Tight A$$ Tuesdays: Slow Cooked Osso Bucco

You know as soon as you combine hours of low-heat cooking and a cut of meat with a high bone to meat ratio, you're going to end up with meltingly tender meat and a sauce that becomes rich and creamy from the dissolved connective tissue and marrow.

That's exactly what happens with this dish. It takes around 5 minutes to prepare, and then you get to sit down with a warm Milo and a book for a couple of hours while you take in the smells that will inevitably filter through the house. It's cheap as chips to make, probably using around $7 worth of meat and will feed around 6 people with a side of mash, risotto or couscous. You can use the shank bones for traditional osso bucco, or apply the same method to chops, necks or any cut really. A handful of fresh herbs and lemon zest added at the end brings it to life and freshens it all up.

Slow Cooked Osso Bucco

1kg osso bucco
800g diced fresh or canned tomatoes
400g tomato puree or passata
2 onions, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 stick celery, diced
big slurp of red or white wine (about 2 cups)
Handful of fresh herbs - i used parlsey, thyme, oregano and some chives
salt and pepper

Brown off the meat in batches and put in the bottom of a baking dish. Sweat the onions, carrot and celery until slightly browned, pour in over the meat. Add the tomatoes, passata, wine and herbs to the meat. Cook for 2-3 hours at 160c until meat is falling off the bone. Check the seasoning. Serve over couscous, risotto or a creamy mash.

Berry Orangey Sour Cream Cake

This is an absolute keeper recipe that I discovered this weekend. In the same spirit as the Blank Canvas Cookies, you can just play around with the base recipe, and formulate your own flavourings and embellishments. The cake batter is moist and light, and the zingy sour cream beckons to be supercharged with zests, juices and tart berries.

The original recipe calls for lemons, yogurt and blueberries - none of which I actually had on hand. I swapped these for oranges, sour cream and mixed berries. Someone was "helping" and decided a roughly chopped banana could be thrown into the wet ingredients when mummy wasn't looking. But, who am I to argue with pudgy fingers and blonde curls?

I tweaked this recipe a bit to make it a one bowl cake. Who needs to be washing extra bowls when there are so many other little distractions to play with? *Ahem* Everyone, meet Louey - the newest wannabeafoody apprentice. Awww!

Anyway, this one is really simple, no creaming of butter and sugar, no folding or fluffing or sifting. Suitable for those of us racing after children and/or puppies. Super quick and super yummy. You'd better make two of these if you want it to last long enough to become school or work lunches. You've been warned.

Berry Orange Sour Cream Cake 

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
Zest of 3 oranges
1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
2 cups frozen mixed berries

Grease a 8" square cake pan and line the bottom with baking paper. Preaheat oven to 180c.
In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar, oil, sour cream, vanilla and zest until well combined.
Mix in the flour, baking powder and salt, stirring until just combined. Fold in the berries and pour into the pan. Cook for around 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

To make the glaze: Fill a measuring cup to around 3/4 full with icing sugar, and add 2 tablespoons of juice from a lemon or orange. Pour over cake when completely cooled.

And just because puppy noses and paws are the cutest things on earth...

Tight A$$ Tuesdays: Comfy Bacon Bone Soup

Mum used to make this continuously as soon as the temperature dropped below "sweltering" and then sometimes even when it didn't. Monday to Sunday - that's what we got. Although it was rather monotonous during those months, it was very good. This is yummy-for-my-tummy ultimate well-being food.

This little dude got caught in the act of eating my oregano. He escaped the pot but promptly became chook food. Out of the pan into the fire?

And bonus, you can make it with your eyes shut in a matter of minutes, it makes enough to feed several small countries, it's healthy and costs just a few dollars for countless meals. It gloops up considerably upon cooling, so you can thin it down with stock or water to make even more. I kid you not, the fridge will be full, the freezer packed and your belly distended once you give this a whirl. And, seriously, give this a go.

