some of my favourite cooking blogs ♥

When I need to cook steak - every time I need to cook steak - I need to remember how to do it.  True story.  so I go here:
http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/article/how-to-cook-the-perfect-steak-a139.html

and then, to completely contradict myself, I go all Earth Mother and return to Vegetarian - and even Vegan
http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipe/classic-israeli-salad/

I know we don't celebrate America's Thanksgiving (plus it's far too close to Christmas actually), but there's some groovy Christmas-sy (aka Thanksgiving) recipes here:  Christmas and Thanksgiving recipes are defined by how many people one dish feeds.  ie at least 8, preferably 20
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/11/12/dining/essential-thanksgiving.html?r=mashed-potato-casserole-with-sour-cream-and-chives&ref=dlink&smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=DI_MPC_20131127&_r=0

Passionfruit Souffle.  I have a prolific fruiting vine!! And I adore passionfruit.
3 ingredient Passionfruit Souffle

Hopewood Health Retreat always has great recipes.  This is one of my faves. http://www.hopewood.com.au/recipes?sessid=5e488738d97ef9ba707bf882d528746e

I have a FB friend who is Greek and she also loves to cook.  Sometimes when she starts to cook, I know this is going to be exciting.  No one pot, 15 minute meals for her:  This sweet walnut dish takes 10 days to cook!!!  http://www.cypriotandproud.com/2013/07/04/karidaki-glyko-walnut-sweets-with-sugar-or-agave-syrup/

Little Blueberry Cheesecakes

Was a complete fiasco disaster.  No wonder I haven't posted anything in months......

Yes.... even the best of us, through to the least best of us, have abysmal days..

SPANISH DINNER PARTY - FIESTA FEAST

MENU:

TAPAS:  Ham, Cheese & Chorizo with Bread

                Jammon, Queso y Chorizo con Pan

                Prawns in Garlic - Gambos al Ajillo

SOPA:     Potato Soup - Sopa de Patata

                Galicean Broth - Caldo de Galicean

               COMIDA

PRINCIPAL   Chicken, Prawn & Chorizo Paella

                       Paella de Pollo

                      Potato Tortilla - Tortilla de Patatas

SUSTANTIVO:  Santiago Tart - Tarte de Santiago

                          Yogurt - Mousse de Yogur

Timeline:

The day before:

  do the shopping.  Don't forget what you bought and which dish you're making with what ingredients...

Make the soups.  Keep them on the stove if there's no room in the fridge - it's winter, it'll be fine (unless you've turned the heat up high in the house - then find room in the fridge)

Clean up the mess and go to bed.

The morning of the Fiesta:

Make the Santiago Cake

Go buy the ingredients you forgot but really need

Put some green stuff (namely spinach) in the Galicean Broth

Make the Santiago Tart

The afternoon:

Make the Tortilla

Make the tapas - except the prawns.  Just have them ready to go really quickly by 7pm

An hour before:

Heat the soups up and keep them sloooooowly simmering

Have all the ingredients ready for the Paella

Half an hour before:

Heat the tortilla's up in the oven (keep them covered)

15 minutes before everyone comes

start making Paella

let it simmer nicely while you greet your guests

Cook the prawns - Keep warm in the oven for 5 minutes until guests come

Serve the Tapas and soups with bread (pan)

the rest of the meals can come at leisure xxxxxxxx

TAPAS

SOPA

Sopa de Patata

taken from http://www.food.com/recipe/unbelievably-easy-potato-soup-74275 but with a twist of Gina

SERVES 8  

time from getting the ingredients on the bench to taste-testing:  35 minutes

You will need:

8 peeled potatos (just look for the tasty ones - not too waxy)

2 cups diced onion

1 chopped up leek

2 cups chopped celery

4 cloves garlic

lots of water

salt and pepper to taste 

(optional - you can add milk when you blend it, but I didn't)

It's really just one potato per person

once you have peeled them and recovered from the RSI

chop up everything else (except the water, silly) and throw it all into a large saucepan.  Leave the salt and pepper for a minute

Now.. don't cover it with water, just underneath.. have the water sitting just below the top of the ingredients - how much water you use now will decide the consistency of the soup.  Too much and it's watery, too little and it's too thick.  If you just put in enough to sit about a cm along the edge with the vegies still poking through, it should be fine.  

You only have to cook this for about 25 minutes 

(true story)

Add some salt and pepper - actually lots of salt and pepper (it will need a fair whack of salt) and maybe a teaspoon or 2 or even 3 of stock powder (I use Massells)

After it looks a bit sad and lifeless, but smells divine, add another tablespoon of salt and turn off the heat.

