Queensland Blue Squash Soup

Queensland Blue Squash Soup


My grandparents always had a supply of Queensland Blue Squash from the home garden.  We called them pumpkins, and they stored well in a cool, dark place in grandma's pantry.  Sunday dinner was often one of our chickens baked and served with mashed potatoes, mashed pumpkin and homegrown beans. Leftover mashed pumpkin made a base for great soup combined with a soup broth made from the chicken leftovers gently boiled on the back of the kitchen wood stove for at least a day. My grandparents had no electricity.

Ingredients

1 half cup of olive oil
2 tablespoons of butter
6-8 cups of mashed Queensland Blue Squash
2 cups of chopped onions
2 cups of chopped celery
1 quart of chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon ginger powder
2 cups of shredded cheese (My preference: medium cheddar)
2 teaspoons of Italian seasonings

Directions

In a saucepan place the olive oil and saute the chopped onions. Add the chicken broth, bring to a slow boil and add the rest of the ingredients. This makes for a thick soup. Add more chicken broth, not water, to thin the soup.  The butter and cheese gave the soup a creamy taste. In the outback, at that time, we rarely had fresh cream so we used canned evaporated milk. Adding a half cup of canned evaporated milk would help make a creamy soup.  Leave the soup on a very slow boil for an hour and stir well. The cheese was usually cheese that had dried and could not be used in sandwiches. The Italian seasoning was my idea. Grandma could just add a few tablespoons of the leftover, well spiced, chicken stuffing, to the chicken broth.


If you do not have Queensland Blue Squash, the sweetest squash of all, Butternut Squash would be an excellent replacement. Steam the squash until well cooked and use a potato masher. Some like to use a blender on the squash. I prefer the mashed texture. Garlic toast makes an excellent addition when the soup is served.

Suggestions Received:

1. Soup is not soup for some folks if there is no taste of meat. Before you add chopped onions to the olive oil, brown four slices of bacon chopped into 1/2 inch pieces.

2. I was surprised when four more family members ("rellies"in Australia) arrived that I expected. I quickly added another quart of chicken broth and 2 cups of dried potatoes and a little more salt and pepper. The additions blended in well with a slow boil and stirring for five minutes. The soup was a little thinner, but the taste was still great.

I remember my grandfather moving excess Blue Squash to friends and neighbors in his horse and sulky. He never had a car or a drivers license. When he picked me up at the train station he did so in the sulky a two wheeled vehicle.

Tomato Vegetable Juice

Tomato Vegetable Juice

What do you do with an excess of garden vegetables? One very versatile product is a blended collection of vegetables. One of the best combinations is  a blend of tomatoes and vegetables such as cucumbers and celery. The tomato needs to be the dominant taste, and I prefer to keep tomato content at 60-70 percent.

The advent of the electric blender really made a difference. As a 10- year old in my grandmother's kitchen, my job was to use the hand-powered meat grinder to turn the vegetables into a paste. Now I have the monster home blender - the Ninja. This very fast and very powerful device allows for the blending of large volumes of vegetables quickly.

Ingredients

1 bucket of tomatoes (makes about 6 quarts, when blended)

1  large celery plant  (4 cups, when  blended)

2 cups lemon juice

2 cups of blended onions

2 cups of blended bell peppers

4 cups of blended lemon cucumbers

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons pepper

2 teaspoons of dried Italian spices

1/2 cup Vegemite

1/2 cup Worcestershire Sauce

1 teaspoon garlic powder


You will need a 10-quart soup pot. Wash the tomatoes well, remove all blemishes, cut into quarters and blend. Because of their natural juices tomatoes will blend easily. Cucumbers and celery will need help, so add a cup of lemon juice to help with the blending. Do not try to blend the Vegemite. The Vegemite will dissolve easily when the mixture is heated and stirred. If you do not have access to Vegemite, you could delete this ingredient or you could get the Vegemite or Marmite online.

Place all ingredients in the soup pot and bring to a slow boil for 10 minutes while stirring well.

