Anyone For Bröd?

I went to IKEA last week. This was a momentous occasion for me, because despite 4.5 years living here in Perth, and driving it past it frequently, this was my Very First Visit at the only WA IKEA store. I have been to IKEA in Victoria and South Australia, but many years ago.

Although I didn’t actually buy any furnishings, we did take a lot of photos with our phones, of things we want to go back and get when we move in to the new apartment shortly. It was exciting! Also very, very crowded – 5 minutes before opening time when we arrived, there were about 200 people waiting outside for the doors to open. Lots of people with kids too. Ugh. Once the place opened, however the crowds thinned out pretty quickly (yay for childminding and a ball pit!), and moving through the store was actually fairly painless.

I bought a silicone pot stand thing, a jar of herring roe (mmmmmmm) and at the last minute picked up a carton of Brödmix Flerkorn to try. I am a sucker for all things bread-related, especially dense, dark, chewy, thick, grainy chunks of bread, that have soooo much more flavour than dreary white bread.

I can’t believe how simple this bread was to make! It’s like pancake mix – just add water, shake it all up, pour, let it rise and then pop it into the oven. I really expected it to be a bit of a flop, although online searching turned up a LOT of big fans of this bread mix, all over the world.

The loaf came out quite heavy, and the edges were very crunchy – I thought it might taste very dry – possibly I left it in the oven for 5 minutes too long I think – a lesson for next time but of course it depends on the oven, and shortly I will be trying to get used to my lovely new one 🙂 Inside, however it was perfect – nutty, moist and VERY moreish!  It was perfectly suited as an accompaniment to risotto, made with the Huon hot smoked salmon that I won on Valentine’s Day 🙂

I have to go back to IKEA soon (yes, I HAVE to, right???) to buy a couple of the things that we earmarked the other day……I shall definitely be going back to the Swedish food market section, for more delicious Brödmix.

Happy Fooding!

Charming Chicken Pie

Using dishes available

When I first moved out of home, I had quite a glory box stashed away – linen, lots of pottery, fine bone china, kitchen odds and ends etc. I also had a few cookbooks – not many, as I had not done much cooking apart from at school, and didn’t know how much I would come to enjoy playing around with food later on. This was pre-Internet too (wow, I cannot imagine going back to that!).

One of the cookbooks I had was a small, slim hardback, a pocket sized book almost, containing chicken recipes. It was part of a set, and I think I had 3 or 4 different ones. I can’t remember much about the books, but I do know that my chicken pie recipe came from this time, and was one of the first successful recipes I actually cooked in my new “adult” life. For many years it was a staple in my house, and I later adapted it to make a vegetarian version by just leaving out the chicken and putting in chunks of carrot, potato, pumpkin or whatever else I had lying around.

This week I decided to make a chicken pie for the first time in about 4 or 5 years. The only trouble was, as I am in between houses (move part 1 down, move part 2 coming up in about 10 days’ time!) and most of my kitchen stuff is in boxes, I have limited baking dishes at hand – and my favourite pie dish is not at hand! I am trying to use up what is in the fridge/freezer this week, and I had two sheets of shortcrust pastry to use, but they don’t quite stretch to fit the larger-than-pie-dish I had available. I ended up just improvising and making the shape of the pie slightly freeform (that’s all the rage now anyway, right?) within the dish. I was a bit worried the filling might ooze out during cooking, but in fact it worked out really well and was totally delicious.

Freeform is trendy…

Conveniently using a store-bought cooked chook, this pie is great cold the next day, and also reheats well.

I did blind-bake the underneath pastry sheet this time, but if short of time I don’t always bother – it depends how you like your pastry, and I don’t mind mine a bit soft and raw underneath (and yeah, I did used to nick bits of pastry and raw sausage meat when Mum was making sausage rolls, as a kid).

I also had to place a square of foil over the centre after the first 10 mins or so, or else the pastry would have burnt.

Served with eggplant skewers

Chicken Pie

1 barbequed chicken

2 sheets frozen puff or shortcrust pastry, thawed

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp plain flour

2 button mushrooms, finely chopped

½ green capsicum, finely chopped

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

⅔ cup milk

1 ¼ cups chicken stock

cracked pepper, to taste

beaten egg, to glaze

Line a greased pie dish with 1 sheet of pastry. Optional – bake-blind for a few minutes until puffed up slightly.

