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Australian houses, from architectural masterpieces to suburban family homes, Victorian terraces, mid-century marvels, coastal shacks, city apartments, and everything in between.
Award-winning Australian architecture, inspiring homes, and interviews with Australia’s top architects.
Award-winning Australian interior design, inspiring homes, and interviews with Australia’s top designers.
In depth features on Australia’s most beautiful gardens and landscape design.
Studio visits with Australia’s most talented creatives, from artists to architects, ceramicists to stylists, furniture makers to lighting designers.
Studio visits with Australia’s top artists, and unmissable art exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and beyond.
Weekly recipes and meal ideas from our favourite cooks, authors and foodies.
Unique travel destinations, design-led accomodation and day trip ideas in Australia and New Zealand.
Of everything we ever do, people always rave about the cheese boards. While that does often leave us a little bewildered, as we really only slap on the accompaniments, I guess there is an art to selecting cheeses. With cheese, it’s my tip to ensure you buy the best quality cheeses you can find, taste them, talk about them and share them. Cheeses are so diverse and so complex, one person's d’Affinois is another's gorgonzola.
D’Affinois is double brie made from cow’s milk and in my opinion, this is a cheese that really goes down easy! It’s French, and like many French cheeses it has a very slight stink to it that cries for a sweet and sour accompaniment. We like the balance of orange, sweet honey and rosemary. This is a recipe that Skye Gyngell taught me, and she used to serve it on its own in all its glory! Probably to her horror, I have added it to our ultimate cheese board here... anyway it’s a combination that’s both surprising and sits close to my heart.
Ingredients
1 large wheel of d’affinois
3-4 blood oranges
½ cup honey
3 sprigs of rosemary
Method
Bring the cheese up to room temperature for at least two hours. Slice the ends off the blood orange and rest the orange on one end. Go around the orange gently removing the outer rind, making sure to leave no white. It takes practice, use a small knife for precision. Set aside in a large bowl.
Pop the honey and rosemary in a pot and bring to the boil. The second it’s boiling pour it straight over the blood orange. When you’re ready to serve just let the blood orange tumble all over the whole cheese, or if that’s too messy for you pop it in a bowl alongside.
Ingredients
1 kilo gorgonzola
4 quinces rubbed with a tea towel and cut into long eighths. Don’t remove the center or skin as it improves the flavour of the sauce
¼ cup honey
2 cup white wine
6 bay leaves
Pre heat the oven to 120° celcius. Line a baking tray with baking paper and neatly lay the quince within. Pour in the white wine, add the bay leaves and pour the honey over the top. Cover with a layer of baking paper and then a layer of foil.
Place in the oven, turn the oven up to 150°celcius and cook for two hours. Remove the foil and the baking paper and cook for a further hour or until the quinces are glowing amber and the sauce is syrupy! Allow to cool or serve warm with room temperature gorgonzola.
Huge thanks to Sophie and Nicole of Cookes Food for sharing another super simple catering idea with us this week. Stay tuned next week for another culinary crowd pleaser from this talented duo, and keep your eyes on their website and Facebook page for a squizz at the fabulous events these girls create around town with their brilliant team. They make it look SO DAMN EASY.
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