Six Kilos of Pumpkin

Sauteed Cabbage (Secret Recipe Club)

2012-02-13T21:30:00.001+08:00

This month in the Secret Recipe Club, I was assigned to Danielle's blog, Mostly Food and Crafts. I loved loved loved reading through all of these recipes and I was particularly drawn to these mashed potatoes until I realised I don't have the budget for goats cheese (although when I have leftover feta I think I'll give them a go anyway, they look TOO GOOD). In the end, I picked what is maybe the simplest recipe on the blog, sauteed cabbage, and that is just because I've only cooked cabbage one other time and it was spiced so I wanted to challenge myself to cook cabbage and see if I like it. Also because the photo looked amazing and healthy, and the description really sold it to me.

I've just cooked as a snack after work and it tastes amazing. I was a little bit skeptical, and I had a packet of crispy fried noodles on hand just in case I needed to liven things up a bit, but it tasted excellent on its own. I am going to go out on a limb and attribute that in part to the fact that I followed the recipe and seasoned it with salt. For someone as obsessed with hot chips as I am, I don't use salt that much in cooking or to season dishes, but I feel like it gave the cabbage some extra flavour.

Anyway, make this. Immediately. I'm eating it and its a 37 degree day so you have no excuse for it being too hot (or too cold, but its a warm dish so why wouldn't you?) to make and enjoy this delicious dish. Thanks Danielle! :D

SAUTEED CABBAGE

From Mostly Food and Crafts

1/2 head cabbage, sliced thinly

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp oil

salt and pepper, to season

1. Melt butter and oil in a pan over medium heat

2. Add the cabbage a couple of handfuls at a time, so it isn't going to burn
3. Wait until it is a little softer but still deliciously crunchy, and serve!

Happy 2012!

2012-01-09T15:06:00.000+08:00

Hello!

I've been remarkably busy doing what seems to be not much, but it has been a very enjoyable break. Christmas was delightful, I spent Christmas Eve with my big sister at her house, Christmas Day with my family, and Boxing Day with Levi's family (who were kind enough to pick me up from the train halfway, which meant I could still spend the morning with my aunty & co who were over from interstate rather than taking a different train the whole two hours at 9am, so props to them) and then a nice break between Christmas and New Years with Mum and Dad. I even had a friend's 21st on New Years' Eve, which was amazingly fun, I've known her since pre-primary (so about fifteen years!) and I don't see her nearly enough any more.

Oh, and before that we had a big Christmas dinner for our volleyball team, which I fully intended to blog about but I caught a cold during the Christmas Pantomime and ended up sleeping through most of the dinner. After my team had won at charades. And after I had downed an egg nog much faster than anyone else, because the cold meant that I couldn't taste the rum in it.

I was also incredibly spoilt over Christmas, some food-related highlights:

A new kettle. I went from a stovetop kettle to a secondhand kettle and now THIS.

Also this necklace. I want to wear it everywhere.

And these books from Levi, which I would thoroughly recommend to absolutely anyone with even a passing interest in cooking.

I don't think I've mentioned how much I love Heston Blumenthal on my blog, but I think he is amazing and I am very glad Mum made me watch Heston's Feast with her one night (the Willy Wonka episode, which is still one of my favourites) because then it made sense that we had given someone the Fat Duck Cookbook as a birthday present (side note: my 21st is soon. Compleeeetely unrelated side note...). The Flavour Thesaurus is great because I'm never sure what to pair things with so I usually end up following recipes or sticking to safe combinations and now I have an entire reference book to choose food pairings from! :D

I feel like we're pretty caught up now. I hope you had a splendid break too. Your hair looks good today.

Baked Chocolate Custard (Secret Recipe Club)

2011-12-12T21:00:00.000+08:00

Its time for another Secret Recipe Club post! This one was ridiculously last minute because of exams, rehearsals and a trip to Sydney for a three day workshop (and then post-workshop coma), but its here! This month I was assigned to Lavender and Lime, run by the lovely Tandy, and I had a really great time sifting through all of the posts, but I kept coming back to this custard. Which was odd considering I don't normally go for sweet things, but it seemed so delicious.

I am not the kind of girl to own ramekins, so I did batches in a smaller ovenproof dish I already own, and it still worked out perfectly! The only problem was that I found it super difficult to photograph well, so I strongly recommend you head to Tandy's blog and check out her amazing photograph! I'm sure the photo was 90% of my motivation to make this. I grated some chocolate on the top but in this weather chocolate doesn't really grate, it melts between your fingers and the grater. It still tastes great though!

BAKED CHOCOLATE CUSTARD
Serves 6
Total time commitment: 45 minutes (25 minutes baking)
Recipe from Lavender and Lime

100g dark chocolate
515ml milk
100g sugar
6 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Over a double boiler, melt the chocolate with 15ml milk. When smooth, add to a saucepan with 500ml milk and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat for a bit.

2. Whisk eggs and sugar together until pale and thick. Gradually add milk, continuing to whisk.

3. Place 6 large ramekins into a bain marie (see this post for help) and bake for 25 minutes.

Check out the other fabulous posts here :)

Salt Crusted Burgers and Caramelised Onions

2011-11-30T20:51:00.001+08:00

Oh my goodness, guys. I think I totally beat the cheeseburger recipe in terms of Most Delicious Burgers Ever. Also, these were much simpler, which makes it even BETTER. I've been following the blog Stonesoup for a while now, since I decided to learn to make sourdough and found a recipe on Jules' site (for the record, it was incredible, I just never got a good enough photo to post the recipe; if you are interested you can find it here. Also I understand that I have only been posting phone pictures lately which makes that reasoning invalid). The recipes are delightfully simple, and most contain less than 5 ingredients which is so great. The bonus with these burgers is that most of the ingredients I would generally have on hand anyway! Except bread. I've only just started keeping a loaf of bread in the freezer, I don't eat enough to warrant always having a fresh loaf in the house, let alone rolls! (Honestly, though, I live within walking distance of at least three shops so its no big deal to run out and get some, which means this recipe is a-ok with me)

The burgers are really juicy without cooking them in oil, because the salt layer helps the juices to congeal and form a 'crust' on the burger. Is this common knowledge? It should be. I am so impressed with these burgers, you don't even know.

Just a disclaimer on the "quick" tag - the burgers are incredibly quick, the onions not so much - although I came home from work on Tuesday night and had made burgers and 2 onions' worth of caramelised onions in half an hour, so maybe I have unreasonable standards of what quick means. I've split the recipe into the two sections - burgers and onions - in case you're only making one part. Apparently the onions can be kept for about a month in the fridge, but I haven't tried storing them yet.

SALT-CRUSTED BURGERS
Serves 4 in a burger bun - if you're serving them without bread I would add a little extra meat per person, the original recipe called for 400g to serve two people
Total time commitment: 10 minutes
Recipe from Stonesoup

400g minced beef
salt

1. Heat a frypan on really high heat for three minutes. Shape the beef into the desired number of patties.

2. Sprinkle a fine layer of salt over the frypan and place the burgers on top. Cook for 4 minutes then flip, sprinkling more salt on the pan. Cook until they are done to your liking.

CARAMELISED ONION
Makes a lot
Total time commitment: Depends on how much onion you have, but this took me 20-25 minutes and I only waited until a few of the onions had browned.
Recipe from Stonesoup

2 onions, thinly sliced
Balsamic vinegar

1. Heat olive oil in a large pan. Add onions and cook, covered, until the onions are dark brown, stirring every 5 minutes or so. As I mentioned in the time commitment spot, I didn't brown all of the onions because I am both hungry and impatient.

2. Add a few splashes of balsamic vinegar and cook, uncovered, until the onion is soft. I added vinegar until it looked about the right colour, so do whatever works for you.

Rosemary and Honey Pecans

2011-11-16T17:37:00.001+08:00

I found (and made) this recipe through a delightfully serendipitous turn of events. I was cruising Facebook instead of studying and Papermash linked to Sweet Paul magazine, which I had never heard of. I moseyed on over to have a look and this recipe came up. I had leftover pecans from the salted caramel pecans and was at Levi's house, which meant I had access to fresh rosemary to make it. Also, I was really bored of studying. In my defence, I did have an exam this morning so my brain wasn't functioning very well anyway.

I used a very scant cup of pecans, and ended up with a lot of honey/butter mixture sitting in the bottom of the dish. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious and I ended up drizzling it over the top, but I suspect if I used a full cup of pecans they would get crispier from not sitting in a puddle of delicious. Just a hunch, though, because the salted caramel pecans weren't necessarily crispy.

And did I mention how dishes-friendly this is? The original recipe said to melt the butter in a saucepan and then put it in a bowl with the other ingredients but bro, I have a microwave, I might as well just use one bowl. Next time I'm going to skip the bowl entirely and make it in the ovenproof dish from the get-go. One dish recipes are the GREATEST.

ROSEMARY AND HONEY PECANS
Serves 4, maybe? Are you serving them with cheese? I think thats a good idea. I should have done that.
Total time commitment: 15-20 minutes
Recipe adapted from Kate LeSueur in Sweet Paul magazine

30g butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
1 cup pecans
2 stems rosemary
2 tbsp honey

1. Preheat oven to 165C. Melt butter in a bowl, add the rest of the ingredients, and mix to coat pecans.
2. Put in an ovenproof dish and cook until toasty.

Salted Caramel Pecans (Secret Recipe Club)

2011-11-14T21:00:00.000+08:00

It's SRC time again! This month I was assigned to Desi's blog, Steak N Potatoes Kinda Gurl, which I could tell from the title was going to be my kind of blog. Everything looks incredibly delicious, but with Christmas coming up and my intense love of all things salted caramel, I decided to give these salted caramel pecans a try. Levi and I ate these sprinkled over macadamia and honey ice cream and it was essentially the best thing I've ever eaten in the whole world.

Because Desi used pecans in a Christmas recipe (for the 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies and Sweets), I assume its not just my family who associates pecans with Christmas. When we used to go camping mid-year, Mum would make really boss pecan pies (which I didn't appreciate at the time), and now she makes mini versions to give people for Christmas (which I do appreciate, and try to eat as many as possible). So there's how my mind worked. Good-o.

Salted caramel sounds fancy but this was ridiculously easy, there's just a lot of waiting and watching time. By a lot, I mean about 10 minutes, so not exceptionally long. Comparatively long to how much effort this recipe takes, you can throw the whole thing together in 15-20 minutes, which is just how I like recipes!

I left the cinnamon out of these because I didn't want it to potentially tarnish my salted caramel experience (and pecans are expensive, so I didn't want to risk being sad and having to make more un-cinnamon ones... although I have some leftovers so I might try them with cinnamon later). If you want to add it, though, the original recipe calls for 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon to be added with the salt. I also didn't measure out the salt, I just added it until it tasted good, but I've included the original measurement in the recipe as a guide.

As always, if you want to keep up to date or have a go yourself, the Secret Recipe Club website is here and it is delightful.

SALTED CARAMEL PECANS
Serves 2 - 4, it depends on how hungry you are!
Total time commitment: 15 - 20 minutes
Adapted from SteakNPotatoesKindaGurl

1 cup unsalted raw pecans
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tbsp water
1/2 tsp sea salt

Combine water, pecans and sugar in a saucepan over a medium-high heat. When the sugar begins to liquify, start stirring, and keep stirring until the sugar begins to crystallise.

Bring the heat down to medium-low and continue stirring. When the sugar is getting to the level of brownness that you would like, start coating the pecans with it (I used a wooden spoon). When the pecans are coated, sprinkle salt (and cinnamon, if you're using it) over them and leave to cool on a baking sheet.

Have a look at what everyone else has done here:

Spiced (The Kitchen Reader)

2011-10-31T13:01:00.001+08:00

It's time for another Kitchen Reader book! This month's was Spiced: A Pastry Chef's True Stories of Trials By Fire, After-Hours Exploits, and What Really Goes On in the Kitchen by Dalia Jurgensen, chosen by Libbi of Domestic Wandering.

I wasn't expecting to like this book, because for some reason I thought a memoir would be boring. And yes, some bits I wasn't too interested in the outcome of (relationship stuff? Surprisingly not my thing), but generally it was great. It actually made me want to become a pastry chef, until the rational part of my brain piped in with "No Emily, we've already done that and it wasn't as fun as you expected". Which brings me to the point that I don't think I've ever mentioned on my blog that I started a traineeship with an Italian pastry chef. But I digress!

The whole leaving-my-desk-job-to-pursue-my-dream thing is a bit hackneyed, but I wasn't quite as irritated by it in this book because it's actually real life, not a terrible film storyline. It also seems like nobody ever learns anything in culinary school that is of real value to working in a professional kitchen. Regardless, I really enjoyed the book, and got through it exceptionally quickly, which probably means I was more sucked in to the story than I anticipated. I would recommend this to anyone who is curious about what its like working in a kitchen. In my experience, the chauvinism and dysfunction are a bit hyperbolic in the book, but its definitely a good read.

THREE OUT OF FIVE WHISKS.

Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Pasta (Secret Recipe Club)

2011-10-17T20:00:00.000+08:00

SRC time again, already! Having something to do every month really makes me realise how little I post on my blog. This month I was assigned to Ethan's blog, Food in My Hands. I spent the better part of the month trying to decide what to make, everything looks so good. First it was Maple Swirl Bread, then White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies, then Veggie Meatballs with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce... in the end, though, I settled on roast eggplant and tomato pasta. Because I love me some pasta, and I was keen to try roast eggplant. I made this for dinner at the Friendzone, so instead of adding sausages (because Levi is a vegetarian and veggie sausages are expensive!) I substituted them for mushrooms, and I think it worked out delightfully. I also substituted fresh tomato for tinned diced tomato, thats just because I am lazy. Also tomatoes are expensive at the moment, who knew?

As always, the Secret Recipe Club website is looking delightful and you should head over there.

ROASTED EGGPLANT AND TOMATO PASTA
Serves 4
Time commitment: 40 minutes roasting, 20 minutes actual work
Recipe from Food In My Hands
Cost: $1.82 per serve.

500g pasta (I used elbow pasta, but I'm sure anything would work)
1 large eggplant
6 mushrooms
400g can diced tomato
Olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Cube the eggplant and put it in a roasting dish with a generous amount of olive oil. Cook for about 40 minutes or until roasted, flipping halfway to make sure its all even. Well, as even as it will get. Fun fact: Smaller cubes that have lots of olive oil go really crispy and are fun to eat straight out of the oven.

2. Slice mushrooms and fry in a little olive oil until browned. Turn heat to medium-low, add diced tomatoes, and heat. Add eggplant and let the sauce thicken.

3. At this point, you can cook the pasta and serve it, or refrigerate the sauce for later. I haven't tried freezing it yet, I'm not sure about how it would go with the texture of the eggplant, but I made mine before uni and threw it in the fridge until dinner and it turned out fine!

Gingerbread Cuffins with Cream Cheese Icing

2011-10-08T20:42:00.000+08:00

Do you ever get to that stage where you know you've had a recipe bookmarked for ages, but its not until you finally get around to making it that you see how embarrassingly long it has been there for? I realised when I finally got around to purchasing all of the ingredients yesterday that Sian published this recipe in December 2009. Gracious me. I had been planning to make these yesterday, but then my friend who I haven't seen in almost a year (disgraceful!) came over with cupcakes and we had a grand old time which meant I needed to devote the rest of my afternoon to uni work. So instead when I woke up at 8 this morning after having a terrible sleep, I made these for breakfast. Also I can highly recommend the uncooked mixture as one of the more delicious things I have eaten.

Sorry, family members who think I am responsible. It gave me the boost I need to write more of my essay! That counts as responsibility!

I'm still not sure whether to call them cupcakes or muffins... I feel like cupcakes are terribly dainty and adorable and celebratory, and the spices in these make me want to call them muffins. I think the fact that it is cream cheese icing, which must be healthy because its used on carrot cake and that is a cake with CARROTS in it so +50 health points, has swayed me to the "muffin" side. Even though I know what is in cream cheese icing now and its essentially butter icing with cream cheese. Cupcake muffins. Cuffins.

GINGERBREAD CUFFINS WITH CREAM CHEESE ICING

Makes 10 large, muffin-sized serves

Total time commitment: About 40 minutes, including 20 minutes cooking time

Recipe from Monster Girl Writes

1/2 cup SR flour

1/2 cup plain flour

1/4 tsp bicarb soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

100g butter, softened

1/4 cup milk

2 tbsp golden syrup

Preheat oven to 170C. Combine dry ingredients, then add wet ingredients and mix together. Spoon into cupcake liners and bake until springy and golden.

While cooking, combine the following:

30g butter

50g cream cheese

2/3 cup icing sugar

When the cupcakes are done, take them out of the oven and let them cool for 5 minutes before icing them. Lovely!

The Kitchen Reader: Home Cooking

2011-09-30T10:51:00.001+08:00

So on top of my SRC commitments that mean I'm posting at least once a month during my hectic uni times, I've also joined The Kitchen Reader, where members read one food-related book per month and blog about it. This month's book was Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin, chosen by Sarah from Simply Cooked (whose blog is also fantastic!)

I wasn't expecting much from this book, because I'd prefer to be reading recipes (or, you know, eating) than just reading about food. I was very wrong! The book is amazing, and I've already sent it down to Mum to read because I am going to get crazy evangelical about everyone in my extended family reading the book. It's so good. There are recipes interspersed into the short essays, and it wasn't pretentious at all. I don't think its possible to be pretentious when you are writing about eggplant for one. I just enjoyed everything about this book, so you should probably pick up a copy ASAP.

