Apple & Olive Oil Cake

This came via Nourish Me - a wonderful spot to read at cup of tea time :
http://nourish-me.blogspot.com/2008/08/thirty-seven.html

And happy thirty seven Lucy! Almost 40 is a great age :)

I've tweaked things a bit, but we all loved this, so here is the amended recipe :

~Apple & Olive Oil Cake~
120g sultanas
freshly brewed tea
750g granny smith apples – about 6 med apples
150ml olive oil
200g rapadura
2 eggs
350g wholemeal spelt flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons bi-carb soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Cover the sultanas with warm tea and leave to soak for 20min - several hours. Drain and reserve liquid.

Peel and core the apples and dice small-med.

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line a 20cm square cake tin.

Beat the oil and sugar together until the sugar begins to dissolve (check by rubbing a little between your fingers). Whisk the eggs with a fork and add them slowly while beating all the time. Depending on the temperature of your eggs and the grade of oil you have used, this mixture will thicken quickly to a creamy consistency.

Sieve the flour, cinnamon, bi-carb soda, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and add the apple pieces. Mix to coat them in flour.

Add the drained sultanas with the sugar/oil/egg mix and fold to combine. This batter will be quite stiff; add a little of the reserved soaking tea to bring it together if you need.

Turn into the cake tin, cover loosely with alfoil with a slit for steam escape, and bake for 1 hour. Check with a clean skewer and turn tin around and bake for another 15-25 minutes, as required. Cool in the tin, uncovered, then allow to cool completely before storing.

This cake is very moist and filling - fantastic for school lunches, picnics and cup of tea time, and a wonderful way to appreciate the seasonal apple glut.

Sesame greens

So simple it's rediculous, but never mind. We had this again tonight with greens picked straight from the garden and it was deliciously fragrant, crunchy, sweet, salty.

~Sesame Greens~
broccoli, cut into bite size florets, stems peeled and cut up
sugarsnap peas, topped
snowpeas, topped and sliced a bit
pod peas, shelled
sesame oil
seasalt

Steam the greens until tendercrisp. Remove any caterpillers (yes).

Sploosh on a bit of sesame oil to coat and sprinkle over a good pinch of salt.

Serve immediately and make a lot of noise about homegrown veges.

Pumpkin, Leek, Mint & Spinach Tart

This is several evolutions from the original recipe, which involved ricotta and far less veges. Mint works so well with both spinach and roast pumpkin.

T scored this recipe a 9.5 but D said it was minus 1000. I liked it, so poor old D will have to suffer again.


~Pumpkin, Leek, Mint & Spinach Tart~
6 sheets filo or 2 sheets puff pastry, or some alternate base, like coca flatbread
800g butternut pumpkin, peeled, seeded and cut in 1.5cm dice
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
about 10 baby leeks (1cm diameter, 10cm length), cut into 2cm pieces
salt and pepper
200g fetta, crumbled
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups firmly packed, chopped spinach or silverbeet
2 tab finely chopped mint
2 tab grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Combine pumpkin, garlic, leeks, olive oil, salt and pepper, and bake for about 20 min or until pumpkin is browned. In the last 5 min of cooking, make space for the spinach on the tray; pile it on and loosely cover with alfoil to allow it to steam and wilt slightly. Remove veges from oven and cool slightly.

Lay the base on a flat tray and curl the edges up to hold the filling. If using filo, spray with olive oil between layers. Bake for a few minutes to help cook the base.

Combine the eggs with 2/3 of the fetta and spread over the base.

Layer the spinach over the egg mixture. Sprinkle over the mint. Arrange pumpkin and leeks on top, then crumble over the remaining fetta and sprinkle with parmesan.

Reduce heat to 170 degrees and bake for about 20 minutes or until egg mixture is set and all is golden brown.

This would work well as a cocas/pizza topping.

Georgie's Chocolate Cake

This cake recipe has been our family birthday cake since I was about 8. It is dead easy and always works.

~Georgie's Chocolate Cake~

4 tablespoon soft butter

1 3/4 cups SR flour

1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda

2 tablespoons cocoa

1 1/4 cups caster sugar

2 eggs

1 cup milk

vanilla

Sift flour, bicarb and cocoa, stir through sugar. Whisk milk, eggs and vanilla together and pour into flour with butter.

Beat until smooth (packet cake setting on mixmaster) and you can't feel the sugar granules when you rub some mixture between your fingertips.

Bake at 175 degrees for about 3/4 hour or until skewer comes out clean.

I like to ice this with chocolate icing made with icing sugar, cocoa, butter, orange zest and orange juice to moisten.

Mum's Pea & Ham Soup

Finally, mum made this on her last visit, so we could write the recipe down. It's all things winter, thick and delicious. Years ago, before we knew what cholesterol was, we ate it with crunchy fried bread croutons, heaven.


~Mum's Pea & Ham Soup~

1 bacon hock/ ham bone
about 5L water

Cook slowly until the meat falls off the bone. Remove meat, cool liquid and skim fat from the top. Chop meat and return to the stock. Discard any fat/skin and bones.

Add about 2 - 2 1/2 cups green split peas and reheat. Simmer.

Roughly chop and add :
2 medium carrots
2 medium onions
3 medium parsnips

Simmer until peas are soft, then blend till smooth.

Serve with cracked black pepper and thick bread - with butter if you aren't worried about fats! ;)

Leila's Quick Fruit Loaf

Quick and easy. D declares it "the best thing I've ever eaten".

~Quick Fruit Loaf~
1 cup spelt flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup processed bran (any cereal like AllBran)
1 cup dried fruit (any sort, chopped if needed)
1/4 cup sugar
1 large banana, mashed**
enough milk to mix

Sift flour and baking powder together. Stir in bran, fruit and sugar.

Mix through banana and enough milk to bring it together into a muffin-mix consistency.

Pour into a loaf tin and bake in a moderate oven for about 25-30 min, or until a skewer comes clean. Eat warm or cool.


**I use frozen over-ripe bananas (defrosted) for cooking and these work very well - you can build up a stash of frozen black bananas over summer when they seem inevitable, then use them when needed. Freeze in their skins in a sealed container.

Pot Roast with Sweet Onion Jam and Poached Pears

We had this tonight and it was so good I'm jotting down the ingredients. Will try to repeat this, it was delish.


~Pot Roast with Sweet Onion Jam and Poached Pears~
1.5kg topside roast, trimmed of most fat - leave some on for flavour
1 medium onion, sliced
olive oil
about a tab fresh thyme
about 200ml red wine
about 1 tab brown sugar
about 1 cup chicken stock
2 Buerre Bosc pears

Heat a large frypan over med-high heat and drizzle with olive oil. Brown roast on all sides then place in crockpot or casserole dish.

Turn down heat and add onions. Cook till soft, then deglaze pan with stock.

Pour stock, red wine, brown sugar and onions on top of roast, then sprinkle over thyme.

Cover and cook in preheated oven or crockpot until meat is tender. Turn the roast once during cooking to keep it moist and cook evenly. Remove meat to rest and keep covered.

Pour cooking juices back into frypan. Peel and halve pears and place flat side down in the pan juices. Poach pears and reduce liquid until it is thick and syrupy and pears are cooked.

Serve with jacket potatoes and fresh steamed greens.