Wednesday means we are cooking with Donna Hay. She has such wonderful recipes for everything – cakes, shrimp, meat, ice cream. So many recipes. So little time
Anyway… tonight is supper night for our church so I made Donna’s cinnamon apple sour cream cake. Super simple.
The cake mixture is poured into a 9″ springform pan and then topped with thin apple slices tossed with almond meal, turbinado sugar and cinnamon. The turbinado adds a nice crunch to the topping. One hour and you have a delicious cake you can eat warm or cold. Perfect with ice cream.
This particular dish was super simple to put together. Marinate chicken breasts in a mix of Balsamic vinegar, chicken stock, garlic, and sugar. Then just cook the chicken in a shallow pan until done. That’s it. That’s all there is. And unfortunately that is all it was. Chicken cooked in a pan.
I found it to be really bland even though I left it in the marinade longer than suggested. Even with the simmered marinade over the sliced chicken it was still pretty bland. Ah, well. Maybe the next recipe will be more delightful.
Since I am on KETO I subbed out the garlic couscous for another side – tomorrow on Eating with Ellie!! I left the sugar as it was only 2 Tbl. I was afraid to sub in an artificial sweetener like Stevia.
You can find the recipe HERE. It is from Donna’s flavourspage 102
If it’s Wednesday then there is a Donna Hay cookbook on my counter. Because on Wednesdays several of us use Donna’s cookbooks for some delicious, healthy food.
This week I chose to make her stir-fried pork and shiitake mushrooms. Glad I did. It was simple and delicious.
I usually have ingredients in my pantry to cook us something with an Asian flair. Mirin, sesame oil, shredded ginger, soy sauce coconut aminos, and dried ‘shrooms are always there.
This dish was simple, even though it has 10 ingredients. Bok choy, pork slices, and garlic were added to the above Asian ingredients. And it was delicious. The shiitake mushrooms added a touch of sweetness as did the mirin.
Since I subbed in coconut aminos for the soy sauce making this dish more KETO friendly but the mirin (14 gm carb and 13 gram sugar/2 tbl) sorta cancelled that out.
Recipe is on page 103 of Donna’s new food fast.
See what the other members made this week.
Kayte
Peggy
Gaye
If you want to join us just cook any recipe from Donna Hay’s books, post it and let us know. We will add you to the list.
The beginning of a whole new year. And I find myself asking what happened to the last one. It seemed to have passed so quickly. But, that seems to be the way it is as one grows older. Quick!
But the new year does mean a new beginning and mine is to get back to healthy eating. KETO to be exact. Donna Hay’s classsic baked lemon cheesecake was adaptable to KETO with very little problem.
B has been asking for something sweet. He loves lemon and I love cheesecake. Perfect.
Just a hint of lemon flavor. There is lemon zest in the filling and I increased it.
The adapting I did was in the base or crust. I used a cheesecake crust that I use for all my cheesecakes now.
Mix these ingredients will and press into a 9″ springform pan.
The filling is all Donna Hay – except for the sugar. By replacing the sugar with erythritol I made this KETO friendly.
1 1/4 lb cream cheese
3/4 cup sour cream
6 eggs
1 Tbl grated lemon zest. I used 1 1/2 TBL
1 cup sugar erythritol (and I added a tad more)
In a food processor mix together the cream cheese, sour cream, and erythritol. Mix until smooth. Add in the eggs and lemon zest and blend until well combined. Pour the filling into the crust. Bake for 1 hour at 275. Allow to cool before serving.
It took longer than 1 hour to bake. About 75 minutes total.
It had a delightful mild lemon flavor. I might add more zest and maybe a little lemon extract next time.
The original recipe is in Donna’s flavours cookbook (page 50)
I’ve always liked Donna Hay’s books. Kayte introduced me to her recipes way back in 2012 when I joined Wednesday’s with Donna Hay. Since then I have added four of her wonderful books to my collection. Even tho’ I have made a lot of her dishes I still have plenty more marked. Thank goodness for PotLuck with I Heart Cooking Clubs..
We needed a dessert in the house. But we are trying to go sugar free. But we needed a dessert. Fortunately there are several with Donna that are easily adaptable using a sugar substitute rather than the real thing.
Custard Tart
I feared that the custard would not thicken if using Splenda with Fiber but my fears were unfounded. It thickened nicely and made a great dessert for us.
The recipe calls for using warmed milk with a vanilla bean. Instead, after warming the two I split the bean and added the seeds to the milk. I did bring out the vanilla flavor a lot better. And I hated to waste a whole bean.