Secret Recipe Club: Pesto Potatoes

2011-09-19T20:00:00.000+08:00

I know, how predictable that I chose another potato recipe :P I've been so swamped with uni and the panto rehearsals/performances that I haven't had time to cook anything of note lately. It was a welcome challenge to fit the SRC into this month! (Also, please do click the link and visit our webpage, it looks pretty rad).

The blog I was assigned was Savouring the Thyme. Jennifer's blog is great! I bookmarked so many things to make this month but it turned out that this was the only thing I could fit into my uni work haze. As soon as I hit summer holidays, the bookmarks are coming out!

These potatoes are ridiculously simple and I can't believe I never thought of combining potatoes and pesto before. If you can commit to the hour for roasting the potatoes, and I suggest you do, this is entirely worth it.

PESTO POTATOES

Serves 1
Total time commitment: 1 hour 20 minutes (1 hour 15 minutes cooking, 5 minutes actually working)
Recipe from Savouring the Thyme

1 potato
1 tsp pesto

1. Coat the potato with olive oil and roast for 50-60 minutes until tender. Leave to cool until you can handle them.

2. Cut off the top third of the potato and set aside (or eat - I ate and it was one of the best decisions I've made). Scoop out the innards of the potato, leaving a little wall around the skin so it doesn't collapse in on itself.

3. Mash the potato insides and pesto together and scoop back into the potato.

4. Bake for another 15 minutes.

Click here to look at all of the other members' recipes!

Friend Zone Food: Cheeseburgers

2011-09-02T18:49:00.000+08:00

I'm so sorry about the lack of posting! I've been absolutely swamped with uni work and panto and work, and to be completely honest I've been living on things like baked beans, jacket potatoes, and microwaveable Indian meals. Its the same story as last month though, I've been eating a lot of meals at the "Friend Zone", the nickname we've given the house that Levi and Chris and Briony moved into down the road, so I thought I should add another category for meals I have at their place that someone else has cooked with me (or cooked entirely :P).

Chris and I made these burgers last night when Levi and Briony were still away on a uni trip. If Levi is away it seems remiss to not take advantage of the opportunity to cook something that isn't vegetarian! And when I say Chris and I made them, I mean Chris made them and I picked up hamburger buns on my way there from work. The burgers are from the cookbook What to Cook and How to Cook It by Jane Hornby, which I would absolutely recommend. There are step-by-step photos, and all of the ingredients are set out in a delightfully organised photo at the beginning of each recipe. This is the third or fourth dish we've eaten from that cookbook and everything has been simple to make and really delicious.

These burgers were SO GOOD. I'm going to make them again soon, because they were really great. Before we started I was lamenting that we didn't have any chips with them (because I obviously have attachment issues with not having potato in my meals) but it was so filling that I wouldn't have been able to fit them in anyway!

Also happy birthday shout outs to Tara, who turned 22 on Wednesday, and my cousin Clare whose birthday is today :D

Serves 2
Total time commitment: 30 minutes
Recipe adapted from What to Cook and How to Cook It

1/2 onion
3 small gherkins
250g minced beef
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 egg
Salt and pepper, to season
2 large burger buns
4 slices cheese, to cover patties
Lettuce and tomato, to serve

1. Preheat the grill to high. While its preheating, finely chop the onion and gherkins and place in a large mixing bowl. Add the egg, mustard, mince and salt and pepper, and mix together.

2. Roughly divide the meat in half and shape into two burgers, about 2cm thick. Our burgers were HUGE but delicious, and they looked silly in the tiny buns, so I would recommend this for the comedic value.

3. Place the burgers onto the grill and cook for ten minutes, flipping halfway through. If they need a little longer, then do that. Whatever floats your burger-loving boat!

4. While the burgers are cooking, slice the tomato and wash the lettuce so you can go for your life when the burgers are ready. Halve the buns as well.

6. Burgers are looking good? Excellent. Put some cheese on top of them, and place the halved buns face up (the face being the cut side) on the grill. Whack everything back in there for another minute or so, just to melt the cheese and brown the buns.

7. Assemble the buns and serve.

Secret Recipe Club: Oven Stuffed Potatoes

2011-08-22T19:00:00.047+08:00

So I mentioned that I had been on a microwaved potatoes kick just before uni started. My laziness aside, I just really like potatoes because they're easy, so I was pretty overjoyed when I found this recipe for stuffed potatoes on my SRC assignment this month! I was assigned to Gloria's blog, Canela Kitchen, and I fell in love with most of the recipes she has posted.

I adapted this recipe to make it vegetarian, and omitted the parmesan cheese coating (although will definitely make them again with the parmesan!). I really loved the end product, and making them almost bite-sized meant I could just pop them in my mouth while marathoning Mad Men. (I know, I'm four years behind everyone else, but goodness it is a good show)

OVEN STUFFED POTATOES
Serves 6
Recipe from Canela Kitchen

1 kilo potatoes, peeled
3 egg yolks
3 tbsp flour
Spinach and feta, to fill

1. Boil and mash the potatoes. Add the egg yolks and flour, and mix to form a dough. Preheat oven to 190C.

2. Wilt the spinach by rinsing it under cold water and then place it into a medium-hot frying pan with only the water that is still on the leaves for a couple of minutes.

3. Cut the feta into small cubes.

4. Form the potato dough into evenly-sized balls. Now that you have checked they're all even, squish down each ball and place a spinach leaf then a cube of feta (or more, depending on size) in each and re-shape into balls.

5. Place the balls on a baking tray and cook until browned (this will vary depending on size).

Check out the other members' recipes here!

Lentil and Tomato Soup

2011-08-04T11:14:00.000+08:00

Last week, I didn't do a meal plan. It was the last week of holidays and psssh, people have been surviving and not making meal plans for years, right? It turns out I am not one of those people that can survive without a meal plan. I think the disaster wasn't helped by shopping day moving from Monday to Thursday, so I had ten days between grocery shops, but I did end up eating essentially nothing but microwaved potatoes for two days.

I swear to goodness, if I didn't have friends living down the road to cook for me and let me eat their biscuits, I probably would have faded away to nothing.

So on Monday, once I had run out of potatoes, I decided to finally cook this soup. I got the recipe from one of the free Coles magazines, and actually had everything on hand to make it (its okay, I also wonder why I didn't make it earlier in the week). I have a five hour break on Mondays which gives me more than enough time to come home for lunch and whip something up. Also, I'd only eaten an apple before I went to uni and apparently they do not fill you up for four hours. Who knew? :P

I added some carrot to the soup to bulk it out a bit, and next time I think I will also add some green vegetables (peas and broccoli and the like) for colour and deliciousness. In the various incarnations of this soup (it makes four to six servings), I've had it with spinach, pine nuts, and bacon, and I'm sure there are a million other toppings you could try.

LENTIL AND TOMATO SOUP
Serves four to six
Total time commitment: 30 minutes
Recipe adapted from Coles Magazine
Cost: 68c per serve (if recipe makes 4 serves)

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 cup red lentils
1 carrot, diced
400 g diced tomatoes
3 cups vegetable stock

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add onion and cook until soft. Stir in cumin and coriander and cook, stirring, for one minute.

2. Add lentils, carrot, tomatoes and stock. Bring to the boil, reduce heat, and simmer until lentils and carrot are soft (about 10 - 15 minutes).

Chocolate Delice with Salted Caramel

2011-07-31T12:01:00.000+08:00

Does anyone remember when I said I liked things that you could throw together relatively simply? Did the "easy" and "quick" tags give it away? Well. Gracious me. Nicola and I spent five and a half hours making these. I would say I don't understand how they managed to do this on Masterchef in 90 minutes (or whatever absurd time they were given) but I do:
1. Blast chillers,
2. Making 2 large ones in 2 large moulds, not 18 small ones in batches of 3 because you only have 3 moulds, and
3. Blast chillers.

Picture from Nicola's shiny new iPad, what what

I think last time I cooked something with Nicola it was the Epic Cake which we SkypeBaked while she was in Italy, which took us three hours, so we've definitely reached new highs (lows?) with this.

The only criticism I've had so far (from Chris/Gordo, obviously. I can't refer to him as Gordo since he shaved his head. It was six months ago but I'm still harbouring a grudge), which I agreed with, was that the biscuit base was too hard. Also, our "creme brulee" layer just tasted like baked custard, but I like custard so it wasn't a big deal.

If you have a free day, or a lot of cake rings, I would recommend making this. Get the recipe here!

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

2011-07-31T11:39:00.002+08:00

So pineapples were $2 each a few weeks ago, and in my "Grocery shopping is FUN!" haze (that's not even sarcastic, I really do enjoy it. I recommend having a grocery shopping date as your weekly get-together with a friend, I don't think I'd be able to function without it) I bought one with some vague hopes of making a juice in my smoothie maker.

About a week later, Meryl came over and asked why I had a pineapple ("I dunno") and what I was going to do with it ("I dunno"), then decided we would make a pineapple upside down cake, and that was that. Meryl is my friend's girlfriend who lives in America but came over for visiting and we got to spend a crazy amount of time on my couch watching trashy TV while her boyfriend was at work. It was as awesome as it sounds, trust me.

Apparently this is more dense than they normally are, but I didn't have any complaints! Anything that can be thrown together reasonably simply with ingredients I already have is fine by me.

Non-inverted Second Cake and inverted First Cake (we doubled the recipe to use up all of the pineapple)

PINEAPPLE UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
Serves 8
Total time commitment: 40 minutes - 1 hour, most of which is baking
Recipe from Taste.com.au

1/2 a pineapple, cut into rings; or 440g can pineapple rings
1/3 cup brown sugar
90g butter, softened
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups self-raising flour

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a round cake pan with butter and sprinkle brown sugar over the base of the pan.

2. Arrange pineapple over the brown sugar. If you need to cut the rings in half to get them to fit, please do, it is better to have halved pineapple on your slice than no pineapple! You could even halve all of the pieces if you are concerned about the aesthetic value.

3. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix until combined. Add flour and stir to combine.

4. Spread cake mixture over the pineapple and bake 30 - 40 minutes, or until a skewer/chopstick/knife/other implement you have on hand inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool, invert onto a plate, and serve.

Monday

2011-07-26T22:36:00.000+08:00

Grandma is back from France! Hoorah! (my excitement is not just because of the macarons)

And then I went to see Elbow with my best friend and it was the best day ever. This is during 'Starlings', if you are interested. In the BWAAAAAAMP. I apologise for the awful phone-quality.

Steamed Pork Buns

2011-07-24T11:05:00.000+08:00

I really have not been posting as much as I expected to over the uni break. During exams I was thinking about all the nice things I would cook with all of my free time and that lark, but I ended up being rather busy with seeing friends and hanging out with my friend's girlfriend who was visiting from America (and left yesterday D:) and playing Tetris. I also discovered Parks and Recreation, so that ate up a lot of my time.

Something else that ate up a lot of my time was these steamed pork buns! I've been craving them for about six months, since I left Sydney last (at the end of January) and had them at the airport. I saw a steamer in the supermarket, thought that it would be a great idea to make them, and promptly bought it.

Of course, since I took almost an entire day to make them, I've found them at food courts everywhere over here. Don't get me wrong, these were delicious, but not really worth the effort. Making my own bread? Fine. Roasting entire pumpkins, then using the skin for stock and roasting the seeds for snacks? Great. Taking a whole day to make four steamed pork buns (and four steamed char-siu vegetable buns for Levi)? Not so much fun. These are definitely being relegated to "buy".

The saving grace of these, though, is that the roast pork with char-siu sauce was AMAZING, and I will make it again. Without the dough-making and bun-forming and steaming, the pork seems worth making at home. Also I have some leftover pork which needs to be used up. Just saying.

I only made a couple of substitutions/omissions from the recipe - no shallot in the marinade, oyster sauce for soy sauce, and rice wine for gin. I can't think of anything else you could use as a steamer, but the steamer wasn't expensive (about $12 I think).

STEAMED PORK BUNS
Makes 8 buns
Total time commitment: 2 - 3 hours
Recipe from Taste.com.au
Cost: $2.47 per bun, assuming they're all pork buns and not vegetable

For the buns:
2 cups Plain Flour
2 ½ tsp Baking Powder
2 Tbsp Caster Sugar
1 tsp Salt
½ cup Warm Water
2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil

For The Char-Siu Pork:
3 Tbsp Char Siu Sauce
½ tsp Five Spice Powder
1 ½ tsp Oil
250 g Pork Fillets, trimmed
1 ½ tsp Honey

For The Sauce:
4 Tbsp Reduced-Salt Soy Sauce
2 Tbsp Shao Hsing Rice Wine (I substituted gin)
2 tsp Cornflour
1 tsp Sesame Oil
½ cup minus 2 Tbsp Caster Sugar

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Combine char-siu sauce, oil and five-spice powder from the pork section, and marinate pork in the mixture for 30 minutes - 2 hours.

2. While the pork is marinating, combine dry ingredients from the bun section, then gradually add water and oil to form a soft dough. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for one hour while you cook the pork.

3. Remove pork from marinade, place in a baking dish, and cook for 40 minutes, basting occasionally (I did every ten minutes) and turning the pork over halfway through. When cooked, remove from oven, brush with honey, and wrap in alfoil for five minutes before slicing.

4. While the pork is cooking, combine sauce ingredients (minus the oil) in a jug and whisk to combine. When the pork has been sliced, heat oil in a frypan and add pork and sauce. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to the boil. Set aside to cool.

5. While pork is cooling, remove dough from refrigerator and divide into 8 portions. Roll each portion into a round of dough. Place a spoonful of pork into the centre of each round and pinch the tops together (as you can see, I didn't do such a good job of this).

6. Pour water into a wok, saucepan or frying pan to about 1/3 full - whatever your steamer will fit on top of so that it doesn't touch the water. Bring water to the boil over a high heat. Line your bamboo steamer with baking paper and add buns (I could fit four at a time). Cover with steamer lid and cook for 10 - 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the bun comes out clean. Repeat to cook remaining buns and serve.

Secret Recipe Club: Sweet Applets

2011-07-18T19:00:00.039+08:00

Its time for another Secret Recipe Club recipe! After the success of last month's white chocolate cheesecakes, I was planning to do something savoury, but I was sold on these Sweet Applets from Megan's Cookin'. There are so many recipes that look delicious on Megan's blog! This one is from the Pillsbury's 100 New Bake-Off Recipes cookbook (which sounds so delightfully twee). The only thing I didn't do was dip the cooked applets in melted butter, sugar and cinnamon, because they were breakfast and I thought that was a little too decadent. The recipe didn't give any measurements for these so if you want to do that, go right ahead and top to your hearts content!

Also, please note that I remembered to buy paper cases this month :D

SWEET APPLETS
Makes 12 large muffin-y type things
Total time commitment: 35 minutes
Recipe from Megan's Cookin'
Cost: $4.36 per batch - $0.36 per applet

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 1/2 cups apple (I used two Granny Smith apples), cubed

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Combine flour and nutmeg and set aside.

2. Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, combine, and alternately add milk and flour mixture. When combined, stir in apple.

3. Spoon into muffin tray and bake for 20 - 25 minutes until golden.

Check out other members' contributions here:

Sunday night side-dishes

2011-07-14T10:00:00.002+08:00

On Sunday, I really couldn't be bothered to cook, and occasionally I leave Sundays off my meal planner because I lose steam when I'm planning or assume I'll have leftovers. This week was one of those weeks, and there was really nothing in the house except the better part of a 3kg bag of potatoes and some assorted vegetables. This started out as an attempt to make a variation on jacket potatoes that Mum used to cook us, where you scoop out the inside of the potato but leave a kind of potato-bowl-perimeter, mash it with some vegetables and cheese, and put it back into the potato. It didn't work out that way, so it ended up being a combination mashed potato. The honey carrots were there as a request from Levi, who had them at a friend's place last week and is obsessed with them now. Let's be honest, though, they're a favourite of mine as well. I haven't included the recipe because I'm still perfecting it!

The beauty of this mashed potato is that aside from the standard one-potato-per-person, the quantities and varieties of vegetable or cheese are entirely up to you and what's left in the pantry.

COMBINATION MASHED POTATO

Serves 2

Total time commitment: Varies depending on potato size, but roughly 30 minutes

Recipe adapted from Mama's jacket potatoes

2 medium-to-large potatoes

Frozen peas and beans

1 carrot, diced

A couple of florets of broccoli, chopped

Butter

Cheese

Tomato, diced

1. Steam the potatoes and vegetables (excluding tomato) in whatever way you prefer - microwave or stove top. If you have an hour spare, you can roast the potatoes, but for this I don't bother. Grate some cheese while you wait.

2. When they are done, cut the potatoes into small cubes (don't burn yourself, please) and put into a bowl with some butter. Mash until they are suitably mashed to your taste. Add the steamed vegetables, diced tomatoes, and grated cheese, and combine. The cheese should melt into the potato and be all delicious. Best eaten while sitting on the couch watching some trashy television.

Pumpkin and Lentil Curry

2011-07-11T08:53:00.000+08:00

It has been darn near freezing here lately (disclaimer: hyperbole. But it has been colder than usual). I've been eating things other than curries, despite what my blog might suggest, but I've been in one of those wintery ruts where I only cook staples like risotto and soup. I think it has something to do with the fact that all of my beloved food blogs are celebrating summer and fresh berries and salads and I just can't relate to that right now! Which is probably why I jumped at this recipe for pumpkin and lentil curry. Something warm and hearty to cook? Why, sure!

