Royal Parade, Hillside, Melbourne
( still not complete due to missing parts - January perhaps)
Chocolate slice.
- Absolutely wicked wisemen slice
I am putting this in again because I can never find the recipe.
125 gms butter or half a cup ( who would try and squash butter into a cup to measure it?)
100 gms or half a cup of sugar
1 tbspoon cocoa
1 tblsp golden syrup
200 gm or 1 cup of plain gluten free flour
40 g or half a cup of coconut
one teaspoon of wards baking powder ( did you know that other brands put flour in theirs to fatten it up?)
chocolate icing
Preheat your oven to 180 c.
place butter, sugar, cocoa and golden syrup in a saucepan or in a bowl in the microwave.
Melt it all, stirring as you go but do not boil it like I did. ( don't worry even if you do this it will still work)
After a successful melting remove the treasure from the source of heat and add the flour, the coconut and the baking powder. Press it into the slice tin ( here's your challenge for the day - I usually do it with my fingers, but it is hot and may burn the pinkies)
Bake for ten minutes.
When cool, ice with chocolate icing.
A real winner if you are trying to make something for the kid's lunches at 7.30 in the morning.
spotty slice
to make with leftover biscuits that aren't getting eaten.
90 grams melted butter
100 gms or 1 cup biscuit crumbs
185 gms of chocolate bits or chopped up chocolate
1 cup coconut
400 gm sweetened condensed milk
line a deep tray with baking paper
melt the butter and then add everything else to it.
bake for 30 mine at 180 and then cut when cool.
Nicola's Rice Salad
Nicola gave this to us at Christmas Time
3 cups of cooked Basmati Rice
small cubes of tasty cheese
one small cucumber
bacon fried and chopped
3 tablespoons of oil
one tablespoon lemon juice
half tsp lemon rind
half tsp mustard
mint, basil or parsley
other options: cooked broad beans or spring onion
tomatoes and fetta
well it was very nice.
Byessar- Moroccan broad bean dip
(Stephanie Alexander’s recipe)
dip
1 kg broad beans, shelled = 300g beans
2 cloves garlic, chopped to a paste
1 teaspoon freshly chopped oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
150ml extra-virgin olive oil
salt
freshly ground black pepper
garnish
1 teaspoon paprika
half teaspoon chilli powder
half teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3 spring onions, finely chopped
Boil beans in lightly salted water for 15 minutes until quite tender.
Drain through a colander set over a bowl and reserve the cooking water.
Tip (*less than) ? cup cooking water into a blender.
Add beans, garlic, oregano, cumin, oil, salt and pepper and blend.
If too thick, pour in further cooking water and blend again to a smooth puree, stopping and scraping the mixture once or twice.
Taste and adjust the seasonings. Transfer puree to a flat, rustic looking bowl.
To garnish, mix paprika, chilli powder and cumin with oil and dribble a pattern
onto the puree. Scatter with spring onion.
*Cathy’s note: add small amount of cooking water at a time.
Makes a lot, about 600ml. Halve recipe to make one 300 ml bowl of dip.
Great with toasted Turkish bread, or raw vegetables.
Deborah Wood’s recipe for broad bean dip?
boil the beans until just tender and after this
take the outer shell off the broad bean, there is a really nice centre which you keep
pound them in a pounding bowl
add some olive oil and crushed garlic and pound more.
eat.
Caramel walnut slice
from Helen
Base:
half cup s.r. flour
(gluten free works the same as normal flour)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup coconut
60gm butter
topping:
2 eggs
half tsp vanilla
1 cup coconut
90 gm walnut pieces
one and a half cups brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder ( wards)
sift flour into bowl, add sugar and coconut, mix well. Melt butter and add to dry ingredients, mix well. Press mixture into greased tray ( or use the magic baking paper) / bake in moderate oven for 15 mins.
topping: Lightly beat eggs and vanilla with a fork. add coconut, chopped walnuts, brown sugar, baking powder and mix well. Spread mixture over partly cooked base, return to moderate oven and bake a further 25 minutes or until topping is cooked. Cool in tin before cutting.
perfect pancakes
To make perfect pancakes, follow this recipe. Please note, they are only fat pancakes. My favourite pancakes of all time were the thin crepe variety but I have not been able to make great gluten free thin pancakes yet.
