Category Archives: Cooking

Friday Favourites – Lemon Tart

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I mentioned yesterday that ‘Friday Favourites’ will only appear when there is something really special that I want to share.  This is one such recipe.

2012-04-27 01LEMON TART

1 quantity of sweet pastry.  See this previous post about making pastry, the sweet pastry recipe is towards the bottom of the page.

FILLING

2 eggs
2 lemons
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 tablespoon plain flour
1 dessertspoon butter

Separate the eggs.  Beat the egg yolks, water, juice and ring of the lemons.  Place mixture in a saucepan with the sugar and flours.  Blend carefully over a low heat until the mixture boils and thickens.  Remove from the heat.  Beat in the butter and allow to cool.  Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture.  Spoon the mixture into the tart shell and sprinkle with coconut.  Chill.

Serve with ice-cream or cream.

NOTES:  You will have an egg white left from the pastry if you use my recipe so I usually add it to the other egg whites so I get a bit more to mix into the tart.

Progress Report

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Tonight I do not have a single story to tell but updates on several ongoing projects.

Dishcloths – I am knitting these from a pattern in Rhonda Hetzel’s book, “Down to Earth”.  I have done 2 and a half so far.  My plan is to use all the cotton I have which will probably make 6 cloths.  Here is one that is finished and I just need to sew the ends in.

2012-04-26 01Dehydrating – the onion tops dehydrated beautifully and were then ground in the spice grinder and this is the result.

2012-04-26 02I made another batch of pumpkin soup but I have now finished the onions I grew last winter so I put a tablespoon of this into the mix instead and it worked perfectly.

We have been working on the itinerary for our USA trip.  We now have return flights booked, accommodation organised in Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Boston.  We have found a suitable car hire company (thanks, Joanna) and have also booked our train tickets from Philadelphia to New York.  We booked this first as it is a Sunday and seems to be selling out on some trips.

I am currently reviewing and revising our itinerary for the driving part of our holiday.  I hope to finalise most of that this weekend.

Decluttering – The bags of clothes and hangers have gone to the op shop.

Now I need to go and reply to the comments from the last few days.

Also, just in case you are wondering where Friday Favourites went, it will be back tomorrow with a yummy dessert.  I decided that I had to be true to the description and post only tried and true family favourites under this heading – not something I had made once, so this feature will only appear when I have something really worth sharing.

Local Lunch

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In my post, ‘Competing Priorities’ from a couple of days ago, I discussed buying organic vs local vs no packaging.

Since then I decided that even though I do buy some imported ingredients, I try to offset that by producing some of our own food and buying local food where possible.  Stephanie’s comment re the priority of the ‘100 Mile Diet’ reminded to look at the origin of what we eat.

Today’s lunch measured up pretty well on all counts I think.  I had lasagne (leftovers from the freezer) and a few bits of salad.  Here is the analysis:

Cherry tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber and green bell chilli – all from our garden. – No packaging

Lasagne – made using fresh lasagne sheets, bechamel sauce, cheese and meat sauce.  To extract this further:

Lasagne sheets – eggs produced by our chickens and flour (Australian) – bought from bulk bins from local independent supplier.
Cheese – bought from the Kenilworth cheese factory (about 40km from home).
Minced beef – grass-fed from about 400km away and bought at local independent butcher.
TVP (textured vegetable protein) – bought from bulk bins from local independent supplier (unsure of country of origin)
Pasta sauce – made and bottled at home using local tomatoes and capsicums plus home-grown onions.

The meal also used powdered milk, tomato paste (bought at local Aldi supermarket), red wine (Australian – purchased at the winery when travelling), pepper, spices (bought from bulk bins from local independent supplier).  I use butter blend that I make myself using pure butter (comes in a paper wrapper which is re-used to line cake tins and then composted) and olive oil (local from about 30km away) bought in bulk from the local co-op.

I take my own re-used paper bags for everything I buy from the bulk bins.  I take containers for the meat that I buy from the butcher and mesh bags for any fruit and vegetables that I buy.  The 2.5kg block of cheese was encased in plastic and the packet that the packet from the powdered milk are the only non-recyclable waste generated from the ingredients used to prepare this meal.

