Ingredients

1 tsp olive oil
500g pork (diced)
1 large brown onion
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (this will still give it a bite, but if you like your curry hot then just add more)
100g snow peas, ends trimmed
1/4 fresh pineapple skin & core removed, cut into 2.5cm cubes

1 cup uncooked long grain rice, cooked to serve

What you need to do to put it all together

1. Heat the oil in a large heavy based saucepan over high heat.

2. Season the pork with salt and pepper and brown on all sides. Remove the pork to a plate and discard the excess oil in the pan. Add the onion and cook stirring often for 3-5 mins, or until light golden in colour and slightly softened. Add the garlic and the spices and cook for 1-2 mins, stirring constantly and scraping the botttom of the pan, as the spices will begin to stick.

3. Add the pork and 1½ cups of water to the pan. Stir well and cover. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 1½ hours, or until the pork is tender.

4. add the snow peas and pineapple and cook for a further 2-3 mins, or until the snow peas are tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve on a bed or rice.

It was pretty damn tasty.

Sticky Date Pudding
Spiced Apple Cake

Run run as fast as you can you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man. I think most would be able to run faster than our hand cut gingerbread men.

Here is what you will need

Ingredients

150grams butter, chopped
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1 tspn bicarbonate of soda
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tbspn ground ginger
1 tspn mixed spice
1/2 tspn baking powder
3 cups plain flour

Here what you need to put it all together.

1. Place butter, sugar and honey in a saucepan over a medium heat. Cook, stirring, for about 3 mins or until you think the sugar has dissolved. Bring it to the boil, then remove from heat. Stir in the bicarb soda and then transfer the mixture to a large, heatproof bowl to cool.

2. Once the mixture is cool, stir in the egg, ginger, mixed spice, baking powder and flour until combined. Divide the dough in half, make into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for about an hour or until it is firm.

3. Preheat oven to 180℃/ 160℃ fan-forced. Grease or line with baking paper your baking trays. Roll out 1 of the doughs between sheets of baking paper, or you can use plastic wrap, until about 3mm thick. Using your gingerbread man cutter or if you don’t have one make your own men shapes, this can be fun as you can see from our men. Cut out the shapes you wish , place them about 2cm apart on the trays. Repeat until all dough is used up.

Some of the shapes that the little Man made.

4. Bake, 1 tray at a time for about 8 minutes or until just firm to touch. Stand on trays and watch they don’t run away for about 5 mins. Then place on your wire rack to cool completely.

5. Decorate however you wish. We melted some while chocolate and piped it on to the men.

This is how ours turned out, Little Man made some of his own design shapes. He had a great time, and I think Grandad had a great time helping him.

Try some of our other recipes

Sticky Date Pudding
Spiced Apple Cake

Ok you are going to have to trust me that this is really really yummy, and that it looks fantastic. I made it the other night when friends came over for dinner, but of course got chatting and the like and completely forgot to take any pictures, so you will just have to use your imagination a bit with what it looks like.

Imagine you are at a classy restaurant and you choose sticky date pudding of the menu, it arrives in this fantastic bowl bigger than any bowl you have ever seen, it has this lovely, moist piece of pudding in the middle of the plate, drizzled all over the top is a most divine looking and tasting butterscotch sauce, and a big dollop of ice-cream on the side. I know not for the faint hearted, but do you have that picture? , do you want to go ahead and cook it now?. It is the easiest ever to make.

I do have a warning label with this though, it isn’t really for the dieters, but haven’t I said it before, everything in moderation, and you need a treat every now and then.

Here is what you will need

Pudding
370grams Stoned Dates
500ml Water
2 level teaspoons Bi-carb soda
120grams butter
4 eggs
370grams Sugar
370grams Self-raising flour
½ teaspoon Vanilla Essence

Now to put it all together

1. Pre-heat oven to 190℃  Line your cake tin
2. Put Dates and Water in a saucepan and cook until they have a Jam like consistency.
3. Add the bi-carb soda and mix well, it will bubble up and go fuzzy, just keep mixing.
4. beat in the rest of the ingredients, butter, eggs,sugar, flour and vanilla essence.
5. Place mixture into your lined cake tin and cook for approx 45 mins

While the pudding is in the oven cooking you can start to prepare the sauce.

