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Vampire-slaying tomato, basil & marinated feta skewers

Now there's a post title you didn't think you'd be seeing on Cooksister any time soon.

Don't get me wrong - I love vampire lore.  I read Salem's Lot as a teenager and loved every minute of it.  Interview with the Vampire enthralled me.  Nosferatu is, visually speaking, one of my all-time favourite films - both the 1922 original and the 1979 remake.  And what's not to love about the gleefully over-the-top gorefest that is From Dusk Till Dawn?  Or the uber-cool Blade?  I could explain to you from an early age that you should never invite a vampire into your house as then you will never be able to keep them out (funny - I know some people like that too...!); that garlic and holy water were good things to keep on hand; that sunlight was a sure-fire way to deter the keenest vampire; and that wooden stakes were essential, but that you had to catch them asleep in their coffins and nail them through the heart.

So it's quite surprising, I guess, that the whole Buffy the Vampire Slayer thing totally passed me by.  I am dimly aware that this is the show that made Sarah-Michelle Gellar's name and launched her as the object of a lot of male fantasies, but I can tell you nothing else about the show and I have never even watched an episode.

Really.

So when my dear friend Stephanie invited me to take part in this month's Blog Party, my heart sank.  The theme she had chosen was Buffy the Vampire Slayer - a Buffy Bash.  Damn.  But Stephanie was very cool about it and said I had loads of leeway to interpret the theme as I wished.  Plus I remember cajoling people to take part in the Harry Potter-themed End of Month Egg on Toast Extravaganza who professed never to have read a book, so I figured it was my karmic destiny to have to do this event. (If you want to join in the fun, you have until 15 May to get your posts to Stephanie!)

I made these snacks in lieu of starters at a braai (BBQ) this weekend and it's a good thing there were no vampires present because the feta cubes had been marinated in a ton of garlic.  And just in case the garlic didn't get them, there was always the little wooden skewer to finish them off :)  As for what to drink with them - well, clearly there can only be one drink suitable for a vampire-themed event and that's a Bloody Mary.

TOMATO, BASIL AND MARINATED FETA SKEWERS (makes 12)

Ingredients

12 ripe cherry tomatoes
12 cubes of feta, about 1.5cm
12 fresh basil leaves
1 clove garlic, crushed
Extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp dried thyme
12 toothpicks

Method

If you have bought the feta as a block, cut your 12 cubes - carefully so that the cheese does not crumble.  Place the cubes in a shallow dish. Mix a few tablespoons of olive oil, garlic and thyme together and pour over the cheese cubes.  Cover and refrigerate overnight, turning the cubes once or twice for even coating.

When you are ready to serve, rinse the tomatoes and thread onto each skewer: 1 tomato, 1 basil leaf, and 1 cube of feta (again, be careful that the cheese does not crumble and fall apart).  Balance each skewer on its block of cheese and serve with drinks. 

Useful for getting rid of annoying vampires you have accidentally invited into your home :)

Cape Town: Blackheath Lodge - and meeting my first South African food blogger!

There can be no better feeling that arriving in a foreign city and having good friends there to look after you, to welcome you into their home, advise you on all the best places to go and secure hard-to-get bookings. Unless you are lucky enough to have friends in all the world’s major cities, you may not be able to experience this luxury. Or maybe you can… as long as you know where the best guesthouses are!

In the interests of full disclosure I have to say that I have known Antony and John, the delightful owners of Blackheath Lodge in Cape Town, for a couple of years. I met them through our mutual friend Cecil (he of the lamb sosaties) when they still living in London and was devastated a year or so ago when they returned to South Africa to run Blackheath Lodge. But on the plus side, it meant that we could arrive in Cape Town and head straight for their hospitality before the round robin tournament of family visits began.

