Barley Bowl

This is one of our favorite meals....


Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, cut into sticks or sliced
1 large parsnip, sliced
1/2 a fennel, sliced
1 cup barley
4 cups stock
2/3 cup green beans, sliced (I put frozen peas)
200g canned corn

Method:
Saute onion, carrot, fennel and parsnip for 10 min. Stir in barley and stock. Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer gently for 40 min. Stir in green beans and corn and cook for a further 10-20 minutes.
*NOTE* I find if I soak the barley in the stock for about 30 minutes before cooking, I can cut down the cooking time considerably....

Lentil Bolognese

An easy family favorite...

Ingredients:
1 onion, finely chopped
1-2 cloves of garlic
2 carrots, grated
2 sticks of celery, chopped
2/3 cup red lentils
2 cups vegetable stock
1 400g can chopped tomato
tsp marjoram (plus any other herbs you wish, i.e. basil, oregano, thyme etc.)

Method:
Saute the onion, garlic, carrot, and celery for 15 minutes, until tender. Stir in lentils, stock, tomatoes, and herbs. Cook on low heat for 40 minutes, or until the lentils are soft. Serve with pasta, or in vegetarian lasagna.

Roast Vegetables

This is really easy!! And it tasted great.
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Serves 4

2 large beetroot
2-3 carrots
2-3 large potatoes
Any other vegetable you like that can be roasted (i.e. pumpkin, parsnip, sweet potato, fennel, onion etc.)

Preheat oven to 180c. (Fan forced, if you have it.)
Cut vegetables into similar sized pieces. The smaller you cut them, the faster they'll cook. I cut mine about 2" by 2".
Place on a tray, drizzle with enough oil to coat all surfaces of the veggies. Sprinkle generously with rosemary, basil, salt, and pepper (I used garlic pepper to give extra flavor) and stir well.
Bake for about 45-60 min, keeping an eye on them and stirring them occasionally, until soft.
Serve by themselves or with parsnip sauce (which I'll put up a recipe for soon...).

Chicken with creamy mushroom sauce.

I've been wanting to cook this ever since I was given the Family Circle cooking book the Junior Cook. I finally tried it tonight, and it was lovely! I think I'll definitely do it again. (Please excuse the photo quality. I've left my camera up in the country, so I had to make do with my mobile.)

Serves 4, and takes about 40 min by itself. However, if doing baked vegetables to go along with it, I would suggest leaving an extra 20-30 minutes.

Chicken
30g butter
4 chicken breast fillets
350g mushrooms, chopped
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup cream1 clove garlic chopped
1 tab chopped chives


Method
1)Melt butter in a frying pan and cook the chicken 2 at a time over medium heat for approx 4 min each side, or until golden brown.
2)Transfer the chicken to a plate, and cover with foil to keep warm.
3)Add the mushrooms to the juices in the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, or until soft.
4)Add the stock, cream, garlic, and bring to the boil. Cook, stirring consistently, for 2 min, or until the sauce thickens slightly.
5)Stir in the chives and serve the sauce over the chicken fillets.

I served this with baked vegetables and steamed broccoli. =)

Neenish cupcakes

Makes 16
250g unsalted butter
1 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
4 eggs
1 1/2cups SR flour, sifted1/2cup plain flour, sifted
3/4cup milk
1/4cup cocoa powder

Icing (frosting)
1 1/2cups icing sugar
10g unsalted butter

Chocolate topping
200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Method:
Preheat oven to 180c
Line 16 standard muffin holes with paper patty-pans.

Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla together with electric beaters until light and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Fold in the flours alternately with the milk. Divide the mixture in half and stir the cocoa through one half of the mixture until well combined. Divide the chocolate mixture evenly into half of the cases. Then divide the plain mixture into the other half, so that each case is filled with half chocolate and half plain mixtures. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the center of a cake. Transfer onto a wire rack to cool.
To make the white icing, place the icing sugar and butter in a small heatproof bowl. Stir in enough warm water to form a smooth paste. Sit the bowl over a small saucepan of simmering water and stir until smooth and glossy. Remove from the heat. Spread the icing over the white side of each cake.

To make the chocolate topping, place the chocolate in a small bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, and stir occasionally until the chocolate has melted. Spread the chocolate over the other half of the cakes.

I also made a few plain white ones (i.e. no chocolate)

First photo thanks to Google images.

Chocolate Mint Wheels

Chocolate Mint Wheels

2 cups plain flour
½ tesp baking powder
¼ tesp salt
1 cup castor sugar
125g butter
1 egg, beaten
1 tab water
½ tesp peppermint essence
2-3 drops green food colouring
2 tabs cocoa

Method
Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and castor sugar into a mixing bowl. Rub the butter in lightly until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and water, mixing thoroughly. Knead lightly on a floured surface and divide into halves. Knead the essence and *colouring into one half, adding a little extra flour if necessary. Knead the sifted cocoa into the remaining dough (adding a little extra water if necessary). Roll the green dough between two sheets of greaseproof paper to a rectangle 25 by 20cm. Repeat with brown dough. Chill the layers for 15min to let them firm slightly. Place the green dough on top of brown dough, and roll up along the 25cm side. Wrap in greaseproof paper and chill for at **least two hours. Cut into slices about 5mm thick and arrange on a greased oven tray. Bake in a moderate oven for 10 – 15 min. Place on a rack to cool.

*I tend to make brighter green dough and put as any drops of colouring as I think it needs, but 2-3 drops are sufficient if you prefer it paler. Just add it very gradually. And be prepared to have green hands for a day or so afterwards! =]

**This is so that the roll does not squish so much when you slice it. I usually only refrigerate for half an hour at the most, due to time constraints.

From the Australian Family Circle Cookbook.

Honey-iced Coffee Cake

This is a really nice cake from the Woman's Weekly Cakes and Slices cookbook...

Honey-iced coffee cake-

Ingredients:

3 teasp dry instant coffee

1 tab hot water

125g butter

2 teasp vanilla essence

3/4 cup brown sugar

1-2 eggs

1 cup self-raising flour

1/4 cup custard

1/3 cup milk

Dissolve coffee in water, combine with butter, essence, sugar, eggs, sifted flour and custard powder, and milk.Beat on low speed in mixer until combined, then beat on medium speed until mixture is lighter in colour.

Spread into a greased 20cm ring pan. *NOTE* If you happen not to have a ring pan (like me)

you can place a sturdy glass in the tin BEFORE you pour the mixture in. I do not find it necessary to grease the glass as you can just twist it out at the end.

Bake in a moderate oven for 40 min. Stand 5 min, then turn on to a wire cake rack to cool. Spead cold cake with icing.

Icing- *NOTE* I find one quantity enough to ice two cakes.

Ingredients:

30g butter

1 teasp coffee

1 tab hot water

1 teasp honey

1 teasp vanilla essence
1 cup icing sugar, approx

Melt butter in saucepan, remove from heat, stir in coffee combined with hot water, honey, essence, and half the icing sugar. Gradually stir in enough icing sugar to mix to a spreadable consistency.

The finished product!

The front one I only iced half, and dusted the other half with icing sugar because my Father
is not a fan of icing. It tends to give him headaches. The back one we'll have when we have visitors tomorrow. :)