It's a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll

When we were in Sweden, sometimes I craved a good old Aussie sausage roll. Not sure why really, but maybe it was the fact that the sausages, or 'korv' as they are known there were disappointing. Really.....so close to Germany but so far from wurst it was unbelievable. When I got back here, the craving was well and truly stifled, what with all the other great food to get back into, so I'm not sure that I have actually had a sausage roll until now. We all know the slight worry of what we might be consuming with store bought meaty products like sausage rolls and pies, so as I'm not that into pre-packaged/made/processed food and my herb garden is doing pretty well, I thought I'd give it a go myself and the results were pretty darn good. I did cheat a little this time with frozen puff pastry, but that is easily rectified and will be the next thing to try with this recipe.

Ingredients
300-400g beef (I had some cheapish steak)
1 egg
handful of breadcrumbs
7-8 sage leaves
5-6 sprigs of dried oregano (I had dried a bunch from the garden and just shook it into the mixture but fresh would be good too- just use more if it)
2 tbs parsley chopped
squirt of tomato sauce
1 egg whisked extra for basting
1 or 2 sheets of puff pastry

Method
* Preheat oven at about 180 degrees
* I have some beef left over from the day before so I put it in the food processor to mince
* Mix minced meat with chopped herbs, egg, breadcrumbs and tomato sauce
* Cut sheet of pastry into thirds then place meat mixture in a long sausage down the length of each third and roll up
* Brush top with egg and bake for about half an hour

I'm back and snapping!

We've all had a lot of time off updating familypies, but I'm not going to offer up any personal excuses. But don't go away again for too long, we are back! All of us....promise

Ginger Snaps
A friend of mine, one particular supermum of two beautiful kids just let me know she is expecting number 3. Poor love has been feeling pretty unwell with it too, so I thought I'd try making some ginger snaps for her. For those of you who don't know ginger is supposed to be really good for pregnancy related nausea.



The recipe is a hybrid of a few found online

* 1 cup self-raising flour
* 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1 teaspoon mixed spice
* 1/4 cup rice flour
* 60 g butter
* 1/4 cup caster sugar
* 125 g golden syrup
Method
* Preheat the oven to 180°C.
* Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt, ginger and spice into a bowl.
* Stir in the rice flour, rub in the butter and mix in the sugar.
* Warm the syrup and stir it in, then knead lightly in the bowl to form a smooth dough.
* Shape the dough into small walnut-size balls and space well apart on greased baking trays.
*Bake each batch for 10–12 minutes, or until they are golden.

My Nan's peanut brownies

I am running the risk of being disowned by posting this recipe. These biccies are a complete family favourite, something you can always count on being great and plentiful when having cups of tea with my grandparents. Actually I only got the recipe from my Nanny when leaving the country, I begged her for it, claiming proper withdrawals from them being o/s. The name may be a misleading, they are not brownies in the tradional sense, you know like a gooey kind of slice. They are choccie peanut biscuits with a lovely crunch, and the best bit.......they are super easy and quick to whip up.

Preheat oven to 180C
125g melted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
Stir until fluffy
1.5 cups of SR flour
1 tbs cocoa
1 cup salted peanuts (if you are using unsalted peanuts you will need to add a tsp of salt)
Slowly stir in flour and cocoa, then add peanuts last
Use a teaspoon to measure out dough, form into little balls and space well on baking tray. Bake for 15-20 mins.

See it is so easy, so few ingredients needed for such a good cuppa tea treat.

In the cal-zone

After a busy months end (hmmmm too many holidays), I am cheating a little here and using some of an old post for ingredients and method. You may remember the very first entry for pizza,
and that the amount of dough is quite substantial. Well the great news is the dough freezes well and can be used for other tasty treats such as this calzone. You can also use some of the sauce in the filling too. Love a meal with pre-prepared yet homemade ingredients......

Dough
See method for pizza entry

Filling
This is the fun and creative part! This can be totally up to your taste, or even what you may have in the house! Here are just two of the standard combos we use in our place/

Veg- Mix spinach, fetta, parmesan, mushrooms, black olives and a splash of tommy sauce also on pizza page

Meaty- Any ham, prosciutto, (ground or thinly sliced)lamb or beef, mixed with spinach, cheeses, mushrooms, olives and of course the splash of tommy sauce

Putting it all together

* So you roll out your dough on a large floured surface.
* Then get a small(ish) dinner plate and cut out as many dough circles as you need.
* Once the rounds are made, you spoon about two tablespoons of the filling mixture into the middle of each round.
* Fold the rounds in half and pinch and fold round edges together.
* Brush top with egg or even just a little olive oil

* Place onto baking tray and put in 180- 200 degree oven for about 15-20 mins until each calzone in a lovely golden colour.
* When you take them out drizzle with a bit of yum e.v.o.o especially in the crease, and enjoy as a snack on its own or with a crispy rocket based salad for a main meal.
Enjoy

Kanel Bulle - Swedish Cinnamon buns

In the food stakes the Swedes are at quite a disadvantage to every other country we have spent a long time in. Just about all produce has to travel large distances to get here. The presence of good, tasty, plentiful vegies and herbs is limited, thus the main diet is (in my opinion) quite bland. Except in the summer when the berries are truly amazing.

