Butterscotch Cookies

During the Christmas holidays I discovered Kitchen Time on Channel 72, 2 and a half hours of cooking shows for my viewing pleasure!!! I was very excited. In fact, I was so excited that I traded one of my Christmas gifts (tickets to see Avenue Q) for a PlayTV for our PS3 so I could record the shows when I went back to work. So, every weekday I queue up the shows for recording and then watch them once I get home.

I've never watched the Martha Stewart Show before. I hadn't really had much to do with Martha at all. However, the more I watched the show, the more Martha grew on me. Now I'm all about the Martha way and I've signed up for many a Martha newsletter.

The Cookie of the Day newsletter has to be my favourite. A new cookie recipe every day? Awesome! I love waking up to see the latest cookie. Last weekend one of the cookies were Schrafft's Butterscotch Cookies and they looked so divine I had to make them pretty much straight away, especially since they looked so easy.

Cookie indulgence had to be put on hold for a little bit as I didn't have any pecans or skim milk powder, but a quick trip to the supermarket fixed that. Did you know that I couldn't find skim milk powder in less than a 1kg packet? All I needed was 2 tablespoons! Now I have a big container of skim milk powder in my pantry. Lucky the biscuits were tasty because I'm going to have to make a lot of batches to use up all the powder before its best before date.

I am not a big fan of nuts in cookies but I do like pecans, so I compromised by processing them quite finely. The flavour was still there, the chunky bits were not. The batter was very very light and fluffy, like there were whipped egg whites in there. It was also very tasty. I used my small one and a half teaspoon ice cream scoop to measure out the batter because I felt that a tablespoon dollop would make the cookies too big. The cookies came out of the oven lovely and puffy but they did sink after a moment, leaving flat and chewy discs of brown sugary goodness.

They are quite sweet, D wanted to make some with chocolate chips and while I do have to make them again to use all my skim milk powder I think that chocolate chips might push the cookies into the too sweet territory. The mixture made heaps. I can't remember exactly but it was five or six trays of 12 cookies each time. I couldn't fit them all in my cookie tin. They are very more-ish though so I guess it was good that there were so many.

I took these to work where my colleagues seemed to like them. They lasted all week, not because we weren't eating them, but because there were so many of them!

Schrafft's Butterscotch Cookies
from MarthaStewart.com

200g unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups dark-brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tablespoons skim milk powder
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup finely chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celcius. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar. Beat in egg, dry milk, and vanilla.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer running, slowly add flour mixture to butter mixture. Fold in pecans.

Drop heaping tablespoons of batter onto prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Lightly flour your fingers and press each piece of batter into circle.

Transfer to oven and bake until lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cheesy Puff Pastry Bites

These little hors d'oeuvres came about by a happy coincidence. I was really wanting to make some jam puffs (like these) and I went out to buy some really nice puff pastry, however I ended up buying a gluten free variety. I wasn't sure how that would work when I wanted a light flaky puff for my jam puffs, so I decided to make something with one of the sheets to see how the pastry reacted.

I had half a tub of cream cheese in the fridge, so I googled puff pastry+cream cheese and found this recipe for Feuittetes Fromages from Recipezaar. It looked nice and easy and it used all my leftover cream cheese.

All that needs to be done is to mix the cream cheese with an egg, some balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, garlic, some crushed dry herbs (I used oregano, rosemary and thyme), some salt and pepper and some gruyere cheese. I didn't have any gruyere so I just used cheddar.

I was going to take both these and the jam puffs to work for a Monday morning treat, but I started making these quite late (and before making dinner!) . Once they came out of the oven and we discovered how tasty they were, we ended up eating all of them for dinner instead and I never made the jam puffs.

So these are distractingly, morishly good. The balsamic really adds another dimension to the mustard/cheese flavour combo. I like my toasted cheese sandwiches to be made with mustard and I was a little concerned at how this recipe would turn out, however the balsamic transformed it into something completely different. I'll definately make these again, especially since now I have an excess of puff pastry in my freezer.

Feuittetes Fromages Savory Puff Pastry Packages & Cheese
from this recipe by Bergy as posted on Recipezaar

Note: I halved this recipe and only used one sheet of puff pastry, I did have cheese mix leftover though

1 (397 g) package puff pastry, defrosted
1 (250 g) package cream cheese, at room temperature
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
170g swiss gruyere cheese, grated
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons garlic, minced
1 teaspoon mixed crushed dry herbs (your choice but I like rosemary & thyme)
salt & pepper
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 1/2 tablespoons water

Roll out each slab of pastry in a rectangle 10 1/2" x 21" and cut each rectangle into 18 pieces 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" You will end up with 36 pieces from the two slabs.

