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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

For the love of food and winning


I would say I've been slack with updating, but actually I've just been BUSY. I'm currently in between jobs, booking up flights, planning parties, making 1st birthday cakes, and just generally not having any free time to myself to do anything but sleep!

Oops, that's not entirely true - just had the most relaxing couple of days at our beach house enjoying the sun and our new puppy Wall-E's first adventure to the beach! Look at the little cutie


But that aside, I now have a tonne to update - literally, my first blogging back log. Exciting. The question then is - do I update all in one MONSTER update, or spread it all out over several posts? I'm thinking several posts. So here's an update on some incredibly good food that's been gracing my kitchen and palate in the last few weeks, and the details on some fantastic competitions!

First up, a meal we had at home that was really simple but far too good to be healthy. I'm not much of a recipe person, so these were just created from scratch with a bit of imagination - but it helped to have someone in the house with a slight obsession for feta.... everything tastes good with feta!

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This is a bacon, spinach and pumpkin frittata literally COVERED in feta. Doesn't look especially appetizing in the casserole dish, if I do say so myself. But from THIS angle....

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YUM :D Follow that up with a dessert that is quickly climbing my non-chocolate-dessert favourites list

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Passionfruit cheesecake. Epic (although FYI, really filling and mega dense.)

Onto a New Zealand institution - if you live in Wellington and haven't been to Strawberry Fare, I strongly recommend you walk away from your computer RIGHT NOW and get over there. They're renowned for their desserts and they're far too good.

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Like this ^^^

Literally a TOWER of chocolate black forest goodness. Or better yet, if you're like me, this is the aptly named Chocolate Madness dessert

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A culmination of all the chocolatey goodness they have on offer. I'm still not entirely sure of what it all is... but I know it included chocolate ice cream, chocolate brownie, white chocolate mousse, some other kind of other chocolatey thing.... who cares. Chocolate = happiness.

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Last but not least, a very grown up - and delicious - dinner with some of my best ladies. Starting with a divine risotto that I for some reason forgot to take a photo of... Sorry Chelle, it was yum :)

Then pesto-stuffed chicken wrapped in prosciutto on kumara mash from Jaynee

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Definitely as good as it looks, I assure you!

Then my personal favourite course for the night - Caramello PIES.
Yes.
Caramello + pie. Biscuit base, plus a chocolate puddingy layer of goodness with a caramellowy chocolate moussey topping on top.... EEK. I didn't even finish mine - THAT'S how good it was.

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And my teeny tiny contribution to the meal (since one can hardly turn up empty handed) was truffles. Lots of colour-coded truffles

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The white ones are white-chocolate coated oreo truffles (as seen in lots of places, but I originally discovered on Bakerella)

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and then a variation on my Baileys truffles that I've made before - I didn't have quite enough wafers to make them work properly, so these ones ALSO have crushed up Malteasers (basically a food group all on their own). Let's call them Milk-chocolate-baileys-malteaser-crunch truffles.

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So there's my month in food. Thank you to all my good friends and family who entertain my food issues.

I thought I should also highlight some competitions that are running/have been running recently.

Christine over at Following Phubie had a link party with a prize of Halloween printables from Monkey Moo Moo that I was stoked to win! Can't wait to get them printed and have a bit of fun with it, although I can already tell it will be a bit late for actual Halloween, oops! Thank you Donna for sending them through - they're adorable!

Then a competition from fellow Wellingtonian Mrs Cake where I won a whole lot of coloured candy melts (which I for some reason have never been able to track down for myself, fail). Can't wait to get into them! I mean melt them and use them... *cough*. Thanks Rosa!

If you haven't visited her site before, now's a good time - she has tim tam truffle bouquets and custard squares! YUM!! You can find her here

I've also entered my Tim Burton Tea Party into the Handmade Halloween competition over at Entertain Exchange

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There's lots there to see! so I recommend checking it out.

Over and out for todays huge update!

And coming soon: details of my Topsy Turvy Tim Burton cake, Tim Burton cupcakes, Murder Mystery party, upcoming book-club party plans, and a very big tiered birthday cake with matching smash cake and cupcakes for a very special 1st birthday!

- B xx

2 comments:

  1. All that food looks so delicious! You are completely right.. everything tastes good with feta. I want those truffles. I make the oreo cookie truffles sometimes but they are a lott of work for me so I def dont do it often. They dont look at nice as yours either.

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  2. Wow. . . good thing I ate BEFORE reading your post. Otherwise, I'd be heading straight for midnight munchie town.

    Truffles look especially delicious!

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