Category: Bread

All The Z’s 3 – All The Zucchini – REPOST

You knew it was coming right?  There was never going to be a showcase of Z recipes without a recipe for zucchini.  Except there’s not just one zucchini recipe…there’s going to be four.  Because it’s midsummer and my zucchini plants have gone berserk. I have been eating zucchini at least once a day for weeks. I have given away dozens of them.  And they just keep coming!  So I have to keep finding things to do with them.  Here is a summary of this summer’s dishes…so far…

This flatbread recipe which is below  came via Australian Gourmet Traveller and it is so good – not to mention almost too pretty to eat!  If you don’t want to make your own bread, you can sub in a flatbread of your choice.  But the bread is pretty easy and gives you a huge dose of smug!

 

Zucchini Flatbread 1
Zucchini Flatbread 1

Zucchini Flatbread 3

 

Seriously three zucchini plants are producing enough to feed a small army!  And they grow so quickly.  One second they are tiny, the next literally as big as my arm!

Zucchini 4

But here’s the thing…up until recently, I wasn’t that big a fan of zucchini.  I recall it from childhood as being a bland soggy mess.  My conversion came when I tasted it raw in a salad one day.  And it was super good!  Zucchini Salad (2)The above salad is so easy to make and became my go-to whilst on holidays – I chopped a heap of carrots, zucchini, celery and cheese and kept them in a container in the fridge.  Whenever I got a bit peckish, I would get out some lettuce, sometimes crumble in some hard-boiled egg,  add a splash of dressing and roll up for a healthy, tasty snack!  The recipe is from my old fave Rosemary Mayne Wilson’s Salads For All Seasons.

Rosemary suggests a mayo dressing for this salad.  I vote no on that.  My preferred dressing for this salad is a vinaigrette with a good dollop of mustard in it.  Try it…you won’t regret it.

Recpe: Raw Zucchini Salad - RMW

Turkey and Zucchini Patties with Cacio e Pepe Zoodles

Okay, here’s one for the meat eaters!  Although I was not very complimentary about a lot of the meals in Pete Evans’ paleo cookbook, Healthy Every Day, these turkey and zucchini patties were an exception.  They are awesome!  I make them all the time (sometimes I even have to buy zucchini to make them!).  I don’t use the egg in this recipe as I find the mixture is already quite wet without it.  (Pete also doesn’t tell you to squeeze the water out of the zucchini which you need to do).

Zucchini Turkey Patties4

And here’s Pete’s recipe:

Turkey & Zucchini Patties – Pete Evans

The eagle-eyed of you may have noticed the fourth dish nestled in below the turkey patties in the photo above.  The last recipe in the zucchini extravaganza is a Zoodle Cacio e Pepe.  (Zucchini noodles which cheese and pepper).  A lot of recipes I have found for this cook the zoodles.  We’re not going there.  I far prefer raw zucchini to cooked so mine is kind of a Cacio e Pepe carpaccio…

 

Print

Zoodle Cacio e Pepe

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 zucchini
  • 2 tbsp Grana Padano or Parmesan cheese
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1/2 finely chopped mint (optional)

Instructions

  1. If you have a spiralizer, make noodles out of your zucchini.
  2. If not, use a vegetable peeler to make long thin strips of zucchini.
  3. Place in a bowl and toss through the olive oil, lemon juice, black pepper and cheese.
  4. Top with the mint if using.
  5. Serve straight away

Have a wonderful week!  I’m off to harvest more zucchini!

Before we go though, tell me what is your favourite zucchini recipe?

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Anne’s Poetical Egg Salad Sandwiches

One of the absolute delights of my childhood was discovering the Anne of Green Gables set of books by Lucy Maud Montgomery.  They were my favourite books for years!  And to be honest, although I haven’t read one in forever, I still have the entire series and it wouldn’t take much for me to be again drawn into the world of Matthew and Marilla, Diana Barry and Gilbert Blythe and the adorable red-haired, high-spirited feisty girl known as Anne of Green Gables.  And that’s Anne with an E and don’t you forget it!

