15 ways to use white vinegar

I know that I usually add recipes onto this blog but I found some wonderful household hints for vinegar while I was cleaning out a pile of old magazines. I didn't want to save the magazine so I thought I would share them here. I have done both 13 and 14 and it worked, although don't fill the kettle in 14 and if you can, boil it on the sink, mine boiled out the top.

1. Add sparkle to glasses: Drinking glasses looking cloudy? Rinse in one partying at to three parts warm water.

2. freshen dishcloths: Place cloths in a container and Cover with water and 1/2 cup vinegar. Soak for a few hours, then through my rinse before using.

3. Spruce up a lunch box: To banish the aromas of meals past, add a few drops of vinegar to a place of bread and leave it in the lunch box overnight. In the morning it should smell as good as new.

4. Rid surfaces of mould: Dilute vinegar with equal parts water and spray onto walls, tiles or floors. Wait a minute, then wipe off with a clean cloth.

5. Brighten laundry: Add a capful of vinegar to your washing and clothes will come out looking brighter and fresher.

6. Banish cooking smells: Add a few spoonfuls of vinegar to a pot of water and let it simmer on the stove to remove any cooking smells in the kitchen.

7. Rescue boiled eggs: If an egg starts to crack while it's being boiled, adding a little vinegar to the water will stop the egg white seeping out.

8. Revive chopping boards: Wipe over wooden chopping boards with white vinegar to clean and disinfect them between users.

9. Oust deodorant marks: Spray deodorant stains on shirts with vinegar before putting them into the washing machine.

10. Survive sticky situations: To remove stickers from plastic or glass surfaces, or from walls, simply dab the stickers with vinegar until it's completely wet and then scrape off. If there's any residue left behind from the sticker, apply vinegar again, wait a minute, then wipe off.

11. Keep flowers blooming: Add 2 tbsp vinegar to a container, fill with water and add flowers to help keep cut blooms looking fresh for longer.

12. Remove stains from mugs: Tackle stubborn coffee and tea stains by scrubbing the stains with equal parts vinegar and baking soda. Rinse well with warm water.

13. Clean a drain: Mix vinegar with equal parts bi-carb soda, wait till it starts fizzing then pour it down the drain. Follow with warm water.

14. Descale a kettle: To get rid of lime deposits in a kettle, fill it with water and 2 tbsp of vinegar and bring to the boil. Pour out the vinegar water and rinse thoroughly with cold water.

15: Work wonders on windows: Spray dirty windows with a mixture of 2 tbsp vinegar and 4L warm water. Wipe with a squeegee or lint-free cloth for a sparking shine.

Chocolate-Fudge Brownies (wheat and gluten free)

Ingredients

1/2 cup rice flour
1/2 cup plain gluten-free flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
150g butter melted

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease a 4cm deep, 20cm x 30cm (base) slab pan. Line with baking paper.
2. Sift flour, baking powder and cocoa into a large bowl.
3. Add sugar, stir to combine.
4. Made a well in the centre, add eggs and melted butter. Using a metal spoon, mix until just smooth.
5. Spread mixture into a prepared pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Remove from oven and allow to cool in the pan. Cut into squares.

I found this recipe on Taste.com.au to make for a friend who has coeliac disease. It is a wonderfully easy recipe to make for any of your gluten/wheat intolerant friends for an Easter gift. BTW: it tastes amazing. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the brownies so I might have to make some more :-). Clearly it was so good it got eaten before I could take the photo.

Red Tomato Chutney

I was at the supermarket the other night and saw a huge bag of cherry tomatoes for quick sale, $3 for 2kg so I thought, well here is the perfect opportunity to try a chutney recipe as I LOVE having tomato chutney on toast with scrambled eggs.

Here is the recipe that I used:

Ingredients

1kg ripe tomatoes
2 large cooking apples
250g onions (2 medium sized)
1 cup sultanas (the recipe had 1/2 cup raisins, 1/2 cup sultanas)
250g brown sugar
1 cup vinegar
1 teaspoon mustard
1 teaspoon ground all spice
1 teaspoon salt

Method

1. Roughly chop the tomatoes, onions and apples (the smaller the better for onions and apples) - I couldn't be bothered chopping all of it so I pulsed it a few times in the food processor.
2. In a stainless steel pot, put in all the ingredients except the brown sugar. Bring to the boil.
3. Once boiling, add sugar and once dissolved, reduce the heat to a simmer.
4. Simmer for about 1 hour or until reduced and thick. Stir every so often.
5. If it is not thick enough, using some of the liquid from the pot, combine with cornflour (around 1-2 teaspoons) and stir in.
6. Clean glass bottles and put into oven to sterilize.
7. Place the chutney straight into the glass bottles and immediately put the lids on.

I felt that it was a bit sweet so next time I will use a little less sugar but apart from that, it tastes great. So quick and easy and NO preservatives.

