Fruit Crumble

For a quick wholesome (nearly) snack, a fruit crumble is always nice, I followed Jamie Oliver’s version from The Naked Chef. I also replaced half the flour with oats & used brown sugar as suggested to make it all a bit healthier. I really like the flavour the oats & brown sugar give over the refined white sugar & flour combo any day anyway. As a bonus I also got to use up some more of my Granny Smiths as well as some peaches & nectarines that were getting a bit old sitting around in the fridge. Sorry the photo is not the best but I find it hard to make crumble look exciting – its all in the taste instead.

Fruit Crumble

Crumble
225g plain flour (or sub half with oats)
115g butter
90g sugar
pinch salt

Fruit
455g fruit, washed & prepared
3 tablespoons sugar (or sub with brown sugar)

Serve with custard, ice cream, cream, mascarpone

Just stick all the crumble ingredients in a food processor & blitz until it resembles fine breadcrumbs (you can also do this by hand)

Put the fruit into a shallow ovenproof serving dish and sprinkle with the sugar. Spread the crumble mix over the prepared fruit. Give the dish a bit of a shake & bake in the oven at 200c for about 30 minutes or until the top is evenly golden.

Breakfast Bars

This morning, still on my healthy breakfast thing I made up a batch of muesli bars from Marie Claire’s Luscious. Very easy to prepare, the flavor was delicious though mine had a bit of trouble keeping form when cut, they did keep their shape though they were very delicate & the edges crumbled, think maybe they needed to cook just that bit longer than the 30 minutes I allowed. Anyway this will be something nice Michael & I can take along to work this week.

Breakfast Bars

150g butter
175g (1/2 cup) honey
200g (2 cups) rolled oats
60g (1 cup) shredded coconut
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
200g (3/4 cup) pitted prunes, chopped
100g (2/3 cup) dried peaches, chopped
75g (1/2 cup) currants
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 170c. Line a 23 x 32 cm sandwich tin with baking paper.

Put the butter & honey in a small pan over medium heat & stir until butter has melted.

Toss the oats, coconut, baking powder & sesame seeds together in a large bowl. Add the prunes, peaches & currants & mix well. Add the warm honey mixture & eggs & stir to combine, then spoon evenly into cake tin.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the mixture is cooked through & the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven & allow to cool in the pan before cutting into 12 bars.

Fresh Bircher Muesli with Stone Fruit

The other morning while up at the ungodly hour of 6.30am to water the garden in my allocated time for the weekend I thought I would be very good & gets some oats soaking for my very own bircher muesli. I’ve never made theis before so didn’t know what to expect. I always opt for richer, wicked foods when making brekky and this has never tempted me before as it seems to be so bloody healthy. The recipe I used was from Bill Granger's Bills Sydney Food - for me Bill is the King of brekky at the moment. Sorry you cant actually see the museli in the photo, just too much yummy fruit on top. For those of you who have not made or tried this before let me tell you it is scrumptious & quite filling, enough to keep one satisfied for hours. Something to make again & the fruit combo’s are of course endless to keep it interesting.

Fresh Bircher Muesli with Stone Fruit

2 cups rolled oats
1 cup apple juice
1 cup coarsely grated apple
½ cup natural yoghurt
juice of 1 lemon
½ cup sliced peaches & nectarines
¼ cup mixed berries
2 tablespoons honey

Place oats and apple juice in a bowl and soak for 1 hour, or overnight. Add grated apple, yoghurt & lemon juice to oat mixture & mix well. Spoon into serving bowls & top with fruit. Drizzle with honey.

Summer Fruitcake with lemon mascarpone cream

As well as pasta, I have been quite fond of cakes these past few months & I think if I wasn’t working I would be hard pressed not to make one very single day, now that would be a very bad thing. Luckily I am still slaving away so usually only manage to sneak one in a week. This week I had some friends coming over for lunch & had this recipe from Delicious magazine that takes advantage of the abundance of summer fruit in our shops now so I was dying to try it out. As well as berries it also used peaches, the sweetness & slight tartness of each working beautifully together. Also the almonds gave this cake so much more, I was lucky any even got baked the mixture was so irresistible. I found I had to cook it about 10 minutes or so longer than required & the end result was still a lovely moist cake full of fruity goodness and don’t skip the lemon cream, its goes really well too.

