Banana and Pecan Bread

With these colder days persisting I couldn’t resist the temptation of baking a beautiful banana bread to warm us all up and put a smile back on our faces. I make many versions of banana bread but this one is perhaps the most wholesome. I know that bananas are about one million dollars per kilo at the moment but I have thankfully got an ample supply in the freezer. I always put the bananas that have gone brown into a container in the freezer so that they are there for whenever the urge to bake takes over me. Aside from being frugal, the frozen bananas tend to produce the best banana bread.

I baked these ones in little muffin cases which makes them easier to pop into lunchboxes but also gives them a shorter cooking time. If you want to bake this recipe in a loaf tin you need to reduce the heat to 160°C and bake them it for a little longer

Ingredients:

½ cup macadamia oil

6 bananas

3 heaped tablespoons of brown sugar

1 tablespoon golden syrup

2 cups wholemeal flour

1 cup plain flour

2 heaped teaspoons of baking powder

1 level teaspoon of bicarb soda

1 cup pecan pieces

Sesame seeds and slivered almonds for decorating

Method:

First you need to defrost your bananas by either leaving them at room temperature for a while or heating them in a little saucepan on a low heat until they become soft. Once your bananas are soft, mash them up then stir in your brown sugar, golden syrup and macadamia oil. Pour your flours, bicarb soda and baking powder into a separate large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour the wet banana mix slowly into the flour mix until it is all mixed together. Fold through the pecan pieces. Spoon the mix into 12 muffin cases and sprinkle with sesame seeds and slivered almonds.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 30 mins or until golden brown and the muffin bounces back when tapped on the top. Don’t be tempted to test these with a skewer because they will remain quite soft inside but if you cook until the skewer is dry you will get a horrible dry muffin or bread. This banana bread is great toasted with butter and it is just as good when served at room temperature with a beautifuly warming cup of tea or coffee.

Uber Chocolate Cookie

I have witnessed first hand that these cookies can make people week at the knees so please use them wisely. These cookies when cooked well are moist, chewy, sticky, chocolaty and delicious......they are a must for any chocoholic.

This recipe is not for those watching their weight and please don't try to alter the quantities on this recipe as the result will vary dramatically. These cookies are for moments of pure indulgence.

so here is the recipe, this is quite a large batch so you could halve it if you like.

Ingredients:

3 cups flour
3 cups caster sugar
250g butter
2 tbsp cocoa
2 cups mixed choc chips
2 eggs

Method:

Mix flour and sugar in a bowl.

Melt butter and cocoa together over a low heat.

Pour melted butter over dry ingredients and stir. Add eggs and mix until combined then mix through the choc chips.

Roll the mix into balls and give them a little squash down. bake them in a preheated oven on about 160 degrees for around 20 minutes. you will notice that the whole top of the cookie will have changed to a paler colour when they are done. you should let them cool a little before serving otherwise they just fall apart but they are delicious still warm.

Lamb Shanks with Guinness Gravy

If you want to cook your way into a man’s heart this winter, this may be the dish. There is nothing quite like a slow cooked dish on a cold night to warm the heart of almost anyone.

Ingredients:

1 x leek finely diced

2 x carrots finely diced

2 x cloves of garlic finely diced

1 x 375ml can of Guinness

2 lamb shanks (frenched)

4 kipfler potatoes

3 sprigs of rosemary

3 sprigs of thyme

Salt and pepper

About 2 cups of water

Some flour for dusting

Method:

Dust the lamb shanks in flour using a plastic bag. Heat a pan until it is nice and hot then add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the pan and start browning the lamb shanks.

Once the lamb shanks are beautiful and golden all over remove them from the pan and add a little more olive oil. Now toss in all of the diced vegetables and cook them until they have softened. Pour in the Guinness and bring it to the boil. Now is a good time to season to taste.

Put your lamb shanks in a small but deep baking dish or casserole dish. The dish should just fit the lamb shanks and washed potatoes in it without having an abundance of room (otherwise you will need to use more liquid). Arrange the lamb shanks, potatoes and herbs in the dish and pour over the Guinness mix. It is likely that the lamb will still be sticking out of the liquid a bit so add some boiling water until the lamb is just covered. If you are using a casserole dish then just put a piece of baking paper on top of the Guinness stock and put on the casserole lid, for all other dishes use some baking paper then cover it with foil to keep the moisture in.

This needs to be cooked for 3 hours at 150 degrees, you can take it out half way to check it and turn the lamb shanks if you like but it won’t ruin the dish if you don’t.

I served the potatoes and shanks in a large bowl and used the Guinness and lamb stock to make gravy. You could serve the shanks on mash and just pour some of the stock over the whole meal, it really depends on how thick you would like the sauce.

ENJOY

My Garden

This year  I decided I would finally plant the garden I have talked about for so long. I am actually into the second season now and have garlic, celeriac, celery, beetroot and many more wonderful things to look forward to harvesting. It is such a wonderful feeling to go out to the garden and pick herbs and vegetables straight from plants you have grown. Which is exactly what I did this morning; i noticed the chili plant's branches were getting heavy with fruit so I thought it was time to make a chili paste. while I was lightening the burden of my chili plant I noticed that our recent deluge of rain had encouraged some extra growth from my coriander and roquette so I now have an abundance of fresh greenery in my crisper that I'm using at every opportunity.