Sauce
300g Brown Sugar
330ml Cream
1 Cup Butter
1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence

It is very easy to put together, just place all ingredients in a saucepan, stir until melted and simmer for 5 mins.

Then just place in a bowl like I explained at the top and just enjoy.

This is a really yummy dessert, in Australia it is a traditional dessert for Christmas Day. I am not sure where the tradition comes from, I can’t seem to find anyone that knows. It just seems to be that way, and we have one every year. You can have it at other times of the year of course.

You will need

6 Egg whites
1 1/2 cups (300g) caster sugar
2 tsp white vinegar
1 tb cornflour
300ml thickened cream

Fruit to decorate - Banana, Mango, Kiwifruit, Passionfruit, Berries (fresh or frozen).

Tips:
- Make sure the bowl you are using is well washed and free of grease.
- Refrigerate eggs before separating: the yolks will separate easily when cold.
- Then you need to let the egg white time to warm to room temperature, and ensure they are free of yolk - otherwise, they won’t beat well.

Putting it all together

1. Preheat oven to 120℃. Line an oven tray with baking paper.

2. It is easier and quicker if you use an electric mixer to whisk the egg whites, don’t forget the bowl needs to be clean and dry. Whisk until soft peaks form.

3. Gradually add the sugar one tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition, until meringue is thick and glossy and all the sugar is dissolved.

TIP: Rub a little of the mixture between your fingers, if it is still gritty, then continue to whisk until the sugar dissolves.

4. Add the vinegar and cornflour and fold until just combined.

5. Spoon the meringue onto the lined tray and use a spatula to shape into a 20cm disc. Bake in oven for 1½ hours or until pavlova is dry to the touch. Turn off oven and leave, with the door ajar to cool completely.

6. Transfer to a serving plate. Use mixer to whisk the cream in a medium bowl until soft peaks form. Spoon on to the top of the pavlova. Decorate with the fruit that you have chosen.

7. Serve immediately and enjoy!

If you make one, tell how it was, I will post a picture of our finished pavlova when I have made it.

Ok here is the finished product, it was really yummy!.

I made this for our Christmas table last year and it looked fantastic, it was pretty good to eat afterwards too. In the hot weather you have to be a bit careful, by the end of lunch it was leaning over a bit, the icing that was holding the stars together slowly softened.

TIP : Can make the stars the day before but need to assemble about an hour before putting on the table.

Ingredients

3 1/3 cups (500g) plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
150g unsalted butter, softened
175g dark brown sugar
150g honey
1 egg
Icing - you can make your own or you can use the ready made icing if you like, either works fine.
1 eggwhite
1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted, plus extra for dusting
Lollies (candy) for decorating. I used jellies but you could use m&m’s, smarties, marshmallows, silver cachous, whatever takes your fancy really, and makes the tree look pretty.

What to do to put it all together.

1. Preheat oven to 180℃/350℉.

2. Sift flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, spices and a pinch of salt into a bowl.

3. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Add honey and egg. Beat until combined.

4. On low speed, beat in sifted dry ingredients until mixture comes together. Divide dough in half. Wrap separately in plastic. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

5. As you need to make large stars for the bottom and middle of the tree, you unfortunately won’t find cutters the size you need. But don’t panic you can make your own. You will need to make a 19cm, 15cm and 10cm stars by cutting out a cardboard shape. Draw your star and cut it out of the cardboard, for the 7.5cm and 4.5cm stars you can get cutters, or of course you can make these from cardboard also.

6. Roll out the dough halves between baking paper or plastic wrap, so it doesn’t stick. (did this with the pinwheel biscuits). Until 4mm thick. Using the star templates cut out 3 stars of each size from the dough. Using the 4.5cm cutter or template, cut out as many stars as possible from the remaining dough.

7. Place same size stars together, 3cm apart on baking paper lined oven trays. Bake the larger stars for 8-10 minutes, and the smaller stars for 5-7 minutes or until deep golden brown. Stand biscuits for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool.

Now for the fun part, putting the tree together.

