Now I’d just like to take this opportunity to introduce you to Phryne Fisher–quite possibly the coolest detective ever (yep, I know I sound like a 15 year old). I’ll fill you in. Basically rich woman takes to successful detecting in the 1920s. She surrounds herself with a inside man in the police force, a sensible ladies maid, a bit of muscle, a butler and housekeeper and a series of lovers.

She can drive, shoot, drink and fight all the while dressed in elaborately explained designer outfits all the while solving unsolvable mysteries. None of the 21st century angst so often seen in detective novels where the female is the lead character for Miss Fisher. She thinks she is perfect in every way. What a role model.

Reading the novels are like taking a step back in time and you find yourself immersed in the era. Ironically the lead female character in Razor is Tilly Devine who I first met via Death before Wicket.

So imagine my joy when I discovered that a TV series is currently being shot featuring Phryne (pronounced Fri-knee). It’s called Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Should be out next year. In the mean time I recommend you immerse yourself in the novels.

To put you in the mood why not sample one of Phryne’s fav cocktails. The author conveniently provides recipes for varying drink concoctions in each novel. Alcohol, fearless heroine, cool clothes–can you see the attraction?

CHAMPAGNE PUNCH
In a punch bowl or large bucket, lay down a fruit salad of any seasonable chopped fruit and a handful of clean mint sprigs. Add a three cups of cheap brandy or rum and leave it covered for some hours. You can keep a mash of it under the counter if it’s chilled. To each pint of fruit add a bottle of inexpensive champagne, two tablespoons of sugar syrup and more mint. Taste for sweetness. If it’s too sickly, add a couple of lemons or limes. It will froth beautifully when the wine hits the fruit. Very decorative.

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So Kate won this year’s Masterchef and now there’s a great big black hole in my 7:30pm viewing schedule. I know there are a lot of you out there, just like me, trying to fill the breach with The Renovators, but not yet. Maybe next week when visions of snowmen dessert have vanished, but I’m not quite ready to replace the spatula with the spack filler.

There’s been a bit of criticism about Masterchef this year. Things like falling ratings and no one watches it any more (oh if only other shows could get 2.5 million to tune in) and then the clanger with splitting into two parts for the finale. Lots of people were very upset with that. Personally I needed a break from the tension and the opportunity to fast forward through all the ads.

However there are more upsetting things than that from this series of Masterchef. I can sum it up in two words. Eamon Sullivan. I’ll add another two—Olympic swimmer. Since when did an immunity pin go to someone for cooking off against a swimmer? Well since Danni did, gaining a false place in the top four. That was stupid.

Let’s try another two words. Matt Moran. Great chef, knows his stuff, but sadly zero rapport with the contestants. He’s not all bark but no bite like Matt, fatherly like Gary or bouncy like George. He’s just cold.

Actually George is upsetting me. That knife licking is disgusting. Surely a chef should know not to eat off his knife. He should also know how to use a fork like a fork instead of a steam shovel. Don’t they have a module on table manners at chef school?

While I’m picking on George I’d like to point out that while there may be four elements of a plate, they are just that e-lements, not a-lements.

Enough though of my carrying on. You’d think I didn’t like the show and I do. I like it enough to have gone to the trouble to look up the website and working my way through the on-line application form for next year’s comp (purely for research of course).

I’ll give you a heads up. If you’ve got a criminal history or you’ve featured in a porn film then I don’t think you’re not much of chance. They also want to know about your cooking memories. I suggest something like standing around the big wooden table in Nonna’s kitchen while you shaped gnocchi together. Nonna’s are big on cooking shows. Nanna’s don’t cut it.

I will admit, that while I was filling in the application, I started getting a bit excited about my food journey (another term I won’t miss) but then I picked up the computer mouse and knocked some common sense into myself.

Why would I want to construct a dessert that has 13 different elements when I can chuck together a chocolate mousse in ten minutes flat and everyone thinks I’m a genius? Why would I want to spend 15 minutes plating up my main meal while my guests are drinking all my wine and I’m missing out? Chuck it on the plate I say—there’s grog to be drunk.

Anyway if you possess a slight streak of masochism, the ability to cry on cue and possess a lot more ambition that me applications close in September. Good luck on your food journey.

So perhaps this good old peanut butter cake might fill the bill. You should have all the ingredients, though I’ll admit that there’s often no peanut butter in the house due do the fact that someone eats it out of the bottle with a spoon.

For once I’m going to refrain from my you say peanut butter I say peanut paste debate due to the fact that the recipe is from a US website Back To Her Roots.

