Nuts berry crumble

This is a raw nuts berry crumble inspired by the Renegade Health Show’s  recipe for Blazing Berry Crumble. The only problem was my food processor has given up the ghost, so this is a quick version.

LSA stands for linseeds, sunflower seeds and almonds. Linseeds are also known as flaxseeds. It’s better to grind these up yourself fresh using a coffee bean grinder or a mortar and pestle. If you do buy them pre-ground from the shop, make sure they were stored in the fridge. When you get them home put them in an air-tight container and keep in the fridge for up to a month. They are packed full of fibre, calcium, essential fatty acids, protein and minerals.

1 Tbsp LSA
1 Tbsp hazelnut meal
1 Tbsp honey
1 small punnet of strawberries

1. Hull and quarter the strawberries.
2. Add the LSA and hazelnut meal, stirring to mix.
3. Add the honey and stir well to serve straight away.

Serves 1-2.

Vanilla apples

Did you know that inorganic apples can be sprayed up to 16 times? One way to reduce your exposure to chemicals is to peel your fruit and vegetables, as the chemicals will be concentrated there. Unfortunately, you’ll also be removing many of the natural nutrients, which are also located in the skin.

I’m going to warn you these are very sweet, but oh so good. You could serve them with a cake or ice cream to balance out the flavour. The vanilla pod will sprinkle black flecks through the sauce, so you can use vanilla essence if you wish.

3 cm vanilla pod
2 Tbsp butter, organic
2 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp golden syrup

1. Place the split open vanilla pod and butter in a frying pan over low heat and cook for 3 minutes.
2. Add the apples and sugar and cook for about 20 minutes or until caramelised, stirring frequently.
3. Add the golden syrup and 1/4 cup of water. Cook for a further 2 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened slightly.

Serves 2.

Berry coulis with chocolate cake

As this blog is supposed to be about fruit and vegetables try to ignore the chocolate cake for a moment.

How easy is coulis to make? Absolutely lick-out-the-container-delicious and dead easy. You don’t even really need a recipe. Well, you won’t after the first time.

Raspberry Coulis

¼ cup of raspberries blitzed in the blender
add juice from half a lime (or quarter of a lemon) and 3 teaspoons of sugar to taste

You can try other fruits to make coulis (French for uncooked fruit sauces), such as strawberries, blueberries, mangoes, and kiwi fruits.  If you are  pedantic, you may like to  strain out the seeds. Drizzle over chocolate cake or dessert of choice.

Chocolate Cake

For this gorgeous gluten free chocolate cake I used Cocoa Farm chocolate to give it a hint of fruity shiraz. It’s great to see an all Australian company coming up with innovative products. I can’t wait to try their Orange Organic Dark Chocolate.

150g chocolate
100g butter
100g brown sugar
150g almond meal
3 eggs, organic and free range

1. Pre-heat oven to 170°C
2. Melt together butter and chocolate in a bowl over a pot of simmering water. (Or use microwave on low if you are game).
3. Separate eggs and set whites aside.
4. Cream together yolks and sugar until pale and doubled in size. Add melted chocolate to egg mixture and beat on slow speed until combined. Fold in almond meal with a spatula.
5. Whisk egg whites to stiff peaks.
6. Fold whites through cake mixture.
7. Transfer mixture to a greased cake tin.
8. Bake for 25 to 40 minutes.
9. Cake should be springy in the middle and skewer should come out clean. Remove from oven and transfer to cooling rack.

B.T.W. Try to avoid blitzing frozen raspberries near clean washing up. It was hard to mop up and hide the evidence of all the red segments flicked all over the place. Blend in the sink people.