Pavlova

A few weeks ago I was having some friends over for a 'pop-up BBQ'. As it was going to be a lovely day I thought that a pavlova would be a nice and light dessert. As I had never cooked a pavlova before, I decided to google and find a recipe that looked easy. Of course I ended up on the Donna Hay website and made her version of a pavlova. I am not usually a fan of pavlova and a few of my guests said the same but we all loved this recipe.

https://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/recipe-entertaining/pavlova

Ingredients

• 4 eggwhites
• 1 cup (220g) caster (superfine) sugar
• 3 teaspoons cornflour (cornstarch)
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• whipped cream and fresh fruit, to serve

Method

 

Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F).

Place the eggwhites in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add the sugar, beating well until the mixture is glossy.

Sift the cornflour over, add the vinegar and fold through.

Pile into an 18cm-round on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper.

Place in the oven, reduce the heat to 120°C (250°F) and cook for 1 hour.

Turn the oven off and allow the meringue to cool in the oven.

To serve, top with whipped cream and fresh fruit.

 

HINT: The recipe mentions 18cm round, to achieve this I turned the baking paper over and drew around a plate so that I can see the marking on the opposite side and it is a circle.
 

 

 

Easy fudge

Over Easter I tried this easy fudge recipe which mum emailed to me from what I can see was a website called kidspot.com.au.

Extremely easy to make and everyone loved it!!

Ingredients

125g butter, chopped
395g (can) Sweetened Condensed Milk
2 tbsp golden syrup
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white chocolate melts

Method

1. Grease and line a 7cm x 25cm bar tin.
2. Melt butter in a medium saucepan.
3. Add the sweetened condensed milk, golden syrup and brown sugar.
4. Stir over low heat until boiling then summer for 10 minutes, stirring constantly (I found it took quite some time before it boiled).
5. Remove from the heat, stir in white chocolate melts.
6. Mix until smooth.
7. Pour into prepared tin, cool in fridge until firm (about 2 hours)
8. Curt into slices or squares.
9. I melted some chocolate and drizzled over the top. 

I am thinking of giving the recipe a go with coffee. Perhaps putting instant coffee in with the melted butter before the rest of the ingredients.

Picture below also includes Mars Bar slice. I will upload the recipe for that one soon.

Whole Orange Cake

To celebrate 100 likes on Facebook, here is Kerry's awesome 'Whole Orange Cake'.

Kerry said: I have also substituted lemon or mandarin in this cake. Very quick and easy. I also find it cooks in about 30-35 min in a fan forced oven, so a very quick cook when you are running out of time.

I did pinch the original recipe from somewhere, but I can't remember where.

Serves 8-10 / Preparation 15 min or less

Ingredients
1 orange skin and all
180gm melted butter
3 eggs
1 cup castor sugar
1 ½ cups self raising flour

Icing
2 ½ cups icing sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
Orange juice and zest


Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees
2. Grease tin, (round tin, or bar tin)
3. Using a food processor, process whole orange until well puréed
4. Add all other ingredients and process until well mixed
5. Bake for 35-45 minutes.

Icing

Mix icing sugar, butter, zest and enough orange juice until icing is of a consistency to run down the sides of cooled cake.

Choc chip choc muffins

Still on the challenge of gluten-free, my latest attempt was chocolate muffins with choc chips.

Last weekend I had an amazing coffee muffin from a local cafe and while I was driving home from the velodrome I decided that I had completed a good workout and deserved that muffin again. Unfortunately the cafe was not open. Instead I went home and quickly cooked these muffins to take to work. I got the thumbs up from all in the office.

Next time I would halve the recipe as I didn't notice how many it cooked until I was part way through quickly cooking them. It made around 20 muffins so I did freeze the leftovers - they defrost quite well.

Also, make sure that all of the additional ingredients don't have gluten (for example, the choc chips). I didn't double check all of the ingredients but my colleague didn't have a problem with them (luckily).

Ingredients
3 cups gluten-free SR flour (I added an extra half cup of flour because I didn't think the mixture was thick enough)
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
200g choc chips
1 1/2 cup milk
120g butter (melted)
2 eggs (beaten)

Method

1. Add flour, sugar, cocoa, choc chips (if you are the sort of person who sifts, sift the flour and cocoa but I didn't bother)
2. Add milk, butter, eggs until just combined.
3. Place into muffin papers in muffin trays
4. Bake for 180 degrees C for 20-25 minutes.

The original recipe was from bestrecipies.com.au

Apple and Cheery ANZAC crumble

I was heading to a friends place earlier in the week and I always bring dessert. I wanted to try something different so I found a wonderful ANZAC top apple crumble but as I always do, added a little twist.

I changed this recipe in a few ways. The original was for 8 servings and 7 apples but I was cooking for 3 so I cooked 4 apples and there was about 6 servings. Once I started the ANZAC top I realised I had forgotten to reduce the qty of the ingredients but I love the crumble so I didn't try to amend the mistake. I also added pecans through the crumble but this was not necessary, I just love pecans. The biggest addition to the recipe was the cherries. I used bottled morello pitted cherries.

