Recipes – Page 2 – Head in the Clouds

Plum-Worcestershire Sauce Recipe

Hello! I was going to try and do nothing today.
I am not actually very good at doing nothing.
Happily the kitchen that I destroyed yesterday got sorted out though!
Below is the recipe for the Plum-Worcestershire sauce recipe for those that are keen.
Sorry – a mix of imperial and metric measurements – just to keep you on your toes!

Step One – Find a whacking great pot.

INGREDIENTS:

3lb dark plums
3lb white sugar
2lb brown sugar
3 X tins of treacle (1 tin 850g)
7 pints vinegar (OK – thats 4.2 litres)
1/2lb garlic (Its ok to put more)(Chop small or whizz-up)
1 oz (30g) white pepper
1 oz allspice
1 oz whole cloves (I only had ground and ended up putting in 8 teaspoons.)(Seemed ok 🙂 )
1/4 oz Cayenne pepper
1/2 oz ground ginger
2 Tablespoons salt

METHOD:

Put everything into your oversized pot together and bring to boil. This took a looooong time for me.
Don’t let it boil over. Really. Don’t.
Let simmer until the stones leave the plums
Strain pips and skin (And whole cloves if you used them)
Reboil for an hour.

Sterilise bottles (a LOT of bottles) in your oven, (I put mine in at 100C/212F) when too hot to touch I take them out and pour the sauce in – pop the lids on and voila! Lasts for ages.
Wonderful in your home made hamburgers/rissoles. I like it in spag. bol. sauce and usually splash some in casserole dishes as well.

Cheers!

Chocolate Covered Raspberry Ice Cream Bites – Almost!

Hello!
I did a nice healthy pick in the garden yesterday – I see some more tomato relish and sweet chilli sauce coming up! (Not to mention a boat-load of cucumber relish)

I am a little disappointed I didn’t finish my ice cream project today. Seems the mixture needs WAY more than 4 hours in the freezer before I can finish off the final steps

I saw this fabulous video-recipe pop up on my facebook page and decided that I needed it in my life.
I can’t add videos here, but will share it on my facebook page for those who are interested. I will certainly write down the instructions but the video made it look incredibly easy.

So – a 395g tin of sweetened condensed milk into a pot and stir in a pack of white chocolate melts – 225g

Once melted and mixed, pop it into the fridge for 15-20 minutes to chill

While it was chilling I went to scavenge what was left on the raspberry canes (Seriously – be nice of people to share this stuff at the BEGINNING of the raspberry season!!)

Take mixture out of the fridge and add in a 250g pack of Philly spreadable cream cheese (I am sure any spreadable cheese will suit)

This went into the mixer until smooth then I added 300ml of cream and kept beating until fluffy

I threw in the raspberries and mixed them in by hand. I then added some of my frozen ones just because I could

I lined a square tin with baking paper, put the mixture in and added a few strawberries into the top layer

Even a heart shaped one – I just noticed it has ticked over into Valentines Day here 🙂

Anyway, enough of the romance.
I put this into the freezer which was supposed to be ready in 4 hours for the last step.
Nope – A short while ago I stuck my finger into the very soft mixture and decided it could stay there until tomorrow.
Basically you take it out, cut it into squares, dip each square into melted chocolate and bung them back into the freezer. (Like thats going to end well… haha)
Anyway, can’t wait until I finish these off, re-freeze and taste test!

Then I will have to get off the frivolous cooking train and get my sauces made!

Cheers!

Muesli Bars

Hello! There is Friday gone! Hope everyone has some excellent weekend plans.
Clearly my Saturday plan will be something to do with sorting/cooking the plums Jeff brought home from Ruby’s that he helped pick!
So happy – my upcoming plum jam crisis has been averted (for now)

Well… my husband is getting a bit more daring in the kitchen! (proud wife moment) He looked up how to make muesli bars (or granola bars) and went off on his merry way.
The first batch was excellent, so we did another lot today

I will add the recipe at the end of the blog for anyone that is interested in giving them a go

Some of our dried apples from last season

Since you can get a bit creative about what goes in them, I started having thoughts about strawberries

Pickings are getting slim, but I put these on to dehydrate today as I reckon they will be awesome in the next lot of muesli bars

I can’t tell you how good strawberries smell as they dehydrate!

