semi dried tomatoes

This is a really easy recipe that I found somewhere on the net and now can't find but it basically went like this.

Cut tomatoes in half and put on a wire rack over a baking tray. 

Sprinkle tomatoes with salt, pepper and fresh thyme (helps when you have some growing in the garden!)

Bake in the oven at 150C for 2 and 1/2 hrs until dried on the outside but still soft on the inside.

If you want them firmer than this leave them in for longer.

Take out of oven and leave until completely cool.

Pack in a jar and cover with extra virgin olive oil - I also packed in a few basil leaves also from the garden.

Enjoy!

pita bread

In my new bread making life I have borrowed lots of books from the library.

Lots of interesting recipes, hints and ideas, I have been taking lots of notes.

One bread that I have been wanting to try was pita bread.

I tried this yesterday following the recipe and made it again today swapping half the bakers flour for wholemeal.

I think they turned out even better today and they are the kids new favourite bread.
They are quicker to make than normal bread but a little more hands on work is required.

Here is the recipe- I doubled the original recipe for 6-8 so I can make 16 which is enough to feed my crowd.

Pita bread

6 C flour (3 bakers, 3 wholemeal)

3t salt

2 t sugar

2 t yeast

2 T olive oil

400ml water (500-600ml if you use wholemeal flour)

Mix all ingredients in Kitchen Aid with dough hook (you can do this by hand)

Mix on 2 for 5 minutes (knead for 10 by hand)

Leave covered to rise until doubled 1-2 hrs

Knock back with couple turns on Kitchen Aid (or by hand )

Put onto floured bench and divide into 16 pieces

Roll into balls cover with a tea towel and leave to rest for 10 minutes

 Roll with rolling pin flat into round or oval shape.

Cover with tea towel and leave for 30 minutes.

Heat oven to 230C with baking sheet in oven

 Put 3-4 breads in at a time for 4 minutes turn oven and cook for 2 more

Put onto wire rack to cool.

This is how they looked cut in half,

 and filled with salad

 When my big boys were little I used to buy these and fill then with peanut butter, banana, sultanas, apple, carrot and coconut, they loved them - I gave some to my little ones today and they loved them too.

Here is The Girl making her lunch.

Shared at:

sunday-showcase

pumpkin, chicken and lemon bake

We have enjoyed this dish twice now, it is ideal to use lemons and pumpkins from our garden.

We have served it mashed potato and some greens, in this case beans.

The first time we made it I used the juices to make a lovely gravy, which was super yummy and had a nice lemony flavour to it.

This time B2 and B3 did most of it, and then I realised too late about the gravy, the juices served with it were still nice though.

This recipe was originally from BHG mag and I double it to feed 8 of us.

Pumpkin, chicken and lemon bake

1.6 kgs chicken pieces

1t paprika

1t sumac

1t salt

1T olive oil

1 kg of pumpkin

3 lemons

1 C white wine

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C. Combine paprika, sumac and salt and sprinkle over chicken. Heat a large heavy based frying pan over medium heat and cook chicken on all sides until golden. Transfer to oven proof dish (I use a large roasting pan)

2. Leaving skin on cut pumpkin into 1.5 cm thick slices. add to chicken. Thinly slice 2 lemons and add to dish. Juice remaining lemon and pour over chicken with white wine.

3 Bake for 50-55 minutes or until the juices run clear when a thigh piece is pieces with the tip of a knife. Allow to stand for 5 minutes before serving.

homemade take away

This is our homemade version of KFC.

We have this occasionally for a Sunday Night Tea.

I originally saw Fast Eddie do it on BHG one night and everyone commented on it, so we thought we would give it a go.

The kids really like these as they are not greasy like KFC but crispy and crunchy.

He uses thighs, but I found they take too long to cook and you are always worried that they haven't fully cooked through, so we now use wings which have just had the tip cut off.

