A Dubai-style chocolate experiment

When my friend Jacqui mentioned Dubai chocolate to me in July 2025, I was quite late to the party. Apparently the flavour/texture combo (chocolate + pistachios + crunch) had been around since 2021. Suddenly I started seeing it everywhere. The first block I bought was from the gorgeous Turkish Delight store in Adelaide, and variations are available in supermarkets and Asian grocery stores. Of the types I've tried, the Adelaide version tasted best, as it was not so sweet as the others, but I'd prefer an even less sweet option. This particular style of chocolate is also very expensive – ranging from about $125 to $150 per kilo – so I've been pondering how to create something similar at home.

My first thoughts were to combine Chang's Fried Noodles with pistachio paste, then coat it in melted chocolate. However, all three brands of pistachio paste/spread I found had sugar as their main ingredient (unlike, say, peanut butter which can be made of 100% peanuts) so I decided to use whole pistachios instead. The ingredients:

I melted the chocolate, then mixed in the noodles and nuts, and spread the mixture in a silicone loaf mould. (More usually used to bake things like date loaf and banana bread, but also perfect for shaping chocolate blocks, it seems!) The result:

Andrew and I taste-tested the chocolate and we liked it! These ingredients achieve the qualities I was seeking but without being cloyingly sweet (though, if I try it again ... I may use milk rather than dark chocolate). The mixture was also much cheaper than commercial versions, with the ingredients costing $20.10 for 410 grams (so about $49 per kilo). Nom nom. 

On the hunt for protein ...?

We all need more chick peace in our lives

(sign spotted in Sri Lanka in 2023)

I've been doing boot camp classes for almost ten years and they're great fun. I started doing them, at my then workplace, as a way to regain strength after fracturing my humerus in 2015, and enjoyed the classes so much that I continued attending even after I left that job eight years ago. (Funnily, a bunch of other regular attendees are also ex-employees. Or even spouses of ex-employees :-)

Anyway, some of the group are doing a February protein challenge where they are trying to consume extra quantities of protein this month. The mid-exercise conversation today turned to how to reach the goal, which got me thinking about recipes that might be packed with protein. I'm not much of a meat eater so dishes featuring legumes, nuts, soy and dairy products sprang to mind. Here are a few meatless ideas that might boost protein intake:

Asparagus with Hollandaise sauce

Cheese souffle

Chickpea delight

Dal makhani

Lentil, cauliflower and sweet potato soup

Mushroom, lentil and rice casserole

Nachos

Palak paneer

Peacamole dip

Rocket and haloumi salad

Shakshuka

Spanish omelette

Sri Lankan lentil curry

Tandoori tofu salad

Teriyaki tofu and veges

Vegetarian shepherd's pie

Zucchini, basil and feta fritters

and for dessert …

Chocolate cheesecake

Orange and almond cake

Portuguese tarts

Wattalapam

Enjoy!

Brekkie @ Café Momo

Bruce, a Canberra suburb about 2 km from our place, used to be quite sleepy on weekends. It's home to the University of Canberra and various government departments so much busier on weekdays. That said, lots more apartments have appeared there in recent years so the range of eateries, services and shops is growing. Recently Andrew and I enjoyed a delicious Sunday morning breakfast at Café Momo in Thynne Street.

Coffee to start (of course)

Karin's choice: corn and haloumi fritters with beetroot

hummus, poached eggs and avocado salsa

Andrew's choice: apple cinnamon porridge

with maple, granola and fresh fruit

I'd visited Café Momo on a few previous occasions, for coffee or lunch with friends working in nearby offices, but it's also a great choice for a leisurely weekend brekkie! There's plenty of outdoor seating too, if you (like us) are still trying not to catch COVID-19 (again).

Lunch @ KOTO

It was a couple of weeks ago now, but I recently had lunch with two friends at KOTO in Barton, Canberra (across the road from Old Parliament House, a.k.a. the Museum of Australian Democracy). KOTO had been in the news lately, as a relative newcomer to the Canberra fine dining scene. 

