Zucchini cake

June 5, 2020 ~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

Such a deliciously light and moist cake …. so good for afternoon tea, picnic and even in lunchboxes.

Approx 200g (combined) grated zucchini and carrot (roughly half a medium zucchini and 1 medium carrot).
1/4 cup good olive oil
1/4 cup apple sauce
1/2 cup honey/maple/golden syrup
2 eggs / 2 flax eggs / 2 tsp egg replacer whipped with 4 tbsp water
1/2 cup milk of choice
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/3 cup chopped nuts or seeds (hemp seeds or walnuts go really well)
1 tsp mixed spice
1 3/4 cups plain flour (we do half wholemeal)**
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
Optional extra: Top with choc chips of choice

** To make this one coeliac friendly, replace with a plain GF flour, 1.5 cups and 1 tsp of psyllium husk.

Start by grating the veg. After squeezing the moisture out of the grated zucchini you should have about 120g, and another 80g from the carrot. *If you are grating in a food processor or thermo cooker, you will need to take the zucchini out, tip out the liquid in the bottom, then squeeze the zucchini before adding it back in to the bowl.

Add all of the wet ingredients into a bowl and stir well to combine (speed 4, 6 secs).

Add in the baking powder, flour and mixed spice. Fold through gently until the flour is just combined. (Speed 3, 10 seconds)

Then add in the chopped nuts or seeds and fold through until evenly combined. (Speed 3, 8-10 seconds) Do not beat the mix.

Pour into a greased/lined loaf tin and place into a preheated 160C oven.

Sprinkle the top with some choc chips if you like (only half of family do!)

Bake for approximately 60minutes or until golden, well risen and a skewer comes out clean. Remember that if you are cooking with GF flour or without egg then you won’t get quite the same rise.

Allow to rest in the tin for about 15 minutes before removing to an airing rack and allowing to cool.

Slice and serve, warm or cold. A spread of butter on your slice is delicious too.

Slice before freezing any left overs and wrap so it is airtight.

20200601_164452 — Picnic time – this one with Sweet William White Chips

Enjoy 🙂

Sweet Potato Rolls

April 5, 2020 ~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

As are you all, we are spending a LOT more time at home at the moment.

Which, I guess, in good news – means more time for baking!

Although getting all the ingredients we normally use has been a little tricky….

But sweet potatoes are plentiful in our garden right now, so they are featuring quite a bit on our plates!

I was thinking about making rolls to go with our soup, when I remembered that I had seen these yummy looking rolls on ‘Super Healthy kids. The original (see the link) is a sweet version that they eat in the states for Thanksgiving.

I didn’t want a sweet roll (although I’m sure I will another time!) and I needed to adapt it to our dietary requirement (no egg, or dairy). So I got experimenting.

Our family adores these rolls. Even the sworn sweet potato hater inhaled 3 before I stopped him!

Hope you enjoy them too 🙂

3 1/2 cup flour (2 cup plain & 1.5 cups wholemeal) – we use spelt
1 flat tablespoon yeast, active dry
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup, mashed Sweet potato, cooked (about 1 medium potato)
1 cup milk of choice (oat milk works well here)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp each of rosemary and thyme, finely diced (or 1 tsp dried Italian Style herbs)
spray olive oil
extra flour for rolling

Start by peeling and dicing your sweet potato. Then steam it until it is soft (approx 4-5 mins in a microwave)

While the potato is steaming, place into your bowl/machine (see instructions below for multiple machine methods), the flour, salt, herbs, oil and yeast.

As soon as the sweet potato is cooked, drain it and mash it. Measure out your 1 cup and add it to the cup of milk. The milk doesn’t need to be warmed – by adding the potato to the milk, you’ll bring both the milk and the potato to the right temperature to make sure you don’t kill off the yeast.

Whisk the milk and potato together until they are roughly combined and then pour into the flour mix.

