Fowlers Vacola-d fruits

For my birthday this year I requested and received a Fowlers Vacola kit.

For the uninitiated, Fowlers Vacola is an Australian company that manufactures home canning kits. Canning is the process of preserving foods by packing them into glass jars and then heating the jars to kill the organisms that would create spoilage.

The American equivalent is a Mason Ball system. From what I can gather, the main difference is that the Mason Ball is a pressure canner and capable of processing low acid foods including meat. Conversely, the Fowlers Vacola is a water bath canner and can only process high acid foods such as fruit. I'm not really interested in preserving meat and seafood, so was happy enough to buy a Vacola.

Basically, you fill your jars with whatever you want, put your filled jars in the Fowlers Vacola and turn it on. The Vacola heats up and creates a vacuum seal, thus preserving the contents of the jars.

Vacolas were extremely popular in the 30s - 60s. My grandmother had a Vacola that she used to preserve the excess fruit from her family's orchid. Hers was an older style stove top pot but my Vacola is a new style that you plug in.

I am fortunate enough to have a couple of Aunts who live in Stanthorpe. One of my lovely Aunts brought me down a mixed box of peaches, nectarines, apples and pears for my first attempt at Vacola-ing.

I prepared the fruit by peeling and coring it and then segmenting it. I also prepared a jug of sugar syrup. I made a 'light sugar syrup' which was 3 cups water to 1 cup sugar, but next time I think I will go 2 cups water to 1 cup sugar because I have a sweet tooth.

I poured an inch or two of sugar syrup into the jars, then started packing the fruit. It's pretty time consuming because you need to pack the fruit tightly and ensure there are no air bubbles.

I then clipped the lids on and put the jars in the Vacola. 50 minutes later they were done! The jars can be stored for years.

Pears on the left and peaches on the right

After 7 days I opened a jar of the nectarines. It was very hard to open the jar. I was pretty weak compared to the vacuum seal. The jar had to be prised open with a knife. Quite impressive. I ate nearly a whole jar, with a generous slug of cream. Delicious!

Baked Goat's Curd & Lemon Tartlets

When I am stressed, I like to bake or look for new recipes. Lately, work has been very busy and a tad stressful so I have spent a bit of time browsing the recipe archives at Gourmet Traveler.

This recipe was found on one such morning. The recipe is from Gourmet Traveler's Fare Exchange column, where readers can request the recipe of a fantastic meal they have enjoyed in a restaurant.

I love a lemon tart. The addition of goats curd initially sounded intriguing, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised the two foods would work very well together.

These tarts were yummy. The goats curd makes the filling velvety soft. Next time, I will probably use the rind from two lemons, not one, because the lemon flavour was pretty subtle.

The recipe says it makes 8 x 9cm tart tins but I made 6 x 7.5cm tarts and 6 x 9cm tarts. I also had enough pastry (but not filling) to line 4 x 11cm tins.

I served the tarts with some homemade vanilla bean ice cream. Yummy!

Baked Goat's Curd & Lemon Tartlets (with very slight adjustments)

From Gourmet Traveler but originally from a cafe at Port Willunga called Star of Greece. Chef: Jonathan Kemble.

Tart filling

180 gm goat's curd (I bought some at James St Markets. I think it was from the Yarra Valley Dairy)

100ml pouring cream

2 eggs

55gm caster sugar

1 lemon, finely grated rind and juice only

Shortcrust Pastry

75 gm caster sugar

300 gm plain flour

150 gm unsalted butter, coarsely chopped

125 ml pouring cream

For the pastry, combine sugar and flour in a bowl and rub in the butter until mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Add the cream and mix until combined. Give it a couple of kneads to bring it together, wrap in glad wrap and refrigerate for 30 mins or until cold.

I like to then roll out the pastry between two sheets of baking paper, line my greased tart tins with the pastry and put the pastry lined tin in the freezer until frozen. I find it helps to prevent shrinkage when you blind bake the pastry.

