Ok I’ve been tardy with the posts again. I just have a couple of Sydney related posts and then it’ll be back to normal, even though I’ve been back like a month!

One restaurant I was really keen to go to when I was in Sydney was Bill’s. Bill Granger’s done a couple of TV shows which have been on in the UK (although I haven’t seen any of them) but I bought one of his cookery books a while ago and have bought every one he’s done since. The food is simple, fresh and great tasting.

Anyway, his cafes / restaurants are famous for their scrambled eggs, so Jill and I visited his cafe in Darlinghurst for breakfast a couple of times. The eggs were truly amazing. In fact the whole breakfast was amazing, but be prepared to queue – we had to wait about 25 minutes on morning.

Bill’s is at 433 Liverpool Street in Darlinghurst, but he also has outlets in Surry Hills and Woollahara. Hopefully I’ll be back soon to enjoy those creamy scrambled eggs again!

Yum lunch for me this week – smoked mackerel salad with brocolli, couscous, cumin, lemon juice, toasted hazelnuts and sunflower seeds, dill, rocket and chopped dried apricots. I cannot express how delicious it is!

And some in season Scottish raspberries for dessert.

Check this! McDonald’s has done some tinkering with the Big Mac, and now offers it in a brown bun (or pain complet) as well as the usual white one, and no it’s not an April Fool!

I think this is a really interesting move by McD’s – showing that they’re not afraid to try and make existing products more healthy. Also, it’s a permanent addition and option on the menu.

Unfortunately this is exclusive to France, so I’ll have to wait until I’m over there next time to try it. I’m intrigued though!

You can read more about it on the  McDonald’s France website.

So I’ve been getting back into the cooking of late – and still trying to do things I haven’t cooked before. Last week I tried to make shoestring fries to go with a Foccacia burger. I have the fries when I’m in Dallas at Houston’s, and they are amazing. So I thought I’d try doing them myself. First off, I ran the potatoes through a julienne slicer in my food processor. Job done, they were exactly right.

I don’t like frying stuff, so I put the potato in a freezer bag, with a good lug of olive oil and shook them about until the fries were coated. On a baking tray next, in to the oven at 235 degrees C for 35 minutes and they came out rubbish. Half were burnt, the others weren’t cooked. That was despite moving them around regularly with tongs during cooking. Any ideas anyone? I’m thinking maybe the oven was too hot. So that was my cooking failure last week.

Cooking success? My chicken, shallot and mushroom pie. I’d never made a pie before, but made everything from scratch. Including the pastry. I’ve got to say it tasted (and looked) amazing, and it was a lot easier than I thought, so that kind of made up for the fry distaster earlier in the week!

So thinking my bread baking skills meant I was a fantastic baker all round, I decided to make some cupcakes for Jill’s birthday bash. (She was sharing it with guys called Gavin and Michael, so that explains the g and the m). 

They didn’t take long, but I think I definitely need to improve my icing skills. Still for a first attempt I guess it wasn’t that bad. 

So I took em to the party and expected Jill to place them out for everyone to taste. But she got them locked away, and has probably forgotten to pick them up so they will be stale by now.

One of my half-hearted New Year’s resolutions is to get a bit more adventurous and complex with my cooking. So to that end I’m trying to cook with a new ingredient every week that I’ve not used before. This year I’ve already made soup with a buttnernut squash (tip: not easy to cut into), and there was something else but I can’t remember what it was at this precise moment.

Last week, it was mussels and monkfish, which I made into a Thai curry (above). Finding both of those items in Belfast was not easy, as there doesn’t seem to be a fishmongers in the centre of town (Sawyer’s didn’t have either when I visited). So Jill and I headed down to St George’s Market on Saturday morning. I’d never shopped there before for food, but it was brilliant. The fishmongers had a brilliant selection, and were really helpful too, skinning and boning the monkfish for me. The curry tasted good too!

Trying to be adventurous with lunch as well, I made my own Cornish pasties this week. From scratch! So that included making the pastry, which I’d never done before. That was honestly a piece of cake. Very easy and quick to do. The pasties turned out to be very tasty as well, however, they were tiny, so I’m going to have to double the ingredients next time. The recipe I used only had meat and peas as the main ingredients for the filling, so next time I think I’ll have to add some carrots and potatoes too to bulk it out a bit.

Old FP

With this brand spanking new MONSTER food processor that will chop and blitz anything you throw at it!

New FP

I also got a couple of cookery books, an Amazon gift voucher, a Mulberry soap bag (nice!) and a Mulberry keyring in the shape of a dog which I like. So all in all it was a good day!

I am quite proud of this salad I made for lunch today, although I’m aware it doesn’t look great in the photo. It contains… brocolli, rocket, peas, spinach, chicken, tomatoes, pumpkin seeds, quinoa, parsley, mint, lemon juice, olive oil and home made aioli.

Zing Zang! Healthy lunch! I am going to have salads for lunch this week as I was getting fed up with trying to come up with new sandwich combos.

I cannot understand how I missed this, but Burger King have launched a men’s body spray in the US which they describe as “the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat”. I’ve got to say I’m curious! Available for a limited time, check out the website for more info.

Via The Guardian

photo: brandon shigeta

Check it! McDonald’s has opened two new stores without any McDonald’s branding. They’re called Quarter Pounder, and sell only two menu choices – a Quarter Pounder with Cheese and a Quarter Pounder without, both as meals by the looks of things. The stores look really cool and even the packaging looks funky and minimalist.

Unfortunately as you can probably tell by now, these stores are in Japan. If I ever ever get to visit Japan, (and this now gives me another reason), I am looking forward to going there, even though I have never had a Quarter Pounder at McD’s. My conclusion here though is that Quarter Pounder is cool.

Update: Apparently these are just temporary stores to mark the launch of Quarter Pounders in Japan (McDonald’s there don’t sell them yet.) The lease on two McDonald’s was coming to an end, so they decided to create a bit of a buzz by using the spaces to market Quarter Pounders before their proper launch. So it looks like I’ll never get to visit one!

Via: McChronicles