Jam Drops - and the Bitey Cat Awards 2012

Just the facts, ma’am.

Please excuse the brevity of this post. I just need to push out a recipe (for Jam Drops, no less!) so that you don’t think I’ve abandoned you.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I also use this blog as my own personal library of ‘things I’ve cooked before and am likely to make again – someday’. It’s also great to look back on what I’ve written and have a giggle – or sigh – about what was happening back then.

 I did originally intend to collate the recipes into a folder, decorated using my heap of scrapbooking supplies – papers, embellishments, stamps, mists, and the like, but that idea is still a germ of an idea that refuses to develop…

Sorry to ramble on…back to this latest recipe. I found it in Real Living, a magazine I’m regularly seduced into buying. So many gorgeous interiors with similarly gorgeous young occupants draped over the replica Eames furniture. I suppose these Jam Drops have a bit of a retro vibe, but that sort of thing is IN right now.

Oh, and there is still time to enter my Slow Cooker giveaway, courtesy of kitchenwaredirect.com.au. I will hopefully have another lovely slow-cooked recipe for you soon, but in the meantime, please enjoy these dainty Jam Drops with a cup of tea.


Jam Drops
makes approx 20

Ingredients
½ cup rice flour
1/3 cup plain flour
¼ cup caster sugar
125g cold butter, chopped
pinch of salt
4 tblsp raspberry jam

Method
1. Preheat oven to 160C/320F. Line baking trays with baking paper.
2. Sieve the rice flour, plain flour and caster sugar into the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter and salt, then process until the mixture forms a ball of dough.
3. Lightly knead the dough until it sticks together, then roll it out on a lightly floured surface to a ½ cm ( ¼ in) thickness.
4. Use a cookie cutter to cut shapes from the dough, and while the cutter is still in place, use the end of a wooden spoon to gently indent the centre of the cookie (keeping the cutter in place lets the cookie retain its shape). Re-roll out any offcuts, creating cookies until the dough is used up. Place cookies on the prepared tray, and fill the indent with raspberry jam.
5. Bake in preheated oven for30 minutes, or until light golden in colour. Cool completely on wire racks before serving. Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

recipe adapted from Real Living (May 2012)

Messy ingredients, including rice flour that comes in a box that doesn't seal properly, with the flour just loose in the box!

Combine the flours and sugar with the cold butter to form a dough.

The cookies are pretty when cut using a flower shape with a dab of jam in the centre.

The cookies are quite buttery, so the flower shape turns into a bit of a blob.

They taste fab, though!

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Tabitha vs Henry Update

The Bitey Cat Awards

The nominees are:

Tabitha cat (top)

Henry cat (bottom)

 

Henry cat will leap up to take food from your hand - even when you don't have any food to give!

And those teeth are sharp!

Tabitha is not lacking in the fang department, either, but it's her claws that will do the most damage.

She is odds-on favourite to take out the Scratchy Cat Awards, so keep a lookout for it soon.

Non-vintage Lamb Curry and WIN a Slow Cooker

What are the ages of ‘vintage’ and ‘antique’ items? I used to think that Antique was anything over 200 years old, Vintage was more than 100 years old, and anything less was just ‘second-hand’.

Then, Vintage got upgraded, you know, like when a lairy knit jumper from the Eighties is described as ‘vintage’ in those supercilious street-style photographs, as in “Darya wears a Yohji Yamamoto gilet, vintage sweater from a Paris flea market, Ksubi jeans, Chanel booties and her mother’s scarf”. Oh, how unbearably chic!

Well, in that case, my mother has a vintage slow cooker. I think it’s from the 1970s, and it’s hot orange in colour with a neat brown floral/leaf pattern around the base with ‘Crockpot’ written in a funky, hippy font. It is the coolest thing ever, although it used to be considered daggy. I suppose that’s when something becomes Vintage – when it turns the corner from eye-rollingly kitsch (but useful) to nostalgically coveted.

By the way, I have a NEW slow cooker and made this wonderful Lamb Curry in it. And you could have a NEW slow cooker, too. Just salivate over this recipe and enter the giveaway below.

