Christmas Baking - The Great Shortbread recipe hunt

Shortbread. You either love it or don't - there is no middle ground. My Nan used to make shortbread in little rounds with half an almond on top. This was always a hit with me, and I loved the buttery texture. Some shortbread is too crumbly, some is too hard, a lot is just gluggy. Mum's friend J has The Best shortbread I have had since Nan's. Consistently good, it's the kind of thing that you can't say no to, even when you are full to the brim and couldn't possibly fit another thing in.... except J's shortbread. Yummm.

So for the first time, I am determined to make my own. Yes, me of the instant gratification is Planning Ahead!

However, it is not so easy. Which recipe do I use? J is away and uncontactable, so her prized recipe eludes me. Rice Flour - you need that don't you? Recipe on the box - would this be a good start? Then I remember the 4 ingredients book, and also that Margaret Fulton was from Scottish heritage, so hers will be a winner won't it? How can recipes vary so much for a little biscuit? All sources however tell me that the oven is important. My old, unreliable, stand-alone burns things on the bottom when it intermittently fires out heat, do I need to outsource the actual baking?!? I am still not giving up, despite the supermarket shelves groaning under the weight of commercial shortbreads. I am determined. A woman on a mission. So where do you go when Google is unsatisfactory? The Blogworld!

So I ask YOU - do you have a recipe that produces light, crisp, buttery goodness that I could try please? In the vein of Julie and Julia I am tempted to blindly turn to Margaret Fulton, forsaking all others, but am open to suggestions.

In the meantime, I will make the mince pie pastry and await any suggestions!

With thanks - J

Good Golly, it's Cauli!

I am often sceptical when a spouse of a celebrity releases a book. I base this on nothing other than my own Tall Poppy affliction, which is hard to explain. From the sheltered world of me, whereby more often than not a week goes by and I have not seen neither tv news nor newspaper, why would I have expected to have heard of these spouses?! It was therefore with great tongue-in-cheek-edness that I approached this book, by none other than Jessica Seinfeld.


Jessica Seinfeld and Jerry have three kids, and she swears by presenting dip and vege sticks when the kids are hungry, and by increasing vegie consumption by the clever use of purees.

We have added spinach to chocolate brownies, avocado to chocolate icing, chickpeas to choc-chip biscuits, and cauliflower to scrambled eggs and to macaroni cheese.


As such, the BB family, of whom I have always been the sole ingestor of cauliflower, manages to eat a half to a whole head of cauli a week. Undetected. Yep! Clever clogs here stirs it through mashed potato, carbonara sauce, chicken pie, and even the icing of a carrot cake!!! Thanks to Mrs Seinfeld, I am becoming a little too adventurous. It tastes utterly crap as carrot cake icing, even with cream cheese and icing sugar mixed through. Some things just weren't meant to be....

Purple cauli image from here.

The lovely snowy vege is a master in fighting off infection. It is low in fat, high in dietary fibre, folate, water and vitamin C, possessing a very high nutritional density. As a member of the brassica family, cauliflower shares with broccoli and cabbage several beneficial phytochemicals including sulforaphane, an anti-cancer compound released when cauliflower is chopped or chewed (or hopefully pureed). In addition, the compound indole-3-carbinal, which appears to work as an anti-oestrogen, appears to slow or prevent the growth of tumors of the breast and prostate. Cauliflower also contains other ingredients besides sulfurophane, substances which may improve the liver's ability to detoxify carcinogenic substances. A high intake of cauliflower has been found to reduce the risk of aggressive prostate cancer.

Romanesco cauli image from here.

It's good stuff people. Eat more of it! Recipes here, here, and especially here for something a little different to cauliflower-cheese.

Brilliant cauli sheep image from here.

In other news, I have STILL lost my camera, and the new mobile refuses to email pics to my computer, so the current craft will have to wait. Apologies!

xx

Gingerbread Men and Women Unite

Thanks for your comments on the jam drops. Did you make them? Super-easy aren't they! I'm a fan of strawberry jam for cooking and raspberry jam for toast. Yum!

