Food and Recipes: April 2020 Archives

Cashew Slice

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The other weekend I was going through my recipe folder while David was doing the jigsaw, and came across the recipe for Mum's peanut slice.  Peanut slice was her signature dish - what she'd take if someone said bring a plate.  She would make it when there was going to be a roast for dinner.  David and I would fight over the icing saucepan.  Ok we didn't fight.  One would make a line down the middle and the other would choose which half to take.  Dad would take the slice to work in Tupperware square rounds to snack on.  David would eat them straight out of the freezer, still frozen.  

So David said I should make it.  And I said, well except for the fact that there's no peanuts in the house.  We have cashews though.

So I made one.  With cashews.

:)

So 250g butter, melted (leave the saucepan alone when done - make the icing in it later).  2 cups self-raising flour, 1 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup coconut, 1 cup peanuts.  Mix all the dry ingredients, then mix in the melted butter.

Cashew slice

Bake for 25 minutes.

Cashew slice

Ice with 1 cup lemon icing - which is icing sugar and lemon juice - and only a teeny amount of lemon juice - you need less than you think.  1 cup was very thin though, possibly this pan is bigger than Mum's.  I should use a bit more icing if I were to make it again.

Cashew slice

It was a bit crumbly though.  Possibly I need to reduce the cooking time a little if the pan is bigger and therefor the mix is thinner.  Or possibly be a little stingy on the dry ingredients.  

Cashew slice

Still tasted ok though :)

Coq au Vin Redux

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I first posted my Coq au Vin back in 2014, the recipe taken from the Women's Weekly French Classics book.  I've made it a few times since, but I'm not as fussy about following the recipe.

This was my latest version.

A pack of chicken thighs, half a pack of bacon, mushrooms (I only got one punnet because the little brother doesn't like mushrooms, weirdo), onion (I used one onion chopped up, rather than a bunch of shallot style onions), garlic (several cloves, you can never have too much garlic), thyme (a bunch from the stuff I have growing on the kitchen window sill), rosemary (a bunch growing on a plant we have outside), bay leaves, tomato paste (this stuff is like gold right now! I used a sachet here but would normally use a single punnet), chicken stock (from powder because we didn't have any in a carton) and wine (probably half a bottle).

Coq au vin

I also didn't cook things in the same order.

For this one I started with the bacon

Coq au vin

Then the onions and garlic

Coq au vin

Then the mushrooms

Coq au vin

Then the chicken (coated in flour before frying)

Coq au vin

Everything gets chucked into the pot ..

Coq au vin

..to simmer for like half an hour or so. Ok so it looks disgusting, but it's oh so good!

Coq au vin

Serve with rice and frozen veggies (if you can get them during your favourite virus pandemic)

Coq au vin

I left the mushrooms whole so David could pick them out if he wanted to, but he actually ate them, go figure ;)

Kazza's "Boring Life Of a Geek" aka BLOG

IT geek, originally from Sydney, moved to Canberra in 2007. Married to "the sweetie", aka Stu. Prolific photographer, Lego junkie and tropical fish keeper.

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