In My Kitchen, November 2023

What a varied month it's been, and as always, the cooking I do in my lovely kitchen reflects what is in season, my use of any produce gifted to me, what I have the time to cook and those recipes which I love to cook. So, I'm excited to be sharing a few new recipes with you this time, although regular readers of my blog may have already seen them. However, that doesn't mean I'm not excited about bringing you some old favourites as well. I suspect that like me, your cooking repertoire contains those recipes that are on high rotation in your kitchen and contains some old and tried but true recipes which feel like a big hug from faithful friends, which always feels so reassuring. With Christmas well and truly on the horizon now, some nostalgia is creeping into my cooking as well.

Mexican Chicken and Capsicum Tray Bake

Mexican food is always full of flavour and colour, and when the ingredients can be combined into a homemade Mexican style traybake, with a few shortcuts, then it's a winner in my humble opinion. The first time that I cooked this dish we all loved it, I honestly couldn't fault it.

In My Kitchen, November 2022

 I am looking forward to Christmas so much this year, it will be a Summer's Christmas at the beach for us, sun and surf, can't wait.  With the promise of catching up with family and friends as a bonus. Next week, it's time to start soaking the fruit for the traditional Christmas cake and Plum Pudding, always my Mother's recipes, I don't deviate from those, I think that Christmas time is a wonderful time for some traditional cooking. These are the recipes I'll be using If you are interested. 

Christmas Cake This mixture can also be baked as smaller cakes, and I have a post up for those as well.

Plum Pudding

I made a delicious Salade Nicoise, where using les mains to mix all of the ingredients is the secret according to the chef on French Food Safari. I'll be posting this recipe soon hopefully. I'm travelling to France next year, so I'm immersing myself in French food and culture when I can.

This is before all of the ingredients were mixed together with les mains

What I've been baking:

Continuing with the French theme, I made a Cherry Clafoutis, which is un flan delicieux.

Recently when a neighbour popped over for a cup of coffee I made this Middle Eastern style Date and Walnut Loaf with a hint of chocolate.

The recipe for Nigella Lawson's Honey and Chocolate cake can be found at this link. It was delicious. I was inspired by the honey from our backyard beehive to make this cake.

This is the latest honey harvest from our hive. We've had a few problems with our hive during swarm season in October which hopefully is back on track now. That story and the recipe for the Honey and Chocolate cake are on the same post. I'm sure that stories about our hive and the bees will continue in future posts I write.

I've had Silvia Colloca's recipe book, Love Laugh Bake on my bookshelf for a while, and a Mahjong friend made one of her chocolate cakes for us all the other day, which isn't in this book, but was amazing. So I've been pouring through her book, and made the Hazlenut Brownie slice, but with Almond Meal, instead of  Hazlenut meal, and of course we had to have a wee taste, and it's delicious. It's destined for dinner with friends tonight. It is also one of those recipes that can turn into a cake as well. Recipe to follow shortly I hope. Silvia is such a talented lady, and an opera singer as well.

The weather was unseasonably cold and rainy so I made these delicious and economical individual Cottage pies, 13 of them actually. You can find the recipe here.

We've been spending a lot of time in our garden, and some capsicum seeds I planted in August have grown into quite mature plants, with small capsicums starting to grow on some of the bushes. Capsicums are always expensive to buy, so I'm looking forward to being able to use them in the kitchen in all kinds of ways. I think there might be a variety of shapes and sizes with these, but they are all from caps I bought at the markets, and they aren't like the large capsicum varieties sold in supermarkets. They are smaller and sweeter. I dried the seeds and waited until Winter to plant them in a new garden that Mr. HRK dug for us. They benefit from the morning sun so I have high hopes for them, and hoping the bugs and beetles don't take a liking to them.  We have 23 plants, after pulling out a few to make room for all of them. I think all of the seeds I planted must have germinated, I always plant more seeds than we need just in case. That should be enough plants don't you think, tee hee?

It's a long garden, with some flowering Cuphea plants up one end for the Bees to enjoy.