Give a rough mix of the dough for a few seconds and allow it to sit for 5 minutes (it won’t be all combined at this stage). Use a wooden spoon in the bowl if you’re doing it by hand, or speed 3 for 5 seconds in a thermal cooker, or about 5 seconds with a dough hook in a stand mixer.

Now get kneading –

For a bread machine: Use the dough only function. Set and walk away.

For a stand mixer with a dough hook: you’ll need to mix for 6-7 minutes

For a thermo cooker: set your knead function (for a less powerful machine, like a Bellini, you might need an extra minute or two)

By hand: flour the bench and get your muscles ready! Knead until your dough is smooth and elastic.

Place the dough ball in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a cloth and let rise in a warm area until doubled in size – about an hour, or until your machine has finished it’s rise function.

Remove from the bowl and knock down the dough.

Cut it into two and roll each one into a circle – like you’re making a pizza base.

Cut each circle in to 8 wedges (again, like a pizza).

Then start at the outside edge (where the the pizza crust would be) and roll toward the point to make your crescent shape.

20200404_165524 — Little rolls, ready to start the second rise

Place on a lined baking dish, spray lightly with olive oil and then allow to rest in a warm place until the have doubled in size again (roughly another hour)

20200404_175936 — 2nd rise complete – into the oven they go

While the dough is doing it’s second rise, preheat your oven to 180C degrees.

When the second rise is complete, place into the preheated oven. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. The bottom will sound hollow when you tap it.

Remove from the oven and cool for just a couple of minutes before you dig in!

Makes 16 rolls.

Enjoy 🙂

Pear, Pomegranate & Date Overnight Oats

January 28, 2020 ~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

Every year in January our extended family gathers at the beach for breakfast to remember my Grandad on his birthday.

It’s always a bring and share affair; fruit, savoury muffins, bacon and eggs, pancakes … And I’m pretty well not allowed to attend without bringing some form of fruity overnight oats.

This is the one I took this year.

It’s a super simple way to make a delicious, filling, summer breakfast when you are short on time in the mornings (ok – so every morning then?!).

2 cups rolled oats
2 cups unsweetened almond milk (or other milk of choice)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 large very ripe green pear, grated
1 pomegranate, seeded
6 medjool dates, quarted
Small handful of dry roasted almonds (or sunflower seeds), roughly chopped
1 heaped tbsp each pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds
Several mint leaves, torn

Place the oats, milk and cinnamon in a bowl and mix together. Cover and place in the fridge over night, or for at least 2 hours.

In the morning, fluff up the oats with a fork, then grate the pear and stir it though.

Top with the fruit, nuts and seeds and then mint and serve.

Add a spoon of your favourite yoghurt (dairy, soy or coconut) if you’d like too.

Serves 8

Enjoy 🙂

Fragrant Stewed Apples (and the best ever apple sauce!)

January 19, 2020May 17, 2024 ~ desertcook ~ 1 Comment

Such simple comfort food!

We often wind up making this recipe when the apples (or pears!) we’ve bought are really floury or soft but we don’t want them to go to waste. My biggest little one is very excited whenever this recipe appears. He has Oral Allergy Syndrome and reacts quite badly to raw apple, but cooked he can handle it!!

Like most of my recipes I take the simple (lazy?!) option!

As well as taking less time, leaving the skin on the fruit is terrific for the added fibre and nutrients. Very simple, and you don’t need to add any extra sweeteners.

6 apples (whichever kind you like)
Slices of the peel of 1 lemon or orange
1 tsp of ground cinnamon
6 cloves
1/4 cup water

Thermal Cooker Method: Core and slice the apples, place them in the machine, sprinkle over cinnamon and cloves. Then use a peeler to remove the yellow layer only of the lemon. Add the strips to the top of the apples.

Add in the water and set for 15 minutes, speed 1, ST.

Stove top method: place all of the ingredients into a large sauce pan, cook, stirring frequently, with the lid on in between stirring. Will take about 15-20 minutes on the stove.

Microwave method: place all of the ingredients into a microwave safe container, cook, on high for about 5 minutes.

