Dining with Dolphins

We have been onboard our cruise ship, Celebrity Century, for 9 nights so far and it is amazing. My SH and I have been on 5 cruises now, working our way up from the boozy cruise of our honeymoon on the Fairstar in 1996 (they didn’t call it the “Fun Ship” for nothing!) to more recently the Princess Line on the Sun and Dawn Princesses. Sailing with Celebrity is a more mature experience. There are no activities that would interest our children, and in fact, we are amongst the youngest passengers on the ship. There are probably only about 30 or 40 passengers around our age group out of about 1890 passengers. Having said that, we are having a great time despite the age differences we are encountering. We have met some truly lovely people and are enjoying finding out about their home towns and the differences between our countries. Most of the passengers are from the US, but there are also passengers from the UK, Germany, Australia (although we are among the minority) and various parts of Europe and Asia.

Our cruise is sailing from Auckland to Fremantle for 18 nights, and is called the “Bottom Circumnavigation Cruise” as it is sailing from New Zealand around the bottom of Australia to Perth. So far we are still in New Zealand, with tomorrow being our last day here before sailing to Sydney, Australia. We have been to Tauranga, Akaroa, Christchurch, and Dunedin; finishing our tour of New Zealand with a day sailing through the Dusky, Doubtful and Milford Sounds in fjordland. All of these places have been just so pretty and we enjoyed visiting all of them. We were saddened to see the destruction in Christchurch that the earthquakes have caused. It is a bit like a ghost city as it is very quiet; the silence only broken by the sound of masonry crashing down from the terminally damaged buildings in the “Red Zone”.

Anyway, enough of all that; this is a food blog! I wish there was some way I could let you all experience the pleasure that the food on this ship is giving me. It is just the most amazing sensation, to be eating food of such a high standard every night. The main dining room is at the rear of the ship and reaches out over two levels. It is a stunning room, and our table is at the very rear of the restaurant overlooking the ocean and the wake of the ship. Each night we look out over the water and we can see dolphins jumping over the waves, chasing after the ship. We have also been privy to an albatross, with a wing span of more than 6 feet, dipping and soaring along the wind currents behind us. The sea has held our attention almost as much as the food has.

The Grand Restaurant serves a gourmet “a la carte” menu every meal (breakfast, lunch and dinner). The selection is sometimes too much, as I am struggling to choose which meal I want to have at any given moment. I have decided that I am going to choose the foods that I have never had before, if that is an option. With that thought in mind, I have already eaten Frogs’ Legs (buffalo style) and Foie Gras, both of which are completely new to me. I was particularly pleased with how delicious the frogs’ legs were as I had heard varying reviews of them. To me they tasted partly like chicken, but also a little like fish. The foie gras is not something that I will hurry to have again. SH chose this for his entrée, and while he did try it, he was very quick to let me finish the dish as the consistency is… well I would say it is “tricky” to stomach. It was very jelly like, where I had imagined it would be more like a pate.

Frogs' Legs

Enjoying dinner at the Murano restaurant. SH has foie gras and I have the escargot.

The frogs’ legs were part of our regular dining menu, but the foie gras was actually part of the meal we were served in the specialty restaurant onboard, Murano. This restaurant serves a menu that you might find in a 3 star Michelin restaurant in France. It had the most amazing choices on the menu, and the waiters and Maitre D’ Restaurant were all very helpful when it came to making our choices. Some of the dishes are prepared at your table side, so there is a great deal of showmanship in the evening as well. We were treated like royalty, and they really went out of their way to ensure that we were having a great time.

While dining at the Murano, we also both ate black truffle for the first time. SH had a Romaine salad with black truffle vinaigrette which he said was sublime. Perched on top of his salad was an egg “sunny side up” with a sliver of truffle sitting in the middle. Quite an interesting flavour, it certainly added something extra to his salad. However we both joked that the truffle probably cost more than we had paid for the meal itself! We left our wine choices to our Sommelier as they have paired particular wines to each meal. This meant that I was served a Pinot from Santa Barbara, California with my duck dish, which was actually really good. This is only the second time I have had red wine since the Tahbilk Taste of Shiraz dinner, and I definitely liked the Pinot better than the other reds as it wasn’t as heavy.

