I have one small harmless addiction (well only one, if you don’t count my other addictions, like prescription painkillers, sedatives and a compulsive need for order!).

FROZEN COKES!!!*

Which is one of the weirdest things for someone like me to crave.  Mostly because I don’t generally like sweet things… I do not like cake (mud cake is the worst – sticks to the roof of your mouth), I do not like most biscuits (especially chocolate or cream biscuits), I like very few types of lollies/candy (like Fruit Tingles or raspberry liquorice bullets) and I tend to easily steer clear of sweet ciders, riesling,  moscato and most dessert wines.   I watch people fight or do deals over who gets the last Tim Tam or see kids’ eyes light up over a bowl of Malteesers or look on in amusement at my sister in law’s eyes rolling into the back of her head in ecstasy over a  Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup!  But I just don’t get it.  If I have a bit of chocolate, I’m immediately looking for a glass of water to wash it down. Someone once gave me a box of chocolates for my birthday in January a few years back that stayed in the cupboard until August… sitting there taunting the rest of the family, because they were my ‘birthday chocolates’ and not to be opened by anyone but me!  Something to do with chocolate etiquette?  There’s also a ‘thing’ about eating the last bit of the block apparently…?  But I digress.

Additionally I don’t drink Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero or any of the Pepsi-Cola family.  I also don’t like chocolate, I don’t like coffee and I’ll only reluctantly have a V or similar if I’m in desperate need to wake myself up… so I’m not big on caffeine either.  But every summer or whenever I go on a road trip, I really want Frozen Coke.  Problem is of course, they’re nothing but a pure sugar hit which is something that a chick with PCOS and insulin resistance really should be avoiding where ever possible.

Anyway in an effort to control my abnormal urges, I went and looked up the ‘nutritional information’, and I use the term lightly in regards to these particular products, and was less then impressed at what I found…

McDonalds:
Hungry Jacks:

7 Eleven Cola Slurpee:

So, either way you look at it, it’s all bad.  Sugar, sugar and more sugar, and zero nutrition and I really shouldn’t go anywhere near them.  EVER.  But then I heard about the 7-11 Mango Zilched… which claims to have hardly any sugar in it at all!  And I thought, somewhat skeptically, ‘Awesome! Must try!’  And so we did.  And they weren’t bad but they weren’t great.  They were however, freezing cold and lasted for half an hour thus fulfilling the major requirements of the frozen slushie drink quite adequately.

But, since my Dad passed away from MND in 2007 and lots of studies indicate that excessive consumption of artificial sweetners (especially aspartame) can lead to the onset of diseases like MS and MND, there’s no way I will knowingly consume something that has aspartame in it given I may have a genetic predisposition to such things anyway.  Naturally, I went looking for the nutritional information on the Slurpee website and found nothing… nada… zilch (yeah bad pun, sorry).  Undeterred, I emailed the Slurpee ‘Contact Us’ people to ask them ‘hey what’s in your orangey slurry goo that tastes very little like mango and considerably more like excessively sweet citrusy stuff?’ and I got the following response.

Hey Borys,
Thanks for your question.
The sweeteners contained in the Slurpee Zilched are: 968 – Erythritol; and 955 – Sucralose.  Both sweeteners are commonly found in many diet soft drinks, gums and ice creams available in Australia. Both are approved as safe by Australia’s Food Standards authority.
Hope this helps!
Cheers
Team Slurpee

Why yes, Team Slurpee. Yes it does.  So while no artificial nonsense in your food is best, sucralose and erythiritol are way lesser evils when compared to aspartame and shit like that.  Still, with the bright orange 110 and 102, I wouldn’t go giving it to a kid with known food colouring issues.  So now I feel like I can have my bi-weekly Frozen Slurpee guilt free knowing I’m not going to be assisting the early onset type two diabetes that most PCOS sufferers have to look forward to anyway!  🙂  And with plenty of time to slurp away over the rest of this summer too!

*For the record, I’m still not entirely convinced any Cokes are harmed in the making of said Frozen Cokes and have yet to see any evidence to support actual Coke content.

I really felt like sushi for lunch today.  Mostly because a good deal of it is served cold – salmon, tuna, prawns, avocado, rice – and it’s so damn hot here today.  But usually when I find myself at the sushi train, I find myself ordering the Takoyaki (octopus balls) because they’re really tasty.

But almost as soon as I’m delivered my Takoyaki balls I find myself wondering if they’re like the Japanese equivalent of meat pies. Now, meat pies are a great Aussie tradition, some might even consider them integral to our national cuisine, but unless you’re going to some fancy bakery with a reputation for excellent steak pies… they’re often made up of beef mince consisting of cow left overs – ears, nose, testicles, tail and lord knows what else.

