Initially Drafted October 2013: In the last couple months, I was beginning to get antsy and needed something to do with my time that doesn’t involve cooking (especially since days are becoming warmer these days – a hot kitchen just doesn’t do). I had noticed a few people posting pictures of snail mail received on Instagram, and wondered how new penpals are found in this digital age. So I googled for sources to find out how, many searches came up with convicted inmates or school kids. I am definitely not interested in those.
Fortunately there are a couple worthwhile sites, such as Postcrossing for mostly anonymous postcard exchanges, and Postal Society. My favorite by far is Sendsomething.net — it looks like a very basic beta site, but it is all password protected. I loved the concept of sending some happiness in the mail. So I signed up and began my mail posting journey!
Updated: I have gained a couple great pen pals. One is Aussie (near Melbourne) and another in the States (East Coast). Love writing to them and receiving their letters. We do a lot of goodie swaps which basically means whatever sticker, scrap paper, stationery good we include. It kind of inspired me to maybe do something with stationery goods as it is really LACKING here in Australia. I don’t know what it is but the writing pads they have in a lot of the shops are really ugly and boring (and uninspiring). When there are good quality and good looking paper, I swear they are upmarketed to like 500% of ‘normal/acceptable’ pricing. Well that’s Australia. Maybe I’d do something to make sales via Etsy.com. We’ll see.
The holidays are coming around and my pen pal writing has slowed down. Which is fine because we all need the break, I think. I have been looking at sites and continued to be inspired by Instagram postings, some Pinterest pins too.
Oh, here’s the link to reach my boards: KJoy’s Pinterest (I do have a lot of wedding themed boards, which are outdated for me, but I have kept them for now…)
As an unemployedfreelancer, sometimes it is a challenge to do the things you love doing, such as shopping for new shoes or clothes, buying flowers just because, or finding something amazing and thinking “this would be perfect for…” All that is pretty nonexistent. So instead, my husband requested that I get up in time for open booking sales for the Commonwealth Ashes at the Sydney Cricket Grounds (we’ll be going to Sydney for New Years’, yay!). He asked that I not say anything until his actual birthday (he loves surprises — but makes me chuckle cause they’re so obvious). So yes, I did get up early enough, even researched where the best seatings are, and got credit card ready. Booked!
Then I pretended that I totally forgot all about it. He says, “You wouldn’t do that to me…” with a look of worry on his face. Ba-ha-ha. I just shrugged.
I kept checking the mailbox hoping that the tickets would come in so I can slip into the birthday card I got him (which I used from my “savings”), but they haven’t come yet, even to this date. Australia Post can be notoriously sloooooow.
Alas, so to make his birthday extra special, because it’s the first time we have celebrated together, I decided to come up with a delicious home-cooked meal shared with his parents.
Grocery shopping in Australia can be interesting. They name some items differently than ours (eg ‘Turtle beans’ vs ‘black beans’ – which by the way are difficult to find), and I do get confused if a product is what I’m looking for. For example, ‘thickened cream.’ Is it the same as heavy cream? Does heavy cream in America contain gelatin? Oh well.
First after coming upon several Pinterest posts for ‘Gluten Free Chocolate Cake’ I decided to go halfsie-almond meal and halfsie-gluten free flour mixture, because using full gluten free flour mixture can be kinda blah, artificial tasting. This is the recipe I tried (I quick wrote it down after glancing at the Pinterest link, so it’s not exact):
Gluten Free Almond Chocolate Cake
250g (2.2 stick, or 17.64 TBSP) butter, melted (I nuked in the microwave)
3/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted
1 1/3 cup caster sugar (finer than regular white sugar, but I suppose it would be fine to use if you don’t have caster sugar on hand)
3 eggs
1 1/2 cup almond meal (If you want to pre-roast it, you can for about 5 or so minutes at 160°C /320°F, watch that it doesn’t burn!)
1 1/2 cup gluten free self-rising gluten free flour, sifted
3/4 cup milk (I used coconut milk)
Vanilla extract (Is it telling that I don’t use exact measurements? Just add what you think is enough.)
Pre-heat oven to 180°C/360°F.Mix everything in a bowl (you may want to make sure the butter isn’t too warm).
In a round cake pan, grease the insides well, and add some gluten free flour to coat it (it’s a trick I learned that helps getting your cake out in one piece). Add the batter and insert into over. Let it bake for about an hour or until toothpick or skewer comes out clean. Or your nose tells you it starting to smell roasted.
Let it cool completely.
Gotta have coffee, too.