Whisk together the beaten egg and the cream cheese, add remaining ingredients (except egg yolks) and whisk some more until well blended Place a tbsp of the cheese mixture in the center of each pastry square.

Beat together the egg yolks & water.

Brush all four corners of the square with the egg yolk wash and then pull up the corners and squeeze together at the top forming a little package.

Place packages on a lightly oil sprayed cookie sheet and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 205 degrees C. Brush outside of the packages with the remaining egg wash and bake for about 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden. Serve hot (warm).

Turkey Thai Noodle Salad

I was a little disappointed with the processed turkey roll we ended up with on Christmas Day. My fault, because I didn't check while buying it, but I was disappointed none the less. In order to get the memory of the processed meat out of my head we bought a turkey breast roll to roast. While still processed, at least this meat looks like it came from a turkey. It was very enjoyable, but now we have lots of leftovers.

I love noodle salads and I was trolling the internet looking for more recipes when I came across this intriguing Turkey Thai Noodle Salad recipe on Taste.com.au.

Thanks to a recent dinner of beef machaca and pico de gallo salsa, I had all of the ingredients except for vermicelli noodles on hand. I'm not a huge fan of vermicelli noodles anyway, so I happily substituted some udon. I was a little apprehensive about the dressing of sweet chilli sauce and fish sauce, but it turns out that it is a winning combination and it matches the texture of the udon noodles perfectly. It's a very soft-textured salad, the only crunch comes from the nuts. The noodles, the turkey, the herbs are all very gentle in texture but it really works.

I never would have thought to put turkey in a Thai inspired salad, but this was a perfect way to use up some leftovers.

Turkey Thai Noodle Salad
adapted from this recipe posted on Taste.com.au

100g udon noodles
3/4 cups cooked turkey, shredded
100g red cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 small red onion diced
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce
1/4 cup of whole coriander leaves
2 tablespoons of shredded mint
2 tablespoons chopped roasted almonds

Cook the udon noodles according to packet directions.

Meanwhile, place the turkey, tomatoes and onion in a bowl and set aside.

To make the dressing, place the fish sauce and sweet chilli sauce in a small bowl and whisk to combine.

Combine the noodles, turkey mixture, coriander and mint.

Drizzle with the dressing and toss to coat. Divide noodle salad between serving bowls and sprinkle with cashews. Serve with lime wedges.

Thanks to a huge backlog of posts, the posting of this recipe has been a little delayed. It was originally made in January 2009.

Hummus

It's a stormy Sunday afternoon, D was playing World of Warcraft and I was bored. I still had to iron and make lunch for work the next day, but I was procrastinating. I was irritably poking through cupboards when I came across a can of chickpeas.

Lately I've been on a real pita kick. I fell in love with the souvlaki style deli chicken by Bite Me Fine Foods and was eating that in pita breads with salad and then I was planning all sorts of things I could stuff into their little pockets (how good does Ikea meatballs in a pita sound?). I've been reading some suggestions about pita fillings and many recommended using hummus as a healthier alternative to mayonnaise. I have never really been a hummus person until we visited D's parents in Sydney and they made the most amazing hummus. I really enjoyed it but never really tried to recreate it. Then we had it as part of a trio of dips as an entree and I started thinking about giving it another try. I bought some prepared hummus from the supermarket and it turned out to be absolutely fantastic (Mum's Choice, if you're wondering) and after that I decided I should try it myself.

Nearly 2 years from my first taste of yummy hummus, I pulled the chickpeas out of the cupboard and decided to make some hummus to relieve my boredom.

I have to say that I didn't really measure when I made this. I went entirely by taste and things got even more confusing when my little food processor refused to mix the whole thing and I had to start pulsing in two batches.

I started with a can of drain and rinsed chickpeas, half a red onion, a small clove of garlic, 1/4 cup tahini, 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon curry powder (I ran out of cumin), 1/2 teaspoon of paprika and some kosher salt. This resulted in a quite bitter tasty, pasty and dry mix. I think it was too much tahini. I added more oil, lemon juice and curry powder and tried again. It needed salt. Added more salt, tried again... and so on. I found that I really liked it with a lot of lemon juice. The lemon really lifts the flavour of the hummus.

