mitzireddy

Quick, easy and delicious recipes with minimum ingredients always grab my attention and this recipe for the nutty stuffed dates is just that and healthy as well. It’s ideal for those with a sweet tooth who feel restricted from indulging because of diets.

Dates, the fruit of the date palm are even rich in several vitamins and minerals. It is said that eating even one date daily is necessary for a balanced and healthy diet. Much as I love fruit and  aware of the benefits of eating a date I find it difficult to eat it as is – I usually love it in a cake, muffin, biscuit and my all time favorite is when it is used as a filling wrapped in crispy phyllo pastry and dripping with rose scented syrup – yum.  Recently back from a holiday where I had over indulged I have to eat healthy for a while and hence this recipe.

Dates filled with this nutty mixture are delicious and very moreish. I bought dates which are already deseeded which makes it ideal for this recipe and less time consuming as well.

Nutty Stuffed Dates

Ingredients

500gr Dates

1 cup crunchy peanut butter

6 Tbsp oat meal

3 Tbsp butter

½ cup roasted peanuts, chopped coarsely

 Method

Make a cut, length wise, in each date piece and remove the seeds.

Arrange in baking tray.

Place in preheated oven (180 C) for 3 minutes to soften.

To prepare the filling:

Melt butter in a pan. Add oat and fry for 3-5minutes till browned little.

Add oats to peanut butter in a bowl and mix.

Fill each pitted date with teaspoon of filling

Then dip it in chopped roasted peanuts.

Ready to be served and enjoyed.

My current fixation seems to be quick and easy puddings – not good for my waistline but great for these chilly evenings. I was watching the show Cooking for Real by Sunny Anderson on the foodnetwork and she whipped up this pear part  – ( there is no whipping actually) – it is painless requiring the minimum of ingredients and ,best of all, hardly any effort. It’s a delicious tart – crisp and crunchy pastry with a filling that is not oversweet.
I made this last night – using 4 pastry squares and added cheese only to 2 squares. It is difficult to figure out which we preferred – both are delicious. This means it’s the only way I will be making it in future with and without the cheese – this will also appeal to those who always profess not to have a sweet tooth.

Fanning the sliced pear onto the pastry.

QUICK PEAR TART
Ingredients
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 x 410g can pear halves
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Method
Preheat oven to 200 C.
In a small bowl, mix sugar and cinnamon together.
Lay puff pastry sheet on a work surface brush with melted butter and sprinkle with half the cinnamon sugar.
Cut into 6 even pieces.
Slice 6 pear halves leaving the stem intact.
Fan the pear slices over the puff pastry, using 1/2 a pear for each puff pastry square.
Sprinkle tops of pear tarts with remaining cinnamon sugar mixture.
Bake until pastry is golden and cooked through, about 20 to 25 minutes.
Remove from tart from oven, sprinkle with cheese and bake until cheese melts, 5 minutes more.

The past few weeks have been very busy with very little time to look at my laptop – so I have missed out my fellow bloggers posts and have lots of catching up to do. Rajen and I had enjoyed having our children, Luscious Lynn and Lovely Linda, home for a short visit. They also came bearing gifts (always appreciated) and Lovely Linda gave me this tin of biscuits commemorating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee which is today.

All butter Scottish shortbread petticoat tails

Perfect timing to also show the Royal Collections spoons – a gift from one of our friends.

I made a sticky toffee pudding, which is considered a modern British classic, over the weekend.
Sticky toffee pudding is a British steamed dessert consisting of a very moist sponge cake, made with finely chopped dates or prunes, covered in a toffee sauce and often served with a vanilla custard or vanilla ice-cream – according to Wikipedia.
I used a recipe by Nigella Lawson from her book, Nigella Bites – and was impressed with how easy and quick it was to put together – it was also inexpensive – which is always great for one’s budget.