When you are ready to make the tarts, preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Blind bake the pastry. Straight from the freezer is best. First for 15 minute with paper and weights (although I skipped this step) and then about 10 minutes until golden. The original recipe then says seal the cooked pastry case by brushing with egg yolk and putting back in the oven for a minute, but I didn't do this and my tarts were fine.

Reduce oven temperature to 160 degrees. Combine goat's curd, cream, eggs, sugar and lemon rind and juice in a jug. Pour into the prepared tart shells. (I fill my shells in the oven to avoid spillage. But I'm very clumsy.)

Bake for 18 minutes or until set. Serve the tarts at room temperature, dusted with icing sugar.

Claudia Roden's Middle Eastern Orange Cake

This cake has a well deserved reputation. I don't know a cake that is so well known and timeless. Three of my favourite cookbooks include this recipe: Stephanie Alexander's Cook's Companion, Nigella Lawson's How to Eat and David Herbert's The Really Useful Cookbook. I think the original recipe was written in the 1960s.

The cake doesn't use butter or flour so is perfect for people with dietary requirements. But dietary requirements or not, people gobble this cake up.

Claudia Roden's Middle Eastern Orange Cake

2 large oranges, washed (preferably unwaxed)

6 eggs

250 gm almond meal

250 gm caster sugar

1 tsp baking powder

Slivered almonds to decorate (optional)

Place the oranges in a saucepan and cover with water. Boil the oranges for 2 hours. I often do this step a day or two ahead of time. (My aunt says that you can even freeze the whole, boiled oranges.)

Allow the oranges to cool, cut open and remove pips. Process in a food processor.

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius and butter and line a 24cm spring form pan.

Beat 6 eggs and 250gm caster sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer until voluminous and thick. Add in the almond meal, baking powder and liquified oranges. Stir together.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin and scatter the top with slivered almonds. Bake for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until a skewer can be inserted cleanly.

Leave to cool in tin for about 10 minutes before turning out. Dust with icing sugar and serve. Some double cream wouldn't go astray.

Healthy Muesli

I am a firm believer in kick starting your metabolism with a good breakfast. In winter, I like to eat porridge. I make it with about half a cup of organic oats and water and while it's cooking on the stovetop, I add in a peeled, diced apple, a sprinkle of cinnamon and half a teaspoon of brown sugar. Takes about 5 minutes. Healthy, yummy and filling.

In summer, it is too hot to eat porridge. Instead I eat corn thins with peanut butter (weird, I know, but I love the crunch of corn thins and I am a massive peanut butter lover) or I eat muesli with yoghurt and milk.

I make my own muesli. It makes me feel virtuous. Besides, store bought mueslis often have a lot of sugar in them and are very expensive. I can make a big 2.5L jar of muesli using mostly organic ingredients for about $15.00. Pretty good, considering it lasts me about a month.

The amounts and ingredients I give below are very rough. I go to the health food shop and buy whatever they have got. Oats are the base, but then I buy whatever cereals and seeds they have. It's usually a mix of bran flakes, raisins, apricots, cranberries, pepitas, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, linseeds (flax), raw almonds or macadamias, coconut, maybe some rice puffs.

Homemade healthy muesli

5 cups oats

1 cup bran flakes

1 cup rice puffs

3/4 cup coconut

1/4 cup pepitas

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1/2 cup almonds, chopped

1/3 to 1/2 cup agave syrup or applesauce or a mix of both

1 cup dried fruit (I like cranberries and raisins)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Combine all the cereals, nuts and seeds in a big bowl and mix in the agave syrup and/or apple sauce (or you could use rice syrup or canola oil and runny honey). Give the cereal mix a good stir so everything gets coated in the sweetener. Just a light coating is fine.

Place on a foil or baking paper lined tray. Bake in the oven, giving it a stir every 10 or so minutes, until golden brown.

Leave to cool. When the cereal is cool, mix in the dried fruit.

I like this muesli with a generous spoonful of Barambah yoghurt (passionfruit, please) and a drizzle of Barambah full fat (dark blue capped) milk. Maybe a fresh passionfruit over the top. A cup of Twinings English breakfast tea with a drop of Barambah milk. A good start to the day.

