Baked maple pears with toasted pistachios

No more whingeing around here of being too cold.  We have been blessed with warm air and clear blue skies.  And so I am catching up on some needed writing and blogging as it is the end of September, and we are halfway through to spring.  Spring cleaning at home and the backlog of recipes and photos to post.  

We have revamped our veggie garden as the seedlings planted in winter did not survive and to take the easier route, we bought some ready-to-plant veggies from the local nursery.  Hopefully, there will be some harvest of French beans, eggplants, strawberries, Habanero and birds eye chillies soon.  Our calamansi plant is finally showing some fruits after last year's drought.  This makes me very happy as any Filo would be.

And now catching up on some blog posts, this recipe is the easiest dessert there is that you can bring to any potluck party.  The idea to make this was initially to make it for a vegan at work who was retiring.  And I also brought this to a work birthday lunch and ever since, people have asked for the recipe and they have made it at home with spectacular results.   It's really easy.  I love easy dishes.  Those that you prep and then you just wait for the magic to happen.  Be it a slow braised on the stove, or a baked maple pear in the oven.  You prep it and you wait for an hour.


The recipe is adapted from an old cookbook from my shelves - Marie Clare Fresh + Fast Simply Delicious Healthy Food

To make these baked maple pears

Ingredients:

7 Corella pears, halved and cored*

3 tablespoons real maple syrup

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil*

1 cup toasted pistachios, roughly chopped

1 cup creme fraiche or whipped cream

Method

Preheat oven to 180*C

Cut a thin slice from the skin side of the pears to give them a flat surface.

Place the pears onto a shallow baking dish, skin side down.

Drizzle olive oil and the maple syrup onto the pears.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for 1 hour.

The pears should be tender when a butter knife inserted comes out smoothly.

Serve with the creme fraiche or thickened cream on the side, and the toasted pistachios.

Tips and tricks:

* The original recipe called for unsalted butter to rub on the pears.  I used olive oil as I brought it for someone who is vegan.

* You can use other pear varieties. Corella pears tend to be tougher than most so it cooks for an hour.  Other pear varieties are tender and may be baked for less than an hour.

* You can make as many or as little as you like, just adjust the maple syrup to your requirements.

Seafood marinara stew

Winter is creeping up on us like an unwanted guest. It's the middle of July and of course it is cold.   I have always written many many times in the past that we dread winter. Well I do. Sans the layering of clothing and comfortable matching scarves and beanies, and beautiful leather boots, I could do well without winter.  Really.  But I’m embracing our life here in AU and part of assimilating into the Australian way of life is well, embracing winter and all the other seasons that come and go.  But you have to know that winter... is my least favourite. 

When it comes to winter cooking and food, I love simple recipes.  My favourites are dishes that shout fresh, easy to reach ingredients, simple cooking methods with delicious results.  While I do admire chefs who are into fusion and gastronomy, I’m not the type who would attempt pesto jelly, or strawberry foams.  I like simple cooking.  Time spent in the kitchen is precious, and any effort made to prepare, whether it took 10 minutes or 6 hours always spells love. 

This one, no matter what angle shouts L-O-V-E.  Ingredients are simple, easy to make and wow! It's my easy version of the French seafood boullabaisse, minus all the other ingredients.  The seafood mix is anything you get from the fish markets. 

You dive into this with some toasted sour dough or any fresh bread, and you’ll come back up feeling the love.  You’ll get lots of warm hugs from this for sure. 

 

 Ingredients:

1kg mixed seafood (marinara mix in shells)

1 jar 350 ml passata sauce (tomato sauce)

3-4 fresh tomatoes, quartered

1 onion, sliced

2-3 cloves garlic, chopped finely

½ cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped

½ teaspoon course/ground oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

Olive oil

Tablespoon of butter (optional)

 Method:

In a heavy based pan or skillet, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

Add the garlic and onions and cook until soft.

Add the tomatoes and cook until soft.

Add the passata sauce, bring to boil then turn down heat to simmer.

Season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle the oregano.

Add the seafood, place lid/cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until all seafood pieces are cooked through.

Add the butter and let it melt into the sauce.  

Top with the chopped parsley.