Hope you enjoy it like we all did. I was also terribly easy to make.

Ingredients

4 green apples
Cherries - I used about 1/2 bottle but put however many you want.
1 cup plain flour
3/4 cup  (packed) brown sugar
3/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup coconut
1 tablespoon cinnamon (ground)
1 1/2 teaspoons nutmeg (ground)
2/3 butter (melted) (I used approx. 120g as I find it difficult to fit cold butter into cup measure)
1/2 cup chopped pecan nuts, roughly chopped

Method

1. Peel and core apples, then cut into rough cubes. Place in a large saucepan and cover with water.
2. Simmer (don't boil) with the lid on - medium heat for approx 5 minutes or until soft. Drain and place apples in the greased baking dish.
3. Combine flour, brown sugar, rolled oats, coconut, pecan nuts cinnamon and nutmeg in a large bowl until evenly mixed.
4. Melt butter and add to mixture.
5. Place cherries in on top of cooked apples.
6. Evenly spread the crumble over the apples and cherries.
7. Bake at 180 degrees C for 30-40 minutes or until topping is slightly browned.

Gluten Free Date and Sultana Rock-Cakes

Oh my, it has been way too long since I have added a new 'tested and true' recipe to the blog.

I have a friend in the office who has been told she is gluten free so I have been having fun with the challenge by changing some of my 'tested and true' recipes by adding gluten free flour. I am not up there completely with gluten free so I have not checked all of the rest of the ingredients but she has not had a problem with my cooking (yet).

Ingredients

2 cups gluten free self-raising flour
1 teaspoon mixed spice (I also added about 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon)
90g butter, partly melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sultanas
1/2 cup chopped dates
1/3 cup milk
1 egg

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Place flour and spice into a large bowl. Add butter (this is where you are meant to rub the butter in but I partly melted the butter and when I put it with the gluten free flour it turned into breadcrumbs (score!)).
3. Add sugar, sultanas and dates.
4. Add milk and egg.
5. Drop dots of mixture onto tray with baking paper. I made about 18 biscuits.
6. Cook for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

You can also sprinkle a bit more brown sugar on the top of the biscuits before you put them into the oven.

The office approved of these and I hope you also enjoy them.

Wholegrain Mustard and Ginger Sausages

I saw this recipe on a Nigella Lawson's Christmas special a week before Christmas. We made them for Christmas day and again after because they were so yummy.

Ingredients

100g ginger jam or conserve
100g wholegrain mustard
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon garlic infused oil (I used olive oil with a teaspoon crushed garlic)
Sausages (we used chipolatas - small sausages but you could cut up long skinny sausages)

Method

1. Combine all ingredients in a medium zip lock bag.
2. Place sausages into the bag and move around to cover the sausages.
3. Place in fridge for at least half hour.
4. Cook in oven in a lined tray until cooked.

So simple and tastes wonderful.

Lemon Teacake with Lemon Syrup

Ingredients

60g butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 cup castor sugar
1 egg
180g (just over 1 cup) SR flour
1/3 cup milk
juice of 1 lemon (approx. 2 - 3 tablespoons)
zest of 1 lemon

Syrup
1/4 cup lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup castor sugar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 deg cel. 
2. Grease a 20 cm round cake pan, cover base with baking paper (place the cake pan on top of the baking paper, draw the base and cut it out). Grease the paper in the pan.
3. Place butter and essence in a bowl and beat on medium speed with electric beaters until light and creamy.
4. Gradually add sugar and beat until soft and creamy.
5. Add egg, lemon juice and lemon zest and beat.
6. Stir in half the flour and half the milk and combine (don't beat).
7. Stir in the rest of the flour and milk and beat with wooden spoon until combined.
8. Place the mixture into the prepared pan and cook until brown and away from the sides (around 20 minutes).
9. Cool for 2-3 minutes then turn onto cooling rack. 

While the cake is cooling, make the syrup.

1. Place the lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan on the stove on medium high.
2. Stir with a wooden spoon until boiled and the syrup will thicken.
3. Take off the heat and put lemon zest into saucepan.
4. Place cake on cooling rack and brush all of the syrup over the cake.
5. Serve slightly warm (this is a personal preference of mine but perhaps I just don't want to leave it any longer because it smells so good).

Moroccan Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

500g butternut pumpkin
1 medium onions chopped
3 1/2 cups water
chicken or vegetable stock
2 large carrots diced
Moroccan seasoning (I used MasterFoods)
1 tin crushed tomatoes
2 cloves garlic

Method

1. Chop all vegetables
2. Place onions and garlic (optional) and with small amount of olive oil and cook until onion is soft
3. All other ingredients into pot including spices (add the amount of spices depending on personal taste)
4. Boil then simmer until cooked (around 30-45 minutes)
5. Blend and serve with a squeeze of lemon