Lucas' Blog

Viennese Chocolate Fingers

// June 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Courtesy of Rob Yule, below is the recipe for Viennese Chocolate Fingers

Rob's biscuits - made for work's Betty Crocker Bake Off

Ingredients

• 115g Unsalted butter
• 6 tbsp Icing sugar
• 225g All-purpose flour
• 3 tbsp Cornflour
• 200g Plain chocolate

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Prepare baking sheets with a light coating of cooking spray.
• Sift together the flour, cornflour. Set aside.
• Using a double boiler or a large heat resistant bowl over a saucepan, melt 75g of your chocolate.
• Beat together the butter and sugar until the butter is light and fluffy, about 2 minutes at medium high speed.
• Using the mixer, slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the whipped butter and sugar. Once done, beat in the melted chocolate.
• Using a large pastry bag fitted with a large star tip (#885), pipe 2 inch ribbons of dough. In doing so, you are not making a straight line but slight small waves/ridges. Sorry I don’t recall the terminology here. Allow a good amount of space between cookies to allow them to expand during baking.
• Bake for 12-15 minutes, checking at the minimum baking time for doneness. Remove from the oven when done.
• Allow the cookies to cool on sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks.
• Melt the remaining chocolate in a double boiler. Gently dip the edge of each cookie into the chocolate tipping off the excess. Place the dipped cookies onto the parchment paper and let the chocolate set before serving or storing.

Chicken, lime and chilli penne

// June 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Recipes

Courtesy of Dan Rose’s friend Lisa Clark, below is the recipe for chicken, lime and chilli penne

SERVES 4

Ingredients

• 350g dried mini penne rigate pasta
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 small red chillies, deseeded, finely sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 4 green onions, thinly sliced
• 3 cups cooked shredded chicken (see tip)
• 1 teaspoon finely-grated lime rind
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh coriander leaves

Method

• Cook pasta in a large saucepan of boiling water, following packet directions, until tender. Drain.
• Meanwhile, heat oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add chilli, garlic and green onions. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Reduce heat to low. Add chicken, lime rind, juice and pasta. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer, stirring, for 4 to 5 minutes or until heated through. Remove from heat. Add coriander. Toss to combine. Serve.

Notes & tips

• You will need 1 small barbecued chicken for this recipe.

Le Cellier Cheese Soup

// June 25th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Recipes

Courtesy of Dan Rose, below are the instructions for making a celery & cheese soup.

SERVES 10 -12

Ingredients

• 230g bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 3 celery ribs, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
• 710 ml milk
• 1 medium red onion, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
• 30g butter
• 710 ml water
• 0.75 ml Tabasco sauce (a generous splash)
• 1 cup flour
• 120 ml beer
• 340-350g good quality cheese, freshly grated
• salt and pepper

Directions

• In a soup pot, start to brown the bacon over medium heat. When the bacon is starting to get crisp, add the onions, celery and butter. Cook until the onion is translucent.
• Add the flour and incorporate with the butter. Cook for 4 minutes, constantly stirring. Add the water and whisk. Make sure there are no lumps.
• Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes. Add the milk and continue to simmer for 15 minutes. Do not boil after you add the milk.
• After the last 15 minutes, turn off the heat and stir in the cheese and then the beer, stirring gently until the cheese is melted. Take off the heat, add Tabasco sauce and season with salt and pepper. Garnish with chives or finely chopped green onions, if desired.

If the soup is too thick, you can thin it out with some milk.

Thai Chicken

// June 22nd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Recipes

Courtesy of Lynette Braddock, below are the instructions for making Thai Chicken.

Ingredients

• 500 grams chicken
• 1 cup lite coconut cream
• 2 tabs peanut butter
• 2 tabs sweet chilli sauce
• 1tbs tea curry powder
• 1 chicken stock cube dissolved in 1 cup water
• Capsicum
• Onion
• Carrot
• Mushroom
• Zucchini
• Snow Peas
• *basically any vegies you have*

Method

• Cook chicken and then add vegies and cook through till just tender (sort of stir fried)
• Add coconut cream, peanut butter, curry  powder, sweet chilli and chicken stock – bring to boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
• Serve with rice

Adjust the measurements of the curry powder and sweet chilli sauce to your likings.

