What's for dinner?

I am always interested in what people have for dinner, regular people in their homes who have to dream up something to cook every night. I think it's fascinating what people consider to be "normal" - often because their mother made it when they were young.
Getting married has been fun in this regard. Husband comes from a family where nachos are a dinner food with mince and beans and sauce. At my house if they appeared at all they were just melted cheese on corn chips and were a special treat snack. It's taken a while for me to consider them to be a meal at all.
Equally he was surprised that I would make a roast mid-week (I make those little mini-roasts) because he's from a big family, roast was a special occasion weekend thing and quite a big deal - it was at my house too, but I've discovered it's actually a really quick prep dinner for us during the working week.

Last night's dinner was marinated grilled chicken breast - I just pop them in a bag with honey, tamari (or soy) and garlic, give them a flattening bash with the rolling pin to tenderise and stick them under the grill after a little stint in the fridge.

The real treat is one of my favourite salads. It's a version of a salad my lovely friend Rachel once made a group of us for lunch. I tasted it and immediately added it to the repetoire!

A bag of salad leaves
Small pieces of oven roasted pumpkin - sprinkled with oil, salt and pepper and roasted in a 200C oven for half an hour
pan fried chopped chorizo
grape tomatoes
avocado
feta cheese
sliced red onion soaked briefly in balsamic vinegar.

add some olive oil to the leftover balsamic and spritz over the salad.

It's delicious and filling - a meal in itself really!

So tell me, what did you have for dinner tonight?

Baby Chocolate Souffle

The first time I made these souffles was about ten years ago. I think it's the first proper recipe I ever felt a passion to master and to be honest it's taken be about this long to get it working - not because I'm quite that hopeless a cook but more that I've recently discovered that I've been reading the recipe wrong for ten years (!!) and souffles require a bit of a delicate balance - the misreading of tsp for tbsp threw the sugar amounts WAY out. It's always tasted good but never quite rose properly. As you can see from the photograph this one certainly didn't have that problem.

I'm not just a glutton for punishment. I think souffle to 21 year old me was what macarons are to me now, a niggling challenge that I don't mind trying over and over as they generally taste good anyway and the small improvements give me a bit of a confidence boost!

Really this souffle is nothing to be scared of. It is very simple and the result is a much more impressive pay off than the effort - which is always a winner in my book!

The only thing is that they will sink after 10 mins or so - every time. So they absolutely must be served immediately.

Proof of the age of this recipe is where I got it from - an instyle magazine from around the year 2000 that states it to be Sarah Michelle Gellar's (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame) favourite dessert from LA's Bistro Garden.
To be honest, that fact that she liked it is probably what made me try it at the time and I'm glad I did however dated and embarrassing! Be encouraged that it was apparently also adored by Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor, some decidedly more classy options if Buffy is not quite yours.

Preheat the oven to 200C, rub 2 small ramekins with butter and sprinkle the sides and bottom with sugar to coat, tapping out the excess.

Separate an egg in preparation for later.

in a small saucepan combine-

2 Tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons cocoa
1 Tablespoon plain flour
1/4 cup milk

Cook carefully over a low heat until mixture boils and is smooth and thickened - this doesn't take long at all!
Remove from heat and stir in a teaspoon of vanilla (I use vanilla bean paste). Set aside

Beat the egg white until foamy and slowly add 2 Tablespoons of sugar until sugar is dissolved and soft peaks form.

Stir egg yolk into chocolate base and then fold the base into the egg whites gently.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared ramekins to about 3/4 full.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Important Stepford Secrets I've discovered!

- Get your measurements correct
- Grease and sugar the top rim of the ramekin for better rising
- don't be afraid to check your souffle after 10 mins.

(In my fan forced powerhouse of a gas oven the souffle's were actually ready at 10 mins but I have notes scrawled around the recipe that say at previous homes 15mins was perfect.)

- make sure the centres are still wobbly
- Bake them on a tray for ease of getting in and out of the oven.
- Dust with icing sugar to hide any imperfections.

An added bonus is that it is a very easy one to make dairy-free. Replacing the regular milk with soy seems to make no difference at all (honestly I think it's just a moisture thing and even water would work) and I grease the pots with home brand woolies margarine which has the bonus of being inexpensive as well as dairy free.

I'd love to say that this was a romantic dessert for 2 but the lovely husband was on a night shift so I'm afraid I had to do him a favour and eat his too. But don't think too badly of me, the original recipe is for souffle for one in a 280g ramekin. So technically I only ate a single portion - well that's what I'll continue to tell myself...