That, and I'd also bought another whole pumpkin for 99c/kilo about three days prior to discovering this recipe, so finding ingredients wasn't exactly an issue.

Much like the risotto, this curry is difficult to photograph well, but don't let that put you off! It tastes great, although I'd probably add some other vegetables to it next time for variety and colour. From memory, I used about 500g of pumpkin to make 400ml of pumpkin puree, but I could be incredibly mistaken. I've tried googling to verify if thats a plausible ratio but everyone just says to roast a whole pumpkin and then puree it with no measurements whatsoever.

I also added sultanas and shredded coconut to the top of my curry, something I learnt from Levi's family. I think it added some needed texture to the curry, without it, it probably would have been too bland.

PUMPKIN AND LENTIL CURRY
Serves 4
Total time commitment: 1 hour (20 minutes prep, 40 minutes cooking)
Adapted from Eat Me, Delicious
Cost: 0.98 per serve (0.80 per serve with 99c/kilo pumpkin)

185g red lentils
1 1/2 cups water
1 onion, diced
Ground ginger
270ml coconut milk
500g pumpkin, pureed
Curry powder
Cayenne pepper
Olive oil

1. Heat olive oil in a pan and fry onion until translucent. Add a couple of shakes of ginger (to taste) and fry a further 30 seconds.

2. Add lentils, water, coconut milk and pumpkin, and curry powder and cayenne pepper to taste. Cook over a medium-low heat until the lentils are cooked through (about 40 minutes). If the curry starts to dry out while cooking, add a little water or coconut milk and continue cooking.

Naan Bread

2011-07-10T09:36:00.000+08:00

Obviously, it would be remiss of me to post a gazillion curry recipes without a recipe for naan bread. Like bagels, I didn't make these for a while because of the time commitment, but when I was making the pumpkin and lentil curry and was going to be working for four hours beforehand, I thought it was the right time to make it. I'm very impatient, so being out of the house while dough is rising is really the safest option.

I got this recipe from Nicola's blog, go visit her and bug her to post more stuff.

NAAN BREAD
Makes 6 naan
Total time commitment: 20 minutes prep, 3-4 hours sitting time, 20 minutes cooking.
Recipe from This Is Not An Orange Blog

1 tsp yeast
¾ cup lukewarm water
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
Pinch of baking soda
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 ½ Tbsp natural yoghurt

1. Dissolve yeast in water. Set aside for 10 minutes or until it starts to foam up.

2. Mix flour, sugar, salt and baking soda in a medium-sized bowl.

3. Add oil and yogurt, and mix to a crumbly dough. When you do it, you'll realise why crumbly is the right word.

4. Add yeast and water mixture and mix to a soft dough. Knead for a while.

5. Return to the bowl, cover with a tea towel, and sit the dough in a warm place for 3-4 hours.

6. Good to see you back! Cover your work space with flour and bring out the dough. Divide into 6 evenly-sized lumps.

7. Roll each lump into an oval.

8. If you are using a frypan, here are Nicola's directions: Heat some oil to very hot in a heavy pan. Chuck in one of the doughvals (hah). It’ll probably stretch out a bit as you pick it up and place it in but that is fine! As it cooks, air bubbles should puff up. Flip over when underside is getting golden brown. Take it out when it looks like naan. Rub with some garlic. Yeaaahhhhh. Repeat with remaining doughvals.

I used a pizza oven instead, so rather than using oil, I floured each side of the bread and cooked it in the pizza oven. It was less puffy and oily (obviously), but still delicious.

Flatbread with Curry

2011-07-09T19:32:00.000+08:00

To follow on from the potato and spinach curry the other day, this was how most of the curry was utilised. I love me some (mild) curry, and I also love bread, so this was a pretty natural fit!

I've added a new section just under the recipe title for 'cost'. Because I'm a frugal student, I've started figuring out how much recipes cost per serve. I'm also adding the tags "under $1" and "under $2" for recipes under $1 or $2 per serve. Obviously things will cost different amounts depending on where you live and what's in season, but this is how I've calculated things and its good as a rough guide.

FLATBREAD WITH CURRY
Serves 8
Total time commitment: 2 and a half hours
Recipe from the Kitchn
Cost: $1.37 per serve

1 quantity curry (the curry can be made up to three days ahead)
2 cups warm water
2 tsp yeast
4 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp salt

1. In a medium sized bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Add the flour and salt and form a dough.

2. Turn the dough onto a work surface and knead until it forms a tacky ball of dough. If the dough is sticky rather than tacky, add some extra flour.

3. Grease a bowl (I used the same one, just cleaned out, because I am lazy and hate dishes) with a little olive oil to prevent the dough from sticking, put the dough in the bowl, cover, and sit for 2 hours to rise. You can also leave it two days in the fridge if your schedule makes that easier.

4. Divide the dough into 8 pieces and roll each into a circle about 20cm in diameter. Place some spoonfuls of curry onto half of the dough and flatten the curry, leaving a diameter. Fold the top of the flatbread over the top and pinch the edges together (like a Cornish pastie).

5. Preheat the oven or grill to about 180C. Leave the flatbread out while the oven/grill is preheating. Cook flatbread until it looks done, essentially. Mine burnt a little on the edges but I feel like that's the equivalent of getting grill marks on it.

Potato and Spinach Curry

2011-07-04T14:34:00.000+08:00

Here is what I like about this curry: All of it.
Here is what I dislike about this curry: Nothing, because I'm not crazy.
If you like curry, and you also like bread, do I have a treat for you this week.

But first - curry! This is delightful, and it makes me happy, particularly now that it is cold and I have lost motivation to cook. That's not entirely true, I've been cooking, but nothing especially interesting, and nothing I haven't blogged before. The last few weeks have been RAH! EXAMS! and then, in my excitement about finishing exams, I had a super-busy first week of holidays. But today, I have nothing planned until 6pm, and that makes me delightfully happy.

Actually, in my busy week, I did have a fun afternoon with Nicola watching Heston's Feasts. That was really fun, and kind of disgusting (boar's head? Dormouse? Ugh).

So back to the curry!

POTATO AND SPINACH CURRY
Serves 8
Total time commitment: 1 hour
Recipe from The Kitchn

1 onion, diced
450 g potatoes, cubed
3-4 cloves minced garlic
1/2 tsp ginger
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp garam masala
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp salt
800g can diced tomatoes
400g can chickpeas
100g baby spinach

1. Heat some oil in a fry pan over a medium-high heat. Cook the onions until browned. Add potatoes and a pinch of salt, and cook until potatoes are almost cooked through but still hard in the centre.

2. Clear a space in the centre of the pan and add the spices with 1 tsp salt. Cook until fragrant and then stir spices into potatoes.

3. Add tomatoes and juices, and simmer the curry, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are completely soft and the sauce has reduced and thickened. Stir in the chickpeas, and then stir in the spinach. If the sauce is still watery, simmer a little longer until thickened.

Aunty Mel Biscuits

2011-06-19T14:58:00.000+08:00

So I don't know if I even mentioned it on the blog, but I went to visit interstate family members in January, and that was pretty rad. I tried to explain my gigantor extended family in December and did a fairly shocking job of it, so to put it simply:
- Big cousin's 21st in Sydney on New Years Eve
- Levi and I took her little sister to Melbourne with us because her parents were going to come over here for my uncle's birthday
- Little Sister Cousin is the same age as Godsister Cousin, who is obviously the daughter of my extraordinary godmother/aunty/all-around cool dude, Aunty Mel.
- Did lots of shopping.

Aunty Mel gave us these biscuits while we were in Melbourne and they were so amazing I took a photo of them. Here they are.

Don't they look delicious? If you answered yes, you are correct. You know what is the best thing about these biscuits? The recipe makes about 100. I'm not even being hyperbolic. I made these biscuits in March, and I just used up the last frozen roll of dough this morning. The dough freezes really well, and not being someone who actually buys biscuits regularly, it was nice to know I had something ready for when Mum and Dad come over, or to take to Grandma's, or whenever I wanted something sweet. I'm not going to lie, I probably averaged an entire log of mixture that was eaten straight from the freezer. Grab a log, unwrap the top, cut a chunk off, eat. I'm such a student.

Oh hey, bag of potatoes and green tea sitting in the background. What up. The tea is Buddha's Tears, if you are playing along at home, and is amazing.

AUNTY MEL BISCUITS
Makes 100
Total time commitment: 20 minutes
Recipe from Aunty Mel

500g butter
1 cup sugar
400g condensed milk
5 cups flour

1. If you want biscuits soon, preheat the oven to 180C, otherwise you can freeze the dough for a later date. Soften the butter.

2. Cream together butter, sugar and condensed milk.

3. Slowly add flour. If you want to add anything (AM recommendations: choc chips, or coconut and cherries), do it now.

4. Divide into five or so lumps and roll into logs. Roll up the logs in cling wrap, and refrigerate (for now) or freeze (for later). Refrigerating the mixture for five minutes or so makes it easier to work with.

5. Remove your dough from the fridge/freezer. Make sure the oven is at least on, if not preheated, I often let it heat up as I prepare the dough. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

6. Cut off 1cm-ish pieces of dough and roll in your hand until they are malleable. I had to roll the dough then flatten it to warm up the stubborn centre part of the dough-ball, do whatever you need to. If you want to make flat biscuits, flatten the ball with a fork on the baking tray.
For jam-drop biscuits, press a dent into the centre with your thumb and fill with a little jam (too much and it overflows and burns and hurts your tongue when you eat them straight out of the oven).
I've also made these with a sliver of almond pressed into the top and they were good.
Bake until golden but not browned.

Secret Recipe Club: White Chocolate Cheesecakes

2011-06-13T19:49:00.001+08:00

So I had a bit of a falling-out with Daring Bakers, mainly that I was struggling to fit everything in with my increasingly hectic life. I know, life's hard. So what did I do to fill the void? Joined another recipe club! This one is the Secret Recipe Club, and every month you are assigned another member's blog to bake something from. Exciting!

I was assigned to Lizzy's blog, That Skinny Chick Can Bake!. If these cheesecakes are anything to go by, she certainly can :) I've actually bookmarked a whole bunch of recipes from her site because it was such a dilemma only picking one. I highly recommend popping over there to check out her stuff.

I haven't edited the recipe much, except substituting Nabisco's Famous Wafers (because I have never seen them before, ever, thanks Australia) for Oreos, removing the Frangelico (because unfortunately, I no longer have mum and dad's alcohol cupboard at my baking disposal) and scaling the recipe down to only use one packet of cream cheese.

The improvised wrappers are squares of baking paper because, in true procrasti-baking style, I had already started the mixture before I realised I had no muffin tins. They didn't look as adorable but they still tasted great!

Thank you Lizzy, you've gotten me through a very stressful study week with these cheesecakes :P

MINI WHITE CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKES
Makes 18
Total time commitment:
Adapted from That Skinny Chick Can Bake!

One packet of Oreos (150g)
30g butter, melted
1 1/2 tsp sugar
-----------------------------------
250g cream cheese, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
65g white chocolate, melted
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg, at room temperature

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line a mini muffin tray.

2. Crush the Oreos and combine with the melted butter and sugar. I may have tasted some at this step, and it might be delicious.

3. Divide the Oreo mixture equally between the muffin holder papers (exam-addled brain, I apologise) and press down into each paper to form a base. Pop them out of the way for a while.

4. In a mixing bowl, and using your electric mixer or some serious elbow grease, mix the cream cheese for about 30 seconds. Add sugar and mix for 30 seconds, then add chocolate and vanilla and mix another 30 seconds. Finally, add the egg and beat until just combined.

5. Spoon the cheesecake filling on top of each chocolate crust, and bake for 12 - 15 minutes until puffed but not golden. Leave to cool, and then refrigerate or freeze, making sure the cheesecakes are covered.

Apple Crumble

2011-06-09T19:34:00.000+08:00

Winter is making me want dessert. I don't know how it does that. Its all cold (yes yes I think 19 degrees is cold) and I want to just go to bed early and get up late and eat lots of food.

That makes it sound like I want to be a bear.

I did buy two apple crumbles before I finally got around to asking mum for the recipe (and her buying me this gorgeous little baking dish for $10 on sale at a cute cafe), and I prefer this one. Also its so easy to make that I probably shouldn't have wasted $6 a pop on frozen apple crumbles. Apples are expensive right now, I'm sure its justifiable, but not after you've learnt this recipe.

APPLE CRUMBLE

Serves 4-6 (depending on how conservative you are with your dessert servings)
Total time commitment: 10 minutes, plus cooking time
Recipe from my mama

4 apples
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup desiccated coconut
1/2 cup brown sugar
90g butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Peel, core and thinly slice the apples. Place them in a microwaveable dish, sprinkle some water on the top, and microwave for 2 minutes until soft.

2. If your microwaveable dish is also oven-proof, great! If not, relocate those apples to an ovenproof dish.

3. In a mixing bowl, combine all of the other ingredients. It doesn't have to be smooth, because its crumble topping. If you eat some, I won't judge you. ~~I used to make bowls of this and eat it when I was at home by myself because thats how I roll.~~

4. Put the crumble topping on top of the apples and put it in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until the crumble topping has browned.

5. I would serve this immediately with ice cream, but it does keep in the fridge for at least 24 hours. We've never had one survive longer than that.

Penne alla Vodka

2011-06-07T08:43:00.000+08:00

My friend Sian, who is one of the most delightful people ever, posted this on her blog a year ago and its taken me this long to get around to making it. I'd had it once before from a restaurant, and I remember enjoying it, so I figured it couldn't go too badly.
SPOILER: I WAS RIGHT.
Aside from not mixing it very well, so I occasionally had a big vodka-y bit of pasta that made me choke a little, it was really delicious and I will make it again, vodka permitting. Although I wouldn't put it past me to buy vodka specifically for cooking this. Pasta + cream + parmesan = the best. Siany's recipe was vegetarian, but I googled around a bit and people seem to like putting bacon in it, so I settled for chorizo because it was on special and I was not disappointed.

The second time I ate it (leftovers for lunch the next day) I used regular cheese instead of parmesan, and it was delightful.

PENNE ALLA VODKA
Serves four
Total time commitment: 30 minutes
Recipe from Monster Girl Writes

1 onion
400g can diced tomatoes
Herbs (Sian recommends oregano and basil)
200g penne
Olive oil
Garlic
2 Tbsp thickened cream
2 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup vodka
Parmesan or another form of cheese
Chorizo (optional)

1. Put water for the pasta on to boil. Heat the oil and garlic in a pan, finely dice the onion and cook until golden.

2. Add pasta to boiling water. Meanwhile, add the can of diced tomatoes and herbs to the onion mixture, and cook until heated through. This should take about ten minutes, roughly the same time it will take for your pasta to be al dente (fancy way to say cooked but chewy).

3. If you're using chorizo, start cutting this up and frying it now while you drain the pasta, because the part of the stove you just cooked the pasta on is still hot so you won't waste time heating a third thingy. We're all about technical terms in this kitchen.

4. Return the drained pasta to the pan and stir through the butter so the pasta is coated. Add the vodka to the pasta and mix, then add the tomatoey, creamy sauce. Combine everything, serve into bowls, and top with parmesan or other cheese and chorizo, if you're being that kind of awesome.

Roast Beetroot

2011-06-05T10:33:00.001+08:00

I'm going to be entirely straight with you, I wouldn't have posted this if it didn't look like some crazy marble painting in the enamel dish. Mum made me roast beetroots once during my vegetarian phase and when I expressed some sort of interest in making them again, she gave me the enamel dish and four beetroots and sent me on my way with a Maggie Beer method.

I'm sure these would be great as a side dish, I had them in pasta with cream cheese (I'm 99% sure. It was something creamy but not cream; it was also about six weeks ago and my mind has since been filled with verb conjugations) and that was great. As long as you're careful, its not quite the mammoth task I'd built it up to in my head.

EDIT: I think it was actually aioli, not cream cheese. I don't like cream cheese enough to have had it lying around in my fridge after a trip home, and I just saw the aioli in my fridge and was like "OH YES THAT".

ROAST BEETROOT
Serves 4
Total time commitment: 10 minutes active, 40 minutes cooking
Recipe from Maggie's Harvest by Maggie Beer

4 beetroots
Olive oil
Water
(its recommended you do this in an enamel pan, I've never done it without one so I don't know if it would work or what happens)

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Cut the stalky bit from your beetroot 2-3cm above the beetroot, otherwise they will bleed and your whole kitchen will be dyed pink. Gently rinse the beetroot.

2. Place the beetroots in the baking dish and drizzle with olive oil and about 2tsp water.

3. Cover with alfoil and bake for 40 minutes.

4. When beetroots have cooled, gently rub off the skin. I would recommend wearing rubber gloves for this, thankfully I have a lemon tree outside that I could pinch some lemons from to get the nice pink colour out of my hands before I dyed the kitchen but it was touch-and-go (or rather, don't touch and go, AMIRITE) for a while.

5. Cut and serve however you would like!

ARGHHH

2011-05-31T16:35:00.000+08:00

Last week of uni + two exams this week + general hectiness = not much new cooking.

Tonight, I'm making Gordo's Fish, last night was danish fritters, and that aside, its been snacking on rice crackers. Thank goodness I decided to buy snack food, I don't know how I usually survive without it in the house. It feels like cheating to put a recipe for "spinach, tomato, cheese and pepper on rice crackers", though, I feel you can figure that out yourself from the title.

