Baked Risotto

Baked Risotto on Freedom Day in sunny South Africa. Just the dish you need when you do want to serve risotto, but don't want to stand stirring until cooked. The stirring part has always put me off, but then I found this recipe in the May issue of the Essentials magazine...Baked Risotto! Fantastic! No mess, no fuss. Having guests - they would think that you have been on your feet for hours trying to prepare supper.
The original recipe is made as a vegetarian dish using goats cheese, but I made a few minor changes and served it with lovely Kassler Chops and a green salad.

Recipe:
500gr mixed mushrooms, sliced and soaked in hot water
4 sun dried tomatoes, sliced and soaked with the mushrooms
300gr risotto rice
1 chopped onion
2 to 3 cups of chopped butternut
olive oil and blob of butter
1L chicken stock
Flat leave parsley
Salt and Pepper

Heat oil and butter in a pan and gently cook the onion. Add the mushrooms and tomato and fry for about 2 mins. Add rice and mix well.
Heat oven to 180˚C. Transfer risotto to a shallow oven proof dish. Add butternut, stock and mushroom water. Cover the dish (I used foil) and bake for +- 40 mins. until rice is cooked and all the liquid has been absorbed. Remove from oven. Add salt and ground black pepper to taste. Serve with some flat leaf parsley.
Cook's notes:
I used powdered stock - I like shortcuts. I might add a dash of cream next time around or some grated Parmesan cheese to give it a creamier taste. But that is what it's all about...Try and try again.

Apple Tart

 
As I mentioned, I am still new at this and trying to learn all the tricks, but thought I'd better show that I am still around.
It is getting a bit cooler and that generally leads to staying indoors and a bigger appetite.  Also cooler weather = comfort food.  As I also mentioned before, the way to my husband's heart is through his tummy and there is no better way to do that than with an apple dish. 
Yes apples again, but this is so quick and easy and if you have a can of pie apples in the cupboard, then you can whip it up in no time.  I found the recipe in a little recipe book which I bought from the Women's Auxcilary from our church whcih they published as a fund raising effort, back in 2000 and unfortunately it has no name to it.  I can safely say that it put a contented smile on his face...

The recipe:
3 tbsp butter
3 eggs
1 heaped tsp baking powder
1/4 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
pinch of salt
1 x tin pie apples (420g)

(Preheat oven at 180˚C)


Cream butter and sugar.  Then add eggs one at a time.  Add dry sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture and mix well.  Add the milk.  Pour into a shallow greased oven safe dish.  Drain the apples and press the apples evenly into the batter.


Bake at 180˚C for about 25 minutes.  It rises well.  While in the oven, make the following syrup in a saucepan:
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
3 tblsp butter
Simmer for a few minutes.
Puncture the baked tart with a fork and pour the hot syrup over.

Cook's note:  Reduce the sugar in the syrup if you don't want it to be too sweet.  You can serve at least 10 to 12 people.  I served it with cinnamon and cream.

Apple Parcels

If there is one one way to win my Hubby's heart, it's with stewed apples. He just loves it in any dessert form, even just with ice cream.Now keeping this in mind, I have a confession to make... As an amateur I have never worked with phyllo pastry before. Over December I bought some for the freezer thinking I can impress the family, but just never got that far. So, on Sunday Hubby says he feels like apple something and what better opportunity than to try an apple something and a quick apple something too. I paged through my books and found a recipe in a book my brother bought me for Christmas - Seasons by Phillippa Cheifits - and it's called honey apple tarts. Turns out that I finished the port over the holiday season and the men in my life are not crazy about raisins. I therefore had to improvise. The result a very simple, yet delicious dessert.
I will give you my recipe 1st and then what it was suppose to be:
8 sheets phyllo pastry
1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 cup runny honey
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Admittedly I did not measure the last 3 ingredients - it was a chunk and a few shakes, etc.
Filling:
I used a tin of pie apples.
Method:
Cut the sheets in 4 squares, making 4 sets of 8 sheets. Mix melted butter, honey and cinnamon and brush over squares, stacking squares at a time.

