From My Kitchen

Roast Vegetable Salad

September 27th, 2009 by Veronica

I made this salad a while ago, when I had lots of vegetable that needed using up.

You will need:

some pumpkin (I used butternut)
sweet potato
potato
carrot
olive oil
mixed herbs
salt and pepper
mixed salad leaves
cucumber
snow peas
tomato
parmesan cheese

Yes, I know that I don’t have amounts for you, just kind of work out how many people you are feeding (I was feeding 2.5. Amy being the half) and judge how much you will need from that.

Prep the sweet potato, potato, carrots and pumpkin by peeling and chopping into similar sized chunks. Throw them into a baking pan and coat with olive oil. Sprinkle with the mixed herbs and some salt and pepper.

Bake at 220C (430F) for about 25 minutes, or until all the vegetables are cooked through and golden looking.

Make yourself up a salad using the mixed salad leaved, sliced cucumber, tomato and snow peas. Add some salad dressing if you want to, I don’t think I did, although I did use a little extra olive oil on the salad.

Plate the salads up and while the vegetables are still hot, place on top.

Top with shaved parmesan cheese and enjoy.

Amy was almost 12 months old when Imade this (yes, the photos have been sitting on my hard drive for that long) and she thought the vegetables were wonderful.

Remember, if you have any questions, just ask and I will answer them for you.

Posted in Salad, Vegetables | 1 Comment »

Chicken and Split Pea Soup

August 29th, 2009 by Veronica

Ingredients:

2 cups of cooked chicken (I used a bit less in this soup, as I was using the leftover’s from a roast chicken I had done the night before)
6 cups of chicken stock
2 cups of water
3 cups of yellow split peas
salt and pepper to taste
cream and chopped spinach to serve

Method:

Heat the chicken stock and water to almost boiling and then turn the heat down to a slow simmer. Add the split peas and cook until they are soft – about 45 minutes.

Remove about half the soup and process in a blender until smooth. Return to pot and add the chicken.

Let simmer slowly for 5 minutes until the chicken is hot.

Serve with a little cream and some chopped spinach.

Posted in Chicken, Soup | 1 Comment »

Rich Chocolate Mousse

July 1st, 2009 by Veronica

Rich Chocolate Mousse

This is my favourite recipe for chocolate mousse. Maybe because I experimented and came up with it myself? It is also very very simple.

Ingredients-

600ml thickened cream
250g dark chocolate
1 tbsp of kahlua or similar (if you like)

Method-

Whip 540ml of the cream along with the kahlua (if using). Set aside.

Melt the chocolate either in the microwave or in a double boiler on the stove. If you use the microwave, zap it in 30 second bursts stirring in between.

Once the chocolate is melted*, add the final 60ml of cream that you didn’t whip to it. Stir through.

Gently stir the chocolate mix through the whipped cream.

Spoon into small bowls or a large serving dish. If you aren’t going to serve it immediately, refridgerate it.

I have found that this recipe makes 6 serves. It is very rich, so you don’t need a large amount.

* If your melted chocolate seizes (goes hard and a little crumbly, rather than a sauce-like consistency) add cream and stir.
Chocolate will seize if water (steam) gets into it when it is melting. If the cream doesn’t fix it immediately, heat it again and add a little more cream, stirring until it is runny. The cream will fix seized chocolate.

Posted in Chocolate | 4 Comments »

Pavlova

June 19th, 2009 by Veronica

Equipment-

Large mixing bowl
Measuring cups and spoons
An oven tray lined with baking paper
An electric mixer

The Cast of Characters-

4 egg whites at room temperature
Pinch of salt
250g castor sugar
2 tspns cornflour
1 tspn white vinegar
A few drops of vanilla
300ml cream, whipped
Fruit. Due to seasonal changes, today I am using kiwifruit and tinned passionfruit. Berries, bananas and peaches all work really well with the recipe too.

Preheat your oven to 180C (350F). Line an oven tray with baking paper and draw a 20cm (8 inch) circle on it.

Separate the eggs by cracking them gently into your fingers and letting the white drip into a bowl. Use a separate bowl from the mixing bowl, because if the yolk breaks and gets into your whites, they won’t whip properly. Similarly, make sure all your equipment is scrupulously clean, because any oil or grease will ruin the egg whites.

Beat the egg whites and salt until satiny peaks form.

Beat in the sugar, a third at a time, until meringue is stiff and shiny.

This should be the end result.

Sprinkle over the cornflour, vinegar and vanilla and fold through very gently. Mound onto the paper covered tray within the circle.

Flatten down the top and sides with a knife, smoothing as you go.

Place in the oven and immediately reduce heat to 150C (300F).

