Cannellini Beans and Tuna Salad

Have you ever been to Journal Cafe on Flinders Lane? Go there and I recommend you to try the Cannellini  Beans and Tuna salad. I used to love going there because it's next to the City Library, so I would borrow some books and read it while enjoying the coffee and the salad for lunch. Hmmm... too bad, now I have to save some money for New York. But not too bad because I've been able to make my own version of this salad.

As always; on my grocery list;

400gr cannellini beans.
130gr good quality canned tuna in spring water.
2 celery sticks, chopped into bite sizes.
a handful of cherry tomatoes, halved.
just a tiny bit of red onion, chopped finely.

And from the pantry;

1 tablespoon of olive oil
about a tablespoon of fresh thyme leaves (leftover from my Irish Stew)
1 clove of garlic, crushed.

This is how you make it;
1. Rinse and drain cannellini beans.
2. In a big salad bowl, mix crushed garlic with olive oil, and thyme.
3. Add in the vegetables, beans, and drained tuna. Mix well.
4. Serve by itself, or on top of sourdough toast.

I always love tuna, and I love all the ingredient here, especially thyme (they didn't use it as the Journal cafe). It's just very fresh and light. If you like you can add some avocado in, and drizzle a little bit of lemon juice on top.

I can't believe how cheap this recipe is; $1.25 for the canned beans, $2.98 for the tuna, $2.98 for the whole pack of cherry tomatoes (we only use less than a quarter of it), 54 cents for the celery sticks, 56 cents for the red onion. That's $8.31 all together, and that serves 3, so it's $2.77 per serve. Yummy and super affordable...

Cinnamon Apple Cake

This is a slightly modified recipe from a book called "At My French Table" by Jane Webster. My best friends actually gave me this book for my 25th birthday :) Anyway it's a fine recipe called 'Normandy Apple Cake'. But instead of using freshly grated nutmeg, I used the traditional spice; cinnamon.

This cake is very moist, and I also love how it's not too sweet. It's perfect having this cake after a long day at work, and I love having it with tea. My housemate loves having it with ice cream. Yummm... beautiful cake always makes my day, especially when I don't have to spend a lot of money to make it.

In my shopping list;

2 or 3 granny smith or jonathan apples. Cored, peeled and roughly chopped

250gr unsalted butter

And from the pantry;

4 eggs, room temperature

1 tablespoon of brown sugar

1 cup caster sugar

2 cups self-raising flour

1 cup milk

around a teaspoon ground cinnamon

And this is how I make it;

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees

2. Cook apples in some water and brown sugar for 10 minutes, then drain and sprinkle with cinnamon.

3. In a big bowl, mix butter and caster sugar with electric mixer until combined.

4. Add eggs, one by one. Then sift in the flour and add milk. Beat again until combined and soft mixture is formed.

5. Add in half of the apple, and then pour mixture into cake pan, and top with remaining of the chopped apples.

6. Bake for 50 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature with fresh cream or...  ice cream. Or if you can't afford it, just dust it with icing sugar :p

Unfortunately my housemate threw out my shopping receipt, so I can't tell you exactly how much I spent to make this cake... I think it's about $10 and that makes 8 slices, so it's $1.25 per slice. A lot cheaper, and (I think) it's better than most cake you get from cafes. I'm gonna have the last slice now, yummm....

St Patrick's Day Special - Irish Stew!

It was my first attempt and I didn't expect it to be this good! I mean, my Irish friend, Brendan, told me about Irish stew and he told me how he hated it! So I thought of trying it, and then it was St. Patrick's day a few days ago, so it was perfect timing. So here it is, St. Patrick's Day special - Irish Stew!

I find it interesting how the meat doesn't need browning, instead all the ingredients are just put together in an ovenproof dish and cooked slowly for 2.5 hours.

Here is what I needed to buy from supermarket;

around 600gr Lamb forequarter chop

375ml beef stock / chicken stock

4 sprigs thyme

1 large parsnip

2 carrots

2 large potatoes

1 brown onion

a handful of parsley.

And from the pantry I only need;

2 tablespoon of tomato paste

a dash of worcestershire sauce

salt and pepper

And all you have to do;

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees

2. Chop parsnip, carrots, potatoes and onion coarsely.

3. Place all the ingredients in an ovenproof dish, and cook for 2 hours, covered.

4. Uncover, cook for another half an hour, add salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with chopped parsley.

