Law & Order

Jerry Festillervus Cake

12 days of Festivus for the rest of us, Dessert, Snack, Sweets

We nearing the end of our 12 days of Festivus celebrations – after, wait for it, catching up with Jase, Heid, Barn, Liz, Wayne, Mike, Pat, John, J-Lou and Estelle – and as such, it is time to unleash the one-two Jerry punch. Since Seiny is obvi atop the Festivus pole, that means today is all about the king and creator of Festivus, my dear friend Jerry Stiller.

I’ve known Jez the longest of the Seinfeld bunch, having met in the early ‘50s.

You see I was working in a bridal shop in flushing … sorry, wrong show. I was working at a diner in Midtown and Jez came in with a nice young lady for a cup of coffee after he agent was rude to her. The young lady, his beautiful future wife Anne Meara  and it goes without saying that my service played a huge role in their eventual relationship.

I was the Best Man of Honour at their wedding in ‘54, am godfather to little Ben – who was named after, obviously – and was integral in getting the role of Frank recast because I knew that it truly was the role Jez was born to play.

I am ashamed to admit it, but I haven’t seen much of Jez since Anne passed away in 2015, so it was so wonderful to see him doing so, so well. There was a lot of laughter, plenty of tears and even a few grievances aired – his, most notably, was how little we see of each other – as we sat down to devour a traditional, hallowed Jerry Festillervus Cake.

 

 

While the TV Festivus dinner never featured the Festivus cake, this delight is a tradition of the real celebration. A light, moist chocolate cake, slathered in sweet chocolate buttercream and dotted with M&M’s? Sign me up … and yourselves.

Enjoy!

 

 

Jerry Festillervus Cake
Serves: 8-12.

Ingredients
200g raw caster sugar
250g unsalted butter, softened
3 tsp vanilla extract
200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¼ cup cocoa powder
2 eggs
275ml sour cream
200g dark chocolate, chopped
300g icing sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
M&M’s

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C.

Cream the caster sugar with 175g of unsalted butter and 2 tsp of the vanilla until light and fluffy. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, bicarb and cocoa. And then … in a third bowl, whisk the eggs and 150ml of the sour cream. Add the second and third bowls, alternating in thirds, until it is all combined.

Pour the batter into a 30 x 30cm cake tin and bake for 30 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely on a cooling rack.

To make this icing, melt the remaining butter and chocolate in a medium bowl in a microwave until just melted and easily combined. Sieve in the icing sugar and stir through the golden syrup and remaining sour cream and vanilla until just combined. Ice the cake immediately, smoothing the edges half-assedly as you go.

Spell ‘Happy Festivus’ with M&M’s as best as your skills will take you … before carving up and devouring. Like a monster.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Turkey Roulade McLanahan

Main, Poultry, Thankgiving for being a friend

After spending the last couple of days in ‘87 catching up with Bea and Estelle, I wasn’t sure if I should hang around for my date with Rue or go visit her in ‘05 when she was appearing in Wicked. Despite the fact it would likely have lead me to landing a part in the hit musical – and probs my first Tony – I decided to stick with the past.

Mainly to avoid a feud due to me exiting the time period without a word. Though it’s not like it would have lasted long, given how close we were.

I first met Rue on the set of Maude in the ‘70s. I, of course, was there as part of Bea’s entourage but I was fast taken by the delightful Eddi-Rue. We were both thrice divorced by the time we met and it was just such a comfort to have someone to talk to that had been through the same thing.

Rue always felt like the glue that held the girls together, given her warm, loving nature and I am so thankful to be able to experience it firsthand once more.

“My sweet darlin’ Ben, I do say, how I’ve missed you!”

I ran into her arms and held back my tears for her unexpected death in 2010.

“Now my sweet boy. Bea and Stell told me I’m in for a real treat for dinner … like how the men feel when going on a date with that Blanche!”

We laughed long and hard well into the night, talking about all the things we were thankful for – divorce being a big one for us three-timers – before sitting down to a big ol’ orgy of meat in the form of my Turkey Roulade McLanahan.

 

 

Given I was cooking in someone else’s kitchen … in the ‘80s, I couldn’t go around whipping up a big roast. That of course doesn’t take away from the fact this is a show stopper. The crispy pancetta crust keeps the turkey nice and moist. Particularly when you stuff it full of more meat and a good whack of herbs.

Enjoy!

 

 

Turkey Roulade McLanahan
Serves: 6.