Cook for 30 mins and then reduce heat further to 120C (250F) for 45 mins. Turn off the oven and leave Pavlova inside to cool completely.

Place cooled Pavlova onto a plate. Whip the cream until soft peaks form. Don’t add any sugar to the cream, because the Pavlova is sweet enough without it. You can add a little vanilla if you like.

Peel the kiwifruit by slicing off both ends, and then slicking down between the flesh and the skin. Slice the kiwifruit thinly.

Spread the cream over the top of the Pavlova. The great thing about Pavlova is that once the cream is on, nobody can see any mistakes you may have made.

Place the kiwifruit (or whatever fruit you are using) around the outside of the Pavlova.

Fill the inside with passionfruit pulp and a little bit more kiwifruit.

Slice and enjoy!

Posted in Food | 3 Comments »

Crispy Potato Wedges

May 20th, 2009 by Veronica

Equipment -

A chopping board
An oven tray
A plastic bag
Measuring spoons (not shown)

The Cast of Characters -

5 medium sized potatoes, washed, but not peeled.
1 tablespoon flour
2 teaspoons of paprika
2 teaspoons of mixed herbs
1 teaspoon of all-purpose seasoning
1 teaspoon regular salt

Preheat the oven to 200C (390F) and grease your oven tray. Place all of the ingredients, except the potatoes into the plastic bag and shake to mix.

Chop your potatoes lengthwise into wedges.

Place your wedges into the plastic bag with the seasoning.

Shake well until the potatoes are completely coated in the mix.

Place the wedges onto the greased oven tray in a single layer.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the potato is crunchy on the outside and soft throughout.

Enjoy!

Posted in Food | 2 Comments »

Simple Recipes for Kids

April 2nd, 2009 by Veronica

Sometimes cooking with kids is a nightmare. Other times? It’s easy as pie. These 3 recipes are simple enough to make with children without it becoming a nightmare.

Zucchini Slice

1 zucchini, ends removed and grated coarsely
2 rashers of bacon, chopped finely
1 onion, diced finelyl
1/2 cup grated cheese
1/2 cup self raising flour
3 eggs
1/4 cup of oil
salt/pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 225C (440F)

Mix ingredients all together in a mixing bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Pour into a well greased casserole or quiche dish. Bake for about 30 mins, or until set and golden brown on top.Serve with green salad. (or as finger food for toddlers)

Honey Muffins

1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup honey
1 egg
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup self raising flour
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4tspn nutmeg

Preheat oven to 200C (400F). Grease muffin pans.

Blend the honey and the butter/marg together, beat in the egg, then vanilla, then the yogurt.

Fold the dry ingredients through the wet mix until just moistened.

Do NOT over beat or the muffins will be tough. Place in greased pans and cook for 20mins.

Chocolate Fruit Squares

1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup margarine/butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 cup sultanas
1 cup self raising flour
1 egg

Preheat oven to 180C (355F).

Grease a slab tin.

Melt margarine/butter in a saucepan, then add sugar and cocoa powder. Mix well and then stir in milk. Leave in saucepan.

Put flour and sultanas into a mixing bowl, add butter mix and the egg. Stir well.

Turn into tin, bake until firm (10 -15mins give or take). When cool cut into squares.

Posted in Cooking with Kids | 6 Comments »

Easy Tomato Pasta

March 3rd, 2009 by Veronica

Easy Tomato Pasta

Grab yourself a can of diced tomatoes (400g [14oz]). Place the tomatoes into a blender (I have a bullet blender that I adore) with a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of sugar, some cracked black pepper and a tablespoon of good quality vinegar. (I used white balsamic)

Blend until completely smooth.

Cook yourself enough spaghetti to feed about 4 people (you know I throw my food together, rather than measuring anything, don’t you?) and drain. Throw the spaghetti back into the (still) hot (now) dry pot, and stir through the tomato mix.

Serve with fresh chopped basil and maybe some grated parmesan.

Mmmm

****

It is good pasta. Trust me. I also added about half a clove of garlic to the mix when I blended it. Roasted capsicum, fresh herbs, chillies, or onions would also go nicely with it. OR! Now that I have thought about it some more, anchovies and prawns. Mmmmmm.

Also, can someone tell me how Amy can eat 2 HUGE bowls of bright green spinach soup last night and tell me she wanted ‘more! YUM!’, and yet all she can tell me with this pasta is ‘YUK!’? She doesn’t even mean the yuk because she is finishing up her bowl of it right now.

Toddlers!

Posted in Pasta | 3 Comments »

Watermelon, Vodka and Cranberry Jellies

February 4th, 2009 by Veronica

Seeing as how I am heavily pregnant at the moment, I can’t actually have these at all. However, I figure that not everyone is pregnant at the moment and so sharing is a good thing!

