Not For The Calory Counters Amongst You……

Lots of rich, dark chocolate!

Rich. Decadent. Fattening. Very Fattening. But…..to balance that….CHRISTMAS!

You can be forgiven for many foodie indulgences at this time of year, so I make no apologies for leading you astray with this bewitching balls recipe!

Anything with six, yes SIX, Cherry Ripe bars in it has to be a great thing, right? Damn straight. Chuck them all in the food processor along with cocoa and a packet of Nice biscuits (ouch, more sugar), blend to a pile of powdery goodness then mix through a can of condensed milk. OMG. This is so full of yum-ness that you just have to rush out buy Cherry Ripes right now and make this! I made them for a Christmas party (also made my yummy Teriyaki Chicken Bites, perfect for taking a plate of nibbles to a function at any time of year, and always popular), but really you don’t need an excuse, at this time of year, to spoil yourself with something so sweet and delicious.

The full recipe can be found here……and whilst it can be quite an expensive recipe to make, with all of those chocolate bars, I was lucky enough to get them on special for half price this week, yay.

Apparently Cherry Ripes are now Australia’s oldest chocolate bar, having been around since 1924. I didn’t know that until today, although I knew they were my very favourite 🙂

Happy Christmas Fooding!

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!

 

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!

Zucchini Bread (Cake?)

It’s interesting that carrot cake is always cake, but banana cake and zucchini cake are often called breads. The ingredients for all of these are very similar, but we never say carrot bread (or beetroot bread!) do we! I think they’re all really cake, because bread in my view is generally a savoury thing. But who am I to argue with the masses…….

Anyway I came across this great looking zucchini “bread” recipe a couple of weeks ago via a Food.com e-newsletter, and decided to make it for morning tea at work, last week. As I had successfully made my usual carrot cake in the bread machine the week before, I looked at the zucchini bread ingredients and thought hmmmmm they’re very similar in quantity etc. so I’ll do this one in the bread machine too.

It worked, but it was not as moist as the carrot cake, so I think this one would be better eaten straight after cooking (I made it the night before taking it to work). Also it didn’t rise quite as much and I think would have been better on the medium crust setting, which would have baked it about 8 minutes longer. It was good enough to be a “keeper” though, so I will change the baking time slightly next time.

Below is my bread machine version for 1 cake – if you want to do it the original, oven way, here is the website I got it from – which is in fact quantities for 2 loaves.

The Ultimate Zucchini Bread (CAKE!!)

In order, place the following ingredients in bread machine bowl:

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

1 1/4 cups grated zucchini

1 tbsp orange zest, grated

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1 3/4 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp bi-carb soda

1/2 tsp salt

Bake on bread machine’s Cake setting, with Medium crust and 750gm loaf settings.

If you’re feeling like a more savoury bread, try this lemon & dill bread, also in the bread machine. I made this again recently and we had it at work with apricot & almond cream cheese on top – a great combination with the bread flavours.

Happy Fooding!

Carrot Cake Bread Machine Style

Ready for morning tea at work

My lovely bread machine, best friend for years, also has all those fancy functions like jam and cake. I’ve never tried making jam in it, mainly because I’m just not a sweet eater and wouldn’t really use it – I am a definite Vegemite Kid and the idea of eating sweet stuff for breakfast is, well, just plain full of wrongability, as the smegheads  from the Dwarf would say!

I have, however enjoyed making this carrot cake recipe in my current bread machine (which is my second one as my first, beautiful, trusty Sanyo died 3 years ago after 15 years of faithful service and being used to death, literally).

I do have a great non-bread-machine carrot cake recipe, but really this is so easy to do that I haven’t made the other one for years. It is from the recipe leaflet that came with the machine, and works a treat.

I have a Sunbeam Quantum Smartbake – but I’m sure if you have a different machine the same or similar settings and quantities will work just fine. I transferred all my favourite old recipes from my old machine to the new one without a problem.

Carrot Cake

2 eggs

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

1 1/2 cups grated carrot

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup SR flour

1/2 cup plain flour

1 rounded tsp bi-carb soda

Place ingredients in bread machine in the order listed. Bake on the CAKE setting, with light crust and 750 gm loaf size chosen.

Ice as desired, or if you can’t be bothered making icing, sprinkle with icing sugar through a sieve.

I made this the evening before I wanted it for work, and it was still beautifully moist the next morning – and disappeared very quickly!

Happy Fooding!

Caramel, Macadamia & Coconut Slice

You can see the burntish bits!

I made this very-bad-for-you slice for morning tea at work this week. It’s from the April 2013 issue of Super Food Ideas.

