Chicken & Puy Lentil Soup

This is a quick outline of our chicken and puy lentil soup. I love the texture and nuttiness of puy lentils, and the creaminess of well cooked barley.

~Chicken & Puy Lentil Soup~
1 large chicken carcase or 2 small
salt
water to cover chicken
olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 large carrot, finely chopped
2 small parsnips, finely chopped
3 sticks celery, finely chopped
2 handfuls of green puy lentils
2 handfuls of pearl barley

Place chicken carcase(s) in a stockpot and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and add a good pinch of salt. Allow to simmer gently until meat shreds are soft, then turn off.

Remove carcases and pick off all meat. Shred meat then return it to the stock and discard the bones and any skin. If you want to remove the melted fat, allow the stock to cool then chill in the fridge overnight and skim off the fat.

Heat a sploosh of olive oil in a large heavy based saucepan and sweat onions over lowish heat. When onions are translucent, add the other veges and continue to cook slowly to allow the onions to caramelise. Add back the stock with the puy lentils and barley.

Add more or less water/veges/lentils/barley according to how thick you prefer soup. I like ours quite thick.

Bring soup to the boil and simmer until lentils and barley are soft.

I like to add any extra seasonings, like black pepper, salt, chopped herbs, olive or sesame oil etc to individual bowls when serving.

Silverbeet & Chickpeas with Chorizo

This is one of our regulars in the meal plan, adapted from a http://www.taste.com.au/ recipe; it's easy and delicious, and makes good use of that perennial garden green, silverbeet.

We ate steamed silverbeet regularly growing up, and I wasn't fond of it. This recipe, however, allows the silverbeet to become something else - the rich tomato, garlic and chorizo partner the earthiness of silverbeet well.

We use bacon instead of chorizo sometimes, and I like to finely chop the silverbeet stems and add them after the onion is cooked - they add a lovely crunchy texture, but you need to halve the amount of silverbeet if adding the stems. Spinach is interchangeable with silverbeet in this. We have also used our summer tomato reduction from the freezer - around the same quantity as a tin of tomatoes, but there's no need to reduce it any further. Thick, rich and sweet, with plenty of tomato skin and seeds for texture :)




~Silverbeet & Chickpeas with Chorizo~
2 chorizo sausages sliced (or 4 rashers bacon)
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tin tomatoes, crushed
1 tsp mixed dried herbs
1 tin chickpeas, drained
1/2 tsp sugar
about 6 stems of silverbeet, stalks removed and shredded (or 3 stems, leaves shredded and stems finely diced)

Heat a heavy based pan and fry off chorizo over low-med heat, until crispy. Remove and rest.

Add onion and cook till soft and golden, then add garlic and cook a bit longer. (At this point add silverbeet stalks if using, and cook a little longer.) Stir through paprika and allow to fry off until fragrant.

Add all ingredients except silverbeet leaves, and simmer until it thickens.

Add silverbeet and stir through until wilted, then add back in the chorizo or bacon. Serve with toasted pide or fresh crusty bread.

The boys both scored this 10!

Apple & Olive Oil Cake

This came via Nourish Me - a wonderful spot to read at cup of tea time :
http://nourish-me.blogspot.com/2008/08/thirty-seven.html

And happy thirty seven Lucy! Almost 40 is a great age :)

I've tweaked things a bit, but we all loved this, so here is the amended recipe :

~Apple & Olive Oil Cake~
120g sultanas
freshly brewed tea
750g granny smith apples – about 6 med apples
150ml olive oil
200g rapadura
2 eggs
350g wholemeal spelt flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons bi-carb soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Cover the sultanas with warm tea and leave to soak for 20min - several hours. Drain and reserve liquid.

Peel and core the apples and dice small-med.

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line a 20cm square cake tin.

Beat the oil and sugar together until the sugar begins to dissolve (check by rubbing a little between your fingers). Whisk the eggs with a fork and add them slowly while beating all the time. Depending on the temperature of your eggs and the grade of oil you have used, this mixture will thicken quickly to a creamy consistency.

Sieve the flour, cinnamon, bi-carb soda, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and add the apple pieces. Mix to coat them in flour.