Ingredients
1 small bunch of sage, roughly chopped
4 pork sausages, casings removed
1 carrot, grated
5 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
¼ cup craisins
a small handful of spinach, roughly chopped
freshly grated pepper
800g turkey breast fillets, flatten to 2cm thick with a mallet or rolling pin
200g thinly sliced pancetta

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Combine the sage, sausage, carrot, garlic, parmesan, craisins and spinach in a bowl with a good whack of pepper.

Arrange the pancetta on a sheet of baking paper, slightly overlapping. Line the flattened breasts along one of the long edges, pressing closely or overlapping to form a clean piece of meat. Form the stuffing into a long sausage and place it along the centre of the meat. Using the baking paper as a guide, tightly roll the turkey over to form a long roll, with the pancetta sealing the turkey meat. Tie with a couple of pieces of kitchen twine to secure, transfer to a lined baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes, or until crisp on the outside and beautifully cooked on the inside.

Allow to stand for five minutes or so before carving, serving and, most importantly, devouring.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Jonathan LaPagliatelle

Australian Survivor, Australian Survivor (2017), Pasta, Vegetarian

He’s baaaaaa-aaaaack! This time next week we’ll have witnessed scruffy Oz-Probst – and my dear friend – Jonathan LaPaglia snuff his first torch of the season. And I will have screamed for smelling salts as the euphoria/orgasm rendered me unconscious.

Yes – that is the long winded way of saying Australian Survivor is back and I couldn’t be happier to announce that once again JoJo requested my presence in Samoa to act as his houseboy / culinary comfort chef for the castaways.

I’ve known Jo for years, after a chance meeting at the University of Adelaide where I was skulking about the med school trying to meet a future doctor to take as my husband. While he had zero interest in pursuing a relationship due to our similar appearance (read: killer guns), we became friends against all odds and I was quickly taken into the LaPaglia family.

While there was a period of ugliness after Anthony refused to get Josie Alibrandi gender-flipped – and that time I tried to torch his car when I was overlooked for the hosting role – we remain the closest of friends and I was thrilled to spend two months together in Samoa, catching-up, feasting in front of the contestants … and I assume doing weights.

To celebrate the impending return of Australian Survivor, I flew Jojo over to discuss how we felt the season went – really good … unless the editors really drop the ball / can’t be paid by Channel 10 – over a big fat bowl of my Jonathan LaPagliatelle.

 

 

I’ve long held the belief that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach – I actually coined the phrase, NBD – and this is the first dish I ever made him to win him over. Warm, fresh, creamy and tasty, it is the second most fun I’ve had getting sauce over a man’s face.

Enjoy!

 

 

Jonathan LaPagliatelle
Serves: 4.

Ingredients
olive oil
bunch of shallots, sliced
5 garlic cloves, minced
200g button mushrooms, sliced
5 sprigs of thyme leaves
250g chicken stock
salt and pepper, to taste
500g tagliatelle
250g mascarpone
200g baby spinach, washed and drained
100g parmesan, grated

Method
Heat a good lug of oil in a large pan over medium heat and cook off the shallots and garlic until the island love nest – or kitchen – is aromatic. Add the mushrooms and thyme and cook for a further ten minutes, or until the mushrooms are lightly browned.

Add the stock and bring to the boil, before reducing the heat and simmering for fifteen minutes. Season and keep warm while you cook the pasta as per packet instructions.

When the pasta is al dente, add the mascarpone and spinach to the the mushroom mix and stir until combined and the spinach wilted. Stir through the pasta and half the parmesan, before serving, generously drowned in the excess parmesan.

Devour immediately with your big strong, LaPagli-esque arms and think of how they’d hold you tight in winter. Or something.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Lauren Graham Crackers

Baking, Oy with the turkeys already!, Side, Snack, Sweets

I honestly cannot believe I am sitting down to write about catching up with Lauren Graham in this context. I mean, a Gilmore Girls reunion has long been my dream but after the short lived wonder that was Bunheads, I feared that ASP wouldn’t be able to bequeath the only TV revival I ever wanted.

Outside of Golden Girls, obviously.

Don’t get me wrong, such a positive and hopeful person like me always dreamed that it would one day happen … I just thought Lauren and I would be catching up to celebrate the seminal movie Because I Said So’s tenth anniversary, before experiencing this wonder.

It is a fact universally acknowledged that 2016 has been absolute balls, but not in a good way, but (the horrifically named) Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life is something we can all take some time to be thankful for, which really makes it’s release so convenient for me and my Thanksgiving plans.

