Chevre, apple and honey tarts

Voila! Say hello to my chevre (goat's cheese), apple and honey tarts! :) Leafed this recipe for my gotta-cook-this-someday list. Bebe just got home and the both of us felt like something light for dinner and these tarts were perfect. Got this recipe off Bon Appetit, and you should have been here to catch the lovely, warm whiffs of honey caramelising on the apples in the oven. The lemon juice lended a real bite to the creamy chevre and complimented the tangy Sundowner apples which were drizzled in melted butter and honey and kissed with sprinkles of five spice powder. Fused with the buttery goodness of the shortcrust pastry, this made for an amazing medley of flavours. Talk about pampering your tastebuds. Ooh la la!

Anyway, this is a really easy recipe to throw together for those of you who are feeling a little lazy or whacked out after a hard day's work. I skipped the glazing part with the egg (couldnt justify wasting three-quarters of an egg for 3 little tarts to look slightly prettier) and used salted butter in place of salt. Gotta love frozen puff pastries. They're so convenient, versatile and I reckon they dont taste half bad!

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Apple, Goat Cheese & Honey Tarts (my tweaked, lazy version of the recette from Bon Appetit)

• 1 apple, sliced thinly
• a small pack of goat's cheese
• juice of half a lemon
• salted butter, melted
• honey
• a sheet of frozen puff pastry, thawed
• a pinch (or a few) of allspice powder
• 1 beaten egg for glazing

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Cut up the goat cheese and mix with the juice of half a lemon. Set aside. Divide a large sheet of puff pastry into quarters and fold the edges in such that it forms a little 'shell'. Place the goat cheese mixture into the shell, and lay the slices of apple over it. Mix the melted butter and honey and drizzle generously over the apples. Place in the oven and let it bake for approximately 35 mins or until the puff pastry turns golden brown. Remove and drizzle a little more honey if desired. Serve warm and watch your tastebuds tingle!

singing the blues

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okay i aint exactly singing the blues .. simply cos i'm not that good yet! ;p my baby's out of town, and as a result, this poor guitar's gonna cop a bit of a beating over the next few days. been trying practising, and in a desperate bid to make it sound better, i even strummed with my nails - i think running a nail over the surface of a window pane might be easier on the ears. and since no one's in the room, i've been channelling my inner rock goddess and batting it out without a care in the world. wonder how long it'll be before i get kicked out by his housemates lol

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gosh my arms hurt like hell after paddling today and probably also from the poledancing yesterday for Bona's hen's night. (it's such great fun, but more on that on another post.) discovered that if i do lift my upper hand and lock it in a bit more, the twist i've been so seeking after just takes place naturally. great session. wanna try out sweeping next just to mix things up a bit ;)

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mmm.. hope rob finishes cooking soon. my stomach's starting to rumble. think i'm gonna prepare something simple - probably whole wheat spaghetti bolognaise. yummay...

"You don't always have to be right."

It's one of those things you always hear, but just don't get.

Then one fine day, it suddenly sinks in. And you think "God, that makes so much sense!"

It tickles me to think about it. LOL.

APEC long weekend

some long weekend....all it did was rain. :/

really digging photography right now. it's amazing how the little details just pop right out when you start paying attention. made a ham & cheese quiche for lunch and tried to snap a few shots then, but there was just too much activity in the kitchen and i couldnt get the lighting i wanted. So instead of getting in the way of a couple of hungry guys preparing lunch, i wisely decided to venture into the garden to practise on the plants there. didnt think they minded the little bit of attention lavished onto them for a few minutes. heh.

geez, the close-ups make me feel like i'm somewhere in Asia. sighs.

the quiche turned out immensely moist and satifsying, but i suppose baby was a tad overzealous when adding the salt. see, the recipe called for smoked ham (which is really quite salty), but all we had in stock were some slices of virginian ham, so he decided he should rightly compensate for it. well if there's one thing i've learnt, it's probably to be more cautious when handing him the salt shaker again. into the grilled ham went salt. *shake* hmm, probably more in the egg + sour cream mixture. *shake shake* actually make that heaps more since the salt in australia doesnt seem salty enough, he reasoned. *shaking vigorously now* well you get the idea.

took a lesisurely walk to QVB via Darling Harbour after our dejeuner to buy the suit he had on hold for his conference. picked out a subtly-striped light blue shirt and a fetching checked silk tie in a darker tone of blue. the ensemble came together beautifully...must say i've got pretty darn good taste. hahaha!

alright, back to King Arthur. Clive's on! woohoo! :D

a slice of home for him.

i'm going to have a warm delicious slice of far au breton for breakfast tomorrow morning. perfect paired with a hot, bitter long black. lucky ol' me. :)

cup of life

been down with a fever and itchy cough after that durian. thanks to cups of warm honeyed tea, my throat has been coaxed and soothed ... well at least for awhile. looks like i'll need more of those after last night's impromptu mixer party! with all the potent concoctions, youtube karaoke and performances, my voice is practically gone now. sadly it's hoarse but it aint sexy.

there's a far breton baking in the oven now... cant wait!! hehehe. i'm so spoilt...

it's durian season!!!

it had a bit of the 'icey-water' taste cos all the liu-lians are frozen here, but i ain't complaining! yums!

lunar eclipse 07

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/03aug_dreamyeclipse.htm

this morning saw me jump out of bed all excited cos of the much anticipated lunar eclipse. so nerdo right? woke up a little earlier so that i could finish work a little earlier to catch the much awaited moon-out, which was due to commence at around 10 to 7pm. anyways, brebis and i decided to pack some food to have a picnic dinner by blackwattle bay. in our fizzed out, after-work state, we decided hastily on a typical french picnic assortment - camembert, pepperoni (instead of saucisson - gawd how i miss the noisette saucisson!), breadstick (i cant bear to call this ungainly, flaky, frozen-&-thawed-again roll a baguette), with a pack of nachos and dip and a pack of cornetto ice cream cones thrown in. big mistake. the camembert was rubbery and bland - i would have been better off chewing a gumboot; the pepperoni reminded me of fat-free salami; and the breadstick... 'nuff said. the nachos and ice cream salvaged dinner though. geez. if there's one thing i miss abt france, it's gotta be the food.

anyway the lunar eclipse was quite the interesting phenomenon. the red colour really did show through - apparently it's due to the dust in the atmosphere or something along that line. i couldnt really get pictures - it just refused to show up on my digicam. ARGH. this is about the best shot i could get:

in my irritation, i decided to annoy some DB teams paddling on the water instead with my night flash. can u see 'em? can u? hee hee.

hmm which reminds me.. no training tonight. and a race is coming up in 2 weeks...:/

Give me a proper hoodie!

Argh! I cant believe it is THIS difficult to find a simple hoodie here for everyday wear. everything's either striped, too thin or comes with some stupid motif or a huge logo plastered across the sweater. pootoey. and all i was looking for was a simple black hoodie that's thick enough to keep me warm. *sobs in despair*

which got me looking online for one. and i'm absolutely in love with these two adidas sweaters from the Materials of the World collection. i know they're not black and one's not hooded, but anyways....

arent they just adorable? can't wait for them to arrive in sydney! *rubs hands in glee*