Liesl has been looking for a Gingerman recipe - here is the link to our best rendition from the BB House, in the hope that it sparks some creative cooking in your neck of the woods.


Mum decorates Gingermen every week for the grandchildren, in footy colours. Superb effort really! One interesting fact though, is that icing in tubes readily available from the supermarket, do not appear to come in basic white in a form that sets, rather than a gel form. Do you have a quick tip for those of us time-pressured and needing a ready-made pantry staple? Mum is using her own piping bag, but I'm a fan of the tubes, as they save mess and time (and icing!)

Hmmm, this may be leading to a Week Of... Biscuits! Want to join in? Leave me a comment - we'll see how we go for next week!

xx

xx

Jam Drops

I can't get these out of my head. Jam drops. Delicious.

Only five ingredients - don't over-cook them, they aren't overly forgiving.

2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups SR flour
125g butter
jam

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time and beat in. Add flour and mix to a stiff dough.

Break dough into small pieces, press hole in centre with finger, or a cork, fill with jam.

Bake 15 mins or until golden at 180 degrees celcius.

Don't eat too many at once.....

When I find my camera, I can show you the pretty hair clips and elastics I have been making for the school fair!

XX

Dinner in 30 minutes - Real Fast Food

What to you is fast food? I think that every person should have several tricks with a cooked chicken and also with mince meat. There are several cookbooks out there dealing with these 2 staples, however I also want to add to the mix some other staples that can quickly result in a healthy dinner. Spaghetti (any pasta really, I just love spaghetti), tinned tuna, eggs, and tinned tomatoes.


Tonight I felt like something of a 'no-brainer' dinner. Tuna pasta automatically sprang to mind. Tinned tuna, tinned tomatoes, pasta. Easy. As we are down-sizing before the move, I was stunned to see that there was NO tuna in the pantry. In 18 years, I have NEVER been without tuna.



Instead, and in a rush, here is the mid-week roast option that warms my kitchen tonight. With due deference to Hoppo Bumpo's Stand Back and Throw meals, here's my version:

Get one decent BBQ chicken. Not always easy. Gone are the days of the charcoal chicken shop of my childhood, however we have sourced a reasonable local chook haunt.

Peel any vegetable that you can find. Potato, pumpkin, carrot, sweet potato, parsnip, swede, turnip, celeriac, beetroot, whatever's in the cupboard or fridge. Chop into the size or shape that suits your family. (picture John Cleese talking to brat child in Fawlty Towers: 'What shape does he usually have? Mickey Mouse shape? Poke in the eye shape?') Speed them up in the microwave if you like. Toss them in oil (Olive here, dripping or Hi-Fri as a kid!) and cook until the desired colour is reached. If you microwave them and add hot vege to hot oil they will absorb less oil and cook faster.

Steam any other vegies that think they have got away. Zucchini, broccoli, beans, cauliflower, brussells sprouts, silverbeet, etc. Make a decent cheese sauce if this is your thing for the cauli and broc.

Carve the chook, and serve with roast vegies and lashings of gravy.


When the chook has been carved, and all meat removed for tomorrow's sandwiches, toss the carcass into a pot, cover with water, add a carrot and some celery, a bay leaf and some peppercorns, and simmer for as long as it takes to eat dinner, do the dishes, watch The Amazing Race, eat dessert, remember about the stock, and turn it off. Skim the surface if necessary and freeze in portions as stock or strain and use as a base for a soup or risotto for tomorrow.

3+ meals in one, and all yum. All done in 30-40 minutes. All for less than a grand total of $12.


What are your favourites?

xx

Shrove Tuesday

Photo courtesy of bbcfood.

