thai pork with noodles

Whilst the boy and I have yet to find a place which we can officially call our home, our temporary apartment doesn't scrub up too bad. The only thing I'll say is that there's just not enough space in the kitchen; where cooking something a little more complicated involves reshifting things around to create that extra bit of bench space (and yes, with the two of us in the kitchen, it's a bit like us dancing - dancing with two left feet). 

Over the last 4 months, we've been pretty good and have actually cooked most nights (as opposed to eat out). Admittedly exhausting for the first two months but we're now a well oiled machine to the point that we've even cooked tomorrow night's dinner; we can come home and just reheat (is that pretty good or what?) Often it comes down to keeping it simple, just like this Thai pork with noodle recipe from Donna Hay.

Heat a non-stick frying pan over high heat. Add 500g pork mince and stir fry for 5 minutes until golden and cooked through. Place the mince in a bowl and mix with 1 stalk finely sliced lemongrass, 2 long red chillies (seeded and chopped), and 1 thinly sliced red onion. In a separate heatproof bowl, soak 150g vermicelli noodle in boiling water for about 5 minutes. Drain and toss in with the pork mixture. To make the sauce, mix 60mL fish sauce, 60mL lime juice and 1 1/2 tbsp brown sugar until well combined in a jug. Pour over the noodles and top with mint.

Recipe says this should feed up to 4. Reality says that 2 hungry individuals can polish this one off quite nicely.

Can you see in the photos how little bench space we have? And yes, I might've gotten a little excited and purchased a lot of spices and sauces which crowd up most of the bench space (but in my defence, we do use it for cooking!)

simple apple & mixed berry cake

One of the chefs I really admire is Donna Hay. Her cookbooks were of the first lot of cookbooks I owned and many a recipe of hers has been cooked by yours truly, passed on and then cooked again. I really think Donna makes cooking simple and having used her recipes many times now, her recipes just get better. I love the fact that all the ingredients in her recipes are easy to find (if not in your kitchen pantry already), you can make do with equipment you have at home and flicking through her recipes, there's always a photo of what you're cooking so you know what to expect. Often, I have trouble deciding what to make because she makes everything look so good!

I was reading the The Sunday Life Magazine over the weekend and there was an article in it about Donna and her recent weight loss. Watching several episodes of Masterchef, I'd been a little curious to see why she'd dropped weight so suddenly (thinking it all had to do with losing weight for the show) and well, little did I know that she'd been suffering from severe back pain for months and as part of her recovery, she'd taken up running 9km a day, 5 days a week to strengthen her back. Donna - you really are an inspiration and on the side, you're looking great. Keep up the great work!

So in honour of Donna, here's her 'simple apple & mixed berry cake' recipe which I made a little while back. I'm very much in love with this recipe as I'm with Donna herself!

Preheat oven to 160 degrees. Place 225g sifted self raising flour, 165g caster sugar, 125g softened butter, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 eggs and 125mL milk in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until just combined. Spoon mixture into a greased 22cm springform tin lined with non-stick baking paper. Top with 1 cored apple, thinly sliced. Add  3/4 cup mixed berries to the top and sprinkle with 2 tbsp demerara sugar.

Bake for 45 minutes or until the cake is cooked when tested with a skewer. Serves 8-10.

This teacake looked great going into the oven and even better when it came out! The texture of the cake was so soft and buttery and the combination of the mixed berries (this was a store bought Creative combination of wild blueberries, blackberries and normal blueberries) and the apple was a match made in  heaven. I've previously found this Creative combo rather sour but it definitely wasn't the case in this teacake.

This recipe comes out of Donna' latest cookbook 'fash, fresh, simple' which has taken a permanent place on my desk, within easy reach for when I'm looking for that perfect recipe to make!

chocolate cherry cakes

As part of my birthday celebrations in December, I finally made my way over to Donna Hay's General Store in Woollahra to check it out. It's a really gorgeous little store, I wanted to buy too many things in there and in the end, left the shop with some pie moulds, a baking tin and a jar of grapefruit marmalade which I've been eagerly digging into.

