Breakfast Banana Cream

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Bananas, Breakfast, Coconut Yogurt, Vegan, Yogurt

I know I said that we were going to skip the G is for Good Health section in the A-Z of Cooking because I had already made the Cheese and Date Bread. Then I remembered that the banana cream I have been eating for breakfast for weeks came from this same section. And for those of you who care about such things my favourite version is also vegan because guess what? The Banana Cream contains no cream. That’s 1970’s health food for you.

So pretty. And it’s delicious too. And so easy to do. It takes all of about 30 seconds to make .

But first a little digression. They…whomsoever they may be…say that you are what you eat. It might be why health food often gets such a bad rap. I mean who wants to look like the burghul salad which is the first recipe featured in the G is for Good Health section of the A-Z of Cooking.

So back to breakfast and the no-cream banana cream. This tastes and feels rich and luscious so you can almost feel a bit decadent when eating it. The basic recipe for the banana cream is bananas, yogurt, honey, lemon and crushed nuts. I have played with this for a number of weeks now and my favourite combination is to use coconut yogurt and maple syrup. The one highlight of that time I did Paleo was discovering coconut yogurt. OMG that stuff is the BEST. Shame it is so hideously expensive. At the time I looked into making it and it can be done relatively easily. I’ll add that to the to do list! And maple syrup is one of my favourite flavours. Its so good. But you can use plain yogurt or honey – whatever your favourites are.

I have also eaten the banana cream as a topping for granola and swirled into warm oatmeal //porridge and it is good with both!

I have used walnuts as the nuts in these pictures but almonds are also good. Sub in whatever you like. Or, if you hate nuts, use a sprinkle of granola for a lovely crunch!

I’m not overly fond of bananas but I have eaten the banana cream a couple of times a week for a few weeks now and there is no sign of it going off high rotation. I make the serving size below and put half in a container in the fridge for the following day – it keeps quite well overnight. Quick, versatile, delicious so simple and healthy to boot! So much nicer than that burghul salad!

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Breakfast Banana Cream

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A quick, easy and healthy breakfast dish. Vegan optional.

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

1 large banana
125ml coconut or plain Greek Yogurt
2 tbsp maple syrup or honey
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp toasted walnuts or almonds

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Instructions

Place the banana, coconut yogurt, maple syrup, lemon juice and half the nuts into a food processor.
Blitz until just combined.
Spoon into serving dishes and sprinkle with the remaining nuts.

I feel that the A-Z of Cooking has given us two very simple recipes in a row. Next time we head there it should be for the Gourmet section. I have semi-chosen what I am going to cook and it involves a deep fryer so I am going to have to beg, borrow or steal one sometime soon. And if gourmet food and deep frying don’t quite go together in your mind, remember it was the ’70s – all sort of things happened that made totally no sense. Deep fried gourmet food was the least of their worries!

Have a great week!

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21
Feb
2016

REPOST – Strawberries in Grand Marnier with Mint Sugar

categories: 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Mint, Strawberries

The good news, is that with this post, we are done with the letter F in the A-Z of Cooking. The chapter heading promises that we will be “Finishing with Flair”. The bad news is that without seeming like Mary, Mary Quite Contrary right from the get go, another F word springs to mind when I consider the contents. Except for these Strawberries in Grand Marnier. They were good! Although how could a combination of fresh sweet strawberries combined with luscious orange liqueur with mint as it’s cheerleader not be delicious?

We’ll get to them later. However, back to Finishing with Flair – we have already mentioned this so called Mango Mousse. The picture of which contains bananas, oranges, passionfruit, eggs and nuts. The recipe below has none of these. The Mango mousse recipe actually sounds really nice. Maybe I am just being a brat for not making it. Then again, if they can’t be arsed putting the right picture with the recipe, what are the chances that recipe will turn out?

That fear of 1977 desserts not being all they were cracked up to be was born out when I made the Continental Chocolate Squares featured on p28. The picture from the A-Z of Cooking is on the left, with the Squares looking rather decadent. Mine are on the right looking a lot more Raggedy Anne. I think I tried to cut them when the chocolate topping was still too hard from being in the fridge and I could not get a nice clean line. Maybe I should have glammed them up by adding some candlelight!

