Penguin Icebox Cookies

It's been a while since I've made anything penguin-related and since today is Penguin says Feed Me's 2nd birthday, I couldn't think of a more appropriate occasion to bake these penguin icebox cookies.

I first saw these here way back in February and I knew I had to make them. Not only are they cute and adorable PENGUINS but they're purple as well (which is my favourite colour!).

And speaking of purple, I have yet to show off my brand new KitchenAid (in Grape!) which Sir D and a whole bunch of awesome food bloggers contributed towards for my birthday this year - thanks again!! She is yet to be named but I am open to suggestions!

I'm surprised it's already been 2 years since I started this blog. I can still remember the day I opened a Google account and clicked on "Create Blog" in Blogger, and stumbled around with all the different options, not having a clue what I was doing. Since then there has been 170 blog posts, 1785 comments, a few blog layout changes, countless food photos and priceless friendships forged. And even though there's been a few "OMG I broke my blog!" moments, and many mornings where I've woken up bleary-eyed and tired from blogging late into the night, I don't regret a single moment of it!

Quarter Twenty One, Sydney

Complimentary bread and butter

I always love being served a warm bread roll with creamy butter to start my meal at a restaurant. With Becasse Bakery around the corner, it's no surprise that the bread is wonderfully soft and delicious.

Interior

Quarter Twenty One is one of the newest additions to Justin North's food empire, having recently opened on level five of the new Westfield Sydney. Sir D and I are here for dinner tonight to celebrate my graduation and even though they've somehow lost the booking, we're dining relatively early so we have no problems getting seated. We debate whether to go with the 7-course degustation menu at $90pp but instead choose to order off the a la carte menu.

Caramelised Kurobuta pork belly, smoked bacon consommé, mushroom, slow cooked yolk and jowl - $25

My eyes immediately darted to the words "smoked bacon" on the menu and so I chose the Kurobuta pork belly as my entree. It arrived on a seemingly custom-made plate, with a round indentation to hold the slow cooked egg yolk perfectly. The dish was smaller than expected but rich and fatty, with paper thin sheets of bacon draped over the medley of mushrooms and egg yolk. The consommé was quite salty but when eaten with the other elements of the dish, everything worked well together to give an overall meaty, porky flavour.

Sauté of king prawns, crisp pigs ear, garlic custard and persillade purée - $26

Ainoya, Kirribilli

Sashimi tacos - $12

Take some cubes of fresh sashimi, mix in some slightly spicy mayonnaise, sprinkle with flying fish roe, black sesame seeds and some sprouts and sandwich it all between two blistering, crispy fried wonton skins. This is the sashimi taco, one of the specials which we begin our meal with at Ainoya Japanese Restaurant.

Sake bottles inside the restaurant

It's a quaint, cosy little restaurant tucked away on a side street in Milson's Point, with sake bottles lined up against the wall near the entrance. There is a reasonable-sized sake menu so we choose a sake to go with our meal. We also get to choose our own sake cups from a range of different ones on a platter.

Sake with assorted cups

The menu is broken up into entree and main sections, along with sushi, sashimi and salad/side dishes as well. We decide to just order an assortment of dishes to share between us which means we get to taste a little bit of everything.

Seared kingfish

Minestrone with freshly-baked bread

Winter is well and truly upon us which means it's soup season! As much as I hate the bone-chilling cold of winter, it does give me a good excuse to snuggle up on the sofa with a blanket with a big bowl of warm, hearty soup.

I love minestrone for its thick, almost stew-like consistency, and the fact that it's packed full of vegetables. Adding some pasta into the soup or serving the soup along with some bread turns it into a complete meal, and after a bowl or two I'm full and satisfied, and not to mention warm and toasty as well!

The great thing about this soup is that you can use any vegetables you want in it. It's a great way to get your vegetable intake for the day and also gives you a chance to clean out your fridge. I love using bacon in my soup to give it a salty, meaty base, but you can always omit this if you're a vegetarian (or if god forbid, bacon is not your thing).

The first time I made this soup was when my parents were sick and so I decided to make them some warm, comforting soup and also bake some bread to go with it. Nothing keeps you warm like a bowl of soup and fresh bread straight out of the oven!

I first tasted this bread at Billy's Christmas in July gathering and have made it several times since then. It's surprisingly easy to make and so rewarding to pull your own freshly-baked bread out of the oven. And the best part is that everyone who I have made it for seems to love it :)

Graduation Cookies

For those of you who follow me on twitter, you may already know that I finally graduated from my undergraduate degree last week! And yes, call me crazy, but I am still going to be at uni for another 2 years doing my Masters degree - but that's a story for another time.

Anyway, instead of buying flowers or other graduation merchandise, I decided to make some cookies to share with my fellow graduands. These were basic sugar cookies using the same recipe as I used for the Placecard Cookies I made last year, cut out into stars and trencher caps, and decorated with royal icing.

The hardest part of making these for me was figuring out how to pipe the icing on properly and getting the black icing as black as possible! I didn't actually have black food colouring with me so I used a combination of cocoa powder and blue liquid food colouring to get the deep black colour. It also gives the icing a bit of a chocolatey taste as well, which isn't neceesarily a bad thing :)

And for those of you wondering how I cut my cookies out in the shape of the trencher cap, check out my home-made cookie cutter above. I had a little too much time on my hands and decided to make the cookie cutter myself out of some cardboard and foil and it worked surprisingly well! It was a little battered and worse for wear after cutting out a whole batch of cookies but you can always make the cookie cutter out of sturdier materials if you want it to be more long lasting.

Me with mah cookie on graduation day!

P.S. Congrats to everyone who graduated with me and I'm sorry if you missed out on a cookie! I lost track of who I had given them out to by the end haha

Tomislav, Darlinghurst

Iggy's sourdough and house churned butter with onion powder

It's a treat to be served freshly churned butter with sourdough upon your arrival to a restaurant. Not only is the butter churned in house, it's whipped until light as a cloud and sprinkled with onion powder. This is what is laid on our table when we sit down at Tomislav.

Interior

The restaurant is named after Head Chef Tomislav Martinovic who has worked with chefs such as Matt Moran, Guillaume Brahimi and Heston Blumenthal. It comes as no surprise then that while the menu reads as normal, there are quirky molecular gastronomy elements to each dish which delight me with each bite. This quirky-ness is reflected in the decor of the small restaurant, which includes an eclectic mix of Japanese-themed wallpaper, dark brown wooden tables and chairs, and bare light bulbs hanging from the concrete ceiling.

Rice crackers: sour cream and chives - $9

We start with the rice crackers - paper thin crackers which are made from rice paper brushed with egg white and deep fried. It seems as though the crackers will be far too fragile for the dense-looking sour cream dip, but we find that this too is airy and light like a foam so that the crackers scoop up the sour cream and chives with ease. All in all it acts as a great starter with the lightness in texture and flavour, whetting our appetites for the dishes to come.

Kangaroo tartare, hazelnut dressing - $15

Cumulus Inc., Melbourne

I've mentioned this before, but the one thing that will get me up bright and early on a weekend is the promise of a good breakfast. After a delayed 10pm flight into Melbourne and a late night out visiting different bars around the city, we still managed to get up in time for brekky at Cumulus Inc.

Organic orange juice and latte (part of the Cumulus Inc. Breakfast)

We were lucky enough to get a seat without having to wait and we desperately needed a caffeine hit so coffees were ordered. Sir D's latte and orange juice were part of the Cumulus Inc. Breakfast.

Cappuccino - $3.50

I had my sights set on other foods so I settled for a cappuccino which strangely enough came without the cocoa powder sprinkle on top of the lovely, thick milk froth.

Smoked salmon, 65/65 egg, sorrel, apple and dill - $17