Some Uses for the tomato vegetable juice

This tomato/vegetable juice will have plenty of uses including:

a. As a soup by itself or as a soup base.

b. As the main ingredient in a shrimp cocktail sauce recipe.

c. As an important ingredient in meatloaf, rissoles, hamburgers, etc.

d. As a base for Mulligatawny soup or casserole.

e. Just add the liquor and you will have a Bloody Mary.

f. When cooled, it is a great tasting and very healthy drink.

g. As the base ingredient in a pasta sauce.

To thicken this recipe for use as a pasta sauce, add dried potato flakes and bring to a slow boil while stirring.

This is a very safe ingredient for canning. The 10-minute slow boil does serve to pasteurize the mixture and the presence of tomato and lemon juice ensure a high acid content that, when canned, aids long-term storage in a cool place. This should make about 8 quart bottles.

Mighty Outback Muffins

Mighty Outback Muffins

My home state of Queensland grows excellent bananas and Macadamia nuts. Over time I have tried different ingredients in muffins. Recently I found a number of recipes that were developed by Utah pioneers. These recipes are known as "Mormon Muffins." To call these substantive would be an understatement.

The following was recently published in the Salt Lake Tribune and is a modern version of the Mormon Muffin:

"Mormon Muffins"

5 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups boiling water

1 cup shortening

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 quart buttermilk

5 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

4 cups All Bran cereal

2 cups 40 percent bran flakes

1 cup walnuts, chopped In a bowl, combine soda and boiling water. In a separate bowl, whip shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs slowly. Mix well. Add buttermilk, flour and salt and mix again. Pour the soda water very slowly. Gently fold the cereals and the walnuts into the mix.

Let mix sit in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day, heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffin tins. Spoon 1/8 cup batter into prepared muffin tins. Bake 30 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes.

Servings » 3 dozen muffins

Using Cereal

Clearly, this recipe delivered a small meal in one muffin. I like the use of a breakfast cereal as a major ingredient. The version I prefer also includes a breakfast cereal.

Mighty Outback Muffins

Ingredients

4 cups  whole grain flour with 5 teaspoons of baking powder.

        Note: In Queensland it would be self-raising flour and it would not be whole-grain flour.          

4 large mashed, very ripe bananas

1 cup  egg mixture

1 cup  olive oil

1 cup  milk - (I prefer soy milk)

4 cups  Raisin Bran cereal

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup dry-roasted Macadamia nut pieces - many prefer walnuts

1 cup  chopped dates 

Method

Muffin oven trays come in two sizes. The standard size has 12 cups with 2 3/4 inch cup width. The king size has 6 cups with a cup width of 3 1/2 inches. I prefer the king size. There is a 6 cup "Texas Muffin" pan which is very similar to the king size.

I prefer not to fill the cup. Spoon the mixture in until 1/4 to 1/2 an inch from the top of the cup. The Muffin on the right had the cup filled to the top. The muffin on the left was filled to a 1/4  inch from the top. I grease the pan with olive oil by dropping a teaspoon of oil in the bottom of each cup.

Mix all  ingredients well and bake for 30 minutes at 350.

In many ways we have a blending of banana-nut bread and muffin recipes.

One of these king size muffins cut in half with cream cheese, or butter, and marmalade jam is definitely a meal, and a rather nutritious one. I often eat these muffins with cream cheese and Vegemite. The combination would be rich in Niacin.n

This mixture will provide 12 of the king size muffins.

I prefer to chop my own moist Medjool dates to use in the ingredients. These dates can be found in many grocery stores. Many health food stores will carry Medjool dates.

What's in a Medjool Date?

Nutrition and the healing properties of the Phoenix Dactylifera L. have been noted in folk lore and at this present time research has deemed that the date may be considered as an almost ideal food. It is also being considered as a good world food source because of it high nutritional value. Nutritional properties of a single Medjool date are remarkable to say the least. The list of vitamins contain Vitamin A, Retinol Activity Equivalent, Beta Carotene, Lutein + Zeaxanthin, Vitamin K, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, food Folate, Folic acid, dietary Folate equivalents, Pantothenic Acid, Choline, and Betaine. I know that list was impressive but there is still more. Medjool dates contain a bountiful amount of Minerals; they include Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sodium, Zinc, Copper, and Manganese. Were that all that the Medjool date contained, it would be considered a wonderful food.

