Pumpkin Salad

Roast chucks of pumpkin and quartered brown onion with olive oil, thyme and rosemary at 180 degrees Celsius for 30-40 minutes.  Dress half a bag of baby spinach leaves and cubes of baked Margaret River herb and garlic baked ricotta with one tablespoon of Pakora Caramelised balsalmic vinegar and half a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.  Top with roasted vegetables.

Roast Pumpkin Soup

This is a recipe for cold, rainy, windy days like today.

I started with 1 kg of Kent pumpkin.  I removed the seeds and rind, then chopped the pumpkin into 1 inch cubes.  Season with salt and pepper; and a tiny sprinkle of dried rosemary and thyme.  Drizzle with olive oil, toss and roast at 200 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop a brown onion and saute in 100g butter until softened.  Add 1 litre of chicken stock and bring to the boil, then simmer.

When pumpkin is cooked, add to the stock and simmer for 15 minutes.  Let the soup cool then take to it with a a stick blender.  Add about half a cup of cream and reheat.  Serve with bread.

Chinese Crispy Roast Pork Belly Attempt Number 1

A classic Chinese dish is crispy roasted pork belly or Siew Yook. A good Siew Yook has a crispy crunchy crackling and lovely layers of pork and fat underneath.

I used this recipe and adapted the technique with a few tips from my Hainanese Uncle in New Zealand.

Not a bad result but I think I can tweak it. Stay tuned!

Now what do I do?

I harvested the vegetables from the garden and this is the result. 

I'm thinking beetroot relish, vegie soup and carrot cake :)

<3 my leek. It's so leeky :)

What a cute carrot!! It made me think if Peter Rabbit was real,

 this is the carrot he'd be stealing from my garden.  

Speaking of Peter Rabbit... I'd like to wish a very special young lady a Happy 5th Birthday :) Wish we were there to celebrate it with you, A. xoxo

Cheese and Onion Muffins

To make 12 muffins start by preheating oven to 180 degrees fan forced.  Melt 60g of butter in a measuring jug then add 1 cup of milk and 1 egg. Whisk with a fork to mix.  In a medium mixing bowl mix 250g plain flour, 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of dried rosemary and 1 tablespoon of baking powder until evenly distributed.   Add to this 1 packet (200g) of Kraft's Italian Cheese blend, 1 finely diced onion and 2 cloves of crushed garlic.  Mix again.  Make a well in the middle of the dry mix and add wet mixture. Mix until just combined; about 15 strokes.  Grease a muffin tray with olive oil spray and distribute the mix evenly.  Bake for 20-25 minutes until brown on top and muffin springs back when poked.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

A variation of Nigella Lawson's recipe because I don't measure with cups and tablespoons anymore and I can't find red food colouring paste.  I used this handy website to convert the recipe.

Makes 12 cupcakes
100g unsalted butter
225g of caster sugar
3 tbsp red food colouring (eg Queens Pillarbox Red)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 XL eggs
210g  plain flour, sifted
2 tbsp cocoa powder, sifted
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup of milk

Cream butter and sugar together then add vanilla and food colouring gradually.  Beat in eggs then sift in half the powders.  Fold in. Add the milk and fold in. Add the balance of powders and fold in.  Beat on high for 2 minutes.  Bake at 170 degrees C fan forced for 20-25 minutes.  Cool then add icing. For the icing, beat 100g of unsalted butter with 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence.  Then add 200g of icing sugar and beat until fluffy.

nom nom nom Merry Xmas!

I usually bake Xmas cookies for my colleagues at work in December using the frozen Ikea cookie dough.   Unfortunately Ikea no longer sell this dough, but I found this recipe on Taste.com.au and it worked brilliantly!

I used spring-loaded cookie stamps to shape them. Snagged them at Matchbox in last year's post Xmas sales.  I had intentions to decorate them with icing pens and cachous (shiny edible ball things). But I got a bit lazy towards the end,

Gingerbread cookies

125g butter, softened
130g brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 egg
375g plain flour
1/2 tsp sodium bicarbonate
1 tbsp ground ginger
2 tsp of ground cinnamon

Cream butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in syrup and egg. Sift flour, bicarb, ginger and cinnamon over mixture and mix manually to combine.  Knead until smooth and cover in clingfilm and refrigerate for an hour.  Preheat oven to 180 Degrees Celsius (160 if fan forced).  Roll out between 2 sheets of baking paper until 5 mm thick and cut your shapes out.  Bake on baking paper for 15 to 20 minutes.  Cool for 5 minutes on the tray then transfer to a wire rack to cool before decorating (or devouring).