Babaganouj and beetroot dip!

As a part of my little sisters Girls Night In celebrations, in raising funds for the National Breast Cancer Foundation, I provided about half the food for her, and part of that was a bunch of dips! One of them was a romesco sauce, and the recipe for that can be found here. I make this all the time as the ingredients are cheap and readily available, and its so easy...

The other 2 dips I made were babaganouj and beetroot, both super easy, managable and delicious! Most of the ingredients you throw in the oven and roast, then blend it with a few other ingredients. Youll never buy bought dips again! Well, you probably will, but these are so delicious youll make more than you need so you can keep more for yourself!

Babaganouj

1 eggplant

2 cloves garlic (unpeeled)

1 tbsp sesame seeds

Greek yoghurt

half tsp sumac

Method

1) Prick the eggplant all over with a knife, place it whole, on a baking tray with the garlic (unpeeled) and then in a hot oven for 15-20mins, or until the eggplant has softened. You can put the garlic under the eggplant if you can to protect it from burning more, otherwise rub the garlic with some oil and tuck it under the eggplant as much as you can. Take them out and let em cool.

2) Put the sesame seeds in a fairly hot pan to toast. Once they start popping take them straight off the hob, as the residual heat in the pan will continue to cook the seeds, and if you leave it on the heat youll burn them, and if you take them too far, chuck them out and start again. Once they're nicely toasted, pop them in the blender/mixmaster/another container until everything else is ready.

3) Once the eggplant and garlic are cool, peel them both and pop them both in the blender. The eggplant should have deflated and look a bit shrivelled and sorry for itself, and the skin should be easy to peel off. If, while cooking in the oven, youve burnished the flesh of the eggplant - dont worry about it, that adds to the smokey flavour. However if you feel like you might have overdone the sesame seeds then leave a few of the browner bits of the eggplant out. Dont chuck them out though, you can add them later if you feel like the dip can take it - if youre like me youll just chuck the lot in!

4) Add salt and pepper as well as the sumac, to the blender which should have the eggplant, garlic, and sesame seeds. Add the yoghurt to the mix - some like the dip more eggplanty, some like it creamier and smoother - this is where you add as much as you like. Add 1 tbsp and blend, then taste. Its up to you if you add more or leave it. You can also use tahini, a sesame seed paste, however I dont use it because I dont like it much and prefer the lightness that yoghurt gives, but try it for yourself!

Beetroot dip

4 beetroots

yoghurt

half tsp cumin

salt and pepper

Method

1) Wrap each beetroot in foil with a shlug of oil, and place in a hot oven for about an hour.

2) Take the beetroots out and let them cool a bit. Youll find you can peel the skins off fairly easily (the fresher they are, the more easily the skin comes off). 

WARNING! Beetroot can stain your hands and clothes big time - some wear gloves when peeling them as the skin and colour gets under your nails and stains them for the night (unless you spend some time scrubbing).

3) Chop the beetroots up and throw them in the blender with the S&P and cumin. Add the yoghurt as you like it, some like this to be a chunky dark purple dip, others like it to be a creamier bright pink! Add it tablespoon by tablespoon until it tastes how you like it. Its delicious served with toasted pinenuts or walnuts and crumbled fetta with flatbreads.

Both these dips can be used as a dip or on polenta, mini toasts etc as canapes, which is what I did for my sisters party. Not a great pic below, but you get the idea! Id had a couple of glasses of bubbly by this stage and so the presentation was a little bit lacking!

Duende - Leederville

Finally - I got paid. Id had no money for weeks, and I finally got some moolah. S has been studying hard for his final exams in his masters, and so I decided to take us out for breakky in Leederville. We'd been to Sayers before and I didnt fancy risking the wait, so I decided on Duende, the tapas bar across the road from Sayers. 

It was really quiet. 2 other couples in there, so we took a quiet spot on the booth and our waitress came straight out with water and asked for our coffee orders (in agreeance with Breakfast in Perth blog - big fan of them asking for coffee straight away, does anyone ever really read the coffee menu? Everyone knows what they want, straight away).

We had a look at the menu, and to be honest, breakfast options are kinda limited. They dont have a big breakfast like most other places do, which is often a safe bet if youre taking someone kinda fussy out. In saying that they do have bacon and eggs, and the options you do have are interesting.