What both of these pictures fail to convey is the overbearing sickly sweetness of the filling. It contained 4 cups of icing sugar which was far too much! I love sweet food but this was way too much for me and prompted the fussiest eater in the world to ask if I was trying to put him into a diabetic coma. It is a shame that the middle layer was awful because the base which was chocolate and walnuts and biscuits was quite nice. It is probably worth someone spending some time on trying to get that filling right because this could have been amazing. I just don’t think that person will be me! Although, now I kind of want to. So maybe it will rear its head in another incarnation down the track.

There was a lovely sounding recipe in this section for French Cherry Fritters. This is the one I would have loved to make but you had to deep fry the fritters and I do not have a deep-fryer. This however is one I am going to:

a) Play around with until I can perfect a baked version

b) borrow a deep-fryer. i think my mum has one.

Until then, it’s Strawberries with Grand Marnier. Adding the mint sugar was an idea I borrowed from Sabrina Ghayour in Persiana. She makes a number of herb sugars to sprinkle over fruit and now it is something I do all the time!

I served this with some white chocolate dipped almond bread which was every bit as delicious as it sounds!

Initially I thought this might be a bit too simple to blog about – soak some strawberries in booze. And done.

And it is very simple. But sometimes that is all you need to finish a meal with flair!

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Strawberries in Grand Marnier with Mint Sugar

Print Recipe

A simple way to finish your meal with flair!

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

1 punnet of strawberries
2 tbsp Grand Marnier
Handful of mint leaves
3 tbsp caster sugar
White Chocolate Dipped Almond Bread to serve (optional)

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Instructions

Halve the strawberries and place in individual serving dishes.
Sprinkle each dish with 1/2 tbsp of Grand Marnier.
Leave to stand at room temperature for at least an hour.
Meantime, make your herb sugar.
Place your mint and your sugar in the bowl a mortar and grind with your pestle until them mint is finely ground and well combined with the sugar, which will be a lovely green.
Alternatively, place both in your food processor and whiz until you achieve the same effect

Notes

You could use basil instead of mint. Or a mix of basil and black pepper.
Any Orange flavoured liqueur could be used instead of Grand Marnier.
Any left over herb sugar can be used to rim a cocktail glass, or used in place of regular sugar in anything else you are making – I’m thinking lemonade would be amazing.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 4

Ok so that’s F done.

Coming up we have G is for Good Health. I have actually already made the Cheese & Date Bread from this section so we may skip it altogether as there is not much else to get excited about. So, possibly our next venture into the A-Z will be The Gourmet’s Touch. Ooh la la. Exciting times ahead! Possibly.

Have a wonderful week lovely people and this week, what ever you do, I hope you finish it with flair!

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14
Feb
2016

REPOST – Speedy Soufflé for Valentines Day

categories: Desserts, Eggs, Fruit, Passionfruit, Valentine's Day

Hello friends, I am in the middle of cooking something new for you for Valentine’s Day, however, it is 4:00 pm and I just read the part of the recipe that says part of the recipe needs to set overnight. As tomorrow is a working day, I am not sure if I will be able to finish cooking and write up a post in time, so like all good tv cooks, here is one I prepared earlier. This post for Passionfruit Soufflé was originally published in 2014! However, it somehow made its way back into my drafts folder.

Ready to take a trip back to 2014?

Lets do it!

I made my very first soufflé. For you, for Valentine’s Day.

And it’s filled with passion – fruit.

I’m not sure why it has taken me so long to make a soufflé. I have some vague childhood memories of eating cheese soufflés and them not being very nice. Then again, I ate nothing for two years except vegemite sandwiches so my judgement was possibly awry. But those memories and the soufflé’s reputation for being notoriously temperamental might be the reasons I have stayed away. After all, the soufflé come with more rules and regulations than the driving handbook:

Don’t beat the eggs too little
Don’t beat the eggs too much
Don’t fold the egg whites too roughly
Don’t open the door of the oven
Don’t make loud noises or sudden movements
Don’t look it directly in the eyes

Etc, etc.

