Simple Snacks

This is TOOOOOOOOOOO simple.

I got rather annoyed when I saw a packet of 'cheese twists' or some such other description on a box in the supermarket awhile back. You can make them in about 15 minutes with minimal fuss - kids love them for an after school snack, they go great with dips and if you are over garlic bread this is the thing for YOU.

Get a sheet of puff pasty out of the freezer. Let it thaw whilst you assemble the garlic (the minced stuff in a jar that should always live in your fridge), the parmesan cheese, preheat the oven and pour yourself a pre-dinner drink.


Spread the minced garlic over the entire sheet. Do it sparingly, depending on how much you love the stuff. I dip a teaspoon into the jar and use the back to spread it around. The garlic juice is lovely.

Sprinkle the parmesan all over the sheet. If you like you can use grated cheese too.

Cut the sheet into half. Place one half over the other so both cheesy sides face UP. Squash it down a bit.
Cut that in half crosswise to make it shorter.
Cut in half again and place that over the top - so you are layering.




Cut your layers into 1 cm slices - twist gently and place on baking tray, and into the oven at about.......ummm 180 for about ummm........10 minutes.




TA DAH!

These are a little overdone because I forgot the oven has a TIMER....and the phone rang, then I had to wipe someones bum and answer the phone.

Enjoy.

Other combinations - Why not add chilli if you like it hot? Sprinkle some mixed herbs over the garlic instead of cheese.

I got the time but the time don't pay

Love that song - heard it yet? It totally rocks and it's my new soundtrack - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G3h17i6xEM

But this post isn't about that - it's about why I cook.



Now I said from the start that this is never going to be a recipe blog and it's NOT. But I have from time to time posted a few of my own with my typical Unperfect instructions. I actually have quite a crappy relationship with food myself and my attention span is too short to be a really dedicated foodie.

I am however a technical type of foodologist, and that all started the first semester of Nutrition at college - in which the class collectively lost about 30 kilos. I highly recommend it if you want to lose weight yourself. When you find out the hideous amounts of utter CRAP jammed into "food" these days it's relatively easy to not eat it.

There isn't any real food in supermarkets, I promise. Anything that can stay on the shelf for anything longer than 3 days (short of things like flour, sugar, honey etc) stopped being food the day it was sealed in 'fresh' foil, plastic or even brown paper to really suck you in.

If you can READ you can COOK. There isn't any excuse. Don't whine at me that you don't have the time - if I can do it ANYONE can.

AAAAANND the best bit of cooking - is that it does save you time and money. If you do it right.

Always cook huge batches, you may as well because it probably adds about 10 minutes overall to cook double of something and freeze it for another day. You can have an entire WEEK off cooking by doing this......and there is nothing better than being tired and remembering you need only defrost a meal at the end of the day.

I made 8 DOZEN biscuits today (cookies if you are a Yank), vanilla, vanilla choc chip and double chocolate. I'm not crazy enough to bake it all at once - just roll the dough in cling wrap and freeze it. Bake as you need. I think that lot cost me about $5.

Arrange swaps with friends. One can do a big batch of soup, one spagetti sauces and maybe one can do bikkies/muffins. Everyone will have half their weeks dinner and snacks done with one Sunday afternoon frenzy.

Loud music and a glass or three of wine is a must for me. Kids should always be included if you can stand it.

So I cook because I am sanctimonious and povvo......but it's also one of the reasons I have managed for so long on so little!

Cheers,

Chickpea Bikkies....

this is not my photo, but they look about the same.

So I have professed to having some sort of problem buying endless cans of chickpeas (NOT lentils, der).

So this is what I do with them - and the kids never know ba HA HA HA hahahahaha!

Drain and rinse can of chickpeas. Put the oven on moderate (180c).
Then get a BIG bowl and thrown in a cup of firmly packed brown sugar and 3/4 cup margarine spread (yep, use butter if you like but I use the olive oil spread stuff) and mix it all together till it's smooth. If you have a Kitchen Aid or some other such wonderful machine use that but I'm POVVO so I use a crap beater thing cursing all the way.
Beat in an egg and 2 tsp VANILLA extract.

Whilst you are doing this you can distract the children by putting the chickpeas into a big ziplock bag and give them ladles and big spoons to belt the bag of chickpeas. Blutack in ears optional.

