Long time no see... and some Blood plum and tamarind sauce

It's been a while since I've posted in this place, and there's been a few cobwebs that have formed (i.e. mountains of spam) which I'll deal with soon... maybe after I've deal with the real cobwebs around the house. I'm not sure if I'll be posting here on a regular basis again, but I desperately needed jot down some recipes so I don't forget them. There are a lot of projects that I'm super keen to document around here, but there's a PhD to finish...

I'm at the tail end of my PhD, and right at this very moment in time I'm writing papers, making blood plum and tamarind sauce and listening to the Triple J hottest 100. I'm pausing from my science writing because I didn't want to forget my recipe for blood plum and tamarind sauce. It's warm outside and so it's going to be Gin and Tonic O'clock soon, and then I'll definitely forget the recipe.

This weekend is pickling weekend with some friends, and I needed to get started because there are a lot of jars to sterilize and fill. 100 jars, to be precise. We're also going to be making my peach chutney and ajvar.

I kind of winged this recipe, based it on a few others like Maggie Beer, Gourmet Traveller and SMH. Here we go

Blood plum and tamarind BBQ sauce

2 large onions, finely chopped

1.8kg blood plums, skin on, halved, seeds removed

250 ml red wine vinegar

250 ml water

700g brown sugar

1/3 cup tamarind puree

4 cloves garlic

1 1/2 tsp fresh grated ginger

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp tabasco

1. Sautee onions, garlic and ginger for 4-5 mins until softened
2. Add plum halves, red wine vinegar, water brown sugar, salt, pepper, cinnamon, cloves and tabasco
3. Bring to the boil then simmer for 30 mins. Puree.
4. Continue to reduce on a very low heat until a desired consistency is reached. Puree again.
5. Bottle and process.

Easter baking and Easter hiking

We went to the Grampians this weekend with a few of our adventurous friends. The trip was fuelled largely by this amazingly sickly sweet but delicious Easter egg caramel slice (a.k.a. diabetes-in-a-block) that I had baked, and some discount Wispa bars that we picked up a big armful of in Coles. In the recipe, I only used half the quantity for sweetened condensed milk, and really, it was enough! The recipe says that it makes 15, but for us it made about 24... really sickly. Really easy to make, would highly recommend this recipe for any people with a sweet tooth out there.

We camped at Mt Stapylton campground and hiked along the campground track up to Mt Stapylton. Gib and I have hiked this one before, but I never made it to the peak. I was keen to do this walk as payback to Jocelyn taking us up the near vertical climb up Sugarloaf Peak at Cathedral Ranges a few weeks back. However, it turns out that my fear of heights has improved since the first time I did Mt Stapylton, so I managed to make it to the top this time and it wasn't nearly as bad as Sugarloaf! There were a few differences this time though: it was warmer and less windy so it felt less exposed, I had better shoes, and made the smart decision to leave my pack on one of the rock shelves below. The same ledge before the final peak that made me terrified the first time is still terrifying, but was manageable with the guidance of our good friends.

The following day we headed to the Southern Grampians to climb Mt Abrupt and do some off-the-track GeoCaching. We don't have any photos as yet because the memory card in the camera was full so our friends took the photos, but here is a photo of pretty much exactly what we saw. I think it offers one of the best views of the Grampians I have seen. That said, the view from the spot where our geocache was was equally spectacular, looking up towards the beautiful Mt Abrupt summit.

Image from here

For Easter Sunday (we arrived home from camping Saturday night, Jocelyn had to work - poo!) I baked some Koulourakia, Greek Easter biscuits. The recipe was great, easy to follow, and the result is delicious. My Greek work colleague tells me they store very well, however I don't think they're going to last very long around here.

Image from here

Hope you all had a happy Easter!

Peach and almond slice

I used up some of my preserved peaches to make delicious snack for Gib to take to work. I used this very quick and easy Peach and Almond Slice recipe, with my peaches that I had preserved in a light cinnamon infused syrup.

It went from this:


To this:




The hard part was making sure Gib didn't eat it all at once! It kept well for about 5 days in an air tight container. Yumyumyum.

Doing the sweet and savoury swing

On the weekend I tried out this 'Capetown Fruit and Vegetable Curry' from my Sundays at Moosewood's cookbook. Given that the ingredients list included many sweet things like apricots, apricot conserve, apples, raisins and bananas, I was a bit concerned that it would be too sweet for my liking. A bit too extreme. But the vegetables and yoghurt dressing really balance it really well, and it does fall right into the middle of both sweet and savoury, without going too far either side. It was new and different for me, and I was impressed.

