Zuppa Inglese Gelato

When I heard of the License to Chill Sweet Adventures Blog Hop hosted by the Kitchen Crusader, I was really excited because one of my favourite kitchen appliances is our ice cream maker. I was thinking of all the different flavours of ice cream that I am still to make....hmmm.... rum and raisin.... rocky road......ZUPPA INGLESE!

When I was in Italy as a kid over 20 years ago, I discovered this amazing gelato - half creamy, custardy ice cream and half trifle. Then, when we were in Florence on our honeymoon and on the day of my birthday I discovered it again! I started doing a bit of research on what exactly is in a Zuppa Inglese - the original trifle, rather than the gelato variety, and it turns out that it is savoiardi biscuits soaked in an Italian liqueur called Alchermes, a spirit infused with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and vanilla flavours. Not having come across this before in Sydney (although I'd love to find it) I decided to replicate the flavours in my Zuppa Inglese Gelato and soak the biscuits in Pipeclay Tawny Port from Pieter van Gent winery in Mudgee which has many similar flavours through it - I'm sure you could substitute with any Australian Tawny to get the same effect as my dessert.

Zuppa Inglese Gelato

500ml Milk
125ml Cream
Cinammon stick
1 vanilla pod (I used 1 teaspoon of Queen Vanilla Bean Paste instead of the real thing)
8 cloves
5 egg yolks
110g caster sugar
8 Savoiardi Biscuits
125 ml Pipeclay Tawny Port
Cocoa powder to sprinkle

Put milk, cream, cinammon stick, vanilla pod (or paste), cloves into a saucepan over a low heat;
Separate the eggs, and beat the yolks with the sugar until the mixture is thick, creamy and looks like a ribbon when you lift the whisk out of the bowl;
When the milk mixture is a at almost boiling (you can see little bubbles starting to appear around the edge of the saucepan), pour quickly into the egg mixture. Be careful to keep the cinnamon stick in the saucepan when you pour it;
Whisk it all together for a few seconds, till combined, and then pour it back into the saucepan;
Stir constantly with a wooden spoon over a low heat until the custard thickens. You'll know it's ready when the custard coats the back of the wooden spoon, and holds the position when you run your finger through it;

Sieve the custard into a jug or bowl, and discard the cinnamon sticks and cloves;
Cool the custard in the fridge;
When the custard is cold, churn in the ice cream maker according to the instructions;

Once churned, it's time to layer the gelato and soaked savioardi biscuits;
Soak the savioardis in the Tawny Port till they are completely covered by the port, but not totally soaked through;
Layer one scoop of gelato with half a savioardi; repeat this twice but in the 3rd layer use a whole savioardi and finish by a layer of the gelato;
Put back in the freezer until ready to serve;
Serve sprinkled with some cocoa powder.

Mojito Sorbet

Thinking of tropical climes, for the Sweet Adventure Blog Hop hosted this month by Nic from Dining with a Stud, always makes me crave a great cocktail - something refreshing and cool to soothe the sizzle of the day. There are some classics I love when on vacation like Pina Colada or Sex on the Beach, but one of the most refreshing after a long day on the beach is a Mojito, zesty lime and muddled mint with a hit of rum and plenty of ice. Delicious!

And, what better to cool you down during these hot evenings than a sorbet. I decided to have my cake cocktail, and eat it too with this easy to prepare, fun to eat summer dessert

Mojito Sorbet

1 cup of caster sugar
1 cup water
rind of 2 limes
juice of 5 limes
1/4 cup of loose mint leaves sliced thinly + whole leaves to garnish
60ml bacardi

Make a sugar syrup by dissolving the caster sugar in the cup of water. Leave to cool;
Mix the remaining ingredients (reserving some whole mint leaves for garnish) into the cooled sugar syrup;
Churn in the ice cream maker following the instructions of the machine;
Serve in Martini glasses decorated with a mint leaf as a refreshing end to a summer meal.

Off with a bang(er)!

Mincing the lamb and pork belly

My best birthday present ever this year has been on my wishlist ever since I moved out of home! A Kenwood Mixer! Not just any mixer either, this is one of the top of the range models: the Titanium Major. This wasn't a surprise gift, as my hubbie knew he had to involve me in the decision making of what make, model, features and attachments I was hoping for, but what was a surprise was when we put a bid on an online auction for significantly less that we thought it was worth, and WON! I was ecstatic!

Sausage snake

What to cook to "pop the cherry" of the Major, I wondered. It couldn't be any old cake or pavlova that I could have made using my trusty food processor.... It had to be something that we couldn't do before: Sausages!