During October, we participated in the Aussie Backyard BIRD COUNT, which was a lot of fun. Between 4.30 and 5.30 pm each day we sat outside in our courtyard for 20 minutes at a time, sometimes with a glass of wine and identified the birds that frequented our bird bath, and recorded them on the Aussie Bird Count app. I can't find our total stats, as the app has been closed but we managed to record all of the species that visit our yard. 

We now have a female Spotted Dove which participated in our Bird Count, (I know that for sure!) nesting in our Golden Penda tree just outside our back kitchen door and she is sitting on two baby chicks. I can mention this because the nest is so close to the kitchen. The only problem is that we are in and out of the door quite often during the day and she gets spooked very easily, as she was when I took this photo. We are very careful now not to frighten her too much but she seems to be used to us coming and going. Other doves have nested in those trees, not always with great results, so fingers crossed for this little lady. She seems very protected there from the many predators.

This is my November submission to the #IMK series hosted by Sherry. Each month bloggers from around the world gather to share what is new in their kitchen.  I don't buy a lot of new stuff anymore, but I love cooking and baking. I hope you enjoy some of my recipes and stories.

Hoping the rest of November treats you well.

Warm wishes

Pauline

Edamame Bean and Tuna Salad

 

Edamame beans are a delicious addition to any salad. Full of fibre, and protein, they bring green freshness, crunch and are filling to eat. Edamame are young soybeans, harvested before they turn brown. I've made this salad a few times, always with a slight variation, however this is the basic recipe I use. 

in My Kitchen - November 2021

When I looked through all of my photos for the past month, and all the food I have created out of my kitchen, I realised it has been a busy month, it certainly feels like it, and this past week for example has gone so quickly. Christmas is just around the corner, so the next projects will be Plum puddings, Christmas cakes, and Mango Chutney. Could we just extend November though please? I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event.  If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 13th of the month.  Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens. 

A recent dinner party for 12 people, and I brought out the Big Guns in my cooking repertoire when catering for a crowd. Curried Beef Lasagne, Moroccan Chickpea salad, and Chocolate Mousse. All can be prepared well in advance which I love, and were delicious. I also made a big green salad, just because we need our greens my friends.

A Moroccan Chickpea salad is the perfect partner for this Lasagne.

Moroccan Chickpea salad

And then for sweets there was Chocolate Mousse based on Nigella Lawson's recipe. I worked on this recipe for a couple of days as I found it too rich to start with.

Stovetop cooking certainly improved for me when we installed our new stovetop this month.  It has made me realise just how fast and very hot two of my stove elements were, and now I need to be patient to achieve that level of heat if I need it. Here's a photo of Mr. HRK preparing to remove the old stovetop, with screwdriver in place of course. It became a major operation though, when we lost power, which was caused by a green faulty fuse box located two doors up the road, which our power runs from. Who knew our fuse box was there, not us? The fuse box  hadn't been maintained for 30 years apparently, because of a huge and very happy plant growing in front of it. Of course nobody admitted to planting the plant. The electrician arrived, our Power Company, Ergon, was called in, a convoy of vehicles lined the road, the plant was removed using a winch, and all was well by dinner time that night. Phew, what a drama. However because of the issues we had encountered, we had to wait for a specialist electrician to call the following day to install the stovetop, much to the chagrin of Mr. HRK, who had planned to do the job himself.

There's been an exciting development at our family. We've have invested in another Beehive, during this last month, Italian bees, not native bees although we have plenty of the latter in our garden all of the time. Farming bees is a real learning curve and a wonderful interest, and our friend and bee mentor whom we bought this hive from, told us that beekeepers who have had problems in the past become the best beekeepers. Well thanks Keith, here's hoping. We lost our hive last year when some Robber Bees infested it with a killer American virus, called American Foul Brood, which is eventually fatal to a hive. It was a big year for viruses in 2020. So we had to destroy the hive and every piece of equipment associated with it, which was so tough, and then wait until we felt strong enough to take on another hive. 

Here's a photo of Mr. HRK and Dylan, a young friend who lives nearby, preparing to smoke the hive to pacify the bees so they can check on their progress. By all accounts the bees are going well, and we should be able to add a "half super" box soon which is where they start making the delicious honey that we hope to harvest in the future. The weather here at the moment is hot and windy, and we saw a few of our bees on the bird bath yesterday trying to cool off. We have high hopes for this hive. The Queen bee came from Duaringa in Central Queensland so she has travelled quite a distance to be with us and her new hive. Beehave Lady Queen Bee,  we need you and some homemade honey.

