Musician

Peaches Cobbler

Baking, Cake, Dessert, Sweets

As you should be aware by now, I’ve known most of my celebrity friends for a long, long time and am – not meaning to blow my own trumpet – the reason that 99% of them are even famous/successful.

My dear Merrill aka Peaches, however, is the exception.

You see, I only met Peaches in 2007 when she was playing Big Day Out. Picture it, Gold Coast, 2007 – which I literally just told you. A young, sexy ingenue was killing it on the d-floor of the Boiler Room to Shake Your Tits before collapsing to the ground due from sheer exhaustion from their dance majesty.

That young ingenue, was me.

Peaches quickly sprung into action, I assume due to her pre-fame teaching days, diving of the stage, taking me in her arms and pouring water over my head to wake me up. Side note, that inspired me to travel back in time and write slash choreograph the hit movie Flashdance.

Cutting the set short, Peaches took me backstage to recuperate and we quickly bonded over our mutual love of filthy song lyrics. The following nine years are arguably the best years of my life, as I got to experience the joy of forming such a beautiful friendship.

We both been super busy lately, what with her doing herself, appearing on the (finally) Emmy winning program Orphan Black and releasing a new album and with me, well, being busy, ok, so haven’t been able to see much of each other recently. This almost-milestone date, truly is an absolute blessing.

Now I know that this is only technically my 249th documented catch-up, but I’m just going to pretend this is my moment due to the inconsistent scheduling of Australian Survivor causing problems. Plus, I agreed to catch-up with Peaches when I thought she was going to be the magical 250th visitor, so I needed to treat the occasion like it was.

Plus, Peaches Cobbler is the ultimate party food, so why deny it?

 

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Sweet, rustic and deceptively decadent – the sweet peaches, work beautifully  with the earthy walnuts and the pillowy dough to fill your stomach, and heart, with unending joy.

Plus, you can slather it in ice cream. What is not to love – fruity nuts, dripping in a sweet, white liquid? Enjoy!

 

peaches-cobbler-2

 

Peaches Cobbler
Serves: 4-6.

Ingredients
4 cups peeled, sliced peaches
2 cups raw caster sugar, divided
½ cup water
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
100g walnuts nuts
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
50g muscovado sugar
pinch of sea salt
125g unsalted butter, chilled
vanilla ice cream, to serve

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C.

Combine the sliced peaches, sugar and water in a large saucepan over medium heat and bring to the boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to low and simmer for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, stir through the vanilla paste and get cobblin’.

Blitz the walnuts in a food processor for a couple of seconds. Now you can either add all the other ingredients and blitz until the mixture resembles wet sand. Obviously I prefer the hand approach, if you do to decant the roughly blitzed walnuts to a bowl and combine with the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Chop the butter into small cubes, add the bowl and rub through the mix … until it resembles wet sand.

Now for the fun – add the peaches and liquid into a small baking dish, grab large balls of the dough and haphazardly place around the top to almost seal it.

Place it in the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes, or until golden, crisp and bubbly.

Remove from the oven and serve immediately, generously topped with ice cream. It may not look best that way, but it certainly makes it taste good.

 

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+.

Impeach my bush

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

So I thought I’d be celebrating my 250th recipe / catch-up this Thursday, so decided to accept the invite of my dear friend Peaches, who wanted to reconnect and help me celebrate.

It feels like only yesterday that I was getting berated by Kanye in honour of my 200th documented date – those were the days!

Obviously, Australian Survivor then opted to have a pointless twist take over an episode, delaying a boot and ruining my plans.

As you know, I’ve been crazy busy with my culinary, commiserations coverage of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars – condragulations KatyaAlaska! – the marathon that is Australian Survivor and the OG with my main man Jiffy Pop, Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X (aka the worst title in the history of the show), so it was up to my dear friend Peaches to give me the required respite to adequately celebrate my 250th249th catch-up with a low key, filthy party for two.

What says, in near-milestone speak, shake your tits /shake your dick?

Image source: Unknown.

 

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+.

Alanis Morecchiette

Main, Pasta

First connecting with Alanis in the early 90s truly was like winning the lottery, thankfully sans dying the next day.

It should really come as no surprise that I’m a dear friend of Dave Coulier – who I really should see sometime soon – after the extended period of time Annelie and I spent on the set of Full House.

Dave was dating Alanis at the time and introduced us to her, knowing that our musical ability would be a real help to her then fledgeling career. While they broke up soon after, we continued to work with Alanis and birthed her opus, Jagged Little Pill.