Not every meal I prepare measures up quite as well in terms of local content but I plan to try to incorporate something we have produced ourselves in every lunch and dinner.

Do you ever consider waste and local content in terms of a whole meal?

Kitchen Kapers

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I have spent the best part of today in the kitchen.  The first thing was to juice the 60 limes I picked from the tree.  Some is in ice-cube trays in the freezer and the remainder in a jug in the refrigerator.  I will freeze this in trays as well once the others are completely frozen and can be removed from the trays and placed in a bag.

Next were 5 pumpkins from the garden.  Unfortunately, I cannot leave them on the vine until the stalks dry out completely because some of the wildlife starts to eat them once they are mature.  Because I have to pick them before the stalk has withered, this means that they will not store.  So my plan was to cut and peel them (a mammoth job), roast in the oven and then mash the pumpkin.  I have frozen it in batches so that it can be made into soup as required.  By just freezing the mashed pumpkin I save space in the freezer as compared to making and freezing the soup.

I also sorted through the freezer and pulled out this bag of chopped onion tops.

2012-04-22 01These are from the onions I grew last winter but our winter is not long enough for the tops to die down before I have to harvest the onions.  Otherwise our wet weather starts and they would just rot in the ground.  I diced all of the onions and froze them in 150g packs and I could not bear to waste the fresh green tops so chopped them and pt the bag of them in the freezer while I considered what to do with them.

2012-04-22-02I decided to thaw them out and then put them on the trays in the food dehydrator.  My plan is to dry them completely and then grind them in the spice grinder to make my own onion powder for seasoning. I will post about the success or otherwise of this venture in a day or so.

The other thing I retrieved from the freezer was a bag of cherry tomatoes.  These were picked from the neighbour’s garden a couple of months ago when they were away and I didn’t have time to do anything with them apart from wash, hull and freeze them.

I found a tomato sauce recipe on the internet and made a couple of adjustments to suit the ingredients I had.  I cooked up the sauce and 1.9 kg of cherry tomatoes made up into 1.75 litres of sauce.

Here it is – bottled and ready to add to the stock cupboard.

2012-04-22 03I made 3 batches of muffins – lime and coconut, fig and almond as well as banana ones.  This is some of them packed and ready to freeze.

2012-04-22 04While the oven was on I made another zucchini quiche.  We have an abundance of eggs and since this uses 5 eggs it is a good way to use some up.

I had planned to make so more fresh pasta – using eggs again – but the day was almost over.  I will save that job for Wednesday which is a public holiday here (Anzac Day).

Most of my cooking and preparation was a direct result of produce from our garden, either fresh or frozen.  Since we are blessed to be able to grow this food I feel it is important to make sure that we use it to the best of our ability.

Baking Powder – An Update

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Sometimes an innocent post takes on a life of its own.  I received this comment to yesterday’s post.

“Do you make your own baking powder? If not, to do so, mix 1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda with 2 teaspoons cream of tartar. If you wish to store it, add 1 teaspoon corn starch to absorb any moisture from the air. Most commercially made baking powders contain aluminium.”

Thanks to Val for the comment.  I set off to the world of Google and discovered that the presence of aluminium in commercially prepared baking powder seems to be common knowledge.  Which rock have I been hiding under?

This then begs the question – Does self-raising flour contain aluminium?  Once again, thanks to Google, the answer is most definitely yes.

So, what started out as a way to simplify and streamline my pantry ingredients to a single type of flour has turned into a campaign to eliminate aluminium from our diet.  Whilst nothing has been conclusively proven, there is potentially a link between levels of aluminium in the brain and Alzheimer’s Disease.  Of course, flour and baking powder are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ingestion of aluminium.  Many processed foods will also contain it.  It yet another example of the importance of eating food in as natural a state as possible to avoid these hidden ingredients.