There are so many different food experiences available onboard the Century. So far I have been to a cooking demonstration where they showed off the types of dishes that are presented at the Murano. Then SH and I went to a presentation showing us how to cook the perfect steak; and another that was focused solely on chocolate. There are others later in the cruise to do with desserts, pastries and so on.

Perhaps the event that excited me most so far? Being one of 10 people attending a cooking class with the Executive Chef and some of his staff! This was a 4 hour event, that included about 2 ½ hours of cooking lesson time, followed by lunch with the Chef enjoying the food we had created. I also received an autographed copy of the Celebrity cook book, which has over 260 recipes in it! I got to wear the apron and the hat and took photos of the food and the preparation. It was so much fun! 

We worked with the Executive Chef, learning as we went. He talked us through each step, and then we went ahead and did them ourselves. The entree was a smoked salmon, avocado mousse and peeky toe crab dish. I can't remember the name of the dish, but it was really pretty in the book and mine finished up looking exactly like the picture! The main was a BBQ Chilean Snapper on mash, that was absolutely delicious, and the new skill I learned while making this dish was how to flip food in a pan without using tongs. I've never done that before, so I was pretty stoked when I didn't end up with fish or mash all over the hot plate.

My entree

Chef's entree

Chef's main

My main

Lunch with the Executive Chef

So as you can tell, this trip is going to cause a few kilos to take up residence on my hips – but it is so worth it!

Happy Australia Day!

My friend over at Rhyme Time shared an idea with me for Australia Day that is from the New Idea Magazine. She knows how much I love to make and bake gorgeous food, and felt that I would love these too. Very easy to make, these Koala Cupcakes are sure to be a huge hit with my kids tomorrow. They will love their special Australia Day treat.

I will let you in on a dirty little secret though... I didn't make the cakes from scratch! When I decided to make these little beauties I knew that I would want to send some to my lovely neighbours next door. Their young son has a dairy allergy, so the recipe needed to be adapted to suit him too. I have had the most insane couple of weeks (I'll fill you in at the end of the post about everything that has been going on) and really really didn't feel like baking, but I also really wanted to make these for the kids. So instead, I went to the supermarket and found a packet mix that is gluten free, dairy free, nut free etc etc. Super easy to make once I used the milk and margarine that he can have, and I know that it won't make him sick.

Anyway, once the cakes were made, I whipped up some buttercream frosting and coloured it with black food colouring until it made the most beautiful silvery grey colour. Then dipped them in the coconut, made the ears from pink marshmallows (cut in half, iced and coated in coconut); the eyes are mini choc chips or mini chocolate M&M's; and the nose is a black jelly bean. Add one Australiana prop and you have a True Blue, Dinky Di, Aussie Morning Tea!

***********************************

On a side note... The reason for the madness and mayhem at my house lately is that I have quit my job at Curves - I am instead embarking on a new career as a Family Day Care provider. Basically this means that I am my own boss, working from home caring for other people's children. This is all very regulated and official and runs through our local council. It has involved lots of work around my house getting it all up to scratch as far as safety issues go (Big thanks to my Dad for all his hard work, as he has been the one making it all happen!). I will also be going back to school, studying for my Certificate III in Children's Services. I'm very excited about all of this and hope that it works out well.

In addition to all this we are madly packing for a holiday. Just before Christmas my SH entered a competition with an online Cruise magazine and he won a trip for two onboard the Celebrity Century cruising from Auckland to Fremantle for 18 nights! We have come to realise just how great my parents are as they have agreed to watch our kids (and our house) while we make the most of this opportunity. What a great start to the year!

