Category Archives: Breakfast & Brunch

Just Peachy Pancakes

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Happy Easter! I hope you get to relax with friends and family over the break.

Right now I’m eating the biggest bowl of fresh fruit and yoghurt… and I’ve told myself that if I finish that, then all bets are off and I can rip into the chocolate. I’m sure I’ll read this post again later with chocolate stains and remorse.

Today I bring you a breakfasty brunch recipe, so if you feel like making it, you’ve still got tomorrow to try it!

This is just a simple pancake recipe – actually, it’s a pikelet recipe, which I’ve often used for pancakes. This makes hotcake-y kind of pancakes, rather than the really fat pancakes that you get with beaten egg white recipes. I served our pancakes with what may be the last peaches we eat this season.

Pancakes

25g low fat spread or buttter
1 Tbsp golden syrup (or maple)
½ cup sugar
2 eggs
¾ cup trim milk
1½ cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar

Melt the spread in a large heatproof bowl or jug in the microwave. Add the syrup and microwave again, just until the mixture is softened. Add the sugar and eggs, and whisk until they’re well combined. Whisk in the milk, then add the sifted flour, baking soda and cream of tartar and just mix until there are no more pockets of flour – as for muffins, avoid over-mixing like the plague.

Heat a large-ish frypan over medium heat and either spray with non-stick cooking spray, or melt a little butter and swirl in the pan to grease.

Drop the batter in to form pancake sized discs – I use a slightly less than full ¼ cup measure to do this. Once you have quite a few bubbles burst on the surface, gently flip the pancake. I find if you have a good non-stick spatula or fish slice you can tilt the edge up and have a peek to see whether it’s your preferred colour too. Once both sides are cooked, remove from the pan and serve.

If you’re cooking for a bunch of people, and you want everyone to eat at the same time, I keep the pancakes stacked on the bench in a folded clean teatowel, one pancake between each folded layer. This keeps them pretty warm without letting them go stodgy.

Good served with bacon/banana/maple, berries and yoghurt, light butter and syrup, or grilled fruit as below.

Grilled Peaches

Preheat the grill to 180-200 or so. Slice the peaches, cutting the flesh away from the stone, and lay the slices out in a single layer in a small lined baking tray. I suggest using metal, as it  heats up quickly and conducts heat to the peaches – ceramic dishes will take longer. Sprinkle the peaches with brown sugar and drizzle some balsamic vinegar over the top. Grill for a few minutes until tender and delicious.

Enjoy your Easter weekend!

Apple Purée

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Today I thought I’d share something we eat nearly every day but that usually flies under the radar: apple purée.

As per usual with me, this is really not revolutionary – it’s just cooked apples that have been whizzed up. But it is SO yummy, simple, useful, versatile, healthy and cheap. How else can I sell it?

I first made this when we had loads of apples and they were just starting to go a bit soft and not so nice for eating plain. Now I buy extra apples (little ones, or ones with a couple of marks on them) just for making into purée. I make it once every couple of weeks, and the obsessive housewife in me packs 1-cup quantities into little snap lock bags (which can be used over and over and over), and freezes them. Then I take them out the night before I need them, and they’re purée again by morning.

I add the purée to my muesli, fresh fruit and yoghurt for breakfast – great way to bulk out the meal without adding extra fat or excess kJ. You can also use it in desserts,  smoothies, milkshakes etc, or I’m sure there are plenty of other ideas floating around. I think you could use it in most instances as a substitute for store-bought apple sauce – much better for you, too.

I really like using apple purée as a substitute for butter in baking recipes. I have a general rule of thumb for cakes, muffins and loaves etc, that you can swap a quantity of butter for a half and half mix of fruit purée and low-fat spread. It’s not a fail-safe rule, some recipes do need a higher quantity of fat to work, so I can’t guarantee you success! But for example, I made a beautiful gingerbread a few days ago – instead of 200g butter, I used 100g apple puree, and 100g low fat spread, and it came out perfectly (I’ll post the recipe sometime soon). You really wouldn’t know from the taste, and although the sugar content is still high, you’ve significantly lowered the fat, which is a great start! By the way, this can be a great option if you need to make a baking recipe dairy-free.

