I LOVE this granola! It's crunchy, delicious - and healthy, too! It's super easy to make, and it keeps in an airtight container in the pantry for a couple of months, but I guarantee it will get eaten long before then. Have it for breakfast with some fresh fruit and yoghurt, and you'll be set for the day.
My husband raves about it too. He ate it with bananas and blueberries before doing the Lake Taupo cycle race (165km) for a fast, energising breakfast before his gruelling ride.
This recipe is adapted from Lighten Up by Jill Dupleix.
Ingredients
400g rolled oats
3 tbsp sunflower seeds
3 tbsp sesame seeds
2 tbsp linseed
100g almonds
100g walnuts, , brazil nuts or pecans
100g dried shredded coconut
pinch of sea salt
4 tbsp honey or maple syrup
3 tsp olive oil
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
Method
Preheat oven to 150C.
Chop the nuts, then mix together with the oats, seeds, coconut and sea salt in a large bowl.
In small pan, warm the honey/maple syrup, oil, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir until just melted.
Pour the warm liquid over the dry ingredients and mix well.
Divide mixture on to two baking trays lined with baking paper and spread out evenly. Bake for 30 minutes, shuffling the mixture around in the middle of cooking time to ensure it cooks evenly.
Remove from the oven and cool, store in airtight jars. Enjoy!
My secret to a delicious lasagne is something that would make Italian
food purists turn in their graves. Ssshh, don't tell everyone, but it's
chorizo, or any other similar spicy sausage. It adds such a lovely
smoky flavour to the dish. In fact I think I may have a chorizo
addiction, I find it enhances pretty much any meal. The one I use is actually not chorizo but a Hungarian spiced sausage that seems to be available at virtually all the Auckland farmers markets.
As you can see from the photo, I like to make a HUGE lasagne! We store it in the fridge once cooked and make it last for about four dinners. Of course, you can just halve the amount of mince used and make one normal, sedate-sized lasagne.
My recipe depends on what I have in the pantry and fridge, I'll add variations you can make to the recipe.
Ingredients
1kg mince (either all beef, or mixture of 500g beef mince, plus pork, lamb, veal, venison etc mince)
Put splash of oil in large pan with onions, garlic, chorizo and celery and/or carrot (if using). When onion is soft and chorizo is cooked, add the mince and stir until cooked. Mix in the tomato puree to the mince.Then add the pasta sauce, chopped tomatoes, oregano, red wine, salt and pepper, balsamic vinegar and tabasco sauce. Mix together and leave to simmer on stovetop for a couple of hours, stirring occasionally. The longer you cook the sauce for the better it will be. Let the sauce cool.
Get a large baking dish, and cover the bottom of the dish with the meat sauce. Cover this with a layer of white sauce, then a layer of lasagne sheets. Repeat the layers until you have used up all the meat sauce. (I find it makes about three layers). To finish, add another layer of white sauce on top of the lasagne sheets, and sprinkle with grated cheese and parmesan.
Preheat oven to 180C. Bake for about 45 minutes, until top is golden and sauce is bubbling seductively over the edge of the dish.
--White sauce--
Ingredients
100g butter
5tbsp flour
4 cups milk
1 tsp salt
fine white pepper
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
Method
Melt butter in a heavy pot over medium heat. Add flour and stir over heat for a couple of minutes without letting it brown. Gradually add milk, stirring constantly, until smooth and thickened. (I find it takes about 20 minutes). Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and simmer 2-3 minutes. Remove
from heat and if not using at once, cover with baking paper to prevent
a crust forming on top. Sauce thickens on cooling. Reheat in the
microwave and thin with extra milk. Sauce will keep in the fridge for
3-4 days.
This is the yummiest, creamiest, most decadent cheesecake you can ever make! Well, to be fair, it's the only baked cheesecake I've attempted, but it was such a success that I can't go past it. It's only for special occasions as it is so rich - and a friend coming back from Fiji today counts as a special occasion in my book! The recipe is from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook by Tarek Malouf.
Don't freak out about the amount of cream cheese used, as I say, it's very rich so that means you only need to eat a small portion at a time (well, that's the theory!)
As with all baked cheesecakes, this needs to be started the day before you're planning to eat it.
Ingredients
900g cream cheese (yes, really!) - It helps if the cream cheese is at room temperature before you begin.
190g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
Base
140g plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
50g caster sugar
50g unsalted butter
1 egg yolk
You'll also need some extra-wide tinfoil, and a 23cm round springform tin, greased and base-lined with baking paper.
Method
Preheat the oven to 150C.
For the base: Beat together the flour, baking powder, sugar and butter, until you get a sandy consistency. Add the egg yolk and mix through - it will still be sandy but it will be a little more moist. Press the mixture into the base of the prepared tin, using the ball of your hand or a tablespoon to flatten and compress it. It must be pressed down to form a dense base.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until golden. It should have lost its sandy texture and come together to form a coherent base. Set aside to cool.
Put the cream cheese , sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl and beat on slow speed until you get a very smooth, thick mixture. This can be done with a handheld electric beater, but because the mixture is so thick, I find it so much easier with a freestanding electric mixer. Add one egg at a time, while still mixing. Scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula after adding the second and last eggs. The mixture should be very smooth and creamy. The mixer can be turned to a higher speed at the end to make the mix a little lighter and fluffier, but be careful not to overmix otherwise the cheese will split.
Spoon the mixture on to the cold cheesecake base. Carefully tear off two big pieces of tin foil and place them on top of each other. Stand the tin in the middle, and fold up the foil around the sides of the tin, being careful not to tear the foil at all. Place the tin in a deep baking tray and fill with water until it reaches two-thirds of the way up the cake tin. This is why it's important to use extra-wide foil instead of the normal stuff - water can seep into any seams or tears in the foil, and will result in a soggy cheesecake! Bake for 30-40 minutes. It will still be wobbly in the centre, but don't panic! This is perfectly normal. Don't overcook. Some recipes tell you to leave the cheesecake in the oven to cool, but not this one. I tried that once, and the end result wasn't pleasant. Take the tin out of its water bath and leave to cool slightly in the tin. Cover, then refrigerate overnight before serving. It will set into a perfect cheesecake overnight!
Turning out the cheesecake.
This recipe is divine on its own, but I like to serve it with an easy peasy raspberry coulis.
Raspberry coulis
This is a great little sauce for adding to ice cream or chocolate brownies - it keeps in the fridge for a couple of weeks. The recipe is from Assemble by Annabel Langbein.
Ingredients
250g frozen raspberries, thawed
1/4 cup caster sugar
2 tbsp water
Method
Place berries in a saucepan with sugar and water. Slowly bring to simmering point over medium heat. Remove from the heat and quickly pulse a few times in a food processor to loosely blend. Strain through a sieve to remove seeds. Pour hot coulis into a clean jar. Leave to cool at room temperature.
