Dishwasher Powder Recipe

I've been looking for a recipe that is less toxic than the dishwasher powder or cubes we have always used. I used to be incredibly paranoid when little fingers explored anywhere near the dishwasher and needless to say the cupboard that stored cleaning products still has a child lock on it.

I found this recipe via one of Wendyl Nissan's (Green Goddess) emailed newsletters. I wanted to give it a try for a couple of weeks before I bothered recording it here for my future reference.

It works well. I can't see any difference to the commercial stuff we used to buy.

So not only is it way less toxic to the environment, it is also really cheap to make.

Dishwashing Powder

½ cup of borax 

½ cup soda ash (this is powdered washing soda, not the crystals....but I just blitzed them in the food processor a bit)

¼ cup of citric acid

½ cup salt (not iodised))

10 drops of lemon essential oil 

Place all in a plastic container and shake.

Use 1 Tbsp per load. 

Use white vinegar in the rinse compartment (this seems to work really well too)

Food that moves!

We had a family celebration dinner at Taiko last week. Patrick had just finished his final school exam and turned 18 and Megan had successfully finished her second year at Whitecliffe College of Art and Design.
One of the dishes that always creates a stir when we take new people to Taiko is the octopus balls that are topped with dried shaved tuna. Something - the heat? the humidity of the food? make the shaved tuna move. A little disconcerting to the unprepared diner!
The movie is not the best quality but it gives you an idea of how it looks when it is served.

One of the disasters...

Ok, this looks alright but it really was a disaster.

I followed the recipe reasonably well...my only change was to half the ingredients.
The tapioca was cooked for 45 minutes in coconut milk, water and palm sugar.
For some reason the tapioca didn't cook through properly or perhaps dried out in the chilling process in the fridge?
Or maybe it was because I served it as individual servings rather than one large desert?

The mandarin syrup was great. It had that slightly unusual taste that you get using palm sugar.

Maybe I'll try this concept again with a different recipe, and maybe I'll stick to the recipe this time?

Middle Eastern Orange Cake - recipe

I had a friend coming for lunch who was gluten intolerant. After a previous disastrous lunch where I tried to make gluten free bread, I decided to take a different approach today.

Today's lunch was a rotisserie chicken (not based in soy sauce because even that has gluten in it!), salads and a baked layered potato dish (I used sliced fennel in the layers which was nice but not a strong flavour). 

We tried something new with the chicken and soaked it in brine (salty water), lemon on herbs for a day, then dried it out in the fridge overnight. I then just based with olive oil and garlic salt when it was cooking. It turned out beautifully. It looks burned in the picture but it was more smokey charred. It's a really good and easy way to cook it.

This was followed by a Middle Eastern Orange cake that was made using ground almond meal rather than flour. The really interesting part of the cake was that the recipe starts with 2 whole oranges simmered for 2 hours in water. This is not something I had come across before. They came out really soft, but not mushy...almost like cutting through butter.

The cake gets added to the 'make again' list. It was a cross between a cake and a pudding and despite having almond meal instead of flour, still had a reasonably light consistency. It looked quite dry before I cut into it but was wonderfully moist.

I served it with greek yoghurt made in the yoghurt maker and peeled orange segments.

Middle Eastern Orange Cake

Ingredients

Serves: 10

• 5 large oranges
• 6 eggs, beaten
• 2¼ cups ground almonds
• 1¼ cups caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup plain low-fat yoghurt

Preparation method

Prep: 30 minutes | Cook: 3 hours

1.

Wash 2 of the oranges and place in a saucepan with water to cover. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 2 hours. Allow the oranges to cool, then cut open, remove the pips and roughly chop the flesh.

2.

Preheat the oven to 190°C. Grease and flour a 22-cm springform tin. Process the cooked oranges, eggs, ground almonds, sugar and baking powder in a food processor.

3.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin. Bake for 1 hour or until the centre is firm (note that this is a very moist cake). Cool in the tin before gently turning out.

4.

Peel the remaining oranges with a small paring knife. Separate the orange segments from the membranes. Serve the cake with the fresh orange segments and some yoghurt on the side.

