Category Archives: recipe

Spring salad recipes

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It’s warming up and spring is almost here. Here are some super easy and delicious salad recipes from our friends over at Bake and Brew.

Caesar Salad

Bake and Brew’s Caesar salad and potato salad

 

Caesar salad recipe

Caeser recipe

 

Ingredients:

  • 1 whole Cos lettuce (washed and sliced)
  • 6 rashers of bacon (with rind removed and chopped)
  • 50g Shaved Parmesan cheese
  • 8 Boiled eggs
  • 4 slices of toast to make croutons
  • 100mL of Caesar dressing (Zoosh brand)
  • Parsley (optional)

Method:

1. Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Cook the bacon, stirring, for 3-4 minutes or until crisp and browned. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towel.
2. To boil eggs, place 2-3 eggs in a saucepan and cover with warm water. Cook on high until the water starts to boil, then remove from the hot plate and cover with a lid for three minutes (set a timer). Once three minutes is up, transfer the eggs to cold water and leave there until cool enough to peel.
3. Toast and butter the bread, before cutting into small squares for croutons.
4. Combine the lettuce, croutons, bacon and half the Parmesan in a salad bowl.
Drizzle over the dressing and top with the remaining Parmesan.

5. Sprinkle parsley over the top if desired.

Potato salad recipe
Potato Recipe

Ingredients:
  • 1kg potatoes (quartered)
  • 6 rashers of bacon (with rind removed and chopped)
  • 1 whole red onion (finely chopped)
  • Six pickles (chopped)
  • 200mL Coleslaw dressing (Zoosh brand) OR mayonnaise
  • Parsley (optional)
  • Balsamic glaze (optional)
  • Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Cook the bacon, stirring, for 3-4 minutes or until crisp and browned. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towel.

2. Place potatoes into a large pot and cover with salted water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain and set aside to cool.

3. Mix potatoes, coleslaw dressing, bacon, pickles, onion, salt, and pepper together in a bowl until all combined. Refrigerate to allow flavors to blend and bacon to soften, about 1 hour.

4. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar and parsley if desired, prior to serving.

 

Recipe: winter warmer veggie soup

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soup 2

I don’t know about you, but this weather makes me crave soup: packed full of flavour and healthy veggies, served hot with a buttery piece of bread or a savoury scone… yum!

The cafe here at the Library, Bake & Brew, were kind enough to give us their recipe to share with you all. Happy soup-making!

Ingredients:

2 Turnips

2 Swedes

1 Pumpkin

2 Zucchini

1 Celery head

4 Carrots

6 Potatoes

Vegetable stock (the amount of stock will be the amount of soup liquid you get)

(This the Bake & Brew suggested veggie combination, but the great thing about soup is that you can chuck so many different ingredients in! Experiment with different veggies if you like)

Note: The veggie amounts in this recipe is for a big serve of soup, if you are cooking for a small group of people, adjust the recipe for less veggies and less stock.

 

Method:

1: Dice all veggies in even sizes.

2: Take pumpkin, swedes, carrots, potato, celery, turnips. In a large saucepan or pot big enough for your soup, saute off in a little butter.

3: Add stock. Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer until tender. Add zucchinis in last few minutes.

4: Season with salt and pepper to taste, and top with fresh chopped parsley. Serve with savoury scone or bread with butter if you like.

5: Enjoy!

Soup 1

Recipe: Pumpkin, Haloumi, & Chickpea Fritters

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Meatless Mondays just got a whole lot more exciting thanks to these easy, healthy (but more importantly) tasty Pumpkin, Haloumi, & Chickpea fritters! The cafe here at the Library, Bake & Brew, were kind enough to give us their recipe to share with you all. Happy cooking!

 

Ingredients:

1/4 Pumpkin, grated

200g Haloumi, grated

1/2 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 cup self-raising flour

 

Method:

1: Combine pumpkin, haloumi, chickpeas, flour, and egg in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper if you like.

2: Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat.

3: In batches of 3, spoon a heaped tablespoon of pumpkin mixture into the pan. Flatten slightly with a spatula. Cook for 3-4 minutes each side, until golden.

4: Serve with garden salad and capsicum mayo*, and drizzle patties with balsamic vinegar if you like.

*Capsicum mayo is a mix of capsicum puree and mayonnaise: you can buy capsicum puree and mayonnaise from groceries, or you can make them yourself.