Meanwhile enjoy this picture from happy things

How to: Chop an onion

2011-05-19T13:21:00.000+08:00

So I thought I had this down until I was at Levi’s a while ago and his dad showed me this way to chop onions. It’s a lot easier. Good work, Keith. I took a lot of photos in case I am awful at explaining what I mean.

For this (surprise!) you will need an onion and a sharp knife. This is what an onion and a sharp knife look like.

Cut off the top and bottom of the onion.

Slice down through a layer of skin and peel off. I normally take off one of the white (see through?) layers as well because lately the outside layer has been kinda gross. Up your game, local shops.

Stand the onion on one of its newly flat edges (where you cut off the top or bottom), and slice in half.

Get one half of your onion, and make incisions lengthways along the onion, leaving a gap at the top so it holds together. I’ve left quite large gaps because I only wanted it roughly diced, but you can put them closer together for a finer dice.

Holding your onion sides and being careful about that knife, cut the other way along the onion to dice it.

Once you get to the bit that has no incisions on it, you can just roughly chop that into pieces.

Sweet Potato Curry

2011-05-15T16:24:00.002+08:00

Welcome back, Blogger! If you aren't someone who uses Blogger you probably didn't know that it has been out of action for a few days. If you are, you probably also considered jumping ship and moving to WordPress (but I haven't, because I like it here).

So now you can finally get my recipe for sweet potato curry. Trust me, it is a ripper. It takes a little longer than I would usually spend on a dinner, but its quite worth it. I made this on one of those days where nothing goes quite right and you don’t have all the ingredients. News flash: after a year of diligently keeping my cupboards stocked with 400g tins of diced tomatoes, I didn’t have one when I went to cook this; I forgot to add cauliflower to my shopping list; I couldn’t find ground coriander so smashed up some coriander seeds and then when I was looking for cumin, found the ground coriander so added that too; cashews were too expensive so I didn’t top it with cashews - and hopefully Levi doesn’t read this because I neglected to tell him they were in the recipe in case the dish tasted worse in comparison to how good it could have been with the cashews.

If you want to follow the normal recipe, sub the tomato paste and water for 400g tin tomatoes. And if I can make a suggestion - cube the sweet potato quite small, because it will cook faster and you won’t be standing over the pan dying of hunger. I’ve added a lot of options into this recipe, because depending on what you have available, things can be added at a myriad of times. I’ve also not given any measurements for garlic or ginger - go with what you like. I substituted the cauliflower for frozen peas, because they added a bit of colour as well. This is quite a nice, easy dish served on rice, and the leftovers were good for lunch the next day. I’m a little concerned at how much I eat if the recipe is meant to serve 6 and I got 3-4 servings out of it, but it was SO GOOD.

SWEET POTATO CURRY
Serves 4
Total time commitment: 1 hour
From Leon: Naturally Fast Food Book 2

1 onion
Oil
Ginger
Garlic
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2-1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp turmeric
1 sachet tomato paste
200ml warm water
4 baby sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
400g tin coconut milk
Frozen peas

1. Chop the onion and fry in oil for 5 minutes. If you are using minced garlic from a jar (hello, self), add it with the oil; if you’re using *proper* garlic, then add it after the onion has softened a bit. If you’re using *proper* ginger, add that with the garlic; if you are using ground ginger, add that, along with the other spices, about a minute after the *proper* garlic/once the onion has softened.

2. Add the sachet of tomato paste and the warm water/tin of diced tomatoes, and the sweet potato. Cook for 30 minutes, adding water if it seems to be drying out.

3. Add frozen peas (as many as you like) and coconut milk to the pan, put the lid on and simmer for 10 minutes (or until soft). Delicious.

Pasta with Peas

2011-05-10T16:54:00.000+08:00

I've spent the last two days trying to post and blogger hasn't been loading. How awkward for blogger.

This recipe is one that, as the book says, could probably be whipped up in the depths of a nuclear winter. Considering how quick and easy it is, I was expecting it to taste a lot more bland than it did. I actually timed this to see exactly how long it took to cook - 22 minutes and 7 seconds - but most of that was waiting for the pasta to boil. It was very easy and didn't take a lot of effort, which is what you need on a Sunday night.

PASTA WITH PEAS
Serves three
Total time commitment: 22 minutes 7 seconds
From the second Leon cookbook

1 leek
1 onion
Olive oil
Bit of butter
Garlic
Peas
Parmesan
Pasta

1. Boil some water for your pasta. I think you can cook the pasta without much direction.

2. Heat a little bit of oil and butter in a pan. Don't have the heat too high or it will burn. While this is warming up, or beforehand if you are not speedy with your knife skills and worry about hot oil spitting at you out of the pan, cut up the leek (thinly) and onion (diced).

3. Chuck some garlic in the pan for extra flavour, and then add the leek and onion. Let them soften a bit.

4. Add some peas - I didn't measure, just added until it looked nice.

5. Hopefully your pasta is done - top the pasta with leek and pea mix, and top that with as much parmesan as you can handle.

Happy Mothers' Day!

2011-05-08T10:00:00.000+08:00

Happy mothers' day Mama and Grandma and Aunty Mel and other mums who read my blog!

I strongly considered posting a picture of mum busting a move at Tara's 21st, but this one (from the same night) is just too lovely.

Spicy Burmese Cabbage

2011-05-04T17:37:00.000+08:00

So I mentioned my new cookbook, and I am so excited to own it. I was so excited to post it that I didn't even explain why I am so darn excited about it. Remember that whole England escapade in 2009? Levi's friend took us to this place with food and I was like "Eh, sweet potato falafel, looks a bit expensive but I'll get it." NOT EXPENSIVE FOR HOW MUCH YOU GET. OMG. I was so pleased I took a photo.

I actually pulled this picture from Facebook (I was sure I had one of the actual food, but nonetheless) and it is captioned "I will miss you, Leon, and your tasty sweet potato felafel."

So when I was walking past a new cafe near my place a couple of months ago and saw the spine of a Leon book in there, I ran in and opened it and was excited and then ran back out to text Levi a picture of it. Lois was there, she can verify. And now I own the book (albeit the second one, which doesn't have the sweet potato felafel recipe, but I DONT EVEN CARE)! Huzzah!

HUZZAH, I SAY.

I was kind of skeptical about this recipe, because I've never had cabbage outside of coleslaw. I'm not entirely sure why it was the first recipe I decided to cook from it, to be honest, but it ended up being delicious. I think it would be good with the little black seeds they have on turkish bread on it. We ate it with plain rice, and it was great and filling. The recipe is insanely easy, and I've pared it down even more because I hate peanuts (you heard me) and I didn't want to buy fresh ginger or garlic, and couldn't use fish sauce because I was cooking for Levi.

SPICY BURMESE CABBAGE

Serves 2 hungry people (eaten with rice) with leftovers for tomorrow, or 4 as a side dish

Total time commitment: 15 minutes

Adapted from the Leon Cookbook, numero 2!

400g green cabbage

Ginger

3 cloves garlic

1 tsp turmeric

Juice of half a lemon

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp olive oil
100ml hot water
Garnishes - chopped fresh coriander, peanuts, sesame seeds, whatever tickles your fancy.

1. Slice cabbage thinly. Heat oil in a pan, and chuck on the garlic with it (the recipe says to do this after the cabbage, but because I was using minced garlic/am a maverick I swapped it around). Put the cabbage in the pan and let it soften for a minute or two.

2. Meanwhile, add turmeric to the hot water, stir until smooth, and then add the lemon juice and soy sauce.

3. Back to your delicious cabbage - add the hot water concoction and watch it change colour.

4. Stir for a minute or so, add any garnishes you want, and serve however it pleases you.

Birthday!

2011-05-02T11:45:00.000+08:00

I've been kind of absent lately, and I apologise, but I am in one of my lazy spells.

I did, however, have a birthday in all that time, and got some pretty radbiscuits presents.

Expect many recipes from this in the next few weeks.

Cooked in my new Weber Baby Q, because I am SO EXCITED ABOUT HAVING A BARBEQUE.

Curried Lentil Dip: Gluten Free Friday

2011-04-29T10:11:00.006+08:00

I've had this recipe bookmarked for ages. It looked so good when I found it in my reader, so I diligently bookmarked it, and then remembered that I very rarely eat dip.

However, I bought a weekly meal planner the other week (not that meal planning is new for me, but having a nice, pretty meal plan on the fridge door is) and while I was trawling through my recipes, I thought WHY ON EARTH NOT.

Result? Good. I forgot how amazing Tahini is, Mum and I used it a lot making my various vegetarian dishes but I haven't had any for ages. Sesame seeds are the bomb. My dip ended up looking a little less green than the original recipe, because I didn't have any fresh herbs on hand and I didn't think dried parsley and cilantro would have the same effect. It was also a bit too spicy for my weak-ass mouth, but I still ate a darn good lot of it.

CURRIED LENTIL DIP
Makes 1 cup
Total time commitment: 10 minutes
Recipe from Adrienneats

400g cooked lentils, drained
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp Garam Masala
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp olive oil

Blend everything together. BAM, done.

Gluten Free Friday: Vegetarian Chilli

2011-04-22T13:58:00.000+08:00

This is one of those recipes for days (or weeks) where you really can't be bothered cooking, but still need to get your vitamins and other goodness from vegetables. Its one of the most colourful meals I've had in a while, and in my book that also makes it one of the healthiest.

Unless you're using blue food dye or something, then you are not healthy in my book.

VEGETARIAN CHILLI
Serves
Total time commitment: 15 minutes active time, 20-40 minutes simmering
Recipe adapted from something The Uber-Blonde cooked me once

1 onion
3 small capsicums
2 potatoes
200g red kidney beans
150g salsa
1 cup water (see note)
Spices

1. Dice onion and cut capsicum into manageable chunks. Heat oil in a frying pan (you will want a very large pan!) and cook onion and capsicum.

2. Cut potatoes into pieces (I did eighths) and add to pan. Add kidney beans and spices.

3. Cover with salsa and water, and simmer for 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

NOTES:
The original recipe had a jar of passata, which made it a lot more flavoursome and tomatoey. I, however, am saving my pennies, so didn't buy any. I would highly recommend it, though.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

2011-04-22T11:36:00.000+08:00

I hate hot cross buns.

You heard me.

I also hate coffee and Christmas cake. So sue me.

These were my hot cross bun substitute, and I enjoyed them very much. Thats why the photo is so unimaginative, because I was too busy eating. Facts! Enjoy them.

SWEET POTATO BISCUITS
Makes 24
Total time commitment: 15 minutes active, 15 minutes cooking
Recipe from The Kitchn

2 cups flour
85g butter, cubed
1 large sweet potato, cooked and mashed
1/2 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Put flour in a bowl and cut in the cubes of butter until they are little pebbles of butter.

2. In a separate bowl, combine sweet potato and buttermilk. Add to the flour and butter mixture, and form into a ball.

3. Place the dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat out to about 2.5cm/1 inch thickness. Don't use a rolling pin or you'll RUIN EVERYTHING.

4. Cut into circles with a cookie cutter or use a knife and make squares. Whatever floats your boat. If you do circles, roll up the scraps and pat out again and just keep making circles until its all gone.

5. Place the biscuits on a tray and bake for 10-15 minutes. Delicious.

Flatbread

2011-04-19T12:39:00.000+08:00

I've had this recipe bookmarked for I don't know how long. Actually, that's a lie, I've had it bookmarked since it was published on February 15, but two months is a long time.

I went to make it shortly after I bookmarked it, but I had no bread flour.

I went to buy bread flour at the supermarket, but you can only get it in 5kg bags.

I went to the place where you bring your own containers, and tried to buy some there. They had weevils in their bread flour. I told the sales lady and she opened a new bag for me.

I took that home, but didn't have enough time for all of the rising the bread needs to do (FLATBREAD, WHY YOU NEED RISING TIME), so I left it.

I went to make it again, opened the bread flour, and it had moths. Decided never to go back to that store again.

Yesterday, was hungry, made it with regular flour. Deliciousness ensued. To think I could have avoided all that malarkey! If you eat this straight out of the oven, it will actually change your life.

FLATBREAD
Makes 9 large slices/one square sheet pan
Total time commitment: 20 minutes active, 2 hours 15 minutes resting
Recipe from The Kitchn

1 1/4 cup warm water
1 1/4 tsp yeast
1 tbsp granulated sugar
3 3/4 cups plain flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
Olive Oil

1. Dissolve sugar and yeast in warm water in a large mixing bowl. Add the plain four and salt, and mix until combined. I have decided bread is my gym-less way to massive guns, you can use a dough hook on your mixer if you are so inclined.

2. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and knead for a few minutes, then shape into a ball. Transfer the ball into an oiled bowl, cover, and let stand for 90 minutes. The recipe specifies to do this 'somewhere warm', Western Australia seems to have no shortage of warm at the moment.

3. HELLO. Please get your dough out of the bowl. Oil a sheet pan and put the dough on it, and spread it out to the edges. I needed a bit more kneading to get the dough to cooperate, maybe if you own a rolling pin that isn't so much of a problem. Drizzle with olive oil, and let stand for 45 minutes.

4. Preheat your oven to 200C, sprinkle the bread with salt, and bake for 20 minutes until the bottom is browned and the bread smells yummy.

5. Please eat a bit right away, it tastes lovely.

Lasagne

2011-04-18T09:40:00.002+08:00

This lasagne recipe has to be one of the easiest things ever.

And oh man, has this lasagne has got me through a tough week.

Like that time I didn't sleep enough and cried because I'd already eaten two servings and I still wanted more. Seriously, this is why I advocate going to bed early. But also why I advocate this lasagne, it is clearly delicious. I mean just look at all that cheese.

LASAGNE
Serves 6-8, you don't want to cry because you didn't eat enough
Total time commitment: 10 minutes actively doing things, 45 minutes cooking; not including actually making the bolognese and white sauce
Recipe from common sense/Mum's advice

2 quantities of bolognese sauce
1-2 quantities of white sauce, depending on your mood
Lasagne sheets
Extra cheese

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Get a large baking dish and layer it with half of the bolognese sauce.

2. Top with lasagne sheets so you're covering the top of it.

3. Add the rest of the bolognese.

4. Add more lasagne sheets.

5. Pour the white sauce over the top. Mmm, delicious.

6. Grate extra cheese on top. Even more delicious.

7. Pop it in the oven and cook until the cheese is golden and delicious and the lasagne sheets aren't chewy any more. It will probably collapse a bit as you serve it, embrace it as the joyful mess of lasagne.

DELICIOUS JOY.

Explained Absences

2011-04-17T11:09:00.000+08:00

Panto is over, which means I get my life back for a couple of months! Huzzah! Also, it coincides with school holidays so I'm not teaching for two weeks. So. Much. Free. Time.

Gluten Free Friday: Bolognese Sauce

2011-04-15T00:14:00.002+08:00

This is one of my favourite staples, but somehow I managed to spend 14 months living out of home before making it. The recipe is amazingly straightforward, requires very little active cooking time, and is delicious.

Are you sold yet?

I know its a bit mean putting something you traditionally eat with spaghetti as a GFF post, but there are a bunch of other ways you could use this! I'm thinking of subbing tomatoes for salsa and basil and oregano for chilli flakes and having it on top of nachos, because that's how I roll.

BOLOGNESE SAUCE
Serves
Total time commitment: 15 minutes, plus simmering
From my mum's recipe

1 onion, diced
500g mince
1 carrot
50g tomato paste
400g can diced tomatoes
Basil and oregano, to taste

1. Heat some olive oil in a pan and cook the onion.

2. Add mince and cook until browned.

3. Peel and dice the carrot, and add to pan. I added broccoli stalk and zucchini for extra vegetable power, what of it.

4. Add tomato paste, diced tomatoes, and basil and oregano, and simmer until everything is cooked, the carrot/vegetables is/are tender, and it isn't overly liquidy.

Not Your Mama's Pop Tarts

2011-04-10T10:41:00.000+08:00

Actually, these probably would be my Mama's choice of Pop Tart, if the choice is between these and the saccharine toaster things.

The pie crust dough is definitely one of the baking basics you should remember. It was delicious and buttery and easy. I'm not actually that big on pie, but winter is coming so I've stored it just in case! In going back to get the links for the pie crust and that, I found the Smitten Kitchen pop tarts recipe. Stay tuned, fellas, because I wanted to make Nutella pop tarts anyway and I think that will be my vehicle to try them.

POP TARTS
Makes 10 small or 6 large
Total time commitment:
Assembly idea from Chez Pim, dough recipe from Smitten Kitchen

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
225g cold, unsalted butter
1 cup water
Filling - I used strawberry jam, but I think Nutella would be equally delicious.

1. Throw some iceblocks into your 1 cup of water. I don't know the science behind this, or why it is useful, but thats what the recipe said. Leave that to sit until you need it. If you're in WA at the moment, it will take approximately three seconds for the ice to melt because it is SO. DARN. HOT.

2. Combine flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Cube the butter, add it to the dry ingredients, and mix it in with your fingertips. If you want to get all fancy, Deb uses a pastry cutter, but I find that BRUTE STRENGTH is equally easy.*

*I have never used a pastry cutter, so it probably is easier. Carry on.

