Recipe: winter warmer veggie soup

 

I don’t know about you, but this weather makes me crave soup: packed full of flavour and healthy veggies, served hot with a buttery piece of bread or a savoury scone… yum!

The cafe here at the Library, Bake & Brew, were kind enough to give us their recipe to share with you all. Happy soup-making!

Ingredients:

2 Turnips

2 Swedes

1 Pumpkin

2 Zucchini

1 Celery head

4 Carrots

6 Potatoes

Vegetable stock (the amount of stock will be the amount of soup liquid you get)

(This the Bake & Brew suggested veggie combination, but the great thing about soup is that you can chuck so many different ingredients in! Experiment with different veggies if you like)

Note: The veggie amounts in this recipe is for a big serve of soup, if you are cooking for a small group of people, adjust the recipe for less veggies and less stock.

 

Method:

1: Dice all veggies in even sizes.

2: Take pumpkin, swedes, carrots, potato, celery, turnips. In a large saucepan or pot big enough for your soup, saute off in a little butter.

3: Add stock. Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer until tender. Add zucchinis in last few minutes.

4: Season with salt and pepper to taste, and top with fresh chopped parsley. Serve with savoury scone or bread with butter if you like.

5: Enjoy!

Recipe: Pumpkin, Haloumi, & Chickpea Fritters

Meatless Mondays just got a whole lot more exciting thanks to these easy, healthy (but more importantly) tasty Pumpkin, Haloumi, & Chickpea fritters! The cafe here at the Library, Bake & Brew, were kind enough to give us their recipe to share with you all. Happy cooking!

 

Ingredients:

1/4 Pumpkin, grated

200g Haloumi, grated

1/2 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 cup self-raising flour

 

Method:

1: Combine pumpkin, haloumi, chickpeas, flour, and egg in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper if you like.

2: Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat.

3: In batches of 3, spoon a heaped tablespoon of pumpkin mixture into the pan. Flatten slightly with a spatula. Cook for 3-4 minutes each side, until golden.

4: Serve with garden salad and capsicum mayo*, and drizzle patties with balsamic vinegar if you like.

*Capsicum mayo is a mix of capsicum puree and mayonnaise: you can buy capsicum puree and mayonnaise from groceries, or you can make them yourself.

Did you know…what to do with your Christmas leftovers?

If you are anything like me, you will no doubt have over-catered for Christmas. I actually believe that if you haven’t over catered, you are not catering properly! But after everyone has eaten their fill, what do you do with all those leftovers?

Here is one idea:

Christmas Leftover Risotto

Ingredients

• 1 onion
• 1 leek
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• 1 heaped of thyme leaves
• 200g of leftover turkey (shredded)
• 200g of leftover ham (diced)
• 300g Arborio rice
• 1 glass of white wine
• 1 litre of chicken or vegetable stock
• 1/4 cup of grated parmesan (or any cheese you may have)
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 1 tablespoon of cream cheese (optional)
• Olive oil

Method

Heat the stock.

Chop up the leak, onion and garlic.

Heat some olive oil in a pan and add the leak, onion, garlic and thyme.

Once the leak and onion starts to turn transparent, add the white wine and bring to the boil before adding the rice and meat.

Reduce the heat and begin to ladle in the stock, stirring continuously. Cook for about 20 minutes, continuing to add stock as it is absorbed. It is important to keep the dish ‘wet’.

Once the rice is soft and the butter and cheese and stir through.

Serve immediately with some crusty bread.

Delicious!

Way back when Wednesdays

Chocolate Marbled Cake

Chocolate Marbled Cake

In celebration of Wednesday birthdays (including mine) why not try this vintage recipe for Chocolate Marbled Cake? It’s delicious and it works.

It comes from my mother’s cookery bible of 1961, A Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium. Compiled by The Good Housekeeping Institute, the book was first published in 1952. In the Forward on page 6, the book states that cookbooks “sometimes assume that their readers are already familiar with the very simple processes, it can still happen that a young housewife  –  or a daughter-at-home called upon to produce a meal in time of domestic crisis-finds embarrassing and unexpected gaps in her cookery knowledge.” By today’s standards this is an outdated perspective which assumes that women are responsible for home duties and it does not allow for the modern practice of ordering takeaway food!   In contrast to other books of its time, A Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium instructs the reader on everything you need to know about different techniques and how to prepare every type of meal, from cooking eggs, selecting different cuts of meat, preparing seafood, to making and decorating a wedding cake.

You could ice this cake with chocolate frosting or a ganache, drizzle melted chocolate over it or simply just sprinkle the top with icing sugar, as pictured.

Note: As this is an older recipe, you will need scales which can measure imperial weight.

6 oz. butter or margarine

6 oz. sugar

¾ cup warm milk

4 egg whites

9 oz. plain flour

2 tsps. baking powder

Vanilla essence

Milk to mix

1 ½ oz. block chocolate

Cream the fat and sugar very thoroughly and stir in the warmed milk and the stiffly beaten egg whites. Sieve the flour and baking powder and add to the creamed mixture, together with a few drops of vanilla essence, and if necessary a little milk. Divide the mixture into two, and add the chocolate (dissolved in a very little milk or water) to one part. Put alternate spoonfuls of the two mixtures into a prepared tin and bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees F, 190 degrees C, gas mark 4) for 1 ¼ – 1 ½ hours, until firm to the touch.  Enjoy!