Mint-ed & Caper-ed Potato Salad

I have never been a fan of heavy, potato salad. I don't like mayonaise, and I certainly don't like those horrible fat laden tubs of pre made supermarket potato salad that my bogan Aunt insisted on dishing up Christmas after Christmas. shudder.

However, I came across this fantastic potato salad on teaforsix.com.au . Tea for Six is written by the lovely Natalie and is my new favourite food blog. I have cooked many, many things from Natalie's blog.

I have made this salad several times. It is delicious. The capers and shallots give it a great kick.

Please excuse the picture. It doesn't do the salad justice. The potatoes were forgotten about on the stove and were a little overcooked, then the salad was taken to a BBQ and dropped twice by a clumsy person (me). Thank goodness for tupperware!

I'm not sure if it is good blog etiquette to reproduce another blogger's recipe, so I have hyperlinked to Natalie's blog so as not to cause any offence!

Potato Salad with capers and mint

Mecca Bah Coleslaw

Although I love to eat out and try new places, sometimes I want to eat at a familiar place. A place I know will be good. Not too expensive, not too fancy, just good.

I have found Mecca Bah, at Emporium in Fortitude Valley, to be that place. It is a consistently good restaurant. It's not fantastic, but if I'm after a tasty, cheapish meal, I will often go to Mecca Bah. I know it won't disappoint. The mussel tagine and cheesy katifi pastries are my regular dishes.

This coleslaw is a Mecca Bah recipe. I am not a fan of traditional, mayonaise laden coleslaw, but this is a crunchy, light coleslaw with good flavours and no heavy dressing in sight.

This is the original recipe, but I never bother to measure the ingredients. I also usually double this recipe and add in a couple of grated carrots.

Mecca Bah Coleslaw

1/2 savoy cabbage, shredded

1/2 bunch coriander, shredded

medium red onion, diced finely

50gm pinenuts (toasted or untoasted)

75gm sultanas, soaked in a little OJ or lemon juice for 30 mins

150gm pastirma, shredded

10 ml lemon juice

30ml olive oil

salt and pepper

sprinkle of sumac (I don't use this)

Combine lemon juice, olive oil and sultanas in a jar. Pop the lid on and give a good Set aside.

Toss together cabbage, coriander, red onion, pastirma. Season with salt and pepper.

To serve, toss in the pine nuts and dressing.

Delicious!

Belinda Jeffrey's really good ginger cake

Earlier this year my beautiful maternal Grandmother passed away. She was a fantastic grandma. She was very good at all things "grandmotherly". She could sew, knit, bake fantastic cakes and biscuits, remove any kind of stain and iron and starch any creased garment. She spoilt her grandchildren rotten.

In her old age Grandma had to move into a home and the tables turned - I started to bake for her. She had a very sweet tooth and loved all sorts of cakes with some double cream on the side. She particularly loved this ginger cake.

Belinda Jeffrey's really good ginger cake

from June 2008 Delicious

1.5 cups plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves (I usually leave this out)

1/4 tsp nutmeg

7 small lumps crystallised ginger, chopped finely

125g unsalted butter, softened

1 cup lightly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup blackstrap molasses (or use treacle if unavailable)

2 eggs

1 tbs finely grated ginger

tsp finely grated lemon zest

1/2 cup buttermilk

1.5 tsp vanilla

icing sugar to dust

whipped cream to serve

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Grease a 20cm square cake pan. Line base with buttered baking paper and dust with flour.

Sift the flour, soda and ground spices into a large bowl. Stir in the crystallised ginger, set aside.

Cream butter and sugar with an electric beater until fluffy. Add molasses and beat until well combined. Add eggs, one at a time. Mixture may curdle, but don't worry - it will come back when you add the flour.

Mix in the fresh ginger and zest, then add in the flour mixture. Add buttermilk and vanilla and beat until all combined.

Scrape mix into cake pan and bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in pan for a few minutes and than invert onto a rack.

To serve, dust with icing sugar.

