Sunday, February 21, 2016

Roasted Savoy Cabbage Slaw with Spicy Bacon Dressing

Roasting cabbage wedges before slicing them for coleslaw brings out the sweetness in this winter vegetable, which is further enhanced by the salty, spicy, slightly creamy bacon dressing. Best of all, this coleslaw can be made a day or two ahead.

We eat a lot of salads in the summertime, especially since we moved to Dubai three years ago. With temperatures soaring it’s hard to think about turning the stove on unless it’s really, really necessary and something chilled and fresh like this Tuscan Bean Salad is the perfect dinner. As we head into Autumn, salads get heartier and we enjoy what the French called salades composées including this Sweet Potato French Bean Lentil Salad. But even during winter here, salads are a favorite. They change complexion somewhat, with the addition of couscous or bulgur wheat, making them heartier and more sustaining. Or they feature winter vegetables like cabbage and Brussels sprouts. This week our Sunday Supper group is sharing winter salad recipes, hosted by super Sue of Palatable Pastimes. Make sure you scroll on down to the bottom to see all the great dishes we have for you today.

Ingredients
For the coleslaw and dressing:
6 slices streaky bacon
Rendered bacon fat from streaky bacon

For the coleslaw:
1 head Savoy cabbage (Mine weighed 1 3/4 lbs or 800g.)
Generous handful small red radishes – About 9 or 70g – Put more if you love them.

For the dressing:
1 clove garlic
1 small purple onion – about 2 1/2 oz or 70g
1 small red chili
2 tablespoons white Balsamic vinegar
4 tablespoons plain Greek-style (thick and full fat) yogurt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon bacon fat (or use more olive oil)
1 heaping teaspoon whole grain mustard
Good pinch flakey sea salt, plus extra to taste once the coleslaw is tossed

For optional garnish – young beet sprouts

Method
Fry the bacon until crispy and drain on some paper towels. Set aside one tablespoon of the bacon fat for the dressing and save the rest for brushing on the cabbage before roasting.



Preheat your oven to 425°F or 220°C.

Cut the cabbage into six thick wedges and place them in a large baking pan. Brush the bacon fat on with a pastry brush.



Roast the cabbage wedges in your hot oven for about 15-20 minutes or until the tops are turning brown. Some of the leaves on the bottom may get very dark. If they taste burnt when they come out, discard those bits.



Mince your garlic and chili pepper and put them in a small bowl with the balsamic vinegar. You can remove the seeds of the pepper if you don’t like things too spicy, of course. I left mine in. Cut the onion in half and then slice it as thinly as you can. Add it to the vinegar bowl and stir.





When the cabbage is out of the oven, set it aside to cool. You want it to be browned on the edges, but still crunchy.

Add the yogurt and the mustard into the dressing, along with the salt, and stir well.



Chop the bacon up, reserve a good handful for sprinkling on the coleslaw and add the rest to the dressing, along with the 1 tablespoon of bacon fat you set aside earlier and the olive oil. Mix well.



Once the cabbage is cool enough to handle, cut out the hard stalk in the middle and slice the wedges up into strips.

Remove any thick ribs as you go along. You can share these with your furry helper, if he’s nearby. Vegetable lover that he is, mine is always right under foot when the cutting board comes out.

Cabbage, you say? Don't mind if I do. Cabbage is good for dogs! 

Remove the ends of the radishes and slice them into pretty white circles rimmed with pink.

Pile the sliced cabbage and radishes into a large bowl with plenty of room for tossing.



Add on the salad dressing and toss well to coat.

Taste a piece or two and add a little sprinkling of salt, if necessary. This can be served immediately or stored, tightly covered in the refrigerator for a day or two.

When you are ready to serve, let the coleslaw warm up a bit, if it’s been refrigerated. Give it another good toss, plate it up then top it with the reserved bacon bits and some young beet sprouts, if desired.



Enjoy!

Are you a fan of winter salads too? Have we got a line up for you!

#SundaySupper Winter Salads


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Friday, February 19, 2016

Shrimp Creole #FishFridayFoodies



A traditional Cajun recipe, this shrimp Creole is thickened by a roux and flavored with the holy trinity, tomatoes and, of course, a kick of cayenne for spice. 