And here is a Jeff-Action shot, just for his parents to see 🙂

Half an hour in the oven and ‘Voila’

Tasty and will be excellent to take on our 6 day hike across Cradle!
The plans are all coming together!

Cheers!

RECIPE FOR MUESLI BARS

9×9 inch pan – criss cross with wax paper going up the sides and also grease paper

Preheat oven to 165C (325F)

INGREDIENTS

2&1/2 cups oatmeal (we used rolled oats)

1/4 cup desiccated coconut

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Then – make up one cup of whatever you like to add to your bars. It can include, crushed nuts (we have used almonds and cashews) dried fruits – so far we have used apple, apricot, sultanas, – choc chips.

METHOD

Mix well all ingredients and press down into your tin really firmly

Put in oven for about 30 minutes

Allow to cool COMPLETELY in tin. Once cool, you can remove and slice!

Relish

Hello!
Not a lot from me today. I am still doing things in slow motion thanks to my shoulder which is still not playing nice at all.

But I did get my relish made! So happy to be restocked! (See bottom for recipe if you are interested. Its a lovely old fashioned one from my Nanna)

I hung out some washing and then got sidetracked by shoveling some dirt around the ‘boardwalk’ and putting some rocks back at the front to try to blend it more… then figured that was a worse than bad idea. (not what I did but because it wasn’t really helping my shoulder much)

I played with my garlic scrapes – just trying to put them all in a bowl to do something with

Someone had suggested making garlic infused olive oil which I was keen to try – then read there is a high risk of botulism from the process, so I got nervous and abandoned the idea. Still not sure what I will use them for

I did do some housework – but didn’t get all that far. So I sat down for a bit and finished Miss Emma’s late late late Christmas present

Done! (again – night time not the best light for the colours but you get the idea!)

So… looks like I might achieve an early night tonight!! You never know!

Cheers!

Recipe for my Nanna’s tomato relish:

Ingredients

6lb tomatoes (3kg)

2lb onion (1kg)

2lb sugar

Vinegar (you can use white, malt or cider vinegar)(Avoid malt if you are keeping it gluten-free)

2 tablespoons curry powder

3 tablespoons mustard powder

Cornflour to thicken

Salt

Method:

Chop tomato in to approx 1cm chunks (You can peel if you want to but I don’t)

Dice onion

Put both in large pot, mix and sprinkle top with a handful of salt and leave overnight.

In the morning, drain off excess liquid.

Pour vinegar over the mixture until covered/saturated.

Add in your sugar and bring to boil… then let cook slowly for an hour or two.

Prepare about 10 good sized jars by washing and sterilising in the oven at 100C

In a separate bowl mix your curry & mustard powder along with a couple of heaped spoonfuls of cornflour add some water and mix into smooth, runny paste. Stir into your tomato mix and cook for a few more minutes.

Pour hot into your jars and seal with lids. (Apron good – can be messy and splashy!)

Enjoy.

Strawberry Ice Cream

Well… I was a bit disgusted with the weather today!! I am sure no-one believes we actually bother with summer in Tasmania!! The wind was howling… every 30 minutes it rained sideways. I am about to turn my electric blanket on (because I am cold and I am a sook) and snuggle into bed!

Since my strawberry ice cream worked out so well… I thought I would make up another batch. Can’t have too much of a good thing can you?

This is how I did it in case anyone else needs to have a go. We have an ice cream maker to do the churning, but you can just make it and freeze it. You will have to take it out of the freezer for a short time to let it become less than rock hard to scoop it – but its totally worth the effort.