What they don’t tell you is this. You can have a decent soufflé cooked from scratch and on the table in less than 20 minutes. So let’s get started.

Butter and sugar coat your soufflé dish. When you butter your dish, brush the butter from the middle of the dish to the rim and then up the sides of the dish. This creates tiny channels that helps the soufflé to rise. Seriously this works.

When you are ready to start mix your egg yolk, half the sugar and the passionfruit juice in a bowl until light and creamy.

Then mix your egg white and sugar to soft peaks.

Then fold the yolk into the white. Gently does it here. A little streaky is fine. Then pour into your prepared soufflé dish.

Now, into a preheated oven for 12 minutes. So we’re not tempted to open that door and ruin our “ahem” hard work, let’s talk about romance. After all it is Valentine’s Day.

True Romance

The last few Valentine’s Days I have given you some horror stories. Not so this year. This year we are talking about two very special romantic moments in my life.

Let’s start with my first ever boyfriend. We started going out when I was 15 and he was 16. There was a local park we used to frequent to get away from prying parental eyes and ears. So, one Sunday afternoon we rode our bikes down to said park and headed towards our favourite bench to have a kiss and a cuddle. We had not been there long when, from down the hill we heard some children screaming “Help, help, Angus has fallen in the lake”.

Well, he took off down that hill, and jumped in, fully clothed to save what we assumed was a drowning child. Turned out Angus was a labrador puppy who had been quite happy paddling around the shallows and had not even noticed the distress of his young owners. Semi disaster averted and there was a little swoony dripping wet with tight tshirt moment. Made only more adorable by the squirming puppy in his arms!

Young love. My hero. And a puppy. Life did not get much better!

So move forward…..a few ~~decades~~ years to the fussiest eater in the world. A few weeks ago we were walking the dogs by the lake and noticed that one of the ducks had become entangled in some fishing wire and was only able to move in a tiny circle. And cue the second Mr Darcy moment of my life.

Not only did he jump into the lake (it was only calf-deep so no wet shirt here) but he unwound the fishing line from the duck’s leg then we noticed there was also some line knotted around its beak and neck. It was really knotted and tight he ended up having to bite through it! It was both amazing and kind of gross. That lake water is pretty dirty and I was expecting him to get sick from swallowing even a little bit of it. (He didn’t).

These moments may not have involved hearts and roses but for me were two of the most generous-spirited and selfless acts I have seen. And that is true romance!

(2022 note, the beagle in this picture is Lulu, not Holly.)

Back to the Soufflé

OK, our 12 minutes is up and the soufflé is out of the oven. Quickly dust with icing sugar, add a dollop of passionfruit pulp over the top and serve immediately. Your souffé will start to deflate from the time it comes out of the oven so speed is of the essence here.

And then tell me when the love heart lollies of our childhood took a step into the digital age? Not only are they now using Twitter….

But also Tinder!

Swipe left on that! But swipe right on my Passionfruit Soufflé!

The Recipe – Passionfruit Soufflé

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Passionfruit Soufflé

Print Recipe

A delicious passionfruit souffle that can be on the table in about 15 minutes!

Author: Taryn Fryer
Prep Time: 4
Cook Time: 12
Total Time: 16 minutes
Yield: 1 1x

Ingredients

Scale

1 egg, separated
21/2 tbsp caster sugar
1 can passionfruit in syrup, you will need 1 tbsp of syrup
icing sugar to dust
melted butter to grease the souffle dish
1 8cm souffle dish