Apple Purée (or you could use pears)
Just cut apples into quarters, and remove the core and pips. Chop the apples roughly, leaving the skin on (it’s where lots of the goodness is, and it just melts into the puree during cooking and whizzing). I microwave my apples – pop say 800g of them in a microwave proof bowl with 1-2 Tbsp cold water, cover and cook on high for about 8 minutes. I don’t find you need to add any sugar, unless the apples are spectacularly tart. Alternatively, you could steam them on the stove top, just until they’re tender and will puree easily. Once they’re cooked, transfer the contents (including the liquid) to a food processor, and whiz for a couple of minutes, or until you have a smooth puree. The purée in this photo is made from lovely gala apples and they gave it this beautiful rosy pink colour.

Enjoy!

Plum Rugelach

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These little pastry creations are Rugelach. Have you ever heard of them? They are new to me, but I have fallen for them. Big time.

Rugelach are a traditional Jewish pastry – a little crescent made from cream cheese or sour cream pastry wrapped around a sweet filling. I discovered them in New York (next to the fug bahs), and have been desperate to recreate them at home.

The rugelach I bought looked more like pinwheels; they had just been rolled into a log and sliced, but all reputable recipes I’ve found have them cut into wedges, then rolled up from the wide end in – like croissants. This makes them messier and stickier but (or maybe therefore) infinitely more adorable.

Discovering the cream cheese pastry when you take the first bite is amazing. I don’t think I’ve come across proper cream cheese pastry in bakeries here, and I’ve gotta say, we are missing out, people! Especially in these rugelach with sweet, jammy fillings – it is like a toasted bagel with cream cheese and jam, but in pastry form.

I have many ideas for things to fill rugelach with (including raspberry & currant, apricot & walnut, dark chocolate, almond cream…). This time I used some of my plum & blackcurrant jam, along with a few raisins.

Plum & Blackcurrant Rugelach
Adapted from several recipes at and via kosherfood.about.com
Makes many many many.

Cream Cheese Pastry
200g butter
250g cream cheese (not spreadable or lite)
¼ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour

Fruit Filling
Plum & Blackcurrant Jam (or any berry flavour, really)
½ cup raisins or currants

To glaze
1 egg
2-3 Tbsp sugar

To make the pastry, cream the butter and cream cheese together. Add the sugar vanilla and beat until smooth. Add the sifted flour and mix lightly. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for at least an hour (I made mine the day before).

When you’re ready to make the rugelach, preheat the oven to 180°, and line a couple of baking trays with baking paper.

Divide your dough into four. Lightly flour a surface to roll on – keeping in mind that you need to cut the dough on it, so get a board if you’re not ok with cutting directly on your bench!. Roll your first portion out into a circle, about 3mm thick. Give the jam a good stir to loosen it up, and spread it over the circle, starting from the centre and moving outwards, and leaving about 2cm clear at the outside. Don’t spread too thickly or the pastry will be too messy to bake, and that would be tragic. Sprinkle the raisins on top of the jam.

This is where it gets sticky. Get a sharp knife and cut the circle into wedges like a pizza; I think I cut mine into 10-12 wedges. Starting from the outside (wide) edge, roll each wedge up. Ideally you end up with the point on the underside of the crescent, so you can place it seam-side down on a prepared tray. Repeat with the other three portions of dough.

Brush each pastry with a little beaten egg, and sprinkle with sugar, and bake 20-25 minutes, or until golden.

Mushroom Bruschetta

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We had bruschetta for lunch recently on a sunny Sunday. Such a sunny Sunday, in fact, that most of my photos are a bit overexposed! But they give you an idea of what a nice day it was.

I love bruschetta for a weekend lunch; it feels Italian-y and a bit special (depending on what ingredients you use), but is actually really easy. At its core, it’s fancy tomatoes on toast.

