Stunning way to start a dinner party

Tonight's Menu = caramelised walnut, beetroot, pear and goats cheese salad, followed by rare roast rib of beef, finished with a dessert duo. 4 mini pear and almond tarts and 4 mini chocolate souffle tarts.


So I made up this salad, I wanted to achieve a textural medley with the perfect blend of sweet and savoury, now you'd have to ask the dinner guests if they agree, but I think I succeeded.

First I put a few handfuls of baby rocket on the platter and gently tossed with some extra virgin olive oil, mostly for aesthetic reasons, it looks prettier when the leaves are glossy.

Next I dotted the leaves the roughly quartered segments of roasted beetroot (the beetroots were some that I had bought on special ages ago but didn't actually need for a recipe so i boiled them whole, with the skin and tail on, and froze them. I defrosted the beetroots, roughly quartered and roasted them with salt, pepper and a little olive oil at about 180℃ until tender).

Next step is dotting the salad with soft goats cheese and quartered, but thinner more like segments of firm but ripe pear, I used Corella, do this just before serving so they don't turn brown.

The best part of this salad is definitely the caramelised walnuts.
to make the caramelised walnuts I just roasted the walnuts in the oven at 180℃ for about 10 minutes until golden, but keep a close watch in case they burn. In a saucepan put 1 cup of caster sugar and put over medium heat and allow to dissolve. Because you haven't added any water to the sugar you can stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture is a golden amber colour. Once you have achieved the right colour add the nuts and stir quickly to coat the nuts completely and turn out onto baking paper using 2 forks to separate the nuts before they form a clump.

Scatter the nuts over the salad, just before serving to ensure they don't loose their crunch.

And Voila! On the table, is now an amazingly tasty salad with varied, but complementary textures and the caramelised walnuts look so impressive that people will be taking about this one for ages.
Only one difference I would make for next time, the salad lacked astringency to counter the sweetness of the pear and walnuts so when I tossed the rocket leaves with EVOO, I would add a couple good squeezes of ultra fresh lemon juice.

Just to gild the lily, I served the salad with some lightly blanched asparagus spear which I then wrapped with prosciutto and grilled on the BBQ.

SOUR CREAM COFFEE CAKE WITH APPLE-DATE FILLING

OK, so when I saw this recipe in '1,001 low fat vegetarian recipes' by Sue Spitler, I was excited. Pretty simple recipe. I love apple and date combo, sold! I was reading the recipe and I turned to my mum and said " they forgot to put the coffee in the recipe!" her reply " not a coffee cake, it's like a tea cake, you eat it with coffee".  So very literal of me, but awesome cake.

Here we go, as low fat and low in sugar as I could manage with it still tasting amazing.

1/2 cup of canola oil
1/4 cup of unsweetened apple sauce

(this can be a little hard to find,
so you could always 

just stew a few apples with
no additives and use that)

1 cup of Stevia, granulated

1/3 cup of lightly packed brown sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

3 cups of plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons of bicarb soda

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 1/2 cups of low fat sour cream

APPLE-DATE FILLING 

(I recommend doubling the apple-date filling)

1/2 cup of dried apples, coarse chop

1/4 cup of chopped and pitted dates

2/3 cup of water, minimum

1/3 cup of lightly packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon of plain flour

1/4 teaspoon on nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon of salt

CREAM CHEESE ICING

2 tablespoons of light/low fat cream cheese (Philadelphia)

1 cup of powdered/ icing sugar

so... i'm back. i'm on maternity leave after having twins in April so i have time to bake again.

I use stevia granulated sweetener/ but if you're not worried about sugar just use normal caster sugar

My first recipe back in the blogging saddle is an amazing banana bread with raspberries and dark chocolate.The best part, it's low fat and low in sugar. PERFECT.

Here is how it goes:

2 cups of plain flour
3/4 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of artificial sweetener                             
4 tablespoons of canola oil or margarine        
2 large eggs

Do not use vanilla essence & don't bother with vanilla bean paste. In this recipe it would just get lost

1 1/2 cups of ripe mashed banana (approx 3 large bananas)                   
1/3 cup of low fat vanilla yoghurt
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract                            
                                                                       
1 cup of dark chocolate chips
1 cup of whole frozen raspberries, dusted with 1 tablespoon of plain flour.




TIP: Double the recipe, it will disappear so quickly.
Also, I have decided to make this recipe as muffins rather than a loaf to help with portion control. I need all the help I can get. Otherwise this will make a standard loaf  tin (approx 21 x 11cm) sized banana bread.

Preheat the oven to 180℃.

As a busy mum of twins it can take several sessions to get a recipe done. So I like to prepare all parts of the recipe in advance so that when I'm ready all I have to do is throw together my already measured, mashed and sifted ingredients.