Pull the meat from the cooked chicken, discarding skin/bones. Depending on the size of the chicken you will probably need about ⅔ of it, so put the rest aside to use in something else.

Chop the chicken meat and place in a dish with the mushroom, capsicum, celery and parsley. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat; add flour, stir well to break up any lumps and cook until bubbling. Add the milk first and then the chicken stock, gradually, stirring constantly to form a smooth sauce. When all liquid is incorporated, fold the chicken mixture through the sauce and gently combine over low heat for a minute or so.

Pour chicken mixture into pie dish. Top with the second sheet of pastry, press down to seal edges, and glaze with beaten egg.

Bake in 200C oven for approx 30 minutes, or until pastry is puffed up and golden brown. If the pastry puffs up too quickly and starts to burn, cover with a square of foil over the centre.

For vegetarian version – leave out the chicken and instead, add chunks of vegies of your choice – if using hard vegies like potatoes, partially steam for a couple of minutes in the microwave first before adding them to the sauce. Use vegetable stock instead of chicken.

Serves 4-6 depending on appetites and what you have with it.

Happy Fooding!

 

Crazy For Cauliflower

I do like cauliflower. A lot. It doesn’t have to have cheese/white sauce on it or be anything too fancy, and I adore it as cauliflower rice. So the idea of roasting a cauliflower whole, slathered in a yoghurt/spice mixture, was something I could not resist trying when a friend shared the post on facebook recently. You can find the recipe here at PureWow blog.

This was very easy and smelt fantastic when cooking. I’m using an unfamiliar oven at the moment, whilst in my temporary home for a few weeks, and I wasn’t sure how it would go – it did start to burn on the top so I covered it with foil for the last 10 minutes.

The result was pretty good (apart from a pan with the bejeezus burnt out of it because I didn’t think to put baking paper underneath, and the yoghurt mixture kind of dripped down the sides like icing on a cake!), but I do think it needed something more. Maybe a type of gravy or some extra yoghurt, or a drizzle of lemon juice/EVOO would have given it a finishing touch. It was cooked beautifully without being soggy, which surprised me after such a long cooking time.

This would be well worth trying with broccoli too, I think! We had it with very easy Honey Baked Chicken, for a simple Sunday night lazy meal, as we’d already been out for lunch with friends at Edgecombe Bros winery in the Swan Valley. We had shared platters of delicious local nibbles, and tasted wines – a very relaxing way to spend a Summer Sunday afternoon!

Happy Fooding!

Spicy Chicken

I had this delicious chicken dish at my aunty’s house whilst in Melbourne over Christmas, and immediately had to try it myself when I got home. It did not disappoint, and was fabulous served with a light and refreshing Cucumber & Dill Salad and some steamed broccolini.

This salad was amazing! I did it exactly as the recipe stated, and bought a piece of Danish feta to sprinkle over the top as I thought this would be a great addition to the flavours of cucumber, dill and zucchini – however, I completely forgot until we’d finished eating, that the feta was still sitting in the fridge waiting to be used! Oh well, I’ll try that idea next time, as I fully intend to make this salad again.

You can use whatever chicken pieces you like – I love drumsticks, and they’re great for picking at cold the next day. This would be a great picnic dish too.

My quantities are double the original, so increase/decrease accordingly as you see fit!

Aunty Helen’s Spicy Chicken

1 tbsp olive oil

8 chicken drumsticks

Spice Rub:

2 tsp salt

4 tsp sugar

2 tsp ground pepper (I had a jar of ground pepperberries so used that)

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp curry powder

2 tsp dry mustard powder

Sauce:

6 tbsp mango or lemon chutney

2 tbsp light soy sauce

2 tbsp worcestershire sauce

a splash of white wine

Combine spice mixture and coat chicken in it (I placed it all in a plastic bag to shake it around easily). Leave for at least 1 hour (overnight is good) in the fridge.

Heat the olive oil in a pan and brown the chicken on all sides. Place in a casserole or baking dish.

Combine remaining ingredients in a small saucepan, and bring to a simmer over low heat.

Spoon over the chicken pieces.

