Category Archives: Cooking

Make Your Own Condiments – Part 2

1 Comment

As promised, here is the recipe for another sauce you can easily make.  This is an excellent replica of the specialty product which is marketed as balsamic glaze, balsamic syrup or ‘aged’ balsamic.  I cannot take the credit for the recipe as it was posted by Mimi on Simple Savings.

Here is the recipe:

BALSAMIC SYRUP

500ml balsamic vinegar
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup port

Place all ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.  Simmer gently until required consistency is reached (approximately 30 minutes).  Watch carefully and stir regularly to ensure it does not catch or burn.

Cool and pour into small jars or bottles.  This makes an excellent gift and a list of uses could be attached.

Here are a couple of serving suggestions.

A small quantity in a tiny dish with good-quality olive oil makes a perfect dipping sauce.

Mix with orange juice for a marinade for chicken.

Drizzle over your favourite salad.

It is a great addition to the festive menu and I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

Through a Child’s Eyes

1 Comment

I mentioned yesterday that this simple living can be darned hard work – gardening, planting, harvesting, preserving, storing and cooking from scratch – not to mention the million and one other things that need to be done.

A sure-fire way to rejuvenate the enthusiasm is to see the ‘chores’ through the eyes of a child.  Our granddaughters stayed here this weekend and spending an hour or so in the backyard with them was a sheer delight.

2011-10-02 01Collecting the eggs.

2011-10-02 02Checking out the onion patch.

2011-10-02 03Splitting open beans to retrieve the seeds.

2011-10-02 04The excitement of finding a bean seed.  We will be letting them dry out and saving to replant.  We have also saved snow pea seeds.  Miss O had fun sorting the bean and pea seeds into separate containers.

2011-10-02 05Helping with the harvest.

There were lots of other things that did not get captured on film.  Pulling up the spent broccoli and cauliflower plants and dragging the up to the compost bin as well as pulling the old snow pea vine off the trellis.

Miss O helped me cook and we made a fruit slice with passionfruit icing as well as currant, orange and poppyseed muffins.  The girls took some muffins home to put in their lunchboxes for daycare tomorrow.

I also managed to get a little sewing done.  2 pairs of shorts are finished.  Here they are on the models.

2011-10-02 06And the second pair.

2011-10-02 07It is a pleasure to see the sheer delight on the faces of my grandchildren when they can help with the jobs we do every day.  I am reminded that what I am doing is ‘right’ and I look forward to sharing many more things as they get older.

What We Have

Leave a comment

One of the principles of living simply is to make the most of whatever you happen to have.  Sometimes doing this is jolly hard work, especially when you are holding down a full-time paid job as well.

The harvest from our garden recently has been excellent but that has meant that I have a responsibility to use and store it safely and not let things go to waste.

I have made cauliflower and bacon soup.

Juiced and frozen many litres of grapefruit and lemon juice.

Prepared grapefuit for The Duke for breakfast.

Made more lemon cordial.

2011-10-01 04We have also been eating broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and snow peas as part of our dinner almost every night.

I was given about 30 apples at work the other day so those have now been stewed and frozen.  I will use them in apple pies and crumbles.  Here they are ready to go in the freezer.

2011-10-01 05I am struggling to find enough containers to freeze  everything.  I think I will need to get some more at some stage.

What do you do when you have a glut of a particular fruit or vegetable?


A New Idea and a New Toy

2 Comments

It is now 6 months since I began this blog.  A couple of previous efforts had fallen by the wayside for a variety of reasons but I was determined to make this an ongoing project.  I decided that the best way to make blogging a habit was to do it every day.  I have managed to stick to my plan pretty consistently except for while we were on holidays and a couple of other glitches.  Therefore, I apologise for the lack of posts in the last couple of days.

I have decided to reassess how I go about maintaining my blog, keeping it interesting and relevant for those who read it and still find time to go to work and do the very things that provide the basis of my blog posts.

So, from now on there will not necessarily be a post every day, although sometimes there will be.  My goal is to generally have 3 – 4 posts each week with a minimum of 2 posts each week.