Excited by aubergines!

I'm thrilled! A feature on eggplants in today's Epicure (The Age). I'm just making a note here so I know where to find it later. And to remind myself to make the recipes. That relish sounds fantastic. Yum...

Eggplant Bake: From The Age

The Engagement Party

Our engagement party: a beautiful day, shared with beautiful people, eating delicious food and vegging out. I can't think of a better way to celebrate!

It has been almost a month since Gib and I celebrated our engagement with family and friends. It was the perfect day: Fine, sunny, 26 degrees. We were out in one of our favourite parks, and everyone was either vegging out in the shade or playing cricket or frisbee or whatever took their fancy. So often at birthdays/engagements/weddings the kids get bored (I do too!) so I delighted that the weather was nice and everyone could do whatever they felt like.

However, leading up to the party, I decided I wanted to wear a pretty dress. At the end of a long day of no-luck-shopping for a dress and feeling kind of desperate, I popped into Lincraft and actually found - quite to my surprise - a fabric that I liked (for a number of years now I have hated Lincraft's range of fabrics, but they are my closest fabric shop, so I was truly impressed!). And then there was a sale on patterns. And then I found a pattern that I liked and it had my favourite word: EASY. It was New Look pattern #6557, and I made D, the yellow one. It was indeed easy to follow, and I even learned how easy it was to insert an invisible zip. I love how it tells you how to adjust the pattern to fit your measurements. I would happily make this dress again. Including the pattern, it came to a total of $50 exactly to make.

Here is an action shot of me in the Engagement Dress, while playing tug of war (Beth vs. Gib). Except the rope broke. I think there will have to be a rematch at the wedding...

My absolutely wonderful cousin, Louise, did an AMAZING job at catering all of the sweets, which you can see wrapped in clingwrap next to the cake, below. Every year she makes the most spectacular Christmas treat hampers, so I asked her if she could do the catering for our party. She went over and above the call of duty on this one, and made biscotti, mini cheese cakes, shortbreads, lady's fingers, mars bar slice, meringues, lemon tarts (ohmygoshamazing), lemon slice...!!

I made our engagement cake. I am so sick to death of chocolate cake, everyone has chocolate cake (apologies to any chocolate cake lovers out there), so I decided to make a carrot cake. You can see Gib in the background threatening to cut the cake with his bare hands.

Recipe for Carrot Cake

And before I forget, here is the recipe I use for Carrot Cake. Taken from my absolute favourite cake book: Family Circle's 'Making Beautiful Cakes' (p. 12). This recipe is brilliant, so smooth, and it smells and tastes fantastic.

150 g self raising flour
150 g plain flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200 ml vegetable oil
230 g brown sugar
4 eggs
125 ml golden syrup
500 g grated carrot
60 g chopped walnuts

- Preheat oven to 160C fan forced.
- Line the base and sides of a 10" tin with baking paper, including 2" collar around the top (although I used a star shaped baking tin!)
- Sift together the flours, spices, and bicarbonate of soda in a large bowl. Form a well in the centre.
- Whisk together the oil, sugar, eggs and syrup. Gradually pour into the well, stirring into the dry ingredients until smooth.
- Stir in the carrot and nuts. Spoon into the tins until 2/3 to 3/4 full, giving preference to the cake to be used on the day.
- Bake for 1 1/4 hours. Allow to cool completely before turning out onto a wire rack.
- Wrap in a layer of cling wrap, baking paper and foil and place in the freezer.

A photo of my dad, ever the practical joker, making his speech

And finally, a picture of me, my handsome Gib and Gib's Grandma

Unfortunately, my grandmother (dad's mum) was unable to make it to the party. As we were packing up the party, my aunt came and told me that Nan had just been transferred to the Austin. She passed away the next day, but we were fortunate enough to spend the evening with her, and the next morning as well. Dad stayed with her overnight. She was 89 and her body had finally worn out; thankfully she wasn't sick for long.

