by Sarah MayberryOkay, you're probably all a little sick of hearing from me over the past week or so - I promise "normal services" will resume next week now we're all back on board after conference. Since I filled in for Wanda on Tuesday and today was my "real" blog day, rather than bore you with more of my thoughts on the world in general (!!!) I have decided to share with you my latest favourite recipe.
I love food. Too much, as it happens. I promised myself this would be the year that I would be fit and fabulous, but I seem to be getting a very slow run up to achieving that goal... Probably because of the aforementioned love of food.
Anyway. I have an extensive collection of cookbooks, and I really enjoy cooking, especially when I have plenty of time to just toodle around the kitchen getting stuff done. When I run out of time, it's never pretty (I am a messy chef at the best of times) and if we're having guests and I've run out of time I always wind up getting flustered.
We had house guests come to stay with us recently, and because my man was recovering from a bad flu (which actually turned out to be pneumonia, but that's a whole other blog post), we decided to eat in rather than go out to a restaurant. I had a French themed menu all planned out, and I ducked out in the afternoon to pick up a few final ingredients. According to the ETA our friends had given us, I had a leisurely 3 hours in which to prepare our meal. Easy peasey. When I got back from the supermarket, however, I found my man vacuuming. Our friends had called - they were going to be arriving early. As in 2 hours early.
I won't lie. I had a little freak out. The house was mostly tidy, but I hadn't done all the prep work for the meal. Then I took myself to one side and had a stern word with myself. "Sarah (I said) they're early, there's nothing you can do about it. You're just going to have to prepare and cook the meal while they're here." (In case you can't tell, I usually like to have everything mostly ready to go when we have dinner guests.) So, we popped a bottle of champagne when our friends arrived, and they sat around the kitchen table while I chopped and diced and blended and whatevered, and you know what? I loved it! I loved cooking and chatting to them. I loved that the whole meal, from prep to consumption, became a shared experience. And I am going to do it again! What the hell. From now on, when we have people over for dinner, I'm not going to get all frothy at the mouth over having everything ready to roll. I'm gonna wing it.
I'd like to share one of my favourite dishes from my little French menu. It's really simple, and not one I'd ever tried before. But really, really delicious (and probably really bad for you because of the deliciousness). So, here goes:
Green Beans with Garlic
400g (14oz) of picked green beans (haricot vert)
1 tablespoon butter
2 shallots, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely crushed
100ml (3 1/2 fl oz) chicken stock
100ml (3 1/2 fl oz) double cream
salt and pepper to taste
Blanch the beans in 1 litre (2 pints) of boiling water for 2 minutes or until tender. Drain and set aside.
Melt the butter in a heavy based frying pan over a low heat. Add the shallots and garlic, stirring until shallots are tender.
Add the chicken stock and turn the heat up to medium. Reduce the stock by three-quarters and add a pinch of salt. Add the cream then reduce the volume by half.
Mix through the green beans and season with salt and pepper.
This recipe is from My French Vue cookbook, by Shannon Bennett, a well known Australian chef. His restauraunt, Vue de monde, has been awarded Restaurant of the Year in Australia for two or three years running. I served these beans with potato dauphinoise and coq a vin. It was all very yummy!
I'd love to know what sort of cook you are, or maybe what your favourite cookbook is. Or maybe you'd like to share a recipe with us all - did I mention that I love food? Talking about it, reading about it, blogging about it... I'd love to hear what your favourite foods are.
I'd also like to give away a $15.00 Amazon voucher for one poster to buy a new cookbook or put toward whatever tickles their fancy. Post away!
45 comments:
Sounds like a great recipe! I do cook a lot but having to learn to cook a little different since my husband just became a diabetic so a good cookbook would be very helpful. I am a country cook so I never used cookbook to often but that is going to have to change now.
Cook????? What's that???? The only thing I cook comes frozen and goes in the oven. Ok I do "cook" fresh vegetables to go with the frozen stuff.
I love looking at cookbooks and getting new ideas. I am canning vegetables out of the garden now. I have found some great recipes for canning in cookbooks.
