Pumpkin Streusel Cake

After making pumpkin soup, pasta with a pumpkin, bacon and blue cheese sauce and giving a huge wedge away, I still had some of our GIANT pumpkin left over!

I haven't done any baking for a while, so figured this was the perfect time to experiment with a pumpkin cake. You can make carrot or zucchini cakes, so why not pumpkin?

I modified a recipe for a carrot cake that I picked up from somewhere years ago and decided to dress it up with layers of a streusel topping. You could probably put the topping onto the top of the cake, rather than baking it in layers, but I think it was nice to have the surprise of the nuts, sugar, cinnamon and dates inside. I used mixed nuts as that's what I had in the cupboard, but feel free to use your favourite type of raw nut. Walnuts, almonds, pistachios or pecans would all be lovely.

The pumpkin flavour wasn't as strong as I thought it might be, but it certainly added a different flavour than carrot or zucchini. Slightly more earthy and not quite as sweet.

All in all, I was pretty impressed with how the cake turned out. It does take a long time to cook, so you might need to protect the top of the cake with some foil if it's starting to brown too much.

I didn't ice my cake, because the kids wanted to eat some straight out of the oven, but you could simply dust with icing sugar or make up some cream cheese icing. In fact, lemony cream cheese icing would be perfect on this cake for a morning or afternoon tea treat.

Pumpkin Streusel Cake

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup mixed nuts, chopped

1/3 cup dates, finely chopped

1 tsp cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

3 cups SR flour

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

2 cups pumpkin, grated

3 eggs

1 cup natural yoghurt (you could use vanilla too for a slightly sweeter version)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Grease and line a 22cm round cake tin.

Sift flour into a bowl and then add the sugar and pumpkin.

In a separate bowl, combine eggs, yoghurt and oil.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Spread 1/3 of the cake mixture into the tin and top with half the streusel mixture.

Repeat layers, finishing with a layer of cake batter.

Bake for 1 1/2 hours or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Gently place a piece of foil over the top of the cake if it's getting too brown.

Allow to rest for 5 minutes in the tin before turning out onto a cake rack to cool.

Dust with icing sugar or ice with cream cheese icing, if you like.

Enjoy!

Roasted Pumpkin And Capsicum Soup

Given how cold the weather is in Melbourne at the moment, I couldn't go past making some warming soup with the giant pumpkin from our garden. 

I wanted to try something a little bit different to the usual, so thought that adding some roasted red capsicum to the mix would create some extra sweetness. It certainly did add sweetness and that beautiful charred flavour you get from roasting capsicum. As well as the flavour, the soup turned out a lovely orangey red colour. Perfect to warm you up!

To add a bit of crunch and texture, I decided to top the soup with some chopped parsley and chopped roasted macadamia nuts. Delicious!

I hope you ejoy this simple bowl of comfort in the cold weather too.

Roasted Pumpkin And Capsicum Soup

1.2kg pumpkin, skin and seeds removed and chopped (you want about 1kg of flesh)

2 red capsicums, halved lengthways, seeds and membranes removed

1 large brown onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

A drizzle of olive oil

1 litre of chicken or vegetable stock

1/4 cup macadamia nuts

A handful of parsley, chopped

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Place pumpkin and capsicum in a baking tray and drizzle with oil.

Roast until the pumpkin is soft and the skin on the capsicum is blackened and blistered. This will take about 45 minutes. If the capsicum seems to be burning, remove it from the oven before the pumpkin.

When cool enough to handle, peel the blackened skin from the capsicum.

Meanwhile, place the macadamia nuts in a small oven tray and dry roast for 5 to 10 minutes, shaking the tray every so often to stop them burning. Remove from the oven when they are golden brown.

Allow the nuts to cool  then coarsely chop and set aside.

Heat another drizzle of oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and cook onion and garlic until softened.

Add the roasted vegies and cook for another couple of minutes.

Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is very soft.

Allow to cool slightly, then blitz with a stick blender until smooth. Season to taste and add extra stock if the soup is a little bit thick.

Serve steaming bowls of the soup topped with a sprinkling of parsley and macadamia nuts.

Enjoy!

Yoghurt Scones With Quick Berry Jam

A few weeks ago I submitted an entry for the Mamamia Food Blogger Idol competition. The competition was sponsored by Rachel's yoghurt and you had to use one of their products in your recipe. I wasn't selected as a finalist, so now I can share my recipe with you. It may not have been quite what the judges were after, but I still think they are pretty damn tasty scones!

Take a look at the five finalists and their beautiful looking recipes here. You can vote for a winner too and go in the running to win one of five $100 Universal gift cards. The winner of the Food Blogger Idol gets a three month paid food blogging job with Mamamia. What a great opportunity!

