Peppermint Slice

Well it’s back to reality and work, here – am back in Perth (40C every day, loving it!) and Christmas is all over for another year. I got some great food-related presents for Christmas – you can never have too many gadgets!

5 of us girls went to see Les Miserables on Boxing Day. Not a dry eye in the house! Amazing movie and a great way to finish off the festive season. I have a friend coming over from the UK in a couple of weeks, and it hasn’t opened there yet, so I’ll be forced to go again to accompany her to see it….not hard!

I have had another go at the Caramello Slice, because I wasn’t happy with the stickiness. After reading reviews and different variations, I did it like this:

Peppermint Slice

200 gms condensed milk (skim)

220 gm block Cadbury Dairy Milk Peppermint Chocolate

1 tbsp butter

250 gm pkt Granita biscuits

desiccated coconut

In a microwaveable bowl, place the condensed milk, chocolate (broken up) and butter. Cook on Medium until melted (for me this was 2 x 20 second bursts), stir until smooth then add the biscuits, crushed quite finely.

Mix until well blended then place in your usual slice container/tin. Sprinkle coconut over the top and refrigerate for several hours/overnight to set firmly. Cut into squares.

Makes 24 pieces.

I am still using a very old laptop while my Macbook Pro is at the doctor’s, and it is quite frustrating – I cannot find the photos of this peppermint slice anywhere!

Happy Fooding!

Christmas Truffles

What a busy time! I can’t wait for tomorrow, when I break up from work at lunchtime (and we have an afternoon Christmas bbq at the beautiful Kings Park) for a two week break. I’m off to Melbourne next week for Christmas with my family – haven’t seen my kids since March so am really looking forward to it.

As promised the other day, here is the recipe for the chocolate balls I made to take to my work Christmas bbq.

These are rich, chocolately, boozey and gooey. Just the things we all love at this time of year!

Fruity Christmas Truffles

500 gms bought Christmas cake (the “dark” variety seems to give a richer flavour)

200 gms good quality dark chocolate (I liked to use Lindt 70% cocoa)

60 gms butter

2 tbsp cream

2 tbsp brandy or sherry

dessicated coconut, cocoa or chopped nuts, to coat

Crumble the Christmas cake into a bowl. Combine the chocolate, butter and cream in a separate bowl and microwave until chocolate is melted and smooth. Pour melted mixture over the cake and add the brandy.

Stir until well combined and refrigerate for about 20 minutes, until firm enough to handle.

Roll into small balls and then roll in desired topping (above as you can see I have done half with coconut and half with cocoa).

Refrigerate until firm.

Makes 40-45 (depends how big you like your balls lol!).

If you buy a Christmas cake that is a bit bigger, cos’ they vary, use it all and just slosh in a bit more cream, butter and brandy (hic!) – it will still work just fine with a bit of “fudging”.

Happy Christmas fooding!

Asparagus Risotto

Risottos are usually made with LOTS of butter, which doesn’t suit my low-fat lifestyle, so this is my reduced-fat version of a basic risotto. The only tricky thing here is to stir continually, whilst gradually adding the liquid – otherwise you get brown crusty bits in your risotto and your poor saucepan ends up with a burnt bum!

I usually use lemon juice, but this time added preserved lemon instead, from my recently made jar – wow, such a difference. Definitely worth it.

Risotto should be soup-y, so keep adding extra liquids if you need to. It is quite a bit more gluggy and stodgy the next day, so serve immediately if you are having guests, but leftovers (I like it cold, which by now should not surprise you…) are great in a bowl the next day if you don’t mind it being a bit more solid.

Asparagus Risotto

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

1 bunch asparagus, cut into 2.5cm pieces

1 brown onion, finely chopped

1 1/2 cups arborio rice

2 tbsp basil pesto

3 cups chicken stock

1/2 cup white wine

1 tbsp lemon juice OR 1 wedge preserved lemon, finely chopped

1/2 cup parmesan cheese, freshly grated

cracked pepper, to taste

Heat oil and butter in a heavy based pan; saute onion and asparagus until onion is transparent. Add rice and pesto, and cook for 1 minute, stirring to coat well.