3. When the butter is kind of pebbly and the size of small peas (or larger, if you're me and have neither the aforementioned brute strength or pastry cutter and a penchant for laziness), add half of the water. If the ice cubes haven't melted by now, for the love of goodness, take them out. Use a spatula to gather the dough together, and add more water a tablespoon at a time until you can get the mixture into one big, doughy lump (by this stage I had given up on the spatula and used my hands).

4. Divide the dough into two and wrap each piece in cling wrap. Chill in the fridge for two hours. I mean chill the dough, not that you personally should chill in the fridge.

5. Hello! Welcome back. Can you please put the oven on to 180C? Cool. Grab your dough from the fridge, break off a piece and roll it out to your desired thickness. As I don't have a rolling pin, I just patted it out to a fairly substantial thickness. If it's too small for your pop tart (you'll fold it in half), roll it back up and add more dough before rolling it out again. This is cooking, people, not rocket science.

5. Spread half of your dough-rectangle with filling, leaving a border around the edges so it doesn't smoodge out like in the picture. Fold the other half on top so you have a little parcel, and seal the edges by pressing down with a fork. Poke some holes in the top so it can breathe, and put it in the oven. I judged their "done-ness" by colour, and I could have probably left them in a little longer.

Lunch.

2011-04-08T18:14:00.001+08:00

Back to blogging ASAP, I promise!

And yes, I am eating microwaved potato with chilli and cheese. All of the time.

(that's gluten free, right? And its Friday)

Cooking With Charlie

2011-04-04T12:50:00.000+08:00

In the absence of any *actual* blog, because Panto and an essay on the social discourses shaping our view of the female gender and how we as a society react and respond to these discourses (still with me?) are eating my life, watch this funny video by a funny man who says almonds funny.

Levi says cashews funny though, kind of how you would pronounce "a-choo!" but "ca-shew!". In retrospect, he just places the emphasis on the second, rather than first, syllable.

Back to my essay. Tra la la.

Daring Bakers: Yeasted Meringue Cake

2011-03-29T13:28:00.000+08:00

I'm posting late because UB and I have had ridiculous months and when we went to make it I had no flour or money so it got postponed, but its here now. And by jove, is it ugly. I don't even particularly like the taste, but I was planning to eat it all because I hate being wasteful, until (mercifully) some raw mince fell on it and rendered it (more) inedible.

Never cooking during an existential crisis again.

If this has somehow enticed you (or you want to see some other, delightful versions!), you can do so here.

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

Jammie Dodgers

2011-03-27T12:54:00.000+08:00

If there's one thing I love in this world, its British sweets. My first job was at a British lolly shop and they told us we had to try everything. Huzzah! So I developed a healthy(?) love for Jammie Dodgers, Jaffa Cakes, Bassett's Jelly Babies, and all that sort of lark.

Jammie Dodgers are one of the foundations of my relationship with Levi. Those, Russell Brand, and Agrum and Turkish Bread. The latter two because I was trying to explain to him when we met at the ball that I wasn't going to the after party, I was going to a friend's place to have Agrum and Turkish bread, and he didn't know what either of those things were. Then to make sure I would get to date him, I wowed him with my knowledge of British things. Russell Brand wasn't big back then, okay, so it made me look cool. I also think that the week between when we met and when we started dating was the only week I've consistently worn perfume, I don't know why I thought that would help but its been three years so I guess it worked! Anyway, he approves of these, and being English I would say his opinion counts for quite a bit.

JAMMIE DODGERS
Makes 12
Total time commitment: Half an hour, plus 1 hour chilling and 10 minutes cooking
Recipe from Video Jug

160g almond meal
160g plain flour
160g butter
100g caster sugar
One lemon
Raspberry Jam

1. Cream butter and sugar, then add almond meal, flour and lemon zest (I used grated lemon rind). Roll into a ball and cover in cling wrap. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

2. Leave out of the fridge for 10-15 minutes to warm up. Preheat oven to 180C.

3. Roll pastry flat, and cut circles out with a pastry cutter (or a glass, either or). Cut a smaller circle from half of these circles (am I confusing you yet?). I used the wide end of a piping nozzle for the inner circle. Essentially - look at the picture, the top half will have a little hole you can see the jam through, and you want the bottom to not have a hole or it might get messy.

4. Put the biscuits onto a lined tray, pop in the oven for ten minutes. While they're in the oven, melt a few spoonfuls of jam and squeeze in a little lemon juice. Mix together, and then spoon onto the biscuit bases and top with a biscuit top.

Gluten Free Friday: The Best Nachos This Side of the Continent

2011-03-25T12:23:00.000+08:00

~Today's GFF meal was cooked by Levi, because I've been cooped up with a cold/hayfever all week and was too ~~lazy~~ ill to cook ~

I used to have nachos all the time, and then for some reason didn't have them for about a year. Then we went to England (oh 2009, I miss you, with your silly jobs and your overseas holidays). In 2007, I went on a school drama trip to Sydney and because it was around Tara's birthday, I got her a hurricane glass from the Hard Rock Cafe. So when I went to England and actually missed her birthday (its not my fault that the last day of Reading was her birthday!), part of her present was more hurricane glasses!

One is from London. We walked everywhere around London that day, made lots of jokes about Tom being our Tom-Tom because he knew where everything was, and posed for some silly photos (see exhibit A)

Did I mention it was THIRTY TWO DEGREES that day? The actual temperature itself isn't shocking (um, hello, I'm from Australia) but the fact that I was in LONDON when it was 32C was a bit weird. It was in the papers the next day. And by the papers, I mean The Sun. Which is hardly a reputable news source.

So the second hurricane glass was from Paris, where Levi and I spent exactly 48 hours, got lost a bit (we walked for the first two hours we got there trying to find a specific metro station), got free entry into The Louvre and the Musee D'Orsay, went all the way back to the Eiffel Tower from the Arc de Triomphe for more banana and nutella crepes, and had Milka chocolate and pint cans of beer for dinner. The second day, we skipped breakfast and headed straight for the Hard Rock Cafe, where we had this esteemed table

That's totally Bob Dylan's harmonica.

So this is where my nacho revival really kicked in - the nachos I had there were the BEST nachos I've ever eaten, and I've had many a nacho in my time. I don't know if it was because I was really hungry, or that they were using French cheese, but OMGA (oh my giddy aunt, get onto that phrase) they were amazing. And I've recreated them at least once a month since.

NACHOOOOS

Serves two really hungry people who will then complain about being too full, or four reasonable people

Total time commitment: 20 minutes

*Apparently some corn chips aren't gluten free, so if you are intolerant I suppose you know what is happening with all that bizniz but check before you eat them*

1 bag corn chips

400g can red kidney beans

Lots of cheese

Salsa and avocado/guacamole, to serve

1. Empty the corn chips into a dish and preheat your oven to 180C.

2. Drain the kidney beans and put them over the corn chips

3. Grate a buttload of cheese onto the top, and put the dish in the oven until the cheese melts

4. Serve with salsa and your chosen medium of avocado.

Poor Man's Bagels

2011-03-24T14:23:00.000+08:00

This has been a very flour-oriented week, I apologise. If it helps, I've used 2kg of flour in the last week, so thats why. Everything I wanted to make happened to have flour! But I kind of retract that apology because these bagels are incredible.

(I believe its pronounced "baggel")

I've called these poor man's bagels because I didn't have any of the fancy, "essential" ingredients like high gluten flour or malt powder/syrup. If you've ever made bread, chances are you already have everything to make these. When I say "flour", I mean plain flour/all-purpose flour. Don't shy away from the recipe because you have to boil them then cook them - heaven forbid!! - its not too difficult (just time-consuming) and the dough is really nice to work with.

BAGELS
Makes 8
Total time commitment: 3 hours on day one (2 hours resting then 20 minutes resting), 45 minutes on day 2. Note that day 2 can be the day after - three days after day 1. Bear with me, it'll make sense.
Recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice, posted on Smitten Kitchen

1 tsp instant yeast
4 cups flour
2 1/2 cups room-temperature water
--------------------------------------------
1/2 tsp instant yeast
3 3/4 cups flour
2 3/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp honey or brown sugar
--------------------------------------------
Toppings you would like to use, like sesame/poppy seeds

Day One
1. Collect all your ingredients from section one. These will form the "sponge". Mix the yeast into the flour, and for the love of goodness, make sure your bowl is big enough to not spill flour everywhere. Add the water and stir until it forms a mixture not unlike pancake batter. Cover with cling wrap and leave for two hours.

2. Is the mixture foamy and bubbly? If you tap the bowl on the counter, it should knock the mixture down. If that isn't happening, wander off for another ten minutes and check again.

3. Good! Now we're onto the dough. Collect up your ingredients from section two. Add the extra yeast and stir it in. Add three cups of flour, the salt and honey, and stir it in. Slowly add in the next 3/4 cup of flour to stiffen the dough.

4. Transfer the dough to your work surface and knead. Don't flour the surface as you don't want "raw" flour into the mixture, and the dough shouldn't be tacky. If it is, add a little flour. Make sure it passes the windowpane test. If its too dry to windowpane nicely (can you use windowpane as a verb?), add a few drops of water to the dough and continue kneading. You should knead for around 10 minutes by hand, or 5 minutes by machine.

5. Divide the dough into your bagels! I made 125g bagels if I recall correctly, and they were big enough to fill me up in the morning. Don't worry about making them bagel-shaped right now, just get them into rolls. Cover with a damp cloth and leave for 20 minutes.

6. Line two trays with baking paper, and then add a little olive oil to the baking paper (if you have spray oil, use that. Don't omit this step - I thought I could just use baking paper without oil and ended up with some bits of baking paper on my bagel). Now you get to make your bagel holes! All you need to do is stick your thumb into the middle of the bagel and wriggle it around a bit to form a hole in the centre.

7. Place the bagels 5cm(ish) apart on the trays. Cover them lightly with olive oil (again, a spray one would do well, but I put some on my hands and brushed them. We're all class on this blog), cover with plastic wrap and leave to sit for another 20 minutes.

8. Here's the fun bit! Fill up a bowl with water and drop a bagel in there. If it floats within 10 seconds, you are golden. Pat your little soldier bagel dry and put the bagels in the fridge overnight, your job now is done. If it doesn't, leave the bagels out for another 10 minutes and try again. Note that when I say "leave your bagels in the fridge overnight", this can be anywhere from overnight to two days.

Day Two (or three or four)
1. Preheat the oven to 230C, with two racks set in the middle of the oven. Boil some water in a large pot.

2. Remove the bagels from the fridge and gently drop them in the water. Keep your baking paper, we'll use it again to cook them and be nice to the environment. Perhaps give it another light misting of olive oil, though. The bagels should be floating, which means you'll need to flip them after a minute or two (two minutes gives you chewier bagels). Once they're all boiled and back on the tray, pop them in the oven for five minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees so they cook evenly. Check back in another five minutes, but I let mine cook for 15 minutes overall to give them a nice, golden, bagel-y colour.

3. Remove the bagels from the tray immediately (or you'll get their little bottoms stuck) and cool on a wire rack. Yum!

American Biscuits

2011-03-22T13:44:00.000+08:00

I remember the first time I ate these. A bunch of us were having brunch and the Uber-Blonde (I'm going to refer to her as UB from now on, because I'm lazy) brought these along. There was confusion everywhere. Why are there scones at breakfast? Where is the jam? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY'RE SAVOURY?

All very rational reactions, I feel. And needless to say (because I've made them myself now, six months later), I enjoyed them once I got over the initial shock. I was originally intending to make cheesy American biscuits from a recipe from a magazine, but this recipe (Dorie Greenspan's Basic Biscuit recipe) was so much simpler. They tasted best straight out of the oven, even though I kept the biscuits in an airtight container they dried out fairly substantially. Not that it stopped me eating them, though!

As a note: The reason I've titled this "American" biscuits is because what we call biscuits in Australia are what Americans call cookies. "Cookies" isn't really a term over here, at least not a commonly used one. Similarly, I'm fairly sure the hotcakes I posted the other day would be referred to as pancakes in America, our pancakes are thinner than that. Woo for cultural differences!

DORIE GREENSPAN'S AMERICAN BISCUITS
Makes 15
Total time commitment: 40 minutes
Posted on Bake-It, originally from Baking: From My Home to Yours

280g plain flour
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
90g cold, unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 cup whole milk

1. Preheat the oven to 220C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

2. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut the butter in to the dry ingredients - this means you need to work the pieces of butter in to the dry ingredients using your fingertips. When you're done, it should have a crumbly consistency.

3. Add the milk and combine with a fork (we're all about the fancy utensils in this kitchen, I know) until the dough is soft. Do away with the fork, make sure your hands are clean and get in there and knead! It should only take three or four turns until everything is combined, but you don't want any stray flour at the bottom of the bowl (something I struggle with daily, I promise).

4. Lightly dust your work surface with flour and roll the dough out/pat out with your hands (again with the fancy utensils attached to your arms) until it is a couple of centimetres thick. Use a biscuit cutter (or glass) to cut out the biscuit shapes and place them onto the baking tray. The dough can be re-rolled (I'm sorry, did someone just say

Yeaaah.)

5. Bake 15-20 minutes until golden and brown.

Hotcakes

2011-03-20T17:14:00.000+08:00

I'm starting to rather enjoy this whole "proper breakfast" ritual. Also, blueberries were inexplicably cheap this week and I didn't know what else to do with them (honestly, not much of a muffin person)/couldn't be bothered searching for recipes.

I'm starting to have mild freak outs every so often now that I'm not living with a family member for the first time in my life. When I went to make pumpkin scones, the Golden Wattle cookbook was gone because it's Tara's and she took it when she moved (luckily it was on the internet because damned if I ever use a different pumpkin scone recipe). When I went to make pancakes, the huge kids' cook book was gone as well, I presume Tara has that because her amazing choc-chip cookie recipe is from there. Luckily, I had this is a substitution, and I'm starting to think I prefer these to pancakes.

Also, homemade butter on hotcakes. Amazing.

HOTCAKES
Makes 8 large or 12 medium hotcakes
Total time commitment: About half an hour
Recipe from The Junior Cook

2 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
50g butter, melted, plus extra for cooking

1. Combine eggs, milk and vanilla in a jug and beat until well combined.

2. In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder, and make a well in the centre. Add milk mixture and melted butter, and stir until just combined. Lumps are fine!

3. Melt a little butter in a pan over a high heat, and add 1/4 of a cup of mixture. Cook until small bubbles appear on the surface, then flip and cook the other side for a minute or so. Repeat for the rest of the mixture.

NOTES:
- Leftover mixture can be stored in the fridge for 1-3 days.
- You can mix fresh berries or fruit through the mixture just before cooking for a delicious alternative

Gluten Free Friday: Lentil Loaf and Bento Boxes

2011-03-18T09:48:00.000+08:00

I've developed a sort of system to get me through the weeks now that uni is back on, and I still have work and panto and bi-weekly sewing days at Grandma's (which is where I'm headed this afternoon and I can't wait!).

Actually, before I get onto that, I've had a quest for about six months to buy a bento box. It started out as an "Oh, wouldn't that be cool?" idea, then Tara gave me Lunch box Revolution for Christmas.

I was totally sold on the idea when Levi and I went into (probably) every Morning Glory store in Sydney and Melbourne, but I *still* couldn't find one that was exactly perfect. Then I got home and looked on a bunch of websites, until finally I realised that eBay would probably help. Help it did, my friends! On Monday, my bento box arrived and it is splendid. I recently bought a satchel for uni, and this is so much more spatially economical than three different containers (which means the bag actually closes, something I thought I might never see). Also, so many adorable bento accessories! So this is my new lunchbox (don't even get me started on the quest before this for a regular lunchbox):

As you can see, its from eBay seller blueberryland, and I had absolutely no problems with them. Free P&H? WHEN YOU'VE MADE THE SALE, STOP SELLING! Although, I would recommend getting one with a fork, or having a miniature fork that fits in the fork section, but if you don't its a good place to sneak some biscuits or other reasonably flat treats.

So we're all sold on the idea of a bento box, or at least a reasonable lunchbox? Good good. Let's get on to my brilliant system then.

As I briefly mentioned with the pumpkin scone recipe, some days you just need to grab and run when it comes to breakfast. For me, thats Thursdays when I start uni at 8:30 and need to get the bus by 7:15. Wednesdays aren't *too* much better - I start at 9:30 but I'm normally rushing around printing lecture notes so I don't have time to cook breakfast. Both of these days are pretty full-on as well - Wednesday I have uni 9:30 - 4:30, and Thursday 8:30 - 5:30 (with a four-hour gap in the middle on Thursdays, remember I'm doing an Arts degree!). So the system: Spend Monday and Tuesday, when I'm essentially free until 3:30, cooking lunch and breakfast for the week.

(This is all relevant, I promise)

This week's lunch was lentil loaf! Hurray, relevance! This is a great recipe because you can make it quite easily and add a whole bunch of stuff or make any amount of substitutions (some are included in the notes at the end). I've made it twice, the first time I added red kidney beans and mushroom, and the second time I added cooked sweet potato. Good. Times.

Also, The Uber-Blonde is a benevolent blogger and let me use her photo because I managed to forget all week and now its all eaten up.

LENTIL LOAF

Makes 10 serves

Total time commitment: 30 mins prep, 45 mins cooking time

Recipe from Baking It, who adapted it from Eat Me, Delicious

1 can cooked lentils, drained (or 1 1/2 cups cooked lentils)

2 cups rice

2 cups grated cheese

1 cup tomato sauce

4 eggs, lightly beaten

4 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp minced garlic

Herbs to season

Any additions you may have

1. Preheat oven to 180C and grease a large baking dish.

2. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and pour into the baking dish.

