Cooks Without Confidence

Hi everybody who is scared to cook!!!

I am here to tell you that cooking is not hard and that if you are struggling it is not you, maybe it is the recipe that you are trying, or the methods you are using but trust me everyone can do it. It may take you 2 minutes or 2 years to really learn how to cook but if you think about some of the people out there who can cook, you should know that you definitely can too!! :)

If you are starting with someone like Julia Child or Adriano Zumbo then maybe you have found the source of your problem, because lets be honest they are not the easiest recipes to start with!! I believe that starting with something simple like Jamie Oliver or Ainsley Harriet is the answer. The big tasks are not for the beginners, so start with something simple like an omlette or scrambled eggs. Begin with something that does not require a lot of preparation and cooking time.

Honestly, if you are spending your life buying bad food or wasting all of your money dining out all the time then try something new. What is the worst than can happen, you might find you actually enjoy it? Anyway wouldn't you love to learn how to make something for a loved one without having to buy a bad frozen meal.

Do you always wish you could wow friends with an amazing dish, or just show them that you don't have to go out when they come to stay. Well it is easy to do trust me! If you are telling yourself that you never have time to cook well then think again, as we have learnt from our friend Mr Oliver you can make simple dishes in under 20 minutes, and they don't have to be great feasts, just a simple meal. If your parents never taught you how to cook well then teach yourself, start small and simple and be realistic about what you can achieve.

Maybe try a toasted sandwich, or try roasting vegetables, or roasting a chicken, brownies or guacamole. A great thing to do maybe to practice your knife skills, teach yourself how to cut an onion, so off you go.

Anyway try it! You will love it and if not then you might save some money.

Curry Pastes

So...

Once again Jamie Oliver has thought of something great.  And once again it works brilliantly. He has recipes for several different curry pastes, they are great and can be used in many different ways. I have made two recently, a Korma paste and a Rogan Josh paste. I used the Korma paste in a Biryani and the Rogan Josh as the base for a Vegetable Curry.

The great thing about these pastes are how easy they are to make, whilst there may be quite a few ingredients if you have a reasonable spices stock then it should be easy. Remember if you don't have the exact ingredient try another, experiment and see what you come up with. The method is easy, put the spices and other stuff in a small hand held blender and mix until it looks pasty.

So I will give you some of my favourites so you can have a go :)

For the Korma paste

• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 thumb-sized piece fresh root ginger
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 2 tablespoons groundnut oil
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• 2 fresh green chillies
• 3 tablespoons desiccated coconut
• 2 tablespoons ground almonds
• 1 small bunch fresh coriander
• 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds

Rogan Josh paste

• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 thumb-sized piece fresh root ginger
• 75 g jarred roasted peppers
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 2 tablespoons groundnut oil
• 2 tablespoons tomato puree
• 1 fresh red chilli
• 1 small bunch fresh coriander
• 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
• 2 teaspoons coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns

To make either of these curry pastes, first peel the garlic and the ginger. Heat a frying pan on a medium heat and add the spices that require toasting to the pan (these are generally the wholes spices e.g. coriander seeds). Toast them until golden brown and smelling delicious, remove the pan from the heat. 

Place the toasted spices in a mortar and pestle and grind until fine or just put them in a food processor and grind until fine. When ground whiz them in a food processor with the rest of the ingredients until you have a smooth paste. 

Have fun with your curries, remember just try different things and you never know what you'll come up with! 

Catch ya later :)

Anything in General Particularly Chocolate Fudge Cake! :)

Hi,

So today is the first time I have posted in a while and it is good to be back.

I hope that, if you are reading this have are having a good day and that you have had some truly scrummy food today!!

So yesterday was my Granny's birthday and I made two cakes for her. They were not a Jamie or Matt Moran recipe however they were very yummy and easy to do.

But we are here to discuss the fabulous Jamie Oliver so I will mention a delicious but incredibly easy MEGA Chocolate Fudge Cake that I made a while back but have not posted yet.

