Corn "Pikelets" with Sausage & Tomato "Salsa" - Alfresco dining at home (Jan 2010)

        It's a warm Summer Saturday and Ryan wants to cook me dinner as I've had a bit of a stressful day. I love the long days of summer and the extended daylight. Ryan's house also has a gorgeous backyard is also perfect for entertaining which Ryan and I took advantage of a couple of years ago when we hosted a Boxing Day bbq for 50 of our friends, that was one hectic day. He decides to cook dinner in the backyard on the bbq/burner to avoid making too much mess in the kitchen. (Ryan is an extremely messy cook and his mum can't handle the amount of mess he makes in the kitchen whenever he cooks, it stresses her out. The newly renovated flashy kitchen doesn't get utilised enough in my opinion). The back porch was also a lovely place to be having dinner in the midst of Summer.

        Ryan bought me an Olympus DSLR camera for Christmas and as I've barely had any time to test it out I decided to bring it over to play with. I love the salt and pepper grinders that they have.

Cool shot of the flour.

        Ryan decided to make "Corn Pikelets with Tomato Salsa". At first he wouldn't tell me where he got the inspiration/recipe from but he eventually told me he found it on the Taste website (what a good boy he's using my resources hehe). After some searching I found the recipe for it and discover some minor adjustments he's made.

Instead of buttermilk he uses Carnation evaporated milk.

Love fresh corn!

        How cute are these pork sausages. Ryan's additiion, don't think he can ever be a vegetarian.

Random flower in the backyard, testing out the camera.

        Previous post I mentioned Ryan's mum collects odd things, here's another example.

Random photo snuck in of Ryan cooking.

Caught out! Haha he decides to eat the remaining corn on the cob.

"Pikelet" mixture.

Some random plant in the garden.

My contribution to dinner, LOVE LOVE LOVE!

        I had made some lemon vodka a couple of weeks before this and liked it so much I made some more. Can't remember where the recipe came from but it's pretty much lots and lots of fresh lemon juice plus sugar and vodka, serve it diluted with some soda water. It gets addictive.

        This is the "Salsa" of tomato, onion, pork sausage and mint. Ryan says he bought basil but as soon as I pulled it out of the bag I knew it wasn't basil hehe.

        The pikelets are more like pancakes. They were nice and fluffy and the sweet corn was a good contrast to the savoury topping. Almost like corn cakes.

Innards shot.

        Ryan and his family absolutely love Leche Flan. What is a Leche Flan? It's pretty much a Filipino version of Creme Caramel but made with lots of egg yolk and sweetened condensed milk, almost similar to the Vietnamese version which is called "Kem Flan" or in english translation Creme Flan? I don't know but something I do know is I love Creme Caramel too! Trying to impress I give the Leche Flan a go, I googled a recipe and picked the first one that sounded okay. My caramel was a little thick so there was a layer of toffee/hardened caramel at the bottom of the ramekin which also caught the bottom of the custard a little. It was also a little dark which gave a very very slight bitter taste. Overall though Ryan said I was very very close. I'd like to try making it again but I am a little scared of the amount of egg yolks used, I don't know if I am ready to make macarons again!