Chocolate Cranberry Pumpkin Breakfast Bars

If you've been following this blog for a while, you'll know that each month I like to play along at the Secret Recipe Club.  The club has over a hundred members, divided into four groups, and each month one member is assigned (in secret) to another member from their group.  That person then selects a recipe (or more) to make, photograph, and prepare a blog post - all in secret.  Then everyone in the group posts their recipe on the same day, and of course the secret is then out.  It's a always a thrill to find out who has posted something from your own blog, and is a great way to meet and discover some new blogs.   If you are a food blogger and interested in joining the Secret Recipe Club, be sure to check out the Join SRC page.

This month I was assigned to  A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures, hosted by Christine, who says she has been in the kitchen since she could see over the counter-top.  Christine's cooking and baking took a healthy twist a few years back when she joined Weight Watchers and lost about 100 pounds - wow, just wow!  Christine loves to cook healthy, low-fat fare for her husband and dog, Missy, and she even appeared on Emeril Live with her Elegant Sweet Potato Skins.

Christine's blog has an easy to use recipe index (something I always like to see on a good blog), which made searching through the hundreds of recipes she has posted very easy, and there were plenty of great looking dishes that appealed to me.  I've bookmarked a few to try at a later date:  Roasted Mushroom & Goat Cheese Alfredo, Portobello Stroganoff, (clearly I have a thing for mushrooms and pasta), and Peanut Ginger Stir-Fry over Soba Noodles.  In the end though, I'm always looking for something for a quick and easy breakfast-on-the-run, and it was Christine's Cranberry Pumpkin Breakfast Cookies that were calling to me.

I'm ashamed to admit that breakfast, along with a cup of coffee, is often something that happens in the car on the way to work these day, so these were ticking all the right boxes for me - packed with enough wholesome goodness to see me through to lunchtime, and very portable.

I did make a couple of very small changes to the original recipe.  Firstly, the recipe calls for canned pumpkin puree.  This is something which is simply not available in my country, so I steamed up some fresh pumpkin and then mashed up the required amount.  Secondly the recipe uses egg substitute, but I just used a regular egg.  Also I didn't have all the spices that Christine used in her recipe, so I just swapped it out for mixed spice.  And lastly, because I am an inherently lazy person, instead of spending time forming the mixture into little balls to make cookies, I just pushed the whole lot into a slice tin and made them into bars.

These bars have great texture, with nice bits of crunch coming through from the toasted quinoa and sunflower seeds, and lovely bursts of flavour from the cranberries.  I don't have a particularly sweet tooth, but did feel I would have liked a little more sweetness, and next time around (yes there will definitely be a next time) I'm going to try adding a bit of honey or maple syrup.  This time around though I added a chocolate topping.  This added just that little something I was looking for, and let's face it who doesn't want to start the day with a little bit of chocolate!  This also enables you to pass off what is really a very healthy little snack as something slightly more indulgent - "put some chocolate on top of it and they'll never know they're eating something healthy" are words to live by!

Chocolate Cranberry Pumpkin Breakfast Bars Recipe
Adapted, just barely, from this recipe
from A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures

For the bars:
1 cup pureed pumpkin
1/4 cup apple sauce
2-1/2 teaspoons mixed spice
2 cups jumbo rolled oats
1/2 cup toasted quinoa
1 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg, lightly beaten

For the topping:
100g (3-1/2 oz) cacao butter, gently melted
30g (1 oz) cacao powder
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
pinch salt

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F), and lightly grease a 32cm x 18cm (13in x 7in) slice tin.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all of the ingredients for the bars.  Once everything is thoroughly combined, empty everything into the slice tin and press well, evening out the surface.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes (mine took about 18 minutes), until golden brown.

Remove from the oven and set tin on a wire rack.  Leave to cool completely.

Mix topping ingredients together well, pour over the top of the slice, and then set in the fridge until the topping has set.

Slice into bars and enjoy - on the run or at your leisure!

I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I did, and visit the links below to check out all the other great dishes my Secret Recipe Club friends made.

