Bean Stew

A great recipe for meat eaters or vegetarians, this bean stew is delicious with or without bacon. Great with almost all starchy side dishes, although I think it makes great comfort food when served with garlic bread, polenta or creamy mashed potato.
The maple syrup gives the casserole a lovely, smokey flavour, but if you are conscious of using sugar in any form, it could be reduced to 1 1/2 tbsp.

If you don't have a casserole dish that can be used on the hob, the stew can be made in a large saucepan, then transferred to a lidded casserole dish for cooking in the oven. Alternatively, it could be simmered on the hob, but I always find that it 'catches' on the bottom, and ultimately takes longer to cook due to loosing heat every time the lid is removed for stirring.

1 Onion, diced
1 clove Garlic, crushed
100g-150g diced bacon, or chopped back bacon (optional)
1 tin Cannellini beans
1 tin chopped tomatoes
2 medium carrots, diced
1-2 parsnips, diced
250ml Vegetable stock
2tsp soy sauce
3tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp thyme
3tbsp corn flour
few drops kaitaia fire, or tabasco sauce, to taste

Using an casserole dish that can also be used on the hob, Fry the onions and garlic until soft. Add bacon if you are using it, and fry until the fat runs. Add paprika and cornflour, and stir until well coated.
Add the tinned tomatoes, soy sauce, maple syrup, thyme, kaitaia fire and stock. Stir well. Bring to the boil. Add beans and veg. Transfer to the oven & cook at 180deg C for 1 hour.

Countdown to Labour Day

For many people here in New Zealand, the fourth Monday in October, or Labour Day, marks the end of winter frosts and signals the start of the gardening season.
Keen to get in on the act early, I have several seedlings poking their tentative heads out of the soil in my 'green house' ready to be planted out in my new, hubby-built veggie planters in a few weeks.
As this is my first year of 'Square foot gardening'. I'm sticking with what I know. Broccoli, Cauliflower, onions, tomatoes, coriander and Lettuce already sown, with beans, potatoes, carrots, parsnips and strawberries to follow. No  heritage varieties yet.
It almost goes against the grain to be planting just one or two seeds at a time, but it really does make sense. Why grow your vegetables in a traditional manner, taking up more space than you would like to use up, and producing more veg than you family can consume before it wilts, unwanted, in the bottom of the fridge? By sowing only as much as you will eat in a week, every week, you will have a continuous crop of fresh, home grown veggies all year round.
So the theory goes, anyway. I'll let you know how it works in practice in due course!

Sausage Casserole

An old work colleague tipped me on frying onions with butter, sugar and paprika. She swore that it was the only way to eat them with sausages, burgers or hot dogs. She was right. I thought the method would work well in trying to recreate the sausage casserole mum used to make using a commercial herb and spice blend. Happily, it gave the casserole the perfect base on which to build the other flavours. Don't be tempted to leave out the sugar. It is only a small amount, but it really does give it a more rounded flavour.

500g Pork Sausages
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 onion, diced

1tsp sugar
1/2 tsp paprika

2tbsp cornflour
1tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
2tbsp tomato paste
1tsp thyme
black pepper
500ml hot vegetable stock or water
2-3 Carrots

Brown the sausages under the grill or in a pan. Cut into 6-8 pieces, depending on size. Transfer to a lidded casserole dish.
Fry the onions and garlic in a little butter until soft. Add sugar and paprika, and cook for another minute or two. Transfer to the casserole dish.
In a jug, blend cornflour, thyme, Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste together, with a little water. Stir in the hot stock, then pour into the casserole dish.
Slice carrots. Add to casserole.
Cook for 1 hour at 160deg c. with the lid on.

I like to serve this with some green vegetables and mashed or baked potatoes.

Spice-encrusted Steak with Jack Daniels Sauce

Serves 2. Needs to be pan-fried to make good use of all the buttery juices .

2 good, thick steaks - the best your budget allows
1/2 tsp chilli
1/2 tsp allspice
pinch sugar
1tsp seasalt
1tbsp mixed peppercorns

butter
1 garlic clove, crushed
80-90ml Jack Daniels
1/3c beef stock, water will do at a push
1tbsp redcurrant jelly
1/4c cream

Crush the salt and peppercorns with a mortar and pestle (or buy them ready ground!). Add allspice, chilli and sugar. Coat beef in the spice mixture, and allow to rest at room temperature for 20-30 minutes.

