Ingredients: Potatoes - cooked and mashed. As much as you'd normally use for a family meal. 1-2 onions, diced 2 or so cups applesauce, or some apples cut up, cooked and pureed Sausagemeat - I would use 1kg to feed 7-8, or adjust to suit 1-2 dessertspoons raw or white sugar 1/2-2tsp curry powder (optional) Cheese, grated, to top (optional) Method: 1. Peel, cut up and cook as much potatoes as normal for mashed potatoes. When done, mash. 2. Peel, core and slice 3-4 apples, and cook in pot until just tender. Place slices in blender with just enough of liquid to puree to smooth. Or use bottled applesauce. 3. Dice onion. Sprinkle half of the onion over bottom of roasting dish. 4. With wet hands, pick up and roll small amounts of sausage meat into even size pieces (I went big-ish in the one pictured, but back in the day, would do them walnut shell sized). Lay in single layer in roasting dish on onion. 5. Sprinkle rest of onion over. 6. Place sugar in cup. (Optional: add curry powder and stir). Sprinkle evenly over sausage meat. 7. Drizzle apple puree evenly over top. 8. Spoon mashed potatoes over entire dish and smooth out. Optional: top with grated cheese. 9. Bake 180C for one hour. While cooking, make salad or cook other veges. Serve with tomato sauce. |
A cheap, tasty and filling meal for a family, this can be made with sausage meat (available in tubes or trays from supermarkets and butchers) or you could cut non-precooked sausages into short lengths and arrange the rounds in the tray. (Or squeeze the meat out of the casings, and proceed as below).
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A fermented drink made with tea, sugar, and a SCOBY, kombucha has many variations and is a healthy probiotic. I use green tea these days. SCOBY stands for "symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts." If you don't have one, you can grow your own by using purchased raw kombucha drink from a health store, and mixing it with a brew as below - over time, a SCOBY will start to form. SCOBYs constantly grow and thicken - every now and then one peels it apart and discards a layer. Or gives that layer to a friend as their own starter SCOBY - that's how I got mine. :-) NOTE: always work with very clean hands and equipment - you don't want to contaminate the SCOBY with unwanted species of bacteria.
An old favourite from Rejuvenate Your Life, this is rich, chocolatey, and good for you. So nice to have stashed in the freezer when you feel the need for something sweet. Ingredients:
2 cups raw almonds, ground to a fine meal in food processor or coffee grinder (or leave not-so-fine if you prefer). 1/2 cup tahini 1/2 cup carob powder pinch sea salt 1/2 cup raw honey Add a little more nut meal if you need it thicker or a little maple syrup if it's not wet enough (I've never needed to) Mix well in a food processor. Press into a greased pyrex dish and freeze. After about an hour, cut into small squares with a knife. Freeze. Keep stored in the freezer in a covered dish. A good quality stock is a wonderful basis for soups, casseroles, gravies, or to add flavour and nourishment to any meat or vege dish. This basic recipe can really be used with any kind of bones, but I generally use beef bones (free from the butcher) or mutton bones (from our sheep). If I've cooked a roast, I place left over bones in the freezer to use in the next batch of stock (skipping the first step below), but otherwise make it from raw bones as follows. Ingredients (for making in large 9ltr crockpot* - yields 3-4 litres finished stock) Roughly 2- 2.5kg bones 2-3 onions, peeled and quartered 3 large carrots, peeled and halved in both directions 3-4 sticks celery, roughly chopped 1 whole garlic bulb, halved horizontally without peeling (today I used three small ones fresh from the garden, where this year's crop is dismal) 6 bay leaves 3-4 sprigs thyme A few stalks of parsley Sea salt to taste Optional: a few fennel seeds and black peppercorns Method: Place bones in a roasting dish, sprinkle with salt, and roast at 180C for about 45 mins. Place bones into crockpot. Add a little water to roasting dish and heat gently on stove until you can scrape loose all caramelised bits. Pour this into the crock pot. Add all veges and herbs. Cover with water. Place lid on, and cook on low for 12-18 hours. Cool, lift out bulky items with tongs and set aside. Strain liquid, pour into containers, and freeze, or put in fridge for use soon. One completely cold, any fat will set on the surface. This may be easily removed before using. * Note: If you don't have a crockpot/slow cooker, this stock may also be made in a large pot on the stove - simmer uncovered for 3-5 hours. Note 2: I used to add some vinegar when making stock, in order to draw out the calcium and nutrients from the bones. I no longer do, as the vinegar can also draw out lead from the crockpot. Pick of finished stock to come :-)
