Smoooooth Coconut, Lime and Custard Apple Rice Pudding

This is a morph between a found recipe and something created due to Custard Apples being in season right now.

You will need;

1 large custard apple
100g of rice (I used jasmine)
400ml of light coconut milk
200ml of regular cows milk
a handful of raisins
a little vanilla (use good quality stuff, not imitation for God's sake)
1/2 a cup of castor sugar
Juice of 1/2 a lime
cinnamon for dusting

Put the coconut milk, cow's milk, sugar, rice, vanilla, raisins into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce to a low simmer and let it sit for and hour. Stir in your Custard Apple. Now, I had a bit of inspiration at the end - I squeezed in the juice of half a lime, and it really added that something that was lacking. Serve. Yes, it's that simple.

Chicken, Potato and Leek Soup

This was originally a straight Potato and Leek soup, but morphed into something else.

You will need;

4 thighs of chicken
2 litres of chicken stock
6 potatoes
1 stick of celery
1 leek
1 tablespoon of butter
1 tub of sour cream
2 brown onions

Fry your chickens in a little olive oil until cooked. Let cool slightly and chop finely. Set aside.

Saute your celery, leek, onion and potato until soft. Add the stock and bring to a simmer. Add chicken, and whiz with a hand blender or put into a food processor in batches. Mix in sour cream just before serving. Garnish with chopped chives.

Cream, Garlic and Mustard Sauce

This was a real quickie, and I'm fantasizing that I invented it. It's delicious.

You'll need;

70ml cream
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
1/2 good-quality beef stock cube

After cooking the meat of your choice (we had Kangaroo), deglaze the pan with a couple of tablespoons water. Add the cream, garlic and stock. The mustard is quite salty, so don't be tempted to add too much salt. Unless you're an ancient Roman whose salt-taste is impaired by lead-poisoning from bad plumbing:-) Bring to a simmer, and serve over the meat.

Eggplant and Haloumi Stack with Garlic and Thyme Sauce

This really turned out well. It was a marvelous throw-together of things we had in the fridge, and it all sat together nicely. Serves two.

You'll need;

1 eggplant, sliced
250g haloumi
4 large mushrooms
100ml cream
a few sprigs of thyme
1 crushed garlic clove
1 teaspoon butter
olive oil

First, salt your eggplant slices and leave to sit for a while to leach out the bitterness. Pre-warm your oven to about 150C. Put a couple of glugs of olive oil into a wide pan and fry your eggplant till mostly done. Place the eggplant onto an oven tray and put into the oven to keep warm.

Next, put your thinly sliced haloumi into the pan and cook until golden. Take the eggplant out of the oven and arrange them with the haloumi into 2 stacks of alternate layers, while cooking the mushrooms.

When the mushrooms are almost done, put them onto the stack of eggplant and haloumi and return them to the oven.

Put your butter and a glug of olive oil into the pan, let it foam. Add the garlic and thyme, cook for a few seconds to let it flavor the oil then add the cream. Let this simmer for a moment while you take the eggplant from the oven and arrange them on plates. DO NOT be tempted to season the sauce - the haloumi is really salty and any more will have you drinking water (or equivalent) all night.

Pour the sauce over the stack and serve.

Mushroom Fettuccini with Nutmeg and Chilli

This is one of my old reliable favourites. If you can get really fresh and tasty mushrooms, this is utterly wonderful. Serves four.

You'll need;

200ml cream
500g mushrooms of your choosing
good handful chopped parsley
1 long red chilli, finely chopped
a couple of pinches of fresh-ground nutmeg
two good handfuls of finely grated Parmesan
200g fettuccini
a glug of olive oil

In a wide, hot pan put in your olive oil and mushrooms to cook. Personally, I like well-cooked mushrooms, but you can do them to your preference. While these are cooking, get your fettuccini on the boil. Try to co-ordinate your mushrooms to finish a couple of minutes before the pasta.

When your mushrooms are cooked, take them out of the pan and set aside in a warm place. Put your cream, chilli and nutmeg into the pan, stirring.

Now, I really think you should grate your nutmeg fresh, not the pre-powdered stuff. If you haven't got a micro-plane, get one - it'll change your life. Not only is it easier to grate stuff like nutmeg, it'll make your grated parmesan light and fluffy and easy to melt.

When your cream is nice and hot, slowly add the parmesan, stirring, and allow to melt into cheesy goodness. Season.

Drain your fresh-cooked pasta, and add to the parmesan sauce, toss with the mushrooms and parsley, and serve.

Retro Raspberry Sponge Cake

This sucker took a few tries. Apparently sponge cakes are renowned for being tricky, but I didn't know this when I started. I baked two frisbees before my dear friend Amelia furnished me with a good recipe that pretty much turned out perfectly.

For the cake:

4 medium sized eggs (freshest possible)
1 cup plain flour
1 rounded teaspoon baking powder
1 rounded teaspoon butter
4 tbspn water
1 cup sugar
1 tspn good quality vanilla

for the filling:

1 carton plain cream
1/4 cup of sugar
1 tspn vanilla
1 cup raspberries

Separate the eggs, which should be at room temperature. Beat egg whites until frothy, gradually add sugar, beating all the time. Slowly add egg yolks when sugar is dissolved (approx 8 mins beating with an electric beater). Sift dry ingredients together at least 3 times. Sift into egg mixture and fold carefully by hand. Heat butter and water on stove until it comes to the boil. Add to sponge mixture with vanilla and fold in thoroughly.

Place mixture in two 18c greased and floured sandwich tins. Bake for 20 mins in preheated 200C oven.

While the sponge is cooking, whip your cream with the sugar and vanilla. Put it in the fridge to cool.

When the sponge is cooked and cold, slather one of them with cream. Arrange some raspberries across it then slather more cream on the top. This should prevent the raspberries from making the sponge soggy. Put the second sponge on top, slather with more cream and a circle of raspberries and you're good to go....