Cheese and Onion Omelette

I cooked myself lunch again! This is inspired by another Sophie Dahl recipe, and is nothing particularly adventurous, but I have to admit to never having before made a fluffy omelette with a filling.

The sprig of jasmine is in the photo because - hooray! spring must be on its way - the jasmine is blooming at last. I had to put it outside after lunch because I had started sneezing. Spring brings warmer weather, but unfortunately hay fever too....

Gently fry some chopped red onion in some olive oil, then remove it from the pan. I'm using my mini frying pan which I bought really cheaply at the supermarket.

Beat the eggs and add salt and pepper. Add a tiny bit of oil to the pan and pour in the eggs. Let them sit there for half a minute, then add grated or broken up pieces of cheese.

As the cheese starts to melt, add the cooked onion then carefully fold the omelette in half with a spatula.

Oops! not particularly successful, but never mind - I'll just turn it over again and cook the other side in a minute.

Cooking the other side now - I don't like runny egg.

Ready to eat - a hot and filling lunch.

Original recipe from Sophie Dahl...

Ingredients:

half a small red onion

2 large eggs

salt and pepper

50 g Red Leicester cheese or any sharp, hard cheddar

mustard to serve if liked

Tofu and Cabbage Stir-Fry

This was a day of 'firsts' for me - I cooked tofu for the first time, and I also cooked myself some lunch for the first time (I usually have a toasted cheese sandwich, but I don't think that counts as cooking!).

I used a Sophie Dahl recipe - Lily's stir fry with tofu - as a guide.

Heat sesame oil or other stir-fry type oil in a large pan or wok. Add shredded cabbage and onion and fry for a few minutes. I find sesame oil a bit pongy, and I have since used peanut oil with good results - maybe the dish loses a little flavour but I prefer the low-smell option.

Add chopped tofu, then a splash of soy sauce, another splash of mirin or apple cider vinegar...

...some grated carrot and some green veg - I didn't have any other vegies, so I used parsley instead.

Add some sesame seeds and some coriander if you have it.

I really enjoyed this - so tasty and quite filling too. It had never occurred to me to make a stir-fry without rice or noodles. A really quick and easy lunch.

Original recipe, serves 2...

Ingredients:
2 tbsp sesame oil/peanut oil
1 cup shredded cabbage
1/2 cup chopped onion
150 g firm tofu, cubed
1 tbsp tamari or soy sauce
1 tsp mirin or apple cider vinegar
1 cup coarsely grated carrot
i cup coarsely grated zucchini
1 cup snow peas or bean sprouts
1 tbsp sesame seds
handful of chopped coriander

Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake

Birthday cake time again, and this time it's Nigella's Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake. I hadn't ever made this one before, and wanted to try it out.

Put the cake ingredients in a food processor (flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarb, cocoa, soft butter, eggs, vanilla and sour cream) and whizz them all up.

Before I had a food processor I used to hate it when recipes said things like that ('Thanks - I don't have a food processor!') but you can make it without one - see the recipe on Nigella's website.

Mine became a very thick mixture - so I added a couple of tablespoons of milk and blitzed it again.

Still very thick but a bit more smooth-looking. I'm not sure why it was originally so thick - maybe something to do with sour cream in Australia being very solid?

Divide mixture between two greased and base-lined cake pans and spread out as evenly as you can. Cook at 180 C for 20 minutes or so. The recipe says 25 to 35 minutes. Mine took just over 20 minutes.

When cooled down, remove from pans. One of my cakes was a bit bigger than the other, but never mind!

For the icing, melt chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. When it's cooled down a bit, add the golden syrup, sour cream and vanilla, then mix together.

Put the chocolatey mixture into the food processor with the icing sugar and whizz it up.

(For non-food-processor-owners, sift the icing sugar into the choc/butter/cream mixture and beat it all together.)

Icing ready to spread on the cake.

Spread about a third of the icing on the first sponge, then put the other sponge on top.

Use the rest of the icing to cover the top and sides of the cake. The 'lines' on the top was my middle son's idea - he also decorated the cake with Smarties.

(Smarties are 'old-fashioned' enough for this cake I think - although I always forget how dull the colours are now that they've stopped using artificial colours. I think they should sell both types so people like me can use them for colourful birthday cake decorating!)

Ready for the birthday celebration...

Wow the icing is full-on! I know many bloggers have made this cake before, and I'll be checking to what others thought of the recipe.

Everyone in my family enjoyed this cake (it's chocolate cake after all) but I'm not sure I'd use this recipe again. I feel I could have made a similar cake using a more basic recipe using cocoa powder and no sour cream, but maybe this is down to a combination of my cooking abilities and personal taste!

I much preferred the Honey Bee Cake and Malteser Cake and would definitely make either of those again.

I suggested to everyone that if I made this cake again I would use half the amount of the icing - my husband agreed (and he is a real sweet-tooth!) but my children were horrified by the thought!

The recipe for the cake is here on Nigella's website.

