From the Den Kitchen

Did you know the last time I did a foodie post was in April? No? Neither did I til I went looking for something else on me blog :/

Lately we’ve been trying to cut down on food waste and trying to spend less on our grocery bill. Actually I’ve been trying to do thing a bit more naturally and live a more ‘down to earth’ life. Mainly thanks to reading the book Down to Earth & the $120 Food Challenge (I met Sandra last year at DPCON12 and she is lovely). I’ll be blogging bits and pieces of our journey as we go.

Anywho, that’s not totally the point of this post 😉 Leftovers from roast. We nearly all have them. We nearly all have no real idea what to do with them. This week I thought I’d look at some ideas for leftover chicken.

Most times when we have leftover chicken roast the next nigh we do fried rice with chicken. Then there’s chicken pizza (on BBQ sauce if your me, tomato base for hubby), chicken shredded into a salad, chicken noodle soup (heck most chicken soups), chicken shepherd’s pie and lately chicken pasta bake.

I whipped up this pasta bake the other night and it’s so simple and delish I thought I’d share it with you

Nightwolf’s Chicken Pasta Bake
(amounts will vary depending on how much you want to put in)

  • leftover roast chicken
  • carrot, diced
  • frozen peas
  • frozen corn
  • red onion, diced (or any type of onion)
  • pasta (your choice, I used small shells just cause that’s what I grabbed first)
  • cheese sauce
  • grated cheese

Shred your chicken and put it in a casserole dish. Cook onion til soft. Add onion and other veg to the casserole dish.
Cook pasta to desired doneness. Drain. Add to casserole dish. Give everything a stir. Sprinkle with a little grated cheese (just cause I felt like it).

 

Make your cheese sauce (or use a bottled one, your choice). Pour into casserole dish. Stir through. Cover in grated cheese. Put in a preheated oven, about 180°C. Cook until cheese is golden and bubbly. About 25-30 minutes. Serve.

 

I’d love to hear what you do with leftover chicken roast, if you have any leftovers 😉

From the Den Kitchen

It’s been awhile since I’ve shared what I’ve been cooking. We’ve had lots of the usual food but now I’m doing a bit of additional cooking cause Miss K is at day care (or play care as she likes to call it) one day a week. Favourites for lunch so far include my mum’s pumpkin soup and impossible quiche cooked in muffin tins.
Chocolate is one of the things the littlies aren’t allowed to take with them to day care so weekends I like to cook treats for Miss K like Chocolate cake with fudge frosting (can’t remember where the original recipe is from, I scanned it from a recipe book)

500ml water
660g caster sugar
250g butter, chopped
35g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon bicarb
450g self raising flour
4 eggs, lightly beaten

Fudge icing
90g butter
80ml water
110g caster sugar
240g icing sugar
35g cocoa powder

Preheat your oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Grease & line a baking dish/cake tin*
Combine water, sugar, butter and combined sifted cocoa and bicarb in a medium saucepan; stir over heat, without boiling until the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil; reduce heat; simmer 5 minutes. Cool to room temperature – which takes ages. Well it felt like ages and I ended up being impatient so mine was still warm.

Add flours and eggs to the mixture. Or if you’re me, do it the other way around. doesn’t seem to make a big difference. Mix until smooth and changed to a paler colour. Pour mixture into cake tin/baking dish.

Bake for about 50 minutes, yup 50 minutes maybe a little more if it’s still raw cake mix in the centre. Take out of the oven and leave it in the tin for 10 minutes. Guessing this lets it finish cooking. Who knows? Turn onto a cake rack to cool.

And here is where I learnt a valuable lesson. Cook the cake the night before. Not the night you want to eat it. Especially when you start cooking it at 7 at night – it will still be warm 2 hours later! When it’s cool (so in my case the next day) spread with fudge icing.

To make the fudge icing combine butter, water and caster sugar in a small saucepan; stir over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves. Sift icing sugar and cocoa into a small bowl then stir in the hot butter mixture.
Cover; refrigerate about 20 minutes or until icing thickens. Beat with a wooden spoon until spreadable. Second lesson learnt. If you make your cake of an evening don’t make your icing at the same time. It will b rock hard by the time your cake cools and you’ll need to let it come to room temperature so you can do anything with it – ie the next day. And you will be tempted just to give the icing a try – with a spoon – more than once. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

 

* I used a 12in square cake tin

From the Den Kitchen

Welcome to another edition of From the Den Kitchen. I’m taking a quick break from the Christmas festivities to share with you some of my favourite recipes I’ve been cooking lately.

