A Warming Stew - Cholent

I am a big fan of stews in the winter.  They are hearty and filling, making them a perfect shield against the bitter cold.  Even better is a stew that can be made in the slow cooker - a dish involving minimal preparation and a "set and forget" mentality.

In this vein of thought, I came across a recipe for Cholent in Allyson Gofton's Slow - Mouth Watering Recipes for the Slow Cooker and Crock Pot.    Cholent is a beef brisket stew, chock full of vegetables and hearty pearl barley.  Browning the beef before putting it in the slow cooker is optional,  so of course I skipped that step.

The resulting stew is thick and warm and comforting - just the thing to lift the soul on a dark, cold winter evening.

 If you would like to try making Cholent, you will need:

1 x 400g tin butter beans
1.5kg beef brisket
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2-3 crushed cloves of garlic
1/2 cup pearl barley
4-5 medium white potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 turnip,  peeled and sliced
1 crushed bay leaf
2 tablespoons plain flour
1 teaspoon paprika
1/3 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
5 cups beef stock

Drain the beans and scatter over the bottom of your slow cooker.  Scatter the pearl barley,  onion and garlic over the beans, then place the beef on top.  Add the potatoes, carrot turnip and bay leaf.

In a small bowl, mix together the flour, paprika, pepper, ginger and cinnamon, add to the stock, then pour over the ingredients in the cooker.  Cover the cooker with a lid and cook on high for 5-6 hours.

Serve and enjoy.

TWD - Rosemary-Parm Cookies

Our first Tuesday with Dorie recipe this month is Rosemary-Parm Cookies. These are savoury biscuits flavoured with fresh rosemary and Parmesan cheese.  I was quite chuffed to be able to use home grown rosemary off the balcony.

These biscuits were pleasant and not at all sweet.  They would go well with a glass of wine as a starter at a dinner party.

To see what everyone else thought of this week’s recipes, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

Habanero Chilli Carrot Cake

The days may be getting longer in Melbourne, but they are still chilly on the weather front, reminding us that winter is not over yet.  On a cold winter's day, what could be better than something a little hot and spicy to make you warm on the inside?  That's what I thought too, so when I saw the recipe for Habanero Chilli Carrot Cake in Libbie Summers' Sweet and Vicious, I knew I had to make it.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, habanero chillies are one of the hottest chillies out there.  If you have family or friends who cannot tolerate chilli, this is not the cake for them.  There is only one dried habanero chilli in this cake, together with some chilli oil (I used Sriracha sauce instead) and cayenne pepper, but boy, it packs a punch, especially on day one.  After the first day, the heat mellows a little, but it is still undoubtedly there. 

Be sure to wash your hands thoroughly after chopping up the chilli, otherwise if you rub your eyes/mouth/nose, you could be in for a nasty surprise.

Don't let the chilli put you off trying this cake.  It is definitely different from your average carrot cake, but surprisingly to me, the people at work  enjoyed it.  It is a very moist cake - I would maybe prefer it to be not so moist, but that can be remedied with extra baking time.  And of course, who could resist the cream cheese frosting studded with hot spiced pecans (with the cayenne pepper providing the heat). 

For those who like it hot, this could be the perfect cake.  If you are game enough to give it a go, you can find the recipe online here.

Blueberry Pie Muffin Cake with Lemon Glaze

 

I bought canned blueberry pie filling on sale at my supermarket thinking it would be a cheap way to make a blueberry pie.  However, when I opened the can, I was less than enthused by the claggy, sickly sweet contents.  I thought that there was no way I was making that stuff the feature in a pie, so I searched the Internet for recipes where I could use it in a less intense fashion.  (I still have one can left.)

I found a great recipe for a Blueberry Pie Muffin Bread with Lemon Glaze at The Recipe Critic. Perfect!  To avoid confusion, this recipe is for a cake, not a yeasted bread.

I really enjoyed this cake.  My favourite part is the lovely crusty streusel topping.  It really made this cake.   The claggy blueberry pie filling was distributed throughout the cake, which diluted its sweetness and gooeyness.

If you would like to try this cake, you will need:

2 1/3 cups plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 x 21 ounce can blueberry pie filling

Topping

1/4 cup cubed cold butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup plain flour

Icing

1 cup icing sugar
2 tablespoons cream
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 380 degrees Celsius. Grease and line a 9" x 5" inch loaf tin.

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.

In a large bowl, add the sugar and vegetable oil and beat together. Add the egg, milk and vanilla, and beat together until smooth. Fold in the dry ingredients.

Add the canned pie filling to the bowl and swirl in gently with a rubber spatula to create a marbled effect. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf tin and level the top.

To make the topping, combine butter, flour, and brown sugar in a bowl and use a pastry blender or the tips of your fingers to form crumbs. Sprinkle the  top of the cake batter evenly with the crumb topping.