I will be discarding the baking powder and buying cream of tartar  and bicarbonate of soda to create my own baking powder.  The proportions are 2 parts of cream of tartar and 1 part of bicarbonate of soda.

There are numerous sites that discuss making your own baking powder but this blog post explains it very clearly.  I will be making a bulk quantity with the addition of cornflour and then using 2 teaspoons of the mixture to 1 cup of plain flour to make my own aluminium-free self-raising flour.

What do you think?

 

Simply Baking

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Decluttering is not just about throwing out the piles of junk gathering dust in the basement.  Nor is minimalism about having a sparsely furnished apartment with almost no sign of human habitation.  They are words which are open to interpretation but the over-arching concept is to simplify our homes and lives so that we can make time and space for living.

It is important to keep baking and cooking simple.  Creating meals from scratch can easily lead you to acquire all manner of ingredients.  All too often these are used once and then end up relegated to the back of the cupboard.  I have a well-stocked pantry that has the basic ingredients that I use to create the meals we eat.

I also regularly make substitutions to new recipes so that they fit my ingredients.  It is easy to be conned into having many varieties of one ingredient, such as sugar.  There is caster, white, soft brown, raw, Demerara and numerous others.  I use raw sugar for most general use.  I also keep soft brown sugar and caster sugar.  If a recipe demands a specialty sugar that I feel cannot be satisfactorily substituted I discard the recipe.

Flour is another example of many options available – white, wholemeal, organic, stoneground, plain, self-raising.  I prefer to keep both white and wholemeal.  I use white flour for pastry, pasta and making roux for sauces but other than that I tend to use wholemeal or half and half if I want a lighter texture.  I only buy plain flour and add baking powder to make self-raising flour as required.

2012-03-28 01I buy my flour in 5kg bags from  Simply Good.  I also buy my baking powder in bulk from the same store.

2012-03-28 02The baking powder is sold from bulk bins so I fill a recycled paper bag with it and then decant into the large glass jar. which is in my stock cupboard.  I refill the small container in the pantry as required.  Please do not not confuse bicarbonate of soda (bicarb) with baking powder.  Baking powder is a combination of bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar.

2012-03-28 03With basic ingredients to hand it is easy to bake for your family where you know exactly what is in the food.  I made these muffins this morning with the last of some bottled cherries I had bought a couple of years ago – not sure why?  The recipe was the basic muffin recipe from the book, “Down to Earth” by Rhonda Hetzel.  You can find out more on her blog.

2012-03-28 04I made a zucchini quiche for dinner at the same time.  I always try to cook more than one dish when I have the oven turned on so that the power is used efficiently.

Have you tried to simplify the ingredients in your pantry?

Surprise From the Freezer

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This morning I took a lidded Pyrex dish from the freezer which contained 2 serves of lasagne.  I left it on the kitchen bench to thaw.

When we were on our way home this evening The Duke asked what was for dinner so I assured him we were having lasagne.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it was one of my creations which was actually pasta (2 different types), re-fried beans and a little shredded chicken topped with grated cheese.  Considering the pasta and cheese it is not entirely surprising that I mistook it for lasagne.

I use a random selection of containers for freezing meals, leftovers and produce and have never come up with a really effective method of labelling items for the freezer so I simply don’t do it.  This does lead to the occasional blunder but generally nothing that cannot be solved reasonably easily.

My funniest experience was the day I took a small container of frozen pumpkin soup to work for my lunch.  I also had a slice of home-made bread which I was going to toast and have with my soup.  The soup was still partly frozen at lunch-time so I loosened the lid and popped it in the microwave.  After a period of time I decided to check if it was warm enough.  I dipped my finger in to check and it was only warm.  Upon licking my finger I discovered that the pumpkin soup was mango puree!!  The toast was already cooked and I did not want to waste the ‘soup’ so lunch that day was warm mango puree and a slice of toast!

How do you keep track of what is in the freezer?

 

Frugal Food

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I know that food prices are constantly rising and there is a lot of angst about the price of fruit and vegetables.  We recently discovered a fruit barn not too far from us and we are very happy with the prices and quality.