This month Fish Friday Foodies are sharing international seafood soups and stews at my instigation. I had big plans to make a dish called moqueca, just like my Brazilian friend Betty taught me many, many years ago when we were living in the little oilfield town of Macaé together. But, in the end, my Cajun roots won out, and as you can see, I made shrimp Creole. I’d like to tell you that this is exactly as my grandmothers would have made it, but the honest truth is that I don’t remember ever eating shrimp Creole at either of their houses. I did consult a handful of good Cajun cookbooks though so I’m feeling pretty good about the authenticity. I’ll no doubt hear from my mother if I’ve gone astray and I’ll get back to you with corrections if necessary. But authentic or not, I can promise you it is delicious.

Like all good Cajun recipes, this one starts with a roux and the holy trinity of vegetables, onion, bell pepper and celery. Add in some butter, tomatoes, a little cayenne and a whole mess of shrimp and you’ve got yourself a delicious shrimp stew. Make sure you check out the linky tool (all those photos at the bottom) to see the other great seafood soups and stews my fellow Fish Friday Foodies have made.

Ingredients
1 medium onion
1 green bell pepper or capsicum
1 stalk celery
1/4 cup or 25g flour
1/3 cup or 80ml canola oil
1/4 cup or 63g butter
1 can (14 oz or 400g with juice) whole peeled Roma tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 lb 13oz or 825g cleaned shrimp or prawns (Mine weighed 4.4 lbs or 1984g with heads/shells on)
Salt
Cayenne pepper

To serve:
Cooked rice
Green onions
Louisiana hot sauce

Method
Discard any stems, peels or seeds, then chop your celery, onion and bell pepper up finely.

In a large heavy gauge pot or pan with a tight fitting lid combine the flour and oil to make a roux. Cook the roux over a low to medium heat, stirring often at the beginning and the constantly as it begins to brown.

Eventually you want to get to the color of old copper but be careful not to let it burn.



When the roux is done, add in the chopped vegetables and cook for several minutes, stirring well.



Add in the butter and cook for another few minutes, until the vegetables have completely softened.



Add in the can of tomatoes, half a can of water and the tomato paste.

Stir well and then turn the fire down to a simmer. Pop your lid on the pan and simmer for about half an hour, checking the liquid level and stirring occasionally. Add just a little water if it looks dry.

The tomatoes should break down as well, but feel free to mash them around with your stirring implement to encourage that.



Season the shrimp with a generous sprinkling of sea salt and add them to the pot, stirring well to coat them with the sauce.



Cook over a medium flame for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Taste the sauce and add more salt if necessary and cayenne pepper to taste.

Serve with cooked rice and a good sprinkling of chopped green onions. Put the hot sauce on the table so everyone can help themselves.



Enjoy!

Many thanks to our fearless leader, Wendy of A Day in the Life on the Farm, and without further ado, here are the rest of our seafood soups and stews of the world:




Would you like to join Fish Friday Foodies? We post and share new seafood/fish recipes on the third Friday of every month. To join our group please email Wendy at wendyklik1517@gmail.com.

Visit our Facebook page and Pinterest page for more wonderful fish and seafood recipe ideas.

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Posted by at 2:35:00 AM 0 comments
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Thursday, February 18, 2016

Cinnamon Crown Bundt with Biscoff Pecan Filling #BundtBakers

This delicious Bundt is baked with what is essentially one vanilla butter cake batter and one filling made with spicy Biscoff cookie spread, pecans, oats and cinnamon. Here’s the twist: half of the filling is added to half of the batter, creating several layers of flavor.

Ah, cinnamon. It’s one of my favorite spices. It can be used in sweet recipes or even savory meat dishes, especially in this part of the world. As much as I enjoy the challenge of unusual ingredients for our Bundt Baker themes, I loved that our February host, Lauren from Sew You Think You Can Cook chose something so normal as cinnamon this month. Who doesn’t love cinnamon!