Speaking of magazines, Australian Good Taste, the Woolworths-affiliated food magazine, is ceasing publication shortly – they announced this on Facebook but with no actual reason, so I’m not sure if it’s a financial-based decision or what. It is a great magazine, that I have been buying each month for about 10 years – but I don’t think it’s the “best” – too many of what I call “human interest” stories. I just like my food magazines to have lots of recipes, and I don’t mind advertising at all, as long as the ads also feature a recipe using their product. Gadget reviews are okay by me too, but I can’t stand “meal planners”, letters to the editor, stories about farmers growing their produce, and monthly shopping lists etc. No one ever makes every single meal or recipe in a month, from one magazine – apart from not liking them all (or their kids not eating them all), if they’re that stumped for ideas of what to cook and need it spelled out for every day of the month, they are probably not the type who would buy a food mag in the first place. Just my 2 cents worth anyway…..

So, back to the slice…..once I’ve got it in my head to make a specific recipe NOW, I do not like to be thwarted – but I could not find caramel bits, nor are Scalliwag biscuits anywhere to be seen around here. For those of you not in the know, Scalliwags are the politically correct version of what we all grew up with as Golliwog biscuits! Despite the name change, they are not easy to find, not here in Perth anyway. They are fairly plain biscuits, a bit like Teddy Bears, so I figured I could use any plain biscuit and settled on Malt-o-Milk. For the caramel bits I used choc bits.

The slice was very easy to make, but I overcooked it a tad as my overly-hot oven has a mind of its own sometimes, and the edges came out quite browned. When I took the slice out of the fridge the next morning, to cut up, it was SO heavy – felt like a brick! I thought, uh-oh, this is going to be as hard a rock and break people’s teeth! I even cut off the harder brown edge bits and threw them away, worrying about it. In fact it was great and received lots of praise (although I think my fellow co-workers will eat anything sweet and are quite often just being polite, to make sure I keep making stuff haha).

Caramel, Macadamia & Coconut Slice

250 gm pkt chocolate Scalliwag biscuits (OR whatever plain sweet biscuits you like)

125 gms butter, melted

395 gm can sweetened condensed milk

2 cups desiccated coconut

100 gms macadamia halves

250 gm pkt caramel bits (OR use choc bits)

Line a 20cm x 30cm lamington/slice pan.

In a food processor, process biscuits until they are fine crumbs. Add melted butter and mix well. Press mixture into base of pan. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 160C (140C fan forced).

Combine condensed milk, coconut, macadamias and caramel bits in a large bowl. Spoon over prepared base and spread evenly with the back of a spoon, pressing down to level slightly.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until top is golden and just firm. Cool in pan. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until set.

Cut into squares to serve.

Makes 24 pieces.

Happy Fooding!

Healthy Little Goodies

These balls are adapted from a recipe in a food magazine from a couple of years ago – I adjusted the quantities to suit what I had in the cupboard and how fussed I could be on the day. These are great for a sweet but reasonably healthy snack – perfect for lunch boxes or after school munchies. Certainly they all disappeared at work!

Apricot Energy Balls

200 gms dried apricots (the soft kind)

120 gms walnuts OR macadamias (or a mixture of both)

2 tbsp tahini

1 tbsp honey

1/4 cup sesame seeds

Place all ingredients in food processor and blend until finely chopped and sticky (add a little extra honey if necessary)

Using clean, damp hands, roll mixture into 3cm balls. Place on a dish lined with baking paper, and refrigerate for half an hour until firm.

Makes 18-20

Mixture can be doubled easily, and if you like you can roll the balls in either extra sesame seeds, coconut or cocoa.

Happy Healthy Snack Fooding!

Fruitilicious Muffin Break

I am amazed at how great these dairy-free Fruit Cocktail Muffins taste – this recipe is from the 4 Ingredients: Kids recipe book, and in fact only has 3 ingredients in it! I wasn’t expecting too much of this, but it turned out brilliantly. Mind you, the blurb in the book says “these are ideal for breakfast when in a hurry” …..well, considering the sugar content from the caster sugar and the fruit/liquid, I’m not sure I’d encourage children to eat this in place of other breakfast options – but certainly as a supremely easy morning tea or after school snack this is ideal.

Kids could easily make these themselves with very little assistance, and all you need is to have a can of fruit cocktail in the pantry and you can whip them up and have them in the oven in literally 2 minutes.

For a more decadent version, I might add some choc bits next time. And a bit of cinnamon in the mixture would be good. Or if you have any leftover tiny Easter eggs lying around (unlikely I know!), you could press one into the centre of each muffin before cooking – caramel-filled eggs would be even better.