Ricotta and Fig Pancakes:

Ingredients

• 250g ricotta
• 2 tablespoons caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup self-raising flour
• 20g butter, melted
• fig jam and whipped cream for serving

Method

1. Whisk the ricotta, sugar and egg together in a bowl. Stir in the milk, then the flour until well combined. Pour batter into a jug.
2. Brush a non-stick frying pan with some melted butter over a medium heat. While tilting the pan, pour in enough batter to coat the bottom. Cook until bubbles appear on surface, about 2 minutes, then flip over using a metal spatula and cook until golden. Stack pancakes and keep warm. Wipe the pan with paper towel and cook remaining batter.
3. Serve the pancakes warm with fig jam and whipped cream.
4. *Note: Because these pancakes are made with self-raising flour, there's no need to let the batter stand before cooking. That would cause the raising agent to fizz out, making the pancakes heavier. A plain flour batter needs to stand for about 30 minutes.

What is Shrove Tuesday? Traditionally it heralds the beginning of fasting for Lent. In my house though, it means we eat pancakes in any form, in great quantity, every meal. Enjoy!

xx

Pineapple Sorbet

Lego version of the Big Pineapple, as seen at Brickvention 09 in Melb earlier this month.

Mr BB is well-renowned for his ice-creams and sorbets amongst our family and friends. At the market on the weekend he bought 2 super-ripe pineapples for a song. If you were at Fyshwick you may have seen a super-excited family? We know how good his sorbet is!!

I also thought that for the benefit these ladies, I'd share the recipe and process.

Use as much pineapple as you can blend up to 2.5 cups of fruit pulp.


Be patient, it will blend without the addition of extra liquid. Give it a poke with a utensil to move it about.


In the meantime, mix sugar, water and lime juice to make a sugar syrup. Stir it over the stove on a low heat until the sugar has melted. This needs to be chilled in the fridge.


Mix the two together and freeze as per insructions of your ice-cream machine. Simple, no?



Add it to Mr BB's premium vanilla ice cream for a "Splice" you can't get enough of! YUM. It's worth having a hot day for this. Trust me. You're welcome to come over and sample it, but it will be all gone in a day or so!!

j

Mince Pies

MMMmince pies. Fabulous part of the pre-Christmas dance. I only got to mine yesterday after having the ingredients on the bench for 2 weeks!

Tradition has it that if you eat 12 mince pies over Advent, you will have twelve months of good luck and good health. I am certainly trying to get a year of good health!

These are an annual tradition for me. My dearest old buddy and I have been making them for years. The story goes that JR and her Mum were having afternoon tea at the Windsor Hotel in '98 and asked the pastry chef for his recipe for the brilliant pastry. The filling is suited to us - you can modify it to your own taste!

Pastry:
250g softened unsalted butter
250g icing sugar
1 egg
60ml milk (full cream)
500g plain flour

Beat butter and icing sugar until well-combined. Add egg and milk and lastly flour.

Do not overwork. Pop in fridge at least 2 hours wrapped in cling wrap.

Filling:
2 jars of MacRobertson's fruit mince
1 packet chopped, dried apricots
100g currants

I like a pastry star over the mince mixture as a "lid", or you can dust them with icing sugar, or leave them plain.

No need to do any blind baking - just roll, cut into rounds, cook in greased patty pan tins until lightly golden in moderate oven.

CHEAT: If you would rather stick pins in your eyes than make pastry, pampas do a passable shortcrust pastry case (in frozen section of the supermarket) which is easier but not as tasty as the above recipe. There are 12 in a pack, and retail for $5-$6 (making pastry is MUCH cheaper).

YUM!

Inventive Advent

Check out these lovely recipes that form an advent calender here.

I am off to buy some Chocolate Royals to make these!



Clickety click!! Go on, they're magnificent!

J

Christmas Pudding

Do you make your own Christmas Pudding?
Plum duff?
Pud?

Are you a steam-it-in-the-cloth or a pudding bowl type?

Brandy cream? Custard? Ice cream? Whipped cream? Plain? Lit with brandy? Hot? Cold slices for days afterwards?