It's very moreish. The corn chip in the picture below was a hastily grabbed prop to show the consistency, but once I ate it I had to have some more. It's a good sign. It was quite easy too, my biggest issues were not using my big processor and running out of cumin, olive oil and lemons. It's nearly time to go grocery shopping.


Thanks to a huge backlog of posts, the posting of this recipe has been a little delayed. It was originally made in January 2010.

Fresh pasta

While we were on Christmas holidays I did a massive cleanout of our storage area and garage, going through boxes and throwing lots of things away. In one of the boxes I found my pasta maker which I bought on special years ago and never used. I've often thought of it as I have always wanted to make fresh pasta.


So, I took it out of its box and gave it a wash and put it on our kitchen counter to remind me to use it. It took a while, but I finally did.


Following this handy guide at Memorie di Angelina, I made a single serving using 100g of pasta, a pinch of salt and one egg. I did have to add a little bit of water to firm the dough into a ball.


I was so excited when the dough came through the widest setting on my pasta maker looking nice and smooth and when it came out looking like fettucine. I had so much fun. I can't wait to make it again.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I was reading through some food blogs on Saturday morning and came across a post about Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies and they sounded good. Very good, actually. So good that I wanted to get up and make some, however the peanut butter in the recipe I was reading came from peanut butter chips, which I don't have access to so I went searching for another.

I came across this recipe from Taste.com.au and it looked suspiciously easy. I don't know why they were suspiciously easy as I have previously made three ingredient peanut butter cookies and they turned out quite well, but a quick read through the reviews on the Taste.com.au recipe showed that most people found them far too sweet and rich. I see now that those were my comments on my previous post too, so I set about trying to add some subtlety to these easy cookies.

Using the Taste.com.au recipe as a guide and the reviews for inspiration, I reduced the sugar, peanut butter and chocolate chips to 3/4 cup and added some flour to improve the consistency of the batter. Some reviews added as much as 1/2 a cup, but I found 2 tablespoons was all I needed. I used smooth peanut butter as that was all we had. While mixing the dough I had a taste and found it to be almost overpoweringly peanutty, so I added 2 tablespoons of white sugar to give it more sweetness. The added sugar made the dough quite crumbly, but I didn't want to risk adding more egg. In hindsight, perhaps some melted butter may have assisted the binding as our peanut butter is of the low fat variety. The recipe tells you the press the cookies with a fork before placing them in the oven but I found that with my adaptations the mix was too dry for that. The ones I rolled into balls and flattened with my hands turned out much nicer.

My oven usually runs about 20 degrees C colder than indicated on the dial, but this time setting it at 220 degrees C to try and maintain a 200 degree C internal temperature was too high. I found the cookies came out perfectly (for me) after 8 minutes at 200 degrees C on my oven, which gives an internal temperature of 180 degrees C. The cookies are crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

There's a bit of maths involved with baking in our oven. What makes it even more difficult is that the oven door is solid, so if you want to check your oven thermometer you need to open the door. Sigh. At least the temperature markings on the oven haven't been rubbed off like the markings for the cooktop.

They turned out very well for such a simple recipe. They are still rich in that you can't have more than a couple of them at a time but they aren't overwhelmingly sweet.


Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from this recipe posted on Taste.com.au

3/4 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbs caster sugar
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tbs plain flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup (185g) dark choc bits

Preheat oven to 180°C. Lightly grease two baking trays and line with non-stick baking paper. Combine peanut butter, sugars, bicarbonate of soda, flour and egg in a bowl. Stir in choc bits.

Roll teaspoonfuls of the mixture into balls and place on the prepared tray and flatten slightly. Bake for 8 minutes or until light golden. Leave to cool on the trays then place into an airtight container.

Oysters Kilpatrick

I tasted my very first oyster on Christmas Day, in the form of oysters kilpatrick made by A. I am a mad seafood fiend, I love fish and crustaceans and all manner of swimming things (except octopus - I do not like octopus) but as D is just as vehemently against seafood, I don't often get to eat it. He really doesn't like the smell, so I do try to avoid cooking it.

Sometimes I see something that I can't resist and then I have to prep and cook it quickly to try and minimise the fishy smell. I've tried to tell D that fresh seafood doesn't have a fishy smell, but to him, all seafood smells fishy.

