Martha Stewart's Zucchini Fritters

You may have noticed a lack of recipes on the blog recently. To be honest I've not really felt much like cooking much for these past few months. I'm not really sure why, usually I want to cook everything, all the time (make ALL the recipes!) but lately that drive just hasn't been there. Until these last couple of days, when the urge to cook has started coming back.

I had a couple of zucchini's in my fridge that I wanted to use, but felt like doing something different than just steaming them for dinner. I thought this Martha Stewart recipe for Zucchini Fritters sounded interesting, and tried them out. I've made them a couple of times since then and they've been a hit with everyone. I really like how easy they are to make and the different subtle flavours you can taste in them. Who would have thought that lemon zest would work with zucchini? But it really does.

INGREDIENTS:
- 2 medium zucchini
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp grated lemon zest
- 10 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1/2 cup plain flour
- Olive oil

METHOD:
1.  Grate zucchini into a medium bowl. Add salt, lemon zest, chopped parsley, garlic, pepper, and eggs. Mix well to combine. Slowly add the flour, stirring so no lumps form.
2. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat until the oil sizzles when you drop a small amount of zucchini mixture into the pan. Carefully drop two spoonfuls of zucchini mixture into the pan; repeat, spacing fritters a few inches apart.
3. Cook fritters until golden, 2 to 3 minutes. Lower heat to medium. Turn fritters, and continue cooking until golden, 2 to 3 minutes more. Transfer fritters to a plate; set aside. Cook remaining mixture, adding more oil to the frying pan if necessary.

RECIPE SOURCE:
Martha Stewart recipe for
Zucchini Fritters

Individual Chicken, Leek & Mushroom Pies

I know! It's amazing right? I'm actually posting a recipe for something savoury. It might surprise you to find out that I actually do cook most of the evening meals for my family, it's just that most of them don't seem postable - whether it's because the photos would come out too ugly or because I just think they're too boring. Every now and then, though, I like to try a new recipe that I'm proud to share with you lovely readers. And this recipe, that I found on Jane Kennedy's app 'OMG I can eat that?', is one of those. It is a low carb version of the chicken, leek and mushroom pie, which I know is never the same as a good old fashioned pie with flaky pastry, but it still turned out to be a delicious meal.
You see, readers, I'm actually trying to 'be good' at the moment. I've put on a lot of weight over the last year and it's really time that I did something about it. Not because I want to be a stick thin model or anything, but I just feel like I have to do this for me. I will still be posting lots of sweet treats in the future (they might just be for other people - not me), but they might be mixed in with more healthy meals, like this, as well.

To make the crust:
1 small zucchini, peeled and grated
1 egg, beaten
50g light mozzarella cheese, grated
50g parmesan cheese, grated

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking tray with paper. Trace circles onto the baking paper using a ramekin - trace a circle for each ramekin. In a bowl combine the zucchini, egg and mozzarella cheese. Spread this mixture onto the baking paper, using your traced circles as a guideline for the correct size and shape.

Bake the zucchini lids in your oven for about 20 minutes, or until they start to change colour. Once you remove them from the oven allow to cool on the baking tray.
Leave your oven at 180C so you can cook the pies later on.

To make the pie filling:
1tbsp olive oil
2 small skinless chicken fillets, cut into cubes
2 cloves garlic
2 leeks, finely sliced
12 mushrooms, sliced
1 sprig thyme, finely chopped
1 sprig rosemary, finely chopped
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tbsp greek yoghurt

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and cook the chicken pieces for about 5-6 minutes. Once cooked, remove the chicken from the frying pan with a slotted spoon, leaving the juices in the pan, and set aside

Add the garlic and leeks to the pan, and cook for about 5 minutes. Make sure the leeks and garlic don't brown too much.

Add the mushroom slices, thyme (I only had dried thyme, not fresh, but I found this was fine to use), rosemary, sea salt and pepper and cook for another 6-8 minutes. Then stir in the yoghurt.

