Feijoa season – Chutney, freezing, ice cream etc

There are plenty of feijoas coming off the trees this year. I understand in some countries these are called Pineapple Guavas, they are one of our favourite fruits.

What we are doing with them!

A very good friend of mine, the very lovely Diane :), sent me this recipe for Feijoa Chutney. I had been going to try another recipe but used this as it has alot of dates rather than an awful lot of sugar for sweetening. Its delicious and comes from Digby Law.

1kg feijoas

500 g onions

300 g raisins

500 g pitted dates

500 g brown sugar

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1 tablespoon curry powder

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

4 teaspoons salt

4 cups malt vinegar

Wipe the feijoas, trim ends and finely slice them by hand. Finely chop

the onions and coarsely chop the raisins and dates. Combine all the ingredients
in a large saucepan, bring to the boil and cook very gently for 11/2 – 2hrs, until

the chutney is thick. Make sure the chutney doesn’t catch on the bottom of the

saucepan.

Spoon into hot clean jars and seal.

Makes about 3 litres.

Feijoas freeze really well, simply scoop pulp out and freeze, I freeze in 1 cup and 11/2 cup bags for use in smoothies or baking.

Banana, Feijoa Ice Cream

Freeze 2 bananas and one cup of feijoa pulp till frozen. Remove and put in bowl of food processor. Leave 5 minutes to soften then add 3 tablespoons yogurt, 2 tablespoons cream (optional) and 1 tsp vanilla. Process till thick and ice-creamyish. This is so delicious I forgot to  take a photo before we ate it!

Fejoa and ginger jam recipe here I made it last year but have not made it again yet. It’s very nice.

Feijoa Cake recipe I make which came from Joan Spiller, this is delicious and I heartily recommend it!

Last year we tried drying feijoas but didn’t much  like them ourselves so haven’t done them this year but they were nice additions to things like Homemade Muesli, with figs and walnuts

Quinoa Chocolate and Coconut Balls….2 ways

Since going gluten free I have been baking for my husband but looking for other recipes to satisfy MY sweet tooth. There are many versions of these on the net, I looked at alot of them them then threw my own concoction together testing the flavours until I was happy with it. These are “cakey” in consistency but light, chocolaty but not too sweet or rich and they are yummy. This recipe made about 18 quite large balls, it could easily be halved.

2 cups cooked quinoa

1 cup dates

1/2 cup walnuts (or sunflower seeds)

2 tablespoons peanut butter

1 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoons cocoa

3 tablespoons coconut oil

1 tsp vanilla

1 – 1 1/2 cups (approx) coconut

extra coconut for rolling

Put the dates and walnuts in a food processor and process till crumbly. Melt the coconut oil. Add all ingredients to dates and walnuts, starting with the one cup of coconut. Process till a consistency of dough that can be formed into balls, adding extra coconut if mixture too soft. Roll in coconut and chill.

Chocolate Cranberry Quinoa Balls

The second time I made these I changed the recipe a little. I used 1 cup of quinoa, omitted the peanut butter, increased the coconut to 2 cups, added 1 cup of cranberries.

I chilled these then dipped in melted dark chocolate combined with 2 tsp coconut oil. Chill and keep refrigerated. These were wonderful too.

Uncle Howard’s Chocolate Ganache Tart: The Best Vegan (and healthiest) Dessert You Will Ever Eat

I made this (very un)sinfully delicious tart yesterday. For a taste of something decadent without the horror ingredients I’d urge anyone to try this 🙂 Made with walnuts, avaocado, coconut oil, cocoa, dates and I used honey as a sweetener – topped with a wee bit of cream it’s perfect.

Gluten Free Gus

Okay, gave you Chocolate Mousse with ginger crust, a dessert with traditional ingredients.  You’ll have fun trying this whether you eat a vegan diet or not. British brother-in-law Howard (check out his music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKO24MPVF7c) made it for us last summer, twice in fact, because it was so popular!  Trust me, it is rich and delicious enough to become a favorite.  Last night I texted the recipe to son Nathaniel who reported it was “insanely good.” I smiled when I checked the text to write this: my iPhone had autocorrected one of the ingredients: 1 Tablespoon vanilla “extravehicular.”  And so:

Vegan Chocolate Tart

7-9” tart pan with a removable bottom, lined with a circle of parchment paper.  The width of the pan will determine the thickness of the tart.  Straight sides work better than fluted.