This cinnamon Bundt cake recipe is adapted from the cookbook Bundt Classics, which is published by Nordic Ware. The book was a gift from my sister when she came out to visit me here in Dubai and is full of fabulous recipes created especially for Bundt pans. I baked the Bundt in a beautiful new pan (Nordic Ware’s Blossom) that I received from friends for my birthday. So with the oven on in my chilly kitchen and the smell of cinnamon wafting through the air, I was feeling very cozy and pretty special.

Ingredients
For the filling:
2/3 cup or 80g chopped pecans
2/3 cup or 70g jumbo oats
2/3 cup or 190g Biscoff Cookie Spread
2 teaspoons cinnamon

For the batter:
2 1/2 cups or 315g or all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups or 300g sugar
3/4 cup or 85g unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup or 180ml milk
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

To serve: powdered or confectioner’s sugar.

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C degrees. Prepare your 10-cup Bundt pan by generously greasing it with butter and coating with flour or use  nonstick spray meant for baking.

In a small bowl, thoroughly mix together all the ingredients for the filling. Set aside.


In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs, vanilla, baking powder and salt.

Mix with a hand mixer or stand mixer at medium speed for 3-4 minutes. Spoon half of the batter into your prepared pan.



Divide the filling in half and sprinkle one portion onto the batter in your baking pan.



Tip the other half of the filling into the big mixing bowl and beat for another minute or two, or until everything is well combined.

Spoon over filling in the pan.



Bake for about 50-55 minutes, or until the cake is golden at the edges and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack.



Sprinkle with powdered sugar to serve.



Enjoy!



Check out all the cinnamon loveliness we have for you this month:

BundtBakers

#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving Bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. You can see all of our lovely Bundts by following our Pinterest Board. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme or ingredient.

Updated links for all of our past events and more information about BundtBakers can be found on our homepage.


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Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Pineapple Macadamia Nut Shortbread #CreativeCookieExchange

Candied pineapple and macadamia nuts bring a little tropical flair to traditional, rich buttery shortbread.

This month my Creative Cookie Exchange friends are channeling the tropics to bring you cookies that remind us of sun and surf and swaying palms trees. And I got to reminiscing about a long ago holiday to Hawaii.

When I was still in school and my father moved to southeast Asia, he used to book tickets for my sisters and me to visit him from Texas. No one flew that far in one go at the time so there were several stops. Often one of the layovers was in Hawaii so we’d break up the trip by staying a few days on Waikiki. One year I was going to be traveling on my own so I twisted a friend’s arm (hard task, right?) to come with me. Her father worked for Delta so her ticket was heavily discounted and since Daddy was already paying for the hotel room, all she needed was spending money. We had the best time, hanging out on the beach and soaking up the sun together.

I’ll tell you honestly that while we ate our share of pineapple there, both at breakfast time and perched on tropical cocktails, I don’t recall trying a macadamia nut until years later. Nevertheless both pineapples and macadamias have become synonymous with Hawaii. And they go beautifully together in buttery shortbread.

Adapted from Recipe.com

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups or 315g all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed or 65g brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup or 227g cold butter
1/4 cup finely chopped or 30g macadamia nuts
1/4 cup finely chopped or 50g candied pineapple

Method
Preheat your oven to 325°F or 163°C and prepare a 8 x 8 in or 20 x 20cm pan by lining it completely with baking parchment. I also use a little non-stick spray just to help it stay in place.

Chop your pineapple and nuts into small pieces.



In a large mixing bowl, combine your flour, brown sugar and salt.

Cut the cold butter into pieces and add them to the mixing bowl. Use a pastry blender to cut in the butter, until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.



Stir in the chopped candied pineapple and nuts. Use your fingers to break up the bits of pineapple so they aren’t all stuck together.



Pour the mixture into your prepared pan and level it out with a spatula or spoon.

Use your hands to press and flatten the mixture as thin as you can manage.



Use a sharp knife to score the top of the shortbread. If it crumbles as you try to score it, press it down again, even more firmly. You can poke 'em with a fork if you want to also. That seems traditional for shortbread.



Bake in your preheated oven for about 18-22 minutes or until the edges are starting to turn golden.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the pan for just a few minutes on a wire rack. While the it's still quite warm, use the sharp knife to cut right through the shortbread where you scored it.

