Cooking and Recipes

[Nuytsia]

I was going to say in 'what's happening in my world' that I'm cooking Beef Bourgignon for the first time ever and it smells GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But then I have been doing several cooking experiments lately so I thought why not start a cooking thread! Yeah FOOD!!!!

I don't think this is an 'authentic' French recipe but we shall see how it goes.

I made pizza for dinner earlier today and I've tried so many different pizza dough recipes but haven't yet found 'the one'. They always taste really good, but I've never found the PERFECT dough.

[Mervi]

Good idea for a topic, Nuytsia and sorry it took me awhile to get here to approve it! I don't wan't to hijack the discussion but if anyone here has ideas/recipes to add to Sara's cookbook I'm always happy to hear them!

[Nuytsia]

Thanks Mervi, no worries.
Well I can report my Beef Bourgignon was really good! Yum nice and tender..... definitely make again. Although I do have a weird habit of making a recipe I have found, loving it, and then never being able to replicate the good result ever again!

I did check out Sara's cookbook - great idea! I was trying to think what else I could put in there but I'll have to find more recipes mentioned in the books on my re-read. I don't think we'd want to eat anything that was mentioned in the RWC !!!

Another thing I like making is bread!!
I found a simple recipe for 100% rye sourdough bread which I totally love. It takes a few days, but you don't have to ditch any of the sourdough along the way, which is always annoying to me (iIt's really wasteful if you can't find something to do with it). And it's got heaps of flavour - not like some of the things passed off as 'sourdough' in the shops.

[Chrischa]

Well I can report my Beef Bourgignon was really good! Yum nice and tender..... definitely make again. Although I do have a weird habit of making a recipe I have found, loving it, and then never being able to replicate the good result ever again!

Are you saying we are seeing this cullinairy delight pass into oblivion? You can't do that! You can't brag on this forum about how good your dish was and then not tell us how to make it! Not when I've been sitting here poised with pen and paper for the past week, waiting for the recipe.

Any vegetarians on here? I have a very good recipe to share for a great vegetarian dish. You'll need;

- 1 large potato
- 2 large carrots
- 2 turnips
- 1 leek
- 1 veggie stock cube
- 1 can of apple juice
- sweetcorn
- 150 gr (5,30 ounce) of cheddar cheese
- 300 gr (10,5 ounce) of flour
- 75 gr (2,65 ounce) of butter
- 75 gr of herbal, creamy cheese with garlic, such as Boursin

Heat 2/3 of the apple juice in a pan, and melt the stock cube in there. Then add the chopped potato and carrots, and boil for ten minutes. Add the chopped turnip, boil for another ten minutes. Add the leek, and boil again.
Meanwhile, put the flour with the butter in a large bowl, and grate in most of the cheddar cheese. Mix well until the dough gains a sand-like consistency.
When the veggies are done, take them off the fire and scoop them out into a deep oven bowl with a spatula, so that the juice remains in the pan. Mix the veggies with the sweetcorn and put the juice back on a small fire.
Melt the Boursin in the juice, and pour the mixture across the veggies. Then pour the dough mixture on top and spread evenly. Grate the leftover cheddar cheese on top of the dough.
Put in the oven on 180 degrees C or gas mark 4, for twenty minutes or until the crust is even brown.

There you are... not necessarely healthy or diet-friendly with so much butter and cheese, but very nice!

I'll want your Beef Bourgignon recipe in return, now, Nuytsia! Or my wrath shall be awakened!

[Farseer]

I really enjoy cooking so a great idea for a thread, Nuytsia.

Many of my 'best' dishes have been experiments or accidents that I have never been able to perfectly reproduce after the first run! I always mean to write things down as I throw them in, but get too caught up in the actual cooking moment and forget!! Once I get it down in print though, I seem to be able to manage consistent quality (at least, that's what I'm told !) .

It's a personal preference but I think homemade pizzas made from a scone dough are the most scrumptious. I also love making homemade bread, though it becomes a bit of a chore in my house as everyone else loves eating it so much!

I am most definitely a meat-eater (and not either healthy or looking for diet-friendly cuisine!!) but your vegie dish sounds 'yum', Chrischa. I'll be sure to give it a go.

[Nuytsia]

Hehe Chrischa, ok here goes!

