Stunning way to start a dinner party

Tonight's Menu = caramelised walnut, beetroot, pear and goats cheese salad, followed by rare roast rib of beef, finished with a dessert duo. 4 mini pear and almond tarts and 4 mini chocolate souffle tarts.


So I made up this salad, I wanted to achieve a textural medley with the perfect blend of sweet and savoury, now you'd have to ask the dinner guests if they agree, but I think I succeeded.

First I put a few handfuls of baby rocket on the platter and gently tossed with some extra virgin olive oil, mostly for aesthetic reasons, it looks prettier when the leaves are glossy.

Next I dotted the leaves the roughly quartered segments of roasted beetroot (the beetroots were some that I had bought on special ages ago but didn't actually need for a recipe so i boiled them whole, with the skin and tail on, and froze them. I defrosted the beetroots, roughly quartered and roasted them with salt, pepper and a little olive oil at about 180℃ until tender).

Next step is dotting the salad with soft goats cheese and quartered, but thinner more like segments of firm but ripe pear, I used Corella, do this just before serving so they don't turn brown.

The best part of this salad is definitely the caramelised walnuts.
to make the caramelised walnuts I just roasted the walnuts in the oven at 180℃ for about 10 minutes until golden, but keep a close watch in case they burn. In a saucepan put 1 cup of caster sugar and put over medium heat and allow to dissolve. Because you haven't added any water to the sugar you can stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture is a golden amber colour. Once you have achieved the right colour add the nuts and stir quickly to coat the nuts completely and turn out onto baking paper using 2 forks to separate the nuts before they form a clump.

Scatter the nuts over the salad, just before serving to ensure they don't loose their crunch.

And Voila! On the table, is now an amazingly tasty salad with varied, but complementary textures and the caramelised walnuts look so impressive that people will be taking about this one for ages.
Only one difference I would make for next time, the salad lacked astringency to counter the sweetness of the pear and walnuts so when I tossed the rocket leaves with EVOO, I would add a couple good squeezes of ultra fresh lemon juice.

Just to gild the lily, I served the salad with some lightly blanched asparagus spear which I then wrapped with prosciutto and grilled on the BBQ.

SOUR CREAM COFFEE CAKE WITH APPLE-DATE FILLING

OK, so when I saw this recipe in '1,001 low fat vegetarian recipes' by Sue Spitler, I was excited. Pretty simple recipe. I love apple and date combo, sold! I was reading the recipe and I turned to my mum and said " they forgot to put the coffee in the recipe!" her reply " not a coffee cake, it's like a tea cake, you eat it with coffee".  So very literal of me, but awesome cake.

Here we go, as low fat and low in sugar as I could manage with it still tasting amazing.

1/2 cup of canola oil
1/4 cup of unsweetened apple sauce

(this can be a little hard to find,
so you could always 

just stew a few apples with
no additives and use that)

1 cup of Stevia, granulated

1/3 cup of lightly packed brown sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

3 cups of plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons of bicarb soda

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 1/2 cups of low fat sour cream

APPLE-DATE FILLING 

(I recommend doubling the apple-date filling)

1/2 cup of dried apples, coarse chop

1/4 cup of chopped and pitted dates

2/3 cup of water, minimum

1/3 cup of lightly packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon of plain flour

1/4 teaspoon on nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon of salt

CREAM CHEESE ICING

2 tablespoons of light/low fat cream cheese (Philadelphia)

1 cup of powdered/ icing sugar

so... i'm back. i'm on maternity leave after having twins in April so i have time to bake again.

I use stevia granulated sweetener/ but if you're not worried about sugar just use normal caster sugar

My first recipe back in the blogging saddle is an amazing banana bread with raspberries and dark chocolate.The best part, it's low fat and low in sugar. PERFECT.

Here is how it goes:

2 cups of plain flour
3/4 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of artificial sweetener                             
4 tablespoons of canola oil or margarine        
2 large eggs

Do not use vanilla essence & don't bother with vanilla bean paste. In this recipe it would just get lost

1 1/2 cups of ripe mashed banana (approx 3 large bananas)                   
1/3 cup of low fat vanilla yoghurt
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract                            
                                                                       
1 cup of dark chocolate chips
1 cup of whole frozen raspberries, dusted with 1 tablespoon of plain flour.




