Hi!
Remember me?
That’s right, it’s your friendly (virtual) neighborhood Kitchen Wench, finally burrowing out of the ether to confirm that yes, I am in fact still alive.
I honestly can’t believe that I haven’t posted since the beginning of August – almost as much as I can’t believe that we’re nearing the end of October, and that I am very quickly bearing down on the 27th anniversary of the day that I was pushed out into the world, kicking and wailing to within an inch of my life (well, that’s what mother tells me, anyway).
So, what have I been up to all this time?
Well, one of the better things would be that I managed to take my mother away on a well-deserved holiday to a lovely place in Queensland called Brampton Island, where I successfully managed to p*ss off more than one wild kangaroo (and I would like to ask WHY nobody ever told me that kangaroos are scary as all hell?!), swam with fishes in crystal clear ocean waters, harassed more than my fair share of hermit crabs, witnessed some absolutely stunning sunsets and shared the most memorable time with my darling mother…
I tell you, when you see your mother bouncing excitedly up and down in a little boat because she thinks she’s caught a fish, then watch her reel up a rather small piece of coral, it takes almost all your self-control not to wet your pants laughing. Personally, I was laughing so hysterically that I almost fell overboard…though I did feel a little bad when I saw her disappointment. Thankfully that only lasted a moment as the next minute we saw a mother humpback whale teaching her calf to breach only a few hundred metres from where we were.
As for the rest of my absence? What can I say except that life needed my full attention. But I’m back, hopefully with a post that will entertain, amuse and tantalize…though that’s really for you to determine 
One of the reasons for my absence has been freebies.
Wait, what?
Yeah, you read right.
Free bloody food.
(Though not literally bloody. Don’t forget that I’m Aussie-bred!)
You see, being a food blogger means occasionally being sent food samples to try and review. I will often think about an offer for a few days to a week before I reply, and will only accept if I think that it’s a worthwhile product that I may have genuine future interest in. Even then, after I accept the offer, I will often deliberate for weeks on what I think is the best way to test and also to showcase the product that I have been offered.
Which brings me to the case of the tinned tomatoes.
Tinned tomatoes – it’s one of those staples that you can keep in the pantry for aeons, and can use in a myriad of different dishes. I tend to keep a few tins of unflavored diced Italian (Roma) tomatoes in the pantry for this very reason, and have found that this has served me quite well – especially when I’ve needed to whip something up in a hurry.
My penchant for creating flavours of my own to suit my own tastebuds means that as a general rule, I tend to avoid any food which has been pre-flavoured – pasta sauces, ANY sort of frozen meal, jars of marinade…you get the drift. Therefore when I received an email asking me if I would like to try a few jars of Ardmona’s new range of flavoured tinned tomatoes, I deliberated a bit before deciding not to take up the offer.
So you can imagine my surprise when a very large cardboard box turned up on my doorstep, bearing SIX tins of the stuff. And my twisted sense of responsibility (hi mom!) resulted in my feeling obliged to give it a try.
(According to my kid brother, my swearing could be heard from the other end of our property)
Along with these 6 cans of flavoured tomatoes came a ‘handy’ recipe book, which held suggestions on how I should use these gifts. This book, titled ‘Italian Style Classics: 20 Italian recipes made simple with Ardmona Rich & Thick Italian Style Range”, was under the impression that a tin of flavoured tomatoes, carrot, potatoes, kidney beans and sausages constituted a minestrone.
At this point, I would like to interrupt myself with a very public letter to SPC Ardmona:
Dear Sirs/Madams:
I understand that you are under the impression that many people these days live busy lives and can’t be bothered making home-cooked meals. When I see the number of people at work who purchase and bring instant noodles / frozen lasagnas / tinned soup etc, I get a little of that impression myself.
However, please do not equate people being time-poor with being stupid.
While I have no real problem with your actual product (other than the sodium content on some of this stuff – WOWSERS), this recipe book that was so considerately provided is an insult to the intelligence of myself and every other person who knows something about their food.
Meaning that your minestrone recipe is missing the onion and celery. And that’s just for starters.
Kind regards,
Ellie the Kitchen Wench
Which brings me to my next point.
From the flavours of this range that I tasted, I can honestly say that none of them disgusted me (but bear in mind that I had looked at the sodium content of these products BEFORE seasoning the food and thus was able to avoid saltiness). But, on the other hand, none of them actually impressed me either.
When we cook and create in our kitchens, there are a number of things that are happening. Primarily, we are cooking to sate hunger. But what we are also doing is learning, refining and developing our own tastes and palates. When you discover that a recipe does not have to be followed religiously and begin to tweak it slightly to suit your tastes, that is when you start to learn. What happens if you omit an ingredient, or replace it with something else? What elements can be substituted for others, which elements need to remain to keep the true flavour of the dish?
When we eat food which has been flavoured / seasoned / created by a manufacturer, what we are actually doing is allowing this manufacturer to tell us the way that THEY believe a certain dish should taste.
Have you ever made minestrone soup from scratch? Or are you only familiar with the kind that comes from a can?
If it’s the latter, I ask that you try making it yourself. Trust me, the taste is more than worth the effort – plus you can count it as another step on the journey to become a kitchen god or goddess
Minestrone Soup
(adapted from a recipe by chef Shaun Hill in The Cook’s Book)
A minestrone should be quite thick and rich rather than watery with a few garnishes swimming in translucent broth. The vegetables and herbs used aren’t strict either – feel free to substitute the parsley with sweet basil, add asparagus, zucchini (courgettes), peas, beans…its up to you!
Ingredients
1 onion, finely diced
1 small leek, finely sliced
1 celery stick, finely diced
1 carrot, finely diced
2 rashers of bacon, diced
1/2 a small Savoy cabbage, coarsely chopped (makes about 1 1/2 – 2 cups)
1 small potato, peeled and finely diced
1 cup cooked or tinned chickpeas
3-4 tbsp tinned diced tomato / tomato passata
1.5L chicken stock
20g small pasta (I used risoni purely because I had it in my pantry)
Optional: Parsley & sliced / grated Parmesan cheese to serve
1. Prepare your ingredients by chopping everything into a fine dice and set them aside for now.
The basis of this dish is formed by a mirepoix (a combination of onion, celery and carrot in a traditional ratio of 2:1:1 – though I also like to add leek to replace one ratio of onion), so please try and make sure that these vegetables are diced quite neatly.
2. You also need about 3-4 tbsp of tinned diced tomatoes, so make sure that this is ready on hand. Heat up a little oil in a large pot, then add the onion, leek, celery, carrot and bacon and saute till the onions are translucent and cooked (but before they begin to turn golden and take on colour). At this stage, you should also add any additional leafy vegetables you would like to add to the dish – I find that diced silverbeet (chard) or savoy cabbage makes a very nice addition.
3. Once the carrot has begun to soften, add the tinned tomatoes, diced potato and chickpeas to the pot.
4. Make sure to stir well to ensure that everything is thoroughly mixed together, season with salt and pepper, then pour in your chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add the pasta, then bring it to a boil once again, then reduce the heat and gently simmer for 10-15 minutes.
At this point you should have a delightfully rich and hearty soup, which can be garnished with chopped parsley/basil and Parmesan, and should definitely be served with some crusty bread!
A few notes about this dish:
- You can make a vegetarian version of this dish by either replacing the bacon with Facon (soy ‘bacon’) or omitting it altogether, and replacing the chicken stock with vegetable stock (preferable) or water.
- This soup actually freezes quite well if you omit the pasta. Measure out individual serves into ziploc bags, then carefully seal up (make sure you get rid of as much air from inside the bag as possible. When you think you want to have some, either pull a bag out of the freezer and place it into the fridge the night before to thaw out, or just place the whole bag into a pot of simmering water – which will take it straight from frozen to reheated!
- Crusty bread for this dish is a must! When I have a hearty soup such as this, one of my favourite accompaniments is one or two slices of baguette which are then toasted, rubbed with a RAW garlic clove then spread with a little salted butter. You’ll definitely want to have some gum handy for the intense garlic breath, but if you’re a garlic fiend like myself, you’ll be in sweet sweet stinky-breath heaven!
How do you like to make your minestrone soup? Do you have a recipe which has been passed on through generations and is time-tested, or have you got one that you’ve just made up as you go along? Please share your thoughts on this post in the comments below and let me know what you think
Technorati Tags: minestrone, soup, Shaun Hill, recipe
Those who know me know that while I quite enjoy chocolate, I don’t quite have the sort of intimate, loving relationship with it that many of my female (and male!) friends have. In fact, I can go weeks or even a month or two without having a morsel of chocolate pass between my lips…
However, when I do indulge in a little chocolaty pleasure, I want it to be the sort of experience that makes you cry out – a chocgasm, if you will. I mean, what’s the point of being naughty if you’re only going to go about it half-arsed? No, if I’m going for a little guilty pleasure, then it’s gotta be the kind of pleasure that makes me want to roll over after it’s done and light up a post-pleasure cigarette.
So, when I was contacted last month and asked whether I’d be interested in trying some samples of Green & Black’s organic chocolate, I admit that my curiosity got the better of me and I accepted the offer. I’d seen their products around, and had some vegetarian friends who swore by the stuff…plus, I admit that the ‘organic’ branding did take my fancy.
When the parcel finally arrived, I split open the packets with my family eagerly sitting around, and we ran through a taste test of each flavour. The white chocolate tasted like most other good-quality white chocolate that I’ve come across – very milky, very sweet, perhaps a touch more fragrant than other supermarket brands I’ve come across. It melts away quite cleanly on the tongue without leaving much discernable residual oiliness that you get with cheaper chocolates.
However, the milk and dark chocolate taste test unfortunately failed to impress. The dark chocolate definitely had quite an intensely pleasant chocolate note to it, but I found the texture to be somewhat chalky instead of the silken smoothness that I’ve come to expect from a g00d-quality dark chocolate. The milk chocolate had a much better texture than the dark, but didn’t particularly make my tastebuds swoon in any way – though it was still gobbled up in a single sitting by my chocolate-loving mother.
The dark chocolate remaining untouched by the family members, I decided to try it in a recipe and see how well its flavour held up in a dessert. After a little browsing of my bookshelves, I settled on a recipe for a dark chocolate & peanut butter torte with strawberry sauce from my favourite chocolate desserts book, ‘Bittersweet‘ by Alice Medrich. This is definitely a must have cookbook for anyone who is serious about their chocolate desserts, and I figured that Ms Medrich’s recipe would help me to use the chocolate to create a lusciously decadent chocolatey treat to enjoy!
Dark Chocolate & Peanut Butter Torte w/ Strawberry Sauce
(From ‘Bittersweet‘ by Alice Medrich)
Ingredients
85g bittersweet chocolate (70-72% cocoa)
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 tbsp peanut butter
pinch of salt
85g unsalted butter, cubed and at room temperature
4 large eggs, cold (leave them in the fridge till you need them)
1 tbsp bourbon
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
To serve:
Powdered sugar for dusting
Pureed strawberries, sweetened to taste with strawberry jam
Vanilla or white chocolate ice cream, or plain whipped cream depending on your tastes
1. Place an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 180 degrees C, Line the base and sides of a cake tin with nonstick baking paper.
Place your chocolate in a large heatproof bowl in a wide skillet (or saucepan) of barely simmering water, and stir occasionally till nearly all melted. Remove the bowl from the heat and stir till the chocolate is completely melted and smooth.
2. Whisk the sugar, salt and peanut butter into the melted chocolate till well incorporated, then add the butter and beat will an electric mixer.
3. Once the butter has been completely beaten in (no lumps left) and the mixture is smooth and creamy, beat in the eggs one by one, followed by the bourbon and the vanilla.
4. Beat the mixture for another 2-3 minutes or till the batter is light and fluffy, resembling a very fluffy frosting. Spoon the mixture into the lined cake pan and level it with the back of a spoon. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or till a wooden skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out with moist (NOT WET!) crumbs clinging to it.
5. Once it has finished baking, set onto a wire rack to cool completely before serving.
NOTE: Once completely cooled, you can tightly wrap this in plastic wrap and store it at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months!
The strawberry sauce isn’t a recipe so much as instructions. Buy a punnet or two of fresh, ripe strawberries, rinse and hull, then pour into a blender with 1-2 tbsp of strawberry jam, and blitz till liquid. You can serve this as is, or if you’re insane like I am, you can run the mixture through a fine sieve to remove all the tiny seeds and pulp (which, incidentally, is quite nice if added to yoghurt or a smoothie!)
The resulting cake is an absolute treat – soft, extremely chocolatey with a faint peanut butter note in the background. It’s rich but not sweet, so this is the sort of of dessert which you can indulge in which won’t have you bouncing off the walls squealing in a sugar rush.
You can serve this with or without the strawberry, but I found that the cake, sauce and lightly whipped cream worked together quite harmoniously to make quite a simple but elegant dessert which would please almost any discerning chocolate lover.
Technorati Tags: chocolate cake, gluten-free, green & blacks, dessert, Alice Medrich, Bittersweet
Others who have tried this recipe:
- Beth at Beth Morrissey
This post is dedicated to the loving memory of Annette Hosford, known to her friends and colleagues as Netty.
Netty lost her ongoing battle with cancer this morning, and passed away peacefully in her sleep.
A true food & wine lover, Netty loved it when I brought my creations in to work, and whenever I let her know that there was cake to be cut, she was always at the ready with napkins and an appetite, ready to share the calories and laughs.
My thoughts are with the Hosford family, and I hope that the knowledge that Netty is no longer suffering helps to ease some of their pain and the loss.
We will miss you.
Talk about chilly, winter has arrived in Melbourne and sunk its teeth into the very bones of the city that I call home. Even the more hardcore members of Melbourne’s Miniskirt Mafia (the slightly insane girls who prance about in miniskirts regardless of the weather) appear to have conceded defeat to the numbing winds and close to freezing point morning temperatures.
Looking at the lunches that my colleagues bring to work on a daily basis, it appears that the arrival of nipple-freezing weather launches the start of instant soup season – packets and tins of pre-made /powdered soups do roaring trade, and the slurps are aplenty come mealtime.
Whilst packet cake mixes (f*ck you, white wings and greens instant cake and pancake mixes) are what most drive me to fits of irrational rage, pre-made soup follows a close second. The main reason for this is that soup is possibly one of the easiest things in the world to make, so the idea that people are purchasing something as basic as pumpkin soup instead of spending a little time and love in their kitchens gives me a bit of a crazy-person eye-twitch.
As far as pumpkin soup recipes go, at last count I had accumulated over twenty different recipes through my food magazines and cookbooks, and the range of flavours goes from a basic roasted vegetable to mixtures of different spices and flavours aiming to complicate what really should be a dish that celebrates and revolves around the buttery, sweet flavour that cooked pumpkin provides.
This recipe, as far as soup recipes go, really could not get any easier. Sure, it takes a little time and a little elbow grease and grunt work, but the payoff is a deliciously smooth and sweet soup that you’ve made yourself from scratch, instead of purchasing a powdered/tinned/vacuum-sealed baggie full of soup manufactured in a factory somewhere with claims of being ‘just like homemade’.
Because (and let’s be frank) there ain’t anything ‘homemade’ about a hermetically sealed doggy bag of soup, no matter how the manufacturers wish it to be so!
Pumpkin Soup
Ingredients
800g pumpkin, peeled and cubed (my preference is actually for half butternut and half Kent)
1 large brown onion, roughly diced
2-4 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 knob unsalted butter
1L stock (chicken or vegetable)
Salt & pepper to taste
Cream & fresh chives, to serve
1. Put a large pot onto a medium heat, then add the butter and allow it to brown. Add the onion and garlic and cook till the onion is translucent, then add the pumpkin and stir to combine.
2. Saute till the pumpkin begins to soften, then add the cumin and paprika and continue to cook for another minute or two. Pour in the stock, bring the pot to a boil, then reduce it to a simmer and cook till the pumpkin is completely soft and begins to disintegrate.
3. Allow the soup to cool, then blitz with a blender/immersion blender till completely smooth. Bring the mixture back to a simmer and cook till the mixture thickens up slightly.
4. Plate up while hot, and serve with a dollop of cream and some freshly snipped chives, and with a nice crusty roll on the side.
Technorati Tags: winter, recipe, savoury, vegetarian, pumpkin soup, soup
When I bake, I have to be on constant lookout and ever vigilant from roaming fingers. You see, my family suffer from Finger Dippyitis – otherwise known as the compulsion to stick their unwashed fingers into my cake and cupcake batters.
This sometimes involves being armed with extra teaspoons and spatulas, as a wandering finger can be redirected with a teaspoonful of batter, and a whack from a spatula can deter even the most eager batter-seeker as they inch towards your mixing bowl.
These members of my baking arsenal proved particularly useful when I was baking these adorable peanut butter cupcakes this afternoon…
My family ADORE their peanut butter. It’s not uncommon to see my kid brother wandering around the house with a spoon full of peanut butter dangling from his mouth (in much the way most folks devour their nutella!), and both my mother and brother will spread peanut butter on almost anything as a flavour aide – from muffins to celery, and even on most crackers!
Therefore, when my mother sniffed her way into the kitchen while I was mixing up the batter, I immediately took the offensive, grabbing my spatula and posing ‘en garde’, wiggling my spatula in her face to indicate that she had better scram before I started whacking. Grumbling under her breath, I could hear the pout as she slouched back to her bedroom, proclaiming loudly that she had only wanted to ask what I was baking – and that she didn’t even think it smelled tasty.
I sighed, scooped up a little batter on one of my clean teaspoons and carried it to her room as a peace offering, which she gladly downed and declared to be delicious. I considered this a sign that my peace offering had been accepted, and settled down next to her to take a baking break and hang out for a few minutes, when she declared that she was out of tea and plodded off to make some more.
Engrossed in the video that we had been watching, I thought nothing of it till I realized a minute later that the cupcake batter had been left in the kitchen unattended! I raced into the kitchen and my pounding footsteps heralded my arrival to my mother – who proceeded to freeze like a rabbit in headlights, with a guilty finger stuck in her mouth.
…
“MOTHER!!!”
My mother looked at me blankly as she finished sucking off the last of the batter she had scooped up. “Well,” she said, “it’s your fault for making it so delicious!”
I stood there, gobsmacked, as she calmly walked back to her room with a fresh cup of tea in hand.
Woman, you may have won this round, but next time, I’ll get you!
Peanut Butter Cupcakes – two ways!
(with Strawberry Filling & Frosting or Chocolate Ganache & Chocolate Whipped Cream)
Cupcake Ingredients
60g unsalted butter
220g brown sugar
150g peanut butter (smooth or chunky, whatever your preference!)
2 eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
225g all-purpose flour
100mL buttermilk
Filling Ingredients
Chocolate – 200g good quality dark chocolate, 2/3 cup double cream
Strawberry – 1/4 cup strawberry jam, warmed and sieved
Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients
200g cream cheese, at room temperature
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 tbsp strawberry jam
1-2 cups soft icing mixture (replace with pure icing sugar/confectioner’s sugar if you cannot find)
Pink food colouring
Chocolate Whipped Cream Ingredients
1 cup double cream
1/2 cup chocolate ganache (reserved from filling)
Cocoa powder, to dust
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C, then beat together the butter, brown sugar and peanut butter till creamy, then add the eggs and vanilla and beat till smooth.
2. Set aside the batter, and sift together the flour, bicarb soda and baking powder.
3. Fold the flour into the batter in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk. Spoon into cases (I got about 20 cupcakes with each weighing about 40g) and bake for 20 minutes, or till a wooden skewer inserted into the cupcakes comes out with moist (not wet) crumbs.
4 Once baked, set the cupcakes on a wire rack to cool, then proceed to fill and decorate however you wish.
For PB & J cupcakes – fill the cupcakes with the strained strawberry jam and set aside. Mix up your strawberry cream cheese frosting, ice the cupcakes and decorate with a few silver cachous.
For chocolate cupcakes – mix up your ganache, then beat your cream till it almost reaches firm peaks (if you beat it till it reaches firm peaks like I did, it will take on a curdled appearance as you work in the chocolate.)
6. Reserve about 1/2 cup of ganache and use the remaining amount to pipe into the cooled cupcakes as filling. Use a large metal spoon to slowly and carefully fold the chocolate ganache into the whipped cream, until it is no longer streaky and has been properly worked in. Ice your cupcakes, dust with cocoa powder and decorate with a few silver cachous
Now, these cupcakes do develop a fairly hard crust so I would suggest icing them at least a few hours (and up to 24hrs) before serving as this will help soften the crust. However, in the case of the chocolate whipped cream, they would need to be refrigerated – and you certainly would not want to keep the icing longer than 24 hours at most.
Also – here is more evidence of what I have to put up with! Even Mr Woofy wanted in on the cupcake action – I was about to line up to take this shot when his head appeared out of nowhere and made a beeline for the cake platter – it was pure luck that I managed to stop him before he ran off with one!
However, despite my scolding and stern commands for him to move, he plonked himself down and refused to budge till he got some cupcake goodness for himself!
And in case you’re wondering, he did get a little bit of strawberry-filled peanut butter cupcake for the road
“I smell….chocolate!”
My mother drifted into the kitchen, following the scent of the brownies I had just baked. I had just set the steaming tray onto the bench to cool, when I saw her nimble little fingers reaching for the pan. Quick as a flash, I grabbed a spatula from the drying rack and gave her hand a little whack. “Stay away from my goddamn brownies” I growled, as she shot me a filthy look and sulked her way back out of the kitchen.
You see, my mother is an edge nibbler.
What’s that, you ask?
She’s one of those people with darting fingers, who will attack at the edges of any freshly baked produce, pinching off bit by bit till it looks as though it has been attacked by a family of rats! She even this to a mate’s birthday cake that I made a few weeks ago, even though I’d told her to keep her paws off! Thankfully, the entire thing had to be covered in buttercream and fondant so I was able to hide the raggedy edges…
Unfortunately, I had somewhat overbaked the brownies (by about half an hour! This is why afternoon naps are dangerous!), and it was too dark to take photos, so I covered the tray with foil and ended up hiding the lot in the laundry cupboard to keep them safe from her destructive touch!
That also explained why I received a text message from her the following day, demanding that I reveal where I had hidden the goods. Honestly, is it just me that thinks there’s a bit of a role reversal problem here??
Oh, and incidentally…since the brownies had to be trimmed for the photos anyway, she did end up getting her edges
Double Dark Chocolate & Roasted Macadamia Brownies
(From ‘Mix & Bake‘ by Belinda Jeffery)
Ingredients
250g unsalted butter, coarsely chopped
180g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
385g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
4 eggs
150g all-purpose flour
100g roasted macadamias, coarsely chopped
100g dark chocolate chunks
Icing sugar, to serve
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C, and line a 23cm square cake tin with non-stick baking paper and set aside. Place the 180g of dark chocolate and butter in a heavy-based saucepan and place over very low heat to melt. Give the saucepan an occasional stir or swirl so that the chocolate solids don’t stick and burn to the bottom of the pan. Once the mixture is smooth and shiny, set aside to cool for 8-10 minutes.
2. Once the chocolate mix has cooled, add your caster sugar and vanilla extract and whisk in till smooth. Then add the eggs, one at a time, whisking well after each addition.
3. Once all the eggs have been incorporated, the mixture should be thick and gooey and much lighter in colour. Grab your freshly roasted macadamias…
4. and add them to a mixing bowl, along with the 100g of chocolate chunks and flour, and give it a quick stir to make sure the nuts and choc are covered in flour. Tip the lot into the saucepan and gently fold through.
5. Once the flour and chocolate mixtures have been folded together, tip the lot into the lined baking tray and bake for 40-50 minutes, or till a wooden skewer inserted into the middle comes out with moist (but not wet) crumbs clinging to it.
Once baked, allow to cool completely, then chill the mixture in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm it up and make it easier to slice. Allow the slices to come back to room temperature, dust with icing sugar and serve!
A word of warning – these brownies are intense. I’m talking instant chocolate overload and sugar rush. You are best cutting these into small bars as large portions may just be a bit too much!
Technorati Tags: brownies, dark chocolate, macadamias, dessert, cake
