Tofu Vege bake with Pomegranate molasses and prunes

This photo doesn't do this meal justice, but it was so good that i thought i better take an image and post it. I guess if your not into tofu you could replace it with chicken.

Tofu Vege bake with Pomegranate molasses and prunes

Chop pumpkin, potato, parsnip, leek, carrot in to 2cm cubes

Place in a deep enamelled cast iron pan with some olive oil and mix together

Begin cooking with lid off for 15mins

Mean while

Cut tofu block in to 2-3cm cubes place in a bowl

Add finely chop 1-2 garlic cloves

Sprinkle with Tamari and a good lathering of Pomegranate molasses

Mix and marinate for 10mins

Take cooking pan out of the oven

Add a handful of prunes, sour berries (sorry i don't know the name), pumpkin and sunflower seeds

Mix tofu and vegies together and bake with the lid off 45 – 60mins approx at 180. allow vegies to brown and mix every 20mins or so.

Chop silver beet in to pieces about 2cm

10 mins before ready remove pan from oven place silver beet on the top of the vegies and return to oven with lid on to cook through.

Serve with cous cous

Cabbage, Parsley, Ricotta Cannelloni

Once a week we get an amazing box of local and seasonal organic vegies and fruit. Its always a bit of a mystery what's in the box which makes for part of the fun. While eating seasonally makes good environmental and health sense it means you need to be creative with your cooking or it starts to get a little bit repetitive. I like to experiment and on a whim i will throw things together. The next couple of posts are recipes that i have either adapted to what's in my fridge or i have made them up. They require you to intuit quantities and timing a little as they have not been tested, let me know if you have any success or failures with them. p.s because i am trying to get the kids to eat them the flavours a simple - you could try adding chilli or anchovies to the cannelloni stuffing if you like.

Cabbage, parsley and ricotta Cannelloni

One box of Cannelloni tubes

Finely cut ¼ of a green cabbage and steam

Finely chop onion and lightly brown in olive oil

Add one finely chopped clove of garlic

In a bowl bring cabbage and onion mix together

Add ¾ cup finely chopped parsley and one egg

1- 1 ½ cups of crumbled ricotta Salt and pepper to taste

Tomato sauce

One onion finely chopped One clove or two of garlic finely chopped

Tin of tomatoes chopped 2 tblespoons of tomato paste plus tin of water or one bottle of Passata

In a pot brown onion in olive oil add garlic

Add tomatoes tins + paste or sauce

Salt and pepper and dried or fresh oregano for flavour

Cook till sauce thickens slightly say 20 mins

While sauce is cooking fill Cannelloni tubes with vege mix

Place in a heavy bottomed (cast iron) pan and cover with tomato sauce

place lid or tinfoil over the top and cook 30 -40mins till pasta tubes are soft. You may need to add a little bit of water if the sauce is drying out too much.

Over winter we have been madly planting bare rooted fruit trees; cherry, pear, apricot, and peach (oh and an avocado) were added to our existing apple, lemon, plum, nectarine, feijoa and fig. In order to make room we had to remove some Wattles that had given us afew years of their optimistic yellow early spring bloom but unfortunately they had past their best. Years ago i did a Diploma of Horticulture - Orchard Management at Massey University in NZ so it will be fun to put my knowledge to good use.

We have the cherry, apple and pear planted up against a wire framework and hope to trygrowing them as a

fan, hopefully the pruning won't prove too

challenging.

The nectarine that i have been pruning in a standard form is blossoming and due to all the rain we have had lately i am hoping for a good crop this year.

meatballs and tomato sauce

Vito cooked for us tonight a dinner of meatballs and pasta in tomato sauce. Kids loved and for that matter so did I.

.5 kilo of mince (can be beef or a combination of pork and veal)

1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

1 egg

1-2 tablespoon breadcrumbs

Salt and pepper

½ small onion finely diced

Optional finely chopped parsley

Mix and massage mixture together with your hands and form into balls

Shallow fry meatballs in a heavy pan

Finely chop one medium onion and 2-3 cloves garlic and fry in olive oil.