TIP: Double the recipe, it will disappear so quickly.
Also, I have decided to make this recipe as muffins rather than a loaf to help with portion control. I need all the help I can get. Otherwise this will make a standard loaf  tin (approx 21 x 11cm) sized banana bread.

Preheat the oven to 180℃.

As a busy mum of twins it can take several sessions to get a recipe done. So I like to prepare all parts of the recipe in advance so that when I'm ready all I have to do is throw together my already measured, mashed and sifted ingredients.

1. Sift the plain flour, baking soda and salt into a bowl, set aside.
2. In another bowl blend or mash the bananas with the yoghurt and vanilla extract, set aside.
3. In the bowl of your standing mixer measure out the stevia and canola oil and beat until pale and fluffy
4. With the beater still running add the eggs one at a time until well combined
5. Add the banana, yoghurt, vanilla mixture until well combined.
6. Now you can add the flour and combine using the stand mixer or by hand until just combined. Do not over beat the mixture as this will make the bread very dense instead of light and fluffy.                            
7. Next you can fold through the chocolate chips and very carefully fold through the raspberries.
8. If you are making a loaf of banana bread pour the mixture into a greased loaf tin, or if you are making muffin banana breads use a greased ice-cream scoop to fill lined muffin molds 3/4 full. (When I doubled the recipe the yield was 3 dozen muffins) 
9. For a loaf bake the cake for 50-60 minutes.
10.  For muffins bake for 30 minutes. 

final installment of a simple life

What do you do when your uncle buys you a 1.5kg bag of Craisins for Christmas?
My solution, is adapting Jamie Oliver's 'rosemary rasin' bread.
refer to this recipe
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/jamie-oliver/rosemary-and-raisin-bread-recipe/index.html




The only problem/ concern I had was the cook time, so I just let it cool completely in the oven to do a little extra passive cooking.

My favourite combo for this was served with Saint Agur french cheese (not cheap at $90+ a kg).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Agur_Blue

the simple things in life part 2

Continuing on my Alain Ducasse adventure comes 'light pesto' pasta.
This is an astonishingly simple recipe, it takes no time at all.
All you need is 4 peeled cloves of garlic, 20g of freshly grated Parmesan cheese, 30g of pine nuts, 2 bunches of basil, 6 tbsp of water, 6 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil.
Cut the garlic cloves in half and remove the little green sprouty bit from the centre.

• Place 3 of the cloves (6 halves) into boiling water for 2 minutes.
• Put the remaining fresh garlic clove along with the blanched cloves, pine nuts, Parmesan and basil (I would recommend tearing the basil into pieces before bashing) into a mortar and pestle and combine to a traditional pesto consistency. (I cheated a little, I wasn't achieving the required consistency and so I abandoned the pestle and mortar in favour of my handy Cuisinart moulie).

• Add the water and olive oil, continuing to bash or blitz, as is your preference.
• season with salt and pepper, then put in a jar in the fridge to keep the flavours fresh. If you leave it on the bench the basil can loose it's 'ozone' (thanks Rick) freshness.

Meanwhile, put a pot of water on to boil, once boiling add plenty of salt then the pasta of choice (Alain uses pappardelle, but fettuccine or whatever) cooking according to the packet instructions.
While the pasta is boiling, toast 40g of pine nuts and then place on paper towel to cool.
Grate 20g of fresh Parmesan and set aside.
Drain the pasta and then put in in a large fry pan over medium heat and add a couple tbsp of the pest along with the extra Parmesan and pine nuts to heat the pesto through.
That's it, serve in the pan or on a platter.
yummo.

I served this pasta with a little salad of home grown mignonette lettuce, home grown cucumbers, and a little red onion, dressed with salt, pepper, lemon juice and a splash of olive oil.

the simple things in life

After Christmas and days of over indulgence, and more left overs than you can poke a stick at I'm yearning for some simple pleasures.

Thus we welcome Alain Ducasse, and his amazing cookbook 'Nature. Simple, Healthy and Good'.
From this philosophy I have made a Caprese salad from my home grown tomatoes, a mixture of heirlooms and cherry toms, a ball of buffalo mozzarella, basil from the garden and a balsamic glaze, with the obligatory swirl of extra virgin olive oil.
My tip for a sensational Caprese is texture.

