Eternal Ingredients » General news

Gift ideas for cooks

Eternal Ingredients — Sat, 25 Oct 2014 01:58:34 +0000

We have been searching around for gift ideas for the person who loves cooking. So far we have come up with a few gems and will keep on adding in new items that we find along the way.

Party Pouch Jelly Mould - Australian Books

When I came across this poodle jelly mold I had to add it into my Christmas gift ideas. I love my poodle, Bob, dearly and this really is the perfect present for me or any other poodle owner / cooking enthusiast out there. Buy Now

Emily Henry Cookware – Everten

This stunning cookware by Emily Henry is on my Christmas list, hopefully father Christmas has read my list and taken note. The item I loved the most was the baguette baking tin. Buy Now

Nigella Lawson Christmas – Nigella Lawson

We all love to cook traditional food over Christmas and what better book to use for extra inspiration than Nigella Lawson’s Christmas cookbook. Her personality and sense of fun is bound to bring comfort and joy to all of your family and friends around the Christmas lunch table. Buy Now

Cookie Stamps – Beezer

Why not make sure you’re guests know you made the cookies yourself by personalising them with these great cookie stamps saying Home Made, Eat Me and I love you. You could buy them for yourself or they would make the perfect gift for a friend that loves to cook.. Buy Now

Pea Ice Cube Tray – Beezer

These giant ice balls are captured in spheres and keep your drink cooler for longer. Their spherical shape means they will melt 80% slower than cube shaped ice so your drink won’t get watered down as quickly! Once they have been frozen, they simply pop out of the pod! Buy Now

Obsessive Chef Chopping Board – Australian Art Books

Do you have an obsessive friend who loves to cook but has to have their carrots cut to exactly the same width and length? This chopping board will allow them to measure and cut all the carrots perfectly, or their cheese into the perfect squares! Buy Now

50 Icy Pole Recipes – Amazon

I was browsing my local shops, waiting for an appointment and found this fun Icy Pole Recipe book. I decided this was one book I needed in my kitchen this summer, from fresh fruit icy poles to Mojitos there will be an icy pole for everyone. Buy Now

Fish Pop Molds – Zoko

These fantastic and fun fish icy pole molds are bound to get the kids excited this Christmas. I found them in Minimax this weekend and there was a little girl standing there saying to her mum she really really really wanted them and could they get some. I think they may end up being her stocking filler this Christmas. Buy Now

Egg Yolk Separator – Australian Art Books

This gadget will take the hard work out of separating all those egg whites out to make your pavlova this summer. All you do is crack the egg into the bowl and squeeze the fish to swallow the egg yolk and then squeeze again release it into a separate bowl. Buy Now

Lotus Grill BBQ - The Good Store

This amazingly stylish BBQ is portable and perfect for a small space. It’s smokeless*, ready to cook in five minutes, uses readily available charcoal and is an Australian Design Award winner. It’s portable because it will stay cool to touch even when it is in use so it can be safely moved at any time. Best of all it can be cleaned in the dishwasher. Buy Now

The post Gift ideas for cooks appeared first on Eternal Ingredients.

How recipes change from generation to generation

Rachel Turner — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 10:50:32 +0000