I made a basic ‘Old Fashioned’ vanilla ice cream

300ml milk

pinch salt

half cup of caster sugar

one teaspoon of vanilla essence

one egg – well beaten

250ml cream

DIRECTIONS

Put milk, salt, sugar and vanilla in saucepan and over medium heat, cook until almost boiling.

Pour half the mixture into the egg – as you whisk/mix

Pour entire lot back into the saucepan and cook over low heat until it thickens slightly. Take off the heat, let it cool, then chill it in the fridge.

Once chilled, take out and whisk the cream through the mixture.

If I am not making pure vanilla ice cream, I usually take 300g of pureed strawberries (I have also done raspberry and cherry) and mixed that in -Can I just interrupt here and say the cherry ice cream is the most amazing thing ever?? Look:

Anyway put it through the ice cream maker or just put in container and chuck it in the freezer.

Its sooooo much better than shop bought!! Especially if you grow your own fruit!

Anyway – I went out to a party tonight. Dressed like a hippy. Had a whole glass of wine!!!
Party. Animal.
Bedtime for me!
Enjoy your weekend!

Cheers!

Beef Soup

I came across a recipe for beef soup a short while ago and we really liked it… so I thought I might share it here, since nothing I did today was super exciting to write about. (Ok, we enjoyed my parents visiting one last time before they had to head home on the boat tonight, 🙁 , with lunch and generally catching up in front of the cosy fire which was lovely!)

We had had ‘carnivore night’ and BBQed up a silly amount of steak for two people, thus – leftovers. I had never made a beef soup before so I went searching for a recipe that matched what I had left in the garden.

The one I found was at taste.com.au called “All in one beef soup” It really teeters on a stew and was very satisfying.

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon olive oil (or whatever oil 🙂 )

500g (1 pound) lean beef – cheap cuts ok – coarsely chopped

2 carrots, peeled, finely chopped

2 celery sticks finely chopped

1 large brown onion finely chopped

2 garlic cloves crushed (I did more and just chopped them. We like garlic)

2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary

2 cups chicken stock

2 cups of water

1/3 cup pearl barley rinsed (I don’t have that so I added some spiral noodles in last 20 minutes or so of cooking)

2 dried bay leaves (I didn’t bother with them)

3 large tomatoes chopped (not tomato season so I put in a 400g can tinned tomatoes in instead)

300g sweet potato peeled cut into 1cm pieces (I didn’t have this either)

Anyway…. I had carrots.

And by accident I seem to have celery

I also added a chilli for excitement factor.

If you are not like us using the pre-BBQed beef, you need to heat some oil in a large saucepan and brown your beef. Take it out and set it aside.

Add some more oil and stir in the carrot, celery & onion for 8 minutes or until softened.

Then stir in garlic & rosemary (and chilli) until aromatic.

Return beef to pot and add in your stock, water, barley (if you are using it) and bay leaves (ditto)

Cover and bring to boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for an hour and a half.

Add tomatoes (and sweet potato if you are doing that or the spiral pasta noodles if you are using those) Cook until noodles/potato ready.

I also probably sprinkled in some garlic salt at some point. I can’t remember, but I usually do!

I should have garnished it with some rosemary or parsley for the photo!!

This was a serious winner in Norwich House, and has been added to my repertoire of “Meals I Can Cook”

Hope everyone had a lovely day!

Cheers

Tomato Sauce Day

Among whatever other rash promises I have made in regards to Ruby’s upcoming birthaday party – one was to make a dedicated batch of home made tomato sauce that will accompany a host of home-made savoury snacks that Ruby’s Church Guild will be making.

When tomatoes are on – wow! I get boxes of them – so I start making the relish and sauce as well as trying to sell a few and eating insane amounts!

At some point I get completely over it and start just chopping and freezing them in 6lb batches – so I can just pull a container out of the freezer like I did today to make a new batch of sauce.

My recipe is pretty basic – easy and tastes great. Not exotic, but good standard tomato sauce (ok – ketchup 🙂 )

6lb tomatoes chopped

2lb sugar

1/2 pint vinegar (I use white)(300ml)

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon allspice

2&1/2 tablespoons salt.