The combination of very ripe bananas and Medjool dates keeps the muffins moist ,tasty and healthy. The ripe bananas increase the sweetness without the addition of sugar. The  ripe bananas are often thrown out. What a waste, they are perfect for use in muffins and banana-nut bread.

For more information on Banana-nut Bread and the preparation of bananas see posting for:

Sunday, February 24, 2013

 Getting serious about Australian Muffins

If you want to get really serious about Australian muffins visit the web site:

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/collections/muffin+recipes

Cinnamon Apples

Recipe: Cinnamon Apples

1 5-gallon bucket of apples. This will make 8-9 quarts of  peeled sliced apples.

     2 cups brown sugar.

     2 cups of Splender (artificial sugar)

     2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon

     1 teaspoon nutmeg

     6 cups of apple juice

     4 tablespoons olive oil

Place the ingredients in a 10-quart pot and bring to a slow boil.

Stir gently while slow boiling for 10-15 minutes.

While peeling and slicing the apples, immediately place the freshly peeled and sliced apples in a pan with an ascorbic acid solution. Use no more than one teaspoon for each 8 cups of water. This will stop the apples from turning brown and prevent loss of nutritive value by adding vitamin C.

We did mix apple varieties as long as the apples were firm and not too ripe. The myrecipes.com site suggests:

 If you can't find McIntosh apples, substitute another baking apple such as Rome or Gala, or try a crisp, tart green apple such as Granny Smith.

This recipe does reduce sugar content by at least 50%. You can reduce even more sugar by replacing the brown sugar with artificial sugar. This will not remove all sugar because the all-natural apple juice has some sugar content.

Bottle in one-quart bottles. Makes 6 quarts.

Health and Nutrition Notes: Outback Al’s Super Cinnamon Apples

Made from fruit grown in our own home orchard. The recipe is highly nutritious. The apple, cinnamon and nutmeg provide a very nutritious combination. The recipe differs from the typical dessert recipes involving apples and cinnamon. The typical recipe adds water; our liquid is pure apple juice. This recipe cuts the typical sugar content in half.

   

Would you believe that a mere teaspoon of cinnamon contains 28 mg of calcium, almost one mg of iron, over a gram of fiber, and quite a lot of vitamins C, K, and manganese? It’s true. It also contains about half a gram of “usable” (non-fiber) carbohydrate. (Laura Dolson, Nov. 2009)

One study published in 2009 found that cinnamon taken twice a day for 90 days improved hemoglobin A1C levels  (a reflection of average blood sugar level for the past two to three months) in people with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes (hemoglobin A1C levels greater than 7 percent). (Mayo Clinic – Sept. 2010)

•  Apples contain an impressive list of essential nutrients which are required for normal growth and development and overall nutritional well-being. Apples are low in calories; 100g of fresh fruit slices provide only 50 calories. The fruit contains no saturated fats or cholesterol, but is rich in dietary fiber, which helps, prevent absorption of dietary LDL cholesterol in the gut. The dietary fibers also help protect the mucous membrane of the colon from exposure to toxic substances by binding to cancer-causing chemicals in the colon. Apple fruit contains good quantities of vitamin-C and beta-carotene. Vitamin C is a powerful natural antioxidant. Consumption of foods rich in vitamin C help the body develop resistance against infectious agents and scavenge harmful, pro-inflammatory free radicals from the body. (www.nutrition-and-you.com)

Recipe: Apple Crisp

1 32 oz. Bottle of Cinnamon Apples

1 C. Oats

3/4 C. Flour

3/4 C. Brown Sugar

1/2 C. Butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Pour apple mixture into 8x8 baking dish.  Combine remaining ingredients and place on top of apples.  Bake for 25-30 min, or until golden.  Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Leah Schilling

Cinnamon apples have a wide range of uses.
You can serve warm as a breakfast dish. I add cinnamon apples to curry recipes. Serve cinnamon apples with main dishes such as a topping for pork.

