Beef and Broccolini Noodle Stir Fry

My magazine cull yielded many recipe treasures, which I am now storing in a large box.  Some of the recipes are for baking (of course!), others are for special occasions, while others are for day to day use.

One of the day to day recipes that I found was a terrific low fat Beef and Broccolini Noodle Stir Fry from p86 of the February 2009 edition of Delicious magazine.

This recipe is simple, quick and tasty - perfect for a weeknight meal.

To make this stir fry, you will need:

400g fresh egg noodles
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup oyster sauce
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
2 crushed garlic cloves
1 tablespoon grated ginger
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 bunches broccolini, trimmed
1 tablespoon oil
400g lean beef mince
4 spring onions, sliced
sesame seeds to serve

Mix the sauces with the garlic, ginger and vinegar in a small bowl.

Cook broccolini in boiling salted water until bright green and slightly crisp.  Drain and set aside.

Heat the oil in a wok add the beef and stir fry for 2-3 minutes until browned and cooked through.  Add the noodles, sauce, broccolini and spring onions and stir fry for 1 minute or until heated through.

Sprinkle the stir fry with sesame seeds and extra spring onions, if desired.

Lighter beef korma

I am a girl who likes to eat - not like Andrew Denton, just for fuel, but because I really, really enjoy it.  I love trying new things, and discovering heretofore unknown delicacies.  I used to be just a sweets kind of girl, but  now I like my savoury dishes just as much. 

When one loves their food, portion control and balancing fat/sugar/calories are important.  It is something that I don't always do well.  Fresh out of university, I share-flatted with a girl who made dinner every night because she got home much earlier than me.  It was brilliant to come home and find dinner on the table.  However, as we were both learning about cooking, the serving sizes were enormous, and gradually, my weight crept up.  I became even plumper when I worked for a posh firm that entertained clients with three course lunches on a regular basis.  I revelled in the new found delights of eating out at fancy restaurants (for free!), and eagerly always went for all three courses when they were offered.  The real blow-out point for me came when I went on secondment to a large city interstate, and had a glorious time trying out all the new foods that were on offer in the much more multi-cultural environment.  These factors, combined with my love for lollies and chocolates, resulted in my weight soaring to new heights.  The great thing for me was, at  that time, I didn't really care - I felt well and happy, and being a heavier girl did not bother me.

Cue unrelated lower back pain after wrenching my back, and my then GP said "it would help if you lost 20kg".  I asked him how to do that, and his reply was that if he knew, he'd be a wealthy man.  Thanks, what a helpful response!  The possibility of easing my back pain meant that I was prepared to try anything, so my weight loss journey began.  Weight Watchers only got me so far before I plateaued and never lost any more weight; I also hated the faux religious experience of the group sessions.  After giving up on the weight loss project for a while, I went to see a dietitian, who helped me to lose that 20kg, and I kept it off for around 8 years.  Then the weight crept on again - not to the levels that I had previously reached, but I was certainly heavier than was good for my health.  This time, dietitians were not the answer - I saw two of them, and unfortunately, the "mindful eating" mantra doesn't really help me.  So, my most recent weight loss was facilitated by a naturopath, who gave me some handy tips on what to eat to feel fuller and what kind of snacks to eat.

As you can see from my blog, I am not following the strict naturopath prescribed diet anymore, but I hope that by balancing this with that, I can keep the weight off.

This is a long-winded way to get to today's dish.  I like a good curry, but unfortunately, many Indian restaurant curries are full of cream and oil and other things that are not very waistline-friendly.  Like everything else, it is OK to splurge on them once in a while, but they are not suitable for eating every night.  I recently acquired Make It Lighter by Angela Nilsen, which contains recipes for food favourites that are lower in fat/calories/sugar etc than the standard version.  Angela's book features a recipe for Chicken Korma, so curry-loving me jumped at the chance to make it.  However, I substituted the chicken for beef.  Angela swaps cream for yoghurt and limits the oils in the cooking  process, resulting in a dish that is lower in fat and calories than a traditional korma.  Best of all, it is delish - rich and fragrant and satisfying.  The only thing I'd do differently next time is not put the whole cardamom pods in, as I found it hard to find them to fish them out at the end, and there is nothing quite like biting down on a cardamom pod - blek!

The recipe has been published in The Washington Post, so if you would like to try this korma (whether with chicken or beef or whatever else you fancy!),  you can find it online here.

Biggest Loser Chocolate Cupcakes for My Birthday

It was my birthday recently, and as it seemed a bit sad not to have a cake, I made my own chocolate cupcakes, pictured above.

To make these cupcakes, I took the Biggest Loser Chocolate Fudge Cake and made it into 12 cupcakes and one mini heart cake, then iced them with plain old water icing (icing sugar, cocoa, water).  I think they look pretty.

While the cake is obviously not as sumptuous as a normal chocolate cake, at only 98 calories per serving (12 serves per recipe), it is a very good alternative.  I didn't find the cake dry this time - perhaps I slightly overbaked it last time.  However, don't expect moist, mud-like cake - it is more like a pound cake in consistency.