Get out the blender and murder it.

Put it all back in another saucepan, ready to heat up tomorrow night. (the Fiesta!!)

Eat some first... coz this has made you hungry

Yum ♥

Caldo de Galicean

2 Ham Hocks

2 huge cloves of Russian Garlic

2 cups of onion (one brown/one red)

300g diced Speck

3 Bay Leaves

Water or Stock (if you can get stock on special, or you've found time to make it yourself - good luck to you)

French Beans

Carrots

Potatos

1 Can white beans & 1 can Chick Peas (Garbonzos)

Spinach

smoked Paprika

Parsley

Cumin.... if you want to be a rebel

Actually now I look at the ingredients, it's nearly nothing like a Galicean Broth, but if no-one has been to Galicea, who will know?

Put the Ham hocks, garlic, onion, Speck and bay leaves into a Huge Saucepan.

Cover liberally with water.  Don't add seasoning yet

Cook for about 2 hours.  Give or take 30 minutes. (the smell is the key)

I just checked it after an hour and it had evaporated a tad, so I added another 500ml of stock/water

(The smell is very Pea and Ham without the Pea right now)

another hour and the meat fell off the ham bones without much enticement.

I put the meat back into the pot (which had reduced yet again... but I'll wait till I put the vegies in before I add a little more stock.

Then I put in about 3 carrots, 3 or 4 potatoes, a little bit of thyme, some smoked paprika, a dash of cumin and.... 3 chopped up chorizos.  The recipe I had read called for me to peel the chorizo.....but I didn't see it anywhere else.... hmm, so I improvised.. it also called for Turnip tops (boiled twice) which I'm sure could be replaced with Spinach.. but I forgot to buy that, so - no spinach!!

I let it simmer sloooooowly for over an hour.

The Chorizo gives it some serious bight, but it's an incredibly warming winter soup.  I can see a zillion things being added to it and it still works.

The secret ingredients are the pork, the beans and the paprika.  All else is changeable.

Another yum

Simple - as in easy, but tasty - as in divine - lemon yogurt cake

This cake was one of the cakes that made me think I could bake - long before I got how easy it was!!

Lemon Yogurt Cake        Donna Hay making this cake look even simpler

Here's the ingredients:  AND YOU CAN MAKE IT ALL IN ONE BOWL!!

• • ¾ cup (180ml) vegetable oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 cup (280g) thick natural yoghurt
  • 1¾ cups (385g) caster (superfine) sugar
  • 2 cups (300g) self-raising (self-rising) flour
  • lemon frosting
  • ¾ cup (120g) icing sugar
  • ¼ cup (60ml) lemon juice
    
    In ONE quite good sized bowl, put the oil (any vegetable oil will do - even olive oil, but it's a bit thick and tasty...but we don't need to go and find Nepalese Walnut Oil... Canola will do), the eggs and the lemon rind.
    Whisk till smooth
    
    
    
    Then add the lemon juice, yogurt (most times, if I have a small tub of yogurt - yes, Greek is the best, I just add the whole thing straight from the container - no room for precious here, you can't have too much or too little) and the sugar.....
    
    
    Mix it all up till it's sloppy and smooth.
    
    
    Add the flour (sifted)
    
    
    
    Stir, stir, stir
    
    
    Put the gorgeous, creamy concoction into any old baking tin you have (for safety's sake kill the tin with spray - or grease it the old fashioned way... but don't take chances - you want it beautiful when all is said and done)
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Look how smooth and creamy it is - and how much I fit into this tiny ring tin?  It's all good.
    
    
    Bake:  180deg for 35 minutes - I tried 30, it didn't work. Stick to the preheated oven for 35minutes
    
    
    While it's cooking, stir together the sugar and lemon juice
    
    
    Tell your captivated audience that this may take a while....
    
    
    
    handle their disgust at the wait
    
    
    
    When the cake is cooked, there is no need to wait - take it out of the tin, put it on a plate and pour the icing mixture over it.  If you use granulated sugar (like Donna Hay), it'll look interesting, but taste the same.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    EAT IT!!!
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    

Hopewood Recipes: You can't go wrong from a Health Retreat!!

