Book 17 : Picnic Hamper - Jane Price

I'm slightly obsessive (just in case the number of cookbooks didn't tip you off!), so last year when Matt and the kids brought me a apple tree for mothers day I got slightly (read massively) over excited and went a bit tree nuts. Before you could say nice tree, I had 6 apples, 3 pears, 3 olives, 2 plums, 2 figs and 8 other various fruit trees, not including the 3 citrus trees. I'm pretty sure the only thing that slowed me down was the end of bare rooted season (always makes me laugh) and that Matt point blank refused to dig anymore holes until we had a house to go with the trees. The problem with me having a brief fruit tree obsession (there was also a short vegie garden bit) was that everyone assumes I like gardening, I don't! Because I don't like gardening you can almost set your watch to when things will start to die. Strangely my fruit trees seem to be holding up, mainly because its survival of the fittest, if any die I'll leave them there to show the others what will happen if they don't pull their weight. I know that makes no sense, but I planted (supervised) the damn things, my work here is done. Unfortunately my Mum, Grandmother, Sister and Mother-in-law,seem to think that having fruit trees also means I'll do other gardening. They keep asking me when I'll be putting in garden beds and plants etc. I assumed really tall weeds could be feature plants? Mum keeps dropping hints about weeding, I assumed that's what Round-up is for? I can honestly say I would rather staple my eyelids to my forehead than garden. Usually when we have a gardening day I make up some kind of excuse to go inside (glass of water?) and accidentally start making Cinnamon buns. Hopefully I'll come home one day and my front lawn will have a few garden beds, selectively planted with plants that required no maintenance at all (hint, hint Mum/Shirl)..... I spose I can dream.

I've stopped trying to tie my intros into the book I've been cooking from, so from now on sit back and enjoy some random, confused, waffling without trying to work out how it applies to Paella (or what ever else I'm cooking). Cos as usual I have no idea either :)

Recipe - Chicken and Chorizo Paella

60ml Olive Oil
1 large Red Capsicum, 5mm cut into strips
600g boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 3cm cubes
200g mushrooms, thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbls grated lemon zest
700g ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
200g green beans, trimmed and cut into 3cm lengths
1tbls chopped rosemary
2 tbls chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/4 tsp saffron threads dissolved in 60ml hot water
440g short-grain white rice
750ml hot chicken stock
6 lemon wedges, to serve

Heat the olive oil in a paella pan or in a large, heavy-based, deep frying pan over medium heat. Add the red capsicum strips and cook, stirring for about 6 minutes, or until softened, then remove from the pan.
  Add the chicken to the pan and cook for 10 minutes, or until browned.  Remove from the pan.  Add the chorizo to the pan and cook for 5 minutes, or until golden.  Remove from the pan.  Add the mushrooms, garlic and lemon zest to the pan, and cook over medium for 5 minutes.
  Stir in the tomatoes and capsicum, and cook for a further 5 minutes, or until the tomato is soft.
Add the beans, rosemary, parsley, saffron mixture, rice, chicken and chorizo.  Stir briefly and add the stock.  Do not stir at this point.  Reduce the heat ad simmer for 30 minutes.  Remove from the heat, cover and leave to stand for 10 minutes.  Serve with lemon wedges.

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I brought this book when we were planning a trip to the zoo and it was an excuse to get another book (very poor excuse).  Not really sure taking a full dinner set and cutlery to the zoo is overly practical, but there are some nice recipes in here.  There are stacks of little finger foods, rolls, quiches etc along with a huge range of salads.  It also has some more impractical items like the above Paella and seafood's that I wouldn't want sitting in a picnic basket while I farted around looking at the gorillas.   On the other hand it has a really good desert section (always a winner for me) with a Apple Custard Slice that looks awesome.  Although its not a ground breaking book, it is fairly good with a wide range of picnicy recipes.

