sweet-potato-delight

s w e e t - p o t a t o - d e l i g h t

I've recently moved to the other side of the world! I'm in Australia for two years so I've had a bit of change going on in my life!

Moving for 2 years is tricky....partly because I had to say goodbye to all my kitchen stuff at the beginning of July as it got shipped over here so I'm without cake tins, my magic scales, my electric mixer, and everything else that makes me feel at home! (Yeah, these things make me feel at home, even if it is just for the plug sockets and Lakeland labels on things!)

As I get used to the new country and wait for my old faithful kitchen appliances to arrive I wanted to cook something pretty simple....and having just got some great sausages from South Melbourne market I really wanted to eat them! So in an attempt to cook something homely I checked the blog I read the most and was instantly sucked in with the sentence, "I wanted to try another new way to enjoy the best orange vegetable there is". I haven't built up a stock of herbs and spices yet (I'm almost certain I will have accumulated a few more in the coming weeks) but I had the basics so have altered it to go with what I had!!

So for the recipe:
3 sweet potatoes; 2 large sausages; 1/2 red onion; 4 mushrooms; Worcestershire sauce; 2 cloves garlic; 2 eggs; dried chillies; salt and pepper.

Dice the sweet potatoes and boil for 5 minutes then spread onto a baking tray and bake in the oven for around 20-30 minutes. Cook the sausages in the oven with some red onion, mushrooms and a glug of Worcestershire sauce. When the sausages are cooked cut them into slices and mix them in an oven-proof dish with the cooked sweet potato and some finely chopped garlic, dried chilli and salt and pepper.Drizzle some olive oil on top and return to the oven for another 15 minutes. Create two small wells in the sausage and sweet potato and crack an egg in each well. 
Bake until the egg is cooked and then serve (it should take another 10 minutes or so).

It absolutely hit the spot in terms of something homely when I really needed it!! I've not tried to make any Aussie food so far but given how big the Parma is over here I'm sure I'll try it pretty soon...

pineapple-upside-down

p i n e a p p l e - u p s i d e - d o w n
Following a recent shipment of Ghanaian pineapples to work I was instructed requested to make some pineapple upside down cake...I obviously obliged and brought it into work to watch it get devoured.
Having not made pineapple upside down cake before I really didn't know what I was looking to make but reading about 10 different recipes suggested it is pretty straight forward. I mostly used the pineapple upside-down cake recipe from the BBC Good Food site but made some changes of my own. Essentially, the point is to layer the pineapples in the bottom of the cake tin, pour cake mix on top and then turn it upside down once cooked.
I would strongly recommend using a silicone cake tin for this as it just made my life (cleaning) so much easier and it makes it really simple to just upside down it once cooked. 

pineapple upside-down cake (on its side!)

So for the recipe:
For the 'top' -  40g butter; 40g light brown sugar; pineapple rings (Ghanaian preferably!!); flaked almonds
For the cake - 100g butter; 100g caster sugar; 100g self raising flour; 2 eggs; 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda; 1 tsp vanilla extract; 1 tbsp pineapple juice; 1 tbsp ground almonds

For the top of the cake (which is currently the bottom of the cake) cream the butter and sugar together and spread on the bottom of the cake tin. Arrange the pineapple slices in the bottom of the tin and fill the gaps with flaked almonds.
For the cakey part, cream the butter and sugar and then add the eggs and flour. Add the bicarbonate of soda, vanilla, pineapple juice (you'll get enough from cutting the pineapple) and ground almonds. Mix well and pour over your pineapple base (or top - I get confused), ensuring it is smooth. Bake at 180 degrees for around 30 - 35 minutes. Cool slightly and turn out onto a plate
I may try making this again in a bundt cake tin and cutting the pineapples into different shapes to make it look a bit more pineapple-y!!

sausage-hotpot

s a u s a g e - h o t p o t
I bought a brilliant turquoise casserole dish with a lid last year which looks perfectly at home in my kitchen. It usually sits on a shelf surrounded by my cute little, charity shop bought, cups & saucers and my mum's old milk jug... but that's not really the point of it I suppose! After deciding I should do more cooking with it (and mostly because I realised I had sausages needing used up), a sausage hotpot seemed like an obvious choice!

So for the recipe:
6 sausages of your choosing (I used pork & red onion sausages but it definitely works with Quorn sausages too); 2 carrots; 1 leek; 1 courgette; 4 chestnut mushrooms; red wine (some for cooking, the rest for drinking); chutney; red onion; Worcestershire sauce; tin of baked beans.
Cook the sausages in the casserole dish with a chopped red onion, 200ml (ish) of red wine, a 'glug' of Worcestershire sauce and 2 tablespoons of chutney. Whilst the sausages are cooking, parboil the carrots and have a glass of wine. After about 20 mins of the sausages cooking, cut them into smaller chunks and add the remaining ingredients (chopped leek, parboiled carrots, chopped courgette, sliced mushrooms, baked beans). At this point I added a little water and another tablespoon of chutney - because it's just so tasty. Cook on a lower heat (about 120) for a further 30 minutes until everything is bubbling away in the casserole dish.


I served it with mashed potatoes (which I mash with olive oil & a tiny bit of paprika to give them a deep, nutty taste with a bit more colour) and I'll admit the portions were slightly out of control...the recipe would comfortably serve 4 but it seemed to be finished by the two of us!!