Adding bark to the smoker

Lighting the smoker

Checking our hive. I didn't get close to take photos of the inside, but the bees seem to be very calm

Here's a lovely little bouquet of flowers in my kitchen that a friend gave me for cooking her dinner. The frangipanni perfume is quite intoxicating, and is one of my favourite flowers and contrasts beautifully with the blue flowers.

Halloween brought us a scary but lovely surprise this year. Generally we don't have any trick or treaters knock on our door, but this year we did. These two dear little girls have recently moved into the neighbourhood, we know their family well and it was lot of fun when they called to trick or treat with their Mum. Thankfully I had some chocolate on hand in the refrigerator so they were happy.

This morning, for a camping trip we are planning, I made a version of my Beef, Mango Chutney and Sauerkraut Goulash, however I seared the flour coated meat in a hot pan, and then added red wine and stock and simmered that down to capture all of the delicious beef scrapings. This is a step I sometimes omit if I am pushed for time, but I want this stew to be full of flavour, some of which might end up in pies.

I made a delicious Vietnamese chicken salad recently, which was perfect as the temperatures rose. Here's the link to the recipe if you missed it.

One of the highlights of my cooking adventures this month has been this Beef Brisket with prunes and vegetables. You can find the recipe at this link. Such a great recipe from Monday Morning Cooking Club, so tender and full of rich flavours.

Last month, 4 weeks ago in fact, when we said goodbye to our beautiful Border Collie, Locky. Our dining room table overflowed with beautiful flowers sent by our family.

There's a very funny story attached to the table runner that you can see on our family dining room table, well we can laugh about it now. We purchased it in Istanbul during a trip to Turkey about 6 years ago, during which of course we embarked on a compulsory carpet buying spree. We were targeted by a supposedly well meaning tourist guide, and taken to a questionable Government Carpet wholesaler. Mr. HRK and I still think we were lucky to escape with our lives in tact, slightly inebriated and well fed though, but we still don't believe this is the actual carpet we purchased.  However it was shipped home to us very quickly, and we weren't in a position  to take the matter any further, despite our doubts. All of the Lonely Planet guides and Turkish tourist books can't prepare you for what really happens during a carpet buying adventure in Istanbul. Older and wiser they say. This Magic Carpet is the curve ball of my story.

Best wishes,

Pauline
 

Summery Vietnamese Chicken Salad

It's Vietnamese food for lunch today. Great! We are so very fortunate to be able to enjoy cooking and eating a variety of cuisines at home now, however one of my favourites, particularly during the Australian Summer, is to eat Vietnamese. This recipe is everything that you love about Vietnamese food, healthy, fresh, full of flavour, and with lots of different textures.

This amazing recipe is based on the fantastic Vietnamese dressing and fresh salad mix used by the great Australian chef, Bill Granger in his book, Bills Open Kitchen. I have been making this recipe for years as his book was published back in 2003, but the recipe is timeless. I haven't included any noodles or rice in my recipe as we are watching our carbs, and quite frankly the dish doesn't need it, but if you must, serve this on a bed of vermicelli noodles, or with rice, and everyone will thank you for it.

It is also very versatile. If you are short on time, buy a cooked chicken, and use the chicken meat already cooked, or substitute cooked prawns for chicken. I love the flavour of Vietnamese Mint, and I'm fortunate to have it growing in a pot in my back garden, however if you can't get hold of it, substitute some chopped coriander leaves. Both of these herbs are quite strong in flavour, but I love that. I know already that a couple of my readers will say they don't like Vietnamese Mint, but there are always substitutes, or just leave it out.