Blackheath Lodge consists of two adjacent houses on the slopes above Sea Point, overlooking the Atlantic. I have a soft spot for the area as my parents owned a spectacular beachfront apartment there for many years, but even if you’ve never been there before I can guarantee that you will fall in love. The house is perched just below High Level Road, so the suburb slopes away before you, clearing a view down to the twinkly and impossibly blue Atlantic Ocean.  The décor is relaxed but elegant, with touches of African style rather than the full zebra-print experience that seems to be de rigeur these days in guesthouses catering to overseas visitors ;-) The bedrooms are spread throughout the two original buildings and the nerve centre is the lovely courtyard with its lush plants, and the sparkling blue swimming pool. Even when the southeaster is pumping (and believe me, it can!), the courtyard provides a sheltered oasis where guests can relax on the sun loungers and do nothing more stressful than occasionally dip their toes in the pool. Drinks and breakfast are served on the tranquil verandah under crystal chandeliers – all exceedingly lovely.

After a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and a chat, we headed for our room which had a panoramic view towards Lion’s Head, as well as a window looking directly down the hill towards where the sea was sparkling like a sea of diamonds. I could hardly bring myself to leave the shower cubicle because the views of Lion’s Head are so good – and enhanced by the clever placement of mirrors. You will not believe that after boarding a plane in cold, rainy London, it is possible to be in a place so radically different by lunchtime the following day! The room itself is huge by European standards with a king-size bed and good linen. There is also a selection of drinks and nibbles, a TV and a small library of DVDs, and a seating area where you can keep one eye on the DVD, one eye on the view and enjoy your pre-dinner drinks in private. Like I said, it’s more like having a best friend in a foreign city than staying in paid-for accommodation!

After tearing myself away from the lovely vistas of Signal Hill and Lion's Head, we eventually made it out the door and down to the V&A waterfront (more of that in another post) to meet friends. But by sunset we were back at Blackheath Lodge for a quick change of clothes and pre-dinner drinks. As friends of Ant & John's, we had the privilege of having drinks on their private deck next door with an even more panoramic views down towards the ocean - and they had a special surprise in store for me.

You see, occasionally they need catering services and they make use of none other than my fellow South African food blogger Sophia, who they had also invited to drinks.  We hit it off immediately as if we had known each other for years and I can vouch for the fact that she is as bubbly in real life as her blog suggests.  I can also tell you that I am sorely tempted to return to Blackheath Lodge in June.  Why, I hear you ask - it's the middle of winter in a city that's notorious for soggy, windy winters!.  That may well be, but I have an ulterior motive:  Blackheath Lodge in conjunction with Sophia are using this time to run their first ever Taste the Cape programme.  The programme is meant to highlight the Cape as a gourmet destination and for your money, you get accommodation in the exceedingly lovely Blackheath Lodge, cooking classes at Sophia's house, dinner at some of Cape Town's top restaurants, wine tastings and a tour of the Cape's gastronomic delights (such as Morgenster's award-winning olive oil and some of the Cape's top markets).  If I hadn't spent all my money on this trip, I would be sorely tempted to return in June...  And if you are a foodie contemplating a trip to Cape Town soon, I would strongly recommend you check out the itinerary.

 

The following morning, we were awakened by the sounds of birds singing and the distant sound of the sea.  Opening the curtains and being assaulted by the bright sunlight, the bluest sky I'd seen in months, the rampant greenery of the garen next door, and the imposing bulk of Lion's Head, left me feeling quite lightheaded - but that's what months of solar depriviation and a London winter will do for you.  Freshly showered and dressed, we presented ourselves downstairs for breakfast on the wraparound verandah overlooking the pool.  The buffet-style breakfast looked fresh and lovely and included fresh fruit, yoghurt and cereal, pastries and local preserves, a muesli-topped fruit tart, mini quiches and a cheeseboard.  We also had our choice of eggs cooked to order and plenty of excellent coffee - so something for everyone.

   

Because the family get very antsy if we don't stay with them when we visit Cape Town, we only spent one night at Blackheath Lodge, but if there is any way I can wangle a longer stay next time, I will do so.  In fact, they'll be prying me out of that room with a crowbar ;-)  For more photos of our stay, see my Flickr album of the trip.

