If you’re like me and you hate to shop, then you might end up like me and think, “Oh crap, it’s 6:30pm and there’s nothing to cook!”   That happened to me last night. If you have some butternut or other pumpkin (winter squash) in the fridge (or freezer) and some wonton wrappers — you’ve got dinner.

I could knock myself over the head for forgetting to photograph half of this recipe and I apologize that the inny bits are missing.  I’ll do my best to explain it all.  I set the wrappers out to thaw while I made the filling.

I had a fresh butternut pumpkin (squash) and I chopped it into chunks, drizzled it with a bit of olive oil, sprinkled sea salt and roasted it for about 30-45 minutes.  It all depends on how hot your oven is and how much you want the edges caramelized. If you’re in the US you can buy frozen squash and half of the work is done for you. It won’t be roasted but it would be quicker.

Then I chopped an onion and half a clove of garlic and cooked them in a bit of oil til it was translucent.  I put the pumpkin, onion, garlic and 1/2 cup of grated cheese (I used gruyere but you could use anything)  in the food processor. For added creamyness I added a few hunks of cream cheese and whizzed it all to make a thick filling.

I used my nifty cheap fold over dumpling maker but you could just make 2 really big raviolis per person and you’d be yards ahead of me.  Next time that’s what I’ll do.  Wet the edges of the wonton, put a teaspoon of filling in the center and seal the edges.  If you’re making bit ones, wet the edges of one wonton, put a tablespoon of filling in the center and top with another wonton wrapper and seal the edges.  You don’t want any of the pumpkin goodness to ooze out or all the hard work goes down the drain.  Set these aside while you make the sauce.

You could use any creamy sauce you wanted.  I’ll try an alfredo sauce next time.  This time I made a pumpkin sauce because that was the mood I was in.  I steamed some pumpkin til it was very well done and added cream, a couple tablespoons of  butter, some cracked pepper and and then used the hand whiz stick to liquidize it.  I added salt to taste and a  a handful of chopped parsley.  I sauteed some mushrooms I had in the fridge that needed to be used and I toasted some pine nuts and shaved some parmesan cheese.

Then I tossed the wonton ravioli into salted boiling water for just a minute or so, drained them and popped them in a bowl, poured over the sauce, added  a few mushrooms and sprinkled over the pine nuts and cheese.

I had no regrets from not doing the food shopping like I should have.  This was a wonderful light meal and I didn’t feel so guilty when I had a hot fudge sundae for dessert.

I will admit that my husband is not overly fond of pasta.  He came into the kitchen and said, “So, looks like we need to go food shopping tomorrow, right?”  Right.

Tonight’s the royal wedding.  TV coverage starts at 6pm where we are.  Wait til he sees me flattening white bread with a rolling pin and making cucumber sandwiches just to get us in the mood.  After the pasta meal he’s looking for a substantial dinner.  I’ve been food shopping and we’re having crumbed lamb cutlets but let’s just let him bump his gums complaining about the cucumber sandwiches for a while.

I didn’t know they existed until today. I thought you needed to spend ages using Camtasia to create a little video but YouTube.com does all the work for  you.  This took me less than five minutes. 

Okay, I can hear you in the back – maybe I *should* have spent more than 5 minutes but that’s all the time I have to spare today.  It’s Good Friday.

It’s a beautiful day here on the Sunshine Coast of Australia. This is a holiday town and Easter and ANZAC Day means that people are off work from today and don’t go back to work til Wednesday morning. Except me. I’m working so I’d better get back to it. Have a wonderful weekend.

Follow the link at the end of the video to make your own. Seriously, five minutes. Then leave a link in the comments and we’ll all watch yours.

I’m sure we’ve all used ground turmeric from the spice jar often in our lives but I’d never seen it fresh.  I was given a few pieces yesterday and honestly, I didn’t know what to do with it.  I’m not one to leave anything untried so I turned to my trusted Twitter friends for advice.

It seems that I’m not alone.  Marni & Raphe of Kensington Kitchen haven’t see fresh turmeric in the flesh either.  Alas, I didn’t feel so gastronomically alone.  Here’s what it looks like.  Isn’t that orange color wild?

The first bit of information I learned when looking it up on the net was “always wear gloves and don’t put it in anything that can stain, like plastic.”  That doesn’t scare me.  I’ve made pickled beets before and had red fingers for days.  I thought it made me look “cheffy”.