An InLinkz Link-up

Sicilian Artichoke & Broad Bean Salad with Saffron Dressing - Salad Days # 1

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs our theme is Veggie Variations - our mission to choose any one of Diana Henry's meat-free, veggie filled dishes, of which I can tell you she has many.  I've had her Sicilian Artichoke & Broad Bean Salad with Saffron Dressing recipe, from A Change of Appetite, bookmarked for ages and, since artichokes and broad beans are two of my favourite vegetables, this seemed like the perfect time to make it.

The fact that this "veggieccentric" meal (though I did sneak in some anchovies) is also a salad, that salad of any description just happens to be my favourite meal of any kind, that it offered a riot of colour on a grey and gloomy day, and that it delivered a sublime combination of flavours and textures (which is always the benchmark of a great dish for me), meant that this dish ticked every conceivable box for me.

In fact, I love salad so much that I've decided that I am going to make a different salad (and I'll try to post as many of them as I can) every day for the whole month of February - that's 28 days of salad.  I'm pretty excited about that, and because there can never be too many salads, I'm also giving you the opportunity to share some salads of your own.  I'll be posting more details tomorrow and I'll also be putting up a linky which will stay open for the whole month, so if you have a salad that you'd like to share (on any day or every day) feel free to join in.

Now back to the salad at hand.  This was everything I dreamed it was going to be.  The saffron plays a lovely earthy background note to the sweetness of the honey and orange in the dressing, and its flavour infuses the artichokes beautifully.  The textures of the artichoke and broad beans, provide a great base to the little flavour explosions that come from the oranges and raisins, chilli, capers and anchovies.  No two mouthfuls are the same.  The orange was my own addition to things here, as were the capers and anchovies, but they are the very first things that come to mind when I think of Sicily so in they went.  I left out mint and pine nuts because I didn't have them on hand, and honestly I didn't miss them, but all manner of herbs and nuts would be great add-ins.

I ate the whole thing on my own as a substantial meal, though you could probably stretch it to feed a couple of people for a lighter meal such as lunch.  Of course, this would also be great as an accompaniment to a larger meal, especially something that would sit comfortably with big bold flavours;  personally, I found it didn't need anything more than a good pinot noir.

Sicilian Artichoke & Broad Bean Salad with Saffron Dressing Recipe
Adapted from recipe by Diana Henry
from A Change of Appetite
Serves 1 as a substantial main meal or
Serves 2 as a light lunch or
Serves 4 as an accompaniment to a larger meal
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
generous pinch of saffron stamens
1 teaspoon runny honey
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
3 to 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
zest and juice of half an orange

generous handful of raisins
1 cup frozen broad beans
6x large artichoke hearts, bottled or canned
olive oil
1x garlic clove, roughly chopped
1x green chilli, finely sliced, deseeded if you prefer
generous handful of capers
6x anchovies, roughly chopped
zest and segments of fruit from the other half of the orange

Put lemon juice, red wine vinegar and saffron threads into a very small saucepan, and heat gently until the saffron begins to release its colour and fragrance.  Remove from the heat and cool slightly.  Pour into a small jug and whisk in the honey, salt, pepper, orange juice and zest, then whisking constantly slowly drizzle in the extra virgin oil until you reach a nicely emulsified dressing consistency.  Taste and adjust to your liking.  This should have a good balance of sweet and savoury.

Cut artichoke hearts into quarters, place them in a bowl and pour over the dressing.  Set aside for at least an hour if you can manage it for the flavours to infuse.

Put raisins in a small bowl, and cover with boiling water.  Set aside for about 30 minutes until the raisins have plumped up.

Put frozen broad beans into another small bowl, and cover them too with boiling water.  Leave to stand for 5 minutes, drain, then remove and discard the tough greyish skins.

Heat a slosh of olive oil in a small saute pan over medium heat.  Add the garlic, chilli, and capers to the pan, and saute until fragrant and the capers are slightly crispy.

Arrange artichoke hearts on a serving platter.  Scatter around the broad beans, raisins, orange segments and anchovies.  Sprinkle over the sauteed garlic, chilli and capers.  Drizzle liberally with the dressing from the artichokes, and finish with a final sprinkling of grated orange zest.

If you would like to get to know Diana Henry a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links (who knows, you might even want to join the journey and cook along with us) ...