Good old-fashioned, moist, scrumptious banana cake. This one is for my husband, who loves it. I haven't made one in years - back when the kids were younger, I used to triple this recipe and bake it in a roasting dish. Today I made a single batch in a regular cake tin - oh how the times have changed! Great way to use up overripe bananas, and perfect to take to anywhere that's bring-a-plate. Method:
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, bananas, then baking soda dissolved in milk, stirring after each addition. Lastly add mixed flour and baking powder. Mix. Bake in greased, floured baking tin at 180C/350F until skewer comes out clean - about 40 mins. Let sit in tin for 5 mins, then turn out onto rack to cool. Hint: if banana cake browns too quickly on top and is still uncooked in the middle, placing an oven tray over the top of the cake tin will prevent it overbrowning while it finishes cooking. There are often small quantities of left over cooked veges in my fridge. These can be used up in various ways - in winter I generally use them in soups. Today I turned them into a yummy dinner dish. This description is a guide only - use what is on hand or whatever you fancy. Don't be afraid to play with your food! The main purpose when re-dressing left over cooked veges is to reheat them, fancy them up a bit, and make sure they taste great. :-)
Since my gluten and dairy free son was coming for Christmas, I decided to buy a bag of GF baking flour. Normally, I seldom bake these days as it's been a long while since there was anyone at home who was into eating baked goods. And if I wanted to bake, I generally go for various healthy and/or raw options, or make my own flour mixes. Anyway, this time I thought I'd whip up a GF cake using my old faithful egg and dairy free recipe from way-back-when. Only, it turned out I didn't have any vegetable oil or sugar on hand either, so I improvised with applesauce and honey. The result was rather good! Both versions of the cake below. Or you could play with these and just change out the ingredients you wish to, keeping the others. Original Egg & Dairy Free Chocolate CakeI started making this when my eldest kids were little, as we often didn't have eggs or butter in the house as we'd run out before shopping day. Ingredients and Method: Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Grease and line a suitable cake tin. In a bowl, combine: 1 1/2 cups plain flour 1 cup sugar 1/3 cup cocoa 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, and pour in the following: 1 tsp vanilla essence 1 TBSP cider vinegar 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1 cup water Mix throughly until smooth. Pour batter into tin and bake until skewer comes out clean (around 30-40 mins). Cool. This a very moist, fudgy cake - good on it's own or with icecream. Certain family members have been known to eat it for breakfast with milk or cream poured over. GF, DF, No eggs, oil or sugar Chocolate CakeDid you know that applesauce can be used in place of butter or oil in most recipes? I used my delicious homemade applesauce, but simply pureed cooked apples could be used too. When baking with honey, reduce overall fluids by 1/2 cup for each cup of honey used. Also lower oven temp a bit, as honey can cause products to brown quickly. Grease and line cake tin. Preheat oven to 160-170C
Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups gluten free flour - I used Healtheries, but the texture of this cake could have been even better with a good homemade blend. 1/3 cup cocoa 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla essence 1 TBSP cider vinegar 1/2 cup applesauce 1/2 cup honey 3/4 cup water Method: Warm honey gently in a pot to make runny. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl, then make a well and pour in wet ingredients. Stir to combine. Bake about 20-25 mins or until skewer comes out clean. Turn onto rack and cool. Delicious served with some yoghurt or icecream (I use dairy free coconut yoghurt or coconut icecream). This version is not as fudgy as the above one. I had some left over cooked brown rice in the fridge. There's at least four things I could do with it, but this time I decided to make rice salad, as my son who was just visiting was raving about a rice salad he'd tried at my mother's recently, and then emulated. The ingredients are flexible - use what you have - but aim for a suitable mix of colours and flavours, with a hint of tang. This turned out really delicious!
Just about the easiest salad in the world, coleslaw's two main ingredients are cabbage and carrots. Lots of other things can be added for additional flavour, texture and nutrition if you wish. Today I made a coleslaw out of the first red cabbage ready in my greenhouse. I picked it fairly small, but it's plenty big enough for a few meals for us, and better to start with the cabbages when the first reaches a useable size and keep working through them bit by bit than have 20 suddenly all in need of use at once!
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