Filed under: Dessert, Food | Tags: Apple, Cinnamon, Egg, Food, Pear, Puff Pastry, Strudle, Sugar
One sheet of puff pastry, two pears and a bowl containing the following ingredients all mixed together – 1/2 cup castor sugar, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon and 2 tablespoons of flour (to thicken the juice).
I told my family this was apple strudel and they loved it. The second time I made it I told them the truth it was pear strudel and no-one touched it. So third time round I solemnly swore to make the apple strudel and I did, using pears and they ate it and loved it.
Preheat oven to 200C and line a baking tray with baking paper.
Peel and slice up the pears very thinly and then mix them into the sugar, flour and cinnamon mixture. My pears in the pictured version were not sliced thinly enough.
Mix one egg and 1 tablespoon of milk together in a container to make up an egg wash.
Layer the pear cinnamon sugar mixture out evenly across the top of the puff pastry sheet leaving room at the bottom to seal it shut with some egg wash.
Roll the pastry and apple up (kind of like a jelly roll). and seal the bottom with some egg wash. Carefully transfer to a baking tray and place sealed side down.
Seal the ends and cut 4-6 slices across the top to let the steam out.
Brush egg wash across the top and put into the 200C oven for approx 30 to 45 minutes.
When finished eat it all up before your family find out about there is ‘apple’ strudel in the house or they will want some. Or just tell them it is really pear and watch ‘em run for the hills. 
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Dessert, Food, Vegetable | Tags: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Beetroot, Cake, Chocolate, Chocolate Cake, Dessert, Food, Vegetable, White Chocolate, www.aussiefarmers.com.au
Today is a happy day and that needs to be celebrated with cake.
Before we get started I need to make my opinion on white chocolate clear – it is an abomination, it is not chocolate and I really do not like it.
I saw this recipe for chocolate beetroot cake and thought it sounded pretty cool. Then I thought how about I adapt it for white chocolate and then you would really be able to fully enjoy the fabulous beetroot colour. Plus I’d rather waste white chocolate in a beetroot cake than use the real stuff.
So I got what was left of my beetroot and boiled them for 45 minutes until they were done, when they were cool I rubbed the skin off and took off the tops and tails. Then I put them into my Braun choppy thing and mulched them until they were all blended into a beetroot mashy thing.
Remember to wear gloves!
Ingredients
30g white chocolate really finely grated – to almost powder
115g plain flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
150g caster sugar
240ml canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 whole eggs, beaten
200g plain cooked (vacuum packed) beetroot – not with vinegar – well drained & grated
110g plain white chocolate, chopped into small pieces (rubble rather than dust)
Preheat the oven to 190C.
Sift the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl and mix in the powdered white chocolate and sugar. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
Grease a 18.5cm (7-inch) cake tin with butter and line with greaseproof paper. Pour in the cake mix.
Which will kinda look like this, possibly with less children looking in concerned about the bowl full of clotted blood you are turning into a cake.
Bake for 50 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. It will be fairly moist and ‘fudge-y’ in the middle.
Turn out, and cool on a rack. Serve dusted with icing sugar and with a dollop of creme fraiche.
The Verdict – This was an interesting experiment, the colour did not turn out as hoped, there were blotches of purple red between blotches of plain cake colour. Hubby and the girls rather liked it. I could still taste the foul white chocolate. The texture was yummy. I have enough beetroot left that I could make the dark chocolate version. Then again I could also make a chocolate mud cake and slice the beetroot for sandwichs which is really a much better use of chocolate I also have about 2/3 cup of purply red liquid that was left after boiling the beetroots. Not sure where I will go with that but it was such a lovely colour I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out. 
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Dessert, Food, Vegetable | Tags: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Dairy Free, Dessert, Food, Pumpkin, Pumpkin Pie, Soy Milk, Vegetable, www.aussiefarmers.com.au
In addition to the amazing Pumpkin Ice Cream that I blogged about last week I also made Pumpkin Pie.
After our days in hospital there was not much pie left when I came back and wanted to take a picture
Recipe is thanks to Akatsukami at the Unaboard
Pumpkin Pie
1/8 tsp. salt
2/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. nutmeg
½ tsp. ginger
2 eggs
1 2/3 cup Skim soy milk
1½ cups mashed cooked pumpkin
Beat eggs slightly. Sift dry ingredients together and stir in. Add milk and pumpkin and mix. Pour custard into an unbaked pie shell*; bake at 450°F for 10 minutes; then reduce temperature to 325°F and bake 35 minutes longer.
You can also add 1/3 cup chopped nuts to the unbaked custard.
