Catie's chicken pies

Catie Ensten (Briggs) is one of the most amazing people I know.  Good hearted, full of life, intellect, kindness, organised, super mum, super teacher, super popular and super friend all in one person.  Thanks for being a rock and a vault.  Love you heaps.

Catie's chicken pies sound delicious, although there is a lot of butter in them but hey you have to splurge out sometimes don't you.  Enjoy. 

Ingredients and instructions

1 chicken breast - chop into 4 -5 pieces. Use a tenderloin.
Fry in butter, brown until nearly cooked.
Take out of the fry pan.
Another knob of butter, fry a whole heap of mushrooms and leaks, there is usually a lot of juice so fry it off a bit. 
Chop up the chicken into fine pieces.
Put into the vegetables, then cook a bit more to properly cook the chicken. 
Take out all of the ingredients and put in a bowl.
Make a white sauce in the fry pan by using a tbsp plain flour with some more butter.  Cook for 2 minutes, add 1/2 a cup of milk so it turns into a creamy sauce.
Its OK to have a thick sauce because there is quite a lot of water in the vegetables..
Add heaps of cracked pepper, then turn the heat off.
Use puff pastry in your pie maker, or in a pie tin.  Cook my pastry first in the pie maker/tin so that it is crispy on the bottom, then add your ingredients into the pie maker/tin and put some more puff pastry on the top.  Put some egg or milk wash on top.  Using a fork put some holes in the top of the pastry.
Cook until brown on top.
If cooking in an oven cook in a moderate oven about 180degrees Celsius.

Auntie Marie's Golden Syrup Dumplings

Auntie Marie and Owen September 2010

Auntie Marie is a beautiful, kind and loving person.  I love her dearly and I always call her an angel lady.

When we were children she would always make golden syrup dumplings for desert and the tradition has stuck.  Everytime I visit her  in the south-east at Mt Gambier she makes dumplings.

Auntie Marie and her family are awesome cooks.  She grew up on the family's dairy farm where there was always an abundance of cream and milk for beautifully made deserts and other foods.   Her mum Doreen Hayes used to make the best sponge cake, so imagine that with jam and cream.  Auntie Marie told me she hasn't ever mastered her mother's sponge recipe as it's always a flop and she doesn't know why.  So I said to her we will know her for dumplings instead.

Here is the recipe:

Instructions

Sauce

• Put in saucepan
• 1 tablespoon of golden syrup
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 1 cup of hot water
• 1 cup of sugar

Dumplings

• Mix 1 cup self raising flour and rub in 1 tablespoon of butter. 
• Stir in beaten eggs and a little milk. 
• Roll into about 8 balls. 
• Drop them into boiling water and put lid on top. 
• Cook for about 20 minutes. 

Donna's potato bake

Donna Jenkins is my cousin on Mums side.  We've been great friends since our childhood and it's awesome to see our children are playing together.  We usually catch up during my holidays at Mount Gambier to visit family and friends. 

Donna made a delicious potato bake when I was holidaying with the family in September 2010. The french onion soup and cream are a great combination.  Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

• Potatoes -  approximately 10 potatoes (1 1/2 per person)
• French onion soup - 1 packet or more if required
• Cream - 2 cups
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Peel and thinly slice the potato for each person. 
2. Put half of the potatoes in a cassarole dish. 
3. Combine cream and 3/4 of the french onion soup and pour about half of the mixture over the top of the potatoes. 
4. Add the remaining slices of potato and then pour of the rest of the cream/french onion mixture.
5. Sprinkle the remaining french onion soup of the top of the potato to give it a more crunchy taste. 
6. Cook in a hot oven for about one hour. 
7. To cook more quickly soften the potato in the microwave first before finishing off in the oven

Melba's pea soup

Auntie Melba Hofmeyer

Auntie Melba was one of Lindstrom sisters (my Nanna's sister).  All of the Lindstrom girls where beautiful.  She was married to Don Hofmeyer. 

This is her pea soup recipe she gave to me when I was collecting recipes from the family in 1995.


Ingredients

Can use a ham, shank or bacon bone.  For a shank boil the meat first the day before then take off the fat.  With bacon bones you cook them that day.

250 grams green split peas.  Soak peas in hot water with a bit of carb soda overnight.  Cook separately the next day.  Tip out the water from soaking overnight, and put the peas in a saucepan of hot water and bring to the boil and keep an eye on them.  Keep simmering to nothing. 

Add onion, carrot or soup vegetables, parsnip, turnip, celery. swede (turnip is white and swede is yellow).  Chop up the vegetables. 

Add macrone or any type of pasta.

Add simmered down peas to the vegetables and meat.

Salt/pepper when the soup is cooked. 

Put in cubes of bacon/chicken powdered stock.

Patrick's chocolate cupcakes

5. Adding the white chocolate chips

Patrick and Kathryn are my cousins on my Dad's side.  She is the grand daughter of my great Auntie Ailsa and great Uncle Jo on the Saunders side.  Kathryn and I share many common interests such as exploring new opportunities and love for life, love for family especially our children and friends and have a genuine interest in family history.  Also, we share a common bond in our family ancestral ties and she is an awesome gal!  Kathryn's husband is Cameron and they recently returned from a working holiday in Dubai and are now living Sydney.  I'm hoping to visit them in Sydney sometime.

Patrick and Kathryn have been kind enough to share their chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate chips recipe and some awesome shots cooking these delectable cupcakes were provided too.  So thanks for sharing.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups of flour
• 1 1/2 cups of white chocolate chips
• 1 cup brown sugar packed down
• 1/3 cup cocoa
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups of milk
• 3 oz (85 grams) butter melted
• 2 eggs beaten
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Instructions

1. Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a bowl and whisk till combined. 
2. In a separate bowl combine milk, eggs, butter, vanilla and mix until blended.  Mix wet and dry ingredients together. 
3. Add chocolate chips, stir until blended.  Put in a moderate oven 180 degrees celsius until cooked (approx 10 to 15 minutes).

1. Patricks copy and the original

2. Mixing the dry ingredients

3. Mixing the wet ingredients

4. Stirring it all together

6. Ready to go into the oven

7. Fresh from the oven

Charlie's mini pikas

Last weekend Charlie and I made some pizzas for our lunch.  Charlie really loves pizza.  In fact it was one of his first words, pronounced "pika".

As you can see from the photo he was pretty happy about making his own delicious pizza. Too bad it ended toppings down on the floor just a few seconds after taking this photo. 

I'm still teaching Charlie about keeping the plate straight and the seven second rule.  Don't worry, he ate Daddy's pika instead.

Ingredients

- tomato paste

- cheddar cheese grated

- ham shredded

- red capsicum cubed

- mushrooms sliced

- basil

- mini pita bread

Anything goes with these types of pizzas. We were just using what was in the fridge.

Instructions

1. preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius

2. cut up your ingredients

3. using a spoon cover the pita bread with the tomato paste and then add all of the other ingredients

4. Cook the pizzas for about 10-15 minutes.

Nanna Jenkins' sausage rolls

Estel Jenkins

Nanna used to always make the best and most delicious sausage rolls.  There would always be sausage rolls ready for her family when they visited.  Everyone loved them and they would be gobbled down very quickly.

Ingredients

500g sausage roll meat
1 large carrot, grated
1 large onion, finely cut
1 egg, lightly whisked
salt and pepper
puff pastry, already rolled into 30cm by 30cm squares

Instructions

Preheat oven to 220c.  Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl.  Cut the pastry into halves.  Place a small amount of the mixture along the edge of the puff pastry and roll.  Brush the edge of the roll with milk and with some extra egg mixture brush the tops of all of the sausage rolls.  Bake in the oven for about 20 - 25 minutes until golden brown.

Grandma Ruby's Cononut Biscuits

Ruby Mullen

This is the recipe from Ruby Mullen's family. 

Every day Gran made cakes and biscuits for afternoon tea and desert for tea.

Coconut biscuits were a favourite of everyones and a huge batch was always made to keep the buiscut barrel full.


Ingredients

1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
1 cup of cononut
2 cups of flour

Instructions

Cream the butter and sugar and then add other ingredients gradually.

Place a small amount on a greased tray.  Press down with a fork.  Bake in a moderate overn till golden.

Coconut bread

After starting my diet today I thought it would be a great idea to cook a cake.


Coconut Bread

Ingredients (serves 6)

2 eggs 300ml milk 1 tsp vanilla extract 375g (2 1/2 cups) plain flour 2 tsp baking powder 2 tsp ground cinnamon 220g (1 cup) caster sugar 150g shredded coconut 75g unsalted butter, melted

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 21 x 10cm loaf pan.

Lightly whisk the eggs, milk and vanilla in a bowl. Sift flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a separate, large bowl. Add sugar and coconut and stir until just combined. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and gradually stir in the egg mixture until just combined.

Add melted butter and stir until mixture is just smooth (do not over-mix). Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Set aside in the pan for 5 minutes to cool, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Serve in thick slices.

Ras el hanout

Ive just discovered some thing new to me. It's Ras el hanout a blend of spices that can be used as a dry seasoning for chicken and other meats and then cooked in a tagine or pan. It can also be used to flavour cous cous and rice.


The spices in Ras el hanout include a blend of mild, spicy and pungent spices like cinnamon, chili, cumin, cayenne, nutmeg, tumeric, saffron, cardamon, etc.

Sounds like a delicious way to spice up life.

Recipe

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon ground cumin 1 teaspoon ground ginger I teaspoon turmeic 1 teaspoon salt 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seeds 1/2 teaspoon cayenne 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Prepartion:

In a small bowl whisk together all ingredients until combined well. Spice blend keeps in an airtight container at cool room temperature 1 month.

My inlaws have brought home a case full of different spices from Istanbul Turkey and have a Tagine so I may have to pay them a visit to make a little something.