December 2010 - White Christmas Ice Cream Cones

When I started out this blog at the beginning of the year I certainly didn't realise that I would find myself finishing up the year long trip through the issues of delicious. magazine with the 100th issue but it sure is a wonderful way to end up. The scanner did some delightful things to the holographic "delicious."  on the front cover of this issue too. Like I said in my last post I have thoroughly this journey through my back issues (and current issues) of delicious. I plan to keep using them regularly and posting new recipes from them, although not as strictly as I have this year. 

I can hardly believe that I have a stack of 100 issues of delicious. magazines now. I am glad that I do though. There are so many recipes, 1000's I am sure, to go through and to try out. I have only really scratched the surface here this year. I have had a few failures and a couple of things not to my taste but I think that is to be expected when you are trying new recipes. I have to be honest and say that Valli Little has become my foodie hero over this past year. Her recipes are almost always amazing and there are so many of them. I have to wonder how she comes up with all of them. I would think that a large proportion of the recipes I did this year were from her and I am sure that there will be many, many more to come in the future. 

While I earmarked a number of recipes in this issue there were only 2 that I really, really wanted to make. The first I will write about next month, since this is a double issue after all. The second was the magnificent cover recipe, Valli's White Christmas Ice Cream Cones. They just looked fantastic. The styling of the cover was just so beautiful as well. I figured that since it was the 100th issue I just had to do a cover recipe and it was a bonus that it was one of Valli's recipes too. I wish that I could have styled mine like the ones on the cover but, alas, I did not need 6 of these nor did I want to take out the three that I did make at once so my picture looks rather plain. I will also admit that I didn't really follow Valli's recipe either. Instead of using glace fruit chopped and soaked in sherry I used the last of my homemade fruit mince. For the chocolate, all that I had in the house was dark chocolate chips so I roughly chopped some of those up. I don't own wine flutes but I do have some ice cream soda glasses so I put my filled paper cones into them to refreeze. I really enjoyed this dessert a lot and it looked really good. I am sure that it would be just as good using Valli's original recipe but I wanted to use up some stuff that I had on hand so mine are more fruit mince Christmas cones than white Christmas cones but still very, very nice. 

White Christmas Ice Cream Cones

Makes 8 (I halved the recipe and got 3 with a little bit left over)

Ingredients 

• 125 gr mixed glace fruits
• 1/3 cup sherry
• 125 gr dark chocolate
• 1.25 litres vanilla ice cream, softened
• 2/3 cup slivered almonds, toasted and chopped

Method:

• Finely chop fruits and place in bowl with sherry and let soak overnight.
• To prepare paper moulds, cut eight 30cmx20cm sheets of baking paper. Trim 8 sheets of plain A-4 paper into the same size. Lay baking paper sheet over a sheet of regular paper and bring top right corners into the middle of the paper and then roll to form a cone shape. secure with sticky tape. Repeat with the remaining sheets of paper and place in 8 champagne flutes or slim wine glasses.
• Finely chop or grate chocolate.
• Drain the fruits and discard the liquid. 
• Fold into softened ice cream with the almonds and chocolate.
• Scoop the mixture into the cones, packing down ice cream tightly to get it into the point. 
• Put in freezer overnight to refreeze.
• To serve, remove tape and unwrap the paper. Invert cones onto serving plates.

December 2009 - Mangomisu

On to the penultimate issue for this year long journey. I can hardly believe how quickly this year seems to have gone and how wonderful this experience has been. I have certainly discovered a lot of lovely new recipes, ones that I have made and ones that I am going to go back to make. I am really please with how this has turned out. I will admit that when I started I was at a point of just buying delicious magazine because I always had. I didn't make much out of it and didn't even really read it that much. I have now rediscovered how wonderful it is. Discovered that there are an amazing amount of quick, easy and very delicious recipes in each issue. I can't wait to go back and try some of those recipes that I earmarked to make but haven't yet. 

This issue, like most, had a lot of recipes that I want to try. I have, in fact, started Valli Little's Apple Iced Tea tonight. I had planned on making this for Christmas day but I just didn't manage to get it done. Not that I really needed anything more at Christmas time so I decided to wait a little while to make it. However I found a bottle of apple juice on special today so decided to snap it up and make this while it was available. I am sure that it will be lovely and refreshing. I will not worry about the sliced apple as I will want it to last at least a few days in the fridge, plus apples are expensive at the moment. 

Another drink that I am quite interested in is Jill Dupleix's Young Coconut & Berry Slushies. I am intrigued by the young coconut juice. I think that it could be quite nice. I have never seen the plastic cups of young coconut juice with flesh that she writes of but I have seen cans of young coconut juice in the local supermarket so will probably try it with that. The berries are raspberries and anything with raspberries is good as far as I am concerned. This would definitely be one to try during the heat of summer. 