Spicy lentil soup
Serves 8-10

INGREDIENTS
• 6 carrots, sliced
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 5 teaspoons ground cumin
• 8 cloves garlic, crushed
• 4 tomatoes, chopped
• 1 ½ cup red lentils, washed, soaked and drained
• 8 cups vegetables stock
• 2 cups of tomato juice
• 4 tablespoons of tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons of tamari
• Herbs for garnish (e.g. fresh coriander, Italian parsley)

METHOD
Using some of the vegetable stock, sauté onion, carrots, cumin, garlic, tomatoes and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally until onion is soft. Stir in lentils, stock and tomato juice.
Bring to boil and simmer for approximately 1 hour. When lentils are soft, stir in tomato paste and tamari. Blend mixture until smooth. Return to same pan, reheat and serve garnished with herbs.



Bananas with honey and citrus glaze
Serves 2-3

INGREDIENTS
• 3 bananas, halved
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 lemon
• 1 lime
• 1 orange
• Fresh mint, for garnish

METHOD
Place halved bananas on the plate with flat surface point up so the glaze will remain on the fruit more evenly.
Zest half lemon, orange and lime, reserving juices.
Combine the citrus juices with honey and mix well until honey thins slightly. Pour over the bananas garnishing with fresh mint, and the zest of the citrus fruits.


Vegetable lo mein

Starch
Serves 6-8

INGREDIENTS
• 500g Asian noodles (vermicelli)
• 2 cups broccoli florets
• 2 cups carrots, sliced into matchsticks
• 1 cup zucchini, sliced into 1cm pieces
• 2 cups of mushrooms, sliced
• 2 cups cabbage, coarsely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 4-5 shallots cut in diagonals using green
• 1 tablespoon miso paste
• 1-2 cups vegetable stock
• 4 tablespoons tamari

METHOD
Boil plenty of water for the noodles. Stir-fry broccoli, carrots and zucchini in small amount of stock or water until tender but still crisp.

Remove from pan. Repeat process with mushrooms and cabbage. Add to broccoli, zucchini and carrots, keep warm. Stir-fry garlic and shallots in remaining water.

Mix together miso paste, stock and tamari. At this point, put pasta in boiling water to cook (it does not take long). Add garlic and shallots to the mix and heat until boiling.

Stir through all the vegetables through and re-heat. Strain cooked pasta and combine all ingredients. Serve at once.


Mint, pea and avocado salad

Starch
Serves 4-6

INGREDIENTS
• 500g fresh peas, cooked and cooled
• 3 avocados, peeled and cubed
• 2 bunches of fresh asparagus, washed and trimmed
(steam for 1 minute optional)
• 3 fresh mint leaves, chopped
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sweet chilli sauce
• 1 tablespoon of honey

METHOD
Toss all prepared ingredients together and serve.

HOPEWOOD@HOME RECIPE BOOK
All recipes are from Hopewood’s Health Retreat’s own recipe book, hopewood@home.
hopewood@home recipe book is the perfect answer for busy lifestyles, packed with healthy and delicious vegetarian recipes, new taste sensations and weekly menu suggestions. Enjoy vegetarian cuisine that tastes great and is quick and easy to prepare.

But I'm Still Hungry: ORANGE ALMOND SYRUP PUDDINGS

But I'm Still Hungry: ORANGE ALMOND SYRUP PUDDINGS: It's Winter.  Oranges abound.  Let's use up the glut deliciously. Plus, I have a very special friend visiting this afternoon.  She...

ORANGE ALMOND SYRUP PUDDINGS

It's Winter.  Oranges abound.  Let's use up the glut deliciously.
Plus, I have a very special friend visiting this afternoon.  She and I have always bonded over variations of the truth while smoking ourselves into a Foggy Haze.  We grew up and stopped smoking.  So what do ex-smokers do when they get together?  They EAT.  But the eating has to be very, very good:

I'm gonna try these little numbers for size:  They stem from Persia, but are also used as a Jewish Passover desert, and I'll add that they're Gluten Free.  But aside from all that, they have been calling me to cook them for a week now....

Orange Almond Syrup Puddings:

A quick video - instead of single puddings, a whole cake

I followed the Coles recipe... and may very well cook every single thing in this months book

Let's make Laksa. Or at least give it a go

If Asian food seems exotic - and therefore difficult - I felt the same way!! Until Laksa paste turned up on Supermarket shelves.  There are 3 I use and no, I'm not getting paid to say that.

The best (and cheapest) is almost always out of stock.  If I find it, I buy 2.  If it's on special, I buy all of them.  It's this stuff:

Everything in one simple packet and generally under $2.

Option 2 is this:  a tad more pricey at about $3.50

followed closely by option 3:   even more pricey, which is starting to seem silly.

 all the rest of the pastes are much of a muchness unless you start to think about making your own.  Which is something I'll look at in about 10 more years.