1. Sift the plain flour, baking soda and salt into a bowl, set aside.
2. In another bowl blend or mash the bananas with the yoghurt and vanilla extract, set aside.
3. In the bowl of your standing mixer measure out the stevia and canola oil and beat until pale and fluffy
4. With the beater still running add the eggs one at a time until well combined
5. Add the banana, yoghurt, vanilla mixture until well combined.
6. Now you can add the flour and combine using the stand mixer or by hand until just combined. Do not over beat the mixture as this will make the bread very dense instead of light and fluffy.                            
7. Next you can fold through the chocolate chips and very carefully fold through the raspberries.
8. If you are making a loaf of banana bread pour the mixture into a greased loaf tin, or if you are making muffin banana breads use a greased ice-cream scoop to fill lined muffin molds 3/4 full. (When I doubled the recipe the yield was 3 dozen muffins) 
9. For a loaf bake the cake for 50-60 minutes.
10.  For muffins bake for 30 minutes. 

final installment of a simple life

What do you do when your uncle buys you a 1.5kg bag of Craisins for Christmas?
My solution, is adapting Jamie Oliver's 'rosemary rasin' bread.
refer to this recipe
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/jamie-oliver/rosemary-and-raisin-bread-recipe/index.html




The only problem/ concern I had was the cook time, so I just let it cool completely in the oven to do a little extra passive cooking.

My favourite combo for this was served with Saint Agur french cheese (not cheap at $90+ a kg).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Agur_Blue

the simple things in life part 2

Continuing on my Alain Ducasse adventure comes 'light pesto' pasta.
This is an astonishingly simple recipe, it takes no time at all.
All you need is 4 peeled cloves of garlic, 20g of freshly grated Parmesan cheese, 30g of pine nuts, 2 bunches of basil, 6 tbsp of water, 6 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil.
Cut the garlic cloves in half and remove the little green sprouty bit from the centre.

• Place 3 of the cloves (6 halves) into boiling water for 2 minutes.
• Put the remaining fresh garlic clove along with the blanched cloves, pine nuts, Parmesan and basil (I would recommend tearing the basil into pieces before bashing) into a mortar and pestle and combine to a traditional pesto consistency. (I cheated a little, I wasn't achieving the required consistency and so I abandoned the pestle and mortar in favour of my handy Cuisinart moulie).

• Add the water and olive oil, continuing to bash or blitz, as is your preference.
• season with salt and pepper, then put in a jar in the fridge to keep the flavours fresh. If you leave it on the bench the basil can loose it's 'ozone' (thanks Rick) freshness.

Meanwhile, put a pot of water on to boil, once boiling add plenty of salt then the pasta of choice (Alain uses pappardelle, but fettuccine or whatever) cooking according to the packet instructions.
While the pasta is boiling, toast 40g of pine nuts and then place on paper towel to cool.
Grate 20g of fresh Parmesan and set aside.
Drain the pasta and then put in in a large fry pan over medium heat and add a couple tbsp of the pest along with the extra Parmesan and pine nuts to heat the pesto through.
That's it, serve in the pan or on a platter.
yummo.

I served this pasta with a little salad of home grown mignonette lettuce, home grown cucumbers, and a little red onion, dressed with salt, pepper, lemon juice and a splash of olive oil.

the simple things in life

After Christmas and days of over indulgence, and more left overs than you can poke a stick at I'm yearning for some simple pleasures.

Thus we welcome Alain Ducasse, and his amazing cookbook 'Nature. Simple, Healthy and Good'.
From this philosophy I have made a Caprese salad from my home grown tomatoes, a mixture of heirlooms and cherry toms, a ball of buffalo mozzarella, basil from the garden and a balsamic glaze, with the obligatory swirl of extra virgin olive oil.
My tip for a sensational Caprese is texture.

This is the first of my heirlooms to ripen, not the prettiest, but she sure is tasty.

 

 

This is heirloom number 2.

Don't just dice your tomatoes into indenticate cubes, halve your cherry toms and chunky slice your larger toms.
This is a celebration of seasonal produce, home grown veggies and the scent of summer in the air.
perhaps the other important piece of advice, which should go without saying is seasoning.
Use salt and pepper. Salt and tomatoes are like potatoes and duck fat, an unbeatable combination.

Enjoy, because I certainly will.

LOW FAT, GUILT FREE TIRAMISU

INGREDIENTS:
1 & and, 1/2 cups of strong black coffee (I usually add a few tbsps of hot choc powder to the coffee)
2 tbsp of Frangelico
2 egg whites
1 cup of low fat (light/ diet/ reduced fat) custard
350g low-fat ricotta cheese
1/4 cup of icing sugar, sieved
250g savoiardi/ sponge finger biscuits
garnish with grated chocolate or 2 tbsp of cocoa powder

Questo è Come Noi Lo Facciamo (this is how we do it)....

1. Combine the coffee and Frangelico (+ hot choc mix) and set aside to cool.
2. Beat the egg whites to soft peaks using an electric beater.
3. In a separate bowl beat together the custard, icing sugar and ricotta until smooth and creamy.
4. Fold the egg whites into the custard mixture, be careful not to knock all the air out of the eggs, you want to keep the mixture light and fluffy.
5. To assemble the tiramisu, use a round or rectangle dish about 6cm deep and 18cm square or 18ch diameter.
6. My method is to place half the biscuits on the base of the dish and ladle over half of the coffee mixture 
7. Follow by pouring over half of the ricotta mixture.
8. Repeat the process, laying down the biscuits, ladle over the coffee and smooth over the remaining ricotta mixture.
9. Finish off the tiramisu by grating over some white or milk chocolate (just a smidgen, this is meant to be low fat) or cocoa powder.

Lei può mangiarlo tutto, well, I definitely could :)