Two Cakes

The Twins just turned 4!! How time is flying!! They requested two cakes this year: a truck, and Minnie Mouse! So, after much though, planning, and 3.5 hours work, here are the results!!

Truck and Minnie Mouse

Soup and Sorbet

This past weekend was a cooking weekend!

I made a special birthday dinner for Sean, involving Bobotie, raspberry-blackberry Crumble and a really really nice bottle of Groot Constantia's 2011 Constantia Rood red.... It was really really yummy!! The Bobotie worked well, despite some complications in cooking time. The crumble was really nice and the wine... Oh the wine was AMAZING!!!! No phone photos, so will upload camera photos later.

Other cooking involved a no-recipe scratch chicken soup: 

Chicken Vegetable Soup

Pre-blended... ends up bright pink!

And then we made Raspberry-Blackberry Sorbet!! It was super easy and delicious! We found the recipe in my new birthday present cookbook- awesome!

Fruit Sorbet

Ingredients:

1 lbs frozen berries

1/2 cup yoghurt

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons water.

Method:
Blend in food processor just enough to breakdown the berries, but not too muh else they liquefy. We ate immediately, but could also put back in freezer...

Quinoa Salad

 For the same BBQ as the Raspberry Brie Bites, I also made a Zesty Quinoa Salad, again the recipe was found online.

 I'm new to quinoa, so this was an easy adventure into that world.

Zesty Quinoa Salad

Ingredients:
200g quinoia

2 cups of water

2 limes, juiced

1.5 cups cherry tomatoes, halved

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

4 green onions, thinly sliced

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon chili flakes

1 can black beans, drained

salt and pepper to taste.

Method:

Cook the quinoia and water - same method as rice, 15 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Chop up the tomatoes, onions, cilantro etc.  Set aside.

Mix dressing: olive oil, lime juice, cumin, chili flakes, whisked together. 

Combine all ingredients, mix well. Chill, then serve.

I'm not entirely sold on it, but it's not terrible. I shall do further experiments.

Party Results:

Raspberry Brie Bites

Some good friends were hosting a rooftop BBQ downtown and asked me to bring some treats.  I'd been eyeing these on Pintrest, so decided to give them a go. I'm so glad I did, as they are delicious!! Rather labour intensive, so...

Raspberry Brie Bites

Ingredients:
Brie cheese - enough to cut 32 small bites.
Puff Pastry - a package with 2 rolls, or enough to make 32 squares.
Raspberries
Jam/fruit preserve

Method:
Pre-prepare the cheese by cutting the 32 pieces. Keep in fridge to maintain consistency.

Roll out half of the dough, using some flour on the rolling surface and rolling pin to avoid sticking.  Cut into 4, and then 4 again. Eventually you will have 32 squares.

Dollop jam into the center of the pastry. Then add a raspberry and a piece of brie.

Decide how you want to 'close' the pastries. I found bunching up all 4 corners, using some water, to be the most efficient. Another method would be to create mini turnovers.   Be sure to press the edges of pastry togther very tightly.

Bake at 400 for 15 minutes. Watch carefully - the pastry edges will separate and the jam and cheese tends to run 'out' of the pastries. The firmer you press the pastry edges together, the better.

Cool for a few minutes, and then serve warm.

Observations:
I made these with boysenberry jam, my favourite. They were delicious warm. I had to serve them cold at the BBQ, but people still seemed to enjoy them.

Mulligatawny Soup

Curry Soup for the Win!

Another day, another craving. This time it was for some of my favourite soup: Mulligatawny. It's essentially a chicken and rice curry soup. Really enjoy it, so go eat some!

Original Recipe

Mulligatawny Soup

Ingredients:

1/2 cup chopped onion
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 carrot, diced
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
4 cups chicken broth
1/2 apple, cored and chopped
1/4 cup white rice
1 skinless, boneless chicken breast half - cut into cubes
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste
1 pinch dried thyme
1/2 cup heavy cream, heated

Method:
Saute onions, celery, carrot, and butter in a large soup pot. Add flour and curry, and cook 5 more minutes. Add chicken stock, mix well, and bring to a boil. Simmer about 1/2 hour. Add apple, rice, chicken, salt, pepper, and thyme. Simmer 15-20 minutes, or until rice is done. When serving, add hot cream.

