Bounty Balls

Looking for something easy to whip up as a tasty treat? Look no further. These coconut balls are to die for and I think you'll have a hard time stopping at one. I certainly did and my waist line loves me for it. Ha. Nevertheless these are simple to make, your kids can help you make them, and they are cheap to make. Four ingredients for less than $8, divide that by 40 balls and it come to a total of 20c per ball or less.

Enough with the small talk, here's the recipe. Enjoy.

BOUNTY BALLS

Ingredients.

4 ½ Cups Desiccated Coconut

1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk

200 gm Dark Chocolate block

1 T Coconut Oil

Method.

Step 1.

Line a baking tray with baking paper and set aside. Place the coconut and the sweetened condensed milk into a mixing bowl and stir to combine. Roll the balls into your desired size (I usually make around 30 – 40 balls) and place onto the baking paper. Once done, place in freezer until the coconut balls become hard and set.

Step 2.

Place chocolate into a microwave safe container and place in microwave to melt for around two minutes. Spoon in the coconut oil and mix until well combined. Place each ball into the chocolate, then put back on the tray to set for around 10 minutes until chocolate is completely hardened. Done!


B x 

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Two Ingredient Dough Gozlome

Sunday's really have become my cooking day. Making a  few treats for the week, cooking something a little time consuming for dinner and making something reasonably quick, filling and delicious for lunch as we have been busy prepping our veggie patch and doing quite a bit of house renovations along with yard renovations. It's all systems go here at the moment and we're really working up an appetite.

Today I decided to whip up these tasty pockets using my favourite dough mix and stuffing them with the remnants of fillings in the fridge. They did not disappoint and they weren't messy to make, nice and hot, a tummy filler and something that I think will be making quite often from now on for weekend lunches.


These are perfect to make as well if you have friends coming over, as you can make them up to an hour in advance, then just whack them on the sandwich press to cook and voila. Lunch is served.

Give these a go, let me know what fillings become your family favourite and happy eating, friends.




TWO INGREDIENT DOUGH GOZLOMES

Ingredients.

1 cup Natural Yoghurt
2 ½ Cups Self Raising Flour
* Your choice of filling

Note - you may need to add more flour depending on the brand of yoghurt you use, so if you find your dough too sticky keep adding flour at 1/4 cup increments until your dough comes together.


Method.

Mix both ingredients together, knead the dough until all the stickiness is gone and the dough comes together in a nice ball. Roll out as necessary.

Preheat your sandwich, then do the following.

For the Gozleme's I divided the dough into four and rolled out really thin, almost paper thin so that when I toasted them they wouldn't become too 'doughy'. Add your desired filling ingredients (we used below) and place onto your sandwich press until all side are golden and crunchy. Cut and serve. Easy, filling a delicious meal.


Filling.
Rotisserie Chicken
Avocado
Mushroom
Cheese
Green Olives



B x

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Tomato & Speck Tortellini Soup

Recently we went on a family holiday away to Rosebud, down on the Mornington Peninsula. We only stayed for a few days and were lucky enough to be able to stay in our friends Mum's holiday house. A quick walk to the beach and the surrounding cafes and shopping district. I even made the 11 km walk one morning with our friend down to Rye and enjoyed the scenery and lifestyle of the peninsula.

We didn't eat out all that much as our friends joined us and we had some utterly amazing and simple Italian food cooked for us by them that I had to try and recreate. What I'm talking about is this tortellini soup. I had never heard of such a thing. I usually put tortellini with a sauce and serve. But this, this meal was to die for. Only a few ingredients were used and I discovered the secret is cooking the soup mix long enough to let all the flavours develop then you add the tortellini at the end and sprinkle with your favourite cheese. We used freshly grated parmesan.



There really is no difficulty in making the dish, you just have to have patience with the cooking time. I allowed myself 3 hours for the flavours to develop and made it on a day were Dave's sister was coming over for dinner so that I could get her honest opinion on what she thought of it as she's not really a bacon person (who doesn't love bacon?!!) and this dish is all about bacon and speck. That's the smell that infuses the house ... that wafts out onto the street and makes all the people returning home from work hungry. It's suffocating ... but in the delicious bacon and garlic way.

God, my mouth is watering writing this post .... I served the soup with some home made bread and voila. Dinner is served. Here you go!

TOMATO AND SPECK TORTELLINI SOUP

Ingredients.

1 Packet of Tortellini (your choice, I used veal).
700 ml Passtata (don't use a heavy sauce you want one quite thin)
50 gm Speck - diced
3 Bacon Rashers  - sliced evenly
1 L Chicken or Vegetable Stock
1 Can of Borlotti Beans - well drained and rinsed
1 Small Brown Onion - diced
3 Garlic Cloves - sliced thinly
Handful of roughly chopped Italian parsley

Olive Oil

Salt

Pepper

Method.

Step 1.
In a Large enough pot (I used a 4.5 L) heat a decent drizzle of oil on medium to high and place in the onion and garlic and cook until translucent. Add your bacon and cook until browned then add the speck and cook until the fat start to render a little.

Step 2.
Add your passata and stock and bring to the boil then reduce the heat to low and cover with the lid and cook for 2 hours, stir the mix when you remember to.

Step 3.
Take the lid off and cook fora  further 30 mins then add the borlotti beans. The beans will help to thicken the sauce. When your about 5 - 10 mins out from serving add the tortellini. The soup is cooked once all the tortellini rises to the top of the pot. Taste for seasoning and add S&P as desired then stir through the parsley and serve.