... or check out A Change of Appetite and Diana's many other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.

I'm also sharing this at Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays, hosted by my very lovely friend Deb at Kahakai Kitchen, and at Weekend Cooking, hosted by the lovely Beth at Beth Fish Reads.

Roasted Apricot Frozen Yoghurt

It's not that we're giving the gorgeous Diana Henry the cold shoulder so early in our relationship at I Heart Cooking Clubs, but we are giving her a bit of a frosty reception this week.  Yes, we're going "Icy Cold" and coming up with all manner of icy, chilled and frozen treats.

Now, I've told you before, I'm sure, that my dessert of choice pretty much any time of year is a frozen one, so I needed little encouragement to break the ice cream maker out of the cupboard and get churning.  Since I love ice cream, and Diana has loads of ice cream and sorbet recipes in her repertoire, making a bit of frozen magic together seemed inevitable.

My favourite new cookbook, A Change of Appetite, offered lots of gorgeous sorbets which have now been bookmarked, but it was the Greek yoghurt and apricot ice cream that took my fancy.

When apricots are at the height of the season, I usually roast them in batches with a little butter and brown sugar.  The butter and brown sugar more or less turns to caramel and the flavour of the apricots really intensifies.  Then I freeze them in batches to use in ice creams and smoothies all year long.

In the original recipe Diana uses dried apricots and stews them in apple juice, before pureeing and mixing with the yoghurt.  With summer (and apricot season) just around the corner, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to use up one of my remaining bags of roasted apricots.  Diana recommends straining the pureed apricots, to avoid getting "bits" in the ice cream, but I'm personally a bit of a fan of the bits - it reminds me that I'm eating something with real fruit in it - so my apricots got a simple blitz with the food processor only.

When I made this Roasted Apricot Gelato, way back when, I didn't really think it could be improved on.  But I can honestly say that this frozen yoghurt version is a distinct improvement.  I love the slight tartness of the yoghurt with the richness of the roasted apricots.  The yoghurt and creme fraiche provide all the creaminess you would normally get from a custard based ice cream, and is a whole lot quicker and easier to make.  I also like to think that this is a healthier option than a regular ice cream - that may possibly be deluded, but I like to believe it.

Roasted Apricot Frozen Yoghurt Recipe
Adapted from recipe by Diana Henry
from A Change of Appetite
Click here for the free recipe card

6x medium-large fresh apricots
brown sugar
butter

400g (14 oz) Greek yoghurt
4 tablespoons creme fraiche
2 tablespoons runny honey

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).  Cut apricots in half - remove and discard the stones.  Place apricots cut side up in an ovenproof dish that is just big enough to fit them quite snugly.  Sprinkle each apricot half with a little brown sugar, and top each with a small knob of butter.

Place in hot oven and roast until the apricots have softened and started to collapse, and the sugar and butter have merged with the oozing fruit juices to become almost the consistency of caramel sauce.

This will take about 30 minutes, and it is helpful to baste the fruit with the juices half way through.  Allow to cool completely then, using a food processor or stick blender, blitz to a puree.

Add yoghurt and creme fraiche to the apricot puree and blitz again until combined.

Churn the mixture in a ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instruction.  Halfway through the churning process, drizzle in the honey.  Serve straight away or freeze for a few hours to firm up.

If you would like to get to know Diana Henry a little better, and to see what everyone else has cooked up this week, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links (who knows, you might even want to join the journey and cook along with us) ...

... or check out A Change of Appetite and Diana's many other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, or Fishpond NZ.

I will also be submitting this post to Sweet New Zealand.  Inspired by Alessandra Zecchini, and hosted this month by Lesley at eat, etc ..., Sweet New Zealand is an event for all Kiwi bloggers (whether living at home or abroad), or all foreign bloggers living in New Zealand, to link up their sweet treats.

Pan Fried Fish with Harissa & Rose Petals and A Taste for the Exotic

If you're one of my regular visitors, you will know that my absolute cooking hero is the highly inspirational Yotam Ottolenghi, and one of my favourite cookbooks is "Jerusalem: A Cookbook".  Good thing then that this week is Potluck week at I Heart Cooking Clubs, which means that we can cook any recipe we like from any one of our ten IHCC chefs, and for me that means checking back in with Ottolenghi.  It also means reconnecting with my friends in the Tasting Jerusalem group, where our special ingredient this month is harissa.