One Minute Peanut Butter Cake
Serves One
Ingredients:

• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 heaping tablespoon flour
• 2 tablespoons peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon milk
• 1 tablespoon powdered sugar (give or take)

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, whisk together egg, brown sugar, baking powder, peanut butter and flour.
2. Pour batter into a greased ramekin. Microwave for 30 seconds.
3. While the cake is microwaving, stir together milk and powdered sugar, adding more powdered sugar if necessary to thicken frosting.
4. Remove cake from ramekin (or don’t), pour frosting over top.  Image

Put simply, don’t eat anything in your evening meal that can’t be eaten with a fork. In practice there’s slightly more detail than that because, and let’s be very honest here, there are quite a few things you can eat with a fork. Won’t win you any etiquette prizes, but at least you won’t go without.

The diet was reported in the Daily Mail by an English woman who lives in France. According to Samantha Brick, French people are obsessive about their diets, actively dieting to reduce their weight at least once a year. This applies to men and women.

Brick was inspired to take to Le Fork when she was sent a photograph of herself, kindly taken by her caring French sister-in-law, of Brick sleeping on a sun-lounger after a big meal. It was captioned “I thought you should see this.” Me, I’d have cut her right off the Christmas card list, but not Brick. No she took to Le Fork like a duck to water all the while serving up five course meals to her son and husband.

It was all worthwhile though as Brick lost 3.5kg after two weeks. He husband complimented her by saying her tummy was “less podgy” and her “double chin diminished. What a prince.

Anyway if you want to Le Fork here’s the basic outline.

• You must eat three meals a day – but do not use breakfast and lunch as an excuse to over-eat.
• At dinner, you can eat only with a fork – no knives, spoons or fingers are allowed…
  Strict version: Do not eat anything that’s been prepared with a knife or spoon at your evening meal.
• Gentle version: You can eat only with a fork – but you can use a knife to prepare your food.
• Foods allowed during the strict version: pasta, pulses, cereals, fish and most types of vegetable.
• For the gentle version, you can also choose from the following: salad, white meat cut into small pieces, shelled seafood, eggs (scrambled, poached or an omelette).
• The following foods are forbidden at the evening meal in the strict and gentle versions:
  Nibbles: No peanuts, cashew nuts, almonds, crisps, sausages, pizza, quiche, soup, soft-boiled eggs, avocado, cold meat, taramasalata, hummus or pate.
• Snacks and mains: No sandwiches, burgers, chips, steak, roast meat, liver or stew.
• Sweets: No fresh or dried fruit, yogurt, cake, chocolate, sweet desserts, fruit salad, jelly, ice cream, cereals, pancakes or waffles.
• Other: No bread, sauces, butter or margarine, cheese, mustard or ketchup. Image

Best wishes Suzanne

underneath that

We will miss you.  Ooops.

Comprehension is an often under-rated reading skill.

But if you’ve got a cast iron gut and you want to get in the spirit of the bride and groom to be, why not whip up a batch to have at your own wedding bash tomorrow night. Apparently this cake is the Queen’s favourite afternoon tea snack. And William’s too. He’s a lovely boy that William. Can’t you see him and his granny catching up over Chocolate Biscuit Cake in the parlour of Buckingham Palace on a rainy afternoon. It must have many pleasant memories for him.

So here’s the official recipe (from The Royal Chef site). Looks easy enough.

4 ounces dark chocolate.(for the cake)
4 ounces granulated sugar.
4 ounces unsalted butter. (softened)
1 egg.
8 ounces Rich tea biscuits.
½ teaspoon butter for greasing.
8 ounces dark chocolate (for coating)
1 ounce chocolate (for decoration)

1. Lightly grease a 6 inch by 2 ½ inch cake ring and place on a tray on a sheet of parchment paper.
2. Break each of the biscuits into almond size pieces by hand and set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until the mixture starts to lighten.
4. Melt the 4 ounces of chocolate and add to the butter mixture whilst constantly stirring.
5. Beat in the egg to the mixture.
6. Fold in the biscuit pieces until they are all coated with the chocolate mixture.
7. Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake ring. Try to fill all of the gaps on the bottom of the ring because this will be the top when it is un-molded.
8. Chill the cake in the refrigerator for at least three hours.
9. Remove the cake from the refrigerator and let it stand while you melt the 8 ounces of chocolate.
10. Slide the ring off the cake and turn it upside down onto a cake wire.
11. Pour the melted chocolate over the cake and smooth the top and sides using a palette knife.
12. Allow the chocolate to set at room temperature.
13. Carefully run a knife around the bottom of the cake where the chocolate has stuck it to the cake wire and lift it onto a tea plate.
14. Melt the remaining 1 ounce of chocolate and use to decorate the top of the cake Image

So here I am, non-fuss eating my way through life (though I will admit to a dislike of tripe and chicken’s feet) thinking I’m all superior to say people like my husband who screw their nose up at a perfectly lovely tin of foie gras when I’ve discovered that there is a movement to encourage the eating of horse meat–by people–in Queensland.

