Make your own tortilla wraps

I love it when you discover that you can easily make something that you always buy from the supermarket.  Last weekend I thought I would try my hand at making wraps, and wow! So nice, and pretty easy too.  The other thing is, they're about a quarter of the cost of store bought ones. 

These are great to make into burritos, serve with a curry, or as a simple wrap for lunch stuffed with chicken & salad.  Give them a whirl!

2 cups plain flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

¾ lukewarm milk (you can use skim or full fat)

Place the flour and baking powder into a large bowl

Add the salt and oil to the lukewarm milk, stir to combine.  Add this mix to the flour and stir until it looks like a sticky dough

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 2 mins.  Return the dough to the bowl, cover with a cloth and allow to rest for 15 mins.

Divide the dough into 8 even size balls, cover and allow to rest again for 20 mins without touching to avoid them sticking together.  The resting gives it it’s elasticity and stops them being too hard.

Place a single ball of dough onto a floured surface and roll out thinly with a rolling pin until about the size of a small side plate.  Try to roll them into a circle but don’t re roll if it is the wrong shape.  You don’t want to overwork the dough or the tortilla will come out tough

Place into a pre heated frying pan and cook for 30 seconds each side.  It may puff up slightly while cooking.  Wrap in a cloth to keep warm and plough through the other 7.  If you get into a groove you can roll out the next tortilla while another one is in the pan.  Better yet, have a kitchen buddy to roll while you cook.

These are best eaten as soon as you make them but they actuallly freeze quite well too.  You just let them thaw on the bench, wrap in foil and heat in a warm oven.  Don’t microwave them as it makes them too chewy. 

Once you’ve got this recipe down you could try adding flavouring next time – such as a teaspoon of dried herbs or maybe garlic salt instead of plain salt.  I’m going to add chilli powder next time.  Let me know how you go with this!

Oh Jamie you’ve done it again…yummy brownies

Is there anyone who doesn’t love brownies?  If there are I haven’t met them yet.  And one taste of these delicious little honeys and you will love them even more.  I made them recently for a friend’s birthday BBQ at the beach, stacked up in a pyramid (sort of) like a cake.  They are easy to serve and won’t last too long let me tell you. 

The trouble with these is that you can’t eat just one. So you have two, and you feel a bit queasy.  But it’s worth it!  The trick is to make them for a crowd, otherwise you will eat them ALL in a weekend…

What you need:

250g unsalted butter

200g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)

80g cocoa powder, sifted

65g plain flour, sifted

1 teaspoon baking powder

360g caster sugar

4 large eggs

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 180°C and line a baking tin with baking paper.

In a glass bowl placed over simmering water, melt the butter and chocolate and mix with a spatula until smooth.

In another bowl, place the cocoa powder, flour, baking powder and sugar.  Mix this into the chocolate. Beat in the eggs one at a time, stirring until it looks silky and shiny.

Pour the mix into the tray, and place in the oven for around 25 minutes. Keep an eye on it as you don’t want to overdo it (you don’t want a skewer to come out clean). Let them cool in the tray before moving them onto a board to cut into squares.

Be sure to eat all the crumbly falling off bits yourself before someone else comes along and steals them all (speaking from experience)  

Slow down, you move too fast

Now, where do I start on how much I LOVE my slow cooker?

Will and I received our slow cooker as a wedding gift two years ago.  Since then, this little device has produced many a tender, delicious meal that is full of flavour

Some of the best things for the slow cooker are:

·      Casseroles and stews – the meat becomes super tender and the flavour develops with hours of gentle heat

·      Any kind of soup – load up the veges with a cup or 2 of stock, cook on low for 4 hrs

·      Roast meats – place a whole leg of lamb in with a can of tomatoes, a cup of beef stock, salt and pepper.  Cook on low for 8 hours, at which time you can pull the meat off the bone with a spoon.   

·      Relish and chutneys – these really benefit from the time in the pot.  You’ll find the flavours more intense than a stove top version

If you are converting a slow cooker recipe from an oven version to a slow cooker, remember to use about half as much liquid.  Because of the lid, very little liquid evaporates, even when cooking on high. 

I believe that the best thing about a slow cooker is being able to buy cheaper cuts of meat.  No not freaky things like tongue and liver (though I’m sure there a loads of offally good recipes).  Things like osso bucco, chuck steak and mince can be your new best friends.   