Our family is a great believer in passing on recipes from generation to generation. As the recipes get passed down subtle changes are made, it is then often rewritten and passed down again. The recipe then seems to get slightly changed when it is passed down to the next generation again. Recently, I have been pondering on why these recipes are changed and whether it is for the better! For as long as I can remember my Grandma made Peanut butter cookies. Just like there is always a Yummy Fruit Slice in our house for John to take for his lunch, there was always a jar of peanut butter cookies at my grandma's house, that my uncle would have with his coffee every morning. We spent years helping to make them (ok... so maybe helping to lick out the bowl while pretending to make them). My grandma's peanut butter cookies were definitely the best and I think there were two reasons for this. She used to roll the balls to an exact size and always used normal Weetabix and peanut butter. Mum's are nice, but not as good as she uses organic peanut butter and organic weetabix which have more grains in them and she doesn't roll them. My uncle now makes them himself and again they are not as good, as I don't think they are made with as much love as my gran! My sisters are good, but again not quite as good as Grandma's. Again I think it is partly because she doesn't roll them into balls. I hadn't made them for years as the Australian Weetbix are very different to the UK Weetabix and (Ithink) they don't taste as good!! All this changed recently y when I found 'UK Weetabix' in the supermarket! I have since made 2 batches and they are good, butstill not quite as good as Grandma's. My grandma also made a Duke of Cambridge Tart every time we went to stay and then became my mum's trademark dish and it has now it has become one of mine! When mum showed me how to cook it 2 years ago, we started chatting about how the recipe had changed so I dug out Grandma's old recipe tin and it turns out that she used to put brandy in her version. For some reason mum never did and also changed the recipe. I have not tried making it with the brandy, but plan on doing so to see if it enhances it or not and if the recipe has indeed changed for the better! Fish was another regular on the menu when we were growing up, as my Grandpa had a fish depot so we had plenty of access to wonderfully fresh seafood. My dad has always made an amazing Smoked Cod Kedgeree which we all love and cook regularly, but none of them taste the same! Dad adds lemon juice at the end and it tastes great. I did this one time as John said Dad's was better, but it tasted awful, so I have gone back to my tried and tested version. My sisters is similar to mine but my brothers is very different and I think it may have something to do with the way the rice is cooked, the curry powder you use and the subtle changes we have all made to the recipe to make it our own. Mum's Cheese Straws are something that have definitely changed over the years. She claims they haven't but when I dug out the original recipe from the "My Learn to Cook Book" it proved that she has certainly changed the recipe around. Every time I thought I had got it right she changed the size they should be or something else, to the point I could never get it right. She has now signed off on the final recipe which we all make and again all taste slightly different. Do you have any recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation that have been changed along the way for better.......... or for worse? Happy cooking. Rachel

Taking care of business

Eternal Ingredients — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 10:17:36 +0000

The Eternal Ingredients team were excited to be invited to talk on local community radio station RPPFM. It was an opportunity to talk about our business, how we work as a team and how we got started. It was also a great opportunity to talk about how important it is to get feedback and listening to our customers – you. So thank you for being a part of journey.

The Secret Ingredient

Rachel Turner — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 22:19:33 +0000

When a recipe is SHARED with you, can you ever really recreate it in the same way as the person who SHARED it with you? I suspect not, as we all have our own little twists and tricks that we use when we cook, that make the dish our own. I have been given and SHARED many recipes over the years and when they have been SHARED with me I don't think they ever taste quite how they did when they had originally been cooked for me. That's not to say they don't still taste amazing! I remember mum and dad coming to stay with us and mum making untold batches of cheese straws to have with drinks before dinner. They always tasted amazing and John would always say that mine were not as good. The day they were leaving to return home, I insisted mum teach me how me to make them, which she did. The lesson improved the cheese straws but apparently mum's are still better! However if you ask a couple of our friends they disagree and say mine are better. Is this just because they know they will only get mum's cheese straws every 2 years and they need to keep me happy so I keep on making them, or do they truly prefer my version! After watching and cooking with mum, I know her secret tip for making pastry, cheese straws and some biscuits, is to use cold butter and always cut it into tiny pieces before adding it to the flour. She then squashes the pieces of butter into the flour rather than rubbing it in too much. I now use this trick and get a much better result with all of them. My trick with biscuits, fruit cakes and brownies is to cook them at a slightly lower temperature than they say for slightly less time so they end up a little chewy. This doesn't work for all recipes but I tend to know which ones it will work for. When I'm cooking something that has a sauce with it I will always add a bit more liquid than the recipe asks for because, like the judges on My Kitchen Rules I love lots of sauce / gravy with my food. I am also a firm believer that unless you are cooking a cake or something like macaroons there is no need to follow a recipe to the letter as it is always good to put your own twist on things, to make them your own. The only problem is remembering what that twist was and writing it down for next time. We would love to hear from you on what your secret ingredient or tips and tricks are when you cook. Happy cooking Rachel

Macaroon Challenge: How Easy Was it?