Use half a packet of a gluten free buckwheat pancake mix. I have used freedom or orgran so far and they both work well.
add about a third of a cup of laucke white bread flour. This is an all-purpose flour that you can use for all sorts of reasons. It adds plasticity and whiteness and lightness to this pancake recipe.
Add two duck eggs or three chook eggs.
Add half water and half milk until you reach the desired consistency. ( sorry I never measure this)
Butter in the pan, wait till it begins to spit and in goes the first pancake, I put the mixture in the middle and then tilt the pan to spread the mixture thinner.
"Okay we're gonna have pancakes for dinner, who's going to go across the road to get some lemons from Stephen and Denise?"
You all know about lemon and sugar. Ben and Nanna like maple syrup on their pancakes, we buy it just for them. When I was a kid we found out about "The Sinner Simmul Special" from the Simmuls of course. This is where you you melt butter onto your pancake, then you put on some golden syrup and spread it about as it melts. Then you sprinkle sugar on top. Its not for anyone who is counting calories. If you are walking to burn off your indulgences, you better plan a trek across the himalayas after this.
The Maddoxes and the elegant Van Beek introduced us to a hot berry sauce ( real or frozen berries are fine). This is where you put the berries into a saucepan with a little sugar and water and heat. You can add a teaspoon of real cornflour to it whilst it is still cool if you like your sauces thicker. Then you put it into a pouring jug and pour it over the icecream that you've already heaped on your pancake.
Fast Rolls
Using Lauckes Easy baker bread mix
Turn on your oven to 50 degrees to warm it up.
spray muffin tins in preparation with a non-stick spray of some sort.
I will make 6 pie size and 8 muffin size with one lot of mixture.
In each box there are two packets. Using one 500gm packet will make about 16 rolls.
Put the mixture into a cooking bowl.
Put some luke warm water into a jug ( this is water where you can only just tell that it is warmer than cold).
Add the water slowly to the bakers flour a little at a time mixing with a knife in a cutting motion till it is the consistency of toothpaste. I think that I used about a cup and a half for the 500gm packet.
Vigourously stir this until all of the lumps are removed.
Then bung it into the muffin pan using a spatula. Half fill each pan.
Turn off oven
Then place the trays into the warm oven to rise for 25 minutes. ( turn the timer on)
Then remove them from the oven and turn the oven on to 225 or 215 fan forced.
When the oven is hot, cook them for ten minutes.
These are best made whilst watching television. You whip it up in the add break then later you come back after 25 minutes and slip them into the oven. Then they cook for ten minutes.
turn off the oven when finished
Fast Pizza
Using Lauckes easy bakers white flour.
This pizza recipe is better than any takeaway gluten free pizza and its easier than normal pizza to make. Look I’ll tell you what, why don’t you just make it for yourself, even if you are not one of those weird gluten-free people.
turn oven onto 50 degrees celcius
prepare trays by covering them with expensive baking paper.
To make three pizzas put a 500 gms bag of the flour into a bowl. Fill a jug with luke warm water ( DO NOT POUR IT ALL IN) and then add a little at a time until it is the consistency of toothpaste.
Then quickly spread over the paper on the trays about 1 cm thick. Difficult. you will have to grip the paper one end whilst you drag the mixture towards the other end.
Turn OFF the oven and place the pizza inside to rise for 25 minutes.
Start chopping your ingredients.
After this time, remove pizza bases from oven and Turn your oven onto 215c or 205c fanforced.
When oven is ready, throw the bases in and cook for ten minutes.
Whip them out of the oven and throw on some tomato paste etc. then throw them back in and watch the cheese melt.
Great for lunch the next day, which is why we like them.
Making the teriyaki chicken for the pizza
we always fry the chicken to put on Rosie’s pizza and if you fry four chicken breasts you will have enough chicken for your sushi the next night.