3. Bake for 45 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes before cutting and serving.

NOTES/SUBSTITUTIONS:

- Rice can be substituted for oats, millet, bulgur. Obviously oats aren't GF, so don't do that if you are intolerant, you nong.

- Tomato sauce can be substituted for BBQ sauce, salsa

- Substitutions looks like it has too many t's

- Nutritional info (per serve): 185.3 cal, 6.7g fat, 1.8g sugar

Pumpkin Scones

2011-03-15T21:59:00.000+08:00

Do you have an ultimate comfort food that makes you happy, no matter what? For me, comfort food isn't something you make when you're sad, just something that makes you happy when you eat it. It used to be mashed potato until I had a bad incident with instant mash. But pumpkin scones are the BEST, you don't even know. Drop everything and make them immediately.

And with homemade butter? LORDY. Have some with a cup of tea for a mid-afternoon snack. Nuke them for 30 seconds and eat on the way out the door in the morning. Just have some, please. It will enrich your life.

PUMPKIN SCONES
Makes 12 scones
Total time commitment: 40 minutes
Recipe from The Golden Wattle Cookery Book

1 1/2 tbsp butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup cold mashed pumpkin
2 cups self-raising flour

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Cream butter and sugar together. Add the egg and pumpkin.

2. Add flour and mix well. Pour in heaped tablespoons onto a greased tin and bake for 15 minutes.

Baking Basics: Homemade Butter

2011-03-13T21:16:00.000+08:00

I've been wanting to make homemade butter since I read about it on a blog a while ago. It conjured up memories of Year 1 when we made our own butter, and then I found out that its even easier to do with an electric mixer. When you've made the sale, stop selling, internet! Everyone has also mentioned its a good source of entertainment for kids to make their own butter, and my memories of Year 1 can attest to that.

Keep watching for a scrumptious snack to go nicely with your homemade butter, I promise it was a little source of heaven all week for me.

HOMEMADE BUTTER

150mL cream makes about 100g butter

Cream

Strong arms or a stand mixer

1. With stand mixer: Put the cream in the bowl.

With brute force: Put the cream in a jar or container, leaving some space at the top for expansion.

*Want to add extra flavourings to make chilli butter? Garlic butter? Nutmeg, cinnamon, salted? Add them now!*

2. Make sure the lid is secure and shake away, or put the mixer on a medium-low heat. You want the butter to be yellow and separated from the buttermilk otherwise it will spoil very quickly! You can reserve the buttermilk for cooking if you like.

Gluten Free Friday: Alycake

2011-03-11T10:53:00.000+08:00

Alycake (and Aly, the Vigilante) was the main inspiration behind GFF. I thought that it would suck to not be able to eat gluten, so originally I was going to do gluten-free week to challenge myself to make things that were tasty and quick and non-glutenous. Then I was like, OR I can do something every week. In retrospect, a lot more (continuous) work, but it's fun! Also now that the Uber-Blonde is GF as well, its nice to know that I can always steal recipes from her blog to replicate if I have an uninspired week. Heh.

So guys, this is Aly, eating her Alycakes at Tim Minchin last weekend.

Actually, before I introduce you, can I just take a second to say OH MY GOD TIM MINCHIN WITH AN ORCHESTRA BLEW MY MIND. And that here is a photo of me and Miss Italia dancing (he hadn't even started by this point, we just decided to get our groove on).

Ok, carry on.

ALYCAKES
Makes 12 small cakes
Total time commitment: 40 minutes
Adapted from recipe on the Xylitol website

2 eggs
75g almond meal
75g sugar
Pinch of baking powder
Vanilla essence (see note below)

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Beat eggs and add other ingredients. Mix until smooth, pour into cake tin and bake 15-20 minutes.

TADA.

But seriously, flavour these however you want. I tried orange, as in the original recipe, but it didn't really do it for me. I've done them with no flavouring in the mixture but lemon zest grated on top. Its a pretty stock-standard gluten free recipe, which just means you can keep adapting it to your (or your lucky gluten-free buddy's) tastes! Bravo, recipe. Bravo.

Coconut Bread

2011-03-07T09:24:00.000+08:00

Good morning pumpkins! I hope your week has started off splendidly. I overslept and now I'm a bit grumpy (not that I missed anything, but its true that when you turn off your alarm and fall back asleep you feel worse when you eventually get up), but I'm going grocery shopping soon and then working through my massive to-do list before Panto starts up again tonight! Its Scooby-Doo themed, and we find out the casting tonight. Fingers crossed my Velma-esque haircut swayed the casting panel a bit :P From what I've heard so far, the script is hilarious so I am mucho excited.

I was also mucho excited to make this Jamie Oliver recipe coconut bread, because I thought it would be a good breakfast food, and gosh-darn was I right! My only problem was that there was a lot of sugar (luckily after reading the UB's post on Jamie Oliver sorbet, I had the foresight to halve it when I thought the measurement was excessive) and it was kind of cakey in consistency as opposed to bready, but I also undercooked it a little so the middle was still a bit doughy and that could be why. Regardless, it was a nice breakfast and snack food while it lasted!

COCONUT BREAD
Serves 8-10
Total time commitment: 1 hour 30 minutes, most of which is baking
Adapted from Jamie Magazine, Sept/Oct 2010

3 eggs
400ml milk
300g self-raising flour
100g caster sugar
180g dessicated coconut
1 vanilla pod, split, seeds scraped/1 tsp vanilla extract/1 tsp vanilla essence
100g unsalted butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 180C and grease a loaf tin with butter. Whisk eggs and milk together.

2. Combine dry ingredients (flour, sugar, coconut and vanilla) in a bowl. Make a well in the centre and gradually add egg mixture, then butter, mixing until smooth.

3. Bake for one hour.

Notes:
- The original recipe calls for 200g each of sugar and coconut
- Recommended loaf tin size is 22x8cm
- You are pretty :)

LOOK AT HOW DELICIOUS THIS PIZZA LOOKS.

2011-03-05T11:53:00.000+08:00

JUST LOOK AT IT, FOR GOODNESS SAKE.

Ignore the quality of the photo, focus on the deliciousness of the pizza and how evenly spread the toppings are. It was possibly the best pizza I've ever eaten, ever.

Gluten Free Friday: Leek and Parmesan Risotto

2011-03-04T21:40:00.000+08:00

I don't want to constantly "resort" to rice as a staple of my GFF meals, so I'm trying to avoid it entirely, but this was too good to pass up. I bought a bunch of leek on a whim at the farmers' market (goodness knows why, because its a winter vegetable and we're in the middle of a darn heatwave, so it was expensive) and had to find a way to use it all up once it was cooked. This ticked all the boxes for a weekend meal - quick, easy, not too many ingredients, delicious, and I didn't have to think too much to cook it. Perfect, no?

If you've read my previous risotto recipe, I found a rather ingenious way to cook risotto on Not Quite Nigella that doesn't involve slaving away over a hot stove for 40 minutes. Just for funsies, I actually made risotto the *proper* way for the Vigilante one night, and it didn't taste markedly different. Actually, I hated that risotto, but thats another story for another day.

LEEK AND PARMESAN RISOTTO
Serves 4
Total time commitment: 45 minutes (including 20-30 minutes cooking time)

2 leeks
Parmesan
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
4 cups stock, heated

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Place rice and stock into a large baking dish, cover with alfoil and bake for 30-40 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, wash the leeks carefully and cut into discs, discarding the root and dark green leaves.

4. Cover the leeks with water in a large pot. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

5. Combine leek and rice, serve and top with cracked pepper and parmesan to taste.

Cooking Basics: Rissoles

2011-03-02T08:45:00.001+08:00

Get all of the ingredients together. You'll need an onion, a carrot, breadcrumbs, tomato sauce, salt and pepper, basil, oregano, and mince.

Dice the onion and put it in a bowl with the mince

Grate the carrot into the bowl

Don't forget a dollop of tomato sauce for sweetness and that extra tang

(Name that song!)

(...)

(... anyone?)

Season with salt, pepper and herbs as you see fit.

Add breadcrumbs. These help to absorb some of the fat in the meat. So it follows that the fattier the mince, the more breadcrumbs you use.

Fry them in a little oil, and try not to cringe at the blurriness of this photo...

And serve!

You can add an egg to help bind them together a little better, if you so wish.

RISSOLES

1kg mince

1 onion, finely diced

1 carrot, grated

Tomato sauce

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

Salt, pepper, basil and oregano, to taste

1 egg

1. Combine mince, onion and carrot in a bowl.

2. Add salt, pepper and herbs to taste, a dash of tomato sauce, egg and breadcrumbs. Combine.

3. Shape into patties and fry in a little oil until cooked through.

Daring Bakers: Panna Cotta

2011-02-27T09:37:00.000+08:00

You should have seen my face when I read about this month's Daring Bakers. I was fuming. If there's anything I hate in this world, it is panna cotta. Heck, I'd even eaten an awful panna cotta on a camp not three days before!

Luckily for my tastebuds, though, I stuck with it, because this was delicious. And if you look at the ingredients, why wouldn't it be? It's essentially cream and honey. The Florentine biscuits were a little too chewy for my taste, almost a sub-par Anzac biscuit (and I do love a good Anzac biscuit), but they all got eaten.

You can find the recipe for this month's Daring Bakers challenge here.

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.

Chickpea Salad Dressing

2011-02-25T14:44:00.001+08:00

Have you checked out Shutterbean? I have me some ridiculous amounts of love for that blog, you don't even know, and it all started out with the link to some biscuits. I was like, cool, I'll bookmark that, you know, maybe even check out the archives a bit. BAM! Hours of life gone, loads of recipes bookmarked, lots of smiling reading through Tracy's posts.

As you have *probably* guessed from that intro, this is one of the aforementioned recipes.

I must admit, I'm not really one for salad dressings, but this one really bumped up the salad from a simple, chucked-together side dish to something a little fancier. Because I was literally scraping the jar of Dijon mustard to get the required amount, I poured the leftover dressing into the jar and shook it up so I didn't waste any Dijon. Resourceful, eh?

CHICKPEA SALAD DRESSING
Original recipe from Appetite for Reduction, adapted by Shutterbean
Serves 8 as a side salad or 4 as a main meal
Total time commitment: 15 minutes

SALAD:
400g chickpeas
2 cups pearl cous cous, cooked
Other salad ingredients

DRESSING:
1/4 cup cashew pieces
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tsp Dijon mustard

1. Place cashew pieces in a food processor & blend until chopped. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth - as you can see from the photo, I didn't have that sort of patience!

2. Toss dressing with salad ingredients and serve.

Gluten Free Friday: Lentil & Vegetable Soup

2011-02-24T16:59:00.000+08:00

Taking advantage of how overcast it was on Sunday, I made this soup from one of my vegetarian cookbooks in some sort of vague hope that if I was eating soup, surely the weather would have to stay cool. The photo is a testament to how cloudy it was - this was taken with all of the windows open and it still looks quite dark! I was going through my blog archives trying to find a particular post yesterday and cringed at some of the photos, but that still didn't motivate me to edit this to look better. What can you do, I'm still on holidays and living up my laziness before uni starts again.

LENTIL & VEGETABLE SOUP
Original recipe from Vegetarian Cookbook
Serves 8
Total time committment: 1 hour (most of which is waiting 10 or 20 minutes for things to cook)

3 leeks, finely sliced
3 carrots, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
200g can cooked brown lentils (near enough is good enough)*
75g rice
1L vegetable stock
8 corn on the cobs

1. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and add leeks, carrots and celery. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5-10 minutes. Stir in rice.

2. Stir in the stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes over a medium-low heat. Add the corn on the cob and lentils and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes or until rice is tender.

3. Season to taste and serve.

*You can also use 115g dried lentils, as the original recipe suggests, and add them when you add the rice in step 1.

Moon Toasties

2011-02-22T11:02:00.000+08:00

These are named after one of my favourite late-night eateries (their chips, you don't understand, they are divine), it's pretty much a direct rip-off of their cheese toasties but with added mushrooms for deliciousness. I was planning to make Spanakopita, but forgot to buy spinach and couldn't be bothered going out again after I'd already done my grocery shopping. This is a perfect lazy evening meal.

MOON TOASTIES
Serves 1
Total time commitment: 10 minutes

2 slices of bread
Handful of feta
3-4 mushrooms, chopped roughly
Cheese to taste
Wholegrain mustard

1. Preheat grill at 150C. Heat olive oil in a pan and cook mushrooms until tender. Meanwhile, toast bread.

2. Spread toast with wholegrain mustard (is that sentence even grammatically correct?) and top with crumbled feta, mushrooms and grated cheese.

3. Grill until cheese is melted. Eat. Wonder why you ever cook anything else.

Beer bread

2011-02-20T19:44:00.000+08:00

Goodness, has it been over a week already? I'm sorry, Pumpkins (yes, that is your collective "readers" name, deal). I was on a family holiday and obviously hadn't scheduled any posts. I should get onto that for next time I'm away.

Since I started my kitchen cupboard overhaul, which will ideally end with me having most baking/cooking staples on hand always (like flours, cous cous, pasta, olive oil, baking powder, icing sugar, granulated sugar, caster sugar... that sort of lark. And vanilla essence. We can't forget that I never have vanilla essence), today has been the first time I've actually been able to announce "I'm going to go whip us up a snack" and had everything on hand. It was quite a momentous occasion, even if this is a fairly simple recipe :P And, to be fair, originally I'd wanted to make this, but I didn't have any bread flour or gluten to be able to make my own (thanks, Google, but we can't substitute today). So this was more of a second choice, but its so dreary and overcast - although a welcome break from the 35 degree days - that it went down nicely with a pot of tea.

BEER BREAD

Original recipe from The West Australian 'Fresh' liftout, many years ago.

Makes one decent-sized loaf of about 12 slices

Total time committment: 5 minutes prep, 45 minutes in oven

4 cups SR flour

2 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

375ml can beer

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the beer. Mix well.

2. Knead on a lightly floured surface and shape however you would like.

3. Place onto a tray with baking paper and cook away.

Tortilla Lasagne

2011-02-12T19:50:00.000+08:00

Mum made this for dinner a few weeks ago so I tried to recreate it to feed the Boy and my Producerpants buddy, because we were all fast at work writing short stories on my typewriter about a man named Gordon Crevats. Not for any particular reason, just that we like the clicky-clacky sound of the typewriter. There's also a play being written on the typewriter, every time someone comes over they have to add a line.

This is Producerpants. We're producing the next pantomime together, and she is delightfully talented and hilarious. We're also a detective team. And we make a lot of ~~bad puns~~ brilliant puns.

I didn't like this version as much as Mum's, she cooked beef in tortilla sauce (if I knew exactly what it was, I would have used it :P) and layered that with vegetables. This was more improvised, and if I make it again (if? when) I'll try beef or vegetarian mince. Then hopefully it won't fall apart quite so much :P

TORTILLA LASAGNE

Serves 6

Total time commitment: 30 minutes

6 tortillas

400g Pinto beans

120g corn kernels

6 button mushrooms, sliced

1 cup diced capsicum (I used red, green and yellow)

1/2 brown onion, diced

1 tsp minced garlic

Chilli flakes

Olive oil

100g salsa

Jalapenos to taste

Cheese to taste

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Cook onion and garlic in a little olive oil. When onion is translucent, add mushroom, capsicum and chilli flakes and cook until tender.

2. Drain beans and corn (I presume you got these in a can) and combine in a large bowl with onion, mushroom, capsicum and salsa. Add jalapenos if you want!

3. Layer two tortillas in a baking dish to make the base of the lasagne. Top with half of the mixture, and repeat so you have three layers of tortilla and two of mixture. Top with cheese and pop in the oven for ten minutes or so. Voila!

Gluten-Free Friday: Sweet Potato, Sage and Ricotta Tart

2011-02-11T10:26:00.000+08:00

I whipped this up for the Uber-Blonde and I to have for lunch the other day, which meant I got to use the food processor again! I don't know what all the fuss is about with cleaning them, I didn't find it that inconvenient. Although maybe it paled in comparison to how stuck the ricotta got to the baking dish, which is why I've suggested lining the tray with baking paper rather than greasing it with olive oil.

Just while I have you here - did you know the Uber-Blonde has dyed her hair? That makes her nickname rather redundant now, but she still looks very pretty.

This tart is really nice and quite light, which made it a good lunch in this darn heat. The only problem I had was how long it took to shave the sweet potato into thin slices, so I can only suggest that you start making this before you get hungry. And perhaps with a side salad. I get hungry easily.

SWEET POTATO, SAGE AND RICOTTA TART

Original recipe from Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 1
Serves 6
Total time committment: 1 hour, probably less if you are better with a vege peeler than I am.

Olive oil
300g fresh ricotta
1/3 cup grated parmesan
2 eggs
2/3 cup spinach, washed and torn into halves (I do this rather than chopping them, because its easy)
Handful of sage leaves
1/2 a large or 1 small sweet potato, peeled
Salt and pepper
Butter

1. Preheat oven to 160C. Line a baking dish with greaseproof paper. Place ricotta, eggs and parmesan into a food processor and blend until combined. Add half the spinach and half the sage, and blend again. Spoon into prepared dish.

2. Shave the sweet potato with a vegetable peeler to get thin strips, and place on top of the ricotta mixture, along with the other half of the spinach. Season with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil if you wish (I didn't, because I am forgetful), and bake that bad boy for roughly 20 minutes.