I’ve frozen some to see how they taste when thawed – possibly they’ll be quite dry and might need butter or jam spread on them. And I’ve realised just how similar this recipe is to the Pineapple Cake I’ve made before – in fact, almost identical – so that means you could easily substitute a particular fruit in this (or the cake recipe), rather than the mixed fruit cocktail. Lots of scope!

Fruit Cocktail Muffins

2 cups SR flour

1 cup caster sugar

410 gm can fruit cocktail, undrained

Preheat oven to 150C (140C for fan forced). Grease or line a 12-capacity muffin pan.

Sift flour and sugar into a large bowl and stir well.

Add the undrained fruit cocktail an stir until just combined (if a little dry, add 1 tbsp milk).

Spoon into muffin pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until tops of golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Makes 12.

Happy Sweet Fooding!

A Profusion of Prawns

This is not a good look!

Bit of a kitchen disaster here……

I do love prawns, and I have had put aside in my copious piles of “to try” recipes, a sample recipe from one of those “buy it in 52 parts” cookbook folder thingies. Actually I don’t see how those publishers make money these days, with the plethora of free recipes for anything you can think of, freely available online. But, I got this junk mail in my letterbox and put aside the Crisp Honey Prawns leaflet as it looked super easy and delicious.

On Easter Monday, I went to the supermarket for dinner inspiration, and thought hmmm I’ll make that prawn dish. The recipe called for 20 prawns, but I had no idea how much weight that would be so just bought 700gms, thinking this would be plenty and I’d have leftovers.

The weather here was stunning right through Easter – 27-31 and all blue skies – really perfect. So in the afternoon, I had a last minute invite out for a walk (& a bottle of wine) along the river, near home. Had a lovely relaxing time, but by the time I got home I just couldn’t be bothered starting to cook, so just had a sandwich.

Next day, I realised I’d better use up these prawns as they were “thawed” ones so I didn’t want to re-freeze them. I was already going out in the evening for a meal, so decided to make the Crisp Honey Prawns for lunch instead. WELL, as you can see from the photos, there were a darn sight more than 20 prawns when I opened up the paper!! I over-purchased, just a tad lol…..

Anyway here’s the recipe, but it was a flop as you can see. Easy yes, but I just NEVER have any luck with batter – onion rings, calamari, squid, prawns…..my batter never bloody stays on!! It doesn’t look anything like the leaflet photo. They didn’t taste too bad, but really too deep-fried/oily flavoured for me. Oh well, it was worth a try.

Crisp Honey Prawns

2 tsp cornflour

2 egg whites

2 tsp oyster sauce

3 tbsp olive oil

3 tbsp plain flour

salt & pepper, to taste

20 raw prawns, peeled & deveined, tails intact

1/2 cup honey

Combine cornflour, egg whites and oyster sauce in a bowl. Use a whisk to beat the mixture together until thickened.

Heat olive oil in a non-stick pan over medium heat (or use a wok). Put flour in a bowl and season with salt & pepper.

Dip prawns into flour, shaking off any excess, then dip into batter mixture to coat.

Cook in the pan for 2 minutes each side until golden. Place cooked prawns on paper towel to absorb excess oil, while preparing and cooking the remaining prawns.

Once all of the prawns have been cooked, add honey to the pan and heat gently until runny, then add the prawns and gently toss to coat.

Batter-less!

After doing a batch I thought nope this just isn’t going to work, so I just chucked the rest of the prawns in the pans un-battered, with some pepper, truffle salt and a splash of soy sauce (see pic above). I then had a mountain of prawns to get through haha, so had a pile of them in a sandwich with lettuce, crunchy bean sprouts and chilli paste. Prawns are great in a sandwich or bread roll!

I then ate prawns for a few days, in various forms…..it’s a good thing I didn’t mind that!

Lots of prawns…

Happy Fooding!

A Sweet Old Favourite – It’s a Date!

Date slice, that is…..when I was in Melbourne recently, my mum made a delicious old family favourite that she used to make in the 70s. I don’t remember having it before so it was like discovering something new. Really yummy!

DATE AND WALNUT SLICE

1 cup SR flour

½ cup chopped walnuts

½ cup coconut

½ cup chopped dates

1 egg OR 2 tbsp milk + 1 tsp baking powder

120 grams butter

½ cup sugar

Mix flour, coconut, sugar, dates, walnuts with melted butter, then add beaten egg.  Spread on greased (or baking papered) scone tray with fork and cook 15-20 minutes in moderate oven (180C).

When cold, ice as desired – in this case lemon icing and a sprinkling of extra coconut.

Cut into slices.

Makes 24 pieces.

The photo above is my mum’s production – when I made it last week to take to work, I needed to alter it to make it suitable for a couple of people who can’t eat eggs. I substituted milk & baking powder, and it worked just fine, so that’s handy to know.

Egg-free version

Happy Fooding!