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Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180C.
Butter the souffle dish, spreading the butter from the middle of the dish up the sides. Scatter a tablespoon of sugar into the dish tipping it all around the insides until it is entirely covered.
Strain the passionfruit syrup into a dish, you will need a tablesppon of liquid. Reserve the seeds for later.
Place the syrup with the egg yolk and half a tablespoon of sugar into a bowl and beat with an electric beater until light and creamy.
In a separate bowl beat the egg white to soft peaks, then add the remaining sugar, a little at a time until the mixture is glossy and holding it’s shape.
Using a metal spoon, fold the whites into the yolks. A light touch is needed here, you want to keep as much air in the mixture as possible. It is better to have the mixture a bit streaky than to have it over mixed!
Spoon the mixture into the prepared dish to just below the rim then run your thumb around the rim to totally clear it of any sugar, souffle mix etc that will prevent rising.
Pop the dish onto a baking tray and bake for 12 minutes.
Do not open the oven during this time.
Remove from oven. They are done when a finger touched lightly on the top comes away clean but there is still a slight wobble in the middle.
Quickly dust with icing sugar and add a dollop of the reserved passionfruit seeds and some additional syrup.
Serve immediately.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 2

Have a wonderful Valentine’s day! And don’t forget to spare a moment to moment to say thank you to the everyday heroes in your life, the people saving dogs and ducks and generally making the world a better place. If you have a spare 15 minutes why not make them a soufflé?

07
Feb
2016

REPOST -Belly Stuffed Rainbow Trout & Orange Salad

categories: Books, Fish, Holidays, Orange, Persiana, Salad

Hello Friends!

Today we are celebrating Lunar New Year, and the Year of the Monkey with a delicious belly stuffed rainbow trout. Lunar New Year, often called Chinese New Year is celebrated all over Asia, and all over the world via the Asian diaspora. It is a time for families to get to together, for the exchanging of gifts and of course food.

I read this article in Serious Eats recently and as soon as I read that whole fish was a common item at Lunar New Year dinners I knew exactly what I wanted to cook. I have been waiting for an occasion to make Sabrina Ghayour’s Belly Stuffed Rainbow Trout for AGES and this seemed like a perfect opportunity. Fish is considered lucky for New Year, particularly at the Reunion (New Year’s Eve) Feast because the word for carp sounds like the words for good luck and gift.

Now I know some of you might be a bit freaked out by cooking / serving a whole fish. And believe me, I used to be right there with you. If you do not like the idea of a whole fish, you could certainly pan fry or bake fillets of rainbow trout and serve with the stuffing mixture. However, in Chinese symbolism a whole fish represents togetherness and abundance.

But first, let’s talk Chinese Astrology. We are about to enter the Year of The Monkey. Famous people born in Monkey years include Leonardo Da Vinci, Elizabeth Taylor, George Lucas, Charles Dickens, and Lord Byron. Gillian Anderson is also a Monkey. Dragging that list down a notch or two from the great and the good, other monkeys are Miley Cyrus and me!

What can you expect in the Year of The Monkey?

It is a year to act, to innovate and to take your destiny into your own hands. However, the recklessness of the monkey also cautions us to think before we act so do not be too hasty in making decisions. Setting clear goals is important this year. The monkey is also a sociable creature so this is a good year to nurture and expand your relationships with those around you.

Belly Stuffed Rainbow Trout

I guess I should have made something a bit more Asian to celebrate however Sabrina Ghayour’s recipe for belly stuffed rainbow trout is delicious at any time of the year! Incidentally a rainbow trout is the only fish I have ever actually caught for myself.

The fussiest eater in the world is a keen fisherman (yet curiously cannot eat anything he catches; he just throws them back). A few years ago we rented a holiday house in the mountains and one afternoon set out to go berry picking. Well the berry farm was closed but the trout farm was open. He went to the most difficult area and started catching fish left, right and centre. I was content to read my book but, seeing how easy it looked said that I would have a go. Well. We slowly moved from the most difficult to the next most difficult to the next most difficult, ending up in what was basically a wading pool. The four year olds (who were the only other people using this pond) and I eventually caught our fish. Then I cried because I felt bad about killing something. But my rationale was “If I’m going to kill something then I ‘m damn well going to eat it” so we stopped on the way home and bought some almonds and I made us a lovely Trout Almandine for dinner.

He refused to eat it. Which resulted in a blazing row where the phrase “I killed a fish for you. How can you not eat it?” and variations there of were thrown around the room. Miraculously his piece of trout stayed in the pan and not over his head!