Stay tuned for the next instalments in my South Africa trip diary:  German beer in the V&A Waterfront, funky Greenpoint market, and dinner at Aubergine.

Cumin and caraway honey-roast carrots

Sometimes, the simplest things are the best. 

A really good espresso. 

A perfectly ripe peach

Hot buttered toast.

Freshly squeezed orange juice.

And the same holds true for vegetables.  If you buy the freshest and best you can afford, then you need to do very little to them to make them into something special.

One of the features of a palate that grew up in South Africa is an abiding love for sweetness in traditionally savoury dishes.  We put sultanas in our curried mince dishes.  We add peaches to our venison.  We mash our pumpkin with cinnamon and sugar.  And when we cook carrots, there has to be some sweetness involved.

When I cook carrots a la Mamma, this means melting and caramelising butter and sugar in a saucepan, then adding steamed carrots to give them a good coating of caramel before serving.  But we all know variety is the spice of life, and I've been seeing a variety of tempting carrot recipes on various blogs lately - Too Many Chefs' cilantro carrots with cumin; Anne's slow-cooked carrots with thyme; and cumin-scented carrot fries from both Pille and Alanna.

In case you're into nutritional trivia, both cumin (Cuminum cyminum) and caraway (Carum carvi) are in fact the fruit of their respective plants, rather than the seed.  Both are popular in Indian cooking and are surprisingly good sources of iron - if you eat enough!  And of course, carrots are an excellent source of Vitamin A, so this dish should keep both night blindness and anaemia a bay :)

So after being inspired by all these recipes and staying mindful of my deep-seated love of sweet carrots, I came up with this simple and delicious way to get a big taste out of my carrots - with very little effort or fuss.  Enjoy!

CUMIN AND CARAWAY HONEY-ROAST CARROTS (serves 2)

Ingredients

4 carrots
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp runny honey
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp caraway seeds
fleur de sel

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200C.  Scrub the carrots and cut into batons.  Heat the honey a little so that it is very runny.  Mix the olive oil, honey and cumin.  Toss the carrots in this mixture and turn out into a shallow oven-proof dish.  Sprinkle with the caraway seeds and roast in the middle of the oven for about 25-30 minutes minutes until the carrots are browning slightly at the edges.  Sprinkle with fleur de sel before serving. The carrots take on a lovely sweet and spicy flavour of honey and cumin, and the caraway seeds add both flavour and crunch.  I served mine with sweet chili pork sausages, but how you serve yours is up to you :)

I'm submitting this post as my entry to this week's Weekend Herb Blogging, kindly hosted by the talented Anh at Food Lover's Journey.

Cranberry & pear upside down cake

Isn't it wonderful when winter slooooooowly starts to recede and bit by bit, you can see the selection of fruit (and vegetables!) improving?  Where before there were only forlorn and ridiculously out of season mangoes and strawberries, suddenly the wonderful deciduous fruits are reappearing - and English cherries and strawberries can't be far behind! 

As a professed non-sweet-tooth, I put my recent flurry of sweet stuff (peach clafoutis, cherry muffins) down to being overexcited at the sight of all this fruit,  And when the raw materials are so beautiful, how on earth are you meant to resist popping it in your basket and making something special with it?

I have written about synchronicity before - the unlikely convergence of seemingly unrelated events - and this cake is another example.  Let's see...

1.  Invite friends to lunch and start pondering what to make for dessert.  (As an aside, the day before the friends came to lunch, a colleague asked what I was making.  I rattled off the details of all three courses and she was amazed.  "So you already know EVERYTHING you are going to make?".  Realised that the idea of being 24 hours away from having 6 friends over for a meal and NOT knowing what I am making is enough to make me break out in hives.  You know you're a food blogger when...!)

