Hello, yeah it's been a while....

Not much, how 'bout you?
Cheesy song lyrics aside (England Dan & John Ford Coley if you were wondering) it has been a while. A rainy summer, a couple of Christian festivals & here we are at April already. For me this means year end at work, hopefully something a little more exciting wherever you are....

So in the spirit of trying not to be such a slacker I have not one but two recipes today, both rather old school, and none the worse for it. After a week of each feeling rather poorly, Mr PK particularly needed a gee up. The Blues are "playing like girls" (his words not mine), Chelsea are struggling to make the top four in the Premiership & the Warriors seem to have lost their way, it is a dismal sporting week and don't I get to hear about it, much better to hide in the kitchen and make Bacon & Egg Pie and Lemon Poppy seed cake me thinks........

Everyone has their own version of this, my mother cooks the bacon first, my sister also, and adds onion (as per the Edmond's Cookbook, I feel rather daring ignoring both recipes) I have heard of people adding peas, but I cant quite believe it.......

Bacon & Egg Pie  enough for 6 good portions

Puff Pastry- I used 5 sheets
Handful of grated cheese ( I use good old Tasty for this)
One 250gr packet of shoulder or middle bacon
10 eggs
Salt & pepper

Pre heat your oven to 180C/350F
Use the pastry to line a pie/baking dish. I use a metal brownie pan, I think enamel or metal is best as it conducts heat better & makes for crispier pastry, but its up to you. Mum always uses Pyrex and her pie is pretty good. Depending on the size of the pan you may have to join a couple of pieces of pastry together, I would not worry about it looking a bit rough, this isn't a fancy pie (as you can see from my pastry origami in the pic below!)
Sprinkle the cheese all over the bottom of the pastry, then chop up the bacon and sprinkle half over the cheese. Beat your eggs together and season with salt & pepper, go easy on the salt as bacon & cheese are already highly seasoned
Pour half the egg over the bacon & cheese, sprinkle over the rest of the bacon & pour over the remaining egg keep a tiny bit aside to brush the top of the pastry

Top with another sheet of pastry, and using a fork go around the edges to seal both pieces together. Prick the top a few times with a knife to let steam escape, then brush with your remaining bit of egg, this makes the top look golden & inviting
Bake for 35-40 minutes, then I like to eat while warm (I loath cold pastry) but if you don't mind that it travels well & makes great picnic food. Mum used to make one to take to Dad's cricket games for tea when we were growing up, their had to be some compensations........

To follow a slice of cake perhaps? I had an email the other day from The Hungry Girls reminding me their third cookbook has been released, very exciting news. These books are lovely, and I remembered a recipe for a lemon poppy seed cake in book one which I had been meaning to try for ages. A bag of lemons at the local shop for a couple of dollars sealed the deal.....

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake (from The Hungry Girls Cookbook )

4 largish lemons
250 gr soft unsalted butter
1 cup caster sugar
5 eggs
3 tsp poppy seeds
325 gr self raising flour
1 cup natural yogurt (if it is thick Greek style thin with milk)
2/3 cup sugar extra

Butter a 24cm spring form cake tin & line with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F

Cream the butter & sugar until it is pale & fluffy, I use my Kitchen aid but a handheld beater would be fine. Add the eggs one at a time, beating each one in well

Zest your lemons and add to the butter mix with the poppy seeds, stirring well.  I use my Microplane grater, which makes this an easy job, otherwise use the zester side on a box grater

Sift in the flour, stirring to combine. Lastly add your yogurt & mix again. Pour the batter into your prepared tin (it will be quite thick) and bake for 55-60 mins, until a skewer in the middle comes out clean.
About 10 mins before the cake is done, squeeze the lemons and add water to make the amount of liquid about 1.5 cups. Put into a saucepan with the extra sugar & bring to the boil. Boil for about 5 mins, then when the cake comes out of the oven, prick it a few times with a knife/skewer, and spoon over the hot syrup. The cake will soak up the tangy liquid and become even more moist & yummy. Cool on a wire rack, then serve with a dollop of cream, even someone who has had a rather tough week will feel MUCH better..........

I used a very similar recipe to make these cupcakes over Easter, substituting sour cream for yogurt and limes for lemon, delish!

It’s Keen-Wa, not Key-no-a……

Ok, it is actually Quinoa, but I like a bit of phonetic spelling now & again, and this does seem to be a rather tricky one. I have already raved about my cooking class at Somerset Cottage, so I thought it appropriate to share a recipe. This is a delicious salad, full of flavour, easy to make, and great to transport, making it ideal for packed lunches, and the inevitable ‘I need something to take to a BBQ” conundrum we will happily, at least at this end of the world, soon all be faced with.


Quinoa is an ancient South American grain, easy to digest and full of all manner of good stuff. Most importantly, it tastes good, mild but nutty. It works really well combined with the more robust brown rice in this dish. So, coming soon to a Barbie near you is…..

Quinoa & Brown Rice Salad-from Somerset Cottage

200 grams Quinoa (I used the red one)
200 grams Brown Rice
1 onion, sliced
1 clove of garlic
1/3 cup of good olive oil
Zest & juice of an orange
Juice of a lemon
Handful of toasted almonds
4 Spring Onions sliced
100 grams dried apricots roughly chopped
Salad greens
Salt & pepper

Bring two large pots of water to the boil, add salt and boil the quinoa & the brown rice. The brown rice will take about 20 mins, the Quinoa about 15, but test it yourself. The grains should be cooked but not mushy.

Drain each pot and put the contents on a tray to cool down. Don’t rinse! You are just washing away the flavour, it isn’t necessary.
Add a good slosh of the olive oil to a frying pan, and cook your onion until golden. Add the garlic for the last couple of minutes so it cooks but does not burn.
Put your rice & quinoa in a bowl, add the onion mixture, then add everything else to the bowl and mix. Taste for seasoning.

