A story

June 14 2012

2 Comments

by emma

I don’t often go into personal things on my blog but thought I’d share something today:

Walking past this framed photo on my hallway desk of my late mum (on the right) and aunt Suzie when they were young makes me both sad and smiley at the same time.

Suzie, my mum’s sister, died of breast cancer when I was a teenager and she was only in her late 30s; she was a bubbly, tall, thin and very pretty hippie girl and I’ll always remember her telling me that one day she was walking through a shopping centre wearing a pretty dress and feeling quite pleased with herself, when her knickers suddenly lost their elastic and fell down to her ankles. So she just picked them up, put them in her handbag and nonchalantly kept walking, smiling serenely at all the passers-by.

I mean what else could you do?

Lentil, vegetable, rice and tomato soup with kale

June 10 2012

2 Comments

tags: autumn, health conscious, soup, vegetarian, winter

by emma

I make massive pots of this amazing soup every autumn/winter without fail; in fact I decided to buy a huge pot to accommodate it because the first time I made it, I didn’t have a saucepan big enough and had to make it in two. Over the years, I’ve made it my own by adding different ingredients and using my own cooking techniques, but I’m still grateful to this lovely book for it’s beautiful recipes, including this soup.

It’s the perfect cold weather soup; full of healthy, heart starting, delicious, rustic ingredients which work well together; the fresh kale and corn, thick and rich tomatoes with hearty lentils and rice, all rounded off with subtle herbs and spices. If you have a big enough pot, I recommend making the whole recipe rather than halving it, firstly to eat then freezing the rest, as there’s quite a bit of chopping, taking over the kitchen and such and the cooking time is a bit lengthy. I find making it quite therapeutic and cosy anyway, as it always signals the start of autumn weather.

Chicken, green bean and red grape salad with basil mayonnaise

June 3 2012

4 Comments

tags: chicken, health conscious, salads, spring, summer

by emma

I love a classic chicken salad so was really keen to try this when I spotted it online recently. And it is a particularly lovely salad but … the problem with chefy type recipes is, not that they’re difficult but that there’s a lot of steps to things, not to mention the washing up afterwards. So I didn’t use the food processor to make the mayonnaise as I couldn’t cope with washing everything, used a whisk instead and got a bit of an upper body work out for about ten minutes (if you had a mini processor that would be perfect but I didn’t have one of those at the time).

Two things in this recipe I haven’t attempted before; poaching chicken and making my own mayonnaise. The former worked out far better than I anticipated – the chicken flavourful and tender, leaving behind a lovely stock which I froze because I knew I’d find a use for it later (for some reason I could never get my head around chicken being anything other than golden and crispy. I’m over that now). The mayonnaise was easy (I won’t lie though, using the food processor would be easier) and it was really cool to see it turn from a vinaigrette into a thick, creamy sauce – but that’s science, you can’t beat it!

Taking all that out of the equation though, this salad was light, delicious and well worth the little bit of effort – the fresh herb mayonnaise, crisp green beans, warm tender chicken and crunchy toasted walnuts all competing with the sweet bite of red grapes.

Australian made – Laucke Bread and Baking Mix review and two tested recipes for sweet rolls and chocolate chip brioche

May 30 2012

7 Comments

tags: Australian made, autumn, baking, bread, ethical, product review, shopping, spring, summer, winter

by emma

I don’t often use cake or bread mixes as I enjoy baking from scratch, however it’s nice and convenient to use them occasionally and they have come a long way in the past decade or so. I also appreciate that people don’t always have the time or inclination to bake from scratch; I’m definitely no domestic goddess, I haven’t done the vacuuming in a while come to think of it …

I thought for something a bit different, I’d feature one of my favourite brands, Laucke, today. This is a personal review I’ve chosen to do for which I haven’t received any payment. Some key points:

Laucke’s outer packaging is made from 100% recycled materials.
The website has a good assortment of recipes.
They have a large variety of bread and baking mixes, including gluten free, for home bakers.
The baking mixes include flour, raising agents and yeast – any add ins are up to the home baker.
Laucke is 100% Australian owned and operated.
Laucke’s bread mix conveniently comes in two 500g packs within the main package, saving you having to store then use the rest in a hurry.

All good and ethical reasons to try out this brand. My most recent purchase was the Sweet Bread and Bun Mix; so I thought firstly I’d bake some sweet fruit, nut and spice rolls then a couple of weeks later I tried some brioche, which can sometimes, depending on the recipe, be a fairly complicated process but was made much easier using this mix. Using bread mix is still a bit of work; you have to add things and knead it like you would making bread or brioche from scratch, however the rising time is faster and the results are pretty consistent, so long as you use a good kneading technique or, in the case of the brioche, have access to a mixer and dough hook.

