Mama's Scones

This is a re-post of a post I did back in October 2013...It's international scone week and I'm hooking up with the lovely Tandy from Lavendar and Lime who is hosting the big event.  Time hasn't and won't be on my side this week hence the re-post, but it's well worth a read and this scone recipe is the bomb!!

We had the most lovely impromptu afternoon tea yesterday.  

We were meeting up at my nan's, well she's called Mama actually, to have a play with one of my cousins daughters after school.  

When we walked through the door, much to my delight, 

Mama had the flour container out and her apron on.  

It meant only one thing....Scones!! You are in for a treat.

Mama's Scones

3 cups s.r flour, sifted

pinch salt

small tspn caster sugar

2 tbspns butter, grated OR 3/4 cup cream

1/4 cup of milk of using cream OR 1/2 cup of milk if using butter, or maybe a bit more.

Preheat oven to 250c.  Grease a baking tray.  Sift flour into a large bowl and add salt and sugar.  Grate the butter in and rub together to form crumbs then gradually add the milk, using a long bladed knife and a cutting action through the dough OR if using cream, mix cream and milk together and gradually add to flour using the knife and cutting action.  You are aiming for it to come together, not too moist, not too dry.  Unfortunately this is something that comes with experience, feel and trial and error, but I've taken lots of photos to help me remember!  So here we go....

  

Look at those hands at work.  Mama is almost 88 yrs old, an amazing woman who bore 11 children and too many grand, great and great, great grandchildren to mention, all who she has influenced along the way.  Mama is the glue that holds our family together.  She is affectionately know as Mama by all our friends, partners, husbands and inlaws.  When I started taking the pictures she initially didn't want her hands taken but we then both agreed that they were an amazing set and had weathered extremely well, and so its with pride I show them to you.

Mama is the scone wizard, 

these were whipped up in under 2 minutes, 

with little helpers expertly kept at bay but all the while with enough involvement to keep them satisfied.  

She is held in high esteem among our large family as the only one that makes the scones.  

I asked if I could do it but she said "Not today, I'm in a hurry"

No cutting them with a knife, a scone cutter is the only way

Yes they taste as good as they look!  

I was taking lots of photos and Mama kept saying, 

"don't forget to tell them they need to use fresh flour", and 

"don't forget to tell them that they are meant to be touching each other on the baking tray but I don't think you need to", and 

"don't forget to tell them the oven must be hot", and 

"don't forget to tell them to be gentle: don't use a rolling pin~my mum use to say go gently."  

So I'm telling you all!  

I'm surprised she let me share the recipe, and I promise the recipe is missing no secret ingredient.

They were devoured with hot cups of sweet tea and lots of talking with the grandies eating til they couldn't move, smothering theirs with runny cream as well.  

It truly was an afternoon that memories are built and relationships are strengthened.  I remember doing this with her when I was little, how lucky our little ones are to get to do the same ritual.  
So it is with a warm heart that I share this post with you.  I'm so pleased I finally got this recipe documented!

Ciao, Jan

Christening my baby

I was so excited to share my new arrival the other day but with all that was going on it was only today that I actually got to christen my new baby - KromillA - thanks Kirsty!

I had the perfect recipe up my sleeve - Susan's lemon zinger loaf cake.  As luck would have it I have a dealer as a good friend - a dealer of lemons! Oh how lovely to have them back in my kitchen - nothing beats having a bowl full of them to play with.

Wowzers, I've been slumming it with my old dodgy pre-loved cheap mixer....This KitchenAid is a miracle worker.  Not only does it look fantastic on my bench ;) but it really, really gets all of the ingredients mixed up in a flash.  My old red baron needed extra help as it never mixed in all the ingredients at the bottom so it sort of put me off using it - but not now! I'm already making a list and hoping I can feed many a sweet or bready treat.

So, how about them lemons.

Ciao, Jan x

pumpkin and brown rice soup with walnuts

Hasn't winter kicked in! I'm one of those rare breed of people who actually loves winter.  I love the change of seasons and the excuse to snuggle inside with the heater on and recharge.  Days of constant sunshine and heat wear me down...I know, strange.  But true!

I've had the slow cooker out working for me so I can do my crochet.  Yep, it's official, I'm hooked on hooking.  I've finished a pretty blanket for my daughter and am now working on connecting one for me :D  

This pumpkin soup is nothing new, but the addition of brown rice is.  I just cut up 1/2 a pumpkin and add in whatever I have on hand ~ carrots, sweet potato, potato, celery, onion and garlic.  Plop it all into the slow cooker with a cup of well rinsed brown rice  with enough chicken stock to cover and turn the dial up to high for the next 4-6 hours.  

