Potato Salad with Labneh and Herbs

Yoghurt cheese, or labneh, is a favourite and impressive appetiser that I adore. I love the creamy texture of this "cheese", spread over lightly toasted bread or crackers. It always adds 5 star power to a meze or antipasto platter. It's extremely versatile and can lend itself to a numerous combination of savoury or even sweet flavours. My preference is to marinate it in garlic infused olive oil, chilli flakes and herbs. If you're after a sweet labneh, it can be made with a splash of rosewater or combined with a fragrant honey.

Ingredients

1 kg of Greek yoghurt
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp crushed dried chillies
1 tblsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tblsp chopped fresh oregano
Garlic infused olive oil, enough to cover (or just add a couple of slivers of garlic cloves to your jar)

Place yoghurt over a sterilized piece of muslin or cheescloth. Bring the four corners together and tie firmly with string. Hang this bag, suspended from one of the shelves in the refrigerator, catching the whey over a large bowl. Leave for 2-3 days until the yoghurt stops dripping.

Roll the labneh into small balls and place on tray covered with baking or parchment paper, and leave overnight in fridge again, to allow the balls to dry out slightly.

Sterilize your jars by washing them and placing them in a 150 C degree oven for 15 minutes.

Lower the labneh balls into the jar, sprinkling each layer with the herbs and chillies, cover with garlic oil, and store in the fridge for up to 3 weeks.



The labneh was a wonderful addition to a warm potato salad, also heavily laced with herbs and a delicious maridade/dressing. Kalyn, the creator of Weekend Herb Blogging, is taking time out from tending her beautiful garden, to host her event this week.

Warm Potato Salad, with labneh and herbs

INGREDIENTS

1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 teaspoon za'atar (Lebanese spice)
¼ cup (60ml) olive oil
salt and pepper
800g Kipfler potatoes, scrubbed and halved lengthways
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 red capsicum
1 cup picked parsley leaves
1 cup picked coriander leaves
200g labneh balls in chilli, roughly chopped
50g pine nuts, toasted
Lebanese bread, to serve

METHOD

Preheat oven 200°C (180°C fan-forced).

Whisk lemon zest and juice, za'atar and oil together; season with salt and pepper. Toss half of dressing over potatoes with garlic and place onto a flat baking tray. Bake 30 minutes or until crispy and golden.

Place capsicum over gas flame until blackened and transfer to a bowl; cover with plastic wrap and cool. When cold, remove black skin and tear flesh into large pieces.

In a large serving bowl, combine parsley, coriander, labneh, pine nuts, capsicum and roasted potatoes and mix gently.

Drizzle remaining dressing over potato salad and toss until evenly coated. Serve immediately with fresh Lebanese bread.

Bread Baking Day # 11 - Sprouts

Happy Birthday BBD! One year old already, and growing stronger each month. Congratulations Zorra. You must be proud of your baby. So for this month, Zorra from Kochtopf is hosting her very own event's birthday party and chosen sprouted bread as the theme. I must lead a very sheltered life, because I had never heard of sprouted bread, let alone tasted it. So of course I had to do some research on the subject. Essene bread was a noticeably popular search result, and this bread dates back to prehistoric times when a grain/water paste was made to make a thin wafer, cooked on warmed stones. If you visit Zorra's site, there is a very interesting history of how this type of bread originated, and the scientific reasoning as to why it's so good for us.

I'm afraid that I'm more of a "modern" baker, not having the precious time to sprout my grains or wait around for a bunch of rocks to heat up in subzero temperatures. So after lots of reading about sprouted breads, and the methodology used, I opted for store bought alfalfa sprouts, which I love tossed over a salad, or combined in a sandwich. Sprouts and bread form a very nice partnership indeed.

Because I had a pot of vegetable soup bubbling away on the stove in readiness for an easy Sunday night meal, I thought mini sprouted bread loaves would make a pleasing and nutritional accompaniment to the meal. The addition of peppitas, which are shelled pumpkin seeds, enhanced the flavour to a new level.

At first I was hesitant about adding the sprouts to the unmixed ingredients, fearing that they would end up a mushy pulp, but this didn't happen surprisingly. You could still pick the odd sprout out of your teeth after eating! They tasted fantastic, and were the star attraction of the meal. What a perfect way to use up leftover sprouts, which continue to grow in the fridge, before they spoil. I will definitely be making these again.