Bake for 50-60 minutes in the preheated oven or until cooked through.  Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for around 15 minutes. Unmould the cake onto a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, whisk together the icing sugar, cream, and lemon juice, then drizzle on top of the cake.

Slice and enjoy!

Fondue at The Swiss Club

A couple of Friday’s ago, a group of us celebrated a girls’ night out at The Swiss Club in Melbourne. One of our group had bought a Groupon for four people for fondue, and given it is perfect weather for it (it doesn’t snow here in winter but is cold), I was definitely in!

The Swiss Club is a big room with a bar at one end and a kitchen at the other, with walls decorated with all manner of Swiss memorabilia:

We started with two entrees in addition to our fondue. The first entree we tried was the Prawn Madras:

The other entree was the Swiss anti-pasto platter of Swiss cured meats with potatoes and pickled vegetables:

Then came the star of the show that had brought us here - cheese fondue served with bread cubes, chopped vegetables and sausage pieces for dipping in the rich cheese mixture:

The fondue came with a house rule that if you dropped your bread in the fondue, you had to shout the table a round of schnapps. One of us (not me!) did this twice, so on top of a couple of glasses of red wine (one of which was included in the price of the Groupon), I downed two shots of apple schnapps.

We had a fun time eating the fondue:

It is a highly recommended experience!

The Swiss Club

Level 1, 89 Flinders Lane

Melbourne VIC 3000

Ph: 03 9650 1196

Nigella’s Brownies and Icecream Pudding for Xmas in July

December in Australia is generally too hot and humid for most people to enjoy traditional Christmas fare like roast turkey with all the trimmings and Christmas pudding.  Most would prepare seafood or a backyard barbecue to the traditionally heavy, hot Christmas dinner served in the Northern hemisphere.

However, that does not mean that Australians do not enjoy traditional Christmas fare, so to ensure we don't miss out on the fun, we celebrate Christmas in July.  It is basically an opportunity to eat a traditional Christmas dinner in the winter months, when it is cooler and more conducive to such fare.

On the weekend, I hosted my own Christmas in July with some friends.  It was my first dinner party at my new flat, so it doubled as a kind of house warming.

For starters, I served an assortment of nuts, cheeses, dips, crackers and dates stuffed with gorgonzola:   

Dinner comprised a pork loin roast with gravy, roasted potatoes and carrots, and Adam Liaw's roasted broccoli with chilli and parmesan.

Then onto the best part - dessert.  After consulting with one of my friends and being inspired by an episode of Nigella's Feast, I made brownies (using gluten free flour for my friend):

This recipe is from Nigella Lawson's Feast.  It was originally a "snow flecked" brownie with white chocolate chips, but I left out the snow.  After all, I am not a fan of white chocolate and it doesn't snow where I live.  These are fudgy brownies of the kind that Nigella describes as "damp".

To make these brownies, you will need:

375g butter
375g dark chocolate
6 eggs
350g sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
225g plain flour

Preheat your oven to 180C and line a 33 x 23 x 5cm rectangular tin with baking paper.

Melt the butter and dark chocolate together in heavy based saucepan over a low heat and allow to cool.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract, the fold into the chocolate mixture.

Finally, fold in the flour and scrape the mixture into the prepared tin.  Bake for 25 minutes or until set on top and not wobbly in the middle.  Cool in the tin before dusting with icing sugar and slicing into squares.

The other dessert that I made was a festive Icecream Pudding from Kitchen Classics - Celebration:

To make it, you will need:

50g chopped toasted almonds
205g dried mixed fruit
80ml rum
105g glace cherries, quartered 
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 litre each of chocolate icecream and vanilla icecream, softened
Ice Magic and extra glace cherries, to decorate

Put the dried fruit, almonds and rum into a bowl, cover with cling film and leave to soak overnight.

Line a pudding basin with cling film and chill it in the freezer overnight.

In a large bowl, combine the vanilla icecream with the glace cherries, and press around the sides of the pudding basin, leaving a hollow in the middle.  Freeze for a couple of hours.

Combine the chocolate icecream with the spice, fruit and nuts and use it to fill the hollow in the vanilla icecream, evening off the top.  Freeze overnight. Turn the pudding out onto a serving plate and decorate with Ice Magic and glace cherries before cutting into wedges to serve.

Happy Christmas in July!

TWD - Vanilla Bean Sables

Our last July recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie is Vanilla Bean Sables.  These biscuits are a slice and bake shortbread, with the outside of the log rolled in sanding sugar so that the finished biscuits have a lovely sweet crunch on the outside.

These biscuits were very easy to put together and the result was delicious.  I made a half batch so that I was not drowning in biscuits.

To see what everyone else made and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.