Sarah, I love to cook, too - and I really love to eat *g* Sundays are the only days that aren't crazy busy for me so I take the afternoon to prepare Sunday dinner complete with a wonderfully fattening dessert :-)
Thanks for sharing the recipe, it looks great! I'm about to dash out the door but I'll try and post one of my favorite recipes when I get back.
I like to cook (and eat) too! What a neat idea to have your guests chat while you're cooking! That green bean recipe sounds great. I have a real easy one where I put fresh or frozen green beans in a baking dish, sprinkle with garlic powder and black pepper, then add a can of condensed mushroom soup and about a third of a can of water. Then I bake them at 350 degrees for about 10 to 15 minutes :) I usually use recipes only to get propportions of major ingredients right and to figure out cooking times.
Oh... I forgot to tell you, I'm not sick of your blogging! You keep me interested in what you're writing about :) Didn't you fill one day last week too?
I loved my Southern Living cookbooks I collected over the years and my church cookbooks, you know, the ones that have every casserole made with cream of something soup, pretzel salad and desserts made with cool whip and jello.
Sadly, I developed food allergies and have to eat unprocessed foods now. Veggies, meat, no wheat or corn. I have tried some gluten-free cookbooks but they often use corn flour.
What do I do? I go to allrecipes.com and search for the recipes with as few ingredients as possible. I also depend on emails from our local farmer's market.
I may just have to write my own cookbook but for now I just experiment almost every night!
I can't cook, but when I need a recipe I'll go to the Food Network website. My dad and my cousin are great cooks. My dad's best dish is beef fried noodles and my cousin's chicken parmigiana is amazing.
I actually love cooking for kids. I don't believe I'm good at creating interesting dishes that appeal to adults, but I have a knack for making creative choices for kids. A popular summer snack that I make is called "Fruit Pizza" and it's as simple as it sounds. You'll only require dessert shells, whipped cream and a variety of fruit that children enjoy. I usually opt for strawberries, blueberries, grapes and diced melon. And yes, it truly is as simple as filling a dessert shell with whipped cream and decorating it (funny faces with grapes melon is a favorite!) with fruit pieces.
If you haven't tried this recipe out, go for it and try to add your own unique twist to make it really fun. Enjoy!
I have always been a dessert person - but since finding out my husband is gluten intolerant it is a quite a challange. The main ingredient in most desserts is wheat flour! I am on the lookout for gluten free cookbooks now.
Sarah, we never get tired of your blogs! Folks I can attest to the fact that Sarah's a fabulous cook. Those green beans sound yummy! My favorite new cookbook is Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals. I love how he uses all fresh ingredients, keeps it simple but his food is packed with flavor. A recipe I got from one of his TV shows that I make all the time for the family is a chicken and chorizo dish that's a one pan wonder.
Ingredients:
- 6 chicken thighs
-2 or 3 chorizo sausages cut into chunks
-2 onions, quartered
-2 red peppers, quartered
-bulb of garlic broken into cloves, unpeeled
- 6-8 kipfler potatoes, scrubbed and halved if they're big
place everything in a roasting pan with sprigs of thyme and/or rosemary. Pour over a couple tablespoons of oliver oil to coat evenly. Roast at 350 C for about an hour or until the chicken and potatoes are done.
You can mix and match ingredients, using different sausages, different potatoes, chunks of zucchini, yellow peppers, even lemon halves which add a nice tang to the juicy sauce that develops in the pan. I usually put so much stuff in I have to use a couple of roasting pans but it's great for leftovers.
Virginia, a long time ago when my parents were still married and I was but knee-high to a grasshopper, my father had a stroke and our whole family went on the Pritikin diet. I remember it as being a period of deep deprivation - no butter, no sugar, everything sweetened with pureed apples, oat bran in everything. I'm not sure how we fell off that particular wagon, but as an adult I have a deep suspicion that my father was sneaking off for burgers and cakes while we kids gnawed on rock-hard oatbran muffins... There's a lot more information and good cookbooks around these days, however, and I'm sure you'll work out some great recipes that satisfy diabetic requirements as well as your tasted buds!
