Foccaia

This recipe comes from a year 11 food textbook "Food Solutions" book 1. The foccacia recipe requires dried yeast, bread flour, warm water, salt and oil. The bread is left to prove in a warm place, then toppings are added. The surface is brushed with oil and sprinkled with frsh torn basil, grated parmesan and lemon pepper, with black olives inserted every 3-4cm.

After baking, split and fill with yellow cheese, sliced tomato and more fresh basil. Bon Appetite!

Spanikopita

Still from AGT this time from the budget book that came with the low fat issue. Spanikopita, a spinach filled filo pie is a traditional Greek recipe. The updated recipe called for silverbeet, which was growing plentifully in the vegie patch. I added a box of frozen spinach to flesh it out a bit. The flavourings include feta cheese, grated lemon rind and fresh dill.

Homemade Pumpkin Ravioli

This recipe comes from Australian Good Taste Magazine as a feature of their low fat issue. These ravioli are made using wonton wrappers to enclose a creamy pumpkin filling. We had some extra pumpkin mix left over, so we made a small lasagne with pumpkin filling. It was very tasty.

Baked Mediterranean Risotto

This baked risotto comes from the "Food Challanges" textbook put out by sanitarium. It differs from a traditional risotto as there is no endless stirring and ladelling involved. The ingredients which include arborio rice, boiling water, tinned tomatoes, vegetable stock powder, margarine and mushrooms are placed in an ovenproof dish, stirred, covered and placed in an oven for 40 mins. A yellow capsicum is placed alongside in the oven. By the time the rice is tender, the skin of the capsicum is blistered enough to be peeled and sliced. To serve, stir through fresh spinach leaves, roasted capsicum strips, parmesan and feta cheeses.

The risotto had a wonderful flavour from the stock powder, roasted capsicum and cheeses and was nicely moist due to the tomatoes, water and margarine.

Fish Tacos

This recipe comes from Anthea Paul's Girlosophy cookbook. The fish is marinated in cumin, chilli powder, garlic and olive oil. It is served with pico de gallo,
home made coriander pesto and garlic crema (sour cream, garlic and lime juice). It is served with regular yellow shells and taco shells made from blue corn (another kosher find).

Making the salad and pesto was a palaver but my main criticism of the recipe was that the accompanying photo did not match the ingredient list in many ways. There is avocado in the picture of pico de gallo but avocado is not in the recipe. Similarly in the cabbage salad (not pictured) there is pawpaw but again, not in the ingredient list.

Home Made Wontons

Imagine my delight at discovering kosher wonton wrappers! This recipe came from delicious magazine in an article about chef Liz Egan. The filling is mainly veal mince, water chestnuts, dried and soaked shitake mushrooms and coriander. According to the article it makes 80 wontons. However, we had a bit more mince so it made about 100. A number not truely appreciated until you have to fill and fold 100 of those little packages.

These were then steamed using a bamboo steamer placed over a wok for about 10-12 minutes. Then serve as an appetiser with sweet chilli or soy sauce (or a combination of the 2). In hindsight this operation was a slight palaver. Not hard but very fiddly. Probably won't be making them again for sometime, especially with about 50 in the freezer.

Any left over filling could be used to fill spring rolls or turned into burger patties.

Ye Olde Cookery Treats

Last week we had a school camp trip to Tasmania. We travelled over on the "Spirit" and visited many places, the highlights including Port Arthur, Hobart and the Cadbury chocolate factory. In Port Arthur when you get admission to the grounds you also get a playing card to decide your fate in the museum. My crime was idleness and for that I was sentenced to assisting with cooking duties.

The pictures show the type of food usually served to prisoners and the different levels of entitlement ie whether you ate gruel for all three meals or could experience life's little luxuries of salted meat and soap.