2.  Find these glorious Rosemarie pears and buy a few without really knowing what you want to do with them.

3.  Chat to a friend who says I must check out this restaurant she went to, called Ottolenghi.

4.  Have a look on the web for said restaurant, browse the site and come across a cake recipe featuring... pears!

5.  Make the cake as a dessert for abovementioned friends and it is declared a roaring success.  One of friends leaves behind a Guardian Weekend magazine.

5.  After the guests leave, Nick flicks through the magazine and says I should look at it as there are some yummy recipes.  I take a look and who are the recipes by?  None other than Yotam Ottolenghi, who has just released his first cookbook.

Synchronicity at work!

Of course, this did mean using an untested recipe from a source that I had never used before... But I'm not known for my caution of foresight in the kitchen so I plunged in despite the fact that the cake was being baked on the morning of the lunch.  And there was no Plan B if it flopped.  The best advice I can give anyone embarking on this mission is to keep your wits about you and never assume that the recipe is correct just because it is in black & white! 

Although the recipe talks about "pouring" the batter into the cake tin, once my batter was mixed, there was NO WAY it was of a pouring consistency, and I was a little short on ground almonds so my batter would have been wetter than most.  Read the recipe again but no - no mention of liquid, apart from the tsp of vanilla essence! So I took an executive decision to add some milk to get it to proper batter consistency.  I didn't measure the milk, so please exercise discretion with my guesstimate of 150ml.  Add half and see if you get something pourable.  If not, add more.  The original recipe also did not call for cloves, but I added some to mine and was very happy with the result. 

The biggest crisis of confidence came with the baking time.  The recipe said 35 mins at 170C.  But after 35 minutes, the centre of the cake resembled the texture of cooling magma:  crisp on top but oooh, see how it jiggles below the surface! Bearing in mind that I was going to have to flip this baby upside down at some point to serve, I took another executive decision along the lines of "that damn thing is staying in the damn oven till it's firm - I don't care how long it takes!".  Eventually after 75 minutes, a skewer in the middle came out clean. 

And if, like me, you use a springform cake tin, unless you particularly like scraping burnt caramel off the inside of your oven, put the tin in the oven on a baking sheet lined with aluminium foil - the caramel WILL escape the tin, and at least that way you can discard the foil and laugh off the oven-cleaning.

Enough technicalities - how did it turn out?  Absolutely fabulously!  It was spicy and gooey and the tart cranberries were the perfect foil for the sweet pears.  One of our guests who never really cares for dessert practically licked his plate clean, and as far as I'm concerned that's the best testimonial you can get.

CRANBERRY & PEAR UPSIDE DOWN CAKE (serves 8)

Ingredients

For the poached pears:

3 ripe but firm pears
750ml water
150g sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
4 whole cloves
2 strips of zest and the juice of 1 lemon

For the caramel topping:

90g sugar
20g butter
40g dry cranberries or 50g fresh

For the cake batter:

200g butter
200g sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
150ml milk
200g ground almonds
¼ tsp salt
80g plain flour
zest of 1 orange
zest of 1 lemon
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground cloves

Method

Peel the pears and then in half lengthways. Immediately place the fruit in a saucepan  containing the water, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, lemon zest and juice. You can Place a disc of greaseproof directly on the liquid so the pears remain submerged, but I just turned them to float cut side down and they were fine.

Bring the liquid to the boil and then simmer until the pears are just slightly undercooked - this should take anywhere between 8 and 15 minutes. Check with a sharp knife that they are tender outside but firm in the centre. Leave them aside to cool down in the cooking liquid.  The poaching of the pears can be done the day before and the pears kept in the fridge overnight in their cooking liquid, which is what I did.

Heat up the oven to 170°C. Lightly grease a 20cm round cake tin and line its bottom and sides with greaseproof paper.

Place the sugar for the caramel in a clean heavy-based saucepan together with just enough water to moisten all the sugar.  Place on a low heat. Without stirring, watch the sugar turn into a rich caramel colour. Make sure to keep your eyes on the sugar at all times as it can easily burn.