Banana Breakfast Ring

This is the recipe I cook most from 'Feast' - it's so quick and easy to make, and is great for using up over-ripe bananas. It's also light and fluffy and has a slight lemony tang. I have to say I've never eaten it for breakfast though!

In a large bowl mash up bananas well, then add oil, eggs, lemon juice and zest, vanilla and caster sugar. Whisk them all together with a fork.

Add flour and raising agents (or self-raising flour which is what I've started using) and fold to combine.

You end up with a lumpy mixture - very muffin-like, which is probably exactly what it is. A big muffin.

Pour it into an oiled bundt tin, or normal round cake tin. Cook for 30-40 minutes at 180 C.

When it's all golden on the top, remove from oven and leave to cool in the tin for 5 - 10 mins.

Remove from tin and decide which is the 'right' way up to serve the cake. I think with bundt tins the bottom is the top bit, but I don't really like the look of this side.

This looks much better to me. Slice and eat while still warm, but it's great cold too.

Ingredients:
3 medium bananas
60 ml oil (I use olive oil)
3 eggs
zest and juice of half a lemon (I use a little zest and a decent squirt of lemon juice)
1 tsp vanilla essence
200 g caster sugar (I use 140 g)
325 g plain flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp bicarb - or 325 g self-raising flour

Quick Apple Cake

When I made the Quick Apple Flan I said I would be interested to see how it turned out with self-raising flour instead of plain.

Thisevening I made the self-raising version, and it really worked out quite well. This time it was definitely a cake instead of a flan - much more fluffy and light, and less sticky. Quite a different dessert, which is why I decided to rename it and give it its own post.

Really good with custard. Original recipe here but replace the plain flour with self-raising.

This time I used two largish granny smith apples, and chopped them up a bit smaller to make slicing the cake easier.

Vegetable Pasta Bake

This is a good way to use up stray vegetables that you might have hanging around and that you don't want to waste, and also a good way to feed everyone quite a lot of vegetables without them really noticing.

Finely chop up an onion and fry it gently in some oil in a big pan. Add some garlic and then start adding any vegetables you have.

I finely diced some celery and added that (ssshhh! don't tell anyone about the celery, it's a controversial vegie around here! But no one noticed it was there...)

Add any other finely diced vegetables - I had some choy sum stalks and leaves, a red capsicum and a couple of carrots.

Normally I coarsely grate carrots, as they take a while to cook. This time I diced them and they stayed a little crunchy which I liked.

Add a jar of passata, a little water, some oregano, basil, salt, pepper and sugar. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer gently for half an hour or so.

In the meantime heat up a big pot of water and cook some ravioli or tortellini. I also cooked a little bit of dried pasta to make the meal go a little further. (Use a non-meat-filled pasta for a vegetarian version of this meal obviously.)

Drain the pasta and stir it into the sauce. I always reserve a little of the cooking water before draining, just in case the sauce needs a little extra liquid.

Put the whole lot into a baking dish and top with grated cheese. Put in a hot oven for 5-10 minutes, until the cheese has melted.

Ready to serve.

Our rabbit loves it when we have lots of vegies too!

Pizza

Home-made pizzas are so tasty, and also pretty easy to make. I use a Bill Granger recipe for the base, because the dough is stretchy, non-sticky and easy to handle.

I also make my own tomato sauce, so it isn't the quickest meal I make. Actually, considering the time and effort that goes into making these pizzas, and the speed at which they are demolished, sometimes I feel like buying them instead!

But I enjoy mine more than bought ones, and not just because mine cost a lot less!

In a large bowl, stir together flour, salt and yeast. Combine water and honey and add to the flour mixture. Stir in, and add olive oil.

Mix together with a spoon, then put your hands in and bring together into a dough. Knead for several minutes, either in the bowl or on a floured surface.

Leave covered in a warm place for 1 to 2 hours until doubled in size.

Push out air and remove from bowl. Divide into four pieces, and knead each piece lightly.

Put the four pieces of dough in a warm place and cover them. Leave for 20 - 30 mins until doubled in size, or just puffed up a bit.

Roll out each ball of dough to make a (rough in my case) circle. Apparently these should be 30 cm diameter, but I can only ever manage 25 cm at the most.

Put a little oil on your hands and on the rolling pin if things are getting a bit sticky.

I put my bases on a metal tray lined with baking paper. Not very authentic, but it saves on mess and cleaning up later.

Spread with tomato sauce of your choice ( I make mine with simmered tinned tomatoes, herbs and seasoning) and toppings - in this case sliced cabanossi, sliced mozarella and grated cheddar.

Cook in a 220 C oven for 10-12 minutes. Leave to cool for a couple of minutes, then cut into pieces (preferably with a pizza cutter because it's much easier) and serve.

I do mine one at a time because I find they cook better on the middle shelf.

This one had cabanossi, red capsicum and cheese.

My favourite has just cheese. Not very pretty or glamorous, but tasty!

Ingredients for dough:
500 g bread/bakers flour
1 tbsp salt
2 tsp instant yeast
1 1/2 tbsp honey
300 ml warm water
50 ml extra virgin olive oil