Dark chocolate, walnut and cranberry brownies

Warning, warning! Do not make these brownies if you are on a diet or thinking you might need a diet.

Do make these brownies if you need a super-special treat, and you want something very scrumptious in your pantry for a few days; these brownies will not last any longer than that as they will be eaten immediately.

I made a double batch of these brownies for a picnic, dessert at a friend's place and snacks for the little man's soccer team. Brownies are versatile aren't they!

Enjoy in moderation but without guilt - wonderful with a piping hot cup of tea or coffee.

What you'll need

Makes 16 - 20 medium-sized brownies

300g butter
700g dark cooking chocolate
3/4 cup caster sugar
4 eggs, lightly whisked
3 cups plain flour
125g sour cream
145g walnuts, chopped
1 cup dried cranberries

What to do

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Grease and line the base and sides of a 25cm square pan with baking paper.

Combine the butter and chocolate in a saucepan over low heat and cook for five minutes until the chocolate is melted. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool for 15 minutes.

Add the eggs and the sugar to the saucepan. Then add the flour and sour cream and stir to combine. Add the nuts and cranberries and stir to combine.

Pour the mixture into the baking tin. Bake for 40 minutes or until just cooked. **The brownie mixture will bubble during the cooking process and look rather oily. This is normal and all will be well once it is cooked. As I said, this is not a diet recipe!

Remove from the oven and set aside in the baking tin to cool completely. Once cooled, remove from the tin and using a sharp knife, cut into 4cm squares. 

These brownies are best eaten the next day. Store in an air-tight container, but not in the fridge.

Chicken, prawn and artichoke paella

Here's an easy dinner inspired by Donna Hay.

This is one pan cooking at its best. Tasty, filling and family-friendly. You could do this for friends as well. It would be impressive to place the finished dish in the middle of the table for everyone to help themselves!

I don't have a paella pan, so I just used a non-stick frying pan. But I still got the lovely, crusty rice effect on the bottom of the pan, and the squishy rice and other ingredients on top.

What you'll need

Serves four to six people.

- 2 x medium chicken breasts or thigh fillets, chopped into cubes or strips
- 200g prawns. I used cooked, frozen King prawns, with the tails off. But you could use raw prawns if you have them.
- 200g jar marinated artichokes, drained
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 tsp paprika powder (sweet or smoked, whatever you have)
- 1.5 cups (300g) medium-grain rice
- 500g diced tomatoes
- 2.5 cups chicken stock
- 1 tbl olive oil

Fresh basil leave, chopped fresh red chilli and lemon wedges to serve.

What to do

Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan over high heat. Add the chicken and prawns and cook until browning and cooked through. Remove from the pan, set aside and keep warm.

There should still be some oil in the pan, but if not, add a little more. Now add the onion, garlic and paprika and cook for two minutes until the onion is soft. Add the rice, tomato and chicken stock, stir well to combine, then reduce the heat to low. Cover the pan with a lid or if you don't have a lid, cover tightly with foil. Cook without stirring (or peaking) for 20 minutes or until the rice is cooked.

Once rice is cooked, stir through the chicken and prawns. Replace the lid or foil for two minutes to heat the prawns and chicken through. Now remove the lid/foil, pour the drained artichokes over the top. Sprinkle with fresh basil and a squeeze of lemon.

The big people can also sprinkle with some fresh chopped red chilli. A bit of spice is really lovely with these ingredients.

Chorizo and haloumi skewers

I'm back! I've been away a little while, settling the little people into school. I did naively think that I might have some more time for blogging/cooking/myself once I had two children at school, but unfortunately no. Not at the moment anyway. There have been lots of meetings, sports classes, music classes, new friends to meet, and a birthday for the young man thrown into the mix. I am ready for a holiday please.

Here are some skewers I made for a picnic we had with some friends. The picnic was held in the middle of the afternoon, and everyone was asked to bring some snacks and drinks and a blanket to sit on. Luckily we had a nice sunny day and a beautiful, peaceful park. The children had a great time playing in the sand, climbing and running about with their friends. The parents also had a great time sitting in the sun, eating and having a laugh.

Here's the recipe - happy picnicking. (You could also make these skewers for a bbq or party food.)