Now, unless I am stuck on a mountain in the Andes, and I am starving to death, and the only other choice is munching on my dead friend Charlie to stop me dying from starvation, I am not eating Trigger the horse. It’s wrong to eat Phar Lap or Peanuts the pony. Horses are for entertainment, racing, admiration and riding. They are not for eating. I am also lumping dogs and cats into that category. There is no way in this world I’m eating Fido or Tiddles. It’s barbaric.

So I guess I’m a more of a fussy eater than I thought. I have discovered that I have rules around what I’ll eat. If it goes baa, moo, oink or cluck it’s fair game, but woof, neigh and purr are out. There’s another one too. And that’s waaah.

Sorry if you’ve just had a thought that people out there are eating babies, but to the best of my knowledge they’re not. But what they are eating is breast milk.  I think I may have vomited a little in my mouth as I typed that.

Apparently the Baby Gaga ice cream made from human breast milk was a sell out in London on the weekend. Really? I know London is full of lots of alternate people, but who’d have thought there were that many collective breast milk aficionados (aka weirdos) in the city.

Is it me or does it seem wrong to be drinking breast milk? Yeah, yeah I know the milk we drink is effectively cow’s breast milk, but I can’t get my head around consuming fluids from another human being, and a stranger at that.

It’s OK when you’re a baby and it’s your mother, and there’s that whole antigen, vitamin synergy thing going on between breast feeding mothers and babies, but there’s a part of me that is just squirming at the thought of drinking some random woman’s breast milk. Actually that’s all of me, not part of me–all of me is squirming. I think it’s gross.

A cone of Baby Gaga costs about $23. Suppliers get about half of that. They express their milk using breast pumps. The breast milk is then mixed with cream, vanilla and sugar and voila a Baby Gaga. Still sounds disgusting whichever way you dress it up.

So would you be willing to suck on a Baby Gaga? Image

It did tasted better than OK. Actually it had so much alcohol in it that I wouldn’t let my P plate driver daughter drive after ingesting it. I’m not game to set the other one alight on Christmas Day. I think it might cause an atomic explosion.

So here’s my recipe for Christmas pudding. You might need to put it aside for next year if you want an alcoholic superstar like I’ve got. I started soaking the fruit on Melbourne Cup day. The recipe says to soak the fruit for two hour and use one cup of rum. I like overkill so I soaked it for six weeks in 2 cups of rum, 1/2 cup of brandy and 1/2 cointreu. I opened it up every second day, added more grog, stirred it up and inhaled deeply. God I miss that pudding fruit.

What you need:
1x 375g pkt raisins, coarsely chopped
1 x 300g pkt currants
150g sultanas
1 x 170g pkt craisins (dried cranberries)
250ml (1 cup) rum
Melted butter, to grease
250g butter, at room temperature
200g (1 cup) firmly-packed brown sugar
4 eggs
175g (2 1/2 cups) fresh breadcrumbs
75g (1/2 cup) self-raising flour
75g (1/2 cup) plain flour
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp ground cinnamon

What to do:

1. Combine raisins, currants, sultanas, craisins and rum in a bowl.  Set aside for 6 hours to macerate.  (or 6 weeks in my case)
2. Brush a 2L (8-cup) capacity pudding basin with melted butter to grease. Line the base with non-stick baking paper.
3. Use an electric beater to beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition (mixture may appear curdled). Stir in breadcrumbs, combined flours, mixed spice and cinnamon. Add the raisin mixture and stir until combined. Spoon into basin.
4. Place an upturned heatproof saucer in the base of a saucepan. Fill one-third of the saucepan with boiling water and bring to a simmer over low heat.
5. Cut a 30cm-square piece of non-stick baking paper and a 30cm-square piece of foil. Place paper on foil and fold to make a pleat in the centre. Place over basin, foil-side up. Tie a double piece of kitchen string around basin to secure. To make a handle, tie a double piece of string loosely over the top of the basin. (I just chucked mine into a 2L and a 1L pudding bowl and put on the lid).
6. Lower the basin onto the saucer in saucepan. Add enough boiling water to reach two-thirds of the way up the basin. Simmer, covered, over low heat, adding boiling water when necessary, for 4 hours or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the pudding comes out clean. (Small pudding only took 2 1/2 hours).

   You can make this recipe up to 2 months ahead. Cover the pudding in the basin with plastic wrap and foil. Store in fridge. (That’s where mine is. All snug in plastic wrap).

Recipe from Taste. Image