Fry the steaks in butter.
Remove from the pan, add more butter if needed, along with the garlic and Jack Daniels. Flame for a few seconds. Once the flame has died, add stock, jelly and cream. Heat gently until the sauce has reduced.


Oh, this was one of my favourite BC, dual-income meals. Maybe I can find an excuse for such exztravagance again!


Don't be tempted to use oil in place of the butter, or even worse, one of those oil sprays. This recipe is all about flavour. Anyway, with all that cream and alcohol, now wouldn't be a time to worry about calories!


I don't think I ever managed to flame the alcohol, so don't be concerned if yours doesn't either.

Salmon Mousse

The quantities given here would feed a crowd as part of a buffet. For a couple of lunches for a family of four, with a few hunks of bread and a salad, half quantity is sufficient.


1tbsp Gelatine
125ml hot vegetable stock
1 large can salmon. Drained, boned and skin removed
3tbsp dry white wine
3tbsp natural, unsweetened yoghurt
2tbsp good quality, preferably homemade mayonnaise
2tbsp fresh lemon juice
2tsp fresh parsley
100g peeled, cucumber, finely diced
6tbsp cream


Dissolve the gelatine in the stock, stirring well.
Mash the salmon, add wine, yoghurt, mayonnaise, lemon juice, gelatine/stock mixture and parsley. Blend well.
Stir in cucumber.
Whip cream and fold in gently.
Pour into a bowl, or mould and chill for two hours before serving.


The footnote in my book advises against experimenting with rose wine, or substituting aoli instead of the mayonnaise. However ,creme fraiche will give good results as a replacement for yoghurt.

Peppermint Slices

I feel a little hyocritical for posting these, considering we hardly eat any sugar these days. However, they were such a big part of my childhood, and so perfect for the school cake stall, that I think they need to be shared.


If you are short on time, you can make the base one day, then add the filling the next. Just leave enough time for the chocolate to set before cutting and serving. 


Base
100g Butter
1/4c. Sugar
1/2tsp baking powder
2/3c. plain flour
3/4c. oats or dessicated coconut
1 tbsp cocoa

Filling
2c. icing sugar
few drops peppermint oil, or 1tsp peppermint essence
optional green colouring

Topping 
200g chocolate of your choice. Here's where you can get creative if you have time, by swirling different chocolates together to make a marbled pattern.

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the dry ingredients, and mix well. Press into a greased swiss-roll/jelly-roll pan, and bake at 180dec. C for 20-30 minutes. Cool in the tin.

Filling and topping Mix icing sugar, peppermint and green colouring together, along with enough hot water to make a thick icing. Pour onto base and leave to set. Once set, Melt the chocolate and pour over, using a fork to pattern the top if you wish. Chill until set. As the chocolate is harder than the icing underneath, it is useful to allow it to come to room temperature before slicing, to help prevent the chocolate from snapping.

Tome of Culinary Knowledge

By nature, I am a rather organised, tidy person. My husband will attest to this. I frequently berate him for leaving opened mail, along with their now-redundant envelopes, strewn across the sideboard.
It follows then that I was troubled by the disorganised recipe collection that I had gathered over many years. Comprising of two card files, magazine clippings, hand written scribblings on scraps of paper, foodie calendars, and other assorted recipe sources, it was overwhelming, and unusable unless I had several hours free to find what I was looking for.
Imagine my excitement then, when I found a faux leather book into which I could compile this overgrown collection. It was a thing of beauty. The cover was a rich deep red, with gold filigree, and 'Recipe book' written in a gold stylised script. Inside, its thick cream pages were tabbed. It even had space to glue in clippings and a useful 'cooks reference section'. All could be annotated by the compiler, and indexed. Nothing could have suited me better in practicality or aesthetics.
Of course, I bought it.
Initially I just transferred the recipes from one source to the other, but I soon realised that by doing so, I was writing out recipes that I may, delicious as they sounded, never actually use. So I created a rule: only tried, tested and loved recipes would go into my tome of culinary knowledge.
Flicking through the book now gives the reader some insight into how my families eating habits have changed, and what has stayed the same. From luxurious Spice-encrusted Steak with Jack Daniels Sauce, and time-consuming Lemon Meringue Ice Cream of our B.C. (Before Children) days, through the Fruit and Oat Bars of the baby years, to the super-easy, child friendly Bean Stew and sugar-free muffins. Amongst the ones that have stood the test of time are Sausage Casserole, Salmon Mousse, Tomato Soup and mum's Peppermint Slices. I am a little concerned though about what the twenty-three recipes under the baking section say about me. Especially when you consider that the 'Salad' pages contain only one!

low-sugar chocolate cake

Here it is, the low-sugar, wheat-free chocolate cake recipe:

125g butter, melted
1/2 to 1c xylitol, depending on how much sweetness you are used to
2 eggs
1c spelt flour
1 1/2tsp baking powder
1/4c cocoa
1/2 c milk

mix dry ingredients together/. Add eggs, milk and melted butter, and mix well.
Bake in a 7" round tin at 180deg c for about 40 minutes until a skewer pushed through the centre comes out clean.
Cool in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out.

