Welcome to my blog! I love good food, and cooking has been my lifelong passion. We are fortunate to live in places in the world where supplies are plentiful. There is something very nice about being able to cook for people you love or care about. It's a giving of yourself, the very best in you, or the best you can be. I have a large collection of recipes that I have always wanted to share with family and friends. I embarked on the blog as a retirement project, and once I started, I knew there was no turning back. Most of my favourite recipes have been tried and tested over some years. Fine tuning and presenting them in a way that can be easily understood and followed by the reader takes some effort. Writing stories to go with them is not difficult. Each recipe evokes some happy memories of people, places and occasions which I dearly love to share. Trying to figure out how to set up the blog is a challenge, as I am not 'tech savvy', but I am learning. Capturing digital images of my delicious creations and experimenting with food photography has been fun. There is at least one photograph showing what the dish will look like in each of my recipe. I am working on step by step illustrations for some recipes as well as useful links and videos that can be added. These will come in time.
My husband John and I rarely dine out, though there are no shortage of good places to eat in and around Perth, Western Australia where we live. He says he likes my cooking better. I take it as a compliment. No Uber Eats or Menulong for us either. I always find time for cooking, like you find time for what you enjoy doing most. I use fresh locally grown meat, seafood and vegetables as much as possible, and Western Australia is blessed to have an abundance of these. We have beautiful mangoes, avocados, citrus, berries, apples, pears, stone fruits and much more. There are cattle and sheep stations in the outback; olive groves, vineyards, and market gardens around the outskirts of the city. There are even truffles growing in the south west to rival the French variety. Fish, prawns and crabs can be hauled in from the river, along the coast, and the Mandurah estuary if you know the tides and spots. The pandemic has unfortunately taken its toll on their availability and costs, but I am optimistic that they will recover in time.
While I like my ingredients local, my recipes are truly international. Growing up in Hong Kong, I can never forego my Cantonese stir fries, braised meat and seafood hot pots with lots of rice. My sojourns in USA and New Zealand have expanded my cooking repertoire. With Perth located in proximity to countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka, their cuisine has long made its way into my kitchen and dining table, together with other ethnic delights. I plan my meals based on what is best and fresh (or on specials) in the shops and what I can harvest from my home garden and the social farm where I attend regularly as a volunteer. Once you decide on a key ingredient, or a 'hero' of the dish, you are motivated and the rest falls into place easily. It is planned, and spontaneous at the same time. I might slow cook a beef casserole in the oven on a cold winter day, or quickly ensemble a noodle salad on a warm summer evening to keep cool. I cook and eat healthily, but not restrictively. Moderation is the key. I use olive oil for most of my cooking, even stir fries, due to its health benefits. Salt is not used in excess, and you will find my cakes and desserts only moderately sweet. I accept that John's full English breakfast and my red-cooked Chinese pork belly are 'sometimes' food, as much as we love them very much. I make sure each meal has a healthy proportion of protein, carbohydrates and fats. Lots of vegetables and fruits, of course. Eat a rainbow every day.
The ability to cook is a culmination of some very personal knowledge and experience gained over time. The more you cook, the better you become. The more you cook, the more little tricks you would have up your sleeve, such as adding a pinch of salt when frying onions so they don't brown too quickly and covering food in the casserole with a crumbled piece of baking paper or 'cartouche' to keep it moist in the oven. The more you cook, the more different ingredients you are likely to have handy in your pantry to play around with, and the more little packages you would find in your refrigerator and your freezer to whip up something quickly when you have to. While I enjoy making a curry from scratch, going into the trouble of grinding herbs and spices in a mortar and pestle at times, I also do not hesitate to pop a tin of tomatoes instead of fresh ones in a pot, use readymade chicken stock that comes in a carton or frozen pastry for a pie crust instead of making your own. If you have never cooked before, or not too keen on cooking, don't be intimidated. Recipes under the 'Easy' category can be achieved with minimal fuss, so start with these. None of my recipes are terribly complex, or require the use of fancy kitchen appliances. Living on your own? You'll find recipes serving one or two, and other recipes can be scaled down, or left-over portions saved for another meal. I hope this blog will inspire you.
Oven temperatures in my recipes are given for modern fan-forced oven, in Celsius and in Fahrenheit. For family and friends outside Australia, note that some ingredients might have different names or packaged differently in your part of the world. Measurements are in both Metric and US customary. As all my recipes are developed and tested under the metric system, you might want to use a digital scale for more accurate conversions. I use Australian measuring spoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. Where the recipes are not entirely my own, their sources are acknowledged, with a link to relevant websites and videos.
Cooking is an art, and a science. It is a mindset and an adventure. Nurtured by inspirations, spurred on by imagination. Learned through determination, perfected by trial and error. Driven by hunger and a good appetite too, of course. So go on, take a look at my stories and recipes, and try at least ONE recipe. Let me know how you go. Make a comment or email me at deliciouslygloria@gmail.com
Deliciously
Gloria
This looks great - well done Gloria!
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