Divide the mixture between your ramekins - I was only serving three people so I squished my mixture in a little bit so it would fit into my three ramekins - and top each pie with a zucchini lid. Sprinkle the lid with parmesan cheese and bake for about 10-12 minutes - or until brown and bubbling (hmmm!!)

Warning - your house will be left with the most delicious smell. You'll want more pie even after you're finished - or maybe it's just because I'm greedy ;)

Recipe Source:
Jane Kennedy's app: OMG I can eat that?
recipe for Chicken, Leek and Mushroom piemakins

Individual Chicken, Leek & Mushroom Pies Zucchini crust: 1 small zucchini, peeled and grated 1 egg, beaten 50g light mozzarella cheese, grated 50g parmesan cheese, grated 1. Preheat the oven to 180C 2. Line a baking tray with baking paper 3. To make the zucchini crust, combine the zucchini, egg and mozzarella cheese in a bowl 4. Spread this mixture onto the baking paper, making circles in the shape of a pie lid - to do this I traced around my ramekins to get the correct shape and size. 5. Bake for about 20 minutes, or just until the zucchini crust starts to change colour 6. Remove from the oven and leave on the baking paper to cool. Pie Filling: 2 small skinless chicken fillets, cut into cubes 2 cloves garlic 2 leeks, finely sliced 12 mushrooms, sliced 1 sprig thyme, finely chopped 1 sprig rosemary, finely chopped sea salt and freshly ground pepper 2 tbsp greek yoghurt 1. Preheat the oven to 180C 2. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat and cook the chicken pieces for about 5-6 minutes 3. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon, leaving the juices in the pan, and set aside. 4. Add the garlic and leeks to the pan. Saute for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly and making sure leeks and garlic don't brown too much. 5. Add the mushrooms, thyme, rosemary, sea salt and pepper and cook for another 6-8 minutes. 6. Stir in the yoghurt 7. Divide the mixture between your ramekins and top each one with a zucchini lid. Sprinkle the lid with parmesan cheese and bake for about 10-12 minutes, or until brown and blubbling 8. Serve immediately.

Turkey Burgers

I'm so glad that the weather is finally starting to warm up here in Australia. I love the warmer months, and as I've mentioned in previous posts, can't stand the cold. One thing that I love about an Australian summer is the great food we get to eat. On a reasonably warm day recently, I decided that it was time to start bringing out the 'warmer weather' recipes, however I wanted to try something different. I found a slideshow for burgers and sliders on Martha Stewart's website and picked this Turkey Burger recipe to try. I've been wanting to experiment with turkey mince for a while now, so this seemed like the perfect recipe to start off with.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs (or normal breadcrumbs)
• 500g turkey mince
• 1/2 cup lite sour cream
• 4 tbsp mango chutney
• 2 tbsp dijon mustard
• 1 tsp chili powder (the recipe called for 1tbsp but you can adjust this to the amount you want)
• Coarse salt
• 4 hamburger buns, or bread (toasted if you wish)
• Lettuce leaves
• Tomato, sliced
• Swiss Cheese slices

1. In a medium bowl, mix together turkey mince, breadcrumbs, sour cream, 3 tbsp chutney, 1 tbsp mustard, chilli powder, and 1 tsp salt.

2. Shape into four large round patties. (I needed a smaller one for my 2 year old nephew. How cute is it?!)

3. To cook, heat oven grill with the rack set 4 inches from heat. Place burgers on a baking sheet and grill until firm and cooked through, for about 5 minutes each side. (alternatively you can also fry them or BBQ them if you wish)

4. Place cooked burgers on pre-prepared burger buns or bread. Top with lettuce, tomato and swiss cheese. Stir together 1 tbsp each of chutney and mustard, and spread on the top half of the burger bun/bread, or serve alongside burgers.

Note: If you wish to freeze the burgers, wrap each one individually before placing them in the freezer. The burgers will keep for up to 2 months.

Recipe Source:

Adapted (only slightly) from the Turkey Burger Recipe on Martha Stewart's website.