Blend and serve with crushed walnuts and a big dollop of natural yoghurt.

This is the easiest blanket as it's just a continuous granny square.  I just love this soft pink and green wool.

Now on to crocheting up my granny rug.

I think this is going to take awhile, lucky the weathers bad, no summer sun guilt here!!

What do you do to get you through a rough winter?

Ciao, Jan.

making stock

Making stock isn't rocket science but it will save you both time and money in the kitchen.  If you have a local butcher, if you ask nicely, you might even get your bones for free.  I made around 4 litres of chicken stock for around a dollar that's far cheaper than the liquid stocks available ~ it would be around $12 for the supermarket variety.

Leave it for a day when you are home for awhile and let it bubble away doing the work for you.

Chicken stock

4-6 chicken carcasses or a big load of chicken necks

2 carrots roughly chopped

3 stalks of celery and the butt end roughly chopped

3 brown onions, skin and all, roughly chopped

2-3 dried bay leaves

small bunch of fresh thyme or rosemary

10 peppercorns 

• Place all ingredients into a good sized large saucepan. Cover them with water.  For a darker stock, you can roast the bones first if you have time.
• Bring to the boil and allow to simmer away for 4 hours or so.  
• Skim off any skum/fat/impurities that rise to the surface.
• Strain and place into zip lock bags or containers into the freezer or of course use straight away

This basic recipe I will be using for my slow cooker which will be getting a strong workout this winter.  I've created a 'slow cooker' side bar which I'll be adding to over the coming weeks.  I get asked a lot for! slow cooker recipes and advice on how to use them, so I'll get cracking.  For those of you who are scared of them or haven't dusted your old crockpot off in awhile, get them out.  Just think of them exactly the same as a casserole dish sitting in a low oven, they need time and do all the work for you.  

Ciao, Jan.

P.S. It's week 24 of the 52 week money challenge :D

Chicken Pie

This cooler weather just makes me so happy.  I know, I'm strange, but I loved autumn with it's crisp mornings and sunny days and the draw of winter not far away, and here we are 2 days in.  I love cosying up on the couch with a good book while the wind and rain play havoc outside.  Pass me the slow cooker or whack the oven on and I'm a goner~it's comfort food time.

I'm not sure why I forget to make pies as they are super easy and always a hit.  I was reading Kathy's post here  about her super cute looking chicken and leek individual pies and so I got inspired to whip out the pie dish.  I didn't have any leeks but I grabbed some spring onions that had been let go in there pot outside a bit long, just perfect.  I also had a couple of corn cobs that needed using up.  That's the thing with this recipe, it is so versitile.  It could be made with just all the vegies left in the crisper, sauted up in lots of butter and garlic for a vegetarian option.  As long as you stick to the principles of the veloute sauce, you can let your ingredients run riot.  A veloute sauce is a sauce made with stock, butter and flour and is extremely versitile and velvety delicious without the naughtiness of a full cream sauce.

I honestly shake my head in denial most nights at the dinner table.  As you are well aware I lurve food as does my husband but do you think I can get my 7 year old to eat anything other than potato, corn and sometimes pumpkin? Yes she'll have avocado and a mountain of fruit but try and convince her that broccoli or carrots are amazballs tasty, no way Jose. So here I sneak as much in as I dare by serving this scrummy pie with my 3 veg mash potato.

Chicken, spring onion and corn pie
500g chicken free range chicken thighs, or left over roast chicken
4-5 white ends of good sized spring onion or 2 leeks
1-2 corn cobs, corn kernels sliced off
50g butter and a glug of evoo
400ml chicken stock, from stock powder is fine if you don't have fresh
2 tbsps plain flour
1 sheet puff pastry

• slice up your chicken thigh into bite size pieces.  I like to use kitchen scissors for this. Finely slice your spring onions and get all of your ingredients out ready.

• heat the evoo in a fry pan and fry the chicken.  Season with salt and pepper.  You may want to do this in batches as you don't want to stew the pieces, you are looking to create a golden colour to seal in the juices on each piece.  Take chicken out and keep the oil and juices in the pan.
• In the same pan, add the butter and saute the spring onion and corn without adding any colour.  Season with salt and peper.  After 5 minutes add the flour and cook out for 1 minute, stirring all the time.  Gradually add the stock until you have the thickness you desire.  You don't want it too thick or too thin, it should coat the back of a spoon easily.  Test for seasoning.

• Add the chicken back into the sauce along with any juices.  Mix through the sauce.  

• In a 20cm pie dish (approximately), pour in the chicken mixture.  You can cool it at this stage if you don't need the pie straight away or freeze it also for another time.

• Defrost 1 sheet of puff pastry and top the pie dish, using egg wash or milk to coat the pastry to get it lovely and golden.  

