Category: recipes

recipes

Pomodoro

JudithLeave a comment

Characteristics of a good friend: reliable, flexible, of substance, mood elevating. Homemade tomato sauce is therefore an exceptional ally.

What’s more, it is extremely reassuring to know you have this chum in the freezer, as within a short space of defrosting time, you can be nursing a fresh bowl of pasta al pomodoro. My stash is often called upon on pizza night – sloshed over simple homemade bases with a selection of delicacies on top – divine. Equally good as a bed for the humble meatball, this sauce just keeps on giving.

All angst concerning overripe tomatoes threatening to be wasted is alleviated. These specimens make the most delectable sauce. With summer approaching you are bound to be confronted with garden surplus or irresistible market deals – make lots, freeze plenty and feel smug.

1/4 cup olive oil
4 large ripe tomatoes, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
sea salt and black pepper
small bunch fresh oregano leaves, torn

Heat the oil in saucepan over a medium heat. Add the tomatoes and simmer until they become pulpy and the sauce begins to thicken. Add garlic, stir through and simmer for a further 5-10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and stir through oregano. Using a stick blender, puree to a consistency you are happy with. I like mine to contain plenty of tomato chunks. Makes approximately 1 1/2 cups.

recipes

Scones

JudithLeave a comment

Even when the pantry and the refrigerator are looking threadbare, you can usually pull together the constituents of a batch of scones to appease the ravenous.

It seems an urban myth has been circulating over the years, claiming an elusive secret to producing the ‘perfect scone’, and having made many batches fairly easily I wonder why. This theory can be immediately dispelled however, by following this foolproof recipe.

There are no end of scone recipes out there in the universe, accompanied by the mandatory dos and don’ts. This recipe makes 8 large great scones (or additional smaller ones for the less piggy), quickly and simply. Not sure if they are perfect but they taste delish and all disappear on the day.

2 cups SR Flour
pinch salt
30g butter (straight from refrigerator) chopped
1 cup milk
extra milk for brushing

Preheat oven to 220 degrees C. Sift flour and salt into bowl. Add butter and rub it through the flour with fingertips until it disappears and no lumps remain. Pour in milk and stir through with a knife until a sticky dough forms. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead only a few times until you have a circular pat about 4cm thick (use extra flour if you need to). Using a scone cutter or glass, press out your scones and lay them close to one another on a greased tray. Brush tops with extra milk. Place in the oven and reduce temperature to 200 degrees C. Bake for approximately 15 – 20 mins, or until brown on top.

Providing the perfect backdrop for homemade jams and preserves or as the youngest member in our family requests –  plain with butter – scones are the quintessential comfort food – no secret about that.

recipes

Fizz

JudithLeave a comment

Soft drink really isn’t our cup of tea.

Correction – my cup of tea, as I’m sure if you canvassed the junior members of the household there may be a different response. Making fresh raspberry cordial is my way of meeting them half way and on a warm afternoon, served with chilled soda and a sprig of mint, there are no complaints.

Using those same raspberries that decorate my breakfast bowl, lemon juice and some sugar, you can whip up almost two bottles of luscious red syrup, which look particularly attractive in the door of the refrigerator. Experiment with other varieties of frozen berries –  the mixed berry packs make delicious cordial too.

5 cups water
2 cups sugar
juice of 1 lemon
500 grams frozen raspberries

Pour water into a large bowl, add sugar and stir until completely dissolved. Stir in lemon juice. Place berries in a separate bowl and add a cup of the sugar syrup. Using a stick blender, puree the berries completely. Pour the berry mix back into the main sugar syrup bowl and stir. Using a funnel, decant the mixture into bottle(s). Chill.

To make the drinks up, pour as much as you like (over ice is nice), throw in some fresh mint leaves and top with soda water or sparkling mineral water.

If you have an aversion to loads of disposable plastic bottles circulating through your home, as I do, I can recommend the bubbler we use below – one bottle, loads of tap water and a constant supply of sparkling liquid.

Postscript: I prefer mine stirred not shaken…

recipes

Crumbs

JudithLeave a comment

There’s nothing like running up the front steps, flinging the front door open and inhaling the aroma of baked goods cooling on the bench top. School bags lie abandoned on the floor, while wolf-like ravenous appetites are sated by mouthfuls of crumbly, chocolately warm muffins.

This is a scenario that unfolds at approximately 4.00pm on an organised good day in our home.