EASY STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING
For the cake:
100g sticky dark brown sugar
175g self-raising flour
125ml milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
50g butter, melted
200g dates, chopped
For the sauce:
200g sticky dark brown sugar
Approx. 25g butter
500ml boiling water

Preheat oven to 190 C and butter a 1.5 litre capacity pudding dish.
Combine the first amount of sugar with the flour in a large mixing bowl.
Pour the milk into a measuring jug, beat in the egg, vanilla essence and melted butter and then pour this mixture over the sugar and flour, stirring with a wooden spoon until just combined.
Fold in the dates and put the batter into the prepared pudding dish.
Sprinkle over the 200g sugar and dot with the butter.
Pour over the boiling water and transfer into the oven.
Cook for 45minutes – you might find the pudding needs 5 – 10 minutes more. The top of the pudding should be springy and spongy when it is cooked: underneath the butter, dark sugar and boiling water will have turned into a rich sticky sauce.
It can be served with vanilla ice cream or cream.
Serves 6 – 8

I am going to keep the family theme going with my posts this week and am starting with the lemons that I received from my brother, Joe. Hot puddings are welcome in the chilly evenings we are now experiencing and I enjoy the flavour of citrus fruit. There so many fabulous recipes around – I have settled for an old favorite self – saucing lemon sponge
– its light and delicious.

The recipe is from an old Best Recipe collection –Your Family magazine.

SELF SAUCING LEMON SPONGE

Ingredients

30g butter or margarine, softened

125ml sugar

2 extra-large eggs, separated

60ml flour, sifted

2ml salt

250ml milk

Finely grated rind of one lemon

15ml fresh lemon juice

30ml lemon or orange marmalade (optional)

Sifted icing sugar to sprinkle

Cream together butter and sugar.

Beat in egg yolks one at a time.

Sift together flour and salt, add alternately with
milk to creamed mixture.

Beat well.

Add the lemon rind, lemon juice and marmalade.

Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites.

Spoon mixture into a lightly greased 220mm diameter
oven proof dish or 4 individual ramekins.

Place in a pan of water making sure water reaches no
more than halfway up sides of dish.

Bake at 180C for 20 – 30 minutes, until well risen
and lightly browned.

This sponge pudding forms its own sauce at the
bottom of the dish.

Serve at once, sprinkled with sifted icing sugar, if
desired.

My friend, Joey, made a luscious plum and apple crumble over the Easter weekend and the taste of this crumble still lingered and I had to have more and ended up making it last week when my sister, Pepe, and her boyfriend, Andreas, came for dinner. The recipe, which appears on the cover of the current month’s issue of the Food & Home magazine, is by Anna Montali who is a deputy editor of the magazine.

My local supermarket did not have any tinned plums so I bought some fresh plums which are currently in season and stewed it with some sugar. I initially just washed the plums and put them in a pot with about two tablespoons of sugar (can be increased according to taste) and realized that the plums will have to sliced and stoned before being cooked – oops – had to fish the plums out to do this.  The cooked plums must be soft and firm and not mushy.

The variety of plums currently in season is called African Delight and is a red skinned, yellow fleshed cling stone type and delicious in this crumble.

The recipe below is for 4 servings – I doubled the quantities and cooked the crumble in a dish instead of individual ramekins. The topping has oats and pistachios which makes it a guiltless pudding.

Doubling the quantity was a good idea – this was the left over  after only 3 of us had pudding.

PLUM AND APPLE CRUMBLE

FILLING

3 Apples, peeled, cored and chopped

2 x 410 tins of plums, drained

2 Tablespoon gin (used whisky)

2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

30ml vanilla extract

45ml muscovado sugar

CRUMBLE

45mls pistachio nuts, shelled

½ cup cake flour

30gr rolled oats

50gr sugar

¼ cup butter, cubed

Preheat oven to 180C and lightly grease 4 ramekins.

For
the filling:

Place the fruit in a pot and mix in the vanilla.