Lesson learned. This time, we bought a trout.

The stuffing is a very tasty and gorgeously colourful mix of spring onions, pine nuts, garlic, chilli, coriander and preserved lemons.

Sabrina’s recipe from the wonderful book Persiana is below:

My notes on this recipe were that even though I halved the stuffing ingredients because I was only cooking one trout I still had a lot of it left over.

This is not really an issue as it is totally delicious and I had the following ideas for the remainder:

Scatter over cooked vegetables
Add a little olive oil and toss through pasta, maybe with some crispy breadcrumbs
Serve on flatbread crisps with a dob of hummus as an appetizer
Stir through rice for a pilaf effect
Sprinkle onto mushrooms and grill.

Or you could just do what I did and just eat it by the spoonful while waiting for the fish to cook!

Orange & Arugula Salad

To serve with my Belly Stuffed Rainbow Trout, I made a very simple orange, black olive and rocket (arugula) salad. Citrus fruits are a symbol of prosperity, good luck and abundance and lettuce symbolises spring. So, despite not having Asian flavours my salad has come celebratory significance.

It’s almost too easy to call a recipe but here we go:

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Orange, Olive and Arugula Salad

Print Recipe

A delicious, fresh and simple salad that is a perfect accompaniment to seafood.

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

100g rocket / arugula
1 orange
handful of black olives
1 tbsp orange juice
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
S&P

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Instructions

Place the rocket in a salad bowl.
Segment the orange removing all peel and pith. Do this over a bowl so you catch the juice – this can be used for the dressing
Toss in a handful of black olives

For The Dressing

Mix the orange juice, lemon juice, olive oil and seasoning to taste.
When ready to serve pour over the salad

Notes

You can fancy up this salad with any //all of the following

Chopped toasted walnuts or pistachios
Toasted pinenuts
Pomegranate seeds
Thinly sliced fennel
Thinly sliced red onion
A smattering of feta
Some tarragon leaves

Some other lucky foods to serve at Lunar New Year include:

Spring rolls represent gold bars
Celery for wisdom
Plums for mental acuity
Dumplings for wealth
Long Noodles for a long life.

My work is celebrating tomorrow with a yum-cha lunch. Bring on the dumplings!

Lunar New Festivals will continue until 22 February so you have plenty of time to join in the celebrations.

Just for fun, I took some fortune cookies to a family dinner and we all chose one to pick our fortune for lunar new year. This was mine:

If you are celebrating Lunar New Year, or even if you are not, you are all my garden of roses and I wish you all a year of joy and abundance!

Have a wonderful week. I’m off to eat my weight in dumplings!

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05
Feb
2016

Dishiest Dish – Apricot and Rhubarb Frangipane Tarts

categories: Apricots, Books, Dish of The Week, Dishiest Dish, Pastry, Rhubarb, Tarts, TV

It’s been a while since we have had a dishiest dish – I thought it was timely that we had look at some I had cooked successfully! I made these Apricot and Rhubarb Frangipane Tarts over the break. They were pretty easy to make and tasted delicious!

And who says you can’t play with your food? These are perfect for a little game of tic-tac-toe!

Or you can give them to people you like as little kisses and hugs. Valentine’s day’s a-coming. Why give someone flowers when you can give them some delicious almondy fruity deliciousness?

Who doesn’t love

Crisp buttery pastry – no soggy bottoms here!
A lovely sweet almond filling
The apricots and rhubarb, both of which have a natural tanginess help to make the tarts not too cloying or heavy.
An amaretto and apricot glaze

Never mind saying it with flowers. Proclaim your love with pastry!

My Six Week Challenges

This year, instead of setting a series of resolutions, I was inspired by my friend Ali to try a series of smaller challenges over the course of the year. I started mid-January with 6 weeks of no alcohol. The start of February sees me trying to build a meditation practice! I am aiming for 42 days straight of meditation. I haven’t figured out what I will pick up in mid-Feb but that’s half the fun – deciding what to do next! Hopefully some things I will stick with and some things I may do another six weeks later in the year!