Be warned the recipe takes a while to cook, its messy (if you're me) and has a stack of steps, so its easy to forget something.  Luckily I didn't this time, but I did have issues with my paella pan, I picked mine up for $5.99 at Aldi, sadly it doesn't conduct heat very well so took ages to get going.  The paella itself seems fairly bland, although that might of been my annoyance with how long it took to cook, I'm sure there are better recipes around.  Next time I think I'd make the custard slice... mmm

Thanks
Kate
xx

Ps:  Did you notice how I pretended that all my previous intros had something to do with the books :)

Book 16: Cakes - Country Women's Association

I'm a compulsory volunteerer (not a word?), whenever anyone is asking for volunteers for committees or anything remotely similar, I seem to get helium in my hand and is raises itself!..  The stupid thing is I like helping out, but I also have a memory like a siv.  I will quite often volunteer for things and then forget what I'm suppose to do.  Last year was a prime example when I put my hand up for the communications coordinator position at my daughters kinder.  Massively over-excited I headed off to my first meeting where I was told that the job wasn't required, so I could be a regular committee member instead.  I was a bit disappointed at first because I had grand plans for my position, facebook etc (facebook was pretty much it, but I'm sure it would have been awesome).   When they finally asked me (I volunteered) to organise a girls night out for the women at the kinder, I organised the time, date and venue to book and then promptly forgot everything about it.  So when someone reminded me 3 days before the night I panicked a tad and half-arsely organised something which no-one could attend.  I also forgot to do minutes, the monthly newsletter (every time), plates for a fundraiser and a few other things that I've forgotten.  So you will imagine my surprise when I rocked up to the final meeting and they had volunteered me (not me this time) for the vice-presidents job this year.  The vice-presidents job sucks, you have to fill in for everyone when they aren't there and considering there are only 4 of us that ever turn up its kinda horrid.  I still have 3 sets of minutes I needs to type up and people expect me to know what I'm talking about.   I have to tell you, I have no idea what I'm doing!  I'm horrible at taking minutes, I tend to take over any conversations, forget what we were talking about and waffle on for 10 minutes about something stupid I've done (there are lots of options).  I also forget to write anything down and can never remember anyones names.  Strangely they don't appreciate me taking minutes how interesting I find Aldi catalogues.........

Recipe - Apple Kuchen
1\2 cup plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
salt
sugar, to taste
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup yogurt
2 eggs

Topping
1/2 cup self-raising flour
1/3 cup sugar
3 tblsp butter
2 medium apples, peeled and sliced

Preheat oven to 175c.  Grease a 23-cm square baking pan (line it to or you won't get it out!!)
  To make streusel topping, place flour, sugar and butter in a food processor and process until crumbly.  Transfer to a bowl and add apple slices, stirring to coat.
  For the cake, add all ingredients to the food processor and process briefly.  Scrape down the sides, the process for a few more seconds.
  Spread batter in prepared pan.  Neatly arrange the apple-streusel mixture on top.  Bake for 40-45 minutes.

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This is a typical CWA cookbook, there are about eight different fruit cake recipes and its all measured in volume (which I hate!).  There are some lovely looking recipes, Custard cake, Hawaiian Tea cake and Orange Tea cake.  There are also the standard Carrot cake, Pavlova and 15 types of Fruit cake, I'm not a fan of fruit cake so this seemed a tad excessive to me.  But fruit cake aside, it is a very nicely set out book, with clear pictures and very stripped back recipes.  My biggest draw back is the measurements in volume (cups) and not weight.  I love my scales so I'd prefer everything to be in weight, plus the kids are always stealing my measuring cups.

The recipe itself looks really delicious, in reality its really bland.  The apple is soft and so is the rest of the cake, next time I would cut the apples chunkier and add cinnamon and macadamia nuts to the topping.  On the bright side, it takes about 20 minutes to make from start to oven and is really easy to put together.  But if you make it as is be prepared for nice, add the extra stuff and it should be awesome.  Next thing you know I'll be calling myself the recipe whisperer..... I'll go now

Thanks
Kate
xx

Have you noticed my introductions are getting slightly more random?  I'd like to pretend I'll stay on track, but we all know that's not going to happen  :)

