Bread

04
Jul
2015

Cheese and Date Night

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Bread, Cheese, Dates, Olives, Snacks, Starters

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.

Tonight’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.

I 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!

If somewhat lopsided…

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

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.

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

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.

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Martini Drenched Olives

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

Author: Taryn Fryer

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
8–10 cracked peppercorns

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Instructions

Rinse the olives under cold water and drain.
Combine all the other ingredients.
Place the olives in a bowl.
Pour the other ingredients over.
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!

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

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Drenched Dirty Martini

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A dirty martini with a twist!

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

Splash dry vermouth
90ml vodka
1 tbsp liquid from Martini Drenched Olives
2 Martini Drenched Olives
Ice cubes
Martini Glass

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Instructions

Swirl the vermouth in the glass and discard.
Add the ice cubes.
Combine the vodka and olive liquid. Add to glass.
Add the Martini Drenched Olives
Enjoy!

Have a great weekend!

Signature 1 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

Reimagined Martini Recipes for Celebrating Today’s Drinking Holiday
Bond Vivant: Shaking Martinis with Nick Charles
The Martini: the epitome of cocktail-hour refinement | Empire of Drinks
Warm Marinated Olives

19
Feb
2015

Locket’s Savoury & Pimped Up Locket’s Savoury (GF)

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, Blue Cheese, Bread, Cookbook Guru, Gluten Free, Pears, Watercress

One of the best things about 2014 was connecting with other cooks and bloggers and cooking from the same books. I love doing it in person at the Tasty Reads bookclub but it was also so much fun doing the Joan Crawford inspired dinner for Jenny’s book launch.

So, I was super excited to find this blog:

https://thecookbookguru.wordpress.com/what-is-the-cookbook-guru/

Which is pretty much all cook-a-longs. They choose a new book every two months and anyone can cook from the book and post on their own site. Then, Leah shares what everyone posts on The Cookbook Guru. What a great idea!!!

The book for January and February is Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book. First published in 1978, this has become a classic. And very auspicious that I get to start with a book full of retro recipes.

I was even more excited that there were a whole heap of artichoke recipes because the local continental deli had been having a sale and I bought about a ton of artichokes because they were something insane like 50 cents a can.

Then I read Jane’s advice on

How to choose canned artichokes.

“Don’t”

Huh….Jane apparently doesn’t mince words. I like her already. But anyway I hightailed it out of artichokes and landed at the very other end of the book at watercress and found this lovely recipe for a very fancy grilled cheese called Locket’s Savoury.

I did have a little giggle when I read the name of this dish. Back in the day, we used to have a footballer by the name of Lockett nicknamed Plugger because….I have no idea why and have sufficient lack of interest in football to be arsed to Google it. Anyway, some time before the Grand Final one year (the equiv of the Super Bowl or the FA Cup Final), Plugger hurt his groin. And I swear for an inordinately long amount of time, it seemed like if you picked up a newspaper, turned on the radio or the tv, all you heard about, all people seemed to care about was Plugger’s Groin. Strangers would approach you on the street and say “So, do you think it will be good for the Granny?”

“What?”

“Plugger’s groin.”

Not since David Beckham made those underwear ads has an entire nation been so obsessed by the state of a football player’s nether regions. And yes, by the way…we do nickname our Super Bowl/FA Cup etc The Granny. As in a little old lady. That’s Australia for you.

So, all that was Lockett’s Unsavoury, let’s turn to the matter at hand – Locket’s Savoury

So simple. So delicious, and just 4 ingredients.

The original recipe called for white bread. I used this beautiful seeded ciabatta. Jane’s recipe called for the crusts to be cut off. I left mine on because I love the taste of the toasted seeds!

Watercress

One of my favourite greens. I love the peppery taste of it!

Pears

Are probably my least favourite fruit. Will this recipe redeem them in my mind?

Locket's Savoury - Pear — Locket’s Savoury – Pear

Stilton.

Mmmmmm…blue cheese. Happy days….

Stilton is apparently the king of cheeses. Who knew cheese had a royalty. Who’s the queen? And more importantly who is the red headed reprobate prince flashing it’s arse and donning a swastika for high jinks?

I’m betting it’s goats cheese.

This was awesome. It actually made me like pears. And that’s saying something!
There’s a few more totally awesome watercress recipes in this same book and I have a ton of it left so you may get a few more o’ these before the month is through. There is definitely one more I have to do.

Here is Jane Grigson’s recipe:

This was really good. Super tasty, super easy and I wouldn’t change a thing in Jane’s recipe.

Or would I?

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed very unfair that my gluten-free friends missed out on this delight.

