Mackay Lime Tart or Key Lime Pie

This sweet and tangy lime tart is simply sensational to eat, and is so easy to make. The filling rests in a baked biscuit and butter case, and the cooked tart keeps well when refrigerated and can also be frozen. Using freshly juiced and zested limes brings so much authentic flavour to this dessert. When life gave me fresh limes, I made this tart. Serves 12 people.

Lime salsa with Sweet Potato Mash

Sweet as sweet potatoes are exactly what their name suggests, lending themselves perfectly to both sweet and savoury cooking. They are in abundance right now, and along with tangy juicy limes also in season, I hope this simple recipe will tempt you to eat and celebrate the beautiful produce in season. Herby lime salsa is the perfect  counterpart to the versatile sweet potato, which is only a distant relative of the normal potato by the way. Sweet potatoes are high in fibre, and their bright orange colour tells us they are also high in the antioxidant beta-carotene and Vitamin A., all supporting our immune function.

When I first tasted this dish at our foodie friends P&J's home, I just loved it, the lime salsa combined with the sweet potato was such an exciting surprise to my palate. It really tickled my taste buds. This dish shines alongside all sorts of foods, Middle Eastern cuisine, humble grilled sausages or a vegetarian or vegan spread. I baked the sweet potatoes ahead of time and kept the mash refrigerated to be reheated later, made the salsa the same morning, which meant the dish was easy to assemble just prior to eating.

Yotam Ottolenghi also suggests that after cooking, we keep the skins, brush them lightly with olive oil and roast them again for about 8 minutes, at 200 deg. C fan forced, and eat them as a crisp-like snack. Waste not, want not. Yes, it's one of Yotam's clever recipes.

Let's cook:-

Preheat the oven to 200 deg. C fan.

Serves four to six as a side

Ingredients:

1 kg orange sweet potatoes washed, skin left on and cut in half lengthways, from top to bottom

60 ml olive oil

5 g basil leaves, chopped

5 g coriander, finely chopped

1/2 garlic clove, crushed

2 large limes, finely grate the zest to get 2 teaspoons, then juice to get 1 tablespoon

salt and black pepper

Method:

Massage the cut sweet potatoes with 1 tablespoon of oil and season with 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Line them up on a high sided baking tray lined with baking parchment, flesh side down, and roast for 30-35 minutes, until very soft. Be careful removing from the oven as some juice will have  come out of the potatoes.

While the sweet potatoes are roasting away, make the salsa.

Put the remaining 3 tablespoons of olive oil into a small bowl. Add the remaining ingredients with a good pinch of salt, and gently stir to combine.

Remove the sweet potatoes from the oven and allow to cool. Remove the skins, they should just slide off easily, or scoop out the flesh. Baking them this way results in a softer vegetable and better flavour. Set aside the skins to use later if you wish. Mash the flesh in a bowl with 1/8 teaspoon of salt and plenty of black pepper until quite smooth.

Transfer to a platter, make dips in the surface of the sweet potato, and spoon in the salsa. Decorate with extra herbs or some sprigs of tarragon.

Serve hot.

The 2nd edition below of Sweet Potato Mash with Lime Salsa.

Warm wishes

Pauline

Orange and Barley Salad followed by Coconut Lime Syrup Cake, it's a citrussy kind of day

This grain salad has citrussy hints of Spring cooking with orange and lemon, however in Sunny Queensland even in Autumn it is a beautiful Autumnal salad. If it's warm weather where you live, and you feel like eating a nutritious and delicious salad this is the one for you.

Beef Stir-Fry with a Citrus Kick

My stir-fry will tantalise your taste buds, delivering a citrus kick to Aussie beef, crisp veggies, and fresh herbs. This meal has everything. Generally when I cook a stir-fry, it is because I am short on time. I cook the meat in the wok, whether it is beef, chicken or pork, remove it while I add the vegetables, ginger and garlic, add the meat back into the pan with some soy sauce and perhaps another Asian sauce, stir fry it until the vegetables are ready and that's it. It's always tasty, but now that I have made this recipe using lime juice in addition to soy sauce and fish sauce, and marinating the beef, there's no going back for me to a simple stir-fry. And when I buy my limes for a stir-fry, I might just buy a couple of extra for Gin and Tonics for us to enjoy as an aperitif before I start cooking. It doesn't get much better than that.

