Tag Archives: Homemade

Cornbread

Multicultural Inspiration from…

the world of baking!

Ever since starting out on this gluten free thing a few weeks ago, I’ve been constantly looking for ways to keep getting variety into my diet. I haven’t been much of a bread eater for a while now, but every now and then, I just want nothing more than a nice, warm slice of bread with a bit of butter… mmm…

I discovered corn bread not long ago in a local health store. It was just a packet bread mix type thing, and it was simple enough to put together, and it was absolutely delicious. It was quite sweet – Sous-Jeff likened it more to cake than to bread, and he was right (I guess that’s why I liked it so much!). So I decided to try my hand at my own version of corn bread!

I took my inspiration from the ever reliable Australian Good Taste magazine’s June Cook The Issue Issue, with my own changes (of course!). Instead of following the recipe’s cheese and chive method, I decided to make my own gluten free, sweeter version of the bread. Here’s what I used to make this delicious loaf:

400g tin of corn kernels
400g polenta
115g gluten free self-raising flour
3 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp salt
600ml buttermilk
150g butter, melted
3 eggs, lightly whisked

First up, preheat the oven to 180°C, and line a 18 x 18cm square cake tin (or similar sized loaf tin) with baking paper. Then, put a bit of paper towel on a plate, drain the corn kernels and pour them onto the paper towel to drain further.

Instead of using the corn kernels whole as per the recipe, I decided to throw mine into my food processor and mush them up a little first!

Into a bowl with the flour…

… and the polenta, sugar and salt.

Next in goes the processed corn kernels, buttermilk, butter and eggs, stirring until well combined.

Then, just pour the mixture into the tin and spread it evenly, smoothing it over the top.

Into the oven for around 40 -45 minutes, until it looks like this..

I let my big, square, bread loaf sit in it’s tin to cool for a while before taking it out, and I know I should have let it cool a little more before slicing it open and trying a piece, but I couldn’t help myself!

The result? Soft, crumbly, delicate, delicious cornbread.

It wasn’t quite as sweet as the packet mix I’d made, and it had a far stronger corn flavour (given that I’d used a whole tin of corn kernels!), but it was really, really yummy! It had a very different flavour to any other bread I’d ever tasted – a bit sweet, but definitely savoury with the corn.

It literally fell apart in my fingers as I picked up a pieced to try, and crumbled away under my knife as I spread some butter onto it. Delicious, and completely gluten free! Sous-Jeff took one look at the bread, and dashed to the fridge to fetch a spoon full of his chilli jam. Apparently it was incredible; I value my taste buds, and therefore did not try any.

It actually kept surprisingly well for 4 days or so as well – surprising that it actually lasted that long! I would like to try the cheese and chives version next time now that I’ve mastered a basic, neutral version of the bread!

Over to you – what’s your favourite bread?!

Comments 2 Comments
Categories mexican, recipes, savoury

Strawberry and Vanilla Jam

26 Jul

Multicultural Inspiration from…

family!

As promised, here’s some follow up action from my Lime and Coconut Curd post – my “anything-you-can-do” strawberry jam! Fortunately for Sous-Jeff, unlike the red hot chilli jam that he produced (which I can’t touch for fear of death by spice), my jam is deliciously sweet and shareable!

It is sugary sweet, syrupy, with a little taste of vanilla. Really, really yummy. And it was surprisingly easy to make too! Here’s how it was done, with the inspiration of this recipe from taste.com.au (though I must confess, I did change a fair bit…)

You’ll need:

4 x 250g punnets of strawberries, washed and hulled
600g white sugar
100g vanilla sugar
80ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 vanilla bean

First up, I put all the strawberries and sugar in a large bowl, added about 75ml of water, and mixed it all up. I covered the bowl and let it sit for about 30 minutes. Yes, the recipe says overnight, but my patience doesn’t extend quite that far.

This is what they looked like after 30 minutes – I then decided that instead of a conserve, with full berries, I wanted smaller chunks, more jam like. So I took a knife to the bowl and just chopped through the berries until they were in smaller chunks.

Next up, I squeezed me some lemon juice.

Then, I put the strawberries in all of their sugary goodness, and the lemon juice, and the vanilla bean seeds into a giant pot, and I cooked it on a medium heat for about 10 minutes – until the sugar dissolved, stirring it often, till it looked like…

… this! Then, I upped the heat and brought the mixture to the boil.

