A dip and a spread

recipes will follow...

Olive, walnut & parsley spread
(Vegan)

Sundried Tomato Dip

(Cream cheese based/Neufchâtel)

Pumpkin Soup

Iris made this soup and shared a pan with us. We all liked it so much, and we made it ourselves this time with the big Fall pumpkin we got from Trader Joe's for $2.99. I'll share how I adapted it below.

I cut our medium pumpkin into long segments and used a small knife to cut out the stringy innards and seeds. I used a vegetable peeler to remove the skin. Since it's sold as a carving pumpkin, it had a fairly thin skin and minimal innards so it was not difficult. Sugar pumpkins are firmer so the technique in the recipe may be more suited for them. 

We separated the seeds, rinsed them off, tossed them with a little melted butter and salt, and roasted them at 300 F for 45 minutes. They were delicious! Ella said they tasted like popcorn. Healthier too!

Once the pumpkin segments were cleaned, we cut them into large chunks, arranged them on a baking sheet, sprinkled oil over them, then roasted at 350 for about 45 mins to an hour, until a knife went in easily and bottom parts were brown and started caramelizing. 

Instead of shallot, I used a brown onion.  One other thing I changed was that I added 1/2 tsp ground cardamom. I used the whole can of light coconut milk and more broth & water because there was so much pumpkin. That's it! We ate this with corn bread.

Mushroom roulade

This is so old*, I couldn't find it anywhere. Thankfully, Julie still had it!!
I've posted it here so that I don't lose it again.
Thanks, Ju!

Btw, I always put the cheese on top rather than in with the mushrooms (as well?) - looks nicer, otherwise it's so pale.
Also, I always sauté onions with the mushrooms and possibly garlic; I'm sure that's much nicer!

(*it's so old, it's typewritten!)

Turmeric Lemon Rice

Jon loved this recipe (from Costco Connection, n.b.!) and thought I should share it with you...
[photo to follow]

Ingredients:

180g Basmati or other rice
Salt to taste
27g sesame oil [how much is 27 g of oil, for goodness sake!!]
Pinch of asafoetida
2g black mustard seeds [have you ever tried to weigh out 2 g of something?!! - try a small handful and crush them in a mortar]
30g [or sm handfull] of raw [or any other kind of] peanuts
1 stem of Indian curry leaves [or daon Salam? or bay leaves, I used 2]
1 serrano chilli [or whatever you have in the freezer, in my case], cut into strips
2g turmeric powder [see above!]
10ml fresh [or bottled] lemon juice 
Zest of half a lemon, optional
15g chopped fresh coriander leaves [or not, Nicole!]

Method:

Bla-bla-bla... make rice. 

In a small pan, heat the oil just slightly and add a pinch of asafoetida.
Add mustard seeds and let them sizzle for 5-10 seconds [!] then add peanuts, curry leaves, and serrano chilli. Fry for about 30 seconds, add turmeric and remove from heat.
Stir spices and add to rice, along with lemon juice and zest.
Garnish with chopped coriander leaves [or not!].

Serves three. I usually use 60g rice per person but you might not find it enough. 

Mary Berry's [Yummy] very best apple dessert cake

"I've been doing this special and remarkably easy recipe for years. The apples can be windfalls or even shrivelled ones left in the fruit bowl. Serve warm with ice cream or crème fraîche as a dessert, or with coffee in the morning as one would a Danish pastry, again warm, dusted with icing sugar."

SERVES 6

TOTAL TIME

1 hour 45 minutes

INGREDIENTS

• 225g (8 oz) self-raising flour
• 1 level teaspoon baking powder
• 225g (8 oz) caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• ½ teaspoon almond extract
• 150g (5 oz) butter, melted
• 350g (12 oz) cooking apples, peeled and cored
• 25g (1 oz) flaked almonds

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 160ºC/Fan 140ºC/Gas 3.

Lightly grease a deep 20cm (8in) loose-bottomed cake tin.

Measure the flour, baking powder, sugar, eggs, almond extract and melted butter into a bowl. Mix well until blended, then beat for a minute.

Spread half this mixture into the prepared tin. Thickly slice the apples and lay on top of the mixture in the tin, piling mostly towards the centre. Using 2 dessertspoons, roughly spoon the remaining mixture over the apples.

This is an awkward thing to do, but just make sure that the mixture covers the centre well as it will spread out in the oven. Sprinkle with the flaked almonds.

Bake in the preheated oven for 1¼–1½ hours until golden and coming away from the sides of the tin.

Made this for Carin and Bernie last week and I loved it. So even if you don't, I'll have it here for future reference!! 

Zasar Legumes: Mauritian-style pickled Vegetables

This recipe is from Shellina Permalloo,  winner of Masterchef a few years ago. I really like her and we both liked this recipe even though I'm not normally a fan of "cole slaw."


Ingredients

• White cabbage, sliced
• Green beans
• Carrots, sliced
• Red onion, sliced
• Chili pepper, sliced (she leaves the seeds in, I don't)
• Turmeric
• Mustard seeds
• Fenugreek seeds
• Garlic
• Fresh ginger (or powder if you don't have it)
• White vinegar
• Oil

Method

• Blanch cabbage, green beans, carrots in equal quantities for 2-3 minutes;
• Warm oil; make garlic and ginger paste in a pestle and add to oil;
• Add chilis and spices to warm through;
• Add onions, 
• Remove from heat and add other veg
• Sprinkle a bit of white vinegar and salt
• Leave overnight (or an hour, if that's all you've got)

It is surprisingly nice! Slamat makan!

Halloumi Skewers with Lemon Salsa

For some reason, my darling Karen keeps giving me preserves: preserved onions, preserved lemons, things I never really eat. But I found this recipe using preserved lemons and thought I'd try it.

This is what the recipe says:

"This is the perfect vegetarian snack to serve with drinks and cocktails. The halloumi is wonderful with the concentrated taste of the preserved lemons. Get ahead by making the salsa in the morning."

Ingredients

• halloumi 2 x 250g blocks, drained
• olive oil 4 tbsp
• wooden skewers 32
• extra-virgin olive oil 3 tbsp
• black olives 15, pitted and finely choppedflat-leaf parsley a small bunch, finely chopped
• small capers 1 tsp, rinsed
• small preserved lemons 2, rind chopped or zest of 2 lemons
• red wine vinegar 2 tsp
• red onion 1 small, finely diced

Method

• Put all the salsa ingredients into a small bowl, season and mix well. Cut each block of  halloumi into 8 equal slices. Cut each slice in half so you end up with 32 pieces. 
• Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a large frying pan. Brown the halloumi on both sides, drain on paper towel then push in a skewer so it looks like a lollipop. You will need to do these in batches, adding a bit more oil as you go. Serve warm or at room temperature with the salsa. 

  
  

  o.k. so that's the "official" recipe. I just made saganaki with the halloumi as that's what I wanted; cut each block in the width, then each square into triangles as a starter. I imagine a person could eat a whole square as a main. However, halloumi doesn't go all gooey like Edam does, so i got both sides really crispy in the frying pan and then covered it for a while so it would melt a bit, which seemed to help. I want to try this next time with Edam like the lady in Corfu said to do and see which I prefer.

  But the salsa is surprisingly fresh and all my guests (and I) really liked it.