Category Archives: Food Glorious Food

feeling mortal…I think we need to do some cooking

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Strangely enough I am not superhuman. This came as a bit of a shock. I thought as long as you put the fuel in, were kind to your body, mind and soul things would continue on even after major hiccups like hospital stays. Apparently it’s not true though.

Apparently even super heros get sick now and then.

Now I know I’m no super hero, and never try and pretend that I am, but getting blasted with a virus (with super evil powers) still was a bit of a shock. The kind of virus that lands Little Monkey in hospital for two days, Monkey Boy not to eat for 6 days and me to be a quivering mess in a darkened corner for far too long, (I have things to do damn it!)

So what does this have to do with cooking? It dawned on me as I pointed Mr Chocolate towards the fridge and told him “whatever” to feed our children for another consecutive night that all the cooking is central around me. The Monkeys are too little to really help out, and there is only so long the freezer meals will last. Mr Chocolate does long working hours so all the cooking pretty much I do. I have all these simple recipes in my head that mean the difference between screaming toddler at 4.30pm, who just needs a little something to tide him over until dinner, but all fairly useless if I’m not there to execute them.

If I was really sick for a really long time or really wanted a really long holiday…(oh!) Does that mean that’s the end of all the food that my family rely on and enjoy? Now don’t get me wrong, Mr Chocolate can cook a bit, and certainly wouldn’t let the boys starve but if he knew how to cook a few of the staples it would make me feel a little easier.

Even just to feed the sourdough starter.

So last weekend was spent with Mr Chocolate becoming Mr Sourdough and Mr Biscuit. The following weekend will be spent in a similar fashion, compulsory cooking classes.

Everyday Biscuits

* for use for snacks, cure for my belly is so hungry I may explode before dinner, or some after dinner dunking.

100gms softened butter

1/2 cup honey (125mls- a little more if you want them chewier)

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups plain flour (225g)

Cream the butter, honey, vanilla and then add flour. Lightly roll in a ball, then squish down a little. Bake at 180C until light golden.

Now how easy is that?

Vanilla Champagne Coconut Cupcakes

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You know when you ponder on something for awhile, thinking, I think it will work, I think it will, I think it will… Well this was one of those moments. Experimenting in the kitchen at its very best. Why? Not because I think my cooking is the bees knees, but because the cupcakes turned out even better than I had hoped they would.

These are my favourite thing I have cooked this month. Moist with a hint of champagne. Melt on your tongue, fantastic straight from the oven or just as good a few days later. These were a hit with The Monkeys, neighbours, family and Mr Chocolate.

Vanilla Champagne Coconut Cupcakes

125 grams softened butter

1/2 cup castor sugar

1 vanilla pod scraped (or two tsp of essence)

1 cup desiccated coconut

1 beaten egg

1 1/2 cups s/r flour

1 cup bubbly champagne (sparkling wine)

Cream the butter sugar and vanilla together. Then add the egg, coconut and champagne. It should look a little like soggy bread crumbs. Then fold in the flour. Cook at 180 until just cooked.

I have done batches in mini cup cakes, cupcakes and whole cakes, just adjust the time according to size. Should be just firm on top, not golden as they will be too dry then.

(20 mins for cupcakes as a guideline.)

Sourdough Flat bread

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Sometimes I don’t feel like thinking “what am I going to cook for dinner”.  I really love cooking, but sometimes I get tired of trying to hide vegetables, mixing tasty and healthy together, and generally being in the kitchen…. Sometimes the call of the outside is just too strong and the The Monkeys are just begging for rumbles in a park, rather than watching me cook another dinner in the kitchen.

Times like that I cook Bolognese. Whats so exciting about that? It will last 3 days and no one will ever realise that just ate the same meal that got upcycled…huh?

Follow if you will…

Day One– Cook up a lovely BIG batch of Bolognese Sauce. Finely dice those all those vegetables so the kids/partners don’t actually suspect there might be a whole garden in there.

DINNER- Spaghetti Bolognese… Buon Apettito!

Day Two- Now in another pot add oil, lots of lovely cumin, coriander, red kidney beans and perhaps a little chilli. Now add it to your bolognese. Bolognese just turned into Mexican flavours. Cook up some rice and spoon your mexican beans on top. A dollop of sourcream on the side, and a wedge of lime.

