Sweet Sunday

It's been a while since I baked. After suffering some small baking disasters (weird thyme muffins, exploding scones, raw brownies) I was somewhat reluctant to get back into it. Leave the baking to Ellen, I thought, and I meanwhile will cook every variant of lentil and barley stew known to man.

But, I have a new kitchen to christen, new co-workers to meet, and honestly: I just couldn't go past these peanut butter cookies.

Gosh, they're good. At the risk of being kicked out of Australia, I'm going to confess that I don't really like ANZAC biscuits. They're so often dry and hard and disappointing. Which I suppose makes sense - war-time food is not famous for flavour.

These biscuits would make an ANZAC weep. They're rich and buttery and lovely. They're crunchy on the edges and soft in the middle, and just the right amount of chewy.

And they go quite well with my (tiny) new kitchen:

As does this bottle opener. Probably my favourite (and certainly most used) kitchen item.

I'd be lying if I said the ducks on the curtains didn't help me pick this place.

My baby coriander. This attempt at growing herbs is going oh-so-much better than the last time. It turns out neglect is not a substitute for water and sunlight.

Having said that, I have managed to forget what these are. Sorry baby mystery herbs. I'm sure you'll grow up to be delicious no matter what you turn into.

But back to those cookies.

Here's how you do it:

Preheat your oven to 175 degrees C.
Combine 2 cups rolled oats with 2 cups sifted plain flour in a large bowl.
Add 2 tsp baking powder and 1(ish) tsp salt. Set aside.
In another bowl, mix 3/4 cup vegetable oil with 3/4 cup natural peanut butter. I used crunchy. Add 2 cups of brown sugar, 1/2 cup oat milk and 2 tsp vanilla extract.
Mix the wet and dry, and then use a dessert spoon to spoon out the dough onto baking paper lined trays. Space them out, they'll spread in the oven.
Bake for 14 - 18 minutes, or until they start smelling divine and browning at the edges.

Take them into work. Or eat them all by yourself. I won't judge.

I Turn My Camera On

I, like my fellow blog mistress, belong to the cult of the iPhone. I just love that I can take my poorly lit, grainy, shitty photos and with a bit of tinkering can turn them into romantic Lomo snapshots that wouldn't look out of place on a postcard dated 1965. Inspired by Tara's recent post I've just now trawled through my iPhone album, and perhaps rather worryingly I've found a substantial number of shots of half eaten food, drunk and dark photos of me and my beer-faced friends, and about three million blurry shots of my very disgruntled cat. (Make of that what you will, folks.)

If my iPhone album is anything to go by, I seem to spend my life eating, trapping my friends into terrible myspace photos, or else chasing my cat around our kitchen... excellent. But enter one of my multitude of fancypants apps, and suddenly I'm not a food obsessed cat lady, I'm a cool and groovy chick, an epicurean, a frikkin wildlife photographer, and I'm living in some sort of hip pastiche world of pretty cats and italian food. Guys, I'm basically living in this Lady Gaga Clip. Thanks, Steve Jobs!

So what am I doing with all of these photos? Well, given that my food-blogging seems to have doomed me to a lifetime of disrupting meals with a sneaky photo shoot, I've been able to compile something of an iPhone tour of Melbourne eateries. Here are three of the half-eaten best.

This cake looked so amazing that I managed to snap a shot before it was consumed. From The Green Refectory on Sydney Road, their baked goods are amazing. This slice of strawberry flavoured weight gain was huge, huge and delicious.

Bolognese and watermelon granita from Pellegrini's, my favourite little italian in the CBD. This place feels more or less like the above-mentioned Gaga clip. There is even a signed Billy Joel photo above the bar, just to drive home the Italio-American vibe. I love it in there.

Borek from the Queen Victoria Markets. Getting your hands on one of these babies requires queueing, shouldering, and shouting. Fighting through the scrum at the borek shop is worth the effort though, spinach and feta heaven.

And one blurry cat photo, because I'm pretty sure he's going to kill me some day soon, and only this shot seems to convince people...

South East Asia: A Taster

Hello dear, neglected readers. Sincere apologies for the absence of late - I hope you will forgive us. By way of explanation, Tara and I have been busy jet-setting, adventuring and of course eating our way across Vietnam and Cambodia. Admittedly I have been back in the country for over three weeks now, but I've been busy moving house and am yet to establish a home internet connection. I have a stack of fantastic food-related blog posts planned, all inspired by fabulous Vietnam and moderately less fabulous Cambodia (which tried to kill me, but I loved it anyway...) but as I'm writing this post from an over air conditioned magazine store in Melbourne City, I've decided to keep things brief. Please enjoy this photographic taster (pardon the pun) - with more South East Asian delights to follow soon.

Oh, my. I want to go back already. Xx

My Kitchen: A photographic essay born of blogging laziness.

I'm feeling a little out of sorts tonight. I've just returned home after a weekend away, I rose at the ungodly hour of 5 in the morning to catch my flight back to Melbourne, and although I have a few new recipes I'm dying to share, I don't have the energy to attempt a decent blog post tonight.

I've just spent a lovely weekend enjoying the generosity of friends and family back in Canberra. I've had to say goodbye to them all for another unknown stretch of time, and after a crappy day at work made worse by a bad case of the sads, the one thing that lifted my spirits when I walked through my front door was my lovely little kitchen, with my clutter strewn throughout, tea in the pantry and leftovers in the fridge.

I've been intending to share these photos of my kitchen for a while now: almost every recipe I post has been cooked and eaten here. I'm feeling tired and lazy and missing my friends, and tonight seems like the perfect time to say "I heart you Kitchen, thanks for minding the food while I was away."