Christmas recipes

Here is one of the new christmas cookie recipes I tried this year. They were super yummy and I definitely will be making them again, perhaps soon. There was a request for the recipe, so here it is. It is from the Woman's Weekly "Christmas" book.

Sticky Date and Orange Cookies

makes 30

• 1 cup seedless dates (roughly chopped)
• 2 tablespoons golden syrup
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
• 1 teaspoon orange zest
• 1 3/4 cups plain flour
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 100 grams butter (roughly chopped)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup icing sugar (sifted)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper. In a small saucepan, combine the dates, golden syrup and water and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the bicarbonate soda and orange rind. Leave to cool for 5 minutes and then process the mixture until almost smooth. Leave to cool. Add the flour, sugar, butter and egg to the processor and and process until the ingredients come together. Refridgerate for 30 minutes. 

Roll heaped teaspoon of the mixture into balls and flatten slightly. Place about 3 cm apart on the baking trays and bake for 15 minutes. Cool on the trays. Toss in icing sugar.

Apparently you can store these cookies in an airtight container for up to four weeks. I wouldn't know, as our cookies had no chance of lasting that long.



Here is another one of our Christmas must-have recipes. Just like the rum balls, this recipe was made by my mother for Christmas, when I was a child. About eight years ago I went digging through her old recipe drawer and found the recipe I remembered so well. I have been making it for our family Christmas's ever since.

Cherry ripe slice

makes about 24 squares

• 250 grams white chocolate (chopped)
• 1 cup glace cherries ( chopped)
• 1 x 400 gram can condensed milk
• 2 cups dessicated coconut
• 200 grams dark chocolate (chopped)
• 30 grams copha

Grease a foil lined 18 x 28 cm slice tin. In the top of a double saucepan, melt the white chocolate, stirring until smooth. Remove from the heat and stir in the cherries, condensed milk and coconut until well combined. Spread the mixture evenly into the tin and set aside. Put the dark chocolate and copha in a small saucepan. Stir over a gentle heat until until melted and well combined. Spread evenly over the top of the cherry mixture. Chill overnight. Cut into 5 cm squares to serve.

I'm grateful for...

Today I am grateful for my ability to cook and also so for my great love of cooking.

During the week, I was chatting to a friend who told me that she can't cook. Of course she can get by, she has a small family to feed. But while I spent my formidable, teenage years, learning the basics in home economic class, her teenage years were spent globetrotting around the world with other goals in mind. Homemaking, as it was taught in my country high school, was far from her mind. Until this conversation, I think I took this life skill for granted, doesn't everybody know how to cook?

Far from the school kitchens, my Mother and my Nana were, and still are, my greatest influences in how and why I cook.

Apparently, my Mum couldn't cook either, when she was first married, but with the help of the Women's Weekly Cookbooks, she soon learned. I grew up during the dinner party era. Dinner parties were hosted and exciting, new recipes were tried. As for me, I am a recipe addict and rarely cook anything twice. My Nana would call herself a good plain cook. And that's what she was. Perhaps she tried new dishes in her early cooking life, but when I knew her, as a grandmother, she had only a small and simple repertoire of recipes. We wouldn't have had it any other way. She taught me how food and cooking nurtures a family.

And in my husband's words, "food is love", Yes indeed, it is.

Go over to 'maxabella loves' for more gratitude posts.

Assembling

It seems as if I am doing more assembling then cooking around here lately. Here's a few couple of easy recipes I thought I should share.



Roasted tomato salsa

(makes about 1 1/2 cups)

• 5 large tomatoes (chopped in to wedges)
• 1/2 red onion (finely diced)
• 3 tables. herbs (basil, parsley, oregano - roughly chopped)
• 2 tables. balsamic vinegar
• 1 tables. extra virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

• olive oil for roasting.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. On a large tray, lay out the tomatoes in a single layer, drizzle with oil. Roast for about 45 minutes. Chop finely and mix with the other ingredients.

Easy peasy. I whipped this up last night when our chicken schnitzel dinner, seemed way to boring.



Italian sausage stew

serves 6

• 12 Italian sausages (prick with a fork)
• 1 large red onion (sliced)
• 2 cloves garlic (crushed)
• 2 large or 3 small red capsicum (sliced)
• 4 sun-dried tomatoes (sliced)
• 1 x 400g tin diced tomatoes
• 1 tables. tomato paste
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• salt and pepper to taste

to serve
• soft polenta
• a handful of parsley (finely chopped)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Put all of the ingredients, except the sausages, in a large shallow baking dish and mix well. Lay the sausages over the top and bake in the oven for 1 1/2 hours. Turn the sausages once, halfway through cooking. Sprinkle with parsley and serve immediately with soft polenta.

What did I tell you - so simple. I have made this a couple times over the last few weeks. Mainly because the first time I cooked it, I mixed together the best bits of 3 recipes, I think this is just right now. For my taste anyway. About the sausages, you may need more or less depending on the size of your sausages. I use Italian sausages with fennel seeds, but the kids find them too spicy so last time I just used good quality beef sausages and it still was super yummy.