Outback Cookery Experimentation’s

Tomato Soup with a Kick

April 6, 2015 by Vicky 1 Comment

After experimenting with cooking sauces and soup from the raw ingredients I sometimes find pre-cooked food is not as nice as it used to be and can sometimes taste like it is full of sugar or salt.

I really like my Pumpkin Soup recipe and was very disappointed when trying a tin of soup from the supermarket this week. I had also bought a tin of tomato soup and didn’t want to experience the same thing so decided to give a home made tomato soup a go.

I wasn’t sure how much tomato to actually use so used fresh, tinned and puree in the recipe! I also added in some pepper (capsicum) and onion for added flavour. Here is my recipe for tomato soup with a kick.

Recipe:
250g cherry tomatoes chopped in half
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1 small pot of tomato purée
Half a chopped red capsicum
1 small onion finely chopped
1 teaspoon of chilli (or to your preferred taste)
1 heaped teaspoon of garlic purée
500ml vegetable stock
Salt and pepper to taste
1 small pot of thickened cream

Method:
Firstly I chopped all of the ingredients up and placed them into the slow cooker on high for about 4 hours. I then let it cool overnight and placed it in the fridge during the day. I pureed it all (in our smoothie maker!) that evening and heated it through until bubbling in a saucepan.

The soup simmered for a few minutes before adding the cream when I brought it back to the boil and left it to simmer for a few minutes before serving with some bread

I also for a bit of luxury put some grated cheese in the bottom of the bowl before pouring in the soup!

This amount was enough for 4/5 bowls of soup and I’ve re-heated it and had it for lunch a couple of times this week too!

Quick and Easy Banana Loaf

January 19, 2015 by Vicky 2 Comments

We had some local bananas in the fridge that the Aussie was given by a colleague at work who grows them about 2 weeks ago that, on the outside were ready for the bin but when I unpeeled them they were perfect for a banana cake. These bananas are small but really sweet and tasty so I didn’t want them to go to waste.

I used a really simple and easy banana recipe that I found here. I adapted it slightly because last time I made it, it tasted a bit dry and was thrown away after a few days. I don’t think this one will be finding its way to the bin!

I also had “fun” because I was also cooking a fish pie for us and couldn’t fit both in the oven! In the end the cake stayed in the oven and the fish pie went in the BBQ and both tasted great!

Ingredients
4 small bananas (these were the local ones) and 1 regular size banana mashed
1/2 cup apple sauce
3/4 cup granulated sugar (I’ve just discovered the Aussie has stored the granulated sugar in the caster sugar pot so used this instead of caster sugar!)
2 large eggs whisked
1 1/2 cups of self raising flour.

Method
1) Heat the oven to 170°C.

2) I mashed the bananas up and whisked the eggs in a separate bowl before mixing them both in the same bowl with the apple sauce and sugar.

3) Then I added in the flour and used the electric hand whisk to mix everything together.

4) I moved on to preparing the cake tin with a touch of butter and added the mixture. I could have used a loaf tin but thought that a regular round cake tin would work and it did pretty nicely.

5) Finally I put the cake into the oven on the top tray and cooked it for an hour. When it was ready I justed removed it from the oven and left it too cool before removing it from the cake tin.

I’m storing it in the fridge because of the heat here and hoping that will mean it doesn’t loose any moisture. I did wonder whether to make a lemon flavoured glaze for the cake but it was not necessary as it was just sweet enough.

This was the easiest recipe I’ve ever used to make a cake and will definitely try it again.

Left Over for Dinner

December 30, 2014 by Vicky 1 Comment

So after Christmas we all usually end up with lots of leftover foods (and for us foods that haven’t even been opened yet!) and rather than throw it away I decided to use it to create a couple of dishes.

Roast Vegetable Frittata
We had a lot of the roast vegetables left over (carrots, potatoes, pumpkin and parsnip although I didn’t use the parsnip in this recipe) and rather than reheat them and serve them as they are or throw them away, I made a roast vegetable frittata. I’m not 100% sure what makes something a frittata and what makes something an omelette but it was pretty delicious.

