Pico's Cooking Adventures
I'm an Aussie with some strong Sicilian heritage; I've always loved cooking, and I enjoy experimenting and trying to come up with my own recipes. Sometimes I want to re-create a particular experience that you can't just buy at the shop, other times I just want to challenge myself to see if things can be done. Please note that there's not a drop of blue blood in my veins; you can absolutely make fancier versions of the recipes below but that's not what I'm going for. Common goals for all of my recipes are that they should be simple to make, quick to make, use only common (and minimal) ingredients, cheap, and delicious! All the recipes you see below are my own concoctions. Enjoy!
Spicy Season All
I just wanted to see if I could make my own season all! Also, this is much cheaper - a huge bowl costs around the same as a single jar and now I can modify to taste.
Instructions:
Sift all ingredients into a bowl
Mix
Spread on your favourite chips, meat, etc. Enjoy!
Ingredients
1 cup salt
1/2 cup rice flour
25g garlic powder
40g dried onion
50g chilli powder (you'll probably want half this)
25g "mixed spice" (coriander, ginger, nutmeg, cassia, cloves)
Sweet Onion Sauce
I love Subway's sweet onion sauce and sought to re-create it but the online recipes were a little strange (~17 ingredients, none of which were onion!) so I sought to make my own onion-based recipe.
Instructions:
Add all ingredients into a blender
Blend
Pour into a squirt bottle and add to whatever meals you like. Enjoy!
Ingredients
2 medium onions
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup water
6 tbsp white vinegar
1 tbsp cornflour
1 tbsp mustard
~25g sesame seeds
1 tsp paprika
2 squeezes sesame oil
Mocha
I love a good mocha! But I don't own a fancy coffee maker and I can't afford to buy sachets all the time. There must be a way to make it myself, surely it can't be that hard... (it isn't!)
Instructions:
Make your coffee however you would normally make it.
Add the cocoa and icing sugar.
Stir. Enjoy!
Ingredients (ratio)
Coffee
Sugar
Milk
Boiling water
1 flat tsp cocoa
1 heaped tsp icing sugar
Chocolate Mug Cake
I wanted to come up with a cheap and quick-to-make dessert that I could make at a moment's notice with whatever I had in the cupboard. Success (it's even self-saucing!)
Instructions:
Mix all ingredients in a mug
Microwave for 1 minute
Get fat!
Ingredients
3 tbsp SR Flour
2 tbsp raw sugar
1 tbsp cocoa
2 tbsp milk
dab margarine
Note
Vegans can swap milk for water and it's still delicious!
Coconut Mug Cake
I wanted to see what other flavours of mug cake I could come up with. This has been the most popular!
Instructions:
Mix all ingredients in a mug
Microwave for 1 minute
Get fat!
Ingredients
3 tbsp SR Flour
1 tbsp raw sugar
1 tbsp desiccated coconut
2 tbsp milk
dab margarine
Damper
If you look online, damper recipes have gotten really fancy recently, so I wanted to go back to basics. This is a nice easy recipe, so cheap it's almost free, and you could pre-pack the ingredients to take camping.
Instructions:
Hand-mix all ingredients in a bowl (don't over-knead!)
Bake at 200C for ~20 minutes
Serve with butter, syrup, or your favourite topping. Enjoy!
Ingredients (ratio)
1 cup flour
1/2 cup water
Note
3 cups flour, 1 1/2 cups water will make a loaf-sized damper.
Pancakes
Feeding a family? Me too! This is a simple recipe that tastes just like the packet mixes. You may want to add vanilla essence or other flavour, or just keep it plain if you enjoy your spreads.
Instructions:
Add all ingredients to a bowl and mix.
Cook on frying pan or hot plate. Wait until bubbles appear & flip.
Cook the other side for a minute or two looking for golden brown.
Serve with butter, syrup, or your favourite topping. Enjoy!
Ingredients
3 cups flour
2 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
Note
Water can be substituted for milk. To live your best life, add 2tbsp + 1 tsp white vinegar and 1/2 tsp baking soda (turns into buttermilk!).