As soon as you reach the desired colour, remove the pan from the heat quickly but carefully. With your face at a safe distance, add the butter in a few chunks. Stir quickly with a wooden spoon until the butter has melted and pour onto the base of the cake tin. Carefully tilt the tin to spread the caramel evenly.

Drain the pears.  If using dried cranberries, soak them in some of the pear cooking juices. Drain after 10 minutes. Meanwhile, cut each pear half into into 3 wedges lengthways. Remove the stem and core with a knife.  Arrange the pears and the cranberries over the caramel.

To make the cake, sieve together the flour and the spices. Use the paddle attachment of the mixer to cream the butter and sugar until light and airy. Gradually add the eggs and vanilla and milk. Add the ground almonds and citrus zest and mix just to combined. Repeat with sifted flour but stop when all ingredients are moist - don’t over-mix.

Once the batter is smooth, pour it carefully over the pears and cranberries making sure you don’t move them too much out of their place. Smooth the batter with a palette knife.  Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 75 minutes. Test with a skewer to make sure the cake is dry inside and then emove from the oven.

Whilst the cake is still warm, but not hot, place a flat plate upside-down on top of the tin and briskly turn over. Remove the tin and the paper, and serve decorated with cranberries and accompanied by whipped cream with an added splash of brandy.

I am submitting the picture of the bowl of beautiful Rosemarie pears as my entry for April's Click event.  This monthly photo event is hosted by my lovely friends Bee and Jai over at Jugalbandi and the theme for the month is au naturel, or food in its raw state.  The deadline is today, so get your fresh & raw snaps in ASAP, using their nifty entry form!

Smoked salmon eggs Benedict for an anniversary breakfast

Fact:  marriage is hard work.  And I have a suspicion that everyone reading this who is married will agree with me on this...! 

Of course it's also fun, rewarding and comfortable, but anybody entering into it with the idea that it is going to be moonlight and roses is in for a painful reality check.  You know that part about "for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health"?  Well, the minister is not making that bit up - it pretty well sums up the gist of the thing!  But when it works it's also a wonderful thing.  If two people can figure out a way of meshing together their two hitherto separate existences and share every aspect of their lives, 365 days a year, for any significant length of time, something new and surprisingly comforting is created that is both fragile, yet stronger than the two original parts. 

And the longer you can maintain this arrangement in a state of approximate equilibrium, without a family murder, the bigger the celebration should be :o)

Which is why Nick and I renewed our wedding vows in Vegas in 2005, and why in two years time I hope we will be doing so again somewhere in a beach surrounded by friends.  This year, though, things are more low key but I could not let our anniversary this week pass by unnoticed!  So today while we spent a day cocooned at home I declared it Anniversary Brunch Day and treated us to a little taste of affordable luxury in the shape of smoked salmon eggs Benedict.  The ingredients are relatively simple... but together they make up more than the sum of their parts.  Like me and Nick.

There is some debate about the origins of eggs Benedict,  but is generally accepted to have developed in the USA in the late 1800s.  The two stories that are most likely are:

• In 1894, Lemuel Benedict, a Wall Street broker with a hangover wandered into the Waldorf Hotel in New York and ordered "some buttered toast, crisp bacon, two poached eggs, and a hooker of hollandaise sauce". The Waldorf’s legendary chef, Oscar Tschirky, was so impressed that he put the dish on his breakfast and luncheon menus after substituting Canadian bacon for crisp bacon and a toasted English muffin for toasted bread.
• In the 1860s, a Wall Street banker named LeGrand Benedict and his wife, regular patrons of Manhattan's Delmonico's restaurant, complained that they were bored by the menu. The response of chef Charles Ranhofer was toasted muffins topped with ham, poached eggs and hollandaise sauce.  This version is further supported by the fact that Charles Ranhofer's cookbook The Epicurean contains a recipe for eggs benedict (although apparently not the first 1984 print).