Rachel Turner — Sun, 14 Jul 2013 04:34:18 +0000

We were out for dinner the other night with friends and Dave said "I want macaroons for dessert". There were no macaroons on the menu and this led to a conversation about what Macaroons are because Dave confessed even though he wanted them for dessert he had never tried one before! I ended up saying I will make you some salted caramel macaroons. The next day I remembered my foolish promise and set about figuring out how to make them in order to come good on my promise to Dave. I researched and researched how to make them and every recipe seemed as hard and time consuming as the rest. I then reached out on Facebook and was sent a link to a recipe from Belinda. It looked just as time consuming as the rest, but seemed a little easier to follow. After walking the dogs on Saturday morning and picking up the few ingredients I didn't have, I set about my quest to make macaroons. I regretted not making them the day before as my kitchen soon resembled a bomb site and my kitchen had just been cleaned the day before! I had bowls and ingredients everywhere. Don't let anyone tell you they are quick and easy to make. I started with my salted caramel filling and had that all finished in about an hour! Yes by the time you read, re read, start, read again and then continue it takes quite a long time to make. I then had to embark on the quest of making the perfect macaroons. Having watched way too many cooking shows I knew they were easy to get wrong. I followed the recipe to the letter (something I never do). However I got distracted by a call from Vicki half way through dissolving my sugar and realised I wasn't meant to stir it. I debated whether to start it again, but figured what could a little stirring do to ruin my macaroons. As it turns out, nothing! Before piping my macaroons I noticed that nowhere in the recipe I had or any of the others I had googled, did it tell me what size to make my macaroons. I had a small cookie cutter ring in the kitchen drawer and decided to go with that for my marker. I drew all the circles on my baking paper and then turned it over. I used these circles as a guide while I was piping my macaroons. I made 6 batches all up. The first 2 tins were perfect little rounds, probably slightly smaller than they were supposed to be. The second 2 tins were a little larger and I recon were the best of the bunch. The last 2 tins were not quite as good. I think the mixture had been overworked as one tin didn't rise at all. All that said John said they all taste amazing! Would I attempt making them again? To be honest I am not sure if I would. I enjoyed the challenge and am very proud of the end result, but they were very time consuming and will add about 2 kilos to my waistline. I would also say if you are not a reasonably good cook I wouldn't undertake making them. Instead I would take the advice of Anne and Grant and go and buy some!! If you want to give them a go the recipe for Salted Caramel Macaroons is now on our website. Also if you do give them a go and wonder what you can do with all the spare egg yolks you should make some of my mum's Cheese Straws.

