Dec 11

Cookbook 20: The Complete Cook’s Encyclopedia of Spices

To put it simply, this book is amazing.  I bought The Complete Cook’s Encyclopedia of Spices by Sallie Morris and Lesley Mackley for a whole $10 at a Readings Bargain sale.  I got all my money’s worth and then some.  Not only does it have a great selection of recipes, but it also contains, as advertised, an encyclopaedia (there, spelt it correctly) of spices, a bit of history about them (oldest recorded usage, brought to the West by, etc), cultivation facts, preparation styles (dried, ground, whole), medicinal uses(if any), etc.

I changed the cooking method for the chicken dish to suit the implements I had available, and I’ll record that in the notes after the recipe.  Otherwise the recipes were straightforward, and surprisingly easy.  The ingredients for the recipes I chose were not hard to source (in fact I had most of them at home already).  Overall, the dish voted most tasty were the Mexican Tortilla Parcels.

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Dec 03

Recipe from the folder – Vegetable Lasagne

I had a very busy weekend, my dad’s 60th birthday party on the Saturday, with the necessary 4 hours of driving, and then I volunteered for TEDx Women on the Sunday for 5 hours which left me exhausted.  So no cooking.  I then stressed about what to write up, did I put up an excuse about not cooking because I was tired, and then tell a story about lightning strikes (even nature celebrated my father’s 60th), or something else. Then the lovely Scott-monster, suggested that I put up this recipe sent to me by a dear friend that is OMG so awesome.  I have made some minor modifications because one of the people who lives here has a capsicum intolerance.  I will include both options so you can decide what you want to do.

You will need a DEEP dish to cook this in – there are lots of layers.

Ingredients:
Vegies: 1 large eggplant cut into 1/2 cm thick slices
a couple of big handfuls of baby spinach leaves
approx 100g sundried tomatoes – I often use more cause I like them.

3 large red capsicum, quartered, deveined and deseeded
OR 1 tin of artichoke hearts thinly sliced

Tomato Sauce: 1/4 cup olive oil
two onions, diced
three cloves garlic, chopped – garlic is to taste, really
1 cup fresh basil, chopped – I have used dried without spoiling it
2 tsp dried oregano
6 cups tomato puree – this equals two big tins of chopped tomatoes
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tsp raw/brown sugar
2 tblsp tomato paste

Bechamel Sauce: 125g butter
1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup plain flour
1 litre warmed milk

Cheese: you want a total of about six cups of grated cheese, mixed mozzarella, cheddar and parmesan. I have found that the shredded pizza mix from the supermarket is perfect.

500g lasagne sheets – you don’t want to use fresh pasta sheets for this one

Method:
PREPARE VEGIES

Capsicum (if using): Put capsicum slices skin side up under a hot grill. Grill for 10 mins or until blackened. When done, put them in a plastic bag and seal it shut. when they are cool, peel the blackened skin off and set them aside. Because these take longer, I usually do them first.

Eggplant: spray both sides of slices with olive oil and place on a tray under a hot grill. turn after a few minutes, or when slices are tender and starting to bown. Set aside.

PREPARE TOMATO SAUCE

Warm olive oil in pan, add onions and garlic, cook until soft. Add basil and oregano, saute for 30 seconds to a minute. Pour in tomato puree, stir, and bring to the boil. Add salt, black pepper, sugar and tomato paste, and reduce heat. Simmer for 10 – 15 minutes or until it thickens a bit.

PREPARE BECHAMEL SAUCE

Melt the butter over low heat. Stir in nutmeg, black pepper, and flour. Saute, stirring constantly, for half a minute or until the mixture loosens. Remove from heat, and gradually pour in the warm  milk, stirring with a whisk until the sauce is smooth. Return to the heat and bring to the boil, stirring. Reduce heat and simmer 5 mins, stirring constantly, until sauce has a custard consistency.

