My darling Man asked me to marry him on the 20th December 2009 and he was answered with a resounding YES

On Saturday 20th March 2010 we went looking at a wonderful venue Called Otimai Lodge in Oratia and we have booked our wedding day for the 8th December 2010.** doing a very big happy dance **

Its so much fun doing the planning and chatting about weddings and along with doing the planning, one of the most important things that need to be planned for is of course the food and drinks that you would serve to your guests.

It comes in many different shapes and forms from things such as a dainty afternoon tea, or a picnic, bbq, breakfast, sit down multi course very formal meal,buffet style, canapes and cocktails, multi day feasts, and many other styles of eating and meals.

Its about gathering those special people around you on your special day and showing and sharing your love for each other as a couple. It should never be about impressing your guests with money, but about the couple themselves and what they both like.

Mountains of money dont necessarily have to be spent to have a wonderful wedding.

Both Bruce and I wanted to get married outside with a picnic meal in a not too large wedding and so thats what we are going to do. Myself and some willing or maybe slightly unwilling helpers will be preparing all the food in the couple of days prior to the wedding and serving it on platters that people can help themselves to while sitting at long tables that look lovely and go with the feel of the meal. Everything will be served cold and very picnic style (but with out the ants and mosquitos).

As part of the dessert course I want to do an array of cookies, biscuits, sweets that come from around the world and are traditional wedding treats, so if any of you have any traditional wedding recipes please please please send them to me and  I will make them , blog about them and credit you with the recipe.

I await your emails and recipes very excitedly

I have been very busy the last week , trialling a new recipe for hot cross buns and , have tweaked the recipe and came up with a delicious version  that you can find on www.hotcrossbuns.co.nz The smells coming from the kitchen are just amazing, with the spices and  gorgous dried fruit,  and then making chocolate eggs, bunnies and treats for a raffle basket ,and making chocolate bunnies to sell at market mmmmm

heres a  couple of pics of the hot cross buns

mmmmm hot cross buns that are handmade with free range eggs

hot cross buns fresh out of the oven with butter

It”s really quite  scary how many people have food allergies now

I’m allergic to kiwifruit and latex they have some of the same enzymes in them. I did some filming last year where I had to wear a latex mask, I came out in a dreadful rash all over my face that lasted for about 4 days. Recently I was in hospital and the area around my bed was a latex free area , but the other beds in the room had latex gloves above each bed and I came out in a rash from what ever was being given off by the latex and all the boxes of gloves had to be removed. You may be wondering what this has got to do with food…….. let me explain about  to this to you.

This is becoming a real problem , so many food handlers are using latex gloves when handling food now that it’s actually concerning me quite strongly. Now I dont have a problem if gloves are required, but I do think society has gone a bit overboard with this practice in general for many reasons.

1. Good  glove practices are not always in place for instance:

the amount of times I have seen people handle food , then handle money , or rub their noses then handle food again …… not acceptable people.

2. Food manufacturers/providers ….. please have good food safety practices in place think about the fact that many people are allergic to latex  and replace all those latex gloves with vinyl or plastic gloves. They are often cheaper than latex and are very food safe.

Make sure you train your staff about allergies and allergens and look at things which make your business less of an allergen risk area.

Also train your staff in the processes that go with  wearing gloves, IE: change your gloves regularly, wash your hands regularly , Take your gloves off before handling money or blowing your nose or rubbing your face, then wash your hands again.

3. Have a booklet or a list of  potential Allergens on site so that if somebody askes you if something has a certain product or preparation method that you and your staff (that you just have given great training to) will be able to talk to the customer and reassure them that their food is safe or unsafe for them so that they can make the choice of eating a particular thing or trying something different on your menu.

4.Have good practices in place that keep your foodstuffs separate ie: Gluten free products or nuts are not stored open but in containers or sealed bags so that they dont get contaminated  by things in the air coming from other foods and viceversa.

Since being in my own business I have made many conscious decisions  with my food that I make and the registered kitchen I work in  to make everything as allergen freindly as possible. I do not bring any peanut products in to the kitchen at all as its such a strong allergen.

Any Gluten Free products that I make are made before anything else is produced and kept totally separate and I make a range of allergen free goodies on a regular basis and have started to make a name for being able to cater for special dietary requirements , that may be for religious reasons or for people with allergens.

I do this because I know what its like to have food allergies , whilst not life threatening for me still is enough to make life very uncomfortable for days and I feel that just because  somebody cannot eat particular things because of what ever reason be it religious or allergic reactions they shouldnt have to miss out on eating good food.

So Food producers/Manufacturers please please start thinking about giving your staff good training both in Allergen Knowledge and Information and also Good Food Glove  handling practices and make our eating times better for everybody.

It doesnt necessarily mean that you have to spend lots of money to teach these good practices , and the rewards you will get from your customers with special food requirements will come back to you in more ways than you think.