Get a cup of white choc chips and a cup of brown (but if you boycott Nestle like you should, you will chop up a block of fairtrade chocolate) and add that to the mix.

Next add 2 cups of flour (wholemeal is fine), half a cup of rolled oats, one tsp BAKING SODA and 1/4 tsp of salt.

Mix until it's sorta doughy, line a baking tray with baking paper and drop spoonfuls of the mix onto the tray and flatten them down a little. Bake for 10-12 minutes - don't overcook these babies, they will harden nicely when they cool.

I sometimes add more rolled oats or use a muesli mix instead and sometimes I roughly chop up dried fruit and pull back on the chocolate a bit.



Always in the lunchboxes...

More easy unperfect cookin

Get shortcrust pastry out of the freezer.
Beat an egg, splash of milk/cream.
Chop capsicum, maybe onion, tomato - add that.
Add pepper and paprika. Maybe mixed herbs. Whatever.
Throw in a handful of grated cheese. Mix
Better put the oven on...medium I spose.

Cut the pastry sheet in half. Cut one half into stacks of thin strips.
Cut other sheet into half or thirds or something.
Build up edges with thin strips, press them down to make a pastry swimming pool (hahah, I'm so freakin funny).
Spoon out some of the mixture onto your pool.
Stuff about making pwetty patterns across the top of it all with more pastry strips.
Put in oven till they are cooked.

Throw them to hungry masses, then storm off to your room to read the paper and be left in peace for 10 minutes.

Feedback please!

I got heaps of yummy reports back on my pull apart bread thingos from back THIS POST




and I'd like to know what fillings you used if you don't mind. What combination did you come up with? My faves are always the ones using left over bits of stuff and it's amazing what you can come up with. So leave a comment and let me know!

Today I messed with it a little and used Wholemeal SR flour with great success. I try to use wholemeal rather than super refined stuff and I like to hide vegies in everything possible a la Mrs Seinfeld, so I added a big spoonful of pureed sweet potato to a few spoonfuls of pasta sauce kicking around in the fridge. Then sprinkled grated tasty cheese and blobs of cream cheese all over the dough in case it got a bit dry.

I steam or roast all different vegies, puree and freeze in ziplock bags or ice-cube trays (just like when the kids were liddle bubbies) and stick the stuff in everything.

My aim is to get a vegetable in every, single thing I make for them in the snack department. Both little ones can go through picky, picky, picky stages - Betty Boo can go without anything decent for DAYS on end so this makes me feel slightly better.

So come on, give me your inventions and variations!

And I might even send a teeny prize to the one I like the best tee hee...but you have to be a follower!!!!

What the heck - yummy stuff

Like I said HERE, this is no recipe blog - don't look at me for scrumptious recipes to impress those around you.

I've lost my skills via my old friend apathy....and complete lack of a decent oven.

HOWEVER - this is cool.



I've been making this every second afternoon after school and the kids scarf it down. Easy as pie...ermm...a piece of cake..eerm. It's bread stuff.

2 cups SR Flour
30grams butter chopped
3/4 - 1 cup milk

rub butter through flour - sift it if you want. I don't
Make a well and gradually fold milk in to make a sticky dough.
Knead it a bit.
Roll out dough (using your AWESOME glass rolling pin HERE) to make a rectangle about 25 by 30cm.

Here's the cool bit - the original recipe says to smear the dough with jam and choc bits...which is fine but I use savory stuff.

Like grated cheese.
Cheese and chives.
Cheese and whatever chunky dip I have in the fridge.
Cheese and whatever chunky dip I have mixed in with really FRICKEN hot sauce.

The pic is two toned because half is cheese for the kids and the other bits have CHILLI all over cos I'm a chilli kinda girl.

roll it up (you didn't want more pics did you?) from the long side up, cut into pieces...I dunno about 2 cms across? Maybe more maybe less, whatever.

Stick it into a greased, floured (whatever) pan. Who gives a crap what size or shape and put in the oven about 200c for 15-20 mins. Or whatever.

Easy peasy and you look like a bloody champion.

MORE lemony goodness

This is Lemon Sherbet. Yuummmeeeeeeeeeee!
Turns your mouth inside out but who cares - that's what lemons are all about, right?

