Lemon polenta cake with lemon verbena syrup

It was a beautiful sunny winters day when we visited Lake George over the June long weekend. It was also my mums birthday.

I made her this cake.

The recipe came from a magazine in the waiting room at the doctors clinic. It sparked my interest so I took a photo with my phone back in March. I found it a couple days before mums birthday while looking through photos and decided it was the perfect time to make it.

The cake travelled well on the dash of the car. While it's supposed to be served with yogurt, on this occasion I threw a can of cream in the esky. The kids were happy, and so was everyone else, the cake went down well after our BBQ lunch.

Lemon polenta cake with lemon verbena syrup

Lemon polenta cake                                                              Lemon verbena syrup

125 gr butter                                                                           100ml lemon juice

2/3 cup caster sugar                                                              ¼ cup caster sugar

2 eggs + 1 egg yolk                                                                 lemon verbena sprig, leaves removed

100mls milk

1 cup SR flour

3 ½ tablespoons fine polenta

Rind of 1 lemon

Pinch salt

1 tablespoon icing sugar to dust + Greek yogurt to serve


Preheat oven to 175C. Grease a 26cm x 22cm tin.


Beat butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Beat well after each addition. Add egg yolk and mix until combined.

Stir in milk and flour alternatively, then polenta, lemon rind and salt. Pour into tin and bake for 20-25 minutes.

While cake is baking, place lemon juice, sugar and lemon verbena leaves with ½ cup water in a saucepan. Stir over medium heat to dissolve sugar. Boil for 3-4 minutes to thicken syrup. Strain syrup to remove leaves and keep warm.

Remove cake from oven and using a skewer poke about 20 holes in cake. Pour syrup over cake.


Serve warm or cold, dusted with icing sugar and a dollop of Greek yogurt.

Because it was so delicious, I remade it for a lunch dessert at home with a friend a week later. This time I served it with a dollop of Greek yogurt, and threw a couple rosemary flowers about. Still delicious!

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Spinach, mango and mint salad

I was in Beachport almost two weeks ago, delivering thank you letters to businesses who'd donated to our recent gym club super raffle. I don't get to Beachport a hell of a lot, but when I do I like to pop by and have a quick look out the front of the National Trust museum in the main drag.

They have a little stall with second hand books, plants, garden produce and a bit of bric a brac. Nothing too fancy, but worth a sticky beak. I found some Bromeliad plants and a cute little pocket size Christmas cook book. Lots of good little recipes in it, including a salad recipe. It basically called for tropical fruit, and what better tropical fruit at this time of year, than mangoes! When I think of mangoes, I immediately think of the juice running down my chin while I get every last bit off the pit in the middle.

While I was doing exactly that standing over the sink, I said, out loud, to myself, "Where's a teething baby when you need one!" They would LOVE that shit!

Back to the Christmas recipe book, and I would love to share the salad that I made from it. Perfect for Christmas lunch! It would go great with prawns and ham.

You will need:

• 60 gram bag of baby spinach
• 1/2 cucumber, sliced in half moons
• 2 sticks celery, sliced

Mix these ingredients together and then toss with a vinaigrette. You can make your own vinaigrette by mixing 

• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar, or any vinegar you have
• 3 teaspoons of olive oil, or vegetable oil
• salt and pepper

Finish the salad, by garnishing it with

• 1 sliced, or diced, mango
• a handful of mint leaves
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries

I love the colours of this salad, so Christmassy!

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Growing broad beans this season? Here's two ways to use them.

I am well aware that broad beans are an acquired taste, and not everyone's cup of tea.

A bit like Brussels sprouts really. Both can be cooked up in the same way. If I had the choice, I'd choose broad beans, hands down.

Broad beans are easy, they are not fussy and easy as to grow.

At the start of Spring, choose a patch (a metre by a metre). Dig it over and sow some seed(about 12-16 seeds). You will soon be rewarded with loads of yummy beans.


