What's been happening in my kitchen?

Well I haven't posted in a while. The reasons for this are many and varied but include:

• taking my daughter to three high school open days in a week
• finding all the paperwork for high school applications
• a day of freezer cooking
• my camera deciding to play up
• my computer hard-drive giving up the ghost
• my husband helpfully misplacing his camera that I took back-up photos on

As with so many things in life sometimes it does feel just a tiny bit as if the universe is conspiring against one.

My freezer cooking day last week was a big effort but has made the past week's abundant crazy so much easier. So far we've eaten a gnocchi bake, a meatloaf, twice baked potato and sweet potato crumble from the day.

I think I mentioned before that I don't do all chicken dishes or all pasta dishes because that's just not what we like to eat or how we eat so I do a big mish-mash of things. I know that doesn't work for everyone but for us a freezer full of chicken won't help because we don't want to eat that every night for two weeks. Here is what I finished up with:

• meatloaves x 2
• sweet potato crumble x 2
• twice baked potato x 3 serves for us
• lamb and mushroom pie filling
• gnocchi bake
• zucchini slice
• potato soup

I definitely need to do another batch of baked goods. My daughter made the ever simple lemonade scones on the weekend. These are a super easy thing for kids to make.
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/6036/lemonade+scones

Carrots were on sale this week so I can see banana carrot cake and hummingbird cakes on the horizon.

Anyway, hopefully the hiccups have ended and I can get back to blogging in earnest again.

March in the kitchen

If February or my calendar are any indication then March is going to be a pretty hectic old month. I blinked and missed February. I managed to make a photograph a few meals that I just never got to post here...nuts!

So I will be adding in the next few days:

• Triple Chocolate Brownies
• Chicken Florentine Stuffed Mushrooms
• Brown Rice Pilaf

Meanwhile I also want to get some freezer cooking done because otherwise I can see us going hungry or eating lots of junk in the weeks ahead. I plan to make and will post recipes for among other things:

• Zesty Chicken Enchiladas
• Honey mustard chicken
• Salmon quiche
• Sweet potato crumble
• Twice baked potato
• Low-carb and gluten free Moussaka

I know when people do freezer or batch cooking they often do all recipes using all the same main ingredient eg all chicken or all minced meat/ground beef, but I don't really find that is any more efficient for me and I don't want too much of the same thing in the freezer either because we like variety.
I find too that if you a quick side or vegetable dish ready that you can reheat it is a real time saver because it really doesn't take too long to cook a steak and if you can add bagged salad and a nice twice baked potato well that dinner can be done in under 20 minutes.

So I will be back!

Scrolls two ways - savoury and sweet

Sometimes a get on a bit of a baking binge. I really like being able to take one recipe and get more than one thing out of it. Like taking a basic batter and make more than one cake or a universal muffin recipe and getting more than one type of muffin. It gives more options and I don't know why it just appeals to the multi-tasker in me.

One the weekend I decided to make pizza scrolls for the lunch-boxes this week. I cheated and made a quantity of bread dough in the bread machine using a bread mix that had been lurking there forever. (A bit of a tip but if you do that use fresh yeast...yeast expires and expired yeast means no rise and that's not what you want)

Then we halved the bread dough and made pizza scrolls with one half and choc-chip scrolls with the other. There is so much sugar in a choc-chip scroll that nobody needs a sweet dough with them in my opionion.

So this week the first few days my daughter and husband had savoury scrolls as their main lunch item and on Thursday and Friday they will have a sweet scroll. Easy.

A scroll is made by taking a sqaure of dough, covering it with filling, rolling jelly-roll style and slicing. In the US they call them cinnamon rolls...in Australia we used to put he jam-filled ones in acirle and call them Chelsea Buns.

Here's my version

Pizza Scrolls
1/2 quantity of bread dough
1/4 cup tomato paste
100g chopped tinned pineapple
125 chopped ham
1 cup grated mozarella

1. Roll dough into a rectangle
2. Spread with tomato paste, leaving a 1cm boarder. Cover tomato paste with other topping.
3. Roll. Jelly roll style. Cut and arrange in baking pan. Let rise in a warm place. bake moderate oven about 30 minutes.

Choc Chip Scrolls
1/4 cup softened butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup choc chips
1 teaspoon of cinnamon.

1. Roll into  rectangle.
2. Spread with butter, leaving a 1cm boarder. Cover with other toppings.
3.  Roll. Jelly roll style. Cut and arrange in baking pan. Let rise in a warm place. bake moderate oven about 30 minutes.

Old favourites

Some weeks just seem to go off the rails a little bit. We are not by any means a family that follows much of a schedule. The only set events are school hours and any after-school activities my daughter has, everything else is fluid.

We don't get up at a set time. We don't eat at a set time. My husband often doesn't have a schedule o his work hours and even then they change. Today for example he came home at 3pm when I thought he was coming home at 4pm and then the phone rang and he left and won't be home until 10pm or maybe 11pm.

Tomorrow he is working two jobs so again he will leave at 8am and come home at 11pm. It's a Saturday so where you might think we'd be having a BBQ or an outing, and frankly I did think that until mid-week, that's not the case.

