I love Belinda Jeffery

Of course I've never met her and this is completely based on her food. But I do.
I love the way her books give me an insight into her past. I love the photography of the food that I KNOW is still edible even after being under studio lights. How do know...well, because it's Belinda's cooking it has to be.

Most of all I just love the food and the way her recipe's just work.

Mix and Bake is the most useful cookbook I have come across. I used 3 (yes 3!) of its recipes as my wedding cake, her scones are MY scones and as is the case with the following recipe, you can make some tweaks and generally not stuff things up.

Image from Penguin

Belinda (yes I am on first name terms with all of my favourite cookbook authors Belinda, Jamie, Stephanie...) herself says that there are many variations of her "simple upside-down tomato and basil pie" and I think I try something different every time I make it.

Sometimes I halve the amount of canned tomatoes (and it still works), I sometimes replace the mustard powder with dijon or wholegrain mustard (and it still works), I never have Tabasco in the house so chuck in some chili flakes (and it still works) and most of the time I'm out of basil and will use another random herb instead and yes it still works. And of course I don't use egg and it works with "No-egg" replacer.

Tomato and Basil pie...sans basil!

In this particular version it was I added a can of cannellini beans after the tomato. I really enjoy this variation and it packs some extra protein points in.

So try it, Belinda's way, my way, your way....whatever, it still works.

CC.

Not so silly..........

So this years season can be considered pretty straight in the silly terms. Guess that's what happens when the midgets begin to rule your world.

This year we went to visit my folks on the mid north coast and despite the weather (yep, go north for the weather and end up with rain!) had a brilliant week of family and feasting.

We stayed in National trust listed house with tonnes of vintage style, took advantage of the crap weather and did lots of cooking and spent time being a family without the pressures of the day to day.

Cooking Pancakes

Morning started with pancakes...made by the incredible husband. He does pancakes much better than me...I cook most of the time, but his pancakes blow mine out of the water. So here is his recipe.








Ricotta Pancakes 

2 cups flour (1 plain, 1 wholemeal)
2 tsp baking powder
1 3/4 cups milk
3 healthy dollops of ricotta with a tablespoon
2 eggs or No egg substitute

Dump it in a bowl, mix it up, don't get fancy with it. Heat your hotplate to halfway on the dial, ladle palm sized servings into a hot buttered frying pan and replace butter as it gets soaked up. Flip when they pancakes start to bubble on top. Don't screw around, commit and flip.

Serve with lashings of everything but especially maple syrup.

This time we had berries, usually its bananas.

New Christmas tradition

Presents followed and after Nanny, Poppy and my brother and his little family arrived we got down to the serious business of eating. Ham and Turkey for the meat eaters and a 4kg Salmon for the not really vegetarians.

Now which one is mine.......all of them!

I love cranky monkey face!

Stay tuned for more exciting Xmas!!!!

Back off bugs

I've been on a carrot hit the last week, mainly as carrots are cheap, I'm stingy and they are quite easy to whack in food without Chuckles noticing. So we have had wraps, stir-fries and finally cake. Although by the time I made it to cake I was running out of carrots and had to supplement with zucchini, which is also cheap and easy to whack in food without Chuckles noticing. The result was an amazing moist fruity cake that if you left off the cream cheese icing would be vegan. I am not vegan so I piled the icing to the sky. Yum!

As you can see Poppet enjoyed her first experience with cake batter.

It also seems that I am pushing carrots on the kids through this years Christmas book. Every year I try and buy a Christmas themed book. I remember being read  A Christmas Carol as a child and to this day Dickens remains a favourite. This years book follows everyone's favourite wombat on a Christmas adventure. 

Image from Harper Collins

Having been on maternity leave this year I haven't kept as up too date with recent publications as I would like, so was pleasantly surprised when I encountered this read by a dear friend at a recent storytime. I rushed out and bought it the next day and am pleased to day that it been read at least once a day this week!

Carrotty Fruity Cake

2 cups of flour

1 cup brown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 cups grated carrot 

1  cup grated zucchini

1/2 cup oil

1/2 banana

1/2 cup orange juice

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup sultanas / chopped dates

1/2 cup walnuts

Cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice to taste.

Preheat oven 180c

Line smallish round tin (large loaf tin would probably also work)

Combine dry ingredients

Add carrot, oil, banana, vanilla and juice.  Stir until just combined.

Add fruit, nuts and spice.

Bake approx. 45 minutes. 

Leave in tin for 5 minutes and then turn on to wire rack to cool. Be careful when turning out as it has a tendency to break.

When cool top with cream cheese icing. 

xxCC

A whole lotta lemon

A friend popped over last week bearing a whole lotta lemons from her tree which sparked a serious lemon meringue pie craving. No  problem....whip up some eggs and STOP! Egg is a bit of a swear word in our house thanks to little Mr Anaphylaxis.
Chuckles (aged almost 2.5) has egg and peanut allergies much to my amazement (those things are supposed to happen to other peoples kids!). As a result we are an egg free house which can be annoying when you love baking. It really hasn't changed things that much in the scheme of things, I adapt recipes, we don't eat fritatta and every now and then my husband and I dump Chuckles in childcare and have a naughty breakfast in a cafe with lots of poached eggs. Some parents have a cheeky drink, we have a cheeky eggs bene.

Anyway this is what I came up with to satisfy the lemon craving. Sweetened condensed milk mixed with lemon and shoved between puff pastry, mmmmm!

Lemon Tartlets

1/2 tin sweetened condensed milk
Lemon juice to taste (abut 2?)
Puff Pastry
Fresh fruit..Banana, Strawberries, Kiwi Fruit.

Grease a muffin tin and place rough circles of pastry in tins. These should be blind baked, but I was far too lazy, so if you don't mind them "rustic" don't bother. Brush with milk and bake for about 10 minutes or until brown.

Mix sweetened condensed milk with lemons tasting often to achieve correct lemony taste.  Whack it it the fridge. Once pastry cases are filled top with lemon mixture, fruit and serve with cream or ice cream for dessert.

They taste better if you let them sit in the fridge overnight...if you can. I think they would make a great addition to a high tea.

Matchsticks

Lemon curd as above
Whipped cream
Puff pastry
Sugar

Grate a little lemon rind over puff pastry and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until lightly golden (10 minutes). Once cool spread lemon and cream between puff pastry. Three tiered high. Eat! (A little messy but yum!)