EllenToo, you sound like my mother! She has never been fond of cooking - my favourite quote from her on the subject is "What's the point? You just get it looking nice and lovely and then everybody eats it". She is, however, an appreciative audience when I cook for her. I have to admit, when I am deadline I have been known to rely on Lean Cuisine for lunches, so I understand the attraction.
runner10 - how very cool to be canning your own veggies. We don't have any veggies in our garden, but we do have an enormous amount of fruit trees - four different apple trees, three pears, almonds, raspberry canes, cherries, apricots, quinces. We had no idea what any of them were last year, since we'd just moved in, and we didn't know when to pick half of them, either. This year, I am set to pounce, and I plan on making some preserves if I can, and apple butter and other yummy things...
Beth, you had me at "fattening dessert"!!! Please share a favourite, I am always looking for a new temptation to lead me from the path of righteousness and gym attendance.
Snookie, your green bean recipe sounds yum, too. I love Cream of Mushroom soup. In fact, you've given me a craving for lunch time... I have realised, in hindsight, that several of my friends cook while we hang in the kitchen chatting - I guess I am usually so busy chatting and having a nice time I don't really register what they're doing. So maybe I should have twigged to this much less stressful way of having people over for dinner earlier!!!
Julie Hilton Steele - I have a few friends with food intolerances, and as I have gotten older I have developed a slight dairy intolerance. I'm not sure exactly what triggers it, but occasionally if I have a certain combination of dairy products I am not a happy camper. Having said that, I had no ill effects from the cream and butter heavy French menu I made for my friends. I'm not sure if this is a good thing from my waistline's perspective, but it was very delicious! You might be able to try this recipe - it's essentially just beans, cream and onions and garlic. If you use your own chicken stock or buy the liquid stuff, that probably won't have any gluten in it. It's such a yummy way to eat vegetables!!!!
Jane, having relatives who make awesome food is a great excuse for not cooking yourself. I should probably have breakfast because all these recipes are making me drool.
Lisa, this sounds very tasty. Next time we have my sister's kids over I will give this one a shot. It sounds good for summer, in particular. We could use fruit from the orchard... hmmm...
Janet, gluten intolerance is such a tough one, isn't it? I have a recipe for an orange almond cake that uses only a tiny amount of flour, which I bet you could substitute for a gluten free form, and the rest is ground almonds. Let me know if you want me to post it - it's my absolute never fail cake, and everybody loves it. You put two whole oranges in it (it's one of those cakes where you need a food processor) and it's so juicy and moreish... More drool. Really need to go eat breakfast.
I'm a pretty basic cook, but everything tastes great (If I do say so myself). One thing I tend to do is always cook from scratch. I NEED to know what I am eating. My favorite cookbook is actually an old exercise book where I write & paste in recipes. Tried & true.
Joan, you've pushed me over the edge with that recipe. Will need a baby's bib any second now to control the salivating. This recipe sounds delicious. I'm going to give it a shot ASAP - sounds like the perfect meal for during the week, and if we can get two meals out of it, all the better! You're very kind saying I'm a good cook - I'm still thinking about that amazing Mexican meal you served us last time we were over. Just fantastic and fresh and so damned yummy... Heading off for breakfast now to prevent accidental chewing off of arm...
Hi Marybelle. I have started doing the recipe journal type thing, too. I have one of those plastic sleeve type books and I tear recipes out or get them handwritten from friends and slip them into the plastic sleeves. The plastic factor is good because, as I believe I already mentioned, I'm a messy chef! I think all my cook books have war wounds of some description! Making stuff from scratch is very satisfying. My latest culinary ambition is to learn how to make my own sourdough bread. I have a book which tells you how to create your own culture, but have never had any success getting it to "grow" properly. But maybe I should try again. You never know your luck in the big city...
Hi Sarah! I missed you on Tuesday. I was still recovering from The Fourth of July, lol! I admit I am an aweful cook. If I dont follow a recipe exactly I will screw up whatever I am cooking. Heck even when I do sometimes I still mess it up, lol! I bake more than cook. I love making cool cakes. Being Cuban I love Cuban food, but cant make much of it. I can do a pretty good black beans and white rice along with roast pork, but for my favorite meal, Arroz Con Pollo(chicken and rice) I have to get my Mom or one of my sisters to make it for me. Maybe one day I will make it and it will be yummy. One thing I do make and is super easy is Pasta Salad. Its just bow tie pasta cooked, cubed ham, cubed american and motzerella cheese, cubed cucumber, cubed tomato and italian dressing. Mix it all together and serve cold. It is super easy and really good.