Shirley Lum of A Taste of the World suggested I plant one of the roots in a pot and grow some more!  So I’ve done that already.  Apparently turmeric grows in a similar fashion to ginger and more ginger is grown here on the Sunshine Coast of Australia that just about anywhere in the world.  I should be lucky with my pot of turmeric. Shirley also recommends adding slices of fresh turmeric when I cook rice.

I received another tweet from Genevie Jacobs who tweets as @VioletAndVeruca suggested using termeric on warm, buttered basmatic rice or any Indian dish or curried “anything”.

Finally, Emma Gardiner-Deans (@SheGoesOz) from SheGoes.com.au had a suggestion that started me salivating before I finished reading her advice.  “Pound it up with some garlic and ginger in a mortar and pestle and use it as a curry base with coconut cream and kaffir lime.”  Doesn’t that sound good?

So, I’ve got some chicken and some coconut cream and I even have 3 kaffir lime leaves so I’m off to cook.  Hopefully I’ll remember to take photos.  Have you ever meant to take photos but got caught up in the moment and only realized later that you missed your moment?  I do that way too often.  I’m heading to Sydney soon for a food styling class so maybe that will put me in a better frame of mind.  It also means the family eats cold food but that’s a small price to pay for my pleasure I think.  heh.

Do you have a go-to meal when you’re busy and can’t spend ages in the kitchen? For me it’s rack of lamb. From start to finish I can put a really lovely meal on the table in 40 minutes and still have time to fold a basket of laundry and toss the ball to the dog for a while.

I walk into the kitchen and flip the oven on to 180C (350F) and place the meat in a baking pan.  After rubbing a bit of olive oil over the meat I chop fresh rosemary and a little thyme and some fresh garlic and put that on the meat and a sprinkle of salt & pepper and roast for 30-40 minutes.   I peel and dice some potatoes and parboil for about 7 minutes and then put them on a baking sheet with some sea salt and pop them in the oven along with the meat.  They’ll both be done at the same time with the potatoes nice and crispy.

It might seem boring – meat and two veg but it’s a lovely meal and ready in a jiffy whether you’re serving 2 or 12. I vary the vegetables depending on what looks the best from the market and I always have a cruet with mint sauce on the table. This is a meal I know will turn out well every single time and what’s better than a nice piece of medium rack of lamb?  Not much!

Do you have a favorite go-to meal when you just don’t have time to be creative?

I attended my first gourmet food tasting since I moved to the Sunshine Coast a few months ago.  The How to Cook shop had so many people when I arrived that guests were spilling out onto the footpath with their champagne and samples.  Everyone was in a good mood.

The population in the coastal communities here is not large so I knew not to compare it to a lavish tasting you’d get in Sydney or Melbourne, but I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I wasn’t disappointed.  Everyone was warm and friendly and willing to say hello and have a chat. The vendors were eager to introduce us to their products. I met four lovely women tasting along with me and I hope we’ll become good friends.

My first stop was Lick ice cream, award winning hand crafted ice cream.  I was given a sample of a sugar cone filled with vanilla bean ice cream, topped with couverture chocolate and coconut.  It was very good.  The other sample was chocolate ice cream topped with chocolate and raspberry.  Lick also offers ice cream sandwiches made with shortbread and they come in the plastic boxes you see in the photo.  The portions are small and perfectly sized to serve after a big meal.

Sharyn Cook from Saltt, Himalayan Salt & Aussie Pepper, had a few minutes to tell me about the salt and pepper they sell through gourmet food stores. I tried a piece of cucumber with both salt and pepper and I felt the heat of the pepper on my tongue which was then cooled by the fresh cucumber.  The salt is mined from the Himalayan mountains and has the finest molecule of any known salt.  Sharyn explained that Himalayan Salt has 84 minerals and trace elements that are good for us. I have to admit that the beautiful pink color was the attraction for me.  My palate isn’t advanced enough to tell pink salt from white salt.  Pink’s prettier. Shame on me, I know.

Next, I moved on to Rebecca Symons and her fantastic hand made cookies.  Each cookie is big enough to share but I doubt that I ever would.  I tried the macadamia nut and white chocolate and I could have eaten every one on her sample plate (that’s what I meant about not sharing).  Rebecca is just starting out in her business and she’s going to let me know when her website is ready for you to visit.  If her website is anything like her cookies, it will be worth the visit.  They were yummy!  I’m going to buy some when I visit the shop on Friday.

