Bella Hyde, Author at Finding Feasts

Gow Gee Silverbeet & Ricotta Ravioli

Gow Gee Sliverbeet and Ricotta Ravioli — Click on image for recipe

Gow Gee Silverbeet & Ricotta Ravioli – I have a soft spot for pasta, especially when it is filled with cheese & spinach / silverbeet!

Where possible I do try to make my own pasta dough but there are occasions when time is of the essence! It was a few years ago when talking to mum I found out that she sometimes makes pierogi (Polish dumplings) & other ravioli type things by using Gow Gee pastry. Gow Gee pastry can be found at your local Asian supermarket or grocery store in the fridge section.

So I am stealing her idea! Don’t get me wrong…absolutely nothing beats fresh home made pasta…but when you are pressed for time…this is almost just as good!

I serve this with my favourite creamy pink sauce…my question to you is…what is YOUR favourite pasta sauce?

Look forward to hearing from you!

Bella

Bella2 Comments

How to make beetroot kwas or kvass

Beetroot Kvass or kwas (in Polish) – With the foodie world going crazy about fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kombucha tea, kimchi and kefir I thought it was time to pay some attention to kwas, a fermented tonic made from beetroots. Kwas is also known as Kvass, although that’s in Russian.

Fermented foods and juices are good for you but let’s quickly look at why:

They add good bacteria to the gut, and seeing as the gut makes up about 80% of your immune system that’s a pretty good reason in itself!
Fermenting foods creates more nutrients in the food whilst enhancing others
If consumed prior to your meal fermented foods will improve your digestion and allow for the absorption of nutrients
Fermented foods are high in b-vitamins, Omega-3 fatty acids and carry various strains of probiotics – much better than taking them from a jar in tablet form!

What are probiotics? They are live microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts and fungi. Probiotics can protect against disease an boost your immune system and are essential especially is you have just gone a round or two of antibiotics.

So how does beetroot kvass fit into all of this?

Beetroot kvass has been consumed in Eastern European countries for many centuries. A common non-alcoholic drink, it was originally made from stale rye bread which gave it its colouring. This beetroot version has also been made by many households as the starter to an awesome beetroot barszcz (borscht if you are Russian).

Beetroot kwas shares similarities with kombucha tea, it is fermented in a similar way and is high in probiotics, it is also an excellent liver cleanser, rich in nutrients and fiber, high in antioxidant and anit-inflammatory properties, a perfect blood tonic! Mum and dad have been making it for as long as I can remember and drink it daily.

Best of all, it is extremely easy to make, although I did fail at my first attempt. I forgot to add the salt and sugar, key components! Simply peel your beets, add salt, sugar, juice of sauerkraut, water and ferment away. The fermentation process will depend on the time of the year and how warm your kitchen is. Do check it daily and if it starts to smell funny start again.

I typically let mine ferment away for 2-3 days, when light frothy bubbles form at the top you know your beetroot kvass is ready.

What does it taste like once ready? Sour, tangy earthy flavours.

Happy fermenting!

Bella 🙂

Bella4 Comments

Vanilla Bean Sugar Tea Cake

Vanilla Bean Tea Cake_Finding Feasts — Click on photo for recipe

Vanilla Bean Sugar Tea Cake – This recipe takes me back to the days when I was young, operated on minimal sleep on the weekends and was able to religiously eat 3 sweet doughnuts for brekkie with coffee from doughnut king before starting work in the morning, all without adding a centimeter to my waist line!

Those days are long gone and whilst I don’t indulge in doughnuts for brekkie I do occasionally get a craving for something very sweet. This vanilla bean sugar cake does the trick.

If you have a sweet tooth this recipe is super easy and best of all it does not ask for any out of the ordinary ingredients. You will note that I have used Heilala pure vanilla bean sugar. The sugar is made from vanilla beans that have been naturally dried in the sun, in the South Pacific, Vava’u Tonga. The dried beans are then mixed with organic sugar and a dash of Heilala vanilla extract is also added. If you can’t find Heilala pure vanilla bean sugar normal vanilla sugar can will do the trick as well. Alternatively you could mix sugar with a little cinnamon for the topping.

The cake tastes great cold but I would highly recommend warming it up in the microwave oven for 15-20 seconds just before serving.

Vanilla Bean Tea Cake2_Finding Feasts — Vanilla Bean Tea Cake – wont last long!

Enjoy, Bella

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Chermoula Marinade & Dipping Sauce

Finding Feasts Chermoula Marinade — Click here for recipe – Chermoula Marinade & Dipping Sauce

I have said it before, I am a huge fan of Annabel Langbein, her recipes are homey, simple yet they packed full yummy flavour.