Pay It Forward 2012

Well folks, I have done it again! I swore that I wouldn't do another PIF project after last year and I have just committed to doing another! It was a great experience last year, but far too involved for what should have been an easy process. Painted projects are time intensive and very personal. I found the whole process very stressful and I constantly worried whether my work would be as appreciated as I would hope. I know that wasn't the point of doing the project, however my heart and soul went into each piece that I worked on, and it felt like giving a little piece of me away each time with no guarantee that the recipient would love it as I did.

So that being the case, I have decided that I won't be painting anything for the project this year. I have other plans in mind! I'm going to make 6 pieces again (it's supposed to be five, but seeing that I couldn't count last year and completed 6, I'm going to do the same again this year) but this time they are all going to be the same item, just different versions thereof. The good thing with this method is that I can work in batches, so I should be able to complete them more readily. Last year I worked on the projects one at a time and began in February, finishing the last one at the end of September! Hopefully I will be able to complete these ones in a more timely fashion.

Who knows, if it all works out, I might do a "Part 2" for the second half of the year! I love giving people things that I have made. Usually it's food, but in this case it's something that they can use. No Spoilers! Nearly gave it away there! You will just have to wait until I have posted them out before I will be posting photos. So... until next then, I'll leave you guessing!

18 Christmas Cakes & A Gingerbread House

Well it has been a marathon couple of weeks in my kitchen. I have been baking Christmas cakes for sale as I blogged about earlier. I finished decorating the last of my cakes today and it was such a relief. I am really pleased with how it all went as I ended up with orders for 18 cakes. So far the response to the cakes has been extremely positive. The decorating went well, helped along by my awesome mum. Between the two of us we decorated 16 of the cakes in 2 hours last week. The other two cakes were still baking, and I decorated them this afternoon.

Some of the cakes ready for decoration. We cut out boards to fit under each of them.

The first six cakes decorated. My mum brought a selection of ornaments to put on top of the cakes.

All finished and ready to be wrapped in cellophane.

In the midst of baking and decorating Christmas cakes I have also been baking decorated Christmas cookies, gingerbread Christmas ornaments and now today, a Gingerbread House.

My kids were given a kit of cutters to make a Gingerbread House, so we decided to use it before Christmas so that they could show their uncle on Christmas Day (he is the one who gave them the kit). I love making gingerbread and have a great recipe from my mum. We make it every year, cutting out Christmas shapes and then once they are baked, we hang them on our Christmas tree. My kids love spending the week before Christmas eating them, and it makes the house smell delicious.  So this year I have made gingerbread twice, once with my neighbour and her two kids, and now again today to make a Gingerbread House. Once the house was cut out and baked we started taking photos and putting it all together.

I used a recipe for the royal icing that I found over at Sweetopia. The only thing I found was that my egg whites were very fresh and I think that affected the consistency of the icing. I needed to use almost twice the amount of icing sugar to get it right.

Once I did get the right consistency I was about to start raising the walls and putting the roof on.

Raising the walls.

First side of the roof is going on.

I did decorative trim along the joins to make it prettier.

 Because the icing is so thick I did all the assembly work and then my kids were able to start decorating.

I have to say that I am really happy with the job they did. They worked really hard, and only ate a few of the lollies as they were going along. Most of them ended up on the house!

Painted Presents

My sister and I have been busy painting again, and this week we both finished the projects we have currently been working on. We are starting to advertise our pieces for sale, and are putting together an album on our facebook page for people to look at. If you are local and would like to purchase one of our hand painted items for a great Christmas gift, feel free to pop over and browse our album at Painted For You. If you like what you see there, feel free to share our page with your family and friends too. We are trying to build our profile and would love it if you could "like" our page. The more the merrier, I say!