Ganache

1x100g bar guylian 'no added sugar' milk chocolate, or other low-sugar chocolate of your choosing
80ml cream

Melt the chocolate over a pan of hot water. Stir in the cream. Leave to thicken slightly before pouring onto the cake.
Depending on the chocolate you use, you may need to adjust the amount of cream. This was a soft ganache, so use a little less cream, maybe 60ml, for a firmer one. You may need more cream if you are using dark chocolate.

Enjoy your guilt free chocolate cake with wanton abandon! .

It CAN be done! low-sugar birthday cake

Today, I had to meet a rather tall order. I was to run a pre-schoolers birthday party, with food that was low sugar, low wheat and yeast free.
The criteria had been set by myself. The party was for my youngest daughter, and I wanted to provide food that my eldest girl could eat. I wanted to be able to say to her' Go for it! Eat what you like!'
And, I have to proudly say, I DID IT!

Here's the main reason for my pride:

Most of it is very low in sugar. I can't say 'sugar free', as the cake and chocolate both have milk and/or milk solids in, which contain lactose. It is however, sucrose free with the exception of a few of the bears and decorations.
The bears are made from moulding chocolate. I would have used sugar-free/low-sugar chocolate for all of them, but at $7-$10 a bar, it costs far too much, so I had to settle on using standard chocolate for some.
The food decorations are made mostly from pettinice, so again, these were not sugar free. However, the cake itself is wheat free and low-sugar, as is the chocolate ganache that it is covered with.
I also made low-sugar cupcakes, iced with dark chocolate ganache and decorated with carob buttons and carob chips in some vague imitation of bear faces.
They don't look very much like bears, but seemed pleasing enough to a house full of children, and I'm fairly certain I got away with the carob!

For the first time in twelve months, my daughter could eat shared food without restrictions. Her happy whoop said it all!

Raw milk

Yesterday, I collected my first order of raw milk.

Like a kid with a bag of sweets/lollies who has been told to "wait until you get home", I couldn't wait to get home to sample it.
As soon as we got in, I rushed straight for the kitchen cupboards for a glass. Ahh! Creamy, sweet goodness. A little more pungent than the last time I had sampled raw milk, but beautiful all the same.
Happily, I noticed over the course of the day that the cream was beginning to settle on the top, so I may have home-made butter too soon.
For those of you who are wondering why I am buying raw milk instead of standard milk, well, I am certain that it is much better for you.
Raw milk is full of good bacteria that are needed to colonise the gut for intestinal health, as well as essential enzymes that our bodies need in order to digest it. To be brief, it contains essential fats, amino acids, proteins, vitamins and minerals that are reduced, destroyed or altered by the pasteurisation and standardisation methods used in commercial milk.
Oh, and yes, it is safe to drink! Milk from factory farms must be pasteurised to make it safe, due to the cow's diet, risk of drug traces, and medical problems due to modern, heigh-yield breeds and intense farming. However, milk that is intended to be drunk raw is from small-stock farms of grass-fed old-fashioned breeds, such as Jersey cows. Delicious!
If you would like to read more about raw milk, click here http://www.westonaprice.org/ or here http://www.rawmilk.org/default.php or even here http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/About_Raw_Milk.html

And for a very interesting study on the safety of raw milk, take a look at this article http://www.realmilk.com/safety-raw-milk.html

Happy drinking!

what's cooking today?

With my freezer and pantry devoid of baked goods, I wondered what to bake for the coming week's lunch boxes. It was a tall order. It had to be low in sugar and milk free (although yoghurt was ok). I also only had half a block of butter left, and just one lonely egg in the egg-box. I refused the temptation to visit the supermarket for more ingredients, as past experience showed that I always walked out with an extra half-dozen items that I suddenly urgently needed!
A flick through Mrs B's, Mrs Smith's, and Mrs Lawson's dog-eared tomes gave no solution, and the cupboard contents were thoroughly un-inspiring.