I know how frustrating it is to go to a blog and find that there is nothing new since last time you visited so here is my suggestion.  Go to the ‘Email Subscription’ on the right-hand side of the blog and click the button marked “Sign Me Up”.  This means that you subscribe to the blog and will receive an email each time there is a new post.  You can change the settings in the future if you wish.  Alternatively, you can be friends with me on Facebook and you will see each new post that I make from the Facebook page.

Thank you for your interest in the blog and comments.

And now, the new toy.Kitchen Aid mixer

This is my Kitchen Aid mixer which I got a couple of years ago.  One of the reasons I chose it was because I could purchase additional attachments which run directly from the driveshaft.  My main interest was the pasta maker attachment. The Duke did all of the research on the internet and found the best price of $285 which compared favourably with the initial price on the Kitchen Aid site of $349.  Whilst it seems like a lot of money I feel confident that it will be worthwhile.

Today the parcel arrived.

So it was time to unpack.

There are 3 attachments – lasagne roller, fettucine cutter and spaghetti cutter.

I have made my own pasta previously but found that the manual pasta maker was too difficult and time-consuming – not to mention that it ended up breaking.  Hopefully, these will be a great success and I will never buy dried pasta again.  The bonus is that I will not have the packets which are non-recyclable.

Watch for a post when I make the first batch – perhaps on the weekend!

Clever Cupboards

1 Comment

Well, it is not actually the cupboards that are clever but the cabinetmaker for suggesting a solution for ‘blind’ corner cupboards.  When we were redesigning our kitchen he suggested these and I immediately agreed that they were a great idea.  The rails stop things falling off as the shelves are moved.

When I was putting the clean dishes away this morning I noticed that the shelves were looking a bit grubby so I removed everything and cleaned the shelves.

The shelves are on an arm mechanism and swing in and out by pulling the rail.  They are easy to manoeuvre and give access to an otherwise useless corner.

Here it is replaced in the closed position.

These shelves hold all of my bowls, jugs and colanders as well as scales, measuring cups, funnel, juicer and the attachments for the Kitchen Aid mixer.

I also cleaned the matching set of shelves in the opposite corner of the kitchen.

Creative Cookery

Leave a comment

Many of my recipes are adaptations of ones I have been given, or based on meals that have been served to me over the years.

Tonight I made Chilli Chicken with Corn Chips for dinner.  This recipe was given to me many years ago.  It was one of those recipes that did not rely on specific quantities and mine has evolved over the years.

My quantities are for 2 of us with leftovers for lunches.  It could easily serve 4 adults.

Chill Chicken with Corn Chips

Make a fairly stiff white sauce using plain flour, butter and skim milk.  Season with black pepper.

Add shredded cooked chicken (I use 1 chicken breast fillet, steamed)

Add sliced mushrooms – I use about 250g because we have an abundance of mushrooms.

Place mixture in a shallow casserole dish.

2011-09-07 01Dice 1/2 onion and lightly fry.  Make tomato sauce by adding 400g tin of diced tomatoes, 1 tablespoon of tomato paste, fresh chilli or chilli paste (as much as you like to taste) and a splash of white wine (optional).  Simmer until reduced a little.

2011-09-07 02Pour tomato mixture over the chicken.  Top with a layer of corn chips and grated cheese.  Cook in the oven or under the grill until heated through and crisp on top.

2011-09-07 03Serve with rice and vegetables.  I usually have broccoli and carrots.

2011-09-07 04I usually have nachos the following night to use the rest of the corn chips.  If you want to be organised you can make a double quantity of the tomato mixture and use the extra instead of salsa on the nachos.

NACHOS

Corn chips

Crockpot refried beans

Tomato salsa

Grated cheese

Layer the corn chips on a baking tray, spoon refried beans, salsa and grated cheese over the chips.  Repeat in layers until all of the chips are used.  Cook in the oven until hot and crisp.

I plan to make an Anzac cake tomorrow night to maximise the use of the oven.