Summer Fruitcake with lemon mascarpone cream

250g unsalted butter, softened
250g caster sugar
6 eggs
½ cup (120g sour cream)
200g raw almonds
180g plain flour, sifted
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g raspberries
150g blueberries
2 small peaches, peeled & sliced
Icing sugar to dust

Lemon Mascarpone Cream

200g mascapone

150ml thickened cream

Juice & rind of 1 small lemon

Preheat oven to 180c. Grease a 24cm springform pan & line the base with baking paper.

For lemon mascarpone cream, beat ingredients in a bowl to combine. Cover & refrigerate until ready to serve.

Place butter & caster sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer & beat until light & fluffy. Whisk in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Whisk in sour cream. Process almonds in a food processor until fine crumbs, then fold into the mixture with the flour & baking powder. Stir in the vanilla then pour in half the batter into the cake tin and sprinkle with half the fruit. Repeat layers of batter & fruit. Bake for 40-45 minutes (cover loosely with foil if it starts to brown), until a skewer comes out clean when inserted in center. Cool in pan for 15 minutes then place on a rack & dust with icing sugar. Serve with lemon mascarpone cream.

Roast Loin of Pork with Peaches

Seeing that Peaches have finally arrived in our shops I though it was about time I tried out this roast from Jamie Oliver’s Return of the Naked Chef. I know its 30 degrees out but when you have a craving for a roast what can you do? The recipe below is for 7 which I halved for the 2 of us – looking forward to some leftover pork sandwiches. This was a very tasty roast, the meat was very flavoursome & moist though I am a bit dubious about all of that butter & I only used half, think I will cut it in half again next time as don’t think that much is necessary & should still be tender & moist with not so much

Roast Loin of Pork with Peaches

1 x t rib loin of pork
1 bunch fresh thyme, leaves picked & chopped
200g butter
salt & freshly ground black pepper
8 fresh peaches (or use 2 tins in natural juices if our of season), halved & stoned

Preheat oven to 220c. Score the skin of your pork about 1 cm apart through the fat nearly to the meat. With a knife carefully part the meat from the ribs. Scrunch your chopped thyme into the butter with the seasoning. Rub & distribute a little of the butter into the gap you have made between the ribs & the meat. Push in as many peaches as you can fit & pack the rest of the butter on top. To hug the meat & ribs together & hold the peaches in place, simply fasten some string around the pork loin in 3 or 4 places & tie firmly. Place in a roasting tray with any leftover peaches & other veg you wish to have with your roast. Cook for 50 minutes to an hour, allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Ladro

Last night I went along to the Melbourne Affordable Art show with some girlfriends & had a magnificent time admiring most of the work, laughing in disbelief at others & not understanding the rest! Managed to pick up a piece I am very happy with too so as soon as that decision was made we started on some champagne while wandering around, lucky I had no money left by then as it all looks like the perfect piece for the lounge room wall after 2 glasses of bubbly!

So after working up quite an appetite wandering around & spending all my pennies we headed down to Yeltza for a glass of wine while waiting for our 9.30 table at Ladro which I managed to get them to squeeze us in for. Yeltza was a hive of activity & even the main bar area was becoming packed by the time we left, Thursday night was up & running. I hear they have a great beer garden hidden out the back where you can get some great food, will have to remember to check it out next summer. Great place for a drink anytime of night though.

