Poached eggs! Finally!

I love poached eggs.  Every time I go out for breakfast in Melbourne, I would get excite about the prospect of a wobbly white "mozzarella-looking" egg, that explodes with liquid gold yolk at the slightest poke, so tasty, and such a pleasure to look at too. Naturally, I would try making them at home.  Watching my friend Jossie (a chef) making them at home seemed so easy!  Throw some water in a pan, add a tiny amount of vinegar, and they would be presented to me, beautiful and perfect.  Seems so easy right?  Well, apparently not.  I always ended up with a yolk, surrounded by strings of egg-white, looking more like a stringy stracciatella than a poached egg. BOO!

Until today.  Today, I managed! I was inspired by Miss Lolly, a fellow food blogger in Brisbane, who posted recently that she had never managed to make a proper one until recently.

I'm so proud of these eggs.

Platters - low carb style :)

Inspired by Mona and her Food book , a few weeks ago, i embarked on a low carb diet.  The main aim of course was to lose weight, but also, it seems to be a diet that really suited me, and didn't go against my philosophy as most diets do.  Essentially i don't like eating artificial stuff, nothing that's come out of a lab.  This includes things like the over processed margarines, stuff like high fructose corn syrup (and the myriad of corn derivatives), basically anything with an ingredient list full of numbers and complicated names, rather than simple things that I could technically buy individually at a shop.  This diet, once I was reading into it, didn't sound like too much of a sacrifice at all!  Sure, i'd be giving up the almighty hobz biz- zejt and my favourite dish, PASTA!  but at least I could "console" myself with cheese, olive oil, nuts, ensuring that i wouldn't go hungry and just have to nibble on a peach which would essentially leave me hungrier than before!

One of the easiest and quickest ways to satisfy both the carb and non-carb eaters of this world together, is to have a massive platter full of delicious goodies.  I find I have no issue at all not replacing carbohydrates, as long as i have some kind of vegetable. Most of the time, at this time of year, it's tomatoes.  they feature very heavily, being my substitute fruit between meals, as well as being a great implement to throw some olive dip on, or eat with a piece of meat or cheese :)  I also like to add some kind of leaf.  This time it was Maltese rocket (aka insalata)For the carb eaters, I normally provide a small loaf of bread, or some galletti.

Here are some pictures of a couple of platters I've made in the past few weeks :)

Platter one: 

Aubergine/Eggplant Parmigiana

This is one of the dishes that has a confusing origin, people (including myself) thought that the name suggested that it's from Parma, but in fact wiki suggests it's Sicily and Campania that lay claims to it, which makes sense considering the ingredients! :)

layering the ingredients

I have no idea if my version is traditional, in fact I'm sure it's not, but the point is that it tastes good no?  And is made with healthy, fresh ingredients?  AND as a special bonus - this dish is VERY low carb! :D  here we go! :)

Parma ham, Avocado, Gorgonzola salad

As you may or may not know, i'm currently on a low carb diet.
One of the things that i'm enjoying doing is making giant salads and eating them all up!  I am not on a low fat diet, just low carbs, so olive oil, cheeses, hams, avocados, and so many things that are very restricted when on a low calorie diet are back on the menu!  It's the carbohydrates that i'm trying to avoid, whether they be in simple sugar form (sweets, fruits, all those crazy corn derivatives), or complex carbohydrates (starch - some beans, potatoes, wheat, corn)

This one was thrown together in a jiffy.. and my tastebuds were very very happy! :D

Marinade for pork - revisited

I love marinading pork for the BBQ.  And Maltese pork is fantastic.  I buy it from Prime butchers (found in all the GS/Tower supermarkets), or the few select good butchers around malta, like Charles butcher in Naxxar, or the guys at Arkadia. 

I made 2 this week, and they were both really tasty!