1. Broad bean and bacon creamy pasta.

Boil up two cups of pasta shapes( I used curly macaroni here), in the last couple of minutes, add a cup of shelled broad beans. If they are large and older broad beans, you may have to peel the beans (once cooked), as the skins are usually tough and chewy.

While the pasta is cooking, fry off the bacon. Add the garlic and stir, add the cream and simmer for a few minutes until the cream starts to thicken. At this point add salt and pepper.

Add the pasta to the cream mixture, stir through and serve with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, if liked. One of my girls loves the stuff and won't eat pasta without it. 

2. Broad bean and bacon fry up.

This is one of my favourite broad bean side dishes, as it takes no time and is ready in a flash, and Oh. So. Tasty.

Slice a small onion, a few rashers of bacon and cook them on a medium heat until the onion is soft.
Add two cups of cooked broad beans and stir until combined and the beans have warmed through.

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Tunisian lentil, chickpea and pumpkin casserole

In an attempt to warm myself up from the inside out earlier in the week, I made this comforting veggie casserole. The recipe is inspired by a recipe in the Maza gourmet foods recipe book. Although they sell spice mixes, I prefer to make my own with the spices in my pantry, googling spice blend recipes and experimenting. I have a few different spice mixes written down in my recipe scrap books now I used all the time, including my own taco mix blend.

I did however buy a jar of preserved lemons from the Maza foods market stall at the Rendelsham village market in February.

Tunisian spice mix 

3 Tablespoons ground coriander
1 1/2 Tablespoons ground cumin
1 Tablespoon caraway seeds
1 Tablespoon sweet paprika
1/2 Tablespoon smoked paprika
2 pinches cayenne pepper

Mix all together. Place in a clean jar, label and keep in the pantry. There's enough of the spice mix to make the following recipe twice. Other than than it's good to use from savoury beef mince to sprinkle over veggies before baking.

How to make Lentil, chickpea and pumpkin casserole

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
3 tablespoons Tunisian spice mix
2 cloves garlic, finely grated
2 cups pumpkin, about 1cm cubes
2 cups water
1 can of crushed tomatoes
1 can of chickpeas
2 cans brown lentils
chopped parsley
half a preserved lemon, washed and chopped finely.


Heat oil over a medium heat and cook onion until soft. Add spice mix and garlic and heat through the spices, while stirring. After a minute, add a little water, a tablespoon, so the spices don't burn.

Add pumpkin, stir, then tomatoes and finally water. Bring to a boil.

Add chickpeas and lentils, stir to combine. Simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is soft and is nice and saucy.

Stir through preserved lemon and parsley.

I like it served with a dollop of natural yogurt and sprinkled with fresh herbs, like parsley, mint or coriander.

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Kale pesto.

Yes boring old kale. 

I think there's a few people who are over it, who would rather eat an old boot.

When I planted kale, I did so with good intentions. Despite the plants growing magnificently and looking good, I have hardly used it. But in the last few weeks, that has changed and I have come to appreciate it a little more.

I don't have photographic evidence of the fantastic Colcannon mash potatoes I made using kale and cabbage from my veggie patch, but it was surprisingly good! 

I found a great recipe for soup on a packet of McKenzie's yellow split peas, which usually uses spinach. Don't have any of that, but what I did have in the old plot was silverbeet and you guessed it, Kale! It was delicious, and with this woeful autumn weather we're having, it went down a treat. For one. No one else in the house has the appreciation for soup like I do....so I eat it for days when I do make it. Plus I got to use the last of my basil pesto with it. 

Did I tell you it was 14 degrees yesterday? Soup weather right there. I treated myself to some fluffy slippers, last shopping day. Early mother's day present (she says with a nod of the head). It's keeping my toes warm in the mornings.

I wrote down a recipe for kale pesto in my scrap recipe book, because as I mentioned, I planted it with good intentions, the same reason I wrote the recipe down, I actually made it and it was good.

I made more soup, a couple days ago, which yes, I am still eating. There's one bowl left for lunch today, which I will be eating with kale pesto and a drizzle of chilli oil.

