Recipe review: Ciabatta

I love simple and easy. This is both. Also tasty!
The recipe is simple and instructions are easy to follow. 

What Caroline Cooked - Ciabatta

In the interests of giving her credit, use the link to get the ingredient amounts.

I used her quantities, but doubled the yeast as mine is a little old.

This is the dough (made about ten pm) at 7:30am, so a 9.5 hr prove.

The dough turned out easily with a big of help (wet your hands) and I made a slim log, then cut into 8 pieces. I could have easily shaped them a little more neatly but I still hadn't had my coffee by now. I'd add more flour to the tray and use baking paper next time.

22 minutes at 225 Degrees, with plenty of water sprinkled around the tray for added steam. I did some in the oven and some in the airfryer, and I was happier with the oven ones, probably because it was just a little hotter than the 200 max of the airfryer.

This recipe made enough for breakfast and lunch for 3 kids. I'm about to go make a double batch and I'll pull one batch of rolls out a little early so they can be reheated in the air fryer for breakfast straight from the freezer. Win!

Budget Dinners #1

Presenting: Budget Dinners! These are ideas, not specific recipes, because the idea is to use what you have.




Dinner #1: Noodle Surprise.
I don't like Pork. There. I said it. So I drown it in flavour.
This is also super quick.
Ingredients:


300g Pork mince (languishing in the freezer for 6 months!) cost=nil
2 cloves garlic, minced = 15c
Vegetables (the rest of the frozen peas about half a cup; One carrot, sliced finely) = 50c
3 blocks Noodles (homebrand 2 minute, discard flavour sachet) = 60c
1/2 tsp fish sauce = nil
1 massel stock cube =40c
Spices = Nil
1T Coriander whole
2T Sesame seeds

1T Cumin seed
1/2 tsp ginger powder or use fresh if you have it 
oil for cooking.



Method: Grind or blender the spices together until the coriander is broken up a bit .Brown the mince. Add oil and fry off garlic and spices. Meanwhile, Cook the noodles in barely enough water to cover them and the stock cube.
Add Veggies, just use whatever you have, then add the cooked noodles and the stock water, which should have cooked down to not a lot. Sprinkle over the fish sauce and add a dash of sweet chilli or soy if you wish, or just season with salt pepper and vinegar. Don't mix it too much or your noodles might start to break up. Garnish with fresh herbs if you have any. I didn't.
Voila! Filling meal for 3 adults or 1 adult, 3 kids, with some nutritional value.

Notes on the protein. Use whatever you can find. Chicken, beef, pork mince, Eggs first cooked into an omelet, then rolled and stripped and sprinkled over the top. You can even use leftover meat from last night's dinner.

Hazelnut Brownie Petit Fours

Bite sized, rich and dense softness.
These are PERFECT.


Ingredients
150g unsalted butter, chopped
200g 60% dark chocolate

125g caster sugar
50g hazelnut meal
250g plain flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Topping
50g Dark choc
50g Nutella
20g unsalted butter
whole or halved toasted hazelnuts (optional)


Method
Preheat the oven to 160c fan forced.
Grease 24 cup mini muffin pan.
Melt butter and chocolate together over gentle heat until smooth.
Stir in sugar, and continue to stir over gentle heat until sugar begins to dissolve.
Scrape into a bowl. Set aside for a few minutes until cool.
Stir in hazelnut meal, then sifted flour and eggs.
Half fill each muffin cup. Tap pan on the bench firmly to ensure large air bubbles rise to surface, pop with knife tip or skewer.
Bake at 160 until barely set, about 10 minutes. Let sit for 5 minutes, then turn out to cool.

Topping: Melt in a glass bowl in the microwave in short bursts until just melted. Let sit 1 min then stir gently until combined.
(or use your thermo cooker on 70degrees speed 2, if you have one)
Dip bites into bowl of slightly cooled topping and place on rack with a tray underneath to dry.
If it's not working, try drizzling with the topping instead. Add nut on top if using.


