Flash's Butter Chicken and Naan

 

Putting the pic here to remember to fill in the recipe. 

Buttermilk pancakes

 More like drop scones really but a bit tangy and different. Not sure if worth going out of the way and getting the buttermilk but anyway, it's a thing. 

• 2 cups plain flour 
• 2 tbs sugar 
• salt 
• baking poweder (1) 
• 480 ml buttermilk 
• 2 eggs
• 3 tbs melted butter 

Batter's pretty thick... or I may have got the measurements slightly wrong, I don't know, it was early in the morning. 

Keto-friendly stuff

 Had a few recently that were OK, jotting them down here. Will elaborate if we make again. 

Pizza: base out of LSA, egg, and some cheese (seems to help stick together). Toppings as suitable. This was very satisfactory, though it tastes like Ryvita or Graham crackers rather than dough but it's pretty moreish. Actually leaves one feeling full. Recommended. (Bunny devised) 

Meatballs with faux-spaghetti veg: just as it sounds. Reasonably satisfying, though not close to actual pasta, doable and not hard to make. Ribbon up carrots and courgettes to make the 'spag'. 

Satay pork skewers with steamed choi: a bit plain, but can spice up and sauce up (coconut and peanut is fine). Just have lots. 

Smoked cod, chopped spinach, poached egg: actually fairly satisfying. We even had this as a kids-together meal with kids having rice as well (and less huge quantities of spinach). Went down well with some. 

Half-avocado/banana lactose-free keffir shake: Standard Bunny breakfast these days. With the soy protein powder, it's pretty extreme but tasty. Works well, good filler.

Chicken or pork curry with spinach: I used mustard seeds, cumin, coriander, one fresh chili, garam masala, and a very large handful of curry leaves from our tree - so it's almos a vegetable. Popped the seeds and fried the aromatics, added the leaves and fried for another few seconds, added the meat (lots), i think there was one vegetable like courgette or aubergine. I think tomato paste, definitely coconut cream (mainly cream, not the water), and definitely lime and peanuts to finish. Serve stirred in with well-seasoned chopped spinach (lots). 

Carb subsitute to go with slabs of meat: aubergine fried with egg and LSA (no flour). A bit nutty but tasty. 

Crustless quiche: this was a thing before Keto anyway. 

Bunny's LSA bread: Not sure how he did this but I really enjoyed it. I think substituted LSA for flour, is all. 

Bunny's 'jibber-jabber' breads: this is from some animated Keto youtuber, and is based on almost meal and whipped egg whites. Tastes like sponge- as in, actual sponge you might use for a seat cover. it's possible that the weirdness comes from the cream of tartar he insisted on including, might be worth re-visiting with less revolting ingredients. I prefer Bunny's LSA bread. 

Bunny's Erythrodol muffins: I think these were muffins with LSA and erythrodol. Not sure. Nice and nutty, do-again. They're some 'Keto donut' recipe, there are lots, not sure which, Bunny subbed some LSA for some of the almond meal. Was nice. 

Something like this: 

Ingredients

• 1 cup / 100g almond flour ground almonds work as well
• 1/3 cup / 75g unsalted butter melted
• 1/4 cup / 50g granulated sweetener (So Nourished)
• 4 eggs medium, or 3 large
• 2 tbsp heavy / double cream
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

• Preheat your oven to 175 Celsius / 350 Fahrenheit. 
• Melt the butter. In a bowl or with a food processor, blend the butter, cream and sweetener until smooth. 
• Add the eggs and vanilla extract and blend until combined. Then add the almond flour and baking powder and mix. 
• Spoon the dough into a well-greased donut pan. I used a silicone mini donut pan. Do not overfill!
• Bake ca 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool completely before removing from the pan.
• Roll in granulated sweetener.

Peanut butter cookies: again, from some online recipe Bunny found. Turned out remarkably unsweet (oddly enough). he's desperate for sweets though and something has to be done.

Peanut butter cups: non-sugar peanut butter, butter, erythrodol sweetner, melt together (about a third of butter and two thirds peanut butter). Leave to set in cupcake molds. Pour on melted 95% chocolate when set. Bloody good, this one. 