Fun fact, we even co-wrote You Oughta Know about Dave.

While there was a period of ugliness after she started dating the man who should have rightfully been mine, Ryan Reynolds, we found our way back together after they ended their engagement and have been close ever since. And before you even try to speculate, the police have never been able to prove I was involved in the stalking and threats that lead to their break-up.

Aside from helping me celebrate the milestone, Alanis wanted to drop by as she needed to reconnect with her muse – me – to help produce her next album. While I have been really busy, I knew that taking the time to reconnect was all that we would need to start the journey to create more beautiful music together.

The Alanis Morecchiette also provided a whole lot of inspiration, obviously.

 

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Despite orecchiette making me feel like I’m sitting down to a meal with Mike Tyson or Van Gogh, there is a certain something about the texture of these babies that elevate them from a conchiglie. Obviously this is me being crazy, maybe it is the sauce – the spiced sausage, chilli, mustard, peppers and basil cut through the creamy wine sauce to give you a comforting meal that packs a punch.

Enjoy!

 

alanis-morecchiette-2

 

Alanis Morecchiette
Serves: 4.

Ingredients
500g orecchiette
600g spiced Italian sausages, meat removed from casings into small meatballs
2 cloves garlic, crushed
¾ cup white wine
3 tbsp wholegrain mustard
1 tsp chilli flakes
¾ cup double cream
1 cup basil, thinly sliced
zest of one lemon
¼ cup shaved parmesan

Method
Cook the paste in a large pot of salted water, as per packet instructions.

Heat a large pan over medium heat and fry the sausage, stirring, until browned, about five minutes. Add the garlic and cook for a further minute.

Add the wine and simmer for a couple of minutes, deglazing the pan. Add the mustard, chilli and cream, reduce the heat to low and simmer for a couple of minutes. Remove from the heat and stir through the basil, zest, parmesan and orecchiette. Serve, slathered in further parmesan and some additional basil.

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+.

A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

I was wandering around this weekend – you know that the body looks best while taking a turn around the room, no? – when I put one hand in my pocket to discover my phone was vibrating.

I also discovered a shit tonne of jagged little pills but that is not necessary to this story.

Anyway, ironically, it was my dear friend Alanis on the other end – but you oughta know –  wanting to congratulate me on reaching my two year blogiversary (which is TODAY, yay!) … and to see if she was able to drop by and catch-up.

Alanis is crazy busy so being her friend you learn to jump in head over feet when a chance to reconnect pops up.

What do I make before washing my hands clean of this date?

Picture source: REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci.

 

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+.

Peppermint Patti Smith

Dessert, Snack, Sweets

Despite the fact that Pats and I created the punk scene in 70s NYC, a wild and rebellious genre in the time before Giuliani cleaned up the streets – I would say when the world was more dangerous … but let’s be honest, the world is fucked – we’ve always had a calm and almost ethereal nature to our friendship.

Think Cate Blanchett and Julie Anne Smith.

Thank fuck for that because we had some shit we needed to work through and if it was any other friend, we likely would have had a public spat and taken Lohan out of the news cycle.

Pats was hurt that – despite admitting singing with Bono was horrifically wrong – she was always willing to forgive me for making mistakes, I couldn’t give her the same respect.

Obviously my first impulse would normally be to burn my building to the ground and vow to never speak to her again … probably calling for a plague on her house in the process, but that calming force she has over me made me see sense and accept that what she was saying, was the truth.

Plus, I was still walking in the clouds, albeit gingerly, from my catch-up with Bob.

Anyway, we did some poetry slam, worked through the pain I caused by stealing Mapplethorpe, wrote some music and resolved all of our issues – even the disgusting Bono slight – over a tonne of Peppermint Patti Smith.

 

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Like their namesake, these treats are effortless, sweet and oh so cool, while balancing the dark and light to fill you with contentedness.

And let’s be honest, what more can I say? Enjoy!

 

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Peppermint Patti Smith
Makes: 24.

Ingredients
200g condensed milk
1 tbsp mint extract
4 cups icing sugar, sieved plus extra
100g dark chocolate

Method
Combine the condensed milk and mint extract in a bowl and place in a stand mixer on low to combine.

With the mixer still on, slowly and gently, add the icing sugar – I cannot stress slowly and gently enough, lest you want the kitchen to look like a combined party of an 80s model, Hitler and the KKK – and stir until combine.