Now, I'm not going to tell you all about harissa here or tell you how to make it - I've done all that before and you can read all about it here.  I am however going to seriously recommend you do have a go at making some though, whether you use my recipe or Ottolenghi's (which is on page 301 of Jerusalem if you happen to have it).  Yes, store bought is fine, but seriously a very small investment in ingredients, effort and time will yield a substantial quantity.  It freezes really well, and once you've used it you will always want to have some on hand.

Wondering where or how you might use it?  Then check out some of these dishes in which I've used harissa for a little inspiration ...

Harissa Marinated Tarakihi with Lemony Couscous & Tzatziki
Braised Eggs with Lamb, Tahini & Sumac
Shakshuka
or try a little Green Harissa.

Now before I move on to telling you about this dish, I want to talk a little bit about a few unusual ingredients, and some great new finds.  This is really more for the benefit of my Kiwi peeps, so everyone else please feel free to skip the next paragraph or so.  Of course, those of you who live in the main centres of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch are pretty well catered for when it comes to trying to track down unusual ingredients.  In fact, just yesterday, on a flying visit to Auckland, I discovered the Persian Trading Co on Mt Eden Road, where I found dried Persian limes, barberries, and dried rose petals, ingredients I had been trying to find for a long time.  So, if you happen to live nearby, this little Aladdin's Cave of wonderful ingredients is well worth a visit.

If, however, you happen to live in the provinces, as I do, and if your tastes tend to run to the exotic, as mine do, then sourcing more unusual ingredients can be challenging.  We usually have to turn to online resources and I recently discovered a great online supplier called Global Foods Direct.  They have a fantastic selection of products (including my beloved kosher salt) that I can't get where I live, their prices are reasonable, and they were a pleasure to deal with.  They will definitely be getting a lot more orders from me!

Now back to the dish.  In his introduction to this recipe, Ottolenghi says, "This dish originates from Bizerte, the northernmost city in Africa.  It is sweet and spicy and beautifully aromatic."  He's not wrong about that.  While this is cooking your kitchen will smell amazing, a world away from the usual kind of 'fishy" cooking smells you might encounter.  Ottolenghi also suggests that this dish can be served warm or at room temperature.  By virtue of the fact that dinner in my house is presently made in the middle of the afternoon in order to capture an even half way decent photo of it (I know you can all relate), mine was indeed room temperature.  I don't think it suffered any for that though, in fact I think it probably benefited from the opportunity for all the flavours to develop and mingle in the meantime.

This dish offers an intriguing combination of flavours, which you might not normally think to put with fish.  There is of course the obvious kick of heat from the harissa, some warming spices by way of some cinnamon and cumin, acidity from vinegar balanced out with sweetness from some honey, sharp, tangy bursts of flavour from barberries (which I used in place of currants), and the exotic fragrance of rose water and rose petals.

This would be a great dish to serve for company - it's quick and simple to prepare, and yet a combination of unusual ingredients and visual appeal will make it a stand-out dish.

My changes to the recipe were minimal - just subbing in barberries for currants as I already mentioned, replacing onions with leek (as that is generally my allium of choice), increased the amount of harissa a bit, and just adjusted a few other quantities to suit.  This would serve two people as a substantial main course, with some rice or couscous and a simple spinach salad, or four as a lighter meal.

Pan Fried Fish with Harissa & Rose Petals Recipe
Adapted (slightly) from recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi
from Jerusalem:  A Cookbook
Serves 2 to 4
Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

400g (14 oz) firm-fleshed, white fish (I used snapper)
2 tablespoons harissa
1 heaped teaspoon ground cumin
pinch of flaky sea salt

2 tablespoons olive oil
plain flour
1 leek, cut in half lengthwise, then thinly sliced crosswise
2 tablespoons harissa
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup water
1-1/2 tablespoons honey
rosewater (between 1 teaspoon & 1 tablespoon depending on your taste)
generous handful of barberries (or currants)
large handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped
1 to 2 teaspoons of dried rose petals

Begin by marinating the fish.  Cut the fish into serving size portions.  In a small bowl, mix together the first measure of harissa, cumin and flaky sea salt, to make a paste, and rub it all over the fish, making sure it's well coated.  Set aside to marinate for approximately 2 hours.