Breakfast/Brunch

7:30am – 4pm

house made bakes
watermelon, strawberry, apple & mint salad – 13
bircher muesli – 8
sourdough, rye or fruit toast strawberry butter – 6
rye toast, guacamole & tomato salsa – 14
organic eggs anyway, shulz bacon – 16
merguez sausage, capsicum, feta & baked egg – 16
crab, chorizo & spring onion omelette – 17
croque monsieur - 14
corn fritter, hot smoked salmon, asparagus, egg – 19.5
caramelised pumpkin, eggplant & feta tart – 17
char grilled vegetable salad, couscous, labne – 15

S went for the bacon and eggs, and I chose the sausage, capsicum, fetta and baked egg. I was looking at the croque monsieur wondering how on earth can they make a ham and cheese toasty be worth $14?? Beyond me. 

Our coffees came out, they're kinda small, but they're tasty. Creamy milk, not too much froth (I always have a skinny FW - am dismayed by how often its got a load of froth on top), and nice smooth coffee underneath. I toyed with ordering another after Id finished but thought better of it.

Our meals came out quite quickly, and we were both pretty pleased with what we got. S had plenty of bacon and 2 eggs, toast and french butter. I had the same toast as him and it looked a bit stingy. I would have thought Duende would use nicer bread. It seemed to be just toasted sandwich bread. I was under the impression they used Organic Loafers bread, but they dont. They tell you the brands they use for alot of other things, Schultz bacon, Cackleberry eggs, but nothing about the bread.

Mine looked impressive, as well as being a decent serve! 2 eggs, 2 sausages, chunky potato, lotsa capsicums and melted fetta sprinkled throughout! 1 piece of toast with french butter. I really enjoyed mine, the eggs were almost perfectly cooked - the whites were a bit too runny in places which grosses me out, but it wasnt too bad. The sausage was spicy and peppery, which went really well with the sweetness of the peppers and the creamy potato. Another piece of the small toast would have been nice, to scoop up the mish mash of goodness in my little baking tray!

Overall we enjoyed our meal at Duende, the staff were friendly, the food came out fairly quickly and we enjoyed our meals. They use locally roasted Dark Star beans, and made a good brew. We looked at the menu for tapas and we'd be back to try some of those for sure! The wine list is great, though pricey, and all the bottles are displayed all over the bar, and it makes you want to drink something! It gets really busy on the weekends and our waitress told us that you should book a week in advance in you want to be seated if youre more than 2 or 3, otherwise wednesday at the latest. I think its a bit overpriced, but that seems to be the norm in Perth, so prices are standard for an upmarket hip n happenin place (Im aware that if you actually use the term hip n happenin, youre not actually cool, I accept that).

Dark choc and buttermilk pancakes with green apple and orange caramel sauce

Another one of the dishes served at my Breakfast with Benefits was the dark chocolate and buttermilk hotcakes with green apples and an orange caramel sauce - they went down a real treat!

It was a very thick batter and they took a while to cook, which didnt make my life very easy when I had to make so many! The apples were thinly sliced and served with the pancakes. The bitter chocolate, the doughy pancake with the crispy tart apple and the thick sweet caramel together is a match made in heaven! This was one of the most popular items on the menu!

Pancakes

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3 cups buttermilk
• Half block dark chocolate grated or chopped 
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus some for the pan, or oil spray.

Method

1. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a medium bowl. Add eggs, buttermilk, chocolate, and 4 tablespoons butter; whisk to combine. Batter should have small to medium lumps.
2. Using a pastry brush, brush remaining 1/2 teaspoon of butter or give the pan a spray with oil. Wipe off excess.
3. Using a ladle, about 1/2 cup, pour pancake batter, in pools 2 inches away from one other. When pancakes have bubbles on top and are slightly dry around edges, about 2 1/2 minutes, flip over. Cook until golden on bottom, about 1 minute.
4. Repeat with remaining batter, keeping finished pancakes on a heatproof plate in oven. Serve warm.

Orange caramel sauce

Sugar

Cream

Orange

1) Into a pan, pour a thin layer of sugar to just cover the bottom, and wait until it starts to melt. Give it a stir until its all melted.

2) Add another thin layer of sugar and wait till it melts a bit and give it a stir - make sure you get all the crystals from the edges of the pan.

3) Repeat steps until you have enough caramel.

