My Chillies

How cute are these beautiful little chillies? I was watering my chilli plant this afternoon and I wanted to see if the fast vanishing blossoms were turning into fruit. what I discovered was that these chillies are shy little things and there are heaps of them hiding under the foliage. I think they are perhaps the loveliest little chillies I've seen, but then I'm probably bias:)

Pear and Raspberry Tart

I came home tonight and everyone was in such a good mood that I just had to bake. I don’t have a recipe I just had some pastry left over from a previous baking frenzy so that was my base. The filling was similar to a friend base with almond meal and raspberry, topped with slices of pear.

My first bagel

Today I came through on a long standing promise to make Bagels. It was raining outside and It was a good excuse to warm up the house.  These are not perfect but I think they are a good first attempt. The main thing I learned was that you need quite a tight dough, my dough was somehow too voluptuous, needless to say they past the taste test and will be made again.

I don’t have an exact recipe; I’ll have to just give you a rough guide.

Just make a normal dough but when adding the sugar to the yeast use a lot more than a normal bread, I probably used 2 tablespoons. Kneed the dough until you have a nice firm consistency. Cut the dough into small portions and cover them with a tea towel while working. Roll out each portion into logs and leaving one end fatter so you have enough dough to pinch around the other end.

Once all your bagels are formed let them rest for 15mins. While bagels are resting bring a large pot of water to the boil. Gently lower one bagel into the pot and boil for about a minute on each side (you need to turn them over). Pop the boiled bagel on a lined baking tray and do the same for the rest of your bagels. Once all bagels have been boiled, brush them with and egg wash and sprinkle sesame seed over them. Bake them in a hot oven (about 200°C) for around 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Green Papaya and Scorched Tuna Salad

My boyfriend's beautiful daughter recommended a book to me the other day, she said it was all about food and cooking, the book was called "The School of Essential Ingredients" by Erica Bauermeister It was one of those reading experiences for me that stir everything up in you, it reminded me of all the reasons I love food and cooking and filled me with a renewed energy and passion for cuisine.

This salad is the first meal I cooked after reading the book, I felt it was a wonderful way to farewell winter and welcome spring by way of combining the last of the winter greens from my garden with  beautiful spring papaya and mango.

Ingredients:

½ green papaya

1 carrot

1 firm mango
1 bunch of baby bok choy or similar Asian Green

1 bunch of coriander

½  bunch of mint

2 teaspoons of sesame seeds
1 banana chilli

Chilli flakes (to taste)

1 large lemon

¼ cup white wine vinegar

2 teaspoons of caster sugar

2 tablespoons of sesame oil

400g of sushi grade tuna

Method:

I used a julienne tool that looks like vegetable peeler to attack the green papaya. I have seen chefs chop with viscous precision to get fine strips of the papaya meat but I can not show you how this is done. So find a tool that best suits you and julienne the papaya and carrot.

Peel and slice the firm mango.

Pick the leaves off of the stalks of the coriander and mint.

Finely slice the banana chilli.

Mix all of the above ingredients together with the baby bok choy in a large mixing bowl and add the sesame seeds and a sprinkle of chilli flakes.

Now to make the dressing, juice the lemon and mix the lemon, vinegar and sugar in a small bowl and mix until sugar is dissolved then add the sesame oil and set the dressing aside.

Cut your tuna into thin slices and lay them on a baking tray, get your brulee torch and scorch one side of the tuna pieces with the torch. Add the scorched tuna and dressing to the salad mix and toss everything together. Garnish with some extra mango and fried shallots.

Pinkabelle

I went to Adelaide over the weekend to visit my nephew for his first birthday, the hot, dry Adelaide air insisted that summer was coming and I have returned with a sense of urgency regarding getting some salad leaves planted. My garden was completely neglected in my absence. There was a minor mishap with my pipsqueak citrus trees but the crisis was averted and they are all in big new pots which are much heavier and therefore less likely to be blown over (or perhaps knocked over by the dog) but it was my brand new Pinkabelle tree, a dwarfed pink lady apple tree, that truly blessed me upon my return. She had been busy over the weekend and had grown her first leaves and blossoms. When a new tree arrives it is pruned right back to a stick so these green shoots and pink flowers are showing she likes her new home. 

Friands

Fananciers or Friands as they are otherwise known are something I have always wanted to bake but never really got around to and honestly I thought they would be quite fiddly. However a craving for almond meal encouraged me to try baking these little treats and here's the big news..... If you have a good recipe they're easy!. the big thing with friands I have found is getting the ratio of almond meal to flour right. I prefer them to be heavy on the almond meal so I played with my recipe a few times until I had come up with this recipe which gave me the consistency I was after.

Be warned, reducing the butter content in the recipe has disastrous results so just don't look as you pour it in. Friands are rich and moist and the butter plays a big part in that. So here it is, my recipe for Fananciers

3 cups almond meal

½ cup flour
1 ¼  cups pure icing sugar (sifted)
8 egg whites
250g butter (melted)

2 heaped teaspoons of baking powder

First step is to melt your butter and set it aside to cool. Then you need to  put all your dry ingredients into a a big mixing bowl and stir them up so they are all mixed together.

separate the whites from 8 large eggs and slowly add them to your dry mix, whisking as you go. your cooled butter can be added now while whisking. at the end of this process you should have a well combined shiny batter.

