Inspired Desserts...

Have been very very busy. Been updating the Facebook a bit but not so much of the blog, I need to get my prioritization right. Now, life is getting back on track. Perth was a lot of fun, it was all about the food and like what I have mentioned in my Facebook status: Quinn came back from Perth a much happier girl, could not wait to move to Perth end of this year, had so much good food and good company in Perth, snapped a lot of random shots, met a cute bartender, checked out awesome-looking toilet and bought a couple of things she really liked...Life is so good!

That really basically sums it all up. I do not know which dessert I should start blogging about as I've made quite a few things when I was down with Shingles. I recovered completely but the backaches and body pain is not going away, I consulted the doctor and he said give it a month or two....I could not imagine myself feeling like an old lady with pain all over my body, it is not the best feeling ever but I will have to live with it...Anyway, I have decided to blog a variety of what I have made throughout Shingles period, they were inspired from various people...

To start off with, I've made Dark Chocolate Brownies, Ginger Ice Cream and Salted Butter Caramel Sauce. This is adapted from the infamous Helen who blogs at mytartelette.com

The caramel sauce was to die for....seriously. It is so good on almost everything. Having said that, the next post, you will probably be seing desserts with salted butter caramel again. I still have a small jar of it sitting in the fridge. It is beautiful on anything....Use it like how you would of Dulce de Leche basically. Lusciously thick and dark, after being cooked down for a while over the stove. The saltiness comes through obviously and I like it...A LOT!

The ginger ice cream that topped it off was great too...Very simple to make and come together in no time, a great change from the usual vanilla ice cream and I am loving it and have made it twice ever since then....

Next up, I've made Italian Plum Coffeecake with Sour-Cream-Cheese Topping. This is adapted from Bee Bee who blogs at Honey Bee Sweets. She is very much known to me as the Masters of Chiffon and Bread Loaves! I love how the plum complimented the butter cake and the topping is absolutely to die for. Nothing more than combining cream cheese, sour cream and sugar, how easy is that??? I served it with a dollop of Vanilla Mascarpone....

Or just a scoop of the ginger ice cream....So yummy, anything topped with mascarpone, softly whipped cream, ice cream or all of them are always divine....

Finally, I have also made a Peach Mousse & Strawberry Verrines to echo the colours of Spring and the upcoming Summer. This is again adapted from Helen@tartelette. The lime zest and lime juice used really pull all the flavours of peaches and strawberries together. It is not too firm but not wobbly, just perfect when you dig in with a spoon...The serving glass was smuggled from Osteria de Mesa, a Spanish-Italian place. The glasses were used to serve Sangria in them and are of 175ml capacity. I felt they were the perfect size to layer desserts in...

Before anyone hate me, I better clarify. I did not exactly smuggle. The restaurant is owned by my boss and I am one of his staff out of the 18 restaurants he owned across Adelaide. He happily gave them to me during one of out regular staff dinner when I asked, and yes, he looked at me weirdly and it made the situation very awkward, I have no choice...I was desperate, the power of blogging and shooting photographs!

If you think I am so smart to come up with all the combination, you must be crazy. I do not develop a whole lot of recipes but I must admit I am pretty good at replicating them...I scale down all the recipes by a lot since I really do not serve many as of now. Will not be posting the recipes but the links should all lead you to the original recipes. If you need a scaled down version, shoot me an email...

Alright...I guess this is it. Till next time then. Thank you for watching this space! See you in a bit....

A Taste of Yellow: Perfect Scrambled Eggs

I am feeling very helpless now...It is an on and off relationship with Aaron and I will be flying to Perth this coming Friday to mend and fix things between us a bit, do not know if it is for the better or for worst. Aaron is second. Right now...I am feeling helpless and weak and sick and useless because I am diagnosed with Shingles....It is basically getting chicken pox the second time.

It is also Sue's birthday today and I did not make anything to celebrate the occasion though I am indeed miles away from her and the family. It started with a very high fever and the doctor did said any higher would probably have cause me some good damage on the brain, phew...Right now, I need to be isolated, all by myself in the vicinity of my room and bear the pain on the muscles and joints for 3- days and the later 3-4 days would be just drying the scabs off and hopefully leaving no pockmarks.

I am always pumped up, doing something, up and running about and to have me bed-ridden for days with pain all over my body and tremendous itch could be a real challenge....This is the second day and I am not feeling much better. I whimper and whine like a big baby when it comes to taking antibiotics and fever pills. Tonnes of ointments and calamine lotions to reduce the itch and to dry the blisters up and all that are really getting on my nerves...

Then I remember I heard of LiveSTRONG event and 'A Taste of Yellow' from Shirley's blog post and how it coincides with my sister's birthday....Global LiveSTRONG events are everywhere and are participated by millions, even in Adelaide, where a group of people would clad on yellow shirt and cycle all along the beach in conjunction with the day while I pathetically stayed at home.

This was my lunch and it somewhat helped....all the medications I am on need to be taken after meal and sorry Barb, I forgot the yellow heart (and that was part of the rule) but the event was stucked in my mind for a while and I've made this with lots of thoughts and heart, does that count? And another bonus, we both made something with out heart using egg as base...apart from the fact that mine is messily fluffy and yours are beautifully shaped into a heart-shaped yellow yolk...Considering a Shingles patient, making her own lunch and doing the photo shoot part as well all by herself is no easy feat, helpless and lethargic practically sum everything....

My Nonna was diagnosed with cancer but it was nothing serious, but still, a cancer is a cancer and has its risk. She underwent chemo once and was much better. It came back once again and she went for another round of chemo and that was about it. At her age, she is definitely very strong and to live till today and raised half a dozen of children all by herself, she is the heroin in all our hearts.

My oldest aunt, diagnosed with cancer too...Nonna's on the neck and Aunt's one's on the nose. She lost so much weight and massive hair loss were observed throughout the chemotherapy period, with occasional vomiting. It would break anyone's heart to see what she's been through...I believe everyone could be and need to be strong, at some stage in their life, when they are facing life-death situation. My Shingles, it is nothing compared to what cancer patients would have to go through or have been through, I should stop complaining and live with it.

This scrambled eggs recipe, is something I eat regularly...Nothing more than eggs, good butter, salt flakes and freshly grinded pepper on a good dry toast, topped with parsley flakes. The video is very much self-explanatory. Gordon has my respect, as annoying as he could be in some eyes, I love how original and real he is, when he talks. That is not arrogant, fairly confident and good in what he is doing. Once you have tried his scrambled eggs recipe, you will not whisk the eggs in a bowl before hand! I like how he said 'Done in the pan, overcooked on the toast' and love the ending naughty bits he was trying to say, he paused and then he quickly say 'the breakfast!'....

I know this is a food blog but look, I am 25 so gimme a break and lemme say naughty sometimes...And hopefully I will come back with more good news in the following post. I've been cooking a bit and making things in the tiny little kitchen, they are all up on Facebook and hopefully will be up soon. Right now, I really got to go, it took me 90minutes to write this, can you imagine???

Good night people...