I love these carrot cupcakes with lime cream cheese icing! I baked them the other day for the first time in aaaaages. The recipe is from Nigella’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess, and they are basically my favorite cupcake recipe. I was a bit worried I wouldn’t be able to make them again, because I never actually owned that cookbook… it was one of my old housemate’s. But thankfully, the internet delivers, and you can find the recipe here on this lovely food blog.
I believe they have changed the icing to lemon cream cheese instead of lime cream cheese in the blog recipe. Lime is my preference and what I remember being in the Nigella book. I’m sure lemon would work, but lime is divine!
Oh… you may also be noticing that this photo does not appear to have been taken with an iPhone. OH YES! I HAVE REPLACED MY SLR! I only have my 50mm 1.4 lens to use, I need to save some more moolah to get a more general range zoom lens, but I’m back in the SLR game and it is wonderful! Expect more sharpness, less Hipstamatic!
Three quick food tips from my Canberra explorations….
1. Crust Bakery at the Fyshwick Markets
Crust Bakery have really fantastic pies, including a lamb, rosemary and merlot one which is just FABULOUS. Their coffee is really nice as well. It’s always busy out there at the Fyshwick Markets, so be prepared to get in line. Here’s more of their details.
2. Ah Chu Asian Provisions
Indonesian food lovers, rejoice! This little Asian grocer in Phillip (near Westfield Woden) has lots of Indonesian spice packets, cake mixes (like the one I used to make the bika ambon above… little yeasty coconut cakes with an awesome texture like crumpets that I love!) and even special snacks like Kripik Balado… and… wait for it…. TEHBOTOL!!! They also have lots of the Garuda kacang snacks and more, as well as some Malaysian foodstuffs (including premix sachets to make Georgetown White Coffee… unfortunately absolutely nowhere as good as actual Georgetown White Coffee). The prices are really reasonable and the owner is very friendly.
I found out about it from this blog. It’s at 7/67 Townshend St, Phillip.
3. Urban Food Store, Acton
No photo for this one, sorry. But I can very much recommend their scrambled silken tofu for breakfast. All their other breakfasts looked fabulous as well. And it is nowhere near as crowded as super popular Canberra breakfast spots like Silo Bakery. Really great atmosphere. It’s in the bottom of the New Acton apartment building, right down the end of Marcus Clarke St (near the lower part of the ANU campus). More details here.
In my new job, I start work at 6am, so I am up before dawn every day. CRAZY. I am only used to being up at that hour when I am seeing it from the other end, after a long night. It’s really strange to be driving to work while the sky is still full of stars.
Anyway, I can’t possibly function to make breakfast at that time of morning, so during the adjustment period I have been getting home from work at about 10am so hungry. But the good news is that it’s the perfect time for brunch!
The other day, I made this lovely thin omlette… it has eggs in it (OH RLY?), with some goats cheese, mushrooms, baby spinach leaves and a sprinkling of broken up walnuts. It was pretty special.
I decided to call it omlette a la Canberra, because I was talking to a Greens staffer not too long ago who told me that the ACT has the highest number of Greens reps in the country in the territory government? Or the highest number of Greens voters? Or something like that? And the spinach is green. And it’s a circle, like a roundabout and everyone knows about Canberra and its roundabouts. And I had been up since 6am and couldn’t think of anything more creative.
I’m not having a good time in Canberra right now and I can list about 100 places I’d rather be living than here right now. But I’m trying to be nice. One of Canberra’s redeeming features is its farmers markets. The produce is fantastic, just beautiful quality and a lot of it is local. It is so much better than the quality in Coles or Woolworths, and usually cheaper too.
My favourite farmers market is at EPIC on Saturdays, the Capital Region Farmers Market. There’s a great range of fruits, veggies and fresh herbs, as well as artisan smallgoods, cheeses, olives, dips, breads, juices, oils, spice mixes, sauces and more. I can’t afford the yuppie stuff at the moment, but the fruit and veg is affordable and good quality. It all wraps up by 11/11.30am, but it is totally worth getting up early on a Saturday to get out there… it gets pretty busy though.
Another market that I have discovered is the Fyshwick Fresh Food Market on Canberra’s Southside, which is open Thursday to Sunday each week. Once again, a great range of produce, as well as delis and bakeries… and an excellent Asian food store with HEAPS of Indonesian cooking supplies and even some American candy. I’d totally recommend it. There’s a great bakery out there that does lamb, rosemary and merlot pies… super tasty!
Also, the Old Bus Depot Markets, once again on the Southside on a Sunday, have some lovely baked goods and international food… quite a few taste test opportunities as well for poor persons like myself.
When I come back from travels, I always want to make something for my family from the place where I have been. Given that I couldn’t source the ingredients for a DC chili half smoke in Albury, and given that it is hot and summery here, I decided to make them a California style fish taco, cooked on the great Australian barbeque! And I reckon they turned out pretty tasty, considering I had to improvise a little. The biggest problem was that the limes were super expensive… apparently limes were one of the crops affected by the weird weather we have had in Australia this year, so to make enough of all of this to feed the hungry hoardes (seven people), it cost me about $8 just for limes! But oh well.
So the components are as follows…
Green leafy salad with shredded cabbage (I was lazy and bought the pre-cut stuff from Safeway/Woolworths)
Corn tortillas… you need to cook/warm these. Woolworths Select actually makes a generic brand of corn tortillas, and they were the only ones I could find in Albury, but they were fine. There’s a lot of different ways heat them and a heap of methods online. We put some on the barbeque and then microwaved some under a damp cloth. Both methods worked just fine.
