Happy Birthday my Love

Your favourite on your special day xo

Profiteroles

I haven't made choux pastry in years and when I was gifted with half a dozen freshly laid eggs from my boss's pet chickens I thought of this recipe.  This recipe also brought a smile to my face because it reminds me of a dear patient of mine; Mrs Dalrymple.  I met Mrs D over 10 years ago when I was filling in at my sisters workplace.  I remembered how excited the girls and I got when she brought over a plate of her awesome profiteroles or "Cream Puffs".  Years later, at another workplace, I was pleasantly surprised to recognise her bright red hair and cheery smile.  And, as I remembered, we were also graced with plates of chocolate drizzled Cream Puffs at Christmas and throughout the year.    

Donna Hay's Profiteroles

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Bring half a cup of water and 50g of butter to the boil.  Turn down the heat to a simmer and add 75g plain flour.  Stir quickly until the mixture combines into a ball.  Turn off the heat.  Let it cool a bit before placing in a mixer.  Add 3 eggs, one at a time, beating well in between.  It is ready when  "ribbons" of batter falls from the beaters when lifted from the mixture.  Place this in a piping bag and pipe 4cm rounds on a cookie sheet lined with baking paper.  Bake for 20-30 minutes or until golden brown and no longer wobbly. 

Allow to cool, then fill with store bought custard.  This can be done with a piping bag and small nozzle or a syringe from the local pharmacy.  You can dust with icing sugar or top with melted chocolate.  

PS - These were good ,but not as good as Mrs D's

Green Curry Chicken Noodles

Fry 5 tablespoons of Valcom green curry paste with a tablespoon of oil until fragrant.  Add one diced chicken breast and brown all sides.  Add 1 sliced carrot and 1 sliced potato and about 200ml of light coconut milk.  Simmer for 20 minutes then add 1 tablespoon of fish sauce and 1 tablespoon of sugar.  Serve with boiled rice noodles or rice.

Easy Chicken and Chorizo Paella

This is a paella recipe for people who aren't fans of seafood.  If you have fussy eaters that dislike vegetables, try using a food processor to "hide" the vegetables in the sauce.

Blend in a food processor or finely dice 1 small brown onion, half a red capsicum and 1 clove of garlic.  Fry in 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika, 1/2 teaspoon mild paprika in 1-2 tablespoon of olive oil briefly then add the vegetables and 8 saffron strings.  Add 200g of diced chicken and 100g of sliced chorizo and 200g of short-grain rice.  Cook until it looks dry then add about 600ml hot chicken stock.  When it boils, reduce heat to low and simmer. Set a timer for 25 minutes.  When there is 10 minutes left on the cooking time, add a couple of handfuls of frozen peas to the top. When the timer hits 5 minutes turn the heat up to high to burn a crust into this baby.  When the timer sounds take it off the heat and cover with a tea towel if it looks wet, and with a pot lid if it looks dry.  Then you should end up with this.  You can used a frypan instead of a paella pan.

Oat and Chocolate Cookies

I made these for the peeps at work today.  I guess they were tasty coz they're all gone :)

Classic Apple Pie

Winter is definitely here and the weather's been stormy and cold.  I've been hiding indoors all weekend and got busy in the kitchen with some baking.  This is my version of Family Circle's Apple Pie recipe.

I cheated with store bought shortcrust pastry base and top.  I usually bake the base for 10 minutes at 180 degrees C because it stops the pie getting soggy. If you use baking beads, it'll stop the base from losing shape.

The filling is made from 1 kilo of Granny Smith apples simmered until soft (15 minutes) in 2 tablespoons of water, 100g sugar, ground cinnamon and ground cloves.  Drain the fluid and mix in 80g butter and a tablespoon of marmalade.  Allow to cool completely then refrigerate.  If the filling is hot it'll melt the uncooked pastry and you wont get a nice crust.

Fill the cooled pastry base with filling and top with pastry. Cut to size and press down on the rim to seal the edges.  Brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar.  Bake at 180 degrees C again for 30 to 40 minutes.  It' best to place the pie on a baking tray too!

Orange Almond Cake

This is a traditional Jewish Passover dessert from this episode of Food Safari.  I followed the recipe and found it was wonderfully moist with a slightly bitter taste from the inclusion of whole oranges.

If you don't like the bitter complexity of this cake, you can always substitute the boiled oranges with the rind of 2 oranges and 2.5 cups of orange juice.  You may need to increase the sugar to 300 grams to suit mainstream taste buds too.  Personally, I dislike too much sugar in my desserts.

I found I needed about 90 minutes at a lower temperature (160 degrees C fan forced) to stop the top burning.  In my opinion you can always decapitate the burnt top of a cake but it's harder to save a sunken cake so make sure your cake doesn't wobble when you move it and the skewer comes out clean-ish.