Tropical Fruit Cups
One, two or three!
What do you do when you have leftover ingredients from the Joust? And a fridge full of unused fruit? You make fruit salad! Or as "modern" publications call them....Fruit Cups. Seriously though, its a good way to increase your fruit intake. Chop up a whole batch of fruit, squeeze some lime, add some passionfruit pulp add a good amount of thick Greek yogurt and top with freshly toasted coconut. The final touch is to grate some fresh lime zest. Aaaahhh...I'm dreaming of tropical temperatures again!
More Fruit Cups
I basically used what I had around. I chopped up some bananas and pears and squeezed some lime juice over them so they wouldn't go brown. Add some oranges, kiwi fruit and mango and voila! The real treat was the lime zest. It provided the right amount of "zing" and "zestiness". Mmmmm...and lets not forget the toasted coconut. Another added treat. I wish I could breakfast like this every day.
Add some lime zest...for that "extra" touch
Banana Jam
Pixie from "You Say Tomatoh, I Say Tomayto" and Rosie from "Rosie Bakes, A Peace Of Cake" are holding a food blogging event titled "Putting Up". These lovely lasses are asking for us to submit recipes relating to home made preserves, jams, jellies, curds, butters etc... I recently had the pleasure of making my first curd using passionfruit. It was received with wonderful success and I enjoyed using it in a variety of sweet dishes. For this event I wanted to try something a little different. I searched long and hard and found a wonderful recipe from fellow Australian blogger Matt who writes a blog called Abstract Gourmet. He featured a wonderful jam made with bananas and I thought "Yes!".
First off, let me say that I was worried about sterilising the jar and lid. In the end it was quite easy, actually. I boiled them and once the water had drained I filled them with my banana jam mixture. Also, make sure you use a non reactive pot, like stainless steel when making the jam. This jam is absolutely delicious and very addictive. I made one batch and plan on a few more with some slight variations. Its wonderful over buttered hot toast and I think it would work well with scones. Make sure your bananas are quite ripe as their flavour will be stronger and the jam will be more pungent. The recipe has cinnamon added to it and I also used some vanilla bean to further enhance the flavour.
Banana Jam...everywhere!
RECIPE FOR BANANA JAM
- 4-5 medium to large ripe bananas
- juice of one lime
- 1 1/2 cup of castor sugar
- 1 cup of water
- 1 tsp of ground cinnamon
- 1/4 of a vanilla bean
- Chop up your bananas in small chunky pieces and place in a bowl with the lime juice.
- Bring the sugar and water to a boil over a medium heat.
- Once the sugar syrup is bubbling away, lower the heat, add the chopped bananas and stir everything up.
- Add the cinnamon and vanilla bean.
- Keep stirring to make sure things don't get too sticky!
- Keep an eye on things, (constantly stirring) for about half an hour.
- The jam is ready when it coats the back of a wooden spoon and it sticks well.
- Store in a sterilised jar.
(this recipe makes one medium sized jar...remember, there's only one of me ;()
I plan on making more of this jam but varying some of the ingredients. I think I will try it with some brown sugar, coconut maybe even some rum!
PS Pixie also tagged me for the 6 word memoir. I'll do that in my next post in the next few days.
Rosewater Panacotta
Dessert for two
Its that time of the year again. Its approaching Valentines Day. You know you want to impress your loved one. Instead of going out for dinner and paying the over exorbitant prices they charge for that one day of the year, stay at home and cook something sensual. Before I proceed, I know there's a lot of folks out there who don't buy into the commercialism of celebrating Valentines Day. That's fine and I respect that. I just think its a good excuse to get cooking. (What else?). Thats why I plan on highlighting a few recipes over the next few days that you may wish to cook and impress your loved one. Simple recipes. Ones that will leave you time for other things later....
Panacotta is that beautiful dessert hailing form Italy. I immediately fell in love with it the first time I tried it many years ago. It has a soft, gelatinous texture. Almost silk like. Panacotta literally means cooked cream. I thought I could "spice" up the original with some rosewater. The perfect romantic ingredient. Rosewater is a liquid used primarily in the Middle East. Its mostly used in sweets and I remember my mother dousing "kourabiethes" (the shortbread almond biscuits covered in icing sugar) with them once the biscuits had come out of the oven. The aroma is so hypnotising. And its even more magical when added to the cream. I was actually afraid to make this because I was scared of the gelatine. But it all worked out in the end.
