I’m in the south of France enjoying the last days of my vacation. Mostly spending my days by the pool, reading and drinking ice coffee. But before I came here, I spent a couple of days at my parents summer house on the swedish west coast. My brother’s b-day is on the 31st of July and it’s kind of tradition that I bake a cake for him. This year (inspired by my time in Australia) I made a double pavlova, covered with swedish berries. Super easy to make and highly appreciated.
As I’ve mentioned before I think Meat Free Mondays is a great concept. These Zucchini fritters are super tasty, pretty easy to make and absolutely meat free. Works perfectly for a monday or actually any day of the week.
Recipe..
I made these wonderfully cute little cookies the other day. Yo-Yos or Melting Moments as they’re also called, is a classic Aussie biscuit. But I have to say I prefer to call them Yo-Yos over Melting Moments. Sounds pretty freaking cheesy. Being pink and tiny, and on top of it all being called “a melting moment”. I think it’s just to much to handle, even for a cookie. Nah I’m sorry, got to draw the line somewhere..
Anyways, they are delicious!
So I went slightly overboard and made 5 different kinds. Mostly cause I had homemade raspberry jam and Dulce de leche in my fridge, and wanted to show off.
You need:
250g unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup pure icing sugar, sifted
2 cups plain flour
1/3 cup cornflour (cornstarch, maize starch)
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120g butter, softened
1 ½-2 cups pure icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp lemon juice
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1 or 2 passion fruits and/or vanilla essence and food coloring
Raspberry jam
Dulce de leche*
Sprinkles
How to:
- Preheat the oven to 160°C. Line 2 baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
- In a bowl, beat butter, vanilla and icing sugar until light and fluffy using an electric mixer.
- Sift flours over the butter mixture and beat on a low speed until soft dough forms.
- Roll heaped teaspoonfuls of mixture into small balls and place on the tray. Using a fork dipped in flour, lightly flatten each biscuit until about 1 cm thick.
- Bake for about 15 minutes or until firm. Let cool on trays or transfer to a wire rack.
- For the filling. Using an electric mixer, beat butter until light and fluffy, then add the icing sugar and beat until incorporated.
- Depending on if you want to make just the passion fruit one or the colored vanilla one. to make just one kind, mix with either the pulp from 2 passion fruits or vanilla essence to taste and some food coloring. If you want to make both kinds, just divide the filling in half and add the pulp from one passion fruit and some coloring and vanilla to the other one.
- Spread the flat side of 1 biscuit with 1 teaspoon of filling. Top with another biscuit. Repeat with remaining biscuits and fillings. Roll in sprinkles if you want the extra festive look.
*You can either buy it from Latin American grocers. Or you can make your own, by simmering an unopened can of condensed milk (sweetened) for about 3.5-4 hours. It’s important that is doesn’t boil to hard (should be simmering) and that it is covered with water during the whole cooking time. So you might have to add water while it’s cooking. If all the water evaporates and the pot goes dry, the can might explode. And we don’t would that. Even if it would be kind of exciting I guess. And your kitchen would be covered in the most delicious caramel sauce ever known to mankind.
I love cheese and especially a fine (preferably french) non-pasteurized creamy brie. But this is a great way to serve a not that fancy and pasteurized brie. It only takes about 15 minutes and works great as a an after dinner snack with a nice glass of red.
And it’s my super cool friend Caroline’s 30th today. So I dedicate this “cheese cake” to you Carro. Grattis på födelsedagen!
Butternut squash or actually pumpkins in general are hugely popular here in Australia. And for the right reasons, they are versatile, have a lot of taste and are quite cheap. They’re also a good source of fibre, vitamin C, manganese, magnesium and potassium and an excellent source of vitamin A and vitamin E. So yeah they’re basically like that kid in class that you used to hate because they just had it all and knew it. But since we are all grown ups here, let’s celebrate this winner vegetable, or it’s actually a fruit, by making this soup.
And if you make it with vegetable stock instead, you can make it tonight as part of a meat-free monday! How freaking good is that?
Oh and we need to talk about fried shallots at some point. You’ll find them at your asian grocer and they are the bomb!
This is the perfect weeknight recipe. It’s fast, healthy, simple and delicious. What more to ask for?
Autumn has arrived here in Melbourne, which feels totally up side down for me being from Sweden, where people are getting ready for spring and summer. I’m trying to trick my self into loving winter with warm and hearty cooking, I made pumpkin soup yesterday, which was delish (recipe will be up soon). But here comes a recipe that works just as a well for a spring night as an autumn one. Even though I’ve got to admit, spring beats autumn any day of the week.
You should avoid eating tiger prawns or any prawn caught in Asia. So for this dish I used Australian wild caught prawns, which I believe are OK. So please use shrimps instead if you can’t find any environmentally friendly prawns, or scallops will actually work really well to, just fry them instead of cooking them in the soup and add them just before serving.