An easy way to test the waters with your slow cooker is a simple recipe like Beef and Guinness.  Not too many ingredients, which keeps it simple – as soon as there is a long list of ingredients in a recipe (especially things I have to go and buy) I tend to tune out and move on.   Don’t get suckered into buying the recipe base sachets – these tend to be full of salt, sugar and preservatives that you just don’t need. 

You just pile everything into the pot and leave it alone – it’s the perfect way to cook when you have better things to do with your time.  Osso bucco is usually a low cost option at the butcher.  It benefits from slow, gentle cooking to produce a tender final product.  You could also use 4 lamb shanks or 500g of chuck steak for this recipe. 

Slow Cooked Beef and Guinness

4 osso bucco (beef shin)

2 onions, sliced thickly

400g mushrooms, sliced thickly

2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

2 tbsp tomato sauce

1 cup of beef stock

Salt and pepper to taste

1 large can of Guinness (around 450ml)

1.    Brown the meat in a lightly oiled frying pan on a medium heat.  Set aside.

2.    Cook up the onions and mushroom in the fat from the meat until browned slightly.  Place these, the meat, and the rest of the ingredients into the slow cooker and cook on low for 5-6 hrs. 

3.    When finished cooking, you can whisk in a tablespoon of plain flour to thicken up the sauce

4.    Serve with creamy mashed potato and loads of minty green peas. And some fresh bread on the side to mop up the sauce.  To be sure.  

My Top 11

It’s funny how food can stir up so many memories.  For me, one sniff of my mum’s lamb roast has me feeling like a 10 year old again.  Food plays a huge role in our lives when it comes to celebrating, commiserating, relieving boredom, entertaining and just for general enjoyment.  I had a think about the most memorable dishes and what they mean to me.  I would love to hear yours!

1.    Pancakes – this was one of the first things I ever cooked and once I got the hang of it, it became a Saturday morning tradition.  Butter, lemon and sugar was my topping of choice.  I always made myself busy before I had to wash up the pans though

2.    Mum’s Lamb Roast – I always agreed with the ad where Naomi Watts said she couldn’t go out with Tom Cruise cause ‘Mum’s doing a lamb roast’.  No one can make a roast like your mum can.  I asked my mum why my roast never tastes as nice as hers, and she said that maybe when I’ve been cooking it for 40 years it might taste pretty good too.  Mum always gets the lamb leg with garlic and rosemary on it which gives it such amazing flavour

3.    Dad’s BBQ Steaks – to this day I only like my steaks well done.  I think it’s because growing up that was the only option if you wanted to eat one.  Dad would always be on the BBQ, Mum would be making a green salad & some boiled potatoes.  We would sit outside and get eaten by mosquitoes and it was great.

4.    Spag Bol – this was a family favourite growing up.  Mum would cook it in the crock pot all afternoon and the house would smell amazing as I came in from school.  Unlike now where I like everything with chilli and extra chilli, mum’s bolognese was always spice-free.  Since my Dad is a meat & veg kind of man, it was ‘a bit foreign’ for him.  He didn’t even eat the pasta (that was just too strange) – he would just eat the bolognese on toast.  For me, it was such a treat to eat spaghetti I would devour it all in no time.  And sometimes even sneak in and eat some extra plain spaghetti.  Dad and I would eat leftovers on toast for breakfast.  Unreal.    

5.    Chip Sandwiches – on a Saturday afternoon my Dad and I would go up to the chip shop and buy $2 worth of chips with chicken salt.  We would then butter up some super fresh white bread and load it up with chips & tomato sauce.  To people that have never enjoyed the deliciousness of chip sandwiches, I urge you to go out this weekend and try it out.  You will NOT be disappointed.  As I got older I found that this is also one of the best hangover cures ever.   Wow I could really eat one of these right now…

6.    Grace Brothers Donuts – back in the days before Donut King existed, the only place to get donuts was from the Grace Brothers cafeteria.  In Dubbo, the ladies working in there (with their old lady aprons and sensible shoes) made the donuts crispy and with loads of sugar.  If I had ‘been good’ while shopping with Mum, we would go and grab a load of donuts to take home for afternoon tea.  If I had a day off sick from school Mum would go and get these and they always seemed to make me feel better

7.    Red Chops – these are the most delicious marinated lamb chops that my mum made.  Not sure of the recipe (I will have to hunt it down from mum) but whenever I was asked what I felt like, it always had to be red chops with mash & peas.  Mmm mmmm.