It was more upmarket than the lunch places my friends and I usually frequent … and it was excellent. The tasting menu (at $160 pp) seemed eye-wateringly expensive, and also a bit too fishy for our tastes, so we ordered off the a la carte menu. We shared:

Edamame

Agedashi tofu

Kinoko (mushrooms)

Cauliflower

Lamb cutlets

… and the décor was delightful too:

The whole meal cost less than $100 for three of us and we were all satisfied. No room for dessert! The food and service and ambience at KOTO were fabulous. Recommended :-)

Brekkie @ Stepping Stone Dickson

A couple of weeks ago, a local editor friend introduced me to Stepping Stone at Dickson. It's the second 'branch' of a social enterprise designed to help migrant and refugee women gain skills and work experience; the first was at Strathnairn Arts Centre. Andrew and I usually take ourselves out to breakfast on a Sunday but went on Saturday this week instead as Stepping Stone is closed on Sundays and Mondays. The café has a gorgeous vegetarian menu. We both ordered off the specials board today but will have to return as there were at least three other things on the menu I wanted to try.

We started with coffee …

Then Andrew had:

Granola with fruit, nuts and yoghurt

And Karin had:

Turkish eggs (Çılbır) with yoghurt, chilli oil and sourdough

Great food, great service, and a good cause. Yum! It's a lovely spot.

Recipes for (temporarily) abandoned blokes

The spring Lifeline Bookfair was held over the weekend and, to my delight, conversation in my boot camp group today was about what books people had bought! The bookfair is a Canberra institution and raises money for an excellent cause so it's always great to hear people have enjoyed it. Particularly as Andrew and I have volunteered behind the scenes for 17 years or so. 

Anyway, one of the guys in the group described a cookbook he'd purchased. It sounded awesome. Dinner party recipes in categories such as 'recipes for dull people' and 'recipes for abandoned men'. Oh my goodness. I didn't find out if the recipes for abandoned men were for the permanently abandoned or those whose partners might eventually return. (More details please, Michael.)

The discussion inspired this blog post. Andrew and I have been together for about 32 years and (to my shame) I've never really let him spread his wings in the kitchen. I like cooking and tend to take over. However, I'm off to Sri Lanka for 2.5 weeks in November – the country has been at the top of my bucket list since I was seven – and will be leaving Andrew at home. It's not the first time I've gone somewhere exotic and left him behind – Timor-Leste in 2018 was amazing – but maybe he'd like some recipe ideas for when I'm away? Just in case, here goes …

Chunky avocado salsa

Curries (with a little help from the good folk of Byron Bay)

Lots of salad ideas

Pea and tofu soup

Ratatouille

Simple pizza from scratch

Seasonal stir fry

Shakshuka

Spanish omelette

Teriyaki tofu and veges

Enjoy!

P.S. my apricot tree has blossoms :-)

Truffle dinner @ Lolo and Lola

Well! What a treat. As the third (and final?) splurge in our 2023 Canberra truffle adventure (you can see the first here and the second here), last night Andrew and I ate a truffle-packed three-course meal at Lolo and Lola, a Filipino restaurant in Watson, Canberra. It was delicious and impressive and generous.

Melon samalamig (left) and calamansi juice (right)

Pan de sal

Bulalo pasta soup

Adobo ni Lolo

Sarsuela tablea cake

… and the full menu, in case you want more details :-)

Lolo and Lola is delightful and is celebrating its sixth birthday this week. There have been a lot of different cafes in the same spot! When we moved to Canberra in 2002 it was Carlo's, then that closed and was replaced by Joey's Kitchen, which turned into Cherryripe Brasserie, which became Lolo and Lola. If the popularity of Lolo and Lola (which means grandpa and grandma) is anything to go by, they'll be around for plenty of years to come. Yaaaaay.

