Florentine Squares

¾ cup sultanas

4 crushed Weet-Bix

¾ cup raw peanuts

½ cup chopped cherries

½ x 395gr tin of sweetened condensed milk

½ cup chopped dates

Combine sultanas, Weet-Bix, peanuts, cherries, condensed milk and shopped dates.

Mix well.

Grease and line 23cm square tin.

Bake 180°C 20-25 minutes. 

Cut into squares before cold.

Lift out when cold.

May be dribbles with melted carob

Makes 16 squares.

Another great recipe of mixing it all in the one bowl.

It’s off an old Sanitarian Weet-Bix box but I couldn’t find it on their website so it’s quite old.

I measured out the condensed milk first then added the other ingredients as listed giving it all a good stir with each addition.

I pressed it into my tin and baked for 20 minutes.

Remember to cut it while its warm as it is easier while still a little soft.

It sets hard when it is cold.

I didn’t have any carob so made up a little runny icing (about two tablespoons) with just cocoa and icing sugar and dribbled it over the slice in a diagonal while it was still in the tin.

I love this and it will become a Christmas treat for us I think. It’s quite healthy with all the dried fruit and nuts too.

Chocolate Raisin Biscuits

125gr butter

½ white sugar

1 egg

1 ½ cup flour

¾ tsp baking powder

¾ cup chocolate raisins

Melt butter in a saucepan large enough to mix all the ingredients.

Remove from heat and mix in sugar and egg, beating well with a wooden spoon until combined.

Sift flour and baking powder into the mixture and mix to combine.

Add chocolate raisins and mix in.

Measure a tablespoon of mixture at a time, and roll into balls.

Place on a greased oven tray and flatten with the back of a wet spoon.

Bake at 180°C for 15-20 minutes or until golden and cooked.

Makes approx. 30.

I love recipes that are like this – melt the butter and add all the ingredients in in the same pot.

I followed the recipe (off an old 500gr Chelsea White Sugar bag) just as it was written.

It was very easy and quick to make.

A 130gr packet of chocolate raisins (Pams) is ¾ cup of chocolate raisins

I found that the chocolate raisins melted a little so gave the biscuits a kind of chocolate ripple effect which was quite appealing.

I cooked them for the full 20 minutes.

These are yummy and meet Katrina’s approval so are a definite keeper.

Pork and Apple Casserole .

Ingredients

500g diced pork

1 onion, sliced

1 Braeburn apple, peeled and sliced

420g can Wattie's Condensed Tomato Soup with Diced Tomatoes

1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup chicken stock or water

1 sprig sage

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. Heat a dash of oil in a flameproof casserole dish. Add the diced pork pieces and brown over high heat. Remove from dish and set aside.

Add the sliced onions and continue cooking until they start to soften. Add the apple slices and cook a further minute. Return the pork to the pan.

Stir in Wattie’s Condensed Tomato Soup with Diced Tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and stock. Bring to the boil. Add sage. Cover, transfer to oven and cook for 1 hour or until meat is tender.

This a recipe on one of those tear off cards you can get from the supermarket.

It is a Food in a Minute recipe and found on the website.

So I said I wasn’t going to change the recipes? well once again I did.

I didn’t have any Condensed Tomato Soup with Diced Tomatoes so I used a tin of Home Brand diced tomatoes and a tablespoon of tomato paste.

I didn’t have a ‘flameproof casserole dish’ either so I cooked it in a large frying pan and then poured it into my casserole dish and baked it in the oven for just over an hour.

I made sure all the pre-diced pork pieces I had bought were about the same size.

It didn’t say how to slice that apple (‘what?’! you say) I mean I cut it in half, took the core out and then cut it into slices about 4 millimetres thick. I don’t have readymade stock so I used ½ teaspoon of dry chicken stock powder in half a cup of water.

I also didn’t have fresh sage (I must get my herb garden sorted) so I used a half a teaspoon of dried.

Katrina and I liked this and there was enough left over to use with a bit of cream added as a sauce over penne pasta for another meal.

Cranberry Crisps

INGREDIENTS (Makes about 30 crisps)

1 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup long thread coconut

1 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup sliced almonds

1 cup dried cranberries

125g butter

2 tbsp golden syrup

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup boiling water

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C and lightly grease a baking tray. Or you can line it with baking paper, whichever you prefer.

2. Place the first seven ingredients into a large bowl.

3. Melt the butter and blend in the golden syrup. Then dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water. Pour the butter and baking soda mixtures into the dry ingredients and mix well until thoroughly combined.

4. Put heaped tablespoonfuls of the mixture about 5cm apart on the prepared tray and press them down well with a damp fork.

5. Bake the crisps for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Then remove from the oven and leave them on the tray for 3-4 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

They can be stored in an airtight container or freeze. 

