**Lemon Pie** (mum-in-law's recipe) DELICIOUS! DELICIOUS!

Seriously delicious!

As we live in Thailand throughout the year I create a list of all the things I will eat (and do) when we visit home, Australia, for our holiday. Definitely in my top 3 eat list is my mother-in-law Sandy's Lemon Pie. I seriously LOVE this pie and literally wait all year for a slice (or 5!). So I was excited knowing that Sandy was coming to visit us here in Bangkok and now that I have a food blog I decided to challenge myself and ask Sandy to walk me through the recipe. Keep in mind that I have NEVER, EVER, made pastry from scratch before but how hard could it be...


Here's what you need for the pastry:
200g plain flour

Oscar inspecting the pastry and filling

130grams butter (room temperature)
70g caster sugar
1 egg

Here's what you need for the filling:
4 lemons zested
250ml fresh lemon juice (from the ones you zested)
9 eggs
375g caster sugar
300ml cream

Here's what you do: (I tried to take lots of photos to document my experience)

Prepare the pastry and filling first thing in the morning. I prepared everything at 7:30am and then cooked it later the same day at 7pm. As I live in Bangkok though the humidity is so bad at the moment that it was better for the pastry to be made early. You can use your hands or a processor to make the pastry. I used my KitchenAid, Sandy always uses her Magimix.

Pastry #1: 
Combine the sugar and flour mixture and then add the butter. After about 30 seconds mixing, add the egg. Combine ingredients until it has formed a smooth dough. Take out of the bowl and roll in to a ball. Cover with cling wrap and place in the fridge for at least 1-3 hours or overnight if you wish. It will feel like it has turned rock hard but that's ok. This is the easy part I discovered!

Love my juicer

Filling:
Zest and juice the lemons (this was my least favourite part). I was happy to bring out my awesome juicer that we picked up in Turkey. Mix the eggs, cream, sugar, juice and zest all together. I used the whisk component of my KitchenAid. Pour mixture in a tupperware container or keep in bowl and place in the fridge for a few hours or overnight.

Pastry/Filling #2:
It's now 6pm so pastry has been sitting in the fridge for about 10 hours. Preheat your oven to 160C and take out the pastry ball and lemon filling. Generously flour a surface on your kitchen bench and gently pat and roll your pastry. Use a floured rolling pin, start at the centre to roll the pastry out into a circular shape a bit bigger than your pie dish. You might have to stop regularly and piece the pastry back together on the side. Make sure it's not rolled too thin and keep adding flour under the pastry to stop it sticking.

Oh dear...

Now... the tricky part!!! Carefully pick up your pastry and line a deep pie dish. As you can see from the photo I need a lot of help in this department! What a mess! We had a good laugh, blamed it on the humidity and set about piecing the pastry back together again. I knew there was a reason I have never made pasty before!

Patched all up, looks great

If you're lucky then yours would have stayed together nicely and ended up looking like this photo to the right. Now that the pastry is covering the base and edges of the dish, line the base with baking paper and bake at 160C. I covered the baking paper with pie weights (ceramic balls - gift from Sandy). Bake the pastry for about 10minutes, but maybe less, check on it and once it is slightly brown take it out of the oven, discard the baking paper and store the pie weights.

Reduce the oven temperature to 150C. You might want to use a sieve to pour your filling through before baking. Sandy sometimes leaves the zest in but sometimes sifts it out, up to you. We poured it through a sieve first. Evenly pour the lemon filling around the pastry but not up to brim, leave about 3/4 cm gap or a bit more from the top. If you have left over filling pour these into greased ramekin bowls and bake at the same time. These can be crustless pies! Now....so super carefully carry the dish to the oven.

Bake the pie at 150C for approximately 45mins-1hr. Mine cooked faster than I thought, check it by gently pressing the centre. It should be spongy and rise back when pressed.

Take it out of the oven and serve with ice-cream or just cream. Seriously delicious and no where near as hard as I thought. I felt like a Masterchef contestant afterwards and so proud of myself! THANK YOU SANDY! xoxo

No leftovers - ever!

3 Recipe Treat - what to do with the bits & pieces!

I don't know if your fridge is anything like my fridge but today I literally had 3 mushrooms, a carrot, left over sweet corn and some zucchinis. I also had a toddler clinging to my left leg who seems to have discovered his inner whining voice and was very busy 'telling' me he was hungry. So I quickly slapped some cheese on bread, gave Oscar his cheese sandwich and within 20 minutes had whipped up 3 toddler friendly meals, used up all those annoying half-eaten ingredients and stocked my freezer! Then when Oscar had his nap, I ate my pasta salad that I made yesterday and read my book for 20 mins guilt-free, a good day so far!

Recipe #1: Vegetable Pancakes

Vegetable Pancake stack - yum!

The recipe below makes about 13 pancakes but I ate 3 of them (!!) so was able to freeze 10. I don't include sugar in my pancake recipe as I would rather not cook with it. I used wholewheat flour for the first time today too.