Then spoon a few apple wedges into the middle of the squares and fold the sides up as to make a little parcel. I placed these on a wax paper lined pan and backed in a preheated at 180˚C oven for 25 to 30 min or until pastry is well browned.













The original recipe calls for +- 3 tbsp port, 4 granny smith apples, 1/3 cup seedless raisins or cranberries which are then soaked in the port after being dunked in boiling water. It also suggest that you serve it with icing sugar or vanilla sugar and Greek-style yogurt, but my family choose ice cream.

Please accept my apologies for being such a slow starter. I often only realise after a meal that I should have taken photo's, because it was such a nice dish. For instance... the grape and feta salad I made the other night when friends came around for a braai/barbeque or my canaloni I made Saturday night, just because I had some ricotta cheese in the fridge. I will try and get remember the camera and will try to post more often. But please try the salad...



What you need:

Herb salad leaves or at least make sure you have some rocket in the salad mix. The strong taste compliments the sweetness of the grapes.

Green and Red grapes - I used seedless and I cut these in half.

Feta cheese broken in big chunks

A few good grinds of black pepper

Balsamic dressing - I have made my own a while ago, but will have to check the quantities of the ingredients when I make it again.



This salad was so refreshing and it was different from the usual tomatoes, olives and feta. By the way, I still batle to get an olive down my neck...



Until next time then...

Cheese puffs

And then there is the reason for me sitting here and trying my hand at blogging... I am an addict of My Easy Cooking and I tried her Cheese Puffs for breakfast one Sunday morning. I can proudly say that I used fresh herbs from my own garden....and these are really the easiest to make. No nned to be the price winning baker in church. Needless to say, it was a hit with the family.

Go get the recipe here

Cinnamon Buns/Circle Buns

I have been meaning to post this ages ago. Please forgive me, but I will still get into the posting more often idea. I suppose now that I am an avid blog follower, I am almost to scared to post anything, because of the standards I am used to see. But then again, how will I ever become a good blogger if I don't try...?

Now here is a thing about me.... I LUV cinnamon buns and when I found a recipe in one of my books, Too Fresh to Flop, by Helie Pienaar.I adjusted it a wee bit to what I thought it should taste like. I have made it 3 times already in the last 3 months. My youngest, Cameron, calls it circle buns.
Ingredients:
750ml cake flour
7ml salt
60ml sugar
10 instant yeast
200ml warm milk
200ml warm water
45 ml cooking oil

Sift flour and salt, add sugar and mix again. Add yeast.

Add milk, water and oil to dry ingredients to form a soft dough. At this stage I found that the dough is too soft and I add more sifted flour - at least another halve a cup. Next time I will reduce the liquid by about a alve a cup and see how that works. Now back to the recipe....

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 6-8 mints until smooth and elastic. This part is also very good for flabby arms. Makes you feel a bit less guilty when you can't stop yourself later from having a second bun.

Place in a greased/oiled bowl, cover and leave to rise for about 15-20mins or until doubled in size.

Knock down, turn out onto lightly floured surface again and roll out into rectanglular shape of about 35cm x 27cm.

Filling:


60g butter


60ml sugar


15ml ground cinnamon


And this is where I replace the 60ml coarsely chopped pecan nuts with raisins and as you can see I only add the raisins to halve of the mixture, because halve of my family don't like no raisins...

Melt the butter and use halve of it to spread over the open surface. Compbine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkel over rolled out surface and then add either the nuts or the raisins or try both.

Roll up as for a swiss roll and cut into 12 to 15 slices:
Use remaing butter to brush on top and sides, place on a greased baking tray. Cover and leave to rise once again for about 15mins.

Then bake in a preheated oven of 200°C for 15 to 20mins or until brown.




After baking these and having the buns cooled down a bit, I use a bit of glacing - icing sugar mixed with warm water to drizzle over for a extra bit of sweetness.

And then you can sit back and enjoy and fight off the kids.

Starting out...

I started reading food blogs while looking for certain recipes and also from a link at the bottom of a work related e-mail and I am aspiring to write my own of all the antics in my kitchen. The trials, the failures, the successes and most of all the creation of something good, but yet simple. As the blogging bug has just bitten me, I am a true amateur and will be learning as I go, so please be patient and any valuable input will be greatly appreciated.