Homemade BBQ Sauce

Have you ever been really driven to do/make something and found it insanely difficult to find an easy way to do it? That's the problem I came across when wanting to make a BBQ sauce to go with our pulled pork tonight!! Should it be this hard to find a recipe for a sauce that was actually from scratch? There are hundreds of recipes on the internet for BBQ sauces that contain Worcestershire sauce and pre-made tomato sauce/ketchup, but I struggled so much to find one that didn't contain either one or both of those two ingredients, which themselves contain lots of ingredients, and when store bought contain many additives and extra's that I go to great pains to avoid in our daily cooking!!! I decided to do what I have done quite a number of times and simply read the ingredients on the back of a bottle of BBQ sauce and then use the key ingredients to make at home! Added bonus... it turned out quite a bit simpler than I thought it would be!! I will store the rest in the fridge, as this made around 500 mls and use during the week on other meals!

Homemade BBQ Sauce

Ingredients

Can of diced tomatoes

50g of tomato paste

1 medium sized chilli chopped roughly

1 onion chopped roughly

1 garlic clove chopped roughly

4 tablespoons of brown sugar (you could substitute with Rice Malt Syrup for a fructose free version)

1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon of Smoked Paprika

1 teaspoon of mustard seeds

pinch (and I do mean a small pinch of crushed cloves (or 1 clove)

Method

Put all ingredients in a saucepan

Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer until the sauce has reduced to a thick consistency.

As with most of my recipes, make sure you taste as it is simmering and add any extra's of the ingredients as required to taste!

Whiz it up in a blender so its nice and smooth and wallah!! Your very own homemade BBQ Sauce ready to pop on... anything!!!

Hope you enjoy this recipe!! If you would like to request me to cook something you have struggled to find a recipe for simply respond below and I shall see what I can do!!

Till next time, Happy Cooking (from scratch!)

Erica xx

Beef Stroganoff!

I was sitting here thinking about food (nothing new) and realised that unlike other food bloggers I never really have a clever little back story to go with my recipes, nothing that really details why I decided to cook a certain dish that day, how it tasted, what the weather was doing that day, what colour underpants we all had on (Annie the Poodle included)…

Truth is, there generally isn’t a rosy cheeked sunny day kind of story to accompany a dish like Beef Stroganoff. I saw a jar of strog sauce in the supermarket and decided to try and cook it from scratch. That’s the end of that exciting story! It reminds me of my childhood, but it was never my favourite dish so I don’t get all warm and fuzzy like I would thinking about Roast Beef and Yorkshire Puddings. 

I think about food from the minute I wake up till the minute I go to bed, throwing some sporadic thoughts about work in there and occasionally day dreaming about how many cosmetic products I could buy if I was a millionaire (too damn many that’s how many!!) but that's about as interesting as it gets... I know, not that interesting haha!

However my food thinking is now fairly focused on what other classic home style dishes that really don’t take much longer to cook with fresh whole ingredients rather than packet seasoning or a jar of anaemic looking sauce… I need suggestions!! I am going to cook a Steak and Mushroom Shepherds pie hybrid tonight which I cannot WAIT to put into my mouth! (note: I ended up making two, plus had SOOO much meat left over so now have at least 6 meals out of one batch of meat! I bought a 1.2 kilo blade roast which was $9 a kilo and cooked for around 1.5 hours with seasonings etc on the stovetop, but it would be great in the slow cooker! The meat was SOOOO tender!)

OK so here it is, what you have read through all that nonsense to get to... *drum roll please* Introducing Beef Stroganoff recipe which I based on the same by Julie Goodwin who wont the first Australian Masterchef! I just made changes to the type of steak and made it gluten free by using cornflour instead of plain flour! This ended up being one of our absolute favourite "from scratch" meals I have made... I was positively delicious!!

Beef Stroganoff

Ingredients

1 kg steak, trimmed and sliced very thinly 

(I used the heart smart steak from Woolworths as it was on special)

1/3 cup corn flour

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground white pepper

2 teaspoons smoked sweet paprika

¼ cup coconut oil

300g button mushrooms, sliced

3 cloves garlic, chopped

¼ cup tomato paste

½ cup beef stock 

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

300ml sour cream

Method

ombine the flour, salt, pepper and paprika in a bowl.  Toss the beef strips through the mixture so they are well coated.