Way back when, Wednesdays

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For the woman who loves cheesecake

In the summer of 1968, the North East Leader, a Messenger Newspaper featured a section dedicated to its female readership, on page 4 of the edition dated 17 January. A Page for Women was made up of articles that were deemed to be of interest to the average woman in the 1960s.

Take a look at these articles which are predominantly about social occasions: a birthday and weddings. Plus advertisements for home furnishings and the latest ‘modern’ novels to enjoy, when you had finished spending most of your day on home duties and looking after your family. You might reflect that many publications aimed at women still focus on Society, weddings, celebrities, home decor and recipes!

modern novels plus shopping

celebrations

Burns for Blinds

Future Liberal politician, member for the seat of Kavel (1970 to 1992) and 3rd Deputy Premier of SA (1979 to 1982) Roger Goldsworthy also managed to secure some advertising space to criticise the State Government in office at the time (The Labor Government with Don Dunstan as Premier).

Roger Goldsworthy advertisement

For a fabulous dinner party, to celebrate a special occasion, to impress family and friends or perhaps to entertain your husband’s boss, the North East Leader printed this recipe for a pineapple cheesecake.

You might like to make it for your loved one! Let us know how it tastes. You will need scales which measure weight in the Imperial system or go to http://www.metric-conversions.org/weight/ounces-to-grams.htm to convert to Metric.

You can use butter or salt reduced margarine for the melted shortening. You may also substitute cream cheese for smooth ‘creamed, cottage cheese’ if you wished. To make cottage cheese less crumbly, cooks online recommend adding a little cream, https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/16693/can-i-use-cottage-cheese-instead-of-cream-cheese-when-making-a-cheesecake

Pineapple Cheesecake

Ingredients

For the biscuit crust:

2 cups crushed plain biscuits
¼ cup sugar
2 teaspoons ginger
4-6 ounces melted shortening

Method

Combine all ingredients. Press into the sides and bottom of an 8 inch spring form tin. Chill.

Ingredients

For the filling:

1 15 ounce can well-drained crushed pineapple in juice.                                                             Note:  You can now buy a 440g tin of crushed pineapple in supermarkets.
1 1/2 tablespoons gelatine
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
1/4 cup lemon juice
½ pound creamed cottage cheese
1 cup sugar
1 large can of undiluted evaporative milk, chilled icy cold.
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method

Soften gelatine in ½ cup pineapple juice and dissolve with lemon rind over hot water. Cool. Cream cottage cheese and sugar together. Add cooled lemon juice and gelatine, cool until partially set. Whip the icy cold evaporated milk in a large bowl to soft peaks. Beat in gelatine, cheese mixture and vanilla essence. Fold in crushed pineapple. Pour into crumb crust. Chill 6 – 8 hours or overnight.

Ingredients

The glaze

½ cup remaining pineapple juice
2 tablespoons sugar
1 dessertspoon cornflour
¼ cup lemon juice

Method

Blend cornflour and sugar, stir in lemon and pineapple juices. Cook until boiling, stirring constantly. Cool. Spread over cheesecake top, decorate as desired. Serves 6 to 8.

Pineapple cheesecake

#waybackwhenwednesdays

Did you know…what to do with your Christmas leftovers?

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If you are anything like me, you will no doubt have over-catered for Christmas. I actually believe that if you haven’t over catered, you are not catering properly! But after everyone has eaten their fill, what do you do with all those leftovers?

Here is one idea:

Christmas Leftover Risotto

Ingredients

  • 1 onion
  • 1 leek
  • 1-2 cloves of garlic
  • 1 heaped of thyme leaves
  • 200g of leftover turkey (shredded)
  • 200g of leftover ham (diced)
  • 300g Arborio rice
  • 1 glass of white wine
  • 1 litre of chicken or vegetable stock
  • 1/4 cup of grated parmesan (or any cheese you may have)
  • 1 tablespoon of butter
  • 1 tablespoon of cream cheese (optional)
  • Olive oil

Method

Heat the stock.

Chop up the leak, onion and garlic.

Heat some olive oil in a pan and add the leak, onion, garlic and thyme.

Once the leak and onion starts to turn transparent, add the white wine and bring to the boil before adding the rice and meat.

Reduce the heat and begin to ladle in the stock, stirring continuously. Cook for about 20 minutes, continuing to add stock as it is absorbed. It is important to keep the dish ‘wet’.

Once the rice is soft and the butter and cheese and stir through.

Serve immediately with some crusty bread.

Delicious!

