Relishing Royalty

Finally Summer has hit with a vengeance, and I’m loving it. My social life is crazy right now, as everyone is just happier in the warmer weather and there are so many outdoor things to enjoy in Perth when the sun is shining :), not to mention the silly season is upon us – Christmas parties, lunches, concerts, street festivals – so much is going on right now and I’m really having a ball.

I was recently reading historian Kate Williams‘ book Young Elizabeth : The Making of Our Queen, which mentioned the dish created by royal chefs to be served at the Queen’s coronation lunch in 1953. Aptly titled Coronation Chicken, this dish has become an iconic British chicken salad dish, with many variations.

Basically this is poached chicken, dressed with a mixture of mayonnaise, curry powder and fruit chutney.

You can see both the original recipe and a healthier, modern take by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, here. I made mine above by taking elements from both – I used low-fat mayonnaise and Greek yoghurt for the dressing base, and fruit chutney rather than apricots, but I did poach 2 chicken breasts rather than use leftover cooked chicken. I also topped with shaved parmesan to cut through the sweetness, but actually it was still too sweet for me – too kind of “fruity” in an overpowering kind of way.

I like the concept, and it was easy to make, but I will try it again with just yoghurt and no mayo next time, and chopped dried fruit instead of the very strong fruit chutney.

Happy Summer 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!

 

Barley Risotto

I’ve been quiet….I’ve been away in Brisbane at the Koala Convention embroidery conference…..I’ve been busy working a lot……and life just takes over sometimes.

I also haven’t been cooking much, or at least not cooking things I haven’t already shared with you. I did make this yummy barley risotto in my crockpot last week – the recipe is from a magazine and was not stipulated for slow cooking, but I wanted to throw it in before I went to work and see how it turned out. It was pretty good actually, and certainly very easy. The only downside was, the leftovers weren’t that satisfactory – I had a serving cold for lunch, and a serving heated up for dinner, and in both cases it was kind of gelatinous. I have no idea what’s in barley that makes this happen but anyway it wasn’t the best from a texture/presentation point of view. Tasted okay though and certainly the original cooking was great.

Barley Risotto

1 leek, thinly sliced

1 cup pearl barley

4 cups chicken stock (I use Massell brand which is vegetarian, gluten-free etc)

2 small or 1 large zucchini, chopped

1 bunch asparagus, chopped

100 gms green beans, cut into 3cm pieces

cracked pepper, to taste

grated parmesan cheese, to serve

Add all ingredients to crockpot except parmesan.

Cook on LOW for 8 hours. Serve in individual bowls topped with parmesan to taste.

Happy Fooding!

Food Failures

Boring!

I have had a couple of no-good cooking attempts recently. One was a recipe I pulled out of a magazine, for gnocchi that is cooked and then sautéed with butter beans, lemon zest, lemon juice and peas, then topped with parmesan. I added fresh basil, baby spinach and pine nuts for good measure – all in all a great combination of flavours that should have worked, but sadly did not. The resulting bowl of pasta was a stodgy carb overdose that looked like mashed potato gone wrong, and just left me feeling blurgh (family word). I had to have a glass of wine to help me get through the experience!

My other not-so-great meal was this “melt in your mouth chicken breasts” dish that I mentioned in the steamed carrots post the other day. Upon reading the chicken recipe, you would think surely this can’t go wrong. Well, it didn’t so much go wrong as just not look or taste like anything out of the ordinary. The photo in the original looks like a great crunchy topping – mine did not turn out like that! Nor did it melt in the mouth. The mayo topping just slid off and disappeared into a vague bit of liquid in the baking dish. It was just total “plain Jane” in flavour, and is another recipe to be filed under R for rubbish bin!

Oh well, you can’t win ’em all, and overall I don’t have TOO many failures so can’t really complain. I hate wasting food, so I always eat the bad stuff anyway, reminding myself that it’s healthy….

Happy 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!

Roasted Cauliflower

I subscribe to Rantings of an Amateur Chef, a blog I find inspirational from a blog point of view because the author posts pretty much daily (where does he get the time?!!). Plus the articles/recipes are always interesting to read, with loads of photos.

This cauliflower recipe from Simply Recipes, re-posted on Ranting Chef, was very timely for me as I had just bought a HUGE head of cauliflower and was looking for a way to cook it other than just steamed/boiled with cheese sauce.

This was uber easy and tasted great. I upped the garlic (of course) and lemon, omitted the salt, didn’t use a whole head of cauli, and I cut it into larger chunks rather than the small florets in Ranting Chef’s post. I served it with baked chicken drumsticks that I marinated for a few hours in HP sauce, honey, soy sauce and cracked pepper.

Nice and quick and pain-free for a Winter’s evening when you don’t want anything too complicated. And I did extra drumsticks, as I love them cold for lunch.

Roasted Cauliflower

3 cups cauliflower, cut into large chunks

4 cloves garlic, crushed

juice of 1 lemon

olive oil

cracked pepper, to taste

1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 180C.

Toss the cauliflower, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and pepper in a bowl; toss to coat thoroughly.

Place mixture on a baking-paper-lined oven tray. Bake for 25-30 minutes, turning over halfway through cooking.

Remove from oven, place in a heated serving dish and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Carefully toss with a spoon to coat all of the cauliflower with the cheese as it melts.

Serves 4.

Happy Fooding!

Beautiful Brunch….

How’s this for an awesome weekend late breakfast…..this was made for me the other day – it’s a circle of pastry (about 15cm diameter), with a score made in a circle, a couple of cm in from the edge. The outer part puffs up to make a “wall” to hold in the central filling.

In the centre is crumbled feta cheese, bacon and red onion that has been lightly sautéed first, an egg broken over the top and finally some parmesan cheese sprinkled over it. Then it was baked in the oven for about 8 minutes depending on how well cooked you like your egg. And of course you can put whatever you like, in the filling – mushrooms, smoked salmon, spinach, herbs, tomato…..whatever takes your fancy.

This tasted so perfect, it just melted in my mouth, and was also extremely filling – no lunch needed for me that day!

Happy Fooding!