Across the room I found a couple of selections that I thought were truly orgasmic.  Seriously!  I met Elisabeth Turner from Le’Petit Gourmet Trading who had quite a few things on offer for me to taste.  How could I let her down?

I grabbed pieces of bread and dipped into the wonderful oils and vinegars and dips from Pukara Estate.  I was hoping more people would flock to the table so nobody would notice that I was going back for seconds.  The pomegranate balsamic vinegar was lovely and would go well with fish but it didn’t hold a candle to the caramelised balsamic vinegar.  If I were REALLY skinny I would have crawled down the neck of that bottle and asked Elizabeth to toss bread down to me.

I closed my eyes and could imagine dipping a piece of my artisan bread in their premium extra virgin olive oil and then into that nectar of the gods caramelised balsamic vinegar and then just a hint of dukkah.  Ahhh…  heaven.   They also offer pepper flavoured extra virgin olive oil as well as truffle, lemon and wasabi.  An interesting balsamic vinegar was the vanilla and cinnamon.  On its own it didn’t send me to the moon yelling, “Oh God!!” but maybe it’s best used in a different way.

By the time I got to Tar10, the table was filled with people and I didn’t get to taste everything.  I did try the Greek Aubergine Relish that was SO good.  I will have to buy some of the others because just the names seem to call my name.  Strawberry rhubarb jam for instance, or spanish onion marmalade, or Tunisian spiced date & orange pickle, or beetroot, apple and ginger chutney – see what I mean?

My final stop was a local ginger company called Christie’s Organic Ginger Products.  I like ginger but I can’t say (until tonight) that I was a huge fan of it.  I wasn’t a fan until I tried a cracker with some swiss cheese and a piece of sweet ginger on top.  Okay, this was orgasmic akin to When Harry Met Sally but I wasn’t quite as loud.  I wanted to be.  The spicy hotness that you normally associate with ginger is there but it’s in a sweet sauce that cuts right through all that.  The crunchiness of the cracker and the creamyness of the cheese topped with the ginger made my heart sing.  See?

Yes, this is my plate and my crackers.  I bought a jar of the sweet ginger.  I brought it home and immediately started looking for the crackers and cheese.  Hubby asked if I hadn’t already tasted it earlier.  I had but I hadn’t had enough, obviously.  I made up 3 crackers with aged cheddar and popped one in my mouth.  It was as good as it had been with swiss cheese and a different sort of cracker.  I opened my eyes and asked hubs if he wanted one and he said, “I’ve already eaten two.”  While I was carefully putting the cheese and ginger on my crackers he was standing there cramming them in his mouth!  He’s not a real fan of sweet and savoury but he gave two thumbs up for the diced ginger in sweet sauce.

I would go to another tasting tomorrow if there was one.  My thanks to Iris Windsor from How To Cook for inviting us all and being such a gracious hostess.  I can only imagine what it’s like to have your shop filled shoulder to shoulder with champagne drinking, food eating people.  If you live in or visit the Sunshine Coast of Australia – come to the Friday cooking classes that Iris gives.  I will learn something from each one whether it’s a cheffy technique or about a product or ingredient I never used.

It was a beautiful, Sunday morning in early Autumn a couple of days ago. The sun was out and it was warm so what better thing to do than to invite the dog to “want to go in the CAR?” and head for the local farmer’s market in Caloundra here on the Sunshine coast of Australia.

I love farmer’s markets because the producer is right there in front of me.  I can ask if they use pesticides or what’s the best recipe for a vegetable I’m not familiar with.  It’s great for the farmer or producer too because they get instant feedback from their customers without having to go through the middleman.  With Charlie on his leash we moved from stall to stall sniffing the aromas, admiring the produce and asking questions.

Here’s what we bought, don’t they look good enough to eat?

There was a stall selling sausages with grilled onions and it made us SO hungry.  Because we had Charlie with us there was no sitting down at the outside tables because there’s a law saying dogs can’t sit with their owners where other people eat.

Not to be outdone, we stopped for some sandwiches and headed for the shore.  It was a quiet day on the Pumicestone Passage with only a few people fishing, boating or swimming.  The man who’s fishing on the rocks in this photo was concerned that Charlie was going to scare his fish but Chucko wouldn’t dream of doing anything of the sort.  He was totally focused on sharing our sandwiches.