Brioche

I love taking advantage of my local library and have recently realised how big of a cookbook collection they have. One night after work I had one of my usual urges to cook, so I thought I'd make something out of one of the cookbooks I'd borrowed. I chose to make the brioche out of the Bourke St Bakery cookbook. I have only ever made bread once (well rolls) and so I wanted to get some more practise in making that. Plus I've always wanted to make my own brioche.

Ingredients:
190g flour, chilled
4g fresh yeast, chilled
15g caster sugar, chilled
1 1/2 tbsp milk, chilled
3 eggs, chilled
1 tsp salt
125g unsalted butter, cut into cubes, at room temp
egg wash (1 egg, 100ml milk & pinch salt combined)

I firstly set the oven at 220 degrees celcius. Then, to make the dough I put the flour, yeast, sugar, milk, eggs and salt into a bowl and mixed them together with an electric mixer. To this mixture I then added the butter, a few pieces at a time until it was all well incorporated. I turned this sticky dough out onto my bench which I'd dusted with flour and kneaded it with floured hands. I then transferred the dough back into a bowl, which I'd brushed with butter and placed it in the fridge for an hour, covered with a tea towel.

After an hour I took the dough back out of the fridge and turned it back onto the bench, pressing it gently into a rectangle shape. I then folded one third of the rectangle back over itself and then the same with the remaining third, so I had a long rectangle. I then turned the dough sideways and repeated the process until I had a square, which I then placed back into the greased bowl, recovered it with the tea towel and placed it back into the fridge for an hour.

I again had to turn the dough out onto my floured bench and gently knocked the air out of it. I then rolled the dough into a log shape to fit into my pre-prepared loaf tin (greased and lined with baking paper) and placed it in the tin. I then quickly mixed up my egg wash mixture, which was just a matter of whisking the ingredients together and then brushed it on the top of the brioche loaf. I reduced the oven temperature to 180 degrees and baked the brioche for 40 minutes.

The bread turned out really well. It was beautiful and soft when hot, and had a subtle sweet taste to it. By the next morning it had gone a little bit hard, but it was still lovely toasted with my eggs. The only complain that I had was that the instructions about what shape to make the bread, and the process of kneading was a little confusing to me. I'm not sure if I'm the only one, but it seems like this book is maybe geared towards someone who's had a little experience making bread. It was still a very good recipe, and I was very proud once I'd finished to have made my own brioche.



Recipe Source:

Bourke St Bakery: The Ultimate Baking Companion

by Paul Altman and David McGuinness

Sausages in (onion) gravy

Do you ever have those days when all you feel like is some good old comfort food, no matter how good or bad it is for you? I had one of those days the other day. I was tired and not feeling very well and all I felt like was one of my favourite dishes from my childhood - Sausages in onion gravy. I know some of you will be horrified by the sound of this dish, but no matter how bad it sounds (and looks) it's really very tasty. Plus it's very easy and fairly quick to make.

Yes, I know, it's not the greatest looking meal...but it's comfort food! :)
You start off with as many BBQ sausages you need. You can use whatever sausages you want here - flavoured or plain, but we usually just get plain ones for this meal. In a frying pan with a little bit of oil fry the sausages until they're brown and cooked through.

Usually I slice a large onion into rings and cook it in the pan with the sausages, however on this occassion we were all out of onions so I decided to replace them with mushrooms. I sliced a few large mushrooms up and added them to the pan with the sausages to cook.
While these were cooking, I put 3 tablespoons of gravy powder (I know, I know) in a small bowl and filled it with water and whisked the two together. Once the sausages and mushrooms were cooked, I poured this gravy mixture over the top and stirred occassionally until the mixture thickened.

And that was it! Very simple, very quick. While I was cooking the sausages I also steamed some vegetables to have on the side - zucchini, carrots and potatoes which I mashed. Mashed potatoes with Sausages in Onion Gravy is a fantastic combination.
I must admit it tasted a little different to how it usually tastes - I'm guessing this is because of the use of mushrooms instead of onions. It was still very nice, but just not as good as usual.