Mix wine and stock together in a jug, and slowly add to the rice, stirring constantly. Add bit by bit as the rice absorbs the liquid (if necessary, add extra chicken stock until the rice is cooked).

Add lemon, cheese and pepper, mix through and serve.

Serves 3-4.

Happy Fooding!

Tangy Lemon Chicken

Ready to turn on

Recipes with unusual ingredients often catch my eye, so this VERY easy crockpot chicken dish from A Year of Slow Cooking was something I really had to try – it is very economical, so I figured if it was a disaster I hadn’t wasted too much money on special purchases.

The blog this recipe is from, is apparently so well known in the US now that the blogger, Stephanie O’Dea has released several books of her crockpot recipes – good on her! I’m sure we would all like to become famous, a la Julie & Julia, but as my most recent “income” from my blog was 16 cents, it isn’t going to happen for me just yet lol.

The surprise ingredient of lemon flavoured jelly crystals (jello in USA) was what caught my eye – I thought hmmmm this could be supremely good or supremely bloody awful!

In fact, the end result was something in between:

Good – super easy, very economical (I used 10 drumsticks, cooked from frozen as per the instructions), and meat very tender.

Not so good – quite fatty tasting, no “lemon” flavour, and the meat fell off the bones to the extreme, so was difficult to serve out of the crockpot without it falling to bits before it got to the plate.

8 hours later….

Overall, I’m not sure of the point of using the jelly crystals, as they didn’t bring anything to the dish, and in my low-fat opinion the 3 tbsp of butter on top of the fat that comes out of a drumstick anyway, made the dish too oily. I like the concept, but it didn’t quite work for me. 10 out of 10 for simple though!

Happy Fooding!

What To Do With A Ginormous Cabbage….

My lovely neighbour gave me a HUGE half cabbage the other week, after a visit to a local vegie market (along with some very juicy fresh lemons, carrots and roma tomatoes – lucky me). It sat in the fridge for a week and then started to go brown along the cut edge, so I knew I needed to do something with it without further delay.

After doing a bit of searching for something different, I ended up making this Scalloped Cabbage recipe from author Cherie Stihler‘s cabbage recipe pages.

I followed the recipe exactly, estimating the cabbage quantity as 1/3 of a large one (which could be more than a 10-ounce package I suspect but it worked out fine), and I used a large oval ovenproof dish with lid. It turned out very well and tasted great, quite oniony and creamy – although as you can tell from the pics, the dish REALLY got disgustingly dirty – thank goodness Robert Gordon pottery is so easy to scrub and always comes perfectly clean. I love that stuff so much.

This dish made enough for about 6 I reckon – so lots of leftovers for me, plus I still only used half of the half a cabbage – it really was that big! I made a bowl of coleslaw today for my lunch, and still have a bit of cabbage left!

Happy Fooding!

Crockpot Spoon Bread (aka Corn Pudding)

Spoon bread is a misnomer for this dish really…..it’s actually a side dish, a kind of savoury corn pudding, and not a bread itself. Very tasty though and worth playing around with, as you can add whatever you like to the basic polenta/flour/milk/egg/butter mixture.

Southwest Spoon Bread

olive oil spray

4 large eggs

1 1/3 cups milk

420 gm can creamed corn

60 gms butter, melted

1/3 cup plain flour

1/3 cup polenta

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

cracked pepper, to taste

310 gm can corn kernels, drained

1 cup tasty cheese, grated

1 large green chilli, finely chopped

1/3 cup ham, finely chopped (optional)

Spray inside of crockpot with olive oil spray. In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, milk, creamed corn, melted butter, flour, polenta, baking powder, salt and pepper.