Way back when, Wednesdays

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Vintage baking

Here are recipes for two old fashioned baked treats: Rock cakes and Gingernut biscuits. They are easy to make and moreish to eat. I have taken the recipes from my mum’s venerable 1961 book of home cooking Good Housekeeping’s Cookery Compendium, which was first published by the Good Housekeeping Institute in London in 1952. The book’s aim is to teach the inexperienced beginner or the more experienced cook how to produce the everyday dishes needed in an average home. Although it is produced to meet the needs of every member of the family, there is emphasis on demonstrating home cooking to the young housewife or daughter living at home, as was the custom of this era!

Rock cakes originated in Great Britain. If you have never eaten one, a rock cake or rock bun, is a small fruit cake with a rough surface resembling a rock. During the rationing of provisions in World War II, the British Ministry of Food promoted baking rock cakes, as they require fewer eggs and less sugar than ordinary cakes. Bakers would also use oatmeal in the recipe when white flour was unavailable.

This type of Gingernut biscuit is popular in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and in many countries of the former British empire. It is believed that they were originally named Gingernuts because they were quite hard to break, like a nut. The amount of syrup that you use in the recipe influences the texture of the biscuit.

All measurements in these recipes are in the Imperial system so you will need to convert them if your scales are in metric.

Rock Cakes

 

Ingredients
12 ounces self-raising flour
A pinch of salt
½ teaspoon of grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon mixed spice
6 ounces margarine
6 ounces sugar
3 ounces currents
1 ½ ounces chopped peel
1 egg
Milk to mix

Method
Sieve the flour, salt and spices.
Rub in the butter and add the sugar, fruit and peel.
Mix the beaten egg and just enough milk to bind.
Using a teaspoon and a fork, place mixture in rocky heaps on a greased baking sheet (modern equivalent is to line a tray with baking paper or use a non-stick baking sheet).
Bake in a hot oven (450 degrees Fahrenheit or 232 degrees Celsius) for 15 – 20 minutes or until they slide about on the baking tray and are slightly brown underneath.

 

2017_10_25_17_01_470001

Rock Cakes

 

Gingernuts

 

Ingredients
8 ounces flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground ginger
3 ounces butter
2 ounces sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup or treacle
The above quantities should make 8 -12 biscuits.

Method
Warm the syrup in a small pan.
Rub butter into the sieved dry ingredients. Add sugar.
Mix with the warmed syrup to form a dough.
Knead dough lightly in the mixing bowl. Form small portions of dough into balls and put them on onto a greased baking tray, flattening them slightly and allowing room to spread (modern equivalent is to line a tray with baking paper or use a non-stick baking sheet).
Bake the biscuits for about 10 minutes in a moderate oven (375 degrees Fahrenheit or 190 degrees Celsius). Let them cool a little before removing the biscuits from the baking tray to a wire rack.

Gingernuts

#waybackwhenwednesdays

Lady Alice biscuit recipe

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Lady Alice biscuits melt in your mouth.

These little golden beauties have no comparison. They are a divine accompaniment to a creamy latte or a hot chocolate, any time of year.

Library cafe Bake and Brew, always have a fresh batch on the go. Here’s their recipe.

Lady Alice biscuits

Fresh at Bake and Brew every day…perfect with coffee or hot chocolate

Sue’s Lady Alice biscuits

This recipe came to Sue from her great-aunt, who lived in Port Pirie.

Ingredients:

340gm butter, softened
115gm icing sugar
340gm plain flour
115gm custard powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

(Measurements have been converted to metric from imperial).

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees.
  2. Cream butter, vanilla and icing sugar in a bowl. Add flour and custard powder and mix until smooth.
  3. Roll teaspoons of biscuit mixture into balls and place on a lined baking tray 2cm apart
  4. Gently flatten each ball with a fork. After flattening, place the tray in the fridge and let the balls chill (takes approximately 1 hour).
  5. Place the tray in oven and bake biscuits for 10-15 minutes until just golden around the edges. Leave to cool on the trays for five minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Way back when Wednesdays

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Chocolate Marbled Cake

Chocolate Marbled Cake

Chocolate Marbled Cake

In celebration of Wednesday birthdays (including mine) why not try this vintage recipe for Chocolate Marbled Cake? It’s delicious and it works.