I’m slowly working through my list of recipes to try and the following two have been a big success and asked for again.

The first is a chicken shepherd’s pie.

 The original recipe came from Kidspot but we modified it slightly.

For the pie filling you will need:

  • oil (we used veg oil)
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
  • 2 rashers bacon, diced
  • 50g butter
  • 1/3 cup flour
  • 1 teaspoon chicken stock powder
  • 3 cups water
  • 1 double chicken breast, cooked and cubed (I boiled mine till cooked, let it cool then cubed it)
  • frozen peas & corn, as much as you like
  • For the topping – mashed potato

Preheat oven to 180°C. Get out your pie dish, casserole dish or whatever you’ll put your pie in. I used a deep lasagne dish.
Heat oil in a saucepan and cook onion, garlic and bacon for 2 minutes. Add butter and flour to pan, cook 2 minutes. Gradually stir in water and stock powder. Cook until sauce thickens. Add your chicken and frozen veg to the pan then bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Pour into pie dish, top with mashed potato. Bake for 35-45 mins.

Last night we had Fruity Beef Casserole. Originally from Taste. This is the recipe for 2 adults & a nearly 3yo (plus leftovers)

You will need:
olive oil
500g stewing steak, cubed
2 onions, thinly sliced
1 carrot, peeled & thinly sliced
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 heaped tablespoon plain flour
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 1/2 cups beef stock
1/2 cup plum sauce

Preheat oven to 170°C.
Heat oil in a large frypan. Add beef and cook in batches until browned all over. Transfer to plate and set aside to rest.
Add onion to the pan, cook 1-2 minutes until softened. Add carrot, garlic, tomato paste and flour. Stir to combine and cook for another minute. Add lemon juice, beef stock and plum sauce. Return beef to pan.
Bring to the boil and allow the sauce to thicken slightly.
Pour into casserole dish and cook for 2 hours until beef is tender.
Serve with creamy mashed potato.

From the Den Kitchen

Last week I shared with you the Butterfly biscuits I made using the recipe (& cutters) from the Cake Decorating magazine.

This week I’m sharing what I cooked for my afternoon tea I held on Saturday as part of my fundraising efforts for Frocktober

Also in issue 1 of Cake Decorating was a Victoria Sponge. Never made one so thought I’d give it a go. If it was a failure hubby’s RPG group was always coming round so they could snack on it.

Was delish. What’s an afternoon tea without cupcakes. This is pretty much my go to recipe when I want plain cupcakes.

  • 2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
  • 3/4 cup caster sugar
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 125g butter, melted & cooled
  • 2 x eggs, beaten
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
  • Icing
  • 1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar
  • 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons water
  • a couple of drops of food colouring (I used teal as teal ribbons are for Ovarian Cancer)
  • Preheat oven to 200°C. Grease a 12 x 1/3-cup capacity muffin pan. Alternatively, line holes with paper cases. Combine flour and caster sugar in a bowl. Make a well in the centre. Add milk, butter, eggs and vanilla to flour mixture. Stir gently to combine.
  • Spoon mixture into prepared muffin pan. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Stand in pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.
  • Make icing: Sift icing sugar into a bowl. Add food colouring and water. Stir until smooth and well combined. Spoon icing over cupcakes.

Since the theme of the afternoon tea was Frocktober and frocking up I decided I had to make a Dolly Varden cake, or as they are now know in our house – a baked Barbie cake. Never made one before. Don’t own a varden cake tin. Pudding basin, yes, so went with that. OMG how long do these things take to cook! Not as long as the recipe said anyway. She turned out ok though.

I also made these lemon tarts. If you love lemon curd/butter you will love these delicious lemony morsels. I will definitely make them again.

Finally we had these raspberry melting moments. Can’t comment on what they tasted like as they had all gone by the time I got to them. Will just have to make them again I guess.