Annabel Langbein’s Great Food for Busy Lives has a recipe for mushroom bruschetta topping, which I borrowed for this lunch. And the nice thing about bruschetta, like pizza, is that you can use up ingredients lurking in the fridge.

Note – I’ve updated this part of the post, after some tips from Alessandra Zecchini on the best authentic bread for bruschetta. I had read a bunch of recipes suggesting ciabatta, but as Alessandra notes, a Tuscan-style compact loaf is best. I am happy to be put right as I had used a good dense grainy bread (I think it was McKenzie country stuff). My original choice would have been our homemade sourdough (the starter is still going well, by the way), and I can now confirm that would also be a suitable choice. Thanks, Alessandra!

Mushroom & Artichoke Bruschetta (adapted from an Annabel Langbein recipe)

olive oil
as many slices of ciabatta as you need
1 tsp sesame oil
about 1 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
1-2 Tbsp unsweeted greek yoghurt
squeeze lemon juice
1 Tbsp chopped Italian parsley
spready options – harissa paste, tahini paste, or olive tapenade
cherry tomatoes, halved
canned artichoke halves, drained and chopped (optional)
extra Italian parsley, to garnish

Preheat the grill. Brush the bread with olive oil (if you want to keep things a little healther, I actually sprayed my bread with olive oil spray), and grill it lightly, just until it’s beginning to toast. Once it’s done, take the bread out and turn the oven to bake function, at 180°.

Heat the sesame oil in a frypan, and cook the mushrooms and garlic until the mushrooms have softened and reached that delicious-smelling, melty stage. Mix them with the yoghurt (you could also use mayonnaise), using just enough to bind the mixture and make it spreadable. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and the parsley.

You don’t need to spread anything on the bruschetta before adding the mushroom topping, but I used a little tahini paste on some, and a little of my harissa paste on others (tip: spread very thinly, that stuff can be quite hot!). If you have it on hand, try a black olive tapenade.

Spread the mushroom mixture over the bruschetta, and top with artichoke hearts and cherry tomato halves. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the bruschetta are starting to crisp at the edges.

Some days, you just need a toastie.

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In fact, most days at the moment, you need a toastie. Like a club toastie with cranberry sauce, leftover roast chicken and brie!

Yep, a triple deck toastie. Also suggest smoked chicken with pistachios or walnuts, or pesto, or tomato, basil and mozzarella, or bacon, or update the old ham and pineapple classic, or … anything really. The world of toasties knows no bounds.

No recipe today, just toastie inspiration. To compensate, I thought you might like to see my parents’ pet sheep, Jack and Vera, at home in Dunedin. Awwwww.  More interesting recipes to follow later in the week!

Huevos Rancheros!

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Huevos Rancheros is a bit of a tex mex thing. Eggs, tomatoes and tortillas. Great for weekend brunch! Most recipes have the eggs fried separately, and served over a tortilla with tomato mix. I like recipes that poach the eggs in the tomato sauce itself, then you pour the eggy tomato-y mix over your warm tortilla. Mmmm.

Huevos Rancheros – serves 2

1 tsp olive oil
1/2 an onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
pinch – or more if you like – chilli powder
1/2 tsp dried oregano
dash of hot chilli sauce (optional)
400g can tomatoes
pinch salt
2-4 eggs, depending how many you want
tortillas
chopped coriander & freshly ground pepper

Heat the oil in a fry pan and gently cook onion and garlic until soft. Add your cumin, chilli powder and oregano and cook for a minute or two.

Add the tinned tomatoes and chilli sauce, if you’re using it. Let this tomato mix simmer for about 5 minutes. Make little wells in the mixture for your eggs, and carefully break them in.

Cover the pan and let the eggs cook for 4 or 5 minutes, depending on whether you like the yolks still runny, or longer if you want them hard poached.

Warm your tortillas up in the oven or microwave, and get them ready on the plates. Once the eggs are cooked, spoon the mixture over your tortillas and serve with coriander and lots of pepper. Delicious!