Set a large, non-stick frying pan over medium heat, and add olive oil to the pan.  While the oil is heating dust the fish liberally, both sides, with flour and shake off the excess.  Add the fish to the hot pan (working in batches if necessary), and cook the fish until golden and not quite cooked through - about 2 minutes on each side.  Remove fish from the pan, retaining the oil in the pan, and set aside.

Add the sliced leeks to the pan, and saute gently, stirring from time to time, until they are completely softened - about 5 minutes.

Add the second measure of harissa to the pan, along with the vinegar, cinnamon, a generous pinch of flaky sea salt and plenty of ground black pepper.  Add the water, stir to combine everything well, reduce the heat and simmer gently until you have a fairly thick sauce - about 10 minutes.

Add the honey, rosewater and barberries to the pan and simmer for another minute or two.  Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking.

Return the fish to the pan, spooning some of the sauce over the top, and simmer gently for a few minutes until the fish is warmed through - add a little more water if your sauce has become too thick.

Remove from heat and sprinkle over the coriander and rose petals.  Serve with plain rice or couscous.

If you would like to get to know Yotam Ottolenghi a little better, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and see what they've all cooked up ...

... or check out Jerusalem and Ottolenghi's other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK or Fishpond NZ.

Have a look also at what my "Tasting Jerusalem" friends have been doing - you'll find plenty of other great uses for the harissa you now have in your spice cupboard, along with other interesting ingredients as well. (“Tasting Jerusalem is a virtual cooking community exploring the vibrant flavors and cuisine of the Middle East through the lens of “Jerusalem: A Cookbook” by Ottolenghi and Tamimi published by Ten Speed Press. You can follow along and cook with us by subscribing to omgyummy.com, following the hashtag #TastingJrslm on Twitter and Instagram, liking our Facebook page or joining our Google+ Community and finally checking out all of our groups’ dishes on Pinterest.”)

I'll also be sharing this post at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely, and very amusing, Michelle at Ms. enPlace, at Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads, and at Foodie Friday hosted by Designs by Gollam.

         

Roasted Strawberry Custard Tarts

This week at I Heart Cooking Clubs, we continue cooking with the gorgeous Donna Hay, and our theme for the week is Easy Entertaining ... or, put another way, how to entertain effortlessly without finding yourself crying over spilt custard.

Now let me begin by telling you that I actually love to entertain.  The nurturer in me, the one who loves to feed others, enjoys nothing more more than a group of friends or family around my dinner table, and the opportunity to fill them with as much food as I can manage.  There is no amount of effort that seems like too much trouble to me.

Where it all goes off the rails for me is dessert.  No matter how much I love to cook and entertain, I hate making dessert.  There are people I know who see this part of the meal as the opportunity to really shine, to pull out all the stops and go for something truly spectacular ... I'm not one of them.  Dessert terrifies me.  It definitely has to be something which can be made the day before, so that a fall-back position can be found if it all goes wrong.  So dessert at my house will usually be some homemade ice cream or sorbet (one of the few things I'm actually quite good at, thanks to the trusty ice cream machine), maybe a pavlova (yes, on a good day, I can manage to turn out a passable pav, though I've had my failures there too), or a simple fruit platter.  Anything else really ... forget it.  My hands down favourite dessert is a Citron Tart - never made one, as there is way too much that can go wrong with that.  Second favourite dessert is my Dad's steamed pudding - never made that either, since there is the terrifying possibility that it will be either under cooked or over cooked, and worse still might completely fall apart when turned out of the pudding basin.  And that would just be downright embarrassing, especially when you're going for that "Ta Dah" moment.