I've been dreaming about oysters kilpatrick ever since Christmas Day and when I saw some lovely oysters at the shops it quickly became one of those times that I just couldn't resist the lure of seafood and I bought some. D was very good natured about it, he even prompted me to buy some rock salt so I could present them properly. He's nice like that.


Luckily, these oysters were already opened and all I had to do was release the meat from its little muscle and turn it over for presentation purposes. I googled a few recipes for oysters kilpatrick but in the end I just went with the way A prepared them on Christmas Day. Equal parts Worcerstershire sauce and tomato sauce mixed together and then poured over the oysters, topped with chopped bacon and then grilled until the bacon is crispy-ish. Sprinkle with parsley and drizzle with a little lemon juice before serving.


They were just as delicious as I remembered. They look gorgeous in their little shells and they are exciting to eat. They were quite photogenic as well.


Thanks to a huge backlog of posts, the posting of this recipe has been a little delayed. It was originally made in December 2009.

Happy (Belated) Valentine's Day

D's gift to me was a cookie and cupcake decorating kit, so what better way to celebrate Valentine's Day than to make these lovely sugar cookies so I could play with royal icing. They taste good too!

Salted Chocolate Caramels

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

In the weeks coming up to Christmas I decided that I wanted to bake some Christmas goodies as gifts this year. I've never distributed handmade gifts before, mainly because my presentation skills leave a lot to be desired, but I was determined to try this year.

Since I love to bake sweet things, you think it would be easy picking something that would be suitable but it was actually really hard to choose! There are so many delicious things that could be made, plus my co-workers (who were part of the intended recipient pool) have already tasted most of my baking and I wanted to try something different.

I wandered over to Smitten Kitchen where Deb has helpfully compiled a list of her recipes that are suitably Gift-Worthy and my attention was caught by her Salted Chocolate Caramels. I love salted caramel, but after reading through the comments and then the reviews on the original recipe I became a little apprehensive and I wasn't game enough to give them a try in case they didn't turn out. I ended up making Malted Milk Cookies with Chunks of Dark Chocolate and Malteser Smashings as Christmas gifts, because they are absolutely awesome and my co-workers hadn't tasted these as I first made them when I was sick.

I still wanted to make these caramels, but I wanted to wait until I had lots of time and patience so I could prepare myself if they didn't turn out. I set aside some time, arranged my mise en place and prepared to make some candy.


As I said, I read quite a few reviews before I started this. There were a few who were talking about the variation in the temperatures between different thermometers and that this can really affect the outcome. This being my first try at candy making, I tried to minimise the possibility of burning by using two thermometers. Despite this, I still burned my first batch. The recipe says to boil the sugar/corn syrup mix until a lovely deep golden, but my mix crept closer and closer to the 255 degree F mark without colouring. I think my heat was a little too high but the markings have long since rubbed off the oven in our rental home and I am not sure which is high and which is low. The mixture still boiled alarmingly rapidly whichever way the knob was set. It went from a lovely clear to a very sad dark brown in a matter of seconds. I still had a lovely pot of cream and chocolate waiting patiently so I had to clean everything off and try again. Reviews also mentioned the mixture splitting, but luckily I didn't have this happen.


Texture seems to be the sticking point (ha) of candy making. Not only is it difficult to predict how your candy will turn out despite monitoring the temperature because of height above sea level and humidity, but you have to take into account how much people's tastes vary when it comes to the hardness of candy. I have never really been one to cook to anybody's preference but my own, to my shame - my friends and co-workers know that they are unlikely to recieve a crispy biscuit because I don't like them, but when it came to this candy I was aiming for a middle ground.


Even with the best of intentions, I took the mixture off the heat at 225 degrees F because I could smell burning and was a bit skittish after the first disaster. As a result, they are very soft. Unfortunately, they are extremely easy to eat. At room temperature they are gooey and rather messy, but they are nice and firm when they are fridge cold. I increased the salt slightly as reviews had suggested that most of the salt flavour came from the salt sprinkled on top. I obviously didn't increase it enough as there is no salty taste in the caramel itself and the saltiness only comes from the fleur de sel sprinkled over the top. Some reviewers cut back the amount of butter and I'm of two minds as to whether to do so myself or not. They are greasy, still very tasty.