We serve them with corn on the cob, I just buy the frozen ones from the supermarket and boil them,

and my secret recipe spicy BBQ sauce (which of course won't be so secret after I tell you! SSSH just don't tell VCH and the B's)

Fried Chicken and Spicy BBQ Sauce

1 kg of chicken thighs on the bone (I use wings and get about 1.5 for 8 of us works out at roughly 2 each)

3 eggwhites

1/2t salt

1/2t freshly ground black pepper

1/2C cornflour

1 C plain flour

2t dried thyme

3t smoked paprika

2t cumin

1tsp allspice

1/2 t ground ginger

Cut chicken thighs in half at joint and pat dry with paper towel

Put egg whites into a bowl add salt and pepper, then whisk until soft peaks form

Sift flours into a plastic bag (I find two clean shopping bags inside each other best)

Add herbs and spices.

Dip chicken into eggwhite and shake off excess. 

Put chicken into bag and shake well to coat with flour mixture.

Heat oil in deep fryer or large heavy based pan

When hot cook chicken in batches (I find 4 at one time is enough) for 12-15 minutes (I find 10min is enough for the wings) or until golden and crisp and cooked through.

Drain chicken and serve. I put mine in the oven at about 160C to keep warm until the others are cooked

Spicy BBQ sauce

This was a make and taste experiment that worked.

Put BBQ sauce, tomato sauce and some sweet chilli sauce in a bowl, sprinkle with smoked paprika and mix.

Add more or less sweet chilli sauce depending on how hot you like it.

my favourite things: simmer mat

This is my simmer mat, I bought it from a local kitchen shop.
It allows me to cook things without burning or catching them.
It is great to use instead of a double boiler.

Here it is with lemon butter.
I use it for all those things that need a little bit of extra care.
I would thoroughly  recommend it for any kitchen.

doughnuts

We made doughnuts for morning tea yesterday from a recipe out of a BHG magazine.

They were cake style doughnuts, not yeast style.

They reminded me of my childhood.

Every winter when I was little the local department store would cook them in their cafeteria.

You would always know it was winter when you entered Gerard's and the smell of doughnuts cooking wafted through the store.

It was always so exciting and my mum would buy me a doughnut.

Now of course the department store no longer exists, we have two speciality doughnut shops in town, and doughnuts are available all year round in an amazing variety.

It was fun, the kids liked seeing the process and comparing it to the automated machine at the doughnut shop.

I found these a little heavier than the shop bought but still delicious- now looking at the recipe I am wondering if I put in enough bi-carb which should make the batter lighter.

Doughnuts

3 1/2 C plain flour

1 T baking powder

1/2 T bi carb soda

1 cup sugar

1tsp mixed spice

1t salt

75g butter- softened

2 eggs

1 C milk

2t pure vanilla extract

Extra sugar and cinnamon for dusting.

1. Put flour, baking powder, bi carb, sugar and spice into bowl of food processor and turn on to mix.Put in butter and whizz until resembles bread crumbs (As usual when I recipe calls for rubbing in I use my trusty food processor).  

2.Add eggs, then add milk a little at a time until well combined then add vanilla.

3.Sandwich dough between two pieces of baking paper and roll out until 2cm thick. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

4. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured bench. Cut out into doughnut shapes (the recipe calls for a doughnut cutter - I just used two of my circle cutters) 
 Re-roll and use up rest of dough

5. Heat oil in a deep fryer until 170C or large heavy based saucepan. Fry doughnuts in batches of about 5 for 4 minutes each turning several times until doughnuts are cooked through.
Drain on wire rack, then dust with cinnamon sugar (to make this I put 1C sugar into the food processor with 1t cinnamon and processed until fine)

Cooking in the deep fryer. 

I washed the fryer out and put in fresh oil so we didn't have chip tasting doughnuts- yuck!

Dusted in sugar on the wire rack.

Ready to eat.

Did you know that doughnuts make an "o" shape!

orange cake with chocolate icing

VCH was home on Wednesday so I thought I would whip up the orange cake and ice it with chocolate icing.

It was delicious. 

I love the combination of chocolate and orange.

This was a simple cocoa powder, icing sugar and hot water icing.

On Friday we had two lots of visitors, some for morning tea and some for afternoon tea, so I made this cake again but cooked it in two smallish loaf pans.
I then made a chocolate ganache.

Heat 200ml cream- do not let it boil and then add 200g dark chocolate and stir until dissolved, it thickens as it cools.