Notes:
 - Mini muffin pans vary greatly, so this may make more or less than 24!
 - I made these for a function, so I made in a sheet pan and cut them out with a small round cutter, then put them in tiny paper cases before doing the topping. But for at home it's really unnecessary and time consuming!
 - You certainly can make the mix in a thermo as well but it's honestly just as easy without.

Minestrone. Slow cooked, on a budget.

This is a "feed the family plus leftovers" recipe :)

Ingredients
4 full rashers middle bacon, rind removed if tough, sliced into 1cm strips.
1 large leek, large dice

3 crushed cloves or 3 teaspoons jar Garlic
3 big Bay leaves
2 medium carrots large diced
1 hefty or 2 delicate ribs Celery halved and sliced
2/3 cup DRIED great northern beans
2/3 cup DRIED borlotti beans
1 bottle passata
Chicken or vegetable stock, approx 3L
1/4 head savoy cabbage
1 400g tin tomatoes
Dried mixed herbs

Balsamic Vinegar (trust me!)
Fresh basil and parsley to serve

Method:

Preheat slowcooker.
Rinse your beans, set aside.
Fry off bacon until fat renders. Add leek, then garlic. Once leek is soft and starting to colour, deglaze pan with balsamic and scrape into slow cooker. Add beans, bay leaves, carrot, celery and passata. Add stock til almost full. Set SC to auto, cover and leave overnight/all day. Add cabbage and herbs to taste 1hr before serving.

Right before serving, check for seasoning and use pink himalayan salt, fresh pepper and balsamic vinegar to get the flavour balance right. I can pretty much guarantee 1T of vinegar will be the minimum you need.

Ladle into prewarmed bowls and add a good handful of basil and parsley. Serve with plain warmed crusty bread if you wish.

Mulled wine the lazy way.

So I like mulled wine, but it's taken a while to find a convenient method and recipe that suits both of us. Fiddly isn't his thing and too simple isn't mine. So, all you slow cooker fans... Lazy mulled wine.

I may have forgotten to take a pic
as it was cooking. Oops!

1.5 L Aldi 'soft red' cask wine aka Aldi Red goon.
150ml (a good splodge) Aldi Tawny Port.
1 blood orange, halved and crushed
1 decent juicy lemon, quartered. We use grandpas Meyers.

2 whole cloves

1 stick cinnamon

1/2 a star anise

100g brown sugar
250ml hot water

Chuck it all in, put on auto. Leave for a few hours. 

Mix brown sugar into hot water. Add to slow cooker.
Check the flavour and remove spices if necessary or add more if you want to. Leave another 20 mins after a good stir.
Enjoy!

PS: I've recently discovered where Aldi Port comes from. No wonder it's good, shame I can't share who makes it, but it's good!

Marshmallow Bubble Bars

There's a bunch of recipes around for this. It's one recipe you might have to tweak on the fly, these ingredients can vary wildly in water content.

Marshmallow Bubble Bars (LCM knock off)

110g butter

250g marshmallows 

275g rice bubbles/cornflakes/Cheerios etc

Chop up marshmallows up a bit with scissors or thermo. 

Melt with the butter, either in microwave or thermo.

While it is melting, measure out your bubbles or other cereals into a bowl sprayed with cooking oil.
Lightly spray a silicon spatula too. Line a slice tray with silicon baking paper. 

Pour melted mix over bubbles, and mix gently but quickly. Turn it all over and through the middle until evenly coated. If there's too much sticky stuff then add more cereal quickly. Pile it into the lined tin, then press down with damp or greased hands. Chill in the fridge to set, then cut into bars.

Adulteration notes:

Add any choc chips, nuts, sprinkles etc on top or mix through.

Add 1.5T cocoa powder to the melted mix before pouring over. 

Add 2T psyllium and 1T linseed meal before mixing to make yourself feel a little better about this sugary treat. Add 1/2 cup coconut and reduce bubbles to 250g if you can if you go this option to explain the textural difference to the kids. 

Nae's Brownies

So... brownies...