4) Add a good splosh of cream and stir - if the sugar siezes, you have to remelt the sugar, so just keep stirring.

5) Add the juice of the orange and some of the zest, and allow to cool off.

6) Pour over pancakes and thinly sliced green apples.

Thanks to Carol Anne for the pics!

This is also my entry into the We Should Cocoa blog comp!  Each month either The Chocolate Pot or Chocolate Log Blog will nominate an ingredient that you must use in conjunction with some kind of chocolate. This month its apples!

Homemade baked beans

This was a popular dish with many asking for the recipe! It's quite simple but requires a bit of pre planning if you're using fresh beans. You can use canned beans but they won't have the same bite that fresh ones have. The fresh ones have a better flavour as well. This is one of those everyday foods, where you can cook up a big batch on sunday and make it last through the week!

Ingredients to serve 2
2 cups dried cannelini beans
3 good sized tomatoes
2 celery sticks
1-2 cloves garlic
1 onion
1 tsp liquid smoke
2 tsp mustard (use your favourite kind but not the sweet bavarian kind) 
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tbsp dried thyme/1 sprig fres
1 can tomatoes
Bbq sauce to taste

Method
1) Put the beans in a container and put double the amount of water in to cover them and leave them to soak overnight. They will double in size
2) Drain the beans and rinse once, do not use the soaking liquid for cooking, I've been told it causes gas!
3) In a pan, cover beans with water and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for 1-2 hours until they've softened. Dont cook them until they're really soft, as they will cook again when you make the sauce. 
4) Drain the beans again.
5) Add all the other ingredients, give it a stir and let it simmer for 15mins, then taste it, and adjust the flavours to suit you.

If its too vinegary - add some brown sugar, or vice versa. Its important to strike a balance but you do need some tang! Add chilli if you wish. We used a homemade bbq sauce from a friend of S, so you can use what you like. Chutney would give it an interesting twist as well!

I served it piled high with sausages and bacon! If you want to you can add crispy bacon into the beans, which is common - and would be delicious! I was serving it with bacon anyway so didnt bother!

Baked spiced ricotta w/walnuts, raw honey and boozy fruits

As a part of my 5 course set menu I did for the Breakfast with Benefits, the first one that I presented my guests with was a baked spiced ricotta, with walnuts, raw honey and boozy fruits!

Its a really simple, healthy recipe that gives you a filling and delicious breakfast or snack for the week. It really is an everyday food, as you can be really creative with the flavourings you include in the mix, as well as the things you serve it with. You wont get sick of it if you change the flavours from week to week! Its high in protein and low in sugar and fat - a perfect, healthy, low carb breakfast if you pair it with the right stuff!

Heres the recipe, adapted from one by Janella Purcell:

Ingredients

1kg fresh ricotta (better to get it from the deli counter as I did)

2 free range eggs

1tbsp cinnamon

2 tbsp honey

Walnuts to serve

1 good handful of dried fruits (I used flame/golden raisins and cranberries)

30ml Cointreau

Method

1) Preheat the oven to 150C and take your dried fruits and put them in a container to soak with the cointreau. Overnight is best!

2) Mix ricotta, eggs, honey and cinnamon in a bowl, making sure its well combined.

3) Pour into a loaf tin and cover with foil. Place the loaf tin in a bain marie (a roasting pan with water coming halfway up the side of the loaf tin)

4) Cook for 1 hour, or until its firm to the touch.

5) Take the ricotta out of the oven, and leave it to cool completely, before turning it out onto a plate or board.

6) To serve, sprinkle with walnuts, a generous pour of honey, and the soaked fruits with the rest of the cointreau (test it first though, if its been soaked overnight its not so boozy but if you only soaked them for an hour it might be a different story!)

7) Enjoy spread over toasted sourdough, or with grilled fruit and toast.

Photo from Breakfast with Benefits, c/o Carol Annes Kitchen

Ice cream base!

We have some full fat Bannister Downs milk and cream left from the Breakfast with Benefits, as well as a bunch of fruits - so I decided to make some ice cream and flavour it with mango!

Its such a simple recipe - you can use a machine or just freeze it (Ill explain more about that later!). Ice creams are basically just a custard base with flavours added to it. Any recipe for custard will do, but this one is super easy! For a richer mix, use egg yolks rather than whole eggs - up to you though!

