Bookmark and share this: Common cooking substitutes

You'd be lying if you said you never got motivated to cook something and then realised: 'Oh #*^%, I don't have X'!  I also find that some recipes call for ingredients that are hard to get where I live, and I just don't want to throw away good recipes because I can't get one ingredient.

And, even though I meal plan, even though I'm absolutely anal for detail, I forget things off my shopping list,or someone 'conveniently' uses something you had bookmarked for something else.  Sound familiar? 

Here's some common substitutes that may have you being creative instead of stressed when you don't have that certain something..... bookmark it and share, so you don't lose it!

1.  Make self raising flour - just add two teaspoons of baking powder (substitute below for that too if you don't have any!) per cup of plain flour.

2.  Substitute eggs when baking for banana - about 1/2 cup mashed banana per egg.  If you're making pastry I'm told that Xanthum gum (available from the supermarket, I know Coles has it)  is the-go-to substitute.

3.  Buttermilk is easier than you think.. and most people know this these days but a about 5ml lemon/lime juice or white vinegar in a cup of milk and leave it to sit for about 5 minutes will produce a great substitute for buttermilk.

4.  You can skip the corn syrup if you find it hard to get some (in Australia that is the case) by substituting it with 3 parts glucose syrup and 1 part water.

5. Make a substitute for baking powder by putting together 2 parts of cream of tartar with 1 part bicarb soda. That one comes in handy when you bake a lot!

6. Did you know you can substitute butter when you are baking for 1 cup of butter for 1 cup of apple sauce or 3/4 cup of oil? Sometimes I go 1 small banana and 1/2 cup oil, depending what I have on hand..

7. You can cut your sugar but substituting 1 cup of it for 3/4 cup of honey or maple syrup - or 1 cup of apple sauce - or 1 teaspoon of stevia - this seems expensive in the shops but when you look at the conversion it's quite reasonable!

8. If you're like me and never seem to have cream on hand when you need it then you can substitute cream in a cooking sense (not for whipping of course) by using for every cup needed 3/4 cup of milk with 1/4 cup melted butter.

9. Now I never keep sherry in the house but some recipes call for it, depending on the recipe - I just use red or white wine.  If it's for baking, I use vanilla.

10.  Golden syrup - not available everywhere in the world and I get asked about this one a lot - so substitute golden syrup for say half-half molasses to honey.  I know it's not the same flavour, but its a similar consistency and it's probably the closest you're going to get!

Can you share any others or additions to these?

Your busy night solution: Doner kebabs at home

My Dad once told me not to trust what was in a Doner Kebab.  "they are the bits of the animal you don't want to buy or eat' he would say.  It didn't deter me at 3am in my twenties to grab one on the way home from a boozy night... nor did it stop me for blaming that illness I had from probably a few too many cocktails on 'it must have been that doner kebab'.

These days though Doner Kebabs don't get such a bad wrap (boom-tish!).  In fact when I do need to choose something that my kids will eat in a food court/strip mall - if there is a doner kebab I will usually try and sway it that way because there's at least some salad involved and it seems, something you can recognised that isn't too over processed.

Now this doner kebab is pretty saintly.  It's has all recognisable ingredients and is great when you are rushing around after your busy day at work or after school activities.   Set this to marinade in the morning or lunchtime (I did mine the day before) and pop it in the oven.  You can even cheat a little by buying the accompaniments if you don't want to make hoummus, tzatziki or tabbouleh.

Put the ingredients on your shopping list and this recipe on your meal plan.  You'll love it!

Adapted from allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

1kg butterflied lamb

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

Juice of one lemon

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1//4 teaspoon ground cardamom

1 large clove of garlic, crushed

1/2 small tin crushed tomatoes

Accompaniments

Lebanese pocket bread

Tabbouleh

Hoummus

Tzatziki

Sliced tomatoes

Thinly sliced onion

lettuce

grated cheese

Method:

Slice your lamb thinly.  Place into an airtight container

In a jug or small bowl add all the rest of the ingredients and stir well.

Pour over lamb and pop the lid on top.  Give it a good shake to ensure all the meat is covered.  Place in fridge for a few hours or overnight.

1 hour before serving time, heat oven to 220 degrees c.  Place the lamb in a tray/shallow casserole tray lined with baking paper, and place in the oven when the oven reaches 220 degrees (about 15 minutes depending on your oven)

Now's a good time to make tabbouleh if you want to..

At about the 30 minute mark check on your lamb, you are looking for the edges to turn dark, this is not quite yet there..

This is what it should look like!

