Real Food

I watched Julie and Julia last night for the first time (I  know, I can’t believe it took me this long), what a clever Idea of Julie Powell’s I only wish I had come up with it first. However if I had to choose one idol in the same manner as Julie Powell then I would have to choose Stephanie Alexander. I honestly believe that she has made the single largest contribution to preventative health in Australia with her “Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen garden Foundation”. The students involved in these programs have such a culinary head start but more than that they have a healthy relationship with food. That being said I am not about to start cooking my way through The Cooks Companion, I’m afraid it’s a task too all consuming for this point in my life.

There is a lot of time given to the airways in Australia at the moment for cooking shows of all shapes and sizes. Although I don’t have a TV I do appreciate the interest in cooking real food that has been generated by these programs.  I take comfort in the knowledge that more people know how to make mayonnaise and subsequently know there is no such thing as a 98%fat free mayo! I hold hope for the next generation of Australians, maybe the fresh produce section of the supermarket will have to expand and fingers crossed the heavily processed lines in the freezer and on the shelves will gradually degrease... I live in hope

Fondant Fairy

When I first started doing some catering a few years back the one thing I swore I didn’t do was cakes in fact “I don’t do cakes” were my exact words. Please feel free to use these words against me when reading the following few posts. All I ever seem to do for people these days are cakes.

As my orders for cakes increase so too does my interest in different styles of decorating. I haven’t experimented much with fondant in the past, mostly due to the fact I don’t particularly like the icing, but recently I have become interested in using fondant for decorations that can be placed on top of beautiful frostings or ganaches. This style of decorating can be quite cute.

I thought I would attempt some of these decorations for a fairy cup cake tower I am making for a 6 year olds birthday………              

           

Need more practice!!!!!!!!!!!

Any how I did promise to keep you informed of my successes and my failures so here is my first attempt at a fondant fairy. She’s a little fat up top, a little skinny in the legs and she doesn't appear to have a neck but I am happy with her little wings and the skin tone I managed to get using just the yellow and pink natural food colours.

Oh well back to the old drawing board. I will continue to practice and if i do manage to get any better at it I'll be sure to share the results.

Bruschetta

Tomato bruschetta is a beautiful and simple dish. I always think it perfectly sums up Italian cuisine; a few key fresh ingredients that results in a beautifully balanced dish.

This version of bruschetta is good for those nights where you have been caught unprepared and therefore have no sourdough on hand. I always have some tortillas or flatbreads in the freezer as they come in handy all too often as they will again in this recipe.

The recipe below will serve two so it is easy to double the amounts if you need more.

Ingredients:

2 tortillas                                        

½ punnet of baby roma tomatoes

1 handful of basil

1 clove of garlic

A good slurp of olive oil

And salt and pepper to taste

Method:

I like to make the mix first. Quarter the baby tomatoes and toss them in a bowl. With the garlic I grate it finely then chop it so it can be evenly mixed through the dish without any super garlicy bits.  Add the garlic to the tomatoes. Break up the basil if the leaves are big and toss it into the mix. Pour a good slurp of olive oil over the lot then season with salt and pepper

Toast your tortillas under the grill untill nicely toasted then cut them into 4

Now you just have to pile them up. The trick is not to put too much tomato mix in between the layers or else you won’t be able to balance each layer. ENJOY

Bloody Mary Breakfast

Sunday morning is perhaps my favourite. It is usually the only morning I get a genuine lay in and when I wake I am hungry. I love to cook a great breakfast on a Sunday and am easily persuaded to offer ala carte dining to the rest of the household. This Sunday it was bloddy mary mushrooms and eggs for myself and my handsome boyfriend and BLT’s for the rest.  I won’t post the recipe to my BLT as there really isn’t anything special about it but I will give you the recipe to my bloody mary sauce because it is worth trying.

Ingredients:

6 medium size mushrooms

4 slices of sourdough

2 eggs

Olive oil

Bloody Mary sauce:

1 tsp horseradish

¼ tsp of ground chilli

2 tablespoons of worcestershire sauce

1 clove of garlic

5 ripe tomatoes

Salt and pepper to taste

You need to make the sauce first for this one as it will take the longest and is easily reheated if other ingredients end up being ready first

So here goes, finely dice your garlic, toss it into hot oil with the horseradish and chilli. Swish this all around a bit until garlic is a bit soft but isn’t going brown. Before you burn your garlic add the worcestershire sauce and stir it all up. Add diced tomatoes to the pot, turn down the head and let it all simmer until the tomatoes are all broken up. You can puree this sauce if you want to.

For the rest of the breakfast you need to basically cook some sliced mushrooms toast some sourdough and poach an egg. None of which is terribly challenging although if you don’t know how to poach an egg properly you should really make sure you learn. (Feel free to ask me for tips)

When you have your sourdough toasted put a little of the bloody mary sauce on one slice and pop your perfect egg on top of it then put your cooked mushrooms on the other slice spoon a generous amount of the sauce on top…… ENJOY and have a great Sunday.

Spicy Cointreau and Fruit Pudding

I was just going through some old pictures on my phone and found this photo of a fantastic pudding myself and one of my girlfriends made on an amazing camping/cooking holiday on Lady Musgrave Island. This pudding is a favorite food memory of mine and I hope it seduces your senses as it did mine.