That's all. I was quite surprised with how simple it is, and yet all the ingredients made beautiful flavour combination. I used chicken stock because I think beef stock can be a little overpowering, but may be I should try it next time.

All the ingredients cost me $14, and that's $7 a portion. Not bad, I would cook this again next year in St. Patrick's day, and drink lots of beer. And I'll make Brendan eat my stew :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Beef Stroganoff

Hmmm... Why do I love this dish...? I just love it. I mean, I love mushrooms and sour cream and I also love love love dill, it's funny how this simple combination makes flavourful, delicious dish. I really like the sauce, so I add more sour cream and mushrooms, I think they're the best part of the dish. I'm not too sure but I think the actual Stroganoff recipe uses dried sweet paprika powder, but I couldn't find it in supermarket, so I used fresh red capsicum, and add a bit of sugar... I hope that makes sense.

Let's get cooking. I bought from supermarket;

about 500gr beef Stroganoff cut
300ml sour cream
200gr sliced button mushroom
fresh dill, chopped coarsely.
1 small lemon (just need a little bit of the juice, so if you have that bottled lemon juice, just use it. I personally like fresh lemon juice.)
1 red capsicum, sliced thinly.
1 small brown onion, sliced thinly.

And from the pantry I already have;

1 clove of garlic, crushed
just a dash of red wine
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
2 tablespoon of butter
1 teaspoon of sugar
salt and pepper to taste

And I cooked it, like this;
1. Melt half of the butter and brown the meat, set aside.
2. Using the remaining butter, brown the onion and crushed garlic until soften, then add mushroom and sliced capsicum.
3. Add in the beef back to the pan, and add a dash of lemon juice and red wine, and just a little bit of water until boils. Simmer and cover for 10 minutes until the water reduced.
4. Add sour cream, tomato paste and dill, cook and stir until heated through. Add sugar, salt and pepper to taste.
5. Serve it with rice or pasta.

I love this better with rice, cause it soaks up all the sauce and it's really yummy. I think this recipe would be the most expensive recipe I have cooked since I started the blog, but it's actually not that bad. It cost me about $17 in total, but that serves 3. So that's just a little over $5 per serve, and I mean, yes I'm on budget but every now and then I feel like I still have to treat myself without going over my budget...

Lime and Ricotta Pudding

Yeah, I've been really busy doing other things... and It's sad to say that I haven't had any exciting and successful attempts on cheap good food, so I had nothing much to write lately. But I made this beautiful dessert about 2 weeks ago, and I really loved it. It's called Lime and Ricotta Pudding.

I got the recipe from this book I borrowed from the city library, it's called 'Cooking Desserts' from Murdoch Books publication. It's quite a beautiful book, great dessert recipes, and beautiful photos too. Have a look next time you go to city library.

As always, I loved grocery shopping, and this time I only had to buy;

1 large lime (you need the zest and 1/4 cup of the juice)
1 1/2 cup of good quality ricotta cheese

And everything else I got it from the pantry;

60 gram unsalted butter
1 1/2 cup of caster sugar
3 eggs, room temperature and separated
1/4 cup of self-raising flour
icing sugar

And here is the instruction;
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease a large ovenproof dish, about 1.5 litre capacity.
2. Then in a large bowl use electric mixer to beat the butter, caster sugar and half of the lemon zest for 30 seconds until combined. Add egg yolk one at a time. Mix until combined.
3. Gradually add ricotta and flour alternately, a spoon at a time, and mix until mixture is thick and smooth.
4. Stir in the remaining lime juice.
5. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then carefully fold into the ricotta mixture in 2 batches.
6. Pour the mixture into the dish, place in a roasting tin, and pour enough hot water into roasting tin until halfway up the sides of the dish.
7. Bake for 1 hour, then sift the icing sugar and sprinkle with lime zest...

I loved it and my housemate loved it, my friends loved it. It's just so moist and smooth, and I loved the subtle lime flavour mixed with ricotta cheese... Yummy...

This serves 4 big portions, or 6 diet serves hahaha. It only cost me $6 for 500gr of good ricotta cheese, and I didn't need to use all of that, and I can't even remember how much was the lime... Let's say $1, so that's $7 for 4 serves, it's not even $2 a serve... I totally loved it and would make it again in the future.