A New Year... A New Direction?

Happy 2013 everyone! Thank you for reading all my other posts in other years. I have a back catalogue to post. Namely, my Afghan recipe and that's about it. We have been cooking and discovering and changing, but I haven't taken any pictures and there's been nothing I can think of at the moment that is in need of a mention. In saying that, I have made gorgeous Chili Chutney, delightful Afghans and the Jerk chicken is marinating. There are plenty of interesting things to update you on.

And this year, with the time and direction we are going in, I feel like I'll be able to get in depth and personal about our food and cooking experiences.

This weekend we have rediscovered our favourite market and I think, with that, an appreciation of the food we cook. I am making sure we  are eating 'Just Real Food.' And as many variations on that as you can expect 2 people to want to eat and enjoy, what I really want to take from that is that I know where my food is coming from.

I have never been a cake-out-of-a-box girl, but even more so now I want to cook from scratch. I want to get the fruit and veg that are in abundance at the market and make my jams and chutneys from real ingredients. Over the last 18months my body has shown me again and again that a "Paleo" diet is what it responds best to. I have lost and maintained the loss of 23kgs and am on the road, with a full 'Paleo' diet and exercise to lose the last 7kgs as well. It has also opened my eyes to a fabulous amount of alternative cooking and baking and I hope to share some of those gems with you. There are some things that prove a weakness still, and i can assure you with the help of the 'Gordon' challenge this year we will be exploring new ground and developing the classics. So join me if you will, take on a new recipe from Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course cookbook each month, one that we choose and let me know how you served/cooked/adapted it.

Let's get cooking everyone! Let's get eating!

xoxo

A belated update... The Afghan biscuits! Deliciously Ugly

A few weeks ago, I’d like to think it was less than that but it wasn’t, I made Afghan biscuits. And then never did the subsequent blog update. Yes that’s right. I decided I needed to be more consistent with the blog, and so I decided to bake. Marty suggested Afghans, I made Afghans, and a month later you have the information. Whoops!

Now I didn’t know about Afghan biscuits until I moved to New Zealand. And not many Australians seem to know them either. The recipe is not wildly available on .au websites, but thank heavens for Edmonds Cookbook! I did a little Googling so that I could impart some pearls of wisdom into the origins of the odd name and the best I could come up with was that it was unclear and unknown. I think if the Australians had invented them we would have had a name with some curious etymology!  Needless to say they are a delicious chocolate biscuit that is low in sugar and isn’t made with any dairy. Their sweetness comes from the addition of chocolate icing or melted chocolate. They are light, with a melt-in-your mouth texture and have cornflakes through them that add body and a little bit of crunch. They are not by any stretch of the imagination pretty, but they are completely addictive and delicious.

In fact, the first time I really got into eating them was when I moved from hospitality into retail and the cafeteria at work sold them. After 4 weeks of eating one per shift, my uniform started to get very firm and I understood the need for moderation. I had to go cold turkey and only sporadically eat these delicious mounds of ugliness. Needless to say, having a box of them at home was a true test of willpower and after one lapse of concentration; I decided I’d have to make them again when I wasn’t going to be around. I inhaled about 4 in one sitting – but in my defence they were quite small. The Edmonds Cookbook recipe says you make approximately 30, but at ‘normal’ size biscuits I only got 20 out. I also did half the batch with traditional chocolate icing – yummo! And the other half with melted chocolate as requested by the Afghan man. I enjoyed the sweetness of the chocolate icing much more than just the melted chocolate. I used good quality Dutch cocoa so the biscuits were a bit bitterer than just using supermarket grade stuff, but Marty likes his choccie bitter and dark so I see why he preferred the melted chocolate.

Regardless, they were a hit and I’ll make them again. I’ve accomplished Anzacs and Afghans this year so now I’m on the hunt for a traditional South African biccie. Ideas? Rusks maybe?

Here’s the recipe – enjoy making them, they are so easy!

What you’ll need:

200g butter – softened

½ Cup sugar

1 ¼ cup flour

¼ cup flour

2 cups Cornflakes

 

Chocolate icing to top

Walnuts to decorate

Makes approx. 20 normal size biscuits

 

What to do:

 

1.       Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

2.       Sift dry ingredients and mix in.

3.       Fold in cornflakes

4.       Spoon out mixture onto baking trays. Shape and make bake at 180deg for about 10-15 minutes.

5.       Once cooled completely, ice them and eat them!

 

Enjoy them.

 

Ciao

xoxo