Mini Raspberry Blackberry Crumble

One night I was suddenly craving crumble. Then I remembered I have little ramekins, and decided to experiment how many personalized crumbles I could make with the same recipe as a proper crumble... the answer is: 6! And they freeze quite well too! Horrah!

Raspberry Blackberry Crumbles:

See previous Apple Crumble post (also, super secret). 

Put in frozen raspberries and blackberries into little ramekin, cover with crumble, bake for 30min at 350 F,  let cool a few minutes, and enjoy!!

YUM!

Delicious!

Ducky Cake

Made this set of cakes for my nieces 2nd Birthday... and I think it is safe to say it was a hit!!

Quaaak!

Cooking updates

Sorry for the lack of posts recently.  I've been doing lots of cooking, but all the recipes have been repeats, so it didn't make sense to post about them!   I've done the chicken satay one again, as well as some of the baked goods... had a girly party with impromptu lava cakes and then of course my standard banana bread snacks.

I certainly inspired to keep going, and have recently re-organized all my hand-written or photocopied recipes into a nice binder. I promise to photo and post as I make new things, as that's what this is all about!!!

Soup Sista!

I went to a fundraiser last fall called Soup Sisters. While there I purchased their soup cook book. I've made a few from them, and have really enjoyed them! I have neglected to post about them, so figured at the very least I'd post a photo.

The one on the left is a Sweet Potato, Red Lentil, Carrot Curry soup, and the one on the right is a Tomato Potato soup.  Both are really good!!  I'll try post the recipe sometime soon!

Soup!

Fudge Torte

As predicted, I've been cooking up a storm recently. The bad news: I've been really bad at documenting this... so it begs the questions: if there isn't a photo, did it happen?

This being said, I made a new recipe for the office and it received rave reviews yesterday, so I thought I'd post about it. I don't have any photos, but this is better than nothing!  I found it on a post card, so I'm not sure who the original chef was...

Boysenberry Fudge Torte

Fudge Torte
Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar
4 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup butter
1/3 cup seedless preserves
1/3 cup flour
1/8 tsp salt

Method:
Preheat oven to 325F. Whip sugar, eggs and yolks for about 5 minutes. Heat the utter and chocolate in a sauce pan until melted. Remove from heat and whisk in the preserves. I used boysenberry jam, but I think this would be great with raspberry, or any other slighly tart berry.   Fold into egg mixture, then mix in flour and salt.  Pour into greased pan (you could sprinkle a little sugar around the edges for a little different texture).  Bake for 25 minutes. Serve chilled.

This was a super easy dish to make and everyone who has had it has enjoyed it. If I were offering this up at a dinner party, I'd probably sprinkle the top with icing sugar, or else try create a raspberry sauce/coulis and serve with some real berries.  Yum yum!

Banana Bread Loaves

In other cooking news, I've been baking a lot. I've remade those pecan muffins a few times, and am working on perfecting banana bread - I've had a few different recipes to try.  I've recently discovered that my oven is approx 25 - 30 degrees (F) hotter than the dial says, so this explains some of the cooking disasters! I've begun amending recipies to fit.  I've been experimenting with the different herbs and spices I bought when I first moved in (I think I have 50+)... but I'm not great at being adventurous with them due to fear of 'messing up' a meal. I've just bought a herb & spice book off Amazon so hopefully that'll help me learn and experiment!

Pecan Pie Muffins

I found this recipie online (via Pintrest) and decided it was worth an attempt... and YUM!! Definitely worth it!!

Small bite of deliciousness

Pecan Pie Muffins
Ingredients: 
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar 
1 cup chopped pecans 
1/2 cup all-purpose flour 
1/2 tsp baking powder 
1/4 tsp salt 
1/2 cup melted butter 
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract 
cooking spray 
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

Method:
Preheat oven to 400°. Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl. Melt butter, mix with eggs and vanilla. Add butter mixture to bowl, stir.   Prep mini-muffin tins with cooking spray or cupcake liners. Place 1 tsp. finely chopped pecans in each muffin cup, then spoon in batter. Bake at 400° for 10min or so. Cool and remove from pans.

I've made this recipe a twice now - the first time I followed it exactly, and the second time I did half pecans, half chopped up chocolate chips. I also didn't do the finely chopped pecans at the bottom of the muffin cups the second time - was too much of a mess the first round. Both versions were delicious and garnered rave reviews from coworkers and friends!!  I'd recommend them for sure!