So without further ado, I present…

Watermelon, Vodka and Cranberry Jellies

4 tspn powdered gelatine
200ml (6 1/2fl oz) vodka
500ml (16fl oz) apple and cranberry juice
1 small watermelon

Put the gelatine into a small bowl with 3 TB water and leave until soft. Put the gelatine, vodka and fruit juice into a saucepan and stir over a low heat until gelatine dissolves, then simmer for 2 mins.

Set aside to cool slightly.

Remove seeds from the watermelon and cut into small heart shapes with a biscuit cutter. Place some watermelon hearts into 6 1/2cup glasses. Pour enough jelly in to just cover the shapes and leave in the fridge to set.

Put more hearts into the cups and fill with the remaining jelly. Chill until ready to serve.

Thread the remaining watermelon hearts onto skewers and freeze. Serve on the side.

Posted in Alcohol, Drinks | 5 Comments »

Lemonade Scones

January 11th, 2009 by Veronica

Here I present to you my Grandmother’s Lemonade Scones, as guest-blogged by Frogpondsrock (Mum).

I have been wanting to share some of my grandmother’s recipes for a while now. Soooo seeing as it is getting close to Christmas and because I am a generous type of person I am willing to share the family jewels. and really some of the recipes that I have are little gems.. So thanks to NAN tadaaa

Lemonade Scones…

3 cups of self raising flour.
1 teaspoon baking powder
1cup of thickened cream
1cup of lemonade.

Preheat oven to 230C (450F)

Using a knife, mix together into a dough. Carefully roll or pat out onto a floured bench and cut into rounds with a scone cutter. Place onto a greased and floured oven tray and bake for approximately 10 minutes.

These scones are really light and taste absolutely divine..
the trick with scones is not to handle the dough too much or it will toughen up.
quick hands make light scones…

(Note from Veronica. I edited this post a little to make the method a little more clear. Mum is a great writer, but she tends towards extreme minimalism. Or as I call it, leaving out huge chunks of relevant stuff ism.)

Posted in Baking | 5 Comments »

Peppermint Creams

December 14th, 2008 by Veronica

Because I’m not buying gifts for anyone this Christmas, I have been testing out some recipes for bits and bobs that I can wrap in cellophane and give for gifts instead. Peppermint creams have been one of my experiments and honestly, I was really happy with how they turned out.

I actually split the recipe once the icing sugar was mixed in and added peppermint to hafl the batch and strawberry to the other half.

No photos yet because I haven’t made the final (pretty) batches, but if you check back you may (or may not, depending on how lazy I get) find photos added later.

Peppermint Creams

Ingredients

2 eggwhites, at room temperature
4 cups (600g) pure icing sugar, sifted
1/4 teaspoon peppermint essence
green food colouring
400g good-quality dark cooking
chocolate, melted

Method

1. Place eggwhites in a clean, dry bowl. Using a whisk, whisk until frothy. Add icing sugar, peppermint essence and green food colouring. Using a wooden spoon, stir until mixture almost comes together. Then use your hands to bring the mix together into a bowl.

2. Turn mixture onto a clean surface lightly dusted with icing sugar. Knead until smooth and not sticky. Work in extra icing sugar if necessary. Roll small amounts of the mixture into balls.

3. Line 2 large, flat baking trays with baking paper. Place balls on prepared trays and flatten; either with a fork or with your thumb, depending on whether you want fork marks or not. Set aside, uncovered, overnight, turning over once, to allow peppermint creams to dry out. Make sure you leave them in a cool place or they won’t set properly.

[Side note, I should be grateful that the weather is winterlike at the moment hey, rather than the typical December temperatures of 25C+]

4. Once the surface is dry to touch half-dip each peppermint cream in melted chocolate (make sure chocolate is not too hot or it will melt the peppermint mixture). Return peppermint creams to trays. Refrigerate until chocolate is set.

Notes: Make sure that the icing sugar you use is PURE icing sugar, not icing mixture. Icing mixture has tapioca starch added (for stability? for thickening? I don’t know, should research it) which makes the peppermint creams taste floury. Not a good thing.

Variations: Use strawberry essence and pink food colouring for strawberry creams. Lemon essence and yellow food colouring for lemon creams. Orange essence and orange food colouring for orange creams. You could also use rosewater essence for a Turkish Delight tasting cream.

Posted in Confectionary | 6 Comments »

From My Kitchen

Roast Vegetable Salad

Chicken and Split Pea Soup

Rich Chocolate Mousse

Pavlova

Crispy Potato Wedges

Simple Recipes for Kids

Easy Tomato Pasta

Watermelon, Vodka and Cranberry Jellies

Lemonade Scones

Peppermint Creams

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