Jazzy baked beans on toast

Lately, The Boy and I have been having brunch instead of breakfast and lunch. It's not entirely intentional but by the time we're done with our coffees, morning errands and are ready to cook, it's about 10am and therefore more brunch than breakfast, though we still call it breakfast. We're finding this works quite well for us and it means we can have a late afternoon snack and then a slightly later dinner.

We were debating what to have for breakfast this morning and originally it was supposed to be waffles with strawberries (The Boy bought some gorgeous fresh strawberries a few days ago!) and bacon. The difficult thing? The bacon was still frozen and we were out of eggs for the waffle batter.

Since we were out of a few things, we decided on a quick run to the grocery store and saw that some Heinz baked beans were on sale. We could get a large size three pack for $2.99! Score! After seeing the baked beans, The Boy decided that he wanted baked beans for breakfast instead.

The thing I love about baked beans is that it is super simple to make. To keep it really basic, I could have just warmed up the baked beans in a pot but we like to jazz up our baked beans a little.

Here's what we did:

Ingredients:

• 1 400g can baked beans
• 2/3 punnet grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 green capsicum, diced
• Handful of ham or prosciutto, diced
• 1 teaspoon chicken stock
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
• 1/3 cup water
• 4 slices toast to serve

Instructions:

• Put all the ingredients into a pot. Stir thoroughly until everything is well mixed.
• Heat on high and bring to a boil, simmer for 5 minutes on low or until the tomatoes are starting to soften.
• Serve on slices of toast and eat it while it is still hot

We used prosciutto with ours since I had a hunk of prosciutto in the fridge. I slice off some 1/2 cm hunks and then diced them up into small pieces. The Boy said that the prosciutto turned the baked beans from pedestrian to classy. Well, to be exact he said the prosciutto might have been too classy for baked beans but it sure did make the dish taste good. :-)

For some reason, we often forget that jazzed up baked beans makes a very satisfying meal. The Boy kept saying that we definitely need to remember to have baked beans more often. It's a lovely addition to the other things that we regularly do for breakfast.

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


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Chicken liver pate ... in the Thermomix

I am a huge fan of pate but don't eat it that often as I do not like the store bought stuff. I recently went to one of my favorite restaurants and they changed their menu to include a pate on it. Of course, I had to try it and instantly got addicted and just wanted more.

Being new to the town that we are living in now, I didn't know where I could find liver of any sort, so I asked around on Facebook and a chef friend of mine suggested a butcher, while others suggested a hatchery. Turns out the local hatchery does not sell to the public, but I can order the livers in (any type - chicken, duck or goose) from the butcher and it takes a day to deliver, which is pretty good. I just need to plan ahead a little bit.

So, I ordered some chicken liver for the pate and enquired about goose and duck. Goose is available but takes longer to deliver, also much more expensive. Both chicken and duck are readily available.

I could not order in small quantities and the minimum order was 2kg, so I have quite a bit of chicken liver! :-) Enough to make up 4 batches.

I also love the fact that I can find almost anything for the Thermomix and found this recipe for the pate in the Thermomix.

Here's how I made it:

Ingredients:

• 500 grams chicken livers
• 125 grams Butter
• 250 grams bacon
• 1 onion
• 60 grams any spirit, eg vodka, scotch, rum
• 1 dash Garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• pinch salt
• 2 tablespoons cream

Seal:

• 250g of butter melted in the microwave to clarify

Instructions:

• Place quartered onion and bacon into TM jug and turbo pulse to dice up.
• Add washed and deveined livers and all other ingredients except cream.
• Cook for 15 minutes at 100 degrees reverse speed 1.
• Add cream and blitz 10 seconds speed 7.
• pour into various bowls/containers.
• Can be frozen

Seal:

• Spoon the clarified butter on top of pate to completely cover it to form a seal. This will help the pate keep longer. Be careful not to spoon any of the milk solids into the pate or you will get a cloudy seal.
  

I did follow the recipe fairly closely but was not sure what they meant by "dash" of garlic powder, so I used 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder and also 1/4 teaspoon of salt, though I do know what a pinch of salt is. (The 1/4 teaspoon of salt was not too much. You can hardly taste it.)

I also wanted my pate to be smoother, so I did an additional blitz of 10 seconds on speed 8. I think I should have blitzed it a bit more, as I would have liked it even smoother than it turned out.

The pate came out of the Thermomix very hot and needed to be cooled before serving. I put the pate into 5 medium sized ramekins and filled it to the line on the ramekin then sealed it with the clarified butter.

After that, I popped the pate into the fridge to set. This took about 3 - 4 hours.

I am really pleased with how the pate turned out. It was delicious, and it also smelled and tasted like pate. The Boy who is not a fan of pate, really enjoyed it too. We had a lovely afternoon tea of pate on toast points, accompanied with champagne. Very lush indeed!.