Gettin' more exotic

I've been obsessed with Asian foods (the spicier, the better) since I was a kid, and as an adult have had the pleasure of visiting various Asian countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Japan and Timor-Leste). As well as eating at Asian restaurants as often as my waistline and budget will permit, I've experimented with many dishes at home, and even taken cooking classes in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and Australia to help hone my skills. I haven't, however, visited anywhere in the Middle East. Just when I was thinking it was time to explore the cultures and cuisines of that part of the world, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and any travel plans, however vague, ground to a halt.

But when one door closes, another opens …? The pandemic has seen many businesses switch to online selling – and has caused others to spot and fill a niche – and that's how I stumbled across Exotic Bazaar. The company is based in Queensland and makes a delightful range of Persian, Moroccan and Turkish recipe bases, spices, condiments, and cake mixes. Apparently they started by selling ingredients at community markets and branched out into internet sales. I bought a Middle Eastern feast pack (pictured above) about six months ago and enjoyed everything so much I've ordered additional recipe bases and cake mixes since then. It's been fun to veer sideways in my food obsession, to travel a little further west …

Update: Sunday 25 June 2023

The first time I made a Persian Love Cake, using the ingredients and recipe in the box shown above, I used a baking tin that was too small. The cake mixture rose up the sides, flowed over the top, and was partially lost. After that I purchased a larger silicone cake baking mould and recent attempts have been more successful. Here's the cake I made yesterday to take to our friends' place for dessert tonight:

Of course, you don't have to buy a pre-packaged cake mix to make this sort of cake. The recipe shown here, from Recipe Tin Eats, also works well, if you don't mind tracking down the more unusual ingredients rather than having them land on your doorstep.

Lunch @ Tasty Indian, Whanganui

We'd been hanging out for some spicy food! Turns out that Whanganui, New Zealand (where I grew up but which I abandoned for Australia over thirty years ago) is much more multicultural than it was when I left. There are now MANY delicious-looking eateries. Unfortunately my nieces don't like spicy food (sigh) but my sister does and she recommended Tasty Indian to us. We had a lovely vegetarian lunch there today.

For Andrew:

Dal makhani, naan, rice, pappadum and salad

For me:

Vegetable madras, naan, rice, pappadum and salad

Sadly, my sister wasn't able to join us. But we're grateful for the recommendation.

Wellingtonian delights

Andrew and I last visited New Zealand in February 2020. About five minutes before the COVID-19 pandemic kicked off. So there has been a longer gap between visits to my family than usual. Finally, we've taken the plunge and returned, notwithstanding the ongoing COVID risk. In many places, we're the only weirdos wearing masks. Eeeek. Anyway … we spent a couple of days in wonderful Wellington before heading to see my rellies. It's still delightful. Phew.

Mural spotted from inside the Wellington

Cable Car (funicular railway)

View of the city from Kelburn

Caffeine!

My brunch (truffle mushroom medley, beetroot hummus,

halloumi, rocket, hazelnut dukkah and poached egg) at Cabletop Eatery

Feijoas. The fruit of my dreams. Currently

in season and available everywhere :-)

Roti canai with vegetable curry and (bonus)

Lemon & Paeroa at Satay Kingdom. Oh my!

Next stop Whanganui.

Brekkie @ Rye

It had been almost four years since we last had breakfast at Rye Café in Braddon. Not because we didn't enjoy our first time there, but just … y'know … Canberra has lots of brekkie joints and we were distracted by bushfires and hailstorms and pandemics and the like. We're still trying to dodge the pandemic but fortunately Rye has outdoor seating. Anyway, we had breakfast there yesterday. The café has a Scandinavian vibe and many of the (very picturesque) dishes feature quirky ingredients.