Alfalfa sprouts and peppita bread

3/4 c Plus 2 tablespoons Water

1 1/2 ts Salt

2 tb Honey

1 cup of alfalfa sprouts

2 tb Olive or Vegetable oil

3 1/4 c Bread flour

1/2 c Unsalted raw pumpkin seeds (peppitas)

1 tsp Yeast

Instructions

Measure carefully, placing all ingredients in a mixer and knead for about 6 minutes, or until dough is not sticking to the bowl, and feels quite firm. Let dough rise until for 2 hours (it won't be visibly doubled but the oven spring is great). Divide dough into eight equal pieces and shape into mini loaves. If you have deep rectangular or round muffin pans, grease lightly with oil then dust over flour, and place your dough into pan. Let loaves rise again for another hour or so, and place in very hot oven (450 F) for 10 or 15 minutes, then turn heat down to about 350 F for another 15 minutes, checking that the edges don’t burn. When cooked, turn out onto wire tray to cool.

Befuddling Muddleine's

It's Taste and Create time again, an event founded by Nicole at For the Love of Food, where you are given a partner, visit your partner's blog, and chose a recipe to recreate in your own kitchen. So this month I'm off to Great Britain to the home of Hippolyra, who has an incredibly healthy and tasty blog, Fuss Free Flavours and I'm all in favour of anything "fuss free". As soon as I saw the recipe for Genoise Batter Madeleine's, something I had never tried before, I knew my decision was made. I even had a Madeleine tray, brand new and waiting to be tried, in the cupboard. I purchased this tray a couple of years ago, when I renovated my kitchen, and tossed all of my old stuff out, replacing it all with brand new shiny items.

Righto...lets get started. The eggs and sugar were happily mixing away. Time to grease the shiny new tray. What new tray? It was gone...not a trace. Every cupboard and drawer was upturned. Where else could it be? In the meantime the Genoise batter was not going to wait. The kitchen had been turned upside down in my vain attempt to locate the missing tray. I could only surmise that I had lent it to my octogenarian neighbour at some stage, and she has "forgotten" to return it. I was very suspicious of her having early stage Alzheimer's, and now that suspicion was seeming more of a reality. Of course she wasn't home when I was running around like a mad woman doing circles, so I had to improvise with another pan (which I didn't even realise I had!). Could the Madeleine tray have morphed into this tray that I'd never seen before? This was turning into a fiasco, and I felt as though I had completely lost my mind, along with the tray. Perhaps it was me with early Alzheimer's. It's still a mystery and it's annoying the crap out of me.


Needless to say the Madeleine "fingers" turned out great, even if they look nothing like Madeleine's. I'm sure every French person is guffawing with laughter, so in respect for the true and proper Madeleine's, I'm renaming mine Muddleines, so as not to offend anyone, especially Hippolyra. And when I find my tray, I will make proper Madeleine's, damn it!


"And that's all there is -- there isn't any more."

"Waste not want not" Chestnut Soup

Although the peak of the chestnut season has passed, there are still a few chestnuts floating around at Farmer's Markets. Up until now, I had never tasted a chestnut. Absurd you say? Probably. And I've never tasted a truffle. Even more absurd. Growing up, chestnuts were only available if you knew someone who had a chestnut tree. I didn't. Commercially produced chestnuts were unheard of. Now, however, it's a very viable market for farmers looking at ways to increase their income. And when you realise the labour intense process of getting them out of their tough shells, you can fully understand why pre-cooked, pre-shelled and frozen chestnuts are such an exorbitant price.

I painstakingly set out to see what all the kafoofle was about with these so-called "nuts", which are actually the only nut that is classified as a vegetable, and the only "nut" allowed to be eaten on the Pritikin Diet.

And honestly, I really don't think I could be bothered to do it all again. The slitting of the tough outer shells was labourious to say the least. I was in constant fear of losing a digit or two along the way. Roasting was the easy part. The removal of those damn tough layers was pretty much the final straw.

I couldn't for life of me imagine why I had always yearned to smell freshly roasted nuts sold from a street vendor on a snow covered New York sidewalk. That's what Hollywood does to you I guess.

So with the meagre handful or two that I extricated from those shells, I thought Chestnut Soup was about the easiest option I could take from here on, apart from tossing them all in the garbage. But as consumers, we waste so much food each year, equating to approximately $400 AU per household. I could use that extra money each year, so from now on I'm not going to waste food. Full stop.

My new rule of thumb is to buy what is seasonal, fresh and only the amounts that I need. As the local Farmer's Market is only held on a Sunday morning, this can cause problems for the rest of the week, hence daily visits, or at least every second day, to the supermarket are required. From now on, I'm going to make sure that I can actually access everything in the crisper part of my fridge, instead of finding slimy vegetables down the bottom that I'd forgotten I'd even purchased. My pantry is so well stocked, I should only need to visit the meat and veg and dairy aisles of the supermarket for at least the next 6 months. The doors of my fridge groan with the weight of jars of condiments that have only had a teaspoon of their contents removed, and no doubt diminished in flavour as well. The shelves have ridiculous amounts of cooked left overs that no one bothers to reheat and actually have again as a meal. The dog usually has them for dinner. I honestly over cater and I need to stop doing that.

