Dandelion Amazing Blog: Inspired by.............................Darlinghurst

Yesterday my friend and brother and I had a little explore around Darlinghurst. I only had $10 in my pocket but I still loved it and bought some nice things. It was absolutely boiling and it had been for the whole day. The sun shinied on until evening when it died down a little. Anyway we walked down Oxford St and then turned into Victoria St. We walked past the hospital which wasn't paticulary pleasant and the (FINALLY) we reached the nice part of Victoria st.

We went to Messina, which is an AMAZINGLY GOOD ice cream store. I had two scoops one of Coconut Lychee and the other of Coconut Pandan.

LOTS of flavours

It was totally DELISH, I love coconut! SO, the first thing that came into my head (after OMG, this is YUM) was, I really love coconut. So I thought I'd share my TOP 3 coconut recipes.
So, since I should probably get on the story and I don't want to interrupt the flow of things you can find my top 5 coconut recipes at the bottom of this post.

Next stop Bakery. Infinity Bakery, one of my favourites. The bread, cakes, food and organic drinks are all great

I love to bake. Full stop. I also love to eat things that have been baked so the bakery was a perfect stop for me. I was looking at the bakers and thinking how many people in the world love to bake. So I thought I'd list the 14 things every baker should have in their pantry. You can find this at the bottom of this post.

So we walked down into the city, past the famous Coca-cola sign. It looks much better at night when all the lights come on. It's sorta advertising but in a way it's sort of street art. Well, maybe not BUT it did make me think of street art. Which I love. You can see a quick, short and snappy article about street art and the bottom of this post.

Final stop. Grandma takes a trip. Guess what type of shop it is. Guess! You guessed right, VINTAGE! I loved all the 50's style dresses. I got a quick shot back to the past and thought I should do a quick summary of the trends and styles through time. 50's 60's 70's and 80's. You can find these at the bottom of this post.

SO, here are the articles. ENJOY

Firstly

My FAVOURITE coconut recipes!!!

1. Coconut Ice
Ingredients 5¼ cups (840g) icing sugar

2½ cups (200g) desiccated coconut
395g can sweetened
condensed milk
1 egg white, beaten lightly
pink food colouring

Method

Line deep 19cm-square cake pan with strips of baking paper.

Sift icing sugar into large bowl; stir in coconut, then condensed milk and egg white.

Divide mixture in half; tint half with pink colouring. Press pink mixture into pan then top with white mixture. Cover; refrigerate about 3 hours or until set before cutting into squares.

Photo and recipe
from
http://aww.ninemsn.com.au
/food/freshtv/790415/coconut-ice

2. Moist Coconut Cake

INGREDIENTS

125g butter, softened
½ teaspoon coconut essence
1 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
½ cup (40g) desiccated coconut
1½ cups self-raising flour
250g extra-light sour cream
1/3 cup (80ml) milk

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Grease deep 22cm-round cake pan; line base with baking paper.

Beat butter, essence and sugar in a small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Transfer mixture to a large bowl. Stir in half the coconut and half the sifted flour, half the sour cream and half the milk, then add remaining coconut, flour, sour cream and milk; stir until smooth.

Spread the mixture into the pan; bake for about 50 minutes or until cooked when tested. Stand cake in pan for 10 minutes before turning onto wire rack, top-side up, to cool.

Photo and recipe from
http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/food/cookingtips/776621/
moist-coconut-cake-with-coconut-ice-frosting

Recipe for Yellow Curry with Chicken and Potatoes

Yields 3-4 servings

Ingredients:

1 14-ounce can of coconut milk
2 tablespoons yellow curry paste
1 large chicken breast
2 cups water
2 medium potatoes
1/2 of a large onion
1 14-ounce can of baby corn (optional)
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar

Instructions:

Prepare your ingredients. Slice the onion, baby corn, and chicken into bite-sized pieces. Peel, cut, and parboil the potatoes for ~5 minutes. Set aside.
Open the can of coconut milk and scoop the top thicker cream part into a pan. Heat this cream over medium heat until the oil just starts to separate from the milk. Then add the yellow curry paste and saute with the cream until it becomes fragrant.
Add the chicken, coat in the curry paste, and cook until it's done. Then add the rest of the coconut milk and water and bring to a boil.
Add the potatoes, onions, and baby corn (if you want) and cook until just done, but still firm. Adjust seasonings with fish sauce and sugar to taste.
Garnish with thinly sliced kaffir lime leaves and red peppers. Serve with jasmine rice

Ok, following on from that.

My 14 things every baker should ALWAY have in his/her pantry.

1. All purpose flour (thats a bit of a DUH)

2. Self-raising flour

3. Baking soda

4. Bi carb soda

5. Vanilla essence

6. Eggs

7. Butter

9. White sugar

10. Brown sugar

11. Yeast

12. Salt

13. Frozen puff pastry

14. Chocolate

Street art

Ok, so I love graffiti. Sometimes it can look really amazing. You don't have to go to an art gallery to see amazing art. Street art can also look really bad and in fact, most of the time it does. I hate swear words and strange pictures drawn in neon paint. That's gross and looks horrible and around Sydney when you see street art you usually see that. Where I do like to see street art is on the internet at http://www.streetartutopia.com/

Here are some of my favourite paintings (I guess that's what you call them) from street art utopia are.

Fashion through time

50's Fashion

People were happy in the 50's. War was over. Rationing finished. People thought they had never had it so good. The style was tailored sophisticated and feminine. Pearls, white heels and gloves were favoured. Older women liked straight pencil skirts and younger women liked wide swing skirts and dresses. Do I like the era? Half-half. I like the sophistication to a certain extent but not when it goes too far. Then it's just.......well.......grandmaish.

Teen Fashion
Photo from
http://womenfashioncostumes.
com/wp-content
/uploads/2011/09/1950s-
fashion-sull-skirted
-dress-and-parasols.jpg

50's looks
Photo from
http://www.fashion-era.com/images
/1950s/mich1950x6.jpg

60's Fashion
It started off exactly like the 50's but as the decade went on extravagance rose. The 60's was glamorous, colourful and big. Big hair, very big hair. Prints were popular especially checks and florals. In 1965 the mini skirt was invented this sort of changed the decade. Things became tighter and shorter. Ok, the sixties is hard to explain because unlike the 50's it wasn't all one style. It started with floral dresses (much like the 50's), then vinyl like shiny, space looking dresses with white leather boots and finished in hippie maxi dresses. Through the whole decade mini skirts were wildly popular this continued on to the 70's.

60's office wear
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QPfCCosl6g4/TiVoKW0g0UI/
AAAAAAAAADo/GG8jRMrVuuY/s1600/madmen6.jpg

Photo from
http://edu.glogster.com/media/4/
30/86/89/30868992.jpg

Photo from
http://sp.life123.com/bm.pix/
historyfashion1.s600x600.jpg

70's Fashion
70's fashion was fun, lose and carefree. It started with a very hippy look. People saw tie die shirts and maxi dresses. Then came in Disco fashion, sequin bandeaus, colourful lycra jumpsuits and glitter belts. Through out the whole era flare jeans and platform shoes were wildly popular.

Photo From
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_N7FiXwKHEhs/S2ibvdP-
zSI/AAAAAAAABj4/LoahfGt2EaQ/s400/68hippies+-+
vintage+clothing+patterns.gif

Photo from
http://www.fasioncostumes.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/70-S-Fashion.jpg

80's Fashion

80's fashion was cool and music inspired. It had a few main trends. One was Valley girl. A sporty look where girls would wear leg warmers and mini skirts. Madonna inspired thousands of women all over the world. Her sexy, daring and slightly punk look was recreated all over the world. She loved lace gloves, fishnet tights and tight leather skirts. Punk was in my opinion the most popular look of the decade, people wore lots of leather, ripped and skinny jeans and coloured mowhaks. Leather was very popular in all forms. Mini skirts, jackets, pants. Souly, the 80's was about self espression, about pushing boundries. It was a great era.