For the first cake I just put some on like icing when it had cooled a bit.

For the second cake that I served in the afternoon I reheated the chocolate and put it in a jug. 

The cake was then served with the chocolate sauce poured over it and whipped cream.

Just delicious!

Served like this it would make a lovely dessert if you wanted be be a little decadent add some Grand Marnier to the chocolate.
My next experiment with this cake recipe is to use one of the tangelos that VCH was given last week.

lemons, lemons, lemons

The other day I had a bit of a bake up and went a bit lemony.

I made a lemon tart, lemon ice cream and candied lemon slices.

The lemon tart recipe came from a free Coles recipe booklet.

I made my own pastry instead of using the frozen pastry they suggested.

I halved the pastry recipe from the apple pie and left out the egg as I wanted a shorter pastry- this seemed to work well.

The recipe is as follows

Lemon Tart

1 sheet frozen pastry

4 eggs

1/2 C caster sugar

1/2 C lemon juice

finely grated lemon rind from 1 lemon

1/2 C cream

1. Preheat oven to 180 C or 160 C fan. Grease a 22cm pie dish

2. Line dish with pastry. Trim edges. Chill for 15minutes.

3. Blind bake for 15 minutes. Remove paper and weights and bake for a further 5 minutes. Cool in pan.

4. Mix together eggs, sugar, juice, rind and cream. Pour into tart shell. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until just set, but still a little wobbly. Cool in pan.

5. Dust tart with icing sugar. Serve in wedges with thick cream.

I found the recipe for the lemon ice cream on the internet, but I am not sure where from.

It was very nice with a nice lemon flavour but not sour and easy to make.

Lemon Ice Cream

Juice and grated rind of 1 large lemon

1C white sugar

1 cup milk

250ml thickened cream chilled

1. Blend the lemon rind and sugar in a food processor until the rind is very fine.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together the lemon rind sugar and milk until the sugar has dissolved, then stir in the lemon juice.

3. In a separate bowl, whip the cream until stiff but not grainy. Gently fold the whipped cream into the lemon mixture until evenly blended.

4. Pour the mixture into a loaf tin (I used two very small loaf tins lined with plastic wrap) and cover with plastic wrap. Freeze for 3 hrs until firm.

I just tipped it out of the tin and sliced it to serve.

I also attempted to make candied lemon slices, they were going along fine and then all of a sudden they sugar went brown- so next time I will need to keep a closer eye on them, they were still fine however even if they were a little crunchy. I think this recipe came from Martha Stewart.

Candied Lemon Slices
 1 large lemon
1 C sugar

1. Prepare an ice water bath; set aside. Using a mandoline, v sliver or sharp knife slice lemon into 12 paper thin slices; discard seeds and ends of rind.
2. Bring a medium saucepan of water to a rolling boil. Remove from heat and add lemon slices; stir until softened, about 1 minute. Drain, and  immediately  plunge slices into ice-water bath. Drain.
3.Bring sugar and 1 C water to a boil in a medium skillet, swirling to dissolve sugar. When liquid is clear and bubbling, reduce heat to medium-low. Add lemon slices, arranging them in one layer with tongs. Simmer (do not let boil) until rinds are translucent, about 1 hr.
4.Transfer to a baking sheet lined with non stick baking paper. Let stand ready to serve.
Although I had the heat really low- the sugar went brown at about the 20 minute mark so will have to look at this next time I cook it- maybe a thicker pan and a simmer mat?

These looked pretty on the tart after it was cooked

Amended to add- I have just seen a recipe in BHG for candied lemons and they only cook it for 6 minutes- so will give this a go and let you know how I get on.

roasted pumpkin soup

We have heaps of pumpkins at the moment from the garden, so some pumpkin soup was in order.

I love pumpkin soup but VCH is not so keen, so I tend to make it for a winter lunch when he is not home.

My favourite way is to roast the pumpkin with some onion and garlic and a little olive oil.

Then I add it to some chicken or vegetable stock I have made and blend it.

Salt, cracked pepper and some freshly grated nutmeg finish it off.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

Yesterday I also made some cheese scones.