In a large, non-stick fyring pan, heat ¼ of the oil over high heat.  Place 1/3 of the beef mixture into the pan and cook, tossing and stiring for 2 minutes until it is golden brown. Repeat this process with remaining oil and beef mixture. Removing the cooked beef before putting a new lot in.

Remove the last of the beef from the frying pan and sit aside.

Reduce the heat to medium high.  

Place the last of the oil in the pan and cook the mushrooms and garlic until softened. 

 Add tomato paste and stir for a further minute.  

Add stock, Worcestershire sauce and sour cream to the pan.  

Return the beef and stir for a minute or two until well combined and warmed through.

We served with mashed potato as I had some potatoes that needed to be used, but would also be fantastic served with pasta!

Steam some greens and serve on top. This is sure to be a family favourite, especially in the darkest depths of winter!

Share your photos with me if you make this, I would love to see them!

Happy Cooking (from scratch!)

Erica xx

Super Quick and Easy Poached Chicken!

How to poach chicken for salad, pizza etc... In under 20 minutes?! EASY!

This recipe is for ONE chicken breast which will easily feed two people possibly three depending on the dish you are preparing the chicken for. It last us two meals. so really it fed four, but we don't eat large amounts of meat, on the occasions we do eat it :) I would simply increase the cooking and resting times if you are poaching a larger amount. I am yet to poach a whole chicken, I will give it a go soon and let you know how long to do it for!

Super Quick and East Poached Chicken

Ingredients

1 large chicken breast

2 cloves of garlic

Few slices of lemon

2-3 Bay leaves (optional)

Method

Pop all ingredients in a pot of water and bring to the boil

Simmer for 10 minutes on medium heat with the lid on

Remove from heat and leave sitting in the pot with the lid on for a minimum of 10 minutes

Your poached chicken is done! Told you it was easy!!

I made a roast vegetable salad and topped with chicken, but have also used the chicken for sandwiches and on pizza!

Roast Vegetable Salad

Cooking with Artichoke - Antipasto Pizza!

Hands up if you have cooked with artichoke before? No? Me either! I had a request on Facebook to give it a go, and as they where on special at Coles for just $1 I though "why not"! I know some of you obviously will have used it, and know much more about it than I do but it was definitely a new experience for me and to be honest not something I will probably cook with regularly. 

It is a nice, quite a mild flavoured vegetable, not unlike asparagus but it was a bit of mucking around to cook it.

I decided to use it on top of a antipasto type pizza along with my homemade pizza base, homemade pizza sauce (tin of tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, basil, oregano, salt cook until liquid has reduced), olives, semi sundried tomatoes, salami, red onion and homemade ricotta.

Cooking Artichoke

Ingredients

1 artichoke, with the stem chopped off as per the above picture, clip any very dry or rough point bits off with scissors

Juice from 1/2 a lemon

1 bay leave

Method

Put all ingredients in a pot of water.

Bring to the boil then reduce to a medium/low heat and simmer, with the lid on for up to 45 minutes.

Once nice and soft remove from heat and leave to cool.

Pull the "leaves" off (are they called leaves? I am not sure) and scrape the softness from the inside of the leaves

I am pretty sure you can eat them as is, scraping the soft insides off with your teeth. I was a bit lazy here I will admit, I pulled most of the leaves off until I got to the nice soft heart which is the bit I mainly used. I just ripped it up and put on top of the pizza. I probably didn't use as much of the artichoke as I could have, it made me a bit nervous haha!

I might get a few more and try marinating them to eat on a platter, but I did read after cooking you can use like a chip for dips so that might be an option as well!!

It was a really nice flavour on top of the somewhat salty pizza.

In conclusion I feel like I failed a wee bit with this challenge. I am sure that there is a lot more to artichokes than I gave it credit for. 

Do you have any good artichoke recipes you can share with me? Would love to give it a go again doing something different!

Happy Cooking (from scratch!)

Erica xx

Homemade Ricotta

Don't be nervous, this is such a simple thing to make and it is SO DELICIOUS.  I make it to use straight away, it wouldn't last long anyway! It's great in salads, on pizza, on toast with honey, on its own... its damn delicious!!!

Apparently this is a very similar way to making paneer cheese (Indian Cheese) so if you give that a go let me know!

Please excuse the crappy photo!!

Homemade Ricotta

Ingredients

2 litres full cream milk

1 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons cream

4 tablespoons white vinegar or lemon juice 

(I prefer to use vinegar for this one, just gives a little bit more of a bite than lemon juice)

Method

Place the milk, salt and cream in a saucepan and heat until almost boiling (it needs heat to curdle properly).

