Whether you like your lentil soup with a rough texture and the lentils still holding their shape, or smooth like I do, then just blitz this soup away to your liking, and enjoy it. We used leftover coriander roots and stalks in this soup, and the earthy unique coriander flavour with the texture of chives, along with the other aromatic ingredients make this soup memorable, and one bowl just isn't enough. It's also a cinch to make.
It's Winter, we're loving the change of season, and hot delicious beef pies are always popular here in tropical North Queensland when the weather turns so chilly. It's been down to 5 degrees the last two mornings, however the days are sunny and sublime but still cool. I made a dozen Beef Pot Pies last week, it was an easy way to feed 11 people, with one left for us for lunch the following day. Tennis players are hungry people. It's a pleasure to be in the kitchen right now, however I am torn, as the garden is also calling me for attention, and the beautiful sunshine outside is demanding to be enjoyed. 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 used my Aussie Beef Saltbush Stew recipe to make the these Beef Pot Pies. I kilo of beef chuck steak cooked up beautifully in the slow cooker, and was the perfect amount for 12 pies. I topped the meat up with some separately sauteed mushrooms, and they were delicious. The red wine I added just might have helped as well. Luckily I have 12 matching white ceramic dishes, so I spooned the beef filling into the dishes, and then used bought puff pastry to cover them. Normally I would make my own shortcrust pastry, but I had a sticky date pudding to cook as well so I took a shortcut with the pastry. They were delicious. I used an egg wash of beaten egg and a little bit of milk, so that they browned up as required. Here's the link to the Beef Stew recipe if you missed it before. I posted about my Sticky date pudding quite a few years ago when I was new to blogging, and that post needs updating, however I use that recipe all the time, it's delicious. Here's the Sticky Date Pudding link.
These are the photos of the Beef Pot Pies being cooked and assembled.
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| Ready for cooking in the Slow Cooker |
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| Waiting for the Puff Pastry |
In my last post about my Greek Inspired Cauliflower, I mentioned a Speed Peeler, and asked if anyone had one or had heard of it. The reason was that Jamie Oliver mentioned one in his Cauliflower recipe that I had based my recipe on. No-one seems to have heard of it. Well no surprises that when I googled it, a speed peeler is one of Jamie's kitchenware products, available on sale at Woolworths here in Australia, probably in the UK and other countries too. I'm not rushing out to buy one as I think my vegetable peelers do a great job, and I think I might have bought one like this before during my long culinary vegetable peeler purchasing history, which has since broken as they all eventually seem to do, for me anyway.
Here is the link to the infamous 3 in one Speed Peeler if you want to take a look.
Jamie Oliver 3 In 1 Speed Peeler Each | Woolworths. Mystery solved.
I've also been doing a little bit of online shopping, and bought a 12 cup Mini Bundt Pan from Kitchen Warehouse. I still have to try this tray out, but I have a nice little bundt cake recipe in mind which I was so excited about when I first saw it. It might have to wait in the queue though until after the holidays.
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| Freshly picked rosellas |
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| Rosellas still on the bush |
Firstly the Cooks note: This recipe makes 4 large flatbreads, however if you prefer them smaller like pita bread, cut the dough into 8 portions.
If you can't find Greek style yoghurt, use regular yoghurt and reduce the water in the recipe to 1 1/4 cups.
The flatbreads also make crispy and delicious bases for pizza. The smaller ones are excellent as pita or pocket breads.
Use plenty of plain flour when you are rolling out the flatbreads to prevent them sticking to the bench, and use a floured rolling pin
Ingredients:
(No oil needed to cook)
4 cups Plain Flour
1 sachet (7 grams or .25 ounce) active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C, if you are pedantic, we're not)
1/2 cup Greek-style yoghurt
1 tablespoon white sugar
1/2 tablespoon salt (the original recipe used 1 tablespoon but we thought it was slightly too salty, up to you)
Method:
1. Dissolve the yeast, sugar and salt in a small bowl with the warm water. Add the water and the yoghurt to the flour and mix well. The dough will be nice and soft but not sticky. Tip the dough onto a lightly floured bench and shape it into a ball.