Allow to cool completely before removing the shortbread cookies from the pan.

These are melt in your mouth good.


Enjoy!

Check out all the other tropical cookies from my fellow Creative Cookie Exchange bakers this month:


Creative Cookie Exchange is hosted by Laura of The Spiced Life, this month with technical assistance from Renee of Magnolia Days. We get together once a month to bake cookies with a common theme or ingredient so Creative Cookie Exchange is a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts at The Spiced Life). We post the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

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Posted by at 2:18:00 AM 0 comments
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Saturday, February 13, 2016

Gin Lime Coconut Truffles #GalentinesDay


Tart and sweet with the zip of a little gin, these white chocolate and lime truffles are rolled in coconut for a little trip down the islands.

Happy Galentine’s Day! Yep, you read that right. Galentine’s Day: The day women celebrate women, breakfast style, inspired by this scene in Parks and Recreation.


Our smart and lovely organizer, Nancy from gotta get baked, is in charge once more this year, along with her co-host, Courtney from Neighborfood. Their invitation to join the fun said we must also write about a woman who inspires us. I’d like to write about 43,990,000. Give or take a few.

Many years ago, when I was living in Brunei with my father, we had a sweet lady from the Philippines working for us. She cooked, she cleaned and she helped look after my little baby half sister. I was surprised to learn that she had been a schoolteacher in her home country but could make more working as a housekeeper in Bandar Seri Begawan than she could teaching school in her village. So she applied for a job through a maid service, left her own children behind with their grandparents and moved to a foreign country to raise other people’s children.

Lirio was one of an estimated 83 percent of 53 millions domestic workers worldwide, who are women. (Source: International Labor Organization) Millions of whom leave their own families behind, to make a better living elsewhere, so that their own children will have better lives. The sacrifices they make, living with strangers, in strange lands, caring for families other than their own, are deemed worthwhile, because the support money they send home each month is crucial to the wellbeing of their families.

Here in the UAE, it is common practice to hire maids from overseas. I see them in flocks at bus stops on Friday morning, often their only day off, headed to the malls or beaches, to spend time with friends. They are laughing and smiling, enjoying their freedom and a day of rest and recreation. But I know they must miss their children, all the day-to-day milestones of skinned knees and spelling tests, afterschool snacks and goodnight kisses. I admire their work ethic, their dedication and their sacrifice. It’s never an easy job but they are doing what mothers the world over want to do, care for their children, in the best way they know how.

To read about the women who inspire the rest of our Galentine’s Day group and to check out the other wonderful recipes, make sure to scroll down to the link list below.

Ingredients
For the truffles:
10 1/2 oz or 300g good quality white chocolate – I use Lindt bars.
6 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
2/3 cup or 150g butter
Zest 1 lime
2 tablespoons lime juice
5 tablespoons gin

For rolling the truffles:
1 cup or 85g desiccated coconut (Not sweetened coconut flakes)
Zest 1 lime

Method
Zest your limes and then juice them, keeping the zest and juice separate.



Add the cream and the white chocolate, broken up into squares, to a heat resistant mixing bowl. Place the bowl on top of a pot about one quarter filled with water. Bring the pot of water to a slow boil, stirring the chocolate and cream in the bowl above, until the chocolate is completely melted.



Add in the butter, cut into pieces and stir until it is melted.

Remove the bowl from the heat and add in the zest of one lime, 2 tablespoonf of lime juice and the gin. Stir until completely combined.

Leave the mixture to cool and then place it, covered, in the refrigerator until it turns solid.



Mix the zest from the second lime with the desiccated coconut.

Use a teaspoon to scoop out small amounts of the firm mixture and roll them into balls between your clean palms. Place the balls in the dry coconut and roll them around until they are well covered.



Place them directly on a serving plate or use little paper candy cups. If you are living in a warm climate, keep the truffles refrigerated until you are ready to serve. These also freeze beautifully!



This made 33 truffles but you would probably get more if you can control yourself and make them all as small as the first ones. Mine tend to get bigger and bigger as I go along.


Enjoy!

And now, as promised, the other Galentine's Day recipes with inspiring stories. Make one for a special woman in your life! 

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