this For later use

Tonight we are serving . Just imagine, if we could make a wish and find ourselves all around the same dinner table.  Wouldn’t that be fun????

All of us bringing our favorite dish,  what a feast that would be.  All those delicious, different cuisines on one table. Maybe a recipe passed down through your family for generations or a new recipe you have just discovered.   My taste buds are already doing a dance. So ladies and gents I am going to start this dinner with one of my favorite dishes. What are you going to bring??? I do hope that you will all join us at the dinner table

Chicken Liver Pate – starters

Ingredients:

450gm/1 pound Chicken Livers.
4 Chestnut Mushrooms finely chopped.
220gm/8oz Butter.
2/3 cloves garlic finely chopped.
2/3 shallots finely chopped or small brown onion.
1 tbsp Brandy.
1tsp Mustard Powder.
Salt and freshly ground pepper.
1 bay leaf and 3 cranberries for decoration.

Method

Melt 4oz of butter in a pan add chopped onions and cook until soft but not colored.
Add mushrooms about halfway through cooking.
Add garlic and chicken Livers and fry until cooked through.
Add Brandy, my hands wobbled at this stage and I deviated slightly from the said recipe, I add 2 spoons.
Season well with salt and freshly ground pepper.
Place Liver mix and 2oz of remaining butter in the food processor and blend until smooth.
Taste and season again with salt and freshly ground pepper.
Prepared, tried, and tested by: Carol Taylor

Family Famous Chicken Pie – main course

Ingredients:

2 whole chickens – cut up into smaller pieces
1 onion – chopped
VOO – Virgin olive oil
2 heaped dessert spoons full of crushed garlic
Salt – to taste
Chicken spice – to taste
Rosemary – to taste
Basil – to taste
10 cloves
2 cups of boiling water
Box puff pastry / or filo pastry
1 egg
Milk

Method

Fry onions in VOO till golden and translucent, add garlic, and fry another minute or two.
Spoon mixture out on a plate and set aside
Add extra VOO in a large pot, add chicken, stir and fry till you have all the pieces a golden color.
Add all spices, to taste and also the cloves.
Add water, and bring to a rolling boil and then cook for ±1 hour till meat is soft and tender and falls off the bone. Be careful, do not overcook it.
Now we usually let this just sit overnight, in the pot as it will still have enough heat and cook a bit more.
The next morning, heat it just enough in order for you to not burn your fingers, and it’s easy to handle and debone thoroughly.
Shred the meat and leave it in the juice.
Prepare your baking dish. Spray or butter the bottom. I use filo pastry, much easier than rolling out the puff pastry.
Place one sheet on the countertop, paint it with the egg wash along the edges and a few spots in the middle, and then add another sheet on top.
Continue till you have at least 5 or 6 sheets stacked on top of one another. Take this stack and place it in your dish.
Make sure you have the edges also covered with the pastry.
Now spoon the chicken out onto the pastry. I usually use a slotted spoon to ensure that I do not have a lot of juice, leave it till the end, then you will be able to see if you need to add a tad more, depending on how juicy you like it and it is.
Remember when it’s cold, you will not see as much juice, but when baking and heat you will notice the juice.
Egg wash the pastry sheets at the edges, as you will now add the top layer of filo sheets and they need to stick together.
Now start the process over again with the filo pastry sheets, another 5 or 6 sheets, and lay that over the top of the meat.
Egg wash the edges of the top sheets and bind them to the bottom edges. I usually fold them to ensure that I lock down the meat and juice inside.
Egg wash the entire top.
Bake in the oven at 375F for ± 40-45 minutes, and you have a good golden color and the pie nice and warm.
Source, Prepared, tried, and tested by: Esme Slabs (Husband’s memory from how his grandmother used to make it) and now a family favorite.

BBQ Lamb chops – main course  

We had a BBQ today.
Lamb chops marinated with Jimmy’s Seasoning and chicken breast fillets marinated with Karai spice mix, both basted with butter infused with chili and lime.
Served with potato and baked beans salad
Prepared, tried, and tested by: Preshana Singh

Garlic Snails – starter

Ingredients:

1 medium tin escargot rinsed well. Leave to drain in a colander
8 cloves minced garlic
125 g softened butter
Bunch of chopped parsley
Salt & black pepper

Method:

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.
Add seasoning.
Place 3 snails in each snail cavity cover generously with butter mixture and bake in the oven at 180°C for 15 to 20 mins.
Serve with slices of brown bread to soak up the butter.
Prepared, tried, and tested by:  Gail Haselsteiner

Nandos Style Peri Peri Chicken – main course

Ingredients

2-6 red chilies, depending on your taste how strong you want it.
1 large red pepper
juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp paprika
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp red chili powder
1/2 cup olive oil
5 cloves minced garlic
4 tbsp brown vinegar
1 tbsp oregano.