Bacon Bone Soup
(This makes enough to almost fill my 14L stockpot)

2 large onions, diced
4 carrots, diced
4 celery stems, diced
4 potatoes, diced
1.5kg bacon bones or smoked hocks
500g dried split peas, soup mix, barley, dried grains or whatever

In your stockpot, saute the onions, carrots, celery and potatoes over a low heat until lightly coloured and softened. Add the bacon bones and dried grains and enough water to completely cover all the bones or fill your pot to about 3/4, whichever is more. Bring to a gentle simmer, stirring occasionally so it doesn't catch on the bottom. After a couple of hours, the meat should be falling off the bones, and the liquid thickened and rich. Season with salt and pepper and get into it with some buttered fresh bread or toast.

Notes: There is no strict recipe, if you don't eat pork, use some browned beef or chicken bones. Use any vegetables in any proportions, clear out the fridge and put it all in. Pasta and rice are good substitutes for the soup mix. Frozen peas etc are great additions to put in at the end. Try putting it all in your slow-cooker and forget about it for the day. You'll come home to dinner all done and the house smelling... soupy.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Challenge

Just over a week ago Jen over at Jen's Shangri-La requested a pineapple upside-down cake recipe to satisfy the senses. Most of the regular recipes used a plain buttercake batter (oftentimes made from packet mix) with a canned pineapple topping. A slice of mediocre anyone? Ready to tear this down and rebuilt it?

First off, the main event - saucy pineapple topping. Fresh pineapple! The tart taste-bud defibrillating acidity of a fresh pineapple cuts through the sickly butter-caramel sauce surrounding it. And there should be just enough sauce to dribble down each slice of cake. It's the way it should be!

The cake needs to be... a little different perhaps? I tried cardamom. (Or as the health food shop lady "corrected" me - "cardamon".) Cardamom is... hard to explain. Cinnamon, citrus and pepper come to mind. It's highly fragrant and can be overpowering so just a small amount as an aromatic is perfect and enough to tweak the experience up a notch. I bought the whole pods, emptied out the seeds from about four of them and ground them in a mortar and pestle. This one little spice makes this cake.

The addition of some Drambuie (spiced honey brandy) also adds an extra dimension. Don't worry about getting the kids blotto, the alcohol will be all cooked out by the time you get to eat it, leaving a rich depth of flavour.


Pineapple Upside-Down Cake All Grown Up!

Topping:
1/2 pineapple, peeled, quartered and sliced
100g butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar

Batter:
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 - 1 tsp ground cardamom seeds
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
100g butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tab Drambuie (spiced honey brandy - optional)
1/2 cup unsweetened pineapple juice

Preheat oven to 180c. Grease a loaf tin or 10" round cake tin. In a pan, melt butter and sugar together and cook over a low heat for 4 minutes. Pour into the bottom of the cake tin then layer pineapple on top.

In a sifter, add the flour, cardamom, baking powder and salt. Beat butter and sugar until pale and creamy, add eggs one at a time, followed by vanilla and Drambuie, beat well. Sift in half of the flour, then add pineapple juice, then the rest of the flour, beating well between each addition. Pour the batter over the caramel and pineapple and bake for around 40 mins, or until a skewer comes out clean. Stand in tin for 5 minutes before inverting onto a plate.

Serve with vanilla icecream, lightly whipped cream or like someone did - with creamy toffee chunk icecream and a nip of Drambuie.

More notes about the cardamom: The whole pods can be ground, but will often give a bitter flavour. Leave the seeds inside the pods until you're about to grind them - they spoil and can go rancid quickly. Buying ready ground cardamom is expensive and will have likely lost most of its flavour, and certainly it's freshness. I bought about 10 times the amount of whole fresh pods I needed from the health food shop for 50c. I used just over half a teaspoon of the ground seeds, the original recipe had three whole teaspoons and I can't begin to imagine how strong that would be. I definitely advise using a smaller amount first off, especially if you've never had it before. If it scares you, you can trade the cardamom for cinnamon, nutmeg or mixed spice - but I think it's definitely worth trying out. We loved it!