8.    Will’s Lasagne – my husband is a great cook, and unlike me he is really good at cooking without a recipe.   He makes the lasagne with beef or pork mince, and adds a tin of tomatoes, a tin of kidney beans, onions, capsicum, herbs, garlic, chilli, wine and whatever else he can find in the cupboard.  He lets it cook on a low heat for about an hour, and then he makes his own white sauce before layering it all up and adding loads of cheese on top.  Heaven.  The first time I tried it, I knew he was a keeper

9.    Chicken Chilli Basil with Flat Rice Noodles (from Chopsticks) – this was my favourite Thai restaurant in Randwick for about 5 years.  Any time we were going out for dinner everybody knew where I wanted to go.  All of the food was UN REAL.  It was always less than $20 a head and it was BYO.  What more could you want?  After years of love and affection you can imagine my heartache when we arrived one night with a bottle of red in hand and it was….closed.  Gone.  No sign.  Nothing.  It later reopened with new owners and a new name, and it was a bit rubbish.   Will I ever find anything like it again?  So far…no.  But I soldier on. 

10.Dip for Dinner  - isn’t it wonderful when you suggest something that you think is a little bit risqué, and the one you love says ‘I was just thinking the same thing!’.  For me, it was suggesting that we have dip, cheese, olives and Turkish bread for dinner one night.  I always used to think about it as a kid as I stuffed my face near the buffet (‘Why can’t corn relish dip be a meal?’) and I am so lucky to have married someone who feels the same way.  We do this about once a month.  We are WILD. 

11.Chicken Burritos – this is a Friday night favourite at our place, and one of the few things that Will & I usually cook together.  Cook up some chicken, onion and red capsicum with a load of garlic, chilli, cumin, and any old spices you like.   Load up some wraps with the hot stuff, then add avocado, cheese, lettuce, tomato, grated carrot and tzatziki.  Yum!

Why is it a top 11 instead of a top 10?  It was too hard to cut anything from the list once I got started!

What meals hold a special place in your heart?  I would love to hear from you

Food to eat in your PJ’s

Bread and butter pudding is truly the thriftiest of thrifty recipes.  It actually calls for stale bread – how good is that?  This pudding feels like a snuggle under the doona on a rainy day while watching an old movie.  Maybe Titanic. 

Its beauty is in its simplicity; there isn’t a specific recipe so much, just some general directions to follow.  The bread becomes sort of cakey as it’s smothered in a hot custardy sauce. Enough ranting, here’s how to do it.

Will’s Bread & Butter Pudding

In a big bowl, whisk together 1½ cups of milk, 3 eggs, a teaspoon each of nutmeg & cinnamon, ½ teaspoon of vanilla essence, and 1/3 cup sugar.   

Grab a loaf of sliced stale bread (it works best if the bread isn’t too fresh, but not a big deal either way). Butter one side of the bread and place it butter side down in a baking dish. 

Keep doing this until you have one flat layer of bread.  Squeeze over some golden syrup so each piece of bread gets some.  Then sprinkle over some sultanas.  Then pour some of the eggy mixture over the bread so that each piece soaks some of it up. 

Keep layering the bread in this way until you’ve used up the loaf or the dish is almost full.  For the final layer, leave off the sultanas as they tend to burn. 

Now comes the fun part – with your hands, smoosh down the whole mixture so that it pushes together and is all covered in the egg mix. 

Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 30-40 mins.  Timing really depends on your oven – you want the crusts of the bread on top to be a bit crispy so just keep an eye on it. 

Serve with cream, ice cream or custard.   This re-heats well for the next few days and tastes especially good in the middle of the night in your PJ’s.  Mmmmmm.

Coming soon....how to make your own crumpets  

* Disclaimer: I put the pic at the bottom today because this really tastes better than it looks.  It's a good dessert to serve up in the kitchen and bring it out ready to eat.

Mmmm…smell the history

I love love love old recipe books.  I love the smell of them, the crazy hand drawn pictures, the mental names of the dishes.  It all adds up to inspiration for me when planning our meals for the week. So often when I look through my books I find the recipes in modern books are a bit too complicated for a weeknight meal.  The older books often use the most basic of ingredients, many of which you might already have in your pantry.  I have found the best tasting & easiest recipes in these books & I want to share the love.  

The best places to find these books for me have been charity shops. You can normally grab something for a few dollars and you will like at least a few of the recipes.  I also find that often you can take off the tatty paper cover (with a picture of a casserole garnished with a kilo of parsley) and uncover a lovely old hardcover book that looks quite snazzy on the shelf next to your Jamie Oliver selection.  The other option is to raid the houses of your friends and family - my mother in law’s house was a gold mine on our last trip to England – thanks Julia!