On Saturday night we had roast lamb, and the kale pesto was AMAZING on the meat. It is very similar to a salsa verde, or green sauce ('verde' being Spanish for green, and 'salsa' for sauce), which is awesome with roasted meats. You should try it.

I'll be making this pesto again for sure! The original recipe did not have pumpkin seeds included, it's up to you if you put them in. I am going to try it with walnuts next time, which are in season at the moment and on our last foraging trip around the place, found a tree to raid!

I keep it in the fridge, and usually add a layer of olive oil to the top. 

Kale pesto

1 cup torn kale, stems removed
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1 cup parsley
2 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons lemon rind
2 tablespoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds

Process to your desired consistency and enjoy!

I've just planted this purple variety in the garden 

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Cheese, herb and garlic pull apart

I'm a sucker for a freebie with a magazine. My latest acquisition, with the latest Better Homes and Gardens, is a small serving board with a chalkboard edge. It even come with the chalk! 

I don't buy magazines that often, most of the time I borrow from the library. I do still have a look see when I am in the supermarket, especially if it's wrapped and offering free goodies. 

Another of those times I've gone for the freebie, again in a Better, Homes and Gardens, there was a bar tin and recipe book. I'm not sure whether it was the lure of another recipe book or the tin that got me in with this one. Probably both, they saw me coming.

This recipe isn't by far the most tantalising recipe in the book, with drool worthy recipes as raspberry cheesecake, chocolate truffle log and smoked salmon terrine. 

It's a quick and easy bread, not unlike a savoury scone. Mighty tasty and one that is more likely cooked on a regular basis. If you don't have a bar tin, you can use a loaf or other small cake tin. 

It's perfect for pizza spreads, pasta and mopping up flavour in soups and casseroles. 

Lord knows, Spring hasn't gotten the memo to warm up yet in our neck of the woods. Just bring us some twenty degree days already!

The garden is starting to comply, with so much colour coming out and the fresh herbs are going gangbusters and looking gorgeous. I love using herbs from the garden, with them close to the back door, it is nothing to sneak out and snip some fresh parsley from my little potager garden. 

You will need:-

2 cups SR Flour
50grams butter or marg
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1 cup grated cheese
3/4 cup milk

1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 Tablespoons finely chopped parsley
1 clove garlic, chopped finely

Preheat oven to 200C.

Grease bar tin and line the base and sides with baking paper.

Rub butter into flour in a large bowl. 
Add onion and half of the cheese.Add milk and combine into a soft dough.
Turn dough onto a floured surface and form into a 35 cm log.
Cut log into 2.5 cm pieces.
Combine oil, remaining cheese, parsley and garlic in a bowl. Roll dough pieces in mixture to coat.
Arrange dough pieces in tin, season with salt and pepper.
Bake for 30 minutes until golden brown.

Serve with a lashing of butter!

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What I cooked with evaporated milk

A neighbour of Mum's friend is eligible for food parcels from AC Care. She gets tins of evaporated milk in them and with no idea what to use them for she hands the tins to mum's friend, who gives them to Mum, who in turn hands them to me.

I am sure my mum lives for giving away food. If it's not homegrown veggies from her abundant garden, it's packets and cans of stuff she wont use.

I am not one to knock back free food. So I happily brought them home with me and they sat in the pantry until I hit google up for some ideas.

One of my pet hates is when hubby stands at the pantry, fridge or freezer proclaiming to all who will listen that he thinks we are running out of food. It gives me the shits! 

To prove that no, I don't need to go to the shops, it gave me the perfect opportunity to use up the three cans of evaporated milk keeping the pantry shelves warm, for weeknight dinners. I did not hear any complaints, from hubby anyway. The kids are a whole other kettle of fish, that continue to make me want to throw my hands in the air and order takeaway every night.

Bacon and egg pasta.
I used this recipe for ham and egg pasta on the Taste website. Instead of ham I used bacon. It's cheaper and I had in the freezer. It's a quick and easy recipe, tasty too.

