Mount Jaggard is located just outside of McLaren on the way to Victor Harbour and is home to the award winning Alexandrina Cheese Company. Regarded by many as the producing some of the best farmhouse cheeses in Australia, Alexandrina Cheese Company is owned by the McCaul family, which has over 30 years experience in dairy farming jersey cows and over a 100 years of experience in cheese making.

I met with owner and cheese maker, Dan McCaul who took me through Alexandrina’s range of hard cheeses and how the process of making cheese. The Alexandrina Cheese Company is very much as working dairy farm and contributing to their success is their herd of grass feed jersey cows. Jersey milk is renowned for its full flavour and rich creamy quality, which Dan tells me, is half the secret.

All of Alexandrina’s cheese and diary products are hand made using traditional methods. Just some of the cheeses they produce include pecorino, black pepper pecorino, cheddar and a 18 month old aged cheddar. Apart from the cheeses, Alexandrina also makes pure jersey cream, cultured cream, natural yogurt, honey yogurt and jersey full cream and skim milk. All of their products are available at the farm gate.

For more information about the Alexandrina Cheese Company, visit
www.alexandrinacheese.com

Benjamin Christie's Australian Food, BBQ Recipes and Australian Recipes feature bush tucker ingredients like lemon myrtle and wattleseed. Check out recipes like shrimp on the barbie, anzac biscuits, lamingtons and banana bread. 

Food Service professionals will be interested in his chef blog as well as articles on menu planning, food photography, cooking kangaroo, menu engineering and food costing.

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A few weeks ago I wrote briefly about my attempts at making chocolate sorbet and matcha ice cream. I promised to post up recipes and I have not forgotten. It's just that I have been really busy at work. It is during these times when I wish I actually owned one of those fantastic Musso ice-cream machines.

With a Musso, I can simply dump the entire ice-cream mixture into the machine, press a button and within 30 minutes I can have a perfect quart of heaven.

Since I don't have a Musso, I have to contend with my old-school ice and salt ice-cream churner, which doesn't really make the best ice-cream but does allow me to come up with something quite decent. And by decent, I do mean something that kind of resembles ice-cream but nowhere near perfect. First of all, you got to understand that it's rather humid where I live and the ice-salt combination can only reduce the temperature down to a certain point.

However, today, I'm going to rave about two good recipes that I know would be 10 times better if I had a professional ice-cream maker. But until I have enough cash to actually buy one of my own, I will appreciate my beloved ice-cream churner.

Dessert-lovers like me always crave for ice-cream and there is never a wrong time to have a scoop or two. So I crave for ice-cream pretty often and will usually bookmark ice-cream recipes with the intention of making it. Sometimes I forget about it and sometimes I do end up actually making some. It really depends if I have enough ice in the fridge and if I have the time.

A couple of weekends ago, I set out to make two ice-cold treats and boy was it a delicious affair.

The chocolate sorbet was a shoo-in because I've been wanting to make something with a rich dark chocolate taste. I was sceptical of most chocolate ice-cream recipes because well, I wasn't too sure if it was going to be chocolatey enough. Yes I'm quite particular about my chocolate, I love it dark.

I first chanced upon the chocolate sorbet recipe at Su Good Sweets. I literally held my breath the moment I saw that scoop of decadent deep brown in a glass cup. You can't really blame me for being so easily enticed. It really did look irresistable.

With Su's recipe, I made a lovely chocolate sorbet which wasn't quite perfect (ice crystals weren't fine enough) but it did taste super. It also had that intense dark brown appearance which I adore.

As soon as I had finished making my sorbet, I made plans for another ice-cream escapade - this time involving my favourite matcha powder.

You might remember my previous attempt at matcha ice-cream. It was a success but I thought there has got to be a better recipe out there.

I was right. I did find another recipe and it was recommended to me by a reader who had tried it before. Though it did involve raw egg yolks, I thought I'd just give it a shot. I had great faith in the eggs - was dead sure I wouldn't fall ill and I was right.