Sprinkle with rest of the ingredients and divide
between the ramekins.

For
the crumble:

In a mixing bowl combine the crumble ingredients
well together and arrange over the fruit.

Bake until the top is golden and the fruit is
bubbling – about 40 minutes.

Serve hot with mascarpone, custard or fresh cream.

It’s wonderful to convince oneself that eating cheesecake is healthy especially when history has the first recorded mention of cheesecake as being served to the athletes during the first
Olympic Games held in 776BC.  Cheesecake made with cream cheese as we know it is said to have been the creation of Arnold Reuben, owner of the legendary Turf Restaurant at 49^th and Broadway in New York.

I made the Crunchie cheesecake when I had some friends for lunch recently – it’s a recipe
by Rachael Allen – it’s delicious, easy to make and not too sweet. I decorated
the cheesecake just before serving it – so the pictures were taken as an
afterthought in somewhat of a hurry.

CRUNCHIE CHEESECAKE

          Ingredients

• 200g packet of digestive biscuits, crushed
• 100g butter, melted
• 250g thick cream cheese
• 397g can of condensed milk
• 125ml fresh lemon juice
• 15ml gelatine, softened in
• 50ml water
• 250ml cream, whipped
• 3 chocolate honeycomb bars, crushed
• Strawberries grated chocolate or curls of chocolate to
  serve. (I used seasonal fruit)

Method

1. Combine biscuits and butter and press into a deep, 23cm
   spring form pan. Chill in fridge.
2. Combine cream cheese with condensed milk.
3. Beat well, and then beat in the lemon juice.
4. Melt gelatine in the microwave for 10 seconds and beat
   into the mixture.
5. Fold in the whipped cream and, lastly, honeycomb bars.
6. Spoon mixture on the prepared biscuit base and chill in
   the fridge for 3-4 hours until set.

No meal is complete without a pudding be it hot or cold – and for those with a sweet tooth a decadent tiramisu can be irresistible .To continue with my previous post – my friend, Joey, made this rum flavoured Celebration tiramisu – perfect for the festive season .This recipe is from Jenny Morris’ new cookbook and to quote her – “this yummy tiramisu works like a dream for a festive celebration when you want to serve a dessert that looks and tastes special. I make it in a round cake tin and decorate the top with chopped preserved figs, cherries, chopped chocolate and a light dusting of coca powder”.

This dessert is sinfully delicious and most certainly special. 

An elegant setting.

CELEBRATION TIRAMISU

Serves 8

2 cups strong, black coffee

½ cup dark rum, or more according to taste

4 eggs, separated

¼ cup castor sugar

500g mascarpone cheese

1cup cream, whipped

1 large vanilla sponge cake, cut into fingers

1 cup glace cherries, halved

1 cup chopped toasted almonds

1 cup chopped preserved figs

2 teaspoons dark cocoa powder

some chopped chocolate

Mix together the coffee and the rum. Set aside to cool.

Using an electric beater, beat the egg yolks and sugar for about 3 minutes until the mixture is thick and pale.

Now add the mascarpone and beat until just combined. Using a metal spoon, fold in the whipped cream.

Beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Fold quickly and lightly into the cream mixture with a metal spoon.

Now dip half the cake fingers, one at a time, into the rum and coffee mixture. Drain off any extra liquid and arrange the cake fingers in the base of your serving dish (20cm x 25cm springform cake tin). Spread half the cream mixture over the dipped cake fingers.

Mix the fruit and nuts together and spread half the mixture over the cream covered cake.

Now it’s time to dip the remaining cake fingers in the coffee and repeat layering with the cake fingers and cream mixture. Even out the top and dust with cocoa powder.

Place the rest of the nuts and fruit mixture in little piles on top of the tiramisu in the centre. Sprinkle over some chocolate, if you like.

Place the tiramisu in the fridge for at least 4 hours to allow the flavours and the dessert to set.

To serve, cut slices with a wet knife.