Add the drained sultanas with the sugar/oil/egg mix and fold to combine. This batter will be quite stiff; add a little of the reserved soaking tea to bring it together if you need.

Turn into the cake tin, cover loosely with alfoil with a slit for steam escape, and bake for 1 hour. Check with a clean skewer and turn tin around and bake for another 15-25 minutes, as required. Cool in the tin, uncovered, then allow to cool completely before storing.

This cake is very moist and filling - fantastic for school lunches, picnics and cup of tea time, and a wonderful way to appreciate the seasonal apple glut.

Sesame greens

So simple it's rediculous, but never mind. We had this again tonight with greens picked straight from the garden and it was deliciously fragrant, crunchy, sweet, salty.

~Sesame Greens~
broccoli, cut into bite size florets, stems peeled and cut up
sugarsnap peas, topped
snowpeas, topped and sliced a bit
pod peas, shelled
sesame oil
seasalt

Steam the greens until tendercrisp. Remove any caterpillers (yes).

Sploosh on a bit of sesame oil to coat and sprinkle over a good pinch of salt.

Serve immediately and make a lot of noise about homegrown veges.

Pumpkin, Leek, Mint & Spinach Tart

This is several evolutions from the original recipe, which involved ricotta and far less veges. Mint works so well with both spinach and roast pumpkin.

T scored this recipe a 9.5 but D said it was minus 1000. I liked it, so poor old D will have to suffer again.


~Pumpkin, Leek, Mint & Spinach Tart~
6 sheets filo or 2 sheets puff pastry, or some alternate base, like coca flatbread
800g butternut pumpkin, peeled, seeded and cut in 1.5cm dice
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
about 10 baby leeks (1cm diameter, 10cm length), cut into 2cm pieces
salt and pepper
200g fetta, crumbled
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups firmly packed, chopped spinach or silverbeet
2 tab finely chopped mint
2 tab grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Combine pumpkin, garlic, leeks, olive oil, salt and pepper, and bake for about 20 min or until pumpkin is browned. In the last 5 min of cooking, make space for the spinach on the tray; pile it on and loosely cover with alfoil to allow it to steam and wilt slightly. Remove veges from oven and cool slightly.

Lay the base on a flat tray and curl the edges up to hold the filling. If using filo, spray with olive oil between layers. Bake for a few minutes to help cook the base.

Combine the eggs with 2/3 of the fetta and spread over the base.

Layer the spinach over the egg mixture. Sprinkle over the mint. Arrange pumpkin and leeks on top, then crumble over the remaining fetta and sprinkle with parmesan.

Reduce heat to 170 degrees and bake for about 20 minutes or until egg mixture is set and all is golden brown.

This would work well as a cocas/pizza topping.

Georgie's Chocolate Cake

This cake recipe has been our family birthday cake since I was about 8. It is dead easy and always works.

~Georgie's Chocolate Cake~

4 tablespoon soft butter

1 3/4 cups SR flour

1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda

2 tablespoons cocoa

1 1/4 cups caster sugar

2 eggs

1 cup milk

vanilla

Sift flour, bicarb and cocoa, stir through sugar. Whisk milk, eggs and vanilla together and pour into flour with butter.

Beat until smooth (packet cake setting on mixmaster) and you can't feel the sugar granules when you rub some mixture between your fingertips.

Bake at 175 degrees for about 3/4 hour or until skewer comes out clean.

I like to ice this with chocolate icing made with icing sugar, cocoa, butter, orange zest and orange juice to moisten.

Mum's Pea & Ham Soup

Finally, mum made this on her last visit, so we could write the recipe down. It's all things winter, thick and delicious. Years ago, before we knew what cholesterol was, we ate it with crunchy fried bread croutons, heaven.


~Mum's Pea & Ham Soup~

1 bacon hock/ ham bone
about 5L water

Cook slowly until the meat falls off the bone. Remove meat, cool liquid and skim fat from the top. Chop meat and return to the stock. Discard any fat/skin and bones.

Add about 2 - 2 1/2 cups green split peas and reheat. Simmer.

Roughly chop and add :
2 medium carrots
2 medium onions
3 medium parsnips

Simmer until peas are soft, then blend till smooth.

Serve with cracked black pepper and thick bread - with butter if you aren't worried about fats! ;)