1 tablespoon soluble chocolate powder
1 cup hot milk
1 tablespoon honey to sweeten (only if necessary)

Method

1. Heat all ingredients in a saucepan till almost at the boil or in a microwave for 40 seconds
2. Stir well and pour into a heatproof mug
3. Stir in a teaspoon of cinnamon or cardamom for a  spicy touch.

Its time to try plum sauce. You can use plum sauce instead of tomato sauce as an accompaniment to savoury dishes, such as macaroni cheese, barbecued sausages.

This recipe is from the Aunt Daisy Cookery Book No 5 (published around 1943).  The amounts have been converted from pound and ounces to grams and kilograms and this recipe is based on 1 kg plums instead of the 6lbs Aunt Daisy quoted (6 lbs equates to just under 3 kg).

In Aunt Daisy’s day when there were few refrigerators and no domestic freezers, women made their preserves in large quantities i and there was enough to last until the next season.  Today we tend to make smaller quantities more frequently.  And we can freeze excess quantities of raw fruit in the summer to make up into jam, pickles, sauces etc during the year.

Ingredients

1 kg red plums
1 ½ cups vinegar
½ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper (or ½ teaspoon paprika)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed (or 1 teaspoon ready crushed garlic)

Method

1. Put all the ingredients into a large saucepan so the pan is less than half full.
2. Bring to the boil and boil steadily for 2 hours
3. Strain through a sieve and pour into hot sterilised bottles.
4. Close the bottles with a cork or screw cap.

Ingredients

1.5 kg plums
1.5kg sugar
1 ¼ cups water

Method

1. Put plums and sugar into a large heavy-based saucepan
2. Bring to the boil and simmer until skins are tender (½ – ¾ hour)
3. Remove stones with a slotted spoon (the stones will have risen to the top)
4. Add sugar and stir well
5. Bring the boil again and boil quickly 10 15 minutes
6. After 10 minutes test for setting by putting a spoonful on to a small dish and put it on an open windowsill or in the fridge for up to one minute.  If the jam forms a skin and wrinkles, it is set. Repeat until skin forms
7. Remove from heat, skim off any excess foam and pour into hot sterilized jars
8. Cover with cellophane jam jar covers or aluminium foil (kept in place with rubber bands) or self sealing lids.

Makes about 10 375gm jars

Lemons, limes and grapefruit are more acid but oranges and tangerines are sweeter.  Which citrus you use depends on your own taste. You can mix the fruit according to what flavour you want.  This recipe uses New Zealand grapefruit and makes a medium thick marmalade.  You can use a lemon instead of half a grapefruit if you wish. This will give you a more tangy result.

Ingredients

1.5kg grapefruit
2.5 litres water
1.5 kg sugar

Method

1. Clean the fruit well and peel the rind
2. Remove the pith (the white floury layer under the skin) if it is very thick as this is very bitter and does nothing for the flavour of the finished product)
3. Cut into quarters and put into a liquidizer with the rind.
4. Pulse the liquidiser until the fruit has been cut into small pieces.  Don’t leave it on too long because you don’t want a mush.
5. Put the cut up fruit into a large heavy-based saucepan with the water.
6. Bring to the boil and simmer for 1 ½ – 2 hours
7. Skim off any pips and large shreds
8. Add sugar and boil until setting point is reached (½ – ¾ hour). Test for setting by putting a spoonful on to a small dish and put it on an open windowsill or in the fridge for up to one minute.  If the jam forms a skin and wrinkles, it is set. Repeat until skin forms
9. Skim off any excess foam and pour into hot sterilized jars
10. Cover with cellophane jar covers or aluminium foil (kept in pace with rubber bands) or self sealing lids.

Makes 12-14 375gm jars

Note: Its best to have the saucepan no more than half full when the sugar is added to avoid a boil over and big mess to clean up.  If you don’t have a really large saucepan, use smaller quantities in the biggest saucepan you can get your hands on.

Ingredients

3 large lemons
½ cup sugar
100mls boiling water
600 mls cold water
ice cubes

Method

1. Dissolve the sugar in boiling water
2. Pour into a serving jug and add the cold water
3. Squeeze the lemons and pour the juice into the jug
4. Pour into long glasses and drink on a warm evening.

To serve, add ice cubes and garnish with thin slices of cucumber or a sprig mint leaves or nasturtium flowers.

Peter has responded with the following:

You can have two reasons for marinating.
1. up the taste sensation
2. tenderise the meat
- or both, I guess.

The taste one I’ll skip here. But for tenderising, nothing beats kiwifruit puré. The enzymes in the fruit will tenderise the meat without affecting its taste. There is even scientific research to prove it. And if you already knew that some fruits can tenderise meat, you should also note that kiwifruit will not “overdo it” compared to papaya, for example, which makes the meat squashy.

In the uni test (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), they bagged the meat and kiwi up for 48 hours. Overnight does it for me.

Jo suggests that for adding flavour to venison, you can’t go past this simple marinade

1. Mix ½ cup red wine, 1 tablespoon red wine or cider vinegar and 1 tablespoon cooking oil.
2. Cover the meat with the marinade and leave for at least 4 hours to allow the flavour to penetrate the meat.

Venison needs longer marinating time than beef steaks as the texture of venison is much finer than beef.

Another popular marinade for venison is to mix the juice of one orange with 1 tablespon crushed garlic and 1 tablespoon oil and spread this over the venison.

The main thing to remember with marinades is that there are three components:

Acid - usually vinegar or lemon juice

Oil – a good cooking oil that doesn’t have too much of its own flavour ( unless you want that particular flavour).  Olive and peanut oils are ones to avoid for this reason.

