Quirkys Paprika Chicken and BUTTER!

Being Anzac Day you would think I should have made biscuits. But I am the worst Anzac biscuit maker EVER! 

So we made a couple of loaves of bread....

Scones with mulberry jam for lunch...

(isn't the color beautiful??)

and we made our own butter! 

Zara loved making the butter too, especially the part where she licked the spatula!

I get an immense kick out of making the normal things we have been buying for years. Pasta, tomato sauce, bread etc. I am always pleased to find another something I can make for myself instead of heading to the supermarket. I have spent a lot of time day dreaming about self sufficiency over the years......
Now I am dreaming of a cow so I can have loads of 

lovely cream to make butter from!

I used the recipe from the EDC, it was so easy and quick! I whipped in 1/2 tsp of salt and 50gms of Rice Bran oil at the end to make it spreadable out of the fridge. We'll be making it again for sure!

Lastly I made Quirky Jo's Paprika Chicken ...recipe here.

I was delicious! I didn't have any Herbamare (or even know what it was!) I just gave the chicken a sprinkle of salt and pepper instead, but have since found a homemade recipe of herbamare here

that I might made in the future. 

So the Paprika Chicken is a winner (I could happily have it minus the meat), lovely and creamy without the cream thanks to the cashews, which will be appreciated by my dairy free lad!

Look what happens when no ones watching!

Happy Cooking!

 

Peachy upsidedown cake

Tonights dessert/tomorrows lunchbox treat was/is Peach upsidedown cake. 

I have never made a cake like that before, but I had some tinned peaches leftover so I searched the recipe community and this is what I found! 

You can find the recipe I used here.

I am not a cake fan really, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it! 
I served it with vanilla custard from the EDC and put in too much cornflour in AGAIN.....20gms is nice for us..must remember!!

Next time I think I'll try Apple and Cinnamon instead of peaches....

Happy Cooking!

Roast Chicken Dinner Pie and the always delicious Chocolate Pudding

I first made the Roast Chicken Dinner Pie after making a huge roast dinner and everyone coming down with a bug and going to bed early leaving me with a heap of yummy food and no one to eat it!  Re-heating food is never appealing to me for some reason, but wrapping it in pastry is perfectly acceptable! 

This time when I made the roast dinner I cooked heaps of extra vegies just so I could make this pie again, its scrumptious! I used baked carrot, parsnip, sweet potato, onion, 4 cloves of garlic, left over peas, cauliflower and cheese ( this part in the most important!) leftover chicken and gravy.  You could add potato ( I don't like it much!) pumpkin ( my sis in law doesn't like it!) corn, broccoli, beans..... whatever!

First of all pre heat your oven to 180, then make a batch of puff pastry from the EDC and pop it in the fridge. Then make shortcrust pastry from the EDC, roll it out on glad wrap and line your beautiful pie dish (thanks Andrea!) Remove the gladwrap and cover with a sheet of baking paper, fill with rice or beans or pies weights! and blind bake at 180 for 10 minutes, remove paper and weights and bake for another 10.

 Mix all your chopped vegies and chicken and gravy together. 

It shouldn't be too dry, if it is make up some extra gravy or cheese sauce and add it in...here's what mine looked like...

This is just a regular bowl...I didn't chop it using the thermomix!

Pile it into your pie dish... I like to pile it up high!!

Roll out your puff pastry on glad wrap and cover up that yummyness!

I like to cut a big cross in the top to let the steam out. It helps the pastry cook better!

Bake it until its nice and brown and warm inside, approx 30 minutes.

One day you can have some Bonnie! 

Dessert tonight was good Ole' Chocolate Self Saucing Pudding! The same recipe I have always used but I Thermied it for the first time...

1. Pre Heat oven to 180
2. using the butterfly on sp 4 cream 1/4 cup of butter ( I just guess!) and 1/2 cup of sugar 
3. while its running add and egg and 1 tsp of vanilla, give it a scrape down and another quick mix
4. add 1 cup of SR Flour, 1/2 cup of milk and 2 dessert spoons of cocoa and mix for 1 minute on sp 4 giving it a scrape down if needed.
5. put mixture into a casserole dish
6. without cleaning out your jug add 2 cups of hot water, 1/2 cup of sugar and 2 dessertspoons of cocoa and mix on sp 4 for 30 sec. 
7. tip out onto cake mixture and bake in oven for 30 min or so
8. add a massive amount of cream and pat yourself on the back while you eat it for making something everyone will love that's wonderfully frugal.....

 Happy Cooking!

You'll never buy wraps again!

Ok,  Firstly I have to post from my phone because my computer won't turn on!!! So everything might be higgeldy piggeldy..sorry!

Now let me tell you a story.  I was cleaning our caravan recently and found an open packet of wraps that I had left in the cupboard from our January holiday.  Expecting the worst I pulled them out and guess what?  They were in perfect condition. Absolutely perfect.  I can only imagine what must be in them to keep them so fresh feeling for so long!  Yucko! 

Now that I have freaked you out I have a recipe so you can make you own and you won't need them to last forever because someone will eat them because they are GOOD! (And cheap! ) 

Wraps

620 gm flour ( plus extra for dusting the bench)
50gm of oil
1/2 tsp salt
600gm boiling water

Put it all in the TM process on sp7 for 6 sec the 2 min on wheat.

Dump it all on the bench and if it looks like play dough your on the right track.
It will be hot,  so give it a min to cool then separate into 12 pieces. 
Roll out one at a time to as thin as you can, then cook in a dry frypan on a med to high heat flipping over before it burns.  It's an easy process.  It takes about as long to cook add it does to roll out the next wrap for cooking.  As always its trial and error, but it's #6 on my stove top! 

I plan on trying it out with garlic oil one of these days. We use these for lunch wraps, Souvalki wraps,  with curry... By themselves with dip.. You could cut them and toast them in the oven to make a chip... You could sprinkle herbs and spiced on them...