The mixture bubbled and boiled away, forming a pink froth on top…

… which I scooped off the top with a metal spoon.

I ended up cooking it for around 50 minutes, until the mixture started to really gel. Then, into the jar it went – against the recipe I went again, leaving it to sit in the jar for about 30 minutes before sealing it up and putting it in the fridge.

I absolutely LOVED the vanilla taste in the jam, and, if anything, I’d perhaps use a little more vanilla sugar next time instead of regular sugar. The jam itself is super sweet, with the most gorgeous strawberry flavour, and I’m really glad I chopped the strawberries up a little. It tastes like summer, in the middle of this bitterly cold Melbourne winter!

And, it goes great on my gluten free buckwheat pancakes!

Really, really delicious! I got the tick of approval from Sous-Jeff too, and with all of our efforts so far successful, we’re ready to try some more!

Over to you guys and girls – what jams have you tried, what’s on your to-try list, and what should I try next?!

Comments 1 Comment
Categories recipes, sweet

Lime and Coconut Curd

18 Jul

Multicultural Inspiration from…

Fiji

Fresh off the success of Sous-Jeff’s Chilli Jam (which I can’t try because it’s too spicy!), I decide that it’s time for me to try a condiment of my own. Not to be outdone, I decide to try not one, but two preserves – a lime and coconut curd (again, coming from the love of lime and coconut I developed over my many visits to Fiji), and strawberry jam. First up is my curd.

I have very fond childhood memories of lemon curd used as butter, coated on my toast, cake, biscuits, and whatever else I could get my little hands on. I absolutely loooooved the citrusy punch of the lemon combined with the secondary, super sweet sugar hit.

After a bit of googling and a bit of imagination, I’ve looked at around 5 or 6 different recipes, and decide to take elements of all of them, and a lot of my own imagination. And I’m glad I did, because it came out absolutely AMAZING!!!!

Here’s what I did to get it right…

First, I passed 3 lightly whisked eggs through a strainer, to make sure the curd is super smooth.

Then, I grated the zest of one lime, and squeezed the juice of 2 limes.

I added the lime juice and zest, along with 100g of butter and 200g of sugar to a pot…

… and stirred and melted it all together, until the sugar had dissolved and the butter had melted, and it looked…

… like this!

I removed it from the heat and added to the melted mixture the strained eggs, and stirred with a wooden spoon to combine it.

Then, I put it back onto a low heat for about 10 minutes, constantly stirring, until it was thick and coated the wooden spoon…

…like this!

I added in 50g of dessicated coconut next…

… gently stirring it to combine.

And that’s it! Finished! That simple! Into the jar it went, and I left it to cool slightly for about 15 minutes before putting the lid on.

It is absolutely delicious, and I can’t tell you how in love with this curd I am!! I loooove tropical flavours, none more so than coconut and lime; I just find the flavours so refreshing, yet it really packs a punch.

It’s just the right balance of sweet and tangy, and goes absolutely perfectly with buckwheat pancakes :)

I was surprised at how easy it was to make, and Would like to try a passion fruit and coconut combination too.

Over to you, lovely readers – what combinations have you, or would you like to try?!

Comments 2 Comments
Categories fijian, recipes, sweet

Sous-Jeff’s Chilli Jam

18 Jul

Multicultural Cuisine of…

Italy

Since starting my food blog, I’ve also re-developed an affinity for the plethora of cooking shows on Foxtel. And, luckily for me, my wonderful husband is slowly starting to come to terms with this, and is actually watching bits and pieces of these shows with me!

With Sous-Jeff as a school teacher, he’s been on holidays for the past 2 weeks, which means that he’s been around for more than a few cooking shows, and getting quite bored with nothing to do but relax for 2 weeks. He’s not much of a relaxer – like me, he likes to be on the go and have something to do all the time.

So, as fate would have it, a few days into his holidays, he plonked himself on the couch next to me over lunch one day, while I was watching an episode of David Rocco’s Dolce Vita, featuring some homemade chilli jam. For those of you who don’t know, Sous-Jeff is a complete chilli fiend. His eyes light up like a little kid on Christmas morning when ever he sees anything with the words “chilli,” “hot,” “spicy,” or “warning” on it. Why you’d want to burn off all your taste buds before eating is beyond me, but for some reason completely unbeknownst to me, he insists on making almost all of his food spicy. So, naturally, his ears pricked up when he saw this chilli jam segment. As I picked up the remote control to fast forward past this (I guess opposites do attract because I cannot handle anything spicier than pepper!), he grabbed the remote out of my hand, turned the volume up, and reached for a pen and some paper.

