Ingrid's Pumpkin Soup

This is only about my favorite food on the planet, so I've spent much time perfecting this recipe! I always reccomend using kent pumpkins (aka jap pumpkin) because they have the best flavour.

Ingredients

1 kent pumpkin of a reasonable size, somewhere between 1 and 2 kilos will do.

1 large leek

2 onions

4 cloves garlic

3 medium potatoes

3 litres vegetable stock (not from a powder)

2 cups water

nutmeg

cumin

dried coriander

salt

cracked pepper

300ml cream

olive oil

Method

Cut and peel the pumkin, lightly glaze with oil and roast at approx. 180 C. Keep in mind that the smaller you cut it, the quicker it will roast. When it is lovely and caramelised, turn the oven off.

Meanwhile, slice, peel and dice the onion, leek, garlic and potato, and put it in a very large pot one litre of stock and 2 cups water. Bring to boil, and allow to simmer for half an hour or more, until it's practically falling apart.

Take pot off the heat.

Use a bar mix or a blender to smooth the mixture. I use a bar mix.

This next bit is the most difficult part of the recipe, as I find the pumkin has a tendency to end up in my mout instead of the pot!

In small lots, place the roasted pumkin in the pot and blend them in with the bar mix.

Next, add the other two litres of stock, and return the pot to the stove.

As you're heating the soup up again, season to taste with salt, pepper, cumin, coriander and nutmeg.

I normally go equal amounts of cumin and coriander, and twice as much nutmeg.

Stir in cream before serving.

Leek and Potato Soup

Sorry about the awful picture, there are limits to my phone's camera, not to mention my photography skills (or lack thereof).

This soup was originally from retromummy, passed on to me by my cousin, Carmel, but I made a few slight adjustments. That's right, I'm pathologically unable to follow a recipe.

Ingredients

2 Leeks, sliced

2 Potatoes, peeled and diced

1 Onion, sliced

2 Cloves Garlic, Crushed

1 Litre Vegetable Stock

2 Cups Water

250ml Cream

Salt

Pepper

Nutmeg

You can minus the water and do the first part in the slow cooker for five hours, but I got home from work and realised that I hadn't turned it on!! So this is how I made it:

Method

Place leek, potato, onion, garlic, stock and water in a large saucepan and bring to the boil.

Simmer, stirring occasionally for about 30-45 minutes.

Use a barmix or a blender to blend the whole lot until smooth.

Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Stir through cream right before serving.

Chocolate Mudcake

This is the bestest, most chocolatey, gooey rich, melt in your mouth mudcake ever! It also happens to be vegan!

Ingredients

2 200g bars of Lindt dark cooking chocolate

250 g Nuttelex

1 1/2 cups freshly brewed coffee

2 cups castor sugar

2 tsp orgran no egg, mixed with 4 tbsp water

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups SR Flour

1/4 cup cocoa

100g coconut cream

Method

Break up 250g chocolate and put in a microwave safe bowl with the nuttelex.

Melt in the microwave, stopping to stir every 20 seconds.

Dissolve castor sugar in coffee, and add to chocolate mixture.

Add No Egg and vanilla, stir until well combined.

Sift in flour and cocoa and combine.

Pour into a 20cm tin and bake at 160 C for and hour and a half.

Turn onto rack to cool.

When cake is totally cooled down, melt remaining chocolate and combine with coconut cream to make a ganache.

When ganache has cooled down to and easy to use consistency, spread over entire cake for a deliciously gooey icing!

Serve with ice-cream. Especially good when warmed before serving! (Stay tuned for Vegan ice-cream recipes).

Choconana Muffins

I first made this when I was about ten years old, and I've been making it ever since. It's from a cookbook that I've had since I was a kid, it's quick, easy, and doesn't produce a whole heap of extra dishes! I've tweaked the recipe a fair bit from the original, but it can be found in "The Best of Kids Cooking."

Makes 12-18

Ingredients

2 small ripe bananas

1 cup wholemeal SR flour

1/2 cup white SR flour

1 egg

2/3 cup sugar

250 g choc chips

2/3 cup milk

1/4 cup olive oil

dash vanilla extract

sprinkle salt

Method

Mash the bananas in a large bowl.

