Magazine inspiration

I love it when I arrive home from work and the latest issue of a food magazine has arrived in the mail that day. I especially love it in winter, when the cover usually features a mouthwatering photograph of a luscious pudding or a rich winter stew. I love to tuck myself away with a hot drink and spend a good hour or two reading through the magazine, noting the latest recipes and decorating the pages with sticky-notes marking all the dishes I want to try.

The winter issue of Donna Hay Magazine has just arrived. The chocolate and oat s'mores on the front cover are just a small snippet of a great issue. I thought some of the recent DHM issues had got a little uninspiring but the last two issues have been absolute crackers and I've wanted to make nearly everything featured. After flicking through the magazine, I'm already planning to make celeriac roulade and celeriac and potato soup, spinach macaroni cheese, beef, tomato and mushroom pot pies, lamb and garlic meatballs that can be used on pizzas, in soup or mixed in with herbed couscous, roast meats, hot cheese toasties and chips out of all sorts of vegetables.

Inspiration strikes as soon as I reach page 78, which features self-saucing chocolate puddings. My favourite chocolate pudding recipe is my grandmother's recipe but it takes 45 minutes in the oven, whereas these individual puddings take just 15 minutes. Before I can even think "mmm, chocolate pudding", I've already pulled out the bowl and am mixing together the ingredients for the puddings. In less than half an hour, my craving for chocolate and a hot pudding is satisfied. I'm looking forward to more inspiration from DHM this month!

SELF-SAUCING CHOCOLATE PUDDINGS

75g plain flour
1 1/2 tablespoons hazelnut meal
45g brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 1/2 tablespoons coca, sifted
125ml milk
35g butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
90g brown sugar, extra
250ml boiling water

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Sift the flour, hazelnut meal, sugar, baking powder and 2 tablespoons of coca into a bowl. Add the milk, melted butter, egg and vanilla and mix well to combine. Spoon into 4 x 1-cup capacity oven-proof dishes and place on a baking tray. Mix the extra sugar and cocoa into a bowl and sprinkle over the puddings, then pour over the boiling water. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the tops are firm.

From Donna Hay Magazine, issue 39, Jun/Jul 2008.

Empanadas

I recently discovered a wonderful New Zealand food magazine called Cuisine.<Hausfrau bakery in Yarraville thoughtfully has a stack of food magazines and cookbooks available for customers to browse through as they sip coffee and munch on one of their delicious European-inspired cakes. I picked up Cuisine and was instantly impressed. The photography is wonderful and inspires you to try the wide range of recipes. It is a little simliar to the Australian magazine Delicious, but obviously the food and wine news is centred on New Zealand. Cuisine was recently judged the best food magazine in the world at the Le Cordon Bleu World Food Media Awards, beating other prestigious food magazines such as Gourmet Traveller, Vogue Entertaining & Travel and Donna Hay magazine (all of which I love as well), so I thought it was definitely worthwhile surfing around on Cuisine's website to learn more.

Cuisine has a great website, with an archive of more than 1000 recipes to search, as well as a recipe of the day to try. A recipe for beef and spinach empanadas was recently featured and, with a backyard vegetable garden overflowing with fresh spinach, I decided this would be a good recipe to try. The empanadas were easy to make and extremely delicious. We ate them as a main course with sweet chilli sauce for dunking and a salad on the side, but they would also make excellent nibbles at a party. I'm looking forward to trying more Cuisine recipes soon.

BEEF AND SPINACH EMPANADAS

For the pastry
3 cups white flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup ice-cold water

For the filling
300g minced beef
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 large tomato, chopped
4 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 cup dry sherry
1 chilli, chopped
1 large bunch spinach, washed, wilted over heat in a saucepan then chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper
vegetable oil for frying

To make pastry: place the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor. With the motor running, tip in the oil until it is all incorporated. Add the water slowly and, when the dough starts to come together in beads the size of tiny pearls, switch off the motor and tip the mixture out onto a floured board. Draw the dought together by kneading gently. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until needed. (Note: I found the dough quite dry and needed to add some extra water).

For the filling: heat a large frying pan and cook the mince for about 10 minutes until it is crumbly and lightly browned. Add the onion, garlic and spices and cook a little longer until the onion softens. Add the remaining ingredients, except the spinach, and cook over a high heat until the juices start to evaporate. Stir in the spinach and adjust the seasoning. Allow to cool.

To assemble the empanadas, roll out the pastry to about 3mm thick. Using a 10cm-diameter pastry cutter, cut out 15-20 circles. Place about one heaped tablespoon of the filling in the centre of each dough round and fold over to form a half-moon shape. Seal the edges with a little water and crimp together. Heat oil to a depty of about 2.5cm in a frying pan until it is quite hot but not smoking. Fry the empanads until golden brown on each side, about 3-5 minutes. Drain and serve.