Place lamb onto your pocket bread, down the centre. I love to sandwich mine between hoummus and tzatziki.  You may want to add a chilli sauce or cheese or... both!

When you've added everything fold one side over and roll it up.

Now I cut this up and shared it amongst two of my kids.. and of course I ate a whole one.  No leftovers which is quite sad, I will need to make double next time as the lamb is so flavourful and tender.  Not fatty either.  It would nice on it's own with just a tzatziki dollop on top!

So who feels like a doner kebab now and is going to give this a try over the weekend or next week?!

Budget Busting: Turning leftover pork roast into delicious ragu - easy!

I hate wasting food.  Absolutely despise it.  Whenever I clean out the fridge it's a shame I bring upon myself.  Why did I buy so much? WHY didn't we eat that? WHO put this in here?  Who left this container with ONE STRAWBERRY in it??.. Ok, I'm getting carried away but I'm sure you get my drift!?  It's confronting seeing how much food you can throw away as a family.

Hubby isn't so great at the meal planning and I've not been around enough to do it or enforce it but that's all changed my friends!  I'm back onto it with a vengeance.  Now GoogleDocs is my friend - I create the spreadsheet and share it with hubby.  I pick it up on my phone when we go shopping.  (You just need Google Drive on your phone - available on iTunes and PlayStore for free!)

Love it.  It also means I can copy and paste the recipes we're going to use and hubby and I can just click on them when we need.. perfect.

OK, so onto this recipe.  I got carried away at the butcher on the weekend and bought a pork roast waaaay too big for us, like, twice the size we needed....   So after I carved up the leftover pork I made last night I had to come up with a plan for it, because we were never going to eat it cold or on sandwiches... So I thought, ragu!

This is such an easy solution, nothing stopping you from doing it with beef or even lamb.  If using beef or lamb I would go red wine instead of white..

You'll need a food processor.  If you are in the market for one, I can (and have many times) hand-on-heart recommend the Breville Kitchen Whizz Pro.  It's got a motor that's guaranteed for 25 years, and that cannot be argued with!  I do love it and use it often.

Now I made a huge batch - which has made 3 more meals for us... (great for lasagna or just with pasta) so you don't have to have a huge amount of pork to make this worth your while - do it with as little as 400g, and cut my recipe in half.

Ingredients
1 brown onion, peeled
1 celery rib, strings removed
2 cloves garlic, peeled
3 small carrots,topped and tailed
800g cooked pork
2 tb olive oil
1 cup dry white wine (I used reisling)
800g tinned diced tomatoes
200ml water
2 tb tomato paste
12 leaves basil, chopped
2 sprigs oregano, chopped
1 sprig parsley, chopped

Method
Using your food processor or a knife, thinly slice your vegetables. It doesn't matter how big it is or if it's in ribbons, it's going to cook down in your dish..

One of the things I love my food processor is the slicer attachment allows you to choose the thickness of what your chopping with this dial.  If you don't have one of these just slice as thinly as you can.

Sweat these off in your stock pot or large pan with the oil, and add the wine and let it simmer.

Change the attachment on your food processor to processing blade and add your pork.  Whizz until ground.

 Now add the tomatoes, water and tomato paste to the pot.

I used 4 x 200g tins of tomatoes and then poured in 2 x tins of water afterwards.

Add your processed pork

And then add your chopped herbs.

Pop the lid on and let it simmer for 1.5  hours on low heat - you could take it off after an hour if you needed to.

I won't lie to you, this smells sooo good you want to eat it straight away.  I'm going to pop some into some friends who is going through a rough time at the moment - and keep a batch for us. Winners all around!

So there's my leftover triumph for this week! What's your favourite leftover to use/eat?

DIY Vanilla Instant pudding mix - quick AND easy!

On a cold winter's evening there's nothing better than a bit of custard or pudding.  This one also translates to summer because it can be refrigerated and made into a cold vanilla pudding.  Since getting my thermomix I've loved how easy it is to make custard but let's face it - not everyone has a thermomix sitting on their bench and everyone loves an easy recipe.   I found this one a while back at Always order dessert - Vanilla beans aren't something that I keep in regular stock either but since I found a great supplier it makes this more do-able.

This now means that hubby can make the kids some puddings for afternoon tea for a treat, or a quick warm pudding/custard to have over tinned fruit whilst I'm not around.  All you need is 2 cups of milk and 1/2 cup of the mix.  Mix together in a saucepan - give it a whisk until it thickens - about 4 minutes and you're in business!   They set in the fridge in a few hours too.

