Onion Goggles

These are brilliant and actually work! Go see me wearing them on my other blog!

Custard slices

A recipe I got from Andre's mom. One of the few sweet things I make that he will eat. 

Ingredients:

1 tin condensed milk

lemon juice

2 heaped tablespoons custard powder

about 500 ml milk

2 heaped teaspoons sugar

Nice biscuits (or Tennis biscuits if you're in SA)

Here's how to make it:

1. Pour condensed milk into a bowl and fold in lemon juice until the condensed milk becomes quite thick. Next time I will measure how much lemon juice I used. You will need a few tablespoons full. It doesn't need to be solid. Just a bit thicker than when you poured it from the tin.

2. Place a layer of biscuits in the bottom of the dish and around the sides. I used a smallish dish. Let me go measure it... it's 22cm x 17cm.  One packet of biscuits was just enough for this size of dish. You will need a bit more if your dish is any bigger.)

3. Mix custard powder and sugar with a little bit of milk.

4. Heat 500ml milk. Stir in custard mixture and keep stirring until boiling.

5. Pour warm custard over biscuits in dish.

6. Pack another layer of biscuits over the custard, keeping aside one biscuit.

7. Pour condensed milk mixture over the second layer of biscuits and crumble the one biscuit you kept aside over the top.

8. Refrigerate until set.

Apple Crisp - This is a good one!

No pictures of this one as it isn't a pretty looking dessert in the dish. You could dress it up in a bowl with some ice cream. I've already had a taste of it now before dinner and it's so good. It can do with some cream or vanilla ice cream.

I got the recipe here, but will type it out simpler the way I like it.

Peel and core 5 - 8 apples and slice into 1/2 to 1/4 inch thick slices. Place in oven dish.
Add:
3/4 cups sugar (I only used half that and will leave the sugar in the apple mixture out completely next time.)
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Mix well.

In a separate bowl mix the topping:
3/4 cup oats
3/4 cup sugar (again I used less or it will be way too sweet)
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
optional: shopped nuts (I didn't add this as I don't like nuts much.)

Spread topping over apple mixture and bake at 190C for 45 minutes.

Have a taste test straight away then serve to your guests with ice cream or cream!

Apple and Sparkling Cider Sorbet

I've been trying out new recipes and here's one of them: it's a grown-up sorbet and deliciously refreshing. You really get that fresh apple taste and just a bit of the apple cider taste in there too. Here's the recipe:


1 kg apples
2 cups sparkling dry apple cider
1/3 cups sugar
1/2 cups water
1/2 whole lemon, juiced (or to taste)

Quarter the apples and remove cores. Don't peel them. Cut into chunks.
Combine cider, sugar and water and bring to boil.
Add apples, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 5 min.
Turn off the heat and leave to cool to room temperature for about 3 hours.

Strain the apples, pressing firmly to extract the pulp and all the liquid. I placed a colander over a large bowl and mushed it around with a spoon.
Discard the peels.
Add lemon juice to taste.

Refrigerate overnight, then freeze. You can use an ice cream maker, but I don't have one so I just put it into a tub in the freezer, stirring after an hour or two.

Homemade apple juice

I just cooked some apples to make apple juice. We picked so many over the weekend and I don't want them to go to waste.

The first time I made apple juice I followed this recipe: Apple Juice Recipe

Here's what I did tonight though, a bit simpler than on the site above. I basically just quartered all the apples. Place the chopped apples (with peels and cores) in a large pot. Add about a 1/4 cup water or more and simmer until soft. Pour into strainer over bowl and leave to strain for about 2 hours. Then help it along by pushing the soft apples around with a spoon to get as much juice/ pulp out as possible. Discard peels.

The first time I added a lot more water and it was still very thick. When I drink it I still add some water. Sparkling water is nice to thin it with. I happened to have a slightly flavoured sparkling water here which was really good with the apple juice.

This time I decided to not add much water and instead it will be like a concentrate. Takes up less space in the fridge and I'll just add water to some of the apple juice in a glass as needed. 

This is a cloudy apple juice and has some bits in too. If you want it clear without any bits you'll have to strain like mad. And you'll need something finer than just a colander which I used. I don't like to go to too much trouble when I cook. The simpler and quicker the better.

Apple Pie

Yesterday I started looking for recipes containing apples. We have a lovely big apple tree in our garden now. They must be cooking apples as they're not that great tasting as is, but they're great in the apple pie I made yesterday.

I've only ever made apple pie using canned apples, never fresh. This time I used our own fresh apples straight off the tree. I think I used two for the apple pie. Peel, core and slice the apples. Place them in a pot with 1 part sugar to 3 parts water. Simmer for a few minutes until they just become soft, then remove from syrup.