Hope you have a wonderful day!
Alina
I love your posts, Sarah. Can I pay you to post one for me?
Deb, who is living on salads in this awful heat at the moment
Wonderful post. All those fruit trees... I am so jealous. Here's an old family favourite for preserving. It makes a full fruit sauce for over ice cream and puddings and cakes. It's called a fruit conserve.
Fruit conserve
4 cups pitted fruit (I have used cherries, blueberries, strawberries and peeled peaches, peeled pears turn into pear syrup)
3 cups of sugar
In large saucepan, crush the fruit slightly to start the juice flowing
Simmer fruit (just boiling) in their juice about ten minutes or until fruit is tender (over a low heat).
Add sugar. Stir well. Reduce volume by about a third over a low heat stirring constantly. Cover. Let stand 2 minutes. Stir down fruit. Pour into hot sterilized jars. Seal.
To seal: Process in a boiling water bath about ten minutes while still hot.
Makes 2 pints.
It's supposed to keep for a year but mine never last that long. lol.
Hint for gluten-corn free, try tapioca starch instead of corn starch in gluten free recipes.
Hi Alina. I didn't realise you were Cuban. One of my favourite people in all the world is Cuban. His name is Eddie, and he was the graphic artist who used to lay out the magazine I helped create, a few years ago now. I absolutely adore him (it helps that he is gorgeous as well as gay, so I can admire him without feeling self conscious about it!) and I love his accent. That chicken recipe sounds very fine indeed!!!
Hey Deb. I couldn't possibly take your money for something I like doing so much!!!! (thank god I don't feel the same way about writing, or the mortgage would never get paid.) As you marinate in your own juices and sup on salads, pity as poor Melbournians who are shivering thanks to icy winds straight from the Antarctic. Sideways rain, wind chill that cuts straight to the bone... What I wouldn't give for summer!
Thanks for the recipe, Linda. I will print it and file it in my recipe folder in preparation for this year's crop. We stuffed around over harvesting the cherries last year and way too many of the rotted on the tree. This year, we will stalk the tree and leap on the fruit the moment it is ready. But first we will have to find someone to prune the trees for us, and then we will have to net them again. We netted everything except the pear trees last years (because they were too big) to protect the fruit from the birds. There were so many pears on the pear trees that I figured that even if the birds pigged out night and day there would still be plenty for us all to share. Boy, was I wrong. They stripped all those trees bare. But you live and learn, right?
Hi Sarah,
I love cookbooks, I buy them all the time. but, the funny thing is, I do not cook. My husband does and he does not use cookbooks. Still, I love cookbooks, so I drive him batty and I buy them!
Tammy, a few years ago Donna Hay became a big noise in cook books here in Australia. All her cookbooks are distinguished by the clean, modern look of them and the superb photography - generally speaking, there is a picture of every single recipe in the book. This has now become the gold standard for cookbooks for me now, although I've made a few exceptions (The Silver Spoon, for example, the famous Italian cookbook which is pretty much all text). What can I say? I just love me some food porn, and even if I never make a recipe, I want to be able to imagine how delicious it might be.
Sarah - that orange almond cake sounds great!! If you could post the recipie I'm sure others would love to try it too. Thanks.
Janet
Hi Janet. As requested, here we go:
Donna Hay's Orange and Almond dessert cake
2 oranges, washed
125g (4 oz) butter
1 cup castor (superfine) sugar
5 eggs
2 cups ground almonds
1/2 cup self raising flour (am sure there must be a gluten-free version of this available from health food and wholefood stores)
2 tspns baking powder
Orange syrup
1 cup sugar
2 tbls spns orange juice
1 1/3rd cups (10 1/2 fl oz) of water
Preheat oven to 180 C or 350F. Line the base of a 9" tin. Place the oranges in a saucepan of water, cover and simmer for 10 min until soft. Remove from the water and chop roughly, removing any seeds. Process the oranges, butter, sugar, eggs, ground almonds, flour and baking powder in a food processor until smooth. Spoon the mixture into the tin and bake for one hour or until cooked when tested with skewer. To make the orange syrup, place the sugar, orange juice and water in a saucepan over medium heat and simmer for 5 minutes. To serve, cut the warm cake into wedges and spoon over some of the syrup. Serve with thick cream, serves 8 - 10.
