Taking a break

2cooks is taking a short break,in the mean time if you would like to follow Jo please go to
http://www.tablemattersbyjo.blogspot.com/
I would love you to join me!

 2cooks will be back !

Pork Chop Suey- a great family meal

Pork Chop Suey:

Pork chop suey is a great family favourite, or you can serve it up in fancy bowls for guests. Either way it will become a favourite dish. If you like your food spicy you can always add a bit of heat with freshly chopped chillies.

To Prepare:

Allow 25 minutes to prepare and cook – it’s best to chop everything before you start cooking.

We both grew up eating our Mum’s different versions of chop suey and with good reason. It’s versatile, kid friendly and can expand with the addition of more veggies or noodles if you have unexpected mouths to feed. Serve with either soft or crispy noodles or rice. Any leftovers are great served on toast or in a jaffle or baked potato.

500g lean pork mince

Spray oil or 1 tablespoon oil

2 cloves garlic, chopped finely

2cm fresh ginger, grated or 1 teaspoon Garden Gourmet ginger

1 large brown onion, diced

3 sticks celery, sliced

2 carrots, diced

¼ Chinese cabbage (wombok) or ordinary cabbage, shredded

½ cup frozen peas

1 x 227g can water chestnuts, drained

1/3 cup oyster sauce (gluten free if required)

3 tablespoons of soy sauce (gluten free if required)

2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce (gluten free if required)

2 teaspoons cornflour (from corn gluten free if required)

1 cup chicken stock (gluten free if required)

1 handful beanshoots

1 Pkt of Chow Mein noodles (or rice noodles) prepared according to directions on pack or 1 packet Chang's fried noodles or rice

Put a saucepan of water on to boil for noodle preparation according to packet. Combine cornflour, oyster, soy, sweet chilli sauces in a jug, mix until smooth, add stock, stir. Spray a wok or frypan with oil, fry mince, onion and garlic until brown over high heat. Add carrots and celery fry over medium heat until soft. Add cabbage, water chestnuts, peas and stir through the sauces and stock mixture. Add beanshoots. Serve with your choice of rice or noodles or simply sprinkle with packaged fried noodles.

Chilli Garlic Prawns- a real crowd pleaser

Chilli Garlic prawns

These often appear on our snick snack plates, they make great finger food. The trick is to keep a bag of green prawns in the freezer they defrost in no time.

Allow 5 minutes preparation and 5 minutes to cook

1 kg green prawns, peeled

1/4 cup olive oil

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 teaspoons ground peppercorns

1 teaspoon salt

2-3 fresh birdseye chilli's, finely chopped, with or without seeds (much of the heat is in the seeds) – don’t rub your eyes after chopping!

Optional glug of whisky or brandy, say 2 tablespoons

Mix everything but prawns together in a jar. Next choose your cooking method -

if it’s stir-fry pour marinade over prawns and allow to sit for 10 minutes before stir frying on high heat. (Turn on the extractor so you don’t choke on the chilli fumes!) You could add some green veggies to bulk out the dish (maybe broccoli or bok choy), pour on a little more marinate, heat and serve with some steamed rice or noodles.

If it’s Bbq or pan fry – pour sauce over prawns and Bbq over high heat. The prawns will be pink and curl up when they’re done.

If your prawns have their shells on, you can pour the marinade over them and bake in a very hot oven for 5 minutes. This way everyone gets to suck the spicy bits off the outside and shell their own prawns – saving you lots of work! Genius.

They are absolutely delicious!.

Friends for dinner- Table Styling Ideas.

Friends over for dinner, perhaps a backyard dinner .Here is a lovely table styling idea in black and white.

Fabric for the table runner is available from Ikea. The table runner is made of a plastic fabric, so it does not matter what is spilt on it as it wipes off easily. The Fabric was $11 a metre. I purchased 2 metres of fabric ,which is enough for 3 table runners. These runners can be used at a later date and run along each side of a table as place mats. I will show you this styling idea at a later date. There is no waste. The place mats were made from  black and white tea towels. I purchased the tea towels from Wheel and Barrow in Armadale and they cost $4.95 each and one tea towel makes 2 place mats( $15 roughly for 6 place mats). I simply cut them   and hemmed them.

