Banana Cake

0:10 Prep
0:35 Cook

Ingredients

  • 1 cup self-raising flour
  • 1 cup caster sugar
  • 50g butter, melted
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1/4 cup (60ml) milk
  • 3 mashed bananas
  • Cinammon & nutmeg / mixed spice

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180c/160c fan-forced. Spray a 7cm deep cake tin with oil. Line base and sides with baking paper, extending 3cm above the rim
  2. Sift flour into a large bowl. Stir in sugar. Make a well in the centre. Add butter, egg, vanilla, milk, banana, spice.
  3. Stir until just combined
  4. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 30-35 mins or until a skewer inserted inte the centre comes out clean. Set aside in pan for 10 minutes to cool slightly. Serve warm or transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Fried Rice

Ingredients

  • 2 cups rice
  • 6 rashers of bacon
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tin corn
  • 3 carrots diced
  • 1 cup frozen peas
  • Capsicum
  • Mushrooms
  • Oyster sauce
  • Soy sauce

Method

  1. Rinse the rice in boiling water then cook in 4 cups of water. Note: preferably cook it well in advance and let it dry on a tray in the fridge.
  2. Cut the bacon into small pieces and fry with the crushed garlic in a wok.
  3. Once the bacon is mostly cooked, add the eggs. Stir them around to scramble them. In one minute when the eggs are cooked, put the eggs and bacon in a dish to wait…
  4. Add the diced carrots to the wok. Fry with a lid on for a minute or two then add the corn and peas. Fry at high temperature.
  5. After a few minutes when the carrots have started to soften, add the rice to the wok.
  6. Add oyster sauce and soy sauce to taste (eg 4 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tbsp soy sauce)
  7. Add the bacon and egg
  8. Mix together

Potato Salad

Ingredients

  • 800g-1kg Potatoes diced 2cm chunks
  • 5-6 firm boiled Eggs (9 mins)
  • 250g Cheddar cheese cubed
  • 6 rashers Bacon
  • 4 Spring onions
  • Sun-dried tomatoes
  • Mayonnaise
  • 1 Capsicum
  • 1cup frozen Peas

Method

  1. Boil the potatoes until firm in a very large pot. This will be your main/serving dish
  2. While the potatoes are boiling, boil the eggs
  3. Chop up the bacon into small pieces and fry
  4. When potatoes are cooked, drain them in a collander, cool them by running under cold water, and return to the pot.
  5. Shell the boiled eggs and cut each into about 6 pieces. Add to the pot

American-style chilli

American style chilli

  • 2×24 oz* Diced Tomatoes
  • 2×24 oz Dark Kidney Beans
  • 12 oz Light Kidney Beans
  • 2 pkg chili powder (1-1.5 oz each. I used 1x50g)
  • 1.5 lbs hamburger
  • 3 potato (cubed ¾ inch)
  • 1 lg white onion, diced
  • 8oz jalepeno
  • Garlic cloves
  • Cayenne pepper
  • To Taste: Red pepper, carrots, celery, other beans (navy, butter, garbanzo, etc), other meats

Pre-brown meats in skillet with onions, drain. Combine all ingredients in large pot and cook over low heat for extended time. (usually 4 hours in over minimal flame, but I put them in a crock pot and let it slowly cook for 24 hours to ensure flavour permeates)

Chili is very much an individual experience, so recipes vary quite a lot. My personal adaptations to this for today are:

  • Less hamburger (beef mince), adding in a mix of bacon, chopped chorizo, & pork sausage
  • No carrots/celery
  • Significantly less spice/heat. I only used one pkg of chili powder, and only tiny amounts of jalepeno and no extra cayenne pepper. Ben’s core recipe is HOT, and I wanted everyone to be able to taste a moderate variety of this common dish.

— is still fairly spicy/hot. Add sour cream to taste and to soften the sharpness if you like. (cheddar shavings good too!)

Three consecutive years, winner of Annual Super Bowl Chili Cook Off

Wooden Foot Saloon, Waverly Iowa USA

* 1 oz = ~30 ml or g

Moroccan Lamb Soup

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 large (900g) lamb shanks, or a lamb leg after most of the meat has been taken off
  • 1 medium brown onion, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 2 medium carrots, peeled, chopped
  • 2 celery stalks, chopped
  • 2 teaspoons ground cumin
  • 2 teaspoons ground coriander
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 400g can diced tomatoes
  • 1 tablespoon Massel beef style stock powder
  • 1/2 cup dried green lentils, rinsed
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

Method

  1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add shanks. Cook, turning, for 6 to 8 minutes or until browned. Transfer to a plate (not necessary if using an old leg bone – already cooked)
  2. Add onion, garlic, carrot and celery to pan. Cook for 5 minutes or until onion has softened. Add cumin, coriander, ginger and cinnamon. Cook for 1 minute or until fragrant. Return shanks to pan with tomato, stock powder and 6 cups cold water. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low. Simmer, partially covered, for 1 hour. Add lentils. Simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes or until lentils and shanks are tender.
  3. Remove pan from heat. Remove shanks. Remove and discard bones and fat. Shred meat. Add meat and parsley to pan. Return pan to heat. Simmer for 5 minutes or until heated through. Serve.