I think I am going to try this same recipe with duck livers at some point.

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


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Grand Marnier souffle ... in the Thermomix

I have recently decided that I need to spend more time working on and testing dessert recipes as desserts seem to be the most lacking component of my cooking repertoire. As a result, we did a little shopping trip to my favorite bargain book store and picked up a heap of dessert recipe books.

Even before the recipe books, I decided that I would like to try my hand at a souffle because I wanted to focus more on individual serve desserts rather than big pies and cakes (plus I suck at baking!).

I had a few souffle recipes in the books I got but randomly found a Youtube video of a really corny American guy (you have to watch the video to get what I mean!) making a Grand Marnier souffle to impress a girl on Valentine's Day. Of course, if you want to make the souffle the traditional method, by all means, just do what the guy did in his video (with his freakishly small spatula!). I have also included links below to the written recipes.

I decided to study the recipe and convert it for the Thermomix because (1) I could not find a Thermomix Grand Marnier souffle recipe and (2) The Boy really wanted a Grand Marnier souffle. He's been talking about it forever.

It took quite a while to convert the recipe from a regular recipe to a Thermomix recipe and I worked on it for a little over an hour, researching other souffle recipes to compare and to make sure that I got the timing and settings right. I have to admit, going into making the souffle that I was quite stressed and anxious as I did not know if it would turn out, or rise, or taste good. (The initial batter was not tasty at all!!)

Here's the recipe for what I did:

Ingredients: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Grand-Marnier-Souffle/Detail.aspx 

• 1 tablespoon butter, melted
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 5 teaspoons butter, melted
• 5 teaspoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cold milk
• 2 egg yolks (room temperature)
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
• 1 tablespoon brandy-based orange liqueur (such as Grand Marnier®)
• 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 egg whites
• 1/4 cup white sugar, divided

Creme Anglaise (souffle filling): http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Creme-Anglaise-Sauce/Detail.aspx 

• 2 large egg yolks (room temperature)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon brandy-based orange liqueur (such as Grand Marnier®)
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

• Butter and sugar ramekins and set aside on top of baking sheet.  Butter the ramekin and use a brush with strokes going straight up the sides. It encourages the rise to work properly.
• Heat oven up to 180°C
• Add butter, flour, milk, egg yolks, orange zest, grand marnier liquer and vanilla extract into Thermomix. Cook on  7min/90C/speed 4. VERY IMPORTANT: Check it at 5 minutes and make sure that is has not gotten too thick. Add more milk if necessary. You can't just let it run for the full 7 minutes without checking it, as your batter will probably end up too thick and dense, and not creamy enough! It needs to be a thick, creamy consistency. Transfer to a bowl and set aside to cool.
• In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites and slowly add sugar until they form soft peaks. Insert the butterfly whisk and whisk the egg whites on speed 3 measuring cup OFF / 4 minutes. Add sugar slowly when it starts to foam. Continue whisking until soft peaks (the whites shouldn't be very firm).
• Pour grand marnier mixture into a bowl when it is lukewarm, add 1/3 of the beaten egg whites and stir vigorously to loosen it. Then, add the remaining egg whites and fold them in gently in order to keep as much air in as possible.
• Bake in the preheated oven until risen and browned, 16-20 minutes.
• To serve, take out of oven, sprinkle with icing sugar. Then, make a hole in the middle of the souffle and pour in 3 tablespoons of the Creme Anglaise. Makes it very lush! Serve and eat immediately!!
  

Creme Anglaise (souffle filling):

• Add everything into TM bowl. Cook 8 min/80C/speed 3.
• Pour into a small gravy boat or a milk jug to serve.

This recipe makes 2 medium sized souffles. If you want to make more, just double or triple the recipe as required.

From start to finish, between prep and cooking time, this took between 45 - 60 minutes, so if you are planning on making this for dessert after a dinner party, be prepared for that. It could take a while between courses.

Also, I didn't slowly pour the sugar into the egg whites to slowly whisk to make soft peaks. I just dumped all the sugar in and whisked away. I did, however, stop and check while whisking and whisked a total of about 4 - 4.5 minutes. The meringue was quite soft (slighly liquidy but not runny) and very glossy in texture. I expect that if you didn't want to check it and just ran it for 4 minutes, you could be okay, but with meringues I like to be safe and check regularly. It's a fine line and a short time between just right and too much!

This was a two Thermomix bowl jobbie for me. I used the first bowl to make the batter. Then immediately switched to the second bowl to make the meringue. After that, I washed (okay, The Boy washed, not me!) the first bowl and set it aside to use to make the Creme Anglaise. If you do not have two Thermomix bowls, then you will have to quickly wash and dry between each step.

I got so darned excited when I checked (okay, stalked!) the oven to see if it had risen at all, and it had!!