Dump all ingredients into a big pot and bring to boil, dissolving sugar.

Boil for 2&1/2 hours

I then run the whole lot through my little mooley to get rid of the seeds and skins, put back on stove to heat and thicken with some cornflour (cornstarch)

Pour hot into bottles that have been sterilised in the oven and you are done!

If tomato relish is more your style, click here and scroll to bottom of post!

I can’t wait until we have buckets of fat juicy tomatoes again!

Cheers!

Pineapple/Kiwi Jam

Want something less run-of-the-mill when it comes to jam?

If you are overstocked with kiwi fruit – this might be one to try. I just taste tested it on some fresh bread and I am pretty happy with it. Will be a nice addition to my morning jam choice!

How To…

Get 24 kiwi fruit (maybe a few more if they are only titchy little ones), cut skin off and mash them in your jam cooking pot.

Once you have them nicely mashed, get three Granny Smith apples.

Don’t bother peeling them, just cut them in half. I did take the core and stem out because I knew it would be a pain trying to fish them out later.

Put your apples in the pot

Add 4 tablespoons of lemon juice (Lucky Ruby has plenty of lemons)(Well… they were so juicy I only needed 2)

I annoyingly had to buy two litres of pineapple juice when the recipe only calls for 175mls!! (So I bought some lemonade and have enjoyed the rest of the juice as a nice fizzy mixed drink)

800gm of caster sugar (1.75lb)

Put on the stove and bring to boil, dissolving sugar. Let simmer reasonably fast for half an hour.

Take out apples, have sterilised jars ready.

I used my Gee Whizzer stick to blend it a bit more before putting it into jars. Perhaps take out the apples earlier than I did – ie before they pulp too much.

It set really easily (I think that was due to the apple) so apart from the eon it took to cut the peel off all those kiwis, its a pretty painless jam to make!

Enjoy

Cheers!

Slim Pickings (& Plum Liqueur Recipe)

Halfway through winter – garden still gives up one or two things

I think my biggest achievements today were:

1. Getting dressed and 2. Keeping the fire going

I managed to also feed Jeff something that wasn’t leftovers! Yay me!

There was a wee bit of colour in the clouds this evening, so I am hoping for a nice day tomorrow. The chickens are probably wishing the same thing.

So… because I am completely boring, tonight I am just going to share that scrummy plum liqueur recipe with you in case you need to make some! 🙂

HOMEMADE PLUM LIQUEUR

This is the link to the recipe I use if you want to watch the video, but below are the quick instructions:

2lb Plums – remove stones

500ml of Alcohol for Fruits or Vodka

500gm Sugar

100ml Brandy or dark rum

Cut plums, remove stones and put in ‘sealable’ jar. Pour in sugar, Vodka and rum. Seal jar

Store in dark place for 2 months and agitate on occasions. (I left mine a lot longer due to procrastination)

Sieve juice into bowl, further filter if you like to get a really clear liqueur.

Pour into bottles

Enjoy! (As I am doing this very moment!!)

Very easy, would make very fancy Christmas presents!!

Cheers!

Baked Chocolate Self Saucing Pudding

It rained a lot today.

A real lot

I also did a lot of dishes… more than a lot!! (I kept cooking stuff and making more mess!)

Dishes and Rain do not make for an exciting blog post, so will share my cousins pudding recipe and bid you all a wonderful night/day!!! 🙂

Use medium sized casserole dish – no lid – and preheat oven to 150C (300F)

Pudding

1&1/2 cups self raising flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 small cup sugar

2 tablespoon cocoa

3/4 to 1 cup milk

2 tablespoon melted butter or marg.

Combine above ingredients and mix until smooth consistency

Place in dish

Sauce

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 rounded tablespoons cocoa

420ml (1&2/3 cup) HOT water (I boiled mine)

Mix together and carefully pour over cake mix

Bake for 45 minutes.

Serve with lots of ice-cream! 😀

Cheers!

PS this seems a handy chart for people that internet search recipes.