This is why I havent posted much on here recently

I have been studying for my Diploma in Culinary arts  This year and that took up a lot of time , it also inspired me to put my ideas for my own business in to action.Last week saw the launch of  Sweet Expectations

This is a gourmet baked goods industry , selling hand made biscuits/cookies , decorated cup cakes, muffins, and other tasty little goodies , all made from scratch and using free range eggs. I am currently selling at Farmers markets and hope to sell to cafes and also online as well. I also will be doing some gluten free products and am thinking of some heart freindly diabetic freindly lines as well as there has been a fair amount of interest in those areas from customers at the markets.

Im currently at Wesley market in Sandringham on Tuesdays and Fridays , and at the Auckland farmers market in Alexandra park on sunday mornings just look for the lady in pink

www.sweetexpectations.co.nz

I will post pictures , Im just having problems loading them up at the moment

We had  our graduation ceremony this week at School. It was held in our Restaurant at School and we were all in our chefs uniforms and the hospitality and hospitality business management students were in Grad gowns

We were all given numbers and had to enter and exit the restaurant in numerical order I was number 34, It was quite emotional for me ….. coming to the end of this chapter of all my hard work over the past year. As we walked in to the Restaurant, everybody was standing, all the staff, family and freinds, VIPS which included the Mayor and they were clapping us in, that made me just want to cry.

We had speeches  and a power point display was shown about the school which also made me bubble up a wee bit. There was a picture of our class in the display, then a picture of a freind of mine competing in a competition and then there on the screen was a great shot of myself with my medal and a blurb about winning big at the competitions.

We then proceeded out the way we came  in and through another entrance to receive our certificates, and Justin the announcer was just calling out each persons name, when it came to me  he made a little speech about me, saying i was one of the celebrities of the school and a great student etc, which just took my breath away and made my very big grin on my face even bigger.

When all the formal stuff was done we had some great entertainment, with  one of the students and her freind playing the most beautiful music on a piano and a cello  and one of our tutors dressing up in all different kinds of things which were very funny.

We finished off with a wonderful lunch prepared by all the cooking tutors  and plenty of wine which was just lovely

Bruce snapped lots of pictures  which I just have to download and will post very soon

A few weeks ago I went to  the Doctors for a general check up and He checked my blood pressure

It was a bit high oooppsss  scary, In my family on my Dads side there is a genetic predisposition to bad things happening from high blood  pressure, this scared the bejeebies out of me big time and I have changed my eating habits and lifestyle.

Getting out and doing regular exercise , using a low sodium alternative to salt , not that I ate much salt anyway,Eating foods that are low in fat, I have reduced down the amount of red meat I was eating before, increased my fish intake , and my vegetable/fruit/pulses intake and cut out things that I was eating before, bad bad things that tasted so good and indulged my sweet tooth. Im feeling so much better and have so much more energy now. The NZ heart foundation has endorsed a huge range of products with the heart tick on them  which means that they are low in saturated fats, low in sodium and sugar and designed for the entire family to be good for them and a really great way to get a good balance in the diets of New Zealanders.

I have been experimenting with lots of different ideas that I have had about making low fat foods and have been able to try some of these out on others , things like heart healthy savoury muffins, heart healthy low fat lasagne,pasta dishes, etc and am currently in the process of making some recipes for low fat low sugar fruity muffins, they just need tweaking a wee bit before they are perfect. I will keep you informed as to how they are going. I have a great group of volunteers willing to be guinea pigs errrr taste testers,  people from the gym (instructors), chef freinds and of course Bruce my champion supporter.

High Blood Pressure is the silent disease , it creeps up on you with out you being aware of it , and Im too young to go off this planet just yet….. I want to grow old disgracefully and besides only the good die young so I will be around forever. So let me just say get yourselves checked regularly even if you think your as fit and healthy as a thoroughbred horse on speed injected carrots because its better to find out if theres a problem and be able to fix it early than to not find out about it and pop off before your ready.

I have now finished school for this year and will return to do level 5 next year. I have just scored myself a great job as a parttime Baker in a cafe in Ellerslie. Its the end of the first week and its been great. Your first week in any new job is always a bit challenging , and bound to have the odd hiccup but its those hiccups which are great learning curves to make what you do much better.

I get to explore my creative mind in trying new things and introducing new flavours. its really good wholesome down to earth food with a lovely homemade feel about it which is just perfect. Its just part time but theres always the opportunity to pick up extra hours further on down the track. From little acorns grow big trees.

Hi , yeah tis been a while since I  last posted, Im back at school now  and just loving this new module.  I go home smelling of things like sugar and vanilla, I get to play in the flour bin most days and create pastries and breads, desserts and doughs. ……. Sighhhh can life be any better than this .

My tutor Earl King is just an absolute darling whose love for this wonderful art just shines through. I have been off sick most of last week and had to make up some classes, hes just so patient and willing to help, it makes learning so much more of apleasure.

I just love the feeling of kneading the dough, taking these great raw ingrediants and turning them into delectable treats

I will post pictures asap I have mislaid my camera cord and cannot upload my pictures at the moment but will do so shortly.