Method:

Blend all ingredients together, place in a jar.
Wash and cut chickens in half or quarters, you can remove skin if you desire, make 3 slits in each piece, pour over the chicken and coat well let marinade for a couple of hours (4 hours).
Heat oven to 170 C recipe says grill chicken first on a BBQ grill to seal and then place in the oven for 20 mins.
I put it straight into the oven.
Turn halfway during cooking, keep basting with sauce.
After 25 mins turn down the oven to 120 C and cook a further 15 to 20 mins, continue basting with sauce.
Serve the reserved sauce with the chicken.
Heat sauce in a pot and add a little hot water, add a bit of cornflour mixed with water to a paste to thicken the sauce.
Keep stirring until the sauce thickens.
Serve with steamed rice, green salad & lemon wedges.
Recipe off the Internet
Prepared, tried, and tested by:   Gail Haselsteiner

Pork with Crispy Crackling – main course

Just score that fat and rub in some salt
Put it in the oven on high for 20/25 minutes to get that skin starting to blister and then turn down to cook until the meat is soft and tender and that crunch is so very crisp and crackly.
Now, who wouldn’t love a piece of that?
Prepared, tried, and tested by: Carol Taylor

Cranberry Sauce to liven up that meat and veggies

Ingredients:

3 cups or 12oz of cranberries
The juice of 2 large Oranges
1 cup sugar
1 stick of cinnamon

Method:

Put all the ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pan, bring to the boil and turn down so it is still a rolling boil and cook for 10 mins if ( using) frozen berries or 20 minutes if using fresh cranberries as they will take a bit longer to pop.
Allow mixture to cool and put in an airtight container and refrigerate.
Prepared, tried, and tested by: Carol Taylor 

Triple Lemony Tartlet

I had a dream, and this is the end result: Hope you will enjoy this one. Please note, that all these ingredients I had available in the kitchen and wanted to use what I had, without going to buy additional ingredients.

Ingredients:

½ box of phyllo pastry sheets
1 roll Butter Puff Pastry
1 Lemon (use juice in the mixture and rind for decorating)
85g box Lemon Jello
1 tin caramel treat
250g cream cheese
3 eggs
few drops of lemon extract
Icing sugar for dusting

Method:

Preheat oven to 350F
Defrost the pastry sheets, but remember to keep the phyllo sheets damp and covered with a damp cloth or they will dry out.
Cut phyllo and Butter Puff Pastry each into 6 squares
Use a 12 well cupcake/muffin tin, spray generously with any baking spray
Line with pastry, and cut off any excess that appears above the edge of the cupcake/muffin tin.
Mix the Lemon jello with ½ cup of boiling water, and add ½ cup cold water, and set aside
Beat with an electric hand mixer, the caramel, cream cheese, eggs, lemon juice, and extract till no lumps are visible.
Once the jello starts to set, add to the above mixture, and beat well.
Use an ½ cup measure and add the filling into each pastry cup.
Bake for ±45 minutes at 350F or till pasty baked through and filling set.
You should have some extra filling.
I microwaved the leftover filling for ±5-6 minutes on high. Beat with a whisk after 2-minute intervals till smooth.
Place mixture in the freezer to set properly and till cold, although not frozen.
Once your baked treat has cooled down to room temperature, use a plastic bag with a large star nozzle, and pipe the cold filling mixture on each treat..
Decorate with grated lemon rind and dust with icing sugar.
Now, all that will remain – prepare a steaming cup of coffee and enjoy your Sunday afternoon treat.
Own creation, prepared, tried, and tested by: Esme Slabs 

Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients:

1 cup of oil ( I use coconut oil)
1½ cups of sugar
1 cup of flour
2/3 cup of good cocoa powder
1 cup walnuts roughly chopped
3 eggs
2 tsp of vanilla essence
½ tsp of baking powder
½ tsp salt

Method:

Mix oil, sugar, and vanilla together then beat in eggs.
Combine all dry ingredients except for walnuts and stir into the mixture.
Add walnuts.
Put batter into prepared baking dish and cook for about 1 hr on 175C / 350F.
N.B. I added a ½tsp of dried chili to my second batch, those who know me also know I just have to.
Next time I am going to add just a few cranberries or blueberries and maybe lose the walnuts and add some ground almonds.
I also depending on what I have use half oil and half-melted butter.
This is probably the best brownie mix I have made as the top is nice and crispy but with a gooey underneath, just how like it or maybe just how this temperamental oven of mine works.
Prepared, tried, and tested by: Carol Taylor 

Refreshing Fruit Salad

For those of you who love something light, we are also serving a lovely refreshing Fruit Salad.

Ingredients

The one I always make is very simple I use
Oranges
Apples
Grapes
Pear
and section and slice them then cover them in simple sugar syrup and add lemon juice to stop the fruit from going brown.
I also add some freshly squeezed orange juice.
If I use a soft fruit like banana, melon, strawberries, peaches, apricots, or kiwi then I put those in about half an hour before I serve the fruit salad.
Otherwise, they can go too mushy and we like ours nice and crisp.
And of course, here I have access to plenty of fresh pineapples, so add that also.
You can use any combination of fruit that you like, just make sure you use lemon juice and cooled sugar syrup to cover the fruit and keep it in the fridge until you are ready to serve.
It can be served quite simply with fresh cream or clotted cream if you can get it.
Ice cream or even custard which hubby likes.
Prepared, tried, and tested by: Carol Taylor