I've always liked the thought of choosing our own sausage filling, but having seen the sausage making debacles on MasterChef, I wasn't convinced it would be successful first time! Now, I had a mincer and sausage attachment, there was no excuse to give it a go. I figured, worst case, we'd end up with some meat patties!

They look like the real thing!

We wanted to start off with a recipe before we branched out and experimented, so we tried out Poh's Spicy lamb and pork sausage recipe with lots of herbs and spices accompanying the 2 types of meat, that we minced from scratch. The resulting sausages were juicy and tasty, but just a little overcooked (with so much fresh meat in there, the cooking requirements are obviously different to the supermarket bought ones), so we have since fixed that up in subsequent serves, ready for a sausage sizzling summer ahead!

Easy as Pie

Lamb Pies

We were given a pie maker for Christmas a few years ago and whilst it isn't exactly an appliance I pull out on a weekly basis it is still an amazing gadget (for the kitchen that has pretty much all of them!) All Aussie love a meat pie but who knows what goes into them? Well this pie maker means that I always do! We recently got a bumper slow cooker so I could make multiple quantities of stews to freeze and what great pie filling they make! A quick defrost and then we're a go. I just use the ready made pasty sheets for convenience, cut a few rounds to fit the machine and we're cooking! A great way to engage fussy eater kids and whip up a quick but scrumptious lunch!

Hungry Homestay

Vac Packed Beef Chilli

Our friends know us to be hospitable and always generously opening our dining table to anyone who requests an invitation! We also have a stream of international guests travelling through our dining room who stay with us on an overseas Homestay program. Auzzie Families send us students from far and wide to sample our cuisine, and experience life at the home of a (not so...?) typical Aussie family.

Our most recent homestays are staying a bit longer than the usual month, hopefully due to the great food and fun company. Over the holiday period though, we spent some time away from home and to honour our commitment of a home cooked meal every night, I made sure there was plenty in the freezer to keep them going while we weren't there to cook every day.

Plenty food and in the freezer are not phrases that usually can go well together in our household. We have a small apartment and an even smaller freezer, so we've been typically limited on the number of dishes we can tupperware up and cram into the couple of drawers. Recently though we invested in a Food Saver, Sunbeam's groovy vacuum sealing machine. It is not just food that it saves. It saves space, money and our waist lines, as it allows us to portion up bulk packs of meat into smaller serving sizes and properly seal it up ensuring no freezer burn.

It has also meant that we have been able to prepare a few weeks worth of home cooked, healthy unprocessed meals for our homestay "kids" to defrost while we're galavanting off on holidays. I just multiply whatever I create, or throw something in the Slow Cooker and we vac a bag or two, flatten it out and slide it into the freezer. Even when we're not in town, we're able to provide quick, healthy and diverse meals each night of the week to our hungry homestays!

Juicy Fruit

Fresh Orange & Mandarin Juice

As spring comes round again, and we had friends for breakfast, I decided to bring the juicer out of hibernation. There's no excuse really for not making fresh juice at any time of year, but it just seems as the mornings are no longer so icy, that the thought of a freshly squeezed juice with breakfast sounds way more appealing!

I had a batch of murcott mandarins full of seeds which was just disappointing. Instead of them going to waste, as I'd given up battling with them to eat, I decided to mix them up with some fresh navel oranges, which are also in season over winter, and make a big jug of fresh orange.

We have had our juicer for about 5 years now, so we have two good tips to make it easy:
Our first tip is to put a small plastic bag into the waste container (the ones that you put veg into in the supermarket) When you're done, you just lift out the bag full of pulp and waste, and replace the bag. That way, it's one less thing to wash, and you're not spending time fishing fruit gunk out of the sink!

Another tip is to peel the oranges the night before. Especially in the summer, fruit can get a little warm at room temperature. We peel our oranges the previous evening and store it in a tupperware in the fridge. That way, especially on a weekday morning when we're in a rush, there's no excuses, we just thrown them straight in the juicer, and there is no need for ice to cool it down.

Crock Pot Crisis!

Coming home on a cold winter night to prepare dinner is hard enough! 
Coming home on a cold winter night when you're expecting to walk into the house to the delicious aroma of the slow cooker which has been bubbling away all day, only to find out that the timer for the slow cooker didn't go off is even harder......

Since we got our crock pot a few years ago, our trusty timer is set for midday so that the dish will automatically turn on while we're at work and do our cooking for us. It's a great feeling to come home after a hard day and have dinner prepared: meat falling off the bone, sauce reduced and scrumptious. The other day, however, we were sadly disappointed by timer failure and I had to had to improvise with an inferior but quick meatball dish!