DINNER- Mexican Beans and Rice… Pass the Corona please.

Day Three– Now you still have a bit of the Bolognese/Mexican Beans in a pot but it surely isn’t enough to feed every one again. However if you add, a fried egg on top of the beans, some chopped up fresh tomato, spanish onion, coriander, a little avocado and a dollop of the sour cream, and serve with some lovely flat bread, your away.

DINNER- Huevos Rancheros… Would please any Mariachi band member.

I didn’t ‘pretty’ this one up at all. But you get the picture.

Sourdough Flatbreads

1 cup of sourdough starter

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tps salt

1/2 tps bicarb soda

1 1/2 tbs olive oil

water (I’m not sure how much I put in, go slowly until the right consistancy)

Let it rise in a lovely warm spot until double in size. A quick knead, and then divide into equal balls. Rolling dough out until quite flat, then cook under the grill and turning once. Should cook in just a couple of minutes. Serve straight away or freeze them for a rainy day.

Monkeys dance the Banana Tropicana

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Their eyes raise expectantly.

Looking at me, ready.

His toe starts wiggling. His brothers foot starts tapping.

The knees start bopping up and down. Their heads begin to nod along with the beat.

The music builds up and so do they.

An arm gets pushed to the side like a puppetier is controlling it. Each jab of the elbow is timed with the pounding beat. Feeling the rhythm from deep within, heads held back, the music takes them over.

The Monkeys dance.

Dance like their lives depend on it.

They dance for a slice of cake.

****

Banana cake has long been a staple in this household. What to do with a few manky bananas?… Banana smoothie, banana bread, banana muffins or banana cake. Now banana cake is usually a bit of slap and dash sort of affair. I cook with what I have at hand, and that depends on whether it is a healthy one or not (honey instead of sugar, substituting seeds for flours etc.) I thought it was about time I gave the old Banana Cake the respect it deserves.

Banana Tropicana Cake

4 mashed up bananas

125g softened butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/3 cup rum

3/4 cup coconut

2 1/2 cups s/r flour

Mix wet ingredients together, then fold in coconut and flour. Pour into greased and lined tin. Cook at 170C for approx 1 hour, or until skewer comes out clean.

This is a lovely moist cake with medium tones of rum. Actually The Monkeys didn’t get to sample this one, as I thought it was a bit too rummy for them. Plus I wanted it all for myself. Three days in and it was still a lovely moist cake that tasted just as good as the first day.

Orange and Cardamom Biscotti

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Some times you need something a little civilised. A little treat, a little daintiness perhaps…

This particular day something civilised was making some biscotti and having some dessert wine to dunk them in. Dunking…not so civilised. Dessert wine…very civilised!

Dessert wine is always sweet. I believe its supposed to be served sweeter than whatever your dessert is. You sip it in a civilised fashion, not guzzle…(note to self.)

To be enjoyed in restrained amounts- dunk a few biscotti in there however and I say drink what ever amount needs to be drunk.

The Monkeys helped me out with the cooking of the biscotti. Little Monkey had woken from a nap clingy and grizzly. Not wanting to leave my arms, it was raining heavily outside so that didn’t leave too many options of what to do with the boys. So with an eager Monkey Boy wanting to help and Little Monkey clinging to my hip like someone had super glued him on- cooking biscotti was locked in for the afternoon.

Now this was the that part wasn’t so civilised. With little thumbs stuck in egg shells, more than ample amounts of cardamom being flung in and flour being strewn on the floor- they were done. So easy, they can be done with one adult hand, two Monkey Boys hands, and two flaying Little Monkey hands while still clinging on to a hip.

Best eaten dunked into a little dessert wine or coffee after dinner, when its quiet and…civilised.

Orange and Cardamom Biscotti

3/4 cup raw sugar

2 eggs

2 tps grated orange rind

Beat together, and then add

1 1/3 cups of plain flour

2/3 cup of almond meal

1 tps ground cardamom (or what ever is left in the bottle!)

Mix it altogether to form a dough, and roll out to form a long log. Cook at 180 C for about 35 mins. Cut log on the diagonal and bake at 150C until dry and crisp- turning once in between.