Lamb Curry

serves 4

Ingredients

3 tblsp plain flour

500g diced lean lamb

2 tblsp oil

1 medium sweet potato, cut into 2cm chunks

1 brown onion, sliced

1 tsp crushed garlic

1 tsp grated ginger

½ tsp ground cumin

¼ cup Indian curry paste (Korma for mild, Madras for hot)

270ml reduced-fat coconut cream

1 tsp vegetable stock powder or paste

1 bay leaf 

chives or coriander, to serve

Method

1. Put the lamb in a plastic bag and add the flour and some salt and pepper. Close the bag and shake until the lamb is coated with the flour.

2. Heat the oil in a large non-stick frypan and add the lamb. Cook in batches until browned, about 5 minutes. Transfer lamb to a 3.5 litre slow cooker.

3. Add sweet potato, onion, garlic, ginger and cumin to the pan. Cook for 5 minutes, until onion is soft (the sweet potato will still be uncooked). Add curry paste and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.

4. Add coconut milk, stock powder and ¾ cup of cold water and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and pour into the slow cooker with the lamb. Add bay leaf.

5. Cook, covered on Low heat for 6 hours. Remove bay leaf before serving with a sprinkle of chives and rice or naan bread.

recipe adapted from Super Food Ideas

Ingredients, including ginger and garlic, Korma curry paste, onion, sweet potato, light coconut cream, bay leaf, cumin; coat the lamb pieces in seasoned flour and brown in a pan before adding the other ingredients.

After 6 hours, the lamb incredibly tender. Liquid does not evaporate from a lidded slow cooker like it does in a pan on the stove, so there is lots of sauce left in the pot.  You should also make sure that the slow cooker is filled half to three-quarters full for best results, with liquid covering most of the lamb and potato.

Serve the curry with naan bread and accompaniments like yoghurt and pappadums.

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Fantastic Giveaway from Kitchenware Direct

Thanks to Brad from Kitchenware Direct for allowing me to review this Morphy Richards Accents Slow Cooker.

I was really excited about this product because I wanted to have hot, ready-prepared meals to come home to (and I am too cheap to get takeaway). This slow cooker does not disappoint. It is a compact size (3.5 litres) that is perfect for 2-4 people and it doesn’t take up too much bench space. The burgundy ceramic pot is removable for serving and easy cleaning, it works like a dream and the instruction manual is mercifully to-the-point with useful essential tips (I always read the manual before operating appliances, and you should, too).

And Kitchenware Direct are also offering one of these fantastic slow cookers to a lucky Ooh, Look… reader (sorry, Australian entrants only). Just leave a comment on this post with the magic words ‘Please, Miss, I want a slow cooker’. Terms and conditions and closing date are below. Good luck!

Conditions of Entry

1. Entry to this contest is by a comment on this post containing the words “Please, Miss, I want a slow cooker”. Alternatively, enter by sending an email to oohlookbel2000 [at] gmail [dot] com

2. Entries close at midnight 10 June 2012.

3. Winner will be randomly selected

4. The prize can only be delivered to Australian addresses. Prize will be supplied and delivered by Kitchenware Direct.

5. Please include an email address or your blog URL in your entry so I can contact you if you win.

------ UPDATE ------ 

Thanks to everyone who entered this competition.

A winner has been selected:


Congratulations to Reemski.  I will email you.
Hope you enjoy the slow cooker from kitchenwaredirect.com.au.

Kiddie carrot muffins

Before we get onto the advertised Carrot Muffins, let me tell you how they came about. It was because I went to a local school fête last week and it brought back nostalgic feelings of school days and homemade cakes and toffees, and raffles and stuff.

The Birchgrove Public School fête held in the school grounds with a sunny autumn day, cake stalls…

…second-hand books, rides and giant sharks and tombola prizes (lollies in a jar).

When I got home, the school-hall fug still in my nostrils, I looked up this recipe from Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden Project. It’s meant for children to pull carrots and parsley fresh from the garden and to whip a delicious batch of simple muffins with the ingredients.

Well, I’m not quite a child anymore, but these muffins are indeed quick and easy to make, and they are full of moist goodness that bring back memories of home economics classes, play-lunch and chasings. Isn’t it wonderful what a school fête invokes?

*ping!*

Back to reality now: there’s no way I want to go back to school, thank you very much, so a spot of kids’ cooking is a far as I’m going. Hope you will also give these a try!