I'm glad I didn't try and make these for my Christmas gifts, because while I am very happy to keep them in our fridge for snacking and even to take to a friend's house for after-dinner sweets, they didn't turn out as perfectly as I wanted my Christmas gifts to be. I don't know if I would make this particular recipe again, I have since done some research and found similar style recipes just for salted caramels (i.e. without chocolate) and that appeals to me much more. I do need to experiment with salt levels. Should I have increased the salt level further because I was using fleur de sel? I thought that since it was a finer grain than Maldon or other kosher salts I needed to be careful not to overdo it, but thinking back I've always found fleur de sel to be less "salty" tasting. Much more experimenting is needed.

See the post on Salted Chocolate Caramels on Smitten Kitchen for Deb's version of the recipe or find the original from Gourmet Magazine posted here on Epicurious.



Thanks to a huge backlog of posts, the posting of this recipe has been a little delayed. It was originally made in December 2009.

Sweet Yoghurt and Fruit

I watched the first episode of The Biggest Loser Masterclass online the other day. The Masterclass episode gives hints and tips on training, diet, exercise and healthy eating and it was quite good. Hopefully this means that they won't be subjecting us to The Warehouse this year, since that's kind of at odds with what they are telling the contestants during Masterclass.

Generally, I have an issue with the magazines and dieticians when they tell you instead of the giant, 600 calorie Caesar salad you should choose a Grilled Chicken Salad with Chickpeas because it's only 360 calories. While I agree with it in principle, the reason why I chose the chicken Caesar in the first place was probably because I was after something creamy and cheesy, and a simple lime vinaigrette doesn't really satisfy that kind of craving. It's the same as when they tell you to drink a glass of water instead of soft drink. Yes, I do understand that water is far healthier for my body and my teeth, but I'm not drinking soft drink because I'm thirsty.

I'm not quite sure why those kinds of things bother me so much. While it may not always be reflected in this blog, I generally eat healthy food and I don't eat much of my own baking. I do know that I need to increase my vegetables because I don't always get my five servings each day, but I don't do too badly. We don't eat takeaway too often and we watch our fat and sodium intake. We eat a lot of chicken and lean cuts of meat, but our problem is exercise - or lack of it. We are working on our fitness though, and things can only get better. I do have times where I want something creamy or cheesy, and the magazines don't often address why I want the foods I want. I have a wonderful book from Weight Watchers that did do this and aimed to address why you were having the cravings. I'm going to find it now actually.

Okay, it's an hour later and I couldn't find it. It must be packed away somewhere. I did find that I have two books on the Mediterranean Diet and one on the MediterrAsian Diet, so I am now feeling hip and cool and two years ahead of The Biggest Loser.

This article from SheKnows.com is kind of what I'm talking about, but the book was better. I wonder where it is?

Anyway, comments on Masterclass aside, I did enjoy the recipes that they made. They made this recipe as a healthy snack and it was less than 200 calories. I had a lone pear sitting forlornly in my fruitbowl and some low fat Greek yoghurt in the fridge so I thought I'd give this a go.

It was great. The honey and the cinnamon really give another dimension to the yoghurt. My Greek yoghurt was quite tart so there was a pleasant sweet/tart contrast throughout. You could make it a gentler tasting meal by using a normal yoghurt, but since I had this for breakfast I liked that it woke up my tastebuds a little. The great thing was that you didn't need a lot of honey either, just a little was enough. I will definitely do this again.

Sweet Yoghurt and Fruit
from The Biggest Loser Masterclass

1 pear
3 tbs low-fat Greek yoghurt
1/2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Cut up the pear, dollop on the yoghurt, drizzle over the honey and then sprinkle with cinnamon. Easy!

Briyani

The latest blog subject of my archive trawling is Fooderati. Of course, not living in Sydney means that I have to dream about visiting the exciting places Melissa blogs about but I can make her recipes. She posted her recipe Josh's Mum's Chicken Briyani and my interest was piqued. Mostly because I have been wanting to find something savoury I can take to work for lunch for my work colleagues, but also because I love briyani. I tagged it with the intention of coming back to it soon.

The other night D and I battled the Christmas Eve crowds at the bottle shop and at the market and realised that we hadn't planned anything for dinner. We are trying to be good with our money and not buy things unnecessarily so we decided to make do with what we had at home. We were considering halving our Christmas roasts and having half on Christmas Eve and the other half on Boxing Day, but I had a rotten headache (can wearing a santa hat all day give you a headache? I don't know where it came from) and didn't want to heat the house up with the oven. I told D that I wanted something with rice, so we thought we could borrow a little bit of the Christmas ham, dice it up and have fried rice. Then we got home and I noticed Melissa's recipe in my delicious toolbar.