Sift in flour, add husks.

Add egg, sugar, choc chips, milk, oil, vanilla and salt.

Stir with a fork until well combined

spoon into lightly oiled muffin trays

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden, at 180 C.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for five minutes in the pan, before transferring to cooling racks.

Pumpkin, Spinach and Pinenut Penne

I made this one up as I went tonight, and couldn't believe how well it turned out! Isn't it great when something actually tastes like you imagined it would? But then, just about anything with the combination of pumpkin, spinach and pinenuts tastes awesome!

Ingredients

1/2 Kent Pumpkin

500g Penne Pasta

1 Leek, diced

1 Packet of Baby Spinach

80g Pinenuts

3 Cloves garlic, peeled and sliced

1 Sprig of Fresh Rosemary (But dry is OK)

1 Cup Grated Cheese

Salt

Pepper

Olive Oil

Method

Peel and slice the pumpkin thinly, and place onto a baking tray.

Spray with oil, sprinkle salt and pepper on top and cut rosemary up and sprinkle on top.

Bake at 200 C. When half done, turn over.

Roast until nice and caramalised, which should take 30-40 minutes-ish.

As Pumpkin is cooking, put pasta on to cook according to packet directions. Cook until al dente, then drain and put back into the pot.
While pasta is cooking, heat some oil in a fry pan and saute garlic and leek. Add Pine nuts, fry for 3 minutes, add spinach, and stir it in. When spinach has softened, remove from heat.

Place cheese through hot pasta and stir to melt. Stir in spinach mixture and serve into bowls.

Cut pumpkin into small squares and place on top of pasta.

Cereal

Today I went to Eumarrah and it was awesome! So much good food to work with. I put together a cereal with some of the things that I bought from there.

The cereal is really good with stewed rhubarb and yoghurt!!

Stewed Rhubarb

Hot off the stove with Custard for dessert, Cold from the fridge with yoghurt and cereal for breakfast, or even a tasty addition to strudel! One of my favorite winter foods is rhubarb!

Ingredients
1 Bunch of Rhubarb
1 Cup of water
Juice of Half a Lemon
1/3 Cup Sugar

Method
Cut Rhubarb into one inch lengths and wash
Place rhubarb in saucepan with water and bring to boil.
How much water you use is really up to you. My mum just covers the rhubarb, but I prefer it less runny, so I only put a little water in and stir it occasionally.
As the Rhubarb begins to boil, add the sugar. It's best to put half in, then tast before you use more. it's hard to tell the exact amount that you'll need until you taste it, because each bunch of rhubarb is different.
Turn down the heat to simmer.
Once you have the sweetness to your liking, add some lemonjuice for a little extra zing!
Once all the strings of rhubarb have seperated, you can take it off the heat and allow to cool.

Get Creative!

This is just a base recipe, there are lots of things you can do to spice it up! (lol) Today I added Honey and Apple and a teabag of Madam Flavour's Chai Tea. When you do add things like apple though, you might want to keep an eye on the colour. Mine went a gross pasty pink, so I had to add a little food dye to make it look respectable again.
There's many ways to eat stewed rhubarb. I had a large amount of it, so today I decided to use a bit by adding it into an apfelstrudel! :-)
(kinda just made up the recipe for the strudel as I went along, so it looks sad and needs perfecting, I know)

Leg Pie (Veggie Shepherd's Pie)

I'm not going to use quantities in this recipe, because it's more of a guideline, anyways. You can just use whatever is in the fridge at the time, but these are the ingredients I usually put in. With the legumes, you can use canned ones, but I don't like to use a whole can of each, so I soak the dried ones for 14 hours before hand, so I only have to use what I need.

Ingredients

Potatoes

Quinoa

Red Lentils

Green Lentils

Kidney Beans

Chickpeas

Zucchini (grated)

Carrot (grated)

Purple Carrot (grated)

Onion

Leek

Canned Crushed Tomatoes

Garlic

...And whatever other veggies are in the fridge that need using.

Basil (HEAPS!)

Oregano (HEAPS!)

Cinnamon

Nutmeg

Gravox

Method

Cook the potatoes and make mash with them. adding lots of milk so it's really creamy makes it easier to spread over the pie.