Ultimately what you need to know is that all of these pastes require some stock and some coconut cream as the secret added ingredients.

What you need:     

YOU NEED TO FIGURE OUT IF YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE A SEAFOOD, CHICKEN, MEAT OR VEGI LAKSA.  

I'm doing a Chicken Laksa:  So I need some Chicken stock - I'm just as happy to use Stock Cubes or one of those 1 litre Pantry Packs of Stock, but as I have the Chicken pieces - and the time, I may as well make it.  The stock is not the stock to write home to mother about, it's a means to an end:

I put 1kilo of Chicken Legs (Free Range, Happy-Living Legs from Happy-Living Chickens) into 6 cups of water with some salt, bay leaves, oregano, pepper and fennel seeds. Bring the whole lot to the boil with the lid on, then turn down, put the lid half on/half off and simmer for half an hour.  REAL stock is so much more than this... but it'll do, and it's easy.

 

You may as well make a cup of espresso at the same time.  I generally do.

Turn the heat off after 30 minutes and let it sit there for a while.  That's your stock, together with your chicken pieces.  Gather the rest of the stuff you need:

Laksa Paste (see above)

1 Can of coconut milk (or coconut cream, if you're feeling gluttonous and reckless)

Either Vermicelli noodles, or instant noodles or even some other rice noodles, but vermicelli is along the path of least resistance...

Oil & Onion

500g - 1 kilo Meat, Vegies, Chicken, Prawns... whichever.  I use Chicken legs AND any vegies I have around

2 cups of Stock

Bean Sprouts & Coriander

It's a shame you can't buy a few Bean Sprouts.  I have found small cans perfect for this dish, but not often.  I'm generally left with buying a 2 kilo bag of them (and really, nobody purposely eats that many bean sprouts) or a 400g can of them - same problem just not as large.  I tried omitting them altogether, but these simple things are essential for this dish.  Essential.

Firstly - do your noodles:  Grab about 200g (or more..) of vermicelli noodles, squish them into a heat proof (preferably glass) container big enough to hold them if they double in size.  Pour boiling water over them to cover, cover the dish with whatever you can that's also heat proof and leave it while you cook dinner.   5 -10 minutes should be plenty, but if you don't like how the noodles are after 5 minutes, adjust the time to your taste

                                                             (You don't really need to cover it either)

I'm going to put some vegies into the mix because I've got some vegies running the gauntlet at the bottom of the fridge, so... I chopped them up with an onion and added all these vegies (horrors! at the same time) to a wok with lots of Grapeseed Oil (it burns at a higher temperature).

 

I played with this for about 3 or 4 minutes, then added some frozen peas, corn & carrots because there just wasn't enough colour in the mix.  Almost immediately, I added the Laksa Paste and stirred it around at a bit of a high temp until the smell went from "You've got to be kidding me?" to, "Oh, I see where this is going...."

I gave it a few more minutes of aroma mingling and then added an entire can of Coconut Cream, stirring that around for a good minute and a half, I turned the heat down a bit.

  

Then I took the lid off the chicken stock right next to the wok on the stove and took out each piece of chicken and added it to the Laksa mix.

 Once they had all been added, I picked up the pot of Chicken Stock and added enough of the stock until I was happy with the contents of the Laksa pot (maybe about 1 and a half cups). 

 The rest of the stock can be used for all sorts of things later - but that's another blog.

 then this quickly transforms to a richer orange colour that transforms your whole house into an South Sea vacation



Leave it just long enough for the meat to drop off the bones. Considering it has been cooked while making the stock, it wont take long..

The Laksa is mostly cooked.  Leave it to simmer for about 3 minutes.  This is not a meal to be cooked for hours.  It should all be done in about 15 minutes if you're not making stock.  Which is why you should prepare the vermicelli early in the piece.

 

Now that serendipitous moment when the noodles are ready, the laksa is cooked, you have chopped up some coriander, found the elusive perfect amount of beansprouts (or found 15 more recipes calling for them), and you also slivered off some slices of spring onion/shallot you just discovered in your garden and it's time to put it all together:

First:  drain the noodles, and leave them draining over a bowl while you dish out the required amount into everyone's bowl.

Then add a couple of chicken drumsticks, followed by a few ladles of the yummy soupy laksa stuff

Then throw in a pinch of shallots,

followed by a handful of bean sprouts

and topped off with as much coriander as your little heart desires.

Done

It was delicious, even though this Laksa - being Malaysian Laksa Paste (like I knew there was a difference) is substantially hotter than Thai Laksa Paste.....