I have to say, I am super happy with the way that this turned out. It was light, fluffy and delicious. Adding the Creme Anglaise in the middle made it super decadent. When you poke a hole in the souffle to pour in the Creme Anglaise, just bear in mind that your souffle will deflate somewhat because of you putting a hole in it.

The Boy was super pleased with the dessert (we had it for afternoon tea as I was recipe testing!) and even went so far to say that it was the best thing he had ever put in his mouth. :-) Of course, that compliment from him made me very happy!

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd

Find me around SOCIAL MEDIA:
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Pork dumplings with chili oil

I recently bought a cookbook called "Asian Wraps & Rolls" by Vicki Liley, which I've started using. The reason I bought this cookbook was also the reason for this post. These very yummy pork dumplings. I was browsing through the cookbook while at the store and when I saw the recipe for pork dumplings, it sealed the deal for me!

I have to say that I love dumplings. Well, both The Boy and I do and we've been buying ours from Chinese grocery stores frozen, which we would then steam for a snack or a light lunch.

However, I wanted to make them myself (so much more control as we don't live near any Chinese grocery stores now) and this recipe made it a great opportunity for me to do so.

Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

• 150g ground minced pork
• 150g jumbo shrimp / king prawns, shelled and deveined (I use frozen ones that have been defrosted)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon peeled and freshly grated ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoons freshly chopped cilantro (fresh coriander)
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh Vietnamese mint
• 16 wonton skins

For chili oil:

• 1 tablespoon chili oil
• 1 teaspoons kechap manis
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon Chinese red vinegar

Instructions:

• In a good processor, combine pork, shrimp, garlic, ginger and salt. Process for 20 seconds, or until well blended. Transfer to a bowl and add cilantro and mint. Using wet hands, mix until well combined.
• Place wonton skins on a work surface. Cover remaining skins with a clean damp cloth.
• Place 1 tablespoon of pork filling in centre of wonton skin and brush edges of skin with water. Gather edges around filling, forming a basket. Gently squeeze centre of dumpling so that the filling is exposed at top. Tap base of dumpling on work surface to flatten. Set aside on a tray and cover with plastic wrap. Repeat with remaining wonton skins and filling.
• Line a medium sized bamboo steamer with parchment (baking paper). Fill a medium sized wok about 1/3 full with water (steamer should not touch the water). Bring water to a boil. Arrange the dumplings in steamer. Cover with lid. Place steamer over boiling water. Steam for 12 minutes, adding more water to wok as necessary.
• Meanwhile, stir all chili oil ingredients together in a small bowl. Lift steamer off work and carefully remove dumplings from steamer. Serve hot, with chili oil for dipping.

I doubled the recipe as I wanted to make a bit more so that I would have some leftovers for lunch the next day as I made these for an afternoon snack and also perhaps, if there was enough, to freeze for another day. Alas, between us eating them (The Boy had seconds) and me giving some of them away to my neighbour, we didn't have much left. There's enough for me to have a small serve for lunch tomorrow. I'll need to make more next time.

I did do a few things differently, just because I had some ingredients (in different forms) already in the fridge and I wanted to use them. I used the same measurements (just doubled) for the substitutes.

Instead of freshly chopped coriander and ginger, I used a coriander paste and a ginger paste from Gourmet Garden. They do some lovely herb pastes that are excellent quality and taste wonderful.

I also used minced garlic from a jar rather than fresh garlic, again because I had some in the fridge and I was wanting something quick and easy with minimal chopping to get the snack made quickly.

The grocery store did not have Vietnamese mint, so I just used plain old mint. It was a fine substitute.

I put everything except the mint into the food processor (I used my Thermomix!) and mixed it for 10 seconds instead of 20, just because my Thermomix mixes faster. If you are using a regular food processor, try the 20 seconds but keep an eye on your mixture. You don't want to over process it. Then, I hand mixed the mint through the meat mixture, just so that the mint was still in little pieces rather than processed to mush.

When steaming, make sure that you allow quite a bit of space between the dumplings as they do expand in size when they are cooked. I made the mistake of not allowing enough room as I wanted to steam them all in one batch and they got pretty stuck together. Fortunately, I was able to remove them without damaging the wrapper.

These turned out SUPER tasty. We usually put soy and chili sauce over our dumplings, but in reality these did not need them, in particular it did not need the chili sauce.

I hope you try these out. If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


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The all American sloppy joe

The Boy, as you know, will occasionally send me recipes he finds that he thinks are interesting, or that he would like us to try. Quite a while ago, he found a recipe on Facebook for a Philly cheese steak sloppy joe, which basically means, sloppy joe with a piece of cheese in it!

Recently, I decided to try my hand at making it and I followed the recipe. I found the recipe to be rather bland and then added some cayenne pepper to it to spice it up, but it turned out too spicy and not like your typical sloppy joe, or so The Boy said, as I have never had a sloppy joe before.

