Cauliflower and Zucchini Soup

I found the Cauliflower Soup recipe which is the foundation to this recipe in a wonderful cookbook called The Soup Cookbook. I then added a few different veggies as they were in my fridge and wanted a bit more flavour then just cauliflower.

This recipe is so simple and easy to make and is lovely and velvety in consistency and tastes like melted butter in your mouth.

I highly recommend your try it. It's so easy I promise.

Cauliflower and Zucchini Soup 

Serves 2

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive
1 large onion roughly chopped
½ large zucchini or 1 small chopped
½ cauliflower head cut into small florets
¼ red pepper chopped
650ml vegetable stock
Rock salt and cracked pepper

Method
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and cook the onion, zucchini and red capsicum stirring frequently for 10 minutes taking care not to allow the vegetables to colour.

Cut the cauliflower into florets and cut the stalk into small pieces. Add to the pan and sauté with the other vegetables for 2-3 minutes.

Add the stock and bring to the boil, then cover and simmer over a medium heat for 20 minutes. Remove the soup from the heat and leave to cool slightly.

Transfer to a food processor or blender and process to a puree in batches if necessary.

Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding rock salt and cracked pepper.

Enjoy.

Homemade Ravioli Recipe

This homemade ravioli recipe is another recipe I got from one of my favourite cook books A little Bit of This, a Little Bit of That from the winner of Junior Masterchef Isabella Bliss and her family.

Pictured above is the delicious end result this homemade ravioli recipe will create. So easy and so satisfying to know you made something so wholesome and divine.


Homemade Ravioli Recipe

Pasta
100gm plain flour
1 egg
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

Filling
6 green tiger prawns
1 tbsp soy milk
1 tbspn flat leaf parsley
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Sauce
½ tomato
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon dried parsley
Salt and pepper to taste

Making the Pasta
Place the flour, eggs and olive oil in a medium bowl and mix together using your fingers until a dough forms.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes or until the dough reaches an elastic and smooth consistency.

Wrap with cling wrap and set aside to rest while you prepare the filling and until you’re ready to make the pasta sheets.

Making the Prawn Filling
For the prawn filling, place all the ingredients in the chopper attachment of a stick blender or in a food processor and blend until the mixture forms a paste. Set aside.
 
Making the Sauce
In a blender add all ingredients and blitz. Then set aside.

Making the Raviolis
To make the pasta sheets, divide the dough into two equal portions. Take a portion, dust with flour and roll through the widest setting on your pasta machine.

Reduce the width between the rollers by one and roll the dough through as before. Repeat the process; adjust the roller width each time until you reach the setting six or seven.

If you don’t have a pasta machine just use a rolling pin and roll out thinly as possible - about 2mm.

Cutting the ravioli
To make the ravioli use a 4.5cm crinkle cut ravioli cutter. Place a heaped tablespoon of the prawn filling in the centre of one round, lightly brush the edges with water using a pastry brush, then top with a second round.

Press the edges of the ravioli together to seal. Repeat with the remaining rounds and filling.

Place a large pot of salted water over a high heat and bring to the boil. Cook the ravioli, two or three at a time until they float (by this time, the past should be al dente and the filling cooked through – this takes about 3-4 minutes. Drain well. 

Then pour pasta sauce over homemade raviolis and season to taste with additional salt and freshly ground black pepper. 

Enjoy the easy and delicious results from this homemade ravioli recipe!

Nigella Chocolate Pistachio Fudge Recipe

This wonderfully decadent recipe for Chocolate Pistachio Fudge was found in the cookbook  Nigella Express  which I recommend highly as it has some great recipes you can make quickly hence the title Express!

Anyway I decided to make this recipe because the photo looked amazing and it’s fudge!

I also decided to make it because the chocolate used is 70% cocoa which means it doesn’t have as much milk as normal chocolate so it is not so hard on the tummy and also dark chocolate is good for you so think of all the anti-oxidants as you are chowing down on this as you won’t be able to stop.

It is that wickedly good!


Nigella's Chocolate Pistachio Fudge Recipe

Makes 40 pieces of rich fudge
Vegetarian
Gluten Free
Express


Ingredients
350g dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids), chopped
1 x 397g can condensed milk
30g milk free margarine
pinch salt
80g pistachios (originally recipe calls for 150g so you can add more if you wish)


Method
Put the chopped chocolate, condensed milk, margarine and salt in a sauce pan on low heat and stir to melt.

Put the nuts into a freezer bag and bash them with a rolling pin until broken up into pieces.

Add the nuts to chocolate mixture and stir well to mix.

Pour the mixture into a tray 23cm square, smoothing the top.

Let the fudge cool, and refrigerate until set.

Once cut, it can be kept in the fridge until you eat it all!

Homemade Pasta Recipe

This is a very easy homemade pasta recipe I got from the wonderful cook book, A little bit of this, a little bit of that by Isabella Bliss the winner of Junior Masterchef with her sister Sofia Bliss and mother and grandma Sylvana & Nonna Spina.

I love any cookbooks that have recipes handed down through the generations and this cook book is a treasure trove of recipes passed down from many generations.

I will post a few more recipes from this book but for starters lets keep it simple and let me show you how to make freshly made past from scratch first.



Homemade Pasta Recipe

100gm plain flour
1 egg
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

Place the flour, egg and olive oil in a medium bowl and mix together using your fingers until a dough forms.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes or until the dough reaches an elastic and smooth consistency.

Wrap with film and set aside to rest for 30 minutes.

