Recipes

Pumpkin and Ginger Soup

- Alex Prichard 2 Comments

Pumpkin & Ginger Soup

For Christmas Andy gave me a very cool book called The Flavour Thesaurus. The book goes through almost every ingredient you could imagine and covers obvious and less obvious food pairings.

I’ve read through it but haven’t had the time or opportunity to play around with some of the ideas. However, with half a butternut squash to turn into soup I turned to The Flavour Thesaurus in the hope that it would provide me with a more interesting idea than just chilli. And while I don’t think that pumpkin and ginger is exactly an out there or novel combination this was still a good way to do something I wouldn’t have normally.

Of course, it turns out I really can’t do anything without chilli, so we finished the soup with chilli oil which added a good kick and, surprisingly, the sesame oil added to the spice warmth of the dish. However, the following day (when I was eating leftovers for lunch) I added a teaspoon of sambal oelek – which was an even better idea!

As with all soups, this is ludicrously simple and quick. Serve hot, with crumpets.

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Pumpkin and Ginger Soup

Ingredients

  • 1 onion, chopped
  • quarter of butternut squash (or pumpkin) ~ 300 g - peeled, seeded, diced
  • 1 large potato, peeled and diced
  • 2cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
  • 500mL water
  • ½ pot of stock concentrate (vegetable or chicken)
  • (or ~ 500mL of stock)
  • chilli oil (to serve)

Instructions

  1. Heat some oil in a large saucepan and sweat down onion.
  2. When onion is soft, add pumpkin, potato and ginger, and cover with water or stock.
  3. Cook until the pumpkin and potato are soft.
  4. Blitz with stab mixer until smooth and adjust seasoning.
  5. Serve piping hot, topped with a little chilli oil if desired.
https://eatingadelaide.com/pumpkin-ginger-soup/

The Sweet Swap: Espresso Fudge

- Alex Prichard 6 Comments

IMG_3266all packed up & ready to go!

A while back, Sara, of Belly Rumbles, and Amanda, of Chew Town, got in touch about a blogging project they were setting up called The Sweet Swap. For a small entry fee, which was donated to ChildFund Australia, each participating blogger was matched with three other bloggers. Once you had received your matches and chosen the sweet to make, you’d package it up and send it off, while waiting for your own sweet treats to arrive.

Now, you may have noticed that I am not, exactly, a confectioner. Apart from chocolate, I don’t really like sweets. So in this instance I knew I was not only going to have to choose something that would post well (a challenge in itself!) but most likely something I don’t like eating.

I had a practice run making marshmallow and thought that it might be fun to make rocky road (fun for Andy and our workmates – even with chocolate marshmallow is still going to be gross).

I’m really sorry if any of my matches would have preferred rocky road: just as I should have been in the kitchen making marshmallow my toddler decided it would be fun to have temperatures spiking 40°C for a few days and ended up in hospital. There needed to be some seriously quick revision of plans and, in what can only be blind panic (the deadline for posting had passed!) I chose to make fudge.

Now, I have never made fudge before and I couldn’t even claim to have eaten enough to call myself a connoisseur, so I was really winging it. I chose to make this espresso fudge because I like chocolate and coffee.

I wasn’t happy because the recipe was a bit vague (temperatures for the different stages would have made me happy) but I was out of time and there for nothing for it but to hit the stove.

My inability to focus on stirring turned out to be a blessing: if you over-stir fudge it turns out grainy, but this, my first effort was dense and creamy with a solid, but not overpowering, hit of coffee.

I probably sound really pleased with myself, and I am. But I’m sure it’s all beginner’s luck and I’ll never be happy with another batch of fudge ever again!

