Phat Grissini

It's been a bit of a long week. After SP got over her lurgy, she was happy for a whole entire day before falling victim to another one, so we have been pinned to the couch. Again.
So, first up, a belated addition to Hazel's Winter Wednesday series: Is there anything better than finding a patch of sunlight to flop into on a cold day?


Yesterday afternoon SP was briefly well enough that I was able to whip up some grissini (bread sticks), a seriously underrated food. They're very quick and easy to make, so long as you don't try to be a perfectionist about it and make them all the same size or anything, and you don't need to worry overmuch about how much or little the mix rises because it's not that important. I think they'd be a fantastic one to try with kids.

I based my recipe on this one which I found in a quick Internet search, but as usual I changed it up a bit, not least because I thought that '623g of flour' and '397g water' were very strange measurements indeed.

So, take:

• 320g flour
• 200ml luke-warm water
• 1 sachet yeast (7g)
• 5g salt
• 20ml olive oil

and mix the whole lot together roughly with a fork. When it comes together into a dough, turn it onto a bench and knead it about for a few minutes. You can add extra flavours at this stage, I added about 1/2 a cup of shredded Parmesan cheese (the cheaty stuff out of a packet). When it's all nice and elastic, pop it into a bowl, cover, and leave it somewhere warm for an hour or two until it's doubled in size (on top of the coffee machine is a fantastic place if you have one, otherwise turn the oven on for a couple of minutes to warm it up a little, then turn it off again and leave your bowl in there).
Then have a cup of tea, watch some TV, pop the laundry on, etc, until time has passed and you're ready for the next part.
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Divide the dough in half. Roll out the dough to make it nice and flat and as thin as you can manage, then fold it in half and roll it out again. Cut into about 16 long strips, then roll into snakes or twizzle into long rolls.
Place on a tray about 2cm apart.
Sprinkle extra flavourings over the top: a little salt and pepper, or garlic salt, or flaked dry chili, or extra Parmesan cheese.
Repeat for the other half of the dough on a second tray.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. The longer you bake them the crunchier they will be.
They'll keep for a few days in an airtight container, but they might not last long enough to worry about that.


Apparently they are nice enough for even poorly SPs to have a couple at once.


Happy weekend everyone xx

Coconutty Bread and Butter Pudding

Winter desserts: aren't they wonderful? And I've found a new one to add to my repertoire. It all started when I read about Malay Sweet Potato Donuts over at Kebun Malay-Kadazan girls blog. I like sweet potato, and I'm a sucker for sweet things, so I thought I'd try them and they were very nice, and very easy even for a frying-gumby like me to make. Then this recipe reminded me of a little book I have printed by Periplus called 'Classic Asian Cakes and Desserts'. I had a flick through, and the donuts happened to be in there, but I found another recipe I wanted to try: Coconut Bread Pudding.
I rummaged through the pantry and we had all the ingredients, so I made it - albeit quite modified - and we all tucked in and declared it Delicious (excepting MIL, who doesn't like bread pudding, but even she admitted it smelled pretty good), but I only remembered to take a photo towards the end.


Very glamorous...
So, being a good blogger and all, I needed to make it again (doesn't have anything to do with wanting to eat it again, and being home alone tonight so I can have a bigger serve, oh no, of course not...)

Here's the recipe as I made it (the original can be found in the book listed above):

COCONUTTY BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING
Serves 4.

Ingredients
1 TB softened butter
2 eggs
1/3 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup coconut milk or cream
2/3 cup milk
1 TSP vanilla essence
6 slices of sour dough bread
1/3 cup sultanas
1 TB of white sugar for sprinkling

Method
1. Lightly brush the base and sides of a casserole dish. Preheat the oven to 180c (350f)
2. Butter both sides of the pieces of bread and set aside.
3. Beat the eggs and sugar together in a large bowl. Pour in the coconut milk, milk and vanilla essence, and mix well.
4. Add the bread and sultanas to the mixture and soak together for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally so that it soaks evenly.
5. Place the bread and sultanas into your dish and pour any excess milk mixture over it. Sprinkle evenly with the extra sugar.
6. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until it is golden and any custard around the edges is set.
7. Allow to cool for 10 minutes or so before cutting and serving with cream and/or ice cream.
8. Eat and Enjoy!


[I have to say, despite our masses and masses of Asian travelling, I have never seen bread and butter pudding anywhere in Asia yet so I'm not sure what is so 'classic' about this, but it's tasty anyway and a nice twist on an English traditional pudding]

Relishing green tomatoes.

.Southern Australia has a wee problem with Portuguese millipedes, as mentioned previously. Among the favourite foods of these smelly critters, is almost ripe vegetables in the garden, or so it seems. It is somewhat distressing to have been watching a particularly large tomato, or perfectly shaped strawberry, waiting and waiting for it to be ready, to suddenly find a multitude of millipedes curled up inside it, chomping away. They are the reason we picked our rock melon early, and why we took about 2kg of unripe Amish Paste tomatoes off the bush. 

But, you know, just because something isn't ripe, doesn't mean you can't still eat it, and what better to make with green tomatoes than tomato relish? (*Recipe at end*)
You need to give them a very good wash first, and try not to be too grossed out by the millipedes which drift to the bottom of the sink.

 Then you cut them up into rough hunks, taking out the dodgy bits and the bugs. If desired, you can be a bit silly and arrange them from ripest to least ripe across the chopping board for a funky photo.

Also cut up one onion, some of the capsicum floating around in the bottom of the fridge, and a handful of chillies from the garden, maybe only a couple of chillies if you don't like things hot. 
Bring some vinegar and sugar to the boil, then pile in your chopped vegetables. I recommend choosing a bigger pot than I did.

