make these chocolate chip and pecan biscuits

yes they are delicious

nutty biscuits with dark choc chips

Makes 40

115g butter, softened

120g brown sugar

80g white sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 large egg

140g pecans - toasted and chopped quite finely so some are powder and the rest are small chunks

200g dark chocolate chips

175g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat the oven to 150C.

Cream the butter sugar and vanilla. Add the egg. Stir in the remaining ingredients.

Drop tablespoons onto lined trays. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until lightly golden on the edges. Cool on trays for 5 mins, then remove onto cooling racks

inspirationally over-ripe banana carrot bread with healthy intentions

full of bananas

full of flavour

80c for a whole pack of inspirationally over-ripe bananas

Sugar scaled back from 1 cup to 1/3 of a cup - still sweet enough for me

1 1/2 cups mashed over-ripe banana - I used 7 tiny bananas

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup olive oil

2 eggs

1/2 cup of dates, soaked for 10 mins in 1/4 cup of boiling water

1-1 1/4 cups grated carrot - from one large carrot

1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour

1/2 cup plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarb soda

1 tsp cinnamon, ground

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup chopped pecans/walnuts/pepitas/pumpkin seeds - I used pumpkin seeds

Preheat the oven to 160C fan forced. Line two small loaf tins with baking paper and spray the sides with cooking spray.

In a big bowl combine the banana, sugar, olive oil and eggs. Add the dates and carrot and mix well. Stir in the flours, baking powder and soda, cinnamon, salt and nuts.

Pour mixture into loaf tins. Bake for 30-35 mins or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in tins for 10 mins, then cool remove from tins and cool on wire racks.

These freeze very well.

gently poached chicken with basil mayonaise, with fennel and orange salad for a person who has been on a plane for 24 hrs

This is a very special meal. Make it for someone you love. I made it for mum on her return from Greece. It is delicious.

For the Poached Chicken

1 free range chicken

250mL verjuice

2 carrots, roughly chopped

3 stalks of celery, roughly chopped

3 small onions, cut into quarters

1 head of garlic, cut in half

3 dried bay leaves, crumbled

Small handful of fresh thyme

Small handful of sage

Handful of basil stalks

Salt and pepper

Place all ingredients into a large stockpot. Cover with cold water. Bring to the boil. Simmer gently for 5 mintues. Turn off the heat and leave the chicken in the water until cool. Remove the chicken from the stock. Drain the vegies from the water and keep the stock for another use.

Basil Mayonaise

2 cups of basil, tightly packed

3 egg yolks

1 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar

200mL olive oil

1 tbsp lemon juice

Blanch the basil for 30 seconds in boiling, salted water. Drain, refresh in cold water, drain well, squeeze out excess water. Pulse the basil in a food processor until finely chopped. Add the egg yolks and red wine vinegar and pulse again. With the motor running, add the olive oil in a very thin, steady stream until all incorporated. Season well with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Store in the refrigerator.

Fennel and Orange Salad

3 fennels, cut into wedges

Juice of half a lemon

2 oranges, zested, segmented, juice squeezed out of remaining pith and reserved

2 tbsp olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, finely sliced

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tbsp verjuice

Handful of fresh mint leaves

Preheat the oven to 180C. Place the fennel in a roasting tray, drizzle with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake for 30 mins or until tender and lightly golden.

In a small pan, gently heat the oil. Add the zest and garlic and cook until the garlic colours gently. Remove from the heat and add the orange segments, juice, vinegar and verjuice. Pour over the fennel. Decorate with torn mint leaves.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

ignore the recipe book asiany beefy salad - this is very nice

The recipe wanted me to make the dressing with plum sauce and balsamic vinegar. I obliged, tasted it, hated it, and consequently made up my own dressing --> success.

The trick to this dish is to have really nice beef, cooked rare. Very fresh crisp vegies, and a good sauce.

You could also add grated carrot, beansprouts... any crispy vegetable.

Serves two

1 nice piece of steak - I used a big porterhouse

Iceberg lettuce, shredded

Cucumber, cut into pieces

Generous handful of mint leaves, roughly chopped

Roasted, unsalted cashew nuts, roughly chopped

Chopped red chilli - as much/little as you desire

Wide flat rice noodles - cooked as per packet and left to cool slightly

Dressing

3 tbsp plum sauce

2 tsp sichuan pepper seasoning powder (i think it is szechuan pepper, paprika, salt, chilli)

White part of 4 spring onions, finely chopped

1 red chilli, finely chopped

Juice of one lime

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp soya sauce

Cook the steak on a very hot griddle until nicely charred on the outside, and still nice and rare in the middle. Leave to rest for at least five minutes, then slice into pieces.

Assemble the bowls by layering the lettuce, cucumber and noodles. Spoon some dressing over the noodles to moisten. Top with the Steak, nuts, mint and chilli and then more dressing.

If you want to get fancy you can have extra bowls on the table with more dressing, nuts, chilli and mint so people can season to taste. It would also be nice with a squeeze of lime at serving time.

