Baked Potatoes with Feta and Peas.

Mmmmm, the May Cuisine Magazine was all about potatoes. How can that be bad?

It was hard to decide which recipe to make! I went with the baked potatoes in the end as I find it hard to resist any recipe with feta in it (feta and potatoes!).

Sadly, I’m afraid I can’t rave on about this dish. It was nice but rather dry. I think if I tried it again I’d mash the potato flesh with a bit of butter before adding in the rest of the ingredients.

The recipe below has been reduced to serve two people.

Baked Potatoes with Feta and Peas

Serves Two.

Ingredients

• 2 large floury potatoes, well scrubbed
• 70g feta, coarsely crumbled
• 1 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 TSP of lemon zest
• 1/2 a spring onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 tablespoon chopped flat-leafed parsley
• 1/3 cup peas, which have been brought to the boil and boiled 1 minute then drained
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• extra virgin olive oil for sprinkling

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Place the potatoes side by side on an oven tray and bake for 1 hour until very tender.

2. Meanwhile, put the cheese, garlic, zest, spring onions and parsley into a bowl, mix well and reserve.

3. When the potatoes are cooked, slice the tops off each, scoop out the flesh with a teaspoon, mash it and mix with the cheese mixture, without breaking up the pieces of cheese too much. Use the flesh from the sliced off lids but discard the skin of the tops.

4. Add the peas, mix again, taste, season with salt and pepper and pile the mixture back into the potato shells. Sprinkle well with oil and place back in the oven for 15 minutes until well browned. Remove from the oven and serve. Serves 4-6.

To view the original recipe (Serves 6) please go to Cuisine

Pumpkin Soup

It’s cold, it’s rainy and I don’t have to go to work. Today is the perfect soup day.

And for me, soup also means scones. I made cheese and corn scones to go with the pumpkin soup.

Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

• 1kg of raw pumpkin (about half a medium pumpkin)
• 1kg of raw potato
• 3 cups of vegetable stock
• Extra water
• 3 gloves of garlic
• 1 onion

1. Remove seeds and skin from pumpkin. Chop and put into large cooking pot with 3 cups of vegetable stock.

• Tip for removing pumpkin skin: Wash the skin, chop roughly and put in pot of stock and potatoes. After the pumpkin has boiled for about 5 minutes remove the pumpkin. You will be able to remove the skin easily. Chop pumpkin into smaller pieces and return to the pot.

2. Peel and wash potatoes. Cut into chunks and add to the pumpkin and stock mix.
3. Add extra water to the pot until it covers all the ingredients.
4. Sautee garlic and onion at a low heat in a frying pan. Add to soup pot.
5. Boil for about 20 minutes or until the pumpkin and potato are cooked.
6. Remove half of the mixture and mash (with potato masher or blender).
7. Return smooth mixture to the soup pot, stir in.
8. Serve with salt and pepper (tastes good with sour cream).

Cheese and Corn Scones

Cheese and Corn Scones

Thanks to the Edmonds Cook Book for the base of this recipe.

Ingredients

• 3 cups of flour
• 6 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 50g of butter
• 1 1/4 cups of milk
• 1/3 cup of grated cheese
• 1/2 cup of frozen corn kernels
• pinch of cayenne pepper

Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Rub butter into flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add milk, cheese, corn, cayenne pepper and mix quickly to a soft dough with a knife. Lightly knead. Lightly dust an oven tray with flour. Press scone dough out onto this. Cut into 12 even-sized pieces. Leave a 2 cm space between scones. Brush tops with milk, place a small amount of cheese on top. Bake at 220C for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 12.

Tip

• If you’d like your scones to be round and shaped nicely. Use a drinking glass (floured rim) to press down on the dough and cut out the scones.

Fun in the Kitchen

Thomas and I and a couple of friends formed two cake making teams. The idea was that each team would make something fun/interesting or excessive within the time allowed.

Our team produced a damn impressive pizza cake (complete in Pizza Hut box!).

The Pizza Cake was good. Banana cake with fruit toppings and white chocolate ‘cheese’. Possibly sacrificed a unified flavour for cosmetic design, but I believe it still worked well.

Their team came up with the equally impressive Chocolate Excess special (chocolate, chocolate, chocolate). It was a feat of structural engineering, two cakes separated by chocolate pillars!

The Chocolate Excess cake – well, it was just excessive. Chocolate cake with baked in chocolate chunks and chocolate peanuts, topped by real chocolate icing, chocolate girders, and chocolate decorations. It was nice, but maybe a tad chocolaty. Best taken in small doses.