This is the first of my heirlooms to ripen, not the prettiest, but she sure is tasty.

 

 

This is heirloom number 2.

Don't just dice your tomatoes into indenticate cubes, halve your cherry toms and chunky slice your larger toms.
This is a celebration of seasonal produce, home grown veggies and the scent of summer in the air.
perhaps the other important piece of advice, which should go without saying is seasoning.
Use salt and pepper. Salt and tomatoes are like potatoes and duck fat, an unbeatable combination.

Enjoy, because I certainly will.

LOW FAT, GUILT FREE TIRAMISU

INGREDIENTS:
1 & and, 1/2 cups of strong black coffee (I usually add a few tbsps of hot choc powder to the coffee)
2 tbsp of Frangelico
2 egg whites
1 cup of low fat (light/ diet/ reduced fat) custard
350g low-fat ricotta cheese
1/4 cup of icing sugar, sieved
250g savoiardi/ sponge finger biscuits
garnish with grated chocolate or 2 tbsp of cocoa powder

Questo è Come Noi Lo Facciamo (this is how we do it)....

1. Combine the coffee and Frangelico (+ hot choc mix) and set aside to cool.
2. Beat the egg whites to soft peaks using an electric beater.
3. In a separate bowl beat together the custard, icing sugar and ricotta until smooth and creamy.
4. Fold the egg whites into the custard mixture, be careful not to knock all the air out of the eggs, you want to keep the mixture light and fluffy.
5. To assemble the tiramisu, use a round or rectangle dish about 6cm deep and 18cm square or 18ch diameter.
6. My method is to place half the biscuits on the base of the dish and ladle over half of the coffee mixture 
7. Follow by pouring over half of the ricotta mixture.
8. Repeat the process, laying down the biscuits, ladle over the coffee and smooth over the remaining ricotta mixture.
9. Finish off the tiramisu by grating over some white or milk chocolate (just a smidgen, this is meant to be low fat) or cocoa powder.

Lei può mangiarlo tutto, well, I definitely could :)

SICHUAN PORK RIBS WITH EGGPLANT, GINGER AND BLACK VINEGAR

INGREDIENTS:

100 ml olive oil
1 brown onion, finely sliced
4 garlic cloves, smashed
2 eggplants, sliced into 2cm-thick disks
6 slices of pork belly, 2cm thick
1 daikon, peeled and sliced, 2cm thick (you know what: when you slow cook daikon, esp with pork, it goes all sweet and weirdly delicious, give it a go, smells a bit odd, but tasty)
6cm piece of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
2tsp of ginger powder
1/2 tsp five-spice powder
2 tbsp pepper
3 small chillies, split
3 tbsp black vinegar
200ml oyster sauce
2 tbsp raw sugar
100ml light soy sauce'
250 ml chinese cooking wine (xiao xing)
200 ml water

HOW DO YOU MAKE THIS DELICIOUSNESS A REALITY?..

1. preheat the oven to 160 fan-forced
2. use a big, wide (shallow) pot or la chausseur (with a lid) and heat the olive oil over high heat and fry the onion, garlic stir frying for 1 minute, or until aromatic.
3. add the egglant and stir fry for 2 mins (I actually prefer, to cut the eggplant into 2cm sticks rather than rounds, but as always recipes are guides, not gospel).
4. add the pork, daikon, dried spices and all the other ingredients and bring to a simmer
5. place the lid on the pot and out in the oven for 2 1/2 - 3 hours. and the ribs will be amazingly fall-aparty and tender.
6. serve with steamed rice.

Recipe thanks to Karen Martini.

PARTY OF 5, PART 3

My first and enduring love will always be Rick Stein, and so it should come as no surprise that I would turn to Rick for a dessert selection. And he has yet to fail me, think ferrero-esque crisp meringue and a chocolaty cheesecake type filling.
Otherwise known as Hazelnut Chocolate Dacquoise.

I preheated the oven to 200 degrees, and roasted 50g of whole hazelnuts for about 6 minutes, removed them from the oven and tipped them into a tea towel, rubbing the hazelnuts to remove the skins, Then blitzed them to a medium/ fine chop. And dropped the oven temperature to 110 degrees.