8. Make Icing by placing the eggwhite in a bowl. Stir in icing sugar, 2tbs at a time, until combined, or just use the ready made icing.

9. Stack the largest stars at offset angles, placing 2-3, 4.5cm stars in between. Glue each layer with icing. Continue stacking in decreasing size until all 7.5cm stars are used. Finish with one 4.5cm star flat and a second one upright. Use icing as ‘glue’ to decorate tree with what ever you have chosen to.

10. place remainder stars around the base of the plate, leave for about an hour for the icing to set. Dust with icing sugar and put in the middle of your Christmas table.

This was the picture from the magazine that I used. I thought that mine looked pretty close, what do you think?

You can also make an extra batch and make stars to decorate the Christmas tree with, a treat for all later in the day.

Enjoy! just having fun with it and decorate how ever you like. Let me know if you have any questions.

Spiced Apple Cake

I know I shouldn’t really follow the weight loss post with such a yummy looking cake. But as I have said before, every thing in moderation, you can have a small piece, it does have apples in it, and we all know that they have great health benefits.

Ingredients

140g softened butter
200g caster sugar
2 eggs, beaten
200g self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
450g Granny Smith Apples (Green), peeled, cored and thickly sliced
Icing sugar to dust

Putting it all together

1. Heat oven to 180℃/350℉ or 160℃/320℉ fan forced. Line your cake tin, a deep, 20cm round tin.
2. Put the butter and sugar into a large bowl and beat together until pale and creamy.
3. Add the eggs, a little at a time, mix until light and fluffy.
4. Mix the flour with the cloves and the nutmeg, then fold into the egg mixture.
- You should now have the apples chopped, the mixture and your lined cake tin

5. Spread half the mix over the bottom of the tin, then cover with the apple slices.

6. Dot the rest of the mixture over the apples.

7. Bake for 1Hr 30Mins or until a skewer comes out clean. It will get quite dark on the top before it is done in the middle.
8. Leave the cake in the tin to cool, and dust with the icing sugar.

It is nice eaten warm and I often make it as a dessert when I have people come over, it always seems to be a winner.

Enjoy!

Other Recipes that you might enjoy:
Pinwheel biscuits/cookies
Banana Nut Brownies
Meatloaf

So you have picked up a recipe for a cake and it says to line your cake tin, you say what the?, how do I do that. Well ask no more as I am going to run you through it step by step. It is very handy and very easy to do, no more cake stuck to the tin for you!

It might seem a bit tricky, but once you have done it the first time, it is easy peasy. You won’t turn back as the cake won’t get stuck to the tin and you can take the cake out of the tin and let it cool straight away, so you can eat it sooner :).

You will need to do this for next weeks recipe, which will be Spicy Apple Cake.

Heres what you will need to do

- Roll out a bit of Baking/grease proof paper and trace around the base of your cake tin, mine is removable so I just traced around the out side of it, but if yours is attached just go around the whole tin. Cut out the circle, put to the side.

- You will need to roll out a reasonable amount of the paper, I just roll it around the tin to get an idea of the size, then you can cut it, you will need to cut it a bit bigger than the tin so that it overlaps ( will become clearer as we go).

- Depending on the size of your paper you can cut this piece in half length wise and it will line two tins.

- Next lay the paper length wise in front of you and fold the bottom up about a half an inch/ a centimetre. Then cut to the fold with your scissors, looks like a frayed edge, this makes it easy for it to take the shape of the tin.

- Grease your tin slightly with a bit of butter on a paper towel. Helps the paper to stick to the tin so it doesn’t move around.

- Place the length of paper with the cut edge in the cake tin, making sure the cut piece lay flat on the base of the tin, press onto the butter so it doesn’t move to much, then put the circle of paper on top of the cut pieces.  There you are your cake tin is now lined.

Let me know if you don’t understand something, sometimes it is hard to put into words, hence why I added the pictures, I hope they helped.

Get cheap magazine tip on Works for Me Wednesday this week.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my Dad is a chef, well we spent the weekend with them last weekend, and The little man and his Grandad decided to do a spot of cooking, they made these pinwheel biscuits. The little man had a great time and I think Grandad might have had just as much fun.

