Sunday

Kicked off last Sunday with brunch at home before a nice walk in Central Park.


Chick Pea's poached egg with asparagus, proscuitto and truffle oil

I have yet to name this creation, though I did get my inspiration from ’inoteca in the Lower East Side, a lively Italian restaurant serving various kinds of tramezzini, panini and bruschetta. We were there a few weeks ago and I had this wonderful truffled egg toast - a thick slice of toast with an egg in the middle, covered in yummy melted cheese and a drizzle of truffle oil.

Poaching eggs isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. All it took was just a skillet with about 2 inches of water. Wait for the water to boil, bring it down to a simmer and plonk the egg in. Give it a few seconds for the egg white to form and then you swirl the water a bit to give the egg white a nice shape and 5 to 6 minutess later, voila, a perfectly poached egg.

After this filling meal we set off for a walk around Central Park. The weather here is still quite brisk but it was nice to get some fresh air after being couped up in the apartment all morning.



The Gates is an exhibition that has been showing in Central Park for about 2 weeks now. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to read up on it but seeing it in the Park was spectacular. Over 5,000 brightly coloured saffron "gates" were laid out on the footpaths around the Park. It certainly brightened up the grey drabness of winter. Makes me look forward to spring, which is hopefully just around the corner...

New York Times, New York Metro and Bobby Flay

A funny thing happened over the weekend. Well, not exactly funny but it gave me a little chuckle.

Nothing beats a Sunday afternoon sprawled on the couch with the Sunday New York Times and a cup of coffee. My favourite section is the Sunday Styles Weddings Section which lists the weddings of the week. Now bear in mind that most of the people that actually announce their wedding in this section aren’t your typical Mr and Mrs Average (that is of course if she chooses to take her hubby’s name, darling). No, this section is fun to read because of the amount of detail that goes into describing the bride and groom’s impeccable ivy league education, their fabulous jobs and what their parents did before they retired to their mansion in the Hamptons. No, let me correct myself. My favourite section within Weddings is the corrections for the previous week’s announcements. “The groom’s father is a full professor at XYZ University, NOT associate professor”. Woop de dooh dah, does anyone care??

Anyway an article in the latest issue of New York Metro says that the New York Times will now be charging people for the privilege of announcing their wedding in the newspaper. This will make future announcements more interesting for sure.

Over the weekend Bobby Flay, everyone’s favourite Food Network chef (not) got hitched. According to the column it’s his third trip down the aisle, good luck to his lady I suppose.

I have to say that out of all the Food Network chefs Bobby Flay is the one that I despise the most. Despise is a strong word yes, but he is such an arrogant schmuck I just have to turn the TV off when he’s on. Watch any one of his shows and you’ll know what I mean. And it seems I’m not the only one that feels that way. This was a pretty interesting article about Mr Flay.

Rachel Ray’s on-air enthusiasm is wearing a little thin too but that’s another post.

The funny thing about all of this is that the article made a reference to a blog called Veiled Conceit devoted entirely to trashing the New York Times Weddings section which I have duly bookmarked. The latest entry on Mr Flay is hilarious.

So there you go. I thought I was the only one that felt that way about The NY Times Wedding section and Bobby Flay but thank goodness I'm not...

Italian Wedding Soup

What better way to warm up than with a nice hot bowl of yummy soup!

My favourite Food Network show at the moment is Giada's Every Day Italian and I saw her make this a while back. It looked so yummy I had to try it out for myself last Sunday. I'm not sure why its called wedding soup, but I can say it is delish!!

It's a really easy recipe and so quick to make, I might save it for a weeknight dinner next time since it took no time at all - half an hour tops. After I threw everything in the bowl, John helped make the meatballs while I prepared the stock and escarole.

I made some small modifications as her recipe serves 8 plus I wanted to use up some ingredients I had. I also added some egg noodles to the soup to make it more filling, but it can be left out for a lighter version. You can find her original recipe here.

