Christmas Time Again….

Christmas Cake

I’m not hosting Christmas this year, in fact I have a very relaxed and slack time planned, which is good as my social life is currently over the top and full on! It is nice to leave the planning and organising and most of the cooking, to others for once, although I will be contributing by probably making a dip or some other nibbles. The weather is stinking hot where I live, but right now freezing and horrible where I’ll be on Christmas Day – I hope that changes as we always like to have our Christmas dinners outside.

The only specific Christmas baking I’ve done this year is my dairy-free, low-fat (no fat in fact!) Christmas cake – sooooooo simple. Only 3 ingredients, although I did then liberally pour brandy over the top to soak in afterwards, but you don’t have to do that!

Here is the cake recipe, and below are a few other Christmas recipes in case you’re in need of some last minute inspiration:

Christmas Pudding (microwave)

Christmas Truffles

Christmas Turkey (crockpot)

Stuffing

Gingerbread

My little tree!

Happy Christmas Fooding!

 

Steamy Citrus Goodness

I made up this carrot recipe to go with a chicken dish I tried last week that wasn’t so fabulous…..I did this in one of those steam bags you buy for the microwave. It is amazing how much juice comes out as the vegies steam in their own juices – no water or other liquid required. I just added the lemon juice for flavouring.

Steamed Citrus Carrots

4 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

1 tbsp fresh rosemary, snipped

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 tsp grated lemon zest

1 tbsp apricot jam

cracked pepper, to taste

Place all ingredients in steam bag. Seal bag and toss until carrots are coated with the other ingredients. Lay flat in the microwave and cook on HIGH for 5 minutes. Remove carefully from the microwave (these little buggers are burning hot and will give you a massive steam burn if you aren’t careful when opening!), give the bag a gentle toss and let stand for a further 2 minutes.

Serves 2-3 as a side dish

Happy and Steamy Fooding!

Cheese & Herb Tomatoes

I’ve raved about the Australian Women’s Weekly cookbook series before, and this tasty tomato side dish is from the AWW Microwave Cookbook 2. Both of the microwave books are out of print, but I just picked up a secondhand copy from the local Salvos for my daughter – op shops and market stalls always have a few AWW cookbooks going for a song, so they’re very easy to find.

I fought having a microwave at all, for years, because I thought I would only use it for heating things up and defrosting. When I finally bought one, about 20 years ago, I was determined to learn how to use it properly and actually COOK in it, to make it worth the cost investment (they were a lot more expensive then, and my budget was tight!).

Both of the AWW microwave cookbooks were invaluable in helping me get the hang of this newfangled, quick-cooking technology, and I still use recipes from both books on a regular basis. I’ve shared a couple with you – Satay Chicken and Scalloped Potato & Bacon – and I’m sure I’ll share more with you in future.

I had children who were fussy eaters (thankfully they grew up and got over it, eventually), and a husband who was even worse! This tomato dish suited everyone’s tastes, although I had to pretend that the cheese on top was tasty cheese, as just mention of “spew cheese” would have made the dish inedible in the kids’ minds!!!

I use fresh basil whenever I have it growing (it loves the hot Summers here in Perth, and there’s a big clump growing at the moment in the communal bit of garden belonging to the flat I live in), but dried is fine too.

Cheese & Herb Tomatoes

500 gms tomatoes

30 gms butter

1/3 cup breadcrumbs

2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

1/2 tsp dried basil leaves

1/2 tsp dried oregano leaves

1/3 cup grated fresh parmesan cheese

Cut tomatoes into 1cm thick slices. Place slices, slightly overlapping, in a large shallow dish (I find a pie plate works well).

Melt butter in a small bowl in microwave; stir in breadcrumbs and herbs, and cook on HIGH for a further 1 minute, stirring occasionally.

Stir in cheese, and sprinkle mixture evenly over tomatoes.

Cook on HIGH for about 4 minutes or until tomatoes are heated through.

Serves 4.

Happy Fooding!

Black Rice

SunRice have recently started selling black rice here, so I had to try some of course. Of course black rice is widely available if you have access to good Aisan markets, but I don’t at the moment.

I cooked it in the microwave (found the instructions here as they weren’t on the packet) and although it takes quite a bit longer to cook than even wholemeal rice (which I usually use as it has so much flavour than white, not to mention being better for you), it was worth the wait. Nutty flavours but not with that bitey “stick” flavour of the wild rice (which is a variety of black rice anyway) you get in a blend sometimes.

Overall I was pretty impressed – it went well with the beef stir-fry I threw together (no recipe, just made it up using whatever I could find) and I will definitely make it again.

Happy Fooding!

Chocolate Cake in a Mug!

Yes, in a coffee mug…..I’ve been wanting to try this super easy cake-for-one microwave recipe for a long time. There are many sources of this recipe (or a variation of it) online, but this is the one I tried.

The advertising says “Why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world? Because it’s always only 5 minutes away!”. This is true – 3 minutes in the the microwave and a bit of time to throw the ingredients in the coffee mug, and you have a chocolate morning tea fix.

