FFwD - Gnocchi la Parisienne

The opening photo says it all! Yes, when I saw that this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Gnocchi a la Parisienne, was effectively dough balls in white sauce and cheese, I felt slightly green. This is a dish that never in a million years would I have chosen to make by myself.

However, the food adventurer in me stepped up to the plate and made it anyway, and you know what? It ain't half bad. Gnocchi a la Parisienne is really just mac and cheese with balls of boiled dough instead of boiled pasta, and it tastes just fine - sure, a little on the nursery food side, like mac and cheese, but seriously not bad. It would be perfect as a midnight snack after coming home from a hard night out.

The bechamel sauce was rather thick, so I found it difficult to spread over my dough balls, but overall, this is a relatively easy dish to make. As I didn't want to eat this for the rest of the week, I cut the recipe down to "perfect for two" size.

Here are my "attractive" dough balls just after boiling - the dough is very sticky and stuck to the spoon that I was shaping the balls with, hence the odd shapes:

This is the other major component of the dish - bechamel sauce:

And here is the finished dish after baking - scary, isn't it!

To see what the other FFwD members thought of this dish, check out the LYL section on the website.

I finish with a quick message to the people of Brisbane, who are currently affected by major floods - my thoughts are with you, and hope that you stay safe.

"Perfect" bread and butter pudding

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains ...

My Country, Dorothea MacKellar

When Dorothea MacKellar wrote My Country, first published in 1908, she hit the nail on the head with these lines. Aged 8, I helped my class to decorate our grade three classroom with crepe paper and painted cardboard in vivid oranges and reds and yellows for the Carnival of Flowers, never suspecting that in my adult life, I would experience for myself the truth of Dorothea's words so close to home.

My home town of Toowoomba went through around 5 or so years of drought, and survived on tough Level 5 water restrictions for much of that time, with its dams for its water supply down to 7% capacity. Now, in a strange irony, for the first time in almost 11 years, the dams are at 100% capacity, and the town experienced heretofor unheard of flash flooding on Monday afternoon. Unfortunately, two people were caught in those floods in the CBD and died, and much of the CBD has been devastated, with the fast flowing waters causing mass destruction. Unlike the floods earlier this month further north in Queensland, Monday's flood struck without warning and hit hard. One of the parts of town worst hit by the foods is where the lovely Platform 9 tearooms that I introduced you to recently are situated. I have no idea how it fared, but I know that many shops in the area had their windows blown out by the water and their contents swept away down the main streets. For one of many examples on YouTube, here is one filmed near the Greyhound bus depot. Thankfully, my family and their home are safe and well, but my heart goes out to those who are not so fortunate.

Moving right along ... Remember my poor unloved stollen from Christmas? I decided to make it into bread pudding. For half of the stollen, and bread pudding attempt no. 1, I used this recipe for bread and butter pudding in The Guardian. It claims to be "perfect" bread and butter pudding. Hmm, I am not sure that I agree. It tastes OK, but is a little lacking in custard - although it was silky smooth and not at all eggy. I recommend at least doubling the custard.

Here is the pudding ready for baking:


It doesn't beat Donna Hay's marmalade version that I have tried - I might try that with the rest of the stollen.

Do you have a favourite bread and butter pudding recipe? If you do, I'd love to hear about it.

TWD - Lemon Curd Filled Chocolate Madeleines

Hello Tuesday! You know what that means - Tuesday with Dorie. This week, it's the turn of the lovely Margot from Efforts to Deliciousness to choose the recipe, and she picked Fluff-Filled Chocolate Madeleines. Do take the time to stop by Margot's blog, and do say hi to Eloise while you are there.