Ingredients:

1 kg sultanas
600g dried apricots
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoonful cumin
2 teaspoonful cinnamon
2 teaspoonful nutmeg
3 teaspoonful bicarb
6 eggs
2 cups flour
250g butter
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup cointreau
100g slivered almonds

This pudding was made in a double boiler and was devoured within minutes. The double boiler used was quite large to accommodate the number of us camping so feel free to reduce the recipe and use a smaller pot. We served this with vanilla custard which I highly recommend. 

Method

Soak dried fruit in a generous amount of cointreau and set aside

Cream butter and brown sugar until pale and thick, whisk your eggs then add them to the butter and sugar, stir them through until you have a silky mix

Mix in the spices, slivered almonds and bicarbonate of soda, tip the soaked fruit into the mix and stir it through.

Sift in the flour and stir it through, making sure it is mixed in well

Pour the batter into a greased double boiler and Cook in on a medium heat for 3 to 4 hours

Spatchcock

I decided to make a romantic dinner for my handsome boyfriend and I generally couple this idea with an excuse to cook something that I would never eat myself I’m not the biggest fan of cuisine of the fleshy kind but I absolutely love to cook it and furthermore would love to advance my butchery skills, you never know one day I may even partake in the end product.

Firstly, there seems to be some confusion about what spatchcock is so allow me to clarify if you will. Spatchcock typically refers to baby chicken. Spatchcock is also a cooking term referring to a chicken or game bird that has been split down the back bone and butterflied for grilling or barbequing. On this occasion I was cooking the little wrinkly baby chicken kind. The sides I served it with are really quite simple so let me first talk about the preparation, I decided to quarter mine.

Firstly un-wrap your delicate little bird and you may, as I did, discover that the neck is still attached, you should really remove this even if it’s just for presentation purposes as it looks rather creepy. The next thing to do is open up the cavity of the bird a little and see if you can get a good kitchen knife inside, you want to be cutting down the middle of the back bone. After the unnerving amount of crunching you will have a butterflied bird. You can use kitchen shears for the rest. The wing and breast will come away from the thigh quite easily if you follow the rib line.

To cook your bird you need to first render out some of the fat from the skin by placing it skin down onto a hot pan

Cook the little birdie until the skin is nice and golden then turn the pieces over and pop them into a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 15 mins but keep an eye out because it really doesn’t take long

I served mine with a sweet potato mash with a hint of freshly grated nutmeg, some quickly wok tossed snow peas with a sprinkle of sesame seeds and a good dollop of my plumb and ginger sauce (if anyone is interested I am happy to post the recipe of the plumb sauce) there was little left on the plate so I reserve the right to conclude it was a success.

The Dreaded Sponge

The dreaded sponge has been something that has plagued me for years. Previously mine have always turned out more like sweet frittatas than lovely light fluffy clouds of cake, this is something I have been meaning to remedy… So I decided IT JUST CAN’T BE THAT HARD! I looked at several recipes and decided I’d put them all aside and make up my own and low and behold, I made sponge.

The day of this attempt was 40˚c and my best girlfriend told me it was just crazy talk attempting sponge on such a desperately hot and sticky day so true to form I took her wise suggestion and used it as all the inspiration that my stubborn being needed to prove everyone wrong! I set about my task with a little newly acquired knowledge, a fair lack in skill and a bucket load of determination, not to mention 4 organic eggs at room temperature (40˚c) needless to say all of which were desperately clinging to their liquid form. 

There is a bit of science in this one so allow me a small amount of time to explain. Self raising flour is just plain flour mixed with some baking powder ( I never buy it as I never get the same result as adding my own baking powder), baking powder is a combination of cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda….. so as it was such a hot day I wanted to use the cream of tartar separately to stabilise the egg whites and allow them to go nice and stiff, therefore I have added some bicarb and some baking powder to the dry ingredients to even out the mix so in fact the recipe actually ends up with a total of about two heaped tsp of baking powder overall.

Now for those of you who haven’t already nodded off below is my recipe, give it a go I hope it gives all of those who have always struggled with this precious little cake a new found love of baking it.

                                                                           

Ingredients:

4 eggs separated

½ cup caster sugar

½ cup plain flour

½ cup corn flour

1 heaped tsp cream of tartar

1 level tsp bicarb soda

1 level tsp baking flour

50g butter

1 dessert spoon of vanilla extract (as opposed to vanilla essence)

Picture by Jamieanne

Method:

First you need to grease and line two spring form tins and set your oven to 180˚c – if you are making lamingtons just grease and line one small to medium lamington tray and vary the baking time slightly.

Cream the egg yolks with half of the caster sugar until they are thick and creamy, turning almost white in colour.

Melt your butter, mix it with vanilla extract and set it aside

Beat your egg whites with the cream of tartar until tripled in size then gradually add the sugar while beating until mix forms stiff peaks

Gently fold the yolk mixture into the whites

Sift the remaining dry ingredients into the egg mix and softly fold it through until there are no lumps and bumps but do not overwork it!

Now pour your melted butter and vanilla in and repeat the gentle action of folding. The batter will now start to become really silky and shiny

Pour half the mix into each tin and bake for about 15mins making sure a skewer comes out clean. Or pour the whole mix into a lamington tin and bake for 15-20mins

These cakes should be taken out of their tins quite quickly and allowed to cool to prevent continuing cooking from the hot tins.

To serve either fill the middle with cream and berries or do what I did and dip them in a chocolate icing mix and dust them in coconut to make the good old fashioned lamington, either would be the perfect afternoon tea for a hot summer’s day.