Now cover the dough with a damp cloth and allow it to rise at room temperature for 3 hours. ( We place ours in the warm laundry, where our hot water system happens to be, and close the door, and it sure did rise!)
2. Cut the dough into four triangular portions. Shape the dough into rounds and flatten each round on a well floured bench as though you are making pizza dough. We flattened ours out further with a floured rolling pin so that it was a larger and thinner flatbread and it was perfect.
3. To cook your flatbread, choose either the BBQ or a cast iron skillet. As Mr. HRK was cooking, he chose to use a pizza stone in the BBQ, which worked like a dream. Preheat the BBQ or stove to a medium-heat. Place one round of dough on the BBQ or skillet and bake until the brown spots on the bottom, about 1 minute. Flip the bread and bake for another minute. Remove the bread and wrap it up in a clean tea towel to keep warm. We separated them with baking paper like you do with pancakes in case they stuck together with humidity around, but it really wasn't necessary.
For the whole Turkish Feast backstory about these pizza bases you can find it by clicking on this link:
Oh did I forget to give you the score from the game on Wednesday? Well it was an annihilation by New South Wales over Queensland, however the food in our kitchen was great. Better luck for the next match hopefully, always optimistic.
It's been a busy week's cooking with the pie dinner last Friday night, then Mahjong was on Tuesday afternoon at my place so I made one of my favourite cakes. A generous neighbour gave me some lovely, juicy limes from their backyard tree, so I baked my Lime Syrup and Coconut Cake, you can click on this link for the recipe. Always a favourite, served with yoghurt,
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| Delicious and tangy Lime Syrup and Coconut Cake |
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| Cooking the lime syrup |
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| Grating the lime zest |
Cauliflower you say, for a main meal dish? Yes, this Cauliflower vegetarian dish really earns it's stripes on flavour. It can also reflect the seasons, which is one of the things I love about vegetarian food. This dish is a riff on Jamie Oliver's Cauliflower stew.
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| Adding pumpkin to the cake mixture |
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| Waiting to be chopped up |
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| Aussie Beef Salt Bush Pie, read on |
Now that the dust has settled, literally, I have some time to write on my blog again. Have you noticed I've been a bit quiet in the blogging world? Last week after taking a deep breath, we had our whole house retiled, except for two bedrooms and the bathrooms. All the furniture was removed from the lounge, dining area, and the two main bedrooms. It happened quickly, as surprisingly the tradies were ready to do the work. So the house inside was shrouded in plastic as the first couple of days were very dusty and noisy when the existing tiles were removed.
We chose our tiles, they were laid over three days and now we are very happy with the result. I love our new look. Mr. HRK and I moved all of the furniture back into the house, the beds, the lounge suite, the China Cabinet, the dining suite etc, and along the way we needed to make compromises about what we should keep and what should be sold or disposed of. This was the perfect time to scale down and decide what we really don't need. It really came down to what is essential for us now, and what we are emotionally attached to. Now our lounge, dining area and bedrooms have a whole new layout, lovely refreshing new tiles and we are happy with the result. Our backs were sore for a day after the shifting, but that was the least of our worries. It was done. However there is still some sorting through cupboards and drawers to be done, but the worst of the renovations, the heavy lifting and the decision making, is over.
But how did we survive with enough food to nourish us during this experience? Those of you who read the last In My Kitchen post, will already know that we have a mandarin tree which has just been laden with fruit, so we have had plenty of fresh citrus to enjoy, and as I am writing this post I am sipping on some freshly squeezed mandarin juice. It's really delicious. We've had a couple of cold snaps and some rain, so the mandarins are at their peak of juiciness. We've also had lots of dried mandarins to nibble on.
I'm really happy that we didn't need to buy any takeaway meals, and we didn't dine out during all of the upheaval, as nice as that is. We were too tired to be bothered. In anticipation of what was going to happen, I made my very easy and tasty Zucchini and Bacon slice which is always a great standby during any kind of upheaval and busy times. I also delivered a couple of slices to a sick friend, and another friend who visited during the mayhem was plied with a slice for lunch. The slice stretched a bit like the Biblical Loaves and Fishes tale.