It was meant to be a competition but we decided that we all won. After all, we all had cake.

Porridge

As you may have noticed from my June What Kim Ate round-up my day normally starts with porridge.

Thomas makes a lovely porridge with currants, dried apricots, almonds and sunflower seeds. The nuts and seeds are a good source of Vitamin E.

Ingredients:
(for two people)

• 1 cup of whole oats
• 2.5 cups of water
• 4 dried apricots
• 6 almonds
• handful of currants
• A dessertspoon of sunflower seeds

Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan. Bring to boil and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Stir and Serve.

I don’t put any milk or sugar on it as it’s nice just the way it is. Thomas likes to add a teaspoon of jam to his.

Potato Leek and Corn Soup

I love having dinner parties and have come to the conclusion that most (all if possible) preparation for a meal should be done before the guests arrive.

I made this soup in the afternoon, Thomas made garlic bread and wrapped it in foil. I also did the prep work for the baked apple stuffed with dried fruit and pecans.

The original instructions are from www.elise.com.

My parents (the guests!) asked for the recipe afterwards which is always a good sign. I did make some changes (added corn) and have included the altered version of the recipe below.

Ingredients

• 2 large leeks, sliced into rings.
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 4 or 5 cups of vegetable broth/stock
• approx 8 medium potatoes
• Salt & Pepper
• 1.5 cups of frozen corn
• Tabasco sauce or other red chili sauce

Preparation

Cook leeks in butter with salt and pepper, cover pan, cook on low heat for 10 minutes. Check often. Do not brown leeks! Browning will give leeks a burnt taste.

Add water, broth, and potatoes. Cook for 20 minutes. Scoop about have of the soup mixture into a blender, puree and return to pan. Add a dash of chili sauce to taste – about 1/4 teaspoon. Add corn and continue to boil until corn is cooked (about 5 minutes).

Serve with garlic bread.

Baked Apple Stuffed with Dried Fruit and Pecans.

I found this recipe at Epicurious and it’s a lovely winter dessert, especially when you don’t want to go completely over the top with the calories!

The recipe (full instructions below) suggested gala apples but I used Granny Smiths which were good as well.

It also recommends using an apple corer, I agree. I didn’t and fortunately I walked away with all my fingers. It was a close call.

Ingredients

• 4 (6-oz) red apples such as Gala or Rome Beauty
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup finely chopped dried apricots
• 2 tablespoons dried currants
• 2 tablespoons chopped pecans, toasted
• 2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter (1/2 tbs softened and 1/2 tbs cut into 4 pieces)
• 1/2 cup unfiltered apple cider
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup low-fat vanilla or maple yogurt

preparation

Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Core apples with corer. Stand apples up and make 4 evenly spaced vertical cuts starting from top of each apple and stopping halfway from bottom to keep apple intact. Brush inside of apples with lemon juice and stand apples in a ceramic or glass pie plate.

Toss together apricots, currants, pecans, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl. Rub softened butter into dried-fruit mixture with your fingers until combined well, then pack center of each apple with mixture. Put a piece of remaining butter on top of each apple. Pour cider and vanilla around apples and cover pie plate tightly with foil.

Bake in middle of oven, basting once, until apples are just tender when pierced with a fork, about 40 minutes. Remove foil and continue to bake until apples are very tender but not falling apart, 20 to 30 minutes more.

Transfer to serving dishes and spoon sauce over and around apples. Serve with dollops of yogurt.

Compare and Contrast

The fridge at our homestay in Xela, Guatemala.

The fridge at our place in Whangamata, New Zealand.

I suspect I’m addicted to dairy.

Mousetraps with Asparagus

(Or how to get your asparagus fix in winter)

You will need:

• Four pieces of bread (wholegrain recommended)
• One can/jar of asparagus spears
• About 100gms (3-4 oz) of cheddar or another good melting cheese
• A grill (broiler for the US folk)
• Salt and pepper grinders

Preparation:

• heat the grill
• thinly slice the cheese
• drain the asparagus

Method:

1. Toast one side of the bread under the grill.
2. Remove the bread and arrange the asparagus spears on the non-toasted side.
3. Put the sliced cheese on top. If you’re as picky as me you’ll leave no part of the bread uncovered. This also helps avoid burning.
4. Place the mousetraps back under the grill. Leave them there until the cheese is bubbling and starting to brown.
5. Remove, add salt and pepper, eat. Don’t burn the roof of your mouth!

I think the Americans call this grilled cheese. I’ve always called them mousetraps and I assume this comes from the theoretical appeal of bread and cheese to mice.