A New Year - Time for Salads

Happy New Year to you all. A big THANK YOU, to everyone that has been so supportive over the last 12 months especially my family and friends and the many visitors and comments from people I do not know. 

Winners of the Birthday Celebration Cook Book Give Away are: -

Diana from Geelong, Victoria - the 'Organic Book' is on its way and Malcolm from Plympton, South Australia - just posted 'Spain,' to you - enjoy! Thanks to all of you that entered, it was fun selecting winners!

I hope you had a great Christmas, Hanukkah, festive holiday or just plain absence from work. Are you enjoying the sunny summer in the southern hemisphere or skiing, log fires and Gluhwein in the north? Either way I hope you have safe and happy holidays and a great 2015!

I spent a lovely Christmas with my family in the mountains near Sydney - it was hot, rainy, foggy and cold ,all in one day! Here's a few photos showing how lovely the area is. We stayed at this place, nice, comfortable and plenty of room to spread out.

 Foggy start to the morning, Blue Mountains

Echo Point, Katoomba at dawn

Dawn, Echo Point, Katoomba 

Sunlight on a Banksia

Planning 2015 things to do! Do you make a list every year, month, week? I love lists, they keep me focussed. I haven't yet got into lists of lists, but maybe one day I will get that crazy!

In 2015, I plan on spending more me time with my cameras. Time to play, explore and have fun.

The gym will also be seeing me a lot more - gosh, that sounds like a chore - but it isn't really!  Then there is food! Yes of course I will be spending more time testing out ideas and recipes. But I am back into a 5:2 fasting period, so I will be posting a few photos of what I eat on my 500 calorie days.

But enough about that. We needed a salad in a hurry over Christmas, this is what I came up with. - It has great flavour,  easy to prepare and very low in calories. A good salad to start off the New Year!

Roasted Cauliflower and Chick Pea Salad

Ingredients

1 head of cauliflower
2 cloves garlic crushed
1 brown onion, finely sliced
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
handful of pine nuts
3 tbls basil, chopped
1 400g tin of chick peas
dash of olive oil
knob of butter
salt and pepper
juice of 1 lemon

Pre heat oven 180º fan forced/350º degrees.  

Take one cauliflower and slice across it into 4 or 5 slabs and place into a baking dish. I used about 3/4 of  large cauliflower. Add a sprinkling of olive oil, salt and pepper and cinnamon and roast until it has a nice golden colour, approximately 30 - 35 minutes.

Take out of the pan and let it cool.

While the cauliflower is roasting, dry fry the pine nuts until golden and set aside.

Add knob of butter and olive oil to fry pan and add onions and garlic and cook on a very low heat for around 20 -30 minutes or until the onions are golden and caramelised. Set aside.

In a large serving bowl, add drained chick peas, basil, onions and garlic, pine nuts. Break up the cauliflower and add this to the bowl. Adjust seasoning. Add lemon juice, so the cauliflower is pretty tangy.

Add a sprinkling of olive oil and toss thoroughly and you are ready to serve.

Serves 6 as a side salad.

Tiny Little Apple Puddings

Hey Ho! Christmas will be upon us soon and I will be taking a couple of weeks off, so I am rushing to get my last two posts written before then.

Donna Hay made these beautiful little puddings and I really wanted to try them out. Gorgeous as they were, I found them a little too sweet for my taste. They were very quick and easy to make requiring just what you have in your fruit bowl and pantry. I found that this recipe made 8 puddings but if you use ramekins to make them instead of muffin tins you would probably only get 6.

I also found the cooking time to be less than quoted in the recipe, but again that will vary from oven to oven.

So if you are looking to impress a few of your friends without spending a lot of time in the kitchen, then try this. Served with ice cream or cream or Crème Fraîche, life couldn't be any sweeter

Little Tiny Apple Puddings

Please note the changes I made to the recipe are in italics.

Ingredients

1 very small  Pink Lady Apple
100 g caster sugar
110g unsalted butter
1 teaspoon Golden Syrup
100g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
100g butter melted
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla


Grease 6 ramekins or 8 large muffin tins

• Take the apple and cut it into 1 cm rings, leave the peel on
• Add 1 teaspoon of Golden Syrup to the muffin pan then place a slice of apple on top of the Golden Syrup.
• Add batter mixture until it reaches the top of the muffin pan (they will rise a little higher than this)
•  

Leave in the tin for around 5 minutes, take out and invert on to a small serving plate to show the apple on the top and serve.

Kitchen Gadgets

My apologies for a slack posting month, but it has been a very busy time for some unknown reason. I am endeavouring to speed up posting this month because I hope to have a couple of weeks break over Christmas to play with ice cream recipes and enjoy the time with my family.

How many kitchen gadgets do you have that you simply can't live without? I find myself in love yet again with another little bit of plastic!

I am being deadly serious. Most times I get by with a cheese grater, a few sharp knives, a micro planer and an apple corer. Today, I was reading about this fantastic gadget - a Julienne Peeler and I knew I just had to have one. Ok, so I am fast becoming a kitchen gadget junkie! 

I headed down to my local kitchen shop to see if I could snaffle up one. My Kitchen is a great little shop in Main Street, Blackwood. They have the most amazing array of products that you would generally only find in a much larger store. It is a sheer delight to wander in and browse, but it isn't long before your eyes are drawn to something that you haven't seen before and you know that it is something you must have. 

My Kitchen has been in operation for close on 17 years and the current owner Karen, has been here for around 10 years. It just proves that this little shop has definitely provided the right service and products to it's local community over a long period of time.

Here is a peek into the world of My Kitchen.

So now back to my Julienne Peeler.

So why is this gadget so amazing. Well check these pictures out. I do own a Mandolin and it slices thing really finely and good sized julienne cuts for stir fries but this product is truly wonderful and completely different.

In celebration here is a quick salad, using my new peeler. And if this doesn't make you want to run to your handy kitchen supplier and buy one, then nothing will.

So humour me and  give it a try it!

Zucchini  and Cucumber Salad with *Herb Dressing

You will need:

2 - 3 zucchini

1 long continental cucumber

basil, chives, parsley - 2 tbls of each finely chopped

1 tbls capers finely chopped

3 tbls pine nuts, roasted in a dry pan

1/2 cup of plain yogurt
1 carrot

1 clove garlic minced

2 tbls lemon juice  

salt and pepper

2 tbls olive oil

1 tbls white wine vinegar

1/4 cup shaved parmesan cheese 

Using your Julienne Peeler, process the continental cucumber , zucchini and carrot. Place in a colander and add a pinch salt. Leave to drain for 30 minutes. Wash off the salt and squeeze dry the vegetables.  Place these in a bowl with the chopped capers, pine nuts and shaved parmesan.

Using a stick blender, blend herbs, garlic, yoghurt, lemon juice, vinegar, oil.

There should be a nice bite to this dressing. Adjust seasoning to suit with lemon and salt and pepper.

*This dressing was inspired by my friend Terri. When we worked together, one of the dressings Terri loved to make was a green, herb mayonnaise. Well Terri, I have taken out the mayonnaise and replaced it with yoghurt. Let me know what you think.