Mum went and got me Donna's latest cookbook for my birthday, 'Fast, Fresh, Simple' and so far have made a reasonably good effort to try out the recipes. I mentioned this awhile back but I do have a whole 60L container at home dedicated to Donna Hay magazines and cookbooks and out of all the cookbooks I have, Donna's are ones which I go back to time and time again.

Preheat oven to 160 degrees. Place 125g chopped dark chocolate and 155g unsalted butter in a small saucepan over low heat and stir until smooth. In a large bowl, place 3 eggs, 75g caster sugar, 100g plain flour, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 120g almond meal, 60mL sherry (actual recipe calls for brandy which I didn't have at home) and chocolate mixture and stir to combine. Spoon the mixture into cupcake holders and press a cherry into the top.

Bake for 12-15 minutes. Check with a skewer to see if the cakes are cooked. Makes 12.

The photo in the book got my attention and I was glad to find that they came out of the oven just as cute.

These cakes are a cross between a cupcake and a friand. Not quite as crumbly as a friand and not as sweet as a regular cupcake. The addition of the alcohol make its quite a festive treat and even for those who don't generally like alcohol in their food didn't mind it too much, said that they couldn't taste it. The alcohol does give it a certain richness though and methinks I should head to the bottle-o and get myself a bottle of brandy. I keep coming across recipes with brandy in it!

Anyway, so here's recipe number 3 with cherries in it. I have one more to share!

almond pear tart

I always have the intention to bake things from scratch and things like kneading dough, whipping cream, piping icing are things I look forward to doing and probably cross my mind every other second of the day (clearly baking is a much more fun activity to do than things like work, taking out the garbage, waiting for the train, walking to work!) I actually don't even mind the fact that after a day's worth of baking something might not even turn out quite right because at the end of the day, you've achieved something and there'll always be someone to tell you you've done a mighty good job of it. I guess it makes you feel good!

So despite good intentions, most of the time I resort to speed baking which is my term for using pre-prepared ingredients and combining them to make a recipe. Take this almond pear tart recipe for example  which I thought was rather tasty and earned me several compliments from the friends that helped me eat it.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Roll out 1 pack of Careme shortcrust pastry between sheets of baking paper to 3mm thickness and line a lightly greased 22cm tart ring. Trim the edge, line the pastry with baking paper and fill with baking weights. Bake for 10-12 minutes, remove the weights and paper and bake for a further 10 minutes until a light golden brown. Cool

To make the almond filling, place 75g softened butter and 110g caster sugar in a bowl and beat with a hand mixer until light an creamy. Beat in 1 egg, then fold in 150g almond meal, 2 tbsp flour and 1 1/2 tbsp sherry. Spread the filling over the pastry. 

Arrange 1 can of sliced poached pears across the almond filling. Bake the tart for 50 minutes or until golden. Let the tart rest for about 10 minutes before attempting to remove from the tin. Dust with icing sugar. Serve at room temperature.

This tart was hardly any effort and tasted great (and to be quite honest, likely to be better tasting than if I'd made everything from scratch). I served this tart with vanilla ice cream and it worked a treat!

shredded duck & chilli noodle salad

They say that you either have a sweet tooth or you don't - I definitely have a sweet tooth and if you follow the pattern of my blog posts, you can see that I can hardly stop myself from baking! I really enjoy it and it's an activity that will keep me happily occupied for hours, if not days. I still remember they time I spent a continuous 13 hours baking and icing cupcakes and I hardly felt the time go by. I do miss those those days!

Well, baking aside, every now and then I do need to resurface for something to eat and behind pastas, my second favourite thing to make are salads. I love the combination of fresh flavours and just how versatile salads can be; you can mix and match with the ingredients you have at home, and if you're feeling particularly adventurous, you can combine a whole load of different ingredients to make your very own salad. I guess I wasn't too adventurous with this one, just happened to stumble across the recipe as I was doing a minor clean up of my room (argh, let's say I didn't get very far with the cleaning!)