(adapted from a Women’s Weekly Cookbook)

Gift idea– bag full of biscotti and a lovely bottle of dessert wine.

*The dessert wine we had was a Southern Highlands Wine. Located within my locavore area, it’s a stunning winery that has tastings and a gorgeous barrel room that can be hired out for functions- (…as it so happens we had our wedding reception there.)

Very civilised…

Making your own Ravioli

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I have a new toy…

A lovely new ravioli cutter.

Ravioli I love, but the frozen bought stuff hurts. My belly is never happy after I eat it, so I stopped years and years ago. It wasn’t worth the pain, and the taste was always such a disappointment. The kind of dinner that seemed like a good idea at the time, and then nothing but sore tummy and oh whose idea was this anyway?

After finding this new little toy and making our own though, oh happy belly… It’s light, it’s tasty, and it screams eat me now and perhaps a little glass of red on the side.

Pasta

550 gms Fine semolina flour

300 mls water (approx)

Knead dough until a lovely elastic consistency. It should be a smooth ball of dough.

Next, cut off small portions, and feed into the pasta machine. Flatten and thining out, (we went to level 4).

Ravioli Mixture

1 red capsicum (pepper) finely diced

1 small block of fetta crumbled

Lightly cook the capsicum in a little olive oil, just for a few minutes until soft. Add the fetta, mix well.

Placing one long strip on the bottom and then dropping small spoonfuls of mixture evenly spaced between. Another long strip of pasta over the top and with my new cutting toy… hey presto!

Serve with a simple sauce. Olive oil, garlic, canned tomatoes, ripped up fresh basil, a little salt and serve with grated parmesan.

As I have said with my other hand made pasta dishes, (orechiette and pici) keep the sauce simple. All the taste and love is in the pasta you have made. Don’t complicate it, and let the sauce be the accompaniment to the love you can taste in the pasta.

* If you don’t have a pasta machine, the same results can easily be done with a simple rolling pin…and if no rolling pin, a glass bottle will do the trick as well.

Chocolate Ginger and Cardamom Tea Bread

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Mr Chocolate bought this lovely, sumptuous book awhile ago. Adventures with Chocolate, by Paul.A.Young has so many recipes that you just turn page after page thinking wow, I wonder what that tastes like. The photography is quite dark and alluring.

This recipe caught my eye, as I love all the ingredients and together who knew what taste sensations would happen. I did change it just a little as I like to cook to my tastes. Selfish perhaps… but I want to like what I am making. So a tweaked version of the original.

Chocolate Ginger and Cardamom Tea Bread

100gms chopped uncrystallised ginger

100gms raisins

2 tps ground cardamom

zest and juice of one orange

100gms dark muscavado sugar

200ml strong black tea

2 beaten eggs

200gms S/R flour

100gms partially melted dark chocolate (70%)

Ginger, raisins,cardamom,sugar, orange and tea all in a bowl together and let soak over night. Next day add 2 beaten eggs to fruit mixture, and fold in flour. Then fold in melted chocolate. Bake at 160C for approx 1 1/2 hours. Cool in cake tin and then turn out to rack.

Verdict… I don’t know. It was tasty, but was it delicious?… It was like all the ingredients were vying for attention. The ginger was jumping up and yelling hey look at me! The chocolate wanted to be the star, and the raisins wanted everyone to talk about them. I was going to make it again and tweak it some more, but just couldn’t decide how I could make it better, (maybe I couldn’t?).

If anyone has any suggestions, I would be very interested to hear them.

My new favourite Pizza

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Pizza is always a favourite in this household. Usually a weekly occurrence as without it everyone gets a little toey, and I try and keep the peace.  I wanted something different though, I wanted to stray into unchartered waters. I wanted a different sensation when I chomped down on the weekly favourite. Find it I did. My mouth was happy. My taste buds were saying oh yeaaahh. My brain was saying why the hell didn’t you stray before hand?

My new favourite pizza topping. A little Middle Eastern inspired, and making use of the Labneh.