Chinese meantballs with greens: Do a nice gingery meatball. Does involve about a teaspoon of cornflour per person so a tiny trace there but was OK. Pork mince with five spice, seasoning, scallion greens, oyeter sauce etc. Roll the seasoned balls in cornstarch. Fry. Add sauce of soysauce, oyster, seasoning, rice wine etc and cook until meatballs done and sauce thickened. Serve with greens. 

Chicken soup: With honestly not much else. Whole chicken, stock with the bones (super-simmered),  soak the meat in brine meanwhile. We're talking serveral hours. Then a little carrot, celery, add stock, one chili, ginger (or whatever flavour is good for you), possibly wakame, the thigh meat, slow simmer. Just before serving add chopped scallion green, the breast meat, and lightly diced courgette. Does the job. 

Kefir Sourdough

 

So this was a hard-core home baking session. With home-made Kefir yoghurt starter, and hydrated with home-made Kefir, too. 

Starter: 

1.2-1 Kefir/flour, in a jar, with a cloth over the top to catch any extra yeast but keep out bugs. About 8 hours saw it triple in size - I was taken aback, I tell you. I used 100g of each but found I had to splosh in a bit more Kefir because it was too dry.

Combine: 

• 500g flour 
• The 200g - odd of starter 
• Salt 
• Sugar - about 2tblsp (not sure if I would use again, was pretty sweet) 
• about 300g more Keifr 
• Good glug-glug of olive oil 
• splash of water for extra as the dough was thick, might increase Kefir next time
• (Our flour consistently absorbs more moisture than in standard recipes)

First and second resting period: 

After about an hour, give it a good pummel. Put it back in it's comfy greased rising-bowl and cover until it's healthily doubled in size. This one took about 6 hours. 

Pummel massively. Not much more flour needed, pretty independent-minded dough, this. Line Dutch oven with baking paper, put formed loaf in. I greased too, just in case. Allow to rise again. (about 1.5h) then cut a couple of slashes over the top ('for steam', apparently, though I think it's more for looks) before putting it in to bake.

Bake for about 30 minutes, covered, in a 215 oven. I feel perhaps it could have done with a touch more, in retrospect, but it did sound hollow when tapped. 

Leave to cool for at least an hour before cutting, or it will be squishy. 

Fluffy, squishy, pretty moreish. Technically it is a 24-hour Thing (possibly more, depending on conditions) but not actually all that much prep time, just waiting for yeasty stuff to work. Kinda fun. 

Schnitzels

 

This was Flash's dish of the day, and extremely tasty, not a crumb left over. Flash may have been a bit shell-shocked at how long the process takes, but he did it. 

• Trim your pork loin
• cut into 1.5cm slices 
• beat flat between clingfilm 
• season with salt and pepper on both sides 
• dip each in flour, egg and then breadcrumbs 
• shallow fry 
• serve with baked potatoes and carrots 

San Choy Bau

Arizona's dish of the day. Tasty, and the mince was squishier than is usual, which helped it sit on the lettuce better. 

 

Salmon with kale coleslaw, rice and fried aubergine

 

Bunny made even kale tasty! Mmm delicious. 

Pineapple chicken-in-a-bag with rice

Lara's dish of the day. The in-a-bag thing was easy to manage and it was nice and soft. Pineapple, peppers, onions, etc. Got a thumbs-up. 

 

Pumpkin soup and chickpea and feta salad

 

Here's Coco's dish of the day, with the chickpea and feta salad again and a stonker pumpkin soup. We don't have a recipe because she 'Yolo'd it'. There were some nice spices in there. 

Polly's Passion Cake

Used to make this all the time in college. The recipe is from a friend of mine who lived on this, beansprouts and lentils, with some custard and baked potatoes thrown in. It's hard being a vegetarian when you don't like vegetables. Anyway, 'passion cake' is AKA banana and carrot cake. Easy and fail-safe. 