I topped the cupcakes with Lindt chocolates:

Aren't the cupcake papers gorgeous - I bought them in San Francisco last year when I was shopping at Sur La Table with Patty:

 

It was a fun way to celebrate "my" day.

FFWD - Dieter's Tartine

Welcome to another French Friday with Dorie. This week's recipe is Dieter's Tartine.

This dish is comprised of toasted sourdough topped with cottage cheese (I left out the sour cream), cucumber , tomato, salt and pepper and chives. It tasted really good - better than I had thought it would. I would never have tried this on my own.

To see what the other Doristas thought, visit the LYL section of the website.

Patty's White Chocolate and Ginger Cookies

I have been feeling a little world weary lately, so I decided to bake some cookies, despite the heat, to cheer me up.  A little while back, I had seen some White Chocolate and Ginger Cookies on Patty's blog, Patty's Food, and printed off the recipe.  I have also had the pleasure of meeting Patty, and I shared a lovely lunch with her when I was in San Francisco last year.

How could you go wrong with white chocolate and crystallised ginger in a cookie? They sounded fab. Also, they are low cal - making them a guilt free treat in my book.

I whipped up these cookies fairly quickly, and was surprised that I actually got 24 cookies, as the recipe states.  Normally, I get more or less cookies than the recipe states, so these impressed me from the start.

Now, if you are hunkering for a massive cookie to sink your teeth into, these are not it.  Only one teaspoon of cookie dough goes into each cookie, so these cookies are more of a bite sized delicacy than a man sized munchie.  However, doesn't that actually mean you can eat more of them??

I really liked these cookies, and their Weight-Watchers friendly nature is a bonus for someone like me who expands on the sight of food.  Thanks for sharing this treat with us Patty!

Chocolate Fudge Cake for Lee's Birthday

Today is my colleague Lee's 40th birthday.  Happy birthday Lee!  Lee is hosting a wonderful party for the occasion, into which she has put so much effort and planning.  I don't think I have put so much effort into anything since I ceased having to choose then timetable University subjects.  I hope Lee has a magnificent evening.

To celebrate Lee's birthday, I made her a cake for work.  Lee is on a weight loss plan at present, so I made her a Low Fat Chocolate Fudge Cake from the Australian Women's Weekly 501 Low Fat Recipes.  You can find the recipe online here.

This is the cake before frosting:

However, a birthday cake is not a birthday cake without decoration, so I made it a little less low fat by making up a frosting with low fat cream cheese (250g) and icing sugar (100g).  The decorations are writing gel, silver cachous and crystallised violets.

This is what the cake looks like once sliced: 

Lee seemed to enjoy her cake - glad she liked it.

Have a great weekend all.

Endings & Beginnings - Nectarine Slice

As I write this, I am feeling shattered. No, nothing personal has happened. Rather, I have just watched the last episode of Dr Who featuring David Tennant as the Doctor. David was the tenth Doctor, and has been my favourite Doctor.


I was watching in the beginning of the tenth Doctor's reign, when Christopher Eccleston's angry Doctor morphed into David Tennant's Doctor. I was there when he was choosing his wardrobe - I loved the chocolate pinstripe suit, the long brown trench coat, Converse trainers and spiky hairdo. And I particularly enjoyed the episodes featuring the Doctor with the feisty Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) as his companion.


So tonight, for me, it was gut-wrenching to see the Doctor save the world again, only to "die", not directly at the hands of The Master (John Simm), but to save Wilf from a high radiation device created by The Master in which Wilf had become trapped. Before regenerating, the Doctor dropped in on his old pals on Earth, so we had some final glimpses of Martha, Rose and Donna, the tenth Doctor's companions. The end of the episode showed the Doctor regenerating into his new incarnation (Matt Smith). Sorry Matt, my heart stays with the tenth Doctor.


The years of the tenth Doctor have seen a lot of change for me in my life, so I felt a little like I was reviewing those years as the end of the tenth Doctor's reign played out on screen. It caused me to reflect on the good, the bad and the ugly over that period, and wonder if I had done x instead of y, how my life might be different. Would it be better? Would it be worse? I will never know. I try not to think too hard about it, because these are questions with no answers, and I have to deal with the reality of where I am here and now, and not waste time on regrets or "what ifs".


To mark the occasion, I wanted to post a recipe somehow relating to the tenth Doctor, but unfortunately I could not unearth any particular food preferences of this Doctor. Tom Baker's Doctor was rather fond of jelly babies, as were a couple of other Doctors after him, and even The Master was featured guzzling jelly babies in a deft tip of his hat to previous Doctors. However, the tenth Doctor's preferences in food shall forever remain a mystery to me.


Instead, I am going to post the recipe for the slice I made today for no other reason than I had the ingredients on hand. It's a bit like life itself really - for most of us, there are no big bang beginnings or endings, just a continuum of everyday events, some good, some bad, some neither.


This recipe is for Nectarine Slice, out of a recent edition of Woman's Day magazine. I'm not sure of the exact date, because I copied the recipe from one of my mother's magazines during a recent visit, knowing that I had a tray of 7 juicy nectarines in my fridge, waiting to be used.


For the weight conscious, this recipe is low fat, and together with the fruit, is positively healthy - well, almost. It smells devine while baking because of the brown sugar in the batter - a lovely, caramel smell.