Book 15: Easy Kids' Party Food - Woman's Day

I think the funniest thing we do in my household is to cook together.  I say funniest and not fun because its only afterwards that I can look at it in a funny way.  The problem with anyone cooking with me, is my territorial control freak comes rearing to the surface.  Don't get me wrong its never far from the surface but when ever anyone steps into my kitchen it rears its ugly head more than usual.  I try really hard not to be a control freak (so lying!), but when it comes to my kitchen (and most other things) I'm like a crocodile in a pond, I come out snapping!  Its really not intentional, I do like having people in my kitchen, feel free to come and watch me cook anytime (although I do get distracted) just don't give me advise and don't try to help!  If you ask if you can help me and I say no, I seriously mean no (in the nicest possible way)!  I'm not just trying to be nice, I have everything under control and even if the stove is on fire, I've got it.  So when the kids step into the kitchen (metaphorically, they are on stools on the other side of the bench) it tends to go down hill quickly.  I love cooking with my children, they are the biggest joy in my life (queue the violins) and such brilliant kids that doing anything with them is fun (except going to the supermarket, don't do that!).  The problem is I'm set in my ways, what ever I'm cooking I have it in my head how we are going to make it and what its going to look like.  Unfortunately children in their 2's and 4's have their own ideas on how its going to go down, these don't always mesh with mine.  Our biggest issue seems to lie with the quantity of ingredients, I want to use it in the recipe, Sam and Charli on the other hand think it should be eaten now.  Today's recipe is a great example, we had twice the amount of ingredients required, in some cases like cheese we had four times the required amount.  Still, at the end of the cooking process we had no cheese left, noses missing on most pizzas and the hair had disappeared.  I think its hilarious that Sam yells at Charli for eating anything, apparently its for the cooking, whilst managing to shovel handfuls of cheese into his gob.  Poor Charli loves cooking, she gets so excited whenever she gets to help and generally she is quite helpful.  She can crack eggs like its nobodies business and its very good at cutting things up.  But she also likes to do everything and know exactly what we are doing every step of the way, sometimes I can only say I'm folding the ingredients so many times before my head rotates 360c and explodes...  One awesome thing with cooking with kids is that if something doesn't turn out right or is a bit messy I just explain that the kids helped...  even if they haven't!!  :)


I found my camera, YAY!!

Recipe - Pizza Faces
makes 4

2 small prepared pizza bases
1/2 cup tomato pasta sauce
1 cup grated pizza cheese
8 stuffed olives (for eyes)
4 slices kabana (for noses)
4 slices of red capsicum (for mouths)
8 slices button mushrooms (for ears)
1/3 cup chopped rindless bacon (for hair)

Preheat oven to hot, 200c.  Line an oven tray with baking paper.  Cut 2 x 12cm rounds for each   pizza bases.
Spread each round with pasta sauce.  Place on prepared tray.  Sprinkle with cheese.
Arrange ingredients on bases to make faces.  Bake for 5-10 minutes until golden and the bases are crisp.

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Charli making her first pizza

This is a fun little book, as the title suggests its full of kids party food ideas and some of them are brilliant.  There are so many kids party books around now, that you tend to find duplicate recipes in all of them.  This book is quite original and the recipes are easy to follow and make.


This recipe is ok, we used WAY to much cheese on ours (I was trying to beat Sam) and some of the topping slid off the sides.  But they are very cute and when they weren't eating the ingredients the kids had a great time putting them together.  I would recommend cooking them longer than suggested as they were still a bit soft.  But otherwise, we will make them again, although I'll make my own bases next time as paying $6.99 for 2 medium bases annoyed me (I've been living with Matt to long).  All in all this is the simplest thing I've cooked so far in my challenge and its been kinda nice...... now on to something a little more complicated :P
Thanks
Kate
xx

If you are having trouble commenting, make sure you preview your comment before posting otherwise it doesn't seem to work.... feel free to comment when ever you like, bad, good I'm happy to hear from you and would love to know if making any sense cos have no idea what I'm doing :)

Not much pizza making going on!

Book 14: Dinner at Matt's - Matt Moran

I love deserts, I may have mentioned  it before? Knowing me, a number of times.  I don't so much like the deserts themselves, if I made it myself, but i love the preparation and planning that goes into deserts.  At the moment I'm going through a snobby desert phase, which involves me scouring my recipe books to find something I've never cooked before but looks spectacular.  This sometimes ends badly, recently for my sister Kristy's birthday she asked for Creme Brulees.  I was in luck when she left it up to me to decide what sort of creme brulee to make.  On a side note if I ever ask you what you want for desert (or anything else) I've already got it in my head what I want to make, your opinion is not really required but as I'm fairly (not always) polite I'll ask for you thoughts, for future reference you response should be "I don't mind, you decide!".  Anyway back to the Creme Brulee, I decide on a spiced creme brulee and it was delicious!  The problem was the recipe called for the egg yolks to be whisked in a stand mixer, which is brilliant unless you forget they are mixing and come back to mega fluffy yolks (I'm easily distracted).  Not sound to up myself, but I rock at custards!  You know how you hear about custards splitting and going clotty?  Well that doesn't happen to me.. I'm the custard whisperer.  So, custard whisperer aside, I added the hot cream mixture to my fluffy yolks, confident that all was well.  The custard was smooth and silky, but is was also mega bubbly.  I didn't think much about it until the brulees all sank in their molds.  I cannot tell you how hard it is to brulee (melt sugar) whilst your custard catches on fire because of all the weird bubble mess on the sides.  To make a long, waffley, slightly incoherent story short, the Spicy Creme Brulees looked like gungy crud but tasted great.  Needless to say I'll never be able to make a good custard again after my 'custard whisperer" comment, it will be the damn Choux pastry all over again (see earlier blogs)... 