Home Baked Biscuits vs Shop Bought Biscuits

Rachel Turner — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:28:44 +0000

Growing up, the only biscuits I can remember my mum or gran buying were, Penguins (the English equivalent of TimTams - which appeared in the house about once a year), Digestives (the plain boring ones without the chocolate on them!) and Toffee Pops (a huge treat in our house when these arrived and it was normally my Grandad who went out and got these for us, when he was out shopping alone with nobody to say "we don't need those"). As you are probably guessing, we didn't have a lot of treats in the house (not that I'm scarred by this!). I do however still remember going round to my best friends house, Dawn Adamson, and looking enviously into the treats cupboard, which I kid you not was filled to bursting with crisps, lollies, chocolate bars and biscuits. I would look longingly, knowing that the only chocolate that would be in our house was on the odd Friday night when Dad came home from work with Cadbury's Cream Eggs as a treat! I am now old enough to appreciate that we were better off with our rare treats and home made biscuits, than my friend Dawn was, with her huge cupboard, full of treats that she could have whenever she wanted. Now I sit back and remember how wonderful it was to grow up in a home where there was always the amazing smell of home baked biscuits in the house. Many of the favorites I can remember being baked are, Cornish Fairings, Grantham Gingernuts, peanut cookies (my gran made this every week for my uncle), peanut biscuits, chocolate biscuits....... to name just a few. Since then I have introduced even more recipes into our cupboards such as Chocolate Brazil Nut Cookies, Stem Ginger Macaroons, Peanut Butter and Pumpkin Seed Biscuits, Anzac Biscuits...... I also bake a fruit slice for my husband to take to work every day. It all started because he got fed up with the muesli bars getting smaller and smaller and he always comments that the cake is made with love. There is something about home baked biscuits that taste so much better than the shop bought ones. I think it is a combination of things that makes them so good; the smell of them cooking, the thought that someone has put time and love into baking the biscuits themselves rather than popping to the shops, and I think lastly it is that you know what is in your biscuits and can make them as big or small as you like! In my case I always ere on the larger side!! You will then always find a batch of home baked biscuits in our cupboard. Normally I rely on the recipes I grew up with, unless someone has sent me a new one to try out. For me, a tin of home made biscuits not only taste amazing, but they make me think of home and my wonderful family. Please SHARE your biscuit recipes with us so that I can add more variety into my bulging cupboard of home baked biscuits. Happy Baking Rachel

Women’s Health & Fitness Magazine

Eternal Ingredients — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:55:52 +0000

Eternal Ingredients is featured in the May Edition of Women's Health and Fitness Magazine. The special interest magazine has captured everything we stand for in their article (check out page 16). We hope you agree and get started on your book today so that you too can cook food you love, without having to search through all your cookbooks to find that one elusive recipe you remember cooking a few months ago! See us in our full glory!

What happens when you’re not a natural in the kitchen?

Vick Barber — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:01:41 +0000

There are those that are born to cook and others that are.... well lets face it stumble, trip and sometimes fall (or should that be chop, dice & julienne) their way around the kitchen. I admit I am the latter. I am not a natural and well really maybe saying I am completely inept in the kitchen is a little extreme too. But I don’t 'feel' natural in the kitchen. Yes I know cooking is primarily based on recipes and being able to add or finesse those recipes to ‘make them your own’. But I also feel it is a matter of confidence. Confidence in yourself and in what your doing and confidence in your experience, maybe which is what I lack? As I noted in a previous post, I had a slightly unusual childhood and exposure to 'the kitchen'. I grew up in a series of pubs that my parents owned. Both my mother and father worked the hotel and although my mum did cook for us (she makes a fantastic lamb roast!) it wasn't every night and we didn’t share afternoons baking cakes or cookies as I know other children did or do. Now I want to mention, I don’t feel I missed out on anything from this experience, I was exposed to some great Chefs and cooks with amazing talents, fantastic accents and some colourful language, all of which I remember fondly. I saw them create amazing meals for a LOT of people, great desserts and of course when school needed some cupcakes or similar for a fete or fundraiser I usually turned up with a tray of 72 custard filled chocolate éclairs, much to the delight of the school. But because it was a commercial kitchen and I could watch during prep time I wasn’t really involved in the cooking or the opportunity to stand by and watch. I also think that I didn’t have an interest in it at that time. But as I grew older and moved out of home, the need for me to cook became evident. I was in my first share house at 19 and was allocated to be house cook.....hmmm, don't know if I accepted that on a Friday night out with the girls. But anyway that was the start of my journey of cooking, it started with very simple meals, a few recipes from the CWA recipe book and I was on my way. I have always had to cook for others but primarily, until I married I did a lot of cooking for one. I have been lucky though, I have always seemed to have friends that are good cooks. There is Janina, who is a gourmet through and through - trying new recipes and dishes near constantly. There is Michelle who is always serving up something healthy and tasty. My older sisters, who being a number of years older than me and settling into their family lives while I was still quite young also have some great 'country' influenced cooking styles. And of course there is Rachel, my bestie, who is amazing at making almost any dish sound so simple, look so good and of course taste delicious. She is also the one who has probably inspired me the most to 'get in there and cook'. I was given a cookbook of her own favourite recipes when we relocated to the states a few years ago. Yes it is me that has the 'original and first' Eternal Ingredients cookbook. It was not the cookbook we produce now, but still a high quality book that I still have in my kitchen today. So, I suppose over time I have become more adventurous and a little more daring. Yes I have my favourites that I turn too and they are usually relatively simple but always tasty. But I have been getting a little more confident and that is through a little more time needed in the kitchen due to needing to keep 3 boys happy - as they say the way to a mans’ (or boy's) heart is through his stomach. So I recently decided to take a chance and create a masterpiece using 2 of my most favourite ingredients - Chocolate and Beetroot. I like to fool myself that they both keep their health benefits - chocolate as an antioxidant and beetroot for its detoxifying properties..... but I think I may be pushing it. Either way my Chocolate & Beetroot Cake tastes delicious and for me, tested a few of my 'skills' in the kitchen. I am enjoying becoming a more confident cook and I am enjoying having my children be in the kitchen developing their own skills. So maybe they can be a little more natural in the kitchen. Happy Cooking Vicki