I went and bought some fruit and vegetables this afternoon.  Here is what I selected.

1kg carrots
7 nectarines
6 potatoes
5 bananas
1 head of broccoli
1 knob of Australian garlic
6 apples
1 lebanese cucumber

This cost me $11.40.  I would like to know if anyone could honestly construe that as expensive.

On the way home I stopped to fill the car with fuel.  While I was waiting in the queue to pay I noticed the sign above the ice-cream freezer cabinet.  “Magnum Temptation $4.00”  My bag of fruit and vegetables was cheaper than 3 of these fancy ice-creams!  I know which I would rather have.

How do you manage your food budget?

Friday Favourites – Trifle & Lemon Delicious

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This week I have 2 desserts for you to try.  They would possibly be regarded by many as ‘old-fashioned’ but that is not necessarily a bad thing – they have stood the test of time.  These recipes come from a time when dessert was created from basic ingredients from the pantry and leftovers, along with seasonal produce from the garden.

LEMON DELICIOUS

1 tablespoon butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons plain flour
Juice and rind of 1 lemon
2 eggs
1 cup milk

Cream the butter and sugar.  Add flour, juice and rind.  Mix well.  Separate the eggs, add yolks and milk to mixture.  Place the whites in a separate bowl and beat until stiff.  Fold the beaten egg white into the mixture.  Pour into an ovenproof dish.  Stand the dish in a tray of water (about 2-3cm deep) and place in a moderate oven for about 30 minutes or until the top is firm to touch and golden.

The finished product is like a lemon self-saucing pudding.  This can be served warm or cold with ice-cream, cream or custard.Now for the trifle.  I am writing the specifically in response to a question from Jeni.  I make trifle about once each year and do not use a recipe.  It is the result of my memories of eating trifle when I was a child.  So, here goes:

TRIFLE

Sponge cake (a little stale is better)
Jelly (red or green)
Custard (cold  and thick pouring consistency)
Coconut
Tinned peaches
Jam
Orange juice/peach juice/sherry

You do need to plan ahead and make the jelly the day before.  Use only 375ml water instead of 500ml to make the jelly a bit stiffer.  Pour into a shallow dish to set.

Slice cake into thin slabs, spread with jam (strawberry is my preference) and sandwich together.  Cut cake into small pieces and set aside.

Cut jelly into cubes (bite-sized pieces).

Cut the peach slices into bite-sized pieces.

Assemble the trifle in a glass bowl starting with a layer of cake pieces.  Drizzle with a little of the juice or sherry.  Sprinkle with coconut and pour a small amount of custard over the cake layer.  Add jelly, then peaches with a little coconut and custard between each layer.

Repeat the process until all ingredients are used up.  Finish with a generous sprinkle of coconut.

HINTS & TIPS

The coconut can be toasted or slivered almonds may be used as well.  I used some sliced glace cherries to garnish the trifle this time.  Many trifles includes cream but I do not eat cream and prefer to serve it as an optional garnish.

Trifle originally evolved as a way of using up leftovers.  If you want to know more about the history you can read it here.

There is nothing definitive about making trifle.  Just do as you please and enjoy!

Filling The Freezer

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I spent yesterday afternoon in the kitchen and here are some of the results.

A batch of pastry used to make 12 mini meat pies

and 3 meal-sized pies (pastry tops only)

Trifle – using leftover sponge from when I made a Dorothy the Dinosaur cake 6 months ago.

Zucchini and carrot quiche – to use up some of the eggs we have in abundance.

Banana cake – more eggs

Lemon Delicious – eggs and lemons

It makes good economic sense do do a batch of baking while the oven is turned on.

I also made refried beans in the slow-cooker, lasagne sheets (more eggs),  spreadable butter, chopped up chillies to dehydrate them and picked 2 kg of cherry tomatoes from the neighbour’s garden.  They are now frozen waiting for me to have time to make tomato sauce.

The freezers are full and we have plenty of food for the days when I don’t have the time or energy to cook a meal from scratch.  Do you do a big cook-up in one go?