It’s the Beloved Man Child here hijacking Tam’s blog as I have a story that she is too embarrassed to tell.

For Father’s Day, Tam took me out for breakfast. We decided to go back to Siara Café (previously reviewed here).

After ordering her typical freaky weird coffee (a long black with chocolate), one of the owners remembered her order and thanked Tam for her glowing review of the café. It’s not often you will see Tam lost for words and looking all embarrassed!

So there you go, her first CBM!

Let’s hope there are many more.

This dish is a real comfort food for me. I remember Mum cooking it right through my early life.

It comprises layers of cabbage, layers of spiced mince and layers of creamy rice.

Ingredients:

• 500-600gms fine minced beef
• 1 brown onion, finely chopped
• 500g cooked rice (i use 2 pkts of those 90 second rice things), still hot
• 1 head of cabbage, cut off the heavy core and separate the leaves
• either 1 large bowl of boiled water (top up with freshly boiled water from the kettle) or a large saucepan of very gently simmering water
•  250ml cream
• breadcrumbs and/or grated Parmesan for the top
• 2 tblspns olive oil
• salt to taste
• favorite herbs to taste eg paprika, cumin, garlic powder, chili, oregano, pepper, … or dry herb pkt flavoring eg taco

Method:

1. Saute the onion in the olive oil in a large frypan.
2. Brown the minced beef
3. Add your “favorite herbs”, fry them through the beef. Set them aside to cool slightly.
4. In a large lasagne dish lay (smear) a light layer of juice from the beef and sprinkle some breadcrumbs
5. Blanch 5 or 6 lettuce leaves in the boiled water until they are bendy/foldy. Lay them out flat over the base of the lasagne dish
6. Using half of the beef, spread a (thin) layer
7. Use 250g fo the rice and scatter a thin layer on the beef
8. Drizzle cream (approx 70ml) over the rice. Lightly salt.
9. Blanch and layer the cabbage again, then the mince, then the rice and cream
10. Blanch a final layer of cabbage and lay the leaves
11. Drizzle the last of the cream over the cabbage. Sprinkle breadcrumbs/parmesan all over the top.
12. Place in oven and bake for an hour.
13. Take out and let sit for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

Ingredients:

• 250g diced apricots
• 1 tblspns apricot jam
• 100g white chocolate – either finely chopped or buttons
• 250g butter – room temp
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar (fine – packed)
• 1 egg
• 2 cups plain wholemeal flour
• 2 teaspn baking powder
• ¼ teaspn salt

Method:

1. Line baking trays with baking paper.
2. Preheat oven to 190C.
3. Stir the jam through the diced apricot and heat in the microwave for 20 seconds – this makes the jam runny and soaks into the apricot to soften
4. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
5. Add egg, continue beating.
6. Sift plain flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the creamed butter mix. Mix in well.
7. Stir in, by hand, the Apricot mix and choccy bits. Mix in well.
8. Drop teaspoonfuls on to the lined baking trays. Space well apart as they will spread.
9. Bake for 12-14 minutes.
10. Leave on tray for a couple of minutes then transfer to cooling rack.
11. droooool

Essentially, every ingredient technically starts with the letter C. Except onion. And salt. Though salt could be described as a Condiment. Semantics. Love ‘em

So, this is C Soup … with onion

Ingredients:

• 1 whole Chicken – raw or preroasted by you or from your favorite chook place
• 400-500g diced Carrot
• 2 onions – quartered
• ¼ to ½ a head of Celery – chopped – include the leaves – i prefer lots of leaves
• 1 tin Creamed Corn
• Curry – Keen’s use 1 tblspn – I’m using 2 tlbspns of Red Thai Curry Paste
• 1 small tin Coconut Cream
• and water of course … water makes up the Seas (C’s) … ok i’ll stop that now.
• Salt to taste – usually about 1-2 tblspns – chicken + soup needs a lot of salt
• Optional: cabbage

Method:

1. Get your cauldron, put the chicken (including stuffing if its there), celery, onion, carrot, salt and water. Bring to simmer for at least an hour. Take out the chicken to cool on a plate – once its cool, shred the meat (discard bones et al) and add it back to the soup.
2. Check saltiness.
3. Add the corn, curry and coconut cream. Simmer. Check saltiness.
4. Serve.

Makes 6 med bowls.

PS I’ll put up a pic as soon as i figure out how to export (correctly) in Lightroom 4 lol

This gorgeous, tiny bit of cafe heaven was a completely pleasant little find. Ok, it is awesome. Five stars.

The food is great – you can get breakfast all day! The coffee lived up to my snobbish and weird desires. Service was friendly and prompt. Decor wasn’t kitchy (yay!).  You can buy percolators, grinders, fresh coffee beans (including Siara’s own brew) and they offer tall takeaway coffee cups, not just your reg and large. Desserts looked delish but I couldn’t even think about looking at them after “The Big Breakfast”. There was also a water bowl at the outdoor seating area for those who have furbabies with them. Only down side was that there aren’t many tables so you gotta time it right.

I ordered my preferred coffee and The Big Breakfast of toast, poached eggs, bacon, blanched baby spinach, sautéed mushroom, grilled tomato and a kransky – all done to perfection. The Beloved Man-Child ordered scrambled eggs with bacon – halfway through, he paused, looked up, said “yeah, we’ll be back” and hoed back in.

