Steak Sandwich with Beetroot Relish - World on a Plate

I was recently invited to be a part of World on a Plate by PolaM from An Italian Cooking in the Midwest. World on a Plate (created by PolaM) is a cultural exchange where bloggers from around the world get together on the last Sunday of the month (Monday here in Australia) to showcase the cuisine of their home country. There is a different theme each month and this month's theme is "Grilling". 


I look forward to exploring Australian cuisine; it's something that has evolved considerably since the days of "meat and three veg" that my Grandparents would have enjoyed.  
Australia has a unique place in the culinary world, its remoteness in being an island has meant that multicultural influences have only started to be explored over the past few decades, though our temperate climate and growing conditions have allowed passionate regional producers to locally develop the produce used for exploring these new dishes. Even before the multicultural food Renaissance our culinary culture was a strange creature; part British aristocracy (tea and scones are still very much a staple in rural areas) but also part pastural dish, with the First Settlers and Indigenous Australian meals being largely based on the food Australia had naturally available at the time (such as kangaroo, which is still eaten to this day). I'm looking forward to drawing upon all of these influences over future blog posts for World on a Plate.

Yep.

That, staring you right in the face, is a steak sandwich - my steak sandwich. 
Building a steak sandwich is filled with personal choices; you might like yours with mushrooms or you might like yours with onions, then there is the type of bread to consider (not to mention the condiments). Whatever you like, just do yourself a favour and put some good steak on there.  

Please don't use minute steak, it will always come out grey and what is the point of grey steak?

Get the best steak that you can afford and cook it well. 

This isn't the footy or a Bunnings sausage sizzle...

Two Desserts With Honey Delight Award Winning Honey

Honey, how I love you. For a girl with a sweet-tooth, you always come through for me. I love you on buttery toast best and when I am sick, I love you in my tea. I have used you in medicated form on a number of cuts and you just heal me right up. You even hide in my skincare products and keep me hydrated. 


I think I might love you as much as I love lemons.

Honey, you can imagine how happy I was when I started talking to a person on Facebook who, along with her family, actually produces you. That person is Carmen Pearce-Brown from Honey Delight in Nicolls in the ACT. Carmen and her family have been producing honey for four generations now and recently won a blue ribbon for their Apple Box Honey and The Champion ribbon for their Yellow Box Honey in the 2012 Royal Easter Show!

Source: Honey Delight

One Year Old!

The Littlest Anchovy turned one today! I would like to thank everyone who has read, commented, offered advice and supported me during the year - you know who you are. I have had an absolute ball and have met (online and offline) some amazing people through blogging.

A BIG Thank - you to The Bearded Gamer - Your support and mad editing skills have been invaluable, I appreciate you more than you know. 
So here's to another year of more of all this! I know it is only going to get better and better.

Warm Jerusalem Artichoke Salad

We’re friends now, right?

After almost a year of blogging I think I can change The Bearded Gamer’s name to his actual one (which is Nick, incidentally). The alias that I adopted for my partner (and 2nd pair of eyes for this blog) is just way too long. Some of my friends in my day to day life really love this alias and to them I say: Sorry guys, I’ll still use it occasionally in context but I cannot be bothered to type it out each and every time I want to refer to Nick. The Littlest Anchovy and The Bearded Gamer are too much of a mouthful together.  So henceforth, whenever I mention Nick, you know that I am referring to The Bearded Gamer.

So, Nick’s parents neighbour gave Nick’s dad (see why I got rid of the alias?) a big bag of Jerusalem Artichokes*.  Nick’s dad, in turn, gave them to me: Anna, The Littlest Anchovy. He gave them to me because he knows how much I get a kick out of bags of things that grow in dirt. He also knows how much I get a kick out of working out what to make with them.

Lemon Cream Cheese Butter Cake

So, I have just found out that when you have a new, young citrus tree it is a good idea to pick the flowers off it for the first year or so. This is to ensure that the tree can concentrate its energy and nutrients on becoming well established to better hold large quantities of fruit. 
Apparently, if you let the tree bear fruit before it has become established, the tree will concentrate all of this energy into the fruit and therefore its growth will become stunted.  


I wish I had thought to read up on this when I first got my citrus trees.


To be fair, the torrential rain that Sydney had pretty much took care of any flower development on my Buddha's Hand and Lemonade trees (as well as general leaf and stem growth too..) but at least they haven't gone the way of my Meyer Lemon Tree (the newest addition to my failing citrus collection). 
You see, there was one flower on it that I didn't notice was there until it had begun to grow into a fruit. It was protected by branches and leaves and it seemed to survive all that mother nature threw at it over the Summer.