Carb free pizza – cauliflower base

My exploration into cauliflower cheats just got serious! I have perfected a cauliflower pizza base – creating a pizza that looks and tastes great!

Ingredients

Base

• 1 cauliflower
• 1 courgette
• 2 eggs
• 100g mature cheddar cheese
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon mixed herbs
• salt and pepper

Sauce

• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• good quirt of tomato puree
• 1/2 teaspoon chilli powder (optional)
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• sale and pepper

Topping

• mushrooms
• mozzarella
• basil

Instructions 

1) Line 2 x pizza trays. Put the oven on the hottest setting with the shelf in the highest position

2) Grate the cauliflower and microwave covered for 5 minutes. Ring all the water out with a tea towel. Grate a courgette and ring out (or another cauliflower)

3) Add the eggs, cheese and spices and mix into a dough

4) Separate into two halves and press into circles

5) Bake until golden brown

6) Cook down a tin of tomatoes over the hob with the spices to make a thick sauce. Add toppings and cook for 6 minutes. If needed grill for 2 minutes

 

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Porter Cake

I have a friend who loves cake and ale. There was only one cake that came to mind for her birthday; a Porter Cake. Yum.

Ingredients

• 175g butter, plus extra for greasing
• 450g raisins
• Grated zest (on the large setting) of 2 medium oranges and juice 1.5 oranges
• 175g soft brown sugar
• 200ml Sainsbury’s London Porter
• 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 3 beaten medium eggs
• 300g plain flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger

For the topping

• 2 tbsp flaked almonds
• 2 tbsp Demerara sugar

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 150C/fan 130C. Butter and line the base and sides of two tin loafs. Put the butter, raisins, orange zest and juice, sugar and porter in a large pan. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring until the boil, stirring until the butter has dissolved, then simmer for 10 mins.
2. Cool for 10 mins, then stir in the bicarbonate of soda. The mixture will foam up.
3. Stir the eggs into the pan, then sift in the flour and spice and mix well. Pour into the prepared tins, smooth the top with the back of a spoon and sprinkle with the flaked almonds and demerara sugar. Bake for 1 hour and cool in the tin for 15 mins, then turn out and cool on a wire rack.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WEATHERBANTS

Inspired by the BBC good food recipe:  http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/user/138098/recipe/porter-cake

Cauliflower Rice

It is all the rage right now – Cauliflower Rice. Initially I was not sold. But we had a sad cauliflower in the fridge that we had neglected to plan into a meal so we decided to give in to the trend! It is really really tasty! If you are trying a low-carb diet or just want to look to reduce your calorie in take you should give it a go. I once watched a TV programme that said the cauliflower was in decline as the average household only eats one a year – so you are also helping the cauliflower farmers. Give it a go…1 cauliflower feeds two people…

Ingredients

• A cauliflower
• 1 x dessert spoon of cumin
• a pinch of chilli powder
• 1/2 a dessert spoon of coriander
• olive oil

Instructions

1. Grate the cauliflower (you can also grate the stalk)
2. Transfer to a bowl and add the spices and cover in oil – mix well
3. Line a flat tray with a sheet of baking paper
4. Spread it out to a thin, even layer
5. Roasted the ‘rice’ at 200C for 15 minutes, mixing it in the tray halfway through cooking
6. Serve up!

Mozzarella stuffed meatballs

This is a request that came in from my boyfriend. I am not sure where he saw them, but after some online research and a couple of attempts we now have this recipe down to a tee!

Makes around 20 meatballs – serves 6 

Ingredients:

For meatballs: 

• mozzarella
• 500g lean minced pork
• 500g lean minced beef
• 4 slices of white bread – crusts removed
• 1/2 cup semi-skimmed milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 small finely chopped red onion
• 3 garlic cloves
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• mixed herbs to taste

For sauce:

• can of tomatoes
• seasoning
• basil (to garnish)

Pasta

• Spaghetti (measure serving per person)

Instructions: 

1. Soak the bread in milk for 5 minutes
2. Cut mozzarella into cm square cubes
3. Mix all the other meatball ingredients together in a bowl, add the soaked bread to the mixture, incorporate together with hands
4. Take a small golf-ball sized piece of meat and flatten. Add 1 x mozzarella square to the middle, wrap the meat around and roll into compact ball. Repeat until all the balls have been made (the balls are suitable for freezing if you do not want to cook them all)
5. Fry off the balls until golden brown – only do 5 at a time so you can move them around easily. Set aside and repeat
6. To create the sauce, but the tomato into a cooking pan and add the balls. Season well. Cover and allow to cook for 10 minutes
7. Boil some water for the pasta. Once the 10 minutes is complete, uncover the balls and allow to cook down for a further 10 minutes. In this time cook the pasta
8. Drain the pasta, add some sauce to the pasta and mix so covered. Plate up some pasta with 3-4 balls. Sprinkle with basil