So for the chestnut soup, in went a plate of left over roasted potatoes and garlic at the last minute. All blitzed up, nobody new the difference. In fact it added a new dimension to what was probably going to be another bowl placed in the fridge, forgotten, forlornly shoved to the back, only to be tossed out along with the slimy veges. The recipe called for 1.5 litres of chicken stock. I only had a litre, but there was a half litre of beef stock buried in the bowels of the fridge, which was still within its "use by" date, so that was tossed into the soup as well. Waste not, want not, my mother has always said.

Chestnut Soup

Ingredients (serves 6)

• 1kg chestnuts
  
• 80ml (1/3 cup) olive oil
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 3 celery sticks, chopped
• 125 gm pancetta, or lean bacon
  
• 1 tbs chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 red-skinned potato, peeled, chopped
• 1.5L (6 cups) chicken stock
• 150ml thick cream

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. If using fresh chestnuts, use a sharp knife to cut a cross into the flat side of the chestnuts. Transfer to a baking tray and bake for about 30 minutes, until chestnuts feel quite soft. Set aside until cool enough to handle (they peel much better when warm), then use a small knife to remove the shells and any furry skins. Set aside.
2. Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion, celery, pancetta, rosemary and garlic and cook over low heat for 5-6 minutes until the onion softens and the mixture just starts to turn golden. Add chestnuts, potato and stock. Season, then bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 45 minutes. Taste and season again with freshly cracked black pepper.
   
3. Set aside the soup to cool slightly, then blend in batches. Return to the pan, stir in the cream and reheat. Serve drizzled with the rosemary pesto (optional).
   

Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging travels to the UK this week, and Joanna from Joanna's Food is kindly hosting the event. I think I'll send these prickly vegetable nuts as my entry. Be sure to check her roundup which showcases herbs, fruit and veges from all over the world.

A Mean Tagine

A hearty winter meal, combining lamb, tomatoes, herbs and spices was on the menu this week, after a few rainy days. Although the temperatures have been quite mild (so far) for this early stage of Winter, it's still cool enough to crave a belly warming meal, and this dish certainly fit the bill. I threw it together after a hard day at the office, and it was ready in no time. Frying off the meatballs was no trouble, as you just need to brown them so they retain their shape, whilst bubbling away in the rich and spicy tomato sauce. The coriander added at the end of cooking was the finishing touch to a very satisfying meal.

Astrid from Food Paulchen's Blog is kindly hosting Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging event for this week.

Lamb Kifta Tagine with Eggs

Ingredients Meatballs

• 500g lamb, finely minced
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 3 tbsp finely chopped parsley
• ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper
• 2 tbsp olive oil for frying
• 
  

Ingredients Sauce

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 medium onions, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 2 cans tomatoes (400g), drained and chopped
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper
• 500ml water
• 1/3 cup parsley leaves, finely chopped
• 1/3 cup coriander leaves, finely chopped
• 6 eggs

Method

To make the meatballs, combine the ingredients and, using wet hands, form the mixture into walnut-sized balls. Heat the oil and brown the meatballs all over. Drain well on paper towels.

For the sauce, heat the oil in a heavy-based casserole dish and lightly sauté the onion and garlic until translucent. Add the remaining ingredients, except the water, fresh herbs and eggs, and stir well. Then stir in the water and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer the sauce, uncovered, for about 30 minutes or until it has reduced to a very thick gravy.

Add the meatballs to the sauce and continue cooking for a further 8 minutes. Carefully break the whole eggs into the sauce, cover with a lid and cook until the eggs are just set – about 5 minutes. Serve at once, liberally garnished with the fresh herbs and with plenty of Turkish bread at the side to mop up the runny egg yolks. Alternatively, accompany with a dish of plain buttered couscous and a dollop of thick natural yoghurt.

Roast chicken, fennel, preserved lemons and olives

I've planted fennel in the garden for the first time this year, and boy do I wish I had planted a lot more. I just love it, roasted and caramelised, devouring every last morsel of it. Fennel can be a bit like coriander to some - you either love it or hate it. It's aniseed flavour marries perfectly with chicken, olives and my other favourite, preserved lemon.

This is a Maggie Beer recipe from her book Maggie's Harvest, and although it is in the Summer section of the book, this is such a comfort food in the winter as well. Fennel is an autumn vegetable and there is a male bulb and a female bulb. Round and bulbous, a female. Longer and thinner, a male. That's typical! I wonder what sex mine will turn out to be when I dig them up. Curvy, voluptuous females I hope!!

This dish is a weekly staple. It's quick, very little preparation is required and best of all it tastes fantastic.