Overall – highly recommend

ph: 9571 8848

email: info@siaracafe.com.au

www.facebook.com/siaracafe

Ingredients:

• Olive oil to lightly coat the base of your favorite cauldron
• 2 med onion – chopped
• 4 cloves garlic – finely chopped or minced
• 800g casserole steak – diced
• Salt to taste (I like this salty, I used about 1 tblspn) and pepper
• 2 tblspns sweet Hungarian Paprika
• 1 tblspn caraway seeds
• 3 large carrot – chopped into 1cm thicknesses
• 3 large potatoes – diced into 2cm blocks
• Water
• 2 tblspns Gravy flour or cornflour/water mix to thicken

Method:

1. Heat up your cauldron with the olive oil and sauté the onion and garlic.
2. Brown the beef.
3. When almost fully browned, add salt, paprika and caraway seeds. Pepper as desired. Stir well.
4. Add the potatoes and carrots. Stir so well coated.
5. Pour enough water over the top so that all contents are well covered.
6. Bring to a simmer and keep there for at least half an hour … At least ! Preferably 1 ½ hrs or two if you have the time. The longer all the ingredients are together the better it is.
7. About 10min before serving, thicken with flour (never use Gravox).

The figs for this recipe do need to be prepared before the “event” of making these cookies. Only takes about 15min, but it needs to be cool/room temp for the recipe. It’s so worth it! I’m doing it the night before but (confession time) after one taste, be glad that I’m lactose intolerant … this mix would be liberally sploshed on top of icecream and being devoured right now … it’s delish!

Preparing the figs:

• 1 cup of dried figs, chopped into very small pieces – throw out the stalks
• ½ cup of water
• 1tblspn of honey

Put all these ingredients in a small saucepan and simmer on a low heat, mashing the figs with a spoon and stirring constantly until it’s like a thinnish paste. This takes about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Ingredients:

• Fig mix
• 100g dark chocolate – either finely chopped or buttons
• 250g butter – room temp
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar (fine – packed)
• 1 egg
• 2 cups plain wholemeal flour
• 2 teaspn baking powder
• ¼ teaspn salt

Method:

1. Line baking trays with baking paper.
2. Preheat oven to 190C.
3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, beat in.
4. Sift plain flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the creamed butter mix. Mix in well.
5. Stir in, by hand, the fig mix and choccy bits. Mix in well.
6. Drop teaspoonfuls on to the lined baking trays. Space well apart as they will spread.
7. Bake for 12-14 minutes.
8. Leave on tray for a couple of minutes then transfer to cooling rack.
9. Wonder whether you may get away with NOT sharing.
10. Share.
11. Sigh.

*Next day note:  These did soften a bit overnight in their airtight container and … (yes i run tests on the people at work) … these went like hotcakes ! Loads of compliments.

Ingredients:

• 200g pasta (200g is less than half a packet of pasta – it’s an annoying amount to have sitting there, taunting you with its lack of usefulness) – I used wholemeal Penne this time.
• 3 chicken sausages – I’ve taken to baking my sausages instead of frying them, plus then I get to bake other things with them like …
• 3 cloves of garlic – roasted/baked
• 100g diced tomato (half a tin – left over from the savory muffins)
• 150ml water
• 3 mushrooms – thickly sliced
• 1 purple carrot – julienne cut
• Handful of green beans
• Knob of butter
• 2 tblspns chopped parsley

Method:

1. Bake sausages and at the same time bake the garlic cloves whole. This takes about 20-25 min. To bake the garlic, take off the flakey layers of skin, leaving at least one layer on, cut one end so that the garlic is exposed.
2. Prepare the pasta.
3. Melt the knob of butter in a large frypan, sauté the carrot and beans for approx 2 min.
4. Slice the sausage into approx 5min thickness, squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins.
5. Add the mushrooms, sliced sausage and garlic to the carrots and beans.
6. In a small jug, mix the water and diced tomato.
7. Once the mushrooms have heated through, add the tomato mix and parsley.  Stir through well.
8. Simmer down to desired consistency.
9. Plate the pasta and put the L.O. mix over the top.

If you don’t want to use sausage, use leftover chicken, or shaved beef or anything !

corn (on left) and tomato (on the right) mini muffins

These are an awesome recipe that i was given by a wonderful person that i used to work with . I’m ashamed to say that whilst i kept the recipe (all beautifully written on fancy note paper) for well over a decade, i recently lost it ! Thank you Steph for sending it to me again xoxo

Makes 24 mini muffins. Or 20 if you’re using the Tupperware Mini Muffin Forms.

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cup S.R. Flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup grated tasty cheese
½ cup finely chopped ham
1 tblspn finely chopped parsley
200g (half can) creamed corn
1 egg, beaten
¾ cup milk
85g melted butter, or ¼ cup veg oil

Adaption: use tinned diced tomato instead of creamed corn for a pizza-esque taste sensation – just lower the milk quantity to ½ a cup

Method:

1. Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls.
2. Add wet to dry.
3. Mix till just combined.
4. Bake 20-25 min at 200°C (or 25-30 min if using the Tupperware formers)
5. Serve.

While it is preferred to serve immediately … I like to make these for breakfasts. Keep in an airtight container and microwave for approx 15 seconds, gives them a real lift.

*Next day note: reheating in microwave totally freshens these muffins

Recipe from Stephanie Gear who also runs her own superb catering business or email her at catering@foretaste.com.au – you won’t be disappointed at the quality of her work.