Quince crumble.

I poached a quince today and now my apartment smells of the fresh ginger and star anise that I simmered it with.

After the quince was cooked, I put it in a little baking dish with the ginger and star anise, some of the poaching liquid and scattered some sugar over the top. Then I made a crumble and dotted it over the top, and then I baked it.

Quince crumble for one.

To poach the quince:

(inspired by this post. If it wasn't for David Lebovitz I wouldn't have remembered the bag of star anise sitting in the pantry!)

Peel and core the quince. Put it in a small pot and just cover with water. Add whatever aromatics you like - I used star anise, a slice of lemon, and slices of fresh ginger. Add some sugar. Simmer until the quince is cooked. It took me about half a hour, but David says it can take up to two hours! Just check your quince and when it's ready, it's ready. Let it cool in the poaching liquid.

Set the oven to 190C (or 180C if you have a fan-forced oven) and make the crumble while the oven heats.

To make the crumble:

(my crumble was inspired by the recipe at the end of this post, but you can use whatever crumble you like best)

Rub 70g Nuttelex or similar into 75g plain flour. Mix in 40g large breadcrumbs (I used panko 'cause that's what I have), 40g brown sugar, some ground cinnamon and nutmeg, and a little splash of water to make it all come together nicely.

Now, put the quince into a little baking dish. Put in the star anise and ginger too, if you like. Scatter some sugar on the top. Put the crumble on the top in clumps until it's all covered over. Bake for about half an hour until the top is brown and crunchy.

You could eat this with icecream or cream or yoghurt or ricotta or cottage cheese or anything, really. I don't have any of those things so I ate it as it was, straight out of the dish.

What do you do when