This cake is quite rich. I use a 23 cm square pan and I normally cut it into 16 or 20 pieces. A great size to have with a cup of tea.

Vietnamese Rice Paper rolls

Over the Christmas/New Year break I went to Vietnam to visit my brother who is living in Hanoi and teaching English. I had a terrific time. I was pretty short on time so only had time in Sapa, in the mountains. Sapa is known as a picturesque trekking town. It is quite cold there (hovered between 0 degrees and 5 degrees) and there was a heavy mist most of the time I was there, which was disappointing because we only had occasional glimpses of the pretty views.

I adore Vietnam. Most of all, I adore the food. The flavours are so fresh and fragrant. There are some great Vietnamese restaurants in Brisbane. I love AJs for a quick and cheap lunch time noodle soup (70 Charlotte Street, Brisbane city). I also love the Vietnamese in Wickham Street for a delicious vegetarian rice paper roll (170 Wickham Street, Fortitude Valley).

I like to make Vietnamese rice paper rolls for dinner - they are pretty easy to throw together after work, healthy (to help me shift my post holiday weight!), cheap and very tasty.

This isn't really a recipe, but more a meal idea.

Rice Paper Rolls with roasted soy chicken

To make the roasted soy chicken (from Bill Granger's Bills Open Kitchen)

150gm fresh ginger, finely sliced

2 tbs caster sugar

125 ml oyster sauce

125 ml Shaoxing rice wine

1 tsp sesame oil

4 chicken breasts

Combine the ginger, sugar, oyster sauce, Shaoxing rice wine and sesame oil in a bowl and stir to combine. Add the chicken, cover with plastic wrap and marinate for at least three hours.

(At this stage, I often freeze a chicken breast or two in a ziplock bag with some of the marinade until I need it. If you are cooking the chicken for the rice paper rolls you will only need 1 chicken breast per two people.)

Preheat the oven to 220degrees Celsius. Sear the chicken with a little oil in a frying pan. Remove the chicken when golden and place on the baking tray. Brush lightly with the marinade and cook for 10 - 12 minutes.

Remove from the oven and cool. When cool, shred the chicken.

To serve the rice paper rolls

Vermicelli noodles, cooked according to the packet (perhaps half a packet per 2 or 3 people)

Carrot, julienned (perhaps 1 carrot per 2 or 3 people)

Cucumber, julienned (perhaps 1 cucumber per 2 or 3 people)

Shredded Vietnamese mint and coriander (half a bunch of each should be enough for 3 people)

Rice paper wrappers (I think each person will eat about 4 wrappers)

Dipping sauce (recipe below)

To serve, place the chicken, noodles, carrot, cucumber and mint and coriander in bowls on the table. Place the rice paper wrappers and a bowl of boiling/hot water on the table.

To serve, soften the rice paper wrappers in the hot water. Place the wet wrapper on the plate and top with a little vermicelli, chicken, cucumber, carrot, mint and coriander, drizzle with dipping sauce. Roll the wrapper up, tucking in the sides.

Enjoy! Messy but yummy.

Dipping sauce

60ml fish sauce

60ml lime juice

2 tbs rice vinegar

1 tbs palm or caster sugar

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 large red chilli, seeded and finely chopped

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir until the sugar is dissolved

Strawberry Cloud Cake

This cake has turned into my new 'go to' easy dessert. It's very simple to whip up and super yummy. It tastes like a light ice cream. Gorgeous!

I think this recipe is from a TV show called the Free Range Cook.

As far as desserts go, I don't think it's that bad for you. The cake is basically a frozen strawberry meringue made from sugar, egg whites and a punnet of strawberries. I reckon a 23cm springform tin easily yields 12 generous slices and I think each slice has about 215 calories. Not too bad.

I love this cake. I love it so much that when I first discovered the recipe I made a whole cake just for my greedy self and then ate it over a couple of weeks (the cake stores quite well in an air tight container in the freezer).