In a glass bowl a whipped 5 egg whites to stiff peaks and whisked in 225g of cater sugar to create a glossy, stiff meringue. The next step is to fold in all but a tsp of the blitzed hazelnuts, the create an almost ferrero type taste and aroma. Top one meringue with the reserved hazelnut, this will be the top ;ayer of the cake.

To cook the meringue, divide the mixture into 3 equal portions, forming 3 20cm circles on baking paper (to do this use a 20cm round cake tin and trace the base on baking paper with a pencil to make a 20cm circle, repeat 3 times on 3 pieces of baking paper).
Bake the meringue disks for 2 hours and then turn off the oven, letting the meringues cool completely in the oven. (the disks keep really well, so you can make these several days in advance).

To make the filling melt 100g of good quality plain chocolate, with only 50% cocoa solids (I used valrhona). To melt the chocolate, simmer a pot of water and place a glass bowl with the chocolate, over the pot, but don't let the water touch the bowl. Let the chocolate melt and add 150mls of créme fraiche, and mix well.
In a separate bowl whip 150mls of double cream until just beginning to thicken and fold through the chocolate, créme fraiche mixture. (if the chocolate mix is very runny refrigerate briefly to thicken the filling to make the dessert construction easier)



To construct the daquoise top one of the meringue disks with half the chocolate mixture, place another meringue on top and spread with the remaining half of the chocolate and finally top with the top meringue that was dusted with the extra crushed hazelnuts.

the cake is now assembled and needs to be refrigerated before serving to soften the meringue slightly whilst firming up the chocolate filling.

Rick is quite adamant that you not assemble the cake more than 2 hours before you intend to serve the dessert. But I think that if it goes into the fridge as your guests are arriving, 2 hours or more doesn't really matter, as long as you don't forget about it.

party of 5, PART 2

To follow on from the terrine and feed the hungry hoards, I drew inspiration from Jaime again with a warm quail and grape salad.


To make this scrumptious quail salad preheat the oven to 180 degrees. For 5 people I used 6 quails, rubbed with olive oil and generously seasoned with salt and pepper, and then draped each quail breast with slices of speck, fat, rind and all, then set the birds aside.

Next, I drizzled a large, deep baking dish with olive oil, the leaves from a few fresh sprigs of rosemary and 3 cloves of garlic, crushed with the back of a knife.
The next step is to tear some rustic bread into the pan forming large croutons (I used a panna di casa, which is a nice dry bread with lots of air holes which allows for maximum crispiness), the recipe suggests about 4 slices of bread, but I used almost a whole loaf, it just depends on your preference, but I tell you now, You'll be kicking yourself if you skimp on the bread, the croutons are probably the best part of the entire dish.
Again, drizzle the croutons with olive oil and lay the quails on the croutons, place in the oven and bake for 35 - 40 minutes and the bacon is golden, crisp like roast pork crackle .
the quail is ready when the juices run clear, or when the leg comes easily away from the body of the bird when gently pulled.

Once the quail comes out of the oven, move the birds to a bread board and with 1 strike of the knife cut the birds cleanly in half.

Meanwhile, position the tray so it slopes, scoop all the bread crumbs to the higher end of the tray allowing any juices to fall to the lower end of the tray. Pick out the garlic cloves removing the skins and squishing the garlic into the juices. Smoosh 2 large handfuls of mixed seedless grapes into the juicy end of the baking dish, season with salt, pepper and enough red wine vinegar to make a dressing.

Add a good mix of lettuce leaves to the pan (lambs tongue lettuce, rocket, watercress etc) and the quails, toss well and place on a platter to serve.

yum, so scrumptious.

Party of 5, a french inspired family dinner. PART 1

Whenever my mum, sisters & B.I.L come over for dins I love to try something new and tasty using all the evil ingredients I don't use in my every day cooking (butter, oil, full cream dairy...)

So when the wolves descended I fed them a well planned and executed meal.
We started with home made tomato foccacia and 3 cheese foccacia, accompanied by home made pork terrine, cornichons, olives, pickled onions and mustard.

The terrine recipe was thanks to Jamie Oliver who has a surprisingly simple recipe for this rustic french staple.
I added coarsely minced speck (about 80g) and 1 large chicken liver to 500g of pork mince.
I then added a small bunch of chopped thyme, parsley and 1/4 tsp of ground cloves, 1/2 a grated nutmeg, along with 2 finely chiffonaded bay leaves, salt and pepper to taste along with handful of breadcrumbs.