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It’s time for afternoon tea and you put the kettle on to boil for your favourite tea or coffee. You feel like a bit of a sweet treat, but there’s nothing in the cupboard that takes your fancy.

Scones would be the perfect afternoon tea treat, but you’re trying to be healthy and don’t have the butter or lemonade and cream to make them. What to do??

You do have a tub of Rachel’s Gourmet Yoghurt in the fridge.

Hey presto! Hot scones in an instant. Yep, really!

I would never have believed that scones could be made with yoghurt either, until I gave it a go. To make mine a bit more fancy, I added some chopped white chocolate, which caramelised beautifully on cooking. You could always add some chopped nuts too. Macadamias would be perfect! Why not make them extra special and add both?

The great thing about this recipe is how versatile it is. Change the flavour of the yoghurt to use what you have. I used the Black Plum and Roasted Fig, but the Mango and Madagascan Vanilla or Wild Strawberry and Rhubarb would be equally as wonderful.

This recipe makes about 10 scones, but it is so easy to halve or double, depending on how many scones you want. The mixture is quite wet, compared with normal scone dough, so it’s best to place spoonfuls on the baking tray, rather than trying to roll it out and cut with cutters. I think rustic looking scones are the best anyway!

Like all scones, these are best made and eaten while they are still warm. Whip up the jam while the scones are cooking and you’ll have fresh hot jam to go on top. Finish with another dollop of Rachel’s Gourmet Yoghurt and you have the perfect (almost) guilt free sweet treat.

Enjoy!

Yoghurt Scones with Quick Berry Jam

½ cup plain flour

½ cup SR flour

1 Tbs caster sugar

¼ tsp baking powder

½ cup chopped white chocolate

½ Rachel’s Black Plum and Roasted Fig Gourmet Yoghurt

2 Tbs milk

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Lightly grease a baking tray with oil spray.

In a medium sized bowl, combine flours, sugar and baking powder.

Stir through chopped white chocolate.

Add the Rachel’s Gourmet Yoghurt and stir until it starts to thicken and come together. There will still be a lot of dry mixture.

Add the milk and mix gently until the mixture comes together. If it’s too sticky, add a little bit more flour.

Tip out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead to make sure all the ingredients are combined and their aren’t any lumps of flour.

Take spoonfuls of the mixture and place on the prepared tray. You can make the scones big or small, depending on how indulgent you feel.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown on the outside. The chocolate will brown as it caramelizes, but it’s not burning.

Remove from the oven when cooked and allow to cool slightly on the tray.

Quick Berry Jam

150g mixed frozen berries

1 Tbs honey

Combine berries and honey in a small saucepan.

Bring to the boil, stirring to combine and then simmer for about 5 minutes, or until thickened.

Allow to cool a little before serving.

To serve your delicious scones, cut them in half, spread with a spoonful of jam and then dollop with extra yoghurt. Delicious!

Haloumi and Herb Stuffed Mushrooms

It's meat-free Monday again and I couldn't go two weeks in a row without using haloumi in my recipe! If that makes me a bit boring, well then so be it. Instead of just frying up the haloumi in slices, I did grate it and stuff mushrooms, so I was a bit creative!

The haloumi went all oozy in the oven and mixed with some herbs it tasted delicious with the juicy mushrooms. To top it off, a homemade red capsicum and cashew pesto made a dressing of sorts. A nice light vego meal to start the week.

Haloumi and Herb Stuffed Mushrooms With Red Capsicum Pesto

1 medium sized red capsicum

1 clove of garlic

1/2 cup toasted cashews

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1-2 Tbs olive oil

4 large field mushrooms

180 g haloumi, grated

A few sprigs each of oregano, thyme and parsley, finely chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

A few handfuls of baby spinach

To make the pesto, cut the capsicum in half and remove the stem, seeds and membranes. 

Place skin side up on a sheet of foil under the grill and grill until the skin is charred and blistered.

Wrap the capsicum up in the foil and set aside for 10 minutes to make the skin easier to remove.

When cool enough to handle, peel the blackened skin off.

Place the capsicum, cashews, garlic, oil to taste and lemon juice in a small food processor and blitz until combined but still a bit chunky. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add more oil if it seems too thick.

Set aside until you are ready to serve.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Place mushrooms on a baking tray and drizzle with oil. Bake for 10 minutes or until starting to soften and release their juices.

Meanwhile, combine the grated haloumi and finely chopped herbs.

Take the mushrooms out of the oven and pile the cheese and herb mixture on top. Grind some pepper on the top and then return to the oven.

Bake for another 10 to 15 minutes or until the mushrooms are soft and the haloumi is golden.

To serve, toss the baby spinach with some of the pesto and pile on to plates. Top with two mushrooms each and another few blobs of pesto.

Enjoy!