• Place in a 200c oven for 30 minutes or until golden.

Serve with my 3 veg mash - potato, sweet potato and pumpkin and dive in.
Some of the variations I like to make are:

• chicken, bacon and mushroom
• tinned salmon tossed through the veloute (use fish stock in the veloute if you have it), asparagus and spinach (also great with mashed potato on top instead of the pastry
• chicken, thyme, spinach and potato ( blanch diced potato in boiling water for 4-5 minutes first)
• left over roasted vegetables, semi-dried tomatoes, rocket and fresh herb (thyme leaves, parsely, mint and oregano added to sauce at the last minute
• soft boiled egg with curry powder, parsley, potato and tuna

Be guided by whats in season and either growing in your garden or from the green grocers as to what you put in. This is going to be back on our weekly menu this winter.

It's week 23 of the 52 week money challenge, we are almost half way through the year! I must confess, I'm finding it a challenge keeping up as the numbers are getting bigger but I'm doing what I can :D

A bit of an update on my crochet.  I am very proud to show my first ever granny square!  I learnt from this granny square tutorial here that is very easy to follow for anyone who would like to give it a try. Now to practice and start my rug :D

Ciao, Jan.

Cinnamon and Pear muffins

I've been still quite poorly, hence not much blogging, but I've still been cooking when I can.  Pears are one of my favourite fruit, and it was with so much delight that I found myself with a little bounty off a friends tree.  They are the type that when you bite into the ripe flesh, you have juice running down your face, nothing like fruit straight from the tree.  I made a pear and walnut cake and then also made them into cinnamon and pear muffins so they are nut free ready for the school lunchbox this week.  I love nothing more than the smell of these kinds of goodies in my kitchen, and I'm sure I put a whole lot of love in them to help boost my body along!

Cinnamon and Pear muffins

For the batter/cake

• 150g softened butter
• 125g caster sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 150g selfraising flour, sifted
• good pinch of cinnamon, sifted with the flour

With electric hand beaters or a mix master, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.  Gradually add one egg at a time with a big spoonful of flour to stop the mixture from curdling.  Do that until all the flour is used up.  Line a 12 capacity muffin tray with patty pans, although I only got 9 muffins out of this batter.

You need around 3-4 very ripe pears for this.  Peel, core and slice them once you have made the batter so they don't go brown.  You can also add chopped walnuts on top, and sprinkle with a mixture of cinnamon and caster sugar, equal quantities, over the pears.  Bake in a preheated oven for approximately 30 minutes, or if for a cake, place in a 20cm spring form round cake tin and cook for around 40 minutes.  You can swap 1/2 the flour for almond meal if you like and you can also use apples, or any fruit that is in season for that matter.  If you are using fruit that is a bit firmer than the ripe pears, slice up and fry in a pan with 25g of butter and 1 tablespoon of sugar until slightly golden, then allow to cool and arrange on to batter and pour the syrup on as well.  They are gorgeous served warm with a good vanilla yoghurt or cream. 

I found these cute vintage muffin cases at Aldi for a few dollars, cute!

My perfect kind of comfort food.

This is the pear and walnut cake before going in the oven.

Lets hope this is the beginning of more blogging as it's nice to be back doing something I love.

Ciao, Jan.

Lushious leftovers lamb pie

Living frugally is getting the most out of your shopping dollars and the most from the food you need to eat.  It also helps to make them as tasty and delicious as you can so you don't feel deprived.  The easiest way I know to save on meals is by making the most of your leftovers.  Australians  reportedly waste over $1,000 per household per year on food.  That's 8 BILLION DOLLARS (gulp) worth of food that gets thrown out each year.....I know.....ok now I've taken a big breath and swallowed that bitter pill, I'm here to tell you that it's easy and actually time saving to use up this waste.  You can watch a fab little doco that I saw first on Jo's blog Down to earth Mother here, it's only 20 minutes, please for our planet's sake, take the time to watch it.  It's about waste in general and certainly got my attention.

Why do many of us live so unconsciously? 

Back to the issue at hand, lushious leftfovers.  Take them to work for lunch the next day instead of spending $15 on a brought lunch.  That's $780 you could save just by taking leftovers for your lunch one day a week, only one!  It's alarmingly (are you ready....) a saving of $3,900 if you bothered to take your lunch everyday to forgo your need for buying lunch/coffee/water/soft drink from the cafe down the road. How good are those leftovers tasting now? Imagine that money payed down on some of your debt or it's the holiday you don't think you can afford.

Freeze portions of the leftovers for dinner another night when you know you might reach for the phone to order take away.  

Or Compost it 

(as long as it's not meat or anything else you shouldn't be composting!).  