Zucchini slice was originally created, back in the 1980's to assist busy parents to cook a healthy, nutritious and very tasty savoury slice for the whole family, requiring no precooking of any ingredients, just some grating and slicing. It became so popular, that you could depend on there being a Zucchini and Bacon slice at any family gathering or party. Bring it back I say.
There are many variations available now, however the basic ingredients of eggs, flour, cheese, zucchinis and bacon still provide the base for a popular and economical meal.
Ingredients:
375 grams zucchini (approx. 2 large or 4 small)
1 large very fresh onion, finely chopped
3 rashers bacon, finely chopped, fat removed
1 cup very tasty grated cheese
1 cup SR flour
1/2 cup Rice Bran oil
5 eggs
salt and pepper to taste
I added a 1/2 cup of corn this time, and 1 grated carrot.
Method:
Grease and line with baking paper a 30cm x 20cm Lamington Tin.
Grate zucchini in a food processor and finely chop onion and bacon. Combine zucchini, onion, bacon, cheese, corn, sifted flour, oil and lightly beaten eggs.
Season with 1/2 teaspoon of salt or to taste
Pour into your lined and greased baking tray, or you can also use a pie dish or a large quiche dish. Top with sliced tomatoes if you wish.
Bake in a moderate oven for 30 to 40 minutes or until brown.
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| Homemade Chicken stock being cooked |
It must be nearly Winter if I am writing about soup here in the Tropics. With three containers of my homemade chicken stock in the freezer, and the weather cooling down, it was also very easy to make some chicken and barley soup, which only takes about an hour to make. It has been a wonderful standby to have on hand for an easy dinner or lunch.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 kg chicken wings, or 1 whole free-range chicken, or 1 1/2 kgs of bony chicken parts such as necks, backs, breastbones, frames and wings ( whatever you have works)
3 1/2 litres of water ( so that it covers the chicken) and 2 tablespoons vinegar
2 roughly chopped carrots
1 onion, peeled and halved
4 stalks celery roughly chopped
3 stalks fresh parsley, chopped
2 bay leaves
1 garlic clove peeled
A few peppercorns
Bring to the boil in a large stainless steel pot, and simmer the ingredients on the stove top for 8 hours so that the marrow from the bones is completely removed and enriches the stock. The longer you cook the stock, the richer and more flavoursome and healthy it will be.
About 10 minutes before finishing the stock, add the parsley.
Remove the whole chicken pieces with a slotted spoon. If you are using a whole chicken, let this cool and remove the chicken meat from the carcass for other uses such as sandwiches and curries, enchiladas or salads. (The chicken meat can also be removed from the bones after only 2 hours of cooking when it will be nice and firm.) I don't bother removing the fat from the stock now by chilling it first and letting the fat rise to the surface, as I think the fat gives the stock a beautiful flavour. However that is a personal choice. You might also prefer to make your stock in the pressure cooker or slow cooker. The stock can then be stored in the refrigerator or freezer.
I really believe that chicken soup made from scratch is very healing. Some say it reduces allergies, improves digestion, and gives us strength. I love to give chicken soup to friends and family who have colds and flu, I'm sure it helps their recovery.
A Handful of fresh herbs
I make this very simply. Fry up all the vegetables in 2 tablespoons of olive oil until the onion is translucent and vegetables slightly softened.
Add the stock, fish sauce (my secret ingredient) and bring to the boil. Then bring the heat down to a simmer. Add the fresh chopped herbs including parsley, the barley, and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer until the vegetables are softened, taste to check the seasoning. and the soup is ready to serve.
