Coq au Riesling - Nigella style

My family know that I love books. Devour them. And I was lucky enough to be given 2 fantastic new cookbooks, for Christmas. Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson (thanks Emma), and 4 Ingredients, which is a cookbook written by 2 Australian mums, and every recipe has 4 ingredients or less - what a great concept!

Both books focus on delicious food, which is easy and fast to make. Now, as one of my posting categories is "Domestic Goddess", how could I go past starting off with a scrummy recipe by Nigella Lawson, for a French chicken casserole, Coq au Riesling.

Please excuse me, as I am typing this without the benefit of the recipe book in front of me. But it was so easy, that I can remember, I am sure!

Ingredients -

* 1 leek, chopped (do you have leeks in the US? Do you call them leeks?)
* 10 chicken thighs (either bone in or fillets, but either way, skin off)
* approx 1/2 cup chopped bacon
* oil for frying
* thickened or double cream
* 1 bottle Riesling
* 2 bay leaves

Method -

Heat oil in a deep saucepan / casserole dish. Saute bacon and leek, until soft and fragrant. Remove bacon & leek from pan, then add the chicken pieces to the pan and brown them. When chicken is browned, return bacon & leek to the pan, and add 2 bay leaves and about 3/4 of the bottle of wine (seriously - the left over bit is the 'cook's privilege'!).

Cover the pan with a lid, or tin foil, and simmer on low for about 45 minutes. Stir, remove bay leaves and add a good dollop of cream, to thicken the casserole mixture. Serve with mashed potato and green beans. Yummmm!!

Thank you Nigella, you are going to transform my family's eating habits... into decadent food, fast!

Mmm.... cookies!

Wow, the last couple of posts have been heavy going! So here is something lighter... cookies!

This is our favourite basic biscuit recipe:

Ingredients -

120 gms unsalted butter

1/2 cup castor sugar

1 egg

2 cups self-raising flour

Vanilla essence (just a tiny splash).

Preheat oven to 170 C (a moderate oven). Beat together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer, until light and creamy. Add the egg, and mix until combined. Add the flour and vanilla essence.

Knead the mixture, in the bowl, to form a ball. Wrap the dough in glad wrap (cling film) and refrigerate for about 20 mins.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured bench (this is easiest if you do it in 2 smaller batches). Use biscuit cutters to cut out cookes and put them on greased oven trays.

Bake for approx 8 - 10 mins, until lightly golden. Cool on a wire rack.

This is a great basic mixture, which can then be played around with - I add in a handful of dessicated coconut, or a large glob of peanut butter. or a squeeze of lemon juice and some zest ...

And of course, I bake wearing one of the delicous new aprons available at Sasha Sews!

Coconut Ice

When I was a child, my mum had a stash of cans of condensed milk. It was left over from when we lived on a remote island and she had to order food for 8 weeks at a time, to come in by barge. Somehow they just sat in the back of the cupboard for years, after we moved back to the mainland. When we finally opened a can, we discovered that it had turned to caramel all by itself, over the course of time. So if you have a spare decade, this is an easy way to make caramel!

In my opinion, condensed milk should be a food group all of its own - rich, creamy, sweet - and yet I can pass it off as dairy, and therefore good for us, right??

Coconut ice is a great recipe to make for your next church fete. Or just because it is yummy!

Ingredients:

5 1/2 cups icing sugar

2 1/2 cups dessicated coconut

1 can condensed milk

1 egg white, lightly beaten

Method:

Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl. I squish mine through a sieve, to get the lumps out. This is quite important, to get a smooth consistency. If you use the icing mixture (with cornstarch in it), instead of pure icing sugar, this step is a whole lot quicker!

Then, add the coconut to the sugar and stir together.

Tip in the condensed milk and egg white, mix well together. The mixture will be very thick and sticky. Yum.

Press half the mixture into a tray lined with baking paper. Then add pink food colouring to the other half, and press it in on top.

Refrigerate for 3 - 4 hours, until completely set. Slice into small pieces and enjoy!

