Hot Cross Buns

"Hot Cross Buns" are a type of sweet bread and are often served on Good Friday. This year I made about 8 dozen which were served at a special children's program at our church. Recipes vary, but we prefer this one which has a nice blend of spices.

Ingredients:

¾ c (180 ml) milk

¼ c (55 gms) sugar

¼ c butter

½ tsp salt

1 Tbsp yeast

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp cloves

¼ tsp allspice

¼ tsp nutmeg

2 large eggs

3 ¾ - 4 c (455-520 gms) flour

¾ c currants or raisins

1 egg white, beaten

Glaze: - ½ c icing sugar, milk or cream, vanilla

Instructions: Scald milk. Add sugar, butter, and salt; cool to lukewarm; add yeast. Add spices and 1 ½ c flour to make a soft sponge; let rise for 20 minutes. When foamy, add eggs and more flour, a small amount at a time, kneading until you have a smooth, soft dough that will not stick to your hands. Knead in currants. Cover and let stand in a warm place until double in size. Form into Hot Cross Buns. Allow to raise until almost double in size. Bake at 375 degrees for about 15-18 minutes or until golden brown. Cool. Make glaze and spoon on bun to form a cross.

To form Hot Cross Buns: Take a good sized lump of dough. While holding in your right hand, squeeze and pinch off little pieces of dough the size of an egg or smaller. Set on a greased baking sheet and allow to raise until almost double in size. Brush with beaten egg white. With sharp knife, cut cross over top of bun before baking.

Bierocks and Leek Soup

Bierocks

Meat filling: Brown 1 lb. hamburger. Add 2-3 c. finely shredded cabbage and one thinly sliced large onion. Cook until cabbage is soft, adding a bit of water if needed. Set aside to cool.

Dough: Combine 2 T yeast, 2 T sugar, 1 tsp salt, ½ c flour, and 1 c warm water. Mix well and let rise for 15 minutes. Add 2 T sugar, 2 tsp salt, 1/3 c shortening or butter, 1/3 c powdered milk, 2 c flour, and 1 c warm water. Beat with mixer for 2 minutes. Add 3 – 3 ½ c flour to make soft dough. Knead until smooth & elastic. Cover and let rise 20 minutes.

To form bierocks: Roll ½ of dough out to about 1/8” thickness. Cut into circles with 4” cookie cutter. Place ¼ c filling in center of each circle. Apply small amount of water or milk around edges; top with another circle of dough and seal. Place on greased cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining dough. Let rise until light. Bake at 350 degrees (180 degrees centigrade) for about 25 minutes or until golden. Serve with hot chilli sauce.

Yield: about 16 bierocks

Leek Soup

Ingredients:

3 quarts chicken stock

1 ½ lbs fresh leeks, including green tops

1 ½ lbs potatoes

½ lb carrots

½ tsp marjoram

½ tsp rosemary

1 T dried parsley

salt & pepper to taste

Instructions: Bring chicken stock to a boil. Chop and add leeks, potatoes, and carrots. Simmer for 2 hours. Add seasonings. Simmer another 30 minutes. Puree quickly in blender. Pour into serving bowls. Top with croutons (if desired). Serves 6.

Fusion Chicken Roll

As spicy as you like it!

Start with two good sized boneless chicken breasts and beat on them just a bit to flatten them as much as possible. Be careful not to tear them up, as you will really be disappointed later on! It becomes really messy and difficult to piece together numerous pieces of chicken to make this work – trust me.

Now grab some of your favorite meat curry powder and dump a couple of tablespoons onto the chicken. Rub the curry into the chicken well, and then also work in some course black pepper – more or less depending on your taste – more for me! Salt the meat lightly and then set aside for a while. If you do this part early enough you can just set this in the fridge and get back to it later on.

Grab a good sized yellow onion and dice it up as fine as you can. Throw that into a pan with just a touch of oil and sauté while you get the rest of the stuffing done.

Grab a couple of cloves of garlic and pound them till they are pretty much paste. Chop up three or four medium sized, fresh, white button mushrooms, and a medium sized tomato.

When the onion is well sautéed dump into a bowl and put the garlic, mushrooms and tomato into pan to sauté for a while. Add a couple pinches of mustard seed and throw in some crushed chilies – again, more or less, to suit your taste.

When the mushrooms have sautéed for a while add back in the onion and mix together well while continuing to sauté the whole mixture together. Add some salt and pepper to this stuffing mixture and mash well. The consistency of the stuffing mixture should be almost like a paste at this point.

Start pre-heating your oven about now. I used about 200 degree C, but I really don’t know what I am doing! (It worked though!!!)

Place the two pieces of chicken – overlapping just a bit – in the middle of a piece of aluminum foil. Flatten by hand as much as possible. Take the stuffing and smooth onto the chicken. Hopefully you have the right amount to cover the chicken completely, but not too thick.

Carefully take the top of the aluminum foil and roll the chicken towards you. Be careful not to let any foil get rolled up with the chicken, but work the roll back and forth until you have a tightly rolled log. If all has gone according to plan you can roll that chicken fairly tight, and you will have enough foil to overlap the roll and hold everything together nicely. Make sure that you use enough foil so that you have extra on both ends to fold over and secure the roll tightly.

Place this roll onto a grill in a large baking pan with some water in the bottom of the pan. Bake for 30 minutes.

After baking, carefully unroll the chicken and serve! We enjoyed it with yellow rice, and baked squash and added some brinjal pickle, seeni sambol and pol sambol - all from Sri Lanka! Very tasty!

(Now I just need to work on my presentation skills!)

(To make my yellow rice, simply dissolve a chicken bullion in the water before adding rice. Stir in raisins and raw cashews, some turmeric powder and some cinnamon powder. Then prepare rice as normal.)

Peanut Butter Cups

Peanut Butter Cups

Mix and roll into small balls:

1 cup crunchy peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups powdered sugar

2/3 cup graham cracker crumbs (or butter cookie crumbs)

½ cup butter, softened

Place into paper “petit four” cups (mini cupcake holders) – one per paper cup. Place on tray and refrigerate for one hour.

Melt over double boiler:

¾ pkg of semisweet chocolate chips

1/3 cup smooth peanut butter

Mix until smooth. Place ½-3/4 tsp melted chocolate mixture over each ball, gently spreading chocolate over peanut butter ball. Chill. Serve on Christmas tray.

Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin Soup is one of our favorites and is well received by guests from various countries. While there are numerous different recipes available for pumpkin soup, each with its own unique seasonings, this is one of our favorites because of the light curry flavor. Served with a dollop of thick cream and sprinkled with nutmeg, it makes a nice light meal, and is especially tasty when accompanied by garlic toast.

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 medium brown onions, diced
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp ground coriander
• ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 1/2 - 2 lbs cooked pumpkin
• 6-8 c chicken broth or vegetable stock
• ½ c thin cream
• Salt & ground black pepper, to taste
• 1/3 c thick cream & nutmeg for garnish

Method:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large wide-based saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until softened.
2. Increase heat to medium-high, add the cumin, coriander, cinnamon, and nutmeg and cook briefly. Add to pumpkin pieces and stir to coat well in the spice mixture.
3. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes or until the pumpkin is soft.
4. Mash together the pumpkin and stock until the soup is almost smooth. Blend half in blender for smoother texture. Add enough broth or stock to attain desired consistency. Stir the cream through the soup and season with salt and pepper. Garnish with a spoon of thick cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg. Serve with garlic toast. Yields 6-8 servings.