Heres the recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 large eggs
• 200g caster sugar
•  500ml double cream
• 250ml full fat milk
• 1 vanilla pod/splosh of vanilla essence

Now, you can fiddle with the amounts of cream and milk, as long as its full cream. If you choose to use skim/low fat milk it still tastes great, but its not as creamy and youll have more ice crystals forming, which isnt what you want from your ice cream!

Method

1) Heat the milk and cream up in a pan (do not boil) with the vanilla pod, take off the heat and leave to steep for the time it takes you complete the next step.

2) Cream the eggs and sugar together until theyre ribbony and pale yellow.

 

3) Add a cups worth/ladle full of the warm milk into the eggs and whisk - this is to get the eggs at a temperature closer to that of the milk.

4) Pour the egg mixture into the warm milk little by little and whisk - you dont want your eggs to hit the milk and scramble!

5) Pour into your ice cream maker as per the instructions!

Now, if you dont have an ice cream maker that is fine - you can make just as delicious, creamy ice cream without one, its just more labour intensive, sort of! The only thing you have to do is to put it in a container and stick it in the freezer instead of the machine and leave it for an hour. Come back to it and beat it until the ice crystals are gone - thats the secret, to beat it every so often to get rid of the crystals! The more often you do this, the better, and the higher the fat content of your ingredients the less often you need to do it (because theres less water in there). You should do it 2 or 3 times though, to incorporate more air and bust those crystals! 

In terms of flavouring, you can use anything you like really, thats the beauty of the blank canvas that is ice cream base! If you want to add wet ingredients, add them before you put the mix into the machine, or into the freezer. Ive blitzed the flesh of 2 fat juicy mangoes and added it to the machine with the base.

Blended mango goodness

If you want to add dry ingredients you should add them later on in the process (biscuits/maltesers/meringues etc) as they will just break up and you wont get a chunky texture. If its something like berries or nuts you should add them later so they dont all sink to the bottom of the mix, as well as coating them in icing sugar. 

There are soooo many different flavours, you just need to experiment! Pouring in melted chocolate and stirring gives you stracciatlla (choc chip), pureed fruit, broken up chocolate bars, grilled fruits, caramels... The choice is yours! I have made chocolate orange ice cream by Nigella Lawson and it was outta this world!

Once you make ice cream for the first time you will never look back!!

Breakfast with Benefits - DONE!

On november 5th, I held a NBCF Breakfast with Benefits event at my place, for 20 people.

I had so much fabulous produce donated, and I got plenty of change from $100, which was awesome to feed 20 people, 5 courses, plus coffee, tea and juices.

Amazing donations from Bannister Downs, The Organic Collective, The Naked Butcher and Mondos

The weather wasnt really being cooperative, and so I had to call in gazebo covers from friends and bought a tarp - which saved the day big style! It rained quite a bit toward the end of the day and considering it was all outside, that wasnt ideal - but the guests were all in good spirits and I could hear alot of laughter coming from both tables!

The first course was a baked spiced ricotta, with walnuts, organic raw honey and cointreau soaked fried fruits, served with Organic Loafers super soughdough. This course got alot of oooh and a aahs when I bought it out which was great!  Steve came into the kitchen asking how it was meant to be eaten lol for those unsure, its spread onto toast! Its a healthy protein filled breakfast - and very easy to make! Heres the post for the recipe!

The second course to come out was the big fry up! Homemade beans, Mondos pork sausages and Mondos nitrate free bacon. This was a hefty serving and everyone was very appreciative of having a nice big fat plate of hangover special! People were really impressed with all 3 elements of this dish - I had requests for the recipe for the beans, which you can find here, comments on how fabulous the bacon was and people asking "Where is Mondos? I want those sausages!". I got great service from Mondos too, the girl who served me asked me what I was doing with the meat, and when I told her she gave me a high 5 and told me her story about going to events similar, dressing up and having a great time there :)

Course number 3 were the buttermilk and dark choc hotcakes with fresh apple and an orange caramel sauce. Im not going to lie, these were a pain in the arse to make - they took a long time to cook! If I could do the event over I would choose a much lighter batter to use. When I finally bought them out though they went down a treat. My cousins bf exclamation of YES! When I bought more out was confirmation they were passable! S also loved them and has requested I make them again - funny as I thought they were the weakest menu item! People were pretty keen on that orange caramel sauce - adding the DELICIOUS Bannister Downs cream and sugar together, you cant go wrong really! The organic oranges from the Organic Collective certainly helped! The recipe for these beauties can be found here.

