Food Archives | Page 36 of 68

Cake Pops by Jack Pops

20 December 2011 Ibyang Sanchez 0 Comments Category: Food

LOOK! One of the yummiest desserts sent to “A Wife’s Charmed Life” this year from Jack Pops…

A loving wife and mom to two boys, Jackie‘s (my friend and owner of Jack Pops) love for baking led her to creating sweet goodies in the form of cake pops.

These are basically cake truffles on a lollipop stick. Each Cake Pop is carefully hand made into a ball shape, put on a stick then dipped in delicious chocolate coating. Jack Pops gives you that extra “wow” as Jackie decorates them with colourful sprinkles, jimmies, or drizzled icings or monograms. Should Jackie’s clients request for a personalized Cake Pop design to cater to an occasion, she is also able to do so.

Jack Pops are always a hit at parties as kids and kids-at-heart enjoy the creative and delectable cake pops that Jackie makes.

For the Husband’s birthday this year, I requested Jackie a special cake pop for him. Since my Husband is a photographer, she made a Canon Cake Pop for him.

Get to know more about Jack Pops by subscribing to their facebook accounts:

JACK POPS SYDNEY and JACK POPS MANILA

For orders, please email Jack Pops (Sydney) via cakepops5@gmail.com or Jack Pops (Manila) via jackpops.manila@gmail.com

Pete Evans’ Pizza Masterclass at Myer

19 December 2011 Ibyang Sanchez 0 Comments Category: Food, Tips

I was doing a bit of Christmas shopping three weeks ago when I chanced upon a little crowd in the appliance section of Myer Sydney. I walked closer and saw Pete Evans having a masterclass on creating pizza. With nothing but time on my hands, I gladly joined in to learn a thing or two in making pizza.

Pete Evans is one of Australia’s well-respected chefs and co-host of the cooking show, “My Kitchen Rules”. His passion for cooking started at a young age of 13 years old. When he turned 17, he followed his calling and became an apprentice chef. He currently owns the following restaurants: Pantry Restaurant (Melbourne), Hugos Manly (Sydney), Hugos Bar Pizza (Kings Cross) and Hugos Lounge (Kings Cross). He has written a few books too: Fish, a collection of fish and seafood recipes; My Table – Food for Entertaining; My Grill, which covers the art of barbequing; and My Party, a book dedicated to cocktail food and drinks.

His Pizza Masterclass is part of promoting his signature pizza maker with Breville complete with a recipe book. He was just getting started when I arrived.

I was able to try at least four pizzas, all were delicious and had the perfect crusts. The last pizza he made was a Chocolate Pizza but I wasn’t able to taste it. Creating the pizza with the use of the Breville Pizza Oven takes only awhile so the pizzas just kept coming. I was only able to take photos of three pizzas I’ve tasted.

MARGHERITA PIZZA

CHILI PRAWN PIZZA WITH SALSA VERDE

PUMPKIN PIZZA

Some tips I learned from Pete Evans:

Tomato-based pizzas are good for meat ingredients.
Use good cheese
Use good meats you can find in delis
Marinate Prawns in chili and oil before putting them on top of the pizza
Meat and chili are a great combination for pizza ingredients
Use Chili Flakes instead of fresh chili
Make your own dough — it’s easy!

Sources:

Pete Evans on MKR Website

Pete Evans on One Management Website

Cold Taho at Gumballs

12 December 2011 Ibyang Sanchez 3 Comments Category: Food, Restaurants

I usually buy fishballs from Gumballs and never cared about their drinks. They recently renovated their take-away shop in Westpoint Blacktown and with the new facade emphasizing the drinks they offer, I noticed they serve Taho (Sweet Tofu or Bean Curd with Caramel and Pearls) and Halo-Halo. Apparently, along with the revamped of Gumballs, they introduced new drinks and desserts as well.

I got excited when I saw the photo of their Taho on the menu and ordered a regular cup right away.

