Food Preservation with the Daring Cooks

The September 2010 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John’s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home Food Preservation.

I started this month thinking that I'd make the recipe John gave us for Oven Roasted Tomatoes. Just halved or thirded tomatoes, sprinkled with salt, olive oil, minced garlic and basil (which I skipped because I was out of it). Slowly roasted at a low temp. They were fabulous, and although I had intended on preserving them, in the spirit of the challenge (freezing), they were so good, I ate a third of them before they'd finished cooling, and then used the rest in a pasta sauce for dinner that night.

While that would have fulfilled the challenge technically, I decided I could do a bit better.

I was looking at the recipe given for Apple Butter, thinking it would be great in the slow cooker, when I came home with a discounted 1kg tub of strawberries. Bingo. This was the easiest thing in the world to make. I halved or quartered what was left of the strawberries, after the kids had some for afternoon tea, and in their lunchboxes - it came to 5 cups of pieces.

Then I put them in the crockpot and cooked them on slow for 19 hours, mashing after 3 hours, and stirring occasionally.

It could have definitely done with a shorter cooking time, as parts of it did scorch a little, and made the overall product a little bitter, but it wasn't yet done when I went to bed after 11 hours cooking, so I had to make do. Quite possibly I'd have had better results if I'd pureed the strawberries first. Ah well, live and learn. May be I should try with apples....

Strawberry Peach Vietnamese Milkshake

Just like back in Week 14, I had trouble finding a recipe for this week's cookbook challenge. I don't have any Vietnamese cookbooks. I don't think I've ever eaten any Vietnamese food to tell you the truth. So it was back to trolling through the multitude of recipe indexes at the back of my hundred of food magazines. I started with the November issues, as that's the way my folders were arranged when we moved last year. So you can imagine that by the time I hit May, I was ready to grasp at straws. So when I saw a recipe in the May 2002 issue of delicious magazine with the word 'Vietnamese' in the name of the recipe, I took it, and breathed a sigh of relief. Not only was this week's challenge sorted, but I had all the ingredients in the house, it took care of the last of my peaches, and it was a nice treat for a hot day (which we've had plenty of lately!).

Strawberry Peach Vietnamese Milkshake Taken from delicious, May 2002
(serves 5)
10 Tbsp sweetened condensed milk
2 1/2 cup chopped strawberries and peaches
2 1/2 cup milk
ice cubes

Doesn't the fruit look pretty?

Place the milks and fruit in the blender, top with ice. Blend until thick and frothy.
Serve in a tall glass with a straw.

This was an entry for
The Cookbook Challenge: Week 17 - Vietnamese.










Don't forget to get messy with your young 'uns for Kids In The Kitchen, training our next generation of food bloggers! ;)

Kids Cooking Thursday: Peach & Strawberry Tarts

This was another Cooks Club Challenge from the Taste.com.au forums. Because I wanted to make it with Miss Four, and I'm really bad with shortcrust pastry, we used bought tart cases, but you can make your own shortcrust tart case if you prefer. What follows is my adaptation of the given recipe, which was originally for blueberry tart.

Peach & Strawberry Tarts
120g softened butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2tbs Gallinano
200g almond meal
125g skinned, sliced peaches
125g strawberries, hulled and halved
Icing sugar to dust
Thick cream or ice cream to serve

Cream butter and sugar with electric beaters until thick and pale.
Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and then add the Gallinano. Beat again. Tip in the almond meal, and beat through.

Cover base of pastry shell with half the peach slices and half the strawberries, cover with almond cake mix and top with remaining fruit.

Bake for 25 minutes at 180C or until pastry is golden.
Let cool, dust with icing sugar and serve with cream.

If you'd like to join in with Kids Cooking Thursday please leave a permalink to your own Kids Cooking Thursday post, as per the rules.


Don't forget to get messy with your young 'uns for Kids In The Kitchen, training our next generation of food bloggers! ;)

Vanilla Vodka Strawberries.

After one day, the vodka was already turning red

Take two punnets of strawberries, washed and hulled. Add to an air tight container with a split vanilla bean. Cover with vodka. Let sit for three months. I'm not sure if this needs to be refrigerated or not, but I'm not taking the chance - mine is living in the back of my fridge.

I meant to take a photo when I made this yesterday, but forgot. Ah well, I tohught, it's going to be there for a while. But already today the vodka is going red. It's quite cool actually.