If you want a sweeter fruit desert, add in a handful of sultanas during the last few minutes of cooking.

Place in an air tight container in the fridge and use for up to a week. Remove the peel and cloves before serving.

If you want a most delicious, fragrant, thick apple sauce instead, follow the same steps as above, then remove the citrus rind and either transfer to a blender or set a speed 4 for 15 seconds, scrape down and repeat.

How can I use stewed apples?

Eat them on their own!
Mix it with yoghurt for breakfast or dessert
Use it as a topping for your soaked overnight oats
Add it to your cereal
Add in some roasted, crunchy nuts and have it for an afternoon ‘pick-me-up’
Serve it as a side to a soft tea cake

And the sauce?

Perfect if you’re doing baby food
Mix it through yoghurt
Use it as an egg or sugar replacer in cakes and baking (check out my Apple, Pumpkin and Oat muffins, or my Maple Cinnamon Weet-bix slice)
Use it with you next pork roast or pulled pork burgers.
Freeze it in ice cube trays so you can grab it out at short notice

20200118_205715 — Delicious with yoghurt for dessert!

Enjoy 🙂

Creamy Mushroom Stroganoff

January 14, 2020January 12, 2020 ~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

Beef Stroganoff was my one of my husband’s favourite childhood meals. And I used to make a slow cooked version for him (it is yummy – and you can find it here), but as we’ve been reducing our meat consumption, it has fallen off the menu in the last year or so.

I decided to give a completely non-meat version a go and was very happy with the results! Peter thoroughly enjoyed it – and even took the left overs for lunch the next day … although he still wants the beef version to make an occasional appearance!

2tbsp olive oil
1 small brown onion
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped and crushed
400g button mushrooms – add in different types for a variety in texture if you like
1 tbsp fresh chopped thyme and rosemary
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp pink salt flakes
1/4 cup flour (spelt or GF)
1 tbsp Nutritional yeast (optional but add for depth of flavour)
2/3 cup plant based milk (I used a high protein soy milk for a really creamy sauce)
1 cup veggie stock (the beef style Masssel stock gives a more authentic Stroganoff flavour, but any veggie stock is fine)
Vegetables or noodles to serve

Heat the olive oil in a heavy based pan on the stove.

Add in the olive oil and cook for a few minutes until it starts to become translucent, add in the garlic and allow to cook for another minutes.

Add in the chopped mushrooms, stir will to coat in oil and onion mix then allow to cook for about 5 minutes, until the mushroom soften.

Mix together the flour, nutritional yeast, herbs, paprika and salt. Then sprinkle this dry mix over the top of the mushrooms and stir well until the mix is well combined.

Add in the hot stock and plant milk, then stir well. Bring the mix to a gentle simmer.

Simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the liquid is thick and creamy.

If you love noodles (I don’t – sorry!), stir through your cooked and drained pasta here, to coat it with the stroganoff before serving.

I add in some green beans at this point and simmer for a minutes or 2 so that they still have a bit of crunch, and serve them on a bed of carrot noodles – SO good!

Serves 3-4

This one isn’t suitable for freezing but it does well as leftovers for lunch the next day!

Enjoy!

Pumpkin pastry parcels

August 5, 2019 ~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

I guess this one isn’t so much as recipe as an idea or a suggestion!

We do our very best to reduce waste from our kitchen.

So many ways to make some little changes that help –

We menu plan,
Cook in bulk,
Freeze leftover for work lunches,
Make soup to use up veggies that are past their best
All veggie peelings and scraps go to our worms and so back to the garden,
Do a swap – we give out overload of veggie scraps to friends with chooks (and sometimes get eggs in return!)

One of the other ways to reduce waste is to get a bit creative when you’re down to the last few bits of veg before shopping day!

I had about 1/4 of a butternut pumpkin, a couple of handfuls of spinach, a small handful of left over roast chicken and the dregs of my walnut container left. Together with a few basic pantry staples – that sounds like weekend lunch!