So, after discovering the left-over cooked apples from yesterdays dinner (pork with cream and apples), I decided mini apple pies were in order.
All was going well until I started to cut out the pastry circles for the patty tins and realised that I had made my usual error of underestimating how much pastry I needed for 24 little pies. I barely had enough for 8! So, after a quick change of plan, I made a quick sponge in the processor using half spelt flour, half cornmeal, baking powder, quarter cup of sugar (I figured the apples were sweet enough), the sole egg, rice bran oil, a glug of lemon juice and some yoghurt.

It was a fairly runny mixture, which I expected, but as I was 'inventing', I wasn't too sure how it would turn out.
Thankfully, 20 minutes or so later, the oven turned out 14 well-risen sponge-topped apple pies. They were good! Better than I thought. The hard part now is to make sure they do actually make it to the lunch boxes!

In the beginning...tea at Grandma's.

Every Saturday, my family would visit my maternal Grandparents for tea. I don't mean a 'cup of tea and a biscuit' type of tea, or a 'main meal' type of tea, but a good old, traditional, afternoon tea, or high tea as it is often called.

My Grandparents house had two downstairs room, along with a very small kitchen. The back room, next to the kitchen, was their main living area, reserving the front room for entertaining visitors.

Grandma was a wonderful host, offering a cup of tea or coffee, before you barely had your coat off. As guests, we would never be allowed to help ourselves from the kitchen.
Tea would usually start with a fresh white 'Bloomer' (A loaf of bread baked on a tray, rather than in a tin, giving it a relaxed oval shape.) which mum would have bought the day before. Mum was also in charge of cutting the loaf, & spreading it thick with butter and jam.
Occasionally, there would be eggs, or jacket potatoes too.
Once the bread and jam was dispensed with, there came the cake. And my, how much cake there was!
Both Grandma and mum would bake a cake each, sometimes two, and it would have been unthinkable to produce one that was not filled and decorated with jam and butter cream.
My favourite of grandma's creations was always her coffee and walnut cake. Beautiful coffee sponge, filled with coffee buttercream, and topped with glacé icing and walnuts. I can still taste it now! Mum sometimes made caramel shortbread, or peppermint slices, which were always popular, and very moreish!
Occasionally, when the mood took her, mum would make 'fancies'. These would be individual cakes, shaped as a diamond or square, and elaborately decorated with buttercream, toasted coconut, chocolate hail, piped icing or anything else she felt like using that day. They looked stunning.
By the time I was in my teens, a bought cheesecake, Boston bun or other bought cake would often be added to the calorific table. So much to choose from!

Once I started dating, it became another tradition that my boyfriend had to meet not only my parents, but also my Grandparents. So it was, that when I finished work on Saturday afternoons, my boyfriend would meet me in town and apprehensively join me for afternoon tea. I can't imagine Grandma's shock when some of the 'young men' arrived at her doorstep wearing eye-liner and nail polish! Thankfully, they always had very good manners and if Grandma didn't approve, she never said.
It must have come as a relief to her when the man I eventually married had no make-up, even if he did have long hair in those days!

gingerbread train

For the last couple of years, I've had a recipe for a gingerbread train, complete with it's cargo of lollies and chocolates, sitting in a file in my kitchen. "One day, I'll make that" I kept saying to myself, and finally, last Christmas, I did! (It's just taken me nearly six months to design the blog to post it onto!)

Almost 50 individual pieces were cut and baked from gingerbread, ready to assemble the engine and three cargo trucks. Stacks of plain biscuits were used internally to strengthen each structure, and each piece was ‘glued’ together with royal icing.

After allowing the icing to set overnight, red, white and green royal icing was used to decorate the train, along with silver cachous, and liquorice.

 Four evening's work, and voila! The completed train!

Life is sweet

well, right now it feels like it, anyway.
Confined to solitude with Laryngitis, I have been enjoying the sun & getting out into the garden, musing about what veggies I'll be growing in the spring, & looking forward to my first taste of raw milk.

I have to admit, I'm feeling pretty contented right now, because over the next year, I'm hoping to:

use mostly raw milk
eat beef from traditional Devon cows
enjoy the company of our own free-range chooks...
...and put their eggs to good culinary use
grow heirloom vegetable varieties

Ahh! Pure, unadulterated, chemical-free, nutrient-rich food. Just as nature intended.