Kangaroo Bobotie

This is some real fusion food -- a South African national dish made with the Australian national animal! It turned out pretty well, but it had a sort of colonial feel to it -- something like a shepherd's pie that has been improvised using unexpected local ingredients. Tasty, but I think I prefer mousakka, as this felt a bit protein-heavy and the sweetness made it rather same-y. Maybe I'll play around with the recipe a bit more til I find a version I like. There are hundreds of different variations online!

Yorkshire Puddings

I love Yorkshire puddings. When I was a child we always looked forward to when my mum would make them. We'd beg and beg for more of them, even above and beyond roast potatoes! Pure carby goodness. It seems the tricks to getting a well-puffed pudding are to beat the batter well to get air into it, and to heat a generous amount of oil in tin (in the oven) before you pour the  batter in -- and always less than half of the height of the tin, or they won't have room to expand. I was surprised that the Joy of Cooking said to beat the batter, since I would normally worry about toughening the gluten, but it worked very well. And luckily, they were wrong about needing to leave it to stand for an hour. (I'm impatient like that!)

Ingredients

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water plus 1tbsp
• 2 eggs
• vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Combine the salt and flour, make a well in the centre and pour in the milk and water. Stir, then beat well until very combined. Add the two eggs and continue to beat until large bubbles rise to the surface. Pour a little vegetable oil into each tin of a muffin tray and place in the hot oven; there should be enough oil that the base of each tin is easily covered. After five minutes, remove the tin from the oven and pour the batter into each cup, to about 40% of the height of the tin. Return to the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, until risen and golden.

Courgette Souffle

Another entry from Delia's Frugal Food that at first I skipped straight over, then went back to, thinking 'Aaactually, courgettes ARE really cheap, and it has been years since I made a souffle...' With my lack of recent experience in mind, I followed the instructions almost to the letter, including barely half a courgette between four people. So I'm slightly upping the quantity in the recipe below. I also messed around with the herbs since I didn't have any parsley or chives - I think almost anything works, even a very mild herb like marjoram, as the flavours are well-preserved and aromatic in the beautiful fluffy matrix. I served this with just a salad of pears, toasted walnuts (used the oven as it was already on, energy-saving score!) and avocado, dressed with honey and balsamic vinegar. If you were very hungry you could also have a bit of crusty bread or mashed potatoes. Oh and we ate all of this between two of us. I disagree with Delia that anyone would be excited to receive a single egg and some air for lunch.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium courgette
• 90g butter
• 2 tbsp flour
• 200ml milk
• 40g cheddar
• 25g Parmesan
• a handful of herbs; I used thyme and marjoram
• 4 eggs

Preheat the oven to 200 C and butter five 0.28L ramekins (or equivalent volume souffle dish). Wash, top, tail and slice the courgette lengthwise. Scoop out all the fluffy seeds and chuck, eat or feed to the worms. Very finely slice or mandolin the remaining flesh, and fry it in half the butter until soft and just beginning to colour, then turn off the heat, season and set aside to cool a little. Meanwhile, melt the rest of the butter in a pyrex jug or bowl in the microwave, combine well with the flour and then stir in the milk. Microwave for another minute and stir thoroughly, then grate in the two cheeses and stir in the herbs. Separate the eggs; when the white sauce is cool enough (<57C), stir in the yolks. Beat the whites until they stand up in stiff peaks, then pour over the cheesy white sauce and fold together; don't overmix it, some inhomogeneity is fine.

Dollop half of the mixture into the bottoms of the ramekins or souffle dish, top with fried courgettes, and cover with the remaining mixture. Stand in a roasting tin and pour in boiling water until it comes a third the way up the side of the ramekins or dish. Pop in the oven and reduce the heat to 170C; bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown and risen.

Sour Milk Buns

The one thing we forgot to do before we went away was freeze the bread and milk, so when we returned, the former was mouldy and the latter sour. I found a solution to both problems - make bread with the sour milk! These little buns turned out really well - great for lunch, and also for burgers the next day. The same dough can be used to make a normal loaf, although it dries out a bit faster than our usual wholemeal sandwich loaves. This recipe makes eight large rolls, or one 1kg loaf.

Ingredients:

• 460g sour milk
• 625g white or lightly seeded flour
• 2 tsp dried yeast
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar

Either pop the ingredients in your breadmaker and set to dough, or do it the old-fashioned way: combine the ingredients together in a large bowl, make a dough, and knead for ten minutes. Allow to rise for half an hour, knock back and knead again, then leave for another half an hour.

Used as burger buns.

Remove the dough from the bowl or breadmaker tin and place on a floured surface. Divide in half, then divide each half again, and again, to make eight pieces. Flatten each piece slightly with your (floury) hands and place on baking trays, then pop in the (off) oven. Leave to raise for forty minutes, then switch the oven on to 190 C. After fifteen minutes, check the buns; they should be risen and golden - take them out as soon as they are firm, as you don't want them to overcook and go dry. Scatter over a few tsp further of flour, and serve immediately, or allow to cool for ten minutes before placing in a bag or box to store.

Iced Coffee

They make this amazing drink here called 'Coffee Chill', which is iced coffee in a carton. I could drink it by the gallon, if it weren't for the rather hefty sugar and fat content. Once I had a carton in my fridge for three weeks and it was still good at the end! Mmmmm. Preservatives...

Here's my home-made version, which I've been making for years, since it's so hard to get a decent iced coffee in the UK. Amusingly it took me quite a few tries to get the order of the steps right, but I blame that on not having had a cup of coffee before I began the process!

Ingredients:

• 2-3 tbsp excellent ground coffee
• 100ml boiling water
• 2 tbsp demerara ('raw') sugar (optional)
• 100g ice
• 100ml milk
• 100ml cold water

Put the coffee in your cafetiere and cover with the hot water, and allow to stand for five minutes, then depress and strain into a glass. (Or, make ~100ml of coffee in an espresso maker.) Dissolve the sugar in the hot coffee. Add the ice and stir until the coffee is cold. If the ice completely melts, add a few more cubes. Add the milk, then top up with cold water, or milk, to taste.