We had to play with the briyani recipe to fit our available ingredients. Nothing Earth-shattering, we just had to use ham instead of chicken, sour cream instead of yoghurt etc. It was great fun to make, I love dishes that use lots and lots of spices. The smell is so refreshing. It was very tasty too, everything worked so well together. We'll definately make this again, maybe even with chicken next time.

Interestingly enough, I discovered that 8oz basmati rice equals one cup of rice for my rice cooker. Fun!

Ham Briyani
adapted from this recipe on Fooderati.

8oz basmati rice, rinsed
2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
150g diced ham pieces
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
a pinch of nutmeg
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp turmeric
3/4 cup sour cream
1 tsp sugar
salt and black pepper

For garnishing:
1 tbsp fried onions
1 tbsp caramelised onions

Cook the rice in a rice cooker.

In a large saucepan or casserole with a tight fitting lid heat the oil and fry the ham, onion, ginger and garlic for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Add all the ground spices and stir again for a few seconds.

Add the sour cream and stir for one minute, then add the sugar and stir again. Check seasoning.
Put the rice on top then cover the saucepan with foil or a damp tea towel and put the lid on tightly.

Reduce the heat to low and cook undisturbed for 5 minutes.

Uncover, sprinkle with the garnishes and serve.


Thanks to a huge backlog of posts, the posting of this recipe has been a little delayed. It was originally made in December 2009.

Mini Baileys Cheesecakes

There was a stall at the Good Food and Wine Show celebrating the new Baileys with Coffee. They weren't selling anything, they were just handing out little sample glasses. I have never had anything against Baileys, but up until now it hasn't really been anything that I wanted to drink. I did enjoy the new Baileys though and I bought a bottle in the leadup to Christmas.

I told my mother that I had bought a bottle and mentioned that I was looking for something to make for our work Christmas Breakup (delayed posting, I know, but I really am writing this in December because I have so much to tell you all) and she said I should make mini Baileys cheesecakes with my Baileys. Mum's internet hasn't been working for months because she hasn't gotten around to calling their helpdesk, so the best she could do was vaguely point me in the direction of Taste.com.au. A quick search found this recipe which Mum said was the one.

It was really easy, almost guiltily so. I doubled the recipe because I had a 250g tub of cream cheese and because I was intending to feed a crowd, but doubling the amount of Baileys made it very very strong. Not strong alcohol-wise, but strong in Baileys smell. Next time I would cut down on the amount of Baileys. I used crushed chocolate ripple biscuits mixed with some melted butter for the base rather than the chocolate cake recommended. I liked the contrasting textures of the creamy cheesecake and the crumbly biscuit base, but I think the base was a little too crumbly with the two tablespoons of butter I used and next time I will use more butter.

I made these in mini-cupcake pans so they were bite-sized, but this made getting the right ratio of biscuit to cheesecake quite difficult. Ideally I would have liked one third biscuit to two thirds cheesecake, if not a quarter biscuit to three quarters cheesecake but it was just too difficult with the tiny pans. They ended up being about half-half. I also found that they needed longer than the 10 minutes in the oven to set. The first pan was in the oven for 15 minutes and they couldn't be unmoulded cleanly once they were cooled in the fridge because they were still quite runny. The second tray I left in the oven for 20 minutes and they worked much better. This could be because my oven is terrible, but still keep an eye on them even if your oven isn't cantankerous.

Despite the strong Baileys smell, they were very tasty. D only got to try two at home because they all went in to work, so he has asked me to make them again so he can have some more. I'll be happy to try again, because I think they can be much more refined than they turned out this time.


Mini Baileys Cheesecakes
adapted from Good Taste Magazine as posted on Taste.com.au

1 packet Arnotts Choc Ripple Biscuits
2 tbs butter, melted
250g cream cheese, at room temperature
4 tbs brown sugar
2 eggs
4 tbs Baileys with a hint of Coffee Irish Cream liqueur
Cocoa powder, to serve

Preheat oven to 150°C. Grease a mini-cupcake or mini-muffin pan lightly. I got 48 mini-cupcake sized cheesecakes from this recipe, or 24 mini-muffin sized ones.

Process the cookies in a food processor until they resemble fine crumbs. Mix with melted butter and press into the base of the pans.

