Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Chunky butternut pumpkin and chick pea soup

From Delicious July 2008 - Jamie Oliver

Serves 4-6
1 butternut pumpkin, peeled, diced, seeds rinsed and reserved
1 tbs cumin seeds
1 dried red chili crumbled
Olive oil
2 celery sticks
3 garlic cloves
a few sprigs of flat leaf parsley, leaves chopped, stalks finely chopped
2 small red onions, finely chopped
1.5 litres vegetable stock (GF)
2 x 400g cans of chickpeas, drained
2 tsp each fennel seeds, sesame seeds and poppy seeds

2/3 cup almond flakes
zest of 2 lemons
sprigs of mint, leaves chopped
Extra virgin olive oil


Preheat the oven to 200C. Put the pumpkin, cumin and dried chili on a baking ray. Drizzle with oil, mix together and roast for 45 minutes or until cooked through.

Heat a large saucepan over medium low heat and pour in a splash of olive oi. Add the celery, garlic, parsley stalks and two thirds of the onion. Cook gently with a lid on until softened. Drop in the pumpkin and sweat for a few minutes then pour in the stock. Bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the chickpeas and simmer for 15 minutes more.

Meanwhile toast the reserved pumpkin seeds with the fennel seeds, sesame and poppy seeds and almonds in the oven on a baking tray for 3-4 minutes or until nicely coloured all over.

Season the soup well with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, then using a stick blender whiz for a few seconds so it thickens, but there are still some chunky bits. Keep warm while you mix together the zest, parsley and mint leaves. Chop the remaining onion finely then mix it into the zesty herb mixture.

To serve, ladle into the soup bowl and stir once, then sprinkle with toasted nuts and seeds followed by the herby mixture. Finish with a drizzle of some extra virgin olive oil.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Chocolate and craisin slice

Spray oil
1 1/2 cups of museli
1 1/2 cups rice bubbles
1 cup shredded coconut
170g craisins
1 can skinny sweetened condensed milk (or full fat)
250g milk chocolate bits


Lightly spray a 27mm x 17 mm container with oil and line with baking paper
Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl
Combine the condensed milk and the chocolate in a bowl and rest over slowly boiling water (or put in 900w microwave for 30 seconds. Combine the milk and the chocolate and then pour into the dry ingredients. Mix quickly and put into the container and then refridgerate for 1 hour, then cut into slices and refridgerate for at least another 2 hours.

If you are going to put this slice in a school lunch box, make sure that there are no nuts in the museli mix.

Enjoy.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Roasted capsicum, tomato and coriander soup

This soup is delicious and we have made it twice in the past week. The second time we did not have any chilli so I used sambel olek - it worked well and if anything was hotter than just using the chilli.

To check out the recipe and a picture (not mine) click here.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Salmon Patties and Fennel Slaw

Here is what we had for tea the other night! I got so excited about photographing it that I managed to video it instead! The video is all of 1 second long.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

New Blog site

Hi there, TC put me on to this great food blog The Pioneer Woman

She reminds me a little of the Gluten Free Goddess. She is in an isolated place, enjoys cooking (without the restrictions that the GFG has), and enjoys photography and communicating.

Check it out.

Thanks TC

Aunty A.