Vegetarian sausage-fest

Last weekend I got together with some friends for a sausage making day. The meat eaters made real sausage with real intestines, while the vegetarians banded together to make some gluten free vegetarian sausages (we had some celiacs present). In fact, they go beyond vegetarian: they are vegan. Vegetarian sausages are stupidly expensive, and also impossible to buy gluten free as often the main ingredient is gluten flour, so I was keen to learn how to make them myself. I followed this recipe and instructional video, and went from there for the first one. And for the second variety I based my ingredients on this list. We tried steaming in both aluminium foil and cling wrap, however the aluminium foil gave much better results (they stayed the shape they were supposed to).

Spicy vegetarian sausage

250 g dry soy meat/TVP, purchased from my local asian grocer
1 - 1 1/2 cups chickpea flour, depending on how wet the mixture is
3 tbsp vegetable stock
1 whole onion, minced
2 tbsp fennel seed
2 tsp coarsely ground pepper, preferably freshly ground
2 tbsp ground paprika
1 tsp dried chili flakes (I'd add more of this in future)
3 tbsp dried oregano
1 tsp fresh thyme
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground allspice
8 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp salt

1. Cook the soy meat in about 750 ml water until all the water is absorbed. Drain off any excess water.
2. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Add more chickpea flour as required until it is a thick mixture.
3. Scoop out mixture and make little logs to desired thickness. Place onto aluminium foil and roll up, twisting the ends. Steam for 30 mins. Allow to cool.

Your sausages can now be placed on the BBQ, in the fridge or in the freezer until you're ready to eat them.

Makes 8 fat sausages, or 12-14 smaller sausages.

Freshly steamed spicy vegetarian sausages, waiting to be BBQed!

Black bean and corn sausages

1 onion, minced
4 large cloves garlic, minced
3-4 tbsp vegetable stock
1 tablespoon Vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups cooked black beans
3 teaspoons Salt
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp oregano
2 tbsp paprika
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 medium green capsicum
1 small carrot peeled, minced
1 tub (125 g) silken tofu (probably firm tofu is better to use, in hindsight!)
400 g can corn kernels, drained
1 1/2 cups chickpea, corn or rice flour
1/2 bunch fresh coriander (optional)

1. Mince the onions and garlic, beans, carrot, green capsicum and tofu. Transfer to a large bowl.
   
2. Transfer to a large bowl. Mix through spices. Add whole corn kernels. Add enough flour so it all binds together to a sticky but relatively firm mixture.
   
3. Scoop out mixture and make little logs to desired thickness. Place onto aluminium foil and roll up, twisting the ends. Steam for 30 mins. Allow to cool.
4. To serve, remove plastic and cut on the bias into 1/2-inch- thick slices.

Makes 8 fat sausages, or 12-14 smaller sausages.

Babar birthday cake

Oohh... time for another cake-related post!


It was Gib's mum's birthday recently, so I baked her a cake. She loves Babar, so it's a Babar themed cake. Decorated with just some ready-to-roll icing.

I modified this recipe and it was absolutely delicious. So I'm recording it here so I can make it the next time I have a gingery carrot cake craving:

A terrific tasting Carrot, Orange and Ginger cake! (dairy free)

2 ½ cups wholemeal flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons powdered ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
6 carrots, peeled and grated (about 3 cups)
1 ½ cups granulated sugar (I substituted for CSR Smart sugar)
½ cup packed light brown sugar (I used low GI cane sugar)
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
1 cup vegetable oil safflower oil, or canola oil
½ cup orange juice
½ cup finely chopped glace ginger

Preheat oven to 180 C. Spray and line a 25cm round pan with parchment, with a 5cm collar.

2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves in large bowl; set aside.

3. In a food processor, combine granulated and brown sugars, eggs and the orange zest until frothy. Add oil gradually. Process until the mixture is light in color and well emulsified, about 20 seconds longer. Scrape the mixture into a medium bowl. Stir in the carrots, glace ginger, and the dry ingredients until incorporated and no streaks of flour remain.

4. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick or skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes (took 60-70 mins for me), rotating the pan halfway through the baking time. Cool the cake to room temperature in the pan (for a denser cake) on a wire rack, about 2 hours.

Cook up to save $$$

We've had to tighten our belts a bit around here, and one of the easiest ways for us to cut back on expenses is to not eat out to so much. I work in a place where there is only one cafe and they charge you $9 for pumpkin soup and a tiny piece of bread, so I always take lunch to work, usually leftovers (rarely sandwiches. 13 years of taking sandwiches to school kind of broke me). But Gib has now realised after several years of me persisting that buying lunch is expensive and he should take his own. So we did a big cook up of three dishes:

• Brunswick stew (I note that Curly Pops has her own, vintage Weight Watchers recipe for Brunswick stew! Hehehe)
• Jungle curry (I used a commercial curry base)
• Pasta bake (except ours was a vegetarian version).
  