Give it to your dog to bulk out his dog food, we all know the cat's way to much of a princess to eat it though.

I love leftovers as it means its either dinner sorted the following night, or for the freezer, if it's like bolognaise sauce or cold roast meat or pasta or salad or rice, I can make another meal out of it.

For this recipe of lamb pie, it does need some love and time but nothing too 

stressful ~ 15 minutes max.  It can make 2 dinners for you too, eat one serve and freeze another.  If you really think you are too busy, the night you make the roast, peel the extra vegies required for this then and leave them in the fridge ready for when you need them.

All up this $13 piece of roast leg of lamb fed our family of 3 (with 1 very hungry man) for 3 nights for less than $6 a night when you also factor in the vegetables from the garden and gravy, so less than $2 a head, bloody bargain!

 I've been abound with gorgeous produce from our garden.  Bright orange carrots, pearly white parsnips, onions, and herbs a plenty.  

We have roast lamb at least once a fortnight, we love it.  From a leftovers perspective, there is so many things you can do with those delicious cuts closer to the bone, and for that matter the bone and this pie from my coveted Christmas pressie  Save with Jamie are a perfect family fodder.  

*A bouquet garni of sorts...celeriac leaves, thyme, rosemary are all tied together to be taken out of the pie at the end.

Lovely Lamb pie    Serves 8  taken from straight from Save with Jamie.  My additions are in brackets 

2 red onions (I used brown onions)

2 carrots

1 small celeriac  (I used parsnip)

250g lamb kidneys (I didn't use)

optional: 1 tablespoon leftover lamb dripping (to make this, drain any juices off your roast dish, I cook my lamb over a wire rack with water in the bottom to make gravy, put drain delicious juices into a jug and pop in the freezer.  The fat will rise to the top and once it has solidified it can be spooned off and used like oil ~ heaven)

olive oil

1 bunch of fresh thyme (I used the bouquet garni listed above *)

optional: I fresh bay leaf (I used dried)

1 heaped tablespoon of plain flour

2 teaspoons English mustard

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

optional: leftover lamb gravy and bones

250g leftover cooked lamb

1 x 400g tin of lentils (I have a child so no chance of adding)

300g of puff pastry (1 sheet of pre-made of the frozen variety)

1 large egg

• Peel the onions, carrots and celeriac and trim the kidneys, then chop everything into 1cm dice and put into ta large casserole pan on a medium-low heat with the lamb dripping if you have it, or a lug of oil, a pinch of salt and plenty of pepper.  Strip in the thyme leaves (or add your bouquet garni) and bay leaf if you've got one, then cook for 30 minutes, stirring regularly.  Cooking it slowly like this will create the most amazing depth of flavour for the pie filling.

• Stir the flour and mustard into the pan then add the Worcestershire sauce, 1.5 litres of boiling water and any leftover gravy and lamb bones from the mothership lamb recipe (also in Jamies book), if you have them.  Reduce to a low heat, cover and cook gently for 1 hour, or until thickened and reduced, stirring occasionally.  Remove any bones, season to perfection, then remover from the heat and leave to cool.  Preheat the oven to 180c/350F/gas 4.

• Once the pie filling is cool, shred the lamb into the ban then drain and add the lentils and mix well.  Tip into a pie dish (roughly 25cm x 30cm) (I used 2 smaller dishes to freeze one for another day as it was only feeding 3 of us.) On a flour-dusted surface, roll out the pastry so its slightly bigger than your dish and the thickness of a pound coin, (or use frozen ready rolled puff).  then score very lightly in a criss-cross fashion.  Beat the egg and brush around the rim of the dish.  Roll the pastry around your rolling pin and unroll over the dish.  Press to stick, then brush the pastry with more eggwash and bake for 30-40 minutes as the bottom of the oven, or until the filling is piping hot and the pastry is golden brown.  Delicious served with seasonal greens and an extra dollop of mustard.

this dodgy looking leftover roast lamb will be transformed from the dog bone, to lushious lamb pie!

I mixed the mustard together with the flour to form a paste

leftover carrot and parsnip mash from a previous night will help thicken this pie sauce.

One I did with a criss cross pattern, then other with some cut out stars.

We had the pie with a rocket and parmesan salad.

Both leftover roast Pork and Chicken will work just as well in this dish too.

Do you make the most of your leftovers or do you bin food even when it's good or leave it in the back of the fridge to grow legs?  I hope I can inspire just one person to make a change and save some of your hard earned cash.

Oh, I almost forgot, it's week 14 of the 52 week money challenge, and if you ditch your lunches for the weeks until the end of the year that will be over $5,000 saved!!!!!

Ciao, Jan.