ASSEMBLE LASAGNE

1. Combine the cheeses. Divide the cheese into 3 portions, tomato sauce into 3 portions, bechamel into four portions. These portions for me are always quite rough, and I tend to divide as I go rather than fiddling around dividing it all up before I start.

2. Spread one portion tomato sauce on the bottom of the casserole dish. Add a layer of lasagne sheets, then eggplant slices. Spread on a portion of bechamel, then another of the pasta. Sprinkle with portion of shredded cheese.

3. Continue layering as follows: tomato sauce, sundried  tomatoes, capsicum/artichoke hearts, pasta, bechamel, pasta, cheese, spinach leaves.

4. Add remaining tomato sauce, then pasta sheets, then double portion of bechamel sauce. sprinkle top with remaining cheese.

5. Place in preheated 200C/390F oven, cook for 45-60 minutes. The cheese tends to darken before the lasagne is done, so check it half way through and put foil over the top for the remainder of the cooking time. When it is done, leave the lasagne in the (turned off) oven with the door ajar for thirty minutes.

Notes on this recipe:

  • You can actually add meat to this recipe and cook it with the tomato sauce if you don’t want to go full vegie.  If adding meat use 500g of mince meat (chicken, beef or pork will work) and add to the tomato sauce after frying the onions and garlic but before adding the basil.

Nov 27

Cookbook 19: a little taste of… morocco

I bought this cookbook for Scott for Christmas one year, the same year he bought me a Tagine.  At the time it was sold by Oxfam a shop I love to wander around in.  The recipes are neatly laid out, with insert photos of tricky or possibly confusing steps, the instructions are easily understood, and I love the way the book is broken into themes – street food, home cooking, banquet food, and coastal food.  A little taste of… morocco is still in print (YAY) and apart from now falling apart (spine separated from body), I highly recommend it.

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Nov 18

From the recipe folder: Eggplant and Tomato Curry

This weekend I’m off visiting my parents again, and so don’t have time to go through one of my cook books and cook up something amazing.  And I’ve run out of recipes stored in my head, so this time I’m giving you my modification of this recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 2 large eggplants
  • 1 teaspoon ginger paste
  • 1 teaspoon garlic paste
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
  • 2 teaspoons fennel seeds
  • 1 teaspoon nigella seeds (kalonji/black onion seeds)
  • 6 medium sized tomatoes chopped very finely (or 2 tins of chopped tomatoes, one tin drained of liquid)
  • 2 tablespoons of coriander powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon tumeric powder
  • 1 – 2 teaspoon red chilli powder (to taste)
  • salt
  • oil for frying

Method:

  1. Prick the eggplants with a fork, then microwave on a plate for 15 minutes on high.  Set aside to cool.  You want to wait for about 10 minutes before you continue with the rest of the dish, eggplants are good at holding heat.
  2. Add 2 tablespoons of oil to a heavy saucepan.  When hot, add the cumin seeds.  As they begin to sizzle, add fennel seeds and kalonji.  When they darken add the chopped tomato and ginger and garlic paste.  Stir for a minute.  Add coriander, turmeric and chilli powder. Season with salt.  Let the tomato mixture simmer.
  3. Peel the skin of the eggplants away from the flesh.  To do this, cut the eggplants in half and scoop the insides out with a fork or spoon – if they are cool enough you can also use your hands.
  4. Once you have all the eggplant flesh from the eggplants, chop it into smaller pieces and add to the tomato dish. Turn up the heat and stir until the sauce thickens (this won’t take long).
  5. Serve hot with rice.

Nov 14

Cookbook 18: The new Muffin cookbook

It was Scott’s birthday this weekend so I asked him what he wanted cooked to celebrate his birthday.  He chose muffins, one of his favourite food groups.  I even got him to choose the recipes so he picked his favourite flavours.  All these recipes are by Family Circle, in the new Muffin cookbook.  They’re pretty easy (if you don’t stuff them up), and for the recipe that reads like a story, I’ll rework into a traditional ingredients and method, so it’s easy for you to know if you can get the ingredients to make it yourself.