This recipe came with a reqest to donate to the Starship foundation and was a sneak peek at one of the recipes from the cookbook - Comfort: Food for sharing.

Its another one of those recipes where you can just mix everything in a bowl and there is no need for creaming the butter and sugar etc.

All went fine, mixing the first seven ingredients in a large bowl, melting the butter and golden syrup and then adding to the dry ingredients with the baking soda mixture.

I put spoonfuls on the tray and they seemed rather "wet"

I pressed them with a fork and thought to myself, this is not going to look like the biscuits in the photo.
Sure enough when I took them out of the oven they had spread out flat and seemed to be a complete flop.
I left them on the tray to cool for ten minutes as they seemed to just want to break up.

These do not look good in the photo, as you can see, the photo from the recipe is beside them there on the left.
They do taste very nice but don't eat too many or you will be visitng the little room for awhile.

I'm not sure if I will make them again and if I do I will be adjusting them. Maybe only a little water.
If anyone has bought the cookbook can you check the ingredients and let me know.

Lemon Syrup Loaf

Ingredients

1 cup Chelsea White Sugar

Grated rind of 2 lemons

100g butter

2 eggs

1 ¾ cups self-raising flour

½ cup milk

¼ tsp salt

Syrup

¼ cup lemon juice

¼ cup Chelsea Caster Sugar

Method

Pre-heat oven to 180°C.

In a food processor mix Caster Sugar and grated lemon rind.

Add butter and mix until creamy, then add eggs, milk and dry ingredients.

With baking paper, line a 21 x 21 cm loaf tin. Run the paper down one end, along the bottom and out the other end (leave overhangs). Grease the paper and pour in the mixture.

Bake for 1 hour until load shrinks form sides of the tin.

While load bakes, mix lemon juice with ¼ cup of caster sugar. As soon as you remove loaf from oven, drizzle this mixture over its surface.

Remove the load from the tin by lifting the paper and cool on a wire rack.

Serve with fresh lemon curd.

The website recipe is slightly different and says - Grease or line bottom of a loaf tin approx 21 x 9 cm

This recipe is off the side of a Chelsea White sugar packet.

My crunchy lemon muffin recipe is similar to this but I haven’t made this loaf before and will be keeping this recipe.
I liked the idea of mixing it all together in the food processor.
I just grated the lemon rind off the lemons and chopped them up in the processor with the sugar, until fine and then added the other ingredients as suggested.
I used my standard loaf tin as I didn’t have a loaf tine 21 x21 cm and suspect that it is a typo error as the web site has the normal size measurements for a loaf tin.

I am just eating it as slices without even butt as it is so sweet and you could even cut it in to pieces like a cake.
Katrina is plowing through it too so she must like it!!

Sweet Weet-Bix Slice

Ingredients 

 5 Sanitarium Weet-Bix crushed

1½ cups white flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons cocoa

¾ cup coconut

1 cup sugar

1 tablespoon golden syrup

200g margarine

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method

1. Combine Weet-Bix, flour, baking powder, cocoa and coconut in a mixing bowl.

2. Place sugar, golden syrup and margarine into a saucepan and simmer until
sugar is dissolved.

3. Add vanilla essence and blend together.

4. Pour the liquid blend over dry ingredients and mix together.

5. Press into a 20cm x 30cm lined baking dish.

6. Bake in a moderate oven, 180˚C, for 15 minutes or until firm.

7. Ice with chocolate icing while still warm.

I love recipes like this. I got it from the weetbix website a while ago

You mix up all the dry ingredients.

When you combine all the first five ingredients, make sure you mix them in the bowl otherwise when you add the wet ingredients you don’t get an even distribution in the finished product.

I usually just melt the wet ingredients in the microwave but I followed the recipe and made sure the sugar had dissolved.

When a recipe gives you the measurements of a container to bake it in make sure you have the right sized container.

If it is bigger, then you baking will be thinner and take less time to bake and therefore burn of crumble.

If the container is small the baking will be thicker and take longer to cook or come out raw.

I made up an icing of:

1 tbsp butter

¼ cup boiling water

2 tbsp cocoa

1 -2 cups icing sugar.

Melt the butter in the boiling water and add the cocoa. Stir in the icing sugar to the consistency you want for spreading.

I have quite a few chocolate weetbix squares and a lot are crunchier than this.

This one is soft and almost cake like for some reason so a definite keeper.

Orange Pork Rolls with Spiced Potato Wedges

Orange Pork Rolls

2 cup soft breadcrumbs

1 small onion

1 clove garlic

2 teaspoon chopped fresh sage

8 slices pork schnitzel

1 onion

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon oil

2 teaspoons wholeseed mustard

1 cup orange juice

1 tablespoon sugar

1 orange

1 tablespoon cornflour

2 tablespoons water

Place breadcrumbs in a bowl.