Bananas in coconut milk

Growing bananas in Queensland unfortunately requires a permit. Home growers are allowed up to ten plants, which sounds like plenty to me. We  probably won’t ever grow any in our backyard, which is a shame as I always find it hard to pick the optimal time to eat a banana. Lady Fingers are easy – Maggie recommends waiting until they are half black and then devouring them. The shops usually only stock Cavendish and sometimes Ladies. I’m yet to try all these other varieties: Blue Java, Bluggoe (plantain or cooking banana), Ducasse, Goldfinger, Kluai Namwa Khom (Dwarf Ducasse), Pisang Ceylan and Red Dacca. I feel like I’m missing out….. anyone tried these?

small tin of coconut milk
2 tbsps sugar
2 bananas, chopped

1. Put the coconut milk, sugar and ¼ cup of water into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer.
2. When the sugar has dissolved, add the bananas.
3. Gently cook until the bananas are soft.
4. Serve half the mixture in a bowl, either warm or at room temperature.

Serves 2.

Written for DK’s A Worldly Epicurean’s delight in short A.W.E.D Thai Event

Juicy jelly

Home made jelly tastes completely different from the store-bought jelly crystals. The little secret that I’m going to let you in on is that it is just as easy as pouring in some boiling water and mixing. Ok, maybe there are a few more steps, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Recently I took some orange and passionfruit jelly to a friend’s place for after dinner. They turned their nose up and missed out. Later they found out that it was home made and regretted not trying it. Please don’t make the same mistake.

We’ve had the odd alpine strawberry from our hanging basket. They taste of sweet sorbet but would never sell in the shops because they are no bigger then my smallest fingernail. The strawberry seeds we planted in the vegetable beds haven’t shown up, which doesn’t really matter because the melons have happily taken over the space and spilling over the sides!

1 cup of fruit juice
1 cup of boiling water
sugar
4 tsps gelatine (or equivalent agar agar)

1. Squeeze fruit to make one cup of juice.
2. Strain the juice through a sieve to remove seeds and/or pulp. (optional)
3. Add sugar if needed to taste. Usually about 1 tbsp.
4. Add boiling water to a cup and then quickly mix in gelatine with a fork.
5. Combine the gelatine and juice mixture.
6. Pour in to molds and set in fridge overnight.

Note: I’ve used this recipe with lots of different fruit juices. It’s a great way to get rid of lots of passionfruit and withhold the seeds. Experiment and let me know what you try.

Jason’s winning Christmas pudding

This is Jason’s Christmas Pudding recipe which he won first prize in the local show. Last year I regrettably made a different version, but we didn’t like the addition of nuts and it was more work . I also bought a special pudding tin and it went rusty after only a few months! Anyhow I’ve gone back to this winning one which was well received the year I made it. I’ve made a few changes, mostly notably I’ve divided everything in half which you’ll find is still plenty.

375g sultanas, sundried
375g raisins, sundried
200g glaced cherries, or cranberries
50g dried mangos, or your favourite
125g butter
½ large cup of rum
1 cup sugar
2 cups plain flour
½ tbps baking soda
pinch of salt
½ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp cinnamon
2 eggs, organic
Parisian essense or vanilla

1. Soak the dried fruit in the rum overnight. You can use any combination of dried fruit – the original recipe had 500g mixed fruit, 250g raisins and 250g sultanas, but I wanted to use up some things in the cupboard.
2. The next day, cream the butter and sugar.
3. Add the eggs and beat well.
4. Add the fruit and essence, then the remaining ingredients.
5. Place mixture in an oven bag. Tie bag tightly with some string about 3 cm from the mixture. It’s important to make sure that you get all the edges tied with the string so no water gets in.
6. Place in the fridge for 2 hours.
7. Put small plate upside down or rock in the bottom of a boiler. I use a large pasta pot with an enclosed strainer. Add water to nearly cover the pudding and bring to the boil. Cook for 4 hours.
8. As needed top up with more boiling water.
9. Mature for a few weeks in the fridge.
10. To reheat: place in boiling water for ½ hour. We just use the microwave.

Notes: Suitable for freezing, but keeps for ages.

Lemon granita

We have three little green lemons on our dwarf trees. We bought the fruit trees a few months ago, and although a few of them have been flowering – it’s exciting because these are the very first fruit. It will be few more weeks before we can pick them but we’ve been having lots of rain so hopefully they’ll survive.