Today i had pulled some pre-made burger patties out about five minutes before he got home and they are no back in the freezer from which I grabbed him a container of paella to microwave at work. My daughter and I are now having a basic pasta with a sauce of ham, mushroom, pea cream, tomato and white wine...not exactly how I pictured dinner 3 hours ago.

Valentine's Day went the same way. Instead of coming home a 8pm my lovely husband came home about 10.30pm and only found out at 5pm...(are you spotting a trend).

That kind of leads me to the point...instead of the seafood meal I had planned I threw an old favourite the Impossible Pie in the oven. Not exactly a meal that will win awards but it is high in protein if you're hungry and easy to digest if you are not long for bed.
http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/food/freshtv/781803/savoury-impossible-pie

I omitted the corn kernels and I guess my pie plate must have been a bit small because I had mixture leftover and made five mini frittatas in my muffin tin with the extra. They were great on a roll for breakfasts.

The other old favourite I made this week was Weetbix Slice. I was looking for a quick lunchbox filler and as we seem to have ended up with two boxes or Weetbix and three of Weetbix Bites this was a good one to use up some of the excess.

I added a bit more butter than suggested here.

http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/Weet-Bix-Slice-L5572.html

Mu husband said it tasted like something you got at a church cake stall as a child. My daughter said it was the best thing ever. It was quick to make and exceedingly economical.

Sometimes in the midst of madness it is nice to fall back on some comforting old favourites.

Happy Valentine's Day from the kitchen

It's February 14th in sunny Sydney now. Well it was actually pouring rain soaked Sydney in my corner near the beach until well after lunch but the sun is out now.

My husband is working until after ten tonight so no great romantic meal is being prepared in our kitchen tonight.

In the past my efforts have included heart-shaped pancakes and heart-shaped brownies. We have done oysters and champagne and seafood platters laden with prawns and crab. Our favourite dish when we were first together was called Champagne Peachy Duck...yes very retro. That reminds me we've made Cosmo's, margaritas and Bellini's in the past.

We don't always celebrate Valentines Day however if we do we tend to do it at home due to babysitting constraints.

Anyway, I hope that there are lots of other people cooking delicious Valentine's feasts this year and celebrating with their loved ones.

Nigella inspired coleslaw

Here is a brief history of my relationship with coleslaw.

When KFC opened in Sydney back in the 1970's it was the only place you could buy pre-prepared salads and so my mum would sometimes go get the coleslaw and bean salad. I thought the bean salad was gross but LOVED the coleslaw.

When I went away to university I was less than enamoured by the campus cafeteria food but I lived on campus for three years so I had to eat it. Every single lunch time I ate coleslaw and an apple and usually 1/2 a sandwich but not always if they happened to have something palatable for a change. I'm pretty sure that coleslaw and apple stopped me from getting scurvy and many other things because they were my daily does of fibre in between the coffee and donuts and cheap alcoholic beverages that all students live on.

Unsurprisingly when I left college I couldn't actually even look at coleslaw for the next ten years. I had more than had my fill. By this stage all the supermarkets carried pre-made coleslaw exactly like the stuff I had at college but I never really bought it because my husband and daughter don't like coleslaw.

So to the now about three years ago I was watching an episode of Nigella Lawson on the ABC. I couldn't even tell you which series it was on but she was making coleslaw to take on a picnic. She used buttermilk and nuts and maple syrup in the dressing. It looked yummy.

I didn't have the recipe and I just never ever use enough buttermilk to justify purchasing it because I always end up throwing it out. So I adapted the recipe and here it is below.It's a great low budget recipe as well.

 Even if you don't like coleslaw you should try it because my husband and daughter love this and still claim not to like coleslaw. We like it with pulled pork on buns (very American) and also as a side with oven fried chicken.

If you have a food processor use that to shred the cabbage and grate the carrot. It then makes this 5 minute coleslaw as well

My coleslaw

1/4 cabbage, shredded
4 carrots grated
1/4 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans work best)
1/4 cup whole egg mayonnaise
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon dill
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon white vinegar
squeeze lemon juice
salt and pepper

1. Combine shredded cabbage, grated carrot and chopped nuts in a bowl.
2. Combine all other ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth.
3. Combine dressing and vegetables.
4. Leave in fridge to let flavours meld for about 15 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Simple food processor shortcrust pastry

People are often scared of pastry. I'm not sure why that is. A basic shortcrust or pie pastry is such a versatile thing. If you make it in the food processor it's not even messy or labour intensive.

I have been using this method for years and it has never failed me.

I use it for sweet and savour dishes because I find sweet dishes already so sweet they tend not to need a sugar based pastry. Some ways I use this pastry are:
- quiche
- Aussie meat pies
- chicken and vegetable pie
- pumpkin pie
- pecan pie
- jam tarts
- fruit pies

Jam Tarts


Simple food processor shortcrust pastry
85g butter
3/4 cup sifted self-raising flour
3/4 cup plain flour
pinch salt
1 egg yolk lightly beaten
squeeze lemon juice
iced water (2-4 tablespoons)

1. Put butter, flours and salt in bowl of processor and pulse until it resembles crumbs or is combines. 2. Add egg yolk  and lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of iced water and run until it forms a ball (You may need another tablespoon or 2 of iced water...it willquite literally form a ball when done).
3. Wrap in plastic and put in the fridge 20 minutes or until ready to use.

 Enjoy!