The thing I love about doing batch cook ups is that it actually takes less time overall: I can chop up all the onions for all three dishes at the same time, all the carrots, all broccoli... etc, and put them into their respective pots at about the same time, and there are fewer chopping boards to wash.


Total cost per serve - and they are big serves for my hard working man - was $2.42 each!

Recipe reviews!

I'm just doing some cataloging of some cool recipes I've tried over the past month, and using my blog as a bit of a scrap book for them all. Maybe you will like them too?

Roasted onions: from the Cook and the Chef. I think anything slow roasted is delicious. Reheats well.

Madhur Jaffrey's Swiss Chard, tomatoes and chickpeas. Made with fresh Swiss chard and amazingly sweet cherry tomatoes from the market, this tasted amazing. I really should have used freshly cooked chickpeas rather than tinned because they really let the rest of the meal down. It was so quick and tasty, but the simplicity of this dish means that the ingredients have to be super fresh.

Falafel: I have tried many falafel recipes, but this is without a doubt the best one I have found. Just like a bought one! It seems as though where I've been going wrong all this time has been using cooked beans instead of just soaked beans. I used parsley and mint instead of parsley and coriander, because Gib has a very strong aversion to coriander, even in minute quantities.

Best ever mudcake recipe: this is, in fact, the best ever mudcake recipe. I've had so many mixed results with mudcakes in the past, but this one is fantastic. I love how adaptable the recipe is too!

Recipe Box Swap: No theme month!

This month I baked macaroons!

Macaroons have terrified me for ages. I don't even know why. I think it has something to do with heating the egg whites and then fear of burning them in the oven. But now that I decided have a go I'm sitting here going "What was all the fuss about?!". They were easy, turned out perfectly, with a light crunchiness on the outside and soft, chewiness on the inside. So good with a cup of peppermint tea. This is my grandmother's recipe.

Beth's grandma's macroons

¾ cup blanched flaked almonds
3 egg whites
140g caster sugar
Pinch of cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 140°C fan-forced.

Toast almonds in a small, dry pan until golden brown (be careful to watch them, don't get distracted!!). Allow them to cool, then blend until finely ground.

Combine egg whites, sugar and tartaric acid in a medium bowl over a small saucepan of gently simmering water until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat.

Beat the egg mixture with an electric mixer or in a stand mixer until mixture has tripled in volume and has cooled. Gently fold in almond meal. Spoon mixture into a piping bag and pipe small rounds of mixture onto baking paper lined trays (looks cute with a star end too). Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until a golden colour. Remove from oven and allow to cool on trays for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

I have photos, but unfortunately my camera cable has gone missing. If I get organised (ha ha) they'll be coming later. But mine looked like this:

Courtesy of here

What did you make this month?
Why not post in on the Recipe box swap?

Make your own cheese!

I decided to make my own cheese. Well, kind of cheese. Labne.

I couldn't believe how ridiculously easy this was to make.

1. Take a 1kg tub of Greek yoghurt. Take a large piece of muslin, or, alternatively cheese cloth (makes sense, doesn't it?). Up end tub of yoghurt onto your cheese cloth.
2. Draw up the edges of cloth around the yoghurt. Drain as much of the fluid as you can initially then tie a string around it so it's a tight ball. Suspend the ball over a bowl (suggestions from here): tie the ball to a wooden spoon, then rest the spoon on the top of a bowl (or jug!), allowing the ball to hang down. I thought I'd be able to do it with some bamboo skewers, but they couldn't take the weight, even when I used 3-4 skewers. Wooden spoon is definitely the way to go.
   
3. Leave to drain in the fridge for 5 days. You can leave it for less time, but it just tastes like thickened yoghurt. 5-6 days mean it's starting to mature slightly.
   

Spoon it out. Roll in spices or herbs (dukkah, paprika, parsley etc). Mix in dried fruit, like apricot. Serve with bread, marinated vegetables, with roasted mushrooms, on anything really! It's creamy and slightly tangy... and too good because I can't stop eating it. It keeps for up to a week.

Cheese made using cheese cloth. Who'd have ever thought?

Easter baking

I hope you all had a good Easter! The weather in Melbourne this Easter has been terrific.