We started with coffee:

Then he had:

Maple-baked oat granola, toasted nuts and seeds

with fresh berries and whey caramel yoghurt / coconut labneh

And she had:

Poached eggs with brown butter hollandaise, potato rosti,
roasted brussels sprouts, dutch carrots and pangrattato

It was delicious. I'd recommend booking via their website if you're keen to go as they were pretty busy, even at 8 am on a Sunday morning in Canberra in January (i.e. when most people have left town!)

Dinner @ Daana

Some lovely alliteration there! I recently read an article that mentioned Daana, an innovative Indian restaurant in Woden, Canberra. Indian food is probably Andrew's favourite cuisine* so we decided to go there for dinner this week. Daana incorporates lots of native Australian bush ingredients into its offerings … what a cool idea! When we arrived the menu looked delicious but a bit overwhelming (decisions, decisions) so we opted for the banquet. It was excellent.

The starters included Palakkadan Muringa Ellai Adai and Nadan Kurumulaku Kozhi:

For our main course, we had Malabar Chicken, Nizami Aloo Gosht Quarma and Therakkal, plus steamed basmati rice, Malabar parotta, and pappadums:

then for dessert Andrew had Cheppi Kheeri (slow cooked rice and coconut milk pudding flavoured with fresh turmeric leaves and cardamom) while Karin had Karupatti Halwa (fudge of karupatti [palm jaggery] with sorghum):

Nom nom! We didn't try the Inditails ('inspired cocktails with a hint of India and the Australian bush') but they sounded intriguing. Perhaps next time.

* When I met Andrew, 32 years ago next month, I was already a great fan of spicy foods but he was not. I take full credit for converting him. Now we're both huge fans of Indian, Malaysian, Sri Lankan, Thai and other lip-tingling cuisines.

Coconut. Is there anything it can't do?

For the past year or so I've been buying decadent and delicious granola from my local organic shop, Choku Bai Jo. It's … very moreish. But I felt like something was missing. That something turned out to be Aldi's organic coconut flakes:

The coconut morsels make my daily muesli and yoghurt even better. And that got me thinking about coconut more broadly. It's very versatile! I use it (whether desiccated, shredded, flaked, powdered, in 'milk' or 'cream' form, as oil, or as part of another product such as condensed [coconut] milk) all the time. If you enjoy this magical substance too, here are some ideas you may like:

Breakfast

Nutty maple granola

Coconut risotto

Lunch/Dinner

Vegetable laksa
Pumpkin soup with drizzled coriander pesto
Sri Lankan lentil curry
Coconut split pea soup
Pumpkin and pea curry
Vanuatu salad
Chickpea delight
Potato and pea curry
Tofu in lemongrass coconut milk
Thai green eggplant curry
Bagus mushroom soup

Byron Bay curries

Sweet stuff
Coconut ice cream (or rocky road ice cream)
Chocolate nut cake
Black rice pudding
Chocolate echidna slice
Marshmallow treats
Wattalapam
Lolly cake

Coconut jelly

Enjoy!

Peacamole dip (like guacamole but with peas instead of avocados)

300 grams shelled green peas, frozen or fresh but not canned
small bunch fresh coriander
2 tablespoons whole almond butter (like peanut butter but made with unblanched almonds; look for it at natural foods stores)
1 clove garlic, minced (optional)
dash Tabasco sauce
salt and black pepper, to taste

Steam the peas until tender and allow to cool.

If you're using fresh coriander, pluck the leaves and set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor or blender, combine the peas, almond butter, coriander, garlic if using, Tabasco sauce, a little salt and some pepper. Process until smooth. If the mixture is a bit too thick for the blade of the food processor to mix properly, add a little water, one teaspoon at a time, until soft enough to mix.

Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve with pieces of multigrain crispbread. The dip can be made a day ahead and kept in the fridge in an airtight container; it will keep for two to three days.