Recipe Source: Family recipe

Polenta Fries (healthier alternative to Potato Fries)

In my attempt to keep on a vaguelly healthy path I've been eager to find as many healthy recipes as I can. I found this recipe for Polenta Fries through Not Quite Nigella and was excited to try them. I liked the fact they were so much like normal fries, yet apparently healthier! She used a Gorgonzola dipping sauce with hers, which sounds amazing, but I thought I'd try to be a little bit good and refrained myself from making the sauce too.

I haven't had much experience using polenta in my cooking, but I found it was easy to work with. The recipe was a little time consuming - an hour wait for the polenta to sit in the fridge - but really really easy. So if you're happy to wait the hour it takes before you can cook the chips then go ahead. It's well worth it.
In a saucepan I heated the milk, stock and salt until it was nearly boiling. I actually have a confession to make here - when I went to get the ingredients, I didn't have a list with me - there was only a couple of things I needed so why would I need a list?! Well because I thought that I needed chicken stock....when the recipe said vegetable stock. It didn't matter, the recipe still turned out tasting really nice, but I'm curious to see what the difference would have been if I had of added vegetable stock. I'm not sure if there would have been a big difference.....
Anyway, to the milk/stock mixture I added the polenta (make sure you add it in almost a stream - not all at once) and whisked while it was cooking. You'll have to look at the back of the packet to see how long your type of polenta takes to cook - mine took a few minutes. You can tell it's ready when it becomes very thick and comes away from the wall of the saucepan. Once the polenta was cooked I added in the grated cheese and stirred.

I then removed the polenta from the heat and added it to my prepared baking dish. I had this already greased with butter. Once I had the mixture spread out flat in the dish, I cooled it in the fridge for an hour. According to Not Quite Nigella you can leave the tray of polenta in the fridge overnight if you wish, which is good if you want to prepare these in advance.

After an hour, the mixture had set very well and I was able to remove it from the fridge. It came out onto my cutting board very easily and I then cut the polenta into strips to look like chips. I then placed these on a prepared baking tray onto which I'd placed baking paper and sprayed them with a little bit of olive oil.

These then went into the oven (preheated at 220 degrees Celcius) for 25 minutes. I think I could have left them in the oven a little bit longer to get more brown and crispy bits, but I couldn't wait any longer to try them!

And the outcome? Delicious! They looked like fries, but tasted different, however I still really liked them. My Dad was also a big fan - he came back for seconds. I will have to make them again in the future, if only to see if they taste any different with the vegetable stock.

Recipe Source: Not Quite Nigella

Salt and Pepper Calamari

I'm going a little bit healthy with todays post! I've actually been trying to eat healthier lately. I just got back to work a couple of weeks ago because school holidays are over and I felt like I'd been eating too much of the good stuff over my break. So here we are. I promise I'm not going to fill the blog with healthy food - I love my baking too much for that, it's just that every now and then I might add a healthy recipe that I try out. Although this Salt & Pepper Calamari recipe I found goes to show that eating healthy doesn't necessarily mean eating boring food.

This recipe was surprisingly easy. To be honest I've always been very nervous about cooking seafood for some reason. I've heard that it's very easy to overcook, but I'm also afraid that I'll under cook it in my trying not to overcook it! I've tried to cook calamari a couple of times before, but I've never known what to put on it. When I saw this recipe in the Nigella Lawson cookbook 'Nigella Bites' I knew I had to try it. 

I started off by cutting my calamari tubes in half so I could get to the inside. I cleaned out what I needed from the inside of the tubes, although luckily there wasn't much left there. Once I'd done that I sliced each half into rectangular shaped pieces.

Then in a zip lock bag I added the corn flour and ground up salt and pepper which I shook up to combine. I then added the calamari and shook the bag again until the calamari was coated in the flour mixture. 

I added the calamari, in a couple of batches, to a hot frying pan with plenty of oil in it to cook. I only needed to cook the calamari for about 2 minutes on each side before it was ready.

Before I served the calamari I added it to a plate with some paper towel on it to absorb some of the oil. The calamari had crisped up very nicely - it was golden brown, and crunchy because of the corn flour mixture. Then I added it to the plate with a little salad I'd made up. And voila! A very quick, easy, light and healthy meal. Perfect for a hot summers night dinner.