Madeleines were new to me until I started blogging, but I now know that they are elegant little shell-shaped sponge cakes:



Hmmm - luckily for me, I read a lot of blogs and had heard of this mysterious "marshmallow fluff" stuff before, otherwise my mind might have wondered to belly button fluff - and no good can come of that! Marshmallow fluff is not something that is readily available here, so as suggested in Dorie's "Playing Around" section, I filled my madeleines with some of the lemon curd that my brother had bought me from a market during the holidays:


You really can't pipe much filling in before the madeleines start to explode.

The madeleines are finally supposed to be dipped in chocolate ganache. Unfortunately, the supermarket where I bought my supplies were out of fresh cream, so I bought reduced fat canned cream. It worked to make ganache, but the cream had a yoghurty texture, which made very thick ganache. This meant that I had to plaster my ganache on like spack-filler:



My madeleines therefore are not elegant - but they do remind me of The Beatles in their mop top days.

Thanks to Margot for hosting us this week - she will have the recipe, as well as it being in Dorie's book. To check out how the other TWD bakers went, visit the TWD blogroll.

FFwD - Paris Mushroom Soup

Howdy and welcome to the first French Friday with Dorie for this year. We are all making the same recipe again, and this week, it is Paris Mushroom Soup.

I would be lying if I said that I wanted to make this. As I have mentioned before, I am not a particular fan of soup, and a soup with raw veges in the bottom and made of mushrooms cooked in chicken stock doesn't sound very appealing.

However, I divided the recipe by 6 and made soup for one - and I actually didn't mind it. I won't be making it again, but as a once-off experience, it was fine.

Here are the mushrooms with onion and garlic frying in the pan:


These are simmered with herbs (in my case, dried tarragon), chicken stock and white wine, then pureed:

I had to add more water to the soup, as mne was a little thick. The soup is then reheated, and then poured over a whole raw mushroom (in my case, two) and chives. You are also supposed to add a bunch of other things, but in my case, this would have been a total waste:


If you like soup and are a fungus fan, this soup may please your palate. I thought it was just fine, and tasted better than many other soups that I have endured in my lifetime (condensed pea with ham, anyone?).


Check out the LYL section of the FFwD website to see what everyone else thought of this soup.

Easy Blueberry Muffins

Good morning! How are you faring after the holidays? I have to say that it was difficult dragging myself into work after getting used to doing as I pleased, but unfortunately I need the dosh, so off to work I went! Day one was not too bad - I think a lot of people are still away, and I did a horrendous tender response due this week while I was on leave so that I didn't come back with it hanging over my head. The pressure of it would have done my head in.

I needed something to pop into my lunch bag for morning tea at work this week. I was going to make the muffins we have on our list for TWD in a couple of weeks, but they called for sour cream - this is not something I keep in the house, especially when I have been away for a week and a bit. Instead, I turned to one of my newest cookbooks for inspiration - In the Kitchen by Allan Campion and Michele Curtis. Allan and Michele are Melburnians, and you can go on shopping tours and do cooking classes with them. Their book was a recent book club offering at work, and as it was chunky and practical and cheap as chips (much less than the RRP), I couldn't pass it up.

I wanted muffins, but they had to contain ingredients I had in the house, and they couldn't be outrageously sinful (ie packed with butter, chocolate, coconut, Oreos etc). In the Kitchen contains a recipe for Basic Muffins - it fulfilled my criteria, and even better, it only makes a small batch (6 muffins - although I got 8) so that I am not chomping on the same muffins ad nauseum. They are also quick and easy - no equipment other than a bowl and a spoon plus measuring cups is required.

I followed the recipe to a "T", except that I substituted the 50g of melted butter for 50ml of canola oil, and threw in a punnet of blueberries for flavour. Simple!

If you, like me, want something tasty and quick with basic ingredients that isn't too OTT, you can make these muffins with the following ingredients:

150g (1 cup) self raising flour
pinch of salt
110g (1/2 cup) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 egg
125ml (1/2 cup) milk
50g melted butter (or 50ml canola oil)
1 punnet blueberries (optional)

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and line 6 x 1/2 cup muffin holes with paper muffin cups.