I do it this way: Heat the cast iron pan with a tablespoon of butter in it. When it is sizzling throw in the chicken breasts. Add a little olive oil. ( someone told me that this stops the butter from burning.) As it crisps on the outside turn it over, then gradually slice it into half and half again, frying the uncooked surface until all is cooked. While you are doing this mix in a cup: two tsp brown sugar, 1 tblsp of corn flour, 1 tbl gluten free soy sauce, one tsp Changs hoisin sauce, one teaspoon or two of Chang’s Oyster sauce, a little passata ( processed and cooked tomatoes) 2/3 cup of cold water. stir. When the chicken is cooked through, turn off the heat and immediately add this sauce. Stir until the sauce thickens. Leave the chicken in the sauce, it keeps it moist and the flavour seeps into the leftovers, ready for tomorrows sushi. or laksa or fried rice.
Quince Paste
An ongoing and sometimes heated debate amongst friends is how to make the perfect quince paste. Everybody’s trying to make it because its so delicious. Sometimes you can buy it at the fruit shop when it is in season. I have bought it at the fruit shop next to the safeway at Niddrie and at the fruit shop next to the coles at avondale heights.
The first time I tried to make it, I forgot all about it and found a blackened char in my saucepan next morning.
The second time, it was good but orange not red. I have received much advice about why it was not red. Some say that the core of the fruit gives the redness, whilst others say that cooking it linger gives the red colour. Mine was not sliceable, it is instead goooable.
Well I had neglected to leave the cores in, but I did cook it for three or four hours. I was marking assignments as I did it, Assignment in one hand, wooden spoon in the other, then I’d rush to write the comments then dash back to stir rotarua.
Evie says that Quince Paste must be eaten with Mersey Valley cheese.
Rules that everyone agrees on:
you must make it in a deep pan so that it does not spit on you
The quinces must be yellow and ripe
You must leave in some core
you must cook it for three to four hours.
Quince Paste. number 1
recipe from frances, George Biron and Stephanie Alexander
Cut quinces into chunks and place in a large deep pan with the juice of a lemon per 8 quinces and a quarter of the cores and pips and a cup of water. Tightly lid it and Cook for half an hour.
Then food process it, including the cores and pips ( here’s your pectin ladies!) Add three quarters of its weight in sugar.
cook over a moderate heat for 3-4 hours till the mixture leaves the sides of the pan and is a pinky red colour. At this point it is difficult to push the wooden spoon through.
allow to cool and then pour into a oiled lined lamington tray.
dry in a warm place overnight.
if you wrap it in greaseproof paper and foil it will keep indefinitely in the cupboard in an airtight tin.
Quince Paste. number 2
Ingredients
• 4 (about 1.4kg) quinces, peeled, cored, coarsely chopped
• 125ml (1/2 cup) water
• 700g white sugar
Method
1. Combine the quince and water in a large saucepan over high heat. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes or until tender.
2. Place the quince mixture in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth.
3. Combine quince and sugar in a large, clean heavy-based saucepan. Place on a simmer mat over low heat and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat to very low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 1/2 hours or until mixture is ruby red, thick and leaves the side of pan. Set aside for 15 minutes to cool.
4. Meanwhile, line the bases and sides of six 125ml (1/2-cup) capacity ramekins with plastic wrap. Pour quince mixture evenly among ramekins and smooth surfaces. Cover and set aside for 6 hours or until set.
5. Turn 1 ramekin onto a serving platter. (Store remaining paste in fridge until required).
Double whammy meals
This is not where you cook two meals in one, but where the meat stretches over two nights and the food preparation is minimised.
corned beef with potato mash and tomato sauce ( greens thrown in)
and rice paper rolls with corned beef, salad and cheese.
Osso Bucco and shepherd’s pie
night one: hotpot. In the morning fry the osso bucco in butter in the cast iron pan. After the first side is sealed turn it over and add the onions. When the second side is sealed remove it and place it in the crock pot. when the onions are ready, remove from the heat and put them into the crock pot. Then add some red wine to the pan and swish it round with a spoon to get all the goodness out of that pan and pour it into the crockpot. add some small lentils, some vegetables, water enough to cover the meat and vegies. Turn the crockpot onto automatic.