So, although there were literally dozens of "Easy Entertaining" meal ideas I could have chosen from any one of my Donna Hay books (in fact nearly everything Donna produces fits that criteria perfectly), I thought that I might challenge myself, and Donna, to see if she could come up with an easy entertaining dessert idea that I could manage to put together without it all going horribly wrong.  It had to be suitable for preparing the day ahead;  it had to be easy enough for even a "dessert-dunce" to create;  and it needed to look spectacular, or impressive, or at the very least pretty.  And, I've got to say, between us we very nearly pulled it off ...

Flicking through my copy of Marie Claire Dining by Donna Hay (now published as Donna Hay Entertaining), I came across her recipe for Portugese Custard Tarts.  The recipe sounded achievable (even for me) ... store-bought flaky pastry, so no making pie crust (always a bonus);  the custard filling seemed simple enough;  and I could see that these could be made the day before - in fact you could even make the tarts the day before you want them, and make the custard the day before that if you wanted.  Recipes which can be broken down into several prepare ahead stages are always winners for me.   They sure looked kind of cute ...

... and, in fact, they also tasted pretty good just like this too, but somehow these just seemed like a little treat to enjoy with a cup of coffee, and not quite dessert.  A little something else was needed.  And then I cast my eye over the punnet of fresh strawberries I'd just brought home from the market, and remembered back to the Honey Roasted Strawberry Compote I made a while back to go over French toast.  I also remembered my lovely friend, Beth, at OMG! Yummy recently making some roasted fruit with pomegranate molasses, and thought that swapping out the balsamic vinegar in my compote for some pomegranate molasses, and adding a shot of orange liqueur, would make a wonderful topping for these little tarts and magically transform afternoon tea into dessert.

The only thing that prevented this from being completely effortless was having to clean the oven afterwards ...

... 'Nough said.  I know you won't make the same mistake.

Roasted Strawberry Custard Tarts Recipe

Adapted from a recipe by Donna Hay

from Donna Hay Dining

Makes 8

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

2x sheets ready rolled puff pastry, thawed

for custard filling

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup water

2 cups milk

2 tablespoons cornflour

2 egg yolks

1x vanilla bean

for strawberry topping

1x punnet strawberries

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses

1 tablespoon orange liqueur, such as cointreau (I used "44")

To make the custard filling, put sugar and water into a small saucepan, set over low heat, and stir constantly until the sugar has dissolved.  Increase heat until syrup is boiling, reduce heat and simmer for 1 minute.  Remove from heat.

Place cornflour in a medium sized bowl, and add just enough of the milk to mix the cornflour to a smooth paste.  Once completely dissolved, slowly add the remainder of the milk, whisking constantly.  Whisk in the egg yolks.  Slowly pour in the sugar syrup, again making sure that you whisk constantly to avoid curdling the eggs.

Return everything to the saucepan.  Split the vanilla bean lengthwise, scrape out the seeds, and add both seeds and bean to the saucepan.  Set pan over gentle heat, and stir constantly until the mixture thickens.

Remove from heat and pour into a clean bowl.  Allow to cool slightly, then cover the surface of the custard with a piece of plastic wrap - this will avoid a skin forming on the surface of the custard.  Now leave to cool completely, leaving the vanilla bean in the custard to allow maximum flavour to be infused from the bean.  (You could easily do this a day in advance.)

To make the tarts, preheat the oven to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F), and lightly grease a muffin or patty tin.  Cut pastry into 10cm (4 inch) circles, and use to line the muffin or patty tins.  Remove vanilla bean from custard, and spoon custard into the pastry shells, no more than 2/3 full.  Bake in the preheated oven until the custard is golden and firm - about 20 minutes, depending on the depth of your tins and filling.  Remove from the oven and cool slightly before removing tarts from the tin and leaving on a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the strawberry topping.  Cut strawberries in half (or quarters if they are very large), and place in an ovenproof dish which is only just big enough to fit all the strawberries snugly but in a single layer.  Drizzle over the honey, pomegranate molasses and orange liqueur, and stir gently to combine everything.  Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C (350 degrees F), until the strawberries have softened slightly, but still retaining their shape, and juices have begun to run and become syrupy.  Remove from oven and cool completely.

To complete the tarts, arrange two or three pieces of strawberry in the centre of each tart and drizzle over a little of the strawberry syrup.  Serve immediately.