Sometimes it's Mr. HRK that cooks the stir-fry in the wok, outside in our BBQ area on the patio while I prepare everything in readiness. This time, because a little bit more of an effort was required, and I was still cooking in my beautiful daughter's kitchen, I prepared and cooked this meal. We were all thrilled with the result. 

We are home now, and the temperatures up here in North Queensland are soaring to 37 deg. C. some days. We are running our air-conditioner almost 24/7, however if we turn it off for a few hours in the morning and keep the house closed up, it stays beautifully cool. We can't ever remember the humidity or the temperatures being so continuously high here in Mackay, and with no real rain forecast for us, although it must be coming. However, south Eastern Queensland and now Northern New South Wales have been absolutely hammered by the recent rain event and have suffered significant devastation, and those poor people affected are now cleaning out their flooded homes and salvaging what belongings they can. The badly affected have lost almost everything. The Australian Army is spreading themselves thin trying to help those in need to clean up, as are available and well meaning residents and volunteers not as badly affected. It is all very sobering. I fear that these extreme weather events will be exacerbated as a consequence of the developing climate change scenario.

This recipe is my twist on one that I saw in a recent Coles monthly supermarket recipe book, originating from our very own Aussie chef Curtis Stone, who was wanting to move back to Australia from Covid stricken Los Angeles. I'm not sure if he has or not. These catalogues tend to promote the supermarket's  own home brand product, which isn't necessary to produce a a great result, and the photographs are always nice and inspiring. This recipe is perfect to cook during the Australian Summer, although it is no longer Summer, but the beginning of Autumn. Bring on the Autumn temperatures, please.

Recipe serves 4

Ingredients:

Preparation 15 minutes + 15 minutes marinating time. Cooking time: only 10 minutes because it's a quick stir fry.

400g - 500g rump steak, Scotch fillet, or even Sirloin steak, thinly sliced across the grain into 6 mm thick strips (marinating the meat will give very tender results). I used Rump steak.

2 tbs fish sauce

2 tbs soy sauce

2 tbs vegetable oil divided

1/4 tsp cornflour

1 red capsicum, seeded and thinly sliced

200g green beans, trimmed and halved diagonally

1/2 cup (70 g) thinly sliced shallots

1 tbs finely chopped garlic

1 tbs finely chopped ginger

1 cup coriander leaves, divided

1 cup mint leaves

1 lime juiced, divided

1 tbs sugar

Steamed rice to serve

Method:

• Prepare the fish sauce, soy sauce and sugar in a small bowl by whisking it until the sugar dissolves. Place the sliced beef in another medium sized bowl, add 1 tablespoon of the soy sauce mixture and mix the sauce into the meat. Set the bowl of meat aside for 15 minutes to absorb the flavours. I marinated mine for 2 hours, covered the bowl and stored it in the refrigerator, until ready to use, as I had the time to do that. 
• Whisk the cornflour into the remaining soy sauce mixture and cover.
• Remove the beef from the bowl and pat it dry with a paper towel. Add 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil to a large hot frying pan,  and add the beef, spreading it over the base of the pan in a single layer. Without stirring the beef or touching it, cook for 2 minutes until well browned. You can see why the pan needed to be hot to begin with. 
• Stir fry the beef, and continue to stir and fry it for 40 seconds until cooked through. 
• Transfer the beef now to a plate with a rim to catch the juices.
• You are now ready to cook the vegetables. 
• Add the remaining oil, (1 tablespoon), and the capsicum and beans and cook for 2 minutes until the vegetables soften slightly. Stir and fry the vegetables. You want them still quite crisp. Stir in the shallot, garlic and ginger,
• Add the remaining soy sauce mixture, and the beef and the juices to the pan with the vegetables. Stir and fry for 1 minute until the beef is just heated through, the vegetables are tender, and the sauce has thickened slightly. 
• Take your frypan from the stove and stir in half the coriander leaves, the mint leaves, and half the lime juice. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to add the lime juice and at least one of the herbs.
• To serve divide the rice among the serving bowls. Top the rice with the beef stir fry, and drizzle with the remaining lime juice and for presentation, sprinkle with the remaining mint and coriander leaves.
• Serve with extra lime wedges if you have them