3. WAIT! Don't think you have a free 20 minutes! While that's cooking, melt some butter in a fry pan and fry the remaining sage leaves until they're crisp. When the tart is done, serve it with the crisp sage leaves.

Prosciutto, Sage and Pumpkin Spaghetti

2011-02-07T21:21:00.000+08:00

Firstly, can I just say, why does GO! have an ad for Harry Potter that is some kind of rap using lines from the film? What is even happening there?

Ok. I'm glad we got that out of the way.

Because now, we can get on to one of the most delicious pastas I have cooked in a while. When I was visiting Grandma and Grandpa a while ago, I was lamenting that now I don't get the recipe liftout from the paper any more, so Grandpa started collecting them for me. Isn't that just the best? This is a Marg Johnson recipe I've taken from my collection. With added feta, just for kicks.

While I've got you here - is anyone else sick of Valentine's Day things already? I just DON'T CARE. Although I saw this on a craft blog and I think its appropriately cute and lacking in pink and hearts.

How to make custom fingerprint art on ManMade

The original recipe called for 2tbsp lemon juice to be added to the pasta when you're combining it, which I didn't do because I didn't have any. I don't think it would go that well with the feta - any opinions?

PROSCIUTTO, SAGE AND PUMPKIN SPAGHETTI

Original recipe by Marg Johnson
Serves 4
Total time commitment: 40 minutes. Most of this is waiting for the pumpkin to roast, so if you can pre-cook the pumpkin the time will be cut down to around 20 minutes.

Olive oil
1/2 large pumpkin or 1 small pumpkin, cut into chunks
Handful sage leaves
1 tbsp garlic
Chilli flakes
100g prosciutto
400g spaghetti

1. Place the cut pumpkin into a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil, and top with garlic, sage leaves and chilli flakes. Doesn't that look like it's going to be delicious?

2. Cook at 200C until tender. You need to be able to stick a fork through the pumpkin. This should take about 25-30 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to the boil and cook the spaghetti. When the pumpkin is just about done, place a tray with the prosciutto in a single layer in the oven. Cook it for about ten minutes until its crispy.

4. Time to combine everything! Place the pumpkin and pasta in a large bowl and toss to combine. Crumble prosciutto and feta on top and serve.

Chickpea burgers

2011-02-06T19:26:00.000+08:00

I'm back! Hello! I apologise, I've had a lot going on lately. Mainly, saying goodbye to my superawesome grandad (epic sadface), but also happy things like watching Bored to Death and Misfits, rearranging the house, joining an indoor beach volleyball team and starting a new job as a music teacher!

Today, though, I finally got around to cooking something new to post. So that was nice. And I'm planning to keep that up! I've felt guilty about not posting anything, but I haven't exactly been living on blogworthy food, and if I have, I haven't been taking photos. So all in all, that wasn't going too well.

I busted out my new/old food processor for this! Grandad gave it to me a few months ago and this was the first time I've used it. Food processors are the BOMB. I want to use it all the time. Probably because Boy offered to do the dishes so I didn't have to deal with cleaning it, I will keep you updated on my new opinions once I've had to clean it myself :P

I made quite a few substitutions in this recipe (link below), just because I wanted to use things I had on-hand rather than go out and buy more stuff. They worked out really well, in my opinion!

CHICKPEA BURGERS

Original recipe from Adrienneats.
Makes 6 standard-sized burgers.
Total time committment: 30-40 minutes.

Olive oil
1/2 small red onion, diced
1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp curry powder
3 tsp minced garlic
Water
400g chickpeas
1/4 cup plain flour
1/4 cup dry cous cous, cooked*

1. Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the diced onion, cumin and curry powder, and saute until translucent. Add garlic and cook for a few more minutes before removing from heat.

2. Place cooked mixture and a small drizzle of water - we're talking the equivalent of juice from one lime - in a food processor and pulse until smooth.

3. Add remaining ingredients and another drizzle of water, and blend until the mixture forms a thick paste.

4. Flour up your hands, because we're about to make some burger patties! Shape the mixture to your desired size and thickness, coating in a little extra flour to stop them from becoming sticky.

5. Either fry or bake the patties, depending on your preference. I baked mine for ten minutes at 180C, and they were crispy but still moist.

*Cous cous can be prepared really quickly while you're frying the onion - Put the 1/4 cup dry cous cous in a bowl, just cover with boiling water, and place a plate over the top of the bowl to keep the moisture in (? is that scientifically correct?) and make it delicious.

BRB

2011-01-29T19:00:00.001+08:00

Having some issues with too much stuff happening right now - will be back to regular posting soon!

x

Gluten Free Friday: Link party!

2011-01-22T15:09:00.000+08:00

I know, I'm a day late, but stuff has been happening and I can't find the measurements for the GFF recipe I am still to post, I'm sorry. So feast your eyes on these delightful gluten-free wares in the meantime!

Sweet Potato Fries from Gluten-Free Goddess

Fudge Mint Brownies from Gluten Free Diva

Custard Tarts from Canelle et Vanille

Cooking Basics: Poached Eggs (Attempt 1)

2011-01-17T17:16:00.001+08:00

I deliberated about putting this under "cooking basics", because that implies that I am going to give you a recipe for a tried and tested dish (or what have you) that I always make. Not so much with poached eggs, as this was my first lesson in making them! Levi has made them for me a couple of times and this morning I decided he could make one, and I would make the next one. Five eggs later, I was eating one poached egg with my toast :(

On the upside, it was a delicious poached egg.

Does anyone have any poaching tips? I'm determined to get this right!

POACHED EGGS, ATTEMPT 1

1. Bring a saucepan full of water to the boil, and then lower the heat to a simmer

2. Crack an egg into a large spoon (or a 1/3 cup measure) and leave it there for a bit.

3. Using the handle of a wooden spoon, create a whirlpool in the water.

4. Gently lower the egg in and keep stirring to create the whirlpool - this is what binds the white bit to the yolk.

Gluten Free Friday: Chocolate Cake

2011-01-14T15:01:00.000+08:00

Hi pumpkins! I am back from my Sydney/Melbourne adventures, which means more regular blogging. Huzzah!

This is the cake I used for the Pokemon cake a few months ago. The recipe is from Gluten-Free Goddess, with some tweaks because I didn't have everything on hand (like organic light brown sugar swapped to regular brown sugar). I'm posting it on the good authority of the pantees that it actually tastes good - I had to leave the party early so I didn't actually get to eat any of it!

FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CAKE

450g dark chocolate

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

250g unsalted butter

2 tbsp cocoa powder

8 large eggs

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line a pan with greaseproof paper.

2. Melt the chocolate and mix with sugar until combined. Add the butter and cocoa powder and mix.

3. Add the eggs and vanilla, and mix until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into pan and bake until cooked through (roughly 45min-1hr if I remember correctly).

Gluten Free Friday: Pancetta Baked Eggs

2011-01-07T17:29:00.000+08:00

These are my favourite weekend breakfast food by far. I keep promising to have everybody over so I can make them (so far, I've only been having them at mum and dad's place), which hasn't yet happened but it will. I like long breakfast catch-ups.

You can also make vegetarian versions of these - instead of using pancetta, line the muffin tin with baking paper and place crumbled feta and sundried tomato in the bottom before cracking the egg over the top.

PANCETTA BAKED EGGS
Serves 4

4 eggs
8-12 strips of pancetta

1. If you have a non-stick muffin tray, ignore this step, but otherwise - lightly grease a muffin tray with olive oil (the spray kind works well)

2. Line the muffin tray with pancetta to make a "wrapper" for the egg.

3. Break the egg into the pancetta and bake at 220C for ten minutes.

Gluten Free Friday: Creme Brulee

2011-01-01T09:24:00.000+08:00

HOW EXCITING, I've finally gotten around to doing a ~regular~ posting series, and even more exciting, its devoid of gluten!

(Don't hold your breath on the regularity, but I'll do my best)

I was hoarding a bunch of recipes to do gluten-free week and post a whole bunch of things, but then I thought, thats boring. There are so many delicious GF recipes around on the internet, I may as well share some with you (and the Uber-Blonde and Vigilante, both of whom are intolerant to gluten, KEEP UP WE'VE BEEN THROUGH THIS).

So because you need something decadent for your weekend, the opening dish is a good old Creme Brulee from everyone's favourite Pioneer Woman. If you head over to her blog, firstly it is incredible, but secondly, she has step-by-step pictures which make it seem a lot less daunting.

I had a nice bonding experience with Mum cooking this, because I bought her a kitchen torch for her birthday last year and it took her almost a year to use it (I think forwarding the recipe to her when it was published online may have been a subtle hint?). It was well worth it, though. Especially for this:

Me: "Ok, then she skims the foam off the top and eats it."

Mum: "Really?"

And then she tried it, and yea, it was delicious.

CREME BRULEE
Recipe from The Pioneer Woman

4 cups heavy cream
1 tbsp vanilla extract (or 1 whole vanilla bean, or 1 tbsp vanilla paste)
10 egg yolks
3/4 cups sugar
6 tbsp caster sugar

1. Preheat oven to 160C (325F).

2. Pour cream and vanilla into a saucepan and simmer over a medium-low heat.

3. Whip egg yolks and sugar in a separate bowl until thick and pale yellow.

4. Strain the cream using a fine strainer - I think we used muslin (fancy!)

5. Drizzle 1 cup of the cream into the egg yolks, whipping as you go. Slowly add the rest of the cream.

6. Place your baking dish (ideally ramekins, so I'll say that for the sake of convenience, but we cooked some in glass baking dishes) onto a rimmed baking tray. It needs to have a rim because once you've poured the custard mixture into the ramekins (do that now!), you need to pour water into the baking tray until it comes halfway up your ramekins.

7. Bake for 30 minutes, but make sure they do not brown on top. Allow to cool, cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least two to three hours.

8. Ready to serve? Excellent. This is the fun bit. Sprinkle 1 tbsp sugar over each ramekin (or equivalent - if you used two baking dishes, do 3tbsp each, use common sense). Then use the kitchen torch to burn the sugar to a nice, crisp layer on top. Serve immediately, and its fun if you crack the top with a spoon a la Amelie.

Daring Bakers: Stollen

2010-12-24T11:11:00.000+08:00

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

HOORAH! Now you know where my marzipan went!

As much as I love Christmas, I'm not big on "Christmassy" sweet food - fruit mince tarts, fruit cake, pudding, I don't really like any of it. Common theme here? I hate fruit mince. And dried fruit. And muesli with dried fruit in it. So I wasn't overly enthused about making the Christmas Stollen. And then I started making it, and got told I wasn't even allowed to use the fruit mince because then we'd have less fruit mince tarts. So this turned into more of an Australian Christmas stollen - dark chocolate, coconut and almond. By Australian, I mean Emily-friendly.

I also learnt the phrase "mise en place", meaning you weigh/measure everything out BEFORE you start cooking. Ingenius, I must say.

The Christmas Duck

2010-12-24T08:13:00.000+08:00

Merry Christmas, guys!

Hope your day is going splendidly. Mine is, because Gordo got me a NEW CHRISTMAS DUCK on Monday and he is the best. To be fair, I wrote this yesterday (oooo transcending space/time continuums) so I have no other presents to compare it to/gush about.

I sense your confusion about the Christmas duck.

The Christmas Duck is an amazing(ly ridiculous) family tradition.

The Christmas duck originated when I was very clumsy and dropped a glass nativity scene ornament when I tried to put it on the Christmas tree. Understandably ~distraught~ because I thought I'd broken a really expensive ornament, I salvaged the main section because essentially, the stable had shattered away from the nativity and it was still kind of fine. I thought I'd just put it on the mantle where it still looked nice, and Dad came downstairs a while later and was like "... Why do we have a duck ornament?".

Why indeed.

The new Christmas duck, however, is amazing and useful and CUTE. Its a tiny tea infuser that Gordo got me for Christmas (with a doctor-warning that with my iron levels, he shouldn't have bought it. Thanks buddy). LOOKY, ITS ADORABLE.

Gingerbread Men

2010-12-21T17:03:00.000+08:00

I don't understand what its like to have a small family or not know how to act around small people. On my mum's side of the family, I'm one of thirteen cousins, and one of the 'old bunch' (to be fair, if you categorize us that way, the 'middle bunch' is only one cousin who's a couple of years younger than I am and a couple of years older than the start of the 'young bunch'; the system is inherently flawed). I digress - the main point is, I love having a gigantic family. And I'm learning to love babysitting as well :P My youngest cousins are six and three, and very energetic (which is my main qualm about babysitting, because I am lazy). I actually invented a game called Tickle Monster which they love, where the Tickle Monster (me) has to sit on the couch and CAN'T GET OFF THE COUCH (this is a very important rule), and everyone else (ie the boys, who have energy) has to run around and try not to get caught by the tickle monster. In my defence, I also play soccer and dodgeball and chasey and the like.

The other day, though, knowing it was going to be stinking hot (and wanting to mold them into the next Junior Masterchefs), I prepared for babysitting by bringing stuff to make gingerbread men. I was going to make chocolate spiders with them (easy and delicious), but I did that last time, and its CHRISTMAS. Not that I think we've ever made gingerbread men as an exclusively Christmas food, I think I've probably made them twice before and never at Christmas, but it seems to be the done thing. I also got to teach Mr Six about fractions (possibly above his age level, but he's ridiculously intelligent, and it makes sense when you can look at how many 1/2 cup or 1/3 cups go into 1 cup). And it kept them occupied, which is the main thing, its nice to come home and be able to say that you had a great day babysitting!

Side notes: I did get their mother's permission before I put these photos up, and they washed their hands first so Mr Six flattening the brown sugar with his hands isn't quite as concerning as it could be. And I don't know why Mr Three is wearing a diamond bracelet.

GINGERBREAD

125g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup golden syrup
1 egg
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tbsp ground ginger
1/2 tbsp bicarb soda

1. Line two trays with baking paper

2. Mix the butter, sugar, golden syrup and egg until combined.

3. Add the flour, ginger and bicarb soda and mix with a wooden spoon.

4. Lightly flour a chopping board (or clean bench space), turn out the gingerbread mix onto the board and knead until smooth.

5. Roll to desired thickness and cut out shapes to put on the baking tray. We used letters, numbers and animals.

Boysenberry Crumble Bars

2010-12-19T11:26:00.000+08:00

Its not a secret that I love Christmas. I think I love it only 0.5% less than Tara, and thats saying something. In fact, I'm so delirious with Christmas joy that I tried to link to www.tara.com. Which is not her blog at all. Or maybe its the heat thats making me delirious. I don't know. It must be over 40 today, right guys?

(Note: The Bureau says its forecast at 32. I say that's a lie.)

I had a very nice baking day with The Uber Blonde earlier this week. If you've been following her blog (and if not, why not!?), you'll know that she's recently had to join the ranks of The Vigilante in gluten-free-ness. I was going to nickname The Vigilante as Allergen Girl because she's SO DIFFICULT TO BAKE FOR with all her intolerances (just kidding, I love you really), but I drew her as a superhero vigilante once and it made me pleased.

So UB and I made these delightful crumble bars from this gluten free recipe, although we made some substitutions (almond meal for hazelnut flour, a lot less jam than we needed, no vanilla essence - although the latter was just because I've lost it. The essence, not my mind. Or... never mind). They were gosh-darn delicious, so when Dad came to stay with us and brought some boysenberries with him, I snapped up half of them to make a glutenous version of the bars. Mmm, wheat.

I'm going to warn you - these bars are decadent. Not quite in a Cinnabon-y way, but in a "share with a large group of friends or eat over two weeks" way. I know the recipe looks complicated, but it really isn't! Trust me, I am not one for difficulty, and definitely not twice in two days.

ELDERBERRY CRUMBLE BARS
Makes 24 slices
Adapted from Gluten-Free Goddess

1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp nutmeg
3/4 cup unsalted butter
-------------------------------
1/2 cup boysenberries
-------------------------------
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
5 tbsp butter
-------------------------------
2/3 cup slivered almonds*
4 tbsp butter

*in the GF bars I made with UB, we used dessicated coconut as well (the original recipe calls for flaked coconut, but ~~beggars~~ students can't be picky) and it was amazing, so I'd strongly encourage that, I was just lazy the second-time around when I actually took a photo.

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Combine all ingredients from the first section except the butter. Then cut in the butter to a sandy consistency.

3. Line a baking pan with baking paper, allowing some overhang so you can just lift the bars out when you're done. Pour in the mixture and pat down to make a firm base. Bake for seven minutes in the preheated oven to "set" the base.

4. Take the base out and "smash" the elderberries to make a layer across the base. As a reference point - in the original recipe, jam is used as the middle layer, so you want a fairly thick filling or it will just be crumble on crumble.

5. Speaking of that second layer of crumble - combine the flour and brown sugar, and rub in the butter to create a crumble. Top the elderberry layer with crumbly goodness.

6. Melt the 4 tbsp butter gently in a pan, and coat the slivered almonds in butter. Spoon this mixture onto the top of the crumble.

7. Bake for 20 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

The original recipe says you can bag and freeze leftover bars - I can't vouch for this as I haven't had any leftover as of yet, but I trust her!

Christmas Joy

2010-12-15T17:09:00.001+08:00

I can't even explain why I haven't been posting. I think it has something to do with laziness, forgetting to take photos, and production week. Ah, production week. My nemesis. But its almost Christmas, I've nearly finished my shopping, and work is over. So hopefully this gets you in the Christmassy mood, because I gosh-darn love Christmas :)

What I'm Listening To: Fairytale of New York by The Pogues.