The roses are sitting in old jam jars, that I recycle as they make fantastic vases.  The roses were 2 bunches for $10 ( I used 4 bunches so total cost $20).

The napkins cost $2 for 24 from the $2 shop in Ashburton.

Total cost for table setting was $59 and remember everything can be used again except for the paper napkins and roses.

Remember the comfort of your guests is always important, so I place a cushion for the guest at the back of their seat, as sitting for long periods can make you uncomfortable.

Mood is also, very important so don't forget the candles, they provide both light and atmosphere.

Now pray for good weather and enjoy your evening.

Jo

Melbourne what a beautiful city!

What a beautiful city we live in, Melbourne!.

Last year as Andrea and I commenced on our journey to write and photograph our cookbook we joined the Rotary Club of Monash & Nunawading digital photography course. That meant purchasing a camera each. Andrea and David went out on the hunt and researched what was the best camera for us to purchase. Off we went to Ted's Camera store and purchased a Nikon D90 each. The course was run by Malcolm Brownlee and was absolutely fantastic. I would highly recommend the course  to anyone interested in photography.

One of excursions was into the beautiful city of Melbourne at night to take some photo's. What a fabulous night it turned out to be. We thought we would share some of our photos with you. 





Jo's photo looking back over the city from the Flinder's street bridge.

 



Andrea's photo looking back over St Patrick's Cathedral.

 





Jo's photo of Flinder's street station

Andrea's view of the architectural features of the Windsor Hotel a Melbourne landmark





Go out and discover Melbourne, we have wonderful restaurants, bars, theatre's and lets not
forget the shopping, and of course the food is out of this world.

Some of our favourite places:

Laurent Bakery- City
Brunetti's Cafe - Carlton
Haigh's Chocolates-City
Hopetourn Tea Rooms-City

What are your favourite places in Melbourne?
Jo



The Weet-Bix Challenge

My youngest son Edward requested that I buy more Weet-Bix today. Why? was my reply because we simply cannot run out. I love Weet-Bix Mum and with that it set my mind ticking, how many Weet-Bix does my family eat per week. Edward eats 9 a day, 3 at breakfast, 3 after school and 3 before he goes to sleep. Will has 3 for breakfast and then again at afternoon  tea, that's 6 per day and Chris has about 2 a day, that brings the grand total up to 119 Weet-Bix per week. That to me seems like an extraordinary amount. No wonder I can't keep the cupboards full. Does anyone out there consume that many Weet-Bix?.
Should I be cutting my families supply down or better still I should buy shares in Sanitarium. Costco here I come.

Will has also come home sporting a very swollen nose from school today, lets hope its not broken!.This is one of my "speedy dinner's" on the table in 30 minutes.


Dinner tonight:

Beef Stir fry served with Jasmine rice.

This meal is completely Gluten Free also.

Fillet steak sliced ( as much as you like) this also works equally well with chicken or pork

1 Purple onion

2 Carrots small ,sliced into sticks

1 Bunch baby Broccoli

1 Red Capsicum

1 bunch of Beans

1 bunch of Bok Choy

2 small Zucchini sliced thinly

Olive oil

Sauce:

1/4 cup of Gluten Free Soy

3 tablespoons of Yeo's Satay sauce

Sweet Chili Sauce ( gluten free) a generous splash

To serve:

Steamed Jasmine rice and sprinkle with fried shallots.

Heat the wok til very hot, add a small amount of oil, then add sliced veges starting with 1/2 the onion, then carrot broccoli, beans, capsicum and zucchini. Stir fry til a little golden then remove from pan. Allow pan to get hot again and add the meat and remaining onion and fry til the meat is golden then return the vegetables and add the finely sliced bok choy. Add 1/4 cup of Gluten free soy sauce, a generous splash of sweet chili sauce and  3 tablespoons of  Yeo's gluten free Satay Sauce. Stir through well and the sauce will slightly thicken and serve on steamed Jasmine rice and I always sprinkle over Fried Shallots, ( the packaged ones from the Asian shops, they add a nice crunch). I use a lot of veges as it is the only time my boys will eat them willingly.

Jo

 

Taken on our last visit to the farm in Wagga Wagga

The meaning of random

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Who has a 14 year old with attitude? I do, he keeps referring to everything as “random”. This morning I finally said "Will, what does random mean?" he replied  "Mum remember what happened to Dad at Bondi beach? Well that was random."