Also, you might be interested in having a look at the new page I have created called  Pay It Forward Project 2011 at the top of this blog. The Pay It Forward (PIF) Project was something I took part in on Facebook. It began as a status update (somewhere, by someone - I don't know who) that offered to give 5 friends something handmade if they promised to copy and paste the status as their own and offer the same to 5 of their friends; thereby paying it forward. I thought this sounded like fun, and it was a good reason to get back into painting again. I finished my first project on the 19th of February, 2011 and finished my last project on 28th September, 2011. It took an average of 8 - 10 hours to complete each project. I had great fun doing it, but won't be participating again next year.

Christmas Cakes by Jen

"Christmas Cakes by Jen." That's what the sign on the wall at my work says. I decided a week ago that I would try to sell a few Christmas Cakes at work to make a bit of pocket money. Optimistic in my selling power, I put 12 spaces on the order form as I thought that I would be doing well to get that many. I am selling 8" Decorated Christmas Cakes for $35 each and this is obviously a bargain as in the space of a week I have have received orders for 15!

Needless to say, I am madly preparing myself to bake and decorate this many cakes. So far I have baked 5 and have another 4 ready to go in the oven over this weekend. I need to do something each day to make sure that I keep up with demand. I'm hoping to decorate them all next weekend, so they must all be baked by then.

The exciting thing about all this? I said on my form that I would be taking orders up until the 9th December. So I still have another week of potential orders! Who knows how many cakes I will end up selling by the end of the week! I am truly thankful that I said COD and pick up only, I would hate to have to deliver them all!

Cookies for a Cure & Gingerdead Men

I've decided that cupcakes are so last year. I have discovered decorated cookies and I love them! I think they are gorgeous and some of the ones I have seen are so intricate that they scare me. I have begun following a couple of bloggers on Facebook who do these cookies on a regular basis and I am head over heels in love with them. You can check them out here Bubble and Sweet and here Sweetopia. I am not the most confident person when it comes to working with icing, so this is a bit of a stretch for me. Luckily there are some great videos over at Sweetopia that have given me a head start on the decorating with royal icing. I also thank Bubble and Sweet for some great tips with recipes to follow and advice on using the fondant icing.

My SH and I have been trying to cut out sugar from our diets at the moment for health reasons, so I have been backing off the baking. This is all well and good, but I have to bring something to our Girls' Night In at work on Wednesday night this week. The other night I browsed the internet to find some Pink recipes that I could make that were relatively easy to make. I came up with Pink Marbled Meringues and Cookies for a Cure. Yay! I had a legitimate reason to bake some cookies now.

The first thing I decided to make was the meringues as I figured this would be an easy recipe as I make pavlova all the time with great success. I followed the recipe exactly, and they were a fizzer! The meringues took on a golden colour on the outside and they were undercooked inside. I have decided that I am never going to follow another recipe for pavlova or meringue again. Mine works, and I should have trusted myself to begin with. So saying, I made a second batch, my way, and they were awesome! Exactly how I envisaged them turning out. The recipe is the same as my pavlova with a few drops of red food colouring swirled through it. Then I dropped small spoonfuls of the mixture onto baking trays dusted with cornflour.

The cookies were next, and I used a recipe that I found over at Bubble and Sweet. It is the easiest cookie recipe to make and cut. I am really happy with how well they turned out. I chose a simple design, a heart shape, covered with white fondant and then a pink fondant ribbon on top. They are super delicious too, which is making it really hard for me to leave them safe inside their Tupperware container!

The other batch of cookies I made are very different from the first batch. I don't remember exactly what prompted my online search, but I was looking at cookie cutters and came across this little guy and just had to have him! I decided to steer clear of gingerbread as the base for these cookies, opting instead for a chocolate sugar cookie. Again, I found the recipe on Bubble and Sweet's blog. I decided to use Dutch cocoa instead of the regular cocoa I normally bake with as I really wanted a dark chocolate biscuit. I am so very impressed with this recipe and how easy it is to use. These are my gorgeous Chocolate Skeleton Cookies.

The skeletons are filled in with Royal Icing.