Cherry Tomatoes and Brie on a Toasted English Muffin

For lunch the other day, I raided my fridge for 'whatever might go bad soon but still looks edible'. I ended up whipping together something that is halfway between bruschetta and a caprese salad, I suppose.

Cherry Tomatoes and Brie on a Toasted English Muffin
English muffin
Cherry tomatoes
Brie
Fresh basil
Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
Salt & pepper

1. Let brie sit on counter for a few moments to soften.
2. Lightly toast english muffin, until crunchy on the outside but not burnt.
3. Wash and chop cherry tomatoes (I quartered them and then sliced those in half).
4. Rinse and coarsely chop fresh basil.
5. Put tomatoes and and basil on toasted english muffin, sprinkle with olive oil and balsamic, then with salt & pepper (to taste).
6. Apply small dobs of brie over surface (I cut off the rind).
7. Toast in toaster oven for ~2 minutes, to soften the cheese.
8. Enjoy!

I had a little nub of leftover brie from this weekend, so this seemed like a great way to use it. Any cheese works of course, but I'd say a nice soft cheese is just about perfect.  A month or so ago, we picked up a pack of flavour-infused olive oils from Costco, and so today I used one that was infused with basil. It's a very subtle flavour- but there is a huge difference between good quality olive oil and regular. I always use Extra Virgin Olive Oil (or an infused oil) when cooking, but the flavour difference really shines the most when the oil isn't used for cooking, but rather as a dressing.

PS - It's my birthday and last night I made maple butter tarts. Best Birthday Breakfast Ever.

Creamy Prawn Pasta

I know blog posts aren't as much fun without photos, but I figure they're still more fun than no posts.  Over the weekend, I dragged poor boyfriend out to Belconnen Fresh Food Markets, which is still not my favourite market in the city, but oh well. Variety is the spice of life.

We decided that it's a shame that we live in Australia and rarely eat prawns, or shrimp, or whatever you want to call them. I've got a good excuse for that though, the really fresh prawns, are sold whole. And that's gross. I strongly dislike having to pinch the heads off and de-vein and de-shell whole prawns. It's gross, and squishy, and icky.  So I don't buy prawn much, since the prawn tails tend to be pre-cooked and I have strong opinions about that too. I've just got opinions out the wazoo. Anywho, we found some raw king prawn tails and bought some and decided to use them in a pasta dish. Yum.

Creamy Prawn Pasta
250 g raw prawn (shrimp) tails
1 tub (250 mL) Philadelphia cream for cooking (or cream)
1 cup cherry tomatoes
bunch fresh basil
2 cloves garlic
half a red onion
half a lemon
pasta (pref. linguine)
Olive oil
Butter (~1/4 cup)

1. If starting with frozen prawns, defrost them in warm water in the sink, either by running warm (not hot!) water over them in a colander, or by submerging them in a large bowl. If using fresh prawn, rinse in a colander.
2. Start a large pot of salted water to boil, add pasta when water is boiled and let cook until desired consistency. Meanwhile;
3. In a small sauce pan, melt butter.
4. Peel and finely chop garlic and half a red onion, add to pan of melted butter and let sizzle on med-low heat.
5. Wash and chop 2-3 leaves of basil and add to small sauce pan, stirring to combine all ingredients. I usually 'slap' the basil after I wash it. I don't know that this actually does anything, but it is supposed to release the flavours. To do this, put the rinsed basil in one hand and then clap. It's easy (and fun!).
6. Meanwhile, wash and quarter cherry onions, then toss with a little olive oil.
7. Spread tomatoes on a baking tray and broil (top element only) for ~5 minutes at 200C/400F (I used our toaster oven).
8. In a large frying pan, melt more butter (oh so healthy, I know).
9. Place prawns in one layer into the frying pan, squirt about 1/4 of a lemon's worth of juice (1-2 T), flip once prawn starts to pink up, after about 3 minutes to a side, and add the rest of the lemon juice.
10. While prawn is frying, add the cream for cooking, or actual cream to the small sauce pan as well as several more leaves of fresh basil. Stir to combine and set to low heat.
11. When prawn and tomatoes are ready, pour the cream sauce into the frying pan and mix all ingredients.
12. Drain pasta and combine with sauce. Enjoy.

I served this in a big bowl with some garlic bread on the side. It was delicious with a sprinkling of parmesan on top. Boyfriend opted to add cracked pepper to his.   

On cream: I love the Philadelphia cream for cooking because it lasts longer in the fridge than regular cream does. I constantly find myself buying thick cream for baking or for adding 1 or 2 T to a dish and then end up throwing out the rest because I don't often cook with cream and it goes bad quickly once opened. The cream for cooking will probably last up to a week in the fridge once opened (maybe more) so it makes more sense, to me.

The sauce for this pasta was fairly runny, which I like.  If you'd prefer a thicker sauce, add 1-2T of flour (or cornstarch I suppose) to the melted butter and garlic in the small sauce pan. Also - for choosing your noodle, personal preference says that Linguine is the best type of noodle for this sauce, but if you don't have any or you don't like linguine, you could substitute a tagliatelle (thicker ribbon cut pasta, often egg noodles) or a fusilli (spirals) for example.

