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!

Shortbread shivers...

I made some cookies, cupcakes and shortbread last night. The cookies and cupcakes were with a friend, so I can't claim them up here, but suffice to say having a mixer is helpful when making dough... related: I've gotten quite good at kneading...

Anyway, I was making the shortbread following some notes I made last year. Unfortunately my notes were wrong: I was using half the butter I needed!! I belatedly tried to fix it but unfortunately the product is rather floury. I brought them to the office to feed the hoard... They haven't been snapped up as quickly as my cookies last week but I've still had some pleased remarks... If only they'd turned out properly!!

Ah well. Bake and learn!

Shortbread (bad photo!)

Baking time!

I've been baking up a storm the past few weeks! So much so, that I'm afraid I haven't been properly documenting each adventure!

Suffice to say, the oven in my new flat is quite different to the one at Mum's... and therefore I've had some interesting... challenges... figuring out baking times.

My first go at cookies this season were the traditional cinnamon cookies, detailed elsewhere in this blog. They burned to a crisp. Mum ate them, but that was about it.

I also made some almond squares (my favourite), but once again they burned. I made my way through them slowly, and plan to make another batch sometime soon.

I was more daring with some cookies I made for the office. I found the recipe in one of those gossip rag magazines - Almond Jam cookies.  They took quite a bit of work to make - first I had to make the cookie dough, roll it out, use cookie cutters, bake, warm up jam, and then create cookie sandwiches. I had a lot of fun, but it was labour intensive!

Almond Boysenberry Cookies

They were a huge hit at the office - they disappeared in about an hour, with many pronouncements of 'yummy' made. I'll try them again sometime, perhaps trying to tweak the recipe so the cookies have a stronger flavour.

I then decided to really have fun, and tried to re-create a childhood favourite: Jam Tarts. The recipe for the pastry is lost in time, so I had to figure something out... being slightly pressed for time, I ended up using the pastry recipe on the cristco package. It's alright, but not fantastic. I'll have to experiment again.   The largest lesson I learned in making these tarts was that you need to make deeper 'wells' and put less jam, as I had a bit of a... sticky... situation:

They should not look like this!!

A few made it out alright, so here's what I was aiming for:

Boysenberry Jam Tart

My most recent baking fun has been Banana Bread. A friend faxed me the recipe ages ago (so long that I can't remember which friend!! oops!)... I'm typing this entry up at the office and I don't have the recipe with me, but suffice to usay it was easy enough for me.  Lesson learned: don't freeze bananas and then thaw them overnight in the fridge, without a plate or bowl underneath, unless you want to do a full-fridge scrub down... ahem. 

No photo of this one, much to my chagrin. I made 8 baby loaves and they are so cute!!!

More baking is coming up, tonight and this weekend, so stay tuned! :)

Dinner Party!

Last night I hosted my first dinner part at my new flat! Had a lot of fun doing it, and gained a new appreciation for how long it take to pull these things together!!

table all ready!

The Menu:
To Start: Spicy Cheese Sticks paired with Gonzalez Byass Oloroso sherry
Main: Satay Chicken skewers served with rice, peas, a spicy peanut sauce and tadzhik, paired with a BC wine - Little Straw's 2009 Sauvignon Blanc
Desert: Apple Turnovers and mint tea.

Spicy cheese sticks & sherry

 I have previously posted on how to make the cheese sticks. The only alteration was that I added about a teaspoon of cayenne pepper, and that give them quite a kick. Next time I plan to use some jalapeno cheese for another option.   I chose sherry as the pairing drink due to the oloroso sweetness, as a nice counter to the spice... delicious!

2 day marinade

Both the Satay marinade and the Peanut sauce are recipes from my Dad, and I am not to divulge their secrets. I will post photos though!

The Sauvignon Blanc was a really good pairing with the spice. Wasn't too sweet, but also not overly dry. Was nice on it's own, but a really good mix with the meal. 

I made both the marinade and sauce a few days early, and upon taste-testing I was a bit concerned how spicy they were. After speaking with some co-workers I resolved to make a cooling sauce to assist with the menu. I first looked for the Indonesian 'raita' but decided on a tadziki as I had more the ingredients.

Tadziki

Evidence

8 oz plain yoghurt
1 cucumber
1 tbsp fresh dill
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lemon, juiced
some salt & pepper. 
garlic to taste

Method:  Peel the cucumber. Add all ingredients into food processor, blend.
Thoughts: this was very runny. I think making it with greek yoghurt will help, and perhaps 'shredding' the cucumber with a cheese grater, and then mixing it all together by hand may be a new way to go.  Tastes really good though!

Apple mush turnovers

The apple turnovers worked far better than I'd anticipated and I was really pleased with them.  I used store-bought puff pastry as I was running out of time and, frankly, have never made pastry before!
The filling was a bit of a hodge-podge.  I had the leftover apple 'mush' from my apple post (see previous entry) and I wanted to use it up.  I put it on the stove and reduced it down to an apple sauce, and then followed a recipe I found online.

I added this all to the mush:
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp corn starch (first mixed with 1 tbsp cold water).

Final product

It needed some texture, so I took my final fresh picked apple, peeled, cored and sauteed in butter, to the mix, and let it cook enough to get a little soft.   I then rolled out the puff pastry, cut into squares and dolloped some of the mush into the center of each square, joining the corners to create little triangles.  This was a more difficult process than anticipated, and they didn't look very professional, but that's ok.

Once they'd cooled I made a drizzle icing out of some icing sugar, milk and vanilla. It was rather yummy!  I served these with mint tea.

All in all, I'm rather pleased with the outcome.