If you would like to get to know Donna Hay a little better, and to see all the fabulously "easy entertaining" dishes my friends have come up with, then do go visit I Heart Cooking Clubs and check out the links.

I will also be submitting this post to Sweet New Zealand.  Inspired by Alessandra Zecchini, Sweet New Zealand is an event for all Kiwi bloggers (whether living at home or abroad), or all foreign bloggers living in New Zealand, to link up their sweet treats.  This month, Sweet New Zealand is hosted by my very lovely friend Mairi at Toast.

I'll also be sharing this post this week at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely Michelle at Ms. enPlace, Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth at Beth Fish Reads, and at Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollam.

         

Caramelised Fennel with Goat Cheese

When I first saw this recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi's wonderful book Plenty, I was a little skeptical.  It looked gorgeous, but the idea of sweetening fennel with sugar somehow sounded a bit off to me.  But then after the lovely Joanne at Eats Well With Others made it a while back, and raved about it, it had to go on my "must make" list.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that it's a very long list indeed, but just to prove that things on the list do eventually get made, when I saw beautiful little fresh fennel bulbs at the local farmers market the other day, I knew the time had arrived to move this dish off the list and on to a plate.  What's more this seemed like the perfect dish to share for our Pot Luck theme this week at I Heart Cooking Clubs.

I made a couple of small changes to the original recipe.  I left out butter since I am on a "no dairy" kick at the moment.  Now, I'm sure it would taste fantastic with the butter - of course, anything sizzled in butter does.  Heck, you could probably caramelise a piece of boot leather in butter and it would taste great.  But seriously, this dish was great without it, and I didn't miss it at all.  I also replaced sugar with honey.  And, when it came to serving time, I tossed in a little thinly sliced preserved lemon and a handful of olives, and called it dinner.  I think a handful of toasted pine nuts or hazelnuts would also make a good addition if you felt so inclined.

The honeyed fennel is definitely a surprising combination, but a delightful surprise and I'll certainly be making it again.  The sweetness with the aniseed flavour of the fennel somehow really works and, partnered with the crunch of fennel seeds and the slight saltiness of the goat cheese, Ottolenghi has come up with another winning combination of tastes and textures.

Caremelised Fennel with Goat Cheese Recipe

Adapted (slightly) from recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi

from Plenty

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

4x small fennel bulbs

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 clove garlic, crushed

flaky sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

goat cheese, as much as you like

extra virgin olive oil to finish

Remove any tough outer leaves, and a little bit of the woody stem from the base of the fennel bulbs.  Remove the fronds from the tops, and reserve a generous handful of the fronds.  Cut the fennel bulbs lengthwise into 1cm (1/2 in) slices.

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan set over medium heat.  Add slices of fennel in a single layer to the pan, and cook until lightly golden on both sides.  You will probably have to do this in a couple of batches.  Remove cooked fennel slices to a plate.

Add honey to the pan, along with the fennel seeds, garlic, a generous pinch of flaky sea salt, and plenty of freshly ground black pepper.  Stir to dissolve the honey.  Then return the fennel to the pan, and toss gently for a few minutes to ensure every piece is coated in the honey sauce, and the fennel is cooked through to tender, but still retaining a little bite.

Remove to a serving platter, and allow to cool a little before sprinkling over some of the crumbled goat cheese, and a good handful of the roughly chopped reserved fennel fronds.  Finish with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Equally delicious served still warm or at room temperature.

If you would like to get to know Yotam Ottolenghi a little better, then do go and visit my friends at I Heart Cooking Clubs and see what they've all cooked up ...

... or check out Plenty and Ottolenghi's other great titles available from Amazon USA, Amazon UK or Fishpond NZ.

         

I'm also sharing this post this week at See Ya In the Gumbo hosted by the lovely Michelle at Ms. enPlace, at Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads, at My Meatless Mondays hosted by Chaya at My Sweet and Savory, and Foodie Fridays hosted by Designs by Gollam.