Click Here To Print Recipe

INGREDIENTS

Crust:

8 oz. pecans, walnuts or almonds

6 oz…

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Lemon Poppy Seed Cake and Raspberry Clafouti

You could be forgiven for thinking we only eat sweets here – the following two recipes are a cake and a dessert. I am way behind in my posts, this cake was made a fortnight ago 🙂

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake:

4 tablespoons poppy seeds

1/4 cup milk

juice of 1 lemon

Soak the poppy seeds in the milk and lemon juice for 10 minutes.

200 g butter

1 tablespoon grated grind

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

2 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup sour cream, greek yogurt or milk

Preheat oven to 375 deg. Beat the poppy seed mixture, eggs, softened butter, lemon rind, sour cream and sugar till well blended. Add to the sifted flour and baking powder and pour in to a paper lined or well greased cake tin. Bake at 375 deg approx 35 minutes, till cooked and golden.

Syrup:

1/4 cup each of water, sugar and lemon juice.

Simmer in a pan 5 minutes then spoon over hot cake. 

Raspberry Clafouti:

I had been wanting to try this for a long time and found a bag of raspberries lurking in the freezer. This is so simple and sooo good.

500 g or 2 cups berries (any sort)

2 tablespoons sugar

125 g cream cheese or greek yogurt

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour, sifted

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to hot 200 deg C, 400 deg F. Put berries in the base of oven dish and toss with the first measure of sugar.

Beat cream cheese, sugar and flour till smooth. Gradually add combined vanilla, eggs and milk and beat till smooth. Pour over berries. Bake for around 20 – 25 minutes or till golden. Sprinkle with icing sugar (I didn’t have any).

Lemon Delicious pudding

Recipe and photo courtesy of http://www.taste.com.au.

I had to use their photo as my kitchen is too dim on winter evenings. This is, as the title suggests, delicious. It has a light, fluffy sponge on top and lemony sauce on the bottom. I added a little more lemon juice and rind to mine.

• 150g unsalted butter, melted
• 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1 1/2 cups caster sugar
• 3/4 cup self-raising flour, sifted
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 4 eggs, separated
• icing sugar mixture, to serve

Preheat oven to 175 deg C. Cream the butter, sugar and lemon rind. Add egg yolks and beat. Add milk, lemon juice and flour and mix on low speed. Beat the egg whites until stiff (but not dry) and fold into the mixture. Pour into greased oven proff dish which is sitting in an oven dish with hot water in. Place all in oven and bake for around 50 – 60 minutes till golden on top and sponge is set. Cool a little and dust with icing sugar, serve with cream or ice cream.

Crockpot Yogurt, yogurt “ricotta” and Labneh (Yogurt Cheese)

I have only bought yogurt sporadically this year and wanted to try making it. The net abounds with versions of crockpot yogurt and labneh, which looked too good not to try for a girl who likes her creamy things!!

I can access farm milk locally cheaper but do have to drive some distance to get it so thought I would just splash out, try everything and see how we went with it before I make a trip down to this farm. I will be making these alot, I am so pleased with how it turned out. The starter yogurt just has to be bought initially. You need 1 tub, or 1/2 cup for each litre of milk. These were 60c each and the milk $2.50 per lire carton. So, it cost just over 1/2 the price for 2 litres of greek yogurt (if not on special).  Postnote: I have been making this since this with normal dark blue lidded milk, for half the price again.

I do apologise for quality of photos, my kitchen is so dim. I didn’t take photos of the process either sorry.

I started with this:

Put the milk into a crockpot on LOW. Keep on low for 3 hours. After this time turn it off and leave it to cool until you can hold your finger in till the count of 10, between warm and hot! Take 2 cups of milk out and mix through the yogurt, return all back to crockpot and stir through well. Wrap the crockpot in a large thick towel (or blanket) and put in the oven WITH THE LIGHT TURNED ON, overnight or for up to 12 hours.