I love that all of these recipes start with “pre-heat the oven” because that’s a step that I often forget to do first (and some books have “put the tray in the pre-heated oven” at the end of the recipe).  I also use silicon muffin cups to save on greasing muffin trays and because they’re reusable.  I recommend them (they’re not very expensive), if you like baking lots of muffins.

I have a fan forced oven, and the recipes seem to be made for standard non-fan forced ovens.  Reduce the temperature by 10 – 20 degrees (depending on your fan forced oven) if you have a fan forced oven.

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Nov 09

Cookbook 17: The Essential Rice Cookbook

I bought this book on sale at a bookshop which has downsized and only now has one store that I am aware of.  I bought it because the word “rice” is the biggest word in the title, and rice is one of my biggest comfort foods.  The idea of having an entire book of comfort food was incredibly appealing.  The Essential Rice Cookbook features rice recipes from around the world, sweet and savoury, with easy to follow instructions and delicious results.  It also appears to be out of print, but available second hand at various places.  My copy says it was edited by Zoe Harpham, but apparently there is another edition edited by Wendy Stephens too.  My copy matches the art of the book edited by Wendy Stephens – so a book mystery… but you’re here for recipes, so let’s go.

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Oct 28

Cookbook 16: The New PWMU Cookbook

Ah the PWMU Cookbook revised by Lorna Connor, I can imagine that many Uniting Church families have one of these tucked away somewhere, of one of the many different editions.  Mine is the third (revised) edition, and I think we’re now up to the fifth edition.  The one thing about this book is that you can buy the current version, but these recipes are unlikely to appear in it.  Each revision looks at what is being made today, and what ingredients aren’t too expensive.  My mother’s second edition PWMU Cookbook has a recipe in it called “Economical biscuits” because they don’t use eggs – which must have been expensive at the time.

I was so excited when I bought this cook book because I had used my mother’s to make all sorts of biscuits and cakes when I lived at home.  I was disappointed to find that some of my favourite biscuits were not longer in my version, so I wrote them out when I visited home so I could still make them.

As I only ever use this cookbook for baking biscuits and cakes, I haven’t investigated any of the many other categories of recipe in it for this post.  Instead I made a cake and two different biscuits.  I’m going to write out these recipes as I actually cooked them, because the one thing that this book doesn’t have is recipe testing (not the Women’s Weekly kitchen that’s for sure), and some of the recipes assume more than basic cooking knowledge (for example, what is a quick oven?).  I also am going to provide the recipe for one of my most favourite not recipes of this book.  Yes, it’s based on the recipe in the book, but I substituted all the fruit for chocolate – because… chocolate. Continue reading

Oct 28

Cookbook 15: Meena Pathak’s Flavours of India

This weekend I cooked from Meena Pathak’s Flavours of India.  This is a great cook book.  At the back it has menu suggestions – dishes that complement each other.  Each recipe has information with alternate or optional ingredients, great instructions, and they are pretty amazing.  My one minor criticism is that the timing of some of the recipes is difficult to judge – not too difficult, just I failed the timing of the most of the dishes, though to be honest, dropping a near full jar of minced garlic on the tiles and having it explode across to the kitchen did throw most of the timing out. Continue reading

Oct 19

Cook Book 14: Moorish: Flavours from Mecca to Marrakech

The food was plentiful and delicious and everyone ate their fill, and then some.  There were some tricky moments, which I’ll record in the notes, but otherwise this book was great.  The recipes of Moorish: Flavours from Mecca to Marrakech by Greg and Lucy Malouf (again sadly out of print).  A combination of food from all over the Middle East and Northern Africa. Continue reading

Oct 10

Cookbook 13: Brownies, Fudges & Toppings

I decided that it was time for more sweet things, and this week looked at the Family Circle mini cookbook on Brownies, Fudges & Toppings (now out of print).  The recipes are all straight forward, the instructions clear (and obviously tested) and they are so very very very tasty. Continue reading