So far we have made a variety of things, gateaux pithiver, palmiers,rice imperatrice,apple fritters, lemon turnovers, choux paste, paris brest,,chappati, pita, naan, danishes, croissants sauvarin, brioche, donuts,.

I just feel this sort of work is something I have been waiting my whole life for, and why did it take me so long to realise this,. Putting your hands in to the dough and kneading it is so therapeutic and soothing for the soul, it makes me feel relaxed and gentle, and all the everyday cares and woes just drift up through the atmosphere as you watch the magic of the dough  doing its stuff as it rises, and breathes and becomes a thing of great beauty.

Thank you Earl for being patient and passionate with us and for sharing your wonderful craft and knowledge with us. It means more than words can express.

Here is the menu that I wrote for the the food costing project

the Recipes for all of these dishes are in the recipe section

A La Carte Menu for Food Costings:

Entree:

Carrot and Tomato Soup:

A rich slightly spicy soup made with fresh carrots, tomatoes
garlic, basil, parsley, a little chilli , black pepper and garnished with
crispy pancetta and cream and served with crunchy garlic croutes.
(a vegetarian option is available)


Chicken Livers:

Fresh Chicken Livers, sauteed with onions, mushrooms and garlic
in a  creamy sauce and served on a  layer of wilted spinach and steamed rice.


Singapore style  Prawns and noodles:

King  Prawns tossed with ginger, chilli , garlic, and soy sauce in
Singapore noodles with tricolour capsicum slices and crunchy celery.


Mains:

Preserved Lemon and Roasted Pepper Rissotto:

A creamy Rissotto with Preserved Lemons and Roasted peppers
with a touch of Saffron and garnished with lemon wedges and shaved
Parmesian Cheese.

 Beef Schasliks:

Tender Cubes of Scotch fillet skewered with baby onions,button mushrooms,
tomatoes,and courgettes with a mushroom sauce and served on a potato and pea
galatte.

Honeyed Walnut  and Blue Cheese Stuffed
Chicken Breast:

Whole Panko Crumbed Chicken Breast that is stuffed with Kikorangi Blue cheese
and roasted honeyed walnuts and panfried and served on a Mesculan Salad
and a potato and pumpkin Mash.


Dessert:

A Peppermint Chocolate Dream:

Handmade traditional Icecream made with fresh mint leaves and Creme de menthe
inside a dark chocolate dipped tuille basket and served with a hot chocolate sauce
and a drizzle of creme de menthe.

Trio of Tarts:

3 minature tarts , a mix of hot and cold tarts, 1 with seasonal fruit
1 with berries, and 1 with a velvet vanilla mousse and served with
creme anglaise and a fruit garnish.(please ask your server on the fruits of the day)

Coffee Baked Alaska:

A Rich coffee cake with a coffee cream centre incased in hand made vanilla icecream
and light meringue and served hot to your table with your choice of liquer sauce
either Kahlua, Baileys , or Vanilla Vodka

Over the last few weeks we have been working with all kinds of wonderful meat products , once again revisiting old favourites and discovering new things

Thank goodness Im an Omnivore the amount of meat things we have cooked recently would give  a vegetarian a heart attack  ) sorry vegetarians  )

we have done all kinds of things from a steak bearnaise  to a lamb rack and lots of things inbetween

our steak Bearnaise was served with lyonaise potatoes, green beans, bearnaise sauce and garnished with deep fried shallots  ooohhh my word they have to be one of the best smelling things in the world when they are cooking (the shallots that is)

A roasted Pousson stuffed with a barley risotto and Chasseur Sauce , we deboned the pousson  which I hadnt done in a very long time. ohh my goodness ,  that barley risotto is the nicest flavour and such a great  side dish

I wanted to show you how good the stuffing  of the barley risotto looked.

Beef Bourgignone is a very classical dish  and is one of those foods/smells  that  just fill the kitchen with warm smells/feelings of coming home and having love and comfort surround  you.

The Beef bourgignone was served on a fondant potato and  with crispy parsnip shavings

Just another one of these comfort wrap around your heart foods is Lamb Shanks slow braised in a rich red wine gravy with vegetables.  You can tell its winter when you look forward to these wonderful comfort foods to take the chill out of your bones and just let the smells of love wrap themselves around you.

We served this gorgous little baby with Duchess potatoes, which is mashed potatoes mixed with egg yolk and melted butter,   with the actual shank we served it   with a pear william  which was a duchess potato shaped in to a pear and then crumbed and deep fried , oh my word , talk about  delicious. We had a play as well and made a few other shapes  just for fun ,  a croquette, a bernie (round ball) which I dipped in almonds and  also an apple which I dipped in to sesame seeds and used  almonds for the stem in both the pear and the apple. We could choose what to crust it with. My tutor was most impressed and I was thinking these would be great items on a buffet or banquet table

and for the ultimate  in being decadent in taste how about a herb crusted lamb rack with roasted pumpkin and hot german potato salad with a marsala jus lie