Tag Archives: cooking

Handmade

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As I sat down to write this post I was casting around in my mind for a suitable title. After close to 15 years of writing this blog it is inevitable that I end up reusing titles and that does not really matter. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the very simple one-word title of ‘Handmade’ had never featured. This is amazing since so much I what I write about is things that we have made or refashioned, whether it is cooking, sewing, gardening or various constructions.

Anyway, enough about the title and on to a couple of things that I have made recently which I want to share with you. The first is a recipe. This is a quick and easy no-bake sweet treat which is easy to have on hand for unexpected guests as well as a terrific option for times when you need to contribute something at the plethora of end-of-year events which will soon be upon us.

CHOC FRUIT AND NUT BALLS

Ingredients

1 cup raw almonds
1 cup sultanas
1 cup raisins
2 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup coconut + extra for rolling
1/4 cup flaxseed meal
1 – 2 tablespoons fruit juice

Method

Place almonds in food processor and process until fairly finely chopped. Add sultanas and raisins and process a bit more. Add the remaining dry ingredients and finally the juice. Drizzle slowly until the mixture forms into a solid mass. Remove mixture and roll into small balls. Roll the balls in coconut and store in the freezer until ready to use.

NOTE: This ‘recipe’ is my own creation and the quantities are only approximate and very flexible. You can use any dried fruit of you choosing. The juice can be fresh orange or lemon juice or any type of bottled juice.

Additionally, it is gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan. Although I have not tried, if you need a nut-free version you could consider using pepitas or sunflower seeds instead of the almonds.

Meanwhile, I have also done some sewing recently. I had picked up some beautiful quilting fabric from an op shop some time ago with no real plans for how I would use it as they are not the colours I generally work with. I added it to my stash for a yet to be decided project. Last week I used some of it to make these blocks.

I then turned them into 2 patchwork tote bags which are fully lined with a contrasting internal pocket.

They are both being donated. One went to be part of a raffle at a Frocktober High Tea which a friend held yesterday. For those of you who don’t know, Frocktober is a focused month of fundraising for Ovarian Cancer Research. All cancer research is important but ovarian cancer is a particularly insidious disease which usually has very late diagnosis, and therefore, very poor outcomes and survival rates.

The other bag will also be part of a raffle next weekend but this time it will be at a fundraising fete for our local Community Pantry.

I am pleased to be able to share some of my handmade goods to benefit others in the wider community.

The Excitement

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It probably seems a bit at odds with my last post about decluttering but I could not contain my excitement when GMan spotted this in an op shop today. Sometimes you don’t know that you need something until you see it.

For the princely sum of $6 I am now the proud owner of a cast-iron tortilla press.

It needs a bit of cleaning but then I will definitely be attempting to make my own tortillas.

If you have any experience using one I would love to hear about it. I will post about the results in due course.

This and That

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While it is only the beginning of the second week of August there is a definite hint of spring in the air. At least the bitter chill has gone, at least for the moment. Today was a glorious sunny day.

The daffodils are almost ready to burst forth.

GMan picked all of the remaining lemons from the tree. It is only quite a small tree and one of the branches that was laden with fruit really needed to be pruned.

I have juiced about half of these and will do the rest tomorrow.

One thing led to another and I sorted out the freezers which were a bit of a shambles and I was not 100% certain of what was in there. I found a single serve of soup and a zucchini quiche which GMan and I had for our lunches. I also pulled out a bag of whole ripe tomatoes from last summer. I will thaw and chop them to use in cooking.

A jar of prepared chickpeas was thawed out for a vegetable curry for dinner – it is chickpea, pumpkin and eggplant.

We also made the most of the better weather to do a bit more fence painting. I think it is going to be our version of the Sydney Harbour Bridge!

It is still cold at night so firewood is a must.

Too Clever

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I have been meaning to write this post for ages but every time I think of it I am in the middle of serving dinner. You will understand why in a minute.

This is a jar lifter which I bought a few years ago. It is designed for lifting preserving jars out of a water bath or otherwise manipulating/moving hot jars. Who would have thought that it would have another use?

