Blueberry pancakes on Pancake Tuesday

Our good friend Paul arrived this morning with delicious blueberry pancakes for Pancake Tuesday, such a treat and a lovely surprise. Apparently Pancake Tuesday is an Anglican tradition, however this
recipe was taken from the old Presbyterian cookbook .  I'm sure I've got a copy somewhere.  There are so many recipe treasures contained in those old church and school cookery books.

Paul said this recipe is just two cups of everything.  What an easy way of remembering a recipe. I'm not great at remembering recipes but this sounds memorable.

Then this afternoon I hosted Mahjong so more cake.

A perfect day really, don't you think?

Marilyn's Heaven in a Bowl Custard

Custard

CUSTARD, HEAVEN IN A BOWL

Jump straight to the recipe:

This is one of those recipes which I am sure will become part of the McNee clan's cooking repertoire. Marilyn goes back a long way as a teaching colleague of Neil's, and came to the Retiree's lunch at our place last week with a plum pudding left over from Christmas, a cheesecake, and this nostalgic custard. What I love about Marilyn's generation, is that she has no qualms about taking a shortcut with her cooking when necessary, hence the use of the Vanilla Instant pudding mix in this recipe. I should also mention she taught Home Economics for many years, hence her cooking, and her dressmaking etc is highly respected.

Neil was so excited by this custard, that I felt almost guilty that I don't cook more of it for him. In this heat we are experiencing at the moment, it is brilliant to be able to just mix up the ingredients for a recipe, chill it in the frig and it is ready. No cooking involved. I took a bowl of the custard which was leftover from the Retiree's lunch over to Kati's the following day for her birthday lunch. She found it in her frig that evening, and renamed it Heaven in a Bowl. I think she and little Leon ate it all in one sitting.

Neil remembers when the Vanilla Instant Pudding craze started when he was a just a boy living in Toowoomba. He often played over at his neighbour's house in the afternoons, where they sometimes made the pudding for dessert. Occasionally he was offered some, and as a lad he was in heaven when that happened. I don't remember my Mum ever using instant puddings, except perhaps jellies, as I think she cooked most things from scratch. However, in those days in Rockhampton they didn't frequent shops or the very scattered supermarkets as often as we do now.







The addition of the sprinkle of nutmeg in this pudding gives the dish an individual flavour, akin to that of homemade custard.

Marilyn’s “Heaven in a Bowl” Custard

Ingredients:

1 Vanilla Instant Pudding (Cottee's) (found at Woolworths with the jellies, custards etc.)

300ml Cream

300ml Full cream milk (or concede and use low fat milk because of cream being added in the recipe)

Sprinkle of nutmeg

Method:

1. Add milk and cream to a bowl.
2. Sprinkle in the pudding mix.
3. Beat with an electric hand beater until the mixture is thick enough.
4. Sprinkle with ground nutmeg and mix in.
5. Place covered bowl in the refrigerator and allow to set. This won't take long.
6. Whilst this is a custard it will set as a pudding consistency.
7. Serve with fresh fruit, frozen mango, plum pudding or whatever you are serving or just eat it on it's own as comfort food.

Use your Christmas Ham Bone to make this light and delicious Kale and Ham Soup

Ham and Kale Soup

This is a terrific recipe I found a few years ago, and until now I have restricted making it to Winter, using the Christmas ham bone which I place in the freezer religiously after each Christmas. My beautiful daughter inspired me though shortly after Christmas this year by making this soup (her favourite) in her slow cooker and freezing it in single edible portions in her freezer, for a perfect and nutritious meal to have after work some days, or even for lunch in the air-conditioning. After all, we had Christmas in Cairns so she inherited the ham bone this year.

So I returned home, thinking about that soup which smelled and looked wonderful. Of course I found myself at the local butchers, bought a ham hock and cooked the soup in my old but ongoing and faithful red crock pot, and froze it in double portions. Then it rained cats and dogs yesterday, so the soup was the perfect meal for a rainy day. However, it is light enough to be eaten on a cool evening in the heat of Summer as well. 

It is also the perfect way to eat Kale, a vegetable I am not smitten with to be truthful, but which I know is full of the essential healthy vitamins we need. Sharp Parmesan Cheese finishes it off beautifully. 

 Ingredients:

Stock:

1 smoked ham hock or bone from your Christmas Ham

1 onion, halved

2 sticks celery

1 carrot, sliced

3 garlic cloves

2 parsley stalks, or 1 teaspoon dried parsley

Soup:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, thinly sliced

2 leeks. white part only, thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves

400g can cannellini beans, drained

1 bunch kale (about 12 leaves), trimmed and chopped

Shaved Parmesan, to serve

Olive oil, to serve

Let’s make the stock:

Place the ham bone, onion, celery, carrot, garlic and parsley in a large saucepan or slow cooker bowl.