This year we decided not to buy Easter eggs or hot cross buns and it the home made way. Mum made hot cross buns, and on Easter Sunday I decided to make Tsoureki, Greek Easter bread. I know I'm a week early for Greek Easter, but... oh well. I grew up near one of the biggest Greek communities in Melbourne, and love the Greek Easter treats! I prefer caraway in mine, so I used this recipe and added 1/2 tsp caraway seeds to the dough. I didn't have enough eggs, so unfortunately no bright red eggs in the middle either. Although the recipe said it made two large loaves, it only made one. I took a look at some other recipes on the web, and there was definitely half the quantity of flour than the two loaf recipes.

I've never done much work with yeast and bread and all of those things, but I kind of had a theoretical understanding of what's supposed to happen and why, so I was quite please with how the thing rose and came out! Yummo!

Blindingly beautiful beetroot risotto

For those of you out there who love beetroot, this recipe is definitely for you! However if you're trying to convince someone that beetroot is an awesomely delicious food, perhaps this isn't the best recipe to start with. It's exceptionally beetrooty. This risotto turns out vividly pink/red, so is visually stunning (or startling?). I made my risotto with 2/3 barley, 1/3 arborio rice to lower the GI for a diabetic member of the household, and the slightly nutty flavour of the barley blended well with the walnuts and the earthiness of the beetroot. The flavour and appearance is offset with goats cheese or fetta and finally topped with roquette, or if you have a fresh bunch of beets you can use the beet leaves.

I made this a week or so ago. I don't make it very often but it's definitely a fun meal. I think people would get a bit put off if I cooked them blindingly bright pink food on a regular basis. If I take leftovers to work it always gets a (positive) reaction over lunch from my colleagues.

Beetroot barley risotto

1 large bunch of baby beet
600 ml vegetable stock
150 ml red wine
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, peeled, finely chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed
160 g barley
85 g arborio rice
2-3 tsp fresh thyme leaves, chopped
75 g walnuts, roughly chopped
125 g soft goats cheese or feta cheese
Fresh roquette or lightly wilted beet greens to serve on top

Thoroughly wash the beetroot. Trim the leaves leaving about 1-2 cm near the root, and leave the tails. If you trim them too far they will ooze pink juice everywhere (which is a real pain). Cook the beetroot using your preferred method: steaming, microwave or boiling. Remove the skins. Dice into 1cm cubes and set aside. This can be done while waiting for the rest of the risotto to cook.

Fry the garlic in the olive oil for 1 minute. Add the onion, saute for 5 minutes or until it's just soft.

Add rice, barley and thyme, stir and coat in the oil.

Add the red wine, cooking until the red wine is absorbed.

Add the stock mixture, about 1/4 at a time, adding the next part when the liquid is mostly absorbed, stirring regularly. Cook for 30-40 mins or until the barley is al dante.

Add the cubed beets and 2/3 walnuts and continue to stir to distribute the pinkness throughout the risotto. That's the best bit. You made need to add a dash of extra stock at this point (I usually do).

Distributing the colour evenly throughout the risotto: Aii!!

If you're cooking up the beet greens, just wash them down and steam them for about 2 mins. Otherwise, bowl out your risotto, sprinkle crumbled cheese over the risotto, and top with the remaining walnuts, some S&P, and roquette or wilted beet greens.

Bulgarian Red Pepper Stew

While going through all of the old photos on my phone I found a photo I took at work (hence poor lighting). This is one of my favourite stew recipes. It's so hearty and tasty and nutritious and the red capsicums are absolutely delicious. I know the photo is ugly. It really doesn't do it justice: the red peppers are really red! Just focus on the ingredients instead.

I originally found the recipe in Sundays in Moosewood Restaurant, but there have since found other versions of the recipe online. Here's my version below, with notes of the variations I've made. This is definitely a stew that takes time, so I have it ticking away on a Sunday afternoon while I'm sewing and doing other things. But sometimes I get a hankering for it on a cool Sunday afternoon and haven't had the foresight to put the lentils on to soak the night before, so I do substitute for tinned but they don't hold their shape or texture nearly as well.


