making up for lost time!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I haven’t been cooking that much so far this month. I more than made up for things this weekend.

On Friday I made sweet potato falafels with haloumi. On Saturday we had the in-laws over, where I made a recipe on Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s page in the Guardian for bulgur wheat and tomato soup, a meaty version of a vegetarian filo pastry pie and steamed apple pudding.

Currently in the oven are: doughnut muffins (I’ve nick-named them “duffins”), coffee cake and parsnip and golden syrup cake. More on how these turned out later in the week.


UPDATE: 18.02.12
Yes, very remiss of me... I forgot to follow up on the parsnip and golden syrup cake, which was a hit! Huge hit. 
The original recipe comes from the November 2011 edition of Delicious magazine. My version went like this:


175g butter
250g cassonde (brown sugar)
3 dessert spoons of golden syrup
3 eggs
250g flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
A good teaspoon of mixed spice and ginger
250g (2 large) grated parsnips
1 apple, also grated


Heat oven to 160°. I used a square tin, about 18cm in diameter, greased and lined. 


Melt the butter, sugar and the golden syrup in a large pot. You make the cake in the pot, so you will need the space. 


Cool the liquid and whisk the eggs in. Sift in the flour, baking powder and the spices and fold this in. Fold through too the grated parsnips and apples. Pour this into the cake tin. 


The recipe says to cook for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes. I always find that my cakes need longer, regardless of the oven, so I end up covering them with tinfoil. I cooked this cake for an hour and a half. Once cooked, stand it for about 5 minutes so that it shrinks slightly from the tin, before turning it onto a wire rack.


The cake is really delicious - gooey end earthy, and it smells divine. The parsnip taste is not at all overpowering. 

Parsnip cake. Delicious. Try it. You know you want to!

While I'm here, the coffee cake was 50/50 - I ended up making the cake twice as it was too low (I wanted a 'tall' cake). The first batch was too dense while the second batch was perfect. I don't know what I did different the second time... Just one of the great mysteries of the kitchen.
The duffins were great - another success with family and colleagues. I used a few different types of jam - raspberry, rhubarb and lime - as these ends were lurking in the fridge begging to be finished. Mmmmmmm.

Friday favourites – falafels

I love falafels, in every shape and form. On Friday, I made a variation of the classic recipe, using sweet potatoes.

Sweet potato falafels, with a bit of haloumi in the background

First of all, find your sweet potatoes. Confusingly, these are not kept with the potatoes in my local ‘supermarché’, nor even with the vegetables. When I eventually asked the friendly f&v section guy, he took me over to the exotic fruits!

The original recipe (from Delicious magazine) says to cook the sweet potatoes in the microwave. Instead I peeled the spuds and boiled them until they were soft – just less than 20 minutes. It also uses a packet of seasoned Parmesan cheese, which is readily available from a certain supermarket chain on the Islands, but of course not here. I omitted this altogether and just rolled the falafels in a little extra flour.

I used:

350g sweet potatoes (cos that's how much is in a packet)

one 400g tin of chickpeas

2 tablespoons of flour

zest of one lemon

seasoning

1 teaspoon each of paprika, cumin and ground corriander

To serve: haloumi cheese, pita breads, yogurt dressing (Greek yogurt, grated cucumber, fresh mint, salt and pepper), salad, chopped tomatoes.

I tipped all the ingredients into a bowl and mashed until broken down but not pureed. I then rolled these into about 15 balls and rolled these in a little extra flour. As everything is already cooked, all you need to do is colour them and heat through in a little oil in a frying pan, which takes about 6 minutes. You can also grill them.

Another of my favourite things is fried haloumi cheese (the only places I’ve seen this for sale is at the market on Pl Dumon in Wolwe St Pierre – there is a Greek Cypriot stall on the road leading away from the place, towards the ring, and in the Delhaize in Braine l’Alleud). I fry this without oil, with a sprinkling of rosemary and chilli until brown on both sides – it takes about 4 minutes in all.