The next time I tried it, we were having some friends over and because (1) I didn't know if they could eat spicy food and (2) I wanted to make it a bit more authentic but still tasty, I varied the original recipe yet again and came up with something that was just delicious.

Here is what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 small sweet onion chopped
• 1 green bell pepper seeded and chopped
• 1/4 cup steak sauce (like A1 or Worchestershire)
• 1 cup beef broth
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons beef stock powder
• 2 teaspoons of corn flour mixed with a little bit of water
• Provolone cheese
• Sliced pickles / gherkins
• Olive oil
• Hamburger buns

Instructions:

• Crumble the ground beef into a skillet and add the chopped onion and pepper. 
• Begin to cook, when the beef is about half cooked, add the spices, broth and steak sauce. 
• Cook until all items are done and allow to simmer. While simmering, add in corn flour mixture to thicken sauce and continue to cook down/thicken.
• Heat a pan on the stove with some olive oil drizzled right around the pan
• Slice open buns and place the flat side on to the pan and toast the bun till it is golden brown. It's okay if it gets a bit burnt! You may have to rotate the buns to get them toasted equally.
• Heat your oven to 180°C.
• Place buns toasted side up on top of a baking / cookie sheet lined with foil and fill them with the meat mixture. 
• Top each one with a slice of provolone cheese.
• Place in the oven or under the broiler / grill for 3 minutes to melt cheese.
• Once cheese is melted, top with a few slices of the pickles / gherkin and serve.

The extra 2 teaspoons of beef stock powder really adds a robustness and depth to the flavor of the sloppy joe, as does the other spices, so don't skip those. Oh, and don't forget to serve with the pickles or gherkin slices as they really do add a lovely counterpoint to the rich beefy flavors.

This turned out to be super tasty and since I made a double batch, I ended up with leftovers which was super easy for me to heat back up in a pan and cook up for another meal.

Of course, they were also a success with our very Aussie friends, who had never tried such an American dish before.

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd

Find me around SOCIAL MEDIA:
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Steak and fries

For a very long time (2 - 3 years, I think), I was not eating any red meat and certainly not able to handle an entire steak. As a result, my poor darling didn't get any red meat at home (unless it was minced in a spaghetti sauce) and the only time he got a steak was when he went out to a steak house.

Recently, I've been back into the red meats again, slowly but surely. The whole process has taken a good year, but I'm back to eating it again and even craving it slightly.

Last night, The Boy decided that he wanted something simple, steak and fries and that is what he got. It's such a simple meal and so tasty.

Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

• 2 x scotch fillet steaks
• Garlic salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• Green leafy lettuce
• Sweet potato fries (frozen from the store - any type you like)

Instructions:

• Defrost your steaks if they are frozen
• Place onto a plate and drizzle lightly with olive oil, sprinkle with garlic salt and ground pepper
• Heat up a pan to medium heat and place the seasoned side onto the pan
• Cook for about 3 - 4 minutes. While the steak is cooking drizzle a little olive oil onto the top side of the steak and then season again with garlic salt and pepper
• After the 3 - 4 minute mark, turn the steak over and cook again for another 3 - 4 minutes
• Note: this will give you a medium-rare steak. If you want a more cooked steak, leave it in the pan for a longer period of time. If you want a more accurate check of your meat, you can also use a meat thermometer, and you can find the correct temperatures here.
  

For the sweet potato fries:

• Heat up a small saucepan of canola, sunflower or whatever vegetable oil you like that can be used for frying and has a high heat point
• Take the fries out of the freezer, and while the fries are still frozen, drop them in batches (how much will depend on the size of the saucepan you are using) into the saucepan and fry until a golden brown, about 2 - 4 minutes for each batch, depending on your oil temperature
• Remove the fries and drain them in a plate lined with paper towels
• Repeat until all the fries are cooked
• Once all the fries are cooked, remove the paper towel, sprinkle some garlic salt over the fries and toss them to evenly distribute the garlic salt. This will make your sweet potato fries very tasty
• Note: if the oil is hot enough, it will bubble when you drop the fries in. You can do one test fry to check the oil temperature. Also I used sweet potato because I like sweet potato fries, but really, you can use any type of fries you like
  

For the green leafy lettuce salad:

• I just used some salad mix from the store and then dressed with with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Very simple

This dinner turned out to be super tasty and The Boy really enjoyed it a great deal. This is also probably the first time in several years that I have cooked a steak for us for dinner. I think I will be doing it again soon. I really enjoyed it.

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd

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Yummy lemon butter ... in the Thermomix

I have always loved lemon butter and back in the day when I did not know how to cook, I used to ask my dear friend Evie to make me her lemon butter, which was always delicious.

Recently, we came into some lemons, as the lemons were in abundance in the lemon grove on the estate where we live in.

We got a bucket load of lemons and I decided to try my hand at making lemon butter, plus the Thermomix makes it so easy.