To make your own Nectarine Slice, you will need:


125g low fat spread (I used Devondale Light)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups self-raising flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup light evaporated milk
6 nectarines, seeded and sliced (I only needed 3!)
icing sugar for dusting


Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and grease and line with baking paper an 18cm x 28cm slice tin. Leave the baking paper overhang by around 5cm on each long side so that you can use it to lift the slice out of the pan once baked.


Sift the flour and cinnamon together into a bowl and set aside.


Using a stand mixer, beat the butter, sugar and vanilla extract together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.


Add the flour and evaporated milk to the batter alternately, using a rubber spatula to fold them in.


Spread the batter evenly into the slice tin. Press nectarine slices decoratively into the top of the batter, then bake the slice in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes or until cooked through. (I think that granulated sugar sprinkled on the nectarines just before baking would be lovely.)


Remove the cooked slice from the oven, and allow it to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before lifting it out, using the overhanging baking paper, and allow it to cool completely on a wire rack.


Dust the cooled slice with icing sugar, and cut into ~ 16 squares.

Pumpkin apple spice bread

Are your teeth aching after yesterday's Daring Bakers and TWD posts? Feeling the need for some powerful antacids? That's OK, this post tones it all down and goes back to a much less sweet, much more weight-friendly recipe in the form of a Pumpkin Apple Spice Bread, courtesy of Jill at Strawberry Spice.


Because it is autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, and with pumpkin-friendly Halloween and Thanksgiving coming up, there are loads of amazing pumpkin recipes popping up all over the blogosphere at the moment. As a child, I loathed pumpkin, and I only tried it again because I lived at a University residential college for 5 years, where it was eat your veges or starve! Pumpkin was one of the only pleasant surprises that we were served, and I am now a confirmed pumpkin fan.


This pumpkin apple spice bread (a cake, really) is not only delicious, but it is low in fat. It is also very forgiving, because in my absent-mindedness, I only added two egg whites instead of four, and it held together just fine.


To make this wonderful cake, you can find the recipe here. Apart from the accidental reduction in egg whites, my other tinkering consisted of using some stewed apple I had in the freezer instead of fresh apple, and replacing the raisins with currants and the pecans with cashews, for no other reason than that is what I had lying around.





This cake is delicious both warm and at room temperature. What else can I say - if you like pumpkin, make this cake!

Slow Roasted Lamb & Chicken and Borlotti Bean Stew

Happy Friday everyone! It's a good one for me because for the first weekend in ages, I don't have anywhere that I have to be or anything that I have to do. I am looking forward to spending my time tracking down some TWD ingredients which are exotic for Brisbane and to going to a Craft Fair to hopefully pick up some craft bargains (for all that craft that I do in my non-existent spare time, he, he).

To mix things up a bit, I am going to share a couple of main meals that I made recently - my true love is baked goods, but I enjoy cooking a good meal as well.

At the top of this post, I have featured in its uncooked state a leg of lamb that has been marinaded in accordance with Clotilde's recipe for Slow Roasted Shoulder of Lamb rubbed with Rosemary, Anchovy and Lemon Zest. Lamb shoulder is not within the province of my supermarket, so I made do with a leg of lamb. The little seeds you can see are mustard seeds, which I had a hard time buying - I went to three supermarkets before I found some.

I made this lamb when I had some friends over for dinner a little while ago. I have to tell you, this lamb tastes magnificent!!! My lamb marinated for a couple of days, and the flavour in the finished product (which I neglected to photograph) was devine. I served it with beans and jewelled couscous, and it was a hit. I don't like my lamb pink inside (it's an Australian thing), so I pumped up the heat for the last hour or so to ensure that the meat was lightly browned all the way through. Some of you may shudder at this, but I can assure you that it did not take away from the flavour in any way, and my guests seemed appreciative.



The next meal that I will share with you is Chicken and Borlotti Bean Stew. The recipe came under a slightly different name from p140 of the November edition of Australian Good Food. Now I know that you don't want me to bang on about calories, fat etc, as this is after all primarily a baking blog, but this meal is low in both, but still tastes good. The only change that I would have made is to season it with salt and pepper (the recipe is trying to be uber-healthy and doesn't talk about seasoning), but it is both hearty and delicious - a keeper for me.

To make this stew, you will need:

1 tablespoon olive oil
600g halved chicken thigh fillets
1 chopped onion
2 garlic cloves
2 cups (500ml) chicken stock
400g can borlotti beans, drained and rinsed
400g can crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon sage
2 sprigs thyme (I used rosemary 'cause that's what I had)
400g halved baby potatoes

Heat the oil in a wok or deep fry pan, then brown the chicken in batches and set aside.

Cook the onion in the same pan until soft and translucent, then add the garlic and cook until it too is soft. Add the stock, beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, sage and thyme, and bring the stwe to the boil. Add the chicken and potatoes to the pan, reduce te heat, and simmer for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are soft. Serve with salad greens.

Have a great weekend!

World Bread Day 2009 - Carrot Walnut Loaf

My how time flies when you're having fun. I cannot believe that it has been 12 months since the last World Bread Day. However, today is indeed World Bread Day 2009, and is once again hosted by Zorra of Kochtopf. To participate, all you have to do is to bake or buy bread of any kind and blog about it - simple!