What’s your favourite afternoon tea food?

From the Den Kitchen

I’m finally getting around to starting the cooking series I’ve been thinking about for some time. I’m hoping to do a post every 2 weeks but who knows it may be more frequent.

Today Miss K & I cooked butterfly biscuits from Issue 1 of the new magazine Cake Decorating. I’ve been going to make these since Wednesday but life kinda got in the way. Had no plans today so got stuck in and made them

Uncooked and cooked butterflies (yup that’s a cake underneath – also made lamingtons). It was a simple sugar cookie recipe & it is super yummy. Left them to cool and then we made royal icing. remember why I hate royal icing but I eventually got it to the right consistency. And then we had iced butterfly biscuits.

This is what they looked like in Cake Decorating.

and this is what mine look like.

Icing with a zip lock bag does not equal pretty icing. They all got eaten though & Miss K LOVES the butterfly cutters. AND hubby let me subscribe to the mag so look out for lots of baking soon hehe

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of Cake Decorating to view. I was under no obligation to post about it. As always, unless stated, all words and opinions are my own.

It’s nearly summer

and that means it’s nearly warm enough to stock up the freezer with yummy ice cream treats.

We make our own ice cream but I am very partial to a Drumstick (has to be peppermint), Eskimo Pies and when I really want to spoil myself, a Magnum. And now can spoil myself with the new Limited Edition Magnum Strawberry White Crumble.

IMG_4710

OMG talk about delish. The white chocolate and biscuit coating is crunchy and rather yum. The strawberry ice cream inside – where do I start. It tastes like real strawberries, not fake pink ice cream like some strawberry ice creams. It’s creamy and smooth. It’s YUM! and it’s helping a good cause.

IMG_4716

How you ask? The new limited edition ice cream was developed to mark Magnum’s partnership with the National Breast Cancer Foundation (Australia) (NBCF) and New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation(NZBCF), and its support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month this October. Unilever, Streets’ parent company, have long been a supporter of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and have contributed around $700 000 to NBCF and NZBCF over its 7 year association with the campaign. Through the extension of support from Streets’ Magnum and Blue Ribbon brands, Unilever hopes to bring total contributions to the cause to $1 million in 2012.

Strawberry White Crumble joins the Magnum range as a limited edition from August 2012 –
March 2013, and will be available in both single serve and multi-packs.

Disclaimer: I received a voucher to purchase some Magnums. All opinions are my own.

Super easy, super yummy pizza

I can’t claim this is my recipe. It was made at the first Chef’s Toolbox party I went to and it’s been a family favourite ever since. It is so super easy. I’ve adapted it a little as I don’t have the Saute Pan they recommend to cook it in.

You will need:

  • 1 cup self-raising flour
  • 1 cup plain flour
  • Good pinch of salt
  • 1 rounded teaspoon of dried yeast
  • 1 teaspoon honey
  • 1 cup lukewarm water

1. Chuck it all in a bowl together and mix.
2. You can then either roll it out a bit or just chuck it in an ovenproof dish/pizza oven/whatever you want to cook it in and press it down to fit.
3. Top with your favourite toppings and cook until brown on the bottom and your top is all cooked.
4. Slice
5. Enjoy!!

The Tastes of Winter

This post is a Product Talk by Nuffnang. I was provided product to sample & review. All opinions herein are my own.

Ah winter, you have joined us with a vengeance this year, well at least in Tasmania. It’s been cold and windy, perfect weather for staying inside by the fire. One of my other favourite things in winter, apart from sitting by the fire, is a huge mug of steaming hot soup.

Homemade soup is a staple in our house each winter but when I can’t be bothered we often grabbed the single serve quick packet powdered soups for a warming lunch. My biggest concern with these is sometimes you really aren’t sure what’s in them. Enter Heinz with their new Squeeze and Stir soups.Heinz Squeeze & Stir soups Heinz Squeeze & Stir sachets are a thick and rich soup concentrate paste, and unlike powdered cup soups, are made from fresh ripe tomatoes. Heinz Squeeze & Stir is low in fat and contains no artificial colours, flavours and no preservatives.

We were sent the Rich Tomato with Basil and Ripe Tomato & Vegetables to try and it was a fight for who would try which flavour.