To make this recipe healthier - instead of frying the prawns in butter, use a smaller amount of olive oil and you could substitute some of the cream with milk, although this will guarantee a runnier consistency to the sauce as milk doesn't thicken as well as cream does.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

My apologies for the delay on posting this. I actually made it way back in April, but it was so delicious that it took me a whole month to stop licking my fingers and get on with posting. Either that or I got distracted by work. We'll go with the second one.

My good friend Nikka shared this recipe, and she says it's from a cookbook called 'A Taste of Oregon'.  I would have assumed Oregon would taste vaguely like oregano, but it turns out that it tastes like a cake that is so rich and delicious that it actually hurts your heart a little bit.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake
2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter softened
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

Topping (consider doubling this)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional but recommended)

1. Preheat oven to 350F/170C.
2. In a large bowl cream the butter, sugar and eggs.
3. Stir or mix in sour cream, vanilla, flour, salt and baking powder until well combined.
4. In a separate bowl, combine the topping ingredients.
5. Pour half the batter into a greased dish (9" cake pan, bundt pan or tube pan).
6. Cover with half the topping (can split into thirds or etc for more 'ribbons' of flavour if you've doubled the topping).
7. Add remaining batter and top with remaining topping.
8. Bake for 1 hour, covering with foil in last 15-20 minutes to keep top from overcooking. The sugar will get too brown if you skip this step.

I do believe this would be best made in a bundt pan, but I don't own one, so instead I simply used a round cake pan, which resulted in a deliciously gooey and slightly undercooked centre. I *REALLY* like the gooey centre part, but if you're not partial to delicious and undercooked batter, you should seriously consider going with the bundt pan.

I am going to tell that this cake honest to goodness brought tears to my eyes. It was a near religious experience for me. This cake could end wars.

In other news - I haven't given up in the kitchen, things have just been rather dull.  I've got a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies that are begging to be blogged about though, but aside from that I've just been revisiting variations on chicken since we bought so much at Costco.

Free Cookbooks

I do have recipes in the queue to be posted, I just haven't had time to 'pretty them up' and get the photos from boyfriend's camera.

What I do have for you, however, is a fun fact.  Amazon has free cookbooks! Whether you have a kindle, iPhone, iPad or simply a PC, you can download these free e-books with a variety of recipes (ranging from delicious to downright strange).  Amazon.com  can provide you with details about how to get set up with the kindle app on various platforms, but to get the free e-books all you need is an account (which is free to create).

I thought to share this, since today I came across an old (1894) cookbook for Sandwiches, of all things. It seemed appropriate.

So check it out.

Sandwiches by Sarah Tyson Heston Rorer (1894)

Applesauce

Apple Sauce is maybe one of the easiest things you can learn to make, and trust me, it tastes a million times better homemade than it does store bought.  Of course, when it comes to applesauce there are a million different ways to make it - cinnamon? sugar? lemon? butter?  Do you want a sweet treat or a sauce for a savoury dish?

Well, it all starts with a basic recipe. Here's what I made today, but keep in mind since this is one of those 'season to taste' dishes, it easily scales up.

Applesauce
5 red delicious apples
1 T brown sugar
1 t cinammon

1. Wash, peel, slice (quarter) and core apples.
2. Place apple in a large sauce pan and cover with water.
3. Bring to boil, simmer on med-high ~20 minutes, or until soft (test with a fork).
4. Drain apples and spoon into food processor.
5. Add brown sugar and cinnamon, whiz until smooth.

5 apples will make you around 1 1/2 cups of apple sauce. I highly recommend making a bigger batch, because fresh applesauce is one of the most delicious things in the world. However, I bought a bag of 99c/kg red delicious apples and ended up using all I had left for this batch.

This is the most basic recipe. You can switch out the apples (although I really do think any variety of red apples is best, but it depends on what's local, what's in season, and what you like).  Adding fresh squeezed lemon juice makes it a little tart, and you can add more sugar to adjust to your preferred level of sweetness. Ginger is a delicious additive to your apple sauce. 

If you have a food mill (who does!) you can skip peeling and coring the apples before you simmer them, when you process them through the food mill, you end up with a beautiful pink colour and it also keeps more of the nutrients since they live just under the skin. 

Easy Pasta Salad

We do meat-free Monday every week, and we get a bit bored of the easy option, which is spaghetti with lots of vegetables, so sometimes we like to try new things.  This week's new thing is... pasta salad. Easy, tasty, and moderately healthy! That's a great choice all around.

Pasta Salad
2 cups pasta (uncooked)
1 red pepper
2 green onions/shallots
1/4 - 1/2 cup italian salad dressing

1. Cook pasta in salted water until desired level of done-ness (I went for al dente).
2. Rinse and then finely chop red pepper and green onion.
3. Drain cooked pasta and tip into a large tupperware dish (or bowl).
4. Add red pepper and onion, pour in salad dressing and toss to coat. 
5. Let cool for 10-15 minutes then refrigerate.
6. Best if refrigerated for several hours or overnight.