I'll be trying this with other citrus fruits soon too, cos it's so damn easy.

Woooo lemons!

Here is my LONG awaited Lemon Curd!

I have this awesome neighbour that regularly throws the delights of his garden over the fence. It's a game between him and The Cyclone - he calls over the fence "Boy, Boy!" and Cyclone goes running to try and catch what he can as various fruits and veg - including chillies and persimmons - rain down upon his head.

I called Miss Neurotic for the slow cooker (read EASY) recipe - but when she mentioned such phrases as "double boiler" or something my eyes glazed over, but not before we both wondered since all large slow cookers appear to be OVAL and most good bowls appear to be ROUND how that was to be achieved.
Feeling the IMMENSE pressure of my Limey friend, I knew I had to press ahead, but buggered if I was looking for an OVAL bowl.

So I did it in the microwave. And here are the delicious results! Yes, I love Indian food (go Pataks!) and if I was a decent craftyass I would have dressed the jars in perfect pinking shear edged rounds of some twee fabric before taking pics for you. But I can't be arsed.

It's too hot, and who cares what the jars look like, I'm not selling it, I'm eating it....

Unperfect but YUMMY!

Raspberry and white chocolate muffins....

Not a muffin fan, but Miss Neurotic swayed me with these tasty little numbers. I had a box of frozen raspberries in the freezer and there is always chocolate in my house so I thought I'd give it a whirl.
Although Miss N always gives me extra little tips, my version will never look like hers. Mine are slightly burnt on top and have brown bits all over the baking paper so it looks rather crap, where Neurotic style muffins look so damn awesome you WANT to take a picture but can't because both hands are stuffing your face and the camera gets forgotten.

And don't bother asking me for the recipe, I told you this was never going to be a baking blog and anyway I wrote instructions on the back of an envelope last week and who knows where it is now.

So all you get is my unperfect cooking to giggle/sneer at, unlike some ladeeda types that ask Miss Neurotic for baking tips then blogs it using stock photos and claiming it to be a 'tried and true recipe'.....

Look at THIS!

Lookie what I got! Guess what it is?

It's a rolling pin! A REAL one!

It was sent to me yesterday and I squealed with joy when I unwrapped the package - so beautiful!
I celebrated my making pizza for dinner, and JOY at how much easier it is to use a real rolling pin. I didn't feel like chasing anyone around the house waving it like I thought I might, but I did feel every so slightly Martha Stewart-ish. Well until I looked around at the usual mess I made - because Martha would never be so messy. So maybe the Evil Martha Stewart prediction wasn't so far off....

Now look, I'm not a total spaz for using a champers bottle for a rolling pin - I do have some skills left. See the bottle is cold and smooth so dough doesn't stick to it. Therefore this glass pin (as far as I'm concerned) is streets ahead of the wooden ones that mad old ladies wield.
I also get to toast my sporadic attempts at cooking at the end of it.

AND this my friends is another reason why I lurrve my new one so much. See the cork in the end? I'm gonna stick VODKA in it and keep it in the freezer.

Killing two birds with one stone - that's me!

Uncooking

Let's get this straight - there ain't gonna be nooooo recipes on this blog. I'll leave that to those with a huge passion. My cooking passion is waning due to crap kitchen, however this is how I do an Apple Pie.

Wait for children to go out with Scorpio.
Sit in front of telly (Grand Designs) , peel and slice 6 apples.
Put in pan with 1/4 cup water, sugar and a big sprinkle of cinnamon.
Cook slowly until its all soft.
When smelling wonderful and looking slightly translucent, get distracted by something shiny and let it burn.

Repeat step 2 - decide to do strudel instead, thaw puff pastry.
Stand over apple so it doesn't burn and scream threats at children from the kitchen window.
Cut pastry sheet in half.
Fold over edges of sheet, load it with apple.
Get funky and cut strips from other sheet and place over top lattice style.
Build up edges of pastry and seal latticey bits down.
Place in moderate oven
Get distracted by something shiny.
Notice strudel is about to burn, make mad dash to the oven to save it - tripping over the scooter that miraculously appeared in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Tell Scorpio you are going out for the night and use said strudel as bribe....