Then add the vinegar and stir it once or twice very gently just to distribute the vinegar. Do not constantly stir, just leave it be.

Simmer for 1-2 minutes and then allow to sit for 10 minutes and most of the ricotta curds will float to the top leaving the whey at the bottom.

Line a pasta drainer with cheesecloth (I used a very thin brand new pillow case as I didn't have cheesecloth, which worked well) and place it over a large bowl to drain.

Gently pour the ricotta mixture through the cheesecloth and the whey will separate at the bottom in a clearish yellow liquid and the soft and creamy ricotta will sit at the top.

You can mold the ricotta into a ball by holding all the sides of the cloth, twist the cloth so the cheese is in a ball at the bottom. This will also help to drain out any excess liquid.

Your ricotta is now ready to use! If you want a more solid ricotta, drain for an hour or overnight. 

Keeps for 2-3 days in the fridge in an airtight container, use a little bit of the whey in the container to keep the cheese moist.

Happy Cooking (from scratch!)

Erica xx

Pizza Dough

Here is a great recipe that I always use for delicious Pizza Dough! This batch will make roughly two pizza's :)

Pizza Dough

Ingredients

375 ml (1 1/2 cups) warm water

2 tsp (7g/1 sachet) dried yeast

Pinch of caster sugar

600 g (4 cups) plain flour

1 tsp salt

60 ml (1/4 cup) olive oil, plus extra for brushing

Method

Combine the water, yeast and sugar in a small bowl. Set aside for 5 minutes or until foamy. 

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the yeast mixture and oil.

Use a round-bladed knife in a cutting motion to mix until the mixture is combined. 

Use your hands to bring the dough together in the bowl.

Brush a bowl lightly with oil. 

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. 

Place in the prepared bowl and turn to coat in oil. 

Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm, draught-free place to rise for 30 minutes or until dough doubles in size.

Roll out to the size of your pizza tray.

I like to pre cook the dough for 10 minutes or so, but note it will shrink slightly if you do this. Its not essential but I find if you load the pizza up too much the dough won't cook properly :)

Look what happened last time I made the dough... its EXPLODED THROUGH THE PLASTIC hahaha!

Happy Cooking Pizza! (From scratch!)

Erica x

Raw Walnut Chocolate Tart

Please see my last post for an explanation or if you don’t have time, basically a friend asked me to cook something that came under the banner of both Paleo and Clean Eating. I wanted to make a dessert too, to show that even a treat doesn’t have to be laden with sugar and white flour!

I hope you enjoy!

This original recipe has been adapted from Our Paleo Life. Please give me a shout out if you go over to visit them!

 

 

 

Raw Walnut Chocolate Tart

Ingredients

2 small tart tins roughly 10- 15cm across

Crust
1 cup of nut flour.

(I used walnuts as I had them in the cupboard but use any nut you like (except peanuts). Whiz them in a blender until they are very crumbly and a bit flour like. Not too long though or they will turn into butter!!)
2 tsp Raw Cocao
3 Tbsp Coconut Oil, melted (20sec on the microwave)
1 Tbsp Pure Maple Syrup (or Rice Malt Syrup for Fructose Free!)
⅛ tsp Sea Salt

Filling
3 Tbsp Coconut Oil
4 Tbsp Coconut Milk
 3 Tbsp Maple Syrup (Or Rice Malt Syrup)
6 Tsp Raw Cacao Powder
½ tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

Method

Crust
In a medium bowl, add all crust ingredients and stir with a fork until evenly combined.
Divide mixture in half and press evenly into the bottom and sides of the prepared tart tins.

 

Filling
Heat coconut oil, coconut milk, and maple syrup together in the microwave until the coconut oil has melted. I did two bursts of 30 seconds.
Whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth and glossy.
Whisk in the vanilla just until combined.
Pour the filling mixture evenly between the 2 prepared tart tins.
Place the tarts in the fridge for 1 hour or until they are set (mine didn’t take that long :D)
Garnish with some berries, stir together some coconut cream and vanilla essence and pour over the top.

Enjoy!

 

I found my tarts were a little bit… tart, or had that bitterness that very dark chocolate does. If you are not a fan of that bitterness, or you are an absolute sugar lover then I recommend you add a bit more maple syrup (rice malt syrup) and vanilla essence!

 

 

Happy Cooking (from Scratch!)

 

Erica xx