At this point you can add anything you like to the batter, one of my favorites it some fresh lemon zest. or you can just pop a some fresh berries on top of each friand, it really is up to you.

You can buy friand molds or trays which I am yet to do so I have baked these in small muffin trays which need to be greased first. bake them in a hot oven for about 20 mins or until a they are golden and cooked through. test with a skewer or by tapping the top to see if it bounces back.

Beetroot Leaves

It's not just the beautifully purple black root vegetable I grow beetroots for, but the lovely leaves that make a great salad. I just love a vegetable that keeps giving.

This salad is a mix of roasted carrots and beetroots from the garden tossed through the beetroot leaves, with caramelised onions, grilled haloumi and a warm smoked salmon filet. All you need to dress it is some fresh lime juice, olive oil and a generous amount of cracked pepper.

Thai Fish Cakes with Herb and Soba Salad

Spring is here and what better way to start than with a delicious warm salad. I know I keep banging on about my garden but seriously, I am just so pleased with the amount of produce it is gifting me with. This dish was again made from greens from the garden. I was inspired to make this recipe as I accidently bought too much fish the other day (note to self, don’t take advice from overweight fish mongers on portion sizes) I didn’t want to serve up another fillet of fish so i thought I’d turn the excess into some lovely light fish cakes.

Ingredients:

For the salad:

½ bunch of Mint

1 x bunch of Coriander

½ bunch of bok choy

2 x stalks of celery

1 x Banana chilli

1 x stick of soba noodles (cooked and still warm)

1 lime

2 tsp Sesame oil

1 tsp Fish sauce

Drizzle of olive oil

For the fish cakes:

I large fillet of white fish

1 banana chilli

2 heaped teaspoons of Thai curry paste (I make up my own so be careful with the bought ones as I’m unsure of their strength)

Method

Preheat your oven to 180°C. Bring a small saucepan of water to the boil then carefully lower in your soba noodles and cook for about 3-4 minutes drain them immediately, rinse them under warm water and set them aside for your salad.

For the fish cakes use a food processor to blend all of the ingredients together until minced. Then spoon out the mixture and shape it by hand into little patties.

Shallow fry the patties until golden on each side then pop them into your preheated oven for a couple of minutes to finish.

While your fish cakes are in the oven you should have time to make your salad. The only things that need to be sliced are the banana chilli and maybe the bok choy. The rest of the herbs just need to be picked off their stalks and thrown into a large mixing bowl with all of the other ingredients. Use tongues to mix the salad thoroughly. Pile mounds of the salad onto your plates then take the fish cakes out of the oven and pop them on top of the mounds.

The only thing I would perhaps add to this dish in the future would be some crushed nuts.

Roasted Carrot Beetroot and Pecan Salad

Just look at what my garden gave me this morning. Beautiful cylindrical beetroot and Dutch carrots. I was instantly inspired by the lovely colours and the chill in the spring morning air to roast these beauties for dinner and turn them into a nice nutty warm salad.

This salad was truly simple and it’s hard to show you in a photo just how tasty and warming this dish was.

Ingredients:

1 bunch of Dutch carrots

1 bunch of baby beets

½ cup of pecans (broken up)

30 gram s of Danish feta (crumbled)

Zest of one lemon

Juice of ½ a lemon

Drizzle of Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

All you have to do for this salad is wash and dry your carrots and beetroot, pop them into a large baking dish with some olive oil salt and pepper. Roast them for 25-35minutes or until beetroot is easily pierced with a knife.

When the vegetables are cooked, peel the beetroots by gently rubbing the skin off then slice the carrots and peeled beetroot. Put all of the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and toss.

I served this salad with a piece of cod and some arrabiata sauce.

Spring Rolls

As I have an abundance of beautiful herbs and greens, seemingly continually appearing in my garden, I thought it would be a good time to try something I have wanted to test out for a while. I wanted to make a baked spring roll, so I did….. there may be a reason they are deep friedL

It wasn’t a total disaster though just that a few of them (when I say a few I really mean most) had what can only be described as “soggy bottoms” However the flavour was definitely there and my boyfriend and I happily polished off several for dinner, soggy bottoms and all!

I can’t give you an exact recipe here as I really did just grab all things green from my garden and get chopping.

I used a mixture of:

Mint

Coriander

Bok choy

Chilli

Carrot

Spring roll pastry

I roughly chopped everything up and gave it all a good mix together by hand

I spooned mounds of the herb mix onto each pastry sheet and wrapped them as tightly as I could, sealing them with some water

I then spread the rolls out on some grease proof paper and sprayed them with olive oil, then baked them at 180 degrees for about 20 mins or until they had gone nice and crispy (at least on top). I served these with a nice spicy satay dipping sauce.

Now don’t get me wrong I think this method would work without creating such an excess fluid situation if you just add a couple of eggs to your herb mix before stuffing the rolls.