Serve with rice or pasta.
Night two: shepherds pie. ( Don’t tell my children. they’re not that excited about the osso bucco with the lentils in it, but when you put the remains into shepherd’s pie, they eat it all within a day.)
Cut some potatoes into chunks and microwave with an inch of water . for fifteen minutes. Test to make sure it is cooked. Mash with butter and milk. While this is happening, sort out the osso bucco. Remove the bones and put the meat, vegies and gravy into the base of a casserole dish. Stir in some frozen peas and corn. If its already tea-time, nuke it in microwave to get it going. Slap the potato on the top and top with grated cheese. put in oven . eat.
Pizza and sushi
So one night you make pizza but make sure you fry up four chicken fillets. Set aside half of them for sushi the next night.
You can have pizza for lunch tomorrow - yeah!!
Make sushi on the following night. You can have sushi for lunch the next day. Yeah!
corned beef with mash and rice paper rolls with the corned beef, cheese and lettuce as filling.
chevapchichi with vegies, cevap as rectangular meatballs in a pasta sauce.
Roast chicken and then fried rice with chicken on the following night.
sorry I know this won’t work for families whose children devour everything on the table and there are no leftovers. my commiseration's. My understanding is that I’ve probably only got one more year of being able to use leftovers for the following nights meal, then there won’t be any anymore and I will join the rest of the real world. Then I’ll make double the amount!
ideas from across the street
Stephen gave me a whole lot of lemons and I said stop! How will I use them all? Then he said I should juice them and freeze the juice in icecubes.
The minicheesecakes that stole our hearts.
adapted from the book that melinda gave me for xmas.
preheat oven 170c or 325 f
Enthusiastically cut circles to go on the bottom of each muffin hole in the tin. I traced the bottom of a glass. make 6
crush 120 gms of cookies
mix with 40 gms of melted butter and squash into the bottom of each muffin hole.
beat 375 grams of cream cheese ( at room temp or struggle like I did with a knife and the beaters) with
80 grams sugar and
half teasp vanilla extract until fluffy like a new puppy.
add 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks
Now being difficult - but it makes it yum, sit the muffin tray into a tray of water and bake for 25-30 minutes or until set.
Then you are meant to cool and cover with plastic and refrigerate for at least six hours but do you think my patience would last that long. No. I whipped up the special berry sauce ( recipes where the pancake info is) and an hour later when Evie and Pam arrived I plonked three cheesecakes out of their tins, splashed over the sauce we lickety split ate them like the wolf ate grandmother. I have a photo to prove they existed.
Large Cheesecake
Recently I made this recipe again but I couldn’t be bothered with cutting the circles out for the muffin case. I couldn’t even be bothered to save the extra 125 gms of cream cheese that was leftover from the 500 gm pack, so I just added another quarter of everything else. Not sure how I added another quarter of eggs. Anyway I ended up cutting a large circle of baking paper and put it into a cake tin. It was nicer (Evie claimed), than the mini ones. More moist. Didn’t even put the berries on top and it was scoffed quickly, but because it was cakesized more people were able to eat thin slithers. And other more adolescent types, gobbled down large slabs of it.
The next day you will have to make a meringue or make macaroons with two extra egg whites. Put a dollop of jam into the middle of your macaroons. A style that Michelle invented this year, and much appreciated by everyone at work and the pottery ladies.
What do you mean? You’ve mislaid your macaroon recipe again!
One recipe makes thirty. If you double it it will make sixty and if you triple it you may get to eat some yourself.
be careful if you triple it, I found even my biggest bowl was too small.
2 eggs separated
(one of my eggs got muddled and it still worked)
pinch salt ( I always forget it)
3/4 cup of castor sugar
3 cups of coconut.
( which is equal to a big 250 gm bag - as I recall)
preheat the oven to 180 c or 360 F
beat the egg whites until they are stiff or until you are bored with the situation.
add one egg yolk at a time and keep beating.