Knitted Pink Donut

Well I didn't bake it, or deep fry it for that matter, but it was still made by my hands and knitting seems like an awfully Stepford kind of thing to do.

I'm not generally a successful knitter. I blame it on my poor mathematics and propensity for distraction. Plain and stocking stitch scarves are about all I can muster when I get a bout of knitting fever - usually when it's cold outside. Counting rows and stitches is just too tricky and patterns just go out the window when there is something good on DVD to watch, but this time I was inspired.

The original inspiration came from www.thecupcakecourier.com.au where they sell Lark Knitted Gifts. I saw the cutest little pink donut on sale and wanted to buy it for my brand new niece but they were out of stock and as they are hand knitted in Bangladesh I didn't think it was likely they'd be back in store anytime soon.

So I gave myself a lecture about building some skills that actually require focus and concentration and had a hunt for a pattern. I found a free one on www.ravelry.com and decided to have a go. It has a pretty pink icing with embroidery thread sprinkles and a lovely caramel donut colour underneath (in case you can't see it in the picture!)

It was my first go of knitting in the round with double pointed needles and it wasn't too hard, with encouragement from my lovely workmate Kate who said something like "Just keep at it, the first few rows feel like you're wrestling an octopus but persevere and it gets easier". She was right.

This one is for little Zahra, but she'll have to wait until I find a pattern to make a little something for her sister too!

In the meantime the next project is a "hope bear" - this one is for a lovely charity that gives the bears to cancer patients in hospitals all over the place, if you're a knitter and you're keen send me a message and I'll forward on the details to get their patterns. Here is an article about their Coffs Harbour operation but my mum tells me there is a pick up in the Shire too. Trust me the pattern is so simple even I can manage it!! Albeit more slowly that mum who is pumping them out in their dozens!

http://www.coffscoastindependent.com.au/news/local/news/general/hope-bears-charity-wins-state-award/1792478.aspx

Have a nice day everyone x S

Garlic and Cheese Quickbread

Tupperware - If you know me then you'll know my intense dislike of it. I think it's born of sitting through the obligatory parties where you feel as if you are letting down a friend if you don't spend a ridiculous amount of money on something you can get for $2 at go-lo - sure it's purported to live forever but what modern woman wants to keep containers forever! I'm much more likely to buy fresh ones with the colour of my mood emblazoned on them whenever I feel like it!

I also have a grievance with a once gifted Tupperware chefs knife that has NEVER been sharp and had a warning of it's intense sharpness on it's wrapper - the thing is only good for chopping banana!

Anyway grievances aside - I received the "Cook some more" Tupperware cookbook as a wedding gift and as I am always tempted by recipes -wherever they come- from last night I had a flick through and decided to have a go at the garlic and cheese quickbread to accompany our steak and salad dinner.

It is quite a remarkable recipe - so very quick indeed! particularly as I had ready grated cheese, ready minced garlic and oddly had a chopped red onion sitting in a (go-lo) container in my fridge. The only misrepresentation is the word "bread" in the title - if you expect bread you will be disappointed. It's more like a savoury scone loaf, crumbly and dry but not with the buttery flavour of scones. The preparation took me literally 5 mins and the cooking 40mins.

Whisk in a bowl 1/3 cup milk, 1/3 cup oil and 3 eggs. Sift then stir in 2 1/4 cups self raising flour, 2tsp baking powder, 3tsp minced garlic, 100g grated cheese, salt and pepper. Press into a sprayed loaf tin top with 100g more cheese plus the onion and bake at 180C for 40mins.

Be generous with the cheese, salt and pepper. If you've got it I'd add bacon and some chopped herbs just to lift it. It really needs to be eaten right away with butter spread over each slice. It would also be worth a try in a muffin tin for individual portions.

Basically in the end it's kind of odd in flavour and texture but weirdly moreish! The house smelled divine, of cheese and garlic and onion and it looks really impressive - well worth a try even if it's just for how easy it is.

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

This recipe is from Donna Hay's 50th Issue Autumn 2010
I love the quirky ones and stout cake sounded like something fun to try.

You should've seen me in the bottle shop dithering over where to find the Guiness - it's never been clearer that we're not really drinkers at our place. The kind salesguy finally took pity on me and showed me the fridge section where they keep such things without laughing at me for being so naive. I finally explained that I was using it for cooking so I would seem like less of a fool and bought a bottle of wine too because he was so nice :)

But it was worth the foolishness - the stout makes for a deep, rich, dark cake that isn't too sweet and balances beautifully with the sweet salty frosting.