Dry ingredients:

• 280g plain flour 
• 1 tsp bicarb
• 2tsp baking powder 
• 170g brown sugar 
• 1 tsp salt 
• chopped walnuts to taste 
• Cinnamon, ginger, cloves and allspice to taste

Wet ingredients: 

• 3 medium eggs 
• 2 ripe mashed bananas 
• 2 medium grated carrots 
• 170ml vegetable oil 
• Sometimes add molasses or golden syrup to taste.

Prep the two batches, combine.  180 cook 40 mins, cool before turning out. 

Chicken and pearl barley stew

 Things I discovered with this dish: 

• It is now very hard to buy any chicken pieces with bones in them in Australia, apart from wings, drumsticks, or whole birds. 
• Pearl barley cooks well when boiled up in a fair amount of stock and then left for several hours, then finished off with a little more heat. 

Given the above lack of bone-in thigh pieces, I prepped this in several stages (bone-in drumsticks are a bit messy to eat in a stew): 

Stock and meat prep (earlier in the day): 

De-bone drumsticks, make stock from bones and some skin with a few of the usual suspect veg and good seasoning, simmering gently as per normal. Meanwhile soak meat in strong brine. No need to cut up. 

Pearl barley

As above, boil up for an initial gentle roll in your fresh and very well-seasoned stock, and leave. (Still early on in the day, looking at a couple of hours here). Heat up again later and finish up as desired. 

The rest

Mirapois veg, plenty of it, good seasoning, one chili (or as desired), fresh oregano or other herbs as wished. Fry off the meat, deglaze the pan. Add meat, veg, herbs, and glaze to pressure cooker with a splash of white wine and pressure cook for 30 mins. 

Then 

Gently strain the cooking juices from the solids, return juices to pan and thicken with some cornflour. Add the pearl barley to this 'gravy', check it's cooked and thickened/stewy to your liking. Gently add the cooked veg and meat, as it'll be pretty damn soft and you don't want to mush it. Serve in bowls with a sprinkling of cheese. 

Hearty and bloody tasty, and probs not bad health-wise either. 

Banoffee pie

 Why don't we have this on the blog? Because it's too easy?  I don't know. 

I usually made Banoffee with a blind-baked sweetcrust pastry base, then two tins of the caramel (or one, if you're not so sweet-toothed), then sliced layered bananas all over the spread toffee, then Chantilly (or just plain whipped cream). 

(Sweetcrust: about 250g plain flour, 125g butter (cold, cut up), 100g icing sugar, 1 egg, sometimes some lemon zest, splash of ice water or so if needed, pinch of salt. Or can decrease the sugar, replace the egg with water, use caster instead of icing, but whatever you do make sure you touch that butter as little as possible and crumb it into the flour and bind quickly. Also useful to roll out between cling film or baking parchment: it's always floppy.) 

However Flash made it the other day and instead of baked crust, used a biscuit and butter base, and frankly I think the nutty flavour went better with the caramel and banana. Plus it's even easier. 

As a side note, if you don't have access to tinned caramel, you can boil a tin of sweetened condensed milk for 45 minutes or so and it'll turn into caramel. I used to do this because condensed milk is about a quarter of the price of caramel. Now the part I can't afford is the calories on my tummy more than the pennies from the pocket. 

Lara's Creamy Basil Pasta

 This has fast become her speciality. 

Ingredients: 

• 1 packet of pasta 
• 1 jar pesto 
• 2 pack chicken thighs 
• spring onions 
• parmesan (a fair bit) 
• fresh tomatoes (2 or 3) 
• fresh basil 

For six people: 

• Grill a couple of packs of chicken thighs, well seasoned. Cut into bit-sized pieces when done.
• Prep chop: fresh tomatoes, spring onions. 
• Cook pasta (Lara prefers spirals) 
• Mix all ingredients, plus a jar of pesto, a good shlurp of cream, some fresh basil, a good amount of grated parmesan. 

Serve. 

Waffle cones (for your ice cream, and other)

 This recipe comes with the waffle iron. Still practicing with these ones. 

• Zabaglione up two eggs and 1/2 cup caster sugar

Add 

• 1/4 cup milk (scant),
• vanilla 
• 1/4 cup melted butter 
• 1/2 cup plain flour 
• 1/4 tp salt 

Then put 2tbsp of mix in middle of pray-greased iron and cook. Roll around the mould immediately upon turfing. 