Cook's Notes:

• Please believe me, the lime juice adds a delicious zing and kick to this beef stir fry.
• If you are having trouble finding fresh produce in the supermarkets or markets at the moment because of recent weather events, frozen beans added toward the end of cooking will be fine.
• The quality of the beef will be much better if you buy it whole and slice it yourself. For a stir fry buy the steak or fillet as a whole piece, and slice it yourself, or buy from a reputable butcher and ask them to slice it for you. I have never had great results with beef that I have  purchased already sliced from a supermarket, which is being sold as stir-fry beef. 
• Using coriander and mint leaves will produce superior flavours, however the first time I made this I only had mint on hand, and it still tasted amazingly good.
• Please don't skimp on the lime juice, it's a game changer.
• Whilst I love to generally cook brown rice or even cracked bulgur wheat whenever I can as a side for health reasons, with a stir fry like this one, white rice is the perfect accompaniment.
• Marinating the beef for up to 2 hours before cooking, ensures very tender meat for a stir fry and is packed with flavour.
• 400g of beef might be enough for you if you aren't big eaters, but I used 500g. 
• If you are time poor, 15 minutes marinating the beef will be ok, however if you have plenty of time, marinate the beef for up to 2 hours before cooking for maximum flavour and tenderness.

We are being careful with what we eat at the moment, with low calorie meals being the preferred choice during the week. Stir-frys are a perfect option for healthy eating. Here's the breakdown per serve for you if you are interested:

Per serve:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Calories: 309/ 1292 KJ, Protein 28g (56%),Fat 16g (23%),Sodium 1763mg (88%),Carb 12g (4%),Sugar 10g (11%),Dietary fibre 6g (20%)

Warmest wishes,

Pauline

Lemon and Ricotta Mini-Bundt Cakes

These cakes are a celebration of citrus fruits in season, a tangy theme running through my sweets baking this Winter. 

Fill these little lovelies with lemon or lime curd, dust with some sifted icing sugar, garnish with a slice of dehydrated cumquat, (optional of course) and sit back and enjoy with fresh cream or yoghurt, depending on the time of day. Lemons and limes have been abundant this Winter, and quite interchangeable when cooking sweets.

In My Kitchen, July 2021

There's no place like home, as we say. We have been home from holidaying in Cairns for a week now, and although it was a very lovely break, and we had a wonderful time with our family and very special times with our daughter, it's nice to be safely home. The Bruce Highway is very busy to drive on at this time of year, people are travelling North to Cairns and the Cape, in caravans and campers, often in convoys, and so the secret is to leave very early in the morning before the caravanners pull out from their free roadside parks and caravan parks. Many of the new In My Kitchen pieces this month are from holiday shopping. This post is part of the monthly In My Kitchen series, a global event,  hosted by the lovely Sherry from Sherry's Pickings. I hope you enjoy it.

I came home to the flowering Sunny Chief. Rth. Chief Sunny Dragon is her/his simple name and I am always thrilled when this orchid is in bloom. I love being able to look at the flowers from my kitchen when I am cooking in there.

I took this photo of the Chief from another angle on my kitchen bench next to a vase of nasturtiums and a lovely golden double gerbera from our garden, a combination of some of my favourite colours to brighten up the kitchen. I love to have fresh flowers in the house, don't you? 

We took it a bit slower driving to Cairns this time, and stayed overnight in Ingham, about 5 hours drive from Mackay, to break the drive. Because we then had a whole day to drive to Cairns and it should only take four and a half hours at the most, we indulged by stopping in Innisfail, a little further North, and visited an amazing little Italian deli called Oliveris which has been on my list to explore for a few years now. It is an institution in Innisfail, and to walk through the  front door is to step back in time and explore an authentic Italian owned business, catering to a a proud and food loving predominantly Italian population. 

Oliveri's is a food lovers destination and has the best selection of olives, salamis, packaged Italian goods, and noughat,  and will also make visitors a delicious lunch. What impressed me is that the staff behind the counter are really interested in each customer and take plenty of time to answer any questions. They really know their stuff.

Next time we pass through we will hopefully have our car refrigerator on board, and then I can really shop to my heart's content.

This is my kind of relish, and it's not too hot.

This was delicious on our salad last night.