IMG_3271heart attack inducing size pieces of fudge

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Espresso Fudge

Ingredients

  • 1 tin sweetened condensed milk (395g - the standard size in the shops)
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp glucose syrup
  • 180g dark chocolate, broken up
  • 3 tsp instant coffee (strong will do, espresso if you have it)

Instructions

  1. Place the condensed milk, sugar and glucose syrup in a pan over a low heat and wait for the sugar to melt, stirring only occasionally. This takes quite a while so be patient.
  2. When the sugar has melted, turn up the heat (medium - high) and bring the mix to a simmer. Be a little more attentive with your stirring. In time the mixture will start to thicken and come away from the sides of the pan. If you are using a good non stick pan (and you really should) the mixture will come away from the sides quite quickly but you need to keep stirring until it thickens up.
  3. Take the mixture off the heat and mix in the chocolate and instant coffee. Mix until the chocolate has melted completely and then pour into a greased and lined baking dish (I used one that is approx 20cmx20cm). Allow to cool and then refrigerate. Overnight is best.
  4. Cut up: this is very rich so small squares is a good idea. For serving you may wish to dust with cocoa powder, but the fudge is so rich it doesn't need it. A cup of coffee on the side could be considered essential though!
https://eatingadelaide.com/sweet-swap-espresso-fudge/

I think there might have been a slight glitch in the Sweet Swap because I actually received FOUR sweets, not three.

From Gareth at Humble Crumble I received some black forest fudge – chocolate fudge studded with cherries. From Joanna at The Hangry Bitch sacher tortingtons – a quirky take on lamingtons, stuffed with a homemade orange marmalade, iced and decorated with flaked coconut, Aga at At Matter of Taste sent Polish biscuits that her grandmother used to make and Amy at Melbourne Food Snob sent chewy coconut caramels. Quite a little haul (and some of which is still being eaten, which is a massive win!).

My fudge went Aga, Billy and Leah. Aga quit sugar just before the Sweet Swap (really terrible timing) but I hope Billy and Leah enjoyed the fudge and my apologies for the delay.

Beef Stew with Balsamic Vinegar and Capsicums

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

Balsamic Beef Stew

Despite being ‘at home’ much of the time, I’m finding there’s less time for elaborate cooking. The amount of ‘help’ a toddler affords in the kitchen is somewhat minimal. Add to that some late finishes at work for Andy and various cooking television programs that need to be watched and it means that dinner needs to be pretty much indestructible.

Fortunately, winter is the season of ‘put on stove and forget’ and while we already have a decent stockpile of recipes it’s always good to try something new.

This beef stew recipe, from UK Delicious, fits the bill perfectly. It was almost a one pot effort and I’m sure that if you have a slow cooker you can adapt it easily. I also like it because I have this idea that you should always have at least three vegetables for dinner (not including potato) and this recipe has ALL THREE in the one pot. In fact, you could make it even healthier by adding a tin of tomatoes.

We found that the only thing that needed flavour-wise was a solid hit of salt and pepper. On the side, a big pile of creamy mash finished off the dish, but I think pasta or polenta would work just as well. Of course, you could serve some extra veggies on the side. You could add them to the pot, but I think it’s much tastier to have the different textures and ‘clean’ vegetable flavours that you get by serving them separately.

In theory this will serve six: you will need a lot of mash and sides if you are wanting to stretch it that far. A more conservative estimate is four.

Because there are very few steps in this, it is absolutely toddler proof. I had all manner of interruptions while making it and you would never have known.

Not quick, but very definitely easy!

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Beef Stew with Balsamic Vinegar and Capsicums

Ingredients

  • 500g chuck steak, diced, tossed in seasoned plain flour
  • 2 red onions, finely chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • 150mL red wine
  • 250g butternut pumpkin, peeled and diced
  • 1 large red capsicum (or 2 smaller ones) sliced
  • fresh thyme
  • 1 tbsp Balsamic vinegar
  • Worcestershire sauce
  • 500mL beef stock

Instructions

  1. Heat some oil (I used canola) in a large casserole dish or pot and brown the steak. Do this in batches and set the meat aside.
  2. Add a little more oil if necessary and add the onion and garlic and cook to soften.
  3. Add the tomato paste and cook for a minute or so before adding the red wine. Allow this to bubble for a bit before adding the beef.
  4. Add the pumpkin, capsicum, thyme, vinegar, a good dash of Worcestershire sauce and the beef stock. Give it all a good stir and bring to a simmer.
  5. Reduce heat to low. Put the lid on and leave on the low heat for as long as you can.
  6. Prior to serving, adjust seasoning.
https://eatingadelaide.com/beef-stew-balsamic-vinegar-capsicums/