Ingredients

4oz Butter or Margarine
4oz caster sugar
1 Egg, beaten
8oz flour
1/2 oz cocoa

Putting it all together

1. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. add the egg a little at a time, beating after each addition.
2. Stir in the flour and mix to a fairly firm dough.
3. Divide the mixture in half.
4. Knead 1/2 oz of cocoa into one of the 1/2s
5. Roll both halves out into equal sized oblongs and put the chocolate piece on top of the plain.
TIP - If you don’t really want flour everywhere when rolling it out, you can use kitchen wrap and place the dough in the middle and roll it. I won’t stick to the rolling pin, the wrap or the board.

6. Roll up like a swiss roll and leave in a cool place (fridge) for 30 mins, to become firm.

TIP - Roll up on the kitchen wrap, when rolled together just wrap in the kitchen wrap and place in the fridge.

7. Pre heat oven to 180℃/350℉
8. Cut the roll into slices approx 1/2 centimeter thick, put these on a baking sheet, cut side down and bake for 15-20mins

Very Yummy!, taste testers verified that they were pretty good.

The Little Man even “helped” with the washing up!

Other Recipes:
Banana Nut Brownies
Melting Moments

Ok, I didn’t really do anything out of the ordinary the last couple of weeks cooking wise, so I have cheated and asked my Dad, who is a Chef/ Hospitality Teacher, to send me one of his recipes to post this week.

So here goes, I hope that you enjoy, sorry there are no pictures.

Ingredients

175 grams Butter
300 grams Light Brown sugar
175 grams plain chocolate, broken into pieces
100 grams toasted chopped nuts
3 Eggs, beaten
2 ripe bananas, mashed
100 grams self-raising flour
2 tablespoons cocoa
1-teaspoon baking powder.

Putting it all together

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line a 18×28cm Swiss roll tin with baking paper or greaseproof paper.
2. Put the butter, sugar and chocolate in a large pan and heat gently, stirring, until melted and smooth, then remove pan from heat.
3. Stir in chopped nuts, beaten eggs and ripe bananas until well mixed, then sift in the self-raising flour, cocoa and baking powder.
4. Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 30 minutes until firm in the centre.
5. Cool in the tin, then turn out and cut into squares.

Enjoy!, Thanks Dad for the recipe

Other Recipes:
Traditional Meatloaf
Melting Moments
Coconut Ice

I know that I normally do the recipe on a Friday but today was my brother-in-laws birthday, Happy Birthday.

He really loves meatloaf, so we invited them over to our house to celebrate his birthday this evening, and I made him a meatloaf.

Here is a great recipe that I have been using for a while now, so now you can give it a go.

Ingredients

1 brown onion, peeled
1 garlic clove, crushed, or you can use the already crushed garlic in a jar
130g rind less bacon, finely chopped
500 grams beef mince
380 grams pork mince
3 tablespoons tomato sauce/ketchup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 egg
2 1/2 cups breadcrumbs
80 grams tasty cheese, finely grated

Putting it all together

1. Preheat oven to 180℃. Line base and sides of 7cm-deep loaf pan with baking paper, allowing an overhang on both long sides.
2. Using a grater, grate the onion, being careful of your fingers while you are crying from the onion.
3. Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Add onion (and juices from grating), (I just grated the onion in the fry pan so then you don’t have to worry about the onion juices on your board), garlic and bacon. Cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes or until onion is soft. Set aside to cool completely.
4. Combine beef mince, pork mince, bacon mixture, tomato sauce/ketchup,worcestershire sauce, egg and 2 cups breadcrumbs in a large bowl. Using clean hands, mix until well combined. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Press mixture firmly into prepared pan.

6. Combine cheese and remaining breadcrumbs. Press into top of meatloaf. Bake for 50 minutes or until firm to touch. Using the overhanging baking paper to lift meatloaf from the pan.

Slice and serve with your favourite vegetables. I made some gravy to go with ours..

Sorry about the finished photo, I got a bit carried away and started eating before I took it. But you can still see how good it looked, even if some of it has been eaten, just goes to show it was really yummy.

Bangers and Beans - One Pot