Ingredients:

Serves 4 people

3 x 200 g (7 oz) chicken breasts without skin(or use 600 g precooked chicken breast)

2 tablespoons Olive oil or Vegetable oil 

sea salt

white pepper

90 g (1 cup ) bean sprouts, I even like more of them

20 g (1 cup) Vietnamese mint leaves or 1/2 cup coriander leaves

50 g (1 cup) fresh Basil leaves (sweet or Thai)

180 g (4 cups) Chinese cabbage, finely shredded, or iceberg lettuce if you must

Vietnamese dressing (recipe below)

90 g (1 cup) pickled carrot ( below) or raw carrot, peeled and finely julienned

Method:

Preheat your oven to 220 deg. C. (425 deg. F./Gas 7). 

Heat a frying pan on the stove top. Meanwhile, brush the chicken breasts with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Brown and sear the chicken breasts for 2 minutes, turn over and sear for another minute.  

Line a baking tray with baking paper, and place the chicken on the tray and cook them in your oven for 8 to 10 minutes. Leave the meat to rest covered for 20 minutes.

When cool enough, shred the meat into thin strips, your hands will be fine to do this, and place in a large bowl. This is the foundation of your salad.

Add the remaining ingredients and toss to combine. 

Vietnamese dressing:

60 ml ( 1/4 cup) lime juice

60 ml (1/4 cup) fish sauce

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon caster sugar

2 garlic cloves, very finely chopped

 1/2 red onion, finely sliced or 3 red Asian shallots, finely chopped

1 large red Capilano chilli ( or 2 if you really like some chili), seeds removed

Method:

Place all the ingredients n a small bowl and stir until the sugar is dissolved

Pickled Carrot: as a delicious side and to mix through the salad

250 g (9 oz) carrots, peeled and finely julienned

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon caster sugar

Method:

Mix the salt with the julienned carrots in a colander and toss to combine. Leave for 20 minutes to remove the excess moisture . Place 185 ml (3/4 cup) water with the vinegar and sugar in a small saucepan over a medium heat and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and cool. Rinse the carrot, squeezing out any excess water with clean hands, and place in a bowl. Pour the pickling liquid over the carrot and stand for 1 hour. Strain before serving.

We ate this salad for lunch today, and it was so delicious. I prepared the vegetable salad early in the morning, and made the dressing, and kept them both in the frig. Then when I came home from shopping, I cooked the chicken fillets,  made the pickled carrot,  and the whole dish was very easy to assemble from there.

Cooks Tips:

• If you find you have a lot of the Chinese cabbage left over as I often do, my Wombok and noodle salad recipe has been very popular amongst readers, and my family love it. You can find the recipe at this link. It is also a Christmas favourite here in Queensland
• The pickled carrot makes a delicious side dish, however it is optional and as an alternative just mix some grated carrot though the salad.
• If necessary, crispy iceberg lettuce could be used instead of Chinese cabbage.
• Use a bought cooked chicken on busy days to make this dish, your family will hardly know the difference.
• Cooking the chicken fillets as I did in this recipe, produced very tender, flavoursome, shredded chicken
• If you have any chance of growing your own Basil plants or Vietnamese mint plants in Summer, it is well worth doing.
• If you have them growing, add two very finely chopped kaffir lime leaves to the salad. 

Here is another delicious salad in the same style as the one I have just shared with you, my Vietnamese Ruby Grapefruit Salad

HAPPY RETIREE'S KITCHEN : Vietnamese Ruby Grapefruit Salad (happyretireeskitchen.blogspot.com)

 Best wishes,

Pauline

Instant Chocolate Mousse, it's egg free and delicious

Chocolate Mousse is such a crowd favourite, and when we both had a yearning for a chocolate dessert,  I was intrigued to find this Express recipe by the iconic Nigella Lawson, which uses mini marshmallows instead of raw eggs as the setting agent. The secret ingredient is the gelatine in the marshmallow, and it works beautifully and is delicious without being too sweet. There's no stress involved with worrying whether or not this chocolate pudding will set, because it sets brilliantly in the refrigerator. I tweaked this recipe over a couple of days as there are a few versions of it out there in books and online, but this is my final rendition of this classic dessert. I am so pleased that I now have the perfect chocolate mousse recipe to offer, which I will be very happy to make repeatedly, and without using lots of valuable eggs along the way. 