One of the challenges of the airfryer is extricating dishes of cooked food from the small space. Oven mitts are really not much use as they are too bulky. I often use these small dishes for making individual serves and they are perfect in the airfryer. I use them for making pot pies, individual baked desserts and mini quiches to name but a few.

So, back to the jar lifter. It is the perfect size to lift these small dishes from the airfryer. The lip on the edge of the dish means that it can be held securely to remove it.

I keep the jar lifter on the shelf in the pantry with the empty preserving jars and it is within easy reach of the airfryer on the bench opposite. Sometimes things just work perfectly and I actually smile to myself every time I use it to lift dishes of food from the airfryer.

It really is the simple things that make a difference.

A Mixed Day

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Like so many days, today was a mix of assorted small jobs that I managed to tick off my list.

The weather was overcast and we even had some very light rain but I had some handwashed items to dry. I used the very convenient extendable rack in the laundry to hang them up.

I also had a couple of cooking jobs. I had cooked some dried Great Northern beans some time ago and frozen them. I thawed them yesterday in preparation for turning them into my version of baked beans. We had some for lunch today and the remainder have been divided into single serve portions and are ready to be frozen. I ended up with 16 portions for relatively minimal effort. The recipe for my baked beans is here.

The other cooking job for the day was to make a slice for a conference we are attending tomorrow. This is the slice before I iced it this evening. It is easy to turn into a gluten-free option with a straight substitution of gluten-free flour for the regular wheat flour. The recipe is here. I added some cinnamon and ginger this time to spice it up and the icing was made with lime juice and the addition of more powdered ginger.

I am feeling rather accomplished because as well as things I have mentioned here, I have also taken up a new pair of trousers and mended a pair of jeans – both for GMan and ironed a few items from the washing of the past couple of days.

It is good to have everything pretty much up-to-date before we are in Melbourne over the weekend.

Ready to Roast

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It almost 2 years since I wrote this post with a recipe for pumpkin soup. After a long, hot summer we are finally experiencing some slightly cooler days.

Like all of my cooking escapades there is plenty of room for variation. A couple of days ago GMan was baking a couple of loaves of sourdough bread so I decided to make use of the oven being on to roast the pumpkin while the oven was heating up to the temperature required for the bread.

Pumpkin wedges brushed with a mix of balsamic syrup and olive oil.

After roasting the skin peels off easily.

A pot of deliciousness.

We had soup for dinner and there were another 10 serves to go in the freezer for future meals.

It was a productive kitchen day as I had also made a new batch of spreadable butter, deyhdrated the pumpkin seeds and some root ginger which had been in the freezer for a couple of years and GMan made the bread.

Processing Plums

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It is that time of the year when everything seems to be ripening at once. I have a nectarine tree but no other stone fruit, however, there are plums aplenty around town and I have received some from 3 different sources in the last week so today I made jam using 3.4kg of plums.

This is the result.

These were the first batch of plums I was given. They don’t look much but have a lovely flavour and beautiful deep red flesh.

Since having an airfryer I have discovered that it is a relatively quick and easy way to sterilise the jars and lids rather than having to turn the oven on. That is definitely a consideration on a day like today when the forecast temperature was 37C (98.6F).

However, it was not all plain sailing as I had a calamity with the second batch of jars. Thankfully there were only 4 of them but they came to grief when I managed to catch the handle of airfryer with my oven mitt and send the contents flying across the kitchen floor. One jar broke but that was all. GMan kindly swept up the broken glass while I retrieved the remainder and the lids, re-washed them and started the process again.

The other job was somewhat simpler than jam-making as I had some gifted oranges to juice. It is the first time I have had fresh orange juice since we moved here which has been a bit of a shock after having what seemed like an endless supply from the 3 trees we had in our previous garden.

Finally, we were delighted to record 42mm of rain in a series of thunderstorms overnight. It has given the garden a welcome soaking during what has been several weeks of fairly hot, dry weather.