The end result was a creamy textured matcha ice-cream with the right amount of matcha flavour made possible by the matcha powder of course.

It was a very lovely milky green too:



The recipe is apparently Harumi Kurihara’s. She's a well-known Japanese cookbook author. Her recipes have received rave reviews so I was absolutely sure her green tea ice-cream recipe won't fail. Thank god it didn't.

These days I don't buy green tea ice cream anymore. I'd rather make my own.

I await the day I can own my very own Musso and be totally bowled over. Then I will never have to settle for ice-cream that's second-best, ever again.

______________________________________________

Chocolate Sorbet
Paraphrased from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich

1 cup (3.25 oz) cocoa
Scant 1 cup sugar
2 tiny pinches salt
2 cups boiling water
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tbsp rum or vodka (optional)
Combine cocoa, sugar, salt in saucepan and whisk in 1/2 cup boiling water to make a thick paste. Add the remaining water. Stir over medium heat just until tiny bubbles form at the edges of the pan. Don’t cook any longer, as the heat can damage the flavor of the cocoa.
Take the mixture off the heat and add the vanilla. Refrigerate until cold, at least 4 hours. Add the rum or vodka, if using. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Harden the sorbet in the freezer for at least 3 to 4 hours.
Note: The flavor is so rich that you can substitute half of the water with milk.


Harumi Kurihara’s Matcha Ice Cream (Green Tea Ice-cream)
Ingredients:
2 tbs/10g green tea powder (macha)
120g granulated sugar
3 egg yolks
1 cup/200ml milk
1 cup/200ml double cream
Method:
1. In a small bowl, mix the green tea powder with 2 tablespoons of the granulated sugar.
2. In a separate bowl, mix together the egg yolks and remaining sugar.
3. Pour the milk into a small pan and gently heat taking care not to let it boil (ideally the temperature of the milk should be 80oC). Remove from the heat and mix a few spoonfuls of the warm milk with the green tea powder and sugar in a small bowl. When you have a smooth paste, add it to the remaining milk in the pan, then gradually combine with the egg yolks and sugar mix. Leave to cool.
4. Lightly whip the cream till slightly firm and then add to the cold green tea milk mixture.
5. Transfer the mixture to a large container and put it in the frigde. Leave overnight.
6. Next day, assemble the ice cream machine, turn power on, then slowly pour mixture into it. Churn for about half an hour till mixture becomes double in volume. Then pour mixture into container and freeze for a few hours till firm

Néhány hónapja már, hogy Dolce Vitánál megláttam ezt a tintahalas polenta receptet - rögtön nagyon megtetszett, főleg, hogy Ditém és én is nagyon szeretjük a tenger gyümölcseit. Már csak a szépiatintára kellett vadászni, ám sajnos Erlangenben nem találtam rá, s a keresgélés kudarcából kifolyólag 1-2 hónapra el is vetettem... Most viszont sikerült beszerezni! ;) Nem is tudom, hogy miért nem kapható abc-kben, hisz évekig eláll és elég olcsó is, nem is beszélve arról, hogy teljesen természetes színezék.


Receptet nem is írtam hozzá, mert teljesen úgy készült, mint ahogy Dolce Vita leírta. Köretként sárga paradicsomból készítettem egy kis színfoltot a tányérra. Utólag rá is jöttem, hogy Dolce Vita miért fényképezte a polentaszeletét úgy, hogy a teteje mutatott az objektív felé - az alja ugyanis nálam (sem?) sikerült szép simára ;) Utólag most már mindegy is ;) (recept Dolce Vitánál)

Frequent visitors to CbsoP will already have noticed a few changes around the site.  For those who are reading via RSS, you may have a few surprises coming when you next visit.

I’ve just begun the most extensive upgrade that Cooking… by the seat of my pants! has ever undergone.  I’ve wiped away the old and moved to a new way of doing things.  Hopefully it will help most people find what they are looking for a lot more quickly than the old system would.

