Tag Archives: jill dupleix

Day 23: Baby Christmas Cakes

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In our house we all love Fruit Cake, especially when it’s homemade with all our favourite dried fruits.  There’s always glace cherries and sultanas, and sometimes dried pineapple and almonds, and at Christmas craisins as well.

Usually I make one big cake but during the year I tried Jill Dupleix’s recipe for Baby Fruit cakes and loved it so much that we decided to make these instead. I’m sure the reason my husband and the boys voted this way was because you can get so much more in one whole baby fruit cake than in a standard slice, without looking greedy!

The key to making your Christmas Cake taste sensational is for everyone in the family (or at least everyone who is at home) to have a turn stirring it. They must stir the love into it to make it taste truly magical.

It works every time!

We made a double batch but I’m still not sure that these will last until Christmas day…they just taste soooooo good! Here’s the recipe, available in Jill Dupleix’s ‘Totally Simple Food’. I hope you’ve asked Santa for a copy if I haven’t already convinced you to go out and buy one with all my posts on Totally Simple Food this year!

Baby Fruit Cakes from Jill Dupleix’s Totally Simple Food

150 g butter
300 g sultanas
300 g currants (I actually used craisins, glace cherries and blanched almonds)
180 g soft brown sugar
1 tsp ground mixed spice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
250 ml water
2 eggs, well beaten
150 g plain flour
150 g self-raising flour

  1. Heat the oven to 180 C/Gas 4. Combine the butter, sultanas, currants, sugar, mixed spice, cinnamon, ginger, bicarbonate of soda and water in a saucepan. Bring to the boil, stirring, then remove from the heat and allow to cool.
  2. Add the eggs and beat well. Sift the two flours together, add to the mixture, and beat thoroughly.
  3. Pour into lightly buttered or oiled muffin tin moulds or muffin tray lined with muffin paper cases. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes our clean.
  4. Allow to cool before removing from the moulds. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Mmm…Lamb

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On Friday my box of organic lamb arrived from Silverwood Organics.  It was well worth the wait!

I had decided a few weeks back when I ordered the lamb that the first thing I would cook would be a rack of lamb. I’d even chosen the recipe - but I decided this one looked a little tricky so I turned to my favourite New Zealand cooking magazine – Cuisine and found a couple of great recipes for lamb that I brought together to make our first Silverwood Organics lamb dinner.

Assyrian Lamb Racks with Pea Salsa (recipe below), crash-hot potatoes (a favourite from Jill Dupleix) and roasted carrots, parsnips, pumpkin and beetroot.

And there’s still so much lamb left. Stay tuned for more creations from the Silverwood Organics lamb pack.

Pea Salsa (published in Cuisine May 2006)

1 tablespoon salt
1 1/2 cups frozen baby peas
1 spring onions, finely sliced
10 fresh mint leaves, finely sliced
1/3 teaspoon wasabi paste
1 dessertspoon olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bring 500ml water to the boil with the salt and blanch the peas. Refresh in iced water then puree lightly so that there is still plenty of texture. Stir in the spring onion, mint, wasabi and oil and then season to taste.

Form into quenelles (ovals) using 2 dessertspoons, making 2-3 per serving.

Pink Ribbon Lunch

Posted in Cocktails, Cooking, Entertaining by

Every year in October I host a function for a small group of friends to raise money for breast cancer. In the past I have had breakfasts and morning teas and this year I held a lunch. It was such a lovely day - a group of gorgeous girls, a glass or two of bubbles and some yummy food…and we raised $240. 

We kicked off the morning with a glass of gelati champagne – a brilliant idea from the wonderful Jill Dupleix. Add a teaspoon of your favourite gelati (we had berry) then top carefully with champagne.  Yum!

And, for the non-drinkers – Pom-Ade, a refreshing pomegranate drink with lemonade and soda.

For starters I served a melon, proscuitto and bocconcini salad from the new Women’s Weekly 12 Days of Christmas cook book.

For main I served a Rocket Quiche and Peppery Lemon Chicken (both from the WW 12 Days of Christmas cookbook), Spinach Salad with Bosc Pears, Cranberries, Red Onion and Toasted Hazelnuts and Daikon Salad (a recipe from my sister that I think may be from Jill Dupleix).

Rocket Quiche

Peppery Lemon Chicken

Spinach Salad

Daikon Salad

And then for dessert, an idea I got from the new magazine, The Outdoor Room – brownies with berries and cream.  I used the Brownie recipe from Epicurious.