Now when we say 'cook' it's quite tricky. We found: 

• The above mix might be a bit runny, try making it a bit drier. 
• The waffles don't cook evenly, try moving them about and turning them over half way. 
• If you squish it together instantly the mix pours out of the sides and they become too thin. Try cooking it for a few seconds as is, then gently lowering the top, then squish. Then flip. 
• Once you open it, they tend to shift so you have to be pretty confident that they're nearly ready before you peek. On the other hand you don't want them to burn. 
• It's a good trick to have a 'roller' and a 'cooker' because they harden up so quickly it's hard to put the iron down in time before sorting them out on the mould.
• This amount of mix makes a LOT of thin waffles, but perhaps if it were thicker there might be closer to 10 than 15.  

Pulled Pork

 

Ice cream

 Whip together one can of sweetened condensed milk and one 600ml tub of cream. Add flavour of choice and put in freezer. The end. 

OK I'm not going to win prizes for food photography, but the point is that the flavour the kids have hoed into (on the left) is NOT the ultra-sweet homemade lemon jam version (pictured right), but CURRY BERRY flavour. That's right, as in, from the curry plant. It's a most peculiar, smoky, lingering and moreish taste. Recommended. 

Flavours I'd like to try include: 

• Chili
• Tamarind 
• Nasturtium 
• Pepper
• Matcha 

Will update as and when. Suggestions? 

Update: 

chili, with a single red chili blitzed and strained of seeds for a half-measure: WHOA. Feels like it should be used as a condiment or something. Definitely interesting. 

Tamarind  - actually not challenging at all. Tasty, creamy, tangy, something that would go down well in a standard shop. 

Moussaka

 How can a moose have a blog without Moussaka? What was I thinking? 

Shock revelation: some types of moussaka don't have aubergine in them. WHAT. In fact, some types don't have potato. Don't ask me why. That's what I hear. Well, you won't get any of that nonsense round here. My moussaka has 1) mince 2) aubergine 3) potatoes 4) egg sauce, and sneakily 5) a bit of cheese. Obviously, it's the best. 

Your layers will be as follows: 

The mince. Lamb is great. With rosemary and garlic, and tomato. Last one I made, I did the cook-the-mince-with-milk trick (add about half a cup of milk to 1kg ish mince) and it really made it super-soft. Once the milk is reduced (and the onions all softy softy, the herbs all melded) add tomato (passata or a can of diced) and reduce that. Make sure it's heavily seasoned. 

The potatoes. Cook whole (peeled) in very salty water, don't overcook. Slice when cool. Not too thick, not too thin. Comfortable.

The aubergine. I spent years frying these but 1) it makes the kitchen smoky and 2) they get really oily. Now I lay them out on spray-oiled foil in the oven and bake them. Sliced and left heavily salted first for at least an hour, then patted dry with paper towels. Hint: I have never, ever, had too many aubergine slices. 

The sauce. You only need it for the top, so not as much as you would for a similar sized lasagne. Plus, make it runnier, because you'll add a couple of eggs. Season within an inch of its life, nutmeg and pepper it. 

Layering order. Mince, potatoes, aubergine, mince, aubergine, sneaky sprinkling of grated cheese, white sauce. Oven. 45 mins. 

Let the feasting begin. 

Chickpea and feta salad with babaganoush and croutons

 

OK could definitely do better with the pic, but it was tasty. Arizona's dish of the week .

The salad: plenty of chickpeas, cubed feta, cucumber, red onion, mint, parsley, lemon or lime, seasoning. 

The babaganoush: baked aubergine (cut in half first), mashed with cooked garlic (actually microwaved in the lemon juice), tahini, lemon juice, seasoning. 

The croutons: Yeah you need more croutons that that but all good. The chickpeas are carby too. 

Tasty schmasty. 

Bunny's Picnic Sandwiches

 

Although no-one has any hope of making picnic sandwiches like Bunny, one can try to emulate. Some rules of thumb to head in the right direction: 

• Select a firmish type of bread, which you can hollow out nicely to cram in the fillings. 
• Allow at least a few hours for it to sit before you eat it. 