Bacon, broccoli and sweet potato quiche 
This was another Taste recipe which I changed to use up ingredients I already had. 

The broccoli was from the garden, I substituted ham for bacon again, and instead of using tinned corn, which I didn't have, I cut up sweet potato in small cubes, about a cup, and microwaved them until soft.

Pumpkin and pea risotto
When you have a particular brand of food stuff that you have no ideas for, a great tip and one that I didn't do myself at first, is to head to the brands website for recipes. I found this recipe on the Nestle website, for Pumpkin and broccoli risotto. 

Of course I'd used the broccoli in the garden in the quiche, so used a cup of peas instead. 

This makes a fair bit of risotto, so if you have lots of left overs, you can try making arancini balls! I didn't, I just ate risotto for lunch three days in a row!

Here's how I made my risotto. You will need -

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
1 onion, chopped
2 cups short grain rice 
4 cups water
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
600 grams cubed pumpkin (about 1-2 cm cubes)
375ml can evaporated milk
1 cup frozen peas
Parmesan cheese, for serving

Heat oil in a large saucepan on medium heat. Add onion and garlic for a minute, add rice and stir to coat the rice with oil.

Pour in water, add thyme and pumpkin. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the can of evaporated milk and frozen peas, continue cooking for a further 5 minutes.

Serve with parmesan cheese.

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Three ways with Beetroot

I love beetroot.

Mum grows way too many veggies for her and Dad. I secretly think she loves to just grow stuff, so she can give it away.

If I was as good as growing veggies as her, I want to grow it all too. 

Beetroot's the latest thing she's sent me home with. I've said I love it, haven't I? I don't think I have said how crappy I am at growing it myself though. I am trying.

I made a couple of jars of beetroot relish with it. A beetroot and ricotta tart too, based loosely on this recipe, which was delicious by the way. A little ugly to look at, like something you'd serve at Halloween, but delicious all the same. I might use less beetroot next time, or even try it with pumpkin or some other veggie. I will blog the recipe when I get it right.

I still had beetroot to use and a brain wave to bake with it. I went to google for a recipe for Beetroot and chocolate cupcakes and found this one for muffins.

I ate these over a few days. Summer helped. After a couple Izzy cottoned on, and mentioned that the chocolate tasted funny. Dang! No fooling her. 

I thought they were fucking amazing! I was in heaven with every bite, and seriously, you would hardly know there was beetroot in there.  

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Red lentil and coconut dhal

I like to spoil myself for lunch and cook yummy stuff just for me. Some days I need to be kind to myself, to treat myself well. Be comforted with something warming and healthy. It's also a perfect accompaniment to these bitey winter days.  

The bonus is it tastes satisfyingly good. The kids wouldn't touch this with a barge pole though. No one in this house appreciates my cooking finesse! That's OK, more for me, they can eat boring nuggets or sausages (which they would have no complaints about)!

I appreciate the days Summer and Izzy are at school and kindy. I need those days to catch up. To calm the overwhelm. I am in a state of tenseness (mainly in my shoulders) most of the time. 

In the last six years I haven't had a break away on my own. A break from being a mum, a wife and housekeeper. It's taking a toll on me. I need a weekend away by myself. No kids, no husband. Just me. 

Finding that weekend seems near impossible any time soon. I just have to keep plugging away and savouring the breaks where I get them. I need to nourish myself well, mind and body. I have too many people to care for and no one to look after me. Except me. So I need to do a bloody good job!

A recent course I undertook, to do with food and health, encouraged you to eat as many different ingredients in a day as you could. About 25 - 30 different foods was the recommendation for obtaining as many nutrients as possible from natural sources. 

This recipe has more than ten, so it's a good start to reaching that goal, along with a great breakfast and evening meal filled with healthy natural foods.

Red lentil and coconut dhal

1 medium onion, chopped finely
1 stick celery, sliced
2 tablespoons oil
2 teaspoons finely grated ginger
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 teaspoons cumin
1 star anise
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
1 fresh green chilli
3 cups water
375 gram packet of dried red lentils
1 can coconut milk
500 grams diced pumpkin

Fry onion and celery in oil over a medium heat until onion is transparent.