Recipe Source:

'Nigella Bites' by Nigella Lawson

Parker House Rolls

This Christmas seemed to be the year of firsts. Well there was a couple of firsts for me anyway, with cooking in particular. The other first, if you've read previous blog entries you'd know, was the Turkey that I cooked. The second, which I'm going to talk about now was that this was the first time I'd ever made bread from scratch! This was, of course, another Martha Stewart recipe that I'd found. I found a few short video podcasts on iTunes of her cooking some different things and the Parker House Rolls was amongst her Christmas based recipes. The rolls just looked so delicious I couldn't help myself, I had to make them!

Ingredients:
1/4 cup warm water, 100 degrees to 110 degrees
1 packet active dry yeast
3 tbsp sugar plus a pinch
3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus more for plastic wrap, bowl and baking pan
1 cup milk, room temperature
1 tbsp salt
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
4 1/2 to 5 cups plain flour, plus more for dusting

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk together yeast, water and a pinch of sugar. Set aside until mixture is foamy, approx 10 minutes.

2. Attach bowl to mixer fitted with the dough-hook attachment. On low speed, add 7 tbsp melted butter, milk, salt, remaining 3 tbsp sugar, and eggs. Slowly add enough flour to make a sticky dough. Brush the inside of a mixing bowl with butter. Place dough in bowl and cover with buttered plastic wrap. Set aside until doubled in size, about 2 1/2 hours.

3. Generously brush a 9 by 13 inch baking pan with butter. Turn dough out onto a floured work surface. Roll into a 12 by 16 inch rectangle. Brush dough generously with 3 tbsp melted butter. Using a pizza wheel or a sharp knife, cut dough into 6 equal strips lengthwise. Cut dough crosswise into 4 equal sections. You will have 24 elongated rectangles. Fold each rectangle in half, and place in prepared baking pan, 4 across, and 6 down. Brush tops with remaining 3 tbsp melted butter. Cover pan with buttered plastic wrap. Set aside to ride until dough does not spring back when pressed with a finger 25 to 30 minutes.

4. Heat oven to 180 degrees. Bake until golden, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool for at least 5 minutes before turning out of pan. Brush again with melted butter before serving.

I was really happy with how these rolls turned out. They were so buttery and warm and soft that it was hard to stop at one (or two). Someone even mentioned that the rolls reminded them of croissants, I think because of the buttery flavour. The only problem I had was that because we had so much food for our Christmas lunch not all the rolls got eaten. I went back to have another one later that night and found that they'd already started to go a little hard. So these rolls are good if you've got a large group of people and you know they're going to get eaten pretty much straight away, but not if you want them the next day. 

Pecan Cornbread Stuffing

Step two of the Turkey making process for Christmas was the stuffing. I was able to put most of this together the day before Christmas and then added the liquid ingredients Christmas day so it wasn't too soggy beforehand. This was the stuffing recommended to go with the brown sugar and mustard glazed turkey that I was cooking. I have a love for American foods, especially those like red velvet cakes, pecan pies etc. and this stuffing recipe just sounded so American and therefore very fascinating to me.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

4 tbsp butter, plus more for baking dish

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 celery stalks, finely chopped

salt and pepper

1/2 cup dry white wine

16 cups cubed store-bought cornbread or 1 recipe buttermilk cornbread

3 tbsp finely chopped fresh sage

3 large eggs, beaten

2 cups reduced salt chicken stock, heated

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Spread pecans on a large baking sheet, and toast until fragrant, 3 to 5 minutes; set aside. In a large frying pan, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and celery, season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 8 to 10 minutes. Add wine, and cook until evaporated 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl; let cool slightly.

2. To bowl, add cornbread, sage, eggs and pecans. Season with 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt and pepper. Pour 1/2 cup hot stock over cornbread mixture. Toss gently. If necessary, add up to 1/2 cup more brother so stuffing is moist but not soggy.

3. If stuffing turkey, set aside 4 cups of stuffing. Spoon remaining dressing into a buttered baking dish. Pour up to 1 cup remaining broth over top to moisten. Bake, covered, for 30 minutes; uncover and bake until browned, about 15 minutes more. 