Well, what if Takoyaki balls are the same thing?  Made up from all the left over bits of squid and octopus that the rest of Japanese cuisine has no use for?  Scary thought indeed when you consider the stuff they do have a use for!  When I think of it like that – squid testicles, octopus nose (beak?), tentacle bits, whatever – well, then they don’t sound so appetizing any more.  Most of the time these days it feels like we don’t know what’s in our food, let alone something like this that seems to be made to deliberate obscure of the contents by the time it’s covered in mayo and flavourings.  So I went hunting for some Takoyaki recipes and most of them look something like this:

TAKOYAKI 

Batter
300gms all-purpose flour
3 eggs
1 litre of cold water
3 grams of salt
1/2 teaspoon kombu dashi stock granules
1/2 teaspoon katsuo  dashi stock granules
2 teaspoons soy sauce

Fillings:
cubes of boiled octopus, or your choice of cooked, cubed protein*
sliced green onions
tempura bits or rice krispies
shredded cheese

Toppings:
Japanese mayonaise
Takoyaki sauce (available at Asian grocers)
bonito flakes
aonori powdered seaweed or seaweed strips

Beat eggs and add water and stock granules. Add egg-water mixture to flour and salt. Mix well. Heat up takoyaki pan and oil individual compartments.  Pour batter into compartments, add green onions, protein, tempura bits, or rice krispies and shredded cheese.  When bottom of takoyakis are cook through use a skewer to turn them over. Continue to turn until golden brown.  Serve on plate drizzled with Japanese mayonnaise, takoyaki sauce and generously sprinkle with bonito flakes and aonori.  Be careful, they’ll be hot inside.

You know, I think it’s the ‘your choice of cooked, cubed protein’ that makes my scalp crawl.  Because while they probably mean octopus, shrimp, prawn, chicken etc… what actually ends up in them is a complete mystery!

“…For me it was cheese , slices, wedges, cubes, logs. It was like playing a game of grief tetris that no shape of cheese could fill!”

Some girlfriends of mine came over to do some baking on the weekend… yes I know.  When people think of me they immediately think of the culinary arts (*scoff*) but Girl’s Baking Day it was and we had a ball.  Started out with champagne before breakfast which kinda set the tone for the day.

We made a few things that I’ll get round to posting up over the next few weeks.  But my favourite recipe from the marathon bake off was the Strawberry and Rekorderlig Cider Cupcakes.  And can I just say they were absolutely delicious.  Not too sweet, just a touch of tang from the cider and the lime in the frosting and light and fluffy as all shit.  Highly recommended, big thumbs up from our house!  I am not sure where my friend got the recipe from but I have a copy so I’m going to copy it out here for safe keeping….

Cupcake Mixture
4 eggs
200 gms butter (softened)
600 gms caster sugar
750 gms self-raising flour
250 mls Rekorderlig strawberry-lime cider, about 1/2 a bottle
24 cupcake liners

Cream Frosting
500 gms cream cheese
500 gms icing sugar
1 punnet strawberries for decoration
2 limes

Cupcake mixture method:
Preheat fan-forced oven to 180C
Place butter and caster sugar into mixing bowl and mix on high speed.
Turn down to low speed and add eggs one at a time, until combined – don’t over mix.
Add flour and cider and mix on low then high speed (using spatula is needed).
Put mixture in liners and bake for 15 mins or until cupcakes are “springy” to touch.
Remove cupcakes and let cool.

Cream cheese Icing mixture method:
Place cream cheese and icing sugar into clean, dry mixing bowl.
Mix on low and then max speed until combined.
Add lime juice to taste.
Add some green food dye to get a desired colour.
Pipe onto cold cupcakes and decorate with half a strawberry.

They were absolutely delicious and I bet I’ll be making it them again before too long.  🙂

About 20 years ago, I dated this really great guy whose Dad happened to be a Five Star Chef and his Mum was also a cook!  I have to admit that even though my Mum was a pretty good cook (all things being relative in an Australian 70’s meat and three veg kinda way) I  really learned to cook from from these guys.  They gave me an awesome Spaghetti Bolognese recipe that I’ve been making ever since and I have a reputation for making the best ‘Spag Bog’ ever, so much so that when I travel interstate my friends have thrown me into the kitchen to cook for them!  Here’s the recipe that I’ve been using for the last 20 odd years, and it’s also the easiest and simplest recipe ever!  🙂

Ingredients:
1kg minced beef
1 large onion – diced
5 – 6 cloves of garlic – minced/crushed
3 – 4 rashers of short cut bacon – diced
1 can of tomato puree
1 can of tomato supreme
8 – 10 tablespoons of tomato paste
Any pasta of your choice

Serves:
8 – 10 people depending on how hungry they are!

Method:
Lightly fry onions, garlic and bacon in a heavy based pot on 3/4 heat
Cook until onions have gone clear
Add mince meat in 100gm chunks, breaking it up with a spoon as you go
Add tomato puree, tomato supreme and tomato paste BEFORE meat is fully browned
Stir continuously until meat is cooked, continuing to break up any lumps.
Reduce to a simmer for minimum 20 mins, but the longer the better.
Keep coming back to stir so it doesn’t burn to bottom of pot  🙂
Cook pasta of choice as per instructions
Serve with Mediterranean style salad if you’re feeling healthy or loads of garlic bread if you’re not!

Enjoy  🙂

PS:  Left over Bolognese sauce can double as a quick tomato based meat sauce to make a very tasty lasagne too!