We were to attend a family wedding in Sydney and my brother Gerard offered to lend us his beautiful apartment on Bondi beach. Preparations began, I exercised and almost starved myself for 6 weeks prior to the trip to achieve the best body I could. Fake tan was applied, hair coloured, new swimsuit purchased; I was ready to strut the beach. I had delusions of myself running up the beach like Bo Derek in "10" with my husband, Chris, eagerly running along behind!


The first day we went off to the beach, I was done up to the nines; waterproof makeup and all. Chris, my 2 boys and my brother's 5 children as well. The day started beautifully until one of the children got into trouble in the water. I ran to the rescue, but the lifesaver retrieved the child first. Meanwhile I got dumped by waves several times, so much for the fake tan and waterproof makeup. 


I emerged from the water with a huge bump on my head, covered with seaweed and sand to find Chris surrounded by the 7 children and what was a “random” woman (who was topless I might add), in his arms - she had run out of the water and leapt onto him and wrapped her legs around his waist!


Maybe she thought Chris was some sort of fertility God, given that he was surrounded by 7 children! We were all gobsmacked. And we all still laugh about it.


Of course, Chris and my brothers ran along the beach everyday after the event in hope that they might be lucky enough to meet this topless beauty again. It was not to be.


So as Will explained, this is what random means.


Here is a lovely table idea for tonight. 

Domestic Madness & the best tasting Chocolate Cake

Have you ever had one of those days when nothing goes right and domestic madness occurs? Well, I can answer "yes" to that today. My day started at the crack of dawn due to my boys cricket commitments. Up at 6am, bacon sandwiches all round, 3 loads of washing  and ironing by 7am, then off to cricket. There are 2 different cricket grounds of course; home to supervise the homework that was not done yesterday, shopping to do, lunches to be made and its only midday. I thought Sunday was supposed to be a sacred day of rest.

Well this is where I really want to be today. Any one of those boats would make a great getaway vehicle. What do you think?

This is the bay at Sorrento, doesn't it look gorgeous

We're going to share with you not only our successes in the kitchen but also our failures. Today I set out to make a chocolate cake for my boys for Valentine's day tomorrow, the cake turned out perfectly but the icing all melted. It tastes great but sometimes things just don't always turn out the way we hope. Never mind. Perfection is not everything.


The best tasting Chocolate Cake:


This is a recipe my mum used to make for us and I think she got it from the back of a cocoa packet many years ago. It's quick, simple and delicious.


1/4 cup of cocoa
1 cup of water
150grams of butter
1  1/2 cups of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of bicarb of soda
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups of self raising flour ( can use white wings gluten free )
1 teaspoon of instant coffee powder


Method:


Preheat oven to 180c.


In a saucepan place the water, butter, sugar, cocoa, instant coffee powder, and bicarb of soda. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally until you see the mixture start to froth up. Remove from heat and set aside and cool. Whisk the eggs lightly and add to the cooled chocolate mixture, then add sifted self raising flour and mix well. Pour into a greased baking pan( 20cm) and bake for about 50 minutes. Test to see if the cake is cooked by inserting a skewer into the centre of the cake and if it comes out clean the cake is cooked... ice with your favourite icing.



I will let you in on a secret. Andrea is the fabulous photographer in this partnership not me. I am just a beginner.

Excuse my photo today, I'm not at my best  today as I have just rescued the dog from our fountain. She decided it was fun to hunt  for the golfish today.

I used Maltesers on the top of the cake along with 2 chocolate hearts, the boys will have it later with ice cream.

My gorgeous dog Miss Poly is the only one in the James family who behaved herself today or almost behaved. May be she can come away with me on the boat.She is hiding in the grass as the boys are having a very competitive game of cricket in the backyard and she and I get very scared as to where the ball will land. Duck Poly!!!

<>

Playing cricket, Eddie in the red shirt.



The getaway boat fuelled and ready to go!

Jo

I





Country Life

Country Life:

I come from a Farm outside of Wagga Wagga. My boys love to visit Nanny and Pa and work on the farm in the school holidays in fact we all do. This is a snapshot of a day on the farm.