The first two batches were still edible but very dense and chocolatey, is that a word? I can't tolerate very rich desserts anymore, although Mr. HRK still thought they were delicious as he was feeling a little unwell with a head cold, but I knew the texture I wanted, light and creamy and fluffy but still with delicious chocolate as the base, and not overly sweet. For the first batch I made, I tried chopping up normal marshmallows into small pieces as I couldn't find mini marshmallows at the first supermarket I shopped at. I don't suggest that you try this as an alternative, as chopping up marshmallows is an onerous job, and they took a long time to melt. That first batch almost became Rocky Road, which would have been a delicious outcome, but I persisted, and it was eaten anyway by our young neighbours, happy to be experimented on. As you can see, I had fun along the way and shared the love of chocolate. 

Do you derive a huge sense of satisfaction out of working with a recipe until you finally achieve the result you are after? To be honest, I don't do it that often, but with this recipe I enjoyed the process, so did Mr. HRK. Read on my friends, and I know you will enjoy making and eating this divine Chocolate Mousse. My Cook's tips will give you further insight into my cooking process.

Ingredients:

150 grams mini marshmallows, pink and white is fine

50 grams (4 tablespoons) softened butter

250 grams good quality dark chocolate melts or dark chocolate chips (I used melts)

60 millimetres (1/4 cup) hot water (from a recently boiled kettle)

284 millimetres thickened or double cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

In a flat, wide heavy-based pan, place the marshmallows, butter, chocolate buttons and water. It's fine if the mini marshmallows are pink and white. 

Heat the saucepan over a gentle heat, to melt the contents. Stir often whilst hovering over the pan. The chocolate will melt first, the marshmallows will take longer.

The marshmallows are starting to melt while I stir. Marshmallow streaks are starting to appear.

The marshmallows are melting well.

When all the ingredients are melted and combined, remove the pan from the heat. It will be a smooth and silky chocolate sauce like mixture.

A smooth and silky chocolate sauce mixture, a few marshmallow streaks don't matter as cream will be added

Leave the chocolate mixture to cool off the stove top.  Meanwhile whip the cream with the vanilla extract until thick.

 Fold the cream by large spoonfuls into the cooled chocolate mixture until the mixture is smooth and well mixed.

Pour or spoon the chocolate mixture into 4 decorative glasses or ramekins, allowing about 175 ml/3/4 cup each in capacity, or 6 smaller ones (125 ml/1/2 cup), and chill until you are ready to eat dessert.

Decorate with swirls of cream and grated chocolate, or just grated white chocolate.

Cooks Notes:

• This recipe doesn't use eggs. The gelatine in the marshmallow is the ingredient that sets the mousse and works it's magic.
• Make them the day before and keep covered and chilled in the refrigerator. This makes life a lot easier on the day of eating as the work is already done. 
• Take the mousse out of the refrigerator when the main course is being served, cover,  and allow the desserts to soften up slightly for eating while the main course is being eaten. The mousse may become quite solid in the refrigerator. It needs to be soft and fluffy and "mousse like" before being served.
• If you like your mousse to be on the lighter chocolate side, use the dark chocolate buttons or dark chocolate chips. However if you like your mousse to be very dark chocolate, and rich and denser in texture, use a finely chopped dark chocolate block, at least 78 % cocoa. The ratio of cream to chocolate determines how light and fluffy the mousse will be. Some recipes only use 1 cup of cream, I like to use 284 millimetres of double cream for a lighter and fluffier mousse. It's a matter of personal taste, and the amount you need to serve to your guests. More cream will  stretch the quantity of the mousse, and take slightly longer to set. But it will set on the same day in a couple of hours.
• If the mini marshmallows are taking a long time to melt in the pan, increase the heat slightly on the stove and keep stirring. My stove is electric and I did most of the melting at number 2, and raised it to 3 to melt the marshmallows.

This second Chocolate Mousse batch below was quite dense and very rich, using 78 % Lindt chocolate and only 1 cup of cream.

What is your preference for a chocolate dessert ? Do you prefer the the very rich and denser chocolate mousse, or are you like me and prefer a lighter and fluffier style of chocolate mousse. It's certainly easier to eat more of the latter, but both are achievable by altering the ratio of cream to chocolate sauce.

Best wishes,

- Pauline xx