*Janet, I never make this with the syrup - I simply serve it warm (microwave on high for 30 seconds if you can't serve it straight from the oven) with a scoop of ice cream. On request, I made lemon/lime frosting (lemon and lime juice with icing sugar) for my mum and put it on top of the cake. This was very fine and well received, too!! In terms of "processing until smooth", I can never get it so there are no flecks of orange peel in the processor bowl, but that just makes it more orange-y and yum, in my opinion. As I said, this is my never fail cake and it gets better and more moist the next day when it's been stored in the fridge... Hope it works out for you, let me know if you give it a shot - I'd love to think you were enjoying this on the other side of the world!
I'm reading Jamie Oliver's cookbook now. He has a lot of tv shows and I just got inspired to try some of his recipes. Don't always follow them, I use them as inspiration to create my own versions. Like his Ginger lemonade, changed it to my liking and it's really good. Put a post of it on my blog so if you'd like to know how to make it...
I have a shameful cookbook collection. I honestly think if I were to try to make just one recipe from each of them per day, it would take me a couple of years to get through them all. Still, I can't help myself when I see a new one with a recipe that sounds heavenly.
A favorite recipe because it's really quick to put together and so tasty (and full of calories, too, unfortunately) is something we call Monterey Party Chicken.
5-6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 can cream of mushroom soup (can substitute low-fat)
1/3 cup dry white wine
1/3 cup sour cream (can substitute low fat)
Place the chicken breast halves in a baking dish in a single layer. Sprinkle the shredded Monterey Jack cheese evenly over the chicken breast halves.
Mix together the cream of mushroom soup, the sour cream, and the dry white wine. Spread it evenly over the cheese, covering all of the cheese and chicken.
Bake in a 350 F oven for about 45 minutes until the top is slightly browned around the edges and bubbling. This is particularly good served over rice.
Maybe I'll follow your lead and try to stress less over having people over for meals.
I should have written "CONDENSED cream of mushroom soup" in the recipe above
Hi Jo's daughter. I only have one Jamie Oliver book, but it's got some great stuff in it, including a fruit cobbler that has a dash of balsamic vinegar in it to give it some extra zing. Num num num. I love homemade lemonade (and our lemon tree is fruiting like crazy right now) so I am about to head over to your blog to grab the recipe. Thanks!
JV, Monterey Party chicken sounds awesome. I don't know if we can source monterey jack cheese here in Australia. Shall have to do some scouting around... Although am not sure if my waistline would thank me or not. Still, you only live once, right?
Sarah, I loved reading about all the recipes. I love to cook and have a bookcase just for my cookbooks! Now that the Internet has so many recipes available cookbooks seem redundant, but I still buy them and still use them.
I like crockpot cooking! JV's recipe sounds great, and I bet it would do well in the crockpot!
Jan, I'm so with you on the cookbook love. There are some fantastic food sites out there on the net, but there's nothing quite like poring over a book, earmarking recipes you want to try.
Hi Jackie S. Is crock pot cooking the same as a slow cooker - ie the big ceramic pot that sits on an heating element of some description and cooks food slowly for hours? If so, I have one and I need to work out how to use it!!! It was a wedding present, and I keep hearing great ideas for throwing things in it then ignoring it until it's time to eat. During the week, this is my kind of cooking so, as I said, I need to master this device!
Sarah, of course, if you can't get Monterey Jack cheese (a white, semi-soft cheese -- about the same consistency as mozzarella or maybe just a smidge firmer -- with a wonderful flavor), you could substitute your favorite type of cheese. It just has to be soft enough to melt into the soup mixture to form a wonderful savory sauce
Yes, Sarah, you have a crock pot/slow cooker.
Hope you enjoy it!!
Nice website! Greetings from Glory Foods.
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