Until I started blogging, I would never have dreamed of baking bread, but I am so glad that it is an art I have discovered - the variety and flavour of bread that you make yourself surpasses any supermarket bread, and you would be amazed at how easy it is. The biggest trick is making yeasted bread on cold days, when the yeast needs a little help to get going.

This year, I have made an unyeasted Carrot & Walnut Bread. The recipe comes from page 46 of the November 2009 edition of Australian Good Food magazine. Now, the bread in the photo is rustic to the extreme, and I found it a little off-putting. However, I am so glad that I ignored the photo and forged ahead - this bread is moist and delicious, with a wonderful crunchy texture from the walnuts. It actually reminded me more of a cake than a bread because it was so sweet and moist.

I did have one hitch with this bread in that the 30 minute baking time in the recipe was clearly not long enough in my case. I thought that my bread was ready at that stage, but the next day when I was cutting it into slices for work, I discovered to my horror that the middle section of the bread was still uncooked in the centre. Dang - all that lovely bread went into the bin. However, the end parts which were cooked through and which I did get to eat were fantastic. I would definitely make this bread again.

If you would like to make this bread for yourself, you will need:

2 1/3 cups plain flour
1 cup wholemeal plain flour
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1 teaspoon salt
1 grated carrot
1/4 cup toasted chopped walnuts
1 cup low fat yoghurt (I just used low fat vanilla)
1/2 cup skim milk

Preheat your oven to 230 degrees Celsius, and line a baking tray with a silicone baking mat or baking paper.

Sift the flours, baking soda and salt together into a bowl, then add the carrots and walnuts. Mix well.

Stir the yoghurt and milk into the flour mixture to form a soft, sticky dough. (I found that I had to add some water to make the dough moist enough to work with. I also find that using my hands to mix the dough is easier than using a spoon or a knife.)

Turn the dough out onto a floured bench and knead into a large round or oval shape. Place the dough onto the prepared baking tray and make shallow diagonal slashes across the top of the dough with a sharp knife or box cutter.

Place the bread into the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown and hollow sounding. (You may need longer than this - I should have!)

Remove the bread from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack before serving slices smeared with butter.

Do check Zorra's site for the World Bread Day 2009 roundup here.

Banana Date Muffins

Good morning!! We had muffins with Dorie yesterday (and weren't they delicious!); today we are having more muffins - banana date muffins to be precise.

This recipe comes from the Perth Diet Clinic, and is perfect for diabetics, but also for people like me who want to try and stop spare tyre spread before it goes further. You can find the recipe here.

These muffins are a cinch to make, and are a great way to use up those aging bananas languishing in your fruit bowl. They also taste scrummy. I love dates, even just the cheap cooking dates, so I am in for any recipe that incorporates them.

I wouldn't say that these muffins are as wonderful as Dorie's buttery allspice crumb muffins with their crispy streusel topping, but they are pretty damn fine, and a more diet-friendly alternative if you are watching your weight or have special dietary needs. This makes them a winner in my books.

Have a great Wednesday!

Boris's Birthday - "Healthy" Black Devil's Food Cake

Birthdays at my work always come in twos and threes, and so it was last week. Chris celebrated his birthday on the Monday, followed by our gym junkie, Boris, on the Tuesday. Now Boris is a big guy - not quite as pumped as Arnie in his day, but you get the idea. This means that you do not mess with Boris.

Boris likes to look after himself, and prefers lower calorie cakes than I would normally make. He loves the chocolate date cake, made with silken tofu, but I refuse to make that again, especially as I have already made it twice, once for him especially. This means I had to get creative and do a little Google searching for a suitable cake for Boris's birthday. After following a few false leads, I came across a recipe for Black Devil's Food Cake, which is stated to be low in fat and cholesterol. Perfect!

As you can see, it is a lovely tall chocolatey cake, which I added a few more calories to by frosting it with cream cheese frosting (albeit light cream cheese):

What the pictures do not reveal is how lovely and moist this cake is inside. I will attribute this to the applesauce used in the cake. It was so moist and dark that some people thought this cake contained booze (it didn't).

If you are looking for a naughty but nice option for a birthday cake that is not as aesthetically challenged as the chocolate date cake, then this could be the recipe for you.

Taking us back into the realms of the naughty, here is a slice of a wonderful bread pudding that I purchased from Eugenie French Cake Shop at 192 Commercial Road, Prahran:

This is a fabulous slab consisting of stale brioche melded together with custard and sultanas, and decorated with icing sugar. You get a hefty slice for just over $3. It is magnificent, but don't eat it before dinner, or you'll definitely spoil your appetite.

Two birthdays - Primavera cake and chocolate mud cake

It was a busy week for birthdays in our office last week - which meant there was a lot of baking, but not much blogging, at my end. We had two birthday boys to follow up Sue - there was Luke on Wednesday and Lee on Thursday. Because I am seconded two days a week, I made both cakes for Wednesday so that no-one misses out (and nor do I ;)).

