Recipes | Finding Feasts

What’s your cup of tea?

My morning routine starts the night before. On a week day I get my clothes ready for the office, laid out neatly on the ironing board ready to be put on at a moments notice after I jump out of the shower. I have my hand bag packed with the next days necessities, waiting by the door. I have my daughters lunch box ready so that come morning time I just need to fill it with the days fuel (not that it gets eaten anyway!). But the most important aspect of my morning routine is to ensure that my kettle is filled to the top, that my mug is ready and positioned carefully next to the kettle with a tea spoon of sugar sitting in the bottom with my favourite tea waiting patiently next to the mug, waiting to be infused in hot water the minute I jump out of my shower. Without my morning infusion the rest of the day can literally fall apart.

The morning routine fell into a heap this week when I opened the pantry cupboard only to reveal no tea! It wasn’t just a matter of running to the shop and picking up the stock standard Earl Grey flavour. Tea for me is like buying coffee, I have my favourite select few brands and straying from those is not an option. Take the religious 8.30 am coffee at work, I refuse to get it from anywhere else even though I manage to pass 4 coffee shops!

Balance was restored again that evening when I purchased one of my favourite teas, a Henry Langdon, Earl Grey.

I was introduced to Henry Langdon tea about 4 years ago by a rather very strange colleague at work who thought that when we die we get collected in a space ship and are shipped off to a place in heaven, anyway that’s another story for another post! As strange as this lady was, she knew her tea! Thanks to her I keep a box of this delicious tea in my cupboard and very secretly only share it with myself! It’s my little indulgence.

Until this week I had absolutely no idea how popular tea consumption was! Next to water tea is the most widely consumed drink in the world! I also didn’t know that different teas should be brewed at different water temperature levels for best results. For example water temperature for a classic black tea should be at 99°C, white tea at 65-70°, yellow tea at 70-75°C, and green tea at 75-80°. Do you think that this really matters? If you are a bit of a tea expert I’d loved to know!

Growing up tea would be served during breakfast, lunch and dinner, depending on what was on the menu. We drank tea black, with the tea leaves still sitting at the bottom of the cup/mug. Mum would squeeze a small amount of lemon juice and it tasted fantastic. Tea, sourdough bread with some cold cuts!

How do you take your tea and what’s your favourite?

Bella 🙂

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Napoleonki – the Polish version of Millue Feuille

FinSki's Napoleonki1 — Click on image for recipe

Desserts are not my ‘thing’, I mean I am happy to eat them but my cooking skill lie with savory food. My hubby isn’t a huge dessert fan either so I don’t particularly go out of my way to make desserts each week. The extent of dessert in our household is ensuring that we have a constant (err never ending) supply of chocolate mini magnums in the fridge for Imogen, all hell can break loose otherwise! I’m also not very good at making desserts and have had many failed attempts. Give me a mystery box of savoury ingredients and I can guarantee you that I will be able to whip something up, without a recipe. Sweet dishes are my nemesis.

If there is one thing that I admire about my mum that’s the fact that she can can whip up a Polish dessert blind folded! When I visit my parents house there is always a cake, a tort, a slice or some other sweet hiding in the fridge. I always get excited about visiting them because I know I’ll be eating wholesome good home cooked food, but then I end up leaving very full, simply because I can’t resist the temptation of sampling everything else that she has in her fridge, including the sweet stuff which always takes be back to my childhood days of living at home.

Each May I host a Mother’s Day lunch at my place and this year mum made Napoleonki which are another one of Poland’s best known desserts and share a striking similarity to the French dessert Mille Feuille, a vanilla/custard type slice also known as Napoleon.

I haven’t eaten Napoleonki for probably about 10 years and for very good reasons, one because just looking at them makes me put on about 10 kilos! Two because once I have one, I want another.

With the family luncheon finished, dessert came out and I made a bee line for the Napoleonki slice and with just one bite I was transported to my childhood days of eating desserts a plenty without a worry in the world. Days of Polish family gatherings where the tables were filled with food as far as the eye could see and laughter, banter and eating went on forever!

One of the things I love about cooking and eating, is how it can make you feel, the memories that it can create and the memories that it can bring back.

Having finished my slice I knew what I had to do next and that was to make very first Napoleonki!