The recipe was as easy as you can imagine, you just mix up the following ingredients in a bowl and then pour it into a heated frying pan to cook and then when cooked stick it under a pre-heated grill to finish the recipe off:

6 eggs
1 cup of milk
Half a cup of cheddar cheese
Salt and Pepper to taste

I served the frittata with some of our left over chicken from lunch on Boxing Day and a rice salad I made for Christmas Day so it was a proper left overs kind of dinner!

Chicken Curry
I have been making this chicken curry recipe for a few months now and really enjoy putting all the ingredients together (have you noticed how much better cooking a meal from scratch is than using a sauce mixture out of the jar?). It’s also a great recipe because I can add the spices to my own preference and I am a chicken when it comes to truly spicy food.

As we had a lot of chicken left over I decided that we needed a chicken curry for our dinner and set to work putting it together.

The recipe is:
1 chicken breast chopped (for 2 people)
1 onion chopped
1/2 pepper chopped
1 teaspoon Ginger paste (or to taste)
1 teaspoon Garlic paste (or to taste)
400g Coconut Cream
1/2 teaspoon of chilli Powder (or to taste)
1 tablespoon of curry Powder or paste (or to taste)
400g chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon peanut butter

Method:
When everything is chopped place the chicken, onion, pepper, garlic, chilli and ginger in a saucepan or frying pan and cook for 5 minutes or until the chicken is golden brown. Then add the curry paste or powder and cook for a further minute.

When that is all done add the coconut cream, tomatoes and peanut butter and stir until the peanut butter is mixed in. You can also add cashew nuts now which taste pretty good but we didn’t have any.

Then you can either put it in a heatproof dish and cook it in the oven for 45 minutes at 180 degrees C or simmer it on the hob for about 30 minutes until the sauce thickens. Both methods work nicely but I prefer the oven method I think.

I just served it with rice and freeze any leftovers to take to work for lunch. It seems like the flavour gets even better when it’s reheated again as well.

What are your leftover food recipes after Christmas? Is there something you always have and look forward to more than Christmas dinner maybe?

Honey and Ginger Stir Fry

November 21, 2014 by Vicky 4 Comments

Ever since I started to have more time available to cook as it doesn’t take us an hour plus to get home anymore I have really enjoyed trying new recipes and trying little tweaks to perfect them. This also means that I have really gone off eating the ready made sauces that we used to end up eating because cooking from scratch was not appealing after our journey home. I can really taste the sugars and salt that are put into the sauces and they just don’t taste the same to me.

A recipe I always enjoy is my Honey and Ginger Stir Fry. To begin with the recipe didn’t include ginger so it was more honey and sesame and it was nice but adding the ginger, has in my opinion, really improved this dish! I also use half of the sauce to cook the chicken and then the other half over the vegetables and noodles when they are just about cooked.

The recipe I use is as follows and is best served with noodles I find:

1/2 cup of Honey
4 tablespoons Soy Sauce
2 tablespoons Oyster Sauce
3 teaspoons Sesame Oil
1 large chicken breast diced
1 teaspoon ginger paste
Mixed stir fry veg adjust depending on number of people (I use frozen stir veg and they work well in this)
Large handful of Cashew Nuts
Packet of noodles

I then mix the honey, soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil in a bowl with one cup (measuring cup) of cold water. Heat some olive oil in a pan and when it is hot add the ginger paste and the chicken which is cooked until it becomes golden brown.

Once the chicken is browned pour in half of the sauce and cook for 2 to 3 minutes before adding the stir fry vegetables which I cook for about 5 minutes (following the packet instructions for the vegetables).

Once the vegetables are starting to cook throw in the cashew nuts and add the remainder of the sauce to cook everything together. When the sauce is heated add in enough noodles for the number of people you are feeding and cook them through until heated and then serve!

Tomato Soup with a Kick

Quick and Easy Banana Loaf

Left Over for Dinner

Honey and Ginger Stir Fry

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