Stir in the corn kernels, cheese, chillies, and ham if using.

Pour mixture into crockpot, and cook in HIGH for 4 hours.

Serve warm as a side dish.

There are many versions of this around, mostly from US sites/cookbooks. This is the crockpot version I made, and I was very happy with it as a vegetable dish – makes a lot, happily cooks in the background while you are doing other things etc. The downside was that the crockpot bowl was a nightmare to clean afterwards!

Happy Fooding!

Sometimes things don’t live up to their memory….

I had a pang the other day, to make a traditional basic tea cake.  It was one of the first things I remember making in my year 8 home economics class, and I seem to recall that I was pretty good at making it!  I looked up my old school cookbook and made the “spiced apple” version of the “foundation tea cake” recipe.

As you can see from the photo, it looks kinda okay, but I was too impatient when turning it out of the tin and it cracked like an earthquake had hit it! I pushed it back together lol, but you can see where it is cracked.

The proof, as they say, is in the eating – well this did disappoint. The apple/sugar/cinnamon topping was lovely and sweet, but the cake itself was way too “plain” tasting to be considered a success.  I’m sure it tasted sweeter back in the day, or maybe my memory has dimmed with the years (quite likely!).

I froze most of it, in broken up pieces, but as I’m going away in a few days and am going to give the freezer a good defrost before I leave, I will probably end up throwing the cake out. I’ll have to have another go at this recipe and deviate from it, when I can be bothered. I’m over it for the moment so it won’t be for a while.

And I’m off to the UK today, for a  holiday. I am super excited, but will try not to get too distracted by castles and pubs to remember my blog entries.  You can guarantee there will be some English food experience content in the next few weeks!

Happy Fooding!

No-Bake Slice Using Mint Aero!

How about this for a delicious, no-bake slice! This literally took 10 minutes to make…..the only way I deviated from the recipe was that I added 2 tablespoons of condensed milk instead of 1, as it seemed a bit dry when I mixed it together.

Makes 24 pieces (I made it in a Tupperware Slice N Stor container).

Happy Fooding!

Teriyaki Potatoes

One of my favourite “quick what vegies can I do that everyone always likes, when I can’t be bothered going to much trouble” dishes…..

Teriyaki Potatoes

about 8 small/baby potatoes, cut in half

1 tbsp butter

2 tbsp teriyaki or light soy sauce

1 clove garlic, crushed

1/2 tsp dried basil leaves

1/2 tsp dried oregano leaves

1/4 cup fresh rosemary, chopped (OR 1 tsp dried rosemary leaves)

1/2 tsp chilli flakes or chilli powder

cracked pepper, to taste

Place all ingredients in microwaveable dish and toss to combine. Cover and cook on HIGH for 12 minutes, stirring twice during cooking.

Serves 2-4 depending on your appetite and what else you are having with it.

Happy Fooding!

Easy No-Bake Choc-Mint Fudge

Yum, this is so good and so simple!  When Miss Spanah and Master Dorbit were little they always requested this to take to kinder/school when it was their birthdays, to share with the class instead of cupcakes. As it is quite rich, you can cut it into very small squares, so enough pieces to go around a roomful of kids.

You can use orange essence instead of peppermint, for a jaffa flavoured version, and I have actually made it with strawberry essence as well.

Choc-Mint Fudge

500 gms milk cooking chocolate, broken into pieces

400 gm can condensed milk (I use skim)

60 gms butter, chopped

1 tsp peppermint essence

Place chocolate, condensed milk and butter in a microwave-proof bowl.  Cook on MEDIUM for 2-3 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds, until the chocolate and butter is melted.  Add the peppermint essence and stir rapidly until the mixture is smooth and glossy. Pour into a rectangular container (I use the Tupperware Slice N Stor) or a 19x29cm lamington tray (if using a tray, line with baking paper).

Refrigerate until set (overnight is good). Cut into small squares (size is up to you) and pig out!

Happy Fooding!