( I always tip them all in at once and as I whistle I look around to make sure no-one is watching)
throw in the sugar whilst continuing to beat
(this does get a bit tedious and I have thought about one of those large mixers that you don't have to hold but the bench already has too many whitegoods on it)
fold in the coconut.
place in spoonfuls onto expensive baking paper
( or they will be extremely difficult to remove)
don’t forget michelle’s spoon of jam in the centre of some for variety.
10 - 15 -20 minutes or till they begin to brown.
Recipe for a giant baby blue bunny letterbox.
This was my triumph of the year and has opened the door of my imagination into a world of sculptures .... oh dear.
It has lots of lovers and at least one hater, but the council have not yet asked me to remove it, so I think its okay for you to make one too.
8 bags mortar mix
1 bag cement
2 starpickets
one old chair skeleton
plastic cylinder/plant pots
1 ceramic rabbit face
6 blacksmithed whiskers
1 tummy with mailbox hole made from clay.
ample water
two thin gloves and two heavy duty gloves
goggles
apron
face mask
2 metres squared of broken tiles
a bag of ceramacrete ( tile adhesive)
1 more bag of mortar mix for the grout.
screenings/gravel
10 metres of wire netting
bricks
Arrange chair and various pipes, plant pots and star pickets and bricks.
cover with wire netting and tweak netting into perfect shape. Stuff the centre somehow so that it isn’t inclined to become one huge mass of concrete. Wire on the ceramic features and cut off the wire in the front after they have been set into the concrete.
Over subsequent days make a mixture of four parts mortar mix, one parts cement and two parts gravel/screenings to make concrete. Then rub this into the sculpture through the holes in the wire. Gradually add a top coat of the same mixture minus the gravel/screenings.
When perfect in shape, mosaic it.
Have a cup of tea on the nature strip and feeling very pleased with yourself laugh out loud several times. Some neighbours will join in and other might just look the other way, preferring to think that the giant rabbit letterbox is a figment of your imagination.
silver beet with fetta cheese.
Rose told me about this. Thank you Rose.
If you have a deteriorating macular you should eat deep sea fish and green leafy vegetables. Well I have grown a lot of silver beet and now I must eat it but how. Rose suggests to wash the leaves and slice them up. I do as much as I can fit into my colander. About ten leaves. Then fry them in olive oil until they wilt and then place them in a bowl where you have already chopped up a third of a cake of fetta into little pieces. Mix it in a bit.
The other day I washed the silver beet and then threw it in with some vegies to steam. When I was eating the silver beet I found a little steamed green caterpiller. She was beautiful but inert. It was a very sad little dinner party that evening.
Aunt Lillian’s Polenta fish.
Rub polenta into Basa fillets and fry in oil.
lay it on paper towel to get rid of the extra oil.
Pams 'Gluten Free' Bakewell Tarts
Pam made these for us when the pottery ladies came to inspect the wall of the thousand fish and the garden in september. People kept grabbing at them and there was only half of one left as the pottery ladies left. The last half was devoured by me five minutes later. The only other time that I have had bakewell tarts was when my highschool buddy Suzanne made them for me when I went to stay with her on King Island. I’m afraid to say that this was over twenty years ago.
On King Island I saw thousands of plastic bags caught on trees and it’s also where I met Max, which was the beginning of many adventures and the story of a Bellet.
You see how food is so related to memories.
*
Pastry
90g butter
1/2 cup water
200g gluten free SR flour
2 eggs
Chop butter and put all ingredients in blender. Blend until smooth. Take out of blender and knead until workable. Put in between gladwrap and roll out. Cut into rounds and put in small cake tins.
Bake in moderate to hot oven for 7 minutes.
Take out and let cool.
Put dob of strawberry jam in each pastry case. Top with * cake mixture and bake in oven for about 20 minutes.
When cool top with passionfruit or lemon icing using gluten free icing sugar mix or pure icing sugar.
(NB Freeze left over pastry)
*Cake
90g almond meal
30g desiccated coconut
120 g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
100g butter, melted and cooled
1 pinch salt
In a large bowl place the almond meal, coconut, sugar and salt together and whisk to break up any lumps and evenly disperse all dry ingredients.
