Vegetarian Shepherd's (Cottage) Pie

So, Mum was cooking Shepard's Pie for the family a couple weeks ago and I used to be such a huge fan of Shepherd's Pie in my pre-vegetarian days, so I decided to see if I could make a good alternative that didn't taste like it was trying too hard... and it worked. Yum, so good. Here's the recipe:

Serves 6 (although I adapted the measurements extremely inaccurately and made it for one).

2 T olive oil (I used veggie)

1 large onion

2 c. cooked brown lentils

1 c. stock

2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

2 T chopped parsley

1 T chopped mixed fresh herbs (or ½ tsp. dried)

salt and pepper

3 c. mashed potatoes

6 T light cream (or milk)

1 egg, lightly beaten

¼ c. butter, melted

grated Parmesan cheese/paprika

Heat oil and fry onion until soft. Mix in lentils, stock, W sauce, salt and pepper. Cook until heated through and lentils nicely browned. Spoon into a well-greased deep casserole dish.

Blend potatoes with the cream, egg and half the melted butter and spread over the lentil mixture. Brush the top with the remaining butter and sprinkle with grated cheese (or paprika, or both). Bake at 375F for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and enjoy eating with the family. (Make sure you have dished all you want before your non-vegetarian dinner company realises how good your version is.)

Lentil Skillet Delight

Well...one day my parents went out to the vegetable garden and put me in charge of making dinner. So I proceeded to make a scrumptious lentil skillet per my mother's recipe. While doing so I had my good friend Kayla on the phone who voiced her deep desire to know how to make such a scrumptious skillet for herself! So here goes:
You need:

• approx. 4 hamburger patties (or as much ground beef as you deem necessary)
• 1 large can of lentils
• 1 small to medium onion finely chopped
• 1 clove of garlic finely chopped
  
• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• some ground pepper

Once you've gathered all these yummy ingredients (I realize half the audience will not eat this scrumptious dish as you are vegetarians...oh well...):

-brown the ground beef and then drain
- add chopped onions and garlic
- add lentils with juice from can
Let simmer a little bit...
-add cumin, salt, and a sprinkle of pepper
Let simmer on low, covered for 15-20 min or until cooked to satisfaction.

This can be served over rice or pasta...though I prefer rice! And I tend to sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top for extra yummyness.
Enjoy!

Delicious Raspberry Jam

While visiting my family in Northern Ontario my parents and I went to a local farm to buy raspberries for my Gramma. It was the very end of the season so they weren't selling any pre-picked raspberries, we would have to go into the very picked-over fields to find them ourselves. Since it was such a nice day and we were planning to go for a walk anyway we thought we'd try our hand at it. Well, we got a little carried away, and picked more than the pint we set out to get... after an hour and a half we ended up with 9 litres of berries! After eating as many as we could, I set out to make raspberry jam.

On the drive home I looked up recipes for raspberry jam. I wanted something simple, that would have the raspberries as the main ingredient.

The most raspberry-filled recipe I found called for 4 cups of raspberries and 4 cups of sugar. I thought I'd start out with half the sugar and see if it would thicken up. And it did! So I did three batches of 4 cups of raspberries and 2 cups of sugar. I mashed the raspberries before measuring the quantities and got them quite warm in the pot before adding the sugar. It made 6 medium-sized and 3 smaller glass bottles, and it's super yummy!

Tomato Fried Egg

This is a Chinese form of comfort food. I don't generally like eggs or tomatoes but I make this dish all the time since I've been home. Chinese recipes don't really have measurements, but I'll do my best.

Ingredients:

• Egg
• Tomato
• Sugar
• Salt
• Oil
• Garlic (optional)
• Green Onion (optional)

As far as proportion, I'd say two eggs to one medium-size tomato feeds one to one and a half people.


Here's what to do:

1. Crack to eggs in a bowl and add a "Beks amount" of salt (ie. think how much you would put, then think how much Beks would put and do the latter).
   
2. Whisk the eggs.
3. Chop the tomato into thinish slices
4. Chop up the garlic and green onion if you are using it (mince the garlic if you are Debbie using garlic)
5. Put a frying pan on medium high heat and add a little oil. I've been using mild-flavored olive oil (I know this inauthentic, Hannah. You may use whatever kind of oil you want)
6. First put the eggs in. Sort of scramble them into big chunks, but before they've cooked all the way take them out and put them back in the bowl
7. Add a little more oil to the pan
8. If you're using green onion, garlic put that in now and let it cook a little bit
9. Add the tomato slices and sprinkle them with sugar (a little more sugar than you'd typically add just to season)
10. Wait for the tomatoes to cook down, maybe flipping them once during the process
11. Put the eggs back in and stir up the all the ingredients together for a while. You're trying to get the flavor of the tomato into the egg at this point (it is a highly effective technique to contemplate this thought while stirring)
    
12. Serve over white rice or by itself and enjoy! (preferably with a fellow contributor to this blog)

Creme Brulee

So good to have company on this blog. :)

I made this quite awhile ago... but the stupid internet is so slow that I couldn't put a picture up.

Mum bought a recipe magazine from South Africa and Dad found this recipe in it and requested it. So I tried. It worked really well! So tasty.