Cut mozzarella into cm cubes

Take a small handful of meat and place mozzarella in center

Roll into a compact ball

Create similar sized balls

Fry off in small numbers till golden brown

Place in the tomato juice and cook

Brandy & Port Fruit Cake (Mincemeat) with Brandy Icing

It was again my turn to deliver the goods for Bake Club at work. Seeing as it is getting cold and the shops are already starting to get festive I decided to create a comforting fruit cake with a mincemeat twist! I found some lovely mincemeat cake recipes online. Here is my take on a festive fruit cake – it fed 12 hungry faces.

Ingredients

Cake

• 140g butter (room temperature)
• 140g light soft brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 225g self-raising flour, sifted
• 85g Cranberries
• 411g mincemeat (whole jar)
• Splash of brandy
• Pecans to decorate

Icing

• 50g butter
• 100g icing sugar
• ~2 teaspoons brandy (need to judge by eye)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 140C/fan. Grease and line 2 x 20cm (8 in) round tins.
2. Put all the ingredients into a bowl (except for the pecans) and mix thoroughly until thoroughly blended. Turn into prepared tins and place almonds on the top of one of the layers.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for about 45-50 mins or until the cakes are golden brown, firm to the touch and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
4. Allow the cakes to cool in the tins for a few minutes, then loosen the sides with a small palette knife, turn out on to a wire rack and leave to cool.
5. Mix the butter and the icing sugar. Add brandy in very small amounts until you have a smooth stiff icing. Lay over the plain layer and stack the pecan layer on top.

Trogir – Croatia – would not recommend a visit

For the last leg of our holiday we traveled to Trogir which is a short coach ride away from Split. We would not recommend that you visit the area if you have spent time in Split because Trogir is a smaller, less impressive and touristy version of the former.

We visited the number one restaurant according to TripAdvisor at the time Don Dino and were hugely disappointed by the set lunch. Although we ordered two different pasta dishes the sauces were the same, the gnocchi was hard and the feta salad should have just been called a feta plate and was really salty. It did not really hit the spot.

‘homemade’ pasta

feta salad

Gnocchi

Luckily we stayed in a really lovely apartment Ulica Matije Gupca 25 which had a lovely outdoor courtyard. We made use of this for a few of our meals enjoying a takeaway pizza from Riva one night and a large picnic from Konzum (the local supermarker) on another.

Although the majority of the restaurants and cafes felt incredibly busy and bit ‘samey’ Café Bar Dovani is worth a visit for its ice cream Sundaes, one of which looks like Spag Bol!

Grandma’s Polish Cake

Quite soon into our relationship I heard about a magical treat called Polish Cake; a childhood favourite of Dave’s, his uncle’s, auntie’s and cousin’s that their Grandma Moira used to make. As tall tales often go, when it came to anyone else trying to recreate this non-bake cake delight it would always fall shy of the legend. Several packets of Digestive Biscuits later we are a little closer and I have now joined the Polish Cake addicts (or chocolate crack as I refer to it). We have managed to get it ‘very good’ but we are still a stone’s throw away from Moira’s. The recipe below is for a large (approx 9″ x 12″) rectangular tin.

Ingredients

• 16 oz McVitie’s Digestive Biscuits
• 2 large tablespoon Lyle’s Golden Syrup
• 3 heaped dessertspoons Cadbury’s Drinking Chocolate
• 1 heaped dessertspoon Cadbury’s Bournville Cocoa
• 6 1/2 oz Stork margarine

Topping

• 150 grams Dr. Oetker Dark Chocolate
• 150 grams Dr. Oetker Milk Chocolate

Instructions

1. Line tin with tin foil.
2. Crush biscuits in a large bowl using a rolling pin.
3. Melt margarine, syrup, drinking chocolate and cocoa in a saucepan.
4. Pour melted mixture over biscuits, coating and mixing thoroughly.
5. Put mixture in tin and spread evenly, pressing down gently with a spoon.
6. Leave in fridge while preparing the topping.
7. Melt the chocolate over hot water and spread over the biscuit mixture.
8. Leave to set and cut into 2 inch slices.