Bulgarian Red Pepper Stew

½ cup dried lentils (or 1 tin brown lentils, drained)
½ cup dried navy pea beans/great northern/borlotti beans (or 1 tin borlotti beans)
2 larges onions, chopped
6 mediums red capsicums, de-seeded and chopped. I quater my capsicums and just slice them on a mandolin. (I have also made this recipe with tinned tomatoes substituted for some of the red capsicums: 4 capsicums and 400 g tinned or fresh tomatoes)
2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried marjoram
¼ tsp dried thyme (I've also used fresh herbs and increased the quantity and they taste great)
¼ tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste
2 tsp paprika
Salt and pepper to taste (I looove pepper, so I put in loads of the stuff)
750 ml vegetable stock (although sometimes I've needed up to 1 L)
60l dry red wine (optional)
2 tbsp dry sherry (optional)
¼ cup tomato paste
Fresh parsley and Greek/natural yoghurt to serve

Soak legumes overnight, drain. In a fresh pot of water, bring to the boil then simmer until just tender. Drain, set aside. I prefer to cook mine beforehand and add later in the cooking, because I find that the salt from the stock makes the beans a bit tough.

In a large, heavy based pot, saute onions in olive oil until soft. Stir in bell pepper and saute for 5-10 mins more. Add paprika and cayenne, stir through for 1 more minute.

Pour in stock, wine and sherry. Add herbs and legumes. Bring to the boil, lower heat to a simmer and leave for 1 1/2-2 hours uncovered or partially covered, stirring occasionally. Mix in tomato paste and S&P to taste. Simmer for a further 5-10 mins, adding a little extra stock or water if the stew is too thick.

Serve with a good dollop of yogurt and chopped parsley sprinkled on top. Goes very well with a good, crusty cob bread.

Recipe review: Leek & Aubergine Tart Tatin

I decided to follow Maggie and Simon's Leek & Aubergine Tart Tatin recipe, featured on the program last Wednesday. We substituted vino cotto for balsamic vinegar, sugar for honey in the syrup and made the dough half with wholemeal flour. Although, I did that silly thing when you take a hot pan out of the oven and place it back on the stove top, and then forget that it's been in the oven and grab the handle of the pan... not so smart. It was a joint success between Gib and I: It took a little bit of time to put together, but worth every minute. It was a definite success, smelled divine, tasted absolutely delicious.

Recipe box swap: Open theme month

Mmmm... I absolutely love this rain we have finally been getting! It was so lovely to go to sleep last night to the pitter-patter of rain falling. This sudden cool change is wonderful and already I've pulled out my nice, warm hoodie and have been flicking through my cosy comfort food recipes! Bring on autumn! So this month for the Recipe Box Swap, hosted by Randi, I'm going to share with you one of my favourite comfort foods.

Grilled polenta with melted cheese

1 cup instant polenta
1.5 cups water
1.5 cups milk (I used reduced fat, but you can use either full fat milk or water)
Olive oil spray
Your favourite cheese: mozzerella, blue cheese, camembert, good ol' tasty cheese! (but never, ever use Kraft singles)
Fresh herbs: basil, thyme

• Spray a 24 x 16 cm dish with oil
• Bring milk and water to a gentle boil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add polenta gradually, whisking constantly. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until thick (I love watching polenta bubble up! Like lava bubbling away). Season with salt and pepper. Spoon the mixture into prepared dish and smooth out with a spatula. Refrigerate for about an hour or until firm.
• Cut into squares/triangles/fingers, and cook the bottom in a fry pan until golden.
• Top with herbs and cheese, and place under a grill until bubbly and golden. Alternatively, you can make them into little polenta and cheese sandwiches, layered with polenta/cheese/herbs/polenta, and grill the whole lot until warm and the cheese has melted through.

Serve as a side, or with a hearty tomato soup, or just eat on its own!

Photo courtesy of Patricia Scarpin

How to make a Giant Squid cake

Yesterday was the hottest day in Melbourne on record: 46.4°C. We have massive bushfires raging throughout the state. Needless to say things have been a little stressful* in these parts. It also means it's not the best weather for making a birthday cake. However, I headed to my parents' place where they have air conditioning in the kitchen and a spare fridge out the back. I started nice and early in the morning, so it was all done before the worst of the heat kicked in.

The specifications:

• Make a giant squid cake. I couldn't do a 1:1 scale giant squid, and I wasn't sure how people would know it's a giant squid if it was cake-sized, because it would just look like a regular squid then. So I went with some sort of giant squid reference point: a boat.
  