Delicious

This would also make a really nice filling for fresh rice paper rolls.

beef in blankets ... because cabbage rolls sounds unappealing

Stuffed cabbage rolls courtesy of - you guesed it - smitten kitchen.

Pretty delicious.

Not excessively time consuming.

Unfortunately not looking amazingly appetizing. Must find a way to make them look pretty.

But tasting delicious - most important feature.

Where do cabbage rolls come from? Cabbage makes me think Germany, Russia... so maybe Eastern European? No idea

Serves 4-6 generously

1 cabbage (she said savoy, but I used a normal old green cabbage - savoy would have been prettier)

2 small brown onions, finely chopped

2 parsnip, grated

2 carrots, grated

2 sticks of celery, finely chopped

500g beef mince

3/4 cup white rice

3 tbsp tomato paste

Plenty of salt and pepper

Good home-made simple tomato sauce for poaching (tomato, garlic, butter, olive oil)

Green salad to serve

Cut the core out of the cabbage. Bring a large pot of water to the boil with a good pinch of salt. Put in the cabbage, turn off the heat and leave for 10 minutes. Drain the cabbage well.

Soften the onion in olive oil over a low heat. Add the parsnip, carrot, celery. Cook until soft and smelling delicious.

In a large bowl, mix together the onion mixture, mince, rice and tomato paste and season well with salt and pepper.

To make the rolls. Cut the core out of the leaves and roll up about 1tbsp of meat mixture. Try to roll it in the same way you would roll a spring roll.

Layer the rolls in a wide-based pan with a lid. They can be in two layers. Pack them in tightly. Pour in 1/2 cup of water and your tomato sauce to cover.

Put on the stove, bring to a simmer, put the lid on, and cook gently for 45 minutes. Keep an eye on it and top it up with water if it looks a bit dry. Be careful with it - burnt cabbage is horrendous.

Enjoy

take a little squid and put it in a salad (carrot salad!)

Grating. What isn't better when grated than chopped or whole? Grated cheese - better. Grated apple - better. Grated carrot - amazing. Grated chocolate - pretty tasty.

So.. grated carrot salad with middle-eastern-ish flavours and grilled squid. Pretty damn special.

Thanks again to smitten kitchen for the inspiration.

Sorry that the picture is so rubbish.. maybe, one day i will fix it. Maybe not!

Try this.

Tonight

This served 3 of us

3 large carrots, grated

2 tbsp flat leaf parsely, chopped

2 tbsp mint, chopped

100g feta, crumbled

3 tbsp flaked almonds, toasted in a pan until delicious and golden

2 large squid, tentacles included cut into bite sized pieces and scored

2 tbsp olive oil

2 crushed cloves garlic

1 tsp caraway seeds

1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 1/2 tsp harissa (find it in your gourmet deli)

3 tbsp lemon juice

Pita bread and rocket leaves to serve

In a pestle and mortar combine and bash the garlic, caraway, cumin, paprika. In a small pan mix together the oil, garlic paste and harissa. Heat over very low heat until fragrant. Pour into a small bowl. When cool-ish add the lemon juice and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Pour a couple of tbsp of dressing over the squid. Marinate at room temperature for 10-20 minutes (or not at all depending on how time pressed you are).

Mix together the carrots, herbs, almonds and feta.

Fry the squid in 1tsp oil over very high heat until just cooked. Dress the salad. You will probably not need all the dressing.

Serve the squid over the salad with pita bread and rocket leaves. Delicious

very rich burnt butter, pear and chocolate cake

Thank you again to Smitten Kitchen for this recipe.

Last day at the psychiatric hospital - I needed to take something with me. I was going to go back to old faithful choco brownies, but felt inspired by the bowl of pears on the kitchen bench.

This did not disappoint.

Almost more dessert than cake.

Would be great with some cream/ice cream as a bit of a foil for the richness.

Let it cool a touch before cutting it so the chocolate can set.

1 cup plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

pinch salt

3 eggs

115g butter

3/4 cup sugar

4 small pears, peeled and cut into 1cm dice

3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease and line a 9 inch springform tin.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside.

Put the eggs into a free-standing beater and mix on high speed until very very thick and pale (about 5-10 minutes).

Brown the butter by melting in a medium saucepan until brown bits form on the bottom and it smells nutty (about 6-8 minutes). It will help if you stir the solids off the bottom as it starts to brown. Keep in a warm place.

Add the sugar to the eggs. Beat for a few more minutes.

As the egg-sugar mixture starts to lose volume, turn down to 'fold' and add the flour and brown butter, alternating. Mix very gently for less than one minute or until combined. Do not overmix.

Pour the batter into the pan. Sprinkle with the chocolate and hte pear.

Cook for 40-50 minutes or until golden brown and springs back when touched. Test with a skewer.

Leave to cool for at least 10 minutes in the pan, before releasing. It is easiest to cut this cake when cool, but delicious when warm. Dust with icing sugar.