Anne Books

These books taught me so much about the world – about love, about friendship and family, about how it’s okay to be different (and how to embrace that difference).  Oh, and how I wasn’t the only person in the world who constantly had to spell their name to people to ensure that they got it right!

So I was overjoyed to find out that there is an Anne of Green Gables Cookbook.  And beside myself to be given a free ARC from NetGalley and Race Point Publishing to review!  Thank you so much!

First up, this book is gorgeous!  The illustrations and the photos are beautiful.  And all of the recipes are referenced to the exact place in the books where they occurred..which a pedant like me totally loves!

I choose to make Anne’s Poetical Egg Salad sandwiches.  And they were delicious.

Anne's Poetical Egg Salad SandwichesOMG…these were so good!

I think sometimes it’s hard when blogging to present something as simple as these sandwiches because…..well…it’s egg salad right and everyone knows how to make that.  so why bother?  But this is also real food, the kind of food I want to make. Eat. Repeat.

Recipe?  Here.

And you can also fancy these up.  The version you are looking at has some chives in the mix.  It’s great with lettuce in the sandwich.  To make it really fancy, a slice of smoked salmon is divine!

Poetical Egg Salad Sandwich5

I adored this book almost as much as the novels that inspired it!

Poetical Egg Salad Sandwich7

And as we head into the new year, some rules for living from Miss Anne Shirley:

ON FRIENDS

 

ON MAKING MISTAKES

1985AnneGreenHair

ON MAKING AN EFFORT

Anne effort

ON ATTITUDE

Anne and Marilla (1)

ON LOVE

Gilbert

THE FUTURE

Anne2

And on that note sweet people, I’m going to bid you adieu for 2017.

Thank you for reading, commenting, liking, sharing.  You’re the best and most wonderful kindred spirits ever!

And for all of you, all my very, very best for a joyful 2018!  May it bring it everything you wish for!

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Vincent Price’s Buckingham Eggs Jaffle

You made a what???

For for those of you who are already totally confused, let me explain.  A Jaffle is an Australian term for a toasted sandwich. And it is a much loved food for breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, supper, a midnight snack or any of the times inbetween.

And I made one based on Vincent Price’s Buckingham Eggs.  And it was very good!

Buckingham Egg Jaffle2Like I guess many of my generation, the first real inkling I had of Vincent Price was as the voice in Thriller….

I had no idea he could not only cook, but cook like a boss,  until I started blogging.  It’s one of the reasons why I am so excited that the 50th edition of Vincent and Mary Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes is about to be released.  And I am reliably informed by Jenny of Silver Screen Suppers that, in her view, it is the best cookbook ever written!  And Jenny knows her stuff!!!

Only a few more sleeps ’til that happens but first, Jenny invited her blogging pals to take part in a cookalong with some of Vincent and Mary’s recipes.

I hadn’t really intended on making the Buckingham Eggs for the cookalong .  I was totally primed to make Vincent Price’s Champagne Chicken but, it was only 10:00am. Possibly a little too early for a roast dinner.  But I was hungry and a jaffle seemed like the perfect thing to tide me over til dinner time. A quick glance at the fridge revealed eggs, cheese and anchovies. I had a thought process that went something like this:

  • You could make the Buckingham Eggs
  • But I want a jaffle
  • The Buckingham Eggs sound really good.
  • So does a jaffle.
  • Anchovy and Mustard butter…-
  • Egg and Cheese Jaffle
  • Hmm…what if we…
  • I like where you are going with this

And thus the Buckingham Eggs Jaffle was born. I’m sure neither Jenny or Vincent would disapprove of my tweaking the recipe slightly to satisfy both the devil and the angel on my shoulder!  For the purists, here is a link to the original recipe as cooked by Jenny:

Buckingham Eggs

For my version make an English mustard and anchovy butter.  I could not find any anchovy paste so I mushed up an anchovy.  The mustard adds  some heat and makes it a beautiful colour!Buckingham Eggs1I could just eat this on toast forever and be totally content!

But, wait, there’s more!

Eggs and cream and cheese and onions. I meant to add some Worchestershire Sauce but I totally forgot!  Oh well, all the more reason to make it again next Sunday!

