Microwave Strawberry Jam

One of my friends can only be described as the REAL domestic goddess.  While she and her husband lived in Australia, going to dinner at her house was inspiring - she always seemed completely unflappable and completely in control in the kitchen, even when catering for 30 or so people.

Not only that, be she seemed to have found the time to learn how to do EVERYTHING.  This clever lady makes amazing christmas dinners, puddings, wedding cakes and most importantly of all for today, jam.

My friend has returned to her home in the UK now, but still inspires me with her facebook posts.  Recently, she put up a few posts about the plethora of jam she was making, which I thought was incredible.  My understanding was that jam is really hard to make, hard to get to set and the idea of sterilizing jars seemed overly complicated, so I was in complete awe.

Last Sunday I had a heap of week old strawberries in my fridge (I'd been traveling for work, so hadn't got them eaten up), so I very tentatively did a search on taste.com for strawberry recipes to use them up with.

Feeling very brave, and with some encouragement from Hubby, I found this recipe here, which seemed unbelievably simple.  The additional commentary from other readers was very helpful too.

I weighed out all my strawberries - turned out I had about 340g rather than the 500g in the recipe.  I also didn't have the required lemon, but I did have a squeezy bottle of lemon juice we use to cook with, so that went in instead.  Can I just now that lemon, strawberries and sugar all in a bowl together smell AWESOME.  Then it was just a case of cooking the jam in a microwave for 15 minutes.

The most difficult thing about the whole process was simply patience.  I didn't have a 3L microwavable container (mine was about half that), which meant standing over the microwave, stopping it and giving it a stir to cool down every time it threatened to spill over the top.  That worked out to be roughly every minute, to minute and a half, and you have to watch it like a hawk.  The one moment I was distracted, sticky strawberry goo went everywhere.

I had no idea how to sterilize a jar, but Hubby told me to boil the kettle, fill a clean jam jar with boiling water for a few minutes (and the lid too) and then tip the water out and pour the hot jam in.  My 340-ish grams of strawberries made just enough to fill one 284g jam jar, with one spoonful left over.  I screwed the lid on, tipped it upside down and left it for two minutes, then turned it right way up to cool.

Amazingly enough, while I was doing that, the solitary spoonful left in the microwave container cooled down.... and SET with no extra effort from me whatsoever.  I figured that meant that the jam in the jar would set too when it cooled down, and did a celebratory jig in my kitchen while eating that triumphant spoonful.

What also amazed me, was that as the jar cooled down, THE SEAL ON THE TOP OF THE LID SEALED PROPERLY!  Regardless of whether I had sterilized my jar 'properly' or not, it seemed that I had still gotten it vacuum sealed.  For some reason, that makes me unbelievably excited.

We cracked into the jam a little to soon - it hadn't fully cooled down, so it hadn't quite set, but the crumpets Hubby bought for breakfast just looked too good not to spoon my jam onto.  We've actually eaten more jam this week than we ever normally would SIMPLY BECAUSE IT TASTES SO GOOD.  The remaining jam did set properly, and we have nearly finished the jar.... perhaps I need to get more strawberries and start again?

The Herb Garden

For as long as I can remember, Hubby and I have dreamed and talked of the day when we would own our own house, have a yard and then build a veggie patch in it.

Six months ago we bought our house.  We have our yard.  But still, we are yet to build a veggie patch.  It's a pretty daunting task for two completely inexperienced gardeners!

Last weekend we finally bit the bullet and made a start.

The previous owner had built a planter box next to our patio, so all we had to do was buy a truckload of new potting mix, dynamic lifter and blood and bone to bring it back to life.  We turned the soil already in it over, and mixed in our new purchases to really build the soil up.

Our next job was to fill it up.  From the above picture, I know the planter box looks very empty.... but let me assure you that it's not!

The six little seedlings in the far right are strawberry plants.  I love strawberries, and I am super excited about the idea of growing my own.

The other row of seedlings in the middle are half thyme and half sage.  In between the strawberries and the other row are endless seeds - two different types of parsley, chives, coriander and oregano.  The space to the far left is all basil.  We like basil, so we've planted LOADS.  I'm desperately hoping all our little seeds grow - I'd rather have to thin then out then admit defeat!  Hopefully in the next week or so we'll start to see them poking up!

