Welcome!

This is my personal recipe book!

Here you'll find some cooking tips and explanations that I've learned throughout the years, and also a list of recipes that I like and wish to preserve.

Self-raising flour

You can make self-raising flour at home if you have regular flour, and also some baking powder. The ratio is roughly 1 cup of flour to 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Make sure that after adding the powder, you mix the two together separately from all of your other ingredients. This way the powder is adequately mixed into the flour, and is not disrupted by any of the ingredients.

Utencils

Spatula

A spatula should not be used for mixing! It is a tool used for scraping. For example, if you have just poured a cake mix into a tin, surely there is some remaining in the bowl you used to mix it. To get all of that stuff out of the bowl so that it does not go to waste, you should use a spatula.

Your oven

Pre-heating

There's a reason why people start all of their recipes with pre-heating the oven. When you turn an oven on, it will start heating up, however, not evenly. By letting the oven heat up for the entire time that you are preparing the meal, you ensure that the entire oven is at the correct temperature so that it cooks the food evenly and effectively.

What I'm also saying here is that light on your oven that tells you when it's heating up, is not a reliable indicator of when you should put something in. So long as you have left your oven pre-heating for 30min, then you should be fine!

Minnestra

Minnestra is a dish my Nonna likes to make. It is basically just boiled leafy vegetables.

Ingredients:

• Bok Choy, spinach, or other leafy greens that are not watery, and are either neutral or bitter in flavour.
• Lots of olive oil
• About a 1/2 to 1 cup of water
• 1 can of cannelini beans
• (optional) Some chopped, peeled potatoes
• (optional) Finely-chopped brown onions
• Lots of salt

Steps:

1. Chop the leafy greens so that they are roughly bite-sized.
2. Get a very large pot with high walls.
3. Add lots of olive oil and also the water to the pot and set it to a med-high heat.
4. As it starts to boil, put in all of your ingredients, stir, and cook until everything is soft.

Served well with beef and pane di casa!

Milo Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 cup self-raising flour
• 1/2 cup normal flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup of milo powder
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 1/2 cup of milk
• (optional) some pecans or walnuts
• (optional) some dark choc chips

Steps:

1. Preheat your oven to 180C/350F (fan forced)
2. Mix dry ingredients and whisk to ensure they are evenly mixed.
3. Add wet ingredients and mix using an electric mixer or your manly hands until the mixture is fluffy.
4. Put into a cake tin and put it in the oven for 30min at least.
5. Check with a knife or skewer that it comes out clean when inserted.

Snowballs

Ingredients:

• 1 packet of digestives biscuits (minus about two biscuits - no, not just for a snack). At the time of writing, this is roughly 300-350g (fuck shrinkflation!).
• 1 tin of sweetened, condensed milk
• Dessicated coconut (roughly 1/2 to 1 cup depending on the texture you want)
• Cocoa powder (For a very dark one, use 3 packed tablespoons, for a lighter one, 1/2 cup)
• (optional) Vanilla essence
• (optional) Choc chips (not too much!)

Steps:

1. In a very large (not glass) bowl, crush the biscuits using a pestle - they should turn into a fine crumble.
2. Mix in the cocoa powder and dessicated coconut (and any other dry ingredients) so that the whole solution is evenly mixed.
3. Add the condensed milk and any other wet ingredients and mix using a spoon until the mixture becomes clumpy and sticky.
4. Set aside a small bowl and fill it with dessicated coconut.
5. Put on some gloves and begin making balls that are ping-pong ball-sized from the mixture.
6. Roll the balls in the bowl of dessicated coconut to give it the "snow" effect.
7. Refridgerate the balls.

Fun fact: If you remove the cocoa powder, and replace it with some red and green food dye (in separate batches), you can make some christmas-themed snowballs!

Apple Crumble

Ingredients:

• Apples (500g - 1kg depending on the size of your pot)
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter - diced
• 1 cup brown sugar
• An extra 1/2 cup brown sugar for the apples
• 1/4 cup of water
• (optional) some lemon juice (as a preservative)
• (optional) cinnamon - as a final topping

Steps:

1. Preheat your oven to 180C/350F (fan forced).
2. Skin, and chop the apples into roughly the size of your thumbnail.
3. Put the water, apples and lemon juice into a pot with high-edges, and set to med-high heat.
4. When it begins boiling, add the 1/2 cup of sugar and stir until it is all melted.
5. Let the apples boil on a medium heat while you work on the crumble. They will be done once they are nice and soft (pick one up and chew on it to find out, it's just like testing you pasta!).
6. In large mixing bowl, whisk the flour and sugar so that they are evenly mixed.
7. Soften (not melt) the butter in your microwave (it should be soft like a banana).
8. Add the butter to the flour and sugar, then put on some gloves and squish the mixture together so that it forms many uneven clumps
9. Put the apples into a baking tray, then cover them with the crumble
10. Cook for 15-30min - it will be ready when the crumble starts turning a dark brown on the tips
11. Top with cinnamon, and serve with vanilla ice cream.