Tips and tricks:

* I add the butter in the latter part of the cooking just to add that gloss in the sauce.  You don't have to add butter if you don't want to, but that its a secret ingredient in most restaurants - the chefs add that for the shine and gloss.

* You can also add fresh or dried thyme for extra flavour.  They add a rich depth to the stew.

Hazelnut spread - homemade Nutella

We have been contemplating on getting a pet for some time.  Actually years now.  But living in a rental has its limitations.  And a pet is one of them.  Even with the good relationship we have with our real estate agent, we have not attempted to get one - for many reasons: not getting approved, costs, space, sitting when we go on holiday, etc.

This Easter we stopped contemplating and we got ducklings for the girls (the 10yos) each, from the market.  The poor little things were crammed in a box filled with about 50 of them and they looked so adorable as ducklings are. If you have been following me on Instragram, you would have seen this Easter post. - 3 ducklings (named Anchor, Buttercup and Pato - a Tagalog word for duck) and 3 chicks (named Salt, Pepper and Ginger).  They were so cute!   Well the having-a-pet-to-care for did it. It was a good exercise of responsibility for the girls. They woke up early to bring them out of the cage, hose and clean the cage, prepare some newspaper and mulch for the cage flooring, refill food and water.  And everyone was happy.  It became a happy little routine during the school holidays and early on when term 2 started.

Fast forwad the third week after Easter - one just went out.  Died.  Right before my very eyes.  One of the girls was home sick that day and we were out the back, getting some sun just sitting and admiring the cuteness.  Then Anchor just sat down, closed its eyes and never stood up.  We lifted it up and it was lifeless.  You can imagine the reaction from my daughter.  It was a mix of sadness and fear, anxiety and grief.  She cried like there was no tomorrow.  It was heart breaking.  When the two other girls came home from school, it became it even worse.  There was more loud crying, more tears, more questions, screaming.  There was grief.  Gloom.  Mourning.  For a good half hour, it was continuous.  Big sister came home and helped consoling the grief stricken.  Hubby and I were speechless.  Overwhelmed.  I cried too.  We did a small memorial out the back.  Juliana who was at home sick that day was the only one brave enough to watch as we dug a hole in the backyard and buried the poor thing.   She put down a flower.  No more loud cries, but there were tears.  That night, lots of hard questions were asked.  We tried best to answer them without adding any more tears.  There were still tears come bedtime.


After a few days, the other duck appeared to look tired and was not as active as in previous days.  That night after dinner, Buttercup sat in the cage lifeless. Not again.  So for another half hour, there was another round of intense crying, tears, screms.  There were no more questions. But the tears kept flowing.  The house was quiet. We dug another hole. 


It's been a week since and Pato is thriving, enjoying being the lone duck amongst the chicks.  They're a happy bunch of fowls, grazing in the backyard during the day, and cuddling together at night.  The girls are happy now and that episode has been put behind but never forgotten, for sure.  We hope to give them a new home soon, as the real estate agent will not allow fowls because of the possibility of pests.  The girls don't mind.  They know that whatever time left their pets have with us are happy times and moments that they can keep. 

Moving on to happier episodes.

This hazelnut spread is the best thing we've ever done in the kitchen.  We made this twice already during the school holidays.  The girls used most of it for their sandwiches as you would with Nutella, and I've used them for my hazelnut buttercream icing for a birthday cake. 

How easy?

You get some hazelnuts.

Roast them in the oven.

Skin them using tea towels or soak them in water and peel them off by hand.

Process the nuts and ingredients in a processor.

And voila!  The best hazelnut spread you'll ever need.  100% hazelnut not 13% like that famous spread you get from the supermarket.

Word of caution though.  Roasted hazelnuts are kryptonite.  It's hard to stop when you start eating them!

And this hazelnut spread?  Well, the flavour truly shines.  You might even leave that other brand for good. 

This recipe is adapted from Michelle from the food blog Brown Eyed Baker

Ingredients:

300 grams (or 2 cups) hazelnuts

100 grams (or 1 cup) icing sugar

35 grams (or 1/3 cup) Dutch processed cocoa*

2 tablespoons vegetable oil*

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon sea salt flakes

Method

Preheat oven to 180*C and line a cookie sheet or tray with baking paper.