What a wonderful day – I wish I could do that every Friday.  Thank you to my gorgeous friends for your generous donations.

Korean Beef in Lettuce

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I have a new favourite meal from Totally Simple Food!

Korean Beef in Lettuce. The marinade is amazing and smells so good I was tempted to eat the meat before it was even cooked. It was so tender and just melted in my mouth. Thank you again Jill Dupleix!

I served it with another recipe from Jill Dupleix - Sesame Mangetout (snow peas).

Here’s the recipe for the Korean Beef…in case I haven’t yet convinced you to go out and buy Totally Simple Food.

Korean Beef in Lettuce

2 sirloin steaks, 2.5 cm thick (250g each)
8 soft lettuce leaves (I used oak)
200g jasmine rice
1 tbsp sesame seeds (I remembered to sprinkle mine on after I took the photo!)

Marinade:
2 spring onions
2 garlic cloves, crushed
5cm knob of fresh root ginger, grated
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp rice wine 0r dry sherry
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce or chilli bean sauce
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp sugar

Soy chilli sauce:
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce or chilli bean sauce

Slice the beef thinly, against the grain. For the marinade, finely slice the spring onions and mix with the other ingredients; stir to dissolve the sugar. Add the beef, turn to coat and marinate for an hour or so.

Wash and dry the lettuce leaves; chill. For the soy chilli sauce, mix the sauces together in a bowl and set aside. Cook the jasmine rice until tender; keep warm.

Heat a heavy fry pan. When hot, sear the beef over high heat for 1 to 2 minutes, leaving it still pink in the middle. Scatter with sesame seeds and serve on warm plates with hot rice and chilled lettuce.

Spoon a little jasmine rice onto a lettuce leaf, add a slice or two of spicy beef and a little soy chilli sauce, wrap the lettuce leaf around the filling and eat in the hands.

Mini Bundt Cakes

Posted in Cooking, Jill Dupleix by

 

I simply couldn’t resist buying this mini bundt cake pan when I saw it on the weekend. I have a full sized version that I use all the time.

Today I tested it out with Jill Dupleix’s Chocolate Cup Cake recipe, from Totally Simple Food. I was a little nervous that the cakes would stick to the gorgeous detail in the base of each pan. I sprayed the pans with a little oil before using my Pancake Pen to fill them with the cake batter.

The end result was delicious and quite cute.

Little Fruit Cakes

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My family loves fruit cake. I always make one at Christmas, and then once or twice during the year. I have one recipe that I use every time – it’s delicious and always works out perfectly. But – I found a recipe in ‘Totally Simple Food’ for Little Fruit Cakes, so thought I’d try it out. They are basically mini fruit cakes cooked in a muffin pan. The recipe is sooooo simple and they taste very good.

The recipe calls for sultanas and raisins but I used what I had on hand: sultanas, craisins, dried apricots, glace cherries and goji berries.

Delicious!

A Spanish Cafe Salad

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I think we’ve all established that I love Jill Dupleix. Today’s lunch just deepened that love a little more. A Spanish Cafe Salad from ‘Totally Simple Food’ (of course!). I followed the recipe to a tee…particularly the opening comment where Ms Dupleix explains that it is extremely flexible – ‘…make it your own’. So I dropped the asparagus and tomato and added some feta and grilled flat bread. Not sure that it is still Spanish but it was delicious.

Spanish Cafe Salad
From Totally Simple Food by Jill Dupleix

150g fine green beans, trimmed
250g asparagus, trimmed
Salt
2 tomatoes
1/2 cucumber
200g mixed salad leaves
8 small artichoke hearts, preserved in oil
2 tbsp olives
12 thin slices serrano ham

Dressing:
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Cook the green beans and asparagus in simmering salted water for 4 minutes. Drain and cool under cold running water, then drain again.

Cut the tomatoes into quarters, or eighths if large. Peel the cucumber, halve lengthwise and slice finely.

To make the dressing, whisk the ingredients together in a large bowl. Toss the leaves, green beans and asparagus in the dressing and arrange on four dinner plates. Toss the tomatoes, cucumber, artichoke hearts and olives in any remaining dressing and scatter them freely over the leaves.

Using a fork, pull a few of the buried leaves to the surface. Drape the slices of serrano ham on top of the salad and serve.