White choc chip macadamia cookies

200 grams butter
250 grams sugar
200 grams (half a can) sweetened condensed milk
300 grams flour
2 heaped teaspoons baking powder
200 grams white chocolate chips
100 grams macadamia nuts

Cream butter and sugar, add condensed milk and beat well. Mix in sifted flour and baking powder. Add choc chips and nuts. Roll into balls, place on cool tray and press with fork. Bake at 160 degrees C for 15 to 20 minutes. This recipe makes about 24 large-ish cookies.

'Tis the season to eat ice cream! (At least if you're in the southern hemisphere.)

Summer has arrived in Canberra with a thump. November was unseasonably cold and very, very wet. So we weren't quite prepared when a wave of hot, humid weather hit us this week! When I was at  our lovely local organic shop this morning they offered me a deal on some ageing bananas ($1/kg) so I bought a bunch and invented a new ice cream flavour: banana and cacao.

several over-ripe bananas
300 ml pouring cream
50 grams cacao nibs

Whip the cream till thick. Whiz the bananas in a blender. Combine bananas, cream and cacao and pour into a freezable container. Freeze. Yum.

Here are some other easy home made ice cream options, if you're feeling inspired or overheated ...

avocado, lime and ginger
Bailey's and macadamia [or other nuts]
basil, lime and honey
brandied fruit and nuts
chilli chocolate

coconut and cacao nibs
coffee and cardamom
green tea
Kahlúa and pecan [or other nuts]
rocky road
strawberry

Enjoy!

Caramilk choc chip cookies

I've been making versions of this recipe since I was about seven, with dark, milk or white choc chips, with or without the cocoa, and maybe with added nuts. But when Caramilk chips appeared at my local supermarket, I realised it was time to experiment again!

200 grams butter
250 grams sugar
4 tablespoons (half a can) sweetened condensed milk
300 grams flour

0.25 cup cocoa
2 heaped teaspoons baking powder
260 grams Caramilk baking chips

nuts (optional)

Cream butter and sugar, add condensed milk and beat well. Mix in sifted flour, cocoa and baking powder. Add Caramilk or chocolate chips (and nuts if you like). Roll into balls, place on cool tray and press with fork. Bake at 160 degrees C for 15 minutes.

We'll be taking these to our friends' place tomorrow night. I think the kids will like them ;-)

Brekkie @ Stand By Me (again and again)

We've been going to Stand By Me in Lyons (on the south side of Canberra) for many years. It's  a favourite spot for Sunday brekkie. Andrew likes their ever-rotating and creative versions of French toast; I'm a bit addicted to the flavoursome savoury options. The cafe's Facebook page always showcases its French toast specials. Well worth a look!

Today's brekkie was spectacular, as usual. He had:

Hottest 100s and 1000s French toast

while I had:

Ful medames: Egyptian breakfast beans with tomato,

spices, feta, dill, a fried egg, tzatziki and green chilli relish

We also grabbed a bag of their ambrosial granola to take away. Nom nom!

Dinner @ Spice Affair, Casey

When I met my partner Andrew, almost 30 years ago (!), he claimed he didn't like curry. As a great fan of spicy foods myself, this alarmed me. It turned out he'd been subjected to some bad 1970s versions of curries as a kid and once I introduced him to Indian and Malaysian restaurants he changed his mind. Phew. Now, when we discuss going out to dinner, spicy foods are always at the top of his wish list. 

We recently discovered a whole new Canberra suburb: Casey. Casey didn't exist when we moved to Canberra in 2002, but is now a thriving place with many diverse eateries. We had dinner at Spice Affair Indian Cuisine and it was delicious.

Lassi (I had rose, he had salty lassi)

Daal tadka black

Palak paneer

Mixed dessert platter (gulab jamun,

mango kulfi, pistachio kulfi)

We also ate pappadams, coconut rice and garlic naan. It was a fabulous (and generous) feast. We'll have to make more visits to Casey … both to Spice Affair and to explore the other cuisines on offer: Japanese, Chinese, Mexican, Turkish, Vietnamese and Myanmar …