Squeeze & Stir set

Heinz Squeeze & Stir are super easy to prepare. Just squeeze into a mug, add boiling water, stir and if you’re like me, add a swirl of cream on top.

Squeeze & Stir 01Squeeze & Stir 02Verdict – I had Ripe Tomato & Vegetables and wasn’t sure what I would think. I’m a Big Red girl, just plain big red. This was a nice surprise. It had all the tomato flavour I expected plus an extra kick from the vegetable pieces. Hubby had the Rich Tomato with Basil. When I asked him what he thought, “it’s ok but not something I’d rush to buy”, was the answer. Hubby, for the record, isn’t a big fan of what he calls ‘fancy soups’ much preferring pumpkin, plain tomato, Chinese chicken & corn or potato & leek. If it’s homemade all the better. Meh, I tried a small bit & I though the touch of basil was a nice flavour. Miss K is a huge soup lover and I’m yet to find something she won’t eat (am yet to try her on Scottish broth – I don’t eat it or cook it so she’ll have to wait til my Mum makes it for Dad). She had a small amount of both and came back asking for seconds so I’ll call that a win!

Overall, I’m not sure if I’ll be adding these to our shopping any time soon. Maybe as a treat (or so I can try the Big Red one). They would great for chucking in your bag before work for a winter warmer at lunch or great for camping trips or even the footy (nothing beats watching sport in winter, rugged up and a hot mug of soup – unless it’s watching sport, inside, in front of a fire, with a hot mug of soup)

Heinz Squeeze & Stir will bring Australia’s number one wet soup flavour, Big Red Tomato*, along with Mediterranean Vegetable, Ripe Tomato & Vegetable and Rich Tomato with Basil into the convenient pack format. Individual Heinz Squeeze & Stir 70g sachets are now available for RRP$1.25 from all major supermarkets and independent retailers.

* Source: Nielsen Scan Data in Season 2011

A little Gourmet Garden cooking

What to do with leftover roasts? It’s always a question in our house and there are only so may Shepherd’s Pies or curries one can make.
The other night I decided I’d have a go at making up my own recipe – nothing fancy, just a simple pasta bake using the leftover lamb roast from the night before (which in itself was rather delicious thanks to a little Gourmet Garden Chunky Garlic and Gourmet Garden Thyme). So here it is – my Leftover Roast Pasta Bake with mini herby cheesy rolls.

For the pasta bake you will need (this recipe fed 2 adults & a 2yo with leftovers)

1 1/2 cups spiral pasta (you could use any pasta you liked)
frozen veg, as much as you like (I used frozen baby peas)
leftover lamb roast, shredded, as much as you like
Cheese sauce
80g butter
50g plain flour
2 1/2 cups milk
grated cheese
1/2 teaspoon Gourmet Garden Chunky Garlic

Preheat oven to 180C.
Boil pasta until cooked. Drain and set aside.
Strip as much meat from your roast as you want. Mix pasta, meat and veggies in a bowl.
To make cheese sauce – melt butter. Add flour, stir until it boils and thickens. Gradually add milk, stir until it boils and thickens. Remove from heat, stir though cheese and garlic.
Pour cheese sauce over pasta and mix.
Pour into ovenproof dish.
(allow toddler to help herself to the mixture before you cook it – she goes back for seconds so this is a win!)

Cook 10 minutes or until cheese melted and golden.

Serve with mini herby cheesy rolls.

To make the mini herby cheesy rolls

70g butter
1 tablespoon grated parmesan (the real stuff not the powdery stuff)
1 teaspoon Gourmet Garden Chunky Garlic
1 teaspoon minced garlic (just to add the garlic chunks)
1/4 teaspoon Gourmet Garden Thyme
1/4 teaspoon Gourmet Garden Basil
1/4 teaspoon Gourmet Garden Coriander (optional)
Mini bake at home rolls

Soften your butter (not melt it like I did) and add herbs. Mix.

Cut rolls in half. Spread each side with butter. Put back together.
Cook 10 minutes in 180C oven.

Disclaimer – I was provided a selection of herbs/spices from Gourmet Garden as part of their Blog Off Cook Off competition. Recipe and photos are my own.