Turkish Delight cupcakes

This recipe is from the Women's Weekly 1000 Best Ever Recipes from AWW and although the book is organised very poorly, the recipes are - as always - foolproof.

Except for the presentation...

What the cupcakes were supposed to look like:

 

What they actually looked like, after I mangled them and followed the recipe only loosely...

Raw chilli (un-carne)

I am using goneraw's Veggie Chili recipe tonight, and I have to say... not bad. It doesn't look that pretty (although it looks surprisingly like "real" chili). Obviously it doesn't have the same depth, the same slow cooked flavour and richness as the real thing - however, it's light, and healthy, and a lot less like a gazpacho than I had anticipated.

So thanks, goneraw!

 

 

Roasted chicken with quince paste and pancetta

This is for you, P.

I first found this recipe aaaaages ago in a Donna Hay cookbook, belonging to a friend whose house and cats I was babysitting.

It might have been the cupboard ingredients book?

Anyhoo, it's simple and delicious. Chicken breasts, smeared with quince paste, wrapped in pancetta, then roasted on a bed of spring onions/baby leeks, oil and white wine.

 It is pretty delish!

An experiment: raw sunflower seed pate

Meh, is all i can say. It tatses like savoury peanut butter.

Ingredients:
sunflower seeds, soaked overnight in water
garlic, chopped
lemon juice
salt
tahini

Soak the seeds overnight, drain and then blitz everything together, adding hot water if it needs thinning. I have to say, it's nothing like pate. Or cheese. It was an experiment that wasn't worth repeating - why bother with substitutes? Just find something new...

Silverbeet

So, who knew that silver beet/rainbow chard could be so hardy? Everybody except me, I suspect.

After forcing my poor mother to create a gigantic organic veggie garden purely for my own gluttonous desires, I am now enjoying a "glut" (haha) of rainbow chard/silver beet.

Which is, contrary to my memories, quite delicious. I seem to remember it being tough and grainy, but instead, the leaves are silky smooth and the stalks are delicious, nutty and crisp.

I've been using it up in various ways over the last 3 weeks, but the most popular way has been to steam the leaves with a touch of nutmeg, and make a gratin of the stems.

It's a Stephanie Alexander recipe from her Cook's Companion book. Basically, you separate the leaves from the stems. You slice the stems up, blanch for 10 mins in boiling water, then drain and place in a gratin dish. You boil a cup of cream in a small saucepan, then turn the heat off and stir in 50-100g of cheese (I've tried it with blue cheese - the original recipe and with parmesan. I think I preferred the parmesan).

Top it with breadcrumbs and a spray of oil and bake for about 30 mins in a hot oven. It is delicious and nobody knows what it is until you tell them!

Peppered kangaroo fillet with white asparagus and raspberry vinegar

It sounds poncy and a bit like it should have "hand-shot wild kangaroo" in its description but whatever.

Kanga fillets from safeway, white asparagus, lemon-scented olive oil, bashed out peppercorns and raspberry vinegar.

Do I need to elaborate?

OK just a bit. Well here are the raw ingredients - asparagus (white and green), roo fillet, crushed peppercorns

And voila! The finished dish...

Weekend Herb Blogging - WHB #206

I have chosen carrots for this edition of Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Yasmeen from Healthnut and with them I'm making gajar halwa, or carrot pudding.

Normally Indian sweets are just... well, sweet. This is not exactly an exception but it has a lot of flavour, from the sweetness and the texture of the carrots, the spicy cardamom and the caramelised milky cream.

It's the only Indian sweet I have ever tried to make, and this was my third attempt. The recipe comes from Charmaine Solomon's Complete Asian Cookbook.

It's not really complicated - fry off some coarsely grated carrots (about 500-600g) in some ghee until the liquid has evaporated, then quickly stir in milk powder, simple syrup and cream, and cook, stirring, until it forms a mass. Then just spread it in a tray and wait for it to solidify.

It ends up a bit like fudge - but a very lurid orange kind of fudge!