Dough

3 tsp dried yeast

1 tsp sugar

mix together with 200 mls luke warm water- leave until froths (approx 20 mins)

600gms cups strong flour

1 tsp salt

Mix together in a bowl and slowly add the yeast liquid, mixing as you go. Add

4 tbs olive oil

When combined, knead for approx 10 minutes until, dough is elastic. Leave for 1 hour or until dough has double in size.

Light knead again, and divide into 8 balls. Flatten, and dough is ready to be rolled out, or if you are feeling extra lazy- hand stretch it. (Rustic is good.) If there is too much dough, simply roll balls and freeze until next time.

Topping

english spinach

pinenuts

garlic

mozzerella

olive oil

labneh

cumin

Cook up good size bunch of english spinach, squeeze out excess liquid and leave. Once  you have flattened the dough, spread a really small amount of mozzerella, scatter cooked spinach, and add some finely chopped garlic. Scatter pinenuts, dust with a little cumin and cook in oven at 220C until golden. Add dollops of Labneh, and drizzle with olive oil.

Eat with GUSTO.

The Monkeys were not going to go for the spinach on their pizzas though, so a Monkey friendly one was made as well. Utter silence, except for …”mmm, slurp, mmm…” Easy small kid dinner. (Tomatoes, salami, mozzerella, they don’t want excitement when it comes to their Monkey pizzas.)

Blue Mountains

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The Blue Mountains are just west of Sydney, and an easy day trip or weekend away. The area is full of eucalyptus trees which produce droplets of oil, which then combined with water vapour and dust particles transmit a blue tinged light… hence the name Blue Mountains.

It is a World Heritage listed National Park, and full of great walks and look outs. I have lots of happy memories of being very weary after walking all day and tramping through the bush.

My Nana lives just 1 minutes walk from here.

Katoomba is a town within the Blue Mountains, and here are two wonderful reasons to visit it, (other than to visit my Nana and go bush walking of course).

Organic sourdough shop. Open 7 days a week from 6am, I got there about 6.30am, the sun still not yet up, and the cold winter streets deserted. I head towards the bakery, a 200 metre walk from where we are staying, and the smell hits me. There is nothing, absolutely nothing quite like the smell of freshly baked bread hitting your nostrils first thing on a cold mountain morning. The smell promises warmth, and happiness. How could you not but smile when smelling that?

Handmade chocolate shop. Now I am a big advocate of shopping locally, (also a big advocate of chocolate.) supporting my local businesses, like to consider food miles etc. It doesn’t get much better than this. Food miles= about two metres. Made on premises, and you can watch them through the glassed wall. Oh I had my eye on that tempering machine, yes I did…yes I did.

Vanilla Plum Trifle

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How did this Battenburg Cake over at Zeb Bakes become this Vanilla Plum Trifle?

Well as is happens, I had really strong intentions of giving the Batternburg a crack. I saw it, I had never heard of it, it, it looked tricky and I wanted to play. I thought the combination of vanilla and plum for the cakes would be nice. I also thought the vivid colour of my frozen summer plums would transcend in to the cake just a little more than it did. I also thought I had caster sugar.

Result?… A cake that had raw sugar sticking out in it, and a rather murky plum cake colour that did not contrast at all with the vanilla side. What to do?

Ditch it and eat the cake?… Or, as my mind went tickity tock. I thought Plum puree red and delicious…. vanilla mixed with a little mascarpone and dunk it all in cake…. Done. The deal was sealed and Mr Battenburg will have to wait until another day. This was given a 10/10 from Mr Chocolate, and he NEVVVERRR gives 10/10. It didn’t even have chocolate in it.

Vanilla Plum Trifle

chopped up pieces of plain vanilla cake

1 1/2 cup plum puree

250gms mascarpone

1 tps vanilla

1/2 cup icing sugar

strawberries

In bowl place chopped up pieces of cake, and then drizzle some of the plum puree over  the cake. Whisk together the mascarpone, icing sugar and vanilla. In between the cake and plum puree, dab spoonfuls of the mascarpone mixture. Keep laying the three componants until all used up and then place strawberries on top to fill in any gaps. Let sit in the fridge for a few hours to infuse the flavours.

Vanilla Cake

200gms softened butter

200 gms sugar

Cream these two together. Add

3 beaten eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

When mixed well, add

200 gms s/r flour

cook in lined baking tray at 180 C until golden.