The fruit buns were gorgeous, all fruity and soft and had that fragrant and fluffy hot cross bun flavour and texture we all love.

The brioche was a success as well. I’d never made brioche before yet the end result was lovely; crusty top with a soft, tender crumb which was wonderful with butter just out of the oven and toasted under the grill for breakfast in the mornings.

As is always the case with baking, these goodies were at their best made on the day, however both recipes also freeze well.

Linguine with lemon and garlic flavoured mushrooms, oven roasted cherry tomatoes and rocket

May 27 2012

6 Comments

tags: health conscious, pasta, spring, summer, vegan, vegetarian

by emma

tomato mushroom linguine

This is one of those refrigerator pasta dishes (stuff left over in your crisper) I made a while back when cherry toms were still nice, which turned out so tasty, it’ll now be a regular dish in warmer weather.

The lemony, garlicky mushrooms, sweet cherry tomatoes and peppery rocket were a lovely combination and so full of natural, healthy, fresh flavour.

Sweet potato, kale and chickpea curry

May 13 2012

1 Comment

tags: autumn, curry, health conscious, vegan, vegetarian, winter

by emma

I really enjoyed this cosy, spicy-sweet curry with classic spices, creamy sweet potato, nutty chick peas and fresh kale.

Confession: I cheated and used a bit of curry powder. I realise it’s a bit 1980s, how-your-nanna-used-to-make-curry, using curry powder, but I find it adds a rounded, warm sweetness and works really well with the other spices, a couple of which are in curry powder anyway. You could try adding turmeric, ginger, mustard seed and fennel alternately, for a bit more curry street cred, since those are also some of the ingredients generally found in curry powder.

Also, I used tinned cherry tomatoes, which I received by error I think, when I ordered some tinned tomatoes from my organic grocery company. They really added to the sweetness of this dish but of course you should use the larger tinned tomatoes if that’s all you have. In any case, I’ve decided it was a lovely error and will use cherry tomatoes from now on.

sweet potato chick pea curry with kale l a splash of vanilla
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Nutella hot chocolate

May 9 2012

12 Comments

tags: autumn, chocolate, drinks, winter

by emma

Some days I feel like chocolate I just have a few squares of a plain, dark block with my coffee then there are days when I want comforting, creamy, sweet chocolate – it was the latter which inspired today’s post. I spotted a recipe a while back for Nutella hot chocolate and thought I’d give it a go but with some twists to it.

And whatever you do, don’t go thinking Nutella is good for you (I’m only being a little bit cheeky). This is one depraved hot chocolate, make no bones about it. I guess you could say I don’t do things by halves from the looks of this super easy, decadent hot chocolate drink and for sure you don’t need the whipped cream and chocolate sauce or quite honestly the Nutella, but damn. It’s good.

You can use any milk you like with this – I used 2% (I know I know, it’s the equivalent of eating hot chips with a diet coke but honestly, I could never see what was wrong with that since having a full sugar coke would be worse surely?).

Dutch oven roast chicken with lemon, garlic and herbs

May 6 2012

14 Comments

tags: autumn, chicken, health conscious, spring, summer, winter

by emma

This method of roasting chicken changed my life. Tender, fall-of-the-bone, fragrant and full of the good things in cooking; lemon, garlic and herbs. No more basting, cleaning the oven or worrying about a dry roast – you simply place a quickly prepared chicken into the oven, forget about it for 1 1/2 hours or so, then take the lid off for a bit of browning.

I made a potato salad a while back which makes a nice accompaniment or you could even try roast vegetables with rosemary. Or, you could try some potato mash.

Dutch oven roast chicken

Passionfruit and white chocolate cupcakes

May 2 2012

7 Comments

tags: baking, chocolate, cupcakes, summer

by emma

Passionfruit and white chocolate is an enticing combination although I never thought of it until I had this very flavoured muffin in a cafe once years ago and it made perfect sense – even though I’m not the biggest fan of white chocolate. It often seems too cloyingly sweet to me but sometimes, roughly chopped bits of white chocolate in a cake or muffin just adds a little wickedness.

I made these fluffy little cakes a few weeks ago and they’re so easy to whip up and look adorably rustic. I just love drizzle icing – don’t you? Perfectly piped buttercream icing looks wonderful and so pleasingly retro …. but icing drizzled over just seems so decadent, I can never resist a dessert with anything drizzled over it.