Kellermeister Melbourne Wine Dinner

On Wednesday night this week I was lucky enough to be invited to the Kellermeister Melbourne Wine Dinner. Held at the fabulous Arc One Gallery, attached to Cumulus Inc, it was a wonderful setting for some beautiful food and wine.

Kellermeister are a winery from the Barossa Valley who I have written about before. We love their wines and go to their annual tasting in Melbourne in August each year. This is the first time they have held a dinner and when I found out about it I jumped at the chance to go.

The evening started with a glass of the Boots sparkling Chardonnay Pinot Noir, a lovely drop of golden bubbles with a hint of citrus. The perfect aperitif.

The 40 or so guests were all seated at one long table in the spectacular gallery. The exhibition on display by Eugenia Raskopoulos, called Vestiges, was colourful and bright and set a happy mood for the diners.

The dinner was divided into four different brackets, showcasing two or three wines per bracket, matched with fantastic food from Cumulus Inc.

The first bracket showcased a couple of the whites from the Kellermeister range. There was the 2011 Reserve Eden Valley Riesling and the 2012 Rambling Ruins Eden Valley Pinot Gris. Served with the wines was a beautiful pressed chicken terrine with a creamy parsley sauce, radish and bitter leaf salad with candied walnuts and pear. The Riesling was crisp and dry with lots of lovely citrus acidity and a touch of honey. This was a beautiful wine to drink on it's own. The Pinot Gris was younger and more fruity with some nice minerality.  I found that the Pinot Gris matched better with the chicken terrine as the minerality perfectly complemented the creamy sauce. This was a delightful way to start the meal.

The second bracket showcased two of the Storyboard range of wines. The 2011 Funk Wagon GSM and 2013 Curtain Raiser Tempranillo were matched with prosciutto di Parma and aoili, Wagyu Bresaola, fried shallots and parmesan cream and a green bean salad with sweet mustard dressing. The GSM was full of blackberry and black plum flavours with a beautiful rounded mouthfeel. The Tempranillo was bigger and more complex with plenty of red berry and cherry flavours and fine tannins. Both wines complemented the salty, fatty meats and the creamy garlic aioli served with them.

The next bracket compared the three wines in the Threefold Farm series, named after the winemakers three children. The 2012 Threefold Farm Whiskers Single Vineyard Grenache, 2011 Missy Moo Single Vineyard Mataro and 2012 The Firstborn Single Vineyard Shiraz.  These lovely wines were matched with the most fantastic lamb I have ever eaten! A whole slow roasted lamb shoulder, falling apart at the bone with sumac marinated onion and lemon, roast potatoes with confit garlic and wheat and freekah salad with labne and barberries. I forgot to get a photo of the lamb before it was destroyed, so you'll have to trust me when I say it was delicious!

After tasting the GSM in the previous bracket, it was a nice comparison to try the three components as individual wines. The Shiraz was jammy with smooth tannins and lovely ripe fruit flavours. The Grenache more tannic, but still complex and fruity and the Mataro full of black plum and blackberry. All three of the wines complemented the lamb and the acidity in the onions and lemon and the nuttiness and creaminess from the grain and labne salad. A wonderful combination of flavours and textures!

The final course was a chance to let the big boys in the red wine stakes shine. I wasn't sure that cheese was going to be the best choice with these wines, but I was pleasantly surprised. The strong flavour of the sheep and goat's milk cheeses and the sweet, bold quince paste was the perfect way to finish a big meal. The 2012 Black Sash Old Vine Shiraz and 2011 Wild Witch Shiraz were our last two wines. The Black Sash is a big Barossa Shiraz, full of black fruits, grippy tannins and fine oak. The Wild Witch is Kellermeister's flagship wine and it doesn't disappoint. Dark and brooding, it is rich, complex and fruity. Just how a good Barossa Shiraz should be!

Thanks to Kellermeister for a wonderful evening of beautiful food and wine and great company. After the success of their first dinner, I think this will definitely become a regular feature on their events calendar. I am looking forward to catching up with the boys again at The Good Food and Wine Show this weekend and trying some other wines from the Barossa Valley while we are there.

Meat-free Monday

It's Meat-free Monday, which means another vegetarian meal in the eat quaff laugh household.
This time (shock horror!) I'm not cooking with haloumi, even though I really did want to!

Tonight I thought we'd go for vegie burgers with a bit of an Asian twist. I originally came across this recipe in a supermarket magazine and have made a few changes to it. The burgers are nice and dense, but not dry, due to the moist zucchini added to them. The chickpeas and cashews give a lovely texture and a bit of crunch. For extra crunch, roast the cashews first. I didn't have time today, but if you do, it's well worth the effort.

I used Jimmy's Sate sauce for the flavouring, but any sort of Asian curry paste would work well - Korma, red curry, Penang. Use whatever you happen to have a half used jar of in the fridge. The Jimmy's is quite strong, so I only needed one tablespoon. Depending on the strength of your paste, you might need a bit more. Add a little bit and then taste. It's easier to add extra than to try and take it away!