What ensued was a lot of pausing, rewinding, and “Why is he going so fast?! Add vinegar… well, how much? Jess, why won’t he say how much? Is he going to give me the recipe?? How am I supposed to know how much vinegar to add?! And how long am I supposed to be cooking it for? This guy sucks! He only has a TV show because he’s young and Italian and probably good looking… I could cook this!” And with that, he resolves to make his own chilli jam this school holidays!

With the ingredients purchased and the day off, I take up my post as jam supervisor and let Sous-Jeff do his thing. He retrieves his instructions, scrawled on a few post it notes, puts on his game face, and gets ready to cook. He’s adapted the recipe to suit himself, and starts off by chopping up roughly 600g of red and yellow capsicums, and chopping and de-seeding around 40g of super hot red chillies.

After re-watching the segment of the show where the vinegar is added, it’s decided that he adds approximately 5 large shot glasses of apple cider vinegar. There may in fact be more required, but Sous-Jeff saw him pour 5 shot glasses on the show, so that’s what went in!

It all went into a big pot, and in the end, cooked for about half an hour.

Then, it all went into the blender…

…and blended into a frothy, orange goo!

Back into the pot, and in with around about 750g of sugar. The recipe called for a kilo, but Sous-Jeff decided that was wayyyy too much. It cooked on a low heat for around an hour all up, until it started to caramelise a little and turn a much richer red.

After the 40 minutes of prescribed cooking time, we decided it hadn’t thickened up anywhere near enough, so we added 400g of diced tomatoes to help it along.

After almost 2 hours in the kitchen, slaving over a hot stove, Sous-Jeff was a little upset that it hadn’t turned out like he’d planned it to. He put it in a jar and left it for a few hours.

Upon returning, it had finally thickened up and was a really jammy consistency, glossy and shiny, and looking awfully red and dangerous. With a spoonful aimed as his mouth, I ask if he’s sure he should try that much – “it’s not THAT hot, look how much sugar I put in there!” With the spoonful down the hatch, a wide grin begins to form… followed by his eyes opening wide and his face turning bright pink. Ok, so it was a little spicier than he thought it’d be, but he couldn’t have been any happier with himself! By all accounts, when applied not so liberally, it was absolutely delicious, with a perfect balance between the sweetness of the sugar and tomato, and the spice of the chilli.

I couldn’t have been any prouder of him; my husband, the big, tough, footy playing, VB drinking man that he is, in the kitchen, giving it a crack, and it worked out for him! With that, he may have found a new hobby, and I expect to have him shadowing me in the kitchen a lot more now :)

Comments 1 Comment
Categories italian, recipes, savoury

Amore Cucina’s Home-Made Italian Salami Workshop

9 Jul

Multicultural Inspiration from…

Italy

I’ve been very lucky to have grown up with such strong cultural influences and heritage. My mother’s side of the family are Italian, as are my father’s side. And I’ve been fortunate enough to have been raised on traditional Italian food and cooking. One of the big things we grew up learning to do was making the passata, or, tomato pasta sauce. My grandparents have done this every year for as long as I’ve been around, and much longer back that that. One of the other things they’ve always done has been to make their own salamis and sausages.

So, when Agata asked me to come along to help out at one of her home-made Italian salami workshops, I jumped at the chance to get involved! Agata prepared a few bowls for the class participants, with a big of pork sausage mince.

To the mince, we added pepper…

… fennel seeds…

… and some salt.

Next to be added in were some chilli flakes and paprika of varying degrees of spice, depending on what each individual wanted their salami to taste like.

Mix it all up…

… and leave it to rest for a little while. In the mean time, the lovely Agata explains to the class a little history behind the whole process, and shares what the finished product will look (and taste!) like.

After a relax, a taste and some fresh mandarins from the garden, it’s time to get back to work. Agata takes out the sausage skins and explains how they work and where to get them from (the deli, when you buy the mince)…

The sausage machine is plugged in and ready to go, and Agata explains how to stuff the mince into the casing. Once the cases have been rinsed of the salt, pour a little wine through it to lubricate it.