We work most of the time and days like this almost feel like holidays.  Weatherwise, today is just like Sunday and I’m trying to decide if we head to the beach or sit inside and work.  How badly do I need time off is pushing how badly I need to pay the bills.  Maybe I can compromise and do both.

Charlie has voted to take his ball and frisbee to the beach!  So it’s decided.  I’m packing the picnic basket hard boiled eggs, some of the pickled beets I made the other day and some rustic artisan bread I baked this morning.  See  you later!

I was asked by BlogCritics.org to write a review for their website and the first name that came to mind was Erin Ireland.  I met her through Twitter.com.  She’s a very busy woman, in demand all over, and she took the time to make me feel welcome.  I visited her site and well, the rest you can read in my review.

Article first published as Erin Ireland’s Recipes Are To Die For on Blogcritics.

Star Vancouver food reporter Erin Ireland makes the best banana bread in the world.  There, I’ve said it. I’ve been wanting to say it since I saw her recipe and photographs on her website at ItsToDie4.com.  Look at the photo showing the addition of macadamia nuts and chocolate if you have any doubts at all.  I’m a real fan of nice, moist banana bread and that’s what initially caught my eye when visiting Erin’s blog but I stayed around to get to know her.

Erin has loved playing with her food since she was about 5 years when her parents encouraged her to learn to cook.  She started out with simple things like scrambled eggs and she continues to love simple, fresh ingredients.  I recently had the opportunity to chat with Erin and I was as curious as could be about how she ended up a celebrity food reporter.

It seems her life has been preparing her for a career in food and broadcasting. While she’s always been a Vancouver woman, she went to university in South Carolina and learned to love trying new local foods such as southern fried chicken and pulled pork. Later she spent a summer in Tuscany (be still my heart) living with a family and helping out with their vegetable garden.  She admits to eating figs off the tree for breakfast and sneaking sweet cherry tomatoes rather than doing much gardening. Who wouldn’t stop to eat those little red treasures if they could?

She returned to Vancouver intent on working in broadcasting and got a job hosting an entertainment news magazine about fashion, music and art.  Occasionally she’d get an opportunity to interview a celebrity chef about food and enjoyed it so much that she decided to create a blog called Its To Die 4. Her blog celebrates the good food in Vancouver, who the best chefs are, what the newest or best restaurants are serving and fantastic recipes like her world famous banana bread. She has used her blog as the stepping stone into broadcasting and reporting but continues to update it frequently to continue sharing her love of food.

Erin works as a food reporter writing a weekly column for Vancouver’s Metro Newspaper called Lunch Rush as well as a bi-monthly column in Vancouver View called The To Die for Face.  Her article in the current issue is about a new cooking school in Vancouver called The Dirty Apron co-owned by ultimate gourmets Karri Schuermans and David Robertson.  It must be inspiring to interview accomplished chefs and restaurant owners and find out what put them on their food path.

I asked Erin if she’s always perfect in the kitchen and my friends, the truth is out, she’s been known to put so much salt in a dish that nobody could eat it.  That reminds me of the video of Julia Child back in the 70s when during a live television show she not only knocked over the jar of kitchen tools but also missed the plate when turning out the hot tarte tatin.  As Erin and Julia both prove, it’s not about the cooking mistakes, it’s how you learn from them and happily move along.

When she’s not being a television host or posting on her blog or chatting with more than 4,000 of her loyal followers on twitter.com, she’s cooking for her partner.  He is a food reporter’s dream man.  He loves to eat and he loves doing the cleaning up – wrapping up any leftovers they have and delivering them to Erin’s Grandma.

When asked what ingredient she couldn’t live without she chose garlic, saying, “It’s hard to add too much. I love it roasted, spread on a fresh baguette, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with sale.”  Who can argue with that?

For most of us a chocolate muffin is great but Erin turns that muffin on its head by adding a bit of heat with her most recent recipe: Chocolate Muffins with Chili Spice with a chopped chili chocolate center. I’m not a huge fan of a lot of chili but it’s intriguing enough to try it.

What’s coming up for Erin?  “On Monday I’ll be on Vancouver’s entertainment talk show, Urban Rush, talking ‘Best Lunch Spots in Vancouver’. In May I’m heading to France and Italy where I’ll shoot a few ‘food discovery videos’…which include me searching for the most interesting foods in the region.”

She’s definitely a woman who’s going places.