Healthy Eating

Rachel Turner — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:37:33 +0000

Things have been so busy with work lately and I realised my healthy eating and living has been suffering. Too many mornings I end up waking early and going to my computer, instead of the gym or running with my beloved poodle. When this happens I promise myself I will take him for a long walk at lunchtime or at the end of the day and invariably it doesn't happen. With the my recent lack of exercise has also come a lack of healthy eating. When work isn't quite as busy you always find me at the gym or out running 6 days a week and then taking a long walk on a Sunday morning with John and Bob. I also walk to the shops at lunchtime to pick up fresh food for dinner that night, unless we are out for dinner with friends I will cook a healthy meal at least 5 times a week. So how do I get the balance back in my life and bring back the healthy living again? I am sure I'm not the only person who has this dilemma and is asking themselves "how can I get back to my normal healthier lifestyle". This weekend I decided it was time to work on this, and started by calling my lovely friend Michelle and asking her for her amazing homemade muesli recipe. I then set to work in the kitchen making a batch that will last me at least 10 days. I know exactly what has gone into it and know it is not full of sugar ,which is one thing I really dislike about bought muesli. The next thing I did was bake a batch of my mum's Cornish Fairing biscuits so that if I had that sweet craving I had something healthy and tasty to go for, rather than the shop bought biscuits I have had in the house lately. I also got back into cooking popcorn to snack on when I am hungry in the middle of the day. When John returned home from Sydney I baked his yummy fruit slice which is another great thing to have in the house. This is another recipe that came from Michelle (yes she is definitely one of the healthiest people I know)! OK so breakfast and snacks have been taken care of, so it's time to look at how else I can improve my eating (I will get onto the exercise later)! I went back to the kitchen and cooked some freezer meals for when I don't have time to cook. I made a huge batch of Spaghetti Bolognaise and with the left over mince, (yes I bought slightly too much) I made my Thick Noodles with Hoisin Mince, I then popped individual serves into the freezer. I then made a huge maccaroni cheese (using my niece's recipe from our family cookbook) to freeze. Not necessarily the healthiest meal, but it is one of John's favourites and he will love going to the freezer if I am out and finding it there. Rather than relying on walking / driving down to the shops to get food in for dinner, I have decided I am going to do the shopping on Sunday, so that a healthy food selection is always in the house. If it is there, I have to cook it so it doesn't go to waste and because I have to cook dinner I will have to finish work at a decent time each night, so it is a win win situation. One of my favourite dishes to cook when I am busy and want something healthy for dinner is my Chicken in a bag with mushrooms. I will upload this recipe once I have cooked this in the next week or so. You can make it in the morning and simply pop it in the oven 20 minutes before you want to eat. The flavours are amazing and it is a healthy meal, especially with some snow peas as well. All in all most of the meals I cook and that are on our website are healthy (of course the desserts may be a little indulgent, but we all have to have treats now and then)! Now I have my last challenge, the exercise. How do I motivate myself to get out running or going to the gym now that the weather is colder and work is so busy. The best way is to take a look at the excited little poodle that sits by my bed when the alarm goes off, waiting to go out for a run. Those puppy dog eyes are sure to get me out of bed when I am not feeling like it. They worked this morning when I was ready to have a late start to the day, but instead I was talked around going for a long, fast walk to the beach with Bob, after which we both felt better. Let us know if you have any tips on healthy meals and keeping fit. Happy cooking and running Rachel