I made this particular dish when my Aunt and Uncle visited and it is very good. Before I post this recipe I would like to introduce another topic. A book, fiction, and different, considered one of Australia's top novels... CLOUDSTREET by Tim Winton. Now I was set this to read in English this year and when I first started to read it is was weird and very different from anything I had ever read before. If you have not read however I would recommend it as it develops several interesting points about family and spirituality and really makes you think. It is a truly moving book, if you enjoy reading crack on with it!!! :)

So anyway back to cooking and Mr Oliver:

Serves 12

Ingredients

• 200 g good-quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
• 175 g butter, plus extra for greasing
• 120 g soft brown sugar
• 100 g blanched almonds
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 4 large free-range eggs
• 150 g self-raising flour
• 100 g fudge
• crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C/320°F/gas 2. Break up the chocolate, put it into a food processor with the butter, sugar, almonds, 1 tablespoon of the cocoa powder and the salt, and whiz until smooth. Crack your eggs, one at a time, into the food processor and add the flour. Whiz again until smooth.

Get a deep baking dish roughly 25 x 25cm in size. Butter the dish really well and sprinkle the remaining tablespoon of cocoa powder over it. Shake it around a bit so it lightly coats the whole surface of the dish. Pour the cake mixture into the dish, using a spatula to scrape it all out of the processor. Break the fudge into pieces and sprinkle these over the top of the cake mix, pushing any larger pieces down into the mixture.

Pop the baking dish into the preheated oven and cook for 18 to 20 minutes. Take the cake out of the oven and stick a fork into the middle of it. If there's a little bit of cake mixture on the fork when you pull it out, that's okay – you want the cake to still be a little moist inside so that it's nice and squidgy. However, if it seems a bit wobbly, pop it back into the oven for another 3 to 5 minutes to firm up a bit.

Let your cake cool slightly and serve it warm and gooey. Lovely with a dollop of crème fraîche, a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a bit of double cream.

 

Photography: David Loftus and Chris Terry

Jamies Classic Tomato Spaghetti

This was a very easy recipe to make and because Jamie gives several suggestions of things you could add to it, it would be a very good to have late at night as an easy meal.

ingredients

• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 fresh red chile
• A small bunch of fresh basil
• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 pound dried spaghetti
• Olive oil
• 1 x 14-ounce can of diced tomatoes
• 4 ounces Parmesan cheese

This pasta sauce takes minutes to cook. What’s great about this recipe for beginner cooks is that once you’ve done it a few times you can add other simple ingredients to your basic tomato sauce to completely transform it. Check out the end of the recipe, where I’ve given you some ideas to get started.

To prepare your pasta
Peel and finely slice the garlic. Finely slice your chile (halve and seed it first if you don’t want the sauce too hot). Pick the basil leaves off the stalks and put to one side. Finely chop the stalks.

To cook your pasta
Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil, add the spaghetti and cook according to the package instructions. Meanwhile, put a large saucepan on a medium heat and add 2 good lugs of olive oil. Add the garlic, chile, and basil stalks and give them a stir. When the garlic begins to brown slightly, add most of the basil leaves and the canned tomatoes. Turn the heat up high and stir for a minute. Season with salt and pepper. Drain the spaghetti in a colander then transfer it to the pan of sauce and stir well. Taste and add more salt and pepper if you think it needs it. Divide the pasta between your bowls, or put it on the table in a large serving dish and let everyone help themselves. Roughly tear over the remaining basil leaves and grate over some Parmesan.

These can be added to your tomato sauce when it’s finished. Just stir in and warm through:
• Add a handful of baby spinach leaves to the sauce at the same time you add the pasta—when the leaves have wilted remove from the heat and serve with some crumbled goat’s cheese on top.
• A few handfuls of cooked shrimp and a handful of chopped arugula with the juice of ½ a lemon.
• A can of tuna drained and flaked into the sauce with ½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon, some black olives and the juice of ½ a lemon.
• A handful of fresh or frozen peas and fava beans

 

Jamie's Chicken Fajitas

This was really nice, it made a very nice school lunch for the day after.

CHICKEN FAJITAS

1 red bell pepper
1 medium red onion
8 ounces skinless, boneless chicken breast fillets
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
A small pinch of ground cumin
2 limes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/16 teaspoon sea salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 x 8-inch flour tortillas
½ cup plain yogurt
2 ounces Cheddar cheese
For the salsa
½–1 fresh red chile, to your taste
15 ripe grape or cherry tomatoes
about ½ cup a small bunch of fresh cilantro
1/16 teaspoon sea salt
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 lime

Put your grill pan on a high heat. Halve and seed your bell pepper and cut it into thin strips. Peel, halve, and finely slice your onion. Slice your chicken lengthways into long strips roughly the same size as your bell pepper strips.

Put the bell peppers, onion, and chicken into a bowl with the paprika and cumin. Squeeze over the juice of half a lime, drizzle over a lug of olive oil, season with the salt and pepper and mix well. Put to one side to marinate for 5 minutes or so while you make your salsa.