Chicken pieces roasted with olives, preserved lemon and fennel

2 kg chicken thighs, skin on, trimmed of excess fat
2 preserved lemons, flesh removed, rinsed and cut into long strips
2-3 baby fennel bulbs cut into 1 cm slices
freshly ground black pepper
EEVO for cooking
24 black olives with pips (otherwise the flavour dissipates)
sea salt flakes
1-2 tblsp verjuice
freshly chopped flat leaf parsley

Marinate the chicken in a bowl with the fennel, preserved lemon, pepper and enough olive oil to coat the mixture. Leave for at least an hour for the flavours to meld.
Preheat oven to 220C. Divide the chicken and marinade between two roasting dishes, ensuring there is enough room for the chicken, so it doesn't overlap. Add the olives then season with salt.
Roast for 10-15 minutes then turn oven down to 180 C. Cook until chicken is golden, and juicy, but keeping an eye on the marinade to make sure it doesn't burn.
Remove from the oven, drizzle with verjuice and a tblsp of the best olive oil you can afford, and leave to rest, covered for 15 minutes. Just before serving, add the parsley and pan juices to moisten the chicken.

Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging this week is hosted by Maninas from Maninas:Food Matters.

Maninas hails from Croatia, a country that I would dearly love to visit one day. Take a look at her great site, as well as Postcards from Croatia. Just beautiful.

Just Swanning Around with Chantilly Cream Puffs

When Suzanne from Home Gourmets announced the theme for this months Hay Hay it's Donna Day, I quietly cringed. Choux pastry....Aaarrgghh! I love eating the stuff, but successfully cooking it is another matter. My first and only attempt, up until now, was quite disastrous. After reading up a bit on how to make Choux, I realised now that I did every possible thing wrong in my first attempt. My pot was too small, the heat wasn't right, I felt that I had to stir it like a cement mixer...the list goes on. However, this event that is now nurtured by Bron Marshall and originally conceived by Barbara at Winosandfoodies is all about setting participants a challenge. And who doesn't love a challenge?

So with the assistance of Monsieur Larousse, who states " The first stage in making the paste is to heat the liquid (water or water and milk) and butter until the butter melts. This should be done slowly at first, without allowing the mixture to boil (if the liquid boils before the butter melts, it will reduce)". Wish I'd known that important little tip the first time. When referring to mixing the paste until a ball forms, Monsieur Larousse kindly points out "do not beat the paste at this stage or the fat will separate out slightly, making it oily". Yet another mistake I made first time round. Merci, Monsieur.

I decided to go ahead with Chantilly Cream Puffs, because I love saying Chantilly in French ("shahn-tee-yee "), and I have always put vanilla and sugar in my whipped cream, unknowingly making Chantilly cream all along. When he stated that these cream puffs are made to resemble swans, I nearly swallowed my tongue. Oh puhleese, can I just get the puffs right before murdering them with my lack of artistic abilities? Oh well, looks like I have more challenges on my plate than I expected.

The result? Not quite perfect (even a bit tacky) Chantilly Swans. Once again my family thanked Hay Hay it's Donna Day for allowing them to devour this indulgent pastry, which they have been deprived of in the past. You never know, I might even have another go at this satisfying paste. It's not as hard to make as I thought it was....once you know the secrets!




Chantilly Cream Puffs

Choux Paste
In a medium sized pot add 1 cup of water, or equal parts milk and water to make 1 cup. Toss in a large pinch of salt and 65 g (5 tblsp) of softened butter cut into small pieces. Add 2 tsp caster sugar. Heat gently until the butter melts, then bring to the boil. As soon as the mixture comes to the boil, remove the pot from the heat, add 125 g (1 cup) of plain or all purpose flour and mix quickly. Return the saucepan to the heat and cook until paste thickens, stirring (it takes about a minute for the paste to leave the sides of the pan). Don't overcook the mixture or beat it vigorously as this will make it greasy or oily. Beat in 2 eggs, the 2 more eggs one after the other, continuing to beat hard until a smooth glossy paste is obtained (I did this last step in the KitchenAid ...much easier).

Pipe or spoon onto baking sheet and place in a heated oven (220 C) for 10 minutes, reduce temperature to 200 C and continue cooking until golden and crisp. The initial warmer temperature is to create steam inside the bun, causing it to "puff". Pipe some backward "S" shapes (think of the number 2) onto the baking sheet. Obviously these "necks" won't need to be baked as long as the puffs, so I placed them on a separate small tray and put them in the oven towards the end of the cooking time.

Chantilly Cream
Place 400 ml (1 3/4 cups) of very cold double (heavy) cream, 100 ml very cold milk and 1 tblsp vanilla sugar in a chilled bowl and whip. When the cream starts to thicken, add 40 g (3 tblsp) caster sugar continuing to whip until thickened to desired consistency.