The recipe that I had originally picked to make for this post was Valli Little's Maple-glazed Ham. I planned to, and did make this for Christmas. I don't recall ever having glazed a ham before and I was fairly pleased with how this one turned out. The fat on it wasn't all that thick so that did expose the flesh more than I had wanted but it was still very good. Although I am left with a huge amount of ham to use. I will have to slice it up and freeze a large portion of it as there is no way that I will be able to get through it all. I really enjoyed the glaze. If there wasn't hundreds of wonderful sounding recipes out there to try I would probably do it again.

Ever since this issue came out a bit over a year ago I had always wanted to make Valli Little's divine looking Mangomisu which graces the cover of this issue. A delightful mango and orange flavoured tiramisu cake. I hadn't had an opportunity to make it. It was one that would be difficult, although not impossible, to reduce down in size and I didn't want to have too much of this hanging around for me to eat. Being full of cream and the rich mascarpone I knew that I wouldn't be the most agreeable thing for my grandfather so I waited for an opportunity to make it for my family when there would be other desserts on offer as well. My grandfather did end up having a small amount though and seemed to go okay. I didn't use the Grand Marnier as I am not overly keen on it so I just used extra orange juice. I ended up using a lot more savoiardi than specified. More like 450 g. The layers of savoiardi needed to be pressed down well for the whole of the dessert to fit in the springform tin, even so, it only just fit. I chilled overnight and  don't think that I would do anything less to be honest. To remove from the tin, I warmed a knife under hot water, dried it off and then ran it around the tin and it came out easily and looked wonderful. The raspberry sauce was a delightful addition. It is not strictly necessary but it adds a bit of a tang and cuts through the richness a bit. I highly recommend this dessert for your next special occasion. I think it will become a traditional addition. Although next time I am going to try it with some cherries and some grated chocolate on each layer for a black forest misu.

December 2008 - Chicken Parcels with basil, tomato & bocconcini

Nice quite day here. I telephoned my family overseas for Christmas. They were all gathering at my Uncle's house today for their Christmas meal so I took advantage of that and rang in one hit. It was so good to talk to them all, I wish I could have been there myself though. Hopefully I will get over for there again for Christmas one of these years, I just need to do a better job at saving money. Perhaps that should be my new year's resolution...do better at saving. Actually, that probably isn't such a bad idea.

I really wanted to make the cover recipe from this issue, Valli Little's Chicken salad with Spiced Figs and Buffalo Mozzarella. It really looks so very delicious. The spiced figs are actually kind of like mulled figs as they are poached in a red wine and spice mix that reminded me very much of mulled wine, except for the inclusion of 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar which would give a wonderful richness and tang to the poaching liquid. This liquid is then reduced down to be a dressing for the salad. The chicken is browned in a fry pan and then finished off in the oven. I would probably add some extra greens but I think that this would make a wonderful lunch. I didn't get to make it as figs aren't in season here yet so I will have to wait to give it a try. 

I considered two recipes for my Christmas eve (well day at the time) meal. Ham with red wine & cinnamon glaze. It sounded really good but I found a different recipe that I wanted to make more. The Cranberry Meringue tarts also looked really, really good. Although the meringue on top was actually little meringue kisses that were cooked separately. If I had made it I probably would have done it more like a lemon meringue pie/tart and spread with a regular meringue and brown it either with a blast in the oven or with a blow torch. In the end I went with something different, which didn't even end up being ready on the night but that was okay because I had already eaten more than enough. 

One night I found myself with a chicken breast that really needed to be used up so I went through the December issues and came across Louise Pickford's Chicken Parcels with Basil, Tomato and Bocconcini. This was really, really easy and quick to make. I only used the bambini bocconcini so I probably should have used a bit more than I did as it pretty much disappeared. The chicken was lovely a moist though. I used some of the lemon basil that I have growing to add a little citrus tang to it and it was delicious. I will admit that I forgot the balsamic glaze when I plated up but it was still very nice without it. I ended up serving with asparagus and carrots. It was all very good. 

December 2007 - Wasabi-coated Salmon with Cucumber Salad

Well, it is a ridiculous hour of the night/morning. I had just managed to get to sleep after tossing and turning and then some hoon decided to race up and down the street outside honking their horn. Grrrr. Now I am feeling tired but also unable to get back to sleep presently so I thought that I would get a post done. I had a lovely Christmas, I hope that all of you out there did too. I spent almost all day out, firstly with my aunt & uncle for a lovely roast lamb & veg lunch. followed by plum pudding and trifle.  I then spent the afternoon/evening with friends and their family. It was a lovely day. I even managed not to eat too much. 

