Friday Night Spare Ribs

Friday nights are easy meal nights at Number 10, which usually means marinated chicken wings and some oven baked chips in front of the TV.

A variation on the theme though is pork spare ribs, which I made last night

The Winter 2009 edition of Donna Hay Magazine had a couple of marinades, but as usual, I play around with what I've got in the fridge and cupboard.

You'll need about 1 kilogram of ribs, depending on how many people you're feeding.

Prepare your marinade about 2 hours before you plan to cook your ribs

In a saucepan place:

1/4 cup whiskey

1/4 cup rum or brandy

1/3 cup soy sauce

good slurp of oyster sauce

1 teaspoon mustard

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 desert spoons honey

Bring the marinade to the boil and let simmer for a couple of minutes to allow it to thicken a little.

Some recipes advise you pre-boil the ribs first. That's a good idea if you plan to do them on the BBQ. You don't want to end up with charcoal on the outside raw ribs on the inside.

Place the ribs in a container and pour the cooled marinade over the top, then cover and refrigerate for at least an hour. Keep an eye on them on the BBQ and brush marinade over them every few minutes as they cook.

If you plan to do them in the oven.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius, place the ribs on a baking rack in a tray lined with foil or non-stick baking paper...cook for about 30 to 45 minutes, brushing with the marinade every 5 minutes or so. That's it.

I served these with oven baked chips...but then, I serve just about everything with oven baked chips

Enjoy!

Egg & Bacon Pie

The first time I made an egg and bacon pie was in the 1970's. I was living at home and Mum and I had a bit of a cook-up.

I've made lots since then...and I made one this afternoon so MONT and I could take it to Number 3 tomorrow for our lunch.

I usually use sheet pastry: a shortcrust sheet on the bottom and a puff pastry sheet on the top.

Here's how I make mine.

Preheat oven to 180deg celsius.

Chop up 3 or 4 rashers of bacon and a few mushrooms and fry them off for a couple of minutes. Then chop up some capsicum and some zucchini and add that to the pan and cook for another minute.

Grease the pie dish and arrange the shortcrust pastry on the bottom, then put in 1 cup of grated cheese.



Take a cup of milk, half a cup of cream and 6 eggs and whisk together. When the bacon and mushroom mix is cooled a little, place it in the pie dish on top of the cheese, then pour the milk and egg mixture over the top.



Place the puff pastry over the top, press the edges together and prick the top of the pie to allow steam to escape.

Then bake for about 35 minutes, until browned on top

There you have it...Egg and Bacon Pie...I especially love eating this cold for lunch.

Banana Cake

I've been making Banana Cakes for so many years I forget when I first started. In fact it's got to a stage now that I do it by "feel" rather than measure and weigh all the ingredients.

So I thought I'd post the original recipe, because that's where I started.

As you can see though, even after all these years, I'm still a bit of a messy cook

So here's the original recipe from the Frankston Lions Ladies Club

4 oz butter
4 oz castor sugar
2 beaten eggs
3 or 4 mashed bananas.
3 oz plain flour
3 oz of SR flour
a large dollop of yogurt
1 teaspoon of bi-carb of soda
2 tablespoons of milk

Cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs and mix, if it curdles a little, don't worry, just add a spoonful of flour and mix it up. Add the mashed bananas and mix, then add the flour to the wet ingredients and fold through. At this stage I also added a half cup of All-Bran that had been mixed with a large dollop of yogurt.

Put the bi-carb soda in a bowl (I use the jug I mashed the bananas in) add the milk and the yogurt and mix. It will look like it's expanding and bubbling a little. Pour it into the cake mix and fold through. The final mix should be reasonably moist but not runny.

Pour it into a greased and lined cake tin, then bake in a preheated 180 degree oven for 35-40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre, comes out clean.

I used a loaf tin this time because MONT was taking it on his fishing trip and it was easier to pack in his gear

It's a beautifully moist and delicious cake which is very forgiving if you want to play around with the ingredients. Over the years I've added chocolate, coffee, walnuts, pecans, sultanas, dried apples, dried apricots and fresh apples but not all at once of course.

...and you can also ice it with a cream cheese frosting, or lemon glaze. Yumm!

Bolognese Sauce

Spaghetti bolognese is a fortnightly dish here at Number 10. MONT's home late on a Tuesday night and it's something I can prepare early and dish it up before I head to bed. I start work very, very early Monday through Wednesday

Anyway, I was watching Fast Ed on Better Homes and Garden's last Friday night and he suggested doing the bolognese sauce in the Slow Cooker. GREAT IDEA!

Firstly in a pot on the stove, chop an onion and fry it off, add mince beef and some mince pork...probably about half a kilo each

Break it up as it cooks, then add four cloves of chopped/minced garlic, fresh and dried herbs, chopped celery, carrot, zucchini and whatever else you like.

Looks good huh?
I then transferred it to the Slow Cooker and added 1 can of diced tomatoes and about 4 tablespoons of tomato paste. I then added Ed's secret ingredient. Well I would've if I'd had any . He suggested a good slurp of Soy Sauce. I was all out, so I added these instead.

Then add 1 cup of red wine and stir it in, then a half a cup of milk and give it a good stir.

I set the cooker on high and let it simmer away for about 4 hours. Then turned it down to low for another 3.

The real taste test will be tomorrow night, but it sure looks and smells good.

Custard Apple Pie

Stacey Snacks has some great recipes to try out. The other day I saw her Custard Apple Pie and thought I'd give it a go...and she was right. It was easy and delicious!

Here's my version. I made a couple of very minor changes.

I used two sheets of short crust pastry, I sprinkled about a teaspoon of sugar on one and laid the other over the top so I'd have more coverage of the pie dish.

Peel and quarter four apples. I used Granny Smith's because we like their tartness. Then slice the quarters into three and lay half of them in the bottom of the pie dish

For the custard, I used half a cup of milk, half a cup of cream, 2 eggs and a slurp of vanilla and whisked them together.

Combine half a cup of sugar and some cinnamon in a bowl.

Sprinkle the first layer of apples with half the sugar mix, then pour half the custard liquid over the top, then lay the rest of the apples in the dish, sprinkle them with the rest of the sugar and cinnamon and pour the rest of the custard over the top.

Dot the top with a few small knobs of butter.

Then bake in a 220c preheated oven for 10 minutes, before turning the oven down to about 180 and bake for another 40 minutes.

You may need to place some tin foil around the edge of the pastry to prevent it burning.

But the end result. Scrumptious! Thank you Stacey.

I served it with cream and my home made ice cream

Chaos in the Kitchen

I've been making bolognese sauce this morning and this is what I'm left with. Kitchen chaos!

While MONT is still working at Number 3, I thought I'd prepare the sauce in bulk so I could freeze some. But I'm not known for my "tidy" preparation or clean work surfaces.

Oh well, time to clean up I guess.

I'll post the recipe tomorrow...it has a couple of little twists.

Chicken with Lemon and Garlic

This is a dish I do when I want something quick. Real quick.

I usually have some chicken thighs of drumsticks in the freezer and I've also used maryland pieces for this dish

Place the chicken in a roasting dish, squeeze a lemon over the top and slice a lemon and place the slices over the top of the chicken. Slurp some olive oil over the top, then get some cloves of garlic, and put them in there too. I don't peel mine, just throw them in whole.

Bake until the chicken's golden brown.

I usually serve this with some asparagus that I've cooked in a pan with a little oil and a squeeze of lemon...and some potatoes that I chop up and put in with the chicken.

That's it...told you it was an easy dish.