Now I’m not saying this is a healthy snack – high in sugar and oil – the cake is originally from a rice bran oil company, and rice bran oil is supposed to be relatively healthy in the same way as olive oil or avocado oil. I don’t usually have rice bran oil lying around, so I used olive instead. I left out the optional chocolate chips, because I figured it was sweet enough (and also because I just didn’t have any choc chips!).

Interesting looking when you turn it out of the mug – kind of splodged with holes – obviously cooking it so fast in the microwave, there isn’t time for the ingredients to slowly settle into place. I did let it sit for a couple of minutes before I turned it out to cool. And I had used a soup type mug, quite large, so mine didn’t go over the top of the mug like the recipe said it would.

I didn’t in fact taste this myself – I made it for someone else to try – I sprinkled it with icing sugar before serving and the taste opinion was…..NOT GOOD lol! Apparently it was: dry in parts, downright hard & lumpy in parts, sweet in parts and bland in parts. Overall it seemed not mixed together properly, and was very dense and heavy tasty. In fact, a disaster!

I think it’s worth having a go again – I might mix it in a bowl first and aerate it a lot with a stick mixer, before pouring into the mug to cook. Also I will turn it straight out of the mug and not let it stand at all, or reduce the cooking time by 30 seconds, because it obviously overcooked.

Happy Fooding!

Not Quite a Sweet Success..

An almost-flop on the weekend….I recently borrowed the new “4 Ingredients: Christmas” cookbook from my library (which is also my casual job workplace – it is huge fun getting to see all the new release books coming across my path – I have enough books reserved to last me ’til the end of my days!). There are loads of simple, festive recipes in this book, a continuation of the 4 Ingredients series of books.

I decided to try the Rocky Road Bon Bons, only cut into squares rather than long rectangles wrapped in cellophane, for a bbq we went to. WELL, it didn’t quite turn out like it was supposed to – I had some milk cooking chocolate leftover from something else, so decided to use that. Not sure if it was a bit “old” or what, but it refused to melt properly in the microwave, and started to do that cooked/curdled thing that chocolate has a tendency to do if you’re not careful. It wouldn’t melt to a smooth liquid, so I threw in the other ingredients and hoped for the best – but it then wouldn’t mix together like it should……in desperation I added a 100g block of Lindt dark chocolate, put aside for my favourite chilli recipe (don’t think I’ve shared that with you yet) and a bit of butter, and threw the whole lot back in the microwave. I cooked it on Medium until the new lot of chocolate had melted; however, this meant of course that the marshmallows and turkish delight had also melted!

So what I ended up with was a sort of fudge/slice “thing”. Same flavours as the original, but the only lumpy bits were the macadamias. Also it was a bit skinny, so I should have used a smaller sized tin than the more lumpy version called for, to make it higher.

Oh well. Very rich tasting and chocolatey, so no problems with the flavours, but next time I will use fresher chocolate……

Here is the original, Christmas recipe anyway…..

Rocky Road Bon Bons

250 gms chocolate (dark, milk or white)

100 gms macadamia nuts, roughly chopped

1 cup marshmallows, cut in half

150 gms Turkish delight, roughly chopped

Break chocolate into pieces and melt in a microwave safe dish on Medium-High heat, stirring every 30 seconds. Allow to cool slightly before adding remaining ingredients. Mix until well combined. Line a 9cm x 13cm loaf tin with baking paper, pour the mixture into it, neaten edges and refrigerate until set.

Remove and cut into 8 rectangular slices. Cut in half again and wrap each in clear cellophane. These make a beautiful handmade Christmas gift tied at each end with a pretty ribbon.

Happy Fooding!

Still Sharing Christmas With You….

Although it is now January and I am fully expecting Easter eggs to arrive in the supermarkets any minute (!), I am still half in Christmas mode (why doesn’t it go for longer than 1 day??!!)……here is the microwave Christmas pudding recipe that I have been making for about 20 years – I was given the recipe by a nurse where I worked, many years ago. Actually I haven’t made one at all for the last few years, so I wondered if I still had the knack, but never fear it did turn out very well!

I make this on Christmas Eve, and then on the day itself just cut slices and reheat them individually.

The Parisian essence is included to make the pudding a lovely rich chocolatey-brown colour, like a baked one – you can get this where the vanilla essence etc is in the cake baking section of the supermarket. Failing that, you could actually leave it out altogether, as it won’t affect the flavour but the pudding will be paler in colour.

Microwave Christmas Pudding

4 slices of plain white bread, crusts removed

4 tbsp brandy, sherry or port

125 gms butter

125 gms brown sugar

pinch of salt

3 eggs, beaten

2 tbsp Parisian essence

375 gms mixed dried fruit

50 gms blanched almonds, chopped

1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground mixed spice

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 cup plain flour

Finely chop or crumb the bread; soak in the brandy (or sherry or port) for a few minutes. Cream the butter with the sugar and salt; add the eggs and Parisian essence. Add the bread mixture, then fold in the dried fruit and almonds alternately with the sifted dry ingredients.