The cake pictured at the top of this post is the Primavera - genoise filled with pastry cream, soaked with rum and topped with fruit, and finally glazed with apricot jam. I chose this cake for Lee because it is not only beautiful, but low fat (although apparently Lee has given up the dietary concerns). I was a little heavy-handed with the rum, so it was stronger than I expected (and blew poor non-drinking Valar away!), but was still a very nice cake.

It's a bit fussy to make, but visually is worth it. You could easily skip the alcohol with no ill effects (it may even improve the taste, depening on what your preference is). The recipe, from Alice Medrich's Chocolate and the Art of Low Fat Desserts, is as follows:

Genoise

2 1/2 tabelspoons butter
1 cup sifted cake flour
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
3 eggs
2 egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pastry cream

3 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons plain flour
4 teaspoons cornflour
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 cup skim milk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

To finish

6 tablespoons rum (or in my case, a little more)
2 cups berries or sliced soft fruits (eg kiwi fruit, mango)
1/2 cup strained apricot jam

To make the genoise:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and grease and line a 9 inch cake tin.

Melt the butter in a sacuepan and simmer until the sizzling subsides and the butter turns golden brown, and strain the mixture through a paper-towel lined strainer, and keep the mixture hot until needed. (For the record, I used olive oil spread instead of butter and I didn't strain it.)

Mix the sifted flour with the 2 tablespoons of sugar and set aside.

In a heatproof mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, egg whites and 1/2 cup of sugar together, then place the bowl over a saucepan full of simmering water on the stovetop and heat until the mixture is lukewarm. Remove the warm eggs from the heat, then beat with an electric mixer at high speed until the mixture cools, lightens and triples in volume. While this is happening, reheat the melted butter to ensure it is hot and stir the vanilla extract through it.

Sift one third of the flour over the egg mixture, and fold it through with a rubber spatula. Next, fold through half the remaining flour, and then the remainder of the flour. Put one cup of batter into a large bowl into which the melted butter has been poured and fold it through, then fold the remainder of the batter into the mixture.

Scoop the batter into the prepared tin, and bake for abouit 25 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool the cake in the tin on a wire rack, then unmould it. The cake may be stored on the bench wrapped well for about a day, but be careful - I wrapped mine in cling film, and when I unwrapped it, half of the surface crust of the cake pulled away.

To make the pastry cream:

Mix the flour, sugar and cornflour together in a small bowl. Add the egg and egg yolk, and beat until the mixture is pale and thick.

Warm the milk until nearly but not quite boiling in a saucepan on the stovetop or in the microwave, then pour it over the egg mixture, whisking constantly to ensure the eggs don't cook. Put the resulting misture in a saucepan and stir it over mnedium heat on the stovetop until it becomes a thick custard, whisk in the vanilla extract, then place the mixture into a clean bowl to cool, then cover and refrigerate until needed. (Can be made up to 2 days ahead.)



To assemble the cake:

Cut out a cardboard circle the same diameter as the cake, and place the cake on the cardboar circle. Using a saucepan lid, plate or other round object about 7 inches in diameter as a guide, cut a ring from the centre of the cake, leaving a 2 inch wide "donut" shaped outer cake.

Cut the small inner cake into 3 layers (I cut it into just 2, and it was fine for levelling purposes). If you have three layers, keep 2 only. Put one of those layers into the hole in the cake, and soak it and the inner sides of the cake ring with rum using a pastry brush.

Reserve one third of the pastry cream and set aside, then spread the rest over the well in the centre of the cake, including up the sides. (My pastry cream was way too thick to do this without wrecking the delicate cake, so I just spread it on the bottom.) Moisten the second cake layer with rum, and plac the moist side down on top of the pastry cream, and press down on it to level it out. Spread the remaining pastry cream over the top of the second layer, but do not spread it on the outer ring of cake. Moisten the top and sides of the cake with rum.

On serving day, arrange the fruit on top of the inner circle of cake where the pastry cream is spread so as to conceal the join, but leaving a visible outer ring of cake. Simmer the apricot jam then strain it to make a glaze, and brush it over the top and sides of the cake and the fruit. Refrigerate the cake for a couple of hours or until ready to serve.


For Luke, I made chocolate brandy mud cake:



I have made this cake before, and you can find the recipe here.

Ultimately, there was something for everyone, and I enjoyed both cakes (although taste-wise, I found the rum in the Primavera little over-powering!). Happy birthday guys!

Fat Chefs or Skinny Gourmets? Stir Fried Pork and Noodles

Ivy of Kopiaste and Ben of What's Cooking? are hosting an event called Fat Chefs or Skinny Gourmets? For this event, you have to make a dish that you consider to be "diet food" for its nutritious value (high in vitamins and other nutrients and low in calories).

For this one, I dug out my trusty The Australian Womens Weekly 501 Low Fat Recipes. The hardest thing was deciding what to make, as so many of the options sound good. I chose a dish called Stir Fried Pork and Noodles, but my version steers away from the recipe because (a) I added carrots, which are not in the original; and (b) when I came to make it, I remembered that I had run out of soy sauce, and found that my oyster sauce has been abducted by aliens - it was nowhere to be found. I substituted hoisin sauce and fish sauce instead (yup, no relation to the originals, but they were in the cupboard).