Patatas Bravas

Tonight I'm making patatas bravas with seared tuna. I don't know why (well, I do for the tuna, but not for the patatas) but I liked the name and there are quite a lot of recipes floating around. I was disappointed to find out how much work there is supposed to be (peeling, parboiling, roasting the potatoes, them making the sauce, blending it, reheating it and mixing with the potatoes) but I simplified my chosen recipe quite a bit and I'm sure it is completely unrecognisable to any self respecting Spanish gourmand.

I used a recipe from the Taste website, only I just roasted the potatoes for longer instead of parboiling them. I also didn't bother too much with the pureeing of the sauce... meh. Lumpy tomatoes, who cares? It's not a soup.

So essentially, you roast the potatoes until they're golden and crispy. In the meantime you make a simple tomato sauce with onion, garlic, chilli, smoked paprika, oregano, white wine (I was out of cooking wine so I used verjuice) and diced tomatoes. Then you mix it all up and I served it with seared tuna (coated in a random spice mixture I had floating around).

Yum!

Weekend Herb Blogging #205

Lamb with peas and anchovies

Cinzia from Cindystar is hosting this edition of Weekend Herb Blogging and I am using curly endive.

This is my very first foray into food blogging (erm, well, blogging at all, really) and my virgin WHB post - I hope I've done it right (veterans, feel free to leave suggestions for me if not).

I've chosen curly endive (or frisee) not because I particularly like its flavour (I find it bitter and I choke on the leaves if they're not chopped) but because of this recipe from Gourmet Traveller, which is amazingly delicious - and surprisingly, the wilted endive's bitterness adds a really nice edge to the sweet peas, salty anchovies and juicy, rich braised lamb.

Endive is (according to Wikipedia, the font of all online knowledge) a member of the daisy family and is closely related to chicory. Like any leafy green, it contains high levels of folate, vitamins A & K and fibre - this particular recipe is a favourite of mine because it's juicy and saucy and packed with protein and has 2 loads of veggies in it, which makes it almost a complete meal.

My next favourite ingredient - anchovies! (Yes the recipe only calls for a few and yes I added more...possibly the whole jar...yes I'm a glutton and a salt fiend but they dissolve into nothingness. I won't hear a word against the little salty fish). Oh - and yes, they do deserve their own picture.

Then the marjoram, garlic, onions and peas (I couldn't find oregano so I used fresh marjoram instead):

 

And, finally, the lamb.

 

The onions are fried for 8-10 mins until they soften (I like to get a bit of colour on them, but not too much), then the garlic and anchovies are added until the garlic is aromatic and the anchovies melt. Then it's in with the lamb and the stock and it cooks slowly for 2.5 hours or so. About 5 minutes before serving, add the peas and the herbs. Turn off the heat when the peas are done and add the endive, stirring until it wilts.

Corn fritters

Tonight I'm making these corn fritters, from the Women's Weekly website/recipe collection. The recipe includes a tomato sauce and a rocket salad, but I have other plans that involve smoked salmon and sour cream.

First, the corn - I always use frozen corn kernels. The tinned stuff tastes like candied water and has no nutrition left, and the fresh stuff has usually been in the supermarket for so long it's turned into dry, bland sugar. The frozen stuff is definitely the best.

Next, it needs spring onions, 4 of them for 2 cups of corn kernels. I used nice thick ones, on account of the the batter itself being fairly bland (plus, I like onions).

The batter is a pretty simple egg-milk-SR flour mixture. Just mix in the kernels, onions, salt and pepper!

All that's needed now is some oily goodness in the form of some good quality oil in a non stick pan. Wait for the fritters to either dry out or get bubbles on top, and it's bob's your fritter!

 

 

Yum yum yum.

P.S. I should add that the inspiration to cook corn fritters tonight came to me from Haalo...

Car smash pasta... sort of

Here is dinner tonight...my version of melbourne gastronome's car smash pasta!

It's garlic, anchovies, capers, chilli flakes, cherry tomatoes, and EVOO. Delish...