The original recipe is for a single cake but I made cupcakes because they are so much easier to take to work - plus I got some gorgeous papers for my birthday that were dark and beautiful too. This worked out well as it cut the 1.5hr cooking down to about 30mins in my super fan forced oven.

I also altered the frosting because I was almost out of icing sugar so it ended up as:

1 cup Peanut Butter
2T Icing sugar
1/2 cup caster sugar
1T butter
1tsp vanilla bean paste
a splash of milk (until it reached the right consistency)

The frosting was a little oily - really needing more icing sugar but tasted lovely - think Reese's peanut butter cup. I swirled it on and added a slice of mars to pretty it up.

The work ladies liked them for their lack of sweetness although the peanut butter was not to everyone's taste - but the Reese's adorers really enjoyed these.

Good fun to make and decadent but not sickly to eat- perfect!

Thai Beef Salad

Just saying it makes my mouth water! How do the Thai people manage to get flavours so right. That hot, sour, salty, sweet balance that makes your tongue sing.

Plus it's healthy. This one is for the lovely friend who told me the other day that she enjoys reading my blog but can't make anything as she's on a diet. This is my version of diet food but I'm very fussy about it too.

I've eaten some terrible Thai Beef Salads in restaurants - the one with a soggy iceberg lettuce base, the one with pepper rather than chilli, the one with enormous hunks of beef. Ugh.

So I took it upon myself to make the perfect one - well, my perfect one. I acknowledge that my tastes may not be everyone else's and that it may not be authentic, i never have been to Thailand.

My first preference is using torn mint and coriander as the salad base. No salad leaves at all, I just don't think you need them.

Top with halved cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumber, sliced red capsicum (never green!!) and sliced red onion.

Then the beef, lean strips stir fried until toasty.

But most vital here is the dressing - make it to your taste and adjust the amounts as you go but basically

Lime Juice (not lemon!)
Fish Sauce
Soy Sauce
Brown sugar (could be palm sugar if you have it)
Chopped Chilli

Optional extras that I occasionally bother with but didn't this time:
sesame oil
minced garlic
minced ginger
finely chopped Kaffir lime leaf

I just toss the dressing through the salad, top with beef and then eat with great delight.

As Husband is allergic to chilli I leave it out of the dressing and just add it to mine. He's very new to Thai having avoided it fearing the chilli but we've got past the "just pad thai" to pad see ew and even a massaman curry! Maybe if I keep making it at home and altering to suit him he may get as addicted as I am.

Lemon Meringue Tarts

I've spend the last few days in bed sick which I hate. Sitting still just doesn't come naturally to me. So when I finally started feeling better at about midday today I got the itch to prove to myself that I was well again by baking up a storm.

Lovely Husband had brought some fresh lemons home from a friend at work so naturally that most traditional of Stepford treats came to mind - The Lemon Meringue Pie. I always enjoy making it because it is so simple but the finish is so spectacular, with the added bonus of being basically dairy free depending on the pastry you use.

I used a shop bought shortcrust (well, I have been unwell) and a Donna Hay recipe (from Modern Classics 2) that I tweaked a tiny bit. It turns out her amounts are perfect to make 12 tiny tarts in a muffin tray which was a necessity considering I don't own any of the required 6x9 pie tins. The muffin tray turned out to be brilliant for blind baking, cooling all in the fridge and sticking the whole lot under the grill in one go - very low maintenance.

To start with I cut out pastry circles and blind baked them in the muffin tin for 10mins and then 10mins without the baking paper and rice. My favourite Stepford tip for blind baking is to scrunch up the baking paper before flattening it out and popping the rice in - it always fits much more easily. Let them cool in the tray.

Then I made a lemon curd. 1 cup water, 3T cornflour, 1/2 cup sugar,1/2 cup lemon juice. I always check the lemon juice - if it's really sour I'd only add 1/4 cup and add a little extra water. Pop this all in a saucepan and whisk until boiling and thick. Take off the heat and whisk in 2 egg yolks and 60g butter. Set aside to cool.

When cool put a tablespoon into each pastry cup and chill.

The meringue is simply 3 egg whites and 3/4 cup sugar whipped up in the Kitchenaid until stiff and shiny. I put a table spoon on top of each tart and then put the whole tray under the grill until toasty.

I can't believe how good these are and how much the melty meringue almost approximates the squishy richness of a dairy product, sometimes us dairy intolerant folk need a bit of a treat too :)

I'm sure they must have therapeutic qualities. I'm feeling even better already!