1 1/2 cups double cream
1/2 cup milk
1 vanilla pod (I used 1 tsp vanilla essence)
4 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup coarse sugar, raw sugar or castor sugar

1. Preheat oven to 180 C. In a medium saucepan, heat the cream, milk and vanilla pod over medium heat, stirring occassionally. As soon as it begins to boil, turn off the heat and set aside to infuse for at least 15 minutes (I assume this is just if you use a vanilla pod).

2. In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar.

3. Remove the vanilla pod from the cream mixture. Whisking constantly, gradually pour the hot cream mixture into the egg mixture.

4. Pour the custard into 4 ovenproof ramekins* and place in a deep oven tray. Pour hot water halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake in the centre of the oven until almost set but still a bit soft in the centre, about 30-40 minutes. The custard should quiver a bit when you shake the pan, it will firm up more as it cools. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours but no more than 24 hours.

5. When ready to serve, pour as much coarse sugar as will fit into the top of each custard.

6. Place the ramekins on a baking sheet or in a roasting pan under the very hot oven grill for about 1 - 2 minutes, or use a kitchen blowtorch (I wish!) until the sugar melts and browns nicely. Cool for about a minute before serving. The picture is pre-blowtorched... I actually burnt the last one and the beautifully browned first few were eaten before I took the picture. Fortunately, the internet is so slow that I can't put up the picture of the slightly overcooked one.

*Who on earth has heard of a ramekin?! Anyone? Google defines as: a small fireproof dish used for baking and serving individual portions.

By chef Raymond Rundle, in Food and Home Entertaining, June 2010

Heather's Meringues

Ahem... so either I'm just extra devoted to this blog, or... I'm going a little crazy here with nothing to do. Anyway, I debated whether or not to wait for someone else to post a recipe but then thought I may be waiting for some time. :) So I thought I'd just go crazy and keep posting while I'm in this frenzied cooking mode which won't last forever.

So, this was my first time making meringues which were a childhood treat that a lovely family friend used to make (Aunty Heather) and they were a lot easier than I thought they would be! You eat them plain any time of day (preferably with tea), or fill them with whipped cream for a extra yummy dessert! Ahh... heaven in a white puff of sugar... pretty much.

Meringues

Weigh egg white
Same weight granulated sugar
Same weight castor sugar (extra fine sugar, but I used granulated/normal and it worked)

I used:
4 egg whites
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup castor sugar

Beat egg white till fluffy (quite a decent amount of time), add granulated sugar, beat until stiff. Fold in castor sugar.

Drop in spoonfuls onto baking sheets lined with wax paper/brown paper, about 1" apart. Swirl to create round, spiked meringues.


Bake at 250C for 20 minutes. Turn off oven, leave in warm oven to dry for 2 hours. Meringues should be completely dry inside (you'll to have to sample one to make sure). If not dry, keep in a very low, warm oven for several hours (or in a warming draw), it's important to keep checking (sampling) :).




4 egg whites makes 60 meringues.

Next time... creme brulee!

Corn chips and Guacamole

I thought I'd kick off our new blog with something dear to my and Elise's heart. Well, mine at least.

I was feeling so sad at leaving the land of tortilla chips (America) and one day felt a terrible craving for corn chips to go with my guacamole (we have a beautiful avo tree in our garden in Zim, as you see). Sadly, I could not walk down to Walgreens and buy craved-for corn chips. I'd attempted them before with no success but decided I was desperate enough to try again - and my perseverance paid off!

Mmmm... so good.

Corn Chips

(From "More with Less," an MCC cookbook given to my by my Rossman housemates - a book you should all buy, p.310)

Makes ½ lb (not very many, if you're making for more than yourself, you might want to double it :) ).

oven: 350F

Combine in mixing bowl:

1 c yellow corn meal (or white)

2/3 c. flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

2 T. dry milk solids

Stir together in separate bowl:

½ c. water

¼ c. oil

½ tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1/8 tsp. Tabasco sauce

Add liquids to dry mixture and stir with fork. Knead a little until smooth. Grease 2 cookie sheets (10x15”) and sprinkle with cormmeal. Divide dough in half. Roll each half directly onto cookie sheet with floured rolling pin, rolling dime-thin. Sprinkle with paprika, garlic, onions or seasoned salt. Run rolling pin over once more. Prick with fork. Cut in squares or triangles. Bake 10 min or until golden browned.

I found I had to watch them quite closely, and cook them for much longer than 10 minutes! But you may have better success, maybe it's our unevenly-cooking oven.

I used a Guacamole recipe from "Extending the Table," another MCC cookbook, you can fiddle with the proportions as per personal taste though.

Guacamole (Mexico)

In bowl, chop or mash:

1 avocado

Stir in:

1 small tomato, finely chopped

1-2 T onion, minced

1 T lemon juice

1 clove garlic, minced or crushed

salt and pepper to taste

cilantro (optional – ugh, I left it out)

½ fresh green chilli pepper, minced (optional)

Options:

Substitute a dash of Tabasco pepper sauce or a bit of coarsely ground black pepper for green chilli pepper.

Add 2 T sour cream.