This Chermoula Marinade / Dipping Sauce features in her book, The Free Range Cook. I had something similar a few years back during my first trip to New Zealand when my husband’s aunt Cheryl made the most amazing tasting chicken skewers I have tasted in a very long time.

This marinade can be used on all sorts of meat and it can also be made into a delicious Chermoula Dipping Sauce.

The recipe called for preserved lemons, I didn’t have any so I omitted them.

The Chermoula Dipping Sauce is to die for and makes a fantastic salad dressing for a quick and easy Creamy Moroccan Cucumber Salad.

What is your favourite marinade for meat?

Bella

Finding Feasts Chermoula chicken skewers with dipping sauce — Spicy chicken skewers with chermoula dipping sauce

PS…you can use it to make these fantastic Spicy Chicken Skewers!

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Polish Stefanka cake – Honey cake

Looks good huh! It’s a Polish cake called Stefanka or Miodownik (honey cake) and yep, it’s pretty awesome.

Each school holidays Imogen and I do our usual girls road trip to Rosedale, a small holiday town on the NSW South Coast to visit Nanna and Pop. During one of my last visits I decided to make something Polish, sweet and slightly challenging, Stefanka cake it was.

Like all recipes there are many, many versions of this cake on the web, with altering ingredients, toppings and layers. The one that appealed to me the most was on my favourite Polish cooking website called, Kwestia Smaku.

The cake has the most amazing filling made from semolina, milk, butter, icing sugar and almond extract, almost a custard like texture. The chocolate topping isn’t bad either.

When I first read that it had semolina I ran a mile, you see in the cooler months mum used to make us eat a semolina style porridge as kids for breakfast and I HATED IT! No disrespect to you mum but it was bland, lumpy and gluggy, I still get shivers just thinking about it! Fast forward many, many years, add some sweetness and the semolina it is to die for! I only just had enough filling for the cake, most of it was eaten from the pot by me and Miss H.

Cake difficulty wise I would rank this about a 6 out of 10. The pressure point in this cake are the layers. The cake is meant to be quite soft and sponge like. I failed at the soft and sponge like bit, although in my defense I was using a foreign oven, so I over baked the cake layers. It was definitely 100% edible but would have been much better had the layers been a little softer, cloud like.

All in all, I am very chuffed at my first Stefanka attempt, if anything I have also learnt how to make a yummy semolina custard!

If there are any Polish fans reading this and you know where the cakes name originates from do drop me a line! I know that Stefanka or Stefania is a Polish female name, similar to Stephen in English however I am stumped why the cake has been named so!

Bella

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ANZAC Biscuits

ANZAC Day – 25 April, 2016

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them”.

I’ve only been to one dawn service. It was in Melbourne, Victoria about 18 years ago and as miserable, cold and wet as it was, I found it heart warming that so many people turned out to pay their respects to service men and women, young and old and those gone but not forgotten.

As many of our service men and women prepare for todays ANZAC day marches around Australia I realised that I know absolutely very little about the humble ANZAC biscuit.

For those unfamiliar with Australian and New Zealand history, ANZAC day falls on the 25th of April each year. It is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand and commemorates the anniversary of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landing in the Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey during World War I. Nowadays, it is a day that goes beyond the anniversary of that landing and honors the service men and women both past and present.

The exact origins of the ANZAC biscuit are not so clear, it can however be traced back to the Scottish oat cakes. The original biscuit, used in soldiers ration packs was not sweet at all. According to the Australian War Memorial the ANZAC biscuit or Soldier’s biscuit was a hard or tile like wafer that the soldiers were given as part of their rations. The biscuit was given instead of bread due to its long shelf-life, however wasn’t said to be very palatable.

The current sweet version appeared in cook books during the 1920’s and was used at fete’s for fundraising for the troops overseas. With ingredients such as butter, flour, coconut, golden syrup and bi-carb soda it has also been suggested that the wives would make these biscuits to send to the troops overseas because of their long shelf life. Unlike traditional biscuits no eggs were required!

Miss H loves ANZAC biscuits, however with having a wobbly tooth these slightly more chewy biscuits are just the perfect treat to share with friends and family both young and old.

Bella

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Christmas in Bali

Finding Feasts - Nusa Lembongan Life

Finding Feasts - Bali for Christmas

Finding Feasts - Seminyak Street

Finding Feasts - Seminyak Markets

Finding Feasts - Kuta Streets

Everyone knows that Bali is our family’s go-to holiday place for a stress free holiday. Yeah you bump into the occasional Bali Bogan but then again I see those around Sydney’s North Shore on a weekly basis too. I love celebrating Christmas at home with family and close friends, the turkey with all the trimmings but Mr H was intent on getting away from it all over the Christmas and the holiday season.

