At My House: Heirloom Pumpkin Gnocchi with Tomato & Olive Sauce

This is my first attempt at pumpkin gnocchi, any gnocchi actually.  It tasted good, but I did run into some trouble getting to the end result.  Preparing the dough was fine, but making the little shapes requires a fork and a flick of the wrist that I haven't quite mastered.  We'll definitely be having this again, so time to practice next time. 

I used this recipe, cooking my pumpkin by baking it in the oven for half an hour or so.  We were given an heirloom pumpkin from our interstate visitors recently, they bought it from a farmer in Kyogle.  Apparently he sets up his truck outside a servo there if you know the area.  It was beautiful, the flavour was so distinctive and reminded me of the roast pumpkin Nan used to include with our Sunday Roasts.

There are other things happening at our house this week, however I'm doing that stupid, unproductive thing where you have a toddler on your lap thinking you can type a quick post and keep them happy at the same time.  I've pulled her fat little hands off the keyboard and mouse a few times now.  I think it time for a cuppa tea and a nice story with her cuddling in next to me.

Donna Hay Banana & Coconut Pudding

This is a new favourite that we enjoyed by the fire.  Sounds romantic doesn't it? Well it wasn't, our beautiful Toddler Cuggle and our Puppy Cuggle were enjoying the warmth of the fire too.  It was a nice family moment. : ) 

This Donna Hay recipe adheres to my strict standards to be called a favourite - yummy, easy, fast and requires only 'normal' ingredients that are likely to be in the house.  The recipe is on the Donna Hay website but I notice they've attached the wrong picture. I know because it is in the Winter 2006 DH Magazine (issue 28) where I got my pudding recipe.  The website picture is actually of 'Winter Trifle with Spiced Custard'.  Might have to try that one next time.  Yum.

Friday Beers with Kids

I do love a beer, a nice dry pilsener would be so refreshing right now.  Life has changed though, these days I'm home with a toddler on a Friday arvo and beer now means baking... 

I've just whacked this in the oven - 3 cups SR Flour and a stubbie.  Half an hour at 180 and I'm expecting a beautiful loaf of bread.  There's heaps of variations of this on Google.  I'll leave a comment later to let you know how it turns out! 

At my house: Donna Vs Nigella

Superior styling, concise instructions and proven results vs. good styling, verbose instructions and unknown results.  That's what I'm pondering this week, as a loyal Donna Hay girl I have recently been tempted by Nigella with her 'Nigella Express' program the ABC is running.  I've strayed so far as to borrow a Nigella book from the library, but I keep choosing my tried and tested Donna Hay recipes.  Donna really just puts a bit of sophistication into everyday ingredients 'Express' version of Nigella seems to rely on pre-prepared (good quality) ingredients in order to then throw something together more quickly than you could have otherwise.  I'm not going to cross over anytime soon, maybe just have a little dalliance at some stage. 

Are you wanting lovely warm breakfasts with this cooler weather?  We recently had house guests and I thought it would be very domestic to serve up a good ol' pot of porridge to start the day.  I turned to a copy of a DH mag from Autumn last year and found 'Vanilla Porridge with Honeyed Apples'.  Have a look at the DH website for the recipe.  I hadn't made this one before but can advise that when doing the honeyed apples, high heat doesn't necessarily mean the highest heat your burner can go up to.  Oops.  I can also advise that if you want an even quicker version of this idea, you can grate some apple into the porridge toward the end of the cooking time and stir in the vanilla and honey as well.  DEEELISH.

If I break out any Nigella recipes I'll share those experiences too, just to be fair to the poms.  You can visit the Nigella's website by clicking this link.  Be aware some recipes are submitted by readers, not Nigella.

Thanks Lou for inspiring this 'At my house' sharing game.

Easy Dinner

Here's a great recipe that my Mum made often and that I have recently started making for my family.  We always called it Ki Si Mein at home, though I suspect the authentic chinese recipe (if one exists) wouldn't use curry powder!  Despite that, it is really yummy and easy, Toddler and Hubby will both eat it, a sure winner, and it has protein, veg and carbs all in one dish:

NANNY CUGGLE'S KI SI MEIN - SERVES 4

Ingredients

1 large brown onion, chopped roughly
2-3 sticks celery, sliced
1/4 large cabbage, shredded (I know, cabbage - trust me)
500g beef mince
1 tblspn curry powder
1 pkt chicken noodle soup, plus 2 cups water
2 - 3 tblspns rice
1 cup frozen peas

Method

1. Heat some oil in a large pan and cook onion till soft;
2. Add mince and cook til browned;
3. Add curry powder, celery and cabbage and stir well;
4. Add soup mix, rice and water, give it a good stir, then cover and leave on low heat for 20 mins, it should be simmering gently;
5. Throw peas in and stir, leave simmering for another 5 mins or until rice is cooked.

All done. 

*My toddler is a pretty good vege eater but I'm pleased and surprised she will go so far as to eat cabbage in this dish.  Hubby, well, he's a bit of a 'snobby princess and the pea' he will eat lots of things, but they have to be a certain way.  For a while I refused to pander to him but in the end I got jack of seeing him raiding the pantry for something other than what I slaved over.  That's when I sat down with him and wrote a list of all his favourite foods and recipes (he is a very good cook, so I'm compteting with those expectations) and started noting the other dinners I make which he will and won't eat.  Saves money, time and frustration all round.

Golden Cinnamon Biscuits

This biscuit recipe is SO easy I sometimes make the dough while cooking dinner.

60g butter
1/3 cup golden syrup
2 tblspns brown sugar
2 tblspns caster sugar
1 1/4 cups SR flour
3 tspns ground cinamon

Preheat oven to hot - 220 - 230 degs

Combine butter, golden syrup and sugars in medium heavy-based saucepan, stir over low heat until butter is melted, cool 5 minutes.

Stir in flour and cinnamon.  Roll rounded tspns of mixture into balls, place about 2cm apart on lightly greased oven trays, flatten with a floured fork until 1cm thick.

Bake in hot oven about 10 mins or until browned.  Stand biscuits 5 minutes before lifting onto wire racks to cool. 

Makes 30 - This is from Womens Weekly, Biscuits, Brownies & Biscotti (2003).

** I usually make double quantity of these.  You can put 1 quantity in baking paper, roll into a log, wrap again with foil and freeze.  Then when you take it out of the freezer it's really easy to slice rounds about 1cm thick and put straight into the oven so you have a fresh batch at your whim in about 10 minutes.

Wooden Spoon not Required?

We felt like some fresh bread (ok, damper) this morning.   So we mixed with our hands......

That must have been the secret trick because it came out beautifully, and tasted even better.  Happy Friday, time for another cuppsy. : )