Buckingham Eggs3Now, add the onions to the egg mixture and scramble them really lightly.  You need them to thicken up but still be quite moist as they will continue to cook once they are in the jaffle iron.

Now, butter both sides of the bread (if you’re feeling decadent ) or the one side if not.  Place the buttered sides on the surface of the jaffle iron. This is important otherwise your bread will stick like crazy. Place the cheese on one side and the thickened egg mixture on the other side.

Buckingham Eggs4Fold The Iron over.  Trim any bits of bread hanging out of the iron and place over a low heat.

Jaffle 3

The only tricky bit is that once the iron is closed you have no way of telling how much the inside has cooked unless you open it up and have a little peek.  Make sure you turn it over at least once so both sides get toasty.  As a general rule, once the outside is a dark golden colour, the inside will be perfect.  This is the colour you are aiming for:

Buckingham Eggs5At the risk of sounding a bit hippy dippy, when cooked like this, the egg and cream mixture and the cheese become one in a gorgeous creamy melange.  This is surrounded by crispy, salty, slightly spicy bread…..OMGZ delicious.

Buckingham Eggs6This made a super brunch, but if darkness is falling across the land and the midnight hour is close at hand, this would also make a super late night snack!

A massive thanks to Jenny for including me and to Vincent and Mary Price for the recipe.

For all the deets on the cookbook launch and activities around it, click any (ALL) of the links below:

Vincent Price Treasury Cookalong with Silver Screen Suppers
Vincent Price Legacy Tour – for details of celebratory events in the UK
Amazon Page for the 50th Edition of A Treasury of Great Recipes
Champagne chicken up next!  Stay tuned….

 

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Braving Brioche

They say you should do one thing every day that scares you.  Well, this week we are jumping ahead to the letter H in the A-Z of cooking and I am doing something that terrifies me.  The reason for the leap from E to H and the sudden boldness on my part will become apparent in the next post….Huh…instead of a cliff hanger ending I think I just gave you a cliff hanger starting!  Anyway, want to know what scares me?  That third episode of Limetown still makes me shiver  but cooking wise, one of the things that frightens me is bread.

Brioche1And not only did I made bread this week but ooh la la, I made French Bread!  Brioches to be exact.  And they were very good!  They looked kinda like brioches, they smelled like brioches, and they tasted like brioches!  I cannot tell you how pleasantly surprised I was because the manner of making seemed odd.

I have never made brioche before but maybe, possibly this is how it is done.  It seemed to work!

You made your bread dough then divided it into 12 pieces which you rolled into balls.  Then you pinched off a small ball of dough from each of those so you then had  24 balls, 12 small and 12 larger.  The recipe then called to make a hole in the large ball and stick the small ball inside.  I found it easier to flatten the large ball and wrap it around the small ball.

BriocheThen into the baking pan for a rest and rise:

Brioche CollageAdd a glaze, pop in the oven and a short while later:

BRIOCHE!!!!

Brioche2If I’d known brioche was going to be this easy I would have been making it for years!  I love that high shine glaze!  And to copy a phrase I learned from the Great British Bake Off, the bread also has “good crumb”.

Even though I had specifically made these for another purpose, I couldn’t resist having a little taste.  Brioche and apricot jam for afternoon tea?  Yes please!

Brioche and Jam

As for the rest of them?  Stay tuned.  You’ll see in a couple of days!  And it’s worth the wait!  Meantime, get your brioches ready!

Print

Brioche

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 tbsp plus 1tsp sugar
  • 3 tbsp hand hot water
  • 2 tsp dried yeast
  • 200g plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 50g butter, melted and cooled

Egg Glaze

  • 1 egg
  • 1 tbsp water
  • pinch of sugar

Instructions

  1. Dissolve 1/2 tsp of sugar in the water. Sprinkle over the yeast and whisk it in with a fork. Leave in a warm place for 10-15 minutes or until the mixture is frothy.
  2. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Mix in the rest of the sugar, the yeast mixture, the eggs and butter.
  3. Mix by hand until the mixture leaves the side of the bowl.
  4. Knead on a lightly floured board for 5 minutes.
  5. Put the dough in a warm place and leave to rise for about 1.5 hours or until it has doubled in size and springs back when lightly pressed.
  6. Preheat your oven to 230C.
  7. Divide the dough into 12 portions. Break off a small bit of each portion and roll into 12 small balls.
  8. Roll the remainder of the portions into 12 larger balls.
  9. Poke a hole in each of the larger balls with your finger and place the small ball inside. Close the hole by pressing the dough together.
  10. Place the balls in your baking tin and leave to rise for about an hour or until light and puffy.
  11. Mix the ingredients for the egg glaze together and brush over the brioches.
  12. Place in your preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Have a great week!