Place the flour, sugar and salt into a bowl and mix briefly to combine. Add the vanilla, egg, butter and milk to the bowl, and beat until smooth. (I mixed the wet ingredients separately in a jug before adding them to the dry ingredients, to make it easier to combine them.) Toss in the blueberries (or any fruits or nuts or berries or choc chips that take your fancy) at this stage, and stir gently to just mix through.

Spoon the batter equally into the 6 muffin cups, and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until the muffins are golden on top and risen.

Remove the muffins from the oven and turn them out onto a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy with a coffee or just by themselves.

My muffins are displayed on a plate given to me by my brother for Christmas. It is a "vintage" plate from an antique store, and features a hunting scene - just people in red coats riding horses with a beagle, nothing more gruesome than that. I quite like it, and it was very thoughtful of my brother to buy it, as he did so specifically for me to display my baking on. Well done bro!

TWD - Midnight Crackles

Happy New Year! It's a new year for Tuesdays with Dorie as well, and to kick it off, the founder of TWD, Laurie of Slush, and Jules of Someone's in the Kitchen, selected Dorie's Midnight Crackles for us to bake.

These are deep, dark and chocolatey biscuits - a true chocolate lover's delight. They are made with melted chocolate, not cocoa, which ups the ante for the chocolate lover. My biscuits were crisp on the outside and soft in the middle - I am not sure whether this is how they were supposed to be, but I was happy with the result.

These biscuits were so good that I packaged up as many as possible into a pretty box (decorated by moi), tied the box with a ribbon, and gave it to our lovely Pilates night receptionist, Tiffany, who is leaving for the Gold Coast. We will miss you Tiff!




Dorie suggests that these biscuits can also be spiced up with some ground ginger or candied ginger - this would be worth a try next time, as chocolate coated ginger is one of my favourite things. (Santa knows this and duly left me a box of it under the tree this Christmas - thank you Santa!

To see what the other TWD members thought of these biscuits, visit the TWD blogroll. If you would like the recipe, visit Jules (website above), or buy Dorie's sensational book, Baking From My Home to Yours.

Platform 9 - Railway Refreshment Rooms, Toowoomba

On the Queensland Railway Lines

There are stations where one dines

Private individuals

Also run refreshment stalls

From "On the Queensland Railway Lines", Brisbane Realist Writers Group, 1959

While I was on holidays with my family, I took us all out for morning tea at Platform 9, the old Railway Refreshment Rooms at the Toowoomba Railway Station.

The charm of Platform 9 is that it preserves the old world atmosphere of the Railway Refreshment Rooms for younger generations to enjoy, with many original furnishings, cutlery and crockery, and cabinets displaying artifacts from a by-gone era.

As you step inside, you are immediately transported back in time:

There is a beautiful polished wood bar just inside the door, which also has a coffee machine and a cash register in its modern incarnation:

The operators of Platform 9 have retained the old serving area and cash register for display:

The grand dining area features pressed metal ceilings and polished wood furniture:

Each table is beautifully set with crisp white linen:

There is a series of display cabinets featuring relics from the hey day of the Railway Refreshment Rooms, and a sign telling the story of the Refreshment Rooms:

Wouldn't you love to take a picnic basket like this on your trip today (although it would be very heavy with all that crockery)?

An old menu is displayed, together with the bargain basement price list of the day:

I ordered a devonshire tea, which I think is the best morning tea offering. (My Mum found her carrot cake a little dry.) The tea is served in original Queensland Rail crockery:

The scones are light and fluffy, and come dusted with icing sugar and accompanied by plum jam and cream:

If you are ever passing through Toowoomba, Platform 9 (which also serves lunch and dinner, Tuesday to Saturday) is well worth a visit for a trip down memory lane.

Platform 9

Toowoomba Railway Station

Railway Street

Toowoomba Qld 4350

07 4631 3233