The zucchini adds some vegetable matter, but you could always use carrot, eggplant or sweet potato, if that's what you have. Harder vegetables will need to be grated first, otherwise they will be too chunky. The spring onions add a more Asiany flavour, but you could always use regular onion if you didn't want to go out and buy a whole bunch.

These burgers are really easy to make and because you need to set them aside in the fridge to firm up before you cook them, they are great made the day before. That leaves an easy fry up in the pan when you are ready to eat. For a slightly healthier version, spray with oil spray and bake in the oven until golden.

Serve the burgers in pita bread or your favourite wraps with the minted yoghurt, mango chutney and extra mint and salad leaves. They are also great on their own the next day, either cold or warmed slightly in the microwave.

Asian Vegie Burgers

2x400g tins of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup cashews, raw or roasted
1 medium zucchini, coarsely chopped
1 egg
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs
2 spring onions, trimmed and coarsely chopped white and green part
1 Tbs Jimmy's Sate or curry paste, or to your taste
A few large handfuls of mint
1/2 cup natural yoghurt
Salt and pepper to taste
Mango chutney, pita bread or wraps, mixed lettuce and extra mint to serve

In a food processor, combine chickpeas, cashews, zucchini, spring onion, sate sauce and mint. Whiz until coarsely chopped and combined. You still want a bit of texture, so don't over process.
Add 1/2 cup breadcrumbs and egg and blitz briefly to combine. Season to taste.
Shape handfuls into burgers and then press into remaining breadcrumbs to give a half coating.
Place on a linter tray and set aside in the fridge for at least 30 mins to firm up.
Heat a good drizzle of oil in a frypan over medium heat and cook for about 3 minutes on each side, or until golden brown.
To make mint yoghurt, combine yoghurt and chopped mint in a small bowl. Season to taste.

To serve, place pita bread on a plate, spread with mango chutney and top with a couple of burgers, a dollop of yoghurt, extra mint and mixed lettuce. Wrap up and enjoy.

Springhill Pantry Slices

As much as I love to cook and put my baking shoes on, sometimes a girl's just got to have a rest and get out of the kitchen!

Having a back-up store bought slice or cake in the cupboard can be great when unexpected guests drop in or when you've forgotten about that morning tea at work tomorrow and it's already 10pm! Of course, for those amongst us who aren't bakers, shop bought treats are more essential.

Not just any shop bought treats though. So often the store varieties have a long list of nasty ingredients or are so fluffy that they seem to be made of nothing. Not the sort of thing you want to serve up to someone for a special afternoon tea.

I stumbled across these Springhill Pantry slices at my local IGA last week and can't rave about them enough! They are made by a family owned company near Ballarat in Victoria and contain all natural ingredients. I must admit that the fact they were on special lured me into buying them, even though I didn't have any need for more sweets.

I bought one of each of the three flavours and still can't work out which is my favourite!

The Apricot, Apple and Hazelnut Slice is full of chunks of dried apple, apricot, coconut and whole roasted hazelnuts. A healthy dose of oats and chia seeds makes it more of a muesli slice. Not only is it great cut into squares, you can also crumble it up for an instant topping on poached fruit, layer with berries and yogurt for a breakfast trifle or stuff apples with the mix before you roast them. This slice was dense and solid without being heavy.  Great as a lunch box filler too.

The Raspberry and Almond Slice is richer and more soft in texture. The dried raspberries add some tartness to quite a sweet slice and the almonds add crunch. This one is definitely more indulgent. Again, the Raspberry and Almond slice is delicious on it's own, but you could also make it into a dessert by warming slightly and serving with a beautiful vanilla bean or fresh raspberry ice-cream. It would also be great served with some thick custard on a cold winter's night. Yum!

The last flavour in the range is the adults only Chocolate Brownie with Crimson Raisins. Nothing actually makes this adults only, but it's so rich and decadent that you wouldn't want to share it with the kids! Made like a proper brownie with couverture chocolate, cocoa and the juiciest raisins, it is just a delight to eat. Being so rich, a little bit goes a long way, so a small square or slice is enough. Feel like being even more indulgent? Serve little squares with a dollop of cream and fresh raspberries or warm in the oven with a rich chocolate ganache or sauce and serve with vanilla ice-cream. Your waist line might not thank you, but your tastebuds will!

At $12 each, the Springhill Pantry range is not cheap, but when you taste them and look at the quality of the ingredients, they are definitely worth it. They also come in large 350g packets so you do end up getting quite a few serves. Sure, you probably aren't going to pop them in your trolley every week, but for a special occasion, then why not?

Look out for them at your local supermarket. I'm sure you'll be as impressed with them as I was.

Put that kettle on and enjoy!