One pot creamy mushroom soup

Ingredients

  • 2 chcken breasts, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon fresh basil
  • Salt and pepper to season
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
  • 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/3 cup dry white wine
  • 400 g mushrooms, sliced
  • 1 litre chicken stock
  • 375 ml can coconut milk
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • Pepper, to taste
  • NO SALT REQUIRED
  • 450 g uncooked penne pasta
  • 1 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese
  • A handful of fresh parsley, chopped

Method

  1. In a large pan or wok, cook the chicken pieces in oil, seasoning with basil and pepper.
  2. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.
  3. Add the remaining oil to the pot. Fry the onion and garlic until the onion becomes transparent, stirring occasionally (about 2 minutes). Pour in the white wine and allow to simmer for 5 minutes, or until beginning to reduce down.
  4. Add the chicken back to the pot.
  5. Add the mushrooms and cook for a further 3 minutes, while stirring occasionally.
  6. Add the coconut milk, chicken stock, salt and pepper, and bring to a gentle simmer.
  7. Add the pasta and simmer until pasta is al dente, about 15 minutes, while stirring occasionally.
  8. Stir in the parmesan cheese until it melts through the sauce. Remove from heat and allow to sit for 5 minutes to allow the sauce to thicken. Slice the chicken into strips and stir through the pasta.
  9. Garnish with fresh parsley and extra parmesan, if desired
  10. Enjoy!

Innocent Sweet Pea Salad

Ingredients

  • 1 cos lettuce dark leaves discarded. Pale inner leaves finely shredded
  • 360g (3 cups) frozen peas, cooked
  • 140g celery cut into pea size dice
  • 100g green apple peeled, diced
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 6 rashers of streaky bacon
  • 40g butter
  • 160g (1 cup) pepitas
  • 100g (half cup) brown sugar
  • Salt flakes
  • 200g fresh ricotta from wheel at deli
  • 100g feta
  • 1 bunch mint chopped
  • 4 spring onions
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

Method

  1. Lay the shredded lettuce down the middle of a platter
  2. Layer the peas and celery on top
  3. Toss the apple in the lemon juice and sprinkle on the platter
  4. Make the bacon and pepita crunch: fry the bacon in the butter until it is tanned. Throw in the pepitas and let them toast. When some of the pepitas are starting to go golden at the edges, throw in the sugar and let it melt. Keep stirring and a caramel will form from the brown sugar and the pork fat. Sprinkle with salt flakes and spread on baking paper.
  5. Now finish the salad. Crumble over the cheeses. Large like of ricotta. Smaller lumps of feta.
  6. Scatter on the herbs
  7. Dress with oil and vinegar
  8. Smash up the evil pepitas and spread over the top.

Banana Bread Brownies

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup self-raising flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter
  • 1 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 cup cocoa powder
  • 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
  • 1 cup about 2 large ripe bananas, mashed

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.
  2. Line or grease an 20cm x 20cm baking pan.
  3. Stir the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl.
  4. In a medium sauce pot over medium heat, melt butter. Continue to cook while it foams and stir constantly until it browns and you see some brown specks at the bottom and it starts to smell a bit toasted. Remove from heat.
  5. Once butter cools a bit, add sugar and vanilla extract.
  6. Next, beat in the eggs one at a time with a spoon.
  7. Gradually add the flour mixture, and stir the batter until it’s evenly moistened.
  8. Divide the batter in half to two separate bowls.
  9. Into one bowl of batter, blend the cocoa powder and chocolate chips. This mixture will be very thick.
  10. In the second bowl of batter, stir in the mashed banana.
  11. Spread 1/2 of the chocolate batter into the bottom of the prepared baking pan, and follow with all of the banana batter. For the remaining chocolate batter, you can either spoon it on top or you can put it in a plastic bag, snip off the corner, and squeeze it onto the banana batter in lines.
  12. Use a butter knife or a spatula to swirl the two batters together to create a marbled appearance.
  13. Bake in the preheated oven until the brownies begin to pull away from the sides of the pan, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes
  14. Cool in the pan, cut into squares, and serve.