Chocolate raisin bread

I decided not to buy any bread at the supermarket this week and instead bake it all myself. I love kneading the bread, watching it double in size, having the smell of bread baking wafting through the house and then finally eating a slice with lots of butter and homemade jam while it's still hot. We'd normally spend over $10 a fortnight on bread so for that price I figure we can make some delicious loaves ourselves. 

The base ingredient is high grade flour - 5kg costs just over $6. And yes it is possible to carry 2 5kg bags of flour plus all the other groceries to feed 3 adults for a fortnight home by yourself - it's called a backpack! It probably weighs less than what I carried on my back while backpacking and I managed to lug that around at 3000m above sea level, and in the 40 degree Amazon heat. 

There's still wholemeal bread and english muffins in the freezer from last week's bread-making exploits so I'm topping that up so we have a variety of breads to choose from at breakfast time and for lunches. 

Last night I quick mixed up the dough and kneaded Chocolate Raisin Bread and left it to rise while I went to work (and made a triple batch of empanada pastry to chill in the fridge) - it calls for rum to soak the raisins in. I don't keep rum in the house (there was one exceptionally bad hangover from a night out dancing salsa in Colombia...) and so I used brandy. You could also use orange juice if alcohol at breakfast time isn't your cup of tea...

At work I whipped up a batch of orange muffins for the countertop, cut veges for a roast veg salad, taste tested a new recipe for ham and artichoke croquettes (yum!),  and finished off a batch of empanadas. Then it was home again to cook some more (love having a job where I get paid to do what I spend all my spare time doing any way!).

While the chocolate raisin bread had its second rising I folded empanadas for our freezer. If you freeze them 'raw' you can chuck them in the oven for half an hour and voila, dinner in a hurry when you can't be bothered cooking. This time I did corn and cheese (humita) for the vegetarian flatmate and rump steak for the carnivores. 

The two loaves rose overnight ready to be baked this morning. And so breakfast was chocolate bread fresh out of the oven with homemade plum jam and a cup of tea. Mmm. 

Right now I've got lemons squeezed ready to turn into lemon curd and need to pop out to get a jelly bag so I can attack some of the mint for mint jelly to use for Christmas gifts if it turns out well.

Better get cracking on that because I have a dinner date with some friends tonight at the Argentine restaurant because I don't have enough empanadas in my life already!!! So I'll leave you with two things, a photo of the Chocolate Raisin Bread and a video I made of my grandma making empanadas because noone makes better ones than her!

P.S. My neighbour just knocked on the door and gave me a set of brand-new gardening tools that she got given but thought I might use more than her. How lovely is that?! I think a batch of scones or muffins might be making their way over there!

Empanaditas, island style

It's the last week of class so today instead of a lecture we had a shared lunch (we are a small class).
The only criteria was that we had to talk about how our dish related to globalisation and popular culture in the Pacific. I was going to make pineapple pies, a la Samoa, after finding this recipe on a blog. However the heavens weren't aligning and my first attempt was thwarted by a lack of coconut cream and the second by the internet going down meaning I couldn't access the recipe.

The clock was ticking and I only had a few hours left to conjure up something (I did nip to the shop for more coconut cream in the end), and so today a new recipe was born. Empanadas, island style.

Pastry

• 2 cups flour
• 50g butter
• 1/2 tsp salt 
• Water to mix

Rub the butter into the flour and salt mixture. Add water, stirring with a bread knife, until it forms a stiff dough. Put it in the fridge to chill while you make the fillings. 

That's my generic empanada pastry recipe. You can double or triple it depending on how many people you have to feed. 

Pineapple filling

• 1 400g can crushed pineapple in its own juice
• 1 generous tbsp custard powder
• 1 tsp sugar

Tip the tin of pineapple into a pan/pot. Add the custard powder and sugar and stir on a low heat until it thickens nicely. 

Luau filling

• 1 tin coconut cream
• 1 bunch silver beet (Swiss chard), stalks removed, chopped roughly
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 onion
• 1 cube vegetable stock
• splash of lime or lemon juice
• pinch of chili powder
• 1 tbsp fresh chopped coriander (or 1 tsp dried)
• 1 tbsp cornflour (mixed with a tiny bit of water)
• salt and pepper to taste

Chuck everything in a pot and stir over a low heat until it's thickened up nicely. 

Assembly

Assemble as you would regular empanadas - roll the pastry out on a floured bench, creating circles of pastry by tracing around a ramekin or plate of your choice with a sharp knife. Run a wet finger around the edge of the circle, place a tsp or tbsp (depending on the size of the circle) of filling into the centre and close by pinching around the edges. Press around the edge with a fork or fold like you would a cornish pasty (like a wee stegosaurus). 

Brush with a beaten egg and cook at 200 degrees C for 25 minutes or until golden brown. 

Dust the pineapple ones with icing sugar to serve. 

So easy and so delicious if I do say so myself. The class seemed to love them (yay) and not a single one was left on the plate...

The dishes the other students brought were so delicious too. It was a proper island feast with keke saina (Samoan biscuits), kumara cooked in coconut cream, coconut buns, taro chips, out of this world Hawaiian Ono (sp?) chicken, chop suey, surimi salad made with best foods mayo (of course) etc. It was a lot of fun. I'll miss this class. Speaking of which I should really go and finish my homework...