Just beet it: Roasted beetroot, caramelised onion, goats cheese and orange salad

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious. ~ Tom Robbins

Ahh beetroot.  Love em or hate em you gotta admit they are a striking vegetable.  Intense and majestic, so deep red it's almost purple.  I used to hate beetroot.  Mainly because I'd only ever had the canned stuff.  The sugary pink gelatinous slices you get in burgers that made the buns soggy and left pink smudges on the lettuce.  Yuck. 

But then I had a culinary experience that changed my life: I had the degustation menu at the incomparable French Cafe in Auckland and my gastronomical horizons were forever widened.  Never had I experienced such sophisticated flavour pairings, intricate techniques or inventive textures.  That meal truly made me fall in love with food all over again.  One of the dishes was the French Cafe signature: Roasted goats cheese, caramelised onion and beetroot tart and it completely changed my entire outlook on these ruby red gems.

I was a hater no longer. 

And in an homage to that glorious tart I wanted to recreate those flavours in salad form with a Roasted Beetroot, Caramelised Onion, Goats Cheese and Orange Salad.

All Black Sesame Macarons with Coconut Buttercream for Baking for Hospice

Rugby is a wonderful show: dance, opera and, suddenly, the blood of a killing ~ Richard Burton

I'm baaaaaack! It was study break last week and I was up in Auckland spending lots of quality time with family.  A happy sad week, witnessing the beginning of a brand new life and the twilight of another.  Reliving old memories, making new ones.  Lots of laughs, lots of tears.  It might look like I abandoned the blog for a bit but I was baking up a storm so watch this space for all the baking shenanigans I got up to!

Well, if you're in New Zealand, unless you've been living under a rock, you will know that little old NZ is hosting the Rugby World Cup 2011.

It's kind of a big deal.

Rugby is our national sport.  Kiwis live and breathe rugby and the All Blacks are national heroes.  But despite the All Blacks being favourites to win practically every Rugby World Cup since it's inception, we unbelievably haven't won or hosted the prestigious Webb Ellis Trophy since the very first RWC in 1987.

But this year is THE year! I can feel it in my bones.

So naturally, to show our support for our men in All Black, the Baking for Hospice theme this round was The Rugby World Cup round.  And for my contribution I made All Black Sesame Macarons with Coconut Buttercream.

Go ABs!

{Paint the town black, all black}

Beer o'clock: Chocolate Guinness Ruffle Cake with Salted Caramel Whipped Ganache Frosting

He was a wise man who invented beer ~ Plato

I'm a beer girl.

Yes yes being a little Asian girl I'm not exactly your stereotypical beer guzzler.  Not that I'm a huge drinker mind you.  Hardly.  Just like your stereotypical little Asian girl, I am a complete lightweight.  A pretty cheap date.  But give me a cool refreshing beer on a hot summers day and I'm a happy chappy.  Give me two and I'll probably be under the table.

Now, there are beers, and then there are BEERS.   Guinness, the infamous Irish dry stout, falls in the latter category.  Big, bolshy, in your face beer.  A meal in a glass.  Liquid bread.

Being such a lightweight and thus naturally preferring lighter wheat beers and largers, stout has never been my cup of...beer.    And on top of that, beer and chocolate is  not exactly a combination that screams delicious.  But when my Mum fell in love with this Chocolate Guinness Cake I knew I had to try and recreate it for her.

Homemade Oreos for Baking for Hospice

 

Procrastination is the thief of time. ~ Napoleon Hill

I'm supposed to be writing a genetics essay that's due this Friday but instead I looked up quotes on procrastination for this blog post.  Ironic.  The quotes are mostly all gloom and doom about how procrastination is bad yada yada yada but what the quotees have completely missed is this: Procrastination is fun.

I could've been looking up journal articles but instead I spent many a happy hour browsing Asos, Street Peeper, The Superficial, Tastespotting, not to mention all the food, fashion and design blogs I follow.  And now instead of essay writing, I am blogging.  Incidentally, blogging a post that I should have blogged about ages ago since the Baking for Hospice round I baked these Homemade Oreos for was waaaay back in July.

Yes, I am procrastinating by blogging about a recipe I have been procrastinating posting.  Poetic really.

Climb every mountain, make your own wedding cake

{photo by jel photography}

Climb every mountain, ford every steam, follow every rainbow, till you find your dream ~ The Sound of Music

Well, blow me down and call me Ed but I seem to have been conquering all sorts of culinary Everests recently.  Like macarons, making my own 2 tier wedding cake was for me an act of baking mountaineering.

I think this is one of my proudest baking achievements.  Really takes the cake.

What on earth possessed me to want to make my own wedding cake you ask, when a) I was living in a different city to where I was getting married, b) I've just started at Med school and c) I'd never made a tiered cake nor worked with fondant before???  Well, with professional wedding cakes costing around the NZD$1000 mark, there was definitely a huge financial incentive.  And then there was the reverse psychology incentive: the more people warned me against doing it, the more determined it made me.  You say: "Not a good idea Nessie, too stressful", I hear "Go on, I dare you".

Me, stubborn? No...

{photo by my cousin David}

Sunshine and Fush 'n' Chups at Tunnel Beach

{Tunnel Beach, Dunedin, New Zealand}

What's more, if you turn over a new leaf, and keep it turned, I'll cook you some taters one of these days. I will; fried fish and chips served by S. Gamgee. You couldn't say no to that. ~ J. R. R. Tolkien (The Two Towers)

An almost wordless post today.

Am a bit of a busy bee this week, working on a monster of a post bout the wedding cake making process, it's massive, gargantuan even, a post to end all posts and also writing up articles for our med school yearbook, organising our next round for Baking for Hospice, while trying not to think about exams fast approaching...

So instead of my usual verbose offerings, here's a tranquilly almost-wordless photo spread from an oh so kiwi fish and chips (or as we apparently pronounce it "fush 'n' chups") picnic at Tunnel Beach, Dunedin, New Zealand.  Just another gloriously sunny but mind-numbingly chilly day down south.

Best Blog Award: ta muchly Bunny Eats Design!

The gorgeous Genie from Bunny Eats Design has passed on the Best Blog award to me - what a total sweetie! Thanks so much hun!!!

Ok so the rules are that I'm supposed to answer some questions about myself and award 15 other blogs the award too and let them know all bout it.  So here goes!

Hong Kong Honeymoon: Foodies Highlights Part 2

{prawn and spinach dumplings? why yes please}

Before I get into the post proper I need to vent just a little....I was an unfortunate victim of a manky computer virus that had my poor laptop down for almost a week (a week!?) and requiring a lot of TLC to cox it back to life.  People who make viruses = not cool.  Grrrrr.

Ok, now that I got that off my chest...back to the foodie posting!

Now, how could I possibly blog about the wonders of Hong Kong food without talking about yum cha?  Yes, my friends, the 4th wonder of this Hong Kong Foodie Top 10 is not a dish but a whole way of eating.  In fact, this whole part 2 post chronicles uniquely Hong Kongese styles of chowing down.

Of course, this is by no means all the wacky ways of getting your eat on in HK...this is after all a top 10 from our trip and 6 days does not a comprehensive foodie tour make.  But even in 6 days we managed to rack up an impressive repertoire of eating styles, so without further ado, let the Hong Kong foodie good times roll.

{daikon cake? don't mind if I do}