cook's profile


XZIGALIA
 
Home Town: Timaru, Canterbury, New Zealand
Living In: Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand
Member Since: Jun. 2004
Cooking Level: Beginning
Cooking Interests: Baking, Italian, Dessert, Gourmet
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About this Cook
Christian. Extremely sweet tooth. Seven cats, one hubby, no kids. Generally psychotic sense of humour.
My favorite things to cook
Oh baby! Anything sweet, particularly sweet and gooey. Or anything with meat. Or cheese. Or meat AND cheese. (I have yet to invent a combination of pudding, meat and cheese. Which is probably for the best.)
My favorite family cooking traditions
Nana's sunday roasts.
My cooking triumphs
The huge pudding party I was asked to do for my friends. I made all these desserts and they all worked out. And I invented this pie with marshmallows, custard, tinned boysenberries and chocolate sauce and they all loved it and said it was their favourite!
My cooking tragedies
The omelet that my friend and I decided to flavour with allspice, cinnamon and oregano. I can almost still taste it. The icing that I tried to flavour but the only thing I had on hand was imitation lemon/ lime juice. The time I tried to make pancakes but didn't have any regular flour so I tried to substitute cornflour thinking it was pretty much the same thing. Then I added cocoa to make them chocolate pancakes. And the orange valencia pie that curdled. But not until the second day so it was after I had given it to the person and when they were trying to serve it to their friends at a book review evening! I was mortified!
Recipe Reviews 38 reviews
Amazing Banana Sorbet
This was tasty, just tastes like yummy sweet banana . Nice for the kids but might need jazzing up for adults. I would be tempted to add coconut milk or maple syrup for a more complex flavour. On a technical note, leave your banana mashing til last to minimise blackening and add yellow food colouring.

0 users found this review helpful
Reviewed On: Jun. 19, 2009
Tarragon Beef Stew with Vermouth
We used half a cup of whiskey instead of the vermouth and hoo boy! Smelled knockout and tasted fab, once the alcohol had boiled off. We added in a little powdered vegie stock for flavour, and swapped all the sugar for honey. As out whiskey wasn't sweet we ended up adding another big spoonful of honey in. Also we omitted all the extra water and added in barley to make this stew extra thick and hearty. Worked really well and I'm itching to try it with the vermouth!

0 users found this review helpful
Reviewed On: Apr. 17, 2009
Quinoa Porridge
I followed the instructions as directed, but used red quinoa, raw milk and raw honey instead of the plain quinoa, almond milk and brown sugar. Becuae I used a darker quinoa it was difficult to tell when it was toasted. To me it tasted slightly burnt but having never had quinoa before I don't know if that was its natural taste. My main problem is it would not break down and thicken. I cooked it for an hour, the milk boiled right down and the grains became tender but the texture was still seeds floating in milk. After an hour I tried getting creative, boiling it again, microwaving it, squashing it with a spoon and yelling at it. After an hour and a half I gave up and ate as is. It was very tasty but never got to the consistency of porridge.

1 user found this review helpful
Reviewed On: Mar. 9, 2009
 
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