Last Tuesday night our football team was playing, they are the North Queensland Cowboys. This is Rugby League football, for those who don't really follow it. Mr. HRK played Rugby League when I first met him, and then when he moved away to Teacher's College he stopped playing competitively, but never stopped loving the game. In the morning, I assembled my Salt Bush Beef Stew in the slow cooker and it was cooked by lunchtime. The Aussie meat pie and football are synonymous, and feeling that we needed some stamina to watch the football and hopefully will the Cowboys to win, I converted the beef stew into a meat pie. I added a couple of extra teaspoons of Worcestershire Sauce to give it the Beef Pie edge, and because I was short on time and the tilers were still around, I used frozen shortcrust pastry for the base, and puff pastry for the top layer. It worked a treat. Mr. HRK loved it. After all, what's not to love about a delicious Aussie Beef Pie with Tomato Sauce. And the Cowboys had a great win. Overall, a successful night.
You can find the Aussie Salt Bush Beef Stew recipe at this link on the blog where I have loaded it previously.
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| Football night |
Hope you are all having an enjoyable weekend,
Warm wishes
Pauline
It's citrus season, and Dried Mandarins feature in this edition of the May IMK. Where did April go? And now that it's May, the weather here in the Tropics of North Queensland is cooling down so we are spending a lot more time in the garden preparing the garden beds for Winter planting, and also it is really a pleasure now to be preparing delicious food in the kitchen.
A lot of the activity in my kitchen this last month and in Mr. HRK's workshop, has been centred around the mandarin fruit. The branches of our mandarin tree in the front garden have been sagging to the ground with the weight of the mandarins it is producing. Even though the skins hadn't ripened, and are only just starting to ripen now, the flesh is sweet, and we needed to pick some of those mandarins to ease the load off the tree, and then find a way to use them, as well as give a lot to friends. We also needed to find a way to preserve them. Did you know that even though the skin of the mandarin fruit is still green, the fruit can be ripe enough to eat, and in fact be very juicy and delicious? It takes a cold snap in the weather, which we are really still waiting for, for the skins to change colour. We also don't have a clue what variety of ,mandarin this tree is.
When my Mum passed away on the 13th May, 13 years ago, just after Mother's Day, my Aunty Mary, my Mum's stepsister, gave me a mandarin tree to plant in memory of Mum, a lovely and very thoughtful idea. That was in 2008, so the mandarin tree is 13 years old, and this is the best crop it has yielded. This is all very special to me as my Mum would have been 100 years old this year. During those 13 years due to the tree's lack of interest in producing fruit, Mr. HRK has threatened it, cajoled it, fed it, watered it, but not hugged it, however something has worked because this year it has excelled itself, just when seriously it was under threat of being faced with it's demise. Because of it's sentimental value to me, of course I have protected it, or it might have met it's sad end a few years ago, but it just shows that trees have feelings and after 13 years it is coming into its own, a late bloomer. Sadly Aunty Mary is also no longer with us either, but I will let my cousins know this story. We never found out what the variety of this mandarin is. But it is a large fruit, thin skinned, with very few seeds and very sweet. If you have any clues as to what it is I would love to hear from you. Anyway it has adapted to living in the tropics, like all of us.
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| These are the fruit just starting to colour up. There are a few green ant nests in the tree as well just for added value. |
This is the mighty mandarin tree in our front yard surrounded by some tropical colour; Coleus, Ixora, a Desert Rose, purple ground Orchids, Geraniums and the large leafed exotic Caladium with a pink heart. Around the base of the tree is well cleared though as it needs to be.
And bucket loads to give away.
However when we started thinking about how to preserve some of them, Mr. HRK was very keen to experiment with dehydrating them. So the dehydrator moved into his workshop to work away quietly during the night, and off we started. Well the good news is that they are delicious dehydrated, and will keep bottled and well sealed in a cool place for 12 months. For the first batch we tried, we left the skins on the fruit when we sliced them up, however because the skin was still green, the fruit tasted quite tart when dried. However if you can dry them with the golden skin still on the fruit they will look very pretty, even prettier than mine:) I hope that enough fruit will survive the bugs and not become stung by fruit fly before they ripen enough to pick them, so we can dry some more with the skin on. That was another reason why we were fearful about leaving the fruit on for too long, as the fruit fly wreak havoc on citrus in our part of the world. We try to spray with eco friendly sprays and hang bottles of various concoctions from the tree guaranteed to repel the bugs but some fruit still gets stung.