This is a good recipe for kids, as it is just measuring, mixing and squishing into a tray. However, it does require some patience, waiting for it to set. I make it before nap time, and then take Naomi off to bed for a while, to pass the time.

Delicious apple cake

I recently saw this recipe on KimC's blog, Life in a Shoe. It sounded delicious, and also had few steps, making it perfect for a cooking project to do with a 2 year old.

I am pleased to report that the results were just as good as it sounded, and it was indeed a good kids project - plenty of measuring, tipping and stirring, and then just straight into the oven.

So the recipe is:

German apple cake

2 eggs

1 cup oil

2 cups sugar (I used brown sugar)

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2 tsps cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

4 cups of peeled, sliced apples (I used 1 large can of pie apples instead)

Beat the eggs and oil together in a large bowl, until well mixed. Add all other dry ingredients, except the apples. Mix together well - the mixture will be very thick at this stage. Stir in the apples - mixture will soften up nicely now. Pour into a 9 x 13 cake pan, and bake for 45 - 50 mins at 170 deg C (350 Fahrenheit). This does make a large size cake - halve the ingredients for a regular round or square cake.

Serve warm with cream or icecream. Or cold, straight from the fridge (as I am eating it at this very moment!)

Easy kids artwork

I have thought for some time that Naomi's room is rather drab. I made new curtains for her, but the paintwork really needs refreshing and she had nothing else interesting to look at. As it is highly likely that we will be renting out this house and moving some time in the next few months, I didn't really feel like painting and decorating (and the fact that I have been threatened with dire consequences by Brad if I even think of climbing a ladder at 30 weeks pregnant!).

So instead, I came up with this easy and fun idea for some interactive artwork to brighten the walls. I bought some cheap art canvases at the crazy bargain shop, and 2 tubes of pretty contrasting paint. Brushes, a roller and other bits and pieces we already had in the craft stash.

Step 1 was to roll the background colour on each canvas. Using a slightly damp roller produced the soft wash cloudy effect. Naomi loved this part, and proceeded to roller paint every surface in sight... thankfully, after I had rinsed out the paint and it was just plain water!

Step 2, when the background paint is dry, is to let your child go crazy with brushes and the contrasting coloured paint. Naomi adores painting, so this bit was easy to get her interested in.

Step 3, after allowing the painted masterpieces to dry, is just to raid your buttons / ribbons / scrapbook supplies and stick things on to your heart's content! Naomi helped choose the ribbons and buttons that she liked, and picked the flower stickers. She also pointed out where she wanted each one. Warning - this step can be just a little frustrating for the adult ... "there... no, um, there. This one. Or maybe this one...."

Step 4, we added a little ribbon loop to hang the canvases from, and allowed the whole lot to dry.

We think they came up looking pretty darn good. And when Brad got home, he actually thought we had bought them in a spending spree! In fact, he has taken one to work to hang on his office wall ... so we need to make another one for Naomi's room!

A couple of hints --

Check your perfectionism in at the door, before beginning this project. I had a mental image of what I wanted, which at times didn't coincide with my darling toddler's spontaneous creativity.

All sorts of ideas for embellishment spring to mind - sparkle pens? glitter glue? ribbon bows?

Great sauce recipe

Last night I cooked pork chops, but was trying to think of a quick and easy way to jazz them up a bit. I threw the following ingredients into the frypan, after cooking the chops and draining off the grease (but be sure to leave the yummy browning stuff in the bottom):

A good dollop of cream
2 tsps crushed garlic
A shake of dried rosemary leaves
Fresh garlic chives, snipped up with scissors

Stir together and let it simmer on very low for a few minutes, soaking up the meaty bits in the bottom of the pan. This made enough for generous pour-over servings on 2 adult dinners.

I had intended to put some seeded mustard in as well, but didn't have any in the fridge. It was just as delicious without it. I think this would go well on any meat - steak, pork, chicken, even fish or prawns. And it was literally conceived and made in 5 minutes, from ingredients in the condiments shelf of my pantry and fridge.

Do you have a special sauce, or something quick that you use to jazz up otherwise plain meals? Please share it with me - leave a link to your site in the comments!