On the radio

On the radio

So today I was on the radio. Regular readers here and over at Yummy Lummy will know of my love of the iconic Australian pastry treat, viz., the Vanilla Slice. I joined Jolene Laverty on Lish Fejer‘s Sunday Brunch show on ABC Canberra, and we talked about our love of vanilla slice.

As an aside, Who listens to the radio? by The Sports was one of my favourite songs growing up.

I mentioned Jolene earlier in January after she wrote a brilliant piece for The Guardian and she was kind enough to mention my vanilla slice review on Yummy Lummy. Lish reached out to Jolene to appear on her show and she generously extended the invitation to me too. I had a lot of fun. I’ve appeared on radio and TV before when I was working in Darwin, but this was my first in-studio experience.

Jolene had made some vanilla slice after she wasn’t able to buy any at her chosen bakery yesterday. I brought in some from the new Dobinsons Bakery Cafe at Westfield Belconnen. I really liked the flavour of Jolene’s slice. It had a lovely caramel flavour to it and the pastry was thin but it held enough without being friable.

This is a photograph at ABC studios Canberra of Vanilla slice from Jolene Laverty and Dobinsons Bakery cafe. I was on the radio.

The Dobinsons slice was really very good. I brought it in because Jolene had mentioned she hadn’t tried a slice with passionfruit icing. The custard of the Dobinsons’ slide had a near perfect consistency. It was soft and tongueable. As Goose would say, these are the ducks guts.

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It was fun eating and talking while on the radio.

Hear me on the radio

You can hear the fun we had from about the 35 minute mark. Click on the link and it opens the ABC site and you can listen to Lish’s entire show from today. We even had the High Commissioner from New Zealand telling us about his favourite vanilla slice too.

More cooking news

This week I received in the mail two products (which I paid for) to help me cook meat. The first is a MEATER® thermometer and the second is an Anova Culinary precision cooker.

MEATER® thermometer

This is a very fancy meat thermometer which despite oven temperatures can communicate via Blue Tooth or Wi-Fi with a smartphone app. While I do own an old fashioned meat thermometer, I like the idea of using something that I can read in real time without having to open the oven door. I’ll be writing a proper review for Yummy Lummy soon.

This is a photograph of my new MEATER probe in its box.

I like that with meat thermometers I won’t overcook my meat. I just need to get the internal temperature to the desired temperature, remove the meat from the heat source and then let my meat rest.

My default for cooking chicken has been to cook for an hour at 200 °C. The meat was always moist but I always wondered if I could cook the muscle for a shorter period. Obviously, cooking chicken requires some care, so getting the internal temperature of the largest muscle bundle to 75 °C is paramount. The MEATER® turned out to be a great aid. I was able to more than halve the cooking time. The flesh was juicy, moist and tender. The juices ran clear and I felt safe.

Last night I cooked a piece of Scotch fillet steak in the oven using my MEATER® and it was delicious. I even went to the extent of searing the outside with a kitchen torch.

Sous Vide Everything

Over many years I’ve contemplated sous vide cooking. I know it’s recently become a fad and up until recently, I had assumed that unless I used old second-hand laboratory equipment I’d be up for a really expensive closed system. I didn’t realise I could purchase a water recirculator and a plastic bucket to do the job.

This is a photograph of the box containing the Anova Culinary Recirculator on a window sill

I’ve been watching Sous Vide Everything on YouTube and the hosts (who are South Americans living in Florida), have convinced me there is an affordable and space conscious way to cook sous vide.

One of my major concerns was where to set up a cooker in the one bedroom flat I rent. There is barely enough space for the bench top oven and induction hob I use. I see that with a detachable water recirculator I can use a plastic bucket to store things and put it away after each use.

While the recirculator arrived this week, I’m still waiting for the plastic bucket and lid. I bought the container via Amazon Australia and expect delivery later this month. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m excited about cooking salmon and red meat sous vide.

What else happened this week?

Not much really. That said, I did break the 79 kg barrier that I’ve been sitting on for so long. I expect after today’s vanilla slice extravaganza though, I may be approaching 80 kg when I weigh in tomorrow morning 😳 😜

Graph of my weight loss since October 2017

This is a graph demonstrating my weight loss since October 2017. It's a graph of time on the X axis and weight on the Y axis.

What I ate this week

Monday dinner

Baked salmon and a colourful fennel salad

This is a photograph of Monday dinner. Baked poppy and sesame seed, chilli crusted salmon and lime flavoured fennel and radish salad. This is a really colourful photograph.

Tuesday lunch

Leftover salmon

This is a photograph of Tuesday lunch. Leftover salmon with fresh garden tomatoes. You can see the beautiful sweet globes with the leftover salmon.

Tuesday dinner

Chicken Maryland cooked with the help of the MEATER®. The tomatoes were a gift from a workmate. They were amazing.

This is a photograph of Tuesday dinner. Poppy and sesame seed crusted Chicken Maryland with fennel and tomato lime salad. It's really colourful.