What's your tradition?

My Nan came from quite a background. For years, Nan made the pudding based on a recipe from their cook/house-keeper (is that right Mum?)

It was always boiled in a pudding cloth, and hung with its pals (there were usually three or four), on a broom handle in the spare room. When Mum got our pudding from Nan it was hung on a nail in a rafter of the kitchen roof.

This "hanging" of the pudding has always been part of the mystery and tradition of the pudding for our family. The whiff of pudding, the allure of knowing what lies within the calico folds, all part of the process.

This will be the first year that I have made a pudding by myself, as we will remain in Canberra for Christmas. We have always been with the family, but this year, for many reasons, we are staying put.

Mr BB and I could not conceive of a Christmas without a pudding. He comes from the pudding bowl set, I hail from the cloth. I readied myself for the challenge.

I set myself up by purchasing and setting out all the ingredients, worrying that it was beyond my skill-set, and trying to remember the pudding-making sessions of my childhood.

Packet-suet versus the real thing ordered from the butcher? (they grate it for you to make it easier);
What size pudding cloth? Did Nan halve the recipe or double it?
What was the method again? She did it by feel so often...

After all my careful calculations, measurements, and planning, the Great Pudding cook-up took FOUR DAYS to complete.

Not only did I forget to add ingredients, my bowl was far too small to mix it, and my stock pot too small to cook it!

Once we got it all together, Mum was here for a visit, so the process became even more special. Mum, myself, and Miss 2 used Nan's recipe and created (hopefully) a magnificent pudding.


Mum and I were both quite emotional, remembering Nan, enjoying Miss 2 spooning the mix into the opened and floured cloth (licking the spoon, the bench, her fingers...)


The job was made much easier and more pleasurable by Mum being here. The smell of the cooking pudding was amazing, the whole process fantastic.



Finally it has been hung, and will be cooked again Christmas morning. Even if we are sweltering in the heat, it will boil for several hours. And if it fails to work out? We will slather it with ice-cream, cream and custard, and eat it anyway!



This week's baking task - Mince pies! Stay tuned.

j

Yesterday was ridiculously busy. I was up with the birds (before the kids!) making and baking for the school fair. I blew up the food processor making the five minute orange cake, (not good to see smoke coming from an appliance and not act on it...), made more gingerbread people (kids ate the whole first batch while they were cooling), finished off button necklaces, and a scarf, and loaded the car with toys and books and headed to the school.

The day was wonderful and the school raised over $20,000. However I got home too pooped for Bloglines and forgot to post the winner of the giveaway!!!

Master 6 is in love with random.org and has been creating lists and lists of random numbers all morning. Aspergers' kids generally do love numbers, and he is certainly typical of the condition!

Anyway, here goes: Drum-roll.....

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

6 14

Congratulations Katie - please email me your details on
jess2jamesATyahooDOTcomDOTau so I can send you the sewing
stuff!

Congratulations also Bellgirl - please also email me your
details so I can send you the house.

The recipes are:

Toss baby spinach leaves and baby rocket together (or for the easy
option, buy it premixed),
Add some chopped up feta, cucumber and capsicum.
Then throw a small tub of sundried tomatoes and olives in with the
juice to dress it.

YUM! Easy and delicious.

#2 was a reminder of my dear, dear friend Wendy in Melbourne, who
always has a packet of Changs fried noodles on hand.

This is a Zingy Spinach Salad

Ingredients

1 bunch of spinach
1 packet of Changs Fried Noodles
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
1 packet slivered almonds or pine nuts – toasted

SAUCE
½ cup raw sugar
¼ cup vinegar
¼ Cup Fountain garlic soy sauce
¾ Cup salad oil
Boil sauce ingredients and cool.  Add salad oil and refrigerate.

METHOD
To finely chopped spinach , one hour before serving, add toasted
nuts and sauce.
Mix through (this is easier to do with your hands) – sprinkle
noodles on top.

Serve- YUM!

