bits and pieces

The blog has been little quiet...here are a few things we have been eating lately. It has been 'eat from the freezer and pantry stockpile' recently, it is quite fun having to be inventive. Tonight, a warm salad with ebly wheat, pumpkin and cauliflower roasted in moroccan spices, with toasted walnuts and lots of chopped herbs and baby salad greens...tossed in a dressing made of sliced red onion and garlic sauteed with more spices, mixed with dates and lots of natural yoghurt. We ate this with panfried groper and lemony hummus.

I have been making a bit of bread too...vegetable calzone last week for Sunday lunch. I use my favourite foccacia recipe for this, and filled it with a mixture of roasted pumpkin mixed with lots of silverbeet sauteed in garlicky oil, tomatoes that had been cooked down until thick and pulpy, and some crumbled feta.

Foccacia

2 tsp dried yeast
50ml warm water
3 tbsp flour

Mix the above 3 ingredients together and leave in a warm place to 'sponge', about ten minutes.

300g flour
200ml warm water
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp rosemary, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil

Place flour in a large bowl, add oil, salt, rosemary and the sponge mix from above. Knead until smooth, then leave in a warm place until doubled in size. Press dough onto a baking tray, dimpling the surface with fingers. Brush generously with olive oil so it pools in the dimples, and bake at 200c for about 15 minutes.

This is a versatile dough that also make a good pizza or calzone base. When I made it yesterday I added linseed, kibbled wheat and poppy seeds to it for a grainy change.

energy cookies

Cookies this week for TWD...granola grabbers picked by Michelle of Bad Girl Baking. These are the sort of cookies (we try to justify to ourselves) that lean towards the healthy side of the treat spectrum because they contain a virtuous ingredient such as wheatgerm. Not so healthy I'm afraid but very yummy...and packed full of energy and at least a little fibre. Using granola instead of raw oats mean they are extra crunchy and have a fantastic texture. I used some homemade honey toasted muesli that had a mix of rolled oats, pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds. The cookies were quite sweet, next time I would cut the sugar down slightly. Couldn't bring myself to use raisins so chunks of dark chocolate instead, although in hindsight the raisins may have been pretty good...

a wholesome dinner

Dinner in a hurry...panfried turbot (my new favourite fish!) on a 'superfood' salad of wholemeal couscous with grated beetroot and carrot, shredded red cabbage, steamed broccoli, crumbled feta and hazelnuts. Our fish was topped with lots and lots of sloppy homemade hummus...a bag of cooked chickpeas from the freezer, some tahini, lemon juice, natural yoghurt, garlic, olive oil and warm water blended until drizzle-able. Divine, I love dinners like this. Leftover salad and hummus for lunch tomorrow.

blueberry ice cream

A belated TWD posting this week....it has been an eventful week. This week was Blueberry sour cream ice cream chosen by Dolores at Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity. The ice cream maker was put back into action. I lazily skimmed the recipe and misread it, throwing all the ingredients (blueberries, sugar, sour cream, cream and lemon zest) in the saucepan together. No worries though, this didn't seem to matter, as the mixture blended up and churned nicely to make a lovely creamy ice cream. This must be the easiest recipe in Dories book! The sour cream gave it a beautiful creaminess that non-custard based ice creams sometimes lack, tending sometimes to be a little grainy. Perfect spooned straight from the churn to top our hot apple and almond crumble for pudding tonight on this cold wet night.

a banana loaf

Another week, another TWD recipe...this time for Black and White banana loaf chosen by Ashlee of A Year In The Kitchen . I followed the recipe for this almost to the t (couldn't resist adding a handful of chopped dark chocolate to the chocolate half of the batter!) I thought this loaf was....okay. The texture of my loaf was rather dense and it had quite a thick crust on it. Maybe my bananas weren't quite ripe enough. The marbling didn't turn out quite like Dorie's picture either...in the meantime the loaf has been relegated to the freezer. I have bigger things planned for it in the form of a chocolate and banana pudding...cubed banana loaf soaked in chocolate custard and packed into ramekins with a filling of chocolate ganache tucked inside. Watch this space.