I made scones the usual way adding some grated cheddar, parmesan cheese and a little bit of smoked paprika when mixing in the milk.

After cutting them and putting on the tray I sprinkled on some more parmeson and paprika. 

Served hot with the soup they were delicious!

my new favourite cake recipe

Yesterday on one of my favourite blogs was this recipe for an easy orange cake.

As oranges are in season at the moment and I got a box at 69c a kilo the other day at the fruit and veg I thought I may as well try this cake.

It is made using a whole orange and the food processor- too easy!

Yesterday I made it and just dusted it with icing sugar. 

It was so yummy that I made another one today.

Today I was a little bit more fancy and iced it with an orange butter icing and even made some candied peel to go on top.

I was feeling a little bit Masterchef after watching Donna Hay on there last night!

 I have never made this before but as I was about to make some lemon butter I noticed the recipe on the opposite page and thought I would give it a go.

I think next time I make this I might make a chocolate ganache to go on top. 

Orange and chocolate together are one of my favourite food combos!

 As we have heaps of lemons at the moment courtesy of our tree I thought I would also make a lemon version. 

I added 1/2 cup extra sugar to sweeten it a little more. 

It too was delicious - it is a lovely moist cake.

I now have plans to make candied lemon slices to grace some further cakes.

Some lemon with your tea, dear?

(This beautiful cup and saucer set are for The Girl - a little inheritance from my aunt and the table cloth was my grandmother's.)

lemon season

It is lemon season again and so with our tree loaded with lemons out come the lemon recipes.

As I know I posted about these last year I will just put in some links for you to look back on.

This is the link for yummy lemon tartlets - so easy we had these for morning tea today - yummo!

Here is the link for lemon butter I made a batch a couple of weeks ago and we are down to our last jar so it will soon be time to make another.

I also found a recipe for some lemon ice cream that I am going to try so when I do I will let you know how it goes.

pork wontons

These wontons are super easy and fun to make.

We tend to do these on a Sunday night for tea.

We use 500g of pork mince and two packets of wontons.

 Add whatever flavourings you like to the mince- we used a slash of soy, a splash of fish sauce and some green ginger wine- you could use powdered or fresh ginger.

Simply put a teaspoon of mince on your wonton wrapper, brush the edges with water and fold- this is the fun part and we end up with all sorts of interesting shapes that the kids come up with.

You can find traditional folds on the net here. 

We cooked half in the deep fryer a few at a time and steamed or boiled half.

The two sauces were a Vietnamese dipping sauce and a plum sauce both found at the supermarket without any nasty additives in them.

I often make my own concoction up with various Asian ingredients in my pantry, soy sauce, oyster sauce, honey, ginger etc.

The consensus was that the fried ones tasted better with the thicker plum sauce and the steamed with the thinner dipping sauce.

These would be great as finger food for a party.

homemade sausage rolls

B4 requested homemade sausage rolls for lunch on his birthday.

These are really yummy and use ordinary mince not sausage mince.

I used kangaroo as that's what we buy these days, but any mince would be fine.

I actually started to write out this recipe when B2 came into the room and said, "Haven't you done that before?", sure enough when I looked I found I had done a post on it last year here. 

So if you want to make these delicious sausage rolls look them up.

Note to self check before posting if you have already shared the recipes. 

I found after posting my apple pie recipe that I had done it last year as well! OOPS!

roasted vegetable and chicken soup

This delicious soup is something that I experimented with when I had the flu and wanted to make chicken soup to nourish and heal me. 

Unfortunately I spoiled the first version by adding noodles. 

So for some time I have been meaning to go back and make it again without the noodles and see what it was like.

It was divine and even VCH who is a very fussy soup eater loved it, taking it to watch B1 play soccer one very cold Friday Night.

It was a rainy week - definitely soup making weather.

We had had chicken biriyani the night before so I took the bones and added celery, carrot, onion, garlic, parsley and salt and water to make a stock. 

Meanwhile I cut up potato, pumpkin, carrot, sweet potato into soup sized pieces and drizzled them with olive oil. 

I added a whole head of garlic with the top cut off and roasted them in the oven until cooked and browned.