What I Desperately Want: These fantastic gingerbread biscuits from A Work in Progress

And if I play my Christmas list (or new year presents-to-self) right, I could make some with these

Star Wars Heroes & Villains and Message-in-a-Cookie Cutters from Williams-Sonoma

Antidotes to all of the food I'll be consuming over Christmas:

This gorgeous gingerbread house ring from DIVINEsweetness. The details! The photography! I am in love.

Or these macaron rings from shayaaron - lemon & lime, menthe, blackcurrant, or praline. Learning to make macarons PROPERLY, with feet, is my challenge for 2011.

Stepping away from food for a second, I LOVE this headband from Janine Basil. And speaking of challenges for 2011, I also need to learn how to use liquid eyeliner.

OK, back to food. I want Jacques the French Toast and his baguette buddy! (*Not a euphemism) From Pumpkin Pye.

What is happening with this sushi hair barette/why don't I ever pin my hair back? Gimmeswords, you have my undying love.

Any other cute food finds?

Baking Basics: Marzipan

2010-12-05T12:26:00.000+08:00

Being at Mama and Papa's house this weekend, I decided to make some marzipan because Dad and I both like it (and thats as good a reason as any, right?). Marzipan is really versatile, and great to colour and shape to make marzipan fruits or what have you. This recipe is great because its quick and you don't need to cook it like in other recipes. This is from the perennial favourite of our household for Christmas treats, The Book of Chocolates and Petits Fours.

MARZIPAN
Makes 500g

250g ground almonds
250g icing sugar + extra for dusting
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp sherry or brandy
almond essence
2 egg whites

1. Combine almonds and sugar in a bowl.

2. Add lemon juice, sherry or brandy (as you wish), and a few drops of almond essence.

3. Gradually mix in the egg whites, making sure that the pastry is sticky but not wet (YA-HOY).

4. Dust a pastry board with the extra icing sugar and knead the marzipan until smooth.

5. Break off a bit and eat it. You know you want to.

Danish Fritters

2010-12-01T11:59:00.000+08:00

Take note, dear readers. This is my favourite recipe ever. I only acquired the actual recipe a few weeks ago, but its a perennial favourite, it is...

Food from Grandma's house!

If I remember correctly, this is a recipe from The Pennywise Cookbook, which is an old softcover that Grandma still has. Mum never made these for us, but Grandma always did, so we always begged her to make them (or get chicken and mango rissoles from the butcher, but that's another story).

So please treasure this recipe. It is delicious and easy and goes really well with mashed potato and boiled veges and plum sauce. I'll admit, I adulterated it a little bit, but only in that I didn't sieve the flour! Why would you tamper with perfection?

DANISH FRITTERS
Serves four hungry students

500g mince
One small onion, finely chopped
Salt and Pepper to season
1 egg, beaten
300mL milk
Oil for frying

1. Stir the chopped onions into the mince.

2. Mix (...or sieve, if you are so inclined) the flour, salt and pepper into a bowl.

3. Gradually blend the beaten egg and milk into the flour to make a smooth batter.

4. Stir the mince and onion mixture into the batter, and set aside for half an hour. Watch some 30 Rock or The Office. Find your 30 minutes of daily exercise. Read a chapter of a book. Its entirely up to you, really.

5. You're back? Good! Heat the oil in a frypan. If you just got your 30 minutes of exercise, I apologise for making you stand in a hot kitchen for the next step.

6. Spoon rounded tablespoons of the mixture into the hot oil. Lower the heat and fry fritters, turning as you need to, until the batter is crisp and the meat is cooked through. I then leave them on a paper towel to remove excess oil, but each to their own!

Daring Bakers: Crostata

2010-11-27T16:36:00.000+08:00

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

This was my first solo Daring Bakers' Challenge, because The uber-blonde is illin' (D:). It was still fun, and you get to see The Boy's kitchen that I used to cook in because... well... Black Ops has taken over our relationship so we need to stay at his house. Although he was quite obliging in taking photos for me because I had pastry hands.

I used raspberry jam as my crostata filling. Had I not left it to the last minute I could have been more inventive, particularly as I don't actually like overly sweet things, but thats a job for another day! The pastry was really nice, although I overworked it a bit which made it difficult to get into the dish in one piece. In the end, it was easiest to tip the board I was rolling it onto straight on top of the baking dish and let it fall in, then patch up the areas I'd missed. I think I'll make this again, aside from the chilling time it wasn't too time-consuming or complex! Hopefully then I'll have some better ideas for fillings :)

Simply Breakfast

2010-11-26T09:39:00.000+08:00

I stumbled across this site today (while eating my own, sub-par breakfast). It makes me want to get up earlier and cook delicious breakfasts every day!

All photo credits to Jennifer Causey at Simply Breakfast

FREEDOM!

2010-11-22T17:13:00.000+08:00

Exams are over, which means I *should* be back to regular posting. All in good time.

Meanwhile, how awesome is this cake, if I do say so myself?

Breakfast of Champions

2010-11-14T17:38:00.000+08:00

This is what has been getting me through study and exams. I think the recipe is somewhat redundant after the ingredients, but OH MY WORD is it delicious!

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

1 banana
1/2 mango
5 strawberries, halved
Handful blueberries
1 nectarine
Cornflakes
Milk

1. Slice all the fruit to your liking

2. Put cornflakes and milk in a bowl

3. Top with sliced fruit.

Play with your food!

2010-11-09T12:12:00.000+08:00

How adorable is this, from Cooking with Gina Lee? I want Jack and Zero lunch!

(now back to study. Philosophy will be the death of me!)

Hiatus

2010-11-07T19:15:00.000+08:00

Hey guys,

I'm swamped with exams so hopefully I'll be back before they're done, but if not, it will all be over by the 20th!

x

Sydney Time!

2010-11-02T17:12:00.000+08:00

I'm back from Sydney! I had the most amazing three days at the workshop, everyone there was so lovely and talented, I am in awe of what everyone is able to do. I'd also like to plug ReachOut for all the fantastic work they do - if you are or you know a young person going through a tough time, RO is an amazing resource.

Daring Bakers: Donuts

2010-10-28T18:55:00.000+08:00

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

As The Boy can attest, for the past year every. single. time I smell cinnamon, I want hot donuts. As much as the prospect of flavoured donuts delighted me, I needed to have your standard, run-of-the-mill cinnamon donut. Like last month, I did this with The Uber-Blonde, and we had a delightful time in her new kitchen baking (and then nomming down).

I'm also tagging this in "baking basics" - hopefully I'll modify this sometime soon and get some more delicious donut treats for you. Also, I'm headed to Sydney tomorrow night for three days so excuse me if the blogging is a bit sporadic!

Etsy Finds: Drink Up!

2010-10-26T20:09:00.000+08:00

Goodness, has it been that long already? Sorry to have left you in the lurch for a week, dear readers! However, as anticipated, I ended up living on leftover pasta and noodles for the entire week so I haven't really done anything noteworthy in the kitchen. Actually, last night I made some spiffin' good pasta with EnviroGirl but we were too terrified by Criminal Minds (Season 6 Episode 1... GRACIOUS ME. WATCH IT) to remember to blog it.

So, here are some delightful Etsy finds for your Tuesday :D

eco-friendly travel mug by yevgenia

rocking horse teapot by abbyberkson

robot tea cup by primenumber

simplici tea little teapot dish by sunshineceramics

white mustache espresso cups by vinyl soul

stirrer spoon by blackswandesigns

tea infuser charm set by kilngoddess

Tofu noodles

2010-10-19T13:42:00.000+08:00

The smell of the stir fry sauce I bought reminds me of summer holidays, because there was one holiday where almost every day for lunch I made these. Minus the tofu, though, I wasn't quite as adventurous then. I still haven't found a really good way to cook tofu, so hit me up with suggestions!

I've spent today watching Criminal Minds and snacking on Subway cookies (white chocolate and macadamia, natch). I probably should have started studying for exams, but I love Matthew Gray Gubler too much. Also, uh, I study psychology, so that counts... right?

Also, while I have your attention, how adorable are these chopsticks? The Boy got them for me for my birthday, along with heart-shaped measuring spoons. I think my adorable kitchen things need their own entire blog post, js.

TOFU NOODLES
Serves four

220g Hokkien Noodles

Stir fry vegetables - these can be frozen or fresh. I used mushrooms, carrot, peas, green beans and capsicum.

300g firm tofu, cubed
Stir Fry sauce/seasoning

1. Chop up the vegetables (unless you have pre-cut frozen ones - lucky you!) and fry them in the pan with the cubed tofu

Surprise! Process photo!

2. Boil the kettle and pour it over the Hokkien noodles for a couple of minutes, to let them separate.

3. Pour the sauce over the noodles and let that simmer in its own goodness for a spell

4. Add the noodles, mix it all together, and there you have it! I had a spicy sauce so (having learnt from previous summer lunches) threw some natural yoghurt on the top to balance it out.

Pasta al Diavolo

2010-10-18T19:55:00.000+08:00

This is based on the pasta dish I had at the Uber Blonde's 21st last night (Happy birthday, my sensuous peahen!), and Miss Italia has just informed me that "diavolo" means "devil". Which explains why it was so spicy, so I hope everyone enjoyed that little Italian lesson.

Its Production Week Take Two this week - after Panto finished, I thought I was free, but one of my theatre units is backstage work for a production and its production week this week. Not quite as crazy as Panto (I don't anticipate any 3am finishes, let alone two!), but it does mean that I'm going to spend this week pulling a Nigella every night! And you know what? I'm okay with that. I'm a uni student, after all. The fact that I'm not resorting to a week of Mi Goreng is impressive. I saved some of this for lunch tomorrow, I am excited!

PASTA AL DIAVOLO

1 chorizo sausage
10 mushrooms or so
Crushed garlic
500g fettuccine
Parmesan cheese
Chilli flakes
Jalapenos (if you're game!)
1 jar stir-through pasta sauce (I used Leggo's Tomato, Olive and Chilli)

1. While the water is coming to the boil for the pasta, chop up the mushrooms and chorizo and put some garlic and olive oil in a pan

2. Cook the pasta at the same time as you fry the chorizo and mushrooms. MULTITASKING, YO.

3. Drain the pasta, put it back in the saucepan, and pour the pasta sauce, chorizo and mushroom on top of it. Add some jalapenos and shakes of chilli flakes and mix it all about.

4. Serve with some parmesan sprinkled over the top - it softens the blow of the chilli a little!

Epic Cake

2010-10-17T18:54:00.000+08:00

There are no words to describe how awesome this cake is. Miss Italia linked me to it on Facebook and then we decided to have a SKYPEBAKE session and both make it. Needless to say, hers turned out looking a lot fancier than mine (I had no piping bag but even still, I have less decorating skill than she does!), but it is still delicious. The combination was put together by vaguemotives on the bakebakebake livejournal, with chocolate mocha cake, chocolate buttercream icing and salted caramel frosting.

I also managed, at the time, to ruin a batch of pizza dough with my terrible multiplication skills (three cups of flour is not three times the recipe, Emily), somewhat successfully replicate Herbies original recipe garlic bread and make two pizzas with store-bought bases because it was getting late and I was trying to do too many things at once! That was made most evident when I took photos of the cake with no flash and I've had to spend the last half hour editing them to look presentable :P

I'm not going to type out the entire recipe for you (which I know is somewhat going against the point of the blog, but its really long!), however here are some tips:

- We started with the salted caramel frosting, as it has to sit for 25 minutes or so to cool, and then put it in the fridge to set for piping ease (for Miss Italia, for me it was more smooshing ease)

- I baked the cake in two batches, rather than cutting it in half, and it worked beautifully. So if you have the time, do that, although bear in mind that my Skype froze after two hours and 40 minutes and we weren't done :P

- As recommended in the original post, if you double everything in the salted caramel recipe except the butter, thats good.

-

From top: My finished cake, Miss Italia's finished cake, and a grainy-indie-wanker-shot of a slice of cake (which wouldn't be so bad except that there was the whole flash issue... anyway, now I know how to edit on iPhoto)

Cinnabons

2010-10-15T12:14:00.000+08:00

Dear body,

I am sorry for putting you through eating five of these, although that does only equate to one regular Cinnabon. I promise I will only ever make these once a year at the most, and will definitely never make them again the day after I have takeaway pizza. I think I put on weight just re-reading the ingredients. Please don't die on me!

E x

CINNABONS
Recipe from GroupRecipes

7g dry yeast
1 cup warm milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
4 cups flour
----------------------------
1 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1/3 cup butter, melted
----------------------------
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup cream cheese
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Dough

1. Dissolve the yeast in the milk

2. Add the rest of the ingredients from section A to form a dough

3. Knead the dough into a ball, and leave to rise until it has doubled in size

4. Roll out the dough to a long rectangle, roughly 0.5cm thick

5. Preheat oven to 180C

Filling

1. Spread the melted butter over the dough. Use your hands, it won't kill you!

2. Combine the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle it over the butter. Mmmm, calorific!

3. Roll the dough into a scroll. The best tip I found for this was from Pioneer Woman, to use a typewriter-style technique and roll from left to right, then right to left, then left to right. Like how you have to type to the end of the page and then push the typewriter thing back.

4. Cut the dough into thick slices and place into a lightly greased baking dish. At this stage, I refrigerated it because I was making them as a surprise breakfast, and they worked out fine! Otherwise, continue on your merry way and put them in the oven.

Topping

1. Combine the ingredients from section C and beat with an electric mixer until they are light and fluffy.

2. When the rolls are out of the oven, and still warm, cover them in the topping. It will get all melty and delicious and give you a heart attack, so I suggest sharing them between six or so people.

Spicy Cous Cous

2010-10-13T14:14:00.000+08:00

Hey Em, what'd you get up to yesterday?

Oh, you know, not a lot, went to uni and got APPLAUSE for the gosh-darn Facebook pages I photoshopped for Juliet Capulet and Count Paris, and then came home and made some SWEET-ASS spicy cous cous for me and Mama and Tara, then got picked up by Gordo to go see SMASHING PUMPKINS. LIKE A BOSS. Just chillin' on a Tuesday night at Smashing Pumpkins, you know how it is.

SPICY COUS COUS
Serves 4

2 cups cous cous
Lotsa pepperoni
Traffic light capsicum (one green, one yellow, one red)
100g black olives
Feta

1. Cut the capsicums into strips, cut the pepperoni into little circles, and fry those bad boys in some olive oil until they're char-grilled.

2. Put 1/2 cup of dry cous cous in each bowl and pour boiling water over until it just covers the cous cous. Cover with a lid or something so it can cook for a few minutes.

3. Drizzle some olive oil over the cous cous and use a fork to make it fluffy. Top with the capsicum, pepperoni, olives and feta and NOM DOWN.

Pumpkin Bake: How not-to do it

2010-10-11T19:36:00.000+08:00

The Uber-Blonde came over today for procrastinationing. We ended up making her pumpkin bake. We put the baking dish down on the stove top. We (thank goodness!) decided to eat in the loungeroom instead of the kitchen. Just as we sat down, THE BAKING DISH EXPLODED.

This is my tiny, dear, sweet kitchen after the massacre (taken from where we would have been sitting!)

Nonetheless - Pumpkin bake!

PUMPKIN BAKE

Half a pumpkin, roasted or boiled until it is soft
Breadcrumbs
One can of diced tomatoes
One onion
Cheese

1. Layer the pumpkin over the bottom of a baking tray.

2. Sprinkle liberally with breadcrumbs

3. Dice onion and fry until transparent

4. Add diced tomatoes and heat until a little of the moisture is gone from them

5. Pour over the breadcrumbs and top with cheese

6. Bake until cheese is melted. Nomnomnomnom. Do not place your baking dish over the hot stove top!

Roast Pumpkin, Feta and Walnut Pizza

2010-10-10T03:00:00.000+08:00

Following yesterday's pizza bases recipe, this is my favourite pizza ever. EVER. Hands down. And I love me some pizza.

ROAST PUMPKIN, FETA AND WALNUT PIZZA

One pizza base
Roast Pumpkin
Feta
Spinach
Basil Pesto
Walnuts
Parmesan Cheese

1. Cover the base with pesto. Delicious, delicious pesto.

2. Put a layer of spinach over the pesto

3. Put some pumpkin over the spinach.

4. Crumble feta over the pumpkin

5. Break up the walnuts and sprinkle them over the pizza

6. Grate some parmesan on top

7. Bake that bad boy until it looks delicious. And it will be. Trust me on this one.

Cooking Basics: Pizza bases

2010-10-09T21:21:00.001+08:00

In spirit of "Buy Nothing New" month, I thought I'd finally get around to posting this pizza dough recipe. We never seem to leave the pizza around long enough to take a photo :P

I got a recipe from Miss Italia, but sadly she is in Italia this semester and I had to google about for one. Not as cool, guys. :(

PIZZA DOUGH

2 cups flour
7g dry yeast
1 tsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup warm water

1. Combine ingredients in a bowl and knead a bit

2. Put it back in the bowl, cover with glad wrap and leave for 30 minutes to rise

3. Come back, take the dough out of the bowl, and punch the air out of it. Seriously. Punch it once. Bread-making is good for anger management.

4. Knead it and roll it out to the size you want.

Miss Italia taught me to put olive oil on both sides of the dough before you put the topping on it. And so did The Goon, whose mother is a cooking teacher. So there's a nifty tip for you!