This was just perfect. Not a big sweet dessert. Just sweet enough to enjoy after dinner.
I made 1/2 the recipe and ended up with 4 mini tarts (rather than pies). I added just a little whipped cream on top.
The recipe is from Donna’s The New Cook. (page 181)
Who said salad has to made from greens or pasta? What about rice? Brown rice? When Kayte chose Sensational Salads for this weeks WWDH theme the first thought that came to mind was a GREEN salad. And that is what I looked for – at first – but then I thought about pasta salad, potato salad, even fruit salad. Rice never really entered my mind until I found Donna’s recipe with brown rice and salmon.
And I am so glad I did. Full of Asian flavors, salmon, carrots. It was wonderful.
Simply cook brown rice. Mix it with some flaked salmon, shredded carrots and a dressing of mirin, sesame oil, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and ginger and you have a lovely, filling, tasty salad suitable for lunch or dinner.
Donna’s recipe called for smoked salmon but I used some steamed salmon instead. I also didn’t have the snow peas she called for but I didn’t miss them. The salad is supposed to be served totally chilled but I am not a fan of cold rice so I served it warmed. Good choice!
I will definitely make this one again. Glad I made extra rice!
This weekend my ladies dinner group enjoyed High Tea at “Ortigo Abbey”. We were celebrating the new, and last, season of Downton Abbey.
We started with soup. Then came the sandwiches, including the mandatory cucumber ones. Then we had some hot buttered scones, from an Edwardian cookbook, with Clotted Cream followed by the sweet treats. This is where Donna comes in. I needed something bite sized and chocolate. Something decadent seemed reasonable. I found her Chocolate Truffle Cakes in Flavours.
They did not come out nearly as pretty as Donna’s but they were very tasty, very chocolate-y and now they are very gone.
300g (10 oz) dark chocolate, chopped
150g butter
6 eggs
1 tsp vanilla flavoring
4 Tbl sugar
Glaze:
200g (6 1/2 oz) dark chocolate, chopped
1⁄3 cup cream
85g ( 3 oz) butter
Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees F (170C).
Line base of eight 1 cup (8 fl oz) capacity non-stick muffin tins with non-stick baking paper. {Since I needed bite sized I used a mini-muffin tin. I ended up with 32 minis}
Place chocolate and butter in a saucepan (absolutely dry) and stir over low heat till melted and smooth.
Place the egg, vanilla and sugar in the bowl of a mixer and beat until thick and pale.
Stir through the chocolate mixture.
Spoon the mixture into muffin tins and bake for 12-15 minutes or until the cakes are just set.
Cool in the tins and refrigerate for 2 hours.
To make the glaze, place the chocolate, cream and butter in a saucepan over low heat and mix till smooth.
Chill the glaze til it is firm.
Unmold the cakes onto serving plates and spread with the glaze.
My glaze wasn’t as smooth as I would have liked so I topped the mini mouthwatering treats with powdered sugar. They were very rich. and no one complained that they were rather ugly.
The recipe is on page 124 of Donna’s flavours. (and several places on the web)
We haven’t done sweets in a while with Wednesdays with Donna Hay so this week’s theme – Small Sweet Sensations – was just right. Course I planned it that way by picking the theme.
Donna’s food-processor cookies were calling my name. LOUDLY!!
I’d like to say these were some of the best cookies EVAH! but I cannot.
They were easy to make. All the ingredients, except the chocolate, in the food processor then add the chocolate chips M&Ms in a separate bowl. I found them to be rather tasteless except for the M&Ms. Oh, well.
The recipe is a short order recipe from Donna’s off the shelf. Page 160.
Want more sweet treats – Small Sweet Sensations – at Wednesdays with Donna Hay.
I wish you could enjoy the fragrances that were wafting through my kitchen as this simple chicken dish was cooking. It was the wine that you could detect. It is the wine that gives this dish its depth of flavor. Well, along with the Parmesan cheese and thyme.
We really liked this dish. I just wish I had had some fresh thyme rather than using ground. I didn’t discover my thyme was not ‘worthy’ until after I had put the ingredients together and got ready to cook it. The color would have been really nice. AND after looking at my pictures I wish I had browned the chicken just a tad longer. Ah, well. The potatoes, simmered in the wine and chicken broth take on the thyme flavor really nicely and the sauce is a great addition to the chicken itself. Definitely a repeat here. Thanks, Chaya, nice pick.
I am pretty sure the other’s liked this as much as we did. Check on our website – Wednesdays with Donna Hay
Tea and Scones 