• The cake should be a white chocolate cake. That didn't happen. I ran out of time, and the day that I was able to make the cake was way too hot and it was going to be really nasty for the oven to be on for that long (1.5+ hours cooking time). So a vanilla cake it was (only 40 min cooking time). Sorry Sarah!
• Must be iced with butter icing (my friend dislikes the sugary soft, mouldable icing). Butter icing, in 46.4°C weather, was going to be far too unstable. So I went with white chocolate ganache, in the hope that that would be more stable and would make up for the lack of white chocolate cake.

How to make a giant squid cake

You will need:

• Double quantity of vanilla butter cake batter (I doubled the vanilla so it was more vanillary)
  
• 1 large loaf pan (23 x 13 x 8 cm)
• 1 slab pan (25 x 25 x 4 cm)
• 750 g white chocolate
• 250 ml cream
• Plastic ice cream container lid, cut into 2 triangles for fins
  
• Red & blue food dye
• Candy necklaces (I got a massive bag for $2 at the Reject shop)
• Toy boat
• Toothpicks

Baking the cakes:

A few days before you need the cake is a good time to bake them.

• Transfer ¾ of the double quantity of cake mixture to the loaf pan, and ¼ to the slab pan. Make sure your pans are well greased and have a layer of greaseproof paper on the bottom. Bake the slab for 30 mins, and the loaf for 40-45 mins.
• Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely. Freeze the cakes. (I do this even when it isn't hot weather, so it makes the cake easier to cut, and it crumbs far less).

Shaping the cake:

• Allow the cakes to thaw slightly before carving.
• Using a sharp knife, shape the loaf cake into the shape of a squid's mantle. I used this squid anatomy site as a reference. I wont feature the pictures here because they're kind of gross. Because it's a cake and we need to maximise the amount of cake to be consumed, mine is somewhat more squat than an actual squid. Refer to the shape below. I also made a slight ridge (0.5cm) where the mantle finishes and the eye section begins.
  

• From the slab cake, cut the arms and tentacles by making wiggly strips from the cake. Cut 8 arms and two tentacles. Each arm is about 3 cm wide and 18 cm long (although I then later cut some shorter to fit on the cake board). Each tentacle is 25 cm long and 3 cm wide. I cut the two tentacles from the bottom 6 cm of the slab. The tentacles have a little diamond shaped bit at the bottom. Be careful with your arms and tentacles. If you break on don't fret. Use some icing and toothpicks to glue them back together.
  

My wiggly squid arms and tentacles. You can see that some of the legs have been cut shorter to fit on the cake board.

Make the ganache:

Melt together 700 g white chocolate and 250 ml cream over a double boiler. Set aside the spare 50 g white chocolate (don't eat it!). Stir through 5 ml red food dye and 1 drop of blue food dye. Beat together until blended, allow to cool to room temperature.

Assemble the cake:

• Prepare the cake board. I used a wooden chopping board covered in a couple of layers of blue plastic.
• Place the mantle in a back corner of the cake.
• Arrange the bottom legs around the cake, below the ridge of the mantle, and use toothpicks to hold them in place. I had 7 legs/tentacles below, and 3 on top. Don't bother with the top ones until later.
  
• Ice the cake with the ganache.

The toothpicks poking out there are just place holders for the top legs

• Add the plastic fins. Ice them too. I saved the fins until a bit later so I could ice the sides of the cake better.
  

• I used two white chocolate buttons and placed them in the centre of the bottom end of the mantle/head area, for a beak.
• Place the boat at the end of the cake board. Drape the top legs over the top of the boat, and use toothpicks to insert the legs into the body, and carefully ice them too.
  

Beak and positioning of legs against the body. You can see it was getting a little messy in there! It's ok, ganache cleans up really well.

• Put the squid in the fridge for a bit to set the ganache. Once firm, take it out and wtih a spatular or knife dipped in hot water (be sure to wipe off the water) smooth over the icing.
  
• Add your candy necklace suckers along the sides of the arms and tentacles.

The eye:

This was a bit of serendipity. I didn't have any Orchard icing to mould into an eye and refused to go out into the heat. My mum had these small glass spice bowls. Originally I was going to use them as a chocolate mould (with the leftover 50 g white chocolate): fill the bottom with a centre of white chocolate dyed black, let it set, then fill in white chocolate over the top, then tip it out once its all set together. However, they didn't tip out. So I then decided to just keep the chocolate eyes in the spice bowl, and use the whole think as the eye. It really got that freaky eye lens thing going that squids have. I just pushed the eye/glass spice bowl into the side of the head.