Seasonings - herbs, wine, spices

You can play around with different combinations to find ones that work for you and that you enjoy.

You will need approximately 1 cup of liquid to ½ kg meat.

Other useful tips include:

1. Use plastic or glass containers for marinating meat as  metal can react with the acids and spoil the flavour.
2. Use shallow containers to allow the marinade to cover as much of the surface of the meat as possible.
3. Turn the meat every 30 minutes to make sure all the meat is evenly marinated.

Sandwiches made with these pickles make for a tasty lunch to take to school, to work or for a picnic.

You can use any cucumbers for this pickle, even the ones that you usually have to skin before you eat them.

Ingredients

2-3 medium sized cucumbers
2 red onions
2 tablespoons salt
2 cups brown sugar
1 teaspoon cumin seeds (whole or ground)
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 cups white vinegar

Method

1. Slice the cucumbers and onions thinly into a large bowl
2. Add salt, cover with cold water
3. Stir to mix and leave to soak overnight
4. Prepare up to 10 x 250gm jars with self sealing lids by heating them in very hot water or in the oven at 150°C for 15 minutes.  Keep them hot until you are ready to start filling them so they don’t break when you pour hot pickles into the jars.
5. Put spices, sugar and vinegar in a large saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
6. Drain the cucumbers and onions, add to the saucepan and heat till the liquid boils again.  
7. Pour the hot cucumber mixture into the jars to within 1 cm of the top of the jar and screw the lid on firmly.
8. Stand the jars on a folded teatowel or wooden board in a place out of draughts until cool
9. Label the jars with a permanent marker or sticky label
10. Wipe down the outside of the jars and store in a cool dark cupboard.
11. Store opened jars in the refrigerator.

Makes 8-10 jars

Notes

1. You can also use slices of pickled cucumber on crackers as a pre-dinner appetizer.
2. If you are using jars that have had other food stored in them, make sure you wash them thoroughly to remove any traces of smell of the previous contents.
3. Work away from open windows when filling the jars as draughts can cause the jars to crack.
4. If it’s a hot day and you want to open the windows after you have filled the jars, cover them with newspaper or teatowels.
5. As the jars cool you will hear a click when they seal. If any jars don’t click, use them first as the contents won’t keep as well.

And the salads made with these lettuces comprised the lettuce cut into thin strips and put into a salad bowl?

The ‘salad’ was then decorated with slices of hard boiled egg and slices of tomato and served with a dressing made from a can of sweetened condensed milk and vinegar.

Mayonnaise was considered far too expensive and was a real luxury in our home, mainly I think because eggs were seasonal (only available when the hens were laying) and often expensive.

And if the mayonnaise was made too quickly and the eggs and oil separated out instead of being smooth and creamy it was considered a waste.

The key to success with mayonnaise is to add the oil to the egg mixture very, very slowly and mix well all the time you are adding the oil..

Ingredients

2 egg yolks
1 cup of cooking or salad oil (Sunflower or canola oil works best)
1 teaspoon of dijon mustard

Method

1. Combine egg yolks and mustard in a bowl using a whisk or egg beater.
2. Very slowly, add a small amount of the oil to the mixture in the bowl.
3. Rapidly whisk the oil into the yolk/mustard mixture until the oil is completely incorporated.
4. At this time, start to add the remaining oil to the egg mixture in the bowl, whisking rapidly.
5. Add a little salt to taste and store in a glass jar in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Ingredients

3 cups soft breadcrumbs
1 onion
1 tablespoon fresh thyme (or 1 teaspoon dried thyme)
1 tablespoon fresh sage  (or 1 teaspoon dried sage)
50 gms butter or margarine
½ teaspoon salt

Method

1. Finely chop the onion
2. Melt the butter or margarine
3. Put the breadcrumbs into a mixing bowl
4. Add all the other ingredients and mix together.

Note:

1. This amount will fill the cavity of a chicken.
2. For a turkey you will need to multiply the ingredients by 3 (so you’ll have 9 cups breadcrumbs, 3 onions, 3 x the herbs, 150 gms butter or margarine and 1½ teaspoons salt). 

Variations

Apricot stuffing – add ½ cup dried apricots to the basic mixture

Cranberry and rosemary stuffing – add ½ cup dried cranberries and 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary or 1 tablespoon dried rosemary to the basic mixture

You can also use 200 gms sausagemeat to replace 3 cups of breadcrumbs to fill a turkey cavity

It is also easy to put together a cheese platter for the final dinner course instead of a dessert. You can serve the platter alone or with coffee or port.

Use the largest plate you have, a large dinner plate is fine if you don’t have a platter.

The basis of a cheese platter is a selection of cheeses and some savoury biscuits.  I suggest try three different cheeses, such as a Camembert, a soft blue cheese and maybe a piece of gouda or a special cheddar.

Choose biscuits that don’t have too many competing flavours so the cheese can stand out.  Traditional water biscuits or whole wheat biscuits work really well. If you are catering for someone who eats gluten free, the rice crackers will do the trick.  It looks nice to have two different sorts of biscuits on the platter.

Place the cheese and biscuits on the platter in an attractive way.

If you are serving a cheese platter to guests who are standing with a drink, make it easier for them to manage by cutting the cheeses into bite size pieces.  The camembert can be cut into 8 -10 wedges and the other cheeses into slices or cubes.

When serving in place of a dessert, a cheese platter looks stunning if you leave the cheeses in one piece and provide a small knife for guests to cut the cheese themselves.

You can dress up the platter with grapes, mandarin segments, sliced tomato or a herb garnish such as parsley.

Pesto and hummus also work well on a large platter to provide variety and colour.

Three cheeses (100-150 gm each) and 1 packet of biscuits will serve 6-8 people.