Burnt butter caramel slice

Thanks to this recipe from Cook Republic.

Biscuit base

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup desiccated coconut

1/2 cup brown sugar

125g butter, melted

Mix together, pour into lined lamington tin and bake until golden. 

Caramel topping

1/3 cup golden syrup

125g butter, melted

1 400g can sweetened condensed milk

Stir together over low heat for about 5-7 minutes (caramel will be smooth and thickened).

Pour caramel over biscuit based and put in oven for 25 mins at 180 degrees - or until caramel is browning in spots (my oven was at least 25 minutes).  Cool for a couple of hours before serving.  Attempt not to eat all at once. 

As you can see, it's a simple recipe, so it just calls out for modifications - what about adding nuts?  I am going to try one batch with salted peanuts and another with unsalted macadamias, will report back.

Zucchini slice

A cheap and cheerful dinner - zucchini, a little pancetta and half a tomato + a few pantry basics.

4 grated zucchini
3 rashers of bacon/slices of pancetta
1 chopped onion
1 cup SR flour
5 eggs
1 cup grated cheese
1/4 vegetable oil
Tomato slices

Preheat oven to 200 degrees
Line loaf tin
Mix all ingredients together, except tomatoes
Pour into loaf tin and top with sliced tomato.

It looks pretty black when it is cooked, 1 hour later, but it is super moist and delicious - with crispy edges!

Mini german pancakes

Somewhere between a poffertje and a yorkshire pudding - a mini german pancake using this recipe.

straight out of the oven, you can see they are just beginning to collapse

only a couple of minutes later, and they have collapsed entirely

stuffed full of apple, strawberries and greek yoghurt

I made a half batch, 3 per person, which seemed to be a good amount:

1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/8 cup butter, melted

Preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius

In food processor, mix all ingredients EXCLUDING butter

Slowly add butter in, keep blitzing

Distribute in muffin tin and bake for 15 mins, or until done (as per top picture)

Broccoli and sweet potato soup

Do you ever a craving for some fresh, rather plain vegetables?  Sometimes I get so caught up in trying interesting sauces or blending flavours that the individual ingredients can't stand out.

This soup is the remedy - a soup that really tastes of fresh vegetables and not much more.

Served with some of the world's best garlic bread, breadstick, homemade garlic butter and some parmesan.

Sticky Fingers Bakery

G and I recently tasted cupcakes from Sticky Fingers Bakery, the Americana and the Lemon.

Americana - jam and peanut butter - basically, a dribble of jam that escaped out the bottom of the cupcake, a boring vanilla cupcake and some delicious peanut butter icing.  Topped with glitter (important) and popcorn that had been on the cake so long it was soggy.  I think "so long" is probably only a minute or two, given the amount of liquid in the icing.

Disappointing that the jam did not stay in the cake. AT ALL. 

Very atttractively iced - lemon at the front, americana at the back. 

Lemon curd was lucky to avoid the jam's fate.  Not enough lemon curd.  Not lemony enough. 

But both were oh so pretty.

Baked potato soup

Yes, I did just receive 3 or 4 new issues of Jamie magazine from my mum - no idea where she finds them because they are "old" but because I am in the southern hemisphere they are perfectly in season!

This week I made the baked potato soup - which is basically liquefied baked potatoes topped with "standard" baked potato toppings.  In my case, we used sour cream, cheddar and spicy pancetta.  Maybe a bit of green would have made this dish look better, but it tasted absolutely amazing.  I wonder if the trick is the parmesan rind that is in the pot while the soup cooks?

Recipe to serve 4
4 cold baked potatoes - I cooked these on Sunday, made the soup on Tuesday
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1.25 litres stock
optional - parmesan rind

Sweat an onion until soft, then add the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes.

Throw in the chopped up baked potatoes (skin and all) and the parmesan rind and let that saute for a few minutes.

Pour in stock and bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer (covered) for 25-30 minutes.

Remove parmesan rind and "blitz" (food processor, stick mixer - your choice) the soup.

Return to the pan and season with salt and pepper as needed, and add extra stock to thin the soup if required.

Toppings
A dollop of sour cream
Some crumbled cheddar
Some spicy pancetta that I fried to make it crispy

A simple summer tuna pasta

A Maggie special from the recipe books that came free with the Herald Sun earlier this year, and yes, I know it is winter, but I like to pretend that the weather is still pleasant (even when I am wrapped up in a fleece jacket at home!)

the finished dish

"Recipe"
1. Cook some spaghetti
2. Slice fresh tuna into small pieces
3. Put olive oil and capers and cooked pasta into frying pan
4. Turn heat off and stir through tuna, parsley and squeeze on some lemon.  Done!

step 4