You then end up with this, 2 litres of yogurt. Very simple. Mine was quite thick already and thickened up more on refrigeration. This will last a week or so in the fridge. Remove and reserve 1/2 cup for each litre of milk you want to make into yogurt next time as a starter. You never need to buy the starter again.

I prepared a straining basket with 3 layers of cloth (I used a couple of linen teatowels) and placed over a bowl. I tipped just over a half of the yogurt into a cloth, refrigerated this for around 15 hours and ended up with a delicious soft curd similar to ricotta cheese with a slightly sharper taste. Delicious and just begging for a cake to be used on.

Some was taken off to eat like this and the rest returned to the basket for another 8 hours.

If making Labneh straight from yogurt it is suggested to leave draining for 24 hours.

Labneh balls:

With oiled hands take off golf ball sized pieces and roll into balls, roll in fresh herbs if wish, and place gently in a sterilised jar. Cover with olive oil as you do each layer. The balls will last refrigerated for at least a couple of months.

The whey has also been saved to use in smoothies. I have seen suggestions it can be used in place of buttermilk.

Easy Berry Pie

I make this quite a bit and last night added fresh cranberries. This was divinity on a plate!

One thing I never mind paying for is pastry, any sort – because mine is just never good and food should be enjoyed, not suffered lol

31/2 – 4 cups mixed berries (fresh or frozen)

1/2 cup sugar

2 good tablespoons cornflour (corn starch)

1 tsp lemon rind, or juice

1 quantity sweet shortcrust pastry

Preheat oven to 200c. Toss berries with other ingredients in bowl, mix well to combine. Turn into pie dish, cover with pastry and prick with a fork. Bake around 15 – 20 minutes till golden.

We use whatever berries are in the garden and quantities are not important. The addition of strawberries is always very nice and this one last night had raspberries, strawberries and cranberries. My husband commented it was absolutely the best ever. Even dried cranberries added to whatever else I expect would be very similar.

Fig and Ginger Crumble

Our figs are maturing on the tree and we still have some in the freezer from last autumn so these needed to be used. And I felt like a good old fashioned pudding – fruit crumble. This does not rate in the healthy, traditional diet plan we have been trying to follow but…yeah no buts, I just wanted some 🙂

I decided to try some ginger in the crumble mix to complement the flavour of the figs, this was very good! And I am sorry but no photo as it was eaten before I realised I should’ve taken one to post!

Poach figs in a sugar syrup until soft and place in a deep pie or oven proof dish.

In a whiz put:

I cup of flour

1 tsp baking powder

good 1/2 tsp ginger (or more to taste)

2 tbspn brown sugar

3/4 cup white sugar

pinch salt

100 g butter.

Whiz until combined and similar texture to breadcrumbs. Tip out on top of fruit and pat down with hands or back of a spoon. Bake 375 deg (180 c) until golden, around 35 – 40 minutes.

Serve with cream, custard, greek yogurt or ice cream.

Easy Raspberry / Fruit ‘Ice Cream’

I make this often. I usually have a bag of frozen banana pieces in the freezer in which I can just add any other frozen or canned fruit I have. Yesterday was raspberries, grown in summer and frozen free flow.

Just put frozen bananas (1 per serving is generous) into a kitchen whiz along with whatever other fruit you desire – I used around 1/2 cup of raspberries. The fruit must also be frozen. If you wish you can add 2 tablespoons of sweetened fruit yogurt or a little sugar or honey.Whiz for 2 – 3 minutes until it’s smooth and creamy. That’s all there is to it. Last week I made this with tinned mangoes, just drained and froze them for an hour and added 2 tablespoons of apricot yogurt. It was absolutely delicious. Now I am trying to cut down on food buying I didn’t have yogurt so just sweetened with a wee bit of honey.

Bananas make a great base for frozen desserts. Just banana on it’s own done this way make a very good whipped cream alternative, I have seen similar recipes on the net with all sorts of ideas. What I will be trying soon is chocolate and walnut – bananas, cocoa, little honey and vanilla whizzed, and chopped walnuts folded in.

The bananas lose much of their flavour done in this way and you really just get the flavour of whatever fruit you are adding.