The blog has had a name change!

Yes it is true, I have changed the address and name of my blog to link it with my new Gmail account.
Gmail hasn't made it easy to change your email address if you get a name change.
My new email address will be jessica.rose.smith.2011@gmail.com

'Sunset' - The huge painting complete!

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.
Art is knowing which ones to keep.

What an amazing experience I had when Cheryl and Paul asked me to paint a huge painting for their new house! The painting had to be 1200cm by 900cm to cover a part of the wall where the phone cables and things were. The other requirements were for it to keep with the colour theme of the lounge room already with other red and orange colours.

Because, I didn't really know what to do, I haven't really had any real art lessons or anything I just decided to do something abstract and just allowing my knowledge of colours and what works well together take the limelight.  Here are some photos below showing the progress of the painting:

The background is black, but i ran out of black paint so i mixed a navy into it.

Created the template for the circles.

Filled in the circles white so that the colours would look brighter.

The very start of the colours.

Didn't wash my brushes the whole time!

The painting takes up half of my room!

Nearly finished!

Finished painting in the garage of Paul and Cheryl's house.

Close ups of my favourite bits!

Close ups of my favourite bits!

Close ups of my favourite bits!

Close ups of my favourite bits!

Close ups of my favourite bits!

The painting on the wall.

My signature.

Looks good in the room!

Spiced Poached Pears with Chocolate Ganache

After watching Alana make her beautiful Spiced Poached Pears with Orange Creme Anglaise, Chocolate Ganache & Sugared macadamia crumb, I was inspired to give it a try with the ingredient I had.
I made the poached pears with a orange ganache.
I will copy and paste Alana's recipe into the blog for easy reference. The things I did different will be added in brackets. I also kept the syrup and used it again a few nights later and tasted fine! Enjoy!





Ingredients
Poached pears
600ml red wine
200ml water
1½ cups castor sugar
2 cinnamon quills (used cinnamon powder instead)
2 star anise (Didn't have any - but usually these would add a real spice to the flavour)
3 strips orange peel (Used 1cup of orange juice instead)
2 pears, peeled and halved (used 4pears)
2 vanilla beans, seeds scraped


Chocolate ganache
250g dark chocolate, chopped
125g unsalted butter, chopped
(I also added 1/4teaspoon of orange essence)

Creme anglaise
400ml cream
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
Zest of 1 orange
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons castor sugar
2 tablespoons grand marnier

Sugared macadamia crumb
200g macadamias
2 tablespoons castor sugar

Method 

Preparation and cooking time: 30-40 minutes
Serves: 2

1. Preheat oven to 200⁰C.

2. For poached pears, combine all ingredients in a small saucepan, bring to the boil, reduce heat to low and cover, simmering pears gently for 15-20 minutes or until just tender. Set aside in poaching liquid.

3. For chocolate ganache, heat chocolate and butter over a double boiler until just melted, stirring frequently. Remove mixture from heat and set aside.

4. For crème anglaise, heat cream, vanilla and zest in a small saucepan until nearly boiling. Remove from heat. Whisk yolks, sugar and grand marnier in a bowl until creamy. Slowly pour in hot cream mixture a little at a time until incorporated. Return to a clean saucepan and cook, stirring, over low heat until thickened and coats the back of a wooden spoon. Remove from heat and sieve into a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside until required.

5. For sugared macadamia crumb, spread macadamias and sugar evenly over a greased baking tray and bake until golden. Cool, place in a food processor and process until it forms fine crumbs.

6. Strain pears from syrup and set aside. Pour syrup into a frying pan and reduce until thick. Add pears and coat in syrup.

7. To serve, pipe chocolate ganache onto plate. Arrange pears so that one pear half is standing up and one piece is lying down. Spoon syrup over the pears and sprinkle with some macadamia crumbs. Serve anglaise in a jug on the side.

You could serve with Ice Cream like I did! Yum Yum!

Recipe from: Masterchef website: http://www.masterchef.com.au/spiced-poached-pears-with-orange-creme-anglaise-chocolate-ganache-and-sugared-macadamia-crumble.htm

North Lakes Farmer's Market

This morning I took a moment to spend an hour by myself at the North Lakes Farmer's Market. It is quite a small market with only a handful of stalls. However it still had a nice feel to the place. I parked on the other side of the lake motivating myself to get a bit of excerise in by walking around. As soon as I got out of the car I heard this lovely live Jazz music coming from the Markets. My budget for the morning was a slim $10 due to the joys of saving for a wedding, so i decided to browse all of the stalls first before choosing what to have for breaky. Even though the weather was slightly chilly and it was scheduled to rain soon the markets had drawn a decent crowd of locals. It would be a great place to bring the family for breakfast on a Sunday morning. A very child friendly environment with a jumping castle, a near by playground and ducks and swans to feed. The range of stalls was very small - there was: Small baked goods stall, soaps and inscents, pancake stall, fresh coffee, fresh free range eggs (i'll prob buy my eggs from here in future), fresh fruit and vege, a hand-made-craft stall, and a jumping castle.

