Category Archives: Freezer Friendly

Dec5

Chocolate Slice

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Bible study is at my place tonight and because I have an aversion to rosters, our group doesn’t have one for providing supper. So this afternoon, I found myself in need of a quick and easy solution! Its our last study for the year and like it is for everyone, this time of the year is busy, busy busy! So today was a great day to try out Bek Marshall’s easy Chocolate Slice. It’s a simple melt and mix number which uses standard pantry items and it only takes a couple of minutes to combine the ingredients and whack it in a slice tin. I love the outcome of this one: chewy chocolate slice, able to be iced while still warm (another time saver) and a total cost of less than $3. An absolute winner! Thanks for contributing, Bek!

  • 1 cup self raising flour
  • 1 tablespoon cocoa
  • 1 cup rolled oats
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 125 g butter or margarine, melted
  • 1 egg
  • 3 weetbix, crushed
  1. Mix flour, cocoa, oats, sugar and crushed weetbix. Add vanilla, egg, melted butter and mix. If mixture is too dry add a little milk to the mixture before pressing into a 16x26cm slice tin.
  2. Cook @ 180deg for 20-25min
  3. Ice with chocolate icing while still warm. Sprinkle with topping of choice such as nuts, coconut or sprinkles.
Nov28

Crusty Chicken Casserole

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Last weekend we enjoyed the generous hospitality of my husband’s parents, and as always, it was so good to get away and enjoy some good times together – parents, kids and grandparents. My mother-in-law Pauline, is a terrific cook and like my own mother, has taught me lots about hospitality, both specifically and by osmosis. On this recent visit she cooked this delicious, almost retro, chicken casserole for us and it was so tasty, warming and comforting after the car trip from our place to theirs. Our kids devoured it that night and again the next. It’s dead easy and it’s one of those dishes that could easily stretch to serve more by adding extra veggies, rice or bread to the offering. For all these reasons, I’m pretty sure I’ll be making it often. Depending where you buy your veggies from, this dish costs around $18 to make (less still if you use a green grocer), and easily serves 8.

FILLING

  • 1 BBQ chicken
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 shallots, chopped
  • 1 stick celery, chopped
  • ¼ cup water
  • 3 rashers bacon, sliced
  • 60g mushrooms, sliced
  • 440g can of Cream of Chicken Soup (Campbell’s is nicest)
  • 300g carton sour cream (I use homebrand light)
  • Optional: 400g can corn kernels, drained (we love corn!)

CHEESE BATTER TOPPING

  • 1 cup SR Flour
  • 1 capsicum (can be half red, half green)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup grated cheese
  • ½ cup milk
  1. Remove chicken meat from bones while chicken is still warm (much easier), and shred or chop meat roughly.
  2. Place chopped onion, shallots, celery and water in pan, bring to boil, reduce heat, simmer covered for 15 mins (Pauline’s alternative tip: stick the lot in a covered microwave safe dish and zap for 2 mins).
  3. In a hot frypan, add bacon and sliced mushrooms and cook for 3 mins (again, Pauline suggests cooking the bacon and mushrooms in same covered microwave dish for about 2 mins)
  4. Combine the soup, sour cream, chicken, cooked vegetables, corn (if using) and bacon mixture.  Pour into ovenproof dish.
  5. Make cheese batter: Mix flour, capsicum, lightly beaten eggs, cheese and milk until just blended.
  6. Spread cheese batter on top of casserole and bake uncovered in moderate oven for 30-40 mins. Serve with rice and salad.
Nov8

Pumpkin, Cauliflower and Lentil Curry

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It was so lovely catching up with my friend Katrina last weekend. Over lunch she raved about this healthy and easy dinner she’d recently tried out and by the end of her description I was keen to give it a go too. I don’t find it easy to cook tasty vegetarian dishes, and have felt the need to have a few more recipes of this kind up my sleeve when caring for vegetarian folk. And Katrina was right –  this little number ticked all the boxes: easy to cook, healthy in nature, tasty, affordable and freezable. To lower the GI, carbohydrate and fat content, Katrina helpfully suggests replacing the pumpkin with sweet potato, leaving out the cream altogether and serving it without rice because this curry is nutritionally complete on its own. She also suggested a dollop of greek style yoghurt on top which tasted great. Originally from Notebook Magazine, when served with rice, this vegetarian dish serves 6 people and costs around $7 to make.

