Top Five Review Posts for 2012

2012 saw the birth of my blog.  My love of food is somewhat hereditary.  That combined with my experience in the hospitality industry has created an obsession with food and my desire to review it.

The seed for me to review food was planted about a year prior to my first blog post when I was in New York with my friend.  We were dining at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant at The London in NYC when over the meal I started to critique our entire dining experience.  It was fun and my friend was very encouraging of my review.

It took me the next months to manifest how I was going to turn this passion of reviewing into a reality.  After a night out at Masons of Bendigo I was completely inspired and woke at five am the following morning with the desire to write about what I had experienced.  It all just came out of me so easily and so ‘Food for You Reviews’ was created.

Ironically Masons of Bendigo is the most read post of 2012.  Mason’s have had an incredible year.  They were very new on the scene and doing a fabulous job for dining in regional Victoria.  Since my review they won the State Award in the Golden Plate Awards outshining the Ballarat and Geelong regions.

Masons of Bendigo

The second most read blog post was the Red Velvet Cake post.   After my first experience with this delight in New York City at Magnolia Bakery, I was delighted when I arrived to a friend’s birthday party to a beautiful Red Velvet Cake made from the Magnolia Bakery recipe.

Coming in at number three was my first instalment of The Sweetest Thing series.  This series was a nine part series inspired by the women in my family sharing their most favourite sweet recipe.  This post told the story of my inspiration and shared my mother in laws golden syrup dumpling recipe.

Fourth was my post on Proud Mary’s in Collingwood.  This was one of my favourite posts to write.  It was one of the only posts I wrote live in the venue.  I love the vibe in PM’s they truly do rock it!

Proud Mary's

Finally, at number five was my post on the Chefs of the Future Cooking Competition.   This post is very dear to my heart as it’s about a cooking completion I started for apprentice chefs in Mildura a decade ago.  I was asked to speak at the 10-year anniversary.  Such an honor and a thrill.

So there you go, the top five most read posts for 2012 on the Food for You Reviews blog.  I have enjoyed writing my blog immensely and am excited to bring you plenty of positive, constructive, fun food reviews in 2013.

Thank you for reading friends. xx

The Sweetest Thing - Part 9

Marita’s Trifle

Wow – this is the final instalment of ‘The Sweetest Thing’ series.  This series of favourite sweet delights from the sweet, lovely, fabulous ladies in my family has been hugely popular.  So much so that I am considering extending the series to any of the sweet girls in my life that would like to share their favourite sweet recipe with me. Stay tuned sweet ones!

There is no doubt Christmas is in the air – I can smell it.  I know it’s only November but when the weather starts to get warmer, the flowers are in full bloom and the supermarkets have had the Christmas decorations out for a month already it’s hard not to start thinking about Christmas and the food that comes with it.

One of my all time favourite sweet things at Christmas is trifle.  Ever since I was a little girl I remember devouring my grandmother’s trifle, then when she retired from making it my aunty turned up with the goods.  These days it’s my sister in law Marita.   Her favourite sweetest thing recipe is this trifle that was passed onto her from her mum and the original recipe comes from the NMAA (Nursing Mothers cook book).  I can’t wait to hoe in to it this Christmas Day.

TRIFLE RECIPE

What you need –

18" sponge cake

3-4 tablespoons of raspberry or strawberry jam or 285 gram packet frozen raspberries or fresh raspberries

1/4 cup of sherry or fruit juice

600 ml warm custard

300 ml thick cream

What you do –

Split sponge cake in two, sandwich together with jam and put in bottom of glass bowl.   

Place raspberries on top and sprinkle sherry over cake. Prepare custard and while still hot pour over cake. Then leave until cold.  

Beat cream and spread over custard.   Decorate with almonds and cherries.

Handy hints –

Mum usually uses tinned peaches and also makes a raspberry jelly. When the jelly is set, chop it up and put on top of the custard decorating the top with the jelly instead of the almonds and cherries.

Aunty Margaret said in Ireland they make a jelly and pour it over the sponge and let it set, which works very well.

Thanks Sweet Marita. 

Enjoy friends!

The Sweetest Thing - Part 7

Amanda’s Double Sweetness

Amanda is the sweet baby of the family.  She is also a newly wed.  She recently married a wine maker.  We are really happy with her about that!

When I asked our honeymooner for her favorite sweet delight she initially gave me her ‘Caramel Cups’ recipe.  It’s as certain as death and taxes that for any family event where Amanda is required to bring a sweet dish she will bring her ‘Caramel Cups’!  Everyone loves them, especially the kids.

Then a few weeks ago Amanda decided it was essential that she share with us her very favorite and amazing ‘Chocolate Brownie’ recipe that she got from one of her friends.

So I think it would be totally remiss of me not to share both recipes with you. 

Double thanks sweet Amanda. 

Caramel Cups

What you need:

Butternut snap biscuits

Nestlé caramel top 'n' fill (in a tin like sweetened condensed milk)

(Quantities are your own choice)

What you do:

Place biscuits on patty cake tin tray and heat in moderate oven for approximately 5 minutes or until soft.

Remove from oven and press biscuits with back of spoon to make small hollow. Cool on rack.

Heat caramel in microwave or saucepan until smooth and runny (heat in short bursts if microwaving and stir in between, low heat if using stovetop).

Fill each biscuit with caramel. Place in fridge to set. Can top with whipped cream if desired.

Enjoy with a glass of Riesling – I say.  I highly recommend a Riesling from Austria.

Chocolate Brownies

What you need:

150 grams butter

350 grams dark cooking chocolate

1 ½ cups brown sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

¾ cup of plain flour

¾ cup dark chocolate chips

½ cup of fresh cream

¾ cup chopped macadamia nuts

What you do:

Melt the butter and dark cooking chocolate in a saucepan over low heat, when melted leave to cool for 10 minutes.

Then stir in brown sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, plain flour, dark chocolate chips, fresh cream and chopped macadamias.

Spread into lined pan.  Bake in a moderate oven for about 35-40 minutes, so it’s nice and gooey!

Amanda says - don’t stress if it’s quite wet when you take it out of the oven because it'll firm up when it cools.  She also covers it with foil half way through cooking so the top doesn’t burn.

I say – enjoy this with a big glass of Shiraz.  Anything from the Barossa Valley or McLaren Vale will do.

Enjoy friends!

The Sweetest Thing - part 6

Veronique’s Easy Chocolate Cake

Everyone loves chocolate.  Everyone loves easy.  Everyone loves cake and everyone loves Veronique!  Veronique is such a sweet and serene person.  Having a Mauritius background Veronique often creates exotic and enticing dishes that we all want the recipe for. 

Being a new mum Veronique has decided to give us her favorite easy chocolate cake recipe.  Juggling a baby and baking requires simplicity.  This cake is perfect for those days when you need a chocolate fix or you have friends coming over for a cuppa.

This recipe makes a big cake (oven dish size) or two regular cakes (regular cake tin size).

What you need;

2 cups of water
3 cups of sugar
½ cup of good quality cocoa
3 cups of self-raising flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
250 grams of butter
4 large eggs beaten
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (or a fresh pod added to the pot)
1 block of dark chocolate

What you do;

Grease and line dish/tins with baking paper.

Combine water, sugar, cocoa, vanilla, chocolate, butter and bicarbonate of soda in a tall pot.  Stir over heat until sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil then turn down heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

Take the mixture off the stove and allow to cool for 30 minutes.

Whisk in sifted flour. Add beaten eggs. Pour mixture into dish/tins. Cook at 180 degrees for approximately 1 hour or until cooked.

Ice and eat!

Thank you Veronique.  Enjoy!