So without further ado, meet the pimped up, gluten-free Locket’s Savoury

Basically, scrap the bread, use a slice of pear as the base. Add your watercress and Stilton. Throw in some chopped walnuts. Once done, sprinkle with some chives.

In some ways this was almost better. Those pears got all caramelised and…dare I say it, delicious!!!

I’m so looking forward to doing the Cookbook Guru Cook-a-longs. And you know what would be even better? If you all did it too…

If you did want to, you already know the book for the rest of Feb. March and April is The Food of Morocco by Paula Wolfert. My local library has a copy of this. Yours probably does too. I also got the Jane Grigson book from the library.

But PS..The Locket’s Savoury is the gift that keeps on giving. Those little bits of blue cheese that slide off as you grill the cheese and go kind of crunchy. So good to eat later!!!

Have a fabulous week!

And I would love to know your royal family of cheese!!!

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Pimped Up Locket’s Savoury (Gluten Free)

Print Recipe

A gluten free version of a delicious watercress, pear and blue cheese recipe from Jane Grigson

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

1 pear
2 – 4 sprigs of watercress, depending on size
2–3 slices of Stilton
4 walnuts chopped
1 chive, chopped
Freshly ground black pepper

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Instructions

Slice the pears into six slices, discarding the core. You will have some rounder pieces as well as some more “pear” shaped pieces.
Remove the leaves from the watercress sprigs and place over the pears.
Cover with stilton
Sprinkle with chopped walnuts
Place under a hot grill until cheese is melted and walnuts are toasted.
Sprinkle with chopped chive and black pepper.
Enjoy!

Notes

You can easily increase the quantities for this, I made mine for one because I only had one pear and minimal watercress left.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 1

24
Nov
2014

Cheesy Eggplant and Salami Sandwiches

categories: Eggplant, Salami, Sandwiches, Starters, Tomatoes

Memories, misty water colour memories….

As I enter week two of Paleo, there is one recipe that I made earlier this year that is lingering in my mind as containing pretty much all the sins of Paleo but all the glories of delicious food. Funny, the things I thought I would be craving – coffee, chocolate, hummus…not so much…but if you put one of these in front of my right now, I would step on you to get one.

I found this recipe in the same folder I found the recipe for the Smoked Trout Empanadas.I’ve changed it a bit to include the chili and the original chopped the salami and mozzarella and mixed them together.

I’m not sure if the lure here is:

The gooey, melty cheese
The crispy breadcrumbs
The spicy salami
The silky sauteed eggplant
The slighty sweet tomato sauce
The little hit of chilli
Or all of the above

But believe me, the sirens are singing this song loud and strong. And you will be too if you make them. So crispy, so cheesy, so gooooood….

I’m not going to say much this time (because I might cry). I’m just going to let the pictures speak for themselves.

Trying to remember, the way we were…

Have a fabulous week!

PLEASE eat some cheese for me.

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10
Aug
2014

Molten Umami Meatball Sandwiches

categories: Comfort Food, Italy, Mushrooms, Sandwiches

Hello, hello it’s good to be back!

Umami Meatball Sandwich — Molten Meatball Sandwich

Did you miss me? I’ve been on holidays – three weeks out of the grey Melbourne cold and into the warmth of sunny Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia. The holiday was amazing and I will fill you in on the details over the next few weeks, most particularly about the amazing food.

Here is (literally) a taster….

You know how in most supermarkets you get tasting plates? For example, earlier today in my local supermarket I got to sample 3 kinds of dumplings (prawn, scallop and mushroom), 5 flavours of kombucha tea and some chia pudding…(yeah, my local supermarket is awesome!) Well, in Cambodia, the taster plates consist of Bamboo Worms…and only $2 a kilo!

And these are deep fried crickets….an even better bargain at half the price of the worms…

This is me about to taste one of the bamboo worms:

But before we go there, I wanted to talk to you about meatballs. As much as we love Asian food, after three weeks of it we were craving something that wasn’t. Funnily enough, we both had cravings for pretty much the same thing.

He wanted spaghetti bolognese. I wanted spaghetti and meatballs. I was doing the cooking so spaghetti and meatballs it was! As I was cooking these, I realised why this is such awesome comfort food (it’s not like either of us has Italian heritage). My meatballs are crammed full of umami flavours – parmesan, mushrooms, tomatoes, red wine….Hmmm…is red wine umami? Well it’s pretty damn good even if it isn’t. Also, the original recipe for this called for an anchovy fillet. I didn’t happen to have any so I added saltiness with a dash of fish sauce…guess what? More umami!