To make the pasta, divide the dough into two equal portions. Take a portion, dust with flour so the pasta doesn't stick to the rollers and roll through the widest setting on the pasta machine.

Dust the sheet again and pass through the pasta machine reducing the width between the rollers by one. Repeat the process by adjusting the roller width each time until you reach the setting six or seven.


If you don’t have a pasta machine just use a rolling pin and roll out thinly as possible until about 2mm.

Then put the pasta through the rollers for fettucine and place cut pieces on a pasta tree to dry. 

Then to cook simply place a large pot of salted water over a high heat and bring to the boil. Cook the homemade pasta for one to two minutes by this time the pasta should be al dente and ready to serve.

And this is how to make pasta. So easy!

Blueberry Clafoutis Recipe from River Cottage

I was watching Hugh from River Cottage cook this delicious Blueberry Clafoutis and thought yes I have to make it! I love watching the program because it is so homey and I love Hugh's voice, I find it soooo soothing. He made this look so easy to make and easy is my specialty so I gave it a go.

The first thing I did was to buy a quiche dish which was extremely difficult to find because a 25cm dish was what I needed yet I couldn't find the size. I ended up heading to David Jones and found a white ceramic one from Maxwell & Williams but on the box it said 28cm.

I had a ruler with me, because I was getting desperate at this stage and needed the dish this day as I was making the Blueberry Clafoutis for the following day so double checked the measurements. Well it turned out it was actually 25cm inside and measuring from edge to edge was a little over 26cm which was very misleading.

Anyway I was ecstatic so snapped it up and off I went to get cooking.

I have changed the recipe a little by substituting the full cream milk with a lovely thick and creamy soy milk from So Good. The flavour was not compromised as it was wolfed down by everyone at the picnic and was told by one that I was welcome to come on many more picnics is if I was going to bake like that! High praise indeed.

What is clafouti? You maybe be wondering what this dish is. Well it is from the Limousin region of France and is a baked custardy treat filled with a fruit of your choice. In this instance it is blueberries but more traditional is either cherries or plums but you can use anything you like.
 
So without further ado I give you:


Blueberry Calfoutis Recipe from River Cottage

Preparation Time
15-20 minutes

Cook Time
35-40 minutes

Servings
8

Ingredients
400g blueberries
Zest and juice ½ lemon
1 tsp honey
75g self raising flour
100g caster sugar
3 large eggs, beaten
1 cup soy milk

Method
Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Lightly butter a 25cm quiche dish with a milk free margarine then tip blueberries into the base. Scatter lemon zest, juice and drizzle honey over the berries.

Whisk the flour and caster sugar together then form a well in the centre of the mixture and add the eggs.

Gradually draw the the flour into the eggs from the outside of the well, mixing well. Then beat the soy milk in a little bit at a time to form a smooth batter.

Pour the batter over the blueberries and bake for 35-40 minutes until golden and puffed up.

Serve clafouti warm or cool and dusted with icing sugar if you choose.

Stir-Fried Chicken with Coconut Milk

I had some coconut milk left over from making the Sago Pudding so looked for a meal I cook make with the remainder and found the very tasty Stir-Fried Chicken with Coconut milk recipe by Zoë Harpham on AllRecipes.com.

The lime in this recipe adds a delicious fresh zesty flavour to it which makes it incredibly delicious.


Stir-Fried Chicken with Coconut Milk

Serves: 2

Ingredients
1/2 lime
70 ml coconut milk
1 teaspoon soy sauce
0.5 cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cornflour
1/2 chilli, seeds removed and chopped
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 onion chopped
1.5 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2  head broccoli, cut into small florets, stalks thinly sliced
125 g button mushrooms, halved
375 gm chicken thigh fillets, cut into thin strips
small bunch of parsley chopped


Method
Grate the zest of the lime and squeeze 1 tablespoon of the juice into a small bowl. Add the coconut milk, soy sauce, ginger, sugar, cornflour and mix together. Set aside.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a wok or large frying pan over a high heat. Add the onion and garlic and stir-fry for 2 minutes until slightly softened. Add the broccoli, mushrooms and chilli and stir-fry for a further 2 minutes. Transfer to a bowl.

Heat the remaining oil in the wok or pan. Add the chicken and stir-fry for 2 minutes until light golden. Add the coconut milk mixture and return the vegetables to the pan and stir-fry for 1 minute to thicken.

Cover and simmer for 2 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through and the vegetables are just tender. Scatter with the parsley, toss together briefly and serve with plain white rice.

Sago Pudding

I saw this Sago Pudding recipe being made on the telly but have changed it around because I found some of the ingredients are impossible to find.

This recipe tastes best made with rice milk and vanilla paste. It is absolutely delicious. You can also use soy milk and vanilla essence if you don't have those ingredients.

This is a very quick, easy and delicious recipe.


Sago Pudding

Ingredients
1 cup Tapioca (sago)
2 cups water
1 teaspoon vanilla paste or vanilla essence
200 ml coconut cream
5 tbsp brown palm sugar or raw sugar
300 ml rice milk or soy milk
pinch of salt

Method
Soak Sago in water for about 10 minutes then drain.

Heat water to boiling in a large saucepan then place sago in and stir constantly to avoid it sticking together. Cook until sago begins to turn transparent.

Add coconut cream, rice milk, raw sugar and vanilla paste and reduce heat.

Continue to stir sago pudding until it is bubbling, remove from stove and pour into serving bowls.

Eat nice and warm or cold it's great either way.