What you'll need

Makes approximately 30 skewers

500g Haloumi cheese, chopped into 2cm cubes
200g chorizo sausage (or any type of dried sausage that you prefer) sliced into 1cm pieces
1 yellow or green capsicum, deseeded and sliced into 2cm squares
1 punnet cherry tomatoes
Juice of 1 lemon

Bamboo skewers, soaked in water for 10 minutes.

What to do

Assemble all the ingredients. Place the ingredients onto the skewers. I started with haloumi, then sausage, capsicum, tomato, haloumi, finishing with sausage. For the vegetarians, just leave the sausage out and add some more capsicum and tomato.

Once you have assembled all the skewers, place them onto a baking paper-lined baking tray. Heat the grill in your oven to high heat. Then grill the skewers, turning once during cooking. Grill for approximately 10 - 12 minutes, until the haloumi starts to go slightly brown and the tomatoes start to blister and wrinkle.

Remove from the oven. Place in a serving container with a lid and squeeze over the lemon juice. Put on the lid, take to your picnic and enjoy while sitting in the sun, drinking a glass of cold prosecco.

Toblerone and coffee semifreddo

I have recently discovered the joys of the semifreddo.

A good friend is an absolute wiz at making it. Her chocolate versions are heavenly.

My first effort was a lime, coconut and mango version I made for a family bbq a year ago. It was so luscious and summery. The flavours took me straight to the beach, cocktail in hand! I will post that recipe at some point later on.

A friend recently gave me two bars of Toblerone chocolate that she didn't want (yes, she's a little bonkers!) so I came up with this recipe to use them up. The coffee and the chocolate was a yummy flavour combination with the creamy semifreddo. I did use decaffeinated coffee powder, as I didn't want the children to be bouncing off the walls after eating this!

This was a beautiful dessert, served on a cold and rainy night. I highly recommend giving this a try, for a dinner party or just for something special for the family.

This semifreddo will also keep in the freezer in a air-tight container for a month after you make it.

What you'll need

Serves 6 to 8 people

1 tbs instant coffee powder (I used decaf coffee powder, as I was serving this to children)
4 large eggs, separated
100g caster sugar
300ml thickened cream
100g Toblerone chocolate, finely chopped plus extra to serve
Fresh berries to serve

What to do

Grease a 1 Litre loaf tin and line it with plastic wrap, leaving lots of plastic overhanging the edge.

In a bowl, place the coffee powder, egg yolks and sugar. Add a teaspoon of warm tap water and stir to combine. 

In a bowl, place the egg whites. In a separate bowl, place the cream.

Using electric beaters, first beat the egg whites until stiff. Then beat the egg yolk coffee mixture until it is thick and creamy. Finally beat the cream until soft peaks form. **If you beat the ingredients in this order, you will not need to wash the beaters in between.

Fold the cream into the coffee mixture, then fold through the whipped egg whites. Finally mix through the chopped Toblerone chocolate then pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin.

Use the overhanging plastic wrap, gently cover the top of the mixture and place into the freezer to freeze. Freeze for at least six to eight hours to ensure it is solid. 

To serve, remove from the freezer, then turn out onto a platter, gently pulling away the plastic wrap as you go. You can serve the whole semifreddo to the table on a platter or cut individual slices and decorate with berries and chopped Toblerone chocolate. 

Sweet chilli pork belly

I've developed a liking for pork belly. Well, that's not quite true. Love is probably a more accurate word, rather than like!

Pork belly is easily available in most supermarkets here and is not expensive. I love the crunchy 'crackling' on top and the succulent, juicy meat.

Pork belly holds strong flavours well, especially Asian spices and herbs. You can marinate it, and it forgives a little over-cooking. Actually, I think it is better over-cooked than under-cooked.

We ate this pork belly with roasted sweet potato and pears, and a salsa of avocado, tomato and cucumbers in lime and soy. It was a tasty Sunday evening dinner.

What you'll need

* Serves four with a little left over.