Next was Ladro, this was the 3rd time I’ve been & finally I managed to bring my camera along. To start with we had some marinated mushrooms which are divine. We couldn’t have the stuffed olives which are to die for as they have been taken off the menu, when I demanded to know why it was explained that they were so good that they couldn’t get people to order any of their other appetisers so they had to go, can you believe it, hopefully they will come back one day? Next I ordered the same thing I have had each time I’ve been as I cant go past it, Duck Ravioli with a lentil sauce (sorry about the blurry photo again!), I love duck, love ravioli, love lentils so have can I not order this, next time I promise to try very hard so I can sample some of their other dishes which I’m sure are all fantastic too. The ravioli is superb, very simple flavours & not rich at all yet in all works wonderfully together. The girls shared the puttanesca pizza which was topped with tomato sauce, cherry tomatoes, anchovies, capers & olives, very good. The pizza are huge, the base is ultra thin & crispy & cooked to perfection in a wood fired oven. The girls were kind enough to share some with me (as I did mine with them) & tasted very yum. On the side we had a mixed leaf salad as there were some specimens included that I was yet to try, chicory, radicchio, rocket, fennel & witlof, think that was all, very nice & simple with a light dressing. I had never seen chicory before & we couldn’t identify it so our lovely friendly very knowledgeable waiter pointed it out for us & even bought us out a whole leaf which you can see I took a photo of for all those others out there as ignorant as me. Was nice, a bit on the bitter side along with the radicchio but mixed with the rest was not too much for me. This was all washed down with some nice Italian Chianti that was recommended.

Anyway after all this food you would think that we would be stuffed right? Wrong, we did a lot of walking around that exhibition floor so dessert to share was called for, a small piece of pistachio nougat & crepes filled with vanilla custard & peaches finished off the night perfectly.

The place is nice & cozy with a modern look & very warm on a cold blustery night like it was & I will say it again our waiter was perfect, attentive, funny & had an answer for us on anything we needed to know & we were an inquisitive bunch last night let me tell you. If you haven’t been seriously give it a go, just remember to book ahead as its very small & always packed

Ladro
224 Gertrude Street
Fitzroy VIC 3065
Ph: 9415 7575

Pasta with garlic prawns

Today the temperature soared to 37 degrees so needed to whip up something quick for dinner, no slaving over a hot stove tonight. Whipped up this simple pasta dish from the Delicious 2006 diary, very, very tasty version of garlic prawns, the lemon juice & capers really lifted the flavour. Now I’m upstairs sweating over the computer in the hottest room of the house, I must be crazy.

Pasta with Garlic Prawns

500g pasta (short pasta recommended though I used spaghetti)
1 tblspn olive oil, plus extra to toss
3 garlic cloves, crushed
20 green prawns, peeled, deveined, tails intact
¼ teaspoon dried red chilli flakes
2 tblspns chopped fresh parsley
juice & zest of 1 large lemon
1 cup (250ml) white wine
100g unsalted butter, chilled, cut into small pieces
1 tbspn baby capers, drained

Cook the pasta until al dente, drain, return to the pan & toss with a little olive oil, set aside & keep warm.

Place remaining oil & garlic in a frypan & heat gently over low heat. When the oil is hot, add the prawns, chilli & half the parsley, increase heat to high & cook for 2-3 minutes. Remove the prawns & set aside, then add the lemon juice & wine to the pan & allow to bubble & reduce for 2 minutes. Briefly stir in the cold butter, lemon zest & capers until you have a smooth sauce. Return the prawns to the pan to heat through, then add the pasta. Toss together & serve garnished with remaining parsley.

Fragrant Peach Tart

This weekends sweet cooking is for Michaels mum & dad again as it’s a very hot day so we thought we could pop into their place for a swim. For the tart I got to use my new food processor for the first time & it’s fantastic, I used to have one with a teeny tiny bowl that you could not fit anything in, this one is huge & industrial strength & I love it, thanks mum! The tart looks beautiful, I was a bit disappointed with the taste though, the peaches I used didn’t seem to have that much flavour & you definitely need something with a strong flavour, so I would use apricots or much sweeter peaches if making it again. The recipe is from the Marie Claire Luscious book

Fragrant Peach Tart

6-7 small ripe peaches
Tart Case (see instructions below)
2 eggs
115g (4oz/1/2 cup) caster sugar
4 tbpsns plain flour
½ teaspoon rose water
110g unsalted butter
double cream to serve

Preheat the oven to 180c. Slice the peaches in half & remove the stones. Slice the flesh into think wedges & arrange in the base of the tart case, cut sides up. Crack the eggs into a mixing bowl, add the sugar and beat with electric beaters until pale & fluffy. Fold in the flour & rosewater. Heat the butter in a saucepan over high heat. When it begins to froth & turn pale golden brown, pour it into the egg mixture & beat for 1 minute. Pour the filling over the peaches & bake for a further 15 minutes, or until the filling has set. Allow to cool & serve with cream.

