Cranberry Cornmeal Pancakes

Using this recipe i made a nearly-core recipe for breakfast this morning. it was wayyyy too many cranberries though so i'll adjust that below :) i discovered at the last minute i was out of oranges so used a lemon which was good too.

rory absolutely loved them and ate more than me!!!



1 1/2 cups plain flour (or 1 cup flour and 1/2 cup processed oats)
1/2 cup polenta / cornmeal
2 tspns baking powder
2 tspns sugar (or splenda)
1/2 tspn bicarb soda
Pinch salt
2 eggs
juice of one small orange or one medium lemon
2 teaspoons finely grated orange / lemon zest, optional
1 cup skim milk
1/3-1/2 cup craisins

mix it all together!
spray a non-stick pan with cooking spray and heat over a medium-low heat.
put large spoonfuls in for pikelet sized pancakes. when they have mostly set and have bubbles on top flip to cook the other side.

I did have trouble working out the ww points for these because the recipe builder on the ww website works mostly in grams and i hadn't weighed anything. but the only non-core ingredients are the flour and craisins.

Links - BBQ ideas (marinades, salads etc) #2

some more great ideas for BBQ's :D

chickpea salad with roasted red peppers

cranberry walnut chicken salad

dani's potato salad

silverbeet & orange salad

thermomix moroccan carrot salad

the canberra cook's potato salad

spicy honey chicken

spicy garlic shrimp

making banana bread!

making banana cakes!
Originally uploaded by brazen20au

this morning we made banana bread!

the room leader in ryan and emelia's daycare room was leaving to go overseas with her parther and we hadn't had a chance to do anything over the weekend (plus i forgot!)

since i was up early this morning i decided that i'd make this banana bread and we'd take it down for Aimy as a gift. I'd jsut started when the girls got out of bed and wanted to help :)

i had trouble with the breads cooking! (i had doubled the recipe, but cooked it in two tins) it took longer than i thought adn then when the skewer finally came out clean i took them out of the oven. after being out all morning for various appointments and dropping the other bread to aimy, i got home to find what looked like a mini cow pat under our cake :-0 turns out it wasn't cooked through and all the uncooked guts of the cake had slowly dripped out through a crack in the top of the cake!!! i am just hoping aimy's (which was wider and flatter than ours) was cooked through properly!

some of you might know that i'm on the quest for the perfect banana bread. this one comes pretty damn close! it is a VERY nice banana bread! the only thing that lets it down is perhaps that i'm looking for something a little extra in it, and it is not all that healthy lol but it really is the absolute best contender so far! thanks to nigella and alicia from posie gets cosy ...

(i will have to experiment with my apple sauce substitution trick)

and another cake made today...
this afternoon i made an orange and poppyseed cake for my dad for fathers day (as you know i wasn't feeling up to it on sunday). i didn't get to taste it (or to ice it) but it smelled good! (and the batter tasted good - shhhh!)

i will let you know what he thinks ;)

Whole Orange Cake, Thermomix style

WHOLE ORANGE CAKE

2 big oranges
2 eggs
200g cup grapeseed or other oil

270g plain flour
460g sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder

1 extra orange, halved
1 tablespoon or so of sugar extra
icing sugar - around 1/4 cup or less

heat oven to around 160-180'c *
wash your oranges well, rinse.

cut the ends off, cut into quarters. remove the white centre and any seeds, cut in half again so you have 8 pieces per orange. place in thermomix.

add eggs and oil.
blend on speed 8 for 25-30 seconds until it's mostly smooth, thick and creamy.

add flour, sugar and baking powder
mix on speed 4 for 10-15 seconds until mixed.

pour into a cake tin (greased, lined, whatever you want ;))

bake for about 30-40 minutes until a skewer comes out clean *

let cool for 15-20 minutes

meanwhile juice the extra orange and add the extra sugar to it.
either in a saucepan on the stovetop or in the micrwave heat it until the sugar is dissolved
Add some sugar to the juice and bring to a boil, stir to make sure it's well dissolved.

use the skewer to stab holes all over the top of the cake!
pour the syrup mix over the cake
sift the icing sugar over the top and serve.

* my cake ended up a bit too dark around the edges but took longer to cook in the middle, so i think i need a lower temperature for longer to cook it properly.

we quite liked this cake - it is a stronger and slightly more bitter taste than a 'normal' orange cake, because of the whole orange being used. it is sooooo simple in the TMX though and i like using the whole orange instead of wasting half of it!

Orange Cake (with whole oranges)

taken from Full Bellies Happy Children

i'm just C&P here so i can print it out without all the pics ;) i'll then attempt to convert to thermomix :D

ORANGE CAKE

2 nice big oranges
2 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups of flour
2 cups of sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder

We start by taking both oranges and cutting the ends off, then throw those in the trash, you won't need them.

Now take each orange and cut it into fourths. Forget about the ends in the background, I hadn't thrown them out yet, but I will in just a sec.

Ugh those ends are still there mocking me...I should have just gotten rid of them in the beginning. But anyway....forget about those. Take your orange slices and cut out the white skin part thingy in the middle, make sure you get all of it otherwise it makes your cake bitter.

Also remove any seeds, if there are any....mine didn't have any.

Then you chop it all up into small pieces. I know at this point you're wondering if I'm crazy because I didn't peel the oranges, but just go with me here ok? It's ALL going in the cake and don't mock it till you try it....that's all I'm saying LOL

Dump all the juicy orange chunks into the blender, then add the 2 eggs....

Add 1 cup of vegetable oil and then blend everything together until you get this nice yellow cream

Take that mixture and dump it into a mixing bowl

Add in the 2 cups of flour and the 2 cups of sugar and the baking powder and mix everything well....with a spoon. Don't bother getting the electric mixer out, no need to dirty it....

Pour the cake mix into a greased baking pan and pop it into a 375º oven for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Here's our cake straight out of the oven....go ahead and run a thin knife along the edges to make sure it's loose and then invert it onto a plate.

At this point you're going to take a fork or whatever and poke a bunch of holes all over the top of the cake.

Then walk over to the stove again, grab a small pan, put in the juice from one orange, or just pour some from the OJ carton like I did. You don't need a lot, you don't want to drown the cake just make a little syrup to pour on top.

Add some sugar to the juice and bring to a boil, stir to make sure it's well dissolved.

While it's still hot, pour it all over the cake.... *drool*

Sprinkle some powdered sugar on top and cut yourself a big slice of that baby...add some orange slices and you're good to go. Go anywhere, even outside to the driveway while you turn off the water sprinklers.

busy foodie day

and i'm kind of over it now (ok, i'm very over it - we're having leftovers for dinner and the kids are having oven baked nuggets and chips from the freezer lol)

first this morning i tried to turn my favourite muffin recipe into a strawberry yoghurt muffin recipe with dismal results :( i threw them out this afternoon as even *I* didn't want to eat them...

i then cooked the apple for this cake http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/14581/custard+and+apple+teacake though it ended up more like a chunky apple sauce so i hope it works ok.

off to the markets after that to stock up on spices (nearly $70 worth lol) so i can make my own spice mixes, which won't happen til next weekend now. lunch was a treat of homemade nachos and then i made the custard for the apple cake, the cake itself (now cooking) and the thermomix orange cake which ryan loves.

i also need to work out something interesting to make with the humungous pumpkin our neighbours gave to us, which their neighbours grew. it's just not cold enough for soup!

is anyone else a wimp about cutting pumpkins? it's the whole reason i usually buy jap pumpkin *blush* i think this one is a bloody ironbark LMAO!!!