Slow cooker method:

Place all the ingredients in the slow cooker bowl and fill the pot with 3 litres of water. Cook on low for 8 hours or on medium for 4 hours. Halfway through the cooking, adjust the ham bone if necessary, so that all of the bone will be cooked and the meat tender by the end.  Remove the ham hock and discard the skin. Shred meat and set aside. Strain stock and set aside.

Large saucepan method:

Place all the ingredients in the saucepan and cover with 3 litres of water. Cook, simmering for 30 minutes (use a spoon to skim the surface).

Cover and simmer over low heat for 1 hour, or until meat is tender and falling off the bone. Remove the ham hock and discard the skin. Shred meat and set aside. Strain stock and set aside.

Let’s make the soup:

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add the onions, leeks, and garlic. Cook, stirring for 4-5 minutes, or until onion is soft. Add stock and bring to the boil. Add cannellini beans, kale, and ham hock meat. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 5-10 minutes, or until kale is tender.

Season with sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Spoon into soup bowls, top with shaved Parmesan, and drizzle with olive oil.

Warm wishes,

Pauline

Potatoes and Deconstructed Pesto

Basil is such a great herb to have growing in the garden and fortunately I have heaps of it. At this time of year, it is challenging to maintain a vegetable garden in the hot tropics, so I think that herbs are the way to go. 

Deconstructed Cheesy Cabbage Rolls

Deconstructed Cheesy Cabbage Rolls

I had to try this recipe from Not Quite Nigella's blog, one of my favourites by Lorraine Elliott,  as soon as I saw it. I had a busy day coming up, and a meal waiting for me in the slow cooker when I arrived home from Mahjong just sounded perfect. 

It's time for biscotti at Christmas time

Nigella's Cranberry and Pistachio Biscotti

To my way of thinking, this biscotti spells Christmas, with the lovely red cranberries and pistachio nuts specifying a festive event. A lot of ingredients are interchangeable in biscotti, eg pistachio nuts can be substituted with almonds as can the dried fruits, but this is a spectacular combination. The orange zest freshens up the whole biscuit. 

Traditionally, biscotti is meant to be dipped when eating in a sweet dessert wine, however Nigella Lawson in Nigelissima suggests a ruby port. Whatever takes your fancy really I think, even a cup of tea will do, these biscuits are just meant to be savoured over and dipped.

Makes 15, excluding the end pieces. I know I will need to bake another batch. 

Ingredients

1 EGG

75G CASTOR SUGAR

2 TEASPOONS FINELY GRATED ORANGE ZEST

125G PLAIN FLOUR, PLUS MORE FOR ROLLING

1/2 TEASPOON BAKING POWDER

FRESH NUTMEG (it should be grated off a whole nutmeg for best flavour)

75G PISTACHIO NUTS

50G DRIED CRANBERRIES

Let's cook:

Preheat the oven to 180 deg. C. /gas Mark 4.

Beat or whisk the egg and sugar until pale and moussy. Beat in the orange zest, then slowly fold in the flour mixed with the baking powder and a good grating of fresh nutmeg.

Fold in the whole pistachios and dried cranberries. Flour your kitchen bench well, and also your hands, as it is a sticky mixture. Now form the dough into a flattish, oval ciabatta-like loaf, approx. 25x5cm, and taper the ends slightly.

Lay the biscotti dough loaf carefully onto a piece of baking parchment on a baking tray and cook for 25-30 minutes, it should be a pale, brown colour. (I use a long and wide icing spatula knife to do this.) Rotate the baking sheet halfway through the cooking time, as the base can brown quickly.

Transfer the cooked loaf to a wire rack and leave for 5 minutes to harden slightly, then using a fine serrated-edged knife, slice the baked loaf diagonally into fingers about 1 cm thick.

These look bigger in the photo than they actually are.

Place the slices back onto the baking parchment covered tray and cook again for another 10 minutes, and then turn the biscotti over and cook for yet another 5 minutes.

Allow the golden-brown biscotti to cool on a rack and then store them in an airtight container. They will keep for a few weeks, as long as they are well hidden.

So, my friends, how are your Christmas preparations progressing? We are travelling away for Christmas so I need to have my baking finished well in advance. I would love to hear from you about your Christmas baking plans. I know many more people are reading my blog than comment, so it would be nice to hear from you. Comments box at the bottom of this blog.

Best wishes

Pauline xx

Making your own Mango chutney, a Christmas tradition in North Queensland

Bowen mangoes, and part of the latest batch of mango chutney. 

Mango chutney recipe

Jump to recipe here:

 There were always bottles of homemade mango chutney  in the house when I was growing up in Rockhampton, in Central Queensland,  as it was an annual tradition to make a batch before Christmas, for family and friends, just as the common mango trees were fruiting. The challenge was and still is, to pick the mangoes before they ripened on the trees. In those days most people had a mango tree growing in their back yard, or had friends who did. These days, mangoes can be bought pretty cheaply from the farmers markets, or from roadside stalls, on the Northern Bruce Highway. They will probably be seconds, or second grade fruit, which is fine, as the commercial supplies of mangoes are shipped to the southern markets and overseas as soon as they are picked.