  • 1 tbs olive oil
  • 1 brown onion, finely chopped
  • 3 tbs mild curry paste
  • 1 tbs finely grated ginger
  • 400g can diced tomatoes
  • 1 1/2 cups (375ml) water or vegetable stock
  • 1/2 cup (105g) brown lentils, rinsed
  • 1/2 cup (115g) red lentils, rinsed
  • 600g butternut pumpkin, seeded, peeled, cut into 3cm pieces
  • 1/2 (about 600g) cauliflower, cut into florets
  • 1 cup (150g) frozen peas
  • 1/4 cup (60ml) cream
  • Coriander leaves, to serve
  1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes or until onion softens. Add curry paste, curry leaves and ginger and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until aromatic. Add tomatoes and water and bring to a simmer.
  2. Add combined lentils and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes or until lentils are almost tender. Add the pumpkin and cauliflower and cook, stirring occasionally, for a further 10 minutes or until pumpkin is tender. Add peas and cream and stir to combine. Remove from heat. Taste and season with salt and pepper.
Oct24

Peach and Raspberry (cakey type) Tart

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While it is true that winter is my favourite season of the year, I can’t help but feel a little enlivened by the warmer weather and the knowledge that summer is on its way. The shops are starting to supply summery fruits once more: mangoes, melons, apricots and other stonefruits, my favourite being the yellow peach. To celebrate the promise of all things summer, I decided it’s the perfect time to try out this simple and delightful recipe from my friend Jess. I love the way Jess does hospitality – simple and tasty food accompanied by no amount of fuss and flourish, she simply focusses on the folks she’s serving. This lovely dessert is the first of a number of affordable and tasty recipes contributed by Jess – costing no more than $5 and even less when peach season is in full swing.

  • 125g butter, softened
  • 1 cup / 220g caster sugar
  • 1 teaspoons vanilla
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 ½ cups / 220g self raising flour, sifted
  • 2 peaches, cut into thin wedges
  • 150g raspberries
  • 2 tablespoons icing sugar

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees and line 22cm springform tin (not a tart tin – the first time I made this I used a loose-bottomed tart tin and it overflowed because the walls of the tin didn’t come up high enough).

2. Beat butter, sugar, vanilla until light and creamy. Add the eggs and beat well.

3. Fold in flour and put in tin.

4. Top with peaches and raspberries and sprinkle with icing sugar (you can do this randomly or with an ordered pattern. I tried to go with random, but seriously struggled not to order my randomness! The picture above shows a bit of both)

5. Bake 1 hour or until cooked through and serve with vanilla ice-cream, thick cream or good quality yoghurt.

Oct11

Big Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies

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In general, I don’t really like baking biscuits. I do love the taste of a chewy homemade chocolate chip cookie, but just the thought of repetitively rolling teaspoonfuls of mixture into little balls and cycling tray after tray through the oven, is enough to make me flip-out before I even begin. But when my friend Cathy sent this recipe the other day, I was forced to reconsider my anti-biscuit position. The recipe that follows does away with rolling balls of mixture (yay!) though you can still do that if you prefer, and is made in super-sized quantities that fit the bill for multi-purpose cooking (individually wrapped for school lunches, supper for Bible study, morning tea when cooking for a camp or just for filling the household cookie jar). Along with all these things, I fell in love with this recipe because each of the logs of uncooked cookie mixture can be wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen for emergencies. Simply thaw the log out on 50% in the microwave, cut into rounds and bake for 10 minutes in a moderately slow oven. When I trialled this bumper cookie recipe, I chose to bake half the mixture into 48 biscuits, and freeze the other half in two logs for whenever I need them next. Using Nestle chocolate melts, this recipe, that costs no more than $12 to make (even less if you use homebrand chocolate) works out at just 12 cents per cookie and has definitely softened me up when it comes to biscuit baking!

  • 500grams softened butter or margarine (I use butter)
  • 2 cups/460g castor sugar
  • 1 x 395 tin condensed milk (I use homebrand)
  • 2.5 cups/380g plain flour
  • 2.5 cups/380g self raising flour
  • 190g each of dark, milk and white chocolate melts (half a Nestle Melts packet of each)
  1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees.
  2. Using an electric mixer or beaters, cream butter, sugar and condensed milk. Mixture perfectly fits 5L mixing bowl. If yours is smaller than this, use a plastic all-purpose bowl, readily available in laundry section of the supermarket.
  3. Stir in flours until combined and then stir in choc chips.
  4. On a floured bench top, divide mixture into four equal portions and roll into evenly shaped logs.
  5. Each log makes 24 biscuits, so starting in the middle, with a knife, cut the log in half leaving two portions to make 12 biscuits from each. Cut each section again to make 4 portions which will make 6 biscuits from each. Again, cut each of the four portions in half again, which will make 3 biscuits from each. Finally, cut each of these smallest portions into three equally sized rounds. Repeat the process for each log. This ensures evenly sized biscuits and production of exactly 96 biscuits.
  6. Roll each portion into balls, or do as I do and just place the cut up rounds straight on lined oven trays.
  7. For a crunchier biscuit bake until golden for around 12 minutes, and if you prefer a chewier cookie, cook for no longer than 10 minutes and remove from oven while still a little pale. Cool on tray or wire rack.
Oct10