Cover with foil or lid and bake at 180C for 40 minutes.

Remove foil/lid and cook, uncovered for a further 20 minutes.

Happy Summer Fooding!

Damper / Soda Bread

I felt like soda bread one day this week, and decided to see if the recipe I’ve had for years worked in the bread machine, because things are so easy that way. It did work, really well, and made great open sandwiches with olive/feta dip, jarslberg cheese, roast beef & alfalfa sprouts on top.

For something different I added a small can of corn kernels and some caraway seeds – you can add lots of things to bread recipes to jazz them up a bit – sun-dried tomatoes, chopped olives, walnuts, poppy seeds, herbs etc.

Soda Bread

3 cups plain flour

1 1/2 tsp bi-carbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp caraway seeds (optional)

125 gm can corn kernels, drained (optional)

1 1/2 cups buttermilk or low-fat Greek yoghurt

Regular Method:

Mix dry ingredients, seeds & corn (if using) together with a whisk.  Make well in the centre and add 1 cup of buttermilk/yoghurt.  Mix with a fork then gradually add more of the remaining buttermilk/yoghurt until a soft dough is formed.

Knead dough lightly on floured surface for 1 minute. Form into an oval shape and place in a greased/lined loaf tin or on a greased/lined baking tray.

Bake at 190C (170C fan forced) for 45 minutes.

Bread Machine Method:

Place all ingredients in machine. Cook on Damper setting. After the first five minutes, scrape down the sides of the mixture with a spatula to make sure it all gets mixed in properly.

Yummy Lunch!

As with all quick breads, this is best eaten on the day of baking. Use leftovers for great toast!

Happy Fooding!

4 Ingredient Brownies

Yes, I said 4 ingredients! Actually it was supposed to be 3 ingredients but that just didn’t work for me.

The original idea for this recipe came from another of those facebook-posted easy food ideas. The recipe said you could do this either as a slab or as individual muffins, so I decided to go for muffins.

It looked so great in theory, but my first attempt was a disaster. Even reducing my oven by 20 degrees, knowing how hot it is, I burnt the crap out the muffins! And not just a little burnt on the bottom, but super duper burnt all through the middle, burnt! Plus, the mixture only made 8, which isn’t really enough to take to work for morning tea.

I’m much happier with my second go. I changed the quantities, changed the type of flour from plain to self-raising, added a little milk to make the mixture a little runnier, and made it as a slab to cut up as a brownie slice.

Nutella is the pits to handle, I have to say – very thick and stiff, and a complete bugger to wash off the dishes – sticks like crazy and just doesn’t want to come off. So instead of mixing in a bowl by hand, which is a little too much arm power for my weak wrists to handle, I threw it all into the food processor. Well worth it, apart from the washing up.

This is not low-fat, not dairy-free, not nut-free and not gluten-free.  It does, however have great flavour – not too sweet – and a good texture. It was easy to cut up, too.

Nutella Brownies

400 gm jar Nutella

1 cup SR flour

2 tbsp milk

2 eggs

Mix all ingredients together in food processor. Pour in greased/lined slice tin (approx 20 x 10 cm) and bake at 180C (or 160C if your oven is as hot as mine) for 25-30 minutes until cooked and wrinkling on top.

Cool and cut into pieces to serve.

Makes 24 pieces.

Happy Fooding!

Parmesan + Mayo + Chicken = Ranting Chicken

I am fond of the Ranting Chef blog, and whilst I don’t make many of the recipes, which tend to be very meat-oriented, I do try the occasional one. This easy chicken dish appealed when it arrived in my inbox this week, as I was about to leave for work and realised I had all of the ingredients on hand. All I had to do was thaw the chicken breast fillet in my freezer, which turned out to be 2 fillets in fact – no problem, that meant food for the next day as well.

Mine didn’t turn out as great to look at as the Ranting Chef’s, which looks much more “fried” than mine did – but it still tasted okay and very tender. I think it could have done with more parmesan though, as I couldn’t really taste that very much. The chicken itself didn’t dry out, as sometimes happens with breast fillets, and it was easy enough to throw together after work without being time-consuming.

