Lemon and Passionfruit Tarts

A little dessert experiment cooked up with friends, using a desserts cookbook and whatever ingredients we had to hand. We substituted a lot of ingredients - raw sugar for caster sugar, puff pastry for filo pastry - it worked out fine!



Lemon and Passionfruit Tarts with Berries

60g unsalted butter
90g (1/3 cup) caster sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons self-raising flour
60ml (1/4 cupe) lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 passionfruit, pulp removed
3 sheets filo pastry
125g (1 cup) fresh berries


Preheat oven to 180C.

Beat butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the flour, lemon juice, zest and passionfruit pulp, and beat until well combined.

Carefully line muffin tins with pastry. Pour in the lemon mixture and bake for 20-25 minutes or until set.

Serve topped with fresh berries and cream (we used hand-whipped cream, mixed with passionfruit pulp).

Makes 6.

Spicy eggplant spaghetti

A basic pasta dish. It feels almost like cheating to put this in - I mean, I'm not documenting the dishes I make on the fly or from memory, and this is pretty close to some of those - but I got this out of a book, so it qualifies under my self-imposed rules, I guess.



Spaghetti
Olive oil
2 red chillies
1 onion
3 garlic cloves
2 bacon rashers (or more, if you like)
250g eggplant, diced (or more, to match the bacon)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tomatoes, choppes
3 tablespoons shredded basil


Cook spaghetti.

Heat oil to medium heat in a pan and cook bacon, chilli, onion and garlic for five minutes or until onion is soft and bacon is cooked. Remove from pan.

Heat more oil on high heat and cook eggplant, turning until browned.

Add back the bacon mixture. Add the vinegar, tomato and basil. Cook through and season to taste.

Top the spaghetti with eggplant.

(See? EASY.)

Beef Casserole with Soft Polenta

The soft polenta was both fun and easy to make (lots of stirring!) and you get good value out of just one cup of polenta. When hot, it filled up the whole of a small saucepan and had the consistency of cake dough. As it cooled, it became firmer and started looking a lot like scrambled eggs. Tastewise, however, it was blander then I expected - next time I might make cous cous or rice as a side instead.

Full disclosure: I did not make my own stock, I got pre-made at the supermarket. Shameful, I know. /o\


Ingredients:
2 tablespoons plain flour
800g gravy beef, trimmed, cut into 3cm pieces (I halved this and the flour)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 brown onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 carrot, peeled, halved, chopped
2 celery stalks, trimmed, chopped (I used 1)
1 parsnip, peeled, chopped (I substituted a potato)
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves
2 cups beef stock
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil leaves


Soft polenta:
2 cups milk
1 cup polenta
1/3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese


Method:

Coat beef in flour (suggested method is shaking them together in a sealed snaplock bag).

Heat half the oil in a large saucepan over high heat. Add half the beef. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes or until browned. Transfer to a plate. Repeat with remaining oil and beef.

Reduce heat to medium. Add onion, garlic, carrot and celery to pan. Cook for 3 minutes or until tender. Return beef and juices to pan. Add parsnip (or potato), rosemary, stock, tomato paste and vinegar.

Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low. Simmer, covered, for 1 hour. Remove lid. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until beef is tender.

Meanwhile, make soft polenta: Combine milk and 2 cups cold water in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to the boil. Gradually add polenta, stirring. Reduce heat to low. Simmer, stirring, for 10 minutes or until thickened. Stir in cheese.

Add basil to casserole. Stir to combine. Serve casserole with polenta.


Adapted from Taste.com.au

Apples Baked In Port Wine

This started with a bottle of novelty port.

At the liquor store we spotted a bottle labelled "Cobweb Port". Honestly, if the name weren't enough, the black drippy wax used to seal the bottle should have been warning enough - not for serious consumption. Instead we got all excited and then and there decided we had to have this ridiculousness.

To be completely fair, Cobweb Port isn't terrible. It has a really nice aroma and the first sip isn't bad at all. But it's not as smooth as you want a port to be, and there's a kind of dusty (cobwebby?) aftertaste that really put me off.

Which left us in the position of an almost full bottle of port and no idea what to do with it... CUE GOOGLE.



Ingredients:
4 red baking apples - I used Pink Lady
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup nuts walnuts (or pecans)
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp light corn syrup or golden syrup
1 tbsp butter
1 cup port wine
Vanilla icecream (to serve)


Method:

Carefully core apples – I used a knife to take out the stem, slicing down and inwards, so it came out like a cone. Then I used a teaspoon to dig out the seeds.

Cut away a bit of the top of the apple. If necessary, slice just enough from the bottom to set the apple firmly in a baking dish (without piercing the apple).

Combine the sugar, nuts, and cinnamon. Stuff the mixture into the apples.

Dab with little pieces of butter. Pour the port slowly over the apples.

Cover the baking dish with foil and bake at 180C for 45-50 min.

Remove from dish and serve with vanilla icecream. Drizzle with leftover juice.

Enjoy on a cold autumn night after dinner with a glass of nice port or a soothing cup of tea.

Adapted from Pamela Lanier's B&B Inns

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Another easy one - but when the latest batch came out of the oven, I was sure I'd gone wrong.

They were all flattened out, not round as I'd expected from previous batches, and they were so soft some crumbled as they were lifted to the cooling rack. However, after cooling, they turned out beautifully chewy.

For this batch, I used wholemeal flour. This gave the cookies a texture almost like shredded coconut and made a nice change.


125g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup castor sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/3 cup cocoa
3/4 cup dark choc chips


Preheat oven to 160C

Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy

Mix in the vanilla essence and egg

Stir in flour and cocoa

Add dark choc chips

Place teaspoons on baking tray and bake for 10-15 min

From Cadbury's Chocolate Chips

Olive Oil, Grape and Polenta Cake

I'm going to try documenting some of the recipes I've tried over the past year or so, as well as the ones I try in future. Winter's coming on and I anticipate BAKING.

This is a simple and effective recipe. The polenta gives it a really nice texture, and the flavour of the cake is mild and goes excellently with coffee or tea.


1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal/polenta
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp olive oil
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup milk (low fat is ok)
1 1/2 cups red grapes


Preheat the oven to 350F (about 180 C). Lightly grease a 9-inch round springform pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt.

In a large bowl, whisk together olive oil, eggs, sugar and vanilla extract until smooth. Stir in flour mixture, mixing just until no streaks of flour remain visible in the batter. Stir in about half of the grapes.

Pour batter into prepared pan and spread into an even lay with a spatula. Sprinkle remaining grapes over the top of the cake.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the top of the cake springs back when lightly pressed.

Cool cake for at least an hour before removing from pan and serving. Let cool completely before slicing if you do not intend to serve the cake while slightly warm.

Serves 10


From Baking Bites