Salsa… pico de gallo, to be exact. I made this up by just finely chopping onions, tomatoes, cilantro/corriander, some green pepper (aka green capsicum) and only a tiny bit of chili. Then it was dressed with lime juice. Just do the measurements of the various ingredients to taste. This is also great to eat on its own with corn chips!
White sauce… I have to say, this sauce was unexpectedly awesome. I made it up by mashing together a few different recipes and playing. While this isn’t the same as the genuine “crema Mexicano,” it was really yummy on the tacos. So basically, I took about 300mL of plain yoghurt, 400mL light sour cream, a tablespoon of mayonnaise (I know this sounds wrong, but it worked! PS. All the measurements are pretty rough), a couple of tablespoons of finely chopped cilantro/coriander and chopped fresh dill… then add a pinch of ground cumin and a fair whack of cayenne pepper (to taste) and lime juice to taste and to get it to a good consistancy (not too runny). Yum. I caught my brother eating the leftovers of this sauce on corn chips for breakfast haha.
And then, there’s the fish. As for the type of fish, I didn’t have any options except for the basic cheap fish in the deli at Coles (we do live 600km inland… and there has been a drought up until now, so river fish haven’t been that plentiful). I marinated it in lime juice, cayenne pepper, a pinch of cumin and finely chopped corriander and let sit for several hours, then grilled it up on the barbeque.
Then all you have to do it construct your tacos. It’s a super tasty, fresh and zingy meal option, especially great for summer… and a lot of the prep can be done in advance, all you have to cook is the fish and heat the tortillas.
Enjoy!
On my recent visit to New Orleans, I ended up stumbling upon the Ruby Slippers Cafe on Magazine Street while searching for breakfast.
It was love at first sight. The hardwood tables, high ceilings and gorgeous decor reminded me of some of my favorite tranquil cafes in Melbourne, Sydney and DC.
Then it was eternal love at first bite. I ordered the shrimp and grits breakfast… the gulf shrimp prepared in an Abita Amber BBQ sauce served over creamy slow-cooked grits, with a buttermilk biscuit on the side. Oh wow. It was super good.
The barbecue sauce was not overpowering, just giving some flavor to the grits, and the shrimp were super fresh.
So, I ended up coming back to Ruby Slippers another day. This time I ordered the Bananas Forster Pain Perdu… according to the menu, ”Pain Perdu”, or lost bread, is a french bread-based French toast served with applewood smoked bacon and topped with Bananas Foster topping. Bananas Forster is a famous New Orleans dessert of bananas flambeed in rum and sugar. OMG amazing. Super sweet, but amazing.
And one of the best things about the Ruby Slippers… they serve these delicious breakfasts all day, as well as breakfast mimosas. Hells yeah!
See the website for more information. I highly recommend!
The Ruby Slippers Cafe
200 Magazine Street, New Orleans, Louisiana
These are real tacos. Not the ones made with a crunchy u-shaped yellow “Old El Paso” taco kit shell, covered in iceberg lettuce and tomato slices and bland mild salsa. These ones are made with real fresh hot soft corn tortillas, diced meat of your choice, and just a fine sprinkling of chopped iceberg. And they were amazingly tasty, and so cheap ($1.25 each!). From a taco truck on the corner of North 16th and East Monroe Streets in Phoenix, Arizona.
Eating some beignets at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans’ French Market district is one of those things you really just have to do when in this town.
It’s not too much of a chore. Who could say no to delicious little sugary fried treats that only cost a few dollars? I certainly couldn’t.
During the day, the cafe is a bustle of tourists and it can be hard to get a table, but in the evening it has calmed down a bit and is much more pleasant. Plus, there’s more buskers out at night and they often stop to sing at the cafe. It is open 24 hours, so you can always come back any time.
Beignets are really a simple affair. Fluffy doughnut squares, fresh fried, covered with a ton of icing sugar. But there is something delightful about their simplicity. Piping hot, they are delicious. Cafe du Monde actually doesn’t sell anything else… the tables and floors and pavement are covered with icing sugar because of that.
A few tips for eating beignets.
1) Don’t do it in a low cut top or you will suffer the uncomfortable feeling of icing sugar between your boobs.
2) Don’t do it in a black top, because it will become dusted white by the sugar.
3) Don’t sneeze while eating a beignet. You will cause a scene.
4) Be careful if reading a book or using a Kindle in the vicinity of a beignet. Everything gets sugar on it.
Other than that, just enjoy! This tips may or may not have stemmed from personal experience…
Everything bagel with scallion (spring onion) cream cheese. Bagels are amazing.
Pastrami ruben with pickle. Yes, that is a lot of meat on a sandwich. I only managed to eat half of it. Oh, America.
Jumbo slice pizza… not as good as dad’s. I got the mozzarella one and it didn’t have tomato base, so it wasn’t that flavorful. But it was big!!
So many of the food shops downtown were really retro-kitsch. Lots of neon lighting!!
No soup for me. He was closed because I came by too early in the day for the Soup Nazi. But this is the original store that inspired the famous Seinfeld episode.
So I got my soup somewhere else that night. Polish white borscht from the city’s Little Poland district in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. So good for warming up considering the weather was so nasty out. Brrrrr. And really, really tasty! (Good pierogi too!)
(And yes, I did not exactly eat healthy food in NYC!! But I was outside walking in the cold for two days, so hopefully it balanced out…)
I didn’t eat any hot dogs or pretzels, but there were little carts like this selling them all over the downtown, as well as hot roasted nuts.