B x

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Chicken in Milk - By Jamie Oliver

One of my things I like to do is search the web for new, unusual and delicious sounding recipes to try and test. On this one particular day I had a whole roast chicken to cook. Usually I would make either a pot roast or your standard roast chicken, bang it in the oven and done, but on this day I felt creative. I had heard along the grapevine many fabulous reviews about Jamie Oliver's 'Chicken in Milk' recipe and decided to give it a go. The initial thought of chicken cooked in milk didn't sound all that appealing, It sounded soggy, curdly (if that's even a word) and quite frankly ... disgusting.

How wrong I was, the pictures alone of Chicken in milk looked delicious. The ingredients sounded like a perfect match and the thought of meat falling off the bone when serving made my mouth water. I could already taste it, now it was time to prep and make it. Some effort is required with this dish but it won't disappoint. The sauce alone is so taste tantalising that it will leave you wanting more. I served this on a bed of potato and parsnip mash, roasted root vegetables and greens. 

I would love to make this dish in winter when we have our friends over for dinner with hopefully some of the veggie that I have grown from our new patch. Fingers crossed. Until then, happy eating.

CHICKEN IN MILK - BY JAMIE OLIVER

Ingredients.

1 Whole Roast Chicken
500 ml Milk
10 Cloves of Garlic
1/2 Cinnamon Stick
1/3 Cup Fresh Sage Leaves
Zest of two Lemons
Olive Oil
Salt
Black Pepper



Method.

Step 1.
Pre heat your oven to 190C and find yourself a big enough oven proof pot to cook your chicken in I use my cast iron casserole dish).
Season your chook with enough salt and pepper to coat generously and fry it on the stove on a med - high heat with enough oil to coat and brown the chook evenly on all sides. Once browned remove the chicken from the pot and place on a plate and discard the oil only from the pot - leave all the sticky bits on the bottom, it adds to the flavour.

Step 2.
Put your chicken back into the pot with the rest of the ingredients and place in the oven to cook for 90 mins and baste when you remember to. Now, I place the lid on my pot for the first hour then leave uncovered int he oven for the last 30 mins. I found this intensified the flavour more and made the chicken more juice and tender and delicious.

The lemon zest will make the milk curdle a little and it's supposed to do that so don't fret, it adds more texture and deliciousness to the dish. When serving you can either put the chicken apart and shred it onto the plate or break up the chook into sections and serve. I served it broken  into pieces to bulk up our plates a bit.

Enjoy and I hope you find it as ah-may-zing as I did.

B x

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Appleslaw

Coleslaw. It has been present at many family get togethers since I can remember. My Nana (bless her cotton socks) used to make the best coleslaw. Not too much dressing, a lot of shredded cabbage and a good dose of salt and pepper to taste. It was never soggy and was always devoured. I've never been able to make it just like hers. I wish I had of asked for her recipe.

Nevertheless, seeings though I would never be able to make my Nan's colsalw, I decided to come up with my own recipe and add a kick of sweetness into the mix with the apple. You can always add more dressing if you love your slaw dripping with goodness, I on the other hand like it just coated.

So here's my rendition of slaw that takes no time to whack together and serve at any family occasion, BBQ get together or as a side for dinner.

Hoping you enjoy it as much as I do.

APPLESLAW

Ingredients.

1/4 Savoy Cabbage shredded
1/4 Red  Cabbage shredded
1 Large Carrot grated
1 Granny Smith Apple Grated
3 Celery sticks finely sliced
3 Spring Onions sliced
1 Small Green Capsicum sliced
Zoosh Tangy Dressing (or your favourite slaw dressing is fine)
Salt & Pepper

Method.

Step 1. 
Combine all of your fruit and veggies into a large bowl and mix the combine evenly.

Step 2.
Pour over your desired amount of dressing, then taste. Season with salt & pepper. Serve.


You could add pear to this slaw as well if you didn't have apple on hand and it would work just as good. Enjoy. 

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Chicken Mushroom & Wild Rice Soup

On any cold day I always seems to get this craving for soup. Any kind of soup. With crusty bread makes it so much better but I don't always have it on hand.

I like to try and make new soups that we haven't tried before, but I'm usually a sucker for the old favourites, this is one of them. Nice and hearty and a real winter warmer. Quite filling so one bowl is more than enough and everyone who;s tried it seems to enjoy it.

You can tweak the recipe to your liking, add or omit here and there and the soup still comes out wonderful. I love chicken and mushrooms, and wild rice makes it just that little bit more fancy. 

Here's the recipe to warm your cockles




CHICKEN MUSHROOM AND WILD RICE SOUP

Ingredients.

500gms of Chicken Thigh or Breast - diced
2 Rashers of Bacon - diced
1 Brown Onion -  diced
2 Garlic Cloves - diced
200gms Button mushrooms - sliced and diced
1 T Mixed Herbs
1 T Oil
3 L Chicken Stock
1 C Cooked wild rice


Method.

Step 1.
In a large pot heat oil on a medium heat and sautee the onion and garlic for 2 mins. Add your bacon and cook for a further 2 mins until browning. Add the chicken and cook until lightly browned.

Step 2.
Add your mixed herbs and combine through the mix then add your mushrooms and sautee for 3 - 5 mins until soft.

Step 3.
Reduce your heat to a low simmer and add the chicken stock and allow to simmer for 20 minutes. Add your cooked wild rice and cook for a further 10 mins so that the starch in the rice thickens the soup a little.

Step 4.
Serve the soup and top with a dollop of sour cream (optional) and black pepper. 

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