Split and cool the buns, then cut the top off each bun, cutting the top in half lengthways which will form the swan's wings. Fill the buns with chantilly cream . Place a "neck" at one end of the bun and stick the "wings" into the cream on either side. Dust generously with icing sugar.

Mougrabieh or Giant Couscous

There is only one thing I vow never to do again in my life, and that is to cook "instant" couscous. Never again will I open a cardboard box, pour boiling water over the grains, fluff and serve. I know it's easy, sometimes even half edible, that is if you add a ton of herbs or other ingredients to spice it up with, but compared to the "proper" couscous, it doesn't have a "hope in Hades" of landing on my dinner table again.

The reason I'm so vehement in my distaste for instant couscous is that I've tried the "real stuff". And it's far from being instant. Whilst not labour intensive, it's time consuming to prepare, and you need to be organised in advance. But the final result runs rings around the couscous a la cardboard. Call me a food purist, I'm easy with that. Taste and texture win hands down over convenience I'm afraid.

When I stumbled across a packet of Mougrabieh, or commonly known as giant couscous, in my local health food store, I couldn't get to the counter quick enough, fearful that someone would do a waist high rugby tackle on me, and steal my much coveted treasure.

The secret to perfect couscous is to steam it over a fragrant liquor. The semolina grains of Lebanese Moghrabieh are much larger than Morrocan couscous grains we are familiar with and they swell up to the size of baby peas, so a conventional steamer insert was easily used.

Firstly pour boiling water onto the moghrabieh, add I tablespoon of olive oil, a good pinch of salt and another good pinch of Ras el Hanout. Let sit for 10 minutes, moving the grains around occasionally so they don't stick together. This process removes some of the surface starch.

Add the aromatics to the cooking stock:

1 litre (2 pints) water
1 onion
1 hot chilli
1 cinnamon stick
10 strands of saffron
1/2 tsp cardamon seeds
2 bay leaves

Place drained couscous in the steamer, cover and steam for 2 hours, until the couscous is soft.

I then added the steamed couscous to this recipe which really satiated my Middle Eastern food cravings. Wonderful dish to serve with grilled meats or a tagine/braise. Just perfect for a cold, rainy autumn evening.


Lebanese couscous with roasted butternut squash and preserved lemon

Ingredients

1 preserved lemon
1 1/2 lb. butternut squash, peeled and seeded, and cut into 1/4-inch dice
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 3/4 cups moghrabieh couscous
1 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preparation

Preheat oven to 475°F.

Halve lemons and scoop out flesh, keeping both flesh and peel. Cut enough peel into 1/4-inch dice to measure 1/4 cup. Put lemon flesh in a sieve set over a bowl and press with back of a spoon to extract juice.

Toss squash with 1 tablespoon oil and salt to taste in a large shallow baking pan and spread in 1 layer. Roast in upper third of oven 15 minutes, or until squash is just tender, and transfer to a large bowl.

Cook onion in 1 tablespoon oil in a 10-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until just beginning to turn golden. Add to squash.

Cook couscous using method outlined above. Add couscous to vegetables and toss with 2 tablespoon oil to coat.

Add lemon peel and juice, parsley, nuts, raisins, ground cinnamon, and salt to taste. Toss to mix well.

Wandering Chopsticks is this weeks host of Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging
After browsing her blog, I think Vietnamese food will fast become one of my favourite cuisines as well.

Fancy a bit o' crumpet?

Melissa from Baking a Sweet Life is hosting Bread Baking Day #10, and the theme is "breakfast breads". In Australia, our traditional breakfasts derived from English cuisines from the late 1700's, when this country was settled with mainly convicts from "The Mother Country". I know one of my ancestors was a convict, relocated to Tasmania, for stealing a sheep. Naughty Rufus!! Way back in those days of hardship, food was simple, with flour being one of the main staples, even though it was, more than often, weevil infested and acrid. Damper was a common staple among the poor, and whilst that is a treat to make in the camp oven when you're out camping (obviously), a more civilised and lady-like breakfast is a piping hot crumpet, with butter and honey oozing through the holes onto your plate, to be mopped up with the last piece of remaining crumpet.

According to Wikipdia "Crumpets, also known as pieclets, are generally circular though long and square varieties also exist. They have a distinctive flat top covered in small pores and a resilient, slightly spongy texture. Crumpets alone are bland and generally eaten hot with a topping (usually butter). Other popular accompaniments include cheese when melted on top of the crumpet, jam, Marmite, marmalade, honey, peanut butter, cheese spread, golden syrup, and maple syrup."

