Let it snow: Vanilla macarons with rose quince buttercream

 

"They're crispy on the outside but chewy on the inside and taste very hard to make" ~ my husband when he tasted his first macaron.

Macarons: delicate little cookie sandwiches that are the epitome of french baking chic.  These wee things may look pretty and delectable but macarons are notoriously difficult to make.  Apparently even seasoned patisserie chefs can get a dud batch depending on the humidity, weather and a million other mysterious variables.

I have never got the guts up to try to make macarons.  Yes, the thought of making these dainty morsels scared the bejeebers out of me!  Until finally, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to face my fear. I decided to make macarons.

Seems appropriate that seeing as it is snowing outside today, I blog about my attempt at tackling my culinary Everest: Macarons, by making snowy white Vanilla Macarons with Rose Quince Buttercream.

{snowed in: road closed, lectures cancelled...time for a cuppa}

"Can the Snow Queen come in?" said the little girl.
"Only let her come in!" said the little boy. "Then I'd put her on the stove, and she'd melt."
~ Hans Christian Andersen

Wedding = love Part 3: My big fat Chinese banquet reception

{all photos by Jel Photography unless otherwise stated}

Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast. ~ William Shakespeare

It's finally here!  The last installment of my Wedding = love album!  

Having had a white wedding, our reception was a Big Fat Chinese Banquet.  And yes I mean really do mean big fat banquet with a whopping 12 courses!  

No sirree, we don't do nothin' by halves down here.

{Menu with all 12 courses of our banquet complete with the meaning behind each dish! Photo taken by David Chan}

Bean there, done that: Rosemary & garlic cannellini bean dip with parmesan

I'm having a luxuriously lazy weekend...my husband flew down yesterday morning for the Med School Ball last night (wicked fun!!) and we've spent our Sunday sleeping in, cooking together, eating together, nana-napping and chit-chatting about everything and nothing.  Simple wonderfully normal moments that I've missed so much.  Doing the long distance thing makes old routines new again.  So often it's the little things in life, so easily taken for granted, that can contain so much happiness.
 
The boy was feeling the effects of the late night (the morning after is never quite so good as the night before) so while he was having a wee snooze I had a quick flick through my last couple posts and realised I haven't posted any recipes for ages!  Quelle horreur!  So as a brief interlude to the multi-barrelled photo posts of late, I present: Rosemary & Garlic Cannellini Bean Dip with Parmesan.

I made this when my girls came over for a mid week dinner and it was a hit!  It's ridiculously easy to make, takes less than 5 minutes from start to finish, and kicks the butt of store bought hummus.  Make it, I dare you...you won't regret it!

Hong Kong Honeymoon: Our Top 10 Foodies Highlights Part 1

{That, my friends, is A Foodcourt With a View.}

So sorry for neglecting my post as of late, blog post that is.  It was the university hols and we were lucky enough to get to spend some of it in the shopaholic/foodie's dream city Hong Kong for our sort-of honeymoon.

Why sort-of? Well, it was our first trip away together (and first full week of seeing each other) after getting married which is very honeymooney.  But the main purpose of going back was to have dinner with and catch up with my relos in HK which is less honeymooney.  And my Mum came with us - not that honeymooney at all. 

So while it was technically our honeymoon, hopefully we'll get to go somewhere later on and lie on a beach for days with just the two of us (hint hint darling husband??).

So as a blogapology for the post-tardiness I present you our Top 10 Hong Kong Trip Foodie Highlights.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of what you should eat when in HK.  That would need to be a top 100 at least!  No, no, this is a much less ambitious venture: a round up of the tasty meals and morsels we loved most on our trip back this time.   I'd probably need to go back for months to get a more definitive must-eat list...which I would LOVE to do sometime, so if you're reading this Harper Collins - call me??