Some good fillings are: 

camembert, chicken, spinach or other leaf, PICKLED JALAPENOS omg don't forget those, ham and other charcouterie, dips and spreads like homous or babaganoush, tomatoes, grilled veg, slices of sweet potato or pumpkin, roast meats or any sort.

• Be mindful of achieving a good mix of squish and crunch. Something dry must be offset with a nice squelch. 
• Colour is important. You want those layers to stand out. 

Don't forget the wine. THE WINE I TELL YOU. 

Flash's Burgers

 

Flash's burgers are like any other burgers but more extreme. To achieve a Flash burger, you must: 

• include an egg and panko in the mix 
• grill your buns 
• ensure you have endless supplies of fresh-baked chips 
• ensure an even larger supply of tomato sauce 
• get someone else to do the coleslaw 
• finish up with sliced cheese melted on top 

Success.

Pumpkin soup with fish stock

Yes you heard me. That's right. In fact it wasn't even fish stock but prawn stock, from the shells of some very large shrimp we had in a curry. Which was bizarrely made with butter... weird combo, but it seemed to work. So, fry your onions and soften your pumpkin, whizz it with the stock and season up. Served here with dark rye sourdough and it was delicious. For a highly comforting, if proteinless, meal, it was great. 

Seafood curry

 

OK definitely not the best pic but this was delicious. Only the very gourmet prawns (frankly they were more like mini-lobsters) were lost in it, so next time would do purely with cheap white fish. Tamarind, coconut, lime, lots of ginger, and sweet potato for the carb, within the curry. Plus yellow curry paste. Another stellar dish from the Bunster. 

Cajun chicken with pearl couscous

 

This doesn't need a recipe, it's a reminder about another nice, quick and bloody tasty dinner from the Bunster. Cajun spices for the chicken thighs, grilled. Fry your small-chopped veg, mix with your pearl couscous and add plenty of herbs and lemon. The nasturtiums added a nice little pepper kick. And yoghurt is always good. Enjoy. 

Chimichanga

 

I am a complete convert, having been horrified at the thought of a deep-fried Burrito. These things are ****ing delicious. 

Ingredients: 

• Chicken thigh
• onions
• wheat wraps 
• oil for deep frying 
• spices (chili, coriander, cumin, paprika, chipotle paste) 
• pickled jalapenos 
• tomato puree or passata 
• sour cream? 
• Stuff for salsa 
• stuff for guacamole 
• yoghurt 

For the filling: 

fry chopped onions, add chili powder, ground coriander, cumin, and paprika (or chuck in a Burrito spice mix if super-lazy), and tomato paste or passata, and some chipotle paste. Ah the chipotle. And the pickled jalapeno. Some recipes have you putting sour cream in this mix, haven't tried what that's like.  Grill chicken separately and chop up small. Combine. 

Meant to be layered with re-fried beans but  worked well enough without (for those concerned about negative outcomes with legumes). 

Then:

Wrap up your flour tortillas TIGHT with this filling and shredded cheese. Some recipes now have you frying these without any kind of binding at all but I definitely haven't figured that one out. I tied them all up with string like little pork roasts. Second time round they weren't wrapped as tightly and seemed to let the oil in. Apparently you can also bake these, but what would be the point of that? Fry, baby, fry! 

Meanwhile make: 

Serve with guacamole and salsa, with some yoghurt being all artistic over the top. Serve HOT. 

Who cares about waistlines. 

Salmon with sweet potato

 

No recipe needed, just a reminder about a nice, light, quick dinner. The skin was particularly crispy and lovely on this one, which is an extra bonus. Sweet potato microwaved, the sauce is a yoghurt/mayo/caper/lemon mix. Mmm. 

Chocolate Berry Goo Puds

Did this for Lara's 16th as she requested 'something REALLY chocolaty and with berries'. It did the trick. Do not attempt to eat this more than once in 16 years as you will die from chocolate overdose. 

Butter up 6 ramekins. It'll fill about 4 small and two large, so you can cater to various chocolate needs. Put a bunch of mixed berries in the bottom. 