Stained Glass Window Biscuits - Recipe

We are nearing 'birthday season' and with that I trying all sorts of options for party food. The 'cake' that has been requested for Isabella's 4th birthday is a ginger bread house. I think it will be pretty straight forward...well I hope it will.
We made this biscuits a couple of weekends ago (before I got sick). They are really quite easy and look so effective. I'm tempted to make 'stained glass windows' in the birthday ginger bread house!




My hints are...

• Make the biscuits quite big. If they are small it all becomes too fiddly.
• The crushed lollies do not need to be crushed to nearly a powder (as the picture show). The bigger lumps melted easily.
• You can cut the basic shape out then easily cut an inside shape with a small paring knife. You don't need another smaller cutter.
• When you fill cut out shapes, fill as much as you can as it flattens out when it heats up.

Stained Glass Window Biscuits - Recipe 
Australian Women's Weekly Recipe
150 g butter
1/2 cup (110g) firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
2 cups (300g) self raising flour
1 egg beaten lightly
24 wrapped boiled lollies

1. Process the butter, sugar, spices and a pinch of salt in food processor until combined.
Add flour and pulse until dough resembles crumbs.
Add the egg; process until the dough just comes together.
Divide the dough into half;, shape into discs.
Wrap each disc in plastic wrap; refrigerate for 30 minutes.

2. Pre heat oven to 180 degrees C (160 degrees fan forced)
Line 3 large oven trays with baking paper.

3. Gently tap the wrapped lollies with a rolling pin to crush lightly (we did this in a tea towel...don't use a good one, it rips!)

4. Roll dough between two sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick.
Cut out biscuits using cutters.
If you are having them from Christmas tree, make a small hole with a straw.
Re-roll scraps if needed.

5. Transfer biscuits to prepared trays, about 3 cm apart.
careful fill each centre with a pile of crushed lollies.

6. Bake biscuits for about 10 minutes or until the edges start to brown.
Stand on trays for about 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks. (Make sure the 'glass' is set enough before you do this.

A Symphony Of Green

While the pictures don't do it justice, tonight's pasta was tossed with incredibly delicious, fresh green spring/summer veges - asparagus, broad beans, baby leeks, garlic and broccoli. The mixture of vivid greens looked fantastic and after all the presentation is a huge part of the appeal of a dish....I think I heard that on a recent Master Chef!
Some ingredients from my garden and some from this week's Ooooby Box (Out Of Our Own Backyards). I served it with fresh fish fried in a little butter and lightly seasoned.

I lightly fried the baby leeks and garlic in olive oil, added the asparagus and broccoli, then the blanched peeled broad beens.  I then added lemon zest and juice and salt and pepper, then tossed the cooked pasta through it.

Simple, fresh and delicious.

My Own Personal Master Class

We were invited to be the surprise visitors for Minakshi's birthday last night. Minakshi is the wonderful woman (with a beautiful family) who looked after Isabella after when I first went back to work. I have written about them in a previous post with a yummy chickpea curry recipe.

One of Isabella's favourite foods is roti - something she ate regularly when with Minakshi. Isabella and I were lucky enough to watch Minakshi prepare them. It really did feel like my own personal master class. The interesting thing was that as they cooked and puffed up, she pressed the down with a paper towel. I will have to attempt making them one day but living up the Minakshi's standard may be difficult. I've never been able to make porridge that Isabella will eat after Minakshi's Indian version.

Every dish we have had prepared by Minakshi and her family has been wonderful! We have been spoiled forever by Minakshi's Samosas - none we have had since eaten her's have ever been as good.

We knew our meal would be delicious and it was. With the roti and rice (flavoured with turmeric I think) was a creamy dish with what they said was cottage cheese (I think it was a pressed cottage cheese). Gorav said the sauce was like butter chicken sauce...and it was. It was fantastic. The other dish was a spicy dish beans and I think pulses in it. Again it was superb.

Deep Fried Ice Cream?

Deep Fried Ice Cream? Not quite my ideal dessert but Isabella (3) was pretty excited by the idea and even more excited by the actual eating. I think another family tradition has been created.
We spotted this dessert as we neared the end of another delicious and very relaxed meal at Canton Cafe. The salt and pepper prawns we had tonight were amazing!