From this issue I considered making Ben O'Donoghue's Mexican Barbequed Pork Belly. It looked like a really good recipe where you make your own Adobo marinade. I have been curious about adobo as I have read a number of Mexican recipes that use a "can of chipotle chillies in adobo sauce" and I was never really sure what it was. I knew that I wasn't able to buy the product in the local supermarket, although I know a couple of places to get it online. Ben's recipe seems quite easy. There were two reasons that I didn't do this recipe. The first is that I don't have a gas bottle for my bbq so that makes using it rather impossible. The second reason is that I have used a lot of pork belly recently and I decided that it was time for a change. I do really like pork belly but it certainly isn't the healthiest cut of meat and I really think that it needs to be a very occasionally thing. In fact I probably need to leave making it for when I am having company so that I don't have a heap of leftovers to eat too. 

I also considered making Kate Nichols' Pancetta, Sage & Onion Stuffing (or one of the variations) as part of my Christmas meal. I was, at one point considering making both a glazed ham and stuffed rolled turkey breast. However, I finally realised that as much as it would have been lovely, it would be just too much food for me. So since I had the ham in the fridge and the turkey breast (which I actually bought ages ago) was in the freezer I decided to just do the ham. I will do the turkey at some other time and might do this lovely sounding stuffing for it then. 

When I went through this issue in January I referred Valli Little's lovely sounding Wasabi-coated Salmon with Cucumber Salad. It just looked and sounded so good and lovely and refreshing. I just love wasabi. I have a terrific recipe for rice salad with wasabi dressing. I have also used the dressing on other salads too. I really like snacking on the wasabi peas. They have a wonderful heat to them. It is hot and sharp but doesn't burn for a long time. I really enjoyed this. The wasabi in it was really subtle though so I think that next time I would reduce the amount of flour. The processor didn't do the best of jobs processing the peas up, I think it would have been better if I had done it in batches rather than trying all at once. It  probably would be just as easy to bash them up in a mortar & pestle however I forked out the money for a KitchenAid food processor so I use it as much as possible. The salad that went with it was excellent. I used alfalfa sprouts instead of the bean sprouts as that is what I could get. Plus I much prefer alfalfa to bean sprouts. I have said before that I am not hugely keen on seafood but I did really like this and I really want to start incorporating more seafood into my diet so I will be on the look out for more meals like this one. Tasty, light and fresh. 

December 2006 - Soft Breakfast Tacos

Happy Christmas eve to everyone out there reading. I hope that you are having a great one. I am so glad that I had the day off work today as I actually managed to get a whole bunch of stuff done. I got all my washing and cleaning done, something I haven't done in just one day for ages. Plus I made my Christmas meal for myself. Half of my family live overseas and when with them we always had  a big dinner on Christmas eve. I decided to go with that this year as I will be spending Christmas day out and I still wanted to get my usual Christmas treats, like my once a year Jellied Carrot Salad. Not your usual salad fare but it is something that both my gramma and mum used to make and pretty much takes me straight back to childhood. The reason it only gets make once a year is because it is made with jelly, crushed pineapple with juice, sugar, grated carrot and a whole bunch of whipped cream. Definitely not an every day thing but wonderful for a once-a-year Christmas treat and I enjoyed it a lot tonight.

I have actually made two dishes from this issue. The first was Valli Little's Tamarind-roasted Vegetables. I am sure that I must have done something wrong when I made this as it was just awful. In fact, I couldn't even eat it. The favour was hideous and it was so overcooked and some parts were burnt. Okay, so the overcooked and burnt were probably my fault, I should have taken it out earlier. I have a feeling that the taste problem was the tamarind. I have always bought tamarind concentrate from Herbie's Spices but I was out and I found some in the supermarket and decided to give it a try. It seemed different than the stuff from Herbie's. It was definitely a lighter colour. I will be getting more from Herbie's and will try it again because I have made a tamarind potato dish before and it was fantastic so I am determined that this one will be too.

The other recipe from this issue was one that I have always wanted to make, Kate Tait's Soft Breakfast Tacos. After the disaster with the vegetables I just wanted to make something else from the issue as there is a lot of nice things in there. This was just perfect. I made this for breakfast this morning. I didn't have any cream so just used milk which makes it a bit healthier, especially since I got a large dose of cream tonight. I also substituted the coriander for parsley, which I have an abundance of in the garden. In the salsa I just used the tabasco sauce rather than chilli and tabasco sauce and it was spicy enough for me. I really enjoyed it. It was very easy and quick to make and was sufficiently filling for breakfast. I will definitely be making these again.