Recipe - Chocolate and Earl Gray Tea Tart

750ml pouring cream
5 Earl Grey tea tarts
50g good-quality dark chocolate
420g good-quality milk chocolate
50g unsalted butter, softened
good-quality cocoa powder, for dusting

Chocolate sponge
50g good-quality dark chocolate
5 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
1 1/2 tblsp good-quality cocoa powder
4 egg whites

Creme Chantilly
150ml cream
1 tblsp icing sugar
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped and reserved pot set aside for another use

Firstly, make the chocolate sponge.  Preheat the oven to 190c and  lightly grease a 30cm x 40cm baking tray, then line with non-stick baking paper.
  Melt the 50g dark chocolate in a dry heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure that you don't let any water come into contact with the chocolate.  Once the chocolate has melted, transfer it to a mixing bowl and set aside to cool slightly.
  In a electric mixer, whisk the egg yolks with half the caster sugar until thick and pale.  Fold this in the melted chocolate, then fold in the cocoa.
  Whisk the egg whites in the electric mixer until soft peaks form, then gradually add the remaining sugar and whisk until stiff peaks form.  Gently fold this into the chocolate mixture until combined.  Spread the mixture evenly onto the prepared tray to a thickness of 1cm and top with another sheet of non-stick baking paper.  Bake for about 10 minutes or until the sponge is just cooked and springy to the touch.
  Meanwhile, bring the 750mls of cream to a simmer in a saucepan, then remove from the heat and add the tea bags, leaving to infuse while the cream cools to room temp.
  Lightly grease 23 cm x 24cm x 2.5cm depth lamington or swiss roll tin.
Remove the sponge from the oven and, when cool enough to handle, take a rolling pin and firmly roll it over the top sheet of non-stick baking paper.  This will flatten the sponge and make it denser (you want it about 3mm thick).  Remove and discard the top layer of non-stick baking paper and then trim the sponge to fit the prepared tin.  Pick up the ends of the bottom layer of non-stick baking paper and transfer the sponge to the tin - it should fit snugly.  Fold the excess non-stick baking paper over the sides of the tin.
  Melt the dark chocolate in a dry heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure that you don't let any water come into contact with the chocolate.  Once melted, brush the chocolate evenly over the sponge and place the tin in the fridge for about 10 minutes to set.
  Melt the milk chocolate in a dry heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water (don't get water in it).  Once melted, pour the chocolate into a bowl of a electric mixer, then pour over the infused cream, discarding the tea bags.  Mixing slowly, add the butter, a little at a time, and continue mixing until the chocolate cools, then pour this mixture evenly over a sponge and place the tin back in the fridge to set overnight.
  To make the creme chantilly, place the cream, icing sugar and vanilla seeds into a large bowl and whip until firm.
  Just prior to serving, remove the tart from the fridge, cut into rectangles about 6cm x 9cm and dust with a thick layer of cocoa powder.  Serve with a generous dollop of creme chantilly.

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This is an interesting book, it looks amazing and its got Matt Moran in it, which is never bad ( I like Matt Moran).  I got this book from the kids for Christmas and its very fancy.  It has all sorts of recipes in it that would be perfect if you had people coming for dinner and heaps of time on your hands.  Sadly I don't have heaps of time on my hands, I'm way to busy writing blogs and planning for zombie invasion (I'm kidding!).  But I do like this book, its fancy and nice to look at and has a fairly wide selection of recipes from meat, fish and deserts etc. 

The recipe itself is delicious, it may look like a lot of work but its fairly straight forward.  Next time I would tip the tea leave into the cream so it infuses better, you could hardly taste the tea at all.  But the tart was creamy and very tasty!  The layer of dark chocolate on the sponge added some delicious texture.  Normally I'm not a fan of chocolate deserts, I like chocolate not chocolate flavoured deserts (yes, i know it doesn't make sense), but considering the amount of chocolate in this its really nice...  But I would leave it over night in the fridge as it advises, I left mine in for about 6 hours and it was still really soft, edible but soft...

Thanks
Kate
xx

Oh, I'm sorry about the extra crappy photos this week, I've misplaced my camera so I'm using my phone.. never good..