Peel onion and chop finely.

Crush garlic, peel and mash.

Add onion, garlic and sage to the breadcrumbs.

Stir to combine.

Place a piece of plastic wrap over one piece of schnitzel. Roll with a rolling pin until meat is very thin. Repeat with remaining schnitzel.

Spoon a little of the breadcrumb mixture on to one end of the schnitzel. Roll up like a sponge roll. Secure with toothpicks

Peel and chop the second onion.

Heat butter and oil in a large frying pan.

Add pork rolls and brown all over. Remove and set aside.

Stir in onion and cook until clear.

Return pork rolls to pan.

Add mustard, orange juice and sugar.

Cover and cook gently for about 15 minutes or until pork rolls are cooked.

While rolls are cooking, pare a few strips of rind from the orange. Cut into fine shreds. Halve the orange and cut into thin slices. Add to the pan.

Combine cornflour and water, mixing until smooth. Add to the pan and cook, stirring until mixture boils and thickens.

Serve immediately.

Spiced Potato Wedges

2 tsps paprika

1 tsp salt

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp thyme

¼ tsp chilli powder

Freshly cracked black pepper

Potatoes

Combine the spices and mix well. Use potatoes roughly the same size and cut each into eight wedges.

Pour 2-4 tbsp oil into a baking dish, add the wedges and toss to coat well with the oil. Sprinkle with the spice mixture.

Bake at 200°C until cooked, turning often, 30-40 minutes

OK so I said I was going to cook the recipes as per the instructions – well I have deviated already.

I cooked both these dishes last night.
I had some pork schnitzel so I found this recipe in a collection of citrus recipes torn from the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly; 7 August 2000. While reading it before I stated I thought, “What can I do with the potatoes to accompany this?” I found an old newspaper cutting titled “Tart up your Potatoes” with suggestions from Margaret Wotherspoon, and thought I would try the spiced wedges.

Looking at the pork recipe now it is basically pork rolled up with a stuffing cooked in an orange sauce. It seemed to suggest an awful lot of stuffing and I only had 6 pieces of pork (three of us to feed) so I halved the recipe. I still had some left over so Ihave frozenit.
You can freeze bread stuffing for about a month but not in a stuffed chicken as they freeze and thaw at different times so you run the risk of poisoning - so I have been told.

I don’t know, I didn’t seem to understand how you could “Crush garlic, peel and mash’ so I peeled it and cut it in my turbo chef. Then I realised if I had crushed the clove in the garlic crusher first then I would have to remove the skin and mash the pulp a bit. So do whatever suits you!
Unfortunately my sage seems to have died on me so I used half the amount of dried (dried herbs are stronger than fresh).
I was surprised at how much bigger the schnitzel got when I rolled it out and it was easier to add the ‘stuffing’ and roll it up as I did it, rather than handle the meat twice. Having the toothpicks made it very easy for handling the meat without touching it.

The rest of the instructions were very straight forward. I discovered I really had cut too many strips of orange peel and you do have to make sure it’s just the peal and not the white pith as that is bitter. I just used a potato peeler. The same goes for the orange segments.
Now it didn’t really say, but I took off all the peel and pith from the orange and just used the fleshy part.

I started the potatoes before the meat.
I had peeled them and cut them into small chunks, only to read the recipe again and see they are not peeled and are cut in wedges (well dah! It is called Spiced ‘Wedges’) so I had already started it wrong, as per instructions.
I like to toss the potatoes with my hands so all the oil is covering the potatoes and the pan.
I sprinkled the spicy mixture over the potatoes and when I turned them the first time in the cooking process, I made sure the other sides got coated too.
I probably turned them (well gave them a good shake in the dish) about four times in the whole cooking time so they wouldn’t stick to the pan.

I was surprised at how much time I spent in the kitchen preparing the meal, but if I was doing it for guests it would be a recipe I had at least tried a few times before so I would have known the process more.

It had quite an orangey taste but wasn’t sweet.
The wedges were nice with it and the sauce added flavour to them.

I would try this again, and definitely the wedges more often.

Fizzing Sherbet

Fizzing Sherbet powder is a very popular novelty for children. Lick it off a spoon, or off the end of a straw or licorice tube.

1 cup icing sugar

1 tsp Hansells Baking Soda

1 tsp Hansells Citric Acid

1 tsp Hansells Tartaric Acid

2 tbsps Hansells Vitafresh drink powder, any flavour

Grind citric and tartaric acid to a fine powder using a mortar and pestle of with the back of a spoon.

Place all ingredients in a plastic bag and shake well to mix.

Store in an airtight jar.