Then cut into small squares.

locavore biodynamic wine

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I hadn’t bought a bottle of wine for a very long time, but Friday night I had decided was wine night, (well this Friday night was anyway.) I needed some antioxidants!

Walking in to the local bottle shop, they had a really big array of wines to choose from. Gosh, how to choose? Its been so long since I had a vague clue as to what was good and what wasn’t. That clue had long since flown out the door, and left with my choices being white or red?

G’day, do you have any organic, biodynamic and or local wines here?

The assistant sprang in to action, and explained he didn’t usually work there but he thought there were a few that would fit my description. Flying all around the shop, he could only come up with one locally produced one (within 160kms). He offered to ring the owner who had stepped out for a minute to ask him if there were any others, but I said that was fine and kept perusing. Apparently requests such as mine only come in about every 1:1000, so demand wasn’t high.

The owner came back and straight away directed me to a biodynamic locally produced family run winery. He was very knowlodgable and didn’t even take a second blink when I repeated my request of what I wanted.

I like that… Not feeling like a complete leper all the time with my requests.

Wine bought ‘Wild White’. Produced by Krinklewood Biodynamic Vineyard– located in the Hunter Valley.

Taste- pretty darn good. I’m no wine expert, but I like it when I like it and don’t when I don’t. I’m complicated like that. I think it would have gone perfectly with a cheese platter or as we did with a light dinner.

I would love to know how much of a market there is out there for these sorts of wines. Organic, biodynamic, or locally produced. Is it something that crosses peoples minds when they are purchasing? Availability? At $18 a bottle it’s not the cheapest of bottles available but certainly not expensive either. And for a person that very rarely buys wines, I am more than happy to support biodynamic farming practices within my locavore area for an infrequent bottle buying.

Embracing the Eastern goddess

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Labneh and Rose Apple Jelly.

I was given this cookbook (Crazy Water Pickled Lemons) awhile ago. It’s a tantilizing mix of Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and North African cooking. At the time I thought it was pretty but  thought a lot of the recipes were above me. All in the too hard basket, both with methods and ingredients. Then I revisited and woah mama! Of course I can cook out of this! Well I can at least hack a few recipes up and mama-fy them a bit.

First up Labneh. Labneh is a Lebanese Cream cheese, that has the taste of yoghurt but texture of cream cheese and couldn’t be easier to make. So easy you may just have to slap yourself  to believe, just how simple it really is.

First up make some yoghurt, or if you couldn’t be bothered…. buy it, a good natural one. Yoghurt is pretty easy to make though. Christine @ Slow Living Essentials has posted two great methods on making yoghurt. I do the quicker boil the kettle one. (and just a note, homemade yoghurt really is so much better than the bought stuff. No added ‘things’, it’s a LOT cheaper, its easy to make, and your cutting down on all those plastic tubs. Easy to flavour as you like.)

Back to the Labneh. Yoghurt made, and it’s time to to put it in a sieve and some muslin, and leave it for 12-24 hours. My book said for 24 hours, I did it for 12- depends on how quickly the liquid drains out of the yoghurt. Unwrap the muslin and voila! Labneh.

Next step in embracing my inner middle eastern goddess was Rose Apple Jelly. Sounding exquisite, and the colour divine, thursday night was jelly making night. (Naturally I was going to hack the recipe up and make it simpler.)

First roughly chop up your apples, seeds, core, skins and all. Cook it up until soft (approx 40 mins) then carefully drain off the liquid into another pot. Now the recipe did say to leave it for 12 hours in a jelly bag (or muslin) but I didn’t have that time so did it the quick way.

For every 600mls of liquid, add 375grams of sugar. Cook up along with juice of 1/2 lemon and 1 long strip of lemon peel. Cook until gels on small cold saucer. Add rose water to taste. (The original recipe asked for rose petals- with no access to lovely roses, I was going to have to skip that bit too. If by chance you would like to make your own rose water, Dana at  Fleur De Sel posted on making it.

Result? A really delicately flavoured, gorgeously coloured jelly. I hadn’t made jelly before and kept taking it up to the light and letting it sparkle.

Sparkle it did.