Butter Chicken

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My friend Cathy is a great example of someone who practices hospitality. She knows how to make food taste good and she cares for others by unashamedly choosing do-able meals that aren’t trying to impress, but instead hit the spot in ways that don’t break the bank. Recently Cathy sent me a number of her favourite recipes that do all these things and I’m excited to share the first of these with you. The Butter Chicken recipe that follows is delightfully easy – choose to cook this crowd pleasing favourite in either the slow cooker or in a sealed casserole dish for a few hours in the oven. Doubling the measurements listed below neatly fills a 5.5L slow cooker, and doing so is my favourite time saver, fulfilling more than one purpose with just one venture in the kitchen. If you decide to make extra to freeze, here’s a tip I read in a magazine years ago: spray the inside of plastic containers with olive or canola spray before filling. This will create a film that protects the containers from the stain of the red coloured sauce. The quantities that follow serves 10 people and costs under $15 to make.

  • I kg chicken thighs, chopped into chunks
  • I onion, roughly chopped
  • I jar of Patak’s Butter Chicken paste (not the sauce)
  • I x 400g tin of diced or crushed tomatoes
  • I x 420g tin of chickpeas, drained
  • 150ml cream
  • Handful of chopped coriander
  1. Brown chicken and onion in frypan.
  2. Put in a slow cooker or a heavy based casserole dish (covered) with the whole jar of butter chicken paste, tin of tomatoes and chickpeas.
  3. Cook for 2 hours in the oven, or 3 hours on high in the slow cooker or most of the day if set to low.
  4. Season with salt and pepper and add cream and coriander just before serving.
  •  Serve with basmati rice and microwaved pappadums.
  • Raita (natural yoghurt mixed with grated or chopped cucumber) is also a yummy accompaniment.
Sep15

Nigella Lawson’s Coconut Cake

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Ages ago, my friend Amy suggested this cake would be perfect here at foodthatserves and yesterday, I finally got around to making this chuck-almost-everything-in-the-food-processor cake. If you follow the recipe below, you’ll end up with a yummy looking cake much like the one above and you’ll love the taste too. For those who are trying to reduce their overall fructose intake, I was so thrilled with the result of this using dextrose instead of sugar. You can buy dextrose from the home brew section of Big W(oop) as it’s affectionately known in our household or from specialty home brew shops and health food stores. Dextrose is actually cheaper than caster sugar to buy and all I did in this case was exchange it directly for the 175g sugar required. The fructose free cake that resulted was yummy and just like a normal cake. Instead of the icing Nigella suggests, I served it with whipped cream and defrosted blueberries from the freezer – so good. Total cost to make is around $3.

  • 175g/6oz butter, softened
  • 175g/6oz golden caster sugar
  • 175g/6oz self-raising flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • 50g/2oz desiccated coconut
  • 2 tbsp coconut cream, or single cream

FOR THE BUTTERCREAM FILLING AND TOPPING:

  • 280g/10oz icing sugar
  • 100g/4oz butter, softened
  • 3 tbsp coconut cream, or single cream
  • 5 tbsp raspberry jam
  1. Preheat your oven to 180C (fan oven 160C), Gas 4. Butter two 20cm sandwich tins with greaseproof paper.
  2. Mix the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and eggs in a food processor for 2-3 minutes until smooth. Gently stir in the coconut and cream.
  3. Divide the mixture between the tins and smooth the tops. Bake for about 25 minutes until golden and firm.
  4. Loosen the edges and leave in the tins for 5 minutes, then turn out on to a wire rack to cool. Peel off lining paper.
  5. To make the buttercream: beat together the icing sugar, butter and coconut cream until smooth. Spread one sponge with the jam. Top with just under half the buttercream and sandwich with the other sponge. Swirl the remaining buttercream on top of the cake.
Aug31

Big Batch Banana Choc-Chip Muffins

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More often than not these days, I find myself in need of inexpensive and simple recipes that can be made in massive quantities. I’ve realised this is because I don’t have enough time to bake or cook for just one purpose: whatever is on the go has to meet the need of a freezer requiring a terms worth of school little lunches, morning tea for church or suppers for Bible study. I also find it’s much more cost-efficient. So when my friend Kim gave me this bumper recipe for 60 banana choc-chip muffins I was over the moon. Now that bananas have come down in price (it seems it’s not too hard to get them for $2 per kg), now is a great time to make these moist and fudgey treats. If you don’t need 60, this recipe is easily halved. An important tip about these muffins: feel free to use homebrand choc-chips. They’re much smaller than their more expensive counterparts and actually work better in this recipe. Depending on the price of bananas, all up this huge batch of deliciousness costs approximately $20. Thanks for sharing, Kim!