The 4th course was wilted spinach, scrambled Eggs by Ellah, and balsamic roast mushrooms. By this time about 5 people have had to go home, due to other commitments that day - so it was up the the rest to get stuck into this dish! The mushrooms went down well, but I knew they would, as I had gotten the recipe from Jason who is the owner/operator of the Urban Bakehouse in Clarkson - who makes an amazing funghi pizza! There were comments about the beautiful yellow colour of the eggs, and how creamy they were (thanks to Bannister Downs cream!).

The final course was a fruit platter including organic strawberries from the Organic Collective. This was a welcome platter to graze on for the rest of the afternoon, and would  have been much nicer should it have been a bit warmer! By this time the weather had started to take a turn for the worse, and we ended up moving inside to share fruit and bubbles!

I raffled off all my fabulous prizes, with everyone who was left at the end leaving with either Eggs by Ellah, or Bannister Downs cream or milk.  

The winners of the bigger prizes were:

Macaron class by Cook Learn Love: Julia Speight

El Asador hamper: Jenni Edwards

Moet et Chandon champagne: Jenni Edwards

The Naked Butcher bacon: Jemma Edwards

The Naked Butcher pork sausages: Carol Anne Rushe

The Naked Butcher $50 voucher: Micha Rauscher

2 x $25 Crust Gourmet Pizza Mt Lawley vouchers: Nicki aka Strawberrythief and Vanessa Bower

$30 Spencers Brook Farm voucher: Gemma Watts

Organic Loafers bread: Carol Anne Rushe and Healy

Pilates Fitness Institute of WA - Micha Rauscher

Carol Annes bounty!

All in all, we all raised $1200 for the National Breast Cancer Foundation, which is such a fantastic result!! My target was $500 and I reached that before the day of the event which was fantastic! The total raised for this event Australia wide has been almost $28 000! When I put my money in, I will be sitting THIRD in the highest amount of funds raised!

I have to send massive thanks to the fabulous producers and local businesses who generously donated their products and vouchers for such a great cause. I can very confidently say that the people who attended were impressed with the quality of the produce! Ive sent guests home with extra strawberries, Naked Butcher bacon and sausages, milk and eggs - So all my friends and their friends can try for themselves the wicked produce and producers we have right here in and around Perth.

Mondos Butchers

The Naked Butcher

Eggs by Ellah

Organic Loafers

Bannister Downs Milk

The Organic Collective

Spencers Brook Farms

Cook Learn Love Private Culinary Tuition

Crust Gourmet Pizza Bar Mt Lawley

El Asador Gourmet Products

Pilates Fitness Institute of WA

Even bigger thanks go to my darling bf Steve who cleaned everything up and did ALL the dishes while I sat on the couch with wine once everyone had left, and my sister Jenni who helped doing incidental things throughout the day, and enduring me snapping at her telling her to ask me these questions from the other side of the kitchen bench aka get outta the kitchen! It turned out ok for her though, as from her $30 worth of raffle tickets she bought she won a bottle of Moet and the El Asador hamper!

I certainly learned alot about catering for people and after the event thought I could have done alot of things differently and had things turn out better. However with a bit of time, I look at the size of my kitchen, think about the fact that I cooked 5 courses for 20 people, approx 100 covers, in that tiny kitchen and I did it on my own pretty much... and the worst that happened was that sometimes things took longer than I expected, I think I did well. I learned alot, and I learned I was a bit overconfident and unrealistic in my abilities to churn out that amount of food in that amount of time. However everything was delicious, and I probably got everything out within about 30mins between courses. So, a bit slower than I planned, but everyone ate so fast! One friend announced that this was his first degustation ever! I never labelled it such but quite flattering that someone else saw fit to!

Finally thanks to Carol Anne who took the photos of the food for me, as I had no time to! They turned out beautifully and you should all take the time to check out her wonderful blog, Carol Annes Kitchen!

I would definately do this again - Ive learned alot, next time will be even better!! The guests got to have some fab local produce, we raised a bunch of money and everyone took something home! Great day, lets hope the weather plays ball next time!