I feel like I need one of those Staples buttons. "That was easy!".  We're having this as a side, not sure what to do as a main dish yet.

Also in the kitchen this weekend, we've got banana muffins and sour cream coffee cake. It smells delicious in here!

Homemade Pizzas

Boyfriend and I found ourselves wandering through the markets this weekend trying to decide what we wanted to make for dinner. We walked past some people chowing down on pizza and decided. Yup. Fancypants pizzas for us!

The great thing about being a the markets, of course, is the wide variety of fresh, cheap and delicious ingredients to choose from. Example: 3 bags of garlic for $4. There will be no vampires in our home any time soon, that's for sure.

Unfortunately, they didn't sell any pizza dough at the markets. Big disappointment. They had premade pizza bases, but apparently we're purists who only want pizza if we get to knead the dough. And by we in this statement I mean he wanted pizza dough so I could knead it. Blarg.

Oh well. I spent a good hour or two looking up recipes for pizza dough once we got home I decided to go with a nice simple recipe from taste.com.au for pizza dough.  It was one of the only ones that actually described how much dough it created (this is a bit of a peeve).  So I have one ball of pizza dough in the freezer and we made two medium sized pizzas.

Pizza Dough
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 7g satchet dried yeast
1/2 t caster sugar
4 cups plain flour
1 tsp salt
4 T olive oil, plus extra

1. In a medium sized bowl, combine water, yeast and sugar. Stir gently to combine then send aside for ~10 minutes (small bubbles should appear after 10 minutes).
2. Mix flour and salt in a large bowl, forming well in the centre.
3. Pour yeast mixture and oil into well, mix to combine with a butter knife.
4. Turn out onto a lightly flour surface and knead for ~10 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic.
5. Return dough to a lightly oiled bowl, turning dough to coat fully.
6. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm draft-free area for 30-40 minutes or until doubled size.
7. When dough has risen, divide into three balls.
8. Turn out a ball of dough onto a lightly floured surface. Coat your hands lightly in flour and punch the dough to get the air out.
9. Once air has been punched out of dough, knead the dough into appropriate shape. A rolling pin is helpful here.
10. Another helpful tactic is to lift the dough up by the sides and let gravity stretch it, then turn the dough and stretch another side. If you're really fancy, you can throw it around like those pizza makers in movies and on TV. Warning: floor pizza does not taste as good.
11. Any unused dough can be wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen.

Pizza Toppings

Roasted Red Peppers, Roasted Garlic and Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

One Large Red Pepper

One head garlic

6-10 cherry tomatoes.

Olive oil

Salt

1. Preheat oven to 230C (~475F).
2. Peel excess skin off of garlic head, keeping cloves together.  Chop off the tips of the cloves.
3. Put head of garlic in a ramekin or similar small container, pour a glug oil over top of garlic.
4. Cover with tin foil.
5. Put garlic on middle rack of oven and bake for 40 to 50 minutes.
6. Rinse the red pepper and slice in half, removing stem and seeds.
7. Rub thoroughly with oil.
8. Place, outside up, on a baking tray covered in baking paper. Slide into the oven with the roasted garlic, as close to the top as possible.
9. Cook for 10-15 minutes.
10. When red pepper looks well roasted and skin is slightly blackened, take them out of the oven and transfer to a ziploc bag.
11. Set aside bag of peppers for about 10 minutes.
12. Rinse cherry tomatoes and slice in half.
13. Place on a baking tray, cut side up and sprinkle with salt and olive oil.
14. Put in oven for 5 minutes.
15. Meanwhile, remove pepper from bag and peel the skin off.  
16. Chop as desired and set aside (congrats! You've roasted red peppers).
17. Remove tomatoes from oven when they look sufficiently roasted
18. Let garlic sit for 5-10 minutes after removing from oven to cool down.

Once your pizzas are garnished, bake at ~200C for 10 to 15 minutes, or until cheese is melted and crust is looking golden.

For our pizzas, we went a big gourmet.  We picked up a spicy tomato relish to use as our salt base, along with a glug of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt on my pizza.
Boyfriend fried up some grilled sausage meat which he had formed into small balls.  He also had some sliced button mushrooms, roasted garlic, roasted red peppers, roasted tomatoes and finely chopped basil. For cheese, he had sliced baby bocconcini balls and a handful of grated tasty cheese (it's a type of cheddar).

For my pizza, I used some proscuitto, tomatoes, garlic, red peppers and basil.  For cheese, I used the bocconcini balls and some Meffra Garlic Cheddar we found at the markets. I'd never tried it before but it was YUM. I was originally gonna go for a pecorino or similar with the bocconcini, but I'm glad I changed my mind!

Our pizzas turned out freaking DELICIOUS. And the leftovers were awesome for breakfast this morning too!

PS - This was actually last weekend, but then it took me a week to get the photos off of boyfriend's camera.  You know, the ones that are in focus and look nice? The other ones, obviously, are mine.  More baked sweets coming soon.