Carrot Muffins

makes 12

Ingredients

1 medium carrot, peeled and grated

1 ¾ cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

3 tblsp chopped parsley

100g grated cheddar cheese

1 egg

¾ cup buttermilk

½ cup vegetable oil

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Line a 12-hole muffin tray with paper cases.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl. Mix in the carrot, cheese and parsley.

3. In a jug, whisk the egg, buttermilk and oil. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture, and pour in the liquid. Mix lightly to combine.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tray, filling each case two-thirds full.

5. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden. Cool on wire racks before serving.

Ingredients, including buttermilk, egg, grated carrot, cheese and flour + baking powder

Just bake until golden

Leftover muffins are also good if you reheat them in the microwave for 20 seconds.

Simply: chilled lemon delicious pudding

Going through some recent cooking magazines, I was struck by how inconveniently specific some of the recipe ingredients have become. From micro herbs, to jamon, to fresh burrata and Kashmiri chilli and ‘organic nasturtium petals’ (yes, really), they often offer no substitute ingredient, so if you can’t get your hands on some organic nasturtium petals – or even know what a substitute would be – then you’ve probably stuffed up the recipe already.

Apart from ‘special occasion’ dishes for parties and the like, I much prefer ordinary, just-find-it-in-a-shop ingredients in my everyday meals. It makes things so much easier when you feel like a rice pilaf and you can make it with items you already have in the pantry, instead of having to traipse across town to the specialist spice place that stocks Kashmiri chilli.

Of course, my definition of ‘simple’ may be different to yours; in fact, it probably is, because if it involves anything remotely complicated (like food that's hellishly deep-fried), then I’m a lost cause. I’ve also found that the simple dishes are usually the old-fashioned ones that originated in about 1950, that were made by a post-war frugal generation – well, at least anything that doesn’t involve dripping or lard is okay.

Here’s an old-fashioned favourite, Lemon Delicious Pudding, but chilled for make-ahead convenience.

Chilled Lemon Delicious Pudding

serves 6

Ingredients

40g (1½ oz) unsalted butter, softened

¾ cup caster sugar

3 eggs, separated

60g (2oz) self-raising flour, sifted

350ml (12oz) milk

Finely grated zest of 2 lemons, plus 1/3 cup lemon juice

Icing sugar, to serve

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Grease a 1.2l (5-cup) capacity ovenproof dish with a little of the butter.

2. Beat butter and caster sugar with an electric mixer until thick and pale, about 10 minutes. Add egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each yolk is added.

3. Add a third of the flour, beat well, then add a third of the milk, beating again. Repeat until all the flour and milk has been added.

4. Add lemon zest and juice and mix until a smooth batter forms.

5. In a separate bowl, beat the eggwhites until soft peaks form. Gradually fold the eggwhites into the batter until just combined.

6. Pour the batter into the prepared dish, then place the dish into deep roasting pan and fill with enough hot water to come halfway up the side of the dish. Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 30 minutes or until the pudding is golden.

7. Turn off the oven and allow the pudding to cool in the oven for 30 minutes (to stop it collapsing). Transfer pudding to the refrigerator to cool completely.

8. Serve with icing sugar dusted over.

recipe adapted from delicious (Nov 2011)

Various stages of preparation, including whipping the eggwhites before folding into the egg yolk, butter and sugar mixture.

The pudding is then covered and placed in a water bath before baking.

Like a typical lemon delicious pudding, a lemony sauce sinks to the base of the pudding, ready to be scooped out with the spongey top.

Make sure you get some sauce with the cake.

 A warm lemon delicious recipe is here.

Actually, I found that the cooling of the pudding made the sponge cake a bit dense, so I prefer the warm version. You can't beat the taste of either method, though. Very lemony and certainly delicious.

Bacon broccoli beans - and quinoa (fritters)

I was pleased to see this recipe for Fritters in the recent Donna Hay magazine. With virtuous quinoa, no less, so how can you go wrong? Slight discontent, however, when the relatively short recipe in the magazine ended up taking ages to make – because of the prior preparation, such as cooking the quinoa, mashing the beans and steaming the broccoli.

However, as chippies all know, you should measure twice and cut once. Or, to translate into cooking terminology, measuring and organising everything you need beforehand (I think it’s called mise en place) makes the actual cooking much easier and error-proof.