Either way, it has become a byword for luxury breakfasts and therefore the ideal treat for a cosy morning at home.  The only problem is that I'd never poached an egg.  Sure, we're always frying, boiling and scrambling them - even coddling.  But never poaching.  It always seems like an art, and never having tried it I wasn't sure if I would master the art.  But recently week I saw something on a blog which made me decide to throw caution to the wind and give poaching a go.  Nicky of Delicious Days shares with us a novel way of getting your poached eggs into a regular shape:  trap them in plastic wrap!  Being the proud new owner of a bag of handy resealing clips from Ikea, I decided that the universe was conspiring to steer me down the path of poached eggs - who was I to refuse?

Despite slightly overtoasting the English muffins (read: doing too many things at once!) and slightly overpoaching the eggs (read: performance anxiety!), the dish turned out fabulously well and is definitely being added to our brunch repertoire when we feel in need of luxury.

SMOKED SALMON EGGS BENEDICT (serves 2)

Ingredients

2 English muffins
4 eggs
About 100g smoked salmon (I used trimmings because they were in the fridge - probably prettier to use slices)
A jar of Hollandaise sauce (I used Maille)
For this method of poaching you will also need polythene wrap, plastic clips and 4 ramekins for preparing the eggs.

Method

If you are making your own hollandaise sauce, you should probably start by doing that.  I decided to be lazy and bought a jar of the excellent Maille hollandaise.  Besides, all the eggs in the house were needed for the poached eggs!

Line one ramekin per egg with polythene wrap and brush with a little sunflower oil.  Carefully break one egg into each lined ramekin, taking care not to break the yolk.  Seal the plastic, trapping a little air inside to keep the surface of the poached egg smooth.

Bring a pot of water to boil, at least 2 inches deep.  Lower the egg parcels into the water and boil for 2.5 minutes (for small eggs) or longer (for large eggs or for a solid yolk), turning the parcels every 30 seconds or so to ensure even cooking - the parcels tend to want to lie on one side only!  The original recipe suggests removing your eggs after 2.5 minutes and plunging them into cold water to stop the cooking process. I, on the other hand, removed mine and noted that parts of the white were still translucent, and popped them straight back in the boiling water!  I think getting the timing just right will take a bit of practice.

Split each muffin into 2 discs and toast lightly (they are meant to be crisp and warm but, ahem, not brown!).  Butter each lightly and top with smoked salmon.  Remove the eggs from the polythene wrap (they come away fairly easily) and top each muffin half with an egg, then top each egg with hollandaise sauce.  What could be easier!

Mine also benefited from a generous grind of black pepper and then just I sat back and enjoyed the delights of brunch... and married life :)

I'm submitting this post as my entry into this month's Waiter, There's Something In My... event, hosted on a rotating basis by Johanna, Andrew and me.  The theme Johanna chose was breakfast and you still have until the end of the month to get your inspired breakfast dishes to her!

Oat and cherry muffins

The older I get, the more I envy people who can look dispassionately at all the things they have accumulated... and one day decide to ditch them all - or at least, a large proportion of them. 

A good friend of mine who I knew at university and who had always said that whan he really wanted to do was go sailing, recently did just what he said he was going to do:  he went sailing.  But I don't mean a little recreational weekend boating on the local lake.  Oh no, not Neil.  He waited until he had a wife, two kids, a house, his own business and all the things that the rest of us would think make up a pretty good life.  And when he went sailing, he bought a boat with the intention that all four of them would live aboard for at least two years while they traveled the globe.  Which necessitated getting rid of all the abovementioned accumulated stuff - even most of the kids' toys.  Now he sends me periodic e-mail updates: "Venezuela is awesome!" or "Just setting sail for the Galapagos Islands now!", just in case I didn't feel like enough of an underachiever ;-)

Or take Paul, who sold his apartment and used the money to buy a plot and build his own house.  While the building was going on, there was obviously nowhere for all his furniture and other worldly possessions to go, so he bought a big shipping container, fitted it with multiple security mechanisms and locked everything in there on his plot, pending the completion of the house.  In the intervening couple of years he was working here in Europe and had accumulated, at the very least, a new wardrobe and enough computer books to keep him happy.  And one day he realised that he had lived very well, thank you, for two years without his container full of possessions so he gave it all away, other than a couple of paintings and books.  Did the world stop turning?  No - and he no longer has to worry about anything happening to his container full of stuff.

