Chicken In Nectar

Great Ways With Chicken and Duck
Card 7
Chicken in Nectar
(and also Honeyed Chicken)

Hi!

I do not really like Apricot Chicken.  I don't know why... I think it might be the whole fruit and meat thing that freaks me out. I do, however, applaud those who DO like it. Good for them.  Max and Cam and Ari like it.  I prefer something less fruity for my dinner.  In fact,  I made a big bowl of miso soup with vegetables the night that we had this.

Fruit aside, the thing I do like about this is the soup base... You know a lot of those seventies recipes start with a packet or a tin of some kind of soup.  French Onion seems to be a favourite flavour base for this era... and Cream of Celery or Cream of Mushroom Soup. I was at the supermarket this morning turning over the soup cans, and they really do still have some good basic recipes on them.  If you had just moved out of home, or you did not have a clue about cooking, a can of soup can totally help  you out on the comforting, hearty dinner front.

The other cool thing about this card is that it has a 'hidden' recipe.   A lot of the AWW Yellow Box cards have two recipes on the back of them.  You can find the 'hidden' recipe in the Index Book that comes with the box, but it's not listed on the top of the card nor pictured on the front of the card. Sneaky and cool, methinks.  Kind of a bonus recipe.

Do you make things with tinned or packet soup as the base?  Do you like this recipe?  Is this something you cook now, or something that someone in your family used to cook?

xx Pip

Chocolate Self Saucing Pudding

Lovely Hot Puddings
Card 8
Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding

Here's the thing.  The boys have cooked this three times this week.  It is simple (not that they are simple... they are not, they are smart) - it is chocolaty and it is delicious.  It is extra good with ice-cream or cream or even custard would be super great.  This is a very saucy pudding and delivers exactly what it promises.  That is a great quality in a pudding, don't you think?

Quite a few people have said that this is their very favourite recipe from the Yellow Box.  Is it YOUR favourite recipe?  Did your Mum or Nan or Dad used to cook this for you?  Are you the self saucing type?  Does that pudding photo make you queasy?

xx Pip

( :: I have been crocheting zig-zags while they have been pudding-ing along..!)

Baked Rigatoni

Rice and Pasta - The World's Best Dishes
Card 18
Baked Rigatoni


Hmm. Well. Let me just say this straight up. Good concept but bad recipe.  Sorry AWW.  I do love you a lot, but this recipe was completely annoying.  You are meant to COOK the rigatoni. And THEN stuff them.  Hmm. Nope. No. Nada.  Cooked rigatoni are very prone to splitting.  They don't like to be stuffed.  But don't let that stop you : just use cannelloni and it will be fine.

I knew my kids would love this recipe if I could get it to work.  So I bought some super huge rigatoni from Simon Johnson (which is in my neighbourhood).  You may not be able to find super huge rigatoni.  And it is expensive.    So as I said, just use cannelloni and everything will be alright.   Mr Simon did not have cannelloni.  Probably cannelloni is a bit retro from him.  (I don't think he had vol au vents either.)  We had to buy the super huge... and that worked okay too.

It took a  while to stuff all the pasta tubes, but it was kind of fun and sort of therapeutic.  I got to think about Lou and Frankie in Love My Way.... and wonder what the heck Lewis is all about.... sip wine... listen to Neil Diamond.... that kind of thing.  Tubes (uncooked) stuffed, sauce made, into oven.  There followed lots of topping up with water (you could use stock) to ensure the pasta was kept moist and cooked through.

I put the cheese on once the pasta was cooked and let it brown a bit more.   And then it was all done. And very super hot as it cooked for just over an hour at a pretty high temperature.

The kids DID love this, especially Max.  But yes, forget the rigatoni unless you are a masochist like me.  Go for cannelloni and you will be grinning from ear to here.

I think this would be even nicer with ricotta and spinach, but I am not allowed to divert from the recipe without good reason (says me) so I stuck with the meaty filling.

I saw Julie in an op-shop in Blackburn on Friday. Hi Julie!  I have been working on the zig-zag blanket.  I have been making lamb shanks a la Jamie Oliver (with raisins and apples - quite sweet!), I have been going to see James and The Giant Peach at ACMI with Ari. I have been mulling over books for Book Club.  I have been watching the final eps of Love My Way Season 3.  I have been visiting Camberwell Market with Cam and Ari : I saw Chris and Kitty there and they are rad.  I have been eating smoked trout dip on rye bread... and tomato and cheese on french stick (with salami).  I have been working on project ideas for Book 3.

How was you weekend?  Do you like Baked Pasta?  Do you have a favourite recipe?  Do you like Love My Way?  (I have stopped watching Offspring... sigh. I just can't do it. Sigh.)

xx Pip

Chicken Pot Roast

Great Ways With Chicken and Duck
Card 22
Chicken Pot Roast

Well. On Sunday Ari and I went to the movies and Cam went to the footy.  Ari and I left home first. Little did I know that Cam put the dinner on (chicken curry) while we were watching James and The Giant Peach and then trotted off to see his team get trounced.  I unknowingly and hungrily went to David Jones in the city post-James and bought a nice chicken for dinner.  Of course when I got home there was already dinner, so the second chicken went into the fridge and popped out again on Monday to become Chicken Pot Roast.