Wednesday dinner

Chicken Maryland cooked with the help of the MEATER®

This is a photograph of Wednesday dinner. Celebrating breaking through the 79 kg barrier with #meatermade Chicken Maryland and fennel and tomato salad. Using my MEATER thermometer, I cooked the chicken until it reached an internal temperature of 75 °C and allowed it to rest for 5 minutes. The meat was moist, juicy and delicious. The salad contains fresh garden tomatoes from a work mate, lime zest, lime juice, fennel, radish, red onion, capers, parsley and dill. #weightloss #lowcarb #igfood

Thursday dinner

Baked speck and vegetables

This is a photograph of Thursday dinner. Baked speck and vegetables with cream and cheese. It's still in the oven-proof dish I cooked it in.

Friday lunch

Chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy

This is a photograph of Friday lunch. Chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy. I ate this at the Canberra Hospital and Health Services tuck shop.

Friday dinner

Speck and fennel salad

This is a photograph of Friday dinner. Speck and spicy fennel salad with radish and lime zest. It is a colourful salad.

Saturday breakfast

Crispy bacon and poached eggs

This is a photograph of Saturday breakfast. Worcestershire flavoured poached eggs with crispy bacon.

Saturday lunch

Macca’s Nugs and mustard

This is a photograph of Saturday lunch. Nugs and mustard from Maccas.

Saturday dinner

Scotch fillet steak cooked with the aid of the MEATER®

This is a gallery of photographs showing a sequence of what I did to prepare the steak. Click on one photograph and scroll through each image.

Sunday breakfast

Coon cheese and sesame seed omelet

This is a photograph of Sunday breakfast. Coon cheese and sesame seed omelet served with a slice of lime and a caramel cream coffee. I love lime juice.

Sunday lunch

I ate vanilla slices

This is a photograph of Vanilla slice in the display cabinet at Dobinsons Bakery cafe, Westfield Belconnen. This is a photograph of Vanilla slice from Dobinsons Bakery Cafe. I shot the photograph at Westfield Belconnen. It shows a tray of four slices in a cardboard box. This is a photograph at ABC studios Canberra of Vanilla slice from Jolene Laverty and Dobinsons Bakery cafe. I was on the radio.

Final words

I’m not sure if you’ll ever hear me on the radio again, I hope so, it was a lot of fun.

I’ll be enjoying a pork chop for dinner. I’m not sure if anything exciting is happening in the week to come. I hope you have a good week and eat well.

Ducks guts

A great piece of Australian slang and best epitomised by one of the best sequences of cinema ever made. In fact, I prefer watching this than anything else I’ve ever seen at the movies including Star Trek movies.

Hear Goose at about the 1 minute mark but better yet, watch the entire clip.

NATIONAL CLUBS GYMNASTICS CARNIVAL 2017 MY JOURNEY TO AND FROM BENDIGO

This is a photograph of Metal straws and a straw cleaner because I hate that plastic straws are killing marine mammals and reptiles.
I like metal straws because I hate what plastic straws are doing to marine mammals and reptiles.

 

12 Replies to “On the radio”

  1. So cool you got invite along the radio segment! So fun listening to you and Jolene, and you explained what a good vanilla slice and the history of it very well. Didn’t think there could be caramel in some of them 😃 I’ve seen the pink icing ones around…didn’t know they were actually vanilla slices. But I have heard of the fake ones and lattice biscuits in school 😂 Congrats on the weight loss achievement. Healthy eating goes a long way. As usual a good week in food for you. Very colourful as always 😀

    1. Thanks, Mabel, I’m chuffed that you listened to the show 😃
      In my drives in and out of Victoria, I’ve seen more pink icing in Victoria.
      I’m pretty happy with the weight loss so far, even though today, I ate more sugar than I have in a long time. It was worth it though. Both slices tasted really good.

    2. It was a great segment. First time on radio as a food blogger. Going places 😃

      Here in metropolitan Victoria, I haven’t come across too many pink icing vanilla slices – very rare.

      No need to deprive yourself of good food. Nothing wrong with a food treat 😃😃

    3. You’re right Mabel, it’s more the country bakeries that do the pink icing.
      As I get closer to my goal weight, I need to be more careful to make sure I don’t fall into traps 😃

    4. Really like how you used the word chuffed. You must have been chuffed to be on the show, and chuffed with the weight loss breakthrough 😀

      Weight will go up and down (I’m a woman and know this too well, too often 😂 ) You are doing great. Maybe just fall into one food trap once in a while and get back on the bandwagon 😃

    5. Yes, Mabel. I’m chuffed, happy and pretty satisfied with how things are progressing.
      I need to drop one more size and I’ll have reached a target, the challenge then is to stabilise and maintain the healthy weight. I know I can do it.

    6. Good luck. Great for your health, and also you have more than a handful of healthy recipes now, more than enough for a book 😀

    7. Yes, indeed. A recipe e-book is what I want to do this year. It’ll be recipes for cooking for one.

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