              

Orange Mango French Toast with Honey Roasted Strawberry Compote

"Strawberry Fields" serveware courtesy of Stevens Homewares (details below)

For several weeks now, as each day gets longer and warmer than the last, I've had my eye on the strawberries at my local market and store.  That said, long for them though I might, I haven't been prepared to mortgage the house in order to come by a handful of these early season beauties.  However, supply at last is sufficiently plentiful that, although still not cheap, they're at least affordable for those of us trying to make ends meet on a modest income.

Although it may seem like sacrilege to eat one's first strawberries of the season in any other way than completely natural, I was in the mood for something a little different for a luxurious Saturday morning brunch.

Inspiration came from casting my mind back to summer yoga retreats spent in the Greek islands, where a regular late breakfast by the pool was as simple as big bowls of fresh strawberries, topped with Greek yoghurt, and drizzled lavishly with gorgeous, fragrant thyme honey, and topped off with chopped pistachios.

Although thyme honey is not available here, I thought that I could achieve something reminiscent of that flavour by roasting the strawberries with a combination of good local honey and a bunch of fresh thyme.

Further inspiration came from one of my favourite restaurants in Bali, which offers a brunch dish of french toast filled with cream cheese and peaches and topped with an orange sauce.

In my interpretation day-old bread is sandwiched with a generous filling of mascarpone mixed with freeze dried mango powder (fresh or tinned mango would work too if you have it available), soaked in a wash of egg and orange juice, pan-fried in butter until golden, and then smothered in a warm, juicy compote of strawberries roasted with thyme and honey.  You may find that some of the ingredients in this strawberry compote might sound a little weird, but trust me when I tell you it works.

This felt like a very indulgent brunch, and I will quite unashamedly admit that my gluttony led me to devour the whole lot on my own.  If, however, you are inclined to a little more restraint, then this would probably feed two.

Orange Mango French Toast with

Honey Roasted Strawberry Compote Recipe

Serves 1 greedy person or 2 normal people

Vegetarian

Click here for a printable copy of this recipe

For the compote:

1x punnet strawberries

2-3 tablespoons runny honey

small bunch fresh thyme leaves

balsamic vinegar

freshly ground black pepper

For the french toast:

4x slices day old bread, 1.5cm (1/2 inch) thick

(brioche would be perfect if you can get it)

2-3 tablespoons mascarpone

approx 1 tablespoon Fresh-As freeze dried mango powder

(or substitute finely diced fresh mango)

2x large, free-range eggs

1x orange, juice & zest

1-2 tablespoons butter for frying

Begin by preparing the compote.  Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).  Meanwhile, clean and hull strawberries.  Cut in half, or into quarters if very large, and put all the strawberries in a single layer in a close-fitting oven dish.  Drizzle liberally with 2-3 tablespoons of runny honey.  Quantities are not too critical here, so feel free to use more if you so desire.  Sprinkle over thyme leaves - thyme flowers would be fine too if you happen to have them.  Drizzle with just a little balsamic vinegar (about 1 tablespoon), and top with a generous grind of black pepper.

Put into the preheated oven and bake until the strawberries have softened but are still holding their shape, and juices have started to run and become syrupy.  Remove from oven.

While strawberries are baking, prepare the french toast.  In a small bowl, mix together mascarpone and freeze dried mango powder - use more or less to get the level of mango flavour that suits you.  Spread two slices of the bread liberally with the mascarpone/mango mixture, and top with the other two slices.  In a wide shallow dish, lightly beat the eggs with the zest and juice of the orange.  Place sandwiches into the egg mixture, and allow to soak for a couple of minutes before turning over to soak on the other side.  Heat butter in a skillet over medium heat until melted and starting to sizzle, then add egg-soaked sandwiches to the pan.  Cooked until richly golden brown on one side, then flip over and cook the other side.

Once golden brown on both sides, remove to a serving platter and liberally spoon over the warm strawberry compote.  Serve with some Greek style yoghurt and some extra runny honey for drizzling over the top if desired.  You could also top with a few chopped pistachios if you like.

Sit down and indulge.

Props courtesy of Stevens Homewares Ltd 

Strawberry Plate, 30cm 

Strawberry milk jug & sugar bowl

This will be a submission to Sweet New Zealand, inspired by Alessandra Zecchini and hosted this month by Lucy at The Kitchen Maid.