The end result was really yummy and filling - it just goes to show that most dishes are fairly forgiving, and unless you choose "out there" flavours, you can get away with almost anything. Because of all the veges and the low fat content, and the fact that there are less than 2000kj per serve (according to the recipe), this dish falls within my definition of "diet food".

To make this dish, you will need:

250g fresh hokkien noodles
2 teaspoons canola oil
1 teaspoon crushed garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons Chinese 5-spice powder
500g pork fillets, thinly sliced
1 capsicum, sliced thinly
2 carrots, sliced thinly
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
2 teaspoons cornflour blended with just enough cold water to make a thick paste
1 1/3 cups chicken stock
6 shallots, sliced
1/2 a wombok (Chinese cabbage), thinly sliced

Heat half the oil in a large wok or frypan, and stir fry the garlic and 5-spice powder until just fragrant. Add the pork, and stir fry until browned. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add the remainder of the oil to the pan, and stir fry the capsicum and carrot until soft. Add the pork back to the pan with the sauces, cornflour and chicken stock and stir fry until the mixture starts to boil and thicken. Add the noodles, shallots and wombok, and stir fry until heated through. Enjoy while still hot.

Thanks to Ivy and Ben for hosting this event. You can check out the roundup of great diet dishes here.

Low fat chocolate marbled cheesecake

Lee works in our accounts section. He is lots of fun to work with, and really cares about helping out, even if our business colleagues are sometimes unappreciative of his efforts. Lee is on a diet and looks wistfully at my cakes each week, so he asked if I could make something low fat so that he could have some. Having recently acquired a second hand copy of Alice Medrich's Chocolate and the Art of Low Fat Desserts, I was very happy to oblige. Lee selected Alice's Chocolate Marbled Cheesecake, which as you can see from the photograph above, is a rather gorgeous looking dessert.

You can make your own low fat cheesecake as follows:

2 cups low fat cottage cheese
250g light cream cheese
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla essence
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cocoa, sifted
1/4 teaspoon instant coffee
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons hot water
4 tablespoons crushed chocolate biscuit crumbs

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Line the base of an 8 inch spring form pan with a circle of baking paper, and spray the sides with canola oil. Wrap the outside of the pan tightly in 3 layers of alfoil.

Blitz the cottage cheese in a food processor for 3 minutes until totally smooth (this is the secret of the dish, according to Alice). Soften the cream cheese by warming the cream chese in a micriwave on high for about 30 seconds, and stir until smooth, then add to the cottage cheese in the food processor with the eggs, sugar, vanilla essence, lemon juice and salt. Blitz the mixture on the food processor until smooth.

In a jug, whisk together the cocoa, coffee, sugar and hot water. Take a cup of the cheesecake batter and add to the chocolate mixture, and stir until combined.

Pour three quarters of the white cheesecake batter into the prepared pan. Next, pour the chocolate cheesecake batter into the middle of the white batter, so that is forms a circle of chocolate on top of the white, but leaving a thick ring of white batter surrounding it. Finally, take the last of the white cheesecake batter and pur it into the centre of the chocolate batter, leaving a thin ring of chocolate around the last white addition. Next, get a thin knife or skewer and make circular swipes through the batter to marble the colours (but don't over-mix unless you want an all-chocolate cheesecake!).

Boil a kettle of water. Put the cheesecake pan into a baking dish, and pour boiling water around the cheesecake into the baking dish (carefully so as not to get any into the cheesecake itself) to a depth of 3cm. Carefully slide the baking dish containing the cheesecake and water into the preheated oven, and bake for around 45 minutes.

Remove the cheesecake from the oven, take it out of the oven dish and place it on a wire rack to cool. Once the cheesecake has cooled to room temperature, cover and chill it in the refrigerator for at least half a day.

To serve, release the cheesecake from the springform pan and press the crushed biscuit crumbs evenly around the sides of the cheesecake (which is admittedly a rather messy and wasteful task). Cut the cheesecake with a knife dipped in hot water and wiped dry between cuts for a smooth, even finish.

While this cheesecake is not, in my view, as good as the full fat version, it is really delicious, and looks amazing. One colleague told me that she liked it better than the full fat equivalent, which is terrific. Accordingly, even if you are counting fat and calories, you don't have to miss out on favourite desserts like cheesecake - which is good news for all of us.

Low fat lasagne

On a cool night, there is nothing like lasagne to warm you inside and out. Although I am not afraid to eat the full fat version of lasagne, I am in favour of healthier eating, so the lasagne pictured above is a reduced-fat version made from a recipe in Eat Well Live Well with Diabetes. I am not a diabetic, but I purchased this book for its great low GI, low fat recipes.

I find making lasagne rather time consuming, so I do not make it often. This version contains a lot of vegetables which have to be chopped, making the preparation time longer than for other versions of lasagne that I have made. While this dish tasted fine, I like my tried and tested lasagne recipe, in which white sauce is layered with the meat and pasta, better, as it gives a moister result.