The clean up and presentation:

Using a damp paper towel and some ear buds, carfully clean up around the cake board and tidy up any icing that has oozed into weird corners. And here it is...

Happy birthday, Sarah!

And, because I am lazy, this is also going to come under this week's Eye Spy something delicious theme, because, you know, white chocolate ganache is freaking delicious. This week's theme was suggested by the super crafty Handmaiden and hosted by the wonderful Cindy!

* My aunt lives in Whittlesea, one of the townships south of Kinglake where the worst has been that is assisting with feeding people and providing temporary shelter. We have friends who lives in Wallan and they managed to rescue their horses, fire came to within 3 metres of their house, but their house was been saved.

Recipe box swap: Fun foods!

It's the first topic for the year and it's a good one! Ohhh I can't wait to read everyone else's submissions! I think you should join in too. Head over to I have to say... and just add yours to the end.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love raspberries? We used to grow them in our backyard until it grew into our next door neighbour's yard and they poisoned it! Oh well. We have blueberries growing now and they are just as delicous. Actually, I'll take any berry thanks! I love this white chocolate and raspberry muffin recipe from the ABC. I am never just a straight-out sugary treat person myself, I love to have fruit mixed in. Fresh and dried fruit are so sweet, but they give a treat such an interesting texture and flavour. The best thing about muffins is that they are so quick to make, so when you have a naughty food craving, muffins are just the thing!

White chocolate and raspberry muffins

2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 cup buttermilk (if you're feeling really decadent, try it with coconut milk instead!)
1 egg
90 g butter, melted
1 punnet fresh raspberries
1/2 cup white chocolate bits

Speedy last minute snacks

It's that time of year when there's always people popping over or you need to bring a plate to some event somewhere. Here we have two recipes that I've made from stuff on hand and actually turned out well. Thankfully I remembered to write down how I made them so I can recreate them if necessary! I thought I'd better put them here, because the scraps of paper I wrote them on wont be so permanent (or so readily searchable).


Carrot & chickpea dip with pita bread dippers

I made this when I had eight people coming over and was concerned that I perhaps I don't have enough pre-dinner nibbles. So I whipped up a dip and crackers.
Bits in the fridge and cupboard:
1/2 tin chickpeas
2 carrots (you could use pumpkin or sweet potato)
Jar of tahini (although peanut butter would work too, I reckon)
Curry powder
Cayenne pepper
Olive oil
Salt & pepper

• Steam 2 carrots in a steamer or microwave
• Dry roast 2-3 tbsp curry powder (or to taste) and 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper, dry roasted in a pan for 1 min until fragrant.
• Blend together carrots, chickpeas, 2 tbsp tahini, 1 tsp olive oil, S&P and spices until smooth. Add a little water if it's too thick.

• Meanwhile, take a piece or two of leftover pita bread, chop it in triangles, spray with oil and sprinkle with a little salt, bake for 5 mins in a hot oven or under the grill until brown and crispy (if you're using the grill, just flip them after a couple of minutes - and keep an eye on them!).

Super Speedy Savory muffins

Muffins always save me when I'm in a pickle. At 10pm last night I suddenly remembered I had a lunch to go to and had to bring something. The reason why I like muffins is because, unlike most baked goods, little precision is required. All of these ingredients were leftovers that I had in the fridge or cupboard. I didn't quite have enough milk, and didn't have any fresh, frozen or tinned corn, but did find a tin of creamed corn way up the back of the cupboard. The cream corn worked out really well actually and I think it's a great addition to savoury muffins. I'll have to remember that one in future! Oh, and muffins freeze well. How good are muffins?!

My muffins included:

2 cups self raising flour
1/4 capsicum (about 3/4 cup, diced)
3/4 cup frozen peas (it's all that was left in the packet)
1/2 onion (about 1 cup chopped)
1/2 carrot, grated, sqeezed with paper towel to remove as much moisture as possible.
1/2 tin creamed corn
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk (I had soy on hand)
100 g butter, melted
3/4 cup grated cheese

• Fry the onion in a little oil for about 5 mins until soft
• Stir the onion, capsicum, carrot and peas into the flour
• Combine the creamed corn, eggs, milk and cheese
• Mix the wet and dry mix together until just combined
• Spoon into 12 muffin pans. Bake at 200 C for 15-20 mins fan forced.