While I was inside shopping at Oliveri's, Mr. HRK and Locky mingled with the locals, and walked the main street of Innisfail. They found another shop which he said stocked everything, and my hubby who usually doesn't like shopping,  lashed out and bought me a very solid grater, with a beautiful wooden handle. He knows I have a hazardous relationship with graters, but this one will hopefully be a lot safer to use. I love it. In a future post, I'll write more about our road trip to Cairns, but for now I am aware that this event is about what's actually In My Kitchen, and everything I am writing here is my opinion.

My new heavy duty Grater

I also plan to make a pillow slip for my little grandson out of the beautiful new tea towel the grater is sitting on. It is designed in Australia and has colourful images of sea creatures, corals etc, perhaps it replicates out great Barrier Reef. Hugo is obsessed with sea creatures. 

When we are in Cairns, we go out for coffee most mornings which is a holiday treat for us as we don't tend to do it here at home, as Mr. HRK makes a delicious espresso coffee for us each day, every bit as good as anything we can buy. One of the coffee shops we like to visit up there is the Sipping Duck, which is near Freshwater on the Northern side, and has now branched out into making coffee based products. I thought the Coffee Spice Rub and the Dukkah looked very interesting. The staff at Sipping Duck are very good at imaginative coffee art, and a clever Sipping Duck often decorates the coffees.

We drove up to the Atherton Tablelands from Cairns for the day, and visited the Nerada Tea Plantation. This business is owned by the Russell Family, 3rd generation tea producers., who celebrated 50 years of tea production in 2021. The family started out in Britain, before heading to Malaya in 1880, and then later started their tea plantation in Australia when they realised the conditions on the Tablelands were perfect for growing tea.  An Australian owned business during an era of foreign ownership is something to be celebrated and supported.

Photos of the Nerada tea plantation

I have a new Bread Proofing basket, this one is oblong, which I am looking forward to using. Another locally owned business that we like to visit in Cairns is Chef Link, a large kitchen warehouse, which caters for the local restaurant and cafe business but is also open to the public. The staff there are very knowledgeable and I suspect they were chefs in a previous life. I never fail to find something I need to bring home from there.

I was given some very juicy backyard limes last week by a generous neighbour, and made a couple of batches of Lime Curd with them, always delicious,  using exactly the same technique and quantities as my Lemon Curd recipe. You can find my microwave lemon curd recipe here. I had some tart shells in the freezer,  which were a perfect size for these tartlets.

Here are some of my Lime Curd Tartlets that I garnished for a bit of fun with dried mandarin slices using mandarins from our mandarin tree, cinnamon spice, and golden kiwi fruit, and lots of fresh cream. Yum,they were delicious. You can also read the story on how we dehydrated our mandarins here if you missed it last time.

I bought these sweet pastry shells recently at a local deli, they don't require any cooking, and would also be perfect for making fast and easy tartlets.

My heartfelt thoughts are with those of you still in lock down. I hope you are managing to enjoy the simple things in life, including some delicious homemade meals. We aren't in lock down here but need to sign in with our Queensland phone app at supermarkets and restaurants etc. However we still need to be fastidious with hygiene and I am quite happy to avoid crowds these days, thankfully I love being at home. Until next time, thanks for stopping by.

Warmest wishes

Pauline

Citrus Butter Cake

This cake is a sweet celebration of all citrus in season and a celebration of things starting to return to normal, whatever that is now.  Beautiful orange navels, juicy limes, and tangy lemons found their way into my shopping basket, and the cake I needed to make just had to be a citrus one.

Delectable Lime Syrup Cake

Aren't you just loving that limes are in season? I picked the limes for this cake fresh from my potted lime tree. I must tell you, our young mate Dylan who lives two doors up, came to visit just before, seemed a bit tired after a full week at school, he's in Grade 7, and obviously needed some sugar because he asked me, very politely, "Pauline have you baked anything nice this week?"...... I generally have some thing baked I can give him to try, he's a very generous critic, but unfortunately this time the pantry and the freezer were bare of sweet things.

Coconut Lime Syrup Cake

This cake has become such a firm favourite of ours. We first tasted it at the Groove Café on Ipswich Road in Annerley, Brisbane, Queensland, when we were out having coffee. We wanted to try this café as it has won numerous awards, has an excellent menu, and is unpretentious but serves good food.