I hear these stories and I gaze wistfully around my house.  We have only been here 8 years and we arrived in this house with one suitcase each and a box full of borrowed cooking utensils.   We rented it furnished so you'd think we would not have accumulated much stuff.  And you'd be thinking wrong.  Sometimes I feel as if I'm merely a servant in the house and that the real boss is Our Stuff - it demands care and cleaning and sorting, and sometimes I think I can almost see my way clear to doing a Neil/Paul manoeuver.  Look at all those toiletries you don't need! Look at all those clothes you don't wear!  Look at all those recipe books you've (ahem) never used! 

But....

Then The Book People pay a visit to my employer's cafeteria and bring a selection of great discounted cookbooks with them.  And one look at Muffins Galore is enough to send me reaching for my wallet.  This one will be different, won't it?  I mean, I'm not buying it for the pictures, I actually do make muffins.  And there are so many lovely recipes...  And as I walk back to my office with my purchase tucked under my arm, all aglow with muffin-making happiness, I see Neil's yacht pulling further and further away from me, and slipping over the horizon.

One of the things that sold me on the book was the great section on healthy muffin recipes - ones featuring wholegrain flour, oats and bran rather than chocolate chips and caramel!  Because it uses only one egg, no butter/margarine and both oats and wholegrain flour, I'm submitting this recipe as my contribution to this month's brunch-themed Heart of the Matter event, hosted by my friend Joanna of Joanna's Food.  If you have a heart-healthy breakfast or brunch recipe that you'd like to have included in the roundup, submit it to Joanna by midnight tonight!

As regards recipe tweaks, if you are using plain wholegrain flour like me, add an extra 3tsp baking powder.  I also found the icing pretty but unnecessary, so next time I would rather put all the chopped cherries into the batter and leave out the icing step altogether.

OAT & CHERRY MUFFINS (makes 10)

Ingredients

50g rolled oats
275ml milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
225g self-raising wholewheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
150g light muscovado sugar
75g dried sweetened cherries, chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
6 Tbsp sunflower oil
40g icing sugar, sifted

Method

Preheat oven th 190C.  Grease 10 cups of a standard 12-cup muffin tin.  Alternatively, line the 10 cups with paper muffin cases.  Next time, I will do the latter as two of my muffins totally lost their tops when I tried to coax them out of the pan!

Put the oats in a medium-sized bowl and pour over the mil and vanilla extract.  Stir briefly, then set aside and soak for 10 minutes.

Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and muscovado sugar in a large bowl.  Add half the chopped cherries to the flour mixture. Stir the egg and sunflower oil into the oat mixture.  Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the oat mixture.  Mix briefly until just combined.

Divide the batter equally among the prepared muffin cups.  Bake in the oven for about 20 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.  Muffins should be well-risen and firm.  Coll in the tin for 5 minutes (no longer!), then turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely. 

Blend the icing sugar with 2 tsp warm water in a small bowl to make an almost transparent, thin, smooth icing.  Stir in the remaining dried cherries.  Spoon some of the icing over each muffin and allow the icing to set before serving.

Seeing as I am a judge this month, I can't enter Snackshots, hosted my Michelle at the Greedy Gourmet, but this seems as good a time as any to remind you that the theme this month is... muffins (what else?!).  Get your entries to Michelle by 6 May.

Other muffins on CookSister! include:
Peppadew & parmesan muffins
Ham, cheese & paprika muffins
Cranberry apple & bran muffins
Sweet potato muffins   

Peach and cardamom clafoutis

Food blog events - bless 'em!  Pick a weird acronym and I can almost guarantee it has already been used in the wonderful world of food blogs - IMBB, SHF, WTSIM, EOMEOTE, WHB, HHDD, DMBLGIT, WBW...  need I continue?? And they're all designed to make you cook out of your comfort zone:  make puff pastry!  Stuff some vegetables!  Drink Turkish wine!  I feel performance anxiety coming on...