Whisk the eggs together with the vanilla and melted cold butter and add to the dry ingredients.
Makes 12
When I made Laksa for the girls
When my children were babies I went back to university to study writing and it was so much fun. I met some excellent people and life was full of social functions, events, meals and gatherings of people ON WEEKDAYS! As I began to work more and more, my opportunities to meet with these people withered. Well now I hang with a new set ( the parents of my children’s friends) and deliciously we ladies have been able to meet on some friday afternoons for lunch. From my point of view these opportunities are not to be trifled with because they are a small window in life and are opportunities for gossip, wine, real coffee, cake and adult food ON A WEEKDAY! So one day I made Evie and Pam some Laksa.
Not being able to find the recipe on the occasion, I had to make do and it was delicious. Here is what I did.
I thawed out some prawns and I had some left over teriyaki chicken from the previous night which I thinly sliced.
I cooked some rice noodles ( swallow brand vermicelli that you buy in the Vietnamese grocery, very cheap) by putting one cake of noodles per person in a microwave container only just covered in water and cooked for ten minutes. Then leave to sit for five minutes. then remove and strain in a colander. Rinse with cold water quickly but thoroughly, shake off the excess water and leave to cool. The noodles are still warm so they dry themselves out and because they have been rinsed in cold water, they do not stick to one another.
Chop onions finely and other vegies finely ( capsicum, mushroom or greens) and set aside. In a wok fry some oil and then add the onions. When they are half done, add some red or green curry paste and fry up, stirring, till the scent of it says its done. I can’t smell, so I just guess. Then throw in some coconut milk or cream and the remaining vegies. Here you can add some soy sauce, lime juice, fish sauce and stock, if you like. Simmer gently till guests arrive. I fried the prawns a little in another pan to give them a bit of character. My guests often arrive at separate times and puffed out from work so they must be fed and watered immediately.
When said guest arrives put their noodles in the bowl, pour over the hot laksa and their meat. If the meat is chopped thinly enough it should heat up, otherwise zap the whole bowl in the microwave. If all your guests arrive at once, that is a different story. Throw the meat in at the last minute, to heat it and then serve on the noodles.
The main thing is that you don’t mix it all together and boil it because you would have tough meat mushy noodle laksa.
Teriyaki chicken
When you buy gluten free sushi you usually can only have the tuna one. The teriyaki chicken taunts you, winking while it shouts “eat me Eat me! Teriyaki sauce is not gluten free. But I had to have that teriyaki chicken in sushi so we made some. I said to Yusef, it has to be done. So we made it. I’ve put the directions in the pizza recipe.
Chocolate Brownie
As usual I could not find the chocolate brownie recipe. This was not the one I wanted. I was irate that this recipe had so many ingredients and I raced around tossing them in in a fury because I had to go Blacksmithing. Then I couldn’t find enough ingredients for the double mixture that I had begun. Cocoa- only two thirds of what it demanded and only one egg because the ducks are holding out or the dog is stealing them. But I did spy two egg whites sitting on the table from yesterdays cheesecake affair, so I threw them in and it turned out perfect. A recipe that works even if you mess with it has to be a good one. I later found the other much simpler recipe, sitting directly underneath this one. I swore at it and smacked it.
1 cup of gluten free flour
2 thirds cup of cocoa ( excessive but so good for you!!)
half tsp baking powder ( I left this out too!)
half tsp salt
half tsp xanthan gum
third cup of butter melted. Just guess this!
half cup brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup of brewed coffee. drink the rest. Make this slice in the morning, not the evening - preferably before you go blacksmithing.
1/4 cup of chopped walnuts if you like.
beat butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla with beater. Then add the rest and throw into a lamington tin and bake 170 c for twenty minutes or until cooked. Cut brownies after they cool - if you can.
Christine or Wilma’s recipe for Homemade Yabby sauce
Make mayo with condensed milk
Ingredients:
1/2 can condensed milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white vinegar or lemon juice
1 teaspoon mustard
Mix well and stand to thicken.
then add hot tabasco sauce (GF)or curry powder
dip yabbies in.
