Tag Archives: Macadamia

Super Sweet Award!

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Barb Beacham, a wonderful blogger friend whose site is called, “Life in the Foothills,” included me this week for the Super Sweet Award! Thank you Barb. Barb and I started following each other soon after I started blogging. Barb is the wonderful person who sent me a bottle of Spike to try. Barb blogs about food and her marvellous life in the Sierra Foothills.

Please visit her site at: Life in the Foothills http://salmonfishingqueen.wordpress.com/

Now the rules of this award are:

1 – That I give credit to the person who nominated me. Again thank you Barb!

2 – That I answer the super sweet questions. Here are the questions and answers:

Q1: Cookies or cake? I’m a cake person. Although I do like white chocolate and Queensland nut (Macadamia nuts) biscuits (cookies) best. In terms of cake I like a nice Queensland nut (Macadamia but) carrot cake made with crushed pineapple and vanilla icing (fristing).

Q2: Chocolate or vanilla? I am a real fan of vanilla. Vanilla icing on anything really. Vanilla ice cream. Vanilla slice is my favourite sweet.

Q3: What is my favourite sweet treat? Vanilla slice is my favourite. I’ve blogged about vanilla slice before. Check out 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Q4: When do I crave sweet things the most? After a long day at work especially if it’s been tedious and there have been lots of people issues.

Q5: If you had a sweet nickname what would it be? Easy, Yummy Lummy.

3 – The last part of this award is that I nominate a Baker’s Dozen of super sweet bloggers:

Wayfaring Chocolate
Jude the Foodie
Live2EatEat2Live Blog
petit4chocolatier
Back Road Journal
Sybaritica
she cooks, he eats
Putney Farm
BunnyandPorkBelly
Rantings of an Amateur Chef
Texana’s Kitchen
Susartandfood’s Blog
Spoon Fest

These are in no particular order, and each one of them is special to me in one way or another! My very best to those listed.

Thank you again Barb!

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Australia Day cheesecake

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For the past few weeks Bron has been talking about cheesecake since she made a white chocolate cheesecake some weeks ago. She has had her eye on a recipe from Nigella Lawson. To give it more interest, Bron chose Nigella’s Chocolate peanut butter cheesecake.

I need to digress and explain why this has more interest for me. I grew up in Queensland in the 1960s and 1970s. We only knew of peanut paste and Queensland nuts. We’d heard of peanut butter and Macadamia nuts but our impression was that only southerners used those terms. As Queenslanders we knew better. There are a few sites that mention the debate, e.g., Peanut Butter or Peanut Paste? and there is also a Facebook page. As far as I’m concerned, the edible species in the genus Macadamia found in Eastern Australia are Queensland nuts and that’s how I shall always know them. While it may be Australia Day, I am and always will be a proud convinced and convicted Queenslander.

Last night I also learned that 24 January is national peanut butter day in the USA from food blogger John-Bryan Hopkins also known as the Foodimentary Guy.

Back to the important stuff though. This is a baked cheesecake. Nigella describes it best, “This is not for the faint-hearted. Unashamed indulgence, wallowingly so, is what this recipe is all about: think reese’s Peanut Butter cup in cheesecake form. For that reason, I don’t bake this in a water-bath as I do the Banoffee cheesecake. The water-bath is excellent if you want a silky texture, but for me, the peanut butter constituent demands a certain amount of pleasurable, palate-cleaving clagginess. And baked like this, too, the top gets a slight crust when it’s cooked, making it all the easier to spread the chocolate topping.”

Baking in the oven

Straight out of the oven

Time for the chocolate topping.

Here comes the chocolate topping

It is good.

Smoothed over chocolate

Melted chocolate swirls.

Chocolate swirls

The finished product with the Queensland nut brittle similar to the cheesecake we had at Kingley’s steak and crab house.

A perfect slice of cheesecake with Queensland nut brittle

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Some of the preparation happened in a new blender.

A weekend in food

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I know a lot of fellow bloggers have started 2012 with posts about resolutions and reviews of 2011. I thought my first post for 2012 should be about a weekend of food enjoyment.

On Friday night we caught up with friends and enjoyed steam boat and pavlova at their place. We’ve enjoyed steam boat with them before and it has always been a fantastic meal. Steam boat is also known as hot pot. I remember steam boat as a kid, Mum had an electric boat and we had many happy meals putting meat, vegetables and noodles into the simmering water. On Friday night we enjoyed marinaded pork, beef, chicken and prawns. We had three types of noodles and heaps of Chinese vegetables. At the end, three egg yolks were beaten in and we had the best soup to finish.

Steam boat preparation. Everything ready.

Steam boat preparation. Everything ready.

A bowl of awesome goodness.

For dessert we had a pavlova lovingly made by our friends. This pav was amazing. The cream was whipped coconut cream and pouring cream. It had a lovely coconut flavour and a smooth texture. The fruit included banana, passion fruit, mango, pineapple, Chinese gooseberry (kiwifruit), blueberries and strawberries.

The platter was about 60 cm in diameter. Four adults polished it off in one hit. It was awesome.

A huge pavlova

We accompanied the pavlova with one of the all time best ice creams. Weis‘ mango cream with Queensland nut (Macadamia) chunks.

My favourite ice cream Weis' mango cream and macadamia chunks

My first (of three) helping.

My first of three helpings of awesome pavlova

The empty platter, all gone in one go

We finished the evening with chocolate and port. Well I didn’t have port, but it was a great evening. Lots of laughs. We really treausre these times with our friends. Especially the work and social related conversations. I’m glad I don’t drink otherwise I’d forget how much I laugh when we’re all together.

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Rack of lamb dinner

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I felt like doing something extra for dinner tonight. The last couple of days at work have been pretty busy and while I still have more work to do tonight, I was wanting something nice for dinner.

I bought a small rack of lamb from Coles and put some vegetables on the plate. The lamb was browned on a saucepan and then put into a moderate over for 15 minutes.

To finish I had Weis mango and cream ice cream with chunks of Queensland nuts (Macadamia). With this I had some cinnamon donuts.