Mexican Veggie Soup

Not too long ago, my Sis put me onto a very basic, simple veggie soup recipe.  It's actually a Weight Watchers recipe (zero points to boot!).  She put me onto it because, like many other people, we were running short on easy, fast, healthy meals to take to work for lunch.

The basic, 6 serve recipe calls for:-
- 2 carrots, chopped into 1cm pieces
- 2 zucchini, chopped into 1cm pieces
- 2 celery stalks, chopped into 1cm pieces
- 1 capsicum, chopped into 1cm pieces
- 1 medium onion, sliced
- 2 x 400g diced tomatoes
- 1L of chicken stock

Basically, you then stick it all into a big pot, bring it to the boil, then simmer it for 20 minutes and you're done.  I make this with no more than a chopping board, knife and the pot itself (and a can opener of course), which makes for easy cleaning after.

Now, while I love my veggies, and I love this for lunch because it is a GREAT way to get some serious veggie serves into you, this recipe is dull beyond belief.  When I first made it, I added in chilli powder and crushed garlic just to give it pep.  That actually turned out pretty good, because the chilli developed over the course of the week - so every day the soup was a bit spicier.  The I started putting a can of five bean mix into it at the end, because Hubby and I both noticed that by about 3pm, we were STARVING and the bit of carbs helped us stay fuller longer (that did, of course, up the WW points, but over six serves, you're still looking at less than a point a serve).

Last week I decided to mix it up a bit more.  We'd had nachos as a treat for dinner the night before, and that got me thinking.  How can I make this soup into a vegetarian, chilli con carne-esq meal?

I threw in my regular veggies as above, and then I added in mushroom and green beans (they needed eating up).  I threw in a heap of paprika (have I mentioned I love paprika?), chilli powder, cumin and garlic to try and get that 'Mexican' flavour.  Then I added in a big handful of roughly chopped black olives.  Once it was just about cooked, I threw in a can of five bean mix (I wanted kidney beans, but we didn't have any!).

I was a bit unsure about whether I had hit the mark on this - for instance, a can of corn in here would have probably helped a lot, and it just missed meat.  Really, it needed some meat in there.  But the next day at work, I got an unexpected phone call.  This soup was such a win that my Hubby rang me from his office just to tell me how good it was.  Lunch time win?  I think so.

Best Birthday Cake

For some time now, I have been completely in love with the smitten kitchen blog.  I check it every morning for updates, new posts, and if there aren't any, rely on the awfully clever 'Surprise Me' button for a recipe fix.

Somehow or another though, I've become fixated on one recipe in particular.  Deb's Best Birthday Cake in fact.  I find myself continually drawn to that recipe, even though I rarely have a reason to bake a whole cake, cannot in fact remember the last time I made a whole cake and somehow suspect I have never actually baked a whole cake greater than one layer and without the use of a packet mix....

So when Hubby decided to have a BBQ recently with our neighbours, his sister and a couple of other close friends, I jumped at the chance to provide a dessert, without perhaps realizing the level of sheer panic I would induce in myself at trying to get it made and the house in a state to receive visitors in one morning (this also involved me closing a cupboard door on my head that left an impressive lump on my temple, but that's another story).

After my more recent endless cupcake escapades, Hubby had scoured ebay to get me an affordable Kenwood, which is now my prized possession.  Armed with this, and what I thought was PLENTY of time, I got stuck into making my masterpiece.

 Can I just say now, that I REALLY enjoyed making this cake.  I really, really wish that it was the only job I had to do that morning, because I have to admit, the slightest timing hitch was going to really interfere with me finishing on time.

The only problem I really had with the whole thing, was getting the two cakes (my fab Neighbour lent me a second cake tin) to actually bake all the way through.  THEY JUST WOULDN'T!  And the end result was, that I actually burnt the bottom of both cakes.  Fortunately, when I trimmed them to make them all flat and level, I trimmed off the burnt bottom.  Does anyone have any advice on this one?

I was a little scared about assembling the cake - as I've mentioned before, I have never made a 'big' cake.  Or any kind of multi-layer cake.  Cutting each cake in half was a bit nerve-wracking, but I got there in the end! 