The End of the Week of Totally Simple Food

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Well, for one week every dinner cooked at home was from Jill Dupleix’s ‘Totally Simple Food’.

We ate:

Caramel Salmon and Lime

Spicy Pork Noodles

Spanish Meatballs with Baked Feta Bread

Goats Cheese Cannelloni with Fattoush

Paper Bag Veges

Plus Peppered Steak with Drunken Potatoes and Spanish Cafe Salad and for breakfast one day – Banana Bread.

If you don’t already have ‘Totally Simple Food’ you have to go out and buy it. All of the meals were absolutely delicious. The Spanish Meatballs were particularly nice as left overs when the flavour really had time to develop.

It was great fun and certainly no chore to be tied to ‘Totally Simple Food’ recipes for one week. In fact – I’ve planned my menu for this next week to include dinner each night once again from ‘Totally Simple Food’.

It’s very hard to pick a favourite from all of these delicious meals, but if I had to I would pick Caramel Salmon and Lime. I think the gorgeous salmon my lovely friend Nan picked up from the Brisbane Farmers Markets on Wednesday helped to make this meal absolutely perfect.  Thanks Nan…and here’s the recipe.

Caramel Salmon and Lime 
From Jill Dupleix’s ‘Totally Simple Food’

4 thick salmon fillets, around 180g each
200g bean sprouts
2tbsp vegetable oil
50g mint leaves
25g coriander leaves
1 spring onion, finely sliced
2tbsp salted peanuts, crushed
1 lime, quartered

Sauce:
100g soft brown sugar
125ml water
1 red chilli, finely sliced
3cm knob of fresh ginger, finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
4tbsp Thai fish sauce
4tbsp lime juice

To make the sauce, dissolve the sugar in the water in a small pan and bring to the boil, stirring. Add the chilli, ginger and garlic, and let it bubble away to reduce (but not boil over) for 4 to 5 minutes until quite syrupy. Remove from the heat, and add the fish sauce and lime juice.

Cut the salmon into bite-sized pieces, about 3cm square, and coat lightly in the caramel sauce.

Pour a jug of boiling water over the bean sprouts, then drain and set aside.

Heat the oil in a non-stick fry pan, and fry the salmon quickly until caramelised, keeping the inside pink.

Combine the salmon, mint, coriander, spring onion and bean sprouts in a bowl and toss well. Arrange on warmed dinner plates, spoon the warm sauce over the top, and scatter with peanuts. Serve with lime quarters and plenty of rice.

The Perfect Julienne

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Wondering how I did this?

With my fabulous new kitchen tool. It looks like a peeler but cuts vegies into the finest julienne.  I love it.

I bought mine at Victoria’s Basement, my favourite kitchenware shop, while I was in Sydney on the weekend. I’ve also seen a similar one at the James Street Cooking School in Brisbane. You simply have to get one. They are fantastic!

Perfect for the julienned cucumber on our Spicy Pork Noodles last night!

Recipe from Jill Dupleix's Totally Simple Food

A Week of ‘Totally Simple Food’

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My sister’s immaculate kitchen bench always has a copy of Jill Dupleix’s ‘Totally Simple Food’ on it. It’s not that she’s forgotten to put it away, but more that it is her recipe bible. It’s been hanging around for months now and recently she delivered a copy of it to me.  Guess what? It’s now my recipe bible too. I don’t cook from it every day but I devour every page as I flick through looking for a new recipe.

So – for this week (as a starter) I am committed to ‘Totally Simple Food’. Every dinner and some breakfasts, lunches and snacks will be made from this book. The ultimate goal is to have tried all 251 recipes in a ‘Julie/Julia Project’ kinda way.  My intention, however, is not to turn this blog into a commentary on this experience. I’m sure the recipe highlights will feature in posts, and ‘What’s for Dinner’ will be dominated by ‘Totally Simple Food’ recipes. So, if you are inspired by what I cook, it might be a good time for you to get your hands on a copy too.

I am so excited about taking on this challenge and particularly looking forward to Caramel Salmon & Lime, Chilli Orange Duck, Sweetcorn Shot Soup and Scallop Stack. In fact the only two recipes in the book that I’m not too sure about are Salt-grilled Sardines and Breadcrumbed Sardines, and really…how bad could they be?

Thank you Sharon for introducing me to the fabulous world of Jill Dupleix!

Wish me luck and join in the fun!