Lemon granita is a refreshing cool me down perfect for the hot muggy weather we’ve been having lately. You can adjust the amounts of lemon and sugar to suit, but remember that when it’s frozen the flavour will be dulled a little. I love the idea that Italians eat granita in the morning.

½ cup white sugar
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 cups of water

1. Add the sugar to a cup of water and stir to dissolve.
2. Add the rest of the water and lemon juice and stir.
3. Transfer the mixture to glass or plastic container and place in the freezer.
4. After about an hour, take the mixture out of the freeze and stir the ice crystals.
5. Return to the freeze, and take out every hour to stir and break up the crystals.
6. The final product will be like a slushy. So if you aren’t serving the same day, you may need to take the mixture out of the freeze and break up the crystals for one final time.
7. Garnish with mint leaves.

Serves 6.

Tea towel from PataPri.

Australian rocky road

This rocky road has Australian touches with macadamias and dried mango. It is traditionally made with melted chocolate, marshmallows and nuts. It’s easy to adapt rocky road – for my mum’s 60th, I left out the nuts, and used her favourite chocolate bars chopped up – one polly waffle and one turkish delight- and melted cooking chocolate to bind it all together. You could use your favourite chocolate bar, small jubes, glazed cherries or even dried cranberries to add some Christmas spirit.

Only add the mint if it’s fresh – at the moment our herbs are the only thing edible in our garden!

This is an easy version to remember – it’s all m’s – macadamias, marshmallows, mango, and mint. Of course you aren’t going to forget the chocolate are you?

200g dark cooking chocolate
50g dried mango
50g macadamia
50g mini marshmallows
sprig of mint (optional)

1. Melt the chocolate.
2. Line a tray with aluminum foil.
3. Dice the dried mango.
4. Place the macadamia halves in a plastic bag and break up into smaller pieces with the side of a mallet.
5. If using, chop the mint finely.
6. Combine the mango, macadamias, marshmallows and mint.
7. Mix in the melted chocolate and pour over the tray to set in the fridge.
8. Leave for about 1 hour or till set and then take out of the fridge and break up into bite size pieces.

I’d love to rename this dish “stormy street” in honour of the stormy weather we’ve been having lately. It’s not really ideal as a summer dish when most of the storms hit Brisbane, so eat it now straight from the fridge, otherwise you’ll put chocolate finger prints everywhere!

Chocolate and chestnut cake (Spanish)

Cooked for the Spanish entry of the Euro Cup and Plate challenge.

150g dark cooking chocolate
75g unsalted butter
125ml fino sherry, or a dry sherry
6 medium organic eggs, separated
150g castor sugar
½ cup chestnut puree*
70g macadamias
50g self-raising flour, sifted
55g cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (170°C if you have a fan-forced oven). Grease a 24cm spring-form tin with butter, then line with baking paper.
2. Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pot of simmering water. Add the sherry and gently stir until combined. Leave to cool.
3. Whisk egg yolks with sugar until light and fluffy. Add the chocolate mixture, the chestnut puree and macadamias. Stir until well combined.
4. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and carefully fold into the chocolate with the sifted flour and cocoa powder.
5. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 50-60 minutes. Test by inserting a skewer in the centre – if it comes out clean, it’s ready. Cool in the tin before turning out.

Serve with whipped cream.

Serves 12.

TIP – Chestnut puree is sold in a tin and can be found in good delis.

Apfelstrudel – Apple strudel (Austrian)

Cooked for the Austrian entry in the Euro Cup and Plate challenge.

6 sheets of of filo pastry
3 apples
50g organic butter, plus some for pastry
50g breadcrumbs
100g sugar
handful of raisins
pinch of cinnamon powder

1. Peel the apples and and cut them thinly. Fry the breadcrumbs in butter. Spread the filo pastry out, and carefully brush some melted butter between each layer. Cover half the dough with the apple slices, add the breadcrumb mixture, sugar, raisins and sprinkle with cinnamon. Roll the strudel up very carefully.
2. Grease a baking pan, and place the strudel on top. Bake in a preheated oven at 200°C for 20 minutes.

Too easy and absolutely delicious!

Serves 6.