Modern tips: Oven times may vary; if your oven is fan-forced, cooking time will be reduced. I use a ring tin for this recipe, which works well, but you could also use a round tin with a diameter of around 23cm. I lined the tin with baking paper. You may prefer to use silicone or non-stick cookware or grease and flour your tin. I interpreted ‘block chocolate’ as dark cooking chocolate.

Recipe: Cornflake Cookies

There’s truly nothing better than a Cornflake Cookie from Bake & Brew cafe to go down with a hot cup of tea or coffee. Made fresh on-site next door to the library, these biscuits are made from a simple recipe, with the perfect combination of sweetness, cornflake-y crunch and juicy sultanas.

Get your daily dose of cornflakes from these sweet babies

The Cornflake Cookies are made by Sue the pastry chef, who inherited the recipe from her mother. Sue recalls the recipe originally appearing in an old Lutheran Church cookbook, but wasn’t sure which one! No matter – she knows this recipe by heart as she makes a fresh batch every week. They are for sale $4 each – and now that Sue has generously passed on her recipe – you can have a go at making them yourself!

A fresh batch of Sue’s Cornflake Biscuits not long out of the oven.

Cornflake Biscuits – makes 24

Ingredients (NB quantities have been converted from Imperial measurements)
230g butter
340g sugar
2 eggs
455 g self-raising flour
2 cups of sultanas
1 bowl of cornflakes

Method
Cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs, SR flour and sultanas. Stir until mixed. Roll dessert spoonfuls of the mixture into balls and then roll them in the bowl of cornflakes, gently pressing the cornflakes into each ball.

Put the balls on a baking tray and gently press them down with your hand. Bake at 160 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until golden. Let the biscuits cool on a wire rack.

Dried apricot bits and choc chips also work well in this recipe – simply substitute them for sultanas.

Thanks again Sue for sharing your recipe!

How to make choux pastry

No ugly ducklings here….only beautiful choux pastry swans

Many of our Library staff have sweet tooths and to satisfy those cravings we head straight to our neighbour cafe, The Topiary Pantry, to make a selection from the generous presentation of treats in their glass display.

The Topiary Pantry is owned by the same people who own ‘The Topiary’ at Newman’s Nursery, which is renowned for its emphasis on homegrown produce and for making as many ingredients as possible from scratch.

Sue, the resident pastry chef at The Topiary Pantry has kindly shared her unique recipe for choux pastry for the November newsletter. She has recently been making choux pastry for many sweet treats that have been very popular amongst customers.

Here is the recipe!

Choux Pastry – Recipe

At the Topiary Pantry, choux pastry can be used for making profiteroles, eclairs, swans, paris brest, croquembouche and many other things.

Ingredients:
80g butter
240mL water
140g plain flour
4 eggs

Place water and butter in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Add flour and cook out until it all comes together. Place the mixture into a mixing bowl and beat slowly. Add eggs one at a time until the mixture is smooth and glossy. Place the mixture into a piping bag with a nozzle and then it is ready for any kind of application.

Cook the choux pastry at 180 degrees celcius.

Choux Pastry Swans – a delicious light and fluffy summer sweet treat.

Over summer The Topiary Pantry will be serving ‘Coffee Bites’ specials, which will feature a selection of sweet treats – perfect for a morning or afternoon indulgement.

Over summer, the Topiary Pantry will be serving these bite size choux pasty swans filled with cream and strawberries, for $2.50 each or you can order the ‘Coffee Bites’ special, where you receive 3 bite-size treats for $7.

Bon appetit!

Looking for some new recipes?

Well the Library has a fantastic collection of cookbooks for you to choose from. Come and browse in  Adult Non Fiction starting at 641.5 for inspiration to cook up a storm.
One book we found recently while reshelving that doesn’t quite offer that inspiration is “Food for the road” by Laraine Leyland of Leyland brothers fame.

This unique publication has lots of tips for campfire cooking, food and equipment checklists and an amazing array of tempting recipes from chapters entitled Toasted Temptations, Super Snacks and Marvellous Mince.

Some “favourites” chosen by Library staff  include; Saveloy Sandwich, Curried Eggs, Rissoles, Baked Beans and Frankfurts, Curried Savoury Mince and Devilled Wine Chops, not to forget a favourite from the seventies, Chicken a la king!

We’ll let the pictures tell the story. Just let me say food styling has certainly moved on since the Seventies!

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Do you think we should keep this book or send it to the library book graveyard, aka the Booksale shelf?

Also love to know if you’ve found any other “amazing” titles in our collection that you’d like to share!

Looking for a Recipe?

The Library’s Technical Services team (who catalogue all the books) has recently rearranged the library’s huge collection of recipe books. Ever popular, we felt that the books were in a bit of a jumble, so we’ve now seperated them into distinct categories. There is now a section on Famous Chefs, International Cuisine, Favourite Ingredients, Drinks, Desserts and more. Each section is now clearly numbered and labelled with the category of books within.

So, next time you’re peckish, seeking inspiration from Jamie Oliver, need a recipe for gluten-free kangaroo pikelets, or simply can’t decide if that soup requires a soupcon of pomegranate molasses, come down to the 641.5’s and feast your eyes on our cookery collection! We may have answer. I’m off to lunch now.