1kg piece of boneless pork belly, with the skin and fat finely scored. *If you don't know how to do this, ask your butcher to do it. 
1/2 cup sweet chilli sauce
2 tsp vegetable oil
Salt and pepper

What to do

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius. With some paper towel, pat all the moisture off the meat. Then cover the meat with the oil. The best way to do this is pour the oil on the top then use your fingers to massage it into all parts of the meat.

Once this is done, season well with salt and pepper. Put the meat, skin-side up in a roasting pan, sprinkle extra salt (about 1 teaspoon) onto the pork skin, then place into the oven. Bake on high heat for 20 minutes.

Reduce the heat to 170 degrees Celsius, and cook for a further 50 minutes.

The skin should be nice and crunchy by this time. Remove from the oven and rest for 10 minutes.
The slice into medium-thickness slices using a very sharp knife.

Once sliced, use a spoon or basting brush to paint the sweet chilli sauce onto the meat. The heat of the meat will slightly caramelise the sugar in the sauce.

Serve while hot.

Roasted sweet potato and pears

This is a colourful, tasty and healthy side dish that could be served at a BBQ or with a roast chicken on the weekend. I served mine with some sweet chilli pork belly on a Sunday night after we had been swimming all day. So there were some very hungry bodies at our house that needed to be filled up.

Summer is on the way out here and a little chill is starting to creep in on some mornings. So I am starting to cook some more warming meals.

I am happy for the change of season, and I am excited to see the different foods in the shops and clothes in the shop windows. Pumpkins are everywhere, along with fresh Brussel sprouts and lots of apples. I'm looking forward to some warm desserts, casseroles and soups. Yummy!

What you'll need

* Serves four as a side dish.

2 large sweet potatoes, chopped into large cubes.
2 pears, stalk and core removed, chopped into large cubes.
*Use firm pears, as if the pears are too soft, they will turn to mush during the cooking process.
4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
Handful of fresh basil, roughly torn
1 tbs olive oil
Salt and pepper

What to do

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Place the sweet potato pieces and garlic into a baking tray with the olive oil. Season well with salt and pepper and mix well to coat. Place into the oven and cook for approximately 25 minutes. Then add the pears to the tray, mix carefully together with the sweet potato, then bake for a further 20 minutes until the potato is soft and golden. 

Remove from the oven, place on a serving plate and scatter with the basil. Serve immediately. 

You could drizzle over a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar if you liked to create a dressing for this dish, but there is plenty of flavour without the vinegar.

Pumpkin, potato and feta tart

Pumpkins are now in season in Austria. There are all kinds of shapes and sizes in the shops now. Mostly local people do not eat pumpkin or know how to cook it. However, pumpkin oil is a popular ingredient here
Here's a quick and tasty recipe for a free-form tart using pumpkin and a few other ingredients.

We ate this for dinner, along with some green salad. The squishy and sweet pumpkin complemented the crunchy pastry and the slightly melted feta. And all these ingredients are freely available at any shop, so you could easily whip up this tart on a weekend or after work. If you don't have feta, you could use goat cheese, or ever mozzarella or grated cheddar. I also sprinkled some chopped, fresh parsley for some colour and flavour, but you could also use fresh basil, thyme or oregano.

This would be wonderful served for lunch or brunch. For us it was a late dinner after school meetings.

What you'll need

This tart serves four as a side dish or two as a light meal.

1 piece of puff pastry, 40cm x 30cm
2 large potatoes, thickly sliced
150g pumpkin, peeled, de-seeded and thickly sliced
50g feta cheese, cubed
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 tbl vegetable oil
2 tbl chopped fresh parsley (or substitute with basil, thyme or oregano)
Salt and pepper

What to do

Heat two frying pans over medium to low heat. Add the 1 tablespoon of oil to each. In one frying pan, put the onion and sweat for a few minutes. Add the potato. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring and turning constantly until potato is soft and caramelised. This will take about 15 minutes.

In the other frying pan at the same time as the potato is cooking, cook the pumpkin. Stir and turn so that it doesn't burn, but it is OK for it to brown and caramelise. Season with salt and pepper. Once the pumpkin is a little bit soft, remove it from the heat.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Prepare the pastry tart. 