Here is the recipe that I used for the lemon butter:

Ingredients:

• Juice 1 large lemon / 2 limes
• 110g caster sugar
• 80g unsalted butter
• 2 eggs

Instructions:

• Insert butterfly into TM bowl and add all ingredients.
• Cook for 8 minutes / 80°C / speed 3.
• Check to see if mixture coats back of spoon, if not cook for another 2-3 minutes or until desired consistency is achieved.
• Place in sterilised jars and chill until thickened.
• Use as filling to make tarts or simply serve as an accompaniment to other sweets.

This lemon butter was super yummy and when it was fresh out of the Thermomix and still warm, I just wanted to eat it by the spoonful.

We had them for morning tea with some scones on the day that I made it, as we had some people come to visit and they enjoyed it to.

This is definitely something that I will be making again.

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd

Find me around SOCIAL MEDIA:
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Homemade strawberry jam ... in the Thermomix

As you may have seen in a previous post, I made butter and buttermilk scones in the Thermomix and that became part of a completely homemade Devonshire Tea.

Of course, with any Devonshire Tea, one needs strawberry jam and so I used the Thermomix to whip up some of that.

It has become a bit of a ritual for us but when we decide we want Devonshire Tea, I will make up scones, jam and whipped cream in the Thermomix. It's all so quick and easy, so if you have a Thermomix, this is something that is easy to whip up, fresh and perfect for company.

The thing I love about making up some jam in the Thermomix is that it makes up a small enough serve that I have jam for a few serves and then I'm done. The next time I need more jam, 20 minutes in the Thermomix and viola! more fresh jam!! It's so simple.

I remember when we lived in the mountains and had an orchard. We would have so much fruit that we would not know what to do with it. I tried making my own jam and would end up with jars and jars and jars of it that I would not be able to finish. Then, we made some friends who would sell jam in the local markets and offered our fruit to them in exchange for some jars of jam they made, but even then, we would end up with jars and jars.

The Thermomix way is perfect. A single serve of jam every time.

I have to say that I have grown to quite love fresh, homemade strawberry jam. The taste is divine.

This is a very simple recipe that I found on one of the Thermomix recipe communities, though I don't recall exactly which one. It's so amazingly simple and yet delicious.

Here's the RECIPE for the jam:

Ingredients:

• 1 package strawberries (250g punnet)
• 1 granny smith apple, quartered and peeled
• 120 grams sugar
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Bean Paste (or Extract)

Instructions:

• Add to thermomix bowl all ingredients.
• Cook for around 20 min/varoma/speed 1 (longer if you want thicker)- yummo!
• Blend for around 30 seconds / speed 4 if you want it smooth – quick, easy, DELICIOUS! Store in a sterilised glass jar in the fridge and with this quantity of sugar, will keep well for 1 month+ (if it lasts that long!)

* Makes 1 small jar

This jam, of course, is a total hit with The Boy. He has enjoyed slathering gobs and gobs of it onto the scones that I've made to go with it for a lovely Devonshire Tea. I have even made a (very amateur) video on it, which I will link below.

If you decide to make this, with or without the Thermomix (though I don't know how without - probably plenty of standing and stirring!), do let me know. Be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


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Making butter and buttermilk scones ... all done in the Thermomix!!

The Thermomix is indeed a rather marvelous machine and the more I use it, the more I love it. There just doesn't seem to be much it can't do ... okay, it can't bake and it can't slow cook, but short of that ... it can do most things.

One weekend, a little while ago, I got very ambitious and adventurous. I decided that I wanted to make my own butter and also then use the buttermilk resulting from that to make buttermilk scones ... why waste? It was an ambitious day, because I also made my own jam and whipped cream in the Thermomix but that's for another post on another day.

I looked around the interwebz for recipes for butter and found this marvelous YouTube video with instructions on how to make butter. I watched the video several times to get a good grasp of it, as I was rather nervous about the whole butter making thing, and also found a written recipe that I was able to print out and follow.  I can't remember precisely where I found the original recipe as I do not have it written down (I'm sorry!!) but here it is anyway.

RECIPE for butter:

Ingredients:

• 600g pure cream (not thickened cream!!)
  