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Cheese and Date Night

If we are at home on a Friday, we don’t usually eat a big meal, just usually have a couple of snacky things here and there. 

Friday Night Snack Plate 1Tonight’s snack plate had a distinctly retro feel so I thought I would share it with you!

Cheese and Date Bread

First up, we have some Cheese and Date Bread, courtesy of The A-Z of Cooking.  We have jumped somewhat forward here in that this recipe appears under G – Good Health, when technically we are only up to D – Drinks and Dips. And whilst Drinks and Dips are usually  good Friday fare, tonight it was something different.

Cheese and Date BreadI was intrigued by the idea of Cheese and Date Bread.  I really wasn’t sure how the sweetness of the dates would go with the rest of the ingredients.  These fears were completely unfounded.  And my bread looked just like real proper bread!

Cheese and Date Bread2
Cheese and Date Bread2

 If somewhat lopsided…

Cheese and Date Bread3
Cheese and Date Bread3

The bread is pretty good plain but if you want to take it to a whole new level?  Toast it up. 

Cheese and Date Bread4
Cheese and Date Bread4

 Cheese and Date Balls

Like I said, initially I was hesitant to make the Cheese and Date Bread.  What changed my mind was finding this  recipe for Cheese and Date Balls:

Epicurious – Cheese and Date Balls

Of course I made mini balls – because that’s how I roll. Also, I swapped out the lemon in the recipe above for a teeny splash of vermouth. 

Cheese and Date BallsMmmmm…blue cheese, walnuts and dates spread on toasted Date and Cheese Bread.  Life is good!

Cheese and Date Balls2
Cheese and Date Balls2

 But wait…there’s more. 

But first a little bit of disclosure.  I am actually trying something new tonight which is to cook (ok, assemble, I had actually cooked everything beforehand), photo, write, review and post all in the one night.  Normally this process can take WEEKS. I am also doing it whilst drinking a rather large martini which we will get to in due course.  So, if the end of this devolves into absolute gibberish, you know why and apologies in advance. 

Those olives you see on the plate?  Aren’t just any olives.  They are:

Martini Drenched Olives

Normally, you put your olive into a martini.  In this recipe, you put some martini into your olives!  This is so simple and really adds a new and different flavour to some otherwise ordinary olives. 

Print

Martini Drenched Olives

Usually, you put a olive in your martini. This recipe adds a little martini into your olives!

Ingredients

Scale
  • 2 cups green olives (I used stuffed olives because I had them)
  • 3 tbsp vodka
  • 1 1/2 tbsp dry vermouth
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp shredded lemon zest
  • 810 cracked peppercorns

Instructions

  1. Rinse the olives under cold water and drain.
  2. Combine all the other ingredients.
  3. Place the olives in a bowl.
  4. Pour the other ingredients over.
  5. Refrigerate for at least an hour. (I kept mine in the fridge for nearly a week).

 But you know what?  If your going to have some martini drenched olives, why not make also make a Drenched Dirty Martini.  It is Friday after all!

Drenched Dirty Martini2
Drenched Dirty Martini2

 The Drenched Dirty Martini is a dirty martini made with Drenched Martini Olives. 

[yumprint-recipe id=’32’] 

Drenched Dirty Martini
Drenched Dirty Martini

 Have a great weekend!

Signature 1 Vintage Valentine Quick as Wink2      PS – Love to hear your thoughts on the quick and dirty post.  I live in awe of the bloggers who manage to do something daily and would love to be able to increase my output.  Your feedback on me just banging something out like tonight v agonising over every comma is most appreciated! Thanks as always. xx