Reading

I have been on a reading binge – I have had a real spurt of books I have enjoyed.

Disclaimer by Renée Knight

Imagine if you started reading a book that had mysteriously appeared in your house only to find out the book was about you. Specifically about you and an incident from your past which you have kept hidden from everyone – and the only other person who knew about it is a long time dead….

I would give this one a 7/10. The plot required a hefty suspension of belief on a couple of major points but all up, a fast paced enjoyable read.

All These Perfect Strangers – Aiofe Clifford

I loved this. But I am a big fan of the mystery set in academia. The Secret History is one of my favorite books and there are some similar themes here. This is not released until March – I was given a free copy for review but it is certainly one I can heartily recommend.

Funnily enough, the book in Disclaimer was called The Perfect Stranger. It was a really weird but totally cool coincidence!

9/10

The Grown Up – Gillian Flynn

This short story (it’s just over 6O pages on my Kindle) has more twists and turns than a spiral staircase. I loved it. And you can read it from start to finish in about an hour!

9/10

Luckiest Girl Alive – Jessica Knoll

Another outsider goes to posh school – mayhem ensues book. I did tell you I had a thing for them. Do not read this if you are one of those (annoying) people who has to like the main character in a book. Tifani/Ani in Luckiest Girl Alive is awful! She’s shallow and self obsessed, snarky and mean. I am about three quarters of the way through this and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I hope the end is not a let down.

I just noticed three out of the four of them mention Gone Girl. And have black, white and yellow covers. I’m sensing a zeitgeist.

Watching

Come Dine With Me

I started watching old episodes of the British Come Dine with Me on the telly over the break and am now utterly obsessed with it. I soon exhausted all the episodes available and am now mainlining episodes on You Tube.

The best part is the narrator. He is hilarious.

Oh and there was a series of episodes with my girl-crush Sabrina Ghayour of Persiana fame.

Pointless

Another British show. This is like a reverse Family Feud where people try to guess the least popular answers to a question, the goal being trying to get an answer that whilst correct, no one in the studio audience chose. It would be a fairly run of the mill quiz show if not for the hosts – host and co host who are just delightful. Charming, witty. Smart. I could watch the two of them banter all day!

The XFiles

So excited about this. We were a week behind the States so are only two episodes in. And it’s been great. Even though I have been watching the classic episodes, when I heard that theme music and saw that they had kept the old intro I got almost a little teary….

Other Stuff

Nigella

And speaking of getting a little teary, I went to see Nigella Lawson in conversation. She was brilliant. There a not many people for whom I would stand in line for and hour and a half just to get a book signed by she was worth every minute.

Now, how about a recipe for these babies?

This week I am looking forward to cooking:

Chicken, Feta and Zucchini Meatballs from my latest Tasty Reads Choice, Life in Balance by Donna Hay. We have our meeting in a few weeks and I feel I have not done this book justice. Time to get cracking!
A Biscotten Torte from the A-Z of Cooking
Tomato, Peach, Proscuitto and Mozzarella Salad. I am the only person in my family who likes fruit mixed in with salads that are not fruit salads. Does that make me weird? Or them?

Time to share. What are you enjoying reading / watching / doing?

What was the best thing you cooked this week?

Whats top of your list to cook next?

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Category: Fruit

Breakfast Banana Cream

Ingredients

Instructions

Strawberries in Grand Marnier with Mint Sugar

Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Nutrition

True Romance

Back to the Soufflé

The Recipe – Passionfruit Soufflé

Passionfruit Soufflé

Ingredients

Instructions

Nutrition

What can you expect in the Year of The Monkey?

Belly Stuffed Rainbow Trout

Orange & Arugula Salad

Orange, Olive and Arugula Salad

Ingredients

Instructions

For The Dressing

Notes

You can fancy up this salad with any //all of the following

My Six Week Challenges

Reading

Disclaimer by Renée Knight

All These Perfect Strangers – Aiofe Clifford

The Grown Up – Gillian Flynn

Luckiest Girl Alive – Jessica Knoll

Watching

Come Dine With Me

Pointless

The XFiles

Other Stuff

Nigella