Spoon into a greased, 18cm microwaveable pudding-shaped basin (Starmaid used to have one in their range, and Pyrex make a glass one). Cover with plastic wrap.

Microwave on REHEAT for 7 minutes, then reduce to MEDIUM for a further 8 minutes. Turn out onto foil and completely enclose until cold.

Slice and reheat as needed, and serve with brandy sauce, cream or custard (or all 3!!).

Happy Post-Christmas Fooding!

Green Bean Salad

Well my Christmas cake is a success – we cut a bit off to try and it’s very yummy, so I will share that with you soon. It has been a busy week as I finished my studies for the year, and also attended 14 hours of boat school – both theory and practical – and today passed my skipper’s licence, which is very exciting. Tonight I’m going to a fancy dress party – pirate theme – so have my little pirate wench costume all ready – should be huge fun!

I picked up a Christmas recipe leaflet in the supermarket last week and tried this easy salad. I changed it a bit as I wanted to use ingredients I already had, so if you prefer it more tomato-y and less bean-y, you can find the original recipe here.

Green Bean Salad

200 gms cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

juice and zest of 1 lemon

3 spring onions, chopped

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup additional extra-virgin olive oil

500 gms green beans, trimmed and cut into 3cm pieces

1/2 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped

Microwave the tomatoes in olive oil for 2 minutes on HIGH. Set aside to cool, then mix in a bowl with the lemon juice, zest, spring onions, vinegar and the rest of the olive oil.

Steam the green beans in a little water, in the microwave on HIGH for 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Drain and rinse.

Mix the beans with the tomato mixture and basil. Season with salt & pepper to taste and serve on a large platter.

Yo ho ho and Happy Fooding, me hearties!

Light & Healthy Pasta

This was an interesting meal – I am now doing some casual library work, and after arriving home last Saturday I was pretty exhausted. Did not feel like cooking anything too time consuming, but I was hungry and really wanted something healthy and refreshing. I decided to try this recipe from the current Super Food Ideas magazine – literally just cooked pasta with salmon, herbs and lemon juice folded through.

The original recipe called for rocket, which I find too bitter, so I substituted baby spinach instead, and I also added some green beans, as I had bought some lovely fresh ones that day.

I really loved this dish; however, my boyfriend hated it! He is usually very appreciative of my cooking efforts and has a reputation at work for bringing in delicious leftovers for his lunch. Not this time though – I ate the rest cold as a salad for my next two lunches, which I was quite happy to do as it meant I didn’t have to share it and could be a complete pig lol.

See what you think anyway……

Smoked Salmon Penne

500 gms dried penne pasta

2 tbsp fresh chives, chopped

1/3 cup fresh dill, chopped

finely grated zest of 1 lemon

juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

130 gms smoked salmon, chopped

100 gms baby spinach leaves

180 gms green beans

extra lemons, cut into wedges, for serving

Cut green beans into 5cm lengths and cook for 2 minutes in a little water, on HIGH in the microwave. Drain.

Cook pasta in a large saucepan of boiling, salted water, until tender. Drain and return to pan.

Add all ingredients to the cooked pasta and toss gently to combine until the spinach wilts.

Serve with lemon wedges.

Serves 4

Happy Fooding!

Satay Chicken in the Microwave

Well we didn’t end up going out on the boat this weekend as the sea conditions weren’t that great, so instead we’ve been doing at-home jobs all weekend, and hopefully the boat trip will be next weekend. We did take time out last night to try a new Nepalese restaurant with friends. The food was good, we had a banquet so we could try a few different dishes, but the service was pretty lousy. They seemed to be overwhelmed by how busy they were, and just didn’t have enough experienced staff to cope. I would like to go back there again in a little while when they’ve had more time to settle in, before I write it off completely.

Here is a very simple chicken dish, made in the microwave and easy to whip up at the last minute with ingredients you usually have in the pantry all the time. It is flavoursome but not spicy, so fairly kid-friendly. You could easily throw in some chilli paste for a bit of heat if you liked.

Satay Chicken

8 chicken thigh fillets (skinless)

1 brown onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 cup smooth peanut butter (I use the lower-fat version – still bad but not AS bad!)

1/2 cup chicken stock

1/4 cup honey

2 tsp grainy mustard

2 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp cardamom seeds, slightly crushed in mortar & pestle

few drops Tabasco sauce

cracked pepper, to taste

Combine onion, garlic and olive oil in a dish; microwave on HIGH for 3 minutes, stirring halfway through cooking time. Add peanut butter, stock, honey, mustard, curry powder, cardamom, Tabasco and pepper; mix well until smooth. Add the chicken thigh fillets, cover and cook on HIGH for 5 minutes. Turn chicken pieces over, and cook for 5 more minutes. Serve with rice and some sort of green veg.

Serves 6-8

Happy Fooding!