For a richer pie, sift together ¾ cup sugar, 2 Tbsp. cornstarch, and the spices. Add an egg yolk, 2 cups whole milk, and 1 cup pumpkin. Cook custard until thickened, stirring constantly. Pour into baked pie shell, cover with meringue, and bake.
* You can purchase dairy free pie shells at the supermarket, just make sure to check the ingredients on the back, usually it is the savoury shells that are dairy free.
The Verdict – I love this Pumpkin PIe. I also love that you don’t need to use canned pumpkin which is not readily available in Australia. This works best with Japanese Pumpkin, I’ve found Butternut Pumpkin is too moist. Also roast your pumpkin to cook it, boiling the pumpkin makes it too wet. I love Soy Milk with this, the flavour really seems to compliment the pumpkin much more than regular cow milk. 
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Dessert, Food, Vegetable | Tags: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Dessert, Food, Food Orgasm, Japanese Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Pumpkin Ice Cream, Pumpkin Pie, Vegetable, www.aussiefarmers.com
So the Roasted Pumpkin Ice Cream was good.
Tonight I decided to make Pumpkin Pie using some of the roasted Japanese Pumpkin.
I used this pumpkin pie recipe that I have used previously with two alterations – instead of 2/3 cup of white sugar I used 1/3 cup white sugar and 1/3 cup brown sugar and I used Soy Milk so it wouldn’t upset my 3yo’s stomach.
I had enough mixture to fill my Pampas Shortcrust pastry pie flan and about 1/3 left over. So of course I put that 1/3 of left over pumpkin pie filling into the ice cream maker.
OH
MY
GOD
!
I’m kicking my husband out, no need for him now I have pumpkin pie ice cream!
This is good, this is really really really really good.
Go make this ice cream, now! And don’t share it.
The Verdict – You MUST make this. 
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Dessert, Food, Vegetable | Tags: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Dessert, Food, Ice Cream, Japanese Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Roast pumpkin, www.aussiefarmers.com.au
Stay with me folks, it is all good, seriously good.
Last night I played with sharp knives again. Thankfully without injury
You may have noticed that the Japanese Pumpkin was the one ingredient I’d not used yet from this weeks box. My big plan was to turn it into Pumpkin Pie.
So last night I roasted the pumpkin with the skin on for about 2 hours on 200C. Until it looked like this:
It tastes much nicer in my opinion if you roast pumpkin with the skin on. When it was done, I removed the skin (easier to peel this way also) and mashed up the pumpkin. Then I left it to today to make into pumpkin pie.
While I was making ice cream for the children today it occurred to me to try making a pumpkin ice cream.
Roast Pumpkin Ice Cream
1/2 cup mashed roast pumpkin
200ml cream
200ml skim milk
1 teaspoon of Mixed Spice
1 desert spoon of brown sugar
Blend all the ingredients together. Remove the pumpkin strings from your blender attachment and put those stringy bits in the bin. Blend some more.
Pour into the ice-cream maker and wait for 20-40 minutes for it to set.
Then stand by with spoons and eat straight from the ice cream maker.
The Verdict – This was surprisingly delicious. Both my girls enjoyed it as did my 3yo nephew who was visiting today. I’d make this again for sure, in fact that pumpkin pie I was planning may turn into pumpkin ice cream. Although I probably still have enough that I could make both and serve them together.
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Dessert, Food, Fruit | Tags: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Dessert, Food, Fruit, Ice Cream, Pears
I saw Roasted Peach Ice Cream at Dinner with Julies blog and from that point in time I HAD to have an ice cream maker. Fortunately it was around my birthday and it did not take long for an ice cream maker to enter my possession.
We’ve been getting pears in our Aussie Farmers DIrect box each week and no-one in my family eats pears. My Nephew has been over a fair bit and devoured most of our pears, but each week at least one turns into a squishy mess in the fruit bowl and gets binned.
Onwards to the recipe…
2 Pears
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup cream
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt.
I cut the pears into quarters, peeled and cored them and then roasted them on 250C for about 20 minutes. They came out smelling delicious. Should be noted I had not preheated the oven, might not have needed quite as long in a preheated oven.
Let the pears cool down then cut them into small chunks (or put them in the food processor like I did ). Put the pear into the fridge to chill – remembering that ice cream making requires very cold ingredients.
I mixed together the cream, sugar and yogurt with my hand blender until it was frothy.
Then poured all the ingredients into the ice cream maker and 5 minutes later ta-da ICE CREAM!
I’m stunned at how fast it was. The icecream I made yesterday took 40 minutes to set.
The Verdict – This got a big two thumbs up from everyone in the family. No one complained about the pears, everyone wanted more. And the really important bit, I think this was good enough to get Hubby to wash the dishes for me!