As you know, Annelie and I used to work as gophers on the set of the OG series until we were blacklisted for not letting go off our adopted triplets amnesia storyline – which *spoiler alert* was left unused in the revival.

While you may have assumed that is how we met and fell in love with Loz, we actually connected on the set of Caroline in the City whilst part of Lea Thompson’s entourage – our story inspired the teen movie, Heathers. Seeing a star on the rise, we jumped to join Loz’s far less angry clique and guided her to greatness.

Loz has been so busy in recent years, what with keeping Kleenex afloat via Parenthood – which to confess, I couldn’t watch as it just felt like she was cheating on Rory, Richard and Emily – so it has been a while since we’ve been able to take the time to get together and celebrate everything that makes our friendship as beautiful as it is.

Thankfully not a thing has changed in our time apart, Loz is still such a beautiful soul and she is still more than willing to spill some secrets to her best friend – I know the final four words guys! – over a batch of her favourites, my Lauren Graham Crackers.

 

lauren-graham-crackers-1

 

I know what you’re thinking – oy, with the grahams? / they shoot bloggers, don’t they? – but bare with me, graham crackers are insanely delicious … and festively appropriate given they are the basis of all the best cheesecake / pie crusts.

Thankfully Loz and I don’t need to be too fancy to celebrate Thanksgiving, our friendship and the GG reunion is more than enough.

But to reiterate, these are delicious as is – enjoy!

 

lauren-graham-crackers-2

 

Lauren Graham Crackers
Makes: 30-40.

Ingredients
60g unsalted butter
115g muscovado sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
250g wholemeal flour

Method
Beat the butter and sugar using a stand mixer for about five minutes, or until pale and creamy. Still beating, slowly add in the egg, honey and milk, allowing the mix to come together before adding the next. Remove from the stand and fold through the baking powder, salt and flour, until it comes together as a smooth dough. Form into a disc, wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for an hour or so.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Remove the dough from the fridge and split it in two, returning one to the fridge while you work on the other. Between two sheets of baking paper, roll out the dough until it is super thin – 2-3mm max – cut it into graham shaped rectangles, dot with the thick end of a skewer and transfer to a baking tray.

Repeat the process with the second piece of dough.

Transfer both trays to the oven and cook for about fifteen minutes, or until golden brown and crisp. Remove from the oven, split the biscuits into pieces and transfer to a cooling rack.

Then devour.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.

BanAnna Chlumsky Split

Carnival Week, Dessert, Party Food, Sweets

It is probably quite hard to comprehend, but there was once a time when Annelie and I were not on the A-List. I know, crazy.

We first met our friend Anna Chlumsky when we were all extras on Uncle Buck while we were just struggling child stars. Obviously smelling success, Annelie and I hitched our wagon to Macaulay Culkin and commenced a decade long struggle with sobriety as part of his entourage.

But now I’ve gone too far. Two years following our time working together on Uncle Buck, we were reunited on the set of My Girl and formed a close bond with Annie Chlum.

While she disapproved of our addiction and dealing, she was greatly appreciative of our vision quest inspired script re-writes killing off Mac and making her the star. Not to mention writing her the most heartbreaking moment of any movie ever (until that moment in Inside Outside, obviously).

While we wrote the script for My Girl 2, we briefly lost touch on account of our countless deportations and stints in rehab after we failed to snag our first Oscars. Thankfully fate found a way to keep us together and reunited us when we were hired to write aggressive, expletive ridden insults for Armando Iannucci’s scripts and have been extremely close ever since.

Anna thought it best to pop over and relax before the Emmy Awards and visit the Ekka, which she has heard so much about in Hollywood. (Plus, getting her picture with us in Brisbane is a sure way to snag last minute votes).

Wanting to take her back to the innocent(ish) time we shared on the My Girl sets we made our famous BanAnna Chlumsky Split, which was the only thing that could cheer her up after a harrowing day filming Thomas J’s funeral.

 

BanAnna Chlumsky Split_1

 

While splits are a pretty simple dessert to whip up, we were inspired by Magnolia Bakery’s famous Banana Pudding and found a way to make it, well, better.

We opt out of the ice cream and cream and instead go with the pudding mix two ways. Trust us, you will never go back. With that, we have kindly borrowed the recipe for the mix from Magnolia as there is no way we could ever top it.

Enjoy!

 

BanAnna Chlumsky Split_2

 

BanAnna Chlumsky Split
Serves: 4, with pudding leftover to boot.

