Kamaboko

450g white fish, 2 egg whites, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, 4.5 tbps cornflour, 4.5 tbsp sake, 1 tbps mirin, food colouring if you desire.

Chuck everything in a blender and shape the resulting paste into whatever you like. If you want, colour it, roll it, have fun. Whatever you do, wrap it up in a foil sausage so it can be steamed. 

Steam for 20 minutes, then chill. Ready for use. Easy as. 

Bruschetta - various

Variant 1: (the green one on the left)
Anchovies, tomato, lemon juice, roast garlic, parsley, basil, marjoram. Into blender, salt and pepper.

Variant 2: Camembert and salami

Variant 3: Roasted red peppers, green onions, blue cheese.

Variant 4: Caramelized red onions in a red wine reduction with slices Camembert on the top. Maybe could have done with some near-carpaccio beef slivers on top.


Everything is on sliced baguette (in this case) grilled with olive oil and seasoning.

 

Custard Tarts

You know those custard tarts you buy in the shop that have disappointing amounts of custard and don't taste of anything? This isn't one of them.

Pastry:
250g flour, 185g butter, 1.5 tbsp icing sugar, 1 egg yolk, iced water. Blind bake in four/five generous muffin tins, 10mins with pastry beads 10 mins without, at 200 degrees.

Custard:
1 can condensed milk, 1.5 cups milk, 2tbsp custard powder, 1 eggs, vanilla essence. Cook in saucepan until thickened. Pour into tart casings, chill. Consume with nutmeg grated on top.

Combo for Asian night

Sushi, gyoza, and veg stir-fry.

Gyoza skin is made from 2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp salt and 120ml boiling water. Filling is traditionally shredded cabbage and pork mince. You can steam these babies or fry them for about 3 minutes each and then add a splash of water and cover the pan for about 4 minutes for them to steam/fry. Delicious.

The sushi and stir-fry - well, you do them as you please, don't you?

Custard Cornucopias

Nothing could be easier. 

1) Make custard. (Custard powder's fine. Microwave is not only fine but excellent.) 

2) Chill. (Both you and the custard.) 

3) Wrap ready-made puff pastry round pastry horn moulds. Bake. Until both the pastry and your ego are puffed.  

4) Pipe cooled custard into horns (with a snipped-off sandwich bag works fine). 

5) Dust with icing sugar. 

Kids yum 'em.

Cake Pops

You obviously need a cake-pop maker for these. But for a gimmicky little gadget, it actually gives good returns in child satisfaction, and the pops don't take long to make at all. I served some for afternoon snack in a giant martini glass (forget the tedious poles, just cake balls) and the kids thought it was ever-so swish. Here are the recipes that came with our cake maker. Each batch makes 24. Do a couple of batches for 4-5 hungry kids and they'll have a few to take to school the next day.

Vanilla cake pops 

• 60g butter (softenend) 
• 1/2 cup sugar 
• 1 tsp vanilla essense 
• 1 egg 
• 1 tsp baking powder 
• 3/4 cup plain flour 
• 1/3 cup milk 

Cream butter and sugar, add the rest, bake.

Chocolate Espresso cake pops 
3/4 cup flour

• 1/2 cup caster sugar 
• 2 tbps cocoa powder 
• 1 tsp baking powder 
• 50ml milk 
• 5o ml fresh brewed espresso 
• 1 egg 
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essense 

Mix everything, bake.

Strawberry cake pops: 
As per vanilla with pink food colouring and strawberry essence instead of vanilla.

Chocolate Chip cake pops
As per vanilla with 1/4 cup of choc chips

Red Velvet cake pops 

• 60g butter (softenend) 
• 40g beetroot, peeled, grated 
• 1 cup plain flour 
• 1 tsp baking powder 
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder 
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essense 
• red food colouring 
• 1 egg 
• 1/3 cup milk 

Beat butter and sugar, add egg then rest. Bake.

Citrus cake pops. 
As per vanilla with grated citrus zest.

Apple Fritters

Great breakfast or snack - or even dessert.

Batter:
1 cup flour
1 egg
1 scant cup milk
vanilla
approx 40g melted butter
a few spoons of sugar

this will coat about 5 medium sized apples, though it's a bit of a toss-up. I would do about 1.5 apples per person so theoretically this would be enough for about 3 people. Depending on their level of hunger.

Peel and core the apples, slice them into reasonably thick slices ring-wise, microwave covered in cling film for about 5 minutes or until they're somewhat soft but not falling apart. Cool them a little before you coat in batter (besides, it's hard to handle otherwise).