If you are interested in making this reduced fat lasagne, you will need:

2 teaspoons cooking oil
1 chopped onion
2 chopped carrots
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 chopped zucchinis
2 crushed garlic cloves
500g lean beef mince
800g tinned chopped tomatoes
125ml beef stock
2 tabslespoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 packet instant lasagne sheets

Cheese Sauce

750ml skim milk
1/3 cup cornflour
100g low fat grated cheese

Cook the onion in the oil on the stovetop until the onion is soft. Add the celery, carrot and zucchini to the pan and cook until the vegetabkles are soft, then add the garlic and cook for a further minute. Add the mince to the pan and stir while cooking until the mince has browned. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, stock and oregano to the pan, season to taste with salt and pepper and combine well. Bring the meat sauce to the boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring from time to time.

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Put a layer of lasagne sheets in the bottom of a well oiled lasagne dish, then top with a third of the meat sauce; cover with another layer of lasagne sheets, and a further third of the meat sauce; repeat once more. Top the final layer of meat sauce with another layer of lasagne sheets.

Make a cheese sauce by forming a smooth paste with the cornflour and some of the milk in a small saucepan over low heat, then gradually add the rest of the milk, stirring constantly, until the sauce boils and thickens. Remove the sauce from the heat and stir through the grated cheese while the sauce is still hot.

Spoon the sauce over the top of the lasagne, then place in the pre-heated oven and bake for one hour. Remove the lasagne from the oven and allow to sit for around 10 minutes before slicing and serving with salad or vegetables. Enjoy!

WTSIM - Warm Tuna Salad with passionfruit, dragon fruit, almond and mustard

Recently, I learned about the existence of the dragon fruit (also known as the pitaya) from Pixie's post on them. I loved the beauty of this fruit, and decided that if I found one in my travels, I would try it.

Lo and behold, this week, my local Safeway had dragon fruit for sale at the not so bargain price of $16.70 a kilo. Undeterred, I bought my very own dragon fruit to try for just under $7. Unfortunately, this means that experiencing the lovely dragon fruit will be a once in a blue moon thing for me, but I am glad that I took the plunge.

The beautiful dragon fruit comes from a variety of cactus, and if you would like to see it in all its glory, do visit Pixie's post at the link above. Ordinarily, the skin of the dragon fruit is a vibrant magenta. Mine was a little the worse for wear after being left to its own devices in the fruit bowl for 4 days:

Even though the skin of my dragon fruit had started to brown (only later did I find out that you are supposed to chill them!), it thankfully didn't affect the edible flesh inside:

My dragon fruit was of the more common white variety, but there are other varieties with different coloured flesh (including a lovely dark pink to match the skin). The tiny black seeds that dot the flesh are edible.

Given that I won't be buying dragon fruit on a regular basis, I decided to try it au naturel as well as in a dish.

On its own, I agree with the general consensus among food bloggers that the dragon fruit tastes somewhat similar to kiwi fruit, but without the tart acidity of the latter. Some bloggers found them to be bland, but I disagree with this assessment. The flavour of the dragon fruit is subtle, and also reminded me of the lychee. I think that it would make a delightful palate cleansing sorbet, for which there is a recipe here.

As I lack an icecream machine and I loathe icy treats full of ice crystals, I needed to look elsewhere for a use for the remaining half of my dragon fruit. I was initially tempted by a dragon fruit "pizza", being an oversized, cream cheese topped cookie crowned with sliced dragon fruit and other fruits.

However, I felt a bit over sweet treats, and instead I decided to try a warm salad incorporating dragon fruit from Michael Bloise of Wish restaurant at Miami Beach, Florida. You can find the original recipe here.

I adapted this recipe as a dish for one, using the ingredients that I had on hand and omitting the red onion (which I dislike in salads). My version, pictured at the top of this post, is as follows:

Marinated tuna

185g canned tuna slices in springwater

2 tablespoons tinned passionfruit in syrup

1 tablespoon soy sauce

Dragon fruit salad

Flesh of half a dragon fruit, cubed

Half an Oakland lettuce, broken into leaves
A small handful of flaked almonds

Mustard dressing

1 shallot, finely chopped

1 teaspoon mustard (I used wholegrain mustard)

2 teaspoons honey

3/4 tablespoon white vinegar

1/4 cup canola oil

Mix the passionfruit and soy sauce together in a bowl. Drain the tuna, coat well in the marinade in the bowl, and refrigerate for half an hour.

Prepare the dressing by mixing the ingredients together well in a small bowl, then refrigerate.

Once the tuna has finished marinading, place it on a foil-covered grill tray under the grill for 5-10 minutes to heat through.

While the tuna is grilling, prepare the salad by first scattering the lettuce leaves on a plate, then topping with the dragon fruit cubes and almonds. Remove the dressing from the refrigerator and drizzle over the salad. Once the tuna is heated through, pile it on top of the salad, and serve immediately.

Verdict - I am not a huge salad fan, but I enjoyed this. The flavours of the marinaded tuna were particularly lovely.

I am submitting this salad as my entry for this month's Waiter There's Something In My ... Salad hosted by Andrew at Spittoon Extra. You can view the roundup of fantastic, inventive and healthy salads here.

