Simple and Easy

Those two words describe exactly what I look for when it comes to baking recipes.  I have a 15 month old, so time is of the essence!  I want to cook, but need to be able to do it relatively quickly, and without too much thought.

The first thing I always think of when I want to bake, is Cheese Biscuits.  Some people call them Cheese Straws, but growing up I knew them as Biscuits.  The recipe is one my Grandmother knew, and every time I eat them I am reminded of her.

Honestly, I am the laziest person in the world, so making these is a breeze and definitely not a chore.

Cheese Biscuits:

350 grams grated cheese (Tasty is the best, but I use Edam/Mild)
60 grams flour
1/2 tsp salt
Cold Water

Line baking trays with baking paper and heat the oven to 200 degrees celsius.  This recipe makes about 3 trays.

Add all ingredients into a bowl and mix together.  Add water until it forms a nice easy, rollable dough.  Roll the dough out to about 1cm thickness.  Cut into 2x5cm strips (or whatever size you want).  Place each strip onto the baking tray, with a 1cm gap between each strip.

Cook in the oven until golden (about 10-15 minutes).

I bake these so often now that I don't use a recipe, so actually don't know the exact amounts I use.  Basically you want to have more cheese than flour.

Update from the Wife

Well we've been a bit unproductive in the dinner making lately, so haven't got a lot of new things.  However, I've been baking a heck of a lot, and will definitely continue to do so as it is so good for my sanity!

I'm huge into baking easy things that are delicious.  Every now and then I will branch out and do something a little more complicated, but I'm all about the simple things!!!  Will post some of the baking and recipes I've done shortly.

In the mean time, hope everyone had a great Easter, we sure did!

The Wife's Baking Day ...

Well my fabulous husband decided to go on the biggest walk EVER!  He and our 1 year old took the bus into town (Auckland) and then walked back to Onehunga.  It was a 3.5 hour walk ... HOLY MOLY!

Now during this time he always says "just relax", but 3.5 hours on your own can get a little boring.  And I do feel very unproductive unless I do something, so I decided to bake.

Lemon Loaf & Melting Moments

I had 2 lemons left in the fridge so knew I wanted to make a Lemon Loaf.  So I set to doing this - I love Lydia Bakes' website.  She has some amazing recipes, and a lot are quite easy to make.  This lemon loaf I have made several times and is always a hit.

LEMON SYRUP LOAF

While the lemon loaf was cooking, I contemplated just leaving it at that but the woman in me couldn't help it! I don't have a lot left in my pantry but knew I wanted to make a kind of short bread.  I wanted to use Custard Powder though, so after looking through the internet found a pretty basic recipe for Melting Moments.  CLOSE ENOUGH!

Quiche with home made pastry

Normally you would put icing between the biscuits and join 2 together, but in this instance we are just eating them plain as they are so good by themselves.

MELTING MOMENTS

Next, I got a little adventurous and decided that after these two sweet dishes, I should probably do something savory.  So decided to tackle a quiche.  I'm not a big fan of quiches, especially when there are some really random ingredients in them.  However, I have made some mini quiches before that are REALLY basic.  So I just modified the recipe to be a little bigger for my quiche dish.

I also made my own pastry for the first time (inspired by the hubby of course, since he often says its so easy).  And what do ya know!?  It is easy!!!  A few recipes say to let the dough sit in the fridge for 2 hours, but I didn't really want to wait that long, so found a recipe that only needed 30 mins.

Now to eat all of this OM  NOM

QUICHE FILLING
PASTRY

When the hubby came home from is walk he was well impressed!  As was I!!!  I also did a lot of housework, but that sort of stuff goes unnoticed most of the time :P  ...

Food however - ALWAYS GETS NOTICED!!!!!!!

Sloppy Joes & Home Made Burger Buns

Tis the Sunday before Phil returns back to work (after Christmas) and we had a big pack of mince in the freezer.  Phil went to his good ol' trusty Food Wishes website to search for a recipe.  After only a minute, he decided we would have Sloppy Joes.

Not only that, but he had seen a recipe for Hamburger Buns, so he decided to try that out too.

Phil baked the buns in the morning, meaning they were nice and fresh for the meal at night.  The recipe isn't hard, and we recommend clicking on the below links to view the videos for each:

HAMBURGER ROLLS
SLOPPY JOES

Phil's home made rolls

The great thing about Sloppy Joes is that if you have a large amount of mince, and for some reason, we had 1kg of it, then this recipe will last for a few meals.  You obviously also have the ability to freeze the meal for later on.  Freezing the buns, however, I wouldn't advise doing that.  If you don't use them all up, pop them in an airtight container for a few days and when they start to go stale you can make Bread n Butter pudding.  YUM!