Thank you to all who entered - thirty of you came out of the
woodwork to share some recipes.  I would love to email you all
a copy of the complete recipes - email me on the above if you
are interested!

j


.

Man Flu requires emergency recipe

Hubby is home with Man Flu. To cheer him up (actually to dull my senses), I felt the time was right for some stodgey, Aussie dessert-food.

Golden Syrup Dumplings anyone? Pile on cream, custard, and extra sauce, and enjoy..... Mmm.


120g self-raising flour
a pinch of salt
30g butter
1 egg
3 tablespoons or more) golden syrup
90g sugar
A little Milk (like you are making a cup of tea)

Sift flour and salt, rub in butter and mix to a soft dough with the egg and a little milk.

Roll into small balls.

Boil one cup water, golden syrup, sugar and one tablespoon butter together.

When boiling add balls.

Cover with lid and boil gently for 20 minutes.

Serve immediately.

j

Mmmmm...macaroons!

My dear friend Ann and I love to swap recipes. She recently recited one over the 'phone for Coconut Macaroons. A mouthful of crunchy, yet chewy, delight. Perfect with a cup of tea (or without...), or a serious hot chocolate while you wait for the marshmallows to melt. YUM.

One egg white
One cup coconut
one or two or three or so drops of vanilla extract (to taste)
Three rounded tablespoons of caster sugar. (Note: Australian table spoons are 20ml each).

Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees C. Put on a pretty apron (you can buy one here!)

Beat the egg white until soft peaks, then add sugar, and beat until it forms a meringue-appearance (stiff peaks).

Add the cup of coconut and stir gently to combine. The mixture will be rather dry. I only had half a cup of coconut, and didn't realise until this point in the recipe, so mine were less crunchy, more chewy - adapt at will.

Spoon spoonfuls of the mixture onto a lined baking tray, and pop into oven. As soon as they go into the oven, turn oven down to 120 degrees C. Watch them, they should only take 10-15 mins.

I opened the oven door and turned off the oven to let them cool, so to ensure chewy factor.

Best eaten same day. This makes about 10-12 macaroons, so perfect for visitors, or an episode of your favourite show!

Enjoy.....

Mum's Sticky Date Pudding for Lois

I am more than happy Lois to provide you with Mum's sticky date pudding recipe. It is delicious. The secret is that mum does hers in an old, lidded, pudding steamer. This steamer has magical powers and produces brilliant results. I have memories of a long-ago jam pudding in this steamer. Mmm. I could each steamed pudding EVERY night.....!

Please note that Australian Metric Measurements vary slightly from USA and UK ones. This article cleverly discusses and summarises this.

"The moist, sticky texture is as important as the taste of this nostalgic pudding. The sauce should be poured over the top when the pudding comes out of the oven so that a little seeps into the cake and forms a glaze on top. Serves 6.

185g dates, pitted and cut into small, even pieces (I use my kitchen scissors to do this)
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
1 cup boiling water
45g butter
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup self raising flour
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Sticky caramel sauce:
3/4 cup brown sugar
45g unsalted butter, cut into tiny pieces
1/2 cup cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Grease a cake tin about 16-17cm square or 6 ramekins and preheat oven to 180 degrees.

(Mum cooks hers as a steamed pudding, in a steamer, in a saucepan of boiling water for about 45 minutes, then she turns it out and immediately covers it with 1/3 of the sauce).

Pour the boiling water over the dates and stir in the bicarb soda. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar.

Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Sift the flour over the top and add vanilla and dates, stirring well. The mixture will be quite wet.

Pour into prepared tin and bake for 30 minutes, or until just firm to the touch on top. It is important not to over-cook it.

To make the sauce: put all ingredients into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer very gently for around 3 minutes, then serve over squares or wedges of date pudding with thick cream. The sauce can be reheated.

Yum.

j

Soup in this weather!

Well, Canberra has announced Autumn with a blast of icy air from the mountains!! We are rugged up here already, with boots and scarves today!