The spaghetti and meatballs were delicious and everything I wanted – something to warm our bones in the winter cold, something that was quick and easy to cook after a day of travelling and something familiar – comfort food at it’s best!!!

They also require very little in terms of fresh ingredients so you can keep shopping to a minimum. And, if you were super organised, you could make a batch and pop them in the freezer before you left. (Massive sigh). I would love to be that organised!!!!

So, it was spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and then, (this mixture makes a lot of meatballs) I made a molten meatball mountain (i.e, a meatball sandwich ) for my lunch the next day. The meatballs were great with the spaghetti but for my mind, even better in the sandwich the next day. And Oscar was on hand for any leftovers.

Of which there were none!

Remember these?

They tasted like this:

I wouldn’t say this was the worst thing I have ever eaten…but it sure wasn’t good. The outside was kind of crunchy and not so bad. It was the inside that was gross. It didn’t taste so much of anything, it just had an unpleasant texture – mushy and slightly gritty. Not to mention the thought that was impossible to dispel. “That thing in your mouth? That’s worm guts…you’re eating worm guts…that thing you just bit into, that was probably work heart….”

Not good.

Thank goodness I found much better things to eat in Phnom Pehn. Which I will tell you about next time…

Have a fabulous week!

PS – Is anyone doing the kombucha thing? I kind of want to grow my own….if you are please let me know!

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22
Apr
2014

Retro Easter Part 2: Easter Lily Sandwiches

categories: Asparagus, Cream Cheese, Lunch, Sandwiches

Let’s start with a caveat.

I am perfectly aware that these sandwiches do not resemble Easter Lilies and would, based on their look, be far more appropriately called Calla Lily Sandwiches. But it’s Easter ok?

And take a look at them. How pretty are they? Perfect for an afternoon tea with the girls….

Easter Lily Sandwiches2 — Easter Lily sandwiches

And they taste pretty damn good too!!!

There are a few recipes for these lily sandwiches floating about the interwebs. However, most of them use green onions for the stem. I actually made it that way the first time but was disappointed in the taste.

Chomping on that big stalk made the sandwich way too oniony – I’m pretty sure no one else wants to bite into a huge chunk of onion like that either. Or suffer the onion breath afterwards. But to use them as decoration only and take them out when it came to eating the sandwich seemed like a waste. My first thought was to replace the onions with beans but when I went to buy the beans, I was waylaid by some gorgeous baby asparagus spears.

And my version of the Lily Sandwich was born.

If you can only get thicker asparagus you could cut the spears in half down their length. If asparagus is not available, use beans or celery matchsticks – all of which I think would be preferable to the onion!

Oh and a tip for the frugal. When you cut the circles out of the bread, don’t throw the rest of the bread out. Save them to use for what my family call Ox-Eye eggs but is, I believe more commonly called, Egg in A Hole the next morning! Any asparagus left over can also be dipped into a runny yolk for a breakfast made in heaven!!!

Leftovers

Oh and if you don’t happen to have a rolling-pin handy, a bottle of your favourite sauv blanc works equally as well.

And would also be the perfect accompaniment to these sandwiches at your Easter afternoon tea!

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Easter Lily Sandwiches

Print Recipe

Pretty asparagus sandwiches, perfect for a Spring afternoon tea!

Prep Time: 10
Cook Time: 5
Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

Scale

1 bunch of asparagus
Slices of white bread, as many as you have asparagus spears
1 tub of cream cheese or a herb and garlic flavoured cream cheese like a Boursin
2 tbsp fresh chopped chives (omit if using a flavoured cheese)
1 clove of garlic, crushed (omit if using a flavoured cheese)
1/2 cup pistachios finely chopped
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
Carrots cut into matchsticks, the same number of matchsticks as asparagus spears
Salt & Pepper to Taste
Instructions

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Instructions

Tail the asparagus and steam until just tender.
Mix the cream cheese, paprika, nuts, salt and pepper and herbs in a bowl until smooth and creamy.
Using a cookie cutter, cutter cut out rounds from bread.
Then with a rolling pin, roll each round so it’s about 1/8 inch thick.
Spread about a teaspoon of the cream cheese mixture over each bread circle.
Place the carrot stick so it peeps out of the top, and the asparagus spear so it pokes out of the bottom. Fold the bread over to seal.
Voila! You have a lily sandwich.

One more Easter Treat to go…stay tuned!

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Category: Bread

Cheese and Date Bread

Cheese and Date Balls

Martini Drenched Olives

Martini Drenched Olives

Ingredients

Instructions

Drenched Dirty Martini

Ingredients

Instructions

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Easter Lily Sandwiches

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