I served this dish for Sunday lunch, and followed with a dessert of custard and fresh pitted black cherries:

It was a pretty nice weekend lunch, spent educating myself by watching a Landline story on the use of goats in noxious weed control. I found this quite interesting, having recently visited the South Island of New Zealand where broom, one of the weeds which the goats eat, is also a huge problem.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Low fat beef stroganoff

About 4 years ago, I lost 20kg, and for the first 12 months I was so terrified that I would pile all the weight back on that I made the same stir fry every night, had a home-made ham, tomato and cheese toastie for lunch every day, and always took the same home-made low fat muffin in for morning tea. At that stage, I only owned one cookbook, and I rarely opened it. Dining wise, you can gather that this was a pretty boring year, and if I had lived with anyone at the time, they would never have tolerated it.

Thankfully, I have moved on from those dark days, and I have realised that you can still enjoy "normal" food in moderation without your weight blowing out. However, I still like to keep my calories down in my main meals so that I can indulge my sweet tooth a little more freely.

Tonight was one of those nights when rather than cooking, I felt like sitting down with a family block of Cadbury Dairy Milk and going for it. Luckily, common sense prevailed, and I cooked.

In line with my low calorie, low fat objective for main meals, I decided to make beef stroganoff from Michelle Trute's Cooking with Conscience. While this is nothing like the traditional favourite known by this name, resplendent with red wine and cream, it is still a tasty dish, primarily because of the tang from the mustard and the kick from the onion and garlic. I served it with boiled rice and cooked frozen veges (the lazy cook's standby!), and it made a satisfying meal.

Don't be fooled by the rather unlovely picture - it has a heart of gold! If you would like to try it, you can do so as follows:

1 chopped onion

2 crushed cloves of garlic

500g beef, cut into strips (or in my case, cubes!)

1 tablespoon plain flour

200g sliced mushrooms

1 teaspoon mustard

2/3 cup low fat natural yoghurt

Brown the onion and the garlic in a frypan sprayed with cooking oil. Toss the beef in the flour, then brown in the pan with the onion. Stir in the mushrooms, mustard and yoghurt and season with salt and pepper. After simmering for 1 minute, remove from the heat and serve on a bed of rice with vegetables of your choice. Serves 4-5. (I only use 100g of meat per serving because my dietician from weight loss days told me to use that as a guide for me personally, but I realise that this is not enough for everyone.)

Saucy pork

Cakelaw was, for a long time, on the heavier side, and only lost weight about 4 years ago on her GP's advice to help her temperamental back. The back is still temperamental, despite my substantial maintained weight loss, but it is great to be able to have a choice when you buy clothes (which are one of my passions!).

In my on-again/off-again quest to lose weight, I tried Weight Watchers (unsuccessfully). However, one great thing that I got out of attending Weight Watchers was discovering Michelle Trute, who was our group leader before branching out on her own. Michelle subsequently has written newspaper cooking columns, appeared in regular TV cooking slots and produced a series of cookbooks based on her own weight loss and experience as a qualified chef.

One of my favourite "every day" recipes is in Michelle's first cookbook entitled "Cooking with Conscience". This recipe is for a saucy pork and apricot pastry. However, as filo pastry and I have always had a rather stormy relationship, particularly where you use a hot filling, I have ditched the pastry and just make the saucy pork, which I serve with rice or noodles. The pork is flavoured with curry, mustard and apricots, and is absolutely delicious (provided that you don't object to meat and fruit combinations).

My version of Michelle's recipe is as follows:

1 diced onion
1 tablespoon curry powder
500g diced pork
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
500g packet frozen mixed vegetables
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1 tablespoon of your favourite mustard

Brown the onion and curry powder in a spray-oiled pan. Roll the pork in the flour until it is coated, then add to the onions in the pan and cook until brown. Add the stock and vegetables and heat until the liquid is bubbling. Toss in the apricots and mustard, reduce the heat, and simmer for 20 minutes until the sauce has thickened. Season with salt and pepper as desired, and serve with boiled rice or udon noodles.

This dish is a cinch to make, and has a mildly spicy flavour to tickle your tastebuds. If you object to meat and fruit in the same dish, you could leave out the apricots. However, I love the sweet tang that they bring to the dish. The added bonus is that this dish is (according to the cookbook) a low fat, low calorie, low GI dinner option.

Beef, broccoli and orange stir fry

This week, I tried yet another recipe from the National Heart Foundation's The New Classic Cookbook - a beef, broccoli and orange stir fry. As the name suggests, this is a basic beef stir fry flavoured with zesty orange.

The sauce is 3/4 cup orange juice, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 3 tablespoons dry sherry, 3 teaspoons of cornflour and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar.

Brown 500g beef strips in a wok, and set aside. In the same wok, stir fry 4 cloves of garlic, 1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger and 2 chopped chillies. Add 800g broccoli florets and i/3 cup of water, cover the wok and cook for about 3 minutes. Add one capsicum cut into strips and stir fry for another minute. Add the sauce (described above) and the zest of one orange, and bring to the boil while stirring. Continue cooking until the sauce thickens then stir in six sliced green onions and the browned beef. Ensure that all ingredients are coated thoroughly.

Serve with boiled or steamed rice.

While this is a pleasant dish, it did not excite me greatly. Taking into account the amount of preparation work involved for the rather lack-lustre end result, I don't think that I will make this dish often.