This makes great apple pies. Go to the Meat Pies post (5/3/13) and replace the meat filling with cinnamon apples.

Apples and the Outback

Apples were a very rare and expensive fruit in Springsure, the little Outback town where I was raised by grandparents. The closest apple trees were several hundred miles to the south and a lot further by rail.

Typically, in Springsure, you experienced apples in dried or canned form. This  apple deprivation as a youngster might explain the 20 apple trees I now have in our front yard.

Cinnamon Tea Recipe

Given the health benefits of cinnamon, you might want to consider drinking two cups of cinnamon tea each day.

The first question is: Do I make the tea with cinnamon sticks or cinnamon powder. I would suggest the powder which will deliver both the spicy taste and the herb into the digestion system.

Place 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon powder in a cup and add boiling water and stir. Cover the cup and let sit (steep) for 30 minutes.

Add a teaspoon of honey, stir well and drink.

You can personalize your cinnamon tea recipe. Some increase the amount of cinnamon powder per cup up to one and a half teaspoons. Some add a slice or dash of lemon juice. Some add an orange slice. If time is short boil the water with the cinnamon in it and let sit for 10 minutes. Some prefer the iced tea version. Many consider a cup of hot cinnamon tea 30 minutes before bed as a relaxant.

Given the questionable water quality in many places I visited, drinking large amounts of cinnamon tea made from well boiled water was a healthy habit for more than just the cinnamon ingestion. It is a great idea anytime there is a problem with the water supply.

Whole-Grain Wheat Bread - The Crumbs

Whole-Grain Wheat Bread - The Crumbs

As I travelled the world, spending time with many modest income families, I noticed that very little food went to waste. Bread was never wasted. If the bread became stale, it was turned into bread crumbs. These bread crumbs came into future meals in a wide range of ways. The bread crumbs became a basic ingredient in dishes such as rissoles and meatloaf. See earlier posts, starting with Australian Outback Rissoles (Oct. 25, 2010). The wide use of bread crumbs includes: a stuffing ingredient in stuffed peppers, a thickener for soups, an ingredient in the coating of fish and chicken before frying, a topping ingredient for casseroles and a part of the coating for baked vegetables. If you have whole-grain wheat bread, you have access to one of the tastiest and healthiest forms of bread crumbs. Some great uses for these whole-grain bread crumbs follow.

Crumb-Coated Roasted Potatoes

We grow and eat our own red-skinned potatoes. With the aid of a root cellar, these potatoes are available for most of the year.

Ingredients

 2 pounds red-skinned potatoes

1 cup whole-wheat bread crumbs

1/2 cup olive oil

4 tablespoons grated Romano or Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

2 teaspoons dried parsley

Prepare the bread crumbs. I use a hand meat-grinder. For grinding bread crumbs the grinder is fast and  easy. I break the bread into 1 inch pieces and dry the pieces in a 200 degree oven for about 60 minutes. If the bread is dry, the bread crumbs will store well in a sealed mason jar.

These hand meat-grinders are great for many things. A safety note: this is a one-person job. The person placing the bread pieces in the hopper should be the same person turning the handle. This way, one person cannot grind another person's finger.

My grandmother used a rolling pin to crush the dry bread into crumbs. That was certainly a quick and safe way to make bread crumbs.

Cut the potatoes into 1/2 inch thick slices and toss them in a bowl with the olive oil until the potatoes are well coated. Place all the ingredients, except the potatoes, in a bowl and mix them well. Add the potatoes to the bowl and mix well until the potatoes are thickly coated.

Rub the baking pan with olive oil, add the potato slices, and bake in an oven preheated to 400. Check the potatoes for tenderness. They should be browned and cooked in about 30 minutes.

This coating recipe can be used for other vegetables, including squash, onions and carrots.

Whole-Grain Wheat Bread

Whole-Grain Wheat Bread 

This bread is 100% whole grain and very tasty as well as full of nutrients. Store-bought whole-wheat bread is mostly white flour with a modest amount of the whole grain. To get the complete whole grain, you may have to mill the grain yourself. First select the wheat. I use red wheat.