But even if you have misjudged the vegetables to pot size ratio, don't worry, let it sit and simmer gently and the tomatoes will quickly break down and begin to release lots of water and not threaten to overflow anymore. Over time, the tomato mixture will reduce down to about one third of the original volume.

When all of the excess water has gone from the mixture and it is quite thick, it is ready to be used. It's very rich, tangy and delicious. Excellent as a condiment for sandwiches, or on meat, or on top of leftover lasagne as I have been eating it. You could probably sterilize some jars and store it for some time, but at the rate it's being eaten in this house I'm glad I didn't bother and settled for a glamorous Ikea container instead.

***
RECIPE
Tomato Relish
(Recipe from Chef D)
Adjust quantities to suit what you have available.

In a saucepan, mix together 1/2 cup brown sugar and one cup of white wine vinegar. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently.
Add 1.5kg of chopped tomatoes, 1 chopped onion, 1 chopped capsicum and fresh chopped chili to taste.
Stir all together, then simmer gently until it is well reduced and the excess water has gone. This will take some time, perhaps 1-2 hours depending on how slowly you are cooking it.
When it has cooled, it is ready to eat.
Enjoy!

High Tea

Update: Card-Reader located!

It was SIL's birthday on April Fool's Day, and her party was yesterday. She had a Sunday High Tea, here at MIL's, and asked certain people to make various signature dishes: D his lemon tarts, me my stained-glass cookies.
Preparations began the day before with the purchase of local butter, local eggs, and whilst not local sweets they were bought from a local sweet store (support your locals!)

 

The butter was chopped, then sugar and vanilla added, then I left it to sit to soften.

But it was quite cold on Saturday, and it was very reluctant to cream. What better place to very gently warm and soften it than on top of the coffee machine?

Then I had to leave my preparations there, in the fridge, while I went to work and D came home. Unfortunately, SP turned into a Leech-Baby at this point, and he only got to half make his pastry cases and then MIL finished them and made the lemon filling the next day.

I finished off the cookies the next day too.

And then we set up for tea:
We put out the teacups;

The plates, napkins and cutlery;

Flowers on the side table;

Hydrangeas and magnolia leaves from the garden in the darkened hallway;

 Food plated up and ready to go;

MIL made the most beautiful, luscious, special birthday cake (recipe at end);

Which we ate...

And as the afternoon progressed, and the sunlight filtered through the trees into the garden, we became aware of the sugar-overload invading our systems and resolved to eat bread and water for tea.

Happy Birthday SIL! :)

***

Recipe
MIL's Special Birthday Cake: I insist you try it; it is divine.

Raspberry and White Chocolate Cake
(also known as 'Mary Phillipou's Wonder Cake', from Trick or Treat by Kerry Greenwood, 2001, Allen and Unwin)

2 eggs
1 cup caster sugar
300ml cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 3/4 cups self-raising flour
1 cup frozen berries (or dried fruit)
1 cup white chocolate bits

Grease a 20cm baking tin and line with baking paper.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Beat the eggs and sugar together until thick.
Add cream and essence and mix well.
Add the sifted flour and fold until until smooth.
Fold in berries and chocolate bits.
Pour into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 50 minutes. It's cooked when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow cake to cool in the tin and turn out.
Dust with icing sugar and top with berries.

Gingerbread and biscotti recipes

Just to round things out, here are the gingerbread and biscotti recipes I used this year.

Gingerbread
(paraphrased and adapted from Donna Hay magazine, issue 6, p 96)

125g (4 oz) butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup (4 fl oz) golden syrup
2 1/2 cups plain (all purpose) flour
2 tsp ground ginger tsp bicarb soda (baking soda)

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees celsius (375 F).
Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and creamy. Add the golden syrup and beat well. Add the flour, ginger, and bicarb soda and stir to combine. Knead the dough lightly to form a smooth dough.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface, or between two sheets of non-stick baking paper to 5mm (1/4") thick. Use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes from the dough and place them on a baking paper lined tray. Be careful! The dough will be very soft.
Bake for 8-10minutes or until golden brown. Cool on the trays.
Ice with lemon icing. The lemon with the ginger 'lifts' the flavour considerably.
Makes 25.


Biscotti.
(paraphrased and adapted from The Essential Mediterrananean Cookbook, Murdoch Books, p 148)

2 cups plain (all purpose) flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup (8 oz) caster sugar
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp grated orange rind
3/4 cup (3.5 oz) natural pistachio nuts

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius (350F).
Line two baking trays with non-stick baking paper and dust lightly with flour.
Sift the flour and baking paper into a large bowl. Add the sugar and mix well. Make a well in the centre and add 2 whole eggs, the egg yolk, vanilla essence and orange rind. Stir until just combined. Mix in the pistachios. Knead for 2-3 minutes on a lightly floured surface. The dough will be stiff at first but quickly become soft. Add a little water if necessary.
Divide the mixture into two equal portions and roll each into a log about 25cm (10") long and 8cm (3") wide. Place the logs on the trays, allowing room for spreading. Slightly flatten the tops.
Beat the remaing egg and brush over the logs to glaze.
Bake for 35 minutes and remove from the oven.
Reduce the oven temperature to 150 celcius (300F).
Allow the logs to cool slightly, then cut them into 5mm slices.
Place slices flat side down on the trays.
BAke for 8 minutes. Turn the over and bake for a further 8 minutes, or until slightly coloured and crisp and dry.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool.