Welcome Back Cooking Mojo, Welcome Back Daringness!

I had complete faith that my cooking mojo and my daring streak were never really gone for good, and this month they have finally returned. After a fairly terrible year (Bring on 2009 I say!) I am starting to get back on my feet again... I've posted more this month than I have any other month since I started this blog and I have been loving every minute of it... I haven't participated in a Daring Bakers Challenge in a very long time, and I want to thank Lis & Ivonne for being so patient with me. Now I am back and as daring as ever! Thank-yous must also go to this months host Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity and her wonderful co-hosts Alex from Blondie and Brownie & Jenny from Foray into Food for picking a delicious and sugary challenge for my return.

I decided to make my Caramel cake into cupcakes because they are easier to share (I wanted to take some to my boyfriends place and keep some here), easier to transport (well, especially after I bought my fancy doubled tiered cupcake carrier that doubles as a biscuits or slice carrier... ah, retail therapy, isn't it great!?) and they are just so damn cute! We were also given an optional challenge of making caramels, so I took that one on as well and used them to decorate the tops of my cupcakes... I originally wanted to put stars or hearts flat on top of them, but I didn't have any cutters small enough... I tried a half star but it just kept flopping over because my caramel was too soft... I think the ones I ended up with looked better anyway...

I was a bit worried at first because there were a lot of comments in the DB forums about this cake and its icing being too sweet... as most of you will know, i don't shy away from sugar... but I wasn't looking forward to trying to figure out how much sugar was in them to give myself the right amount of insulin that is for sure! As it turns out I estimated it fairly well and didn't end up with ridiculously high sugar levels, even though I ate several of these... they were so yummy! and the icing... I was eating it out of the bowl all day, the combination of burnt butter, salt and caramel just goes so well together, I couldn't keep my fingers out of there!!

For those of you who are thinking of making this (or any other caramel in the future), my favourite tip that I picked up off the DB forum was to add milk to the sticky caramel pan and bring it to a simmer to make a delicious Hot Caramel Milk... just the thing I needed after my hard day of baking ;)

Caramel Cupcakes Makes 18

(Recipe for Caramel Cake & Caramelized Butter Frosting from Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater as published on Bay Area Bites)

Caramel Syrup (halved from original)

In a small stainless steel saucepan, with tall sides, mix 1/4C water & 1C sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Brush down any stray sugar crystals with wet pastry brush. Turn on heat to highest flame. Cook until smoking slightly: dark amber. When color is achieved, cover pan with foil and cut a small hole. Very carefully pour in 1/2C water to stop the caramelisation process. Caramel will jump and sputter about! It is very dangerous, so have long sleeves on and be prepared to step back. Whisk over medium heat until it has reduced slightly and feels sticky between two fingers. {Obviously wait for it to cool on a spoon before touching it.} Note: For safety reasons, have ready a bowl of ice water to plunge your hands into if any caramel should land on your skin.

Caramel Cake

Preheat oven to 180C and place paper muffin cases into 18 of the 24 holes in 2 x 12 hole muffin pans. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream 10Tbsp butter until smooth. Add 1 1/4C sugar & 1/2tsp sea salt flakes and cream the mixture until light and fluffy. Slowly pour 1/3C room temperature caramel syrup (see recipe above) into the bowl. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and increase speed. Mix together 2 room temperature eggs & a splash of vanilla extract and add a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down bowl again, beat mixture until light and uniform.

Sift 2C plain flour & 1/2tsp baking powder. Turn mixer to lowest speed, and add one third of the dry ingredients. When incorporated, add 1/2C room temperature milk, a little at a time. Add another third of the dry ingredients, then another 1/2C room temperature milk and finish with the dry ingredients. {This is called the dry, wet, dry, wet, dry method in cake making. It is often employed when there is a high proportion of liquid in the batter.} Remove from mixer and use a spatula to do a few last folds, making sure batter is uniform. Divide batter among muffin cases.

Bake for 15 minutes, rotate pan and bake for another 5-10 minutes or until sides pull away from the papers and skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cake completely before icing it. Cake will keep for three days outside of the refrigerator.

Caramelised Butter Frosting

Cook 12Tbsp butter until brown. Pour through a fine meshed sieve into a heatproof bowl, set aside to cool. Pour cooled brown butter into mixer bowl, attach paddle attachment and add 450g sifted icing sugar a little at a time. When mixture looks too chunky to take any more, add 3Tbsp heavy cream & 3Tbsp caramel syrup. Add 1tsp sea salt flakes (or to taste).

Note: Caramelized butter frosting will keep in fridge for up to a month. To smooth out from cold, microwave a bit, then mix with paddle attachment until smooth and light.

Once cupcakes are completely cooled, pipe icing on top, decorate with chopped caramels (recipe below) and sprinkle generously with sea salt flakes.

Golden Vanilla Bean Caramels Makes 40 (Halved from original recipe)

(from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, Artisan Press)

Line the bottom and sides of a 20cm x 10cm loaf pan with aluminum foil and grease the foil. Combine 1/2C golden syrup, 1C sugar & 1/8tsp sea salt flakes in a heavy based saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring with a silicone spatula or wooden spoon, until the mixture begins to simmer around the edges. Wash the sugar and syrup from the sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in water. Cover and cook for about 3 minutes. (Meanwhile, rinse the spatula or spoon before using it again later.) Uncover the pan and wash down the sides once more. Attach a candy thermometer to the pan, without letting it touch the bottom of the pan, and cook, uncovered (without stirring) until the mixture reaches 150C. Meanwhile, heat 1C heavy cream in a small saucepan and heat until tiny bubbles form around the edges of the pan. Turn off the heat and cover the pan to keep the cream hot.

When the sugar mixture reaches 150C, turn off the heat and stir in 1 1/2Tbsp butter, cut into chunks. Gradually stir in the hot cream; it will bubble up and steam dramatically, so be careful. Turn the burner back on and adjust it so that the mixture boils energetically but not violently. Stir until any thickened syrup at the bottom of the pan is dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, to about 118C. Then cook, stirring constantly, to 125C for soft, chewy caramels. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in 1/2Tbsp vanilla extract. Pour the caramel into the lined pan. Let set for 4 to 5 hours, or overnight until firm.

Lift the pan liner from the pan and invert the sheet of caramel onto a sheet of parchment paper. Peel off the liner. Cut the caramels with an oiled knife. Wrap each caramel individually in wax paper or cellophane.

Thanks again to the hosts for such a delicious challenge... you can see more wonderful Daring Baker creations by going to our blogroll (and with over 1,000 of us now it would be hard for you not to stumble across a couple more of our posts even if you were trying to avoid them!)... I look forward to the next challenge :)

A Healthy(?) Dose of Organisation

I have finally managed to get around to organising my cookbook and food magazine bookcase after the move. I painstakingly packed my cookbooks and magazines into boxes according to what shelves they belonged on, but mum and Geoff got a little over zealous when we moved in and unpacked the books for me... and managed to get them all in the completely wrong place despite the numbering. It wasn't so bad though, after a couple of hours of work my recipe shelves are now the most organised they have ever been... I mean look how pretty they look!

The top shelf has all the 'healthy' or nutrition related cookbooks and magazines (Diabetic Living & Healthy Food Guide) on the left side and all the cookbooks by celebrity chefs or other famous people on the right side...

The next shelf down has food magazines on the left (including Australian Good Food, Australian Good Taste, Australian Table, Recipes+, Super Food Ideas), I could only fit the magazines from the last 2 years here... the bright boxes in the middle hold these laminated recipe cards that I made when I was a teenager, there are a lot of recipes in there I never tried, but also some of my favourites like M&M Chocolate Chip Cookies, Cinnamon & Jam Donut Muffins, Self-Saucing Chocolate Pudding, Spring Rolls & Asian Meatballs that I have been making for as long as I remember... and there is a special section on the right to help with planning meals...

Each month I am going to put all the magazines from that month (off these shelves and also from the boxes where I keep my magazines that are older and won't fit on the shelves) into this section here so that I can cook more things from the magazines I have... because as it is now, once I read a magazine it pretty much sits on the shelf (or a box) and gathers dust... so this is my attempt to actually use what I have... how crazy does that sound!?! This section also has a couple of notebooks to help me plan it out, a folder full of recipes that I have printed off my blog, tried and tested ones that we liked and want to make again... On the right hand side of the blue folder is where I am keeping the magazines and books that I am cooking from that week... organisation to the max!!

The middle shelf holds the rest of my cookbooks... they are sorted into categories from catering & International on the left through to Ingredient specific & Vegetarian on the right... it is so much easier to find the book that I am looking for now!

The second bottom shelf has the more expensive magazines on it, with Donna Hay on the left and Delicious on the right... there are also a couple of cookbooks related to these magazines in the middle... I used to buy both of these magazines religiously (I have Donna Hay from the very first issue) until I realised that although I enjoy reading them, I hardly ever make anything out of these magazines, where as I make quite a bit out of the cheaper magazines... I still ocassionally buy Delicious, but I have stopped buying Donna Hay completely now... I might reconsider when I get my own place and start entertaining more though, I think these magazines would be good for that... I am a sucker for a Christmas issue though... haha...

The bottom shelf houses all of mums old cookbooks... along with my older cookbooks, most of which I got given to me via freecycle... I don't really use them that much (except when my cookbook challenge forces me to!)... the two magazine holders on the right are a series of microwave cooking magazines that my Nanna gave me, I should really go through them sometime and see if there are any decent recipes in them...

All this extra planning is making it much easier not only to figure out what we are going to eat each night, but also to fit in recipes from my cookbook challenge books, I am churning through them each week now! I've made two recipes from the current cookbook challenge book, 'Eat Well, Live Well' by Reader's Digest. The pasta dish was really simple, light and full of flavour, but it isn't really a dish to eat with company, if you get my drift... I saw the recipe for the Tofu Balls on Where's the Beef?, Cindy got the recipe originally from Post Punk Kitchen... I made a half batch of these and the pasta dish as I was eating alone (hence the vegetarian meal... I have been craving tofu for ages!), my balls turned out more like mini rissoles because they flattened out a bit, but they were still delicious... the banana bars are great for breakfast, I found them a bit dry when they are first baked, but once they were in the fridge overnight they were really nice and the flavour came through more... mum wasn't very fond of them, but apparently she doesn't like bananas... who would have known!?

Four Onion Spaghetti w/ Soy Bombs (aka Tofu Balls) Serves 4

In a food processor mix together 500g extra firm tofu, 1 small finely chopped onion, 3Tbsp peanut butter, 3Tbsp soy sauce (2Tbsp if you peanut butter contains salt), 1/2C breadcrumbs & 1/2-1 bunch of basil (or other herb of your choice). Place in the fridge for half an hour to firm up.

In a large saucepan, heat 1Tbsp olive oil over a low heat. Add 2 large red onions, chopped, 1 large brown onion, chopped, 6 spring onions, including tops, thinly sliced & 4 shallots, chopped and cook for 15 minutes or until lightly golden. Add 3 crushed garlic cloves and cook for another 2 minutes. Add 3Tbsp brandy (or apple juice) and cook for another minute. Stir in 1 1/2C vegetable stock, cover and cook for 25 minutes on a very low heat. Stir in 1tsp dried rosemary and cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed. Add 2Tbsp plain flour and cook, stirring for 2 minutes. Add another 1C vegetable stock & a pinch of black pepper, bring to the boil over moderate heat and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until thickened.

Roll tofu mixture into 3cm balls and roll in plain flour (about 1/2C). Heat 1/3C vegetable oil in a frying pan until hot and fry tofu balls in batches until golden. Be careful, they are fragile!

While frying the batches of tofu balls, bring a large pot of water to the boil and cook 300g spaghetti (I used half white and half wholemeal) for 5 minutes or until al dente. Drain and transfer to serving bowls. Top with onion mixture, tofu balls & chopped spring onion tops (about 1/4C in total).

I am sending this one to Ruth from Once Upon a Feast for this weeks Presto Pasta Night roundup.

Banana Custard Oat Bars Makes 12

Preheat oven to 190C and lightly grease a 23cm square baking dish. Soak 1/2C coarsely chopped dried fruit (I used a mixture of apple and pear) in 1/2C boiling water for 15 minutes. In the meantime, blend together 3Tbsp brown sugar, 2Tbsp margarine & 3Tbsp vegetable oil in a food processor until smooth. Add 1/2C plain wholemeal flour, 1/2C plain white flour (the recipe originally calls for all wholemeal, but I think this makes them too dry) & 1/2tsp ground cinnamon and mix until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Remove from food processor and mix in 1C instant or rolled oats. Put aside 1/2C of this mixture for the toping and press the remainder into the prepared dish. Bake the crust for 20 minutes.

In a clean food processor bowl, blend together 2 large bananas, cut into 3cm pieces, 1 large egg, 2 large egg whites, 3Tbsp honey & 1/4tsp ground ginger until smooth. Add the soaked fruit (drained) and pulse until just combined. Pour the banana mixture over the hot crust, sprinkle with the reserved oat mixture and bake for 15 minutes or until set. Let stand in the dish on a wire rack until warm and then cut into 12 bars. Once cooled completely, wrap individual bars tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate. The recipe says they will keep for up to 4 days, but since I am the only one eating them they are still going strong 5 days after I made them (and hopefully for a few more days to come!).

This cookbook is pretty good, it has over 500 recipes in it and I already have a long list of things I want to cook out of it after only going through the breakfast and vegetarian sections... it is also one of the few cookbooks I have seen that doesn't just claim to have healthy recipes without showing (full) nutritional data to back it up... each recipe has a nutritional breakdown (including carbohydrates - yay!) and there is even a section at the front of the book that includes recommended dietary intakes... which, although largely outdated now, would have been helpful back when the book was published... it also has a 12 page section on planning a healthy diet, which is actually full of sensible nutritional information without any of the hype I have seen in many other books claiming to be 'healthy'... for a free book off someone on freecycle, this is definitely a find!

Moving on to the next cookbook challenge book (#16) which just happens to be 'The Festive Season Handbook! My Library Thing Widget must know it is Christmas... hopefully I can get some ideas for my Christmas hampers from this book... I've already made a start on something which I will show you next week, but that wasn't from this book...

Taste Cooks Club Recipes with Something in Common

I bet you can't guess what these two dishes have in common...

...even though it is staring you right in the face in that second photo! Time is up... they both have ZUCCHINI in them!! Well, the savoury dish wasn't meant to have them in there, but I had some leftover from making the Zucchini Cobbler, so I threw them in there too.

North African Chicken w/ Vegetable Tagine Serves 4

This was a recipe that I got from Round #22 of the Taste Cooks Club. Originally it used steaks, but I used chicken as I don't like red meat very much. We had the Lemon Thyme Chicken dish the night before that had a large chunk of chicken, so I didn't feel like that much meat again, so I diced the chicken up before marinating it instead. I skipped the harissa paste all together because there was no steak or anything to put it on top of, so I just cooked the chicken in the paste it was marinated in (if you want to cook steaks and use the harissa paste just go to the link above to get the recipe). I also added the zucchini because I had some leftover and it added a bit of green to the dish.

This dish was so full of flavour, the vegetables are sweet and tender and the meat has a little heat in it. I served the leftovers with sour cream for lunch the next day and that helped my pathetic mouth cope a little better. It's just a great combination of flavours, next time I will serve it with rice to make it go a bit further though because we all couldn't get enough of it.

In a food processor combine 1 red onion, 4 peeled garlic cloves, 1/2 bunch continental parsley, 1/2 bunch coriander (I don't like coriander much, so I just used a little bit of ground coriander instead of fresh), juice of 1 lemon, 1/2Tbsp ground cumin, 2tsp sweet paprika, 2tsp ground turmeric, 1/2tsp ground chilli (Use 1tsp if you like chilli, I have reduced this for next time I make it), 1/4C olive oil & a pinch of sea salt. Marinate 400g diced chicken (or 4 beef fillet steaks, or 4 chicken breast fillets) in this chermoula paste for 1 hour (steaks & whole fillets can be left overnight).

For the Tagine, fry 1 thickly sliced brown onion on a low heat in 1tsp olive oil until they begin to colour. Turn up the heat and add 1 sweet potato, cut into 1.5cm cubes & 2 carrots, peeled and cut into 2cm slices, until they are all lightly browned. Add 1tsp ground cinnamon, 1tsp ground ginger, 1Tbsp honey (don't add any more, that is all it needs!) & 500ml salt-reduced chicken stock and simmer with the lid on for 15 mins. Remove the lid and simmer further for 10 mins and then add 1 large diced zucchini. Cook for another 5 minutes or until the vegetables are soft and the sauce has reduced and thickened. Stir through the 2Tbsp coriander leaves (again, I just used a sprinkling of ground coriander) & 2Tbsp chopped mint leaves.

While the tagine is cooking, pan fry marinated chicken along with the marinade paste for 5-10 minutes or until cooked through (you shouldn't need to put oil in the pan because there is a lot of it in the paste). Make sure you bring it to the boil to eliminate bacteria in the marinade paste. Serve chicken on top of vegetable tagine and cooked rice.

Zucchini Cobbler Serves 4-6

I have had a few recent forays into the world of deceptive cooking and I must say I am a little hooked. A little too hooked it may seem as now when I cook 'normal' treats, like the Cheesecake Brownies I made a couple of weeks ago, people are skeptical of what is in them. When my mum took her first bite of the cheesecake brownies her first words were "these taste healthy, what have you put in them now?", obviously this deceptive baking is starting to work against me! Or so I thought... mum & Geoff both gobbled this one down without second guessing it at all, they just thought it was apple crumble... Well I guess that amount of sugar could make any vegetable taste like fruit!

Next time I am going to try cutting back the sugar a bit and see how it goes. I am usually quite good at estimating carbohydrates in my meals and covering it with insulin, but everytime I ate this my blood sugar levels went crazy... I even doubled what I thought would be in there the second time I ate it and was still underestimating... seriously, way too much sugar for me (moderation is a good thing)... but also way too much sugar for a non-diabetic, that is just a lot of stress to be putting on your body.

This one is from Round #8 of the Taste Cooks Club. I served it with some whipped cream laced with a little cinnamon and brown sugar. After tasting the cobbler itself the cream really didn't need sugar in it! It kept well in the fridge for a few days, which is good because it took us that long to get through it all (even though I only made half the recipe)... If you keep it in the fridge you will need to warm it before cutting because the base gets very hard when it is cold. Although it is full of sugar I will probably be giving this one another go (with a little less sugar) and it would be a great way to use up some home grown zucchini when they start going a little bit crazy.

Preheat oven to 180C and spray a 20cm square baking dish with olive oil spray. Peel & chop 4C zucchini (you will need 3-4 zucchini). Place in a large saucepan over medium-low heat along with 1/3C lemon juice, bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes or until tender. Add 1/2C sugar, 1/2tsp nutmeg & 1/2tsp cinnamon and simmer for another minute before removing from the heat.

Combine 2C plain flour & 1C sugar and cut in 3/4C cold butter or margarine until it resembles course breadcrumbs.Stir 1/4C of this mixture into zucchini to thicken slightly. Press 3/4 of the remaining mixture into the prepared dish, top with zucchini mixture and crumble remaining 1/4 of crust over the top. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden.

Menu Plan Monday (& A Couple of Recipes)

It's time for another week of Menu Plan Monday! I didn't deviate from my plan at all last week and managed to cook everything, so that is great. It is so good knowing that dinner is all planned out. Before I tell you my menu plan for this week I am going to share a couple of recipes from early last week.

Egg & Noodle Salad Serves 4

This one is adapted from a recipe in the November issue of Recipes+ magazine. It's a simple and tasty salad that went really well with some of my homemade spring rolls that we had leftover from the housewarming party.

Cook 100g dried rice stick noodles according to packet directions, drain well and place in a large bowl. Heat 2tsp peanut oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Add 2 lightly beaten eggs and tilt to coat the base. Cook for 1 minute or until egg is set underneath. Flip, cook for 1-2 minutes more or until cooked through. Roll out onto cutting board and slice. Reheat pan and repeat with another 2tsp peanut oil & 2 lightly beaten eggs. (I cooked all 4 eggs at the same time in my big rectangular electric frying pan).

Add egg strips to noodles along with 4 finely chopped spring onions. Whisk together 2Tbsp lemon juice, 2Tbsp soy sauce, 1Tbsp sweet chilli sauce & 1tsp sesame oil, drizzle over salad and toss to combine. Serve with spring rolls.

Savoury Mince Rolls Makes 12

This one is adapted from the November 2004 issue of Super Food Ideas magazine. It is quite similar to the Eggplant & Mozzarella Rolls that I made the week before. We still have another 24 rolls in our freezer to use up (plus about 14 filled ones), they just never end! These mince filled ones were quite tasty despite them not having much in them, they are good to get out at lunchtime or for a snack too.

Heat 2tsp olive oil in a pan over medium heat, add 1 finely chopped onion & 1 crushed garlic clove and cook for 2 minutes. Increase heat to high, add 350g lean beef mince and cook, stirring often, for 4-5 minutes or until browned. Add 1 grated carrot, 1 grated zucchini, 125g corn kernels & 3Tbsp barbecue sauce and cook, stirring for another 3 minutes.

Using 12 petit bake-at-home rolls, scrape out most of the bread from the centre of each roll. Fill hollows with mince mixture, top each with tasty cheese (about 1C in total) and wrap well in foil. Label & freeze if using at a later date. When serving, bake rolls in foil at 200C for 10 minutes, unwrap and cook a further 5 minutes or until golden.

Menu Plan (Week beginning 24th Nov)

Monday 24/11

Eggplant Pasta Bake w/ Spinach & Ricotta.

Tuesday 25/11

Tandoori Chicken Burgers on bake-at-home rolls (still using these up!), served with Beetroot Couscous salad (Beetroot leftover from party when I tried to turn the quiche pink but it didn't work).

Wednesday 26/11 (Mum & Geoff are out at a concert)

Vegetarian night because I am eating alone. Going to try Spaghetti w/ Four Onions from my current Cookbook Challenge book, with Soy Bombs (Tofu 'Meat'balls) which I saw on Where's the Beef?

Thursday 27/11

Mexican Beef & Bean Pizza w/ salad.

Friday 28/11

Sicilian Vinegar Chicken w/ rice.

Saturday 29/11

Lamb Stew w/ Spring Vegetables on mashed potato.

Sunday 30/11

Leftover Night!

We'll see how I go this week! You can find lots of other peoples menus at the Organising Junkie.

A Late Soup Sunday...

Usually Soup Sunday is restricted to Winter, but the weather in Melbourne over the last few days has resembled the middle of Winter, so I guess this isn't so out of place. Besides, french onion soup has always been one of my favourite soups. I love its rich, deep broth and melt-in-your-mouth onions. You just have to be careful you don't over-do it or you could put any baked bean lover to shame!

I made this recipe last year when I was doing my weekly Soup Sundays, but never got around to posting about this one in particular. So when this book came up as my Cookbook Challenge book for this week I thought it would be a good opportunity to finally share this recipe. It is meant to have 2 tablespoons of cognac in it, but we didn't have any and I didn't see the point in buying a bottle only to use a tiny bit out of it. If you have some lying around, add it right before serving. The cheese croutons really make this soup, so if you have the time be sure to make them.

French Onion Soup Serves 6

Preheat oven to 180C. Drizzle 1Tbsp olive oil onto a large baking sheet, add 2 crushed garlic cloves and mix together with hands. Cut 1 crusty breadstick into 2.5cm slices and place on top of oil. Turn over to coat both sides with garlic oil and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Place a large, heavy based saucepan over high heat and melt together 2Tbsp olive oil & 50g butter. When this is very hot, add 700g thinly sliced onions, 2 crushed garlic cloves & 1/2tsp sugar, and keep turning them from time to time until the dges of the onions have turned dark - this will take about 6 minutes. Reduce heat to low and cook slowly for another 30 minutes. Pour in 1.2L beef stock & 275ml dry white wine and season to taste with salt & pepper. Stir with a wooden spoon until it comes to a simmer and then cook uncovered on a low heat for 1 hour.

Sprinkle croutons with 225g grated gruyere cheese and put under hot grill until cheese is bubbling. Serve immediately with hot soup.

Well, cookbook challenge book #14 had a short life on the podium! Eat well, Live well by The Reader's Digest is up next and I already know what I am cooking from it. I'll share it with you in tomorrows Menu Plan Monday post.

A couple of tarts!

A savoury...

...and a Sweet one!

Caramelised Onion & Roast Tomato Tart Serves 4-6

I made this caramelised onion tart quite a while ago now, a couple of weeks after we moved into the new house... It was one of the first things I cooked in our kitchen and when I made it I realised that my mojo was on its way back, that I was enjoying cooking again... As you can see by the fact that I have posted more times this month than I have in any month in the past 18, my mojo is well and truly back... and this tart was the recipe that started it all!

This recipe was the cover dish in the October issue of Australian Good Taste magazine. I've altered the amounts below quite a bit because when I made it I found I had a lot of onions and tomatoes leftover. Almost enough to make a whole second tart, which would have been good if the recipe made excess pastry, but it didn't... So I have altered the ingredients to yield just the one batch of filling to match the one batch of pastry it makes... if you want 2 tarts you can always double it! This tart is so delicious for dinner like we had it, but it would be great to take to a picnic as well... one last warning, don't add any extra sugar to the caramelising onions, I didn't think it had enough but when I added more it was a bit overpowering... so stick to what the recipe says...

Preheat oven to 200C and line a baking tray with baking paper. Halve 3 roma tomatoes and place, cut side up, on tray. Drizzle with 1Tbsp olive oil and season with salt & pepper. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until softened.

Meanwhile, heat another 1Tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add 600g halved, thinly sliced brown onions and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10-15 minutes or until golden. Add 1/2Tbsp brown sugar (don't add any more than this or it will be way too sweet - I know from experience!) and cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes or until caramelised. Set aside to cool completely.

To make the pastry, place 1 3/4C plain flour & 125g chilled, chopped butter in the bowl of a food processor and process until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add 1 egg yolk & 1/4C iced water, and process until the dough just comes together. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until just smooth. Shape into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes to rest.

Roll out pastry on a lightly floured surface to a 32cm diameter disc. Place on baking paper lined tray, spread with caramelised onion, leaving a 4cm border. Top with roasted tomatoes and crumble over 50g goats cheese. Fold edges of pastry to partially cover filling. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden. Top with fresh basil leaves to serve.

Caramelised Grapefruit Tart Serves 6-8

I made this tart last week to use up some of the grapefruits that Geoff stripped off the grapefruit tree at our old house before we moved... we have buckets and washing baskets full of them everywhere!... and I HATE grapefruits... can't stand them... could be because my nanna used to try and force us to eat them for breakfast... plain... no sugar, no nothing... eww, it makes my stomach churn just thinking about it now! Maybe if she had of put them in a tart instead I may have grown to love them, because this tart was actually quite nice... I didn't have high hopes for it, but coming from the biggest grapefruit hater on the planet - it was nice... and everyone else seemed to enjoy it even more, but then again, they actually like grapefruit!

This one is from the August 2006 issue of Australian Good Taste. I found the shortcrust pastry recipe used in this tart to be hopeless, it was way too soft, wouldn't roll out at all... and after I pressed it painstakingly into the tart tin and hoped for the best, it started burning well before the filling was set... all in all a failure for the pastry, but the filling was delicious... a bit like a grapefruit version of lemon curd... tangy and juicy and tasty... In the recipe below I am including the recipe for shortcrust pastry that I used in the Pumpkin pie instead of the original... I haven't tried this pastry with this filling, but I can't see why it wouldn't work...

Process 1 2/3C plain flour, 80g sifted icing sugar, 125g finely chopped, chilled unsalted butter & a pinch of salt in a food processor until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Mix 2 egg yolks with 1Tbsp chilled water and add to flour mixture with motor running. Process until mixture begins to form large clumps, stop the machine before it forms a ball. Turn pastry out onto lightly floured work surface and knead gently until it comes together. Form a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.

Meanwhile, to make the filling combine 2Tbsp finely grated grapefruit rind, 1/2C fresh grapefruit juice, 3/4C caster sugar, 300ml light cream & 5 lightly whisked eggs in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours to develop the flavours.

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to 3mm thick. Line a round 23cm fluted tart tin with removabe base with pastry and trim any excess. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to rest.

Preheat oven to 200C. Cover pastry base with baking paper and fill with pastry weights or rice. Bake in oven for 10 minutes, remove weights and paper and bake for another 8 minutes or until golden. Remove from oven and reduce temperature to 160C. Strain grapefruit mixture through a fine sieve into a jug. Pour into the pastry case and bake for 30 minutes or until just set. Set aside for 30 minutes to cool. Place in the fridge for 1 hour to chill.

Preheat grill on high. Sprinkle tart with 2Tbsp brown sugar and cook under grill for 2-3 minutes or until the sugar bubbles and caramelises. Thinly slice 1 grapefruit, sprinkle with another 2Tbsp brown sugar and cook under grill for 2-3 minutes until caramelised. Arrange grapefruit on tart, cut into wedges and serve with double cream whipped with a little bit of brown sugar.

Lucky Number 13!

Cookbook Challenge book #13, Lean Food by The Australian Women's Weekly, has delivered to my table a delicious (I use this word waaay too much don't I?) AND healthy chicken dish that is full of wonderful flavour. What more could you ask for from a cookbook? Light & fruity desserts? Hell, it's got them too!

One thing that does annoy me about this book is the limited nutritional information, with only fat, kj & calorie information shown... In my view (which may be biased not only by the fact that I am studying nutrition, but also by the fact that I am diabetic and find it frustrating when the carbohydrate information is missing) if a book is going to have nutritional information it should have the basics all listed (fat/kj, carbohydrates, protein & sodium)... I think that magazine and cookbook editors forget that some people are counting more than kilojoules, in fact (shock, horror) some people don't care about the fat content of their meal!... but you know what - they may have diabetes and find the carbohydrate information VERY useful, or perhaps they have hypertension and need to watch their salt intake... what is most annoying in all of this is that most nutritional calculating programs will provide all of these figures (and plenty more), in fact I haven't come accross one yet that ONLY provides fat and kj information... so clearly it is either due to pure laziness/time constraints that it isn't included, in which case I would argue it wouldn't take long to add a few extra figures in a well set-up template... or possibly for aesthetic reasons, which is a bit weak considering the design issues are put aside to include the fat and kj figures... either way, it is one of my pet hates, if you are going to pretend to get all technical and health conscious and show nutritional information - Do it properly!!

OK, that's the end of my rant. Even without the carbohydrate information this meal was still delicious. I only had dried thyme, which still tasted fine, but I can imagine it would have even more flavour and oomph with fresh thyme. I also had no brown rice, so I used long grain white instead (which took much less time & much less liquid to cook than the recipe states, so follow the packet directions for that). When I looked in the freezer to make this I realised we only had minted frozen peas, which I wasn't quite sure about, but I wasn't about to go out to the supermarket just to get plain ones. They actually worked quite well with the other flavours, so that was a nice fluke. This, along with the dessert I made managed to use up 4 of the lemons that Geoff's parents gave us... it feels so good to be thrifty like that!

Lemon Thyme Chicken w/ Spinach & Pea Pilaf Serves 4

Combine 4 x 170g skinless chicken breast fillets (I only had large ones, so I halved 2 of them to make 4 smaller fillets), 1Tbsp coarsely chopped fresh thyme, 2tsp finely grated lemon rind, 1Tbsp lemon juice & 1Tbsp olive oil in a medium bowl. Toss to coat chicken, cover and refrigerate for 10 minutes.

Heat another 1Tbsp olive oil in a large, deep, non-stick frying pan, add 1 large thinly sliced brown onion & 1 crushed garlic clove and cook, stirring, until onion softens. Add 1 1/2C long grain brown rice and cook for 1 minute. Add 2 1/2C water & 3C salt reduced chicken stock (I used around 3C of liquid in total for my white rice) and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes or until liquid is absorbed and rice is cooked. (This took my white rice about 20-25 minutes)

Meanwhile, cook chicken on a heated, lightly oiled grill plate (I just did mine in a regular frying pan), until browned on both sides and cooked through. Cover, stand for 5 minutes and then slice thickly. Stir 150g baby spinach leaves, 1C thawed frozen peas, 2tsp coarsely chopped fresh thyme & 1Tbsp finely grated lemon rind into pilaf and divide among serving plates. Top with sliced chicken.

Time to move on to Cookbook Challenge Book #14, which has been chosen as 'The Delia Collection: Soup' by Delia Smith. I know I have already cooked a soup out of this one, so I am going to share it on Sunday, for Soup Sunday. See you then!

A (Bitter)Sweet Pie for Pie Friday

I planned on posting this yesterday (in hindsight, today is probably better as it is Pie Friday, which I haven't done in a while), but I found myself watching Veronica Mars all day and night until I lost power. Literally. There was a power surge that knocked out the power in our entire house at around 10:30 last night, and being home alone I didn't quite have the nerve to go out to the meter box and have a look, so I went to bed instead (I know, MUCH safer right?!?). Why the whole day of Veronica Mars? I can hear you thinking...

(I was going to use this photo, but I thought I would get in trouble for it.. :P )

Well, yesterday morning I drove Jeff to the airport for his flight to Canada... He is heading back home for 3 weeks to visit his family and friends and then stopping in Korea for a week on the way back to see his sister... right when I am on university holidays and have nothing to do! I managed to hold it together at the airport for the most part, but once I got home it became clear that I needed something to keep my mind off the fact that he is far, far away and will be for the next month... which is where my beloved Veronica Mars stepped in with her witty, mysterious world that can suck me in for hours and make me forget about everything...

In the interests of keeping this blog as food related as I possible can, I decided to post about a recipe that I made at the persuasion of Jeff who missed pumpkin pie from back home... I planned on making mini pumpkin pies as part of my Halloween spread, but ran out of time to cook them on the day (I had already made the pastry and the filling but didn't have time to cut out little rounds of pastry and actually fill them and put them in the oven)... so the next day I made a normal sized pie instead, and found out there was enough filling and pastry to make 2 pies... bonus... I sent Jeff home with the extra pastry and filling so he could make himself a pie, and he even took photos of his since I forgot to get photos of mine...

When searching for a recipe, I knew I wanted one that called for fresh pumpkin because I have never seen canned pumpkin over here... I stumbled accross this one on the Family Fun website, but used a shortcrust recipe I originally got from the November 2005 issue of Notebook magazine, adding a little spice into it...

Having never tried pumpkin pie before, I must say I was expecting it to be a lot sweeter... possibly because it is an American thing and I usually associate their sweets with A LOT OF SUGAR (thanks to the Daring Bakers!)... however, Jeff said it was spot on... I did like the spices in it and after several slices to make up my mind I decided I liked it!

Pumpkin Pie Makes 2 Pies each serving 6-8

Process 1 2/3C plain flour, 80g sifted icing sugar, 1tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp ground allspice, 125g finely chopped, chilled unsalted butter & a pinch of salt in a food processor until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Mix 2 egg yolks with 1Tbsp chilled water and add to flour mixture with motor running. Process until mixture begins to form large clumps, stop the machine before it forms a ball. Turn pastry out onto lightly floured work surface and knead gently until it comes together. Form a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 180C and spray a couple of baking trays with olive oil spray. Peel, deseed & cube 600g pumpkin and roast for 30-40 minutes or until soft. Puree in a food processor until smooth.

Preheat oven to 220C and spray a pie dish with olive oil spray. Using half of the pastry, roll out to cover the base of the pie dish. Fill with pastry weights or rice and blind bake for 5-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, beat together 3 eggs, 1/2C white sugar & 1/2C brown sugar. Blend in 2c pureed pumpkin, 2tsp cinnamon, 1tsp ginger, 1/2tsp ground cloves, 1/2tsp salt & 400ml can evaporated milk. Pour into pie shell bake for 10 minutes, reduce heat to 180C and bake for another 40-50 minutes, or until set.

From the Taste Cook Club Archives - Broccoli Pie

I would call this a quiche rather than a pie, but it is just as delicious by either name. This broccoli qie/puiche/pie/quiche/whatever was one of the recipes for round 8 of the Taste Cooks Club. I've never used yoghurt in a quiche before, so that was interesting... but next time I think I will use half milk (which is what I usually use) and half yoghurt, because I found the yoghurt by itself was a bit heavy, although it did add a nice tangy flavour...

Broccoli Quiche Serves 4-6

Preheat oven to 180C and line a pie dish with 1 sheet puff pastry. Cut 1 head of broccoli into florets (I only used half a head, you just need enough to cover the base of your pie dish) and steam for a few minutes, drain and arrange over pastry. Cook 1 diced brown onion & 4 chopped bacon rashers for a few minutes and sprinkle over broccoli. Mix together 5 eggs, 1C grated tasty cheese, 1/2C natural yoghurt & 1/2C milk and pour into pie dish. Cook for 40-45 minutes or until golden and set.

Eggplant & Mozzarella Rolls (& Menu Plan Monday)

Well, I managed to stick to my menu plan for most of the week last week and it really helped me to actually eat something worthwhile rather than not knowing what to cook and ending up eating rubbish, so this week I am doing a plan again.

But first I'm going to share one of the recipes from my menu plan last week. They are originally from the July 2004 issue of Delicious magazine. I made them on Friday night when I was the only one home, so I froze most of them. I managed to use up 12 of our 48 bake-at-home rolls that we have leftover from the housewarming/50th birthday party (as well as the rest of the eggplant) which is pretty good, and I have another recipe in this weeks menu plan to use up some more of them. The spice mix in these was great, don't question the cinnamon, just use it, it adds a wonderful flavour!

Eggplant & Mozzarella Rolls Makes 12

Dice 350g eggplant into 1cm cubes & place in a colander, sprinkle with 2Tbsp salt and leave in sink for 15 minutes to drain. Rinse well with cold water, drain well, then wrap in a tea towel and squeeze out excess moisture.

Heat 2Tbsp olive oil in a pan over medium heat, add 1 finely chopped onion and cook for 2 minutes. Add eggplant and cook for 5 minutes, stirring, until eggplant begins to turn golden. Add 1 crushed garlic clove , 1tsp sweet paprika, 1/2tsp ground cinnamon & 1tsp ground cumin and cook for a few seconds. Add 440g canned tomatoes and cook for 1-2 minutes until mixture is quite dry, then cool.

Using 12 bake-at-home rolls, scrape out a little bread from the centre of each roll to make a hollow. Fill hollows with eggplant mixture (you may have a little bit left over, we served it on toast for breakfast), top each with mozzarella cheese (about 340g in total) and wrap well in foil. Label & freeze if using at a later date.

When serving, bake rolls in foil at 180C for 15 minutes, unwrap and cook a further 5 minutes or until golden.

Menu Plan (Week beginning 17th Nov)

Monday 17/11

Egg & Noodle Salad served with leftover Spring Rolls from the party.

Tuesday 18/11 (Mum & Geoff both out)

Savoury Mince Rolls served with salad. Freeze leftovers.