I find the best way to acquire the red wheat is in
45 lb. buckets that cost about 25 US dollars per bucket. Given the national  interest in emergency or "prepper" food supplies, these buckets are easy to find online or locally in many communities. I get mine from a "big box" local grocery store. I have a hand wheat grinder and an electric grinder. You have to be very hungry to use a hand grinder. The hand grinder will work in emergencies when the electricity has failed.

Ingredients

This will make two loaves.

A very basic bread recipe uses warm water,  yeast, and flour. To be more tasty, add some salt,  sweetener, and oil or butter. See the reference to "damper" at the end of this post.

I use:

4 cups of hot water, not boiling. I take it from the hot faucet in the kitchen sink. You need the warm water to make the yeast work. Boiling water poured on the yeast will kill live, active yeast. Ensuring a warm temperature for the yeast when Grandma Hofmeister was cooking was not a major concern in the Queensland Outback. If it was 105 degrees F. outside and the kitchen stove was burning wood, the temperature was great for keeping the yeast active.

1/2 cup of olive oil for the bread mixture, 1 tablespoon for rubbing the inside of each of the two baking pans, and 2 tablespoons for basting the crust of each of loaf of bread after it is cooked.

For the sweetener  I use a 1/4 cup of honey and a 1/4 cup of molasses, mixed.

1 tablespoon of sea salt

8 cups of whole-grain flour.

2 dry active-yeast packets. These sealed packets contain a tablespoon each. Using these sealed packets usually means the yeast is alive and active. When time is an issue the outback australians used self-raising ("self-rising" in Australian) flour. See damper recipes below.

Take the bowl off the mixer and include every ingredient except the flour and yeast. Stir with a large spoon. Add half the flour (about four cups). Place the bowl on the mixer and gently stir until the hot water is well mixed. Then add the yeast and keep mixing slowly. This will be a very sticky mixture. You need to add more flour slowly, about a half cup at a time. Stop adding flour and stop mixing when the mixture stops sticking to the mixing bowl. There should be very little flour left.

Take the mixing bowl off the mixer and cover with a paper towel and a small cutting board to hold the paper towel in place. Let the mixture rise for 45 minutes. The dough should have risen noticeably.

Place the bowl back on the mixer and mix slowly for about a minute. This should reduce the mixture. Remove the bowl from the mixer and place the dough on a whole-grain, flour-covered cutting board. Knead the mixture into a roll and cut into halves. Knead each half for a few minutes and place in a baking pan which has been rubbed inside with olive oil to prevent loaves from sticking to the pans.

Preheat your oven to 400, set back to 350 and cook the loaves for 35 to 40 minutes.

Remove loaves from the oven and baste the top of each loaf with olive oil. This will ensure the loaves do not develop a heavy dry crust that will limit sandwich making.

Immediately remove the loaves from the pans and set them out for at least 30 minutes before eating. After 60 minutes you may wrap each loaf with foil and store in a cool place, but not in a refrigerator. The refrigerator will change the texture. The loaves will dry out quickly if not wrapped in foil or waxed paper. Remember there are no artifical preservatives in these loaves, so enjoy the bread within a day or two. The bread is still quite tasty for a week if kept well wrapped in foil.

Some Great Additions - Apples and Raisins

If you wish to vary the basic recipe listed above, there are two great tasty and healthy additions, apples and raisins.  I prefer to add three cups of my bottled cinnamon apples for each loaf. Some will peel and chop the raw apples and add three cups of chopped apples and 3 teaspoons of cinnamon per loaf. To make the raisin loaves, add three cups of raisins per loaf. I like to soak my raisins in dark rum overnight. This is still a healthy addition. The alcohol evaporates during the cooking, but the great rum taste does not. These additions are included in the basic mixture before the yeast is added.

Damper - The Outback Bread

The Aussie-info web site Noted:

In colonial Australia, stockmen developed the technique of making damper out of necessity. Often away from home for weeks with just a camp fire to cook on and only sacks of flour as provisions, a basic staple bread evolved. It was originally made with flour and water and a good pinch of salt, kneaded, shaped into a round, and baked in the ashes of the campfire or open fireplace. It was eaten with pieces of fried, dried meat, sometimes spread with golden syrup, but always with billy tea or maybe a swig of rum.