I did not make this Monday dinner, Cam did. He bought an Italian sausage from Jonathan's on Smith Street to use for the stuffing.  Thus, the stuffing was super good.  The DJs chicken was moist, the vegetables yielding and the sauce was delicious.  We did have a bit of a tiff over dinner and I stormed out... but Cam brought my plate upstairs and it was still warm, so I am perfectly qualified to give you a run down of this recipe.

This recipe is good.  The stuffing is even nicer than the chicken, I think.  I really love stuffing.  I would eat a stuffing sandwich if it were not so unseemly.  Chicken Pot Roast is a lovely standard for a cosy dinner and hopefully you will not tiff mid-dinner like we did.  (I am not sure I remember what the tiff was about, but I am sure that it was very important and I was in the right. Ahem.)

Do you like this recipe? Have you made it?  Do you like pot roasts in general? Do you like stuffing sandwiches?  I do.

xx Pip

Orange Cake

click to enlarge

Favorite Cakes
Card 13
Orange Cake

Ooh it has been a while since I posted a Yellow Box recipe... That has more to do with the fact that I haven't taken photos of the recipe cards, rather than the fact that we haven't been Yellow Box-ing. Because we HAVE been Yellow Box-ing!

So here we have the Orange Cake!  This cake was quite yummy.  Either I cooked it for too long... or it was badly in need of a syrup... perhaps the first, because it was a bit dry.  I hate a cake that is not quite cooked, so I think maybe I did err on the side of caution and cook this a bit long... (be careful not to do that, if you make this cake.)

This cake is a real old fashioned tea cake. It will keep for an age, I reckon.  Maybe a week or more.  I decided to fancy up the icing a bit, and added some Mandarin Zest, which gave it a nice lift.  This glace icing is the sort that sets, so you can wrap it in cling film and the plastic won't stick to the top. I think that makes it a good cake to take to a friend's house, which I did.  (The friend thought this cake was nice.)

While I was icing this, Ari told me too much icing is a bad thing, so I did not completely smother it as I usually do.  He was quite mortified that I slowly tipped the icing on and let it flow volcano style.  He thought I should spread the icing carefully. Hmm.

So what do you think?  Too much icing a bad thing? Tip or spread?  Is this a cake your Nan used to make?

xx Pip

NB :: More on Project Yellow Box here....

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Hamburgers

Best Beef Recipes
Card 11
Hamburgers

When we were kids, our Mum and Dad often took us on day trips to the pebbly, shallow beaches which dot Tasmania's South East Coast.  The drive seemed to take forever (must have been 40 minutes or so : wowee!) and we were always so pleased when we finally arrived and we could run along the water's edge while our parents dragged the barbeque out of the back of the Mazda wagon and started flipping burgers and popping cans of Tarino or some such.

So here, in honour of those happy days,  we have burgers. Not the beach burgers of my childhood, but burgers all the same.  I made these last weekend. They were really great, although I made them a bit too thick, so I had to cook them carefully for quite a long time.  I think you should make thinner ones, if you make them.  See the picture?  Maybe half as thin as that would be good.

We had these with Windsor Deli sauces, french fries and lots of salad in sesame buns.  We did not toast the buns.  Do you toast your buns?  Do you have a favourite burger recipe?  Do you have burger night at your house?

xx Pip

NB :: Click recipe to enlarge :: More Project Yellow Box recipes here

Beef In Black Bean Sauce

Best Beef Recipes
Card 4
Beef In Black Bean Sauce

Hello! Wow. What a weekend I had. Did you have a weekend? I bet you did.  We have been cooking lots of things! We have!  We made this (imagine arrow pointing to images above). Well. Cam made this. Beef In Black Bean Sauce. Mmmm.  This reminded me of a big Chinese Restaurant I once went to in Mount Gambier.  It was quite huge and red and velvety and was no doubt once very opulent and swish.   The toilets were outside and it was beautifully ramshackle when we went there.  That was about 15 years ago, mind you.  I wonder if it still there....  The people there were lovely and the food was ace too.

Now, this dish would not have been out of place at said Mount Gambanese Chinese Eatery.  It was quite delicious, in a comforting, retro way.  It reminded me of the Australian Women's Weekly Chinese Cooking Class Cookbook.  I think it appears in that too.  Ah.  That is a pretty great cookbook, isn't it?!  Do you have it?  My parents used to cook from it when we were little and we always got MOST excited when we saw it appear on the kitchen bench.

Have you made this?  Do you like this?  Do you have the red AWW Chinese Cooking Class book?  Have you been to Mount Gambier?

xx Pip

NB :: Click recipe to enlarge and print, if you would like to!