Shortcrust Tart Case

200g (7oz/1 2/3 cups) plain flour
100g (3 ½ oz) chilled unsalted butter
2 tablespoons chilled water

Put the flour, butter & a pinch of salt in a food processor & process for 1 minute. Add the chilled water & process until the mixture comes together. Wrap in plastic wrap & refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Grease a 25cm tart tin or 6 8cm tartlet tins. Roll the pastry out as thinly as possible between 2 layers of plastic wrap, then use it to line the prepared tin(s). Chill for a further 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180c. Using a fork, prick the pastry case(s) over the base, line with crumpled baking paper & fill with rice or baking weights. Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until the pastry looks dry. Remove from the oven & allow to cool.

BBM4 Finally arrives

Sarah from Cooking with the headhunter sent me my wonderful BBM4 package which I rec'd today.

Sarah with the help of her kids went to a huge effort putting this together. The theme being music, Sarah put together 9 discs for me, each disc representing a different genre of music, in Sarah words we have, 80’s new wave, Old school punk/Hardcore, Alternative-ish, Guilty pleasures from modern rock, Classical, New Agey, Techo/Trance & lastly Electronica/Dance. The reason for so many discs is that she is a huge music fan & couldn’t narrow it down to 1 or 2 songs from each genre. Scanning through I probably know about half the songs or bands so really looking forward to listening to them all properly.

On the food front I rec’d a box of home made jellies & Jams, pinot grigio jelly made by Sarah & mint jelly, Gooseberry jam & blueberry jam made by her mum, have never tried gooseberry jam or pinot grigio jelly so cant wait for the tasting & sure they will all be wonderful. Also rec’d were some South Bend Chocolate co., chocolate in milk & dark, & some Claeys old fashioned hard candies in root beer & horesehound flavour, can someone please tell me what horsehound is??? Something I have never seen in Australia. Tried one of the horse flavoured ones last night & it was very nice, not too sweet with a lovely subtle flavour (nothing like horse at all J). A jar of local blueberry honey was also included & some Jones soda, these look fantastic, they are all natural juices with vitamins, without added preservatives, flavours or colors, the labels are so cute & the flavours I got were Bada Bing – Natural Cherry & loganberry, D’Peach mode – natural peach & tangelo & Berry white – strawberry, cherry & grapefruit, how good do they sound? Also inc was a bag of rolled barley, some home made decorations, a Paula Deen magazine & a home made pistachio-apricot blondie which is delicious.

Thank you so much Sarah & kids for the huge effort & looking fwd to trying it all out!

A La Grecque – Aireys Inlet

Sunday night I took Michael to this new restaurant in Aireys inlet which is run by Kosta Talimanidis, the guy who used to run the famous Koasta’s in Lorne, this is his new venture which I have heard much talk & praise about so couldn’t wait. Nothing disappointed form the moment we walked in, the décor is very bright, with white walls, painted with colourful murals here & there & bright bulbs hanging down around the bar area. The staff were very friendly, helpful & quick.

To start with we shared 2 entrees, 1st grilled soutzouk which for those of you who do not know what this is, is a spicy Turkish sausage, served with an eggplant jam, fantastic flavours that were perfect together. 2nd was some Kalimari in a light batter served simply with rocket & aioli, scrumptious.

For mains I had a roast pork shoulder (sorry abt the blurry photo), served with baked apples, pancetta & sage & Michael had some Grilled blue eye with a dill sauce & some greek salad. We also had some potatoes & a beetroot, rocket & yoghurt salad. I loved every mouthful of each dish. And of course we had to finish up with dessert, there was no way I was leaving without it! I went all traditional & had the almond, hazelnut & rosewater baklava which was huge & I’d have to say the best I’ve had & Michael had the slow roasted peaches with ottway ranges honey & Meredith sheeps milk yoghurt, again divine.

This is definitely one of those places I will have to visit again as would love to try every single item on the menu. Well done!