Melt together: 

• 105g butter
• 345g dark chocolate 

Beat till thick and zabaglioned up: 

• 5 large eggs 
• 0.75 cups sugar 
• vanilla essence 

Add the two, plus 2tbsp cocoa powder (did we really need that?), in two doses to minimize deflation.  pour mix over berries. Can leave in fridge for 24 hours if necessary at this point. 

Bake at 180 for 15 mins. A few more if from chilled. 

Tip out onto plates, serve topped with fresh berries and some cream on the side. 

NOT for the faint-hearted. 

Pad Thai with chicken, tofu, eggs, and LOTS of peanuts

 Arizona made this so I don't know which recipe it was but it looks a bit like this one: 

https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/chicken-tofu-pad-thai-2/8175e040-dfc1-4b4c-8778-77ed0d1b0b5d 

So, for the sauce: 

• about 1/2 cup brown sugar
• plenty of tamarind paste
• fish sauce 
• soy sauce 
• lime juice 
• a shit load of chopped peanuts
• ginger

bulk ingredients:

• red onion
• spring onion
• capsicum
• chicken
• tofu
• beaten egg
• whatever the hell else you feel like 
• thick rice noodles 
• probably some garlic
• heaps of beansprouts
• mange tout

Garnish: 

1. more peanuts
2. chopped coriander 

Was pretty good. A Do Again from all. 

Crustless Quiche and bacon

 Served with salad with giant croutons. I also included feta, ricotta, and pizza cheese in the quiche. Also served with puff pastry sticks, instead of making a quiche crust. Fluffier, crustier and less on carbs. Seemed OK. 

Khachapuri (cheese-crammed bread)

 

Dough: 

• 1/2 cup milk, 1/3 cup water, (though this is not enough, so about 1.5 cups milk/water) 
• 2tsp yeast, 1.5 sugar, 2 olive oil, 1.5 salt 
• 2 cups plain flour plus for kneading 

1 pound of cheese (pizza cheese, fetta, cottage, whatever mix you like) and I chucked in some cubed ham, makes two of the original cheese vaginas. 

You're meant to stuff the crust, roll it into a... well, nice little... and then there's a gap in the middle which you also stuff with cheese, bake, then back into the oven with a finishing off of an egg and knobs of butter in the middle of the... thing. 

HOWEVER, while these were intriguing and pretty tasty, it was all a bit much. So next time I thought we'd just have Pure Stuffed Crust, and forget about the hole in the middle. It makes the dough underneath rather squishy, and also is not really as convenient a place to dip the bread in as it might seem. I will make some equivalent dipping sauce, either with egg like a hollandaise or perhaps with yoghurt, or a spicy salsa type, or a mix of all of the above. It'll be easier to eat and less soggy, as well as cutting down on the excessive cheese. I'll also serve it with something like a very acid side, like olive/roast pepper salad. On this occasion I served it with 'Communist Salad', which was OK but could do with more. Also another salad that provides crunch and leaf, to counteract all the squish. 

Here's communist salad: 

Beetroot, sliced orange, carrot (grated), sesame seeds. Others as wishes. The point is that it's red and tangy. 

Lebanese meat pies (Sfeeha)

 Dough: 

• 1kg all-purpose flour
• 3 tbsps sugar 
• 2 tbsps active dry yeast 
• 1 tbsps salkt 
• 1/4 cup sunflower oil 
• 2+ 1/4 cups whole milk 

Filling: 

• 500g minced lamb 
• 2 small onions, diced 
• 4 medium tomatoes, chopped 
• 1 teaspoon salt or to taste 
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 
• 1/2 teaspoon seven spice or allspice 
• chili flakes 
• oil for greasing baking sheets 

Nothing extraordinary for the dough, but for the filling you blend the raw onion with the tomatoes and then mix everything together while raw, straining away any excess liquid. Then add the spices and seasoning. Roll the dough out to 1/2cm thick rounds, fill with filling and make tri-corner hat shapes. Bake at 200c for 12 mins. 

However, we found these too bready, and considered changing the shape. The filling tastes good though.