I've been asked for my brownie recipe more times than I could count and I do not share. I just don't.
It's so versatile, it can take innumerable versions and variations and it still works. It triples and quadruples (yes, quadruples into a giant baking dish for really tall brownies) easily. It's been my secret recipe, lovingly cherished. Until now.

Selfishness constrains me no longer. Here it is, both in standard and Thermo cooker methods. No, you can't have cup measurements, use a scale. It's not that hard and means a more consistent epic deliciousness. TL;DR is at the bottom.
The brownies I made for this post were pure, no adulteration.

Nae’s Epic Brownies of Sheer Deliciousness.

Ingredients:

175g Butter (room temp or sliced up into little chunks)

250g sugar (I always use brown)

3 eggs

80g plain flour

45g Cocoa

0.5 cup adulteration of choice (choc chips, nuts etc)

Method/s:

Prep a Slice pan, or a medium square cake pan with greased sides and a paper bottom. Set your oven to 160 (fan forced)

Melt butter, sugar and cocoa together. 

In the thermo it means 3-4 minutes at 90degrees. 

It should look like this. -->

Dark, Delicious and amazing to stick your finger in for a lick. ...Go on, do it.

Adding your cocoa now means the cocoa powder is 'bloomed' and is a truly rich flavour. 

If you have leftover chocolate like grated up bits from decorating, or Easter eggs, whatever, add that once the initial melt is done. If you're thermo cooking, do the same as above but for another 20 seconds to incorporate. If you're using a saucepan or microwave, keep cooking til it's smooth.

Mix in other ingredients beside adulteration until just barely mixed. 

In the thermo, that means 20 seconds, speed 9. Any blade works, just no butterfly. 
(Or you can pulse if you're feeling lazy. But it's best to not be lazy when it comes to brownies this good)  

Scrape down the sides, and any little bits of flour that fall in are to be ignored. It's fine, they will cook in.

Gently fold in your adulteration. See notes below for ideas.

Remember: the less you mix, beat, fiddle etc... the better your brownies are. 

Pour into your prepared pan and tap a few times hard on the bench to shift air bubbles.

Bake 20 mins 160degrees. 





Please watch it, and make sure it's not over cooking. Every oven, every room temperature, every baking dish contributes and makes the baking time different.
The top should look like this. Shiny, but set. If you touch it, it should give a little but not really crack around your fingerprint.





The inside should look like this. Dense. Not GOOEY but very moist.










How easy was that? You'll be the queen of afternoon tea with these babies. Or serve hot with icecream for an amazing dessert.


ADULTERATION NOTES
I use cups for this, purely because these ingredients all differ so much in weight

Choc Cherry - Add 1/2 cup coconut with the flour  then sprinkle the top of the brownies with 1/2 cup chopped red glace cherries immediately before baking.

Choc chip - add 1/2 cup of any baking chips. Caramel bits are amazing, but best sprinkled over the top immediately before baking.

Banana Delish - This is especially amazing with icecream and served hot. Pulverise 3/4 cup dried banana chips before you start and add when you add flour. Reduce the sugar by 30g if you don't like it super-sweet.

Peanut Butter - Try warming 3T and drizzling over the hot brownies. It's different and simply amazing once it's cooled.

Rum and Raisin - Add 1tsp rum flavour or 2T dark rum to the mix and sprinkle 1/2 cup raisins before baking. Or you could soak the raisins in rum if you think ahead, but I suck at that.

Mixed nuts - add whatever you like with nuts. Salted nuts work well believe it or not, but give them a shake first to get the excess off.



My triple choc variation needs a post of it's own so will save those details for later.

Hope you enjoy the brownie goodness. And don't just give this recipe away. Share it, with love.


TL:DR

Nae’s Brownies.

175g Butter

250g sugar

3 eggs

45g Cocoa

0.5 cup adulteration of choice (chocchips, nuts etc)

Melt butter, cocoa and sugar.

Mix in other ingredients

Bake 20 mins 160degrees.