It comes from my mother’s cookery bible of 1961, A Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium. Compiled by The Good Housekeeping Institute, the book was first published in 1952. In the Forward on page 6, the book states that cookbooks “sometimes assume that their readers are already familiar with the very simple processes, it can still happen that a young housewife  –  or a daughter-at-home called upon to produce a meal in time of domestic crisis-finds embarrassing and unexpected gaps in her cookery knowledge.” By today’s standards this is an outdated perspective which assumes that women are responsible for home duties and it does not allow for the modern practice of ordering takeaway food!   In contrast to other books of its time, A Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium instructs the reader on everything you need to know about different techniques and how to prepare every type of meal, from cooking eggs, selecting different cuts of meat, preparing seafood, to making and decorating a wedding cake.

You could ice this cake with chocolate frosting or a ganache, drizzle melted chocolate over it or simply just sprinkle the top with icing sugar, as pictured.

Note: As this is an older recipe, you will need scales which can measure imperial weight.

6 oz. butter or margarine

6 oz. sugar

¾ cup warm milk

4 egg whites

9 oz. plain flour

2 tsps. baking powder

Vanilla essence

Milk to mix

1 ½ oz. block chocolate

Cream the fat and sugar very thoroughly and stir in the warmed milk and the stiffly beaten egg whites. Sieve the flour and baking powder and add to the creamed mixture, together with a few drops of vanilla essence, and if necessary a little milk. Divide the mixture into two, and add the chocolate (dissolved in a very little milk or water) to one part. Put alternate spoonfuls of the two mixtures into a prepared tin and bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees F, 190 degrees C, gas mark 4) for 1 ¼ – 1 ½ hours, until firm to the touch.  Enjoy!

Modern tips: Oven times may vary; if your oven is fan-forced, cooking time will be reduced. I use a ring tin for this recipe, which works well, but you could also use a round tin with a diameter of around 23cm. I lined the tin with baking paper. You may prefer to use silicone or non-stick cookware or grease and flour your tin. I interpreted ‘block chocolate’ as dark cooking chocolate.

Sue’s sticky date pudding recipe

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Yum. Sue the chef from Bake & Brew, next door to Tea Tree Gully Library, has given us her recipe for a winter classic: sticky date pudding with creamy butterscotch sauce.

sticky date pudding

A sweet, gooey classic for winter

This recipe is one of Sue’s faves. She developed the recipe as a young chef working at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney and contributed it to a community cookbook. She has made it for dessert at several weddings and continues to make it for Bake & Brew customers.

Here’s what you need to do to make sticky date pudding ASAP:

Sue’s Sticky Date Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce

Ingredients

Pudding
170gm pitted dates
300ml water
1 tsp bicarb soda
60gm butter
170gm castor sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
170gm SR flour
60gm walnuts

Sauce
200gm brown sugar
130gm butter
150ml cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
50ml brandy (optional)

Method
Bring dates and water to the boil. Simmer for a few minutes. Remove from heat and add bicarb soda. Leave to cool. (You could do this the day before serving, and keep it in the fridge).

Cream the butter and sugar, add eggs, vanilla and date mix. Fold in the flour and chopped walnuts.

Bake in a 160 degree oven for 40 minutes until firm to touch. A round 20cm cake tin is ideal, and you can also use individual moulds.

For the sauce, bring all ingredients to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes until cool.

If you make a big batch, you can always can reheat the puddings in the microwave for a sweet treat all week.

A faithful ANZAC

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Adrienne has a tried and true recipe for the perfect ANZAC biscuit. It comes from the book ‘Cookies, Biscuits and Slices of the World’ by Aaron Maree.

Makes 38-40.

Cookies, Biscuits and Slices

The original cookbook

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour
120 g rolled oats
200g castor sugar
90g dessicated coconut
150g unsalted butter
50ml water
60g golden syrup
15g ground cinnamon
1.5 teaspoons baking soda

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Lightly grease baking trays. Place sifted flour, rolled oats, sugar and coconut into a mixing bowl and lightly mix. Place the butter, water, golden syrup and cinnamon into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Add the baking soda to the boiling liquid and stir quickly to allow the mixture to foam up. Pour immediately into the dry ingredients and mix well.

Take heaped spoonfuls of the mixture and roll into balls. Place on the prepared trays leaving 3-4cm between each Anzac for spreading. Press each ball flat with the back of a spoon. Bake in the preheated oven 10-15 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven.

Slide a spatula under each Anzac to loosen but leave to cool on the tray. If the Anzacs are not easily loosened return the tray to the oven for a further minute. Store in an airtight container until ready for serving.