Of course, having a food blog that features recipes that you just have to photograph every step for, well, it pretty much doubles the time it takes to prepare dinner, but it does make you focus on all the ingredients and prepping and making sure that the final result is worthy of blogdom. Hmm, not sure about being worthy, but this recipe is okay, nonetheless.

Bacon, Broccoli, Bean and Quinoa Fritters

serves 4

Ingredients

1 cup quinoa

400g tinned cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 small head of broccoli, florets removed

4 rashers bacon, chopped

1 egg, lightly beaten

¼ cup basil leaves, chopped

salt and pepper

1 tblsp olive oil

Method

1. Cook the quinoa in 1½ cups of boiling water for about 15 minutes, until the water is absorbed, then set aside to cool slightly.

2. Mash the cannellini beans in a bowl and set aside.

3. Steam or microwave the broccoli until just tender, then chop finely.

4. Heat a non-stick frying pan over high heat and cook the bacon until golden, about 5 minutes.

5. Place the cooked quinoa, mashed beans, broccoli, egg, bacon, basil and lots of salt and pepper in a large bowl and mix to combine. Take 2 tablespoons of the mixture and shape into fritters. Place onto a plate and refrigerate for 20 minutes to firm.

6. Heat the oil in the frying pan over medium heat and cook the fritters for 4 minutes on each side, until golden. Serve.

recipe adapted from Donna Hay magazine (issue 62)

Ingredients, including cannellini beans, quinoa, broccoli, bacon, egg and basil

The prepared ingredients are mixed together to form fritters.

Serve au naturel, or with corn relish or chutney

Drippilicous Pear and Maple tartes tatin

 

Small tarts are good tarts, because you can have more of them.

The Knave of Hearts (who stole some tarts) was onto a good thing.

Here are a couple of small tarts from a recipe that was originally intended for one large tart. 

There is a feature in issue 62 of Donna Hay magazine on tartes tatin (or is it tarte tatins?) and how to make them. These are upside-down tarts made with puff pastry. You can use any fruit you fancy, as long as you cook the fruits in caramel, which produces a sticky, gooey, hard-to-scrape-off sauce when the tarts are inverted.

Rather than the usual apple tarte tatin, I used Williams pears, which have a firm, juicy and sweet flesh. They go beautifully with the sweet caramel that has the added distinct flavour of maple syrup. There was quite a bit of cleanup with these tarts - pastry cutter, saucepan for the caramel, scraping off of the hardened caramel from the muffin pan, scraping the dripping caramel off my chin - but these tarts were so good that you have to make more so that you can eat more. Super yum!

Pear and Maple Tartes Tatin

makes approx 6

Ingredients

2-3 firm ripe pears, like Williams or Packham

1/2 cup caster (superfine) sugar

1/4 cup water

50g butter

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 sheet ready-rolled puff pastry, thawed

Method

1. Peel, core and chop the pears into 2.5cm/1" pieces.

2. For the caramel: Place the caster sugar and water into a small saucepan over medium heat and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. As soon as the mixture boils, do not stir any further. Cook until the colour changes to a golden brown (10-15 minutes) - be careful, it changes quickly. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and golden syrup until combined.

3. Pour the caramel into 6 standard-sized muffin tins. Place the pear pieces on top of the caramel.

4. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Use a circle-shaped cookie cutter to cut puff pastry to fit the tops of the muffin holes. Place pastry on top of the pears, tucking the pastry into the holes to enclose the pears. Bake for 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

5. Use a large spoon to carefully remove the tarts from the pan and place onto plates. Serve with cream or ice cream, if you like.

recipe adapted from donna hay

 

Williams pears were used here, but other pears, like knobbly Packhams, would also be good. Williams pears are better, though, because they ripen more quickly, in 1-2 days.

Cut circles of puff pastry to fit over the pears.

The pear pieces lie in the maple caramel sauce.

After the tarts are cooked, run a knife around the muffin holes and use a spoon to get the tarts out. 

 

The dripping caramel gets everywhere, but it is easy to lick clean up (use hot/boiling water to dissolve it)

Sydney Easter Show - pointer to food and stuff

Went to the Sydney Royal Easter Show 2012!

Visit Ooh, Look - Craft to see it.

Lots of bright colours and rides and cake decorating.

And, because this is also a food blog, some food, like this:

Mmm, frozen Coke...