Spread the hazelnuts in a single layer and roast in the oven until dark brown, 10-12 minutes.

Take off from the oven and leave to cool.

Take the skins off the hazelnuts. Cool the roasted hazelnuts.  Once cooled, rub between you palms and separate the skinless ones in a separate bowl.

Place the skinless roasted hazelnuts in the food processor and process until the natural oils of the nuts are released.  4-5 minutes, scraping down the sides with a spatula every few minutes.

Add the icing sugar, cocoa powder, vegetable oil and sea salt flakes.

Continue to process until you get a smooth and glossy consistency.

Transfer into a clean sterilised jar with a tight fitting lid.

Tips and tricks

* In Australia, you can get the Nestle brand Dutch process cocoa from any local supermarket;

*  The original recipe called for hazelnut oil.  We used vegetable oil as hazelnut oil is hard to find.  I have recently found them from a wholesale shop, and they cost $16.50 for a 500ml bottle.

* To take the skins off hazelnuts takes quite a bit of time.  You can opt for several methods, including what we did, or these:

1. Using tea towels, rub the hazelnuts inside the two or one folded tea towel and rub until the skins come off;
2. Transfer the warm hazelnuts into a bowl of cold water and slip the skins off with your fingers;
3. Boil the roasted hazelnuts in a water with a mixture of baking soda, then run in cold water (we tried this option the first time, but I found it did not work for us)
4. Follow Michelle's process and place them in a bowl, cover with a same size bowl and shake until you get all the skins off.

* More detailed instructions on how to skin hazelnuts from Fine Cooking.

This hazelnut spread is so good, you would even want to eat it by the spoonful!  And here's a a thought for those homemade Christmas gifts you've been planning to make. This, is going to make you famous with friends.

And by the way, here's a pic of our happy backyard campers.  If you're in Sydney and are interested to adopt these funny and lovable feathered friends, let me konw.  We'd love for them to go to a good home.

L-R: Salt, Ginger, Pepper and Pato (duck)

Peanut butter cookies with coconut oil (made with homemade peanut butter)

Peanut butter cookies is one of the two things I remember we baked at home, while growing up.  We were not a baking family.  We were more grilling and stove top people.  The other thing we baked at home were pound cakes.  Yes!  And I remember we used Blue Bonnet butter.  US imports into the PI back then which were aplenty.  And pound cakes and peanut butter cookies were a staple in our kitchen.    The most fun out of making the peanut butter cookies were the criss cross patterns which me and my siblings would fight over who should do it.    

These days, with peanut butter overtaken by Nutella in recent years, the girls were not a bit interested with these.  So I had these to myself and my siblings when they came over.

I'd like to say these are healthy because butter is substituted with coconut oil, and we also made our own peanut butter.  So pretty much, we knew what went into these cookies. 

The cookies came out soft and chewy (as we wanted), but you can always make it crunchy.

If you want to make this with your own peanut butter, The Kitchn has the step by step-step easy procedure to make them.  Of you can simly use store-bought peanut butter.

First you will need peanuts.

For our version of this peanut butter, I used salted peanuts because I didn't want to add any more salt while making them.  I also roasted them in the oven first then cooled before making the nut butter.

Then they go into your food processor.  The first pulse gives you a grainy texture of milled or pounded nuts.

 

The next process gives you a smoother nut butter and almost ready to use.  I just added 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and it was ready!  Poured into a jar and kept at room temperature.  It lasted for more than two weeks.   But of course, we ate them with warm Filipino pandesal bought from our local Asian grocer immediately.  Taste test for quality, as you do. 

To make the peanut butter, I adapted the recipe from Elise at Simply Recipes.

 

Ingredients:

100 grams caster sugar

125 grams light brown sugar, packed

 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (store bought or home made)

1/2 cup coconut oil

1 egg

325 grams plain flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2  teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Method

In a medium sized bowl, combine the dry ingredients and mix with a whisk.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the coconut oil and sugar until creamy, 2 or more minutes.

Add the peanut butter and eggs and continue beating until light and fluffy.