How easy is that? Next time I would add some chopped mint, and a little less orange juice, or maybe substitute it for lime juice. I made a carrot & orange soup years ago and was very liberal with my juice, it ended up like warm orange soup…has rather put me off strong orange flavours in savoury dishes ever since, but if you like then I would make as is.

I made a really yummy pie the other night, with a delicious wholemeal pastry. I would not normally utter delicious and wholemeal in the same pastry related sentence, but this really was. Short, buttery and tasty, it banished all memories of stodgy worthy pie crusts, which I am very happy about. It is also very quick and easy to make

Wholemeal Pie Crust

1 cup wholemeal flour
1 cup plain flour
200 grams cold butter (I use unsalted)
1 tsp chopped rosemary (optional, but lovely. Thyme would be great also)
½ tsp salt
About 1/3 cup iced water

Simply place the flours, salt and rosemary into your food processor with the butter, which you have cut into rough cubes. Pulse until the butter is cut into the flour and the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. You can also do this by hand, rubbing the flour and fat between your fingers, but I am slow and my food processor is quick, so I take the easy route…Add about half the water and pulse/mix. Keep adding water bit by bit until the mix comes together and forms a ball. I can always tell as my poor machines motor sounds very laboured. Tip the whole mess out onto a floured bench and bring it all together with your hands. Don’t over work it, just get it all together and apt out into a disk.

Wrap in cling film and pop into the fridge for at least half an hour. Don’t skip this step or you will have tears trying to roll it out.

When you are ready to roll, this makes enough for the top & bottom of my metal 23cm pie dish. Always use metal when working with pastry, it really conducts heat well, and will give you a nice crispy finish. Soggy pastry is not happy pastry.

Obviously you can use whatever filling you like, I went with poached chicken, leeks and mushrooms sautéed in butter, all bound together with a white sauce flavoured with lots of parsley and thyme, a slash of wine and a tiny bit of parmesan cheese. Tasted better than it looked, trust me……

Saw a great movie the other day, Beneath Hill 60 an Australian production based on a true story of miners fighting in Belgium during WWI.......ok, probably does not soyund the most gripping flick, but we really enjoyed it. Mr PK is a bit of a military buff, I enjoyed the story, exciting stuff. And such a treat at the Rialto, to have a glass of vino with your movie. Am I easily pleased or what:)

A Quiche....or a Pie?

Hi all

Sorry, I have been a bit busy this week and have not been posting as intended (although according to Glenn I have not been remiss in the talking department.....how rude). Anyway supper tonight, after much deliberation, was going to be a lovely proper Leek & Bacon Quiche .I cant call it Quiche Lorraine as strictly speaking that is only bacon, cream & eggs, but the leeks at the greengrocer were fat & fabulous, (hooray, how ofter do you hear that nowadays?)......anyway Einstein here forgot to get cream on the way home,so consumed was she at remembering the cat biscuits and everything else on the list helpfully still sitting on the fridge.... After a weekend of Apple & Feijoa crumble and Chocolate Mousse (diet central around here cant you tell?) there was only a tiny puddle of cream in the bottom of the bottle. I cant perform magic tricks, so quiche was out , what else to do?

Making pies at 6.30pm on a Monday night probably isn't everyone's idea of relaxing, and even I did think I was being a tad ambitious, but frozen pastry is this girls best friend, and pies it was.

A couple of chicken thighs (I know you have heard it before but they really do taste better than chicken breasts, and they are not as dry) chucked in a small saucepan with a splash of Chard, 5 peppercorns, a bay leaf & some celery leaves, (I used the stalk to fry with the leeks & bacon) covered with water & simmered for 15 mins. Fry a few rashers of bacon , which freezes fantastically well & thaws quickly, hence it always lives in my freezer, in a knob of butter with a sliced leek, a stalk of celery and a bit of spring onion as it was knocking around the crisper. Let it all soften while chicken cooks, then add a splash of wine and let that bubble all the bits on the bottom of the pan, and take off the heat.

Take chicken out of poaching liquid & slice/tear into the leek mix. Let it cool down while you make a bechemel sauce, which means putting about 300ml milk in a saucepan with half an onion and a bay leaf and bring it to the boil on a gentle heat. While that happens melt 25 grams of butter in another saucepan ,(the one you cooked the chicken in maybe?) also gently, and add a couple of teaspoons of plain flour stirring with a whisk or wooden spoon until it looks grainy. Let it cook for about a minute, then add your heated milk , taking out the onion & bay leaf. Stir/whisk until it thickens, let it bubble gently for a minute or two, taste to see if it needs seasoning, and there you go, a bechemel sauce (or in our house white sauce). I added a teaspoon of Dijon mustard at this point, because I love it with chicken, but its up to you. This is also where you would add cheese, if you wanted to cover some steamed cauliflower with love and breadcrumbs....Anyway add sauce to your chicken mix, and stir it all together. You could add some chopped tarragon, or parsley but don't worry if you don't have it.....I use sheets of Edmonds frozen savoury pastry but any brand will do, line your wee pie cases, or a large pie tin, add your filling (better if you can leave it to cool a bit, but don't be eating at midnight just for that) and cook in a 200C oven for 20-25 mins. All that took about 35 mins to get to the oven, including feeding the cat & wandering around the garden in the dark trying to pick lettuce with out touching anything creepy crawly, so not sooooo bad, especially as quite frankly pulling off a crispy, chickeny chock-full of chook pie, well, how fab are you:) Right, dinner and Midsomer Murder calls, bye for now x
P.S I have Feijoa recipes to post, will get onto that this week, before some poor soul actually drowns in Feijoas.....it could happen!