So my dear friends, what’s a dish that brings your childhood memories flooding back?

Bella

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Wild mushroom soup

Warm up this winter with a beautiful wild mushroom soup!

With winter finally arriving in Sydney (although obviously not today as it is going to be 25 degrees!) I decided to celebrate the cold July by throwing a Christmas in July dinner party. Menu planning had begun many weeks ago! Books were gone gone through, magazines pulled, lists made up, list torn up only to be made up again. This was no ordinary dinner, I wanted to show case skill, technique and obviously good hearty dishes. A three course feast was settled on, consisting of entree and main prepared by me and dessert by Blondie.

The menu consisted of…

Entree
Wild Mushroom Soup

Main
Sous vide Chicken, Wilted Greens, Verjuice Butter Sauce

Dessert
Yoghurt Panna Cotta, Poached Pear & Quince, Pecan Crumb & Frozen Chocolate Wind

Being Polish I’m no stranger to soups, they were and still are a daily staple and on the menu at mums place so when it came to the entree for our Christmas in July dinner, Wild mushroom soup was a no brainer decision.

Mum make what I would say one of the most amazing wild mushrooms soups from a recipe that was handed down to her my my fathers mother, my Babcia and whilst its pretty amazing for this dinner I wanted to try something a little more hearty, full of body.

Pen and paper in hand I jumped onto the trusty internet and the research had begun. I must have looked at hundreds of mushroom soup recipes and they all looked very similar to each other until I came across Jamie Oliver’s The Real Mushroom Soup recipe. It looked earthy and full of flavour.

Decision made!

I of course didn’t follow the recipe too the tee, and used my private stash of FinSki’s Saffron Milk Cap and Slipper Jack mushrooms.

I had some tough critics to please that night…the husbands, but the finger licked bowls spoke for themselves.

Will I be making this again…a definite YES!

Bella 🙂

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Activated Nuts

I am the type of person that loves to snack during the day be it on cheese sticks, cucumber sticks, carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes, mums pickles and the list goes on so in my quest to find a new super snack food I came across activated nuts. Uber cool and healthy.

Activated what? Yep, that’s what my hubby said and the work colleagues cracked a few jokes as well.

So what are they and why?

Whilst raw nuts are full of antioxidants, loaded with protein, healthy fats, fiber and minerals, they also contain natural inhibitors that can interfere with the absorption of the good nutrients and put a massive strain on our digestive system if they are not properly prepared.

The nuts are soaked in some filtered and slightly salted water for a lengthy period of time and slowly dehydrated, by doing so you imitate the sprouting process and decrease the levels of anti-nutrients.

Why salted water? The salt helps to activate the enzymes that deactivate the natural inhibitors that will interfere with absorption of the yummy goodness. Only a small amount of salted water is needed,

The activation process is a small labour of love so I would highly recommend that you make these over the weekend. Preparation takes a few minutes but it is the soaking and dehydrating that takes time. If you will be making these on a regular basis I would also recommend investing in a small dehydrator. You can also dry them at very low heat, approx 50-60 °C, but go on, treat yourself and get a dehydrator! The possibilities are endless!

Once activated I had mine with my yoghurt for brekkie, and always kept a small tub of them in my handbag for work.

Go on…get your nuts activating!

Bella 🙂

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Chocolate Brownies – the packet kind!

FinSki's Chocolate Brownies 1 — Click on image for full recipe

Come on, admit it, these chocolate brownies look good huh! Firm on the outside, rich, dark and gooey on the inside, a devilish treat if you ask me.

Did I slave over the oven with these? Definitely not.

A few weeks ago Imogen was in her ‘mum let’s bake some cup cakes mood’. This goes something like this…we head out to the shops, buy the packet mix and additional ingredients, get home and prepare everything and she suddenly disappears but some how reappears again when it is time to lick the spoon!

Having baked the same old velvet cup cakes over and over again I jumped at the opportunity to try something totally new. You won’t believe this but I have never made chocolate brownies before! Yup…never! I know…deprived childhood huh.

It was a Sunday, I was not the least bit interested in baking anything but Imogen found this mix at Thomas Dux…

The packet came with choc chips and all that I needed to add was 2 eggs and some melted butter, too easy!