Instructions:

• Insert the butterfly and measure in the cream:
• • 600g pure cream (make sure it's pure cream - thickened cream may not work)
• Whip on speed 4 until it separates into butter and buttermilk. It will start to bump around, so stay near your machine and turn it off after a couple of seconds of 'bumping'. It usually takes only a minute or two, but I have had older cream take up to 5 minutes.
• Strain the buttermilk by pouring it through the strainer/rice basket into a bowl. Squeeze the butter well with the spatula (against the side of the bowl) to get out as much of the buttermilk as you can. The buttermilk is lovely to bake with in scones, breads, cakes and pancakes (if you can have dairy), so don't throw it out!
• Remove the butterfly from the bowl and pour about 500g icy cold water over the butter. Mix it on speed 4 for a few seconds to rinse it. Strain the water off into the sink, pressing the butter against the side of the bowl with the spatula and pouring through the strainer/rice basket again. The butter needs to be rinsed twice, or until the water is clear. If you leave any buttermilk in the butter, it will turn sour more quickly.
• Give the butter a good squeeze to get rid of any remaining water. This can be done with the spatula, squeezing the butter against the side of the bowl; or you can wrap a piece of muslin around the butter and squeeze it; or you can just use your hands.
• Now make sure the bowl is empty, and weigh the butter back in so you know how much you have. Then add in that much oil and water.
• • Eg: If you end up with 300g of butter, add 300g of oil and 300g of water. Also add a little salt if you like. I add a bit less than a teaspoon of salt to this amount of butter, oil and water.
  • • macadamia oil (or olive oil if you like the taste)
    • filtered water
    • sea salt/himalayan salt (opt.)
• Insert the butterfly, and whip the butter, oil, water and salt on speed 4 for about 20 seconds, or until well combined. Pour into a container and keep in the fridge.

(You do pour it into the container as it is quite a thick liquidy consistency when done, but it does set once it's been in the fridge.)

The butter turned out very well and very smooth. As you can see from the picture, it made two decent sized containers of butter. The butter lasted me about a month in the fridge. Do be careful with the butter and use it up quickly if you can, since it has no preservatives in it, it doesn't last as long as store bought butter.

I didn't put enough salt into the butter, so it was a bit bland. I was being very conservative as I was worried that I would over salt, but I didn't. So just be sure that you check the taste with the amount of salt you add in! You might need to adjust it somewhat.

Also, the macadamia nut oil is very mild, so it doesn't have much flavor at all. If you wanted something a bit more robust in flavor, try olive oil instead.

Next time, I plan on making some garlic and herb butter.

After making the butter, there was a fair bit of buttermilk leftover that resulted from making the butter. Instead of pouring it away, I dug up a recipe for making buttermilk scones and planned for us to have a Devonshire Tea. There was exactly the right amount of buttermilk from the butter for this scone recipe ... lucky me!

Here is the RECIPE that I used for the scones:

Ingredients:

• 300 grams Self Raising Flour
• 20 grams raw sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 60 grams Butter, Chilled and cut in cubes
• 200 grams buttermilk

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees (fanforced). Line a baking tray with baking paper.
• Place self raising flour, sugar, salt and butter in to TM bowl. 10 seconds/speed 6 or until it resembles breadcrumbs. 
• Add buttermilk into mixing bowl -1 minute/knead setting or until dough comes together. Lightly flour the bench top and empty the dough out. 
•  Work the dough until it comes together and roll out to about 3cm thick. Use a glass or round cookie cutter to cut out circles around 4cm and place on prepared trays, touching each other. Repeating this until all dough has been used up.
• Lightly brush some milk onto top of scones.
• Bake for approx 12 minutes or until golden brown. (more like 20 minutes)

Makes 7 regular sized scones

The scones were very easy to make and tasted wonderful. I am definitely doing this again, but if I don't have buttermilk from recently made butter, I will just buy the buttermilk.

If you do make these, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.

I would love to hear from you!!

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Frosty Wendy's chocolate shake ... in the Thermomix

Every now and then (these days more often than not) The Boy has been finding recipes off Facebook and suggesting that I try them.

Most recently, he found this chocolate shake recipe, which I made in the Thermomix. If you don't have a Thermomix, just do it in a blender, but make sure that your blender can blend ice.

We tried this out one very hot Summer's day (and I'm only now posting about it! ... well, it's Summer in the Northern Hemisphere!) and it totally hit the spot.

Here's the really simple recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup / 225g Almond Milk
• about 25 ice cubes 
• 1/2 tsp / 2.5g Vanilla 
• 1-2 Tbsp / 20g unsweetened Cocoa powder 
• 1 Banana
• 2 tsp / 10g brown sugar (optional)

Instructions:

• Add everything into Thermomix, blend on speed 8 until smooth

This turned out to be very tasty and quite a dark chocolate shake cos I used a dark chocolate (are they all dark? I don't know!!) cocoa powder.

Of course, if you don't have a Thermomix, a blender will work just as well, just make sure your blender will blend ice cubes.

I hope you enjoy this. If you make this, please post pictures for me and tag me on either Instagram or Twitter. :-)

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Slow cooked braised garlic chicken ORIGINAL

I've done a lot of slow cooked beef recently, so this week, I decided to slow cook chicken instead.

I once again delved into my Essentials of Slow Cooking cookbook and looked for a chicken recipe.