Today it is made with milk and self-rising flour. Salt is optional.

BUSH DAMPER

3 cups of self-rising flour
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water

Sift flour and salt into a bowl, rub in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
Make a well in the centre, add the combined milk and water, mix lightly with a knife until dough leaves sides of bowl.
Gently knead on a lightly floured surface, and then shape into a round and place on a greased oven tray. Pat into a round 15-16 cm (6-6 1/2 inch) diameter.
With sharp knife, cut two slits across dough like a cross, approximately 1cm (1/2in) deep.
Brush top of dough with milk.
Sift a little extra flour over dough.
Bake in a hot oven for 10 minutes, or until golden brown.
Reduce heat to moderate and bake another 20 minutes.
Best eaten the day it is made.

Baking Bread in Tough Times

Given that we started with a reference to emergency food preparation, all the above-listed suggestions for bread making can be done without the typical home oven, be it gas or electric. You will need a 12-inch Dutch Oven (in Australia we call them Camp Ovens). The 12-inch Dutch Oven is the perfect fit  for the standard bread loaf pan.

The following photo from www.aussiecampovencook.com says it all. If you use a smaller 8-inch Dutch Oven then the Dutch Oven would serve as both the loaf pan and the oven.

Part 2 is the next post - What to do with old dry bread?

Meat Pies

Meat Pie Filling.  

1/2 cup olive oil

1 1/2 lbs lean ground beef

1 1/2 lbs lean ground turkey

6 bacon slices - thick and peppered - cut into 1 inch pieces  

1 can condensed cream of Mushroom soup with garlic

1 can condensed French onion soup

2 cups chopped carrots

1 can peas

2 cups of chopped asparagus

1 can diced Italian tomatoes

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce

2 teaspoons dried basil

1 teaspoon garlic powder

Brown bacon in a large frying pan with olive oil.

Add beef and brown.

Add turkey and brown.

Add rest of ingredients, stir well and bake for an hour at 250. Leave lid off to reduce water content and thicken the mixture. If there is too much liquid in mixture, add two tablespoons of potato flakes.

This should make at least 8 small (mini) pies or two large meat pies. This recipe was designed to taste great and be more healthy than my usual meat pie recipes.

I found the following mini pie maker the best and fastest way to make a wide range of meat and fruit pies. The pie maker is typically available for about 80 US dollars online through folks like Amazon.

Breville BPI640XL Personal Pie Maker

• Four pie molds with a 4-inch diameter
• Edge crimper seals the pie with decorative trim
• Locking latch
• Easy clean non-stick surface
• Included accessories: pastry cutter and pastry press

I do not usually endorse cooking appliances, however this brand has an Australian history.

Breville is a maker of small kitchen appliances, founded in Sydney, Australia, in 1932. They created the original sandwich toaster. The product was a huge success upon its launch in Australia in 1974, selling 400,000 units in its first year and making the Breville brand a household name in Australia. Soon after, the Breville toasted sandwich maker was launched in New Zealand and Great Britain where it met with similar success. The name became synonymous with such devices – to the point where “Breville” has become the generic word for a sandwich toaster, and often the toasted sandwich itself, in much the same way that “Hoover” is associated with the vacuum cleaner.

If you do not have this Breville pie maker you would bake the typical 9 inch pie at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes.  Given that small pies are a very portable food item and often spend considerable time out of a refrigerator before eaten, make sure the pie mixture is well cooked before it becomes a part of the pie.

For related posts see:

a. The Pie Iron Meat Pie - Dec. 24 2010.
b. Cornish Pasties - Oct. 31 2010.

My first experience in the making of meat pies was helping Grandma Hofmeister in her wood cooking stove kitchen in outback Queensland. The hand turned meat grinder was set up on the kitchen table and grandma collected all the beef related leftovers and I operated the grinder to generate the "minced" beef that went into the meat pie mixture. The house had a wood stove, no electricity and no indoor plumbing.

My thanks to my friend Chad for helping in the field testing of recipes. Chad also supplied the photo of the pie and peas.