Hold up. That is not all. I made the cake extra special. When the cake has mostly cooled (because I’m impatient), I used a knife to scrape the cake from the sides, and then flipped it over onto a wire rack. A few taps, it came out. Then using a bread knife – that’s the one with the serrated teeth – I cut horizontally the middle of the cake. It was easier to do so after tracing around the middle with the knife before slicing. So now we have two cake layers. I sliced some strawberries and lay it out on the bottom half. Doing it the Sandra Lee method, I opened up a container of Thick Custard, vanilla flavored, and poured some of that over the strawberries. In America, you may use a container of Jello Vanilla Pudding – almost the same thing.
Two halves, filling with strawberries.
Meanwhile, I was also making a batch of dark chocolate ganache. Probably the easiest thing to make. You’ll need two saucepans (or one saucepan and a smaller metal or glass bowl). The larger saucepan has water in it. Two ingredients: dark chocolate and cream. I smashed up a large bar of dark chocolate, and used thickened cream. In the smaller saucepan (or bowl), throw in the two. I eyeballed it to be about 1:1. Putting the smaller pan (bowl) into the larger pan, heat it up and let the chocolate melt. Don’t let the water boil, let it simmer at most. We don’t want to burn the chocolate or make the cream lumpy. Use a metal spoon to stir (not a wooden one as it holds moisture, which is a n0-no). It will mesh together into a silky, shiny concoction of luscious chocolate. It took every effort to not drink it all up. Take it off heat as soon as it is all combined, and let it cool. It will thicken.
Of course, I looked at it and looked at the remaining custard and a ‘ding’ sound went off in my head: chocolate custard. I took several spoonfuls of the ganache into a cup and added some custard to that, mixing it. Topped it over the strawberries/vanilla custard. Easy-peasy.
The filling! Look at that chocolate custard!
I think the following pictures are pretty self explanatory:
A chocolate burger look-a-like.
Poured and spreading the ganache.
Ta-da! Made it pretty with strawberries.
Isn’t that the nicest looking cake? Look how shiny the ganache is.
Because I wanted the cake to be a nice surprise for my husband, I needed to find a place to hide it. Our unit is a bit small, so there isn’t a lot of counter or cabinet space. I certainly did not want to put it in the fridge – it’d dry out. So I fashioned a ‘gift box’ by wrapping a large shoe box bottom. It fit perfectly.
The cake cover.
Oh yeah, let’s not forget about dinner. I basically roasted a couple chickens. Note: Chickens are small here, about 1.5 kg each. After cleaning them (with just water and a good scrub) and patting dry, I covered the insides and outside with fresh squeezed lemon juice and rubbed a mixture of salt, pepper, and paprika throughout. I stuffed the chickens with a whole lemon (fork punctured 3-4 times) and half of lemon (which I used for the juice) and a couple swigs of rosemary. If you ever made the Engagement Chicken one sees around Pinterest world, yes this is similar. In the roasting pan, I surrounded the chickens with peeled and cubed sweet potatoes, and red onions. There’s a whole garlic there too, which I sliced the top off of, and pulled away some of the extra peelings. I covered the whole thing with olive oil and scattered some of the rosemary around. Just for the heck of it, I added some red wine that my husband didn’t finish. At 200°C/395°F, they go in – chickens breast down at first, roasting for about 20 minutes. Then turn down to 180°C/360°F , remove and turn the chickens breast-side up. Put back into oven to roast for the next hour and half or so. I skewered at the thickest part, liquid ran clear. But there was a ‘oops’ as I cut into the drumstick, the meat appeared too pink for my liking – they they went back into the oven longer. They rested under foil for about 10 minutes, I assume to both cool down and let it marinate in its juices.
Roasted chicken with sweet potatoes. Yum!
Along with these, I served a side of green bean casserole, one of the easiest things to make.
Green Bean Casserole
About 6 cups worth of green beans, cooked (I steamed them.)
Stick of butter (I used Nuttelex spread, eyeballing about 5 TBSP worth)
Sour cream or yogurt
Shredded cheese, about 2 cups worth
Bread crumbs (I used gluten free ones)
In a large saucepan or pot, melt the butter and add the sour cream (or yogurt) and cheese and stir well. Add the beans and about a handful of bread crumbs and coat the beans well. In a casserole dish, dump the concoction and cover the top with more crumbs. Bake for about 30 minutes at 180°C/360°F. It’ll come out bubbly.
Green Bean Casserole.
All in all, the husband and the in-laws tucked in dinner and seemed to enjoy it. It reminded me a bit of a Thanksgiving meal. The sweet potatoes were amazing, so tender with a red wine and lemon tartness to it. The husband unveiled the cake and had a goofy look of delight *aww.*
And yes, he got the tickets to the Ashes game. I’m going along — I suspect I will be bringing along the Kindle.
KJoy and Co. 