Here's what you need:
any leftover vegetables hiding in your fridge! I used:
half a grated zucchini/courgette
half a large grated carrot
1/2 cup of sweet corn
1 egg
1 cup wholewheat flour
1 cup milk
little bit of baking soda

Here's what you do:
Mix the flour, milk, egg, baking soda together with a wooden spoon. Originally I used only 3/4 milk but it was quite dry so I added an extra 1/4 milk. Add all the vegetables and mix through. Heat a little olive oil in a frypan on medium heat and then using a normal spoon to scoop the batter out and place in the pan. I cooked 5 at a time. Turn after 1 minute or so, or until golden brown on each side and place on sorbent towel to cool. Repeat until all cooked. You could spread some cream cheese on top to serve if you find them a little dry. When cooled, wrap in foil and freeze. Enjoy!

Yum!

Recipe #2: Vegetable Frittata
Oscar is egg crazy, he likes them anyway they can be made which makes life easy on a Sunday morning when I want a no-fuss breakfast. I just scramble or boil an egg and he is happy. I love frittata though and the best part is if your child is fussy you can hide loads of vegetables in them which I did today. This recipe made 3 frittatas. They are perfect for freezing and for lunch or dinner, kids or adults!



Here's what you need:

any leftover vegetables hiding in your fridge! Chopped capsicum/peppers work well. I used:

half a grated zucchini/courgette

half a large grated carrot

1/2 cup of sweet corn

3 mushrooms sliced

3 eggs, whisked

grated cheese, I used Montgomery Jack as that's what was in the fridge.

Here's what you do:

Grease 3 ramekin dishes (ceramic are best) and preheat the oven to 180C. In a medium bowl add all your vegetables and cheese and stir together. Add salt or pepper if you want. In a separate bowl whisk the eggs. Place the vegetable mix evenly in your 3 dishes. Pour the whisked eggs evenly over the top in each dish. Bake in the oven for 20mins. When cool, run a knife along the edge and carefully tip the frittata out and allow to cool. Enjoy!

Soft inside, crunchy outside = yum!

Recipe #3: Cheesy Crumbed Courgette
These would have to be one of Oscar's favourite snacks. So quick & easy I like to have them handy in the fridge or freezer. The best part about them is that the zucchini/courgette stays so soft but the outside is crunchy. The cheese also takes away the sometimes bitter taste of zucchini.

Here's what you need:
1 zucchini/courgette washed, ends trimmed. Do not peel.
1 whisked egg
some plain flour
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup parmesan or other cheese
olive oil

Here's what you do:
Mix the cheese and breadcrumbs together in a bowl or plate. After you have trimmed the ends off your zucchini cut it in half lengthways and horizontally. Cut those pieces in half again, and continue to half until you have about 12-13 pieces. Lightly coat the zucchini in the flour, dip them into the egg and then cover with the breadcrumb/cheese mix. Heat a little olive or vegetable oil over a medium heat and lightly fry the zucchini until they are golden in colour. Turn them occasionally to cook evenly. I freeze mine in groups of 3. Enjoy!

Mushroom, Feta & Tomato Pasta Salad

I nearly didn't post this recipe as it's so simple and just a basic staple in my house that I figured it would be of no benefit to anyone. But because it's a basic I think it's an even better idea to share.

Now that I am home and chasing after my toddler son I often forget to eat lunch or by the time I feel hungry I feel too tired to make anything really tasty so will often just eat toast or biscuits.

This pasta salad saves me lots of time and is also tasty. I usually make it on a Monday and eat it for lunch for the next 3-4 days. My son will eat it for lunch or dinner too, although I usually vary the recipe slightly for him.

The best part about it is that you can exclude/include any ingredient you like.

Ingredients

Here's what you need:
1 packet Farfalle pasta (or whichever you prefer)
1 small punnet mushrooms, washed and sliced
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes (I use cherry tomatoes cut in 1/2  for my son's version)
6 strips of thinly sliced bacon, rind removed & chopped small
1/4 cup pine-nuts
3/4 cup  pesto
feta cheese
1/2 cup croutons (I used packet ones but easy to make yourself too)

Here's what you do:

Cook all the pasta in a large pan of salted water for about 12minutes or to packet instructions. You don't want the pasta to go too soft. When cooked, drain a couple of times and pour cold water over the pasta so it won't stick together. Place in a large bowl, cover with cling wrap and let cool. I often put mine in the fridge to speed up the process.

When you're ready, put a little bit of olive oil in a fry pan and cook the bacon for a couple of minutes. Add all the mushroom and cook for a further 4-5minutes or until the mushroom is soft. I use a lot of mushroom because they shrink quite small and I love them. Add the sun-dried tomatoes at the end for about 1 minute only.

Stir through carefully

Remove the ingredients from pan and drain on sorbent paper. Add the pine-nuts to the hot pan and toss continually to brown them, this won't take long. Take the cooled pasta from the fridge and drizzle a little bit of olive oil and stir through (to unstick the pasta). Add all the cooked ingredients, plus the pesto, and gently stir through, turning the pasta over. Make sure to bring the pasta from the bottom to the top. I usually add more pesto at this stage if I think it's not enough.

You can eat the salad like this but I add crumbled feta and croutons. Today I added blue cheese but it was a bit too salty. When my son has this for dinner I use cherry tomatoes instead of sundried.

Enjoy!