The term "crumpet" has also been given the slang meaning of reference to an attractive woman, however in this society of equal rights and feminism, that term is not bandied about in public as much now.

Although the preparation was time consuming, the end result was well worth the wait. Never again will I grab a packet of supermarket crumpets, which I now liken to discs of fluffy cardboard. The only bit o' crumpet to be had in this house are these babies.

English Crumpets

Preparation Time 30 minutes

Cooking Time 40 minutes

Makes 30

Ingredients

• 2 tsp caster sugar
• 1 tsp (7g/1 sachet) dried yeast
• 250ml (1 cup) warm milk
• 250ml (1 cup) warm water
• 450g (3 cups) plain flour
• 1 1/2 tsp bread improver
• 1 tsp salt
• 250ml (1 cup) water, extra
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• Vegetable oil, to grease
• Butter, to serve
• Honey, to serve

Method

1. Combine the sugar and yeast in a medium bowl. Gradually pour in the warm milk and water and stir until yeast dissolves. Cover with plastic wrap and stand in a warm, draught-free place for 10 minutes or until mixture is frothy.
2. Combine the flour, bread improver and salt in a bowl. Make a well in the centre and add the yeast mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon until well combined. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm, draught-free place to prove for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
3. Combine extra water and bicarbonate of soda in a jug. Use an electric beater to beat the flour mixture for 1 minute or until mixture deflates. Gradually add the water mixture, beating well between additions, until well combined and smooth. Cover batter with plastic wrap and set aside for 30 minutes to rest.
4. Brush a large non-stick frying pan with vegetable oil to lightly grease. Brush six 7.5cm-diameter non-stick egg rings with oil to lightly grease. Place egg rings in frying pan over medium-low heat. Pour 60ml (1/4 cup) of batter into each ring. Cook for 7 minutes or until large bubbles come to the surface, the base is golden and the top is set. Use an egg lifter to turn and cook for a further 1 minute or until golden. Transfer to a wire rack and remove egg rings. Set crumpets aside. Repeat, in 4 more batches, with remaining batter, greasing and reheating the pan and egg rings with oil between each batch. Serve crumpets with butter and honey.

Notes & tips

• Prep: 30 mins (+ 10 mins standing, 1 hour proving & 30 mins resting time). Keep the heat of the pan low, and don't be tempted to turn the crumpets until the top looks quite dry.

Source

Australian Good Taste - June 2003, Page 156

Thanks to Zorra from Kochtopf for creating and overseeing this wonderful event.

Yummy? Me?

Wow, I'm chuffed! My first award, thanks to Zainab & meedo, is from two sisters who have an extraordinary blog, Arabic Bites.

They have received this award, rightly so, many times and decided to share it around. "Yummy blog award is the award given to a blog with most yummy recipes/photos". Thanks ladies, I'm honoured!

Now I have to nominate my "favorite yummy-licious :) dessert(s)that I have ever prepared/eaten". Hmmmm.....I'm not big on desserts, but occasionally I have the odd sweet tooth craving. So here goes:

1. Caramel creme, the only dessert in my repertoire when I was a teenager ( I must make them again!)
2. Good old fashioned apple pie that Mum makes. I love her sweet pastry.
3. Cherry Ripe chocolate bar. One is never enough!

As fate has it, I've been really "into" Middle Eastern food lately, partly due to the fact that my daughters gave me a gorgeous Emile Henry Tagine for my birthday/Mothers Day. So I'll be scouring Zainab & meedo's site for some interesting recipes and techniques. They make fantastic bread too, so pay them a visit soon!

There are so many "yummy" blogs around worthy of this award, it's difficult to choose only a few.

Burcu's Almost Turkish Recipes Because I love Turkish food
Nic's Cherrapeno Her desserts and sweets are to die for
Michael and Cindy's Where's the beef? Vegetarians with an enormous array of yummy foods

Veal Scallopini (well, almost) with Tortellini

Always being the adventurous weeknight cook, wanting something simple, quick, but not boring and bland, my thoughts turned Italian tonight. I had all of the ingredients on hand to make a speedy Veal Saltimbocca. The sage in the garden is just beautiful right now, and begging to be picked to encourage tender new leaves to grow. I love the literal meaning of saltimbocca – “jumps in the mouth”. The marriage of sage and prosciutto can definitely jump in my mouth anytime it wants.

However, teenage daughter wanted to know it this “salt and whatever” was going to incorporate pasta, something that I’ve not cooked in a while, and her cravings were getting the better of her. Well there goes my saltimbocca out the window, I thought. So, just to appease the menu requester, I opted for Veal Scallopini with veal tortellini, and just to appease the chef’s yearnings, tossed in some sage and prosciutto into the sauce. Everyone was happy, and nobody but the chef knew of the deviation to the original recipe. I quietly had my own little “jump in the mouth” party, unbeknownst to anyone else!