A Quick Quiche

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This is a long-forgotten ‘recipe’ that pops into my head occasionally. Instead of using pastry for a quiche base this uses rice.

QUICHE BASE

2 cups of cooked rice
1 egg, beaten
Salt and pepper

Place the cooked rice in a bowl. Add the beaten egg and combine quickly. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon the mixture into a quiche dish or pie plate, spread evenly across the base and side pressing in place with the back of a spoon.

QUICHE FILLING

The filling for a quiche is one of those things that can be pretty much anything you want it to be.

Tonight it was:

1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 large leaves of silverbeet (chard), stalks and leaves finely chopped
Small piece of capsicum (red pepper), finely chopped
1/2 tin of tuna, drained and flaked

Lightly saute the vegetables.

Add the tuna. Spread the mixture over the rice base, add a small amount of grated cheese.

Finally, make a mixture of eggs/milk/cream. Once again, this is very forgiving and you can use whatever you have to hand. I generally do not have cream available so I often add a spoonful of powdered milk to the regular milk to make it a bit creamier. However, tonight I did have some cream that I had bought marked down earlier in the week.

3 eggs
100ml thickened cream
100ml milk

Beat the eggs/cream/milk thoroughly then pour carefully over the filling. Bake in oven at 180C for 30 minutes or until firm to touch and golden.

I had started cutting the quiche before I remembered to photograph the finished product.

And dinner is served.

The first slice is always a bit tricky to get out, especially when it is warm but it still tasted great. In fact, this is equally as good hot or cold so that is our lunches sorted for the next couple of days.

Homemade Sauce/Dressing

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Fromm time to time I stumble across interesting sounding recipes on Facebook. I generally ‘save’ them on Facebook and often forget to go back and look them again. However, a few days ago I saw one that I could not wait to try out.

This is for a vegan ‘sour cream’ made from sunflower seeds. Sounds a bit ridiculous? That was my thought, too.

VEGAN ‘SOUR CREAM’

1 cup sunflower seeds
1¼ cups water
⅓ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
¼ onion
1 large clove garlic
1 teaspoon salt

Place all ingredients in a blender and blitz until creamy. Makes about 500ml.
Keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week or freeze portions for later use.

NOTE: I have not tried freezing it as yet.

NOTE: You could also try adding additional spices or nutritional yeast to alter the flavour a little.

I know it sounds improbable and ridiculously easy – it really is that simple.

This is the result, although some has already been used. I would say it is a bit like a cross between sour cream, yoghurt and mayonnaise.

This was my lunch today with a generous serve of my new-found dressing.

Please note that this is not GMan-approved but I am happy to have found an easy and tasty alternative.

However, he is still raving about one of my other homemade sauces, a bechamel-style sauce made using cauliflower instead of flour and butter as the base. We have successfully grown cauliflower this winter and the last 2 became another batch of the sauce. The recipe is here and it freezes really well.

What’s For Dinner?

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I do not often post our main meals these days as we mostly eat a selection of the meals already on the index. However, a couple of weeks ago I made a new creation which was a great success so tonight I photographed the steps when making it again.

CREAMY MUSTARD CHICKEN – serves 2

Ingredients

Half onion
Handful of silverbeet
1 chicken breast fillet
1 medium mushroom
250ml cauliflower white sauce** (recipe here) or you could use regular white sauce
2 spoons of mustard mayonnaise

Method

Finely slice the onion, cut and finely slice the silverbeet stalks. Shred the silverbeet leaves and slice the mushroom. Cut the chicken fillet into small strips. Cook the chicken lightly until cooked but not browned. (I cook the chicken in the airfryer). Set the chicken aside.

Saute the onion and stalks, add sliced mushroom and chicken. Cook for 5 minutes. Add cauliflower sauce and mustard. Finally, stir in the shredded silverbeet and cook for a few more minutes until the silverbeet is softened and the mixture is all heated through.

I served the chicken dish with mashed potato, carrots and green beans. It works equally well with rice which I chose previously or pasta could be another option.