Master Pasta

Salmon Ravioli with mushroom tomato sauce

I am in love... in love with my pasta machine!!

I was inspired by the Masterchef to make fresh pasta. (I was addicted!!) I bought the pasta machine for about 4 weeks now and have been make fettuccini and I was wanting to do something different..

Cath bought some smoked salmon and she wanted to have it with pasta. She gave me 2 hours to prepare the dish. So the clock started ticking, "chop, chop"...

With the freshly grown dill in our backyard, I added the dill in the pasta dough to make "dillie" pasta. With a twist, I then made ravioli.

The mushroom tomato sauce: fresh tomato, mushroom, bulb spring onion and garlic.

I left a bit of a mass in the kitchen at the end, but it was ALL FUN and tasty!! The other good news is that I made it in time with 1 minute to spare!!! AWESOMENESS

First time Pasta

Pasta - here I come...

I just bought a pasta machine - WOO HOO..

First time making pasta, it was LONG... it took me almost 2 hours to make 3 serves of pasta - the dough was too sticky and the rolling pin kept falling out, it was exhausting!

At the end I made carbonara, something simple. It was all worth it, the pasta was fresh and well cooked... LOVE IT!!

Chocolate Fondant - Masterchef style

My heart melts...

Chocolate Ganache tart with raspberry

Masterchef's Chocolate ganache, lavender cream and raspberry tart WITHOUT the lavender cream :S

Insipired by Masterchef, I attempted to make pastry... it was a disaster!

First, it was too dry, it did not shape properly and crumbled as soon as you touch it. Second time, it was over cooked, it was burned. Third time, it was a little better.

However, our lavender bush died, so this Chocolate ganache, lavender cream and raspberry tart was in fact - Raspberry chocolate ganache tart WIHTOUT lavender cream!

My top tips are - never, never, never, ever give up!!! And use fresh raspberry (for freshness and for presentation sake!)

Be Gorgeous chocolate biscuits

Be Gorgeous

Some gorgeous ladies included myself, baked these Be Gorgeous "very" Chocolate biscuits for the annual Be Gorgeous sunset walk this year.

After burning off some calories from the 2.75km walk, having one of these babies... well, I think they worth it!

Sushi, tempura and green tea almighty

We are turning Japanese, we really think so!!


It was Cath's birthday on ANZAC day. "Happy Birthday Cath!!" We had a really good time at the Be Gorgeous walk and ended the day with pizza, movie and Magum. And of course, we made her dinner the next day!


Instead of baking ANZAC biscuit, I made her a very Japanese dinner (Not that I wanted to remind myself how the ANZAC fought against the Japanese.. Just that Japanese food is Cath's favourite!)



Main courses were sushi and tempura.

I made sushi before, so it wasn't too much trouble. Ps Chris loved the egg boat and of course we had Cath's favourite fish eggs! I loved the "Japanese ginger rose".


Dessert was Opera with green tea ice-cream.

The Opera cake was made up of layers of Jaconde and green tea buttercream, topped with chocolate sauce/ganache. This delicious cake was served with homemade green tea ice-cream. (Finally got to use my ice-cream maker which I got it for my birthday last year :D)

Rich Chocolate Cake

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star...

It was Vanes' bday on Wed, I made this chocolate cake for her. Nothing much special about this cake, other than I added a bit of coffee in the mixture - so really it was a mocha cake!