Breakfast is always hearty due to the amount of work that needs to be done and we burn a mighty amount of calories. Our favourite breakfast is bacon, eggs, sautéed mushrooms, thickly cut toast with lashings of butter and homemade jam, washed down with hot tea and the occasional croissant. Yum!

Sautéed Mushrooms

Mushrooms

Garlic

Olive oil

Fresh herbs (such as rosemary, parsley, thyme or whatever you have, I mostly use rosemary and parsley as we always have it on hand)

Lots of ground black pepper and salt to season

Put it all in a hot pan and cook til mushrooms are golden and serve. Great with a steak too.

This is breakfast!

Into the truck and off to work - this is the favourite part of the day for the boys. Rounding up the sheep and putting them in the yards ready for the shearer to do his work. Then off to the shearing sheds to assist our shearer by collecting up all the wool and placing it into the bins for grading. It’s greasy, dirty work, but being boys they love it. It kills my back, working in the shearing sheds and I have had the unfortunate experience of falling into the bin of fresh wool, which left me very smelly and greasy, so I am always happy to escape and prepare the scones for afternoon tea.

Shearing is incredibly hard work. I tried and failed. My husband Chris loves it and cannot believe in his wildest dreams that I come from a farm. I think its those boots with heel's that let me down!

Eddie my youngest tries very hard at pushing up the sheep for Pa to drench. As you can see it is hard work for a little boy, he's having a sit down but not for long if Pa has anything to do with it." Hurry up Eddie no sitting down on the job".

Scones

2 cups of self raising flour (can be made gluten free, I use White Wings gluten free flour)

Pinch salt

60g butter at room temperature

¾ cup milk

Method:

Preheat oven 200C

Sift all dry ingredients together, add butter and rub in with your fingertips.

Add ½ cup of milk and cut into mixture with a knife, add more milk if necessary, knead very lightly for 30 seconds. You can also do this very quickly in a food processor, pulse to crumbs, and then add milk through feed shoot. Remove knead briefly and gently til smooth.

Roll out to 1.5cm thick and using a scone cutter or a glass if you don’t have one, cut and place on a baking tray lined with paper and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Tip, when placing scones on tray place them close together as they help each other rise.

Serve warm with lashings of jam whipped cream and the good old country favourite of piping hot tea.

I love to set the table even for afternoon tea, the shearers love the special treatment.

  

I have a friend who makes her scones with a can of lemonade, do you have a recipe you'd like to share with us? 

I hope you have enjoyed a look at country life.

Jo

Anzac Biscuits

Anzac Biscuits, everybody in my house loves them. Most people have a recipe for them, here's ours.


1 cup of plain flour
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of rolled oats
1 cup of coconut
125g butter
1 tablespoon of golden syrup
2 tablespoons of boiled water
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate soda


Method

Line trays with baking paper then preheat oven to 180C.
Combine all dry ingredients together.
Melt butter and golden syrup, remove from heat, add boiling water and bicarb soda. The mixture will then start to froth. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, stir to combine. If the mixture seems too dry add a little water.
Drop teaspoons of the mixture on a tray lined with baking paper, allow room between each biscuit as they will spread. Bake for approx 10-15 minutes until golden brown.

Allow to cool on tray before removing onto a cooling rack - biscuits will harden as they cool. Great for lunchboxes or afternoon tea.


A great way to present the biscuits for a gift is to wrap in cellophane bags and tie with raffia.
Great as a hostess gift or a thank you, everyone loves to receive homemade biscuits. It is also a great way to present for school fetes. These biscuits never last long at my house with the boys - they eat them straight off the tray.


Jo

Vic Market

I’m just home from the market, I head into the Vic market each week to load up on fresh fruit, veg, meat, fish, deli stuff and flowers. It’s a lovely way to shop and I always enjoy seeing what’s new in season as well as what’s a good buy. It’s also social, I enjoy having a natter with my favourite stallholders as well as keeping up with some of the regular shoppers who keep the same routine as me. And of course you can’t beat the choice and quality of what’s on offer – a supermarket can never do that.

The bit that isn’t so fun is the putting away! Dividing meat into portions, labelling and freezing, cooking up a vat of something… it does take some energy. It’s good in winter though, I love to turn on the food channel, crank up the oven end stay warm while filling the house with beautiful aromas. Summer always makes me impatient to get outside.