I made my pastry in a free-form shape, as I didn't have a pastry tin in the shape I wanted. If you have a tin you can use, go ahead. First I shaped the pastry into a long rectangle, using my fingers to crimp the edges and squish it into shape. Next I placed the shaped pastry onto a sheet of baking paper, then placed it into a large baking tray. On three sides, the pastry touched the sides of the baking tray, on the fourth, I propped up the baking paper against the side of the pastry with a wooden spoon. This helped keep the shape of the pastry, otherwise it will fall flat once it heats up. Prick the bottom of the pastry with a fork, then place into the hot oven for approximately 15 minutes, or until slightly golden brown.

Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes. The middle of the tart will have puffed up. This is OK. You can leave it as is, as the weight of the ingredients will push it back down.

Assemble the tart.

First layer the potato and onion mixture onto the bottom of the tart, then carefully layer the pumpkin on top of this (just so it looks pretty!). Then insert the pieces of feta (or whatever cheese you use) between the pieces of pumpkin. Sprinkle with the parsley or whichever herbs you use.

Place back in the oven, at 180 degrees Celsius, for 10 - 15 minutes. This is only to reheat the tart and crisp the pastry further, as all the ingredients are already cooked. Remove from the oven and serve immediately.

You can serve the tart by itself for a light meal, or as a side dish with grilled fish or chicken. You could also make individual-sized tarts which would be lovely to serve at a dinner party.

Jelly champagne flutes

A busy week this week; the children started back at school after a long summer holiday, school meetings to attend and school lunches to make. My little bloke is no longer a kindergartner, but is now in in the big school. And the young lady is in Grade 2. Time flies!

Here is a dessert I made for a visitor. The challenge with this dessert is that it had to be lactose-free, for our visitor. When I think of dessert, what immediately springs to mind is chocolate, cream and any combination of those two things. Those ingredients are not so friendly for a lactose-free person.

I thought these jelly cups would make a nice, light and tasty dessert, and would fit the lactose-free category nicely. The children were able to help make these also, which is always a bonus. I made the jelly in champagne flutes, just for something different and so we could all see the lovely colours of the jelly.

I only had two flavours in the pantry, so I made my own jelly using powdered gelatine and fresh orange juice as the top layer. I did not sweeten this mixture, as I thought there would be enough sugar in the layers below to compensate. I also sprinkled the top with some dessicated coconut mixed with a tiny bit of green food colouring. This was just for decoration. You could spoon on some fresh cream or icecream if you like or just leave it as is to serve.

Jelly is very difficult to find in Austria. There is only one shop I have found that sells it in Vienna. Or you can import it from England. The locals who have tasted it here really like it. Another one of those strange cultural/food differences between Australia and here.

The lactose-free visitor gave them the thumbs up by-the-way.

What you'll need

*This made five champagne flutes of jelly as a dessert.

2 packets jelly crystals in different colours/flavours. I used cranberry and strawberry.
1.5 cups boiling water
2 cups cold water
1 cup orange juice
10g powdered gelatine

What to do

Make the first batch of jelly following the packet instruction. I used a little less water than the packet directed, so the jelly would be thicker so I could layer it in the glass. I used 3/4 cup of boiling water and the same of cold water. I made the jelly in a jug, so it was easy to pour into the glasses.

Once the jelly is dissolved, pour carefully into 5 champagne flutes. I filled each glass about 1/4 full.

Place in the fridge to set. This will take about 2 hours.

Once the jelly is set hard, make the next colour jelly. Follow the instructions as above. Once the jelly is dissolved, pour carefully onto the existing layer of jelly. I poured my mixture into the glass over the back of a teaspoon, just to make sure the hot jelly mixture didn't dissolve the already-set layer.

Place in the fridge to set. Again this will take about 2 hours.

Once this layer is set hard, make the final layer. You can use another layer of jelly made with jelly crystals, or make your own as I did.

To make your own, heat the orange juice in a saucepan until just simmering. Remove from the heat. Sprinkle in the powdered gelatine and mix well with a spoon until the gelatine is dissolved. Pour into a quarter-cup of cold water and mix well. Pout the final jelly layer carefully into the glasses.

Place glasses back into the fridge to set for two hours. Then serve with whatever accompaniment you'd like. I sprinkled a little dessicated coconut on the top.