Soup on a Houseboat

A while ago, my friend Bernice and I were walking along the canal to Broadway Market when we discovered this little gem. While we were standing around ogling (cos you know how subtle we are), we were invited aboard to wait for our Chai tea.. and even though we were seconds away from the market, we decided to pig out anyway.

We were pretty excited!


B's cake

.. And my lentil soup.

I couldn't decide what bread to get so the lovely woman asked if I would like to try them all. And you know I said hells yes.

Mock Chicken Laksa

MOCK CHICKEN LAKSA

1 small sliced onion
2 cloves chopped garlic
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
3 cups of veggie stock
400g rice noodles, precooked in warm water and drained
2 cups coconut milk
1 Tbsp sugar
Black pepper & salt to taste
1 tsp curry powder
½ to 1 tsp chili powder
Handful mock chicken, fried (eg. rehydrated TVP fried in 'chickn' seasoning)
Broccoli
Large carrot
125g bean sprouts

Heat a little oil in a wok, and sauté the onions until they’re soft and translucent, stirring in the chopped garlic. Add the ground coriander and cumin, let it blend in for another minute and then pour in the veggie stock. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Add the noodles, coconut milk, sugar, black pepper & salt, curry powder and chili powder. Cover and simmer for another 10 minutes.

Add the broccoli, carrots, bean sprouts and the pre-fried mock chicken. Continue simmering, covered, until the carrots are cooked but still crisp.

Garnish with coriander and spring onion.

Enjoy!

Mojito Cupcakes

Okay so admittedly these are not the prettiest cupcakes, and you will be hard pressed to find these appearing in Donna Hay anytime soon. But you know what, I don't care! So what if I can't pipe icing? These are the first things I have baked since leaving New Zealand, so I am pretty stoked.

Yesterday, while on the way to the supermarket I got a voice message from one of my recruiters saying she had a temp job for me starting next Monday. Seeing as I have been jobless for a month I prematurely bought a bottle of rum to celebrate.. and knowing my luck, by the time I called her back, the job was gone. So now I had this bottle of rum and nothing to celebrate. CURSES! So I decided to bake mojito cupcakes using this recipe, whose cupcake are far more photogenic than mine. The icing I made up, I don't tend to measure these thing out, but basically it was icing sugar, a lot of rum, peppermint essence and lime juice. So while they didn't look fantastic, they sure tasted it!