In that bent, I’ve moved every single recipe to the “Recipes” category.  Over the next week or so, I’ll be adding proper tags to each and every post, with the aim of making search by tag more relevant than a search by category.  Other and less useful posts have been deleted.  For those of you who were looking for a morning cuppa entry… Sorry.  thery no longer exist.

In the end I think this will make Cooking by the seat of my pants more valuable to anyone using it.  At least that is my sincere hope.

The site is now faster, cleaner and above all else, less cluttered.  And while I will be adding new advertising and other features, my goal is to keep the place as tidy as humanly possible.

For those that know me… welcome back.  For those who are new here… Please excuse the mess.  I’m working on it.

A bit of sunshine to brighten your gray days. You there? Yes you - feeling blue? Well look here what I brought you. Some orange sunshine. Now that's better - there is always some orange sunshine deep down inside, you just need to let it out. And should you be finding it hard - well I hope this...

[Read the rest of this post on my website]

Here are a few events to keep you busy this weekend.

Palates are primed and ready for the first annual Slow Food Nation celebration, which runs all weekend in San Francisco, California.

Live music, dancing, parades and wine tasting take over the streets of Dijon, France this weekend at the annual Fêtes de la Vigne (Wine Festival).

The Marshall County Blueberry Festival in Plymouth, Indiana offers a weekend of fun and festivities for the whole family.

Over 300 craft vendors from all across the United States showcase their goods. Local and regional businesses take the opportunity to promote their products and services in the commercial area. And what would a festival be without food. With 100 booths to choose from there is a tasty treat for everyone. Of course blueberries are in abundance especially in our non-for-profit area. These groups offer the very best in blueberry delights like blueberry pie, blueberry ice cream, blueberry shakes, sundaes, donuts, blueberry cheesecake and just plain blueberries!

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Joe Biafore

The folks in Millersport, Ohio invite you to join them at their Sweet Corn Festival.

Bring the whole family to experience a wide variety of delicious foods, large midway, tractor pulls, square dancing, contests galore, farm animals, historical exhibits and top-name country music entertainers while strolling the shady Historic Lions Park.

Now in its 36th year, the Amish Country Cheese Festival in Arthur, Illinois offers festival goers free cheese, arts and crafts, International Cheese Curling Championships and the National Cheese Eating Championships.

And a few others;
The Butterbean Festival in Pinson, Alabama
The 62nd Annual Seafood Festival and Craft Show in Westport, Washington
The Really Wild Food and Countryside Festival in St Davids Pembrokshire, West Wales, UK See full article.

Related Entries:

July Festivals - First Weekend - 03 July 2008

Mid July Food and Wine Festivals - 17 July 2008

Take a Bite Out of These Food and Wine Festivals - 31 July 2008

Late August Food and Wine Festivals - 21 August 2008

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My intention was to bring a little baggie of these snappy, chocolate-stuffed sandwich cookies on the plane to Philadelphia last week. Unfortunately, I ran out of time (having clean clothes trumped having cookies this time around) and had to wait until after my trip to bake them off. That being said, they are an effective travel tool, perfect for establishing goodwill with the stranger(s) sitting next to you. The poppy-flecked, brown sugar dough has a mellow sweetness, and it is my feeling that the butter browns just enough in the oven to bring the flavors together full circle. The chocolate functions as binding bridge between two wafer-thin coins.

There are a couple tricks to making these cookies extra good. The first is simple - roll the dough out very, very thin. Not parchment thin, but certainly Saltine cracker thin. The resulting cookies will be crisp, elegant, and lovely to look at. You want just a bit of chocolate sandwiched between just a bit of cookie. Too much cookie and the ratio gets thrown off.

The second important thing to be (particularly) mindful of is the baking time. You want the cookies to bake until they are beautifully golden, particularly on the bottom edges where the cookies meet the baking sheet. Don't turn your back, cookies this thin will go from blond to burned in a heartbeat.

Continue reading Brown Sugar Sandwich Cookies...