In My Kitchen - November 2012

As summer approaches, Perth's weather continues to be bizarre. Last weekend we were fishing on the boat in 34C temperatures. This weekend we're back to trousers and jumpers, dodging the storms. After spending the morning out yesterday, there was no way I had the inclination nor patience to go grocery shopping in the afternoon. So I stayed home, used what I had in the house, and baked. Here's what was in my kitchen yesterday (all the edible parts have already been consumed).

The baking began because we ran out of bread, so I baked a loaf of Mixed Seed Bread. 

 

With fresh bread in the house and the weather being foul, I couldn't resist making a pot of Teresa Cutter's Vegetable Minestrone Soup. This soup, with bread makes a hearty dinner that everyone will eat.

Without grocery shopping we had few snacks in the house, and Poppet always wakes up from her nap starving, so I thought I'd make a batch of biscuits. Trolling through recipes I'd never tried before I found a link to this cookie recipe at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial. Like Celia, I used wholemeal spelt flour, cranberries (as I had both in the pantry at the time), and 54% Callebaut callets. The result was a chewy, chocolatey, tangy cookie that everyone in my house approved of. Several went missing before making it to the cooling rack.

While I was busy baking away, Chicky (who did help with the cookies) decided to work on a creation of her own. I believe it consisted of water, whole macadamias and flour initially. She mixed them together then covered it with plastic wrap to....umm....rise maybe? I'm not sure what she thought might happen.

Later in the day she came back to the creation to complete the final steps. This involved adding some flowers from the garden, something that might be a spring onion (I didn't actually see it before it was added), and stirring with a plastic spoon. She is heavily influenced by the story Wombat Stew at the moment, after a little friend introduced her to the idea recently. Our garden (and now my kitchen) is filled with buckets/cups/containers of water plus <insert random ingredients here>.

While Poppet was less interested in the creative process than Chicky, she did bring me some lovely flowers from the garden yesterday afternoon, and left them on the kitchen bench.

 

A toy camel made it into the kitchen this week, and got left on the bench during the bread-making process, so he got covered with flour. 

The final item that technically isn't in my kitchen anymore (because I ate it), was a block of House Blend, 70% Cocoa content chocolate from Bahen & Co, a small, family-operated chocolate facility in Margaret River. The owner is a cousin of a friend and she gave me a block of this to try recently. I haven't tried any of their other varieties, but the house blend has a unique, almost fruity after taste and is very "adult". It is gorgeously smooth, yet a piece or two is all you need to satisfy that chocolate craving. I look forward to trying some of their other varieties.

 

That's about all that's happening in my kitchen at the moment, but head over to Fig Jam and Lime Cordial to have a peak into some other kitchens around the globe this month.

In My Kitchen - September 2012

This month's In My Kitchen post comes a little late, and for no good reason. I was contemplating skipping it altogether in favour of sulking over my lack of new gadgets, and delayed postage on some new books I ordered, but I have spent a lot of the time in the kitchen this month and convinced myself an update was warranted.

In my kitchen today is...

a Raspberry Yoghurt Cake. I originally came across Celia's Blueberry and Yoghurt Cake recipe some time ago. Hubby doesn't really like cake, but this is one he'll steal the last piece of. The original recipe can be found here at Chocolate and Zucchini. Anything with yoghurt in the recipe is guaranteed to be moist, and to remove the "cakiness" of cake, hence why this one was a winner in our house. I normally use whichever berries I have on hand and today it was raspberries. I also never use white sugar and so replaced that with raw caster sugar in the recipe. Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly and I'm waiting for the cake to cool so I can have a piece! Most of it however will be shared with some lovely ladies and their children at a local coffee morning tomorrow.

In my kitchen quite a lot lately has been...

a pot of Teresa Cutter's Vegetable Minestrone Soup. This is the simplest and tastiest vegetable soup I've made, and one the whole family seems to enjoy. It is simple, vegetable-filled, low in salt and delicious. The capsicum is the dominant vegetable I think, and that makes the taste of this soup really unique from other vegetable soups. Did I mention it was healthy? And it contains no potato so it a fantastic low-carb option for lunch or dinner. I serve this as a main meal with a fresh loaf of Mixed Seed Bread. I also love these soup bowls that my mother-in-law almost got rid of at a garage sale a few years ago before I spotted them and took them home.

In my kitchen earlier this month was...

a birthday cake for my gorgeous "kind-of-sister-in-law" Kate. A fortunate twist of events meant I was able to see Kate on her 26th birthday, and make her a birthday cake, or 24. I used this divine Brownie Cupcake recipe and topped them with a whipped milk chocolate genache. I didn't even know you could whip genache until coming across Savoury Sweet Life, but the result is a beautifully pale and extremely stiff topping perfect for piping. The letters were made with white chocolate. I melted the chocolate, poured it into a zip lock bag, snipped the very end off the bag and piped the letters out onto a baking paper-lined oven tray. I then cooled the letters in the fridge and when they were set, moving very quickly to avoid melting them with my hands, arranged them on top of the genache. This was a great cake for sharing, and the munchkins could have one to themselves without consuming too much brownie.

So maybe my kitchen isn't that boring this month. Check out what's happening in some other kitchens around the world by visiting the links at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial.

Mixed Seed Bread

I don't make bread very often. In fact I seem only to make bread if I realise, after I've been shopping, that I need bread. I used to own a bread maker but didn't like the shape or the consistency of the bread it made and so sold it recently to free up some of my very small kitchen bench.

I've tried a few bread recipes over the years, but keep coming back to the Mixed seed bread recipe from my Wizz Mix Professional instruction book. I rarely follow a recipe exactly, and this is no exception. I follow neither the ingredients list or the methodology to the letter. The original recipe specified far more salt and sugar than was either necessary, or I felt comfortable with. I also use whichever seeds I have on hand. Here is my version. Note I always weigh the flour and water rather than use cup measurements:

2 cups (300g) bread flour
2 cups (300g) wholemeal flour
2 tablespoons milk powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp raw sugar
1 tsp bread improver
2 tsp dried yeast
2 tsp oil (I use sunflower)
up to 440ml water
8 tbsp seeds (I normally use a combination of whole linseeds, sunflower seeds, pepitas and a tasty little ground mix of soy, linseed, sunflower seeds and almonds, pictured below)
extra bread flour for kneading
extra seeds for the top if you like

1. Combine flours, milk powder, salt, sugar, bread improver, yeast and seeds in a large bowl. If you have an electric mixer with a dough hook you can use it for the next step. If not, it's time to get your hands dirty!
2. Slowly add the oil and then the water to the dry ingredients. Only add enough water to bring the ingredients together to a soft dough. I never use the full 440ml, normally more like 400ml.
3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand for about 5 minutes, until the dough is soft and pliable.
4. Place the dough ball back in the bowl and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Leave in a warm area to rise until it doubles in size.
5. Knead the dough again for another few minutes.
6. Shape the dough into a roll and place into a lightly greased, large loaf tin. Cover loosely with greased plastic wrap and leave in a warm area until well risen (40-50 mins). Remove plastic wrap.
7. Spray or brush a little water on the top, add extra seeds if you like and bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 30-40 mins or until golden brown.
8. Remove from tin and cool on a wire rack.
   

This bread is lovely. The almond mix really adds to the flavour, it's as large as a commercial loaf and slices beautifully as it is quite dense. I'm not entirely convinced of the necessity of either the bread improver or the milk powder, but given I nearly always make this in a rush, when I NEED bread, I haven't had the opportunity to remove them and see what happens. I'll add it to my "to do" list one weekend soon.