Use an electric beater to beat cream cheese and sugar until combined. Add the egg and beat until combined. Use a metal spoon to fold in the Baileys. Spoon the cream-cheese mixture among pans.

Bake in oven for 10 minutes or until just set. Remove from oven and set aside for 30 minutes to cool and set completely. Dust with cocoa powder to serve.

Thanks to a huge backlog of posts, the posting of this recipe has been a little delayed. It was originally made in December 2009.

Chocolate Croissants

The last couple of weekends, D has bought a chocolate croissant from a stall at the markets. He has enjoyed them, but they don't quite live up to the chocolate croissants he can buy at a cafe near his work.

He was eating one of these while I was watching Nigella Express, and Nigella started making her version of chocolate croissants. The particular croissant being eaten was a little light on its chocolate inside and D grumbled 'if we made our own there'd be chocolate inside'. I showed him the recipe and asked if he'd be interested. He was interested, particularly about the part where he could choose his own chocolate, so Sunday morning we visited our local Zone Fresh for the ingredients.


That's it. Well, and an egg, but otherwise all there is to it is a packet of puff pastry and some chocolate. We weren't sure whether to go with milk chocolate or dark chocolate so we decided to do half with milk and half with dark. The milk chocolate won the taste test as the dark is just a little too bitter and there's no sweetness coming from the pastry to offset it.


All you need to do is to cut your pastry into squares. Nigella said 6 squares, but 6 squares looked too big for me so I went for 9. Plus, the pastry's dimensions divided by 3 neatly. After you have squares, cut them in half diagonally.


Next, place your chocolate on the widest part of the triangle. My chocolates were a little too big, so I cut them in half. Then you roll them up, starting from the widest part and trying to make them look similar to a croissant. Place them on a lined baking tray and then brush with beaten egg. I sprinkled a little sugar over the top for a little extra sweetness.


Finally, bake them in a preheated 220 degree C oven for about 15 minutes (mine needed 20) until they are golden and puffy.


D's final word? These are better than the croissants at the markets and he would eat these over them any day, but they are not better than the croissant he can get from the place near his work. I liked them because they weren't too sweet and they didn't have the sticky danishy glaze that can sometimes overpower the chocolate inside. Actually, it probably overpowers the chocolate inside because the chocolate inside is nearly non-existent. These had a very good pastry to chocolate ratio.

Thanks to a huge backlog of posts, the posting of this recipe has been a little delayed. It was originally made in December 2009.

Mexican Scrambled Eggs

I watched a fair bit of Nigella Express one Sunday morning and one of the recipes that caught D's eye were these Mexican Scrambled Eggs. In fact, he was so intrigued that he wanted to have them for dinner that night.

After a quick trip to the corner store for eggs, this dinner came together in minutes. It was very easy and very tasty. We served it with some oven baked hash browns and were both very full at the end of it.

Mexican Scrambled Eggs
from Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson

2 tbs vegetable oil
2 soft corn tortillas
1 tomato, deseeded and roughly chopped
1 spring onion, roughly chopped
1 tsp chilli paste
4 eggs beaten
1/4 tsp kosher salt

Heat the oil in a heavy-based frying pan. Roll up the corn tortillas in a sausage shape and then snip them into strips with a pair of scissors straight into the hot oil. (I did mine over the cutting board and then cut the strips into thirds, simply because the strips seemed too long).

Fry the tortilla strips for a few minutes until crisp and golden, and then remove to a bowl.

Add the chopped tomato, spring onion and chilli paste to the pan and turn about for a minute or so.

Put the tortilla strips back into the pan and add the beaten eggs and salt. Move everything about as you do when scrambling eggs.

Once the eggs are setting, remove the pan from the heat and continue stirring until the eggs are done to your liking.

Thanks to a huge backlog of posts, the posting of this recipe has been a little delayed. It was originally made in December 2009.

Sesame Peanut Noodles

I returned to work in early December after some time at home sick. My first week was only a short one to build up my strength, but I was still very excited for my first weekend. I can't say that we did anything to write home to Mum about, but we did go to a new market and I did a lot of things that I hadn't been able to do for a while and I enjoyed every bit of it.

It was pretty hot, so Saturday afternoon was spent at home, actively vegging out. How do you actively veg out? Well, it involved doing chores and moving about, and it was opposed to recently being able to do neither. D was a wonderful help in that time, I should add. He washed and cleaned and vaccuumed and did a great job. I'm sure he's regretting it now, because I know he can do it and I'm asking him to help out with other things that I used to have to do by myself. He hasn't been too cranky about it though.