I used to be able to buy my baking soda in a box, but now it comes in a large plastic container.  At some stage over the years I have kept one of the boxes and although it has mainly hints etc, there is a recipe for sherbet on it.

My son has made sherbet over the years but I never have.

So I ground the two acids in my mortar and pestle and then added all the other ingredients to a bowl and mixed it all up.

Well that was simple!

I then made up a little white paper bag of some of the mixture with a lollypop, just like I used to buy from the dairy when I was young. Yeah I know...many moons ago.

I gave it to Katrina as a surprise to try, who then informs me she doesn't like sherbet.

Oh well, it tasted fine to me so I will give the made up bag to Daniel next time I see him and keep the rest in the screw top jar for when I well a little need for some fizzing treat.

Footnote: I will also, at some stage, start a second page on this blog with all the hints I have collected that I am finding in amongst the recipes.

Butter Pork

I was in a rush so a bit blurry

Preparation: 5 mins

Cooking: 25 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

25g butter or ghee

1 onion, peeled and finely diced

3 cloves crushed garlic

1/2 teaspoon each ground chili powder, coriander, ginger, garam masala

500g Trim Pork pieces

1 capsicum, sliced

1 tablespoon tomato paste

3/4 cup cream

Method

Melt the butter and cook the onion and garlic until onion softened.

Mix the ground spices together and toss in the pork pieces and coat.

Add the pork to the onion mix and cook until browned.

Stir in the capsicum and tomato paste.

Stir in the cream and simmer 10 minutes until pork cooked through.

I like butter chicken so thought I would try this.
I got it from the NZ Pork website a while ago.

I bought pre-diced pork pieces and just had to cut a few in half as they were a bit big and I wanted them to be all an even size. If they are too big they take longer to cook and become tough.

It seems like a lot of butter but "hey!" it is called BUTTER pork!
I have bought myself one of those Tupperware turbo chef's which is great for chopping onion up small.

My family are not keen on hot things so I did change the recipe slightly.
I have HOT ground chilli powder so I only used 1/4 teaspoon. Maybe if I have mild I would use a 1/2.

I cooked this in my electric frying pan so the browning of the pork only took about 10 minutes max.

I used a green capsicum and thought I was saving money by buying a jar of tomato paste as it was cheaper than the two single pack, but see it has to be used up in 14 days once opening. I might have to find some more recipes that use it seeing as how I have it!!

And the cream, well what more can I say. With all the butter and now cream one wouldn't recommend this to heart patients!

I served it with rice and broccoli (to give some colour to the plate)
I loved it and Katrina ate all hers but Harry picked at it and hardly ate anything, but he can be like that with something different.

It's a keeper - for when Harry is out.

Toasted Muesli

The second recipe on an empty packet of Harraways Rolled Oats.

Toasted Muesli

400g Harraways Rolled Oats.

100g mixed nuts

40g mixed seeds (linseed, sunflower and sesame)

150ml water or low fat milk

100ml Tick approved oil

½ teaspoon vanilla essence.

Combine all dry ingredients in a large shallow roasting pan. Mix wet ingredients together and pour over dry ingredients. Bake at 190°C for 20-30 minutes stirring occasionally until crisp and golden. Add dried fruit as desired. Leave to cool and store in air tight container.

Hmm measuring ingredient’s by weight. My muesli calls for just a cup or two of this and that so I cleared off the scales.

Mixed nuts. I knew I had an assortment of nuts, but the ones I thought I had had gone, (pecan, Brazil) so I just used about 50gr each of peanuts and walnuts.

I didn’t have any linseed seeds so I used about 20gr of sunflower, 10gr of sesame and 10gr of pumpkin seeds.

Now the thought of using milk just didn’t appeal. I mean wouldn’t it go off quicker? So I used hot water and olive oil for the oil.

I thought that mixing that amount of liquid into the dry ingredients would create a sloppy mess but it really only moistened it as the oats seemed to soak it up. I think the oil helped to separate it and have it not stick to the pan. The more I progressed with the recipe the more I was beginning to like it.

I probably stirred the mixture about 4 times all up and cooked it for the 30 minutes. (not counting the time I had it out of the oven for stirring) I found using a fish slice easy to turn it and dislodge any parts that stuck to the pan. The walnuts turned a lovely golden colour.

While it was cooling I tried a small mouthful and thought it tasted strongly of olive oil which I know is good for you but I’m not a great fan of.

I just used about 100gr of sultanas for my dried fruit and added it once it was cold and I was putting it into my Tupperware muesli container.

This morning I had it with sliced banana and some low fat milk. The olive oil taste wasn’t as strong and it had a nice nutty/seed flavour. It was quite filling too. I will make it again and maybe try it with canola oil and dried apricots. It made about 5 cups of muesli, which means it won’t last long but when I mark it again I will double the recipe.