It’s Cold Taho and the packaging is likened to the milk teas served by Chatime and Easy Way. I love it! It is almost the same as the Taho I buy in the Philippines, only cold and not as sweet (you can request to add more caramel syrup).

Next time, I’ll try their version of the Halo-halo and Sago Gulaman.

Gumballs

Click for Locations

Korean Fried Chicken at Gallus Gallus (Chatswood, NSW)

30 November 2011 Ibyang Sanchez 3 Comments Category: Food, Restaurants

From discovering a cafe, we discovered where we to eat delicious Korean Fried Chicken in Chatswood.

After falling in love with Korean cuisine, the immersion won’t be complete without having a taste of their Fried Chicken. Korean Fried Chicken is prepared in such a way that the chicken skin becomes thin and very crunchy, then usually bathe in spicy sauce or garlic soy.

We’ve found some Korean take away shops in Sydney that sells Korean Fried Chicken which I sometimes buy if I’m too lazy to cook. I also learned how to cook them at home (will share recipe later).

We’ve heard about a Korean restaurant named Hello! Kyochon before but haven’t had the time to visit until it closed and was bought by another Korean businessman who named the restaurant Gallus Gallus (scientific term for Chicken).

A short chitchat with the staff of Gallus Gallus confirmed that they still cook the same Korean Fried Chicken they served when the restaurant was named Hello! Kyochon. There was a slight change in the menu as some Korean dishes were eliminated but their friend chicken remains their best dish.

Korean Fried Chicken at Gallus Gallus (Chatswood, NSW)

It was rainy and cold when we dined at Gallus Gallus so we ordered their Seafood Soup to keeps us warm. Not very flavourful but abundant with fishballs, tofu and mussels.

Other than soup, we only ordered chicken, as in! They offer regular chicken, chicken in garlic and soy and chicken in chili sauce in half and whole sizes. Since the Husband wanted the garlic & soy chicken and I wanted the spicy chicken, we ordered half a chicken for each flavour. I had to ask the staff if we’re allowed to take home leftovers (not all restaurants allow customers to bring home leftovers) and when they agreed, we ordered a whole chicken.

The smell of freshly cooked fried chicken was enticing. We smelled the chicken even before we saw the staff carrying the plate full of chicken to our table.

The chicken skin was amazingly thin but crunchy. The flavour of the chicken can be tasted thru the innards of the chicken. I enjoyed the spicy chicken as it really slowly burns the mouth while the garlic & soy has become my favourite as it had great fusion of salty and sweet flavours.

The leftover chicken we brought home tasted delicious still. I just chucked them inside the over and heated them up and they tasted great!

Nowadays, KFC has a different meaning as it can also mean Korean Fried Chicken.

Gallus Gallus

Shop 3, 76A Archer Street

Chatswood NSW 2067

Phone: 02 9411 8766

Freshly “French Pressed” Coffee at Home

29 November 2011 Ibyang Sanchez 0 Comments Category: Food, Great Finds for the Home, Tips

Although I’m glad that the Christmas Blend is now available in Starbucks via Ready Brew range, I still love my freshly brewed coffee at home.

We usually buy grounded coffee but we recently bought a very cheap coffee grinder to complete our “coffee ensemble”.

The reasons why we now buy coffee beans:

(1) the beans last longer on shelf compared to grounded coffee

(2) the freedom to control how many beans we will grind on a certain time

(3) control over how coarse or fine we want our grounded coffee

If you want to have good coffee at home, the cheapest and best way is to have a coffee grinder and French Press (a.k.a. coffee press). Using a coffee press results to stronger and better tasting coffee compared to coffee made by machines.

Fresh Coffee Beans + French Press = extra full-bodied coffee flavour.

I just love the smell of coffee beans

French Press-ing our Coffee

Our fresh cups of coffee

It may seem very manual and time-consuming but it works for us. We don’t mind doing “manual labour” since it has resulted to better-tasting coffee. Oh and I love the romance that goes with the grinding and French pressing of coffee. And if only for that, we know that the ritual of grinding and pressing coffee is always worth it.