Anyway, during my Saturday afternoon chores I noticed that Nigella Express was on ABC. I was in and out of the room at the time, but it piqued my interest and I wanted to watch it properly. I have a few Nigella DVDs but I didn't think that I had Nigella Express on DVD. I was excited for a moment, as D kept asking me what I wanted for Christmas and I didn't know what to tell him, but a quick dig in amongst our DVD collection unearthed a copy of Nigella Express, still in its shrink wrap.

Sunday was very hot too. D had bought me the Masterchef Masterclass DVD as a going back to work present, so I had two cooking DVDs ready to watch while I did nearly three months worth of filing. The Masterclass DVD was a little disappointing, as it was just the Masterclass episodes and had no special features or recipes. Since I had recorded each episode of the Masterchef series, I already had these episodes. In hindsight, we both thought that the cookbook would have been a better buy. Masterclass being a bit of a dud, I changed DVDs and started watching Nigella.

Nigella makes no secret that the recipes in Nigella Express aren't really the healthiest recipes out there, but she says that she's not advocating that you cook them every meal. These are fast tasty recipes for the times that you need an express way out. This particular recipe is a good example, as there's a little bit of oil and great big couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter. It's very very tasty though, and I like to think that loading it up with vegies makes it a little better.

If you've read my blog for more than a few posts, chances are that you know I like noodle salads. It does appear that clicking on my noodle related posts doesn't really reflect this, but trust me, the few noodle salad recipes that are listed there have been made a lot. An awful lot. Particularly this one. And this one. In fact, I've gone for weeks having nothing but these salads for my work lunches. I'm always on the lookout for a quick noodle salad that can be taken to work for lunch. If it's not quick, it needs to keep well in the fridge. This one is a keeper. I made up a big batch on Sunday night and it fed me quite happily throughout the week. Since there is a bit of oil in it, I kept the portions small and bulked up the rest of my lunch with fruit and salad.

It's really good. I found that as written, the sauce tasted too much like straight peanut butter but after adding some dark soy sauce it melted into a nice satay-like dressing. I say satay-like as there was an added almost vinegary taste and I'm not exactly sure where it came from. It was good though, really woke up the tastebuds at lunchtime.


The dressing is made with a tablespoon of this and a tablespoon of that. I halved the recipe for the salad, but because of the measurements needed for the dressing, I made the dressing as written. I then forgot I halved the rest of the recipe and added all the dressing to the halved salad, which meant mine were quite peanut-y. It bordered on gluggy, but it didn't quite get there. When I make this again, which I intend to do this afternoon, I will be careful not to repeat the same mistake. I do have a half teaspoon measure around here somewhere...

Update: I've made the recipe again this time as written. I still felt it needed an added tablespoon dark soy sauce, but now with a full bowl of salad and noodles the dressing is much lighter and there is no glugginess.

It appears that I did not trust my knowledge of food when I first got this book (which would have been only just before I started this blog) as I have noted next to where the recipe requires 125g mangetout that this means snow peas. Thanks, past me. Where on earth did you learn that it was okay to write on books???? I can't imagine myself ever writing on a book, so I must have really doubted my ability to remember that mangetout meant snowpeas. This is the UK release so I don't know if past me would have also felt the need to remind me that cilantro is coriander or arugula is rocket.

Sesame Peanut Noodles
from Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson

For the dressing

1 x 15ml tbs sesame oil
1 x 15ml tbs garlic oil
1 x 15ml tbs soy sauce
2 x 15ml tbs sweet chilli sauce
100g smooth peanut butter
2 x 15ml tbs line juice
(I also added 1-2 tbs dark soy sauce)

For the salad

150g snow peas
150g bean sprouts
1 red capsicum, deseeded and cut into small strips
2 spring onions, finely sliced
2 x 275g packets ready-prepared egg noodles
20g sesame seeds
4 x 15ml tbs chopped fresh coriander

Whisk together all the dressing ingredients in a bowl or jug.

Put the snowpeas, bean sprouts, capsicum, spring onions and noodles into a bowl.

Pour the dressing over them and mix thoroughly to coat everything well.

Sprinkle with sesame seeds and chopped coriander and pack up as needed.

Thanks to a huge backlog of posts, the posting of this recipe has been a little delayed. It was originally made in December 2009.