Shallow fry, and sprinkle with icing sugar as they come out of the batch and go into the serving bowl (so you don't get a bunch of sugar on top at the end and none on the bottom). Serve with maple syrup and/or cream. Or even ice-cream.

Apple Crumble

Nothing wrong with serving apple crumble as a breakfast. It's fruit, carb, and sugar. Standard breakfast stuff. If you have ice cream with it it's dairy as well.

About 1.2kg apples
about 250g flour (plain)
about 180g sugars of whatever colour you feel inclined towards
about 130g butter
spices of your inclination (probably nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom rather than chili and paprika but anyway)

Crumble up the crumble mix. put spices in where you like. If your apples are sour or you need extra fillings, sweeten your peeled and chopped apples. Apple mix on bottom of dish, crumble on top. Well that's the traditional one anyway. Bake for about 40 mins in 180 degree oven. Serve with ice-cream or cream to hungry people for breakfast, snack, or dessert. Or just because it's Tuesday.

Damper

Makes a great breakfast. 'Course you need the 45 minutes to cook it so it's not a last-minute thing, but the putting-together is nice and easy. Basically just a big scone.

500g flour
90g butter
3tsp baking powder
sprinkle salt
1/3 cup sugar
250ml milk

Rub the flour, baking powder and butter together. Add sugar, salt, mix. Add milk, knife-mix lightly and quick-pat into a dough. Plop onto a baking tray like a large fat biscuit and bake at 190 for 45 minutes. Serve to hungry kids with butter, maple syrup and jams. They will be happy.

World Peace

For the awesome green sauce: 

Caramelized chopped onion in olive oil and butter. Puree with mint leaves (a handful), chopped ginger (fresh), chopped garlic (raw, tiny bit), garam masala (1tsp), salt, pepper, juice of 1/2 lime. Add 3 tablespoons of yogurt.


For the chickpea patties (like falafels on steroids):

Caramelized chopped onion in olive oil and butter, add curry leaves while sauteing, paprika, chili powder, salt, pepper, then add tin of chickpeas and puree. Add 1 egg and breadcrumbs. Shape into patties and shallow fry.

For the marinated chicken: 

Marinate overnight in Dijon mustard, brown sugar, lemon juice, soy sauce, salt. Onto barbecue.

For the World Peace Potatoes:

Creaming potatoes, mashed, tablespoon of Tahini, butter (50g), small quantity of milk (splash), season, push through sieve.

For the mayo garnish:

Fresh mayo with a teaspoon of tumeric for colour. With Gherkins on top.

'Breakfast' Muffins

These muffins contain nothing but absolutely certified Breakfast all the way through.

Dry ingredients:

• 280g - made up of 4tbs unprocessed bran, a fistful of quick cook oats and the rest in plain flour. 
• 160g light brown sugar 
• 2.5 tsp baking powder 
• Spices to taste, like cinnamon, cloves, ginger, cardamom. 

Wet ingredients:

• One large or two small each of mashed banana and fine grated carrot. 
• 3 eggs 
• 160ml oil (i.e. canola) 
• splash of cream

Mixy mixy, bake in desired muffin tins or whatever at about 160. Offer butter or honey to accompany if desired - not strictly necessary.

Lemonade scones

Very handy breakfast item.

2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 each of cream, lemonade
1/2 cup sugar

I like to add some milk powder 'cause it makes it creamier (I think). Half a cup maybe.

Combine, bake either in balls or you can roll cut them out like cookies. Only takes a few minutes. Great if you've run out of bread in the morning and can't be bothered to make pancakes.

Potato pizza

Pizza base, with thinly sliced potato. Cover the base with tomato sauce, layer the potato slices, season with rosemary, salt and pepper, and top with cheese. Might try microwaving the potato slices next time to make sure they're evenly cooked through.

Mixed Plum Tart

Prep up a 22cm flan tin and an oven to 200 C.

Pastry:
125g butter,
55g icing sugar
225g plain flour
1 egg & some cold water

Filling:
100g softened butter
110g caster sugar
1 egg, 1 egg yolk
1 cup almond meal
35g plain flour
6 or 7 plums, stoned and cut into wedges.

Blind bake the pie crust until 'getting there' (not too much). Filling: beat butter & sugar, add aggs, beat, add almond meal and flour. Spread over base. Arrange plum wedges evenly (and prettily) over the filling, back for 30 minutes. Meant to be served cold, if you can wait. (It gets much easier to cut when cold.) Pretty yummy.