Whilst no particular planning or research was necessary we did seek the advice of our long time friends, Made Damplo and Dani Sulistyo. We have known these two since our first meeting in 2002. Their advice was something along the lines of, if you stay in Seminyak or surrounding suburbs don’t bother driving or getting a taxi. Getting out of Seminyak or Kuta can take 1-2 hours! And boy did we learn that first hand!

Requirements for the holiday were as follows:

Direct flight, arriving at a respectable hour of the day
To have a relaxing, stress free, no cooking or baking Christmas/New Years Eve
A private staffed Villa with plenty of space for all
A place where we can unwind and totally zone out yet be relatively close to bars, restaurants and shopping, preferably within walking distance
Bintang and wine on demand 😎
Private cooking lesson (this one has been on the bucket list for many years now!)

The holiday was broken up into two locations. 5 nights in Nusa Lembongan staying at Villa Bukit 1 followed by 5 nights in Seminyak staying at the Best of Seminyak: Beach & Town Villa 2. On arrival also stayed one night at the Grand Hyatt Bali in Nusa Dua.

Booking our holidays normally rests with me. That’s not to say that Mr H does not have the final say on the decision making process. The research is done by me, mainly because I am an absolute research freak. On this occasion however Mr H did all the hard work. Villa Bikit was found through The Lembongan Traveller, an excellent guide to everything on Nusa Lembongan.The villa in Seminyak was booked through Airbnb, a gamble that payed off big time!

Flight wise our chosen mode of transport was Air Garuda. Everyone has horrible flight stories of planes being delayed, flights being cancelled, luggage going astray or poor service however Garuda has always worked for us. The flights leave Sydney at the respectable hour of 10 am and arrive at 1.15 pm Bali time. Going home is the red eye flight however you can’t win them all, can you? We have always found the Air Garuda staff friendly, professional and happy to help. Asking for that extra glass of wine to settle the nerves is no problem for them. Air Garuda took out the ‘Best Cabin Crew 2015‘ award by SkyTrax, a London based independent airline raking agency. Not bad for, considering SkyTrax surveys 18 million travelers each year! They had also won it the year before.

The lead up to our getaway was not the most enjoyable one for me. Some how on the 3rd of December I had woken up with a strange tummy bug which had decided to take up residence in my body until it was time for us to fly out to Bali on the 23rd of December. Now for those of you that have been to Indonesia you will agree that arriving with a tummy bug is the last thing you want to be doing.

Armed with every pro-biotic, naturopathic and homeopathic medicine under the sun including the harder drugs like immodium the H family were off for 11 nights and 12 days of sun, cocktails and lounging by the pool. Assisting in the Christmas festivities were my work colleagues and friend Naomi and her son Ronan who is in the same class as Miss H.

Finding Feasts - Air Garuda

Traveling over the Christmas and New Year period meant that our holiday was booked well in advance, 10 months in fact meaning that we enjoyed reasonable airfare prices. What we saved on air travel meant that we could splurge on the accommodation.

Air fare cost for the three of us traveling economy was $2,900. Cost of Villa one was $1,900 however that was split between two families. Cost of Villa two was $2,000 for three people. Food and beverage and activity budget was a loose $2,000, $2,500 if you count mine and Mr H’s duty free shopping. I guess in total the holiday cost us around $9,300.

Although we are frequent travelers to Bali there are still so many places that we have not explored so we settled on spending 5 nights on the island of Nusa Lembongan. The island is famous for its jaw dropping sunsets, killer surf breaks and snorkeling. It’s distance is approximately 21.4 km from Sanur which equates to an approximate 20-30 minute speed boat ride.

Finding Feasts - Bali

Our second port of call was the trendy and fashionable suburb of Seminyak, although from this experience anyone and everyone now calls Seminyak home! Dwaine and I were married in Legian in 2004, our reception was at Gado Gado and the after party at Ku De Ta. Back then this part of Bali was almost remote, Ku De Ta was the last bar, past that there was nothing there, now hotels span as far as the eye can see. When we visited Ku De Ta for our post wedding party I had to take my shoes off and walk up a dirt road, fast forward 11 years and wow how things have changed. The place was insanely busy!

Overall we had an amazing time. Would there be things that we would do differently? Absolutely! No matter how much you travel and how many times you visit a destination, you continue to learn.

Read about my whole trip here…

Bella1 Comment