Our favourite fish Trumpeter was on offer today. It has a really short season of just a couple of weeks. I’ll cook it simply and serve it with a salad – I need a fast meal tonight as we have to go out.

Chicken was a good price so I bought 2kg - that worked out to be 5 huge breasts. I removed the tenderloins and sliced the breasts through horizontally to make them thinner, then cut them into ‘fingers’. Flour, egg and breadcrumbed and placed the crumbed pieces out flat on a tray to go in the freezer. My girls will love this treat – and I’ll love that I’m ahead for another night.

I cut the remaining 3 fillets open to butterfly them and they’ll do to stirfry, bbq or pan-fry to turn into something like a warm chicken salad. Again I placed them flat into a plastic bag so that when it comes to thawing it will happen quickly. Often when I freeze something like this I also write serving ideas on the label for those mornings when I stand staring at the freezer hoping for inspiration….

I love to try different veggies and there’s always something new at the market. That’s one great aspect of being truly multi-cultural – someone always has something new to share, and they do so willingly. Today I bought chicory, it’s not something I grew up with. The lovely Italian lady suggested I blanch it quickly then toss it in a pan with oil and garlic, salt and pepper; I’m looking forward to trying it. Apparently it has a slightly bitter taste – sounds like it will be perfect with a roast or a steak.

Andrea

Chinese New Year-Create our beautiful table

To create our beautiful table setting we have used simple white china as a backdrop along with the addition of Chinese teacups and spoons. The chopsticks rests are fortune cookies. We've used simple orchids for the table centrepiece which cost $6. The under-cloth is a piece of Hessian (Bunnings - around $3 per metre) over the top we placed a piece of taupe and black striped fabric as a highlight. This fabric was a remnant fabric, a bargain at  60c per piece. The napkins were also made of remnant fabric, again 60c  for the piece, we simply cut the fabric and rolled it  into shape. Very simple, very inexpensive a total cost for the fabric and flowers was $16.20.  


We look forward to sharing more table styling ideas with you. You don't have to pay a lot of money to create the designer look.


Jo.

Clicking

We'd love your support with our blog and hope you'll find lots of bits and pieces to keep you coming back. Our book has had some lovely feedback from publishers however they'd like us to work on getting a profile to assist in the marketing of it. So if you enjoy what you find, please share our link with your friends... the more clicks we have, the closer we'll be to getting "Honest Food" published.

Andrea and Jo

Valentine's Day

I'm not much for Valentine's Day... but Jo just loves it. Do you know she makes lunchbox treats and notes for her boys and the whole shebang dinner. Me, I don't get it. Next Monday night will pass like any other, Pib and I will swear we won't drink a bottle of red - but we will anyway, and dinner will be great but not covered in hearts... Tuesdays and Thursday mornings start VERY early here. Our eldest rows and has to be somewhere by 5.40 - except for tomorrow when it's 5.15....

Anyway, we do have some lovely ideas for Valentine's Day breakfast that you might like to try on Sunday morning when you'll have more time to sit and enjoy a lazy breakfast. That's what we love to do.

 

Sweetcorn Cakes with Bacon and Avocado Serves 2

1 (420g) can corn kernels, drained

1 spring onion, finely sliced

1 egg

3 tablespoons flour, plain or use Gluten Free flour or Rice flour

1 teaspoon sweet chilli sauce

S&P (that’s salt and pepper!)

To serve -

4 rashers bacon (GF if required) cooked crisply

1/2 avocado, sliced

2 tablespoons Ricotta or sour cream

Sweet Chilli Sauce to garnish

Spinach or Rocket leaves drizzled with a 1/2 teaspoon olive olive oil to garnish

Place half the corn, spring onion, sweet chilli, egg and flour into a food processor and blitz for 10 seconds to combine. Remove to a bowl. Add remaining corn. Stir to combine. Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat, spray with oil, place spoonfuls into pan - you’ll need 4 even cakes. Cook until golden underneath and set on top, about 3 minutes, carefully turn over using an eggslide (or Barbie mate!) Cook about 1 minute on the second side. Plate by placing one cake on each plate, place 2 slices of  bacon on each, top with sliced avocado then add another cake. Top with a teaspoon of ricotta or sour cream and garnish with a drizzle of sweet chilli sauce. Place salad greens on plate like the photos above. Clever huh? We'd love to hear what you think.