Here are my top 5 favourite crazy names for meals within my latest find, the Farmhouse Kitchen.  This book was first published in England in 1975 and purchased by me for one pound at Oxfam in Brighton:

1 Jugged Hare: bacon, celery, hare, herbs and butter.  Oh yes, don’t forget the blood of the hare too

2 Cullen Skink Soup: a soup made with smoked haddock, mashed potato, onion, milk, & butter

3 Lardy Cake: I think the name refers more to the person who eats too many of them

4 Turban of Cod: baked cod with egg sauce.  Mmmmm

5 Love in Disguise: vermicelli, bacon, egg, parsley and…sheep’s hearts.  That’s love alright. 

Now for a recipe that you might actually want to cook:

Lamb Curry – for all these years I thought you needed curry paste to make a curry.  Nope! I usually make this on a Sunday night and then we have for dinner a few days later, still tastes great. 

500g diced lamb (beef would be nice too)

2 tbsp olive oil

2 onions, finely sliced

1 tbsp minced ginger (or fresh if you have it)

1 tbsp chilli

1 tbsp lemon juice (I use lemon squeeze if I don’t have a fresh one)

2 tsp garam masala (this is a mixed spice you can get in the spice jar section)

400g tin of tomatoes

2 tbsp tomato sauce

1 cup of beef stock

1.    Heat the oil in a large frypan and soften the onion for a few minutes. 

2.    Add the lamb, garam masala, ginger and a squeeze of lemon. 

3.    When the lamb is browned, add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, chilli and stock. 

4.    Simmer uncovered for 90 mins until the sauce has thickened up. 

5.    Serve with fresh rice, and add a dollop of natural yoghurt on top.  Yum!

Souped Up

When you’re planning your meals for the week it’s always good to include a healthy soup option.  By using seasonal vegetables you can make something that tastes good but is also easy on your wallet, as they tend to be more affordable.  You can dress them up with a swirl of cream or yoghurt when serving, or add some crusty bread to the table.  They’re also great on a wet weekend for lunch. 

Over the past few weeks I’ve made a couple of stand out soups either from things I already had in the kitchen or from affordable seasonal veg from the market.  You will see there is no meat in any of these, so if your partner or family need some you could always add bacon to any of these recipes.  The great thing about soup is that you could make some on a Sunday afternoon and keep it in the fridge for another night when you don’t feel like cooking, or take it to work for lunch

Here are my top three for you to try out:

1.    Minty Pea Soup (pictured) 

2.    Cauliflower Soup

3.    Roast Veg & Lentil Soup

Minty Pea Soup – this is my new favourite soup.  It looks like something from outer space but tastes so so good and is super quick.  Finely chop 2 onions and brown them for a minute in a saucepan with some oil and a teaspoon of minced garlic.  Add 700ml chicken stock and when it starts boiling, add 500g frozen minty peas.  Boil for about 6 minutes or until peas are tender.  Add a handful of mint leaves if you have them, or a big glug of mint sauce.  Season, then whiz it all up with a handheld blender and serve immediately. 

Cauliflower Soup – this soup somehow manages to come out quite creamy despite the fact there is no milk or cream involved.  Cut a medium cauliflower into small pieces, and then grate an onion, a carrot, and a potato.  Heat up a tablespoon of olive oil in a big saucepan and soften the veg for a few minutes.  Add a teaspoon of chicken stock powder and half a teaspoon of curry powder.  Add enough water so that you only just cover the veg, and bring to the boil.  Reduce to a simmer and cook until all the veg are tender.  Season, then whiz up with a handheld blender and simmer for a further 20 mins before serving.  

Roast Veg & Lentil Soup – chunkily chop up a roasting tray of vegetables (you can use anything but I used a smallish pumpkin, a carrot, 2 brown onions and some fresh garlic), coat in some olive oil and season with salt & pepper, chilli (if you like it), cumin, ground coriander and some paprika.  Cover the tray in foil and roast for about 90 mins on 180°C.  Whiz up the veg in a food processor with a tin of tomatoes and about 500mL chicken stock (you need 1.5L chicken stock in total).  Bring it all back to the boil; add remaining stock and the tin of lentils.  Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.  Lovely with a dollop of yoghurt when serving. 

What are some of your favourite soups?