But what these folk do well, very well, is 'fika'. Which basically means coffee and cake. So they bake well and often. The most traditional of these baked delights is the kanelbulle (literally cinnamon bun). There is even a national day dedicated to these little treats. This recipe came from the back of a flour packet here, with reference to another blog for the technique (I think it was called goodmoodfood.blogspot hosted by an Irish guy from Dublin). My translating skills are pretty good for all ingredients, but my verb knowledge of swedish is still pretty rudimentary.

Here goes.....

Dough
150 grams butter
150 mls full fat milk
50 grams yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
150 ml caster sugar
800 grams plain flour
2 tablespoons cardamon (kardemumma)

For the "cinnamon butter"
125 grams butter
150 ml caster sugar
3 tablespoons cinnamon

To paint the top of each bulle
1 whisked egg
Pearl sugar, or some other coarse sugar for sprinkling

Method
Dough
*Melt the butter in a saucepan, and add milk. Heat to lukewarm/finger warm.

*In a large bowl, crumble the yeast and add a little of the butter/milk liquid. Stir the yeast in until it becomes a smooth paste. Then add the rest of the liquid.

*Add the sugar and the salt.

*Add the flour and the cardamon the smell here is heavenly

*knead the dough lightly by hand a little (do not take it out of the bowl to do this). It's fine if the dough is sticky.

*Place a damp tea-towel over the bowl and leave the dough to rise, for about 45- 50 minutes.

Cinnamon butter
*Melt the butter and add the caster sugar and cinnamon. Leave to stand while you are waiting for the dough to rise (but NOT in the fridge!).

Putting it all together
*Once the dough has risen, place on a large table. If it's too sticky to handle at this point, sprinkle the table and the dough with a little extra flour. Knead the dough a little, very lightly.

* Divide the dough into two pieces. Roll each piece out into a large, thin rectangle and smear the cinnamon butter over the entire surface of each, right up to the edges.


Roll each rectangle up (as you would with a swiss roll) and cut each "log" into 2-3cm pieces.

*Place each piece on a large paper cup-cake case. Cover with a (dry) tea-towel and leave for 20-30 minutes.

*During this time pre-heat your oven to 210-220 degrees.

*After 20-30 mins, paint the tops of each bulle with egg and sprinkle with sugar.

*Bake in the oven for 7 to 9 minutes.

Make yourself a nice cuppa and have your own Swedish style fika.

Yummy Pizza

Not really sure of how this will go kiddies, first cab off the rank and all. At least it will be down the page very soon. But we have to move house over the next couple of weeks so thought I should post a tried and tasty Friday night favourite of ours. The pizza base is a hybrid of a few different recipes that has evolved after some trial and error (oh and a wicked dining holiday in Italy). The sauce is based on a Jamie Oliver recipe that I saw on one of his TV shows once.....
The base can be made with gluten free flour.

Pizza Dough
1000g of plain flour
550mls tepid water
1 sachet of yeast
4 tbs olive oil
Pinch of salt
Optional 1tbs sugar (castor)
* this makes a huge amount of dough but it freezes well and can be used for calzone too. Another recipe for that will follow (sometime soon)

Process
Sift flour, salt and sugar if used onto a clean bench surface.
Make well in the middle and add a small amount of H2O, yeast and olive oil
Mix slowly with fork then start bringing in flour from the sides of well , keep adding water slowly
When it becomes too hard to mix with fork use your hands.
You may not need to use all the water
Kneed dough for about 5-6 minutes until it is elasticy
Place in large bowl, cover with damp cloth and place in warm place for about 45 minutes so it can rise to about double its size.


When you are ready to build your pizza you can flatten the base any way you like, tossing it in the air, stretching it into shape. But I am not a big stickler for shape and like my pizza base pretty thin so I use a rolling pin and it ends up in all kinds of shapes.

Pizza (tommy) sauce
1 large onion (2 small)
3 cloves of garlic
Fresh basil
2 cans of whole peeled tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste

Process
Roughly chop onion and garlic
Sweat onion in pan, then add garlic, basil and tomatoes
Roughly mash tomatoes and let simmer for about 10 minutes
Push mixture through sieve so there is a fragrant tomato sauce left (throw chunks away)

Put this sauce back into pan and simmer (maybe another 10 minutes) until reduced to a nice thick sauce.

Topping
Whatever you like!!
A great veggie pizza is sauteed zucchini in garlic, mushrooms, roasted capsicum, onion, olives and mozzarella, Artichoke is always another tasty topping too.

Our fav (this month) is topping the base with tommy sauce and mozzarella, putting it in a really hot oven (250° C) as is. When it is beautiful and golden take it out of the oven, it is topped with prosciutto and rocket (dressed with fresh lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper).
Bellissimo!