This recipe comes out of Donna Hay's 'Pasta, Rice & Noodles' and I've followed the recipe quite closely with a few changes here and there - FYI: I have just managed to completely fill a 60L container with all of Donna Hay's magazines and cookbooks; I absolutely adore her!

Place 150g vermicelli noodles in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Allow to stand for 5 minutes or unit soft. Drain.

I was down to my last pack of Luv-A-Duck Peking Duck Legs which I bought at the Good Food & Wine Show this year. Only takes about 15 minutes in a mini oven to reheat at a temperature of 170 degrees.

This salad is actually really easy to make. Not that much chopping and if you have a mezzaluna, chopping actually becomes quite fun. You'll need about 1 cup chopped coriander leaves and 1 cup basil leaves.

To the drained noodles, add in the chopped coriander and basil, 6 chopped small red chillies, 1/3 cup roasted peanuts (as I was using the oven, I simply toasted these in a pan over the stovetop - it's much quicker but the pan also heats up very quickly so you'll need to be careful not to burn them; don't do what I did although a slightly burnt peanut does seem to add a tolerable smokiness to the salad).

Add in the sliced duck.

Combine 60mL lemon juice (as I didn't have lime at home), 60mL fish sauce with 2 tbsp brown sugar to make the dressing. Pour over the noodles.

Recipe is meant to feed 4 but I actually think it's just enough for two if you are having this as a main meal. The original recipe from the book also asks for mint and green chillies which I didn't have at home but my version seemed to turn out rather well without them (hence why I love making salads - you don't exactly have to have everything as per the recipe for it to turn out ok).

As with all salads, I find they do tend to leave me feeling a little peckish later in the afternoon and this one was no exception. Could've definitely made more and eaten more but next time! 

breakfast muffins

I did a bit of cleaning the other day (well tried to) in the aim of sorting through my piles of books and food magazines so I could keep things together and make them easier to find. At the end of the 'cleaning', I'd managed to unearth all of my Donna Hay cookbooks and magazines and I'd very easily filled an entire 60L container! There were a handful that didn't quite make the box because they just wouldn't fit! You could say that I'm a little obsessed with Donna and well, I actually want to get a hold of some of her back issues but unfortunately most of them have sold out! 

Call me biased but I'm a big fan of Donna Hay. I love how simple and tasty her recipes are, haven't come across a bad one yet (though I do agree with others who say that her recipes might not be as detailed as they should be), the photography in her cookbooks and magazines is stunning and I love Donna for the fact that she makes me excited about food. There isn't a recipe I wouldn't make out of her books and well, a long time ago I gave up bookmarking the recipes I wanted to make out of her books, I ended up bookmarking each one! Anyway, here's a recipe I adapted from her Simple Essential's collection 'Fruit'.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Place 185ml vegetable oil, 330g caster sugar, 125ml milk and 3 eggs in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Add to the mix 450g sifted plain flour, 2tsp baking powder, 20g rolled oats and 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Stir to combine. Finally add 1 grated apple, 2 mashed bananas and 250g chopped strawberries (I defrosted frozen ones I had in the freezer). Stir the entire mix to combine but be careful not to overmix.

Fill 18 x lined muffin holes with the mix. Sprinkle the tops with 30g rolled oat and 1 tbsp raw sugar.

Here's how they look in the book.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Here's how they look out of the oven. Above recipe makes 18.

Set muffins onto a wire rack to cool.

In the usual fashion, I stood by the oven (or pressed my face into the oven window) and watched these muffins whilst they baked. I was surprised at how quickly they expanded and at one point, was quite concerned that the bottom tray would rise to much and get caught in the tray above it. Thankfully, all was well, the muffins made their way out and made their merry way into my stomach!

True to the title of this post, this recipe makes a kick arse breakfast muffin. It's sweet, but not too sweet and with 3 kinds of fruits in the ingredients, I'd like to think that it's actually healthy!