Finely chop your chile. Roughly chop your tomatoes and the cilantro, stalks and all.

Put the chile and tomatoes into a second bowl with the salt and pepper and the juice of 1 lime. Then stir in your chopped cilantro.

Use a pair of tongs to put all the pieces of bell pepper, onion, and chicken into your preheated pan to cook for 6 to 8 minutes, until the chicken is golden and cooked through. As the pan will be really hot, keep turning the pieces of chicken and vegetables over so they don’t burn – you just want them to lightly chargrill to give you a lovely flavor. Give the pan a little love and attention and you'll be laughing.

To make the guacamole squeeze a handful of cherry tomatoes on to a board. Finely chop up the flesh with ½ -1 red chile and a handful of cilantro leaves, including the top part of the stalks.

Halve the avocado, leaving the side with the pit for another use. Then squeeze the one side of the avocado over a board so the flesh comes out of the skin. Discard the skin. Squeeze over the juice of 1 lime and chop everything together until fine. Taste and adjust the flavors if needed.

Warm your tortillas up in a microwave or a warm dry frying pan. Divide your warmed tortillas between your serving plates.

At the table, carefully help yourselves to the chicken and vegetables straight from the hot grill pan. Just be sure to put it down on top of something that won’t burn, like a chopping board.

Halve your remaining lime and squeeze the juices over the sizzling pan. Serve with bowls of plain yogurt and guacamole alongside your Cheddar, a grater, and your lovely fresh salsa. 

Jamie's Chicken and Leek Stroganoff

Made this is February and did not add it to the blog, it was very nice, however the sauce was very runny so if I made it again I think I would add less liquid. Personally I prefer thicker sauces, but if you do not than it does not matter.

Chicken and Leek Stroganoff

Sea Salt and freshly ground black pepper
150g long-grain or Basmati Rice
1 Large Leek
Big handful of Chestnut or Oyster Mushrooms  2 Chicken Breasts
Olive Oil
a knob of butter
A glass of white wine
A bunch of fresh parsley
285ml single cream
1 Lemon

1. Pour boiling water from the kettle into a large pan, place on a high heat and add a pinch of salt. Add your rice and bring to a boil, then turn the heat down slightly. Cook according to instructions on package.
2. Cut both ends of the leek, quarter lengthways, slice across thinly, then wash under running water. Slice the mushrooms. Slice the chicken breasts into finger-size pieces.
3. Put a large frying pan on high heat and add a good lug of olive oil and a pat of butter. Add the leek to the pan with the white wine, a small glass of water, and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Let it bubble away for 5 minutes covered loosely with a piece of aluminum foil. Meanwhile, finely chop the parsley.
4. Remove the foil and then add the chicken strips, most of the parsley, the cream, and the mushrooms. Stir, bring back to a boil, then turn the heat down to medium and simmer for 10 minutes.
5. Drain your rice. Just before serving cut your lemon in half and squeeze the juice of one half into the stroganoff. Season to taste.
6. Spoon some rice onto each plate and top with the stroganoff. Sprinkle with the remaining parsley. Serve with the other lemon half, cut into wedges

Jamie's Baked Camembert Pasta

Had this tonight and it was truly amazing and very yummy, easy and enjoyable! Try it as soon as possible.
Ingriedients
1 times 250g box of camembert cheese

• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 sprig of rosemary
• sea salt and pepper
• extra virgin olive oil
• 100g parmesan cheese
• 400g dried rigatoni
• 150g fresh spinach
  

Method
Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. Leaving it in the box, score around the top of a 250g Camembert about ½cm in and cut off the top layer of skin. Finely slice a peeled garlic clove and poke it into the top of the cheese with a few fresh rosemary tips. Drizzle with a little olive oil then bake in the hot oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until gorgeous and oozy in the middle. Thread bite-sized pieces of stale bread onto stripped woody rosemary sprigs, drizzle them with olive oil and a tiny pinch of sea salt to help them crisp up then lay them on a tray and pop in the oven to cook with the Camembert. Finely chop a small handful dried cranberries and mixed nuts and put them in a little bowl. Once your bread skewers are golden and crisp and your cheese is oozy, put everything out on a board then dunk a bit of toasted bread in the gooey cheese and dip it in the cranberry and nuts

BEAUTIFUL AND YUMMY AS HEAVEN!!!