Successfully icing the cake was a bit tricky too.  By the time I was actually icing, a few guests had arrived and were cheering me along which I found very helpful.  In the end, while the icing job certainly doesn't look particularly professional, I argued that I was going for a more 'rustic' look.  I just wish I had put HEAPS more in between the layers.

  

As you can see from the above photo, my cake was definitely overcooked.  But I took IMMENSE satisfaction out of baking something so out of the ordinary for a everyday BBQ.  And surely my icing skills can only get better?

Carrot, Parsnip and Sausage One-Pot Dinner

I love parsnips.  They must have to be in my top five all time favourite vegetables.  Unfortunately for me though, parsnips seem to be ridiculously expensive.  I still haven't quite worked out why or how they can possibly really cost $10/kg.  Roll on the day when Hubby and I finally get the vege patch up and running and I grow my own (please, oh please let there be a variety that is happy to grow in South East Queensland!).

In a celebration of the wonderfulness of parsnips (and the fact that I had some), along with a hectic day and a cold wintery night, recently I found this lovely one-pot recipe in a new favourite recipe book of mine - Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion and decided it ticked all my boxes.

I had to amend the recipe slightly as I went - simply because I think my dish was smaller than the one in the recipe and because I wanted to sub out some carrot and sub in some sweet potato and potato.  But in the end, I cut up carrots, onions, parsnips, sweet potato and little potatoes we happened to have in the fridge.

I cooked the onion slices off in a pan with some olive oil, and then poured some more olive oil into a pyrex glass dish and then added all the veges, 2 unpeeled garlic cloves and 2 bay leaves.  I covered the lot with foil and popped it in the oven for 20 minutes on 180.

Once the 20 minutes was up, I pulled the dish out of the oven, turned the vegetables over and added in eight sausages, making sure they got coated in plenty of the oil in the dish.  Then I popped the onion in over the top, put the foil back on and put it back in the oven for another 20 minutes.

At the end of the second 20 minutes, I pulled the dish out, took the foil off and turned the vegetables and the sausages.  I had been concerned that the sausages wouldn't cook all the way through, but after 20 minutes they were looking good!

The final stage is to crank the oven up to 200, put the dish back in (without the foil) and cook for about 15 minutes (have a look at it after 10 and see what you think).  To serve, I just put the dish on a trivet on the table, and had a stack of fresh crusty bread on hand to go with it.

Hubby whipped up a simple gravy to have alongside it as well, which really just finished things off.  Can I just say, this dish is an ABSOLUTE WIN.  It was so easy, and so much is done by the oven, rather than the cook, that it's not a big ask to duck away every 20 minutes to turn the veges over.  We had enough left over (from feeding four) to feed two with left overs the next night, so, depending on the veges you choose (you don't HAVE to use parsnip), it can be a super cheap dinner.

Spicy Meat Gumbo

Recently my Sis presented me with a copy of Jamie's America - complete with her own notes scribbled across the Spicy Meat Gumbo recipe inside.  I've been hanging out to give it a try after hearing about her success with it, and decided that the three days I was going to spend at my parents house on a mini break between jobs would be a great time to give it a crack.

Mum was provided with an emailed list of ingredients that we needed for the great cooking extravaganza, and on Monday afternoon I made a start.

Can I just say now.  Any recipe that requires THIS MUCH organising, chopping and sourcing ingredients does leave me a bit cold.  I'm all for recipes with just a handful of ingredients - not a page long list (I ended up ticking things off the recipe as I prepared them, and then again as I added them to the pot to make sure I didn't miss anything).  I subbed out some of the sweet potato and used some parsnip on the grounds that Mum had a heap that needed using up.

So, first things first - I cut up all my chorizo, bacon and got my chicken legs ready (I didn't have any chicken thighs - Mum and I protested when we saw the price per kg and decided not to bother).  Next I cut up the onion, capsicum and celery.  Then I got a bit frustrated with the endless cutting up and Mum jumped in to handle the sweet potato and parsnip while I seasoned my chicken with cayenne pepper, paprika, salt and pepper.  