So isn't it lovely when a blog event comes along requiring:

a) something you have made before and are quite good at making; and

b) something that you in fact made at the end of last summer but, erm, never blogged at the time?!  Mea culpa.

I have always been a believer in a high impact-to-effort ratio in recipes.  Of course I can spend four hours slaving over the components of a complex dish and the end product will look and taste as if it took four hours to make.  But how much better it is when something takes 20 minutes to make but impresses people as much as something that took four hours to prepare.  And no, I am not venturing into the Delia territory of using frozen discs of mashed potato intead of the tremendously onerous (not!) task of boiling and mashing an Actual Raw Potato... 

Nope, I'm talking about that Holy Grail of dishes - the minimal effort, maximal WOW-factor recipe.  Slow roast lamb is one of them; home-made soup is another; and almost all fruit crumbles qualify.  When you bring these dishes to the table, there will always be appreciative oohs and aahs, but you will just smile your secret smile because you will know that you spent most of the afternoon on the sofa with a good book, rather than sweating over a hot stove in a steamy kitchen.  Honesty is NOT always the best policy when it comes to catering ;-)

A dessert that I've written about before and that, in my book, definitely passes the low-effort, high-impact test is clafoutis.  It's a classic country dessert from the South-west of France that consists of a baked custard in which pieces fruit (traditionally, cherries) are suspended.  When well-made, it can puff up as impressively as a low-maintenance souffle, but in terms of how easy it is, you would be surprised.  The hardest work is cutting up the fruit!  The batter actually prefers an hour to rest before baking, so you can make the batter, then get on with the rest of lunch, and pop the clafoutis in the oven when you sit down to your main meal.  What could be easier? 

Another thing that will astonish you with this recipe is how easy it is to infuse cream.  I have never made clafoutis with infused cream before, but after falling in love with the flavour of cardamom in fruit desserts with my pear & cardamom tarte tatin, I decided that it might be a good match for the peaches too.  And it was - not overpowering, but it defintely lent the whole dessert a grown-up and slightly exotic flavour that everybody loved. 

Well done to my lovely friend Bron for choosing clafoutis as the theme for this round of Hay, Hay, It's Donna Day!  This is my entry, but you still have until Monday to get your recipes in, so get a move on!

CLAFOUTIS (serves 8)

Ingredients

6 eggs
240ml cream
4 green cardamom pods
240g castor sugar
1/2 tsp of vanilla essence
140g cake flour, sifted
50g softened butter
about 4 peaches, stone removed and cut into thin wedges
100ml Amaretto (or brandy)
100g flaked almonds
icing sugar
vanilla ice cream/creme fraiche to serve

Method

Break open the cardamom pods, remove the seeds and crush lightly to release the flavour.  In a small saucepan, heat the cream and crushed cardamom seeds until the liquid is almost boiling, then remove from the heat and allow to steep for at least 30 minutes.  Strain, pressing down on the seeds in the sieve to extract maximum flavour.  Allow the cream to cool to room temperature or lower.

Beat the eggs, cream, sugar and vanilla essence together in a bowl.  Add flour and beat with a wooden spoon for about 1 minute.  If time allows, set aside to rest for 1 hour at room temperature.

Preheat oven to 220C and butter a 2 litre ovenproof dish.  Spread the peach wedges evenly over the base of the buttered dish and drizzle with the Amaretto.  Pour the batter over the peaches (they will float - don't worry - this is normal!) and bake on the top shelf of the oven for about 25 minutes.

Sprinkle with the almonds and cook for a further 15-20 minutes or until golden, puffy and set.  Dust with icing sugar and serve immediately with vanilla ice cream or creme fraiche.

Another winner's badge and the WTSIM theme for this month