Trash Tuesdays: Double Double Downs at KFC

Double chicken, double bacon, double cheese, double awesome. ~ KFC ad

 
When Kentucky Fried Chicken brought out their Double Down "Burger" it created a frenzy of controversy.  Every where you looked there was the Double Down, on every tv channel someone was eating it, a nutritionist lambasting it or an anti-obesity group declaring it was evil incarnate.

The official tagline is that it is a "bun-less burger" with two chicken fillets, two slices of bacon, two slices of cheese (one plain, one cracked pepper) lavished with the Colonel's own special sauce.  I could feel my arteries clogging up even as I that typed out.  It's basically deep fried grease with grease doused in grease.

So what better way to break my wedding healthy eating regime than with one of these bad boys.  Better yet with two of them: a Double Double Down Challenge.

Kids, don't try this at home.

Takapuna Beach Cafe, Takapuna, Auckland

{house hot chocolate}

The three most important things in real estate is location, location, location ~ Unknown

You would really be hard pressed to find a better location for a cafe than the Takapuna Beach Cafe on Auckland's North Shore.

It sits literally metres away from Takapuna Beach with it's golden sand and sprawling pohutukawa trees, overlooking the ocean with Rangitoto Island in the background.  Combine that with the grandiose floor to ceiling windows and the uber stylish decor, and you've got the recipe for a cafe you just want to while away the day in.

When the Takapuna Beach Cafe (TBC) first opened, it was the place to be.  Be you a celeb, a lady who lunches, muso or suit you wanted to be seen having a coffee at the TBC.  Best people watching spot ever.

We used to go to the TBC all the time when I was living in Auckland, I loved the consistently excellent coffee, the impeccably attentive service and most of all the exceptional restaurant-quality food that was always creative and always delicious.  So when my cousin and his girlfriend were over for our wedding, I couldn't think of a better place to show off Kiwi cafe culture.

The question was, would the TBC still be as good as I remembered? Would the setting, coffee, service and food still be as good? Well...turns out 3 out of 4 ain't bad.

Wedding = love Part 2: The Chinese tea ceremony, hair combing ritual and other wedding traditions

 

There are seven necessities related to the starting of a family's life: firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea. ~ Chinese proverb 

Chinese weddings are steeped in tradition and symbolism, superstition and folk lore.  I'm not usually a sticker for tradition,  I really wanted to have Traditional Chinese Tea Ceremonies at our wedding.  There's just something wonderfully romantic about wedding traditions, don't you think?  Knowing that my mother, my grandmothers, their mothers and generations of Chinese women before them have followed the same rituals at their weddings for hundreds of years, made even little old kiwi me feel connected with my heritage.  A link to the past on the first day of our future together.  What an incredibly moving and humbling experience.  

Having said that, since ours was an East meets West kinda wedding, we didn't stick exactly to tradition and cherry picked the things we had time for.  I'd like to think of it as Chinese culture meets Kiwi ingenuity.

 {All photos taken by Jel Photography unless otherwise stated}

Cinnamon & olive oil pancakes with salted butter caramelized bananas

That's why I'm easy...I'm easy like Sunday morning ~ Lionel Ritchie

Lazy Sunday brunches are one of my favourite meals. 

I would go so far as to say my husband and I are brunchaholics.  We used to brunch it up every weekend making our way round the plethora of cafes in Auckland (how we managed to afford to as poor students I have no idea!).

These days though, we tend to have our brunch dates at home.   I'd like to think it's coz we are just more comfortable at home but really it's probably coz we're just too lazy to go out.

Having said that, there are few things more satisfying than whipping up a massive stack of pancakes, fluffy french toast, super quick eggs bene, creamy balsamic mushrooms or fruity bircher muesli and getting to enjoy it while still in the comfort of your jamies and ugg boots.  Why go out when you can laze around at home, test each other with the brain teaser quiz in the newspaper and have as much delicious brunch food as you like for a fraction of the price?       
 
And if these Cinnamon & Olive Oil Pancakes with Salted Butter Caramelized Bananas don't completely convince you to give the at-home-brunch-date a go then I don't know what will!