Monday, August 11, 2014

Cornbread Crackers

Cornbread Crackers
Cornbread Crackers

So far, my ‘eat more cornbread’ new year’s resolution is going extremely well. With normal cornbread and cornbread waffles coming into a rotation, I’m averaging about once a month. I was recently laid up with the flu and I made a huge pot of ‘All the Veges’ Soup to help me get better. And given that I was laid up with the flu and didn’t want to do anything, I was happier than I normally am to have a frozen mini-loaf still in the freezer ready to slice and make the most amazing crackers to go with the soup. Variations of Alejandra’s Fruit andNut Crisps and the Choc Hazelnut Crackers from Always Order Dessert are a staple for me now, I make up the loaves based on what I have at the time and freeze them, so if people pop in I just toast them in the oven and in 15 minutes I have an amazing homemade snack.

Making the crackers while I was sick, I had a brainwave…they are essentially just a mini loaf of bread (sometimes I eat one loaf as fresh bread), so I should make a version with cornbread. Cornbread crackers was a thought that stuck in my head like a song that I could ‘taste’ and I knew as soon as I felt up to cooking again, I would be making.

For the cracker flavours, I wanted something smokey and spicy, something to pair with the sweetness of cornbread. I added pickled jalapenos, but not having as many as I’d like, I decided to add capers as well for the extra briney kick. Great decision. For me capers are one of those things that I get obsessive about, go through a few jars in a few weeks and then don’t buy them again for a while. I needed them for the Cuban Chicken and Corn Pie, and haven’t looked back. Add some sunflowers for a textural interest and some semi-dried tomatoes for some not-too-sweet sweetness and you have an amazing cornbread.

Freeze the loaves until completely solid (very important!!), slice as thinly and evenly as possible and re-bake and you have the most amazing crackers. Seriously.

Cornbread Crackers
Cornbread Crackers
Cornbread Crackers
Cornbread Crackers
Cornbread Crackers
Cornbread Crackers
Cornbread Crackers


Cornbread Crackers

2 teaspoon cajun spice mix
1 tsp dried oregano
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 ½ cups buttermilk
1 egg, lightly beaten

½ cup grated parmesan
1 tbsp capers
5 sundried tomatoes (not in oil), finely diced
1 tbsp finely diced pickled jalapenos
¼ cup sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 200C. Grease 3 mini loaf tins

Mix cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, oregano, spice mix and sugar in a bowl.


Combine buttermilk and egg. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in buttermilk mixture. Stir gently to combine, then stir through the cheese, sundried tomatoes, capers and jalapenos, trying to evenly distribute all the add-ins.

Pour into prepared pans and bake for 20- 25 minutes until golden and spring back when touched. Take out of oven and cool in tins for 5 minutes, then cool on a rack until completely cold.

Individually wrap loaves tightly in cling-wrap and freeze overnight.

When ready to make crackers, preheat the oven to 150C

Using your best knife (I find a ham knife works best), slice the frozen loaves into thin slices, as evenly as possible and place on a cooling rack inside a baking tray. Bake for 10-15 minutes until crisp and golden, watching them so they don’t burn.

Take out of the oven and leave to cool. Then serve with your favourite dip (tzatziki and guacamole work particularly well with these flavours) or as part of a cheese platter. Or as dippers in Avocado Soup!

Cornbread Crackers
Cornbread Crackers
Cornbread Crackers
Cornbread Crackers
Cornbread Crackers
Cornbread Crackers

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust



Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust

Lance is one of those rare individuals who does not like meat pies. I blame the horrible, gristle-filled soggy-pastried reheated things that often passed for pies when we were younger. But it’s something he’s carried with him in life and now he doesn’t like pies. He’ll quite happily eat fresh homemade pies with their delicious chunks of meat and flaky buttery pastry if we have dinner at someone elses’ house and that’s what is served, but he still ‘doesn’t like pies’. So I don’t cook pie. Except the other day, I cooked this pie.

So, how do you cook a pie for someone who doesn’t like pie? Step one. Don’t tell them you’re making pie. Step two. Make this pie.

This isn’t a pie in a traditional sense, as the ‘pastry’ contains no flour and isn’t really ‘pastry’ as we know it. So before you start imagining said buttery flaky goodness…stop. Instead, the ‘pastry’ part of this pie is made out of corn puree. When I read this recipe, I knew it was something I wanted to try. I love corn and was so intrigued by how this would turn out, that I made it a few days later. This is from one of my swag of Christmas cookbooks A Taste of Old Cuba, a book chosen to satisfy my obsession with Cuban food which is somewhat hard to indulge out in Perth. The filling is a chicken and tomato base, with flavours rounded out by the briny deliciousness of olives and capers, and the sweetness of prunes. I changed a few things in the making of it, but just barely.

The end result was remarkable. The ‘pastry’ puffs nicely in an almost cake-y way, with the delicious sweetness of corn and a sort of crisp top layer. The flavours of the filling are all perfectly balanced and so entirely comforting.

Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust


 Cuban Chicken Pie

(barely adapted from A Taste of Old Cuba)
4 cups corn kernels, (if using frozen, thaw in a colander and pat dry with paper towel)
8 tbsps butter (plus extra for greasing pie dish)
1 tbsp sugar
3 tsps salt
½ cup hot water
12 pitted prunes, cut into quarters
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1brown onion, diced
3 cups crushed tomatoes
1 tsp pepper
3 cups shredded cooked chicken
½ cup pimento stuffed olives, sliced
1 tbsp capers
4 egg yolks
2 hard boiled eggs, sliced
¼ cup slivered almonds

Puree corn kernels until smooth in a blender or food processor. Melt the butter in a large frypan over medium heat. Add the corn puree, sugar and 1 tsp of the salt. Turn the heat down to low and simmer for 15 minutes or so, until the corn thickens, and pulls away easily from the pan, similar to the way it does when you cook polenta. Set it aside to cool.

Soak the prunes in the hot water for 15 minutes.

In a large pot, heat the oil over medium and cook the onion in the remaining 2 tsps salt until soft and translucent, 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, pepper, chicken, olives and capers and the prunes and their soaking liquid. Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring to combine everything fully. Turn off the heat.

Preheat your oven to 170C. Grease a casserole dish with butter.

Spread just over half of the corn mixture on the bottom of the casserole dish, spreading evenly across the bottom and up the sides. Very gently pour the chicken mixture on top, then lay the boiled egg slices on top. Spread the remaining corn mixture over the top and smooth.

 Bake for 45 minutes, the top should be crisp and brown. Sprinkle the almonds on top and cook for another 5 minutes, or until the almonds are toasted.
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust
Cuban Chicken Pie with Corn Crust

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple

Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple

There’s a restaurant in Perth that sells dessert nachos. Whilst dessert pizzas are a bit of a thing these days, I’d never heard of dessert nachos before. Whilst I haven’t had them, the description was unsalted tortilla chips with fruit sauces (strawberry and mango if I recall correctly) that are designed to look like salsa and cheese. It sounds delicious, and it sounds like something I’ll definitely be wanting to try at some point BUT it got me to thinking – why plain tortilla chips? Why not flavoured? That could be a thing, yeah?

I decided upon trying my hand at chocolate tortillas. And then I decided I wanted to make dessert tacos, instead of nachos. If I’m making the tortillas fresh, I might as well eat them fresh, too, right? We don’t often eat dessert in my house. Occasionally there’ll be a bowl of ice cream, but more often than not if there’s sweets after dinner it’s just some squares of chocolate or something snacky like that. I just can’t be bothered making dessert for two of us, especially on weeknights. So the obvious next choice for dessert tacos was as a lovely breakfast or brunch spread. You surely all know by now that I love breakfast!

The fillings for the tacos were mainly based on things I had in the house already and things that work for breakfast. The combination of which would feel decadent, but not super rich. I wanted it to be basically a healthy breakfast. Knowing that I had two different types of homemade caramel sauce ready to go in the fridge (the caramel sauce from my pavlova and a homemade dulce de leche) the other accompaniments had to have minimal sweetness. Even the tortillas themselves had minimal sugar to keep them fairly neutral (but chocolatey!). Add Philly cream cheese for dairy, peanut butter, fresh banana, toasted walnuts, cacao nibs and a spiced apple mix and it made a pretty awesome DIY taco bar. My favourite combination was cream cheese, dulche de leche, spiced apple and walnuts. Feel free to add whatever other fillings you have on hand. Strawberries or blueberries would be amazing. Nutella to ramp up the chocolate factor. Cream and Ice Cream if you want to forego the illusion of healthy.

This makes a lot more tortillas than 2 people need for brunch. But the leftovers make amazing chocolate tortilla chips. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar!
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple

Chocolate Tortillas

3 cups masa harina
¾ tsp salt
¼ cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
2 1/3 cups warm water

Whisk together the masa, salt, sugar and cocoa powder until completely combined. Add the warm water, starting with the two cups and knead until it becomes a smooth, slightly tacky ball. Set aside to rest for 10 minutes.

Heat a pan to medium high heat

Grab two bits of baking paper about the size of a tray. Pick up golf ball size pieces of dough, roll into balls, then place between the two bits of paper and roll out with a rolling pin into a tortilla.

Gently peel the tortilla off the paper and place in the hot pan. Flip after 30 seconds, cook for 45 seconds (it will puff up), flip and cook for another 30 seconds. Set in a shallow flat bowl (or plate) lined with a clean kitchen towel and cover to keep warm.

Repeat for the remaining tortillas.

Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple


Spiced Apple

3 pink lady apples, finely diced
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Juice half orange
1 tbsp maple syrup

Stir the orange juice, maple syrup, vanilla and spices together in a small saucepan. Add the apple pieces and stir to coat. Place over low heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the apple has softened, but still holds it’s shape

Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced AppleBrunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple
Brunch Stars - Chocolate Taco Bar featuring Chocolate Tortillas and Spiced Apple