Wednesday 19/11 (I'm at Jeff's place because I have to drive him to the airport on Thursday morning :()

Mum & Geoff can fend for themselves!

Thursday 19/11

I'm going to cook my blues away after driving Jeff to the airport by cooking Lemon Thyme Chicken w/ Spinach & Pea Pilaf from my current cookbook challenge cookbook (we got given a lot of lemons by Geoff's parents, so this will use some of them up) & then the Zucchini Cobbler from round 8 of the Taste Cooks Club for dessert.

Friday 20/11

I'm going to try and get around to making the North African Chicken w/ Vegetable Tagine that I didn't end up making last week.

Saturday 21/11 (Mum & Geoff likely to be out)

Leftover night!

Sunday 22/11

Beef enchiladas from the new round of Taste Cooks Club.

We'll see how I go this week! You can find lots of other peoples menus at the Organising Junkie.

Colourful Party Food

Last weekend we had a party for Geoff's 50th birthday, which was also for our housewarming since we only moved in a few weeks ago. Geoff wanted a theme, but they only sent the invites out 3 weeks before the party so it had to be something simple so we went with 'colourful'... of course I went all out as you can see, even wearing purple contacts (which were actually meant to be for my halloween outfit, but just like the costume they failed to arrive on time... in fact, my costume still hasn't arrived!) and turning an old pair of toe socks, which had lots of holes, into rainbow leg warmers!! I was by far the most colourful person there, but that wasn't much of a surprise with the lack of notice that they gave people... In fact my brother never got his invite because mum sent it to the wrong address and then failed to mention the theme to him at all, hence him wearing all grey and black in the photo above...

Not being one to shy away from a theme, I added colour to any food I could (without using food dye)... we had a BBQ and salads (Ratatouille & Caramelised Onion Potato Salad) and a couple of quiches (which I tried to turn pink with some beetroot juice - they went into the oven bright pink and came out like normal... very disappointing!)...

...but my colourful jelly shots weren't disappointing at all... I used the same method as for the Halloween Party (except I skipped the worms) and used some coloured plastic shotglasses as well as some clear ones... There were 4 different flavours and I just put them randomly into the shotglasses instead of matching them up with colours... they were pretty effective...

We also had a colourful trifle that had 2 different layers of jelly and coloured sprinkles on top...

I completely over-catered and ended up with a lot of savoury fingerfood leftover because the BBQ got cooked quicker than I thought it would. So now I have a freezer full of pizza pinwheels and spring rolls, which I could never complain about! These are some of my staple catering fingerfoods that I make all the time. Great for feeding large crowds. The pinwheels are very simple, but the spring rolls take a bit of effort to roll in large quantities.

Spring Rolls Makes 40+

Cook 60g vermicelli noodles according to packet directions (usually just cover them with boiling water), drain & roughly chop up. In a large bowl, combine noodles, 3 grated carrots, 2 grated zucchini, 5 chopped spring onions, 1/4C sesame oil, 3tsp crushed garlic, 2tsp chopped ginger & 1/4C sweet chilli sauce and mix well. Refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight to develop flavours.

Defrost a couple of packets of spring roll pastry and place under a damp teatowel to keep moist. Working with one sheet at a time, place a large spoonful of filling mixture in the bottom corner of the pastry, fold up bottom corner to enclose, then fold in the sides and roll up. Seal using a little sesame oil on a pastry brush. You can freeze them at this point for later use or cook them at 200C for around 20-25 minutes or until golden. Serve with soy sauce or sweet chilli sauce.

Pizza Pinwheels

This is a really simple 'recipe'. You just get a sheet of puff pastry and top it with your favourite toppings. The pizza ones that I do that are always the favourites are just pizza/tomato paste (the 2Tbsp sachets of these that come in boxes are the perfect amount for one sheet of pastry) topped with grated mozzarella cheese & chopped bacon. Then you just roll them up (using the blue plastic they come on to wrap them back up) and freeze them until you need them.

Thaw the rolls for about 10 minutes, then cut them (you should get about 10 out of each sheet) and bake them in a 200C oven for about 15-20 minutes or until golden. I also usually do a vegetarian version with ricotta & pesto, but for some reason this time they didn't go puffy at all, which is weird...

I can't believe I haven't blogged about those 2 before, they are both things I could whip up in my sleep and they always get requested for parties... I hope you enjoy them :)

The Sweet Things in Life...

...come from Donna Hay!

As I suspected I have cooked something out of my current cookbook challenge book before, but not quite as much as I had expected... maybe they were less than memorable? After flicking through Donna Hays Modern Classics Book 2 (the sweet edition), I found that I have already cooked:

Chocolate Ganache p. 37

Chocolate Truffle Cake p. 82 (I remember this cake being absolutely delicious, but I also remember it being one of my biggest embarrasments! I made it sometime in high school when mum & dad had some friends over, wanting to impress them... it is a layer cake and I didn't trust myself to be able to split the cake into 2 even layers - I didn't know the floss trick back then, thanks Daring Bakers! - so I got mum to do it for me... assembled the whole cake, everyone oohed and aahed over how beautiful it was... until the first person took a bite and we found out that mum had forgotten to remove the baking paper off the bottom of the cake.... to make it worse we had put the bottom layer on the top of the cake, so the baking paper was right in the middle of the masterpiece... aargh... *shudders* I am going to have to make this again just to get it right...)

Cream Cheese Frosting p. 96

Mango Sorbet p. 103 (I posted about this one on my old blog before I moved to the goodness of blogger, and also before I got a decent camera to take pictures of my food! This sorbet was really easy to make and yo can make it with just about any fruit flavour)

Yesterday, the day before my last exam for the year (when I really should have been trying to cram as much knowledge into my brain as possible), I distracted myself by making some brownies! Cheesecake topped brownies because I needed to use up some cream cheese I had leftover from making the Bloody Skull dip for Halloween. Thank-you Donna Hay for coming to the rescue and saving me not only from cream cheese going off in my fridge, but from learning too much... you are a saviour!

In all seriousness though, these weren't the greatest brownies in the world, I found the base to be very cake-like instead of gooey and chocolatey. This could be due to my new ovens tendency to burn the bottom of everything, or the fact that Donna Hay and I seem to have very different ovens... but next time I am going to play it safe and use the base from my peanut butter topped brownies and replace the peanut butter with the cheesecake part of this recipe... which I must say definitely needed the vanilla that I added to it... and you could probably get away with only making half of what the recipe says because with the amount that is written in the recipe you can't make it very swirly, there is just waaay too much of it... If you want a massive layer of cheesecake double what I have put below because I am altering how I write it here... because I can!

Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies Makes 12-16

Preheat oven to 160C. Mix together 185g melted unsalted butter, 1/4C sifted cocoa, 1C caster sugar, 2 eggs & 1C sifted plain flour and pour into a 20cm square slice tin lined with baking paper. (Instead of this base, next time I would use the base in this recipe and top it with the topping below).

In the bowl of a food processor (or using a stick blender) process together 140g softened and chopped cream cheese, 2Tbsp caster sugar, 2 eggs & 1tsp vanilla extract until smooth. Place large spoonfuls of the cheesecake mixture over the top of the chocolate mixture and swirl with a butter knife. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until set. Cool in the tin, cut into slices & serve.

So now, onto Cookbook Challenge book #13, which has been randomly chosen as Australian Womens Weekly - Lean Food. After the amount of butter that was in those brownies I just made I kinda need this book! I'll show you what I make from it next week.

Also, I will be posting a few recipes from our housewarming party tomorrow, including a couple of my staple catering stand-bys - vegetarian spring rolls & pizza pinwheels. See you then :)

Using up some eggplant...

I overestimated the vegies when I was buying them to make Ratatouille for the housewarming party... that is while chopping up the vegies, mum & I filled FOUR large baking dishes and we still had more eggplant and zucchini to chop up, so we decided to call it a day...

Last night I made some eggplant patties in an attempt to use up some of the leftover eggplant, as per my menu plan for the week (which I am sticking to so far!). The recipe is originally a reader recipe from Andrea O'Grady in the February 2005 issue of Super Food Ideas Magazine and the only change I made was to make smaller, longer patties to fit in the leftover bake-at-home rolls we have from the party. I added baby spinach, chopped beetroot and crumbled feta cheese to the rolls and topped my patties with a little bit of tomato sauce. I would have preferred tomato chutney or relish but we didn't have any. As you can see I served it alongside some of the Ratatouille that was leftover from the party as well, this is definitely a party leftovers mish mash meal!!

The recipe is a bit ambiguous, just calling for '1 large eggplant', I think mine must have been very large because the mix could have done with another slice of bread to soak up the moisture. They tasted great but were just a bit sticky to handle while making the patties. Also, the original recipe tells you to split the mixture into 4 equal portions, but they would be MEGA patties let me tell you... so I suggest it would make at least 6-8 normal patties and I got about 12 of my mini patties out of it... but then again that could just be the size of my eggplant! I also had no basil leaves so I used basil pesto instead. The recipe below reflects my adaptions to the original recipe. They were absolutely delicious, crunchy on the outside, still a little soft on the inside and full of flavour.

Eggplant Patties Makes 4 mega patties, 6-8 regular sized patties or 12 mini patties!

Roughly chop 500-600g eggplant and place in a large saucepan of cold salted water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes or until soft. Process 4-5 slices bread, 1 quartered red onion & 2 garlic cloves in a food processor until breadcrumbs form. Add drained eggplant along with 1/2C grated parmesan cheese, 4Tbsp basil pesto (or 1/4C fresh basil leaves), 1 egg & salt & pepper to taste. Process until well combined but not smooth, you want some chunks in it. Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Using floured hands, shape mixture into whatever size/shape patties you want and coat them in flour (you won't need more than 1/2C flour for this). Return to the refrigerator for at least another 30 minutes.

Heat 2Tbsp olive oil in a frying pan and add a couple of patties (don't overcrowd the pan). Cook for 3-4 minutes each side or until golden and cooked through. Drain on paper towel and cook remaining patties in batches, adding more oil as needed. Serve on rolls (I used the bake-at-home ones from the supermarket) with salad ingredients and freeze leftover patties for another meal.

I'm a Menu Plan Monday virgin!

I'm procrastinating from studying still, can you tell? I have known about Menu Plan Mondays over at the Organizing Junkie for sometime and often stalk other peoples menus, but I have never posted one of my own. I used to menu plan a lot until mums boyfriend moved in with us and they go out randomly without warning a lot and leave me at home alone when I have planned a meal to feed 4 people! But now that my cooking mojo is slowly coming back in this new house I have decided to start planning again because it is a lot less stressful than not having any idea what to cook and ending up eating 2 minute noodles or spagasaurus or something. Besides, they can eat the leftovers for lunch the next day if they aren't here.

So this week, for the first time in AGES, I have made a menu plan. I am trying to use up a lot of excess food that we bought for the party last weekend, especially eggplant (can you tell?), cream & rolls (we have about 40 bake-at-home rolls leftover, luckily they freeze well, they should last us for a while). On the nights I am not here I haven't planned anything because they can fend for themselves and make something random (Geoff is good at that) and in all likelihood they probably won't be home anyway.

Menu Plan (Week beginning 10th Nov)

Monday 10/11 (Mum away for work)

Chicken Satay (marinated chicken leftover from making satay skewers for the housewarming party) - add carrots, leftover spring onions, chopped brown onion, garlic & ginger and serve on a mixture of leftover coconut rice from Sunday night & vermicelli noodles leftover from making spring rolls for the party. Already eaten, was delicious and used up a lot of remnants!

Tuesday 11/11 (Mum away for work)

Eggplant Patties served w/ leftover Ratatouille & bake-at-home rolls from the party. I'm going to make these patties small oval shapes to fit the rolls better. I will also be freezing the leftover patties for later on as there are only going to be 2 of us here that night.

Wednesday 12/11

Broccoli Pie served w/ potato gems (there is an open bag of these in the freezer that have been there for a long time. Found them while making room for party food over the weekend and they need to be used up) & steamed vegies (carrots & corn leftover from party, frozen peas). This pie is really more like a quiche and is one of the recipes for round #8 of the Taste Cooks Club.

Thursday 13/11 (I'm staying at Jeff's place)

Leftover eggplant patties/fend for themselves/eat out!

Friday 14/11

Hot Eggplant & Mozzarella Rolls served with salad. This will use up some eggplant, rolls & cheese! Perfect :)For dessert: Caramelised Grapefruit Tart. We have a LOT of grapefruit lying around because Geoff stripped the grapefruit tree at the old house when we moved, it will also use up a bit of the cream we have lying around after the party.

Saturday 15/11

North African Chicken w/ Vegetable Tagine. This one is from the current Taste Cooks Club Challenge (#22), I will be using chicken instead of the suggested beef fillet though as I don't eat much red meat.

Sunday 16/11 (I'm staying at Jeff's place)

Mum and Geoff can fend for themselves! I am going to be making this months Daring Bakers challenge over the weekend to take to a farewell dinner for Jeff on Sunday night though. He is heading back home to Canada for a month to visit his family, which is good for him... but :(

Well that is my menu plan for the week, head over to The Organizing Junkie to see more of other peoples menu plans. Funny, the first week I decide to participate it is hosted by Laura's sister Tara!!