Next I popped some olive oil in a pot, heated it up and put all the meat in.  Which lead to the frustrating conclusion that the pot was not big enough for that.  Ignoring my Mum's suggestion that I should remove the chicken from the leg bones, I poured it all into a large frying pan and browned it all off.

After the meat was browned, I pulled it all out of the pan, leaving as much of the juices as I could in the pan.  Next I tipped in the onion, celery and capsicum and cooked it off for a few minutes until it went nice and soft.  I was a bit hesitant about the next bit - making a roux.  I know that if you don't cook the flour off properly, the whole dish will taste chalky (haven't we all had a creamy pasta that tastes a bit weird?).  But I threw in my three heaped tablespoons and started stirring on a low heat.  This bit took AGES, and it was really hard to be patient, but I perservered until it went a nice dark peanut butter colour.

At this point, you're supposed to put the meat back in, add some garlic, the sweet potatoes and the parsnip and then stir fry it all for ten minutes.  I quickly realised, however, THAT MUM WAS RIGHT.  Because I hadn't taken the chicken off the bone, my meat wasn't going to fit in the pan.  Let alone the 1.5L of stock I still had to add.... SIGH!  I spent a few frustrating minutes trying to bone the chicken pieces while they were hot, sticky and covered in paprika and cayenne pepper, but eventually the chicken was in the pan and the bones in the bin.

I covered the lot with chicken stock (Jamie said hot, but I said poo to that and poured it in straight from the container) and then brought it to the boil.  Last step was to let it simmer for 45 minutes (or the chicken was nice and tender, and the vegetables soft and cooked through.

Mum cooked up mess of rice to go with it, and we had some crusty baguette slices to sop it up with.

Things I learned while cooking:-

- Listen to your mother.  She is invariably right.
- Check the sizes of your pots before you start.
- Use the best chorizo you can find - ours was not great.
- Gumbo tastes better the second day (I had it for dinner the following night too)
- Taste it before you serve it - mine definitely needed more cayenne, more salt and more pepper

Feel Better Biscuits

Ok.  So they're not really called Feel Better Biscuits.  But that's what we made them for, and so the name stays.

This weekend, my sis and I had a play date.  We spent a day at the hairdressers, went to Ikea and indulged in house stuff and then I took her home with me where we drank too much and Hubby made us a fabulous dinner.

Sis' partner was also meant to join us for the evening, but he's been taken down by a horrid flu type virus, and decided not to inflict us with it.

The next morning, while we waited for Sis' partner to come and pick her up, we decided to make him some cookies - Feel Better ones.  Our first choice was peanut butter cookies, but I was missing vital ingredients and not prepared to change out of my pj's on a Sunday morning to go get them.  Instead, after flicking through a few of my cook books, we found a recipe for choc-vanilla biscuits in my trusty Women's Weekly Macaroons & Biscuits magazine.

This has to have been one of my funnest baking days.  Sis and I work together really well, and the recipe was super simple.  I don't have a plethora of photos of us working through each stage - because it was more fun just to tag team along as we went and not worry about it.  One of us started beating the egg, butter, sugar and vanilla extract while the other got the flour ready and dug out the cocoa powder.  When we got to the point where the recipe suggested halving the dough (to make half the cookies vanilla and half chocolate) we decided to make them all chocolate and doubled the milk and cocoa powder required.  We made a fabulous mess rolling out the dough (why would I take the helpful advice to roll it out between two sheets of baking paper?) and then busted out my cookie cutters - some of which I am sure have never seen the light of day.

Where did we go wrong?  Well.... turns out after the first two trays came out of the oven, and the last tray went in, we got distracted by toys (my ultrasonic jewellery cleaner to be exact) and FORGOT ABOUT THE LAST TRAY.  Needless to say, when we realised, and opened the oven door, a lot of smoke came out.  It looks like the self-congratulating we had done when we took the first two trays out was a little pre-emptive.

But nevermind!  We only had a little bit of white chocolate to melt and decorate them with anyway, so we melted it and drizzled it haphazardly over the cookies that we did have.  Again, it probably would have been a good idea to put a sheet of baking paper UNDER the wire rack before we did that.  I think my benchtop will be covered in a fine layer of white chocolate for the foreseeable future!

Here are the finished product - hopefully they live up to their new name and put a smile of Sis' partners face when he eats them!