The one dish I made was roasted butternut with coriander and caramelised onions:
Preheat the oven to 200 C. Prepare 1 butternut by peeling, de-seeding it and cutting it into thin slices. On a large piece of foil, place some butter, sliced chilli and some roughly chopped coriander. Place the sliced butternut over the chilli and coriander. Season with some salt, pepper, a sprinkle of brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and a tiny bit of olive oil.
Fold the foil over and fold over the edges so you create a parcel that will not let the steam escape while its cooking. Be careful not to get a hole in the foil parcel you have now created. Place on a baking tray and bake for approx 30 mins.
While the butternut is baking, caramelise the onions. I always make more because people tend to pick at them when they are cooked and when I go to assemble the dish half the amount of onions has halved!
Heat some olive oil in a pan over a high heat, add 2 sliced red onions. Fry for a few minutes until the onions start to soften. Add brown sugar and vinegar and a tiny pinch of dried sage. Stir the onions and let them cook for a while longer until they look like this:
Remove the caramelised onions from the heat and set aside. Remove the butternut from the oven. When opening the foil parcel, be careful of the steam! Check the butternut is cooked - if not reseal the parcel and out back in the oven for a while longer. If its cooked, place on a serving plate and sprinkle the caramelised onions and some more chopped coriander over the butternut. Serve hot and enjoy!
A few months ago I bought the Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days cookbook. I have been trying to find a time to use it, but as I've mentioned before, I have NO baking equipment. Well on Saturday morning I decided to change that as I found a tart that I thought would go brilliantly with a late afternoon braai. I went out and bought the cutest cooks measure from Oliver Bonas, a whisk, sieve and tart tin.
The tart was a peach and raspberry tart, which required I make a shortcrust pastry (by hand) which I rolled out with an empty wine bottle (no rolling pin) and placed in the tart tin.
While the pastry was blind baking ( foil and rice as opposed to baking parchment and baking beans), I made a custard and whipped up some cream (also by hand). Once the custard had cooled, I mixed the cream in with the custard and when the tart pastry case had finished baking I placed the custard cream into it.
When I was just about ready to serve it, I cut up 2 peaches and arranged them on the tart and placed a handful of raspberries in the middle. I finished it off with a sprinkle of castor sugar and a few mint leaves.
I must say, I was very pleased with the end result and I can't wait to make something else from this cookbook! It also gave me the opportunity to use a birthday present I got from my sister all the way back in January which she bought from the Octopus shop:
I decided on Sunday afternoon that I should use the left over egg whites and make meringues.... once again by hand! By this stage I was really wishing that I had an electric beater! But nevertheless, the meringues came out really well and I will definitely put myself through all the whisking again if I have left over egg whites.