Buttermilk Cornbread

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year eveyone! I hope you all had a great holiday season and ate way too much delicious food like I did! I'm finally getting a chance to post about all the cooking I did over Christmas and in the past week for both my nephew and brother in law's birthdays.

My family usually gets together about a month before Christmas so we can work out the Christmas menu and who will be cooking what. My list this year included 2 desserts, Turkey and rolls. We usually go for the turkey breast roll for Christmas, just because it's easy and always turns out really well. It's very moist and yummy. This year, however, I decided to do something different and buy and cook a turkey for the first time in my life! I was a little nervous about it, especially about getting the cooking times right but in the end I was really happy with how it turned out. I chose a Martha Stewart recipe for my Turkey, which had a brown sugar and mustard glaze and a pecan cornbread dressing (or stuffing).

A few days before Christmas I decided to cook the Buttermilk Cornbread mainly so it was one less thing I had to cook on Christmas day. I live in Australia where ready made cornbread isn't accessible, so I had to cook my own.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted, plus more for baking pan

1 cup yellow cornmeal

1 cup plain flour

1/4 cup caster sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 205 degrees Celsius. Grease a square baking pan. In a bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking power, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, whisk together buttermilk, butter and eggs. Add to flour mixture and stir just until combined. Transfer to baking pan and smooth top.

2. Bake until a toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean, from 20 to 25 minutes. Let bread cool on a wire rack before serving.

This bread was a lot easier to make than I had imagined. I actually snuck a taste of it and I thought it tasted really nice on it's own too. It was a relief to get something out of the way before Christmas and step one of the Turkey making out of the way.

Dip Recipes

I work in a High School Library and at the end of every year we hold an afternoon tea for the rest of the staff. It's a way to wind down at the end of the year, plus show off the Library and our new books to the teachers. We always order in our food and then each make a couple of things ourselves. This year, since most of what we'd ordered was sweet things, we decided that we'd make some savoury things ourselves. I decided to make a couple of dips, both which ended up being pretty popular! To be honest I'm not sure what these dips are called, or whether they even have a name as they were passed on through a friend of the family, and an Aunt. But here are the recipes and pictures anyway.

Cob Loaf Dip Ingredients:
2 grated carrots
3/4 block Kraft Cheddar Cheese (you usually get this from the 'spreads' part of the supermarket where the vegemite etc. is)
300g sour cream (you can add more if you need to)
1 chicken stock cube
2 spring onion

1. Grate carrot and cheese and add to your bowl with the chopped spring onion. Stir in sour cream, bit by bit until the carrot and cheese is wet and combined together. Add stock cube and stir.

2. Cut the top off a cob loaf and pull out the inside. Pour the dip into the middle of the cob loaf. Tear the bread you took from the top and inside of the cob loaf and serve scattered around the cob loaf. 

I waited until the last minute to add the dip to the cob loaf because I was afraid that it might get a little too soggy. You can also toast the cob loaf before you put the dip in, but I couldn't this time because I wasn't serving it straight away. But the dip with warm bread is really good.

Aunt Bev's dip ingredients: (sorry about the name - I couldn't think up something creative on the spot and I'm not sure what it's actually called. If anyone know's please let me know so I can change this! lol)

125g cream cheese

2 gherkins

2 spring onions

1 tin diced capsicum

1 tbsp mayonnaise 

salt and pepper to taste

Sesame Seeds

Make sure cream cheese is at room temperature. Mix all (except sesame seeds) ingredients together well. Place in your serving bowl or dish and smooth over the top. Sprinkle over sesame seeds until the dip is covered.

I actually doubled the mixture for the second dip so it would go further. It usually makes a smaller serving of the dip than the cob loaf recipe, although it's enough if you have a smaller group of people (we had around 60 people at our function).

I can't recommend these dips enough. They were both so easy and quick to make, and quite inexpensive too. I got a lot of compliments from the staff at work about these and most of both were all gone by the end of the afternoon.