Veal Scallopini with Tortellini

Serves 4-5

Ingredients

750g thinly sliced veal steaks
to taste: salt and pepper
¾ cup flour
5 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 cloves fresh crushed garlic
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
¾ cup dry white wine 190ml
¾ cup mushrooms sliced (optional)
1 medium diced onion (optional)
8 slices prosciutto (very optional)
12 fresh sage leaves (very optional)
1 lb tortellini noodles 500g

Directions

Pound steaks with a mallet until really thin.
Add salt and pepper and dredge in flour.
Melt 5 tablespoons (105ml) butter in heavy skillet; add crushed garlic and sauté Veal Slices, lightly browning over a medium heat; turn but once.
Remove veal to a shallow baking pan.
Add remaining 2 tablespoons (30ml) of butter to skillet and sauté onions and mushrooms, prosciutto and sage leaves (optional ingredients) for 2½ minutes.
Add ¾ cup white wine and bring to a boil.
Simmer 2-3 minutes to blend all flavours.
Pour wine sauce over veal; cover pan and bake 35 minutes at 350ºF. (176ºC)
Cook tortellini noodles until tender in salted boiling water.
Drain and rinse.
Place tortellini noodles on serving platter.
Cover noodles with veal slices, and pour the remaining wine sauce over entire dish.

Kalyn's weekend herb blogging lands in the lap of Cate from Sweetnicks and my secret herb ingredient is sage. Shhhh, don't tell anyone.

Bombay Biryani

Taste and Create is a food blogging event, founded by Nicole, and for my first involvement in this fantastic themed event, I was paired up with Simran from Bombay Foodie. I love all food from India, so of course I was both excited and delighted with the selection. Each month Nicole draws participating blog names out of a hat and pairs them up with another blog. You visit the blog, scour over it with a fine toothed comb, chose a dish which catches your eye, recreate it, and then blog about it. Wonderful concept, and a great way to really delve into a blog. Simran loves to bake and she is also a "salad specialist", but I knew I had to make something authentically Indian, so I chose her aloo chhole biryani. The middle layer in this biryani is packed full of flavour, and she uses black chane as the key ingredient. As Simran explains "For the uninitiated, (that would be me) black chane are a smallish brown variety of chickpea grown in India". As I didn't have this particular ingredient, I substituted ordinary chickpeas, soaked overnight and cooked in the pressure cooker. I'm sure that this substitution didn't take anything away from the flavour of this dish however.

When I turned out the biryani "cake", I was extremely pleased with its appearance and even more so, the taste. What a fabulous dish to serve as a side at a dinner party. Opulent and elegant. Thanks Simran for taking our family to Bombay this evening.

Lemonade scones

Happy Mothers Day to all Mums out there. Put your feet up, relax and enjoy the company of those that have made you a mother. Put aside the thoughts of how tough it is to raise children through their varying stages of life, and cherish the thought that they really do love you as much as you love them.

This is a no fail recipe for the simple scone. My own mother could whip up a bunch of these without thinking twice about it. When I was a child, she patiently allowed me to rub the butter into the flour, adjusting my poor technique quite often. She would never have dreamed of using a food processor, not because they weren't invented in those days, but because making scones was somehow therapeutic to her, and her own mother taught her this way.

In all of my married years, I have yet to master a tall, fluffy scone. Sure, they were always edible, if only for the first hour, then they turned into the equivalent of hockey pucks. Sorry Mum, but the food processor is the only way I can produce scones as lovely as yours, and I shamefully admit, I have to add lemonade to give them that extra assistance. I hope I have made you proud!

Lemonade scones with jam & cream

Ingredients (serves 16)

• 450g (3 cups) self-raising flour
• 80g butter
• 310ml (1 1/4 cups) diet lemonade
• 1/2 cup whipped cream
• Raspberry jam, to serve
• Whipped Cream, to serve

Method

1. Preheat oven to 220°C. Grease a baking tray. Combine flour and butter in a food processor until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Transfer to a large bowl.
2. Add the lemonade and cream. Use a flat-bladed knife to stir until combined. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.
3. Press the dough out to a round 3cm-thick disc. Using a 5cm-diameter scone cutter, cut into rounds. Place scones, side by side, just touching, on prepared tray. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and scones sound hollow when tapped on base. Transfer immediately to a wire rack to cool. Halve scones and spread with jam and whipped cream.

Serve with a hot cup of tea, a warm sunny spot and a good book to read. Happy Mothers Day, Mum.

