurant was chosen for dinner apart from their reputation for fresh seafood – Belgian waffles! Garfish offers several Belgian waffle combinations separate to its dessert menu and, with dinner being devoid of the usual heaviness from meat and rich sauces, we are happy to consider options from both. Waffles are the hands-down winner for me so Monsieur Poisson and I decide to share one with hokey pokey ice-cream, caramel and almonds.

The waffle is small, perhaps 10cm in diameter, but this allows for a wonderfully high ice-cream to waffle ratio with its deep divots. And the ice-cream! The crunchy hokey-pokey ice-cream with caramel sauce and toasted almond flakes is just enough to satisfy without pushing you over that over-sugared ledge. Monsieur Poisson also orders a caffe latte as he often does with dessert.

A wonderful evening was had by all with the food being honest, simple and well-prepared. I was entertained by the clank, sizzle and aromas emanating from the open kitchen but mention must be given to our most attentive waitress that evening who kept coming round to check on us unobtrusively and who, without us ever having to request, kept our water glasses filled throughout the meal. Nothing like great service to enhance the experience of great food.

Garfish Crows Nest

6/29 Holtermann St (near cnr Alexander St), Crows Nest NSW

Tel: (02) 9966 0445

Opening Hours:  Mon-Sat  8am-11am (breakfast)

  12pm-3pm (lunch)

  6pm-10pm (dinner)

                        Sun  9am-11am (breakfast)

                                12pm-3pm (lunch)

                                6pm-9:30pm (dinner)

happy eating!

Chocolates!

Chocolate has become associated with pretty much every significant cultural and religious festival on the calendar, it seems. Before the post-Christmas discounted chocolates have cleared the shelves, the chocolate bunnies and eggs are already out on display. Valentine’s Day comes and goes and brings with it the onslaught of chocolate hearts and roses. And then those bunnies and eggs, which made their first appearance in January, come out in full force seemingly having multiplied in the ensuing months.

This year I have decided not to have my usual Red Tulip bunny; the one I’ve had almost every year since I was about 7. It’s always been the exact same bunny – it has to be a ‘he’ (there is a she) and it has to be the one wearing overalls with the chequered shirt and the tools sticking out of the pocket. There is some part of me this year that seems to have gone off chocolate a bit… Don’t get me wrong, I still adore chocolate but seem to be consuming less of it. Perhaps it is my impending wedding that is inducing fat-fear in me, although I find that very hard to accept as pleasure from food has always ranked higher on my list of priorities.

But in keeping with the popularity of chocolate, my wedding bonbonnières will feature Fardoulis foil-wrapped chocolate hearts in boxes. For those that follow me on Twitter, you already know that I purchased 900 of these, 150 each in 6 different colours, as we started with a guest list of 150 people. This has whittled to 120 guests which only means more leftover chocolates for us! Here is what 600 of them looks like:

The original plan was for the chocolates to be stacked, in their boxes, in a pyramid arrangement in lieu of a wedding cake for guests to take home with them at the end of the evening. However, the mothers decided that this ‘just wouldn’t do’ and that there must be a cake in order for it to be a ‘true wedding’. This protest cropped up with only two weeks to go until the wedding so we were extremely lucky to locate a place that takes cake orders this late into planning. (If you want to know their details then please email me – they happen to be supplying our flowers as well.)

So the wedding is now just over a week away but you know I won’t disappear for too long at a time. But in the meantime…

happy Easter & happy eating!