So anyway, the result of all of this was a very very delicious meal.  We cooked it for a little too long so it wasn't as runny as I was hoping, but according to Phil its not meant to be runny.  Guess my expectations were a little different!!!

The end result

Also, too much Cayenne pepper in it for my liking.  I enjoy a bit of heat, but that was a little bit too much.  I don't think the recipe was incorrect, I just think Phil was a little heavy handed haha .................

I would possibly recommend serving it with a light salad, just to balance it out.

Following this up with some ice cream.  I say its to "cool my mouth" but really we know its because I LOVE sugar hehehe

ENJOY!

Spit Roast Turkey

Phil has been experimenting with our BBQ lately, as his brother designed and upgraded it to include a hood and a rotisserie unit.  We have had a few rotisserie chickens, pork, lamb and beef.  Now it was time to try the Turkey.

Christmas is over, and thankfully the supermarkets had them on special - over 70% off!  SCORE!

Before we had a rotisserie, we would just cook the roast in the oven, with little to no preparation.  Now when Phil does it, he puts the meat in a brine (which I had never heard of before).  Basically the meat soaks overnight in a specially prepared liquid.  This ensures the meat stays moist and is flavorsome.  As you know, when cooking a Turkey, it is imperative it doesn't dry out.

Our before and after photos

The Aussie Griller (You Tube Channel) has a great recipe for brining and then cooking the Turkey.  The only thing we didn't do was stuff it - we ran out of time!

Phil brined the Turkey in a bucket (TURKEYS ARE HUGE!) for at least 24 hours.  The bucket stayed in my fridge and it took up SO MUCH SPACE!  I was very happy to have it out .....

It took about 3 hours to cook, but was totally worth the wait.

The meat was moist and extremely tasty.  As the Turkey is so big, we had plenty of left over meat, which we used to make wraps the following night. And then used the carcass to make a stock.

Waste not, want not!

Accompanying the Turkey, Phil made a Coleslaw found on the Food Wishes blog.  The recipe is simple, but is so delicious.  It lasts us at least two nights.  Should note we don't include the Asian Pear in it as when we first made it, we noticed it didn't really add anything to the dish.

Here are the links for the recipes:

Spit Roast Turkey
Pickled Ginger Coleslaw

We were ridiculously full by the end of this meal, but it was so worth it!

Christmas Day Overload!

As we do every year on Christmas Day, we spend it with family.  This year was no exception!

One thing, however, that has changed is that we now have a child.  Well, we had one last year (just 3 weeks old in fact), but this year was different.  She is 1 and LOVES exploring and investigating, AND eating!

We headed up North of Auckland for Christmas lunch, and Phil made a simple, yet delicious pasta salad.

We have made this salad before and loved it.  The recipe (Food in a Minute) is for Spiced Hoki, but as the salad was so good by itself, we obviously ignore the Hoki part.

After lunch we headed back to Auckland to my parents house for dinner.  This time Phil had prepared (the night before) a yummy Apple Pie.  Actually the exact pie that is in our other post (Apple Pie & Home Made Pastry).

I'd love to say I had some input in what was made, but alas I didn't.

Surprisingly I do know how to cook, but things like that have taken a back seat now that we have a baby.  In saying that, Phil LOVES to cook, so I wouldn't deny him that pleasure!

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas ... here's to next year!

Apple Pie & Home Made Pastry

Phil has made this particular recipe several times, and it is a HIT!  He even makes the pastry from scratch ... did I mention this man is amazing!!!

The recipe for the Apple Pie AND the Pastry is on the Food Wishes website.  Chef John has some great videos, which are easy to follow and quite funny!  Although for this particular recipe, he calls pastry "pie dough" ... bloody Americans!! :P

Phil makes the pastry about an hour or so before he makes the actual pie - this is to ensure it spends enough time in the fridge to cool down.

One thing he has said time and time again is "people don't realise how easy it is to make pastry".  And it is true.  There are only 5 ingredients in it, and the major player is butter.  If Phil can do it, so can you!!!

Here are the links to the videos/recipe:

Apple Pie
Pastry

Phil's Pie ... OM NOM NOM

If you are making this for dinner, Phil recommends cooking it a bit in advance as it takes quite a while to cool down enough to eat.  Same goes for if you are taking it to someone's place - cook in advance so that the hosts only have to reheat it.

Serving it with vanilla ice cream or cream (or both!) makes it absolutely delicious.

Everyone who eats this will LOVE it.