Add the dry ingredients in 3 batches, continuing to mix with every addition, and until the dough comes off the sides of the bowl. 

Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 175*C.  Prepare a cookie sheet with baking paper or silicone mat.

Shape the dough into rounds, golf ball size.  Place on the prepared pan/cookie sheet 2-3 inches apart.

Flatten the cookies using a fork with a criss cross pattern.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes for chewy cookies, or until golden.

For crispy cookies, bake in a preheated 180*C oven for 10-12 minutes.

These cookies are not sweet, as I lessened the sugar a little bit, and they were surprisingly good.  There were no coconut flavour or odour which some people dislike when using coconut oil.

Tips and tricks:

* To use coconut oil, it helps when the oil is a little bit solid.  Usually, coconut oil solidifies when the weather is cooler.  If you use liquid coconut oil, it will take longer to beat it until light and fluffy.  To solidify your coconut oil, measure what you need and place it in the fridge overnight, and just take it out an  hour or more before using.  

* The cookies lasts longer than when butter is used.  I tested a few of these, and they kept for two weeks in an air tight container room temperature.

Orange almond cake

There's an abundance of navel oranges at the moment in this part of the Southern hemisphere.  Spill over from the cold months, the Australian navel orange is sweet juicy, seedless and rich in orange colour.   Which makes them the best when making sweets and cakes.   They are usually in season from June to October, but they are available year round not discounting the availability of imports.

An office colleague shared this recipe she makes regularly at home for orange almond cake.  She has a fool-proof method of boiling the oranges, cooling them, popping them in the food processor with the rest of the ingredients and pour into baking pans.  Basically 3 steps: boil, process, bake. And then of course, eat.

As it seems, orange almond cakes are a classic Passover dessert drawn from Sephardic traditions in Morocco and the Middle East. The original recipe was first featured in 1968 in Claudia Roden's A Book of Middle Eastern Food, which was featured in Lorraine's blog Not Quite Nigella.  Stephanie Alexander also has a version in her book The Cook's Companion and recently featured with a make over by Peter G in his blog Souvlaki for the Soul. 

As there is an abundance at the moment of this sweet round oranges, it was time to try my office colleague's recipe with inspiration from all the amazing foodies mentioned.  And for a birthday morning tea at work, this was the star.  Orange almond cake with apricot jam glaze and blood orange slices.

We have made this many times after the first attempt, and every single time, it just comes out perfect.  For the election fundraising at the girls' school, I added some touch of chantilly cream (whipped cream with a little bit of icing sugar) and decorated with Lindt Orange Intense.

To make this orange almond cake

Ingredients:

2 whole navel oranges 

250 grams almond meal

3/4 cup caster sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

6 whole eggs

Method:

Wash the oranges.

In a medium sized pot, pour about 3-4 cups water (don't overfill with water. Half-way through is fine).   Place orange in pot and boil with cover until soft - around 45 minutes to an hour.

Drain the water and set the oranges aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 180*C.

Spray a 23cm cake pan with canola oil.  Pour about a tablespoon of flour into the pan and tap away the excess.  

Once oranges are cooled, slice them into wedges and take out any seeds or pits.

Place in a food processor and process until smooth.

Add the eggs and continue to process until combined.

In a large mixing bowl, combine almond meal, caster sugar and baking powder using a spatula.  Mix until everything is incorporated together.

Add the egg and orange mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk together to combine.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour.

Cool on a wire rack before serving.

Tips and dress ups

* Make sure to check the pot every now and then as the water can dry up and you'll end up with burnt orange.

* You can cook the oranges a day ahead or the night before you plan to make the cake. This is how I did it when I baked the cakes.

* The cake is well and truly divine by itself, or you can dust some icing sugar for some added colour.

* For the photo above with the blood orange and apricot glaze, simply heat 2-3 tablespoons of apricot jam with the same amount of water.  Once it boils, turn off heat and add the blood orange slices.  Let this completely cool.  Then drizzle the glaze over the cake and decorate with the blood orange slices.

* For the frosted cake, simply whip 2 cups of thickened cream with 1/4 cup icing sugar.  Pipe onto the cakes and decorate with anything you fancy.