Evie's Rainbow Cupcakes

Firstly I just want to say how devastated I am to see yet another natural disaster, my heart goes out to all those affected.

A couple of days ago Sweet Pea's Kitchen posted some very colourful cupcakes for Mardi Gras. Although I am not interested in Mardi Gras celebrations I did think these cupcakes were so cute.
I really love cooking with my daughter Evie and thought these would be perfect to make as some afternoon entertainment.

Firstly we made a basic vanilla cupcake mix and then divided into three before adding in the food colouring. Evie chose pink, purple and yellow.

I used ziplock bags to pipe the batter in careful layers in some Tinkerbell cupcake cases. Then we baked.

They came out so beautifully, a really special treat. Actually Evie only had a nibble as she doesn't really like to eat cake - lucky her (but she does like the batter!).

Mini Meatballs in Baked Eggplant with soft Pecorino

This recipe came about because we bought some gorgeous soft pecorino at the markets. I searched for recipes using soft pecorino and this one came up on the blog of Bakers Corner. I thought it looked fantastic and eggplants are amazing at the moment.

The only change I made to the recipe was to half the eggplants (rather then take a small slice off). I then removed the eggplant filling, seasoned them and drizzled with olive oil before baking at 180 for about 20 minutes. When I make this again I will bake for an extra 10 minutes as they were slightly underdone.

The meatballs are made in a similar fashion to my normal meatball recipe where you add bread that has been soaked in milk to the mixture. It is amazing what this adds to the texture, they are so light and fluffy.

The removed eggplant is chopped up and sauteed with some spring onion before the browned meatballs are mixed through with some freshly chopped basil.
This is then added to the prebaked eggplant cases along with some freshly chopped tomato and little pieces of soft pecorino. I then baked them at 200C for 20 minutes.

This was a really delicious dish, all the flavours complemented each other well. I will be cooking it again!

Pan Fried Vegetable Dumplings

For the past year my husband and I have been attempting to live more 'green'. One aspect of this is waste, and each week I buy only vegetables we need for specific dishes I have planned to cook. It is so rewarding to come to the end of the week and have an empty vegetable tray.

So as you know earlier this week I made baked rice paper spring rolls and I knew this would result in extra chinese cabbage and mushrooms in our fridge so I also planned to make vegetarian dumplings. I was inspired by 'For the Love of Cooking' and their gorgeous post for 'pot stickers'.

For the filling it was very similar to my spring rolls with chinese cabbage, carrot, mushroom, garlic, ginger, coriander, peanuts and red onion. I seasoned the mix with a little oyster sauce and sesame oil.
I bought the refrigerated round dumpling wraps from an asian grocery store. They are filled and then folded in half to a moon shape, sticking together with a touch of water.

I added the dumplings to a very lightly oiled hot pan and let them brown before adding a little water, putting the lid on and allowing them to steam.

My husband made up a delicious dipping sauce to serve.
I really loved them, I honestly shouldn't have a 'help yourself' communal plate as I just kept on eating and eating....

Persian Pomegranate Soup

I saw this recipe for Persian Pomegranate soup a couple of weeks ago on the Morsels and Musings blog. It looked and sounded really interesting to me. I think I have tried pomegranate before but I have never bought them, actually the taste was very familiar and I think the flavour is similar to cranberry.

It is a very hearty stew with pomegranate juice, pomegranate molasses, lamb, beetroot, split peas, basmati rice plus loads of fresh herbs and spices. I was unable to find Aleppo pepper so I googled it and found a substitute - 4 parts sweet paprika and 1 part cayenne pepper. I used lamb chops and included the bones but actually it is more suited to lamb diced (like the recipe says!). I also used part pomegranate juice from the fresh pomegranate and part pomegranate juice from a bottle (it was slightly sweetened).

The flavour was really interesting, sweet and sour at the same time. I liked my first few mouthfuls but only once the complex flavours lingered in your mouth were you begging for more. I just kept going back to the pot! I really liked this dish, and I am so glad I cooked it, as it is different to anything I have tasted before.

Baked Rice Paper Spring Rolls and Small Carrot Cakes

What a busy couple of days I have had! Soon I must do a catch up post with snippets of some of the fantastic things I have been cooking :)

Last night I baked spring rolls with rice paper, I was inspired a by the yummy and healthy looking rolls on Bike Bake Blog. I sauteed a little garlic, ginger and spring onion before adding chilli, chopped mushrooms (oyster, enoki and king brown), chinese cabbage and grated carrot along with some oyster sauce. I also crushed up some peanuts and mixed through once cooled.

Once assembling I baked for about 30 minutes until nice and crunchy on top. I served with a dipping sauce of soy sauce, kecap manis, sesame oil, rice vinegar, sesame seeds, garlic and ginger.

These were really delicious, the filling was so moist and tasty. The rice paper doesn't give you as nice a crunchy texture as a typical deep fried spring roll but they were much healthier and still lovely.

I also made little carrot cakes for my friend who dropped by yesterday. She does not eat vegetable oil, dairy or egg yokes so I adapted from a recipe in my collection.

They were deliciously light and full of flavour. I was really impressed at how well they turned out. As far as cakes are concerned they were really healthy.

Carrot Cakes with Lemon Glaze (6 small - double the recipe for 1 cake)

1/4 cup wholemeal flour
1/4 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup raw sugar
2 egg whites
2 tbsp canola oil
1 grated carrot
1 small tin (200g i think) pineapple, crushed and drained
1/4 cup chopped pecans

Lemon juice (1/2 juicy lemon)
1 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp water

Preheat oven to 180C and grease (i used canola oil) an appropriate tin - I used a friend tin.
Mix together the dry ingredients and then mix the egg whites and oil in well. Stir in the grated carrot, pineapple and pecans. Bake for 20 minutes (whole cake will take longer).
Let cool for a couple of minutes before pricking with a fine metal skewer and placing on cake cooler.

Meanwhile I boiled briefly lemon juice, water and icing sugar. Spoon a teaspoon of the hot glaze over each warm cake.

Nigella's Toad in the Hole

In Nigella Kitchen there is a recipe for Toad in the Hole. Although I have seen this made on the many cooking shows I love to watch I have never made it myself. So when I saw this recipe I really wanted to make it, and I am so glad I did.

After squeezing out sausage meat into patties and browning them off, you pour over a simple egg, flour and milk batter. It goes in a very hot oven for apparently 40 minutes, I opened the door at 25 minutes to find this amazing creation! I couldn't believe it when it rose so high out of the pan, it looked amazing.
As you can imagine I couldn't stop taking photos :)

It also tasted really yummy, my husband was most pleased at it reminded him of the yorkshire puddings he had eaten in England. It definitely looked like little toads in a big hole!

Roast Pumpkin, Caramelised Onion, Chilli and Feta Turkish Pide

I saw the recipe for this Turkish pizza on the beautiful Delicieux blog and knew straight away that I would make it.

The yeast dough (which i kneaded myself - i have no machine to do the work for me!) is risen and then flattened into an oval shape ready for the filling.

I kept with the same toppings of roasted pumpkin, feta, chilli and onion, the only change being I caramelised the onion first.

It was amazingly delicious. The flavours were perfect together and the bread worked really well.
I was so pleased and will be making this one again.