This was our second batch where Mr. HRK removed the skins, and sliced the mandarins as finely as he could, and then dried them in our dehydrator overnight.
Then I decided to sprinkle a spice rub over the next batch before drying for some extra flavour, which took them to another level, and this photo below is the result. We have taste tested them on friends, and I recommend this method to you for oranges and mandarins. Bottle them up, label them, enjoy them at home, and they will also be delicious edibles to give as gifts. I still need to print off some labels, but they look really nice bottled in jars.
We are now sprinkling the mandarins over our cereal in the morning as well. We also dried some pineapple slices which is more popular and commercially available for sale than the mandarin, and we think it's delicious as well, and great for a snack if you are travelling.
Ingredients:
4 large mandarins or oranges thinly sliced
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
large pinch of sea salt
Method:
Fruit can be dried in the oven or in a dehydrator or even in the sun. Using the dehydrator is an easy way to do it as it can work overnight, and if not quite dry enough in the morning, then adjusted by the hour until the fruit is just right.
Wash and dry your fruit, then cut them into very thin slices, (as thin as possible)
Mix the spices and the sugar in a bowl and sprinkle evenly over the mandarins or oranges
Layer them on dehydrator trays, or if you want to use your oven, dry them on trays lined with baking paper at 200 deg. F for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. They may take longer.
We were using two dehydrators by this stage.
When dried, they can be stored in ziplock bags, or in bottles. Store them in a cool, dry place and they should store well for 12 months. In my neck of the woods, the humidity can cause problems, so they need to be packaged as soon as possible.
Dried mandarin or orange slices can also be added to decorate a cocktail, a fruit shrub, or any drink really. There are endless possibilities to how they can be used, only limited by our imagination. The flavour is really developed by the drying process.
The other day, whilst I was cooking a chook with stuffing in the oven for lunch, I made a Banana Sultana cake and to save time and electricity, I baked it in the oven with the chook. The cake was delicious, so was the chook by the way. I used some dried mandarin to decorate the top of the cake before baking. The dried fruit browned off a little too much for my taste when it was cooked, however it didn't take away from the overall success of the cake at all. This cake was just so delicious straight out of the oven that I will definitely be baking it again. I can't see any reason not to add both walnuts and sultanas if I have the ingredients on hand. This is a photo of my cake before it went into the oven.
Here is the recipe, which just happened to be on the back of a Sunbeam sultanas packet. I think the sugar content could be halved if you are watching calories, and this would still be to your taste.
Ingredients:
70 g butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 cup sultanas
2 tablespoons milk
Method:
Preheat oven to 180 deg. C.
Grease and line the base of a loaf tin, mine measured 22 cm x 12 cm and was perfect
Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy, add the beaten egg, and then add in the bananas one at a time
Add the flour, sultanas and the milk and stir by hand to combine
Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and bake in the oven for 45 minutes. AT the end of the cooking time, insert a skewer into the centre of the cake and if it comes out clean it is cooked.
Cool in the tin and then slice to serve while it is still warm and enjoy.
When I was growing up and still living in my family home, I remember that this kind of cake was often served warm and with butter spread on it, gosh we were naughty back then weren't we, but it was so very good.
If you read my blog regularly, you will already know that I play Mahjong once a week, and as well as having the fun of playing Mahjong with friends, we also enjoy some delicious cake at each others homes. This week was my turn to host Mahjong, and I made my Ginger Syrup cake, which is a recipe I really enjoy making, and this time I decorated it with a slice of the dried mandarin. The ladies really enjoyed it. The cake recipe is now being distributed to all the Mahjongers. You can find it at this link. The flavours of the spice rub and the intense ginger flavour of the cake complimented each other perfectly, all enhanced by the wonderful espresso coffee made by our barista for the afternoon, Mr. HRK.
Well that's it from me for this edition of In My Kitchen. This is part of the IMK event hosted globally by Sherry from Sherry's Pickings, where lots of bloggers participate to showcase the highlights of what they have been doing in their kitchens for the month.
Take care, and thanks for dropping by,
Best wishes,
Pauline