Here's the apple pie recipe if you like baking:

2 eggs
3/4 C sugar
60g margarine
1/4 C milk
1 C self-raising flour
1 tin apples or 2 whole apples (see above)

Whisk eggs and sugar.
Melt margarin and add.
Add milk, then flour.
Mix well and pour into pie dish.
Place apples on top.

Bake 30 min at 180C

Syrup
Melt:
3/4 C cream
1 t caramel essence
3/4 C sugar

Use fork to pierce pie once it's baked. Pour syrup over and place back into warm oven for a few minutes.

Serve with cream or ice cream.

Victoria Sponge Cake

This has been one of Andre's favourites since we've moved to England. It's a basic sponge cake with layers of strawberry jam and cream in between.

The plan was to have just two layers. I cheated and bought a packet of cake mix. Plain vanilla sponge. My round cake tin was slightly bigger than what the packet instructions wanted me to use so the two layers came out a little thin. I still haven't learnt my lesson with these cake mixes: buy double what you need. A mix that promises to make 12 cupcakes, usually only just makes 9.

So back to the shop I went for another packet of cake mix. This time I poured the whole mix in one cake tin. That's why you see three layers with the top one slightly higher.

I didn't have strawberry jam so used a mixed berry instead which is just as nice. Spread the jam on top of the first layer and top with whipped cream. Place next layer on top and repeat jam and cream before placing the final layer. 

Now a traditional Victoria Sponge cake will have castor sugar sifted over the top. Andre requested butter cream icing, so I made half a batch of this and used:

70 g butter

140 g icing sugar

1/2 T milk

Beat together until smooth and creamy. 

It was just enough for a good layer of icing on top. The cake tastes AMAZING. Andre even had some after dinner last night and he doesn't often eat dessert!

Best burger ever!

Best burger I've ever had!

We decided to make home made burgers on Monday night. I found this recipe by The Pioneer Woman. It was really easy to make and delicious. Here are my summerised steps:

1. Mix: beef (about 300g enough for 3 burgers for us) + 1/2 t salt +1/4 t pepper + Tabasco

2. Onion:
Low heat - 2T butter + sliced onions + 2T brown sugar
20 min

3. Spicy mayo:
1/4 c mayo + Tabasco

4. Toast rolls (either on a grill on on top of the toaster)

5. Form patties and grill over med - low heat

6. Spread spicy mayo on rolls + patty + onions + greens

We had some left over pepper sauce from our steak night before. I don't usually like pepper sauce but I couldn't get enough of this one. It's good. Here's an approximate recipe for that. It's by Jamie Oliver. Andre found it so you can google if you like to measure things out. I don't.

In a small saucepan heat cream, white wine, beef stock, dijon mustard and ground black pepper.

That's it.

You wanted more? You can thicken it with cornflour if you want.

Pepper sauce on steak night

After all this meat we're going vegetarian for a few days to recover. We're not used to eating so much meat anymore. Andre actually felt a bit ill the day after the steak. I only managed about a third of the  steak pictured above. So we had a vegetable only stir-fry last night. I'm having the left overs for lunch now. It's a bit garlicky so so you can be glad I'm typing and not telling you this!!

Rogan Josh Lamb Curry

I've made this curry a few times now from my "Healthy Eating" recipe book and am busy making it again right now for dinner tonight. The lamb has already been simmering in the sauce for an hour and a half. When I finish this post I'm going to start the rice and then we'll eat!

Here are the ingredients:

1 T oil
2 onions
1/2 C low-fat plain yoghurt
1 t chilli powder
1 T ground coriander
2 t ground cumin
1 t ground cardamom
1/2 t ground cloves
1 t ground turmeric
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 T fresh ginger, grated
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 kg boned leg of lamb, trimmed, cubed. (I just use one packet of diced lamb. not sure how much it is, but not a whole kg.)
30 g slivered almonds (I never have this in the house so haven't included this.)
1 t garam masala
chopped fresh coriander leaves to garnish

And here's what to do:

1. Heat oil, add onion - cook 5 min

2. Add yoghurt, chili powder, coriander, cumin, cardamom, cloves, turmeric, garlic and ginger.
Add tomato - simmer 5 min

3. Add lamb and stir until coated. Cover and cook over low heat for 1 - 1 1/2 hours. The longer the
softer and better!
Uncover and simmer until liquid thickens.

4. Dry-fry almonds over medium heat - 3-4 min - until nuts are golden brown. Remove from pan.

5. Add garam masala to curry and mix through. Sprinkle with almonds and coriander leaves.
Serve with rice.