Breakfast at Vue

Had breaky at Vue and ordered: poached eggs on sourdough bread, salmon, caramelised onions, asparagus and beetroot relish.
It was deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelicious!!!! Thought it was a great idea to make at home ( with only the fraction of the price).
Here's a recipe for beetroot relish I found to help you make this dish at home.

Curtis Stone's Beetroot Relish
Ingredients:

• 1/2 medium brown onion, finely chopped
• 1 medium beetroot, peeled and grated
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• ½ cup sugar
• ⅛ tsp Masterfoods ground cinnamon
• 2 tbsp water

In a small saucepan, combine ½ of the chopped onion, beetroot, vinegar, sugar, water and cinnamon, cover and bring to low simmer. Remove lid and simmer for 25 minutes, or until tender. Season to taste. 

Fruit and Vegetable Art

Fun with fruit and vegetables! Someone sent me this through email the other day. They are too cute not to share with everyone.

Flags Made Out of Food

I was plating up some olives and fetta the other night, and it made me think of some food flags I saw advertised a few years back for the Sydney International Food Festival. A quick google and I found them! Pretty creative stuff! Hover the curser on the photo to see which country the flag represents.

Seafood Hot Pot

So, it's a Saturday and I am at work looking at my diary and scheduled was dinner at our place. I totally forgot! We were too organised and scheduled it in weeks in advance. Looking at my client list for the day, I was worried that I wouldn't finish in time to go to the supermarket. A quick message to our expectant guests...and it seems I wasn't the only one who forgot. So the dinner was cancelled. I was relieved that I wouldn't have to stress about cooking dinner, but sad because it was meant to be a farewell dinner for my friends and it seemed like we wouldn't be able to meet up before they left.

But alas... a few messages and phone calls later.... the dinner was ON!!!

Thankfully seafood hot pot was on the menu! It involves a pot of cooking stock or soup in the middle of the table. All the ingredients are on side plates, and guests just add the ingredients to the pot and cook it themselves at the table. There’s always an abundant amount of vegetables because they cook quickly, and proteins that require very little cooking time and noodles. EASY!

One stop at the Asian supermarket, and I had everything I needed. Because I didn’t have time to make the soup, I cheated and bought a seafood hot pot soup base liquid that came in sachets. I followed the instructions and added boiling water to the soup base. Then I added some carrots, onions, ginger and garlic to give the soup some more flavour. While at the Asian supermarket, I picked up a variety of Asian greens, some enoki mushrooms and tofu. Also went for some vermicelli rice noodles and some clear sweet potato noodles. And for protein, I got a can of already peeled quail eggs, prawns, squid, and fish. And just to give my guests a new experience, I picked up a packet of frozen fish balls that had fish roe filling inside.

Quail eggs, fish balls halved to show fish roe filling, whole fish balls

It was quite an interactive dinner, with everyone adding what they liked to the soup. The soup became more and more flavoursome as the dinner progressed. As side sauces I had some chilli sauce and fish sauce for each guest to add as they pleased. And, surprisingly, the fish balls with the fish roe inside were a hit.
Overall a very stress-free and fun dinner, incorporating plenty of vegetables, low fat and low in calories.