Strawberry Cloud Cake

For the base

150 gm plain biscuits, crushed to a fine powder (I have used Marie, Granita and Rich Tea and each have worked fine)

1/2 cup coconut (dessicated or flaked is fine)

1.5 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp caster sugar

100 gm butter, melted

For the filling

2 egg whites

1 cup caster sugar

250 gm punnet of strawberries

1tbs lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla essence

Combine all the ingredients for the base in a bowl. The mixture should resemble wet sand. Press the mixture into the bottom of a 23cm lined springform pan. Pop the pan in the fridge while you make the filling.

To make the filling, place all ingredients for the filling in the bowl of a mixmaster. Beat on high for about 5 - 10 minutes. The mixture will become lovely and thick and glossy (like a meringue).

Pour the filling over the biscuit base and cover with gladwrap (I like to pop a rubber band around the gladwrap to make it air tight). Pop the tin in the freezer overnight.

That's it! To serve, remove the tin, place the cake on a plate and prepare to swoon. Yum!

(I usually serve this on its own but I have served this with fresh strawberries adorning the top. I have also made an easy strawberry coulis with fresh strawberries and icing sugar and drizzled that over the top of the cake.)

Food Goals for 2011

Each year I like to come up with some goals for the year. I try to make the goals fun and achievable.

This year, I have also come up with a list of basic foods I want to make which I have never made before. On the list this year:

• Custard;
• Poached eggs; (yep, you read that correctly, I have never poached an egg)
• Hollandaise sauce;
• Cheesecake
• Fresh pasta;
• Ice cream; (I have made this before, but not for a long time)
• Shortbread; (I have made this a couple of times but am yet to emulate my maternal grandmother's FANTASTIC short and dense and crumbly shortbread)
• Panna cotta;
• Creme Brulee;
• Doughnuts; (I made these in 2010 and had a ball, but they definitely need some work)
• Macarons

I am also soon to be the proud owner of a Fowler's Vacola fruit preserver, so preserving fruit is another foodie goal for 2011.

My dodgy looking, but delicious tasting doughnuts from 2010

Christmas Cooking & Happy New Year

Happy New Year little blog!

Forgive me for my long absence.

I had an excellent Christmas. I scored a Cuisinart ice cream maker and a fantastic cook book called the Sono Bakery Cookbook.

Eats wise, we were very spoilt. My mother has a tendency to over cater. This year (meaning Christmas 2010) we had duck, turkey, ham and prawns plus salads, roast vegies and desserts. It was a feast!

I had planned on doing some Christmas baking posts, but alas, was short of time. For now, pictures and a few words will have to suffice.

Cheers to a great year!

Christmas Cake

Christmas Cake with almond icing

Every year my family receive a Kirkston Family Christmas Cake from one of my paternal aunts. It is a family recipe. Before my paternal grandmother passed away, she dutifully made each of her 5 children a Kirkston Family Christmas Cake and Kirkston Family Christmas Pudding. The duty has now fallen to my aunt who does a fantastic job. I have been flagged as the next maker of the Kirkston Family Christmas Cake. In preparation for the auspicious role, I made my first Christmas cakes this year. I used a recipe from Rachel Allen (tweaking it only slightly).

I made the cakes in November and left them to develop until I iced them in an almond paste icing the week before Christmas. I made the cake in a large square tin, and then cut the cake into 4 mini cakes to use as gifts.

Inside the Christmas Cake

Mince Tarts

Pear and Ginger fruit mince for mince tarts.

I made this mince in early November and when I opened the jar on the weekend before Christmas, the flavours had developed nicely. I still have a large jar of this leftover and half an opened jar in the fridge (which I like to dip a teaspoon into occasionally). I think I might make some fruit mince scrolls.

Almond Christmas stars to decorate fruit mince tarts

Other Goodies

Vanilla and lavender butter cake for morning teas with friends

(a good emergency freezer cake)

Christmas Spice biscuits - buttery, thin deliciousness

Salted caramels - I love the contrast between the salty and sweet flavours

Packages of biscuits for colleagues and friends

Croissants for a Christmas breakfast get together (yummy, but need more practice!)