It has, for the longest time, been my dream to win a meat tray at an RSL. Sadly that has never eventuated as I have only visited an RSL club a few times. The last time I went with friends Gina and Hot Dog, they were simply giving out single pack trays like the kind you get at the supermarket. That wouldn’t do, I wanted a big monster of a tray that I could barely lift. And when I spoke to a friend she also revealed that this was one of her dreams too. Are there hundreds or thousands of you out there similarly lusting after such a tray? I hope so! Because the kind people at Haverick’s direct are giving away a $150 voucher to a lucky Not Quite Nigella reader!

They are one of Australia’s largest meat wholesalers and once a week on a Saturday they open up their enormous supply to the public. You can buy free range pork, wagyu beef, lamb, aged Angus beef or… if you’re daring, you could buy some Tomahawk steaks!

For a chance to win this $150 gift voucher, all you have to do is tell me which is your favourite meat for Christmas. Is it chicken, pork, duck, beef, lamb or something else? Simply add your answer as a comment to the story. The competition ends at Midnight AEST 19th December, 2010 just in time for your to make your Christmas truly special. You can enter this once daily. This competition is open to anyone in Australia that can pick up the meat from the Banksmeadow location!

***The lucky winner is: Linda F. of Sydney!***

Best of luck!

Love,

Lorraine

xxx

My mother had a book when we were young that was a little forbidden to us. I used to pore over it staring wide eyed at the glossy pages, probably slack jawed and drooling. It was stored under the staircase, hidden away slightly from prying and jammy children’s fingers. It was an enormous tome and I don’t even remember the name of it. And in it were a range of recipes that we were never really going to eat as my father had a strict “Chinese food only” policy. They had rack of lamb, buttery cakes, cherries jubilee and a Beef Wellington with it’s burnished golden exterior and pink interior. The full coloured photo pages are probably worn and dog eared from a hungry and curious child and I confess the book has my fingerprints all over it.

Beef Wellington is usually a tenderloin topped with foie gras and mushroom duxelles-don’t let the term duxelle scare you as it did me. It is simply finely chopped mushrooms, onion and herbs cooked in butter to resemble a paste. It is then wrapped in puff pastry and baked. I’ve seen and eaten Beef Wellington at restaurants and they always seem to slice it off a larger piece of beef. I’ve even seen it on a menu where it has to be ordered a day in advance so I always assumed that it was hard to do. But since there are just the two of us and I don’t seem to have the necessary forethought to order things in advance, I wanted to attempt to make one for two people. Actually individual people as I wanted to wrap each piece of beef in pastry. See how sneaky I am? This means more pastry! Stick with me and I’ll always give you more pastry… .

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A few weeks ago, I was invited to attend the screening of Eat, Pray, Love by the lovely people at Fisher & Paykel. At the pre screening event, I was amongst a group large of magazine editors and writers and even though I was the only online person, I felt welcome rather than an oddity (how times have changed!). I got to chatting with a group from Home Beautiful and was introduced to Vanessa who works there. She had tried some of the recipes on Not Quite Nigella and spoke of a recipe of her own which was a simple five ingredient chocolate cake that had no butter or oil and was gluten free!

I am not gluten intolerant or coeliac but from holding competitions and writing about it, I know many NQN readers are or know people that are so I was eager to try this. The cake itself is wonderfully light-when first baked this had an almost mousse like quality to it which is just wonderful. It is frightfully easy and as there is no butter or oil it doesn’t require creaming. Most importantly it doesn’t taste lower fat (ok there is chocolate and the almond meal but you know what I mean right?) or gluten free. And as Vanessa says, it is even good the day afterwards!

As for the movie, well of course I was going to like the bits about Italy the most-after all that is where the “Eat” from the title comes from. I can’t compare it to the book as I haven’t read the whole book but I did think that the film did see to go on for a very long time and by the time India finished I was fidgeting like mad and just praying (no pun intended) for Bali to come along. Has anyone seen the film? What did you think of it? I know it was panned by critics but I was still curious to see it. I didn’t think it was anywhere near as bad as the critics said that it was.  It was entertaining enough and like the hopeless optimist that I am I am glad that it helped me nab this wonderful recipe from Vanessa!

So tell me Dear Reader. do you know many gluten intolerant people or are you one yourself?

This is also my entry into Deeba’s Monthly Mingle event!

Vanessa’s Chocolate & Apple Gluten Free Cake

• 4 eggs, separated
• 115 g/4.06 ozs. castor/superfine sugar
• 115 g/4.05 ozs. plain chocolate, melted
• 1 medium sized apple, peeled, cored and grated (I accidentally chopped it but grating is better I think)
• 125g/4.4 ozs. almond meal

1. Preheat oven to 180C degrees/350F

2. Lightly grease and line a 20cm cake tin (I used a heart tin as I only had a 22 or 23cm tin and didn’t want it to turn out too flat)

3. Beat egg yolks with sugar until pale and creamy. Mix in melted chocolate, almond meal and grated apple.

OK it doesn’t look pretty but it tastes great, I promise!

4. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form & fold into apple+choc mixture.

5. Pour into tin and bake for 45 mins.

6. Dust with icing sugar and serve with cream and fresh strawbs. tastes even better the day after!