The first recipe I came across was the slow cooked braised garlic chicken dish and the second one was a chicken and sausage gumbo. I don't have a lot of ingredients in the fridge right now as we haven't done much of a shop and we weren't planning a huge shop this weekend, so I went with the recipe that sounded tasty and had the fewest ingredients. This was the braised garlic chicken. :-)

Here's the recipe for it:

Ingredients:

• 8 pieces chicken thigh, deboned
• Salt and pepper
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 4 heads of garlic, separated into cloves, unpeeled **
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

** Note: 

Four whole heads of garlic might sound like a lot, but as it cooks, the garlic mellows and thickens, adding depth of flavor to the pan juices that are served over the chicken. There is no need to peel the garlic since it will be softened after cooking and then strained. The pulp of the cooked garlic imparts a wonderful flavor and helps thicken the sauce.

Instructions:

• Season the chicken all over with salt and pepper. In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, warm the canola oil. Working in batches if necessary, add the chicken and cook, turning until well browned, 7 - 10 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.
• Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat in the pan. Add the garlic cloves and saute over medium-high heat until lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Pour in the wine and deglaze the pan, stirring and scraping the brown bits on the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon.
• Transfer the chicken to a slow cooker. Sprinkle with thyme and add the garlic mixture. Cover and cook until the chicken is tender and opaque throughout, 3 hours on the low heat setting.
• Transfer the chicken to a platter and cover loosely with aluminium foil to keep warm. Set a fine mesh sieve over the saucepan and strain the pan juices. Press on the garlic cloves to extract as much liquid and pulp as possible. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat and season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer the chicken to a warmed platter and top with the sauce. Serve at once.

So I pretty much followed the instructions (cooking-wise), since it was pretty straight forward. The whole sauteing the garlic with the peel still on was a bit odd but I did it anyway. It did brown up quite nicely.

I did do something a little different with the chicken. The Boy does not like bone in his meat, so I used chicken thighs instead and used 6 chicken thighs halved. This will give us 4 meals, or 2 serves for dinner, so we will eat one serve for dinner tonight and have the rest for leftovers later in the week.

I also coated the chicken in flour as well as salt and pepper, since the flour will thicken the sauce as it cooks.

I think because I used chicken thighs, there wasn't the juices or fat that the recipe talked about, so I compensated with chicken stock for sauce, and added 2 cups of chicken stock, which just covered the chicken in the pot. I decided that 2 cups was a decent amount of sauce and it would thicken up into a nice sauce while it cooks.

I cooked mine in a slow cooker, but since I always slow cook in the oven, my slow cooking method was to put everything into a Dutch oven, then bring it to a boil and put it into the oven to slow cook for 3 hours at 120°C.

While cooking, the skins of the garlic came off for most of the garlic, so I fished them out of the pot as I checked on it intermittently. As such, there was only 1 or 2 garlic that I needed to remove the peel from.

Instead of straining the garlic through a sieve, I just mushed it up in the pot with a wooden spoon.

After slow cooking the chicken for 3 hours, the sauce had cooked down quite a bit, so after I took out the chicken to get to the garlic, I also added back 1.5 cups of stock to the pot to get more liquid in the pot and the dish.

Once I got the stock into the pot, I put the chicken back into the pot and brought it back to a boil and simmered for about 10 minutes just to thicken the sauce back up again.

This turned out to be an extremely tasty dish. Not garlicky at all, surprisingly, considering how much garlic was used. Just a very mellow and rich flavor. We had it over quinoa and a side salad. Uber tasty!!!

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Awesome carrot cake muffins ... in the Thermomix

I came across this recipe for carrot muffins a long time ago and it said it's "awesome" so it must be good, right? :-p

Anyhow, I was in the mood to bake today (my version of baking!!) and decided that carrot muffins were the way to go.

I have converted the recipe to make in the Thermomix because that's pretty much how I do all my baking, but if you don't have a Thermomix, then by all means just use the original recipe. It's very simple to do.

It's also looked like a very simple recipe, which is just the sort of recipe that I need.

Here's the converted recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup raisins
• 2 cups warm water
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 cups shredded carrots (about 4 small carrots)
• 1 jar Betty Crocker vanilla cream frosting

Instructions:

• Combine raisins and water in a small bowl. Let soak for 15 minutes. Drain raisins of water, discard water, set raisins aside.
• Grate carrots in Thermomix, speed 5 for 7 seconds - you want the carrots to still be quite chunky but small chunks, use your judgement about the size! Remove from Thermomix.
• Put eggs, oil and brown sugar into the Thermomix. Speed 7 for 5 seconds.
• Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon into Thermomix. Speed 7 for 5 seconds. Make sure it is mixed well. If not, give it another 3 seconds.
• Put in carrots and drained raisins. Reverse speed 7 for 15 seconds. Open lid, stir mix things around and make sure all the carrots and raisins are mixed through the batter. Reverse speed 7 for 20 seconds to make sure it is thoroughly mixed through.
• Preheat oven to 160°C.
• Spray muffin tray with oil. Pour mixture into muffin tray and bake for 30 minutes or until muffins are ready (they should come out clean when you stick a knife in it).
• Repeat baking until all batter is gone.
• Let muffins cool for 30 minutes and then frost the muffins with the vanilla cream frosting.