  • 15 very ripe bananas (approx. 4kg)
  • 3 1/2 cups sugar (700g)
  • 5 eggs, slightly beaten
  • 375g butter, melted
  • 5 teaspoons baking soda
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 7 1/2 cups self raising flour (1.2kg)
  • 4 x 250g packets choc-chips (1kg)
  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius and distribute muffin cases across as many muffins trays as you have and will fit in your oven.
  2. Put all the bananas in the bowl of a food processor and blitz until creamy.
  3. Put all dry ingredients in a huge bowl or plastic 6L all-purpose basin (see picture).
  4. In a large mixing bowl combine mashed bananas, sugar, eggs and melted butter. Tip this wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until combined, but don’t over do it.
  5. Using two dessert spoons, dollop one heaped spoon worth of mixture in each muffin case. Bake for 15-20 minutes until brown and cooked through. Enjoy!
Aug29

Massive Massaman Curry

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My friend Julie contributed this lovely mild curry recipe and I’m so pleased with the result! Originally from Charmaine Solomon’s Hot & Spicy Book, the whole thing was very easy to make and so tasty. It cooks on the stove for quite a while but pretty much uses just the one pot – and it was no trouble to do other jobs around the place while this yummy curry simmered away. The recipe that follows cost around $25 to make but made no less than 3L, which, served with rice serves approximately 15 people. This recipe is delightfully freezer friendly and can be made in advance for church dinners, weekend hospitality or keeping in the freezer. Thanks for sharing, Julie!

  • 2 kg of chuck steak, cut into chunks
  • 2 tins of coconut milk
  • 5 tbsp massaman curry paste
  • 10 baby potatoes or 1kg potatoes peeled and cubed, whole OR 1 kg of pumpkin peeled and cubed
  • enough small onions for one per person or 4 large, cut into chunks
  • 4 tabs fish sauce
  • 4 tabs lemon or lime juice
  • 1 1/2 tbsp palm sugar (at all Asian grocers) or 4 tabs brown sugar
  • 1 cup unsalted peanuts (easily left out in the case of allergy)
  • 1 cup fresh basil leaves

1. Put chuck steak in large saucepan or stovetop casserole pot with one tin of coconut milk and one tin of water. Add more water if the steak is not covered. Simmer on very low heat with lid on for one and half to two hours, until steak is almost tender. Remove beef from saucepan and set aside. Keep all the liquid.

2. In the same pan heat one tin of coconut milk until thick and oily and slightly reduced. Add curry paste and cook until fragrant.

3. Add meat and liquid back in with sauces, sugar, onions and potatoes and cook approximately 45 mins until potatoes are cooked and liquid has reduced and thickened slightly (If using pumpkin, don’t add until 20 minutes before serving).

4. Add peanuts and basil leaves just before serving. Serve on rice with green beans or broccoli.

Aug13

Chicken & Leek Rice

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This one pot dinner was contributed by Louise a few months ago, but I’ve only just got around to giving it a go tonight. And I’m so glad I did! This was such an easy, yummy and affordable meal – exactly the kind of recipe this blog is about. Originally from Good Taste magazine, this tasty recipe made oodles and will definitely be one I grab when I next need a fuss free meal for a fair few people. As well as all these things, what I really like about this recipe is the fact that you probably already have all of the ingredients in the cupboard and it utilizes only one pot, so there’s not much washing up. And one more thing: to increase time spent with guests, you can prepare this recipe to the end of step 1 up to 2 hours ahead. Store in the fridge until ready to finish if off. Total cost is around $10 and serves 6+ adult size portions.

  • 6 (about 1kg) chicken thigh cutlets
  • 1 tbs plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp Chinese five spice
  • 60ml (1/4 cup) olive oil
  • 2 carrots, peeled, coarsely chopped
  • 1 leek, ends trimmed, halved lengthways, washed, coarsely chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
  • 600g (3 cups) long-grain rice
  • 1L (4 cups) chicken stock
  • 1/2 cup fresh continental parsley leaves
  1. Place the chicken, flour and Chinese five spice in a sealable plastic bag. Season with pepper. Seal and toss to coat.
  2. Heat the oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook for 2-3 minutes each side or until browned. Transfer to a plate.
  3. Add the carrot, leek and garlic to the pan and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes or until the leek softens.
  4. Add the rice and stir to combine. Add the stock and stir until well combined. Return the chicken to the pan. Cover and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, for 12-15 minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed. Set aside, covered, for 10 minutes to stand. Season with extra salt and pepper and sprinkle with the fresh parsley leaves to serve.