Ingredients
4 bananas, peeled and sliced in half
¼ to ½ cup salted peanuts, roughly chopped
8 maraschino cherries
coconut oil, for frying

Pudding
1 ½ cups water
⅔ cup instant vanilla pudding mix
1 395g can sweetened condensed milk
3 cups heavy cream

Hot Fudge Sauce
⅔ cup double cream
½ cup Golden Syrup
⅓ cup dark brown sugar
¼ cup cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon sea salt
175g dark chocolate, chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method
Pudding
Mix together the water, pudding mix and condensed milk until smooth, and refrigerate for about four hours.

Four hours later, whip the double cream until soft peaks form. Fold the whipped cream into the pudding mixture in thirds, until well incorporated. Transfer half of the pudding mixture into an airtight container and freeze for about six hours, placing the remaining pudding back in the fridge. Covered with cling, obviously.

Hot Fudge Sauce
Bring the cream, syrup, sugar, cocoa, salt and half of the chocolate to boil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to maintain a low simmer, and cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove from the heat and stir in the remaining chocolate, butter, and vanilla extract, until smooth. Let to cool for 20 minutes.

(If you don’t use all of the fudge, which you probably won’t, store in an airtight container in the fridge for about a week).

Bananas and assembly
Preheat a griddle until nice and hot, and lightly oil the pan with coconut oil. While the pan in heating, removing the pudding from both the freezer and the fridge.

Place the banana halves on the hot pan, flat side down and fry for 1-2 minutes. Now, sometimes I ace the next part and other times I just shouldn’t bother. Using a flat spatula, flip the bananas and fry on the other side for a minute or until lightly caramelised. Repeat until all bananas are cooked.

Sometimes the banana gets soft, so don’t worry too much if you make a mess.

Now get to work on with the plating by placing two halves of the bananas in a bowl. Top with two or three generous scoops of the frozen pudding. Drizzle, again generously, with hot fudge sauce and scatter, you guessed it … generously, the peanuts on top.

Then top complete the majesty, dollop on a large scoop of the refrigerated pudding aka pudding, and top with a couple of maraschino cherries.

Devour, messily.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.

Ice(d) T

Drink

Yes, he isn’t the washing machine kid but damn Ice T is good company. Better yet, he definitely thinks we should become members of the HFPA for our contribution to the arts, Hollywood and the planet.

I think that is my favourite part about him.

We have been friends for some time, following a chance encounter on the Law & Order set where I was fired for sneezing when playing Corpse #2 (B.D. Wong over peppered my lunch after catching wind I would appear in Jurassic Park 2) and Annelie and Ice have been friends since their days hanging with 2Pac.

It was so nice catching-up, hearing about what our dear friend Coco is up to (she helped form and helped choreograph for our dance troupe, Jazz in your Face) and laughing about the time Meg Ryan caught us egging her house across the canyon…all over a refreshing glass of Iced T.

 

Ice(d) T 1

 

The rich flavour of the rooibos tea cuts through the tart lemon and raspberry, add to that the mint and sugar and you have the makings of a perfect summer drink for when you aren’t rapping or solving crimes.

Or learning to play the washing machine. Have I mentioned this kid is the greatest?

 

Ice(d) T 2

 

Ice(d) T
Serves: 4.

Ingredients
3 bags of rooibos tea
¼ cup raw caster sugar
½ cup raspberries
½ lemon
a small handful of mint leaves
ice, ice and ice

Method
Steep tea bags in a pitcher of freshly boiled water for 2-3 minutes, or to your liking. Remove tea bags, stir in sugar and leave to come to room temperature.

Once cooled, slice lemon into discs and add to tea with the raspberries and mint leaves.

Give a good stir, add ice and serve. With or without liquor, obviously.

Law & Order: Sexy Catch-Ups Unit

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

As you’re aware, we decided to prioritise this year’s dates based on levels of fame and importance…as we decided that the only way to have the Hollywood Foreign Press Association waive the So-Cal residence rule for membership, was to be in with the MEGA famous.

Who would have thought future co-best friend-om with Tina/Amy wasn’t enough?

Anyway, during the course of our scientific rankings, I incorrectly identified the kid that did this as Ice-T and I knew that if we didn’t catch/butter-up our (faux) number two for support for HFPA status, Annelie would get aggressive.

Justifiably aggressive.

What says, sorry your house overlooks Meg Ryan’s/why aren’t you as talented on a washing machine/when do we vote for the Golden Globes?

Picture source: RollingStone.com.