Italian Wedding Soup

Serves 2-3

Meatballs:
1 small onion, grated
1/3 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
1 large egg
2 cloves minced garlic
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
4 ounces ground beef
4 ounces ground pork
Freshly ground black pepper (no salt - the broth is salty enough)

Soup:
4 cups chicken broth
Handful egg noodles or pasta
1/2 pound escarole, coarsely chopped (1/4 pound of spinach would be a good substitute)
1 large egg
1 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan, plus extra for garnish
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

To make the meatballs:
* Stir all the meatball ingredients in a large bowl and mix well
* Take a small amount of meat mixture and shape into bite size meatballs with the palm of your hand and place on a baking sheet

To make the soup:
* Bring the broth to a boil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add egg noodles and cook for 3 minutes
* Add the meatballs and escarole and simmer until the meatballs are cooked (they will rise to the top of the broth)
* Whisk the egg and cheese in a medium bowl to blend. Stir the soup in a circular motion. Gradually drizzle the egg mixture into the moving broth, stirring gently with a fork to form thin stands of egg, about 1 minute.
* Season the soup to taste with salt and pepper.
* Ladle the soup into bowls and serve. Finish soup with parmesan cheese if desired.

Boooooooored

Saturday night and I'm on the couch boooored out of my mind. Debating on whether to do the ironing today or tomorrow...decisions decisions. I guess I could go out for a walk but I'm feeling lazy today.

Have decided to (try to) eat sensibly on weekdays. I say that now because I just had a big bucket of potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chilli sauce *drool*. It tasted sooo good, but I'm feeling kind of sick from it now but hey, its the weekend..heh. Funny thing I noticed though is that the supermarkets here don't stock sweet chilli sauce, which can be found in any supermarket in Sydney. Anyway it didn't matter, popped on the train and found it in the first grocey store I went into in Chinatown.

There's a huge list of Aussie foods I can list that aren't sold in the US which I miss dearly, with the obvious ones like Tim Tams and Vegemite. But I have to say the thing I miss most is Praise mayonnaise. That sounds kind of weird I know, but you have to try American mayonnaise to know what I mean - bland, oily and did I say bland? Bleugh!! My cousin sent me a small jar of Praise a while ago but unfortunately I just finished it today :(

Brooklyn on a Sunday

This was taken last Sunday when we went for a walk around Brooklyn. The weather was really nice and it wasn't too cold. We went to an area called Dumbo which is under the Brooklyn Bridge. I think it stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass - hmmm...sounds kind of drab but hey.

I thought this picture is pretty cool. You normally don't see it from this angle as you're generally either on the bridge itself or seeing it from a distance. We were standing inside the remnants of an old warehouse that is now part of a national park right on the water.

We started off having brunch in a lovely place called 5 Front. I had eggs benedict with proscuitto and John had the heuvos rancheros which was great as well (but I think I won!). Then we set off on our walk. We went around the base of the bridge - you couldn't go directly underneath it for some reason. Then we wandered into Vinegar Hill, which is an area with big warehouse type lofts. We saw a lot of murals and sculptures on around so we're guessing a lot of artists live in the neighbourhood.

Anyway enough babble. Its 2am!! I'm going to be a load of fun at work tomorrow, thank God its Friday!!!

Surf & Sun, Here We Come!

New York is great, but the extremes in weather - hot muggy summers and cold freezing winters - can make any sane person go nuts. The temperature hasn't gone above freezing in weeks. So today we booked our flights for a 4 day holiday to Key West in March and I am sooo excited. We had a long weekend there last year and had such a great time, we're going again!

For the geographically challenged, Key West is a little island off the US mainland about 90 miles from Cuba. There are so many lovely restaurants and cafes sprinkled around the island. We only had the opportunity to sample a few on our last visit. It will be nice to try some new places in March. Hmm...time to search for some recommendations...anybody??