Vegetable Lasagne

// June 22nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Recipes

Courtesy of Sue Stevens, below are the instructions for making Vegetable Lasagne

• Baste a selection of vegetables, such as  capsicum, zucchini, onion, garlic, pumpkin, etc with lemon juice and pepper.  Grill.
• Whilst they is grilling, prepare the pesto sauce:  4T flour in 4T butter.  Stir fry and add enough milk to make a thick white sauce.  You can season to suit your taste.
• Lightly oil a baking dish.
• Spread prepared pesto over base of baking dish, follow with layers of grilled vegetables, lasagne sheets, pesto, grated parmesan cheese, vegetables, lasagne, pesto, lasagne sheets, pesto and finishing with a good layer of grated cheeses, combination of mozza and parmesan, etc.  Bake for about 45 minutes in a moderate oven.
• Let sit for about 15 minutes before serving.  Enjoy!!!!!!

Attention Food Lovers

// June 22nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Recipes

The other day, I got an email from a friend about a food lovers pyramid scheme. Basically send one person one of your favourite, quick recipes and send the request onto a heap of friends to spread the word.

I figured it’s worth a shot so sent on my recipe for Tuna Mornay and forwarded the recipe onto 20 people. So far I’ve got a few recipes in and figured I’d post them here so people can look at them.

Here’s the email:

Subject: Food Lovers

Body

Hello food lovers!

You have been invited to be a part of a recipe exchange. I hope you’re able to participate.

Please send a recipe to the person whose name is listed in the number 1 position below (even if you don’t know them) and it should preferably be something quick, easy and without rare ingredients.

The best one is the one you know in your head and can type right now! Don’t agonize over which recipe. Think of the recipe that you make when you’re short on time and don’t want to go to the shop that’s the one to share!

After you’ve sent your recipe to the person in Position #1 below and only to the person in Position #1 below then copy this letter into a new e-mail, move my name to the number 1 position and put your name in the number 2 position. Only mine and your name should show when you send your e-mail. Send to 20 friends.

If you cannot do this within 5 days, let me know so it will be fair to those participating. You should receive 36 recipes. It’s fun to see where they come from!! Seldom does anyone drop out because we can all use new, easy recipes.

The turnaround is fast because only 2 names are on the list. And you only have to participate one time!

Cheers and thanks,

Pauline

Check out the recipes I get with the tag ‘Food lovers’

A cold start to the morning

// June 18th, 2009 // No Comments » // Weather

You know it’s cold in the morning when you notice that your car has some ice on it.

The entire car was covered with ice this morning. I’ve attempted to take a photo of it, but my phone sucks, so it’s not very clear.

The strange thing is that it’s not really all that cold today and it’s forcasted to reach 17 degrees, but I’m not the only person to have found ice on their car today. Maybe next we can hope for snow.

Stars on the ceiling

// June 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // House

Recently, me and my family moved house. This wasn’t our choice, but mandated by our previous landlord who decided that instead of renewing our lease for the third year, they’d evict us so that they could move in. Lots of things have happened over the last few weeks, from finding a new house, arranging the bond, handing in early notice for the old house (so we could move sooner than the 7th of July – the 60 day notice period required) and so on, but one of the odd little things we didn’t count on was finding glow-in-the-dark stars all over the ceiling and underside of the lamp shade in our master bedroom. This isn’t all that strange by itself, except that this is the second rental property we’ve had that turned out to have glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Years ago, in a colony far far away (Newcastle) we had a place that in hind-site would be perfect us now. It had:

• Polished floors
• Decent enough kitchen
• Ensuite and bathroom
• Internal and external access laundry
• 2 huge bedrooms, a smaller bedroom and a second lounge room

Unfortunately, 2 weeks after we moved in we were burgled. They took some stock from Tam’s home business, some DVDs and our DVD player – about $2k in total. We never got any of it back and we weren’t insured. The house lost all appeal after that and we moved as soon as the lease was up.