I was having a clicky visit to other sites, and saw that the talented Pip at Meet Me At Mike's has a soup posting frenzy going on, which I had to join. Here's the recipe:

My Easy, Peasy, Speedy...
Chicken, Leek and Risoni Soup

With thanks to Donna Hay's Issue 9, some time ago.

1 tsp olive oil
1 leek (sliced)
1 chicken breast (sliced thinly)
4 cups chicken stock (cubes are fine if no fresh - I suggest Massell powder)
1/3 cup risoni (or other small pasta)
1 Tblsp chopped parsley
Sea salt and pepper to taste.

Heat oil in a pan over a medium heat. Add leek and chicken, stirring for 2 mins to colour. Add stock and pasta, and cook for roughly 8 min or until pasta is al dente.

Sprinkle parsley on top. YUM with hot, buttered toasted Turkish bread. Eat it in a big mug to warm your hands!!

P.S. Here is a super-cute mug-cosy for you to knit to keep your soup soup-er warm (hehe). Enjoy!!!

Pattern: Mug and French Press Jacket by MK Carroll. Image from great knitty blog here.

Those kids' craft recipes I mentioned...

OK, slack me has forgotten the recipes (thanks for the reminder email!!!)

The salt dough one comes from another site and then from Eilleen so you can find it and pictures of the great presents she made, here.

Mr 5 loves making Cornflour Slime, which is super easy to make, and super easy to clean up after (a HUGE bonus for me).

Water colour paints require:

A quantity of cornflour
An equal volume of cold water
Food colouring of required colours.

Mix the cornflour and water, stirring until the cornflour is in complete suspension.
Slowly add food colouring until desired colour is achieved.
Leave in a jar or tray to completely air dry.
When completely dry, crush to a fine powder, and store until required.

I use baby-food jars to store this in.

To use the paint, add water until desired consistency is reached.

Easy.

Cooked Play Dough is another easy one, if you do not have weak wrists, as the stirring can be tough. I use the recipe from the Play School site which you can find here. I halve the recipe which is plenty for 2 or 3 kids to play with. I only make the full amount if I am making lots of different colours, or when I made it for the school fair.

The Play School/ABC Kids site also has recipes for:

Bubble mix
Paper
and Soap Slime

and heaps of other recipes for the things they make on the show. Good resource for do-able kids' craft as well.

Pasting Glue is a goo made up from cornflour, blended with a little cold water to form a paste, then whisk/stir in boiling water until thick. Let it cool before giving to the kids!!



I picked up a chalk board/painting easel at Salvos the other day for $4 (great value!) so I need all these recipes to get into the outdoor messy crafts the kids love.

I hope you enjoy them.

Made me chuckle!!

I have a magazine fetish as many of you know... I 'treat' myself to magazines, and then give them away to friends to rid myself of clutter. I know I should stop buying them, but I think it fulfils a quick retail fix, a shiny, new thing I HAVE to have... Anyway, today I did it again!

I used to wonder why lollies etc were at the checkout. Luckily mine still do not know what all those shiny bars contain, so they don't notice, but I sure as hell notice the magazines!

Today was Gardening Australia. Now the funny thing is, that most of these mags have a web site, so a lot of the good stuff is actually FREE online. It's just the crap and the advertising that you buy when you get the hard copy.

Anyway, in an article about eggplant, there is a quote that made me chuckle:

DID YOU KNOW: Brides-to-be in ancient Turkey had to demonstrate that they knew how to cook eggplant at least 27 different ways.

What a skill! I can do about 6. What about you???

Eggplant dip
Stuffed eggplant
Moussaka
Roasted eggplant for antipasto
An eggplant/tomato pasta sauce
Ratatouille (my mum's is the best though).

It made me think - do I actually know how to do 27 different recipes with any vegetable other than the tomato? (OK, yes, it's a fruit).

I obviously have WAY too much time on my hands if these are the best thoughts for the day!!