Once the onion is translucent add 1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste and fry with onions for a couple of minutes

Add tin of chopped tomatoes and 1 cup of water

Let sauce come to the boil and simmer with meatballs for 45 – 60mins

Tamarillo's also known as Tree tomatoes

I have been nurturing my Tamarillo tree all summer and my attentiveness is paying off with a nice crop of fruit ripening just outside our front door. These are a sub tropical fruit that have a huge following in New Zealand and while i find them on occasion in the supermarket in Australia they are usually really expensive. I Wikied Tamarillo and apparently their common name is tree tomato, they were renamed in NZ (in 1967) to differentiate them from the common tomato. The name is derived from the Maori word tama meaning leadership and the Spanish word amarillo meaning yellow. I know of the yellow variety but i am pretty sure the red ones are more common. They neither look or taste like a tomato so i don't know what the original concern was but Kiwi's are always keen to market a point of difference.

Being a subtropical they don't like frost, they are shallow rooted and like to be well watered and mulched. I have also found they don't tolerate the late afternoon summer sun so i have mine planted in our front yard where it gets mostly morning and early afternoon sun.

You can tell the fruit are ripe when the dark strips have mostly disappeared and the darkness has gone around the calyx. It helps to know as these can be sour little suckers, when we were kids we used to cut them in half and dip each in sugar. But if you know how to pick a ripe one you can eat them as is, just like my littlest fruit bat loves to. I also love stewing them with a bit of sugar, great for breakfast with muesli or with apple in a crumble for dessert. But best of all they make an amazing chutney that is much favored by my extended family.

18-24 tamarillo's or 1kg

3 Granny Smith Apples or 1/2 kg

3/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tblsp salt

2 cups raisins

2 cups vinegar

1 tlbsp mixed spice

3 cups brown sugar

Boil up some water in a pot on the stove and place Tamarillo's in for approx. a minute to scald the skin then peel them.

Peel and finely chop apples and onions

Place all ingredients in to a big pot except for 1/2 cup of vinegar

After it has been cooking for one hour add the 1/2 cup of vinegar

Cook gently for 2-3 hours, mashing gently towards the end

Pack into sterilized jars and store in a cool dark place

This chutney goes well with mature tasty cheese or hot and cold meats and i also like it with spinach pie.

lime and lemon marmalade

This marmalade is an absolute winner, beautiful golden glow in the jar and a tangy blast on the taste buds. I made it a couple of weeks ago in anticipation of Mum and Dads visit this week. Pity NZ customs made it hard for them to take some home with him, but it may well all be gone by then. I don't tend to use the jam set sugars (jam will be brighter in colour and less cooking time is required), nor do i bother with separating out the pips and pith. Purists would tie these in a bag with a string and boil them along with the fruit, but i am happy enough to include them in the mix.

6 lemons

6 limes

1.4 kg sugar (this can be warmed in the oven b4 hand if you can be bothered)

1.75 Ltrs water

Cut up fruits and soak overnight in water

Next day boil 1hr to soften fruit

Then add sugar and boil reasonably fast for an hour

check for setting towards the end by placing a small amount of jam on a saucer and see if a skin forms

Steralise jams and lids in the oven

Take pot off the element and allow jam to sit for a few moments then pour into jars and place lids on while hot.

persimmon freeze

Nancy from down the road gave me a beautiful box containing persimmons, feijoa's and limes from her garden. The feijoa's bring back memories of my childhood in NZ, as kids we would pick them up off the ground split their skins with our teeth and suck out the flesh. I recall one year i ate so many i got hives. These fruit aren't so well regarded in Australia (probably because of the abundance of subtropical alternatives), they are often left to rot on the ground.

I like both astringent and non astringent persimmons. Nancy gave us heaps of non astringent ones, you need to eat when their skins have gone transparent and their flesh is quite mushy. They make an amazing dessert -

1 Super ripe persimmon

50 g Mascarpone

Drizzle of Honey

5ml Amaretto

Freeze the persimmon for 24hrs then take out an hour or so before serving.

Cut in half, then drizzle each half with 2.5 ml of Amaretto over both cut sides.

Fold the remaining Amaretto into the Marscapone and serve over the Persimmon.

Once plated, spoon 2ml honey over the persimmon and Marscarpone.

This recipe is courtesy of Maggie Beer as seen on the Cook and the Chef. Must go and buy some more Amaretto!