Add garlic, ginger, cumin, star anise, coriander, turmeric and chilli, stir for one minute.

Stir in lentils and coconut milk, bring to boil.

Reduce heat, stir in pumpkin and simmer covered until lentils and pumpkin are tender, about 25 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper.

I like to serve it with a dollop of natural yogurt, fresh coriander and mint scattered on top.

• Remember not to eat the star anise, it's not that palatable, however I don't mind chewing on it to get the flavour out of it and then spitting it out. It's not for everybody.
• Instead of pumpkin, try other veggies like eggplant, zucchini or sweet potato. Even carrots, broccoli and peas!
• Keep peeled ginger in the freezer. It won't perish in the bottom of the fridge and is easy to grate when frozen and pop the rest back in the freezer for another time.
• I also freeze any herbs that are threatening to turn feral in the fridge, like coriander. The stalks give so much flavour to soups and casseroles. You'll be saving money too by keeping it for later.

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Scrumptious fish pie

I made this fish pie a few weeks ago. It was so unbelievably delicious. It was so moorish I had to lick the yumminess from the plate. So tasty.

The recipe was in a library book I borrowed, and I can't for the life of me remember what the book was called. So this recipe is from my memory banks as I couldn't find the book again!


700 grams fish (this could be a mixture of any seafood. I used Basa and Ling from the deli at Woolworths)
700 mls milk
1/4 cup flour
75 grams butter
1 teaspoon grainy mustard
1 cup frozen mixed veggies or peas
1 tablespoon chopped chives
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 sheets frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 egg, beaten well

Pour milk into a large saucepan and heat on a medium heat. Add the fish and poach for five minutes. Do not boil.

Strain the fish, retaining the milk. Break the fish into chunks and set the fish and milk aside.

Heat the butter on a medium heat, add flour and stir for a minute. Stir in the milk gradually. Add the mustard and cook, stirring until it thickens. About five minutes.

Add veggies, herbs and fish. Stir to combine and heat through. Season with salt and pepper.

Place in a pie dish.

Cover the fish mixture with puff pastry. Brush the pastry with beaten egg.

Cook in a 180 degree oven for 25 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown.

 

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Thai chicken noodle soup - eat #fmy52weeksofmemories

 

Through Best Recipes' Best in Basket, I sampled two Campbell's Real soup bases. The Thai flavour and Spanish flavour.

 

Campbell's Thai soup is chicken stock infused with fish sauce, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, garlic, coriander and chilli. All you need to make tasty Thai soups.

There is a couple of recipes provided on the packaging, including one for Thai chicken noodle soup, which I made and really enjoyed!

Campbell's Spanish soup base is a vegetable based stock with added flavours of smoked paprika (I love this spice), capsicum, garlic, onion and tomato.

I made a Spanish and chorizo rice dish with this one, and a minestrone type soup. The Spanish soup base packaging provided a couple of recipes to make as well.

A Spanish bacon and vegetable soup. This was made with McKenzies soup mix and the
Campbell's Spanish real soup base

I much preferred the Thai soup base though and will buy it again to make Thai soups. It is really easy to impress your friends and family, and spoil yourself, not to mention it just tastes good.

Thai chicken noodle soup

50 grams vermicelli noodles
1 tablespoon oil
500 gr chicken breast, sliced thinly
1 litre Campbell's Real soup base
1 carrot, cut into matchsticks
65 grams snow peas, sliced thinly into strips
1/2 red capsicum, slice thinly into strips
a wedge of lime
fresh coriander leaves

Soak noodles in warm water.

Heat oil , add the sliced chicken and cook for 3 minutes.

Add the soup base and bring to the boil, lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add the drained noodles, carrot, snow peas and capsicum. Cook for a further five minutes.

Serve with a wedge of lime and fresh coriander leaves. If you'd like a little extra heat, garnish with thinly sliced chilli.

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