jumble cake for christmas!

again, sort of cheating here, baking not really 'cooking' but it is christmas after all....

made some jumble cake for a christmas present for a friend who loves it ( you know who you are!), it's been fun making and packaging it so i am going to give it to some others as well, like my grandpa who is impossibly hard to buy for.....

JUMBLE CAKE

(this must be our family recipe, because i've never had anything like it outside of my family, and no, it isn't like hedgehog cake at all)

ingredients:

250g soft butter
2 cups caster sugar
2 eggs
2 cups desiccated coconut
4 dessert spoons cocoa
2 cups SR flour

method:

cream butter/sugar
add eggs
then gradually add dry ingredients
spread across a lamington tray with the back of a spoon, don't go all the way to the edges. bake 170c until beginning to firm up (about 45 mins). cool in tray. ice with choc icing and cut before completely cold (otherwise it gets really hard to cut!)

slow roasted tomatoes

i actually had already eaten almost all of the large (and best) slow roasted tomatoes when i remembered that i hadn't yet taken a photo.... they were sooo good! the cherry tomatoes were also good, but perhaps would have been better if i had roasted them longer. the tomatoes were grown in our very own garden :)

method for both:

slice all tomatoes in half and place on oiled baking trays (cherry and regular tomatoes on separate trays for different cooking times)

drizzled with more extra virgin olive oil and balsamic, sprinkled with maldon salt and cracked pepper.

the cherry tomatoes went in to the oven at about 180 c for an hour or two- they came out yummy BUT the big tomatoes went in the oven for about 8 hours, at as low as the oven goes and they were AMAZING, so lesson learnt here!

MMMMMM MMMM

LABOUR STARTING COOKIES (well we'll see, but i'm ready and willing)

preheat oven to 180c

combine in a medium bowl: 2 & 1/2 cups flour, 1 & 1/2 tspn baking soda (bi-carb soda), 3/4 tspn cinnamon, 1 tspn ground ginger, 1/2 tspn ground cloves, 1/2 tspn cayenne pepper (but i didn't have any of this so i used a bit of paprika, piri piri and chilli).

cream together in a large bowl: 8 tspns (or '37 grams') butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup brown sugar and 1/3 cup mollasses (treacle). add lastly 1/4 cup egg whites (from 1 large egg).

add the dry ingredients to the wet a little bit at a time. roll dough into 1 inch balls, place on baking paper on baking tray and cook for 10 mins.

"once cool, eat as many as you possibly can, lie down for a nap and wait for labour to begin!" (we'll see..... but i hope so!)



i read about this recipe from http://www.shoppingfortwo.com/Articles/Pregnancy/breakyourwatercookies.htm

mmmm risotto!

CREAMY PUMPKIN RISOTTO
recipe from: women's weekly.

my score: 10/10 (but i had been reaaaaally wanting risotto for a while now), i will definitely be making it again :D

dane's recommendation: "needs meat".

ingredients
1kg butternut pumpkin, peeled & cut into 2cm pieces
extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tspn dried chilli flakes
1 1/5 litres chicken stock
50g butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
2 cups (400g) arborio rice
1/2 cup (125ml) dry white wine
1/4 cup fresh sage leaves (i couldn't get a hold of any fresh or dried sage, only powdered so i just sprinkled a little of that on at the end)
1/4 cup (60g) sour cream
1/2 cup (40g) grated fanciest parmesan
2 tblspn toasted pine nuts

method
preheat oven 200c

bake pumpkin on baking tray w baking paper & oil. season w salt

meanwhile, bring stock to a gentle simmer in a medium saucepan.

melt butter in large pan. add onion and cook till soft not browned. add garlic and rice, stirring well to coat. add wine and simmer until liquid has evaporated.

add 1/2 cup of hot stock to rice mixture stirring over medium heat until liquid is absorbed. continue adding and stirring, 1/2 cup at a time until half the stock is added, then remove the pumpkin from the oven, sprinkle with chilli flakes and add almost all of it to the risotto (saving some for the top). continue adding and stirring as before until it's all gone. (i added frozen peas too because i <3 peas).

**i didn't do this step because i couldn't get the fresh sage, but i hope to next time.....
"heat oil in small frying pan over high heat, add sage leaves and fry for about 20 seconds or until crisp. remove with slotted spoon and drain on absorbent paper."

remove risotto from heat, stir in the sour cream and parmesan. season. serve topped with the extra pumpkin, roasted pine nuts and crisp sage.

SO GOOD

tomorrow's recipe......

LABOUR INDUCING SPICY COOKIES (yes really)

trusty pizza success, cheating roast success!!

i haven't been cooking much lately, ingredients for recipes are $$$$$, the things i have been cooking have hardly been worth mentioning let alone photographing. tonight's delicious roast chicken with peas, roast potato, pumpkin and carrot was PERFECT although i did buy one of those ready to roast chickens that already have the stuffing and are already marinating in herbs etc. CHEATING i know. but everything came out, all at the same time, all perfect yumyumyum.

another night i made a rocket and lettuce (from our very own garden!!) salad with oven roasted cherry tomatoes with balsamic vinegarette and oil, pumpkin, fetta and lamb cutlets.

and i also whipped up dane's recipe of DELICIOUS pepperoni margherita with basil (deliciously fresh home grown!) tomato, mozarella, parmesan and cheddar. mmmmm mmmmmmmm.

tomorrow is pay day so i will buy ingredients tomoro to cook from a recipe. mmm perhaps risotto?

EPIC FAIL

tonight's attempt came from the women's weekly short & fast recipe book. "pumpkin and corn patties" which shall be from here on known as SLOP. the recipe called for deb instant mashed potatoes but i just couldn't bring myself to that so i used normal mash (error #1 i soon discovered)...

boiled 1 cup of coarsely chopped pumpkin and 2 cups of potato (i don't really like the boiling, i think if i ever attempt to make this slop again i might try roasting them instead.)

mashed together with 1/2 cup of buttermilk (125ml), 125g can of drained and rinsed (why?) corn kernels and 1/2 coarse chopped fresh parsley.

now here i was supposed to 'shape mixture' into patties- but what i had was sloppy slop so there was no definitely no shaping happening ("choo chooo"- that's the sound of the fail train coming!) but i tried my best using a spoon. i was supposed to 'coat the patties' in toasted sesame seeds (1/2 cup/ 75g) and then cook them in heated oil in large pan. this of course turned to browned oily mash slop fairly quickly. also the mixture was tangy and pretty gross. so i added an egg (to try and hold it all together) and some curry powder and piri piri and tried again. still a fail, but a slightly less fail. so then i tried in the oven. this was the most succesful.

it tasted okay but gosh it was ugly. i must say i am left feeling quite disappointed. friggen cooking. FAIL

potato roesti

only slightly different from the recipe in the darling donna hay book <3

6 chat potatoes peeled and shredded
1 1/2 tblspn's olive oil
1/3 grated fancy pants parmesan
1 1/2 tspn's thyme leaves
salt & pepper

place the mixture in 6 heaps on baking papered tray and cook at 200c for oooh around 20 mins. we had ours with steak*, red wine honey jus (dane made that) and peeeeeas. success!

*cooking steak 101

heat oil in pan on high until it just begins to smoke. place the meat *gently* in the pan then JUMP the heck back coz that stuff is spitting (i used the lid as a shield-this was successful- i can recommend it). when the blood pools (ew ew ew) on top then turn it over and it will take about half as long to cook that side as it did the first side. i like mine a little hotter and little more cooked than dane so i did mine first and then put it in the oven to keep warm with the roesti's. good good. *thumbs up*