Feijoa Loaf

Feijoa is a fruit that is abundant particularly in Autumn, and is most common in New Zealand.  It's quite unusual, an acquired taste... acquired in so far as it helps having grown up with them.  Many people have feijoa trees in their gardens and our friend (she's British) doesn't like them, and so she gave us a bagful from the tree in her garden.  

This recipe inspiration came from a website which exclaimed it was the "easiest feijoa loaf ever".  I disagree.  Easy usually means quick, but the whole steps of boiling the feijoa and sugar and butter, then waiting for the mixture to cool down... what a pain in the butt!!! 

INGREDIENTS

1 cup feijoas (the fleshy bit, not the skin)
1 cup boiling water
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
50 g butter
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, beaten

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 180 C
• Put feijoas, sugar, butter & water in a saucepan
• Bring to the boil, cook gently for 5 minutes
• Remove from heat and allow to cool
• Carefully stir in the dry ingredients & egg. Don’t overmix!
• Pour into loaf tin, and sprinkle over a mixture of raw sugar and cinnamon (about 2tbsp and 1/2 tsp) - this is optional
• Bake in a loaf tin for 50 minutes

This loaf was a slight fail in my opinion.  It came out quite dry, I think I may have overcooked it, cos I forgot the oven was on fan-bake, rather than normal bake.  The sugar and cinnamon on top gave it a nice crunch though, and I think this was my favourite part of it.  

Recipe Inspiration: http://www.mividacontigo.com/food/the-easiest-feijoa-loaf-ever

Banana Cranberry Oatmeal Muffins

Time for another new recipe I tried!  This time, it came about not through browsing Pinterest, like most of my other recipes, but instead, me wanting a twist on plain old banana muffins/loaf/cake.  I didn't want to make a cake, and every time I use cake batter in muffin tins, it comes out too dry.  So I decided to google a recipe for banana muffins, but not plain old boring ones either.  I wanted something different.

So I found a recipe for cranberry banana muffins.  And it sounded yum.  Only issue was, I had no idea what "flaked bran cereal" was, yet I had seen recipes for oatmeal banana muffins.  I figured oatmeal and banana went together ok having read that, so I substituted oatmeal (aka dry porridge/rolled oats) for that.  

INGREDIENTS

1 & 1/4 cups flour (you can also use wholemeal)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
1/2 cup sugar (or 1/3 cup if you prefer it not so sweet)
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 & 1/4 cups oatmeal (aka rolled oats/dry uncooked porridge)

1/2 cup dried cranberries

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 180ºC
• If not using a silicone muffin tray, then lightly grease a muffin tin, or line with cupcake liners
• In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt
• In another bowl, whisk together egg, sugar, oil, milk and bananas
• Stir in oatmeal
• Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until just blended
• Stir in cranberries
• Divide evenly among prepared muffin cups
• Sprinkle with a little raw sugar on top - gives a nice crunch, but this is optional
• Bake for 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centre of a muffin comes out clean
• Leave muffins in tin to cool, then remove to a rack to cool completely (or serve warm)

This recipe with these measurements made (for me) 12 ordinary size muffins and 12 mini muffins.  However, since I was hesitant to overfill the muffins, they were quite small and dense, and didn't rise much.  Next time I will fill up the muffin cups a bit higher.  :)  

As for the flavour, it was amazeballs!  The cranberries soaked up the liquid, they became sweet and juicy, the banana was good, and the raw sugar I had sprinkled on top gave a delicious crunch to it.  The oatmeal and banana made the muffin nice and dense, which will be great for lunches/morning tea.  Definitely a keeper!!!

Recipe Inspiration:  http://www.sevenspoons.net/blog/2006/1/13/plain-january-jane.html?lastPage=true#comment18152293

Pinterest

Ok so I admit, this blog post is not about a recipe per-say, but it's about where I find a lot of my recipes.  

I used to use www.pinterest.com a LOT.  

I'd spend my days trawling the pages looking for yummy things I wanted to try and make.  Then if I spotted one (like a needle in a haystack... I'm very fussy you see...), I'd pin it to my board called "Recipes to Try".  Once I had tried the recipe, I would change it and pin it to "Tried and Tested".  I'm a very organised person.  I can't help it, it's in my nature!