My husband reckons they are better than a bought pie (and his body feels better afterwards) and he says they’re much nicer than the ones he can buy at a cafe in the city – for an obscene price!

We used: Pumpkin, spinach, walnuts, cooked chicken, puff pastry, Italian herbs, salt pepper, olive oil (garlic infused) and coconut aminos.

But use whatever left overs you have and enjoy and get creative!

*If you don’t eat meat – we often us about half a tin of butter beans or cannellini beans instead – just pop them in the oven together with the pumpkin in the last 10 minutes of roasting time.

*If you don’t eat nuts – pumpkin seeds or hemp seeds work really well here too – use them in exactly the same way as the walnuts.

Dice the pumpkin into small pieces.

Then roast the pumpkin with some garlic olive oil, salt, pepper and Italian herbs (about 200C for 35-40 mins).

Place pumpkin in a bowl together with the chopped chicken, walnuts and spinach and then add about 2 tsp of coconut aminos. Mix well so that the pumpkin gets a bit mashed up.

20190802_132017

Place mixture into the centre of pastry squares (obviously – use whichever pastry suits your diet)

Fold the pastry over the mix to form a parcel and then use the fork to press the edges of the pastry together.

Bake in a 200C fan forced oven for about 25-30 minutes, or until golden, puffed and flaky.

20190804_121328

Enjoy 🙂

Roasted Garlic Mushroom Stacks

July 9, 2019 ~ desertcook ~ 1 Comment

Last night we celebrated 17 years together.

Kid free – but we had to do our tax …. ah well, at least we got to have a yummy dinner!!

Peter says that if I had presented him with this kind of meal 15 years ago, he might have run … but he has gradually learned that you can have delicious flavour and texture without meat. So if you’re looking to add a meat free dish to your repertoire – this might be a very simple place to start – and it has 2 enthusiastic thumbs up from the carnivore!

Butternut pumpkin, two discs, about an inch thick
olive oil to brush
2 tsp nutritional yeast
2 large portobello mushrooms
1 tsp fresh chopped thyme
2 tsp garlic olive oil
1 tsp vegan butter
1/2 large ripe avocado
salt and pepper to taste
squeeze lemon juice
Mixed salad greens
Handful pine nuts OR pumpkin seeds

Peel your pumpkin discs, brush them with olive oil and sprinkle the nutritional yeast over them. Place on a lined baking tray and into a 200C oven. After about 25 minutes, turn the pumpkin over and return to the oven for another 10 minutes.

While the pumpkin is cooking dry fry your pine nuts/seeds in a hot frying pan until they are golden – be careful… it doesn’t take long! Then set them aside.

Melt together the butter and garlic olive oil and brush it over both sides of the mushrooms. Place these on the baking tray with the pumpkin discs (that have now been in the oven for about 35 minutes). Sprinkle over the thyme and return to the oven for about 15 minutes.

Mash together the avocado with the lemon juice plus the salt and pepper.

Place the salad greens on the plate. Top with the roasted pumpkin, then spread a thick layer of the avocado on to the pumpkin. Top with the mushrooms and then add the pine nuts over the meal.

When you remove the mushrooms from the baking tray, you’ll see that they have produced a dark juice … don’t waste it – drizzle it over the salad leaves!

Sprinkle the top of the mushroom with a little extra thyme and salt.

Serve immediately.

Enjoy 😊

Maple Ginger Pear Tea Cake

June 24, 2019March 26, 2024 ~ desertcook ~ 2 Comments

My husband’s request for cake is always ginger cake with lemon icing … Lots of icing!

Super simple and easy to knock up when you’ve got visitors arriving… Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

1 3/4 cups plain flour (I do half wholemeal) OR 1 2/3 cups plain GF flour mix
1/4 cup almond/seed meal
2 tsp GF baking powder
2 heaped tsp ground ginger
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 medium sized pear (or apple)
4 tbsp aquafaba OR 1 whole egg OR 1 egg worth of egg replacement powder
1/2 cup milk of choice
2 tbsp mild tasting oil or melted butter of choice

Mix together all of the dry ingredients (speed 4, 10 seconds), then set aside.