Around xmas time I plan on removing the vanilla bean and blenderising the rest. To be served with either chocolate ice cream (perhaps in the blender to make a smoothie?) or Baileys or Creme De Cacao... I'm going to call it a Neopolitan. Strawberry, Vanilla, Chocolate, get it?

Sugar High Friday: Straw/Blue Berry Turnovers

Straw/Blue Berry Turnovers (served with double choc ice cream)

I didn't follow a recipe for this, just made it up as I went along, so some of the measurements aren't exact. You'll need two thawed sheets of puff pastry. Well, I wanted 8 pastries, to serve 4 people, but you can adjust this as needed. Slice the pastry into square quarters, but leave on the blue plastic for easier handling.

I found it easier to score a line about 1cm in from the edge, all the way around the whole sheet, to show where my 'seam allowance' (to borrow a sewing phrase) was, and to lightly score a line down the diagonal centre of each quarter piece, to show the fold line. That way I had a neat triangle shown for where the filling went, making the next step heaps easier.

Get some Strawberry Philly with Fruit, and with a knife or the back of a spoon, smear a liberal layer inside the triangle area. Don't go into the 'seam allowance' or the pastry won't seal properly and you'll get a mess during baking. Then top generously with frozen blueberries. Fresh if you can get them I guess, but I'm not paying $7 for a 200g punnet.

Take one corner of the pastry square and fold it over, creating a triangle, and seal the edges with a fork. Bake at 180°C for around 15mins or until golden. Be thankful you don't have to sit in front of the oven holding the gas knob for the whole time to keep your oven lit like I had to tonight. Then take out, and serve hot with ice cream. Chocolate works well, or you could use a berry flavour, to really get that berry overload happening for ya.

Ready for baking

This has been an entry for Sugar High Friday #45: Berries! hosted this month by Susan at Food Blogga.

Sugar High Fridays was dreamed up by Jennifer at The Domestic Goddess

***Round up is here***

Oh my sweet giddy aunt... (Pioneer Woman's Dumplings!)

We had Beef Ragu. With spuds. It was tasty. But I don't want to talk about that. Because for dessert, we had this:

Bad photo, awesome dessert.

All 16 pieces of it.

Pioneer Woman's Apple Dumplings

You can find the original post here. I made it with strawberries as well, as I love strawberries, and wanted to make something to enter Strawberry Seduction.

Strawberry and Apple Dumplings to Die For
1 Granny Smith apple
16 strawberries
2 sheets of puff pastry
250g butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
cinnamon
3/4 cup Mountain Dew

Peel and core apple. Cut the apple into 16 thin slices. Trim the tops off the strawberries, and slice vertically into three. Slice the puff pastry into quarters, then cut each small square in half diagonally, to make triangles. Place a slice of apple in the centre of each triangle and top with one strawberry's worth of strawberry slices.

You can't see the apple in this photo, but it's under the strawberries, I promise.

Roll up each slice in the pastry, and place in a 9 x 13 buttered pan. Melt butter in a saucepan, then add sugar and barely stir. Add vanilla, stir, and pour over dumplings. Pour Mountain Dew around the edges of the pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and bake at 175°C for 40 minutes. Serve with ice cream, and spoon some of the sweet sauces from the pan over the top.

Dumplings with butter sauce - lots of butter. Probably too much butter.

After adding the Mountain Dew these babies are swimming!

Try them. It may sound sinful, it may sound ridiculous, but just take my word and try it. I too, was a cynic once. You must try these dumplings! Before Pioneer Woman revamped her page and got rid of the blog format, there was a lot of comments on this recipe. One lady said her husband got down on one knee and proposed to her again after taking one bite, another said her husband exclaimed "Now why would I want to eat at restaurants when I get food like this at home woman?" after tasting them. And it doesn't suprise me at all. Many people have blown diets over this dish. I, myself, have had four pieces tonight. I plan on having more tomorrow, as they are apparently just as good cold. Just a small mention, I've written the recipe here for Australian cooks, but the only thing I changed was slightly more Mountain Dew (though less than then 375ml can originally called for) and adding the strawberries. Please. Try this, your tastebuds will thank you.

This was an entry for Strawberry Seduction. Check back here for the round up link sometime early next week. C'mon... strawberries... you know you want to!

***EDIT*** Round up is here!