So I thought I'd just post a quick blog with links to both my boards, in case you were interested (you'll see a lot of double ups, in so far as the recipes that I've tried, I've probably written about on this blog anyways).  

I warn you though, if you set up an account, it can develop into a serious addiction.

I was addicted for a good couple of months, over Christmas/New Years/Jan/Feb.  But once I got back to uni in March, I didn't have as much time to trawl through the pictures and such.  One would think this would mean I would go and make all the recipes waiting to be tried... but as such, not yet.  Maybe soon.  :)

Recipes to Try:  http://pinterest.com/hannabaorange/recipes-to-try/

Tried and Tested: http://pinterest.com/hannabaorange/tried-tested/

Couscous

Well, couscous is something I've wanted to try for a long time, and bought some a while ago, yet never got around to cooking it.  Tonight I decided to give it a go.  We were having lamb chops for dinner, and steamed veges, so I thought couscous would be nice instead of potato.  Here's what I did:

INGREDIENTS

1 cup couscous (dry)

1 & 1/4 cup vegetable stock (made up with boiling water)

1/2 tsp salt

couple of pinches of dried thyme

1/2 tsp onion salt (optional)

METHOD

• Put couscous, salt and thyme in a bowl that has a lid
• Make up the vegetable stock with boiling water
• Add the onion salt to the stock
• Pour the stock over the couscous, and stir with a fork briefly
• Place the lid over the couscous, and DO NOT remove! 
• Ignore and leave for 5 minutes
• Remove lid
• Fluff with a fork
• Serve immediately!

This was remarkably tasty, and not in the least as bland as I originally thought.  Thyme always goes beautifully with lamb, so it was a great compliment to the chops, and it wasn't heavy.  1 cup of dry couscous made enough for the three of us to have on the side, with plenty left over!  Certainly don't need to use 2 cups of dry couscous like the recipe I referred to said to (altho, I ended up experimenting and doing my own thing instead!)

I was worried it would be gluggy and unappetising, as I have heard couscous can go horribly wrong.  However, this came out well, fluffy and light.  Will definitely make this again!  (It's SO CHEAP too!!!  WIN!)

Passionfruit White Chocolate Muffins

Wow so it's been over a month since I've posted on here, and NO, I haven't been SLACK... I've just been too busy with university and work and things to have any time to try any new recipes!!!  Such is life.

Anywho, we had some passion fruit to use up, courtesy of our neighbour, and no idea what to do with it.  Coincidentally, a friend of mine sent me a message on FB with this recipe (shout out to Mel! :D)  and I was like YES let's do this!  Finally got around to it tonight.  :)  Here's a pic of the pulp :)

INGREDIENTS

2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
1/2 cup caster sugar
100g white chocolate chips
125g butter, melted (and cooled, but I was too impatient for this)
1/3 cup milk
2 eggs, lightly whisked
1/4 cup passion fruit pulp
1 tsp vanilla essence

Icing1 & 1/4 cups icing sugar
2 tsp hot water
1 tablespoon passion fruit pulp 

METHOD

• Preheat oven to 200°C. 
• Lightly grease a 12-hole 1/3-cup capacity muffin pan.
• Combine flour, sugar and chocolate in a bowl. Make a well in the centre. 
• Whisk butter, milk, egg, passion fruit and vanilla in a jug. Pour into well. 
• Gently fold until just combined. 
• Three-quarter fill muffin holes with mixture. 
• Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 
• Stand in pan for 5 minutes. 
• Turn onto a wire rack. 
• Make passion fruit icing: Stir icing sugar, water and passion fruit in a bowl until smooth. 
• Spoon over muffins, allowing to drizzle down sides. 
• Allow to set. Serve.

Hmmm I'm not sure about these muffins.  They are REALLY sweet with the chocolate AND the icing - the tartness of the passion fruit is kind of lost in the mix.  I'm not the biggest passion fruit fan (when it has pips!) so the crunch was a bit disconcerting.  I mean they were nice enough, but after one, I'm kinda over it, and hoping mum and dad like them enough to eat the rest haha!

Recipe Inspiration: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/1082/passionfruit+and+white+chocolate+muffins