I received a gorgeous bottle of Petra cherry balsamic vinegar from Margaret River, for my recent birthday, from the gorgeous Lucy at work. I drizzled some of it over some fresh asparagus (so cheap and in season right now!) and snow peas, along with a splash of olive oil, and grilled that to go with the chicken. Delicious side dish.

Happy Fooding!

Failures…..

Crappy Cake!

It hasn’t been a great week for me as far as successful new recipes goes……I made an apple & pecan cake in the bread machine, which as you can see just did not want to come out of the machine! This is the first time I’ve ever had something stick like this – it was not saveable at all and went in the bin. I could have broken it up and used it in something I suppose, but I’m not a sweet eater and was not going to have the opportunity any time soon so it would have gone stale and horrible.

Then I made these Parmesan Zucchini Strips. They worked well theoretically, but just didn’t taste overly fabulous – the coating was yummy, but the zucchini inside really was just mush and pretty tasteless.

They do look good though, right? I ate some cold the next day and they were just soggy “things”. I think the concept would work much better with something a bit firmer, like sweet potato or carrot. I’ll try the idea again, but not with zucchini.

I have also failed with some easy choc hazelnut muffins recently……but I’m determined to get those right, so I will show you the failure photos when I can also show you the good ones!

Happy Non-Failed Fooding!

Cauli Continues…

Cauliflower is so cheap here right now! It has a very short “cheap” season here in WA, and for most of the year is expensive, so I’ve made the most of the current availability.

I had a recipe from somewhere online, can’t remember where, for really easy cauliflower fritter things, and intended to make those tonight for dinner. I haven’t been cooking much lately, just working and coming home tired and really just haven’t been bothered, a lot of the time – but this morning I was super organised and had the cauliflower all cut up ready to go, before I left home.

So…..I arrived home, cooked the cauli ’til tender, and added the other ingredients. The instructions then said to form the mixture into patties and sauté….WELL, this mixture was boiling hot, and too “wet” to form into anything resembling a firm patty. So I had to rethink…..I also didn’t feel like standing over a stove doing fritters in batches, which takes a while let’s face it.

So…..instead, I placed the mixture in a baking dish and topped with a few slices of tomato and some parmesan cheese, and baked for 20 minutes. It was absolutely delicious – actually quite spicy from the cayenne pepper, which had much more of a peppery kick than I expected it to.

I guess this is more of a side dish, the way I ended up making it – but I just piled a heap in a bowl and ate it with a spoon for my dinner lol. Good stuff.

Cauliflower Gratin

1 head cauliflower, cut into large florets

2 eggs

1/3 cup tasty/cheddar cheese, grated

1/3 cup breadcrumbs

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

60 gms parmesan cheese, grated

1 tomato, sliced

Cook the cauliflower in boiling water until tender – about 10 mins. Drain, mash and add the eggs, cheese, breadcrumbs and cayenne pepper.

Place mixture in a lightly greased baking dish (I used a square ceramic dish 20 cm x 20 cm approx).

Top with tomato slices and parmesan cheese.

Bake at 180C for 25 minutes until top is golden and bubbling.

Serves 6 as a side dish.

Happy Winter Fooding!

 

Vegetarian Variation

As you know, I wasn’t super happy with the fish taste in a dish I made last week – too bland – so I decided to try it again with something else. Instead of fish, I bought a packet of 5 Pepper & Herb Quorn sausages, and cut them into chunks. I often eat vegetarian sausages, because I do not like the oily taste and high fat content of meat ones, and I’m being vegetarian this week anyway. I usually eat the Sanitarium vegie snags (I don’t even need to cook those, I can just eat them cold straight out of the packet!) or the Woolworths Macro ones, but I saw the Quorn ones on special so went for that….and omg they were awesome! I’ve eaten other Quorn products but never the sausages before – I’m a definite convert now. They actually tasted chicken-y and had a proper meaty texture, which some of the others around, don’t.

I made the mash for the topping, with mostly celeriac and a bit of potato, instead of just potato. I love celeriac and it isn’t something I see often here, so I grab one when I can – and I love it mashed.

The result was fabulous. I am really impressed with these sausages, and the whole thing had a much better flavour than the fish version last week. I’ve got leftovers in the freezer now, so it will be interesting to see how it reheats later on.

Happy Fooding!