Chocolates

Here are some beautiful chocolates I made to take to an afternoon tea on the weekend. they were a real hit,the coffee truffles were my favourite.

I have to admit I didn't temper the chocolate perfectly for these (I was in a rush) but I reccomend that others try to as it would have added an extra level of loveliness to these treats. there are plenty of tutorials on line regarding tempering chocolate so rather than fill this blog with instructions feel free to look it up on youtube.

this is the first time i have made a true soft centre and they worked out well. I made white chocolate and marmalade soft centres, espresso truffles, and mixed nut praline squares. you can make all different flavour combinations with the truffles but the basic principle is you need about 60ml of boiling cream to every 200g of chocolate. if you add any other liquids (eg. espresso) you need to add less cream or increase the amount of chocolate. you pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and stir until  as much of the chocolate has melted as possible, if not all of the chocolate melts then just finish the melting process over a water bath.

the soft centres need more cream so they will stay softer at room temperature or as I did you can add another ingredient that once melted will help the mix stay soft (i used marmalade). once the mixtures are nice and smooth they need to be chilled to go as hard as they can. the soft centre then needs to be spooned out into little dollops in some grease proof paper and put into the freezer. these dollops can be rolled into balls once they are frozen. then returned to the freezer to make sure they keep their shape. the frozen balls are dipped into tempered chocolate and left at room temperature until they are served.

I make my praline from the 100 percent nut butters you find in the health food section of the supermarket. there is usually a cashew spread and a Brazil, cashew and almond spread. you just add about 2 tablespoons of the chosen nut spread to the chocolate and cream and melt as I have said above. you can roll it into balls after it has been chilled but I just poured the mix into a lined baking tray and refrigerated it until it had gone hard. then I sliced it into squares and decorated it with white chocolate and pecans.

the coffee truffles are made the same as the soft centre but the mix didn't need to be frozen before rolling it into balls. the truffle mix will go quite firm in the fridge but it is helpful to freeze the balls before dipping them into the tempered chocolate.

Enjoy

Roasted Tomato Soup

There is just something about soup in winter that is ever so comforting. And for me cooking the soup is as much a part of the enjoyment as eating it is. This tomato soup I made recently is just beautiful. It fills the house with beautiful aromatics that cause the soon to be recipients to salivate in anticipation.  if you make one soup this winter, please let it be this one.

Ingredients:

12 large tomatoes

6 cloves of garlic

1 leek

2 chillies

1 bunch sage

1 bunch basil

2 tablespoons of capers

Salt  and pepper to taste

Olive oil

Method:

Put all the tomatoes in a baking dish, drizzle them with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt.

Tear up half of the sage bunch and sprinkle that around the tomatoes.

Cut the ends off 3 of the garlic cloves and add them to the baking dish.

Bake the tomatoes, sage and garlic for about 1 hour at 180 degrees or until the liquid from the tomatoes has started to fill the dish and the tomato skins are looking slightly scorched.

When the tomatoes are roasted, take the garlic cloves out of the dish, squeeze the roasted garlic back into the dish and give them a bit of a mash.

Slice the leek, finely dice the chilli and remaining garlic and roughly chop the sage. Sauté all of the chopped ingredients with some olive oil in a large pot, until leak has softened. Pour the entire contents of the baking dish into the pot and add the capers. Gently mash up the tomatoes as you are stirring and discard any large pieces of tomato skin as you come across them.

Let the soup simmer for about ten minutes then season to taste.  Chop up 2/3 of the bunch of basil and stir it through the soup until it softens.

This soup is fantastic with my garlic and basil bread.... just the thing for a cold winter’s day. Enjoy

                                                   

Basil and garlic bread

Ingredients:

4 slices of sour-dough

1 large clove of garlic

1/3 bunch of basil

Parmesan

Olive oil and salt

Method:

Drizzle the bread with olive oil.

Finely grate the garlic.

Chop up the basil.

Mix all the ingredients together with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.

Divide the mixture over the four slices of sour dough and spread it out to cover each slice.

Grate parmesan over the top.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 10 mins or until parmesan is golden.

Creme Brulee

There is something very sexy about a crème brulee so use this recipe when impressing the pants off of someone is on the menu (you take that as literally as you want).

Recipe:

400ml cream

3 egg yolks

1 whole egg

1/3 cup caster sugar

1 vanilla bean

Method:

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until sugar starts to dissolve.

Split your vanilla bean and scrape out all the wonderful seeds, put the vanilla seeds, empty pod and cream into a saucepan and heat until it just starts to boil.

Take the cream off the heat, pour it straight into the egg and sugar mix and start whisking.

Whisk the mixture so that it’s all nicely mixed through and remove the empty vanilla pod.

Pour the mix into 4 ramekins. Put your filled ramekins into a baking dish and pour boiling water into the baking dish until it comes about half way up the side of the ramekins. Bake at 160 degrees for about 25-30 mins or until custard just wobbles when you gently agitate the ramekin. Set the custards in the fridge for 10-15 mins (it’s best to let them get back to room temp before you serve though) sprinkle the top with a little extra caster sugar and get out your blow torch.

This is my blow torch and yes it does say FAT BOY on it, that’s what you get when you get your boyfriend involved with kitchen purchases........ Hence, my blow torch came from Bunning’s and I am yet to run out of gas!

Enjoy