As I already had the leftover chicken from the biriyani I just cut that up into small pieces and drizzled a little olive oil over the top and popped it in with the veges for the final 5-10 minutes to give it a roasted effect. 

The first time I made this I started with a piece of Chicken Maryland, where I roasted the chicken then stripped off the meat and made the stock with the bones.

When the stock was cooked I strained it and then put it back into the pot and added my veges and chicken. 

To thicken the soup I took a little bit of stock and mixed in some organic gluten free gravy mix (you could just use flour or cornflour) then added it back into the soup and cooked it until it had thickened slightly.

Add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

It was so yummy! 

I was going to try a bowl of soup with some peas added to give that true roast dinner effect, but the soup was all gone before I had a chance.

I am definitely going to make this again starting with a small whole chicken to make enough for our family of 8.

scones with rosella jam and cream

I finally made scones and served them with rosella jam and whipped cream.

They were delicious and I am sure we will make them a few more times while we have still have rosella jam left.

Yummm!!!

meat pies

We love meat pies, but try to make our own rather than use frozen pies.

It really is quite easy.

We used kangaroo mince in these and made our own pastry.

To be honest I usually use frozen puff pastry, but I was out, so I simply made pastry using this recipe omitting the sugar. 

They turned out quite well.

 Cook onion and then add your mince and brown it. 

Add seasonings of your choice- I used homemade fruit chutney and Worcestershire sauce and a few other bits and pieces until I got the flavour I wanted. 

I also thickened it with some cornflour, but you could use gravy powder which will add extra flavour.

B4 rolling out the pastry- he always wants to help with pastry.

I used Texas muffin pans as well as normal size as I only had one tin of 6 - not enough for 8 of us 6 of whom are growing boys

(note to self buy another Texas muffin tin before making pies again)

We served them with mashed potato and mushy peas.

I cheated with the peas. 

I used frozen green peas and after cooking with some mint from the garden I put them into the food processor to puree, with a little sour cream and pepper.

Now if I had have been more organised I would have soaked and boiled some blue boiler peas until they were soft and mushy- these are the traditional mushy peas. 

I normally would have also made gravy but on this night we just had tomato sauce.

rosella jam

There are still some rosellas available so I bought some more and thought I would have another go at the jam from my disastrous attempt many years ago.

The Girl helped me to separate them, she was so good.
You need to take the calyxes off the seed pod in the middle and cook them separately, then add them together minus the pod.
It does make your hands red but it seems to wash off pretty easy.
This time I used a sweet thermometer to get the right temperature.

 It is lovely and is now regularly gracing toast and bread at our house.
I think I need to make a batch of scones for morning tea so we can have it on them with some whipped cream.
Find the link for the rosella recipes here.

coriander and macadamia nut pesto

A couple of years ago I was served a lovely bowl of pasta with prawns and a coriander and macadamia nut pesto at a friend's house on my way to Sydney.

It is something that I have wanted to make since.

I made it on Friday night for tea and it was just as delicious as I remembered.

Pasta with Prawns and Creamy Macadamia and Coriander Pesto

Ingredients:

Spaghetti cooked al dente

Prawns peeled

1 1/2 bunch coriander

1 - 1 1/2 C macadamias lightly toasted

2 cloves garlic

Juice of one lime

1/4 C oil - macadamia if you have it

Cream to taste

Method:

Place coriander, macadamias, garlic in food processor and process until smooth, add lime juice. Drizzle in oil while processor is going.

You can use the pesto as is in place of basil pesto 

or to serve it with the prawns mix in 1/4-1/2 C cream to taste, stir through hot pasta. 

Stir through prawns.

For my large family it was easier to just sprinkle the prawns on top once I had put the pasta in each bowl, I also cut them in half as they were fairly large.

rosella chutney

When shopping for fruit and veges I saw that they still had some Rosella's so thought I would buy some and have a go at the chutney.

It is just beautiful, very nice on a cracker with a thin slice of cheese or with meat- hot or cold.

I also got it from this page.

It was supposed to have raisins in it, and I didn't even have any sultanas so I used dates instead.
I also substituted some of the herbs in the bouquet garni, but it still turned out lovely.