Beef Bourgignon:

700g 'stew beef' (I used what is labelled here as 'gravy beef'), cut into 2-inch pieces (I think I cut it into pieces about half that size)
1 cup red wine
2 cups beef stock
3 Tbsp butter
1 and 1/2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup flour
several small slivers of orange peel (I had to leave that out as I didn't have any)
several sprigs of fresh thyme (I had to use some dried thyme, didn't really measure it!)
1/4 tsp crushed dried green peppercorns (I also didn't have, so I just used some freshly ground black pepper)
250g mushrooms (I cut into quarters)
500g onions (it doesn't say to, but I cut into quarters - if you had small onions you could probably leave whole)

Marinate beef in wine for several hours or overnight. (I did it for a few hours) Remove and dry well. Melt 1 and 1/2 Tbsp each of the butter and oil in a heavy, flameproof casserole. (I didn't really have one that I wanted to use on a stovetop so I used a regular pan). Brown meat cubes in small batches, transferring with a slotted spoon to a plate (I put them into the casserole dish) when done. When all are browned, pour out cooking fat. Add the remaining 1 and 1/2 Tbsp butter to the casserole (or pan in my case), let it melt and add flour, Cook flour in butter, stirring constantly several minutes. Add wine from the marinade and stock. Bring to boil, stirring up scrapings from bottom of pan and blend well with wire whisk (I didn't bother with a whisk! The spoon was fine). Return meat and juices that have accumulated in the plate (or in my case, I just poured the sauce from the pan over the waiting meat in the casserole). Add thyme, crushed peppercorns and orange peel. Put casserole dish into a 150 C (300F) oven and cook 3 to 4 hours or until meat is tender. Peel onions (I sliced them up too) and saute them gently in butter and oil about 20 minutes. Brown the mushrooms (the recipe is a bit vague here, I just put mushrooms and onions in together and it took a fair bit longer than 20 mins to get onions as soft as I wanted them so you could start onions first and then add mushrooms after a bit). When meat is tender, remove from oven. Season to taste (I actually forgot to add the salt and pepper!) Remove thyme (if you used fresh sprigs). Stir in onions and mushrooms and serve (I actually put the whole thing back in the warm oven for a little bit after stirring in onions and mushrooms to make sure onions were soft).

That's it!

Chrischa your vegetarian recipe sounds interesting! I never thought to use apple juice like that. I used to be a vegetarian, and I still eat a lot of vegetarian meals now, so I will have to give it a go some time! Butter and cheese definitely get the thumbs up from me. In fact I would love to get a milking cow, and hopefully we will in the not too distant future.

Farseer I can relate to those nice accidents that turn out well, and also forgetting exactly how to replicate them!

I never thought to use scone dough for pizza!!! Mmmmmm might have to try it. Although I have never been a fan of the rubbing butter into flour part of making scones... lazy me!

[Nuytsia]

Farseer do you have a particular recipe for pizza using the scone dough?

[Farseer]

Is this what you were after, Nuytsia?

Pizza Base - Scone Crust

2 cups self-raising flour
pinch salt
30g butter (or margarine)
1 to 1 1/2 cups milk
oil

Sift flour and salt into bowl and rub in butter (sorry Nuytsia...you can't get out of doing it !). Add enough milk to mix to a firm dough. Knead lightly on a floured surface until smooth. Divide in half then roll out each half to make two pizza bases. Brush dough lightly with oil prior to adding your toppings. Simply replace the white flour with wholemeal self-raising flour if you prefer a wholemeal variation.

[Nuytsia]

Yes, thanks for that Farseer! Yumbo!
I will try it when I get over my aversion to rubbing in butter.... it's a combination of laziness and not liking the idea of so thoroughly putting my hands through my food (germophobia)

ps I made pizza the other night with yet another dough I found on the internet. It was ok but it didn't need to have been cooked anywhere near as long as the recipe said (thank goodness I took it out early). I guess some people like REALLY crispy and hard pizza bases.

Not really a recipe, but the other night I made pasta with veges (can't recall what sort, think cauliflower and broccoli?) and I had no real pasta sauce or any cheese so I mixed tomato paste with yoghurt and mixed that through the pasta and veg's (also whatever usual herbs like thyme, oregano, pepper) and it was actually really nice. Just thought I'd share that! I never thought of doing that but the yoghurt adds a nice tang in the way that lemon does.

[Nuytsia]

Hey does anyone have a good recipe using lamb forequarter chops?

Also, my dessert tonight - inspired by 'microwave chocolate cake in a cup'

In a cup cream together 1/2 Tbsp butter and 1 to 1 and 1/2 Tbsp sugar (depending on how sweet you like things).
Ok hard to 'cream together' in a cup, just chop up the butter with the spoon and squash the butter into the sugar as best you can.
Add 2 Tbsp plain flour, a pinch of baking soda and 2/3 Tbsp cocoa. Mix it all up well. Add 1 square Lindt 70% chocolate broken up as small as you can (well that's what I used - you can use whatever!).
Add about 2 Tbsp plain yoghurt and a splash of milk. You just need enough milk so that when you mix it up it's a sort of thick batter rather than with any dry bits. Will depend on how runny your yoghurt is!
The original recipe I adapted this from said 'do not overmix'. Ok you have been warned!!!!
I microwaved at 7 (70% of max) for 1 minute. My microwave is 1100 watt.
You could probably eat it with cream...... mmmmm .... I had it with half a banana chopped up on top then some vanilla ice-cream.
Mmmmmm.