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.