My Mothers Day Memory

Vick Barber — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:40:41 +0000

Mothers Day to me usually evokes thoughts of white chrysanthemum flowers, roast lunch and lots and lots of ladies (generations of them in fact). With Mothers Day soon approaching and my own love of the day (my two boys and hubby usually make me a lovely breakfast in bed of pancakes and cups of tea), I wondered about different peoples thoughts or experiences of the day. I know some people feel that every day should be special and that now it is yet another 'marketing fuelled day' for selling flowers and cards and others really making a big deal of it. My own memories of Mothers Day may be a little more unusual than others, yes there were flowers, lunch and lots of ladies, but you see I grew up in a pub (actually my parents owned and ran 3 of them). So Mothers Day in our house was another day of work (and probably a little extra stress) for the family and my mum. We always held a Mothers Day luncheon at the hotel, which meant my morning involved trimming a sea of white chrysanthemums’ and greenery into small corsages (showing my age, aren’t I!). I trimmed them with scissors and placed a flower with some greenery onto alfoil, then pushed a dressmaker’s pin in them. They were then transferred to a large tray to be at the doorway or entrance to the hotel dining room. Each mother would then be given one on arrival as they were escorted to their table. The ritual was always welcomed and whenever we ran out of the flowers, it would be up to me to make some more or help one of my sisters in sourcing others, because no mum should ever be disappointed on their day of days! I was always surprised at how many of the women pinned the corsage to their Sunday best dress, but I now realise it truly was their badge of honour. They were proud to be a mum and even though in this crowd it was pretty obvious, they wanted everyone to know. They had come to share time and food with their loved ones, they had come for some time off from their usual rituals of washing, cleaning and cooking. I remember the lunch was usually made extra special by the chef or cook in the kitchen, even what may be seen as a standard Sunday roast would be lovingly prepared and displayed for each guest in the dining room. All the wait staff said “Happy Mothers Day” to all the women on arrival and joked about Happy Grandmothers Day to older patrons too. As I said, it was always a busy day and not one where we could sit down and rest. But it was always wonderful to see the mums not having to worry about lunch, what everyone wanted to eat and most importantly cooking it themselves (or washing up!) So what of my own beautiful mother on this day? What did she get as thanks for being a hard working mum of 5 children. Well, she usually at least got a chrysanthemum, that’s for sure. Actually, she always got the most beautiful bunch of flowers from dad. He would always give them to her with great fanfare and a big smooch. He realised as much as anyone, how much she deserved some 'special' time and appreciation'. This usually occurred after lunch had finished and everything had been cleared. We would all sit down to a lovely family dinner together and wish mum a “Happy Mothers Day". I might add here that it was usually Dads turn to 'cook', hence a lovely take-away from the local Chinese restaurant was usually on our table. Not that we complained as it meant everyone had a little break on this special day and we wanted mum to enjoy her favourite Lemon Chicken. Whenever I see white chrysanthemums I always think of those days of pinning them to alfoil fondly, I always think of my mum and how she is the role model for me as I am now mum to 2 gorgeous boys. So I would like to wish my mum a public Happy Mothers Day, as well to all the mums we come across in our lives. Some of us are mums, some women become like mums to us and some of us have wonderful friends that love our children like a mum, I am lucky to have them all in my life. On Mothers Day I wont have a chrysanthemum badge of honour to wear, but I am honoured to be a mum. What is your Mothers Day memory or what do you have planned for this Mothers Day? We would love to know. Vicki