Core and dice the pear (leave the skin on). Dice and then steam until soft (a few minutes in a microwave or ST Sp 1 for a few minutes)

Blend together the soft pear, syrup, oil and aquafaba/egg until smooth (speed 7, 8 seconds).

Pour the wet mix into the dry and mix until well combined (speed 4, 8 seconds, scrape down and repeat).

Pour into a lined baking tin and place into a preheated moderate oven for about 30 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Allow to cool before icing.

I actually enjoy this cake without icing …. but icing is pretty well Peter’s whole reason for eating cake, so there was no way I was going to be able to leave it off!

For the Icing:

2 tsp butter or nuttelex, very soft
2 tbsp lemon juice
pure icing sugar – between 1/2 and 1 cup depending on the consistency you want.
Fine lemon zest to top

Whisk all ingredients together until well combined and smooth. If you want an icing to drizzle over, use less icing sugar. If you want a thick icing to spread on the cake, use the increased amount.

Top with zest before serving.

This one freezes and defrosts well.

It is particularly nice accompanied by a good cuppa or our yummy ginger cordial mixed with soda water

Enjoy 🙂

Thai pumpkin soup

May 24, 2019 ~ desertcook ~ Leave a comment

Hello soup weather!

I’ve been making this delicious, comforting soup for the past couple of years.

It is an absolute winner with Peter and I and Will. I’ll be honest though … It isn’t a favourite with the other small ones. 2 of them tolerate it … One of them will have a taste but that’s as far as it goes. 🤦

Ah well, you can’t win ’em all … And I’m delighted to have a freezer stocked with lunches!

1.5kg butternut pumpkin
400g sweet potato
2 heaped tbsp sunflower seed butter
1 heaped tbsp red thai curry paste (I like the Ayam brand)
200ml coconut cream
2L hot veggie stock

Place the curry paste into a hot saucepan and stir until fragrant.

20190520_183609 — Home grown veg plus curry paste home made from homegrown lemongrass, chillies, onion and garlic – makes me SO happy!!

Add in the diced pumpkin and sweet potato and stir to coat the veggies in the paste.

Add in the stock and bring to a gentle simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the veggies are very soft.

Remove from the heat. Stir in the coconut cream and the seed butter.

Use an immersion blender to blend until silky smooth.

We like to serve with fresh damper 😋

Makes about 10 serves and it freezes and defrosts well.

Enjoy 😊

Lemongrass Ginger cordial

April 7, 2019June 8, 2020 ~ desertcook ~ 4 Comments

Cordial is not a regular feature in our house, but as a treat at a birthday party, or mixed with sparkling water as a non alcoholic drink, it’s pretty special to have your own home made, and home grown option!

We had abundant lemongrass this year, so we have made a huge batch of Thai curry paste, propagated more for next year and shared loads with our community but we still had more left – we decided to go with some deliciously fragrant cordial!

5 cups water
2.5 cups lemon juice*
2.5 cups raw sugar
6-7cm root of ginger
4 stalks of lemongrass

*Orange and grapefruit juice or any combination of the above work really well too.

Place the water juice and sugar in to a large saucepan, mix well and place on the stove over a medium heat. (In your Thermal cooker place on 90C Sp 1)

Slice the ginger and cut and bruise your lemongrass.

Add both to the liquid mix and turn heat up to bring to a rolling boil. (Increase to ST temp for a few minutes until boiling)

Stir regularly.

Turn heat down to a gentle boil for 10 minutes (decrease to 90C).

Remove from heat but allow to sit for a further 30 minutes – 1 hour to steep and cool, before sieving the solids from the liquid.

Pour the liquid into a sterilised glass container and use as you would any cordial. This one is particularly delightful with lots of ice and a few mint leaves on a hot summer day!