Lemon and Herb Chicken

I wouldn't be able to blog along for very long without mentioning my love of Donna Hay. I've purposely not subscribed to her magazine because I love the joy of discovering a new one is out!

I know - tragic :)

Tonight's dinner was a new recipe out of the Autumn issue, Lemon and Herb Chicken. It's a one pot meal and only takes half an hour by recipe (about 45 Min's reality).

Unusually the recipe had a small mistake - no lemon in the ingredients or recipe although it appeared in the picture so I had to take a punt on that one! It smelled beautiful and looked great but lacked a bit of flavour, it really needed a good seasoning and extra lemon in the sauce to bring up the flavours but it was a good new dinner for the repertoire. I served with Broccoli and dressed with a little extra virgin lemon oil.

I also worked out a little Stepford Secret. I had to drain just a tablespoon of salted capers and discovered the ideal tool. My tea strainer got a workout and performed (and recovered) beautifully.

Lemony Capery White Wine goodness.

Triple Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles

My next adventure is a disaster come good. The official recipe was called two-tone chocolate fudge and was supposed to be a creamy white layer sandwiched onto a creamy brown layer both nice and firm and full of hazelnuts.

Well, my creamy white was more of a dismal brown and my creamy brown became soft and dark due to my switching the milk chocolate melts (that were the worst kind of compound flavour) for some gorgeous 70% I had in the fridge. My top layer was too soft and melty because I didn't cook it for long enough. All of this make it yummy but uncuttable and untransportable - I was pretty sure Husband and I couldn't manage a whole tray of it with a spoon!

And so I had a scathingly brilliant idea. The whole thing was the exact texture and flavour of the inside of a gourmet truffle. All I needed was a chocolate coating and it would solve my cutting and transporting isssues. I set the fudge in the freezer, cut it into squares and dipped it in 2 blocks of melted Cadbury's Daily Milk. A bit of fussing with skewers and a sprinkle of Hazelnut meal hid the messy bits.

The lovely ladies/ taste testers in the office at work loved them! Phew!

Chocolate Chip Cranberry Muffins

In Australia we don't have a lot of access to cranberries. We have the juice and the dried kinds but never fresh and so when I come across recipes involving them in all the fabulous US and UK cookbooks I pass right by them - until this summer when I came across a frozen box of them (far too expensive!) and decided to take them home.

Unfortunately they sat in the freezer waiting for an idea for too long until I came across a simple recipe in the Stephanie Alexander kitchen garden cookbook for Chocolate chip muffins and decided it was their time to shine - The results look stunning, rustic and melting in their fabulous Donna Hay french pleated papers. Unfortunately the flavour was a little too unusual for Husband who preferred the plain chocolate chip I made (in case of disaster!).

Even I think that next time I will reach for my favourite frozen raspberries instead - but it was fun to have a go. There's still some left in the freezer if anyone has another idea!

Sourdough starter. A very unique wedding present! but one I was thrilled to get even though it required me to try something new and set myself up for a possible culinary disaster.
I carefully took it home and fed it religiously until I found a free afternoon to give it a go.

The results - well you can see, much better than expected! For a recipe I went straight to Nigella's 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' and the woman certainly delivers on her promise. The secret I think is the little extra yeast she adds to the mixture in addition to the starter.

In the process I came up with a little Stepford style secret of my own - when a warm place to rise the dough is proving (!) too difficult to find, do a load of washing, throw it in the dryer and place the rising dough in the laundry. It worked beautifully and the results made husband very happy - especially when slathered with butter and golden syrup!