Dust a bench with icing sugar and knead the mixture until smooth and pliable … like Gumby, or me when trying to woo back Skarsy.

Line a couple of baking sheets with baking paper, remove golf ball sized chunks from the sugary ball and flatten into a disc. Repeat until the ball is gone and refrigerate until set, aka a couple of hours.

When they are almost done, bring a small pot of water to the boil and break the chocolate into a just larger than the saucepan sized glass bowl. Without the bowl touching the water, place/hold it over the heat and gently melt the chocolate until thick and glossy. Leave to cool for about five minutes.

Once cooled, remove the minty discs from the fridge and brush/rub with the chocolate. Once complete, return to the fridge and leave to set for a couple of hours.

Then devour and let the coolness wash over you. U2 are still the worst, but let the cool, calm mint wash the rage away.

 

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+.

U2, Brute?

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

There are so many amazing Patti’s in the world – LuPone, Duke, LaBelle, Hearst … pretty much any Patti you can think of outside of Newton (that harpy knows what she did) – but I would have to say that Patti Smith, hands down, is my favourite.

I met Pats in the 70s while I was playing a highly influential role in starting the NYC punk scene. Despite awakening her then lover Robert Mapplethorpe’s sexuality, Patti and I remained close – I assume as no one else was ever as gifted in the punk scene as we were.

Who knows?

I haven’t seen Pats in almost a year, after she slighted me and sang at a U2 concert with my nemesis Bono (don’t have a name so close to boner if you don’t want me to hit on you, jerk).

Last week I got to thinking and in a rare moment of rational, adult behaviour, I realised that if she was able to forgive me for stealing her lover, I should be able to forgive her for singing with a twat. So I reached out – seriously, I was mature for like a good hour guys – and Patti agreed to drop by and clear the air.

What says sorry I cut off contact after the U2 incident … as it was kind of hypocritical?

Picture source: Unknown.

 

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+.

Michael Flatley Bread

Baking, Bread, Side, Snack

While I know this may shock a lot of you but Michael Flatley is the best Irish dancer in the world (Sharon Strzelecki is a character and therefore ineligible).

Well was.

As you know, Flats broke all of his bones or something – surprisingly I wasn’t involved in anything to cause it – and had to hang up the dancing shoes.

I want to call them clogs, I know they aren’t clogs, but I so desperately want them to be clogs. Could you imagine an Irish dance with people wearing clogs – majestic! Like Bootmen, but less boges.

With Flats off his feet, I decided to reach out and surprisingly he took my call despite the years of smearing his name and character in the tabloids.

(And Heather Mills thought she had bad press).

Anyway, Flats said he only took my call as retirement was making him feel nostalgic for the good old days – when hair was big, we were friends and the dance fiery.

It took a while to warm Flats up to me again but it is always hard to ignore my epic, extended apologies … particularly when they involve dance and end with it raining Michael Flatley Bread.

 

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Like our relationship once was, these breads are warm, soft, spicy and comforting. It is bread, need I say anything more? Delicious!

Enjoy!

 

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Michael Flatley Bread
Makes: 8.

Ingredients
3 cups plain flour
2 ⅓ tbsp baking powder
3 cups natural yoghurt
1 tbsp chilli flakes
zest of 1 lime

Method
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl with a good pinch of salt.

When it comes together, remove to a floured surface and knead for a couple of minutes. Divide the dough into eight pieces and roll into 2mm thick circles.

Place a skillet over medium heat, brush with olive oil and cook each for 2-3 minutes, turning once or until they are golden and crisp. Devour … alone with something. But what ..?

 

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+.

Lord of the dance

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Picture it, Eurovision, Ireland, 1994.

After years spent lording the dance world with Toni Basil, Nigel & BonBon *spoiler alert* Lythgoe, Candis Cayne,  and Ms. Abdul, I got wind that the ‘94 Eurovision was looking to host a dance break during the show.

Assuming – as a past Eurovision contestant/songwriter – that I would get the job, I travelled over and was shocked to find Michael Flatley on the floor in my place.

Obviously I flew into a jealous rage, obviously I tried to call in a bomb threat (the police knew I was a serial pest and ignored the obviously fake calls) to stop the performance and obviously I feuded with Flatley for over two decades.

But then I heard that he was having bone issues last year and reached out to make amends, now that he wasn’t a threat to my dance dynasty.

What says sorry for the years of bitterness I’ve thrown your way?