You don’t necessarily need  post-school hunger to enjoy fresh muffins, as any mid-morning coffee aficionado will attest, and you could do a lot worse than scoffing one of these in the car on the arduous week-night commute. Simple to prepare – as they basically comprise pantry staples and anything to be used up – muffins are a lovely way to feel productive and contented in the kitchen.

If you want your next batch to resemble those photographed, see below, but for variation eg banana, walnut, blueberry, apple and so on, begin with the first five ingredients and then add your odds and ends.

1/4 cup olive oil
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups SR flour
1 cup raspberries (fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (milk or dark – your call)

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C and grease muffin tins.
  2. Mix together in a large bowl oil, egg, milk and sugar.
  3. Add the flour to the wet mix and stir to combine briefly – don’t over mix.
  4. Add raspberries and chocolate chips and mix through.
  5. Spoon into prepared tins and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until brown/inserted skewer is clean on removal.
  6. Cool in tin before turning out.
    (makes 12 muffins)

Postscript: Muffins do not have great longevity, so are best eaten within a day or two – we have never had to deal with that issue here…

recipes

Boiled

Judith2 Comments

If ever I was to write a cookery book, there would be entire chapters devoted to fruit cakes and plum puddings.

Leafing through my tear-sheet  recipe collection, I seem to have amassed an inordinate amount of christmas cake and pudding recipes, to the exclusion of almost everything else. I find the look of rich, golden fruit cakes photographed in pre-christmas publications very seductive and cannot resist adding another to my stash. However, despite this virtual fruit cake catalogue, it is the reliable old standby that I opt for every time.

My preference is for a boiled rather than creamed (beating butter and sugar together) fruit cake because the initial bubbling of the fruit in the liquids produces a dark syrupy mix, full of fruity flavour – and it’s easier!

1kg mixed dried fruit
100g glace cherries, halved
250g butter
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup sherry
1/2 cup water
5 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbspn treacle
2 tspns grated orange rind
1 3/4 cups plain flour
1/3 cup SR flour
1/2 tspn bicarbonate of soda

small packet of blanched almonds to decorate

  1. Pre-heat oven to 150 deg C.
  2. Grease and line a deep 19cm square cake tin with two layers of paper (brown paper or baking paper). Allow paper to extend above  the sides of the tin.
  3. Place fruit, butter, sugar, sherry and water in a saucepan over medium heat and stir until sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered for 10 mins. Take off heat and cool.
  4. Stir eggs, treacle and rind into fruit mixture.
  5. Stir in sifted dry ingredients.
  6. Spread into prepared tin and top with blanched whole almonds.
  7. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours. Depending on the type of oven you have it could take longer, so check by testing with a skewer. If the skewer comes out of the middle of the cake dry it’s ready.
  8. Cool in the tin.

Not done yet. The next part is to wrap and store. Mine is currently swaddled in its original baking paper, a layer of foil and an aesthetically pleasing tea-towel. If you can, pop it away in the pantry for a month. By early December, you will be rewarded with a nicely matured seasonal cake to share with family, and friends who drop by for coffee.

Postscript: could not resist including an image of the divine Mildara Chestnut Teal Sherry bottle label – which is equally as seductive as the cake glossies!

health and wellbeing · recipes

Oats

JudithLeave a comment

While families tend to sit down to dinner and share a common meal, breakfast is usually quite an individual affair. Yours may be a slice of toast between your teeth as you reach behind you to close the front door, whilst for others it has to be the full shebang of eggs, bacon and so forth.

For me, nothing other than oats will do and I have my reasons.

Oats are hearty and hot and once downed with a cup of tea chaser, I really don’t need anything other than a piece of fruit until lunchtime.  In terms of nutrition they are a natural, complex carbohydrate that provides the perfect foundation for building your day (as well as a fruit/seed monument) upon. Honey and sugar however, can quickly unravel all the good work that oat-eating does, so I find by adding a handful of raspberries to the mix, their sweetness keep things in check. Fresh raspberries are prohibitively expensive and have such short seasonal windows, so I resort to the frozen variety and keep my freezer stocked all year.
Topping your oats with a sprinkling of pumpkin kernels and sunflower seeds, ensures you’re placed well on the fibre moral highground. I buy these seeds in bulk and store them in lovely recycled jars, within easy reach.
To your bowl of steaming oats add:
a handful of frozen raspberries
pumpkin kernels and sunflower seeds to your liking
top with skim milk
If you have a lovely oats breakfast combo, I would love to hear about it – I’m very happy to extend my repertoire.
Post script: If cooking a saucepan of oats is overly time consuming for working mornings, 90 second instant oat sachets are a reasonable standby.