I took a long time to decide whether to get a Hot Chocolate or a Caramel Latte'. I finally decide on a Caramel Latte' thinking I should see how good this coffee tastes as I am still yet to find a good brand of coffee in QLD. 'Zzzzz' To be honest, the service was slow and the coffee was burnt, so due to bad customer service I cannot comment on the actual taste of the coffee itself. Maybe everyone in Brisbane that makes coffee should take a roadtrip down to Melbourne and either go to Flinders lane, Bridge road or Chapel street and taste what real coffee should taste like.

For breakfast I decided to have these mini pancake things called 'Poffertjes'. No one knew how to say the name of the things so we just stuck with pancakes. The couple running this stall was absolutely lovely and really had a good idea of what customer service was all about. They were also keeping all of their bread scraps to hand them out to the people that wanted to feed the ducks and swans. For $6 I got 10mini pancakes with butter, icing sugar and lemon juice. And they tasted divine!

So I sat on the steps by the lake and ate my breakfast. It was a beautiful moment having time by myself. I might be cheeky and do this every 1st Sunday of the month. ...except for the first Sunday in October of course... i'll be getting married! :P

Date Night with Sugar!

So Addz and I have put aside our Saturday nights for Date Night's for just over a year I think. It has been a great opportunity to have the other person's attention no matter what, and we take it in turns to choose what to do. Last night it was my turn and I was stumped on ideas and I was getting a bit disheartened. I found an old masterchef masterclass online - Gary and George made a Chocolate gluttony with spun sugar! So then I got the idea that we could make the spun sugar together just as a fun activity. Have a look through the pictures below to see what fun and mess Addz and I got into! Hehe.

300g of Caster Sugar and 150ml of Water coming to the boil
- Don't Stir it or else it will crystallize!

It needs to become 150oC! Be careful not to burn yourself!

Adam flicking it all over the place making a huge mess!

Sugar Webs!

Omn nom nom!

Our sticky mess!

Yum! Toffee!

What a fun night! :)

Justin North on Masterchef!

Manuka Honey & Feijoa Cake with Yoghurt Panna Cotta, Lemon Verbena Jelly - Click here for recipie

So Justin North was just on Masterchef, and it was so exciting to actually see and kind of meet someone that is an inspiration to my cooking. Justin North didn't cook anything however which was a bit of a disappointment but he took us around to the best places in Wellington. My favourite was Martin Bosley who taught us all how to make this fantastic desert. Not sure if my skill is up to scratch to make something as awesome as this. But Adam wants me to at least make the walnut praline. Yummmm.

So simply artistic

 

So over the last few weeks I have been slowly working on a painting for Adam to put in his new room. I wanted to make something really simple and bright. Finally I have finished. You can see the picture of it hanging against the purple wall. I have enjoyed allowing my artistic side to shine lately. Even though the things I have worked on have been ever so simple - I think they look great.
So maybe that is the key - the simpler the better.

Street Names

Lately I have started to collect different photos of street names. I has been quite fun hunting them down in various locations around Brisbane. I have finally completed my younger brother's name Justin. And I'm hoping to complete my name sometime in the next few weeks.

Just a bit of chalk

It is now holiday time at St Margs and we have extra long shifts and need to find things to entertain ourselves and the kids. Today we had the theme of animals. The kids were doodling on the blackboard (which isn't usually allowed but because the teachers not around in the holidays we had fun!), I encouraged the kids to stick to the animal theme with their drawings.
The girls have a huge interest in Littlest Pet Shops, so I decided to draw some. I was actually surprised that they didn't look too bad. :)

Vincent Gadan on Masterchef!

Vincent Gadan - First he appeared on Tuesday night for the for the immunity challenge and teased us all with glimpses of his amazing pastry treats, however the immunity challenge was a savory dish and even though he wasn't sure how to cook savory he still won! When I heard he was going to be on Masterchef again for a masterclass I was over the moon! He showed us three different tarts - Baked Lemon Meringue Tart, Chocolate Salted Caramel Tart and Pear Frangipane Tart, I have included the links for your interest. Everything he made just looked fabulous! Definitely a pasty shop I am going to visit next time I am in Sydney!

Exam's are finally over! 5 weeks of holidays for me!

Yay Uni holidays have finally arrived! Time to work my butt off and save for the wedding! Not long left to go! Wohoooooo! So exciting! To treat myself for all of my diligent hard work studying I brought a new handbag. It's cute and little and has French designs on it! And it's not heavy because I can't fit much in it! :P
These holidays I plan to:
- Relax
- Get lots of hours at work
- Finalize all RSVP's and numbers for wedding
- Adam and I are going to Melbourne end of July to finialise some wedding plans
- Eat healthy and cook some really beautiful meals
- Watch every episode of Masterchef
- Have a quiet time and do a devotion every day

Artistic Food

So as you know over the last few days I have been making many different coloured macaroons for Paul and Cheryl's house warming party. I was reading through a fabulous cook book by Justin North again called French Lessons I got a lovely recipe for chocolate macaroons. The thing I like about this book is that he doesn't just list the recipes but he actually explains a whole bunch of techniques for the reader to understand why and how to do things. It's definitely a book to get your fingertips on.