Let me just say that this recipe is super simple, :-) which fits right into my criteria of being easy to make. If you have been following me for any length of time, you will know that my baking skills are very limited, and so far has been limited to banana bread muffins and zucchini muffins. I'm pleased to have this to add to my very small repertoire.

I didn't have any raisins but had some sultanas in the pantry, so I used those instead.

I might have ended up with 4 cups of carrots instead of 3 because I was not sure of the quantity and used too many carrots.

The apartment smelled absolutely amazing while baking this. I could smell the cinnamon in particular.

I couldn't wait the full 30 minutes because I was so anxious to try it, so I only waited about 3 minutes, but that was for only 1 of the muffins that I just had to try immediately while it was still warm out of the oven. I love trying muffins while they are still warm out of the oven.

And the verdict? Delicious!!! The muffins were so light and fluffy and really tasty. They were great with the frosting too.

Happy eating.


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Thai red beef curry ... my way, the easy way!!

I'm sorry there haven't been many posts recently. We've just moved house and busy settling in, plus day job deadlines just got in the way. I'm so sorry, but I'm back on track now. On to the post ...

I found a jar of Thai red curry paste in the pantry and since I did not know what to make for dinner tonight, I decided to make a Thai red curry using the curry paste and do it with beef. In case you're curious, this is the curry paste I used.

As always, I sort of followed the instructions in the jar but I added a few additional things of my own, so this is not your traditional Thai red beef curry, but more my version of it.

Here's the recipe for what I did:

Ingredients:

• 1 jar Thai red curry paste (any brand)
• 2 brown onions cut into large chunks
• 800g casserole beef cut into slightly large bite size chunks
• 1 large can coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons garlic and chili sauce / paste
• 2 cups beef stock
• 1 heaped teaspoon hot chili powder (optional, only if you want it to kick)
• Olive oil
• Salt to taste

Instructions:

• In a large frying pan, slightly cook the onions in some olive oil until slightly translucent, remove.
• Add some more olive oil into the frying pan, put in the whole jar of curry paste and fry over heat for about 2 minutes.
• Add beef chunks and coat beef in curry paste and fry for a few minutes until the beef is well coated.
• Transfer beef chunks and curry paste into a dutch oven, add onions into the pot.
• Put the pot over heat and pour in the can of coconut milk. Note: shake the can well before opening.
• Add another can (about 2 cups) of beef stock and mix well with coconut milk.
• Add garlic and chili sauce, and taste to see if you are happy with the taste. If not, add a little more chili sauce and if you want more kick in your curry, add the chili powder.
• Bring the curry to a boil and cover.
• Put into oven at 120°C for 3 hours, checking occasionally that it has not dried up, and adding more beef stock if necessary.
• After 3 hours and beef is tender, bring out of oven.
• Add salt to season to your taste if necessary.
• Serve over rice with some vegetables on the side or a light green salad.

This is a pretty easy curry to make overall, mostly because the curry paste is already pre-made and you don't have to do that from scratch. I expect it would be a lot more involved if you (or I) had to make the curry paste from scratch, but I have to admit that I don't like doing that, just because I don't like the way the stuff makes my entire apartment smell, so I'm happy to get it out of a jar. Just make sure that you get a good quality Asian brand, though any brand will do, because you are adjusting the flavor with additional chili sauce and stock to suit.

Most curries will tell you that you can just bring it to a boil and simmer over the stove for 10 minutes until the beef is cooked and it will be ready to serve. I don't do that because (1) I like my beef to be tender and slow cooking it in the oven will give me lovely tender beef and (2) it also allows the curry, chili and stock flavors to slowly integrate. You will get a much more well rounded flavor with slow cooking it.

I used beef stock in the recipe because I like that it gives the curry a lot more depth in the flavor, otherwise, I find the curry has too many high notes and not enough depth. If you don't want to use beef stock, feel free to just use water. With water, you will get a lot of just the curry paste coming through and I often find that the flavors are not well rounded enough with just the curry paste, hence the beef stock.

The entire apartment smelled a great deal of curry for the afternoon as this was cooking in the oven, but by the time I was done, the flavors were well integrated and the beef was tender. Definitely worth slow cooking in the oven!!

In total, I slow cooked the beef for 3 hours at 120°C for 3 hours and then another hour at 90°C but that was more because we were not ready to eat yet and I kept it in the oven to keep it warm. Something to note too, at 120°C, the liquid did not dry up though the curry sauce did thicken up a little, and I did not have to add more stock.

The curry was absolutely delicious and The Boy even had seconds, which is unusual these days because he's on a sort of diet and cutting back on the quantities he's eating.

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