You can use this as a base, and once cooked stir through some cocoa, some stewed fruit or fresh fruit for your own twist!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup milk powder

3/4 cup cornflour

1 cup caster sugar

2 vanilla pods

1/2 tsp salt

Method:

In an airtight container, place the milk powder, cornflour, caster sugar and salt.

Split your vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds, very easy to to do.

Put the seeds and the leftover pods into the mix.

Seal up the container and give it a good shake..

And if you have extra helpers, pass it around for more shaking.

And there's your mix!  Store in a dry place for up to 2 months.

Now to make your pudding, take 1/2 cup of your mix..

Place into 2 cups of milk...

Whisk over a medium heat until it thickens and can coat the back of a spoon.

Pour into cups/containers/bowl and refrigerate for up to 4 hours to set, or eat it straight away if you love custard (great over cobbler or stewed fruit!)

 I had one extra, little reward for my helpers (and good sharers too I'm pleased to say!)

Christmas presents or your own private stash - DIY Vanilla Extract

I'm sure most of your would have seen this or be aware of it - with the amount of vanilla extract I've been using lately and the great source of madagascar vanilla beans I found I thought it best to start making my own Vanilla extract.  It really couldn't get any easier than this.

When I think that 100ml of quality vanilla extract is anywhere from $9-12 - that is $90 - $120 a litre.  YIKES.

So I've made 3 litres of vanilla extract:

$15 vanilla beans
$72 vodka
$12 bottles (I'm guestimating, I've had them for ages and re-use them)

$99 for 3 litres.  Beautiful.   I also plan on dispensing some of these into little bottles to give to family and friends over Christmas. Cheap homemade pressie - and USEFUL!  If I give just over half of my stash away and give away 200ml bottles of vanilla extract (x8) that makes them even with $1.50 bottles and printing of labels of around $5 each.

If you want to make these for Christmas - get onto it this week - it's best if it steeps for 6 months or so, though 5 months should be fine to decant it.

All you need to do is:

Clean and dry your airtight bottle.

Split 12 vanilla beans for each litre of vodka

Put the vanilla beans in the bottle.

Fill up with vodka.

Put somewhere dark and dry for it to steep.   Don't worry if it's not brown yet a few hours later I dropped in on mine and they were already looking like weak tea.. given them a gentle shake every couple of weeks or whenever you remember.

A modern twist on a family staple- Sausage casserole -

My hubby has been sabotaging my efforts in the kitchen of late.  Not intentionally but every time I buy beef mince to go with the sausage mince in my freezer, which is intended for meatloaf, hubby makes nachos.  I really need to label the tupperware containers.  Anyways, I have had the sausage mince from my butcher for a while and I like to get through everything in the freezer so I thought I'd make a sausage casserole.

This one is tasty and saucy and just what you want in a casserole, the potato top makes it an all-in-one-meal.   Add whatever veges you have handy - clean out the crisper!  No side servings, just serve it up and gobble it down.  Kids love sausages and when you tell them there's sausage in and the gravy factor, they will be asking for seconds, trust me.  In hindsight I should have made two - to stash for later.  Very annoyed I didn't now!

Ingredients:

500g sausage mince

(If you don't have a butcher who sells sausage mince on its own just skin your snags!)

1 onion, finely diced

1 large carrot, finely diced

1 stalk of celery, finely diced

2 sprigs thyme

100g butter

100g plain flour (about 1/3 cup)

20g beef stock powder (4 tsp)

1 tsp white pepper

1/2 tsp salt

4 large potatoes, peeled and sliced 

Method:

In batches brown off the sausage mince, wait for it to go golden brown, you want it to be somewhat crispy - adds flavour!

Make a gravy by melting your butter, add your flour and stock powderto make a roux and gradually add 1 litre of water and all the thyme leaves to make a thick gravy.  I made mine in the thermomix - add all ingredients, put on 12 minutes, 90 degrees, speed 4.

This is the bit where I forgot that I hadn't put the blade or the base on my jug! 

Luckily I had rectified this before putting in the water!

After you've finished the sausage mince, add the onions, celery and carrot and lift off any crunchy bits off the bottom of the pan.... transfer when onions and carrots are soft.

Then pour over your gravy.... *drool*  but only say 3/4 of it.. I had a bit extra, I put it in the freezer for the next time I make regular snags..

Place your potatoes on top, swig over a bit of gravy and then sprinkle with pepper and salt.

Turn the oven on to 180 degrees c, place the dish in uncovered and let it bubble away for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Add it to your meal plan this week, great budget buster!