Attempting Chicken and Mushroom Parcels

I've been sitting here since the last post went up over an hour ago with no idea how to start this post. So I'm just going to give you the recipe and some pretty pictures and be done with it!

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

2 bacon strips, chopped

150g white button mushrooms, chopped

150g field mushrooms, chopped

6 green spring onions, chopped

1 tablespoon grain mustard

110g cream cheese

1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

450g cooked chicken, chopped

10 sheets pastry, filo or puff

To cook the chicken I decided to poach my chicken breasts. Poaching is basically a nicer way of saying boiling. So simple to do, just cover the chicken with water, bring to the boil, when the chicken rises to the surface weigh down with a small plate or something similar to keep the chicken under the water. Should take about 15-20 minutes for this amount of chicken. It makes it really succulent and if you season the water it should taste pretty good too!

Heat the butter in a frying pan, add the bacon and mushrooms and cook, stirring, until the liquid has evaporated. Add the green (spring) onions and cook, stirring, until soft. Stir in the mustard, cream cheese, cream and chicken and mix well.

God this mixture was SO yummy, I could have eaten it just like this (shhh don't tell anyone but.. I did!)

Cut sheets of pastry in to rectangles, you need two rectangles for every person eating, spoon a bit of the filling in to the middle of the pastry rectangles and squish the edges together, make sure you do this TIGHTLY or you'll get leakage!

Brush with a little melted butter and sprinkle poppy seeds on top (or in my case dried thyme). Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius and bake for approx 20 minutes or until golden.

 

Definitely something I'll be making again!

Attempting Banana Cake

I have this secret banana cake recipe that makes the most moist banana cake I've ever tasted and which puts all other banana cake to shame. Except, it's not so secret... It's from this website here, Exclusively Food...


Ingredients


125g butter, softened (if using unsalted butter, add 1/4 teaspoon salt with the flour)
330g (1 1/2 cups) sugar
280g (1 very slightly rounded cup) very ripe, mashed banana
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (1 teaspoon natural vanilla essence)
2 large eggs (we use eggs with a minimum weight of 59g)
100ml (1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon) buttermilk
225g (1 1/2 cups) self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius fan-forced. If you don't have a fan-forced oven, preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Grease the side and base of a 22cm diameter (inside top measurement) round cake pan. We use a springform pan for easy removal of the cake. Line base of the pan with non-stick baking paper.

Place butter, sugar, banana, vanilla and eggs in a food processor. (I use a blender cause I don't have a food processor. It doesn't work quite as well, but it gets there in the end.)

Process for about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of processor. Add buttermilk and pulse to combine.

Sift flour, salt (if using) and bicarbonate of soda together into a large bowl. Add flour mixture to food processor and process until just combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake for about 50-60 minutes, or until a skewer or knife inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and leave to cool.


My cake was a bit sunken in the middle so I trimmed off the top to make it level.

And then iced it with a cream cheese icing, also from Exclusively Food.


Cream Cheese Icing
90g cream cheese, softened
45g butter, softened
210g (1 2/3 cups) icing sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

Beat cream cheese and butter with an electric mixer until creamy. Add sifted icing sugar and beat until smooth. Add lemon juice and beat to combine. Spread icing over top and sides of cooled cake.

Yumbo!

I'm sorry poor blog!

I promise I have not forgotten about you, I've just been too busy to sit down and write! I'll have three, yes THREE, posts for you tomorrow! Coming up we've got Chicken and Mushroom Parcels (sooooooooo good!), The Best Banana Cake EVER and my first ever Roast Beef dinner! Exciting things!