Lamb shanks in Wine Sauce

Autumn has well and truly arrived in its picturesque glory. The vibrant colours, the smell of wood fires burning, beautiful sunny crisp days and comfort food on the stove. It truly is a beautiful season, preparing us for the colder days to come.
My all time favourite cut of meat has to be the lamb shank. When we were kids, the lamb shank was always at the centre of arguments as to who would receive this juicy, succulent joint from the lamb roast. Back then, lamb shanks were considered a cheaper cut, and when feeding 4 hungry children, my mother would often buy a heap of shanks, at least one for each of us, to stretch her meager budget, as well as keeping peace at the dinner table.

Nowadays, the humble shank has skyrocketed to fame and fortune, deservedly so, taking on the new title of "Frenched Lamb Shanks". It is now leaner and supposedly more attractive to the eye. The taste will never alter, however the cost of the revamped shank seems to have risen as much as it's popularity. No longer is it a poor mans dish. It now receives star status on many a restaurant menu. If worse came to worse, I'd consider selling one of the children just to finance a meal of tender lamb shanks. Hopefully, for their sake, this won't happen in the near future.

My preferred method of cooking shanks is in the pressure cooker. And this recipe, with the richness of red wine and balsamic, was just the perfect autumn dish, and one I'll be "throwing together" on a week night more often. Served with pan fried rosemary and garlic potatoes, and a tossed salad, it was worthy of being shown on any classy restaurant menu.

LAMB SHANKS IN WINE SAUCE

2 large lamb shanks

Salt and pepper to taste

1 T. olive oil

10 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole

1/2 cup chicken or mushroom stock

1/2 cup port wine

1 T. tomato paste

1/2 t. dried rosemary (I used a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary)

1 T. butter

1-2 T. balsamic vinegar

Trim the excess fat from the shanks and season then with salt and pepper to taste. Heat the oil in the pressure cooker. Add the shanks and brown on all sides. When they are almost browned add the garlic cloves and cook until they are lightly browned, but do not burn them. Add the stock, port, tomato paste, and rosemary, stirring until the tomato paste dissolves. Close the pressure cooker and bring up to full pressure. Reduce the heat and cook for 30 minutes. Release the pressure and remove the lamb shanks. Return the pressure cooker to the stove and boil uncovered for 5 minutes to reduce and thicken the sauce. Whisk in the butter and the vinegar. Serve sauce over lamb shanks.

Laurie, from Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska would have to be one of the most envied bloggers in the blogosphere, as she has a home in Alaska as well as Greece, and she is hosting Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging this week. Her amazing Greek dishes are to die for, so head over to her blog for a real food fest.

Slow Cooker Thai Red Curry Chicken

I've been itching to get out my slow cooker, so today was perfect for this opportunity. A thick fog blanketed us this morning, nothing but greyness and dampness, after an evening of downpours followed by soaking, soft drizzle into the small hours of the morning. These weather conditions actually excite me for 2 reasons. First of all the gloominess outside calls for cozy wood fires to be lit inside, with the aromas of slow cooked spicy food wafting in and out of every room. Secondly, and most exciting of the two, is it's nearly mushroom time, and with the drenching received on Friday night, followed by a beautiful sunny day (after the fog had lifted), I'm off in search of the elusive mushy tomorrow. Maybe I'll be lucky, maybe not.

This dish is extremely simple, as are all slow cooker dishes. Dump the ingredients into the pot, turn it on and walk away. This meal is done in 4 hours total and simple in flavour but tasty. Next time I would perhaps add some extra Thai ingredients such as kaffir lime leaves and a touch of lemon grass. The possibilities are endless. And maybe a sprinkle of chopped coriander, rather than the basil leaves (which aren't visible in the photo).

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1kg chicken thigh fillets, trimmed,
• cut in half crossways
• 114g Thai red curry paste (out of a jar is fine)
  
• 1 cup Chicken Stock
• 150g fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems trimmed, halved
• 230g can sliced bamboo shoots, drained
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 140ml can coconut milk
• 1/3 cup basil leaves
• steamed jasmine rice, to serve

Method

1. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Cook chicken, in batches, for 1 to 2 minutes each side or until golden. Transfer to slow cooker.
2. Reduce frying pan heat to low. Add remaining oil to pan. Add curry paste and cook, stirring, for 1 to 2 minutes or until aromatic. Add stock and stir until curry paste has dissolved. Add mushroom and bamboo shoots. Pour mixture over chicken and stir to combine.
3. Cover and cook on HIGH for 3 1/2 hours. Combine fish sauce, sugar and coconut milk in a jug. Stir into curry. Cover and cook on HIGH for a further 30 minutes.
4. Stir in basil. Spoon curry over rice. Serve.

Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging has arrived in Australia this week and Anh, of Food Lovers Journey, from Melbourne will be the kind hostess. Be sure to visit her beautiful blog full of lots of Vietnamese inspired recipes and great photos.