I’m no expert at making chocolate brownies but these were pretty good! For $4.99, I highly recommend keeping a packet in your pantry for the ‘just in case’.

Bella 🙂

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Bigos | Hunter’s Stew

Bigos or Hunter’s Stew… I am not afraid of letting the world know that I would love to go on one of those cooking shows and wow the judging panel with the national dish of Poland! What frightens the heck out of me is presenting this dish on a plate!I can see the comments now…”Bella you have created a warm and hearty stew, full of flavour and intensity, however what has really let you down is your presentation”.
The Italian’s have Pasta, the English have Fish & Chips (as I have just recently learned from Blondie!) the Hungarian’s have Goulash and the Poles have, Hunter’s Stew a.k.a Bigos.

Let’s face it, this isn’t the most appealing dish to photograph. I have countless hours this week surfing the net for presentation ideas to ensure that it does not look like slop on a plate, however where presentation fails somewhat, taste sensation sets in! And let me tell you that this dish will warm the heart on a cold winter’s day!

Bigos has been eaten by the Poles for many centuries, it is approximately 700 years old. When speaking to dad about its meaning he said the word bigos signified a combination or mixture of ingredients similar to a mess… success! I have created a mess.
As a child I have fond memories of family gatherings where bigos was one of the feature dishes. I would eagerly await for my bowl and dip mum’s rye bread into the rich and flavoursome sauce.

Whilst there are basic components like sauerkraut, onion, mushrooms and meat, there is no right way of making bigos and you will see that it varies from family to family. My mum’s bigos has evolved over the last 30 years from adding tomato paste to not adding it, from making it a runny stew to making it a dry stew and the changes go on.

When I got mum’s new recipe I thought to myself…I will just make enough for the blog / photos… mission impossible! The dish is best made to a large consistency, after all it taste so much better with time. Yes you can eat it within 3 hours of cooking it however the taste develops as it stands. I would normally give it 1-2 days, although it never lasts that long!

chochla-miesiaca-wiosna-400 — This recipe got Ladle of the month!!

My tips for making this dish:
1) use good quality sauerkraut and to me nothing beats Krakus Sauerkraut! I tried making my own a few months back – failed miserably but that is a story for another day!
2) don’t over liquid the cooking process. Remember that this is a dry stew so its not meant to be covered in water.
3) best eaten on the 2nd day!
4) eat it over rye or sourdough bread with a bottle of Zywiec!
Smacznego!

Smacznego! Bella

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Burmese Beef Cheek Curry by Chef Pete Evans

Finding Feasts - Burmese-Beef-Cheek-Curry — Click image for recipe

When Chef Pete Evans new cook book ‘Healthy Everyday’ landed on my lap a few weeks ago I was like a kid in a candy store. I couldn’t wait to leave the office, get home and read it cover to cover. This book is fantastic and it’s no wonder that as of two weeks ago it was officially the No.1 book in Australia! There are 120 recipes and I will be test driving all of them!

With Imogen away at nan and pops house and a rainy weekend on the door step there was nothing else to do but get in the kitchen and cook up a storm!

Choosing my first recipe was dead easy! I picked up some beef cheeks from my local butcher the week before so Burmese beef cheek curry it was. The recipe is a small labour of love so I wouldn’t recommend attempting this on a week night after work. Whilst I was very tempted to take a short cut and pop the beef cheek curry into the pressure cooker I am proud to say that stuck to the recipe and 3 hours later I had gelatinous, melt in the mouth, slow cooked goodness that sent me to heaven and back! There is definitely something very satisfying about eating slow cooked food on a miserable autumn night and as hubby and I settled in to watch our Vikings marathon, the sweet smell of the Burmese beef cheek curry permeated throughout the house for the rest of the night.

Special message of thanks:

This post is dedicated to my good friends at Macmillan Publishers, in particular Siv Toigo who has been kind enough to feed my cook book collecting habit over the past year, and to my boss, Mario Isaias, who has been lugging the books back to our office on each occasion – thank you to the both of you!

Finding Feasts - Burmese-Beef-Cheek-Curry2

Happiness is…Healthy Every Day!

Finding Feasts - Burmese-Beef-Cheek-Curry

Ps…yup…that’s me…in bed with Peter Evans! LOL!

Bella 🙂

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