This is Justin North's Recipe that I absolutely love:

Macaroons
makes 50 mini or 25 medium-sized macaroons
prep time 20minutes cook time 15 minutes (for me it took a lot longer to prep and then fiddle together at the end.)

Ingredients
125g ground almonds aka almondmeal
225g icing sugar
3 egg whites
60g caster sugar
zest of 1 lemon (optional) (i used lemon zest only in my lemon flavoured one.)

Line 2 baking sheets with greaseproof paper. (I found that if you put two layers of paper down they don't burn as easy on the tray).
Sift the ground almonds and sugar together into a large mixing bowl. In another bowl, whisk the egg whites and sugar to stuff peaks and stir in the lemon zest if using.

Use a large spatula to gently fold the sifted ingredients into the egg whites. (Don't get impatient this is very important to fold and not stir! - think of sponge cakes if your have made one.)
Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a medium-sized nozzle. (I just used two teaspoons) Pipe neat little mounds on the baking sheets - about the size of a 10cent coin for mini macaroons or a 50 cent piece for medium size. (When I had them all on the tray i tapped the tray a few times so they looked smooth and even on the top.) Leave to stand for 15-20minutes, until a skin forms on the surface.

Preheat your oven to 140oC. Bake the macaroons for 12-15minutes until they have formed an outer shell. The perfect macaroon is crisp on the outside and slightly chewy in the centre. Leave to cool on the baking tray for a few minutes then carefully transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. (When you get your macaroons from the oven, don't be afraid if they look underdone. If they look a bit wobbly on the bottom this is fine they will continue cooking on the tray. I also found that sliding the baking paper carefully off the tray and have them cool on the bench is better than the wirerack as the wirerack leaves dents.)

When ready to serve, sandwhich pairs of macaroons together with Creme Patissiere (This is another one of Justin's fantastic recipies but you could really fill it with whatever filling you want to get creative with!)

Chocolate Macaroons
Sift 20g of cocoa powder in with the ground almonds and the icing sugar and don't include the lemon zest. Sandwich them together with Chocolate Ganache.

Chocolate Ganache - Justin North's way:
(makes 500g)
200ml cream
40g liquid glucose
240g bitter chocolate - at least 70% cocoa solids.
1/2 tablespoon Armagnac, cognac, (If desired)

Combine the cream and glucose in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the chocolate until melted and smooth. Stir in the alcohol if desired and leave to cool.
This will keep up to 2 week.

Two fabulous flavours I did make were chocolate orange and chocolate mini, all I did was add either orange essence or mint essence to the ganache. Just a few drops and they tasted amazing!

Just a Tip:
Don't ice the macaroons with the ganache if the ganache is still hot. Getting it cold and at room temperature is ideal.

Another fabulous filling is Donna Hay's Balsamic strawberry I read in her Christmas edition magazine from last year.
All you have to do is put 1cup (320g) Strawberry Jam and 2 Tablespoons of balsamic vinegar into a small saucepan and stirring over a medium heat until thickened.
I also added 1tbs of liquid glucose to help it hold better.
I didn't think I would like the flavours at first, but what seemed like a strange combination won me over and now I really enjoy the sweet but tart flavour.

So I did have a lot of fun over the last few days. It took a lot of time and energy but in total I made 10 different flavours and at least 10 of each flavour so that was at least 100 of these little buggers!

The flavours I ended up making were:
Balsamic Strawberry, Blackberry and White Chocolate, Choc-Orange, Rasberry Rose, Passionfruit Milk Chocolate, Peanut, Dark Chocolate Mint, Lemon, Vanilla, and of course Chocolate.

Everything actually went ok for me in the kitchen this time... I didn't really have many dramas, however I did have to keep going back to the shops because I ran out of eggs a few times!

My only real disappointment is I saved the chocolate ones to make last. I decided to make a double batch because they are always a winner. However I ran out of icing sugar by 20g. You wouldn't think much of it... I didn't I continued on as normal. But it was too grainy and they texture was not the same. They looked like normal blobs of biscuit because they didn't have the nice shiney crisp skin that forms. I ended up putting the chocolate filling in spare blue shells.

That is all for this nice long blog. Please enjoy the photos below.

Preparation Table.

Starting to plate up.

The Final Result! The flavours:
Balsamic Strawberry, Blackberry and White Chocolate, Choc-Orange, Rasberry Rose, Passionfruit Milk Chocolate, Peanut, Dark Chocolate Mint, Lemon, Vanilla, and of course Chocolate.

Dark Chocolate Mint

Balsamic Strawberry

Love this angle... don't they look gorgeous!

The dessert at the party. They got demolished by the end of the night.

I also made a few other quick nibblelies for the party. These are rich brownies.