Picture source: AP Photo / Henny Ray Abrams, File.

 

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+.

Japharrell Cake

Baking, Cake, Dessert, Sweets

Full disclosure, I had zero idea why Pharrell was so burnt out and in need of a catch-up. I assumed being a Grammy Award winning, Academy Award nominee was enough to be exhausted?

Turns out, it wasn’t the entire story.

Pha-Pha, as I call him, arrived straight off the plane from LA late last night completely spent after a gruelling season on The Voice. After two hours of him explaining to me that he wasn’t talking about the Australian version and that I needed to put down the knife and relax, he fell into my arms, exhausted and looking for the comfort of a true friend.

I first met Pharrell in the 1700s in the 90s as a founding member of N*E*R*D. Despite being ejected from the band after it was discovered I thought it was a fetish dating site, Pha-Pha took me under his wing as his immortal business protege before I eventually became a muse. Fun fact, the drawing scene from Titanic was inspired by the moment I entered into his … muse-dom?

Needless to say, I’ve played a crucial part in all of Relly’s future successes and have been his go to person. I’m the Yang to his Grey, if that is still a thing – I don’t know, I gave up after Izzie cut the damn LVAD and Snow Patrol became a thing in the mainstream.

Also, is Snow Patrol a band or a barbershop quartet consisting of Mr Plow and the Plow King?

But I’ve digressed.

Rel dropped by after wrapping the US version of The Voice (produced by my dear pal Mark Burnett) where – I shit you not / *spoiler alert* – Curly Sue took the crown. Sadly his contestant, Hannah … Horvath (? – I assume it is a characters of fiction edition) could only snag third, despite a stellar finale performance.

Needless to say, he is a sensitive soul and was taking the loss very hard meaning the only thing that could cure his mood and turn his frown upside down, was my Japharrell Cake.

 

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While Jaffas are the worst coated chocolate treat, this cake is off the hook. Maybe it is the inclusion of blood orange oil – rather than its generic sibling orange oil – but the moist, bitter chocolate cake combined with the tang of the citrus is something to behold. Plus, it melts in your mouth and quite literally, is dripping in ganache (if you’re too lazy to let it set/cool, like I am).

Enjoy!

 

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Japharrell Cake
Serves: 1-12.

Ingredients
200ml blood orange oil
70g valrhona cocoa powder (sifted)
165ml boiling water
2 ½ tsp vanilla extract
200g almond meal
¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
265g caster sugar
4 large eggs

Ganache
225g dark chocolate, 70% solids or more
1 cup heavy cream
pinch of salt

Method
Preheat the oven to 170°C and grease a 20cm springform pan with some olive oil and the base with baking paper.

Place the cocoa powder in a small bowl and whisk with the boiling water until smooth. Add in the vanilla extract and leave to cool.

Combine the almond meal, bicarb and salt in a large bowl.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, combine the sugar, oil and eggs and mix with the paddle attachment on high speed for about 5 minutes. Reduce the speed and pour in the cooled cocoa mixture. When combined, add the almond meal in slowly.

Scrape down the sides, pour the mixture into the pan and bake for 45 minutes or until the cake is set but with a nice moist centre.

Moist – I love that word.

When it is ready, allow to cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes before removing the sides from the pan. Then leave to cool completely (unless you can’t like me).

While the cake is cooling, start on the ganache by bring the cream to the boil over medium heat. While the cream is getting all hot and bothered, break up the chocolate in a medium bowl.

When the cream is hot, pour it over the chocolate, add a pinch of salt and leave to stand for five minutes.

Five minutes later – and I mean that – whisk the cream and chocolate until combined and smooth. Allow to stand for a further 15 minutes, stirring ocassionally, before pouring over the cake and smoothing it out.

Obviously I didn’t wait for either to cool or set, resulting in the puddle cake … which was still delicious, FYI.

 

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+.

Happy clappy chappy

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

My oldest and most dearest friend and rumoured vampire Pharrell called last night to ask if he could drop by and rejuvenate after having such a busy few years. Obviously this made me very happy – feel free to clap along – and I agreed instantly.

He’ll come so far, to be fed something blah.

So let’s raise the bar and fill my plate with a star!

He’ll fill up-a his tum, I’ll be up to feed hum.
We’ll be up all night catching-up, I just can’t wait to say sup’?

(But seriously, if you have a better rhyming word for up, i’ma let you finish).

Picture source: Kevin Winter / Getty Images for NARAS.

 

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+.