Lemony Veal Stew with Chick Peas and Spinach

Fortunately, all was not lost and with a new functioning timer, we were able to enjoy two nights off cooking and two great dishes from my winter favourite cookbook, and a purchase my trip to Carmel, California a couple of years ago: Art of the Slow Cooker. The first dish was a hearty Lemony Veal Stew with Chick Peas and Spinach. A whole balanced meal in one pot!

After that, with confidence in the crock pot up, I attempted a US favourite, Spicy Pulled Pork which I prepared with Coleslaw and served in soft buns. Not the most attractive dish or healthiest, but it was so good! The spicy pork melted in the mouth with the crunchy coleslaw cooling the palate after a proper Tabasco kick. A fantastic reward after the earlier disappointment and I can't wait to get the crock pot out again!

Yums for Mums

We had three generations of mothers at my in laws this Mother's Day and as usual, we were up in Brisbane to prepare a special lunch to treat them! At first we thought we'd be ambitious and prepare a roast, but since we had to shop in the morning and then prepare, we opted for one of Jamie Oliver's 30 min meals without expecting that the dinner for 15 would take the same time as one for 4, particularly without our favourite kitchen equipment. Our plan to make the fantastic looking Catherine Wheel Sausage and Horseradish mash was scuppered as something similar was served at the restaurant we visited last night with some of the same guests! Instead we opted for scallop on guacamole baguette decorated  with one of my favourite Aussie bush fruits, finger lime,  Mustard chicken with Dauphinoise potatoes and Greens - a dish that would hopefully please all the guests spanning from being in their 2s to 70s all with different tastes and preferences and Damien Pignolet's Eve's Chocolate pudding - a winner I prepared a few weeks ago for our Big Feed Charity dinner.

Cam's Potato Dauphinoise

Cooking in someone else's kitchen for so many was quite a challenge. We had the chicken frying in 2 different pans - an electric fry pan with variable heat control where the chicken was either sticking to the pan at one temperature, or practically turned off when one notch lower and a fabulous portable induction cook top which browned the chicken beautifully - an excellent invention! The oven was more predictable and I was able to knock out the flourless chocolate cake quite effortlessly and Cam's Potato Dauphinoise was a great success!

All in all, scallops were a nice appetizer and the finger lime was certainly a talking point. The Chicken with Mustard Sauce, albeit some not as moist as I would have hoped after a rocky ride in the electric frypan, quietened the table and all you could hear was knives and forks clinking - a good sign! And the best part was that all the Mums had a day off to enjoy lunch prepared for them! It was indeed a Happy Mothers Day!

Cs of Tranquility

One of the longest lasting and favourite appliances of our kitchen is our juicer. We've been through phases of juicing every day - peeling 8 oranges every evening  for our morning refreshment, to every now and again using our leftover fruit for a strange concoction. Now, I have a new favourite juice thanks to Wellbeing, a sandwich shop I frequent in the City. When you buy one of their healthy, tasty sandwiches you pay a few dollars extra for a fresh juice - made to order. My preferred is Tranquility, a carrot and celery juice with a dash of beetroot. It helps me add a few bonus veggies to my daily serve and it isn't packed with the sweetness of some fruit juices, so hopefully I don't dose up on too much sugar!

Buying a fresh juice becoming somewhat of an addiction, and having my own tools at hand to be able to create my own juices, I bought my carrot, celery and beetroot to try see if I could replicate it in my kitchen.

Of course it was simple to make - just chuck a 5 or 6 carrots, 2 celery sticks and a hint of (1/2 a small) beetroot into the juicer for instant Tranquility in the home! I wish it were that easy to create all the time!
Carrot

Strawberry Sorbet

Last week my ice cream machine broke – right in the middle of preparing “Strawberries 3 ways” – Strawberry ice cream, strawberry sorbet and fresh strawberries – for a dinner party for 12. I was gutted!

In a last minute panic, an hour before guest arrived, I decided that an ice cream maker is something a gadget lover like me could just not live without – with summer coming up and all – and I rushed out to by a new one! The world was back in order! My ice cream and sorbets worked a treat and my guests loved them. Churning and freezing in the machine for super fresh, delicious frozen desserts! YUM! I knew it was a good investment the moment the first spoon of strawberry sorbet fizzed on my tongue!

Hello!

I love, or rather, am addicted to cookbooks, recipes, magazines, MasterChef! I can ‘t help myself! Inspired by my good friend, I am putting pen to paper about what happens in my kitchen!

Here I will share my experiences with kitchen appliances, successes (and failures) with recipes, my new shiny cookbooks and the culinary mischief that I create in my kitchen!