ROSEWATER PANACOTTA
This recipe will make about six. Perfect you can always have seconds!
500 ml of pouring cream
one tsp of vanilla extract
100 grams of caster sugar
2 tbsp of rosewater
one 10 gram sachet of gelatine
Simply place the cream, sugar, vanilla and rosewater in a saucepan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Do not allow it to boil. In another saucepan heat up 125ml of water. Once this has boiled take it off the heat and add the gelatine. Whisk it briskly to dissolve the gelatine completely. Add the gelatine mixture to the cooked cream and stir thoroughly. Place this mixture into pre oiled panacotta moulds. Allow it to cool and then let the panacotta set in the fridge for a minimum of four hours or overnight. Top with toasted pistachios and drizzle with rosewater syrup. Garnish with rose petals.
Rose water syrup...perfect for the panacotta.
ROSE WATER SYRUP
one cup of water
one cup of castor sugar
2 tbsps of rose water
A drop or two of red or pink food colouring.
Pace all the ingredients in a saucepan over a low heat. Once the sugar has dissolved increase the temperature and let it boil for 5 mins. Remove it from the heat and let it cool. Use it to drizzle over the panacotta.
Cherry Season
Cherries are abundant this time of the year
Hope everyone had a few busy days. I did. I had problems with my blog and couldn't get out my Xmas wishes to everyone. That's modern technology for ya. Anyway, it's all been sorted out and I can write about one of my favourite fruits. Cherries. They are everywhere this time of the year here in Australia. Juicy, dark red and full of flavoursome goodness. It's funny because as a child I had never tried one of these beauties fresh. They were either "glace" in some hideous dessert or deep in maraschino liquer. The first time I tried one I was hooked. I served them the other day as a sweet treat after lunch. Simply dipped in a good couverture dark chocolate and cooled in the fridge. Better than strawberries any day.
I had a few spare after xmas lunch the other day and was wandering how to use them. I scanned my trusty cookbook collection and found a recipe for poached cherries. Very easy and delicious. It's basically 500g of cherries with their stones removed, 1/2 a cup of sugar, the juice of one lemon and a dash of your favourite liquer or port all left to simmer on a low heat in sauce pan for 10 mins. This allows the cherries to soften and release all their wonderful juices. Once the poached cherries had cooled, I put the next part of my plan into action. I grabbed some left over Pandoro (that famous Italian xmas cake) and sliced it thickly. I then toasted it and placed the poached cherries on top. The final touch was to use some left over mascarpone. A good dollop of that and I had a quick and easy dessert.
Try this...you won't be disappointed
This was a real winner and a perfect way to use up leftovers. By the way, best wishes to all this holiday season.
Pete
Fancy Some Banana pancakes?
Banana pancakes drizzled with maple syrup
I had the pleasure of staying overnight at a friends place yesterday. Facing the world after a double espresso, I contemplated making some pancakes for my kind hosts thanking them for their generous hospitality. While they were still catching 40 winks, I tinkered around the kitchen finding the ingredients needed for a semi luxurious breakfast. I hadn't cooked pancakes in years and I really wanted to try out a recent recipe scoured from the internet. Past pancake recipes had yielded me rubber discs void of any texture. This time, armed with experience, I made sure no to overbeat the mixture to oblivion. A few bananas lying around provided me the topping I needed along with the organic maple syrup found in the pantry. My hosts were good shoppers so i had everything I needed at hand. Follow this recipe for a fool proof rubber free result.
Fluffy and delicious
PANCAKE RECIPE
1 & 1/4 cups of self raising flour
3/4 cup of milk
pinch of salt
1 tsp of caster sugar
1 egg
Dash of vanilla extract
60 g of melted butter
1. Sift the flour into a bowl and add the remaining dry ingredients.
2. Mix all the wet ingredients together.
3. Make a well in the centre of the bowl with the dry ingredients and gradually pour in the milk mixture.
4. Using a balloon whisk mix everything till its just combined. DO NOT OVERBEAT!!!!
5. Let the mixture rest in the refrigerator for about 15-20 mins
6. Take the mixture out and dollop amounts onto a medium hot pan. Use either a soup ladle or a large tablespoon. If the mixture seems a little thick, thin it out using a little milk, BEFORE placing onto hot pan.
7. As you make pancakes transfer onto a plate and keep covered with a tea towel
8. Top with your favourite ingredients. I used bananas because they were on hand. Drizzle with maple syrup or honey.
9. Consume immediately!
Eat me!