Cook the quinoa up in water or vegetable stock (2parts water to 1 part quinoa, boil up just like rice) and mix it in with the mashed potatoes.

Dice onion, leek and garlic, saute in a very large pot. Add the Fresh Veggies, then the canned tomatoes, then the legumes, and water if you need to, you don't want it too runny though!

Add Basil, Oregano, Cinnimon and Nutmeg, then simmer until everything is nice and soft.

Thicken with a healthy serving of gravox.

spread mixture out in a cassarole dish, and put the potato on top.

Sprinkle some cheese over it, and put in the oven (180 C) until the cheese goes nice and gold, and the mixture is bubling up the sides of the potato.

The name Leg Pie and recipe framework is from Laura, it's called Leg pie because it's got legumes, and because it's funny, because we don't eat legs... :-)

Cucumber and Spinach Salad

This is a recipe I stole off Jamie Oliver's show where he cooks stuff in half an hour. I tried it for the first time tonight, and I really like it, although I think it would have been better if I'd chosen some better quality sun-dried tomatoes (aka: Don't get the light ones, they're yucky!!)

Ingredients
3tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1tbs Balsamic Vinegar

Salt

Juice of Half a Lemon

4-5 Sundried Tomatoes

Big Pack of Baby Spinach

1 Cucumber

Handful of Mint
1/4 Cup Pine Nuts

Sprinkle of Parmesan

Before I go on with the method, I would like to discuss Parmesan Cheese. I spent the first half of my life, thinking that Permesan Cheese was the devil. Seriously, why would you eat that crap? The only thing it does to your food, is make it smell like it's already been eaten, then vomited back into the bowl. No thanks!!

But then my friend Kylie introduced me to a block of Parmesan cheese, and it turns out that it's not so bad after all! I'd only ever come across that really disgusting type, that's like a powder in a can. So so so gross! Never use that stuff guys, it's disgusting!

Method
Combine Oil, Vinegar, Lemon Juice and Salt in a large salad bowl

Roughly slice Tomatoes and add
Roughy slice Spinach and sit on top.

Scrape sides of cucumber with a fork (it makes it suck up the dressing) and slice, sit on top.

Tear mint roughly and add as well.

Toast Pine Nuts on the fry pan, allow to cool, then sit on top.

Sprinkle Parmesan on top.

Dress the salad with your hands just before serving. If you use the salad spoons to dress it, you won't get the tomato and dressing mixed through evenly, so it's better to use your hands!

That's enough for tonight, I'll post the recipe for that pie in the picture tomorrow!

Egg and Avocado Sandwich

For lunch today, I have a delicious sandwich! In order of layering, just add:

Your favorite bread
Layer on some Mayo
Slices of avocado (half an avocado)
Slices of hard boiled egg (a whole egg)
Sea Salt
Baby Spinach
Another slice of your favorite bread

Mine's all made up already, and I'm going to be having it with a side of pesto penne! :)

Pesto Penne

Just a warning, I don't measure when I cook, so while I will endeavor to write down quantities, they're mostly guesses, so taste taste taste as you cook!!

Ingredients

500g Penne Pasta
2-3 Bunches of Basil (or a tube of Basil, if you're feeling lazy, but this does create a different texture)
1 Clove of Garlic, chopped
1/2 Cup Pine Nuts
1/2 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/4 Cup Grated Parmasan Cheese
1/2 Cup Grated Vintage Chedder
1/2 Lemon

Method

Put the Penne on to boil acording to packet directions, making sure it's really salty water. Cook until al dente, drain and set aside.

Warm a fry pan up to medium heat, and toast the pine nuts. You shouldn't need any oil to do this, just make sure you keep stirring so they don't burn. When they're done, put them aside and fry the garlic.

If you want, you can do the next part in the food processor, but I prefer to use a motar and pestle. Grind up the basil and pine nuts. I like to leave a few pine nuts whole. When ground into a paste, add the rest of the ingredients, squeezing the lemon half in last to taste. Use the olive oil to get the right texture.

When you have the pesto just how you like it, mix it in with the pasta.



This is great to eat just on it's own, or with a sandwich at lunch time, or add it to your salad with dinner. It keeps for ages in the fridge, and goes with just about everything.

I hope that made sense!