The ingredients need to be mixed by hand and packed into small ceramic dishes, like large ramekin's. Then place the ramekins into a deep baking dish and pour in enough boiling water to come half-way up the edges of the ramekins, making a bain-marie.

put the dish into a preheated oven ,160 degrees for 1 hour, (the terrine is cooked when you can insert a knife into the dish and the juices run clear) then remove the baking dish from the oven and allow the terrines to cool in bain-marie. When the water is cool you can put the terrine in the fridge, just cover with cling wrap.

cheesy, spinach pie

So I'm a big fan of using what's in the fridge. Consequently, as I was putting away the groceries from this weekend's shopping saga, I discovered some slightly wilting spinach ( silver beet) and some feta ( I have no idea how long it's been in the fridge, I don't remember buying it... oops!).
My brain jumps into overdrive trying to come up with healthy options for recipes and I decide to make 'kat's spanakopita'.

First, it's really important to thoroughly wash the spinach, the smallest speck of dirt in your dish and you'll definitely know it, one word... GRITTY. After washing the spinach, and removing the white vein running up the centre of the leaf, roll the leaves up and finely shred them. I like to give the spinach a few spins in the salad spinner to get rid of some of the extra liquid (spinach can be really watery). After the spinach is spun, I add it to a large bowl with 2 medium onion, diced, a pinch of salt and a decent amount of freshly ground black pepper.

Let the onion and spinach mix sit for about 30 minutes any drain off any water that leeches from the veggies. Then add some crumbled feta ( about 100g), some grated tasty cheese ( 100g) and I added some goats cheese ( just because it was in the fridge).
Mix the ingredients together and start to assemble the pie.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

To make the pie you need a deep baking tray about 20cm x 15cm. Spray the tray with canola cooking spray and place 3 layers of filo pastry in the base of the tray spraying each sheet with the canola spray before layering with the next sheet of filo. After you have lined the base with 3 layers, tightly pack the spinach mixture into the dish.
Next, beat together 5 eggs until frothy and pour evenly over the pie.

Although 5 eggs may seem extravagant, the size of the pie means that per serve you are getting about 1/2 an egg. Additionally, if you are using reduced fat cheese like I do, the fat content of your food goes down and you can enjoy a second serve sans guilt.

Top the pie with another 3 layers of filo pastry, again spraying each layer with canola oil before proceeding the next layer. Score the final layer of filo with a diamond pattern and spray with more canola spray so that the party browns slightly and crisps when you bake it.

Put the completed pie in the moderate oven for 45 minutes ( depending on the size of your pie and the level of goldness on the crust of the pie, you might want to leave the pie in the oven for another 10 minutes, your call).

Super tasty pie, packed full of iron and healthy vegetables.

Give it a try, bonne chance.

sweet soy noodles

These sweet soy noodles are great for when the fridge is bulging with an over-abundance of Chinese vegetables.

To begin, as with all Asian recipes, you need to fry the aromatics. In a wok, heat some sesame oil and fry off, 2tbsp of garlic, ginger and a finely sliced red chili (large). Meanwhile pour a kettle full of boiling water over a 1kg bag of thick cut rice noodles, to soften them.

Once the aromatics have just turned in colour, add 600g of thinly sliced chicken thigh (it needs to be thigh for this recipe, as breast would become to dry and ruin the texture of the dish).
Brown the chicken, it will cook very quickly, if you have sliced it thinly.

Add a lot of bok choy/ Chinese vegetables to the wok, at least 3 large bunches (the more the better really, because it cooks down to nothing), and allow to cook until softened.

Next, you want to add the drained rice noodles, and the sauce.
To make the sauce mix together 2 tbsp of kecap manis (sweet thick soy sauce), 1 tbsp of oyster sauce, 1 tbsp of fish sauce and 1 tbsp of palm sugar. ( I like to 1 & 1/2 or double the sauce quantities). Add the sauce to the wok, turn of the heat, stir the ingredients together and allow to sit for 10 minutes before serving, this allows the noodles to absorb the sauce and intensify the flavours of the dish.

Trés tasty.