Moorebank "Sheila" Black Sheep Shiraz 2009

Moorebank Private Vineyard

“Sheila” Black Sheep Shiraz 2009

Pokolbin (Hunter Valley), New South Wales

Wine maker: Gary Reed

Price: $30 a bottle

I like winemakers of the relaxed type. Gary Reed, you have done well. Sheila is a deep purple-red shiraz originating from Pokolbin in the Hunter Valley Wine Region of  New South Wales.

I drank this bottle over a few days and I have found it to be a versatile dinner-party-friendly wine. There’s been green chicken curry, roasted five spice chicken, stir-fry, chocolate, bruschetta, and steak (with a jus made from the Sheila Shiraz) The nose reminds me of warm cherry pie I once bought on a long drive from Sydney to Brisbane. It’s relatively sweet and the aromas continue into the mouth and develops depth that is added by the oak it is preserved in (only a slight sweek soft oak.. not like you’re drinking wood at all). The velvety tannins are a genius finish as the wine pulls away so as you swallow you’re left salivating and wanting another taste so that you can experience the journey all over again.

At $30 a bottle I would recommend you to keep 1 or 2 in your cellar to drink in the next year if you want to impress. It’s one of those bottles that will make you look like an avid wine critic as it seems quite hard to find now. Nevertheless, poke around the website and see what you can find :)

 

Chalk Hill 2011 Moscato

Moscatos are lovely for a pre-dinner drink with friends or a saturday afternoon with family (6% alcohol content!).
Chalk Hill is a family owned winery found in McLaren Vale, South Australia. 

Chalk Hill’s 2011 Moscato is a light yellow with a green tinge around the edges. As the bottle opens i get a lovely surprise with the bubbles that rise to the surface. The glass I used also created large bubbles that would rise to the surface.



On the nose it has a very subtle bouquet that becomes more pronounced in the mouth as you let the bubbles fizz to the side of your tongue. It smells fresh like spring sweetened with honey and balanced with citrus notes.
As you swallow the wine, it is refreshing and sweet with flavours of dried fruit (think a mix of apple, sultanas and apricots). Just before you swallow the citrus lemon and lime cleanses most of the palate. After swallowing, pause and you can taste the remaining honey that has coated the insides of your mouth.

You can find the 2011 Moscato for $18 a bottle, or the 2012 vintage here

Cranberry tea biscuit

I was caught in the act of looking up teas to buy online. And was told off for it. I’m not allowed to buy more until I’ve finished the bulk of what I already have. 

First World Crisis.

So I looked online for a couple of recipes for biscuits and adjusted to my laziness/what was available. After a couple of hits and misses I thought I’d better save it online to use again.

It’s a great recipe for those who are addicted to caffeine. Pop a couple in your mouth if you need to wake up early for lectures or stay up late to study. I found that 2 biscuits of these have the same effect as a cup of coffee!

Prep time- 20 minutes 

Cooking time- 12 minutes 

Here’s what i put in:

• 3 tablespoons of loose leaf tea (I used picnic tea, which is like a weaker English Breakfast. Other recipes call to split open tea bags.. but I really needed to use my loose leaf!)
• 1/3 cup of dried cranberries (I used Craisins)
• 1 1/4 cup of plain flour
• 1 pinch of salt
• 110g unsalted butter chopped (apparently the butter is of better quality and you can monitor the salt content in the butter much better yourself when it is unsalted)
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice (I used lemon zest in a previous recipe but I found that the zesty pops of the lemon took the focus away from the taste of tea)

Instructions:

1. Food process/Pulse/Blitz the tea leaves so that they’re smaller
2. Pulse up the cranberries with the tea so that they become small grains (the size of broken rice)
3. Mix in all the ingredients with a spoon so that the cranberries are distributed evenly, then pulse it all together. Once you’ve finished the food processing, the dough should be on the dry side, looking a bit crumbly.
4. Using the warmth of your hand, gather up the biscuit dough and form a long log. Wrap this up in baking paper and shove it into the freezer to chill (I stuck it in for 15minutes)
5. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius. if fanforced, crank it up to 170 if not.
6. Take our your log and slice out 0.5-0.8cm slices (i used a cheese slicer ).
7. Lay it out onto baking paper- you don’t have to give it much space because it won’t spread much. (I reused the baking paper I wrapped the biscuit log in)
8. Stick it in the oven for 12 minutes, or until it goes a light brown.
9. Once done, empty it out onto a cooling rack and eat!

Just an important note: please don’t eat these biscuits late at night if you want to sleep! I kept forgetting to tell people that it was made with with tea so they ended up sleeping after 2am!

Fresh peppermint tea

After a long cool summer and an even cooler autumn we now sit in the middle of winter and experience a lift of temperature. 

Could spring be coming a little early?

I dare not say in case it chases the weather away.

Nevertheless, I sit at home on my second day of sick leave enjoying fresh peppermint tea straight from my balcony garden.

It’s always a joy to harvest what you have grown; albeit small and simple. 

It’s a beginning!

This tea was also a beginning for me, the first of many trials and errors.

I simply took a handful of peppermint and stuck it in a glass of water after washing it a few times to get rid of soil and any bugs. 

It was nice steeping at 80 degrees. Very pretty with a light green-yellow stain flowing down from the surface. It did indeed flavor the water like the familiar mint tea you can find in tea bags but really really subtle. 

Note to self: use 2 handfuls next time!

I steeped the second cup right after the water boiled at 100 degrees. Ahh what a mistake! I was drinking peppermint spinach soup! That’s right- peppermint leaves do taste like spinach once boiled.

Who would have thought?

It's an impressive looking drink though! 

I think I'll dehydrate the leaves before drinking next time

Macro photography with extension tubes

Over the Christmas holidays my own present to myself arrived in the mail.

 Kenko Extension tubes!

The extension tubes work by moving a lens away from the sensors inside the camera. The increased distance between the front lens and the sensors result in the camera's ability to only focus on near objects. 

As the name suggests, it's a tube without any lenses. You can stick your finger through it :P
Your camera clicks onto one end, and your lens on the other end.

It's so easy and fun to use, even Bunny wants to have a go!

It's similar to the eyes of many high short-sighted (myopic) people. They tend to have longer eyes than others with perfect vision where the front of their cornea is much further away from the retina. (Much further being >1mm.) 

The 3 extension tubes stuck together allowed me to capture fine iris detail. To capture this image I had to be ~5cm away from the eye.

It's 1/3 the price of the cheapest macro lens I could find.

So instead of food/wine blogging I’ve been running around in the garden taking macro photos of flowers and bugs. 

bottle brush bud things.

daisy

purple flower thing....
obviously I'm not a botanist!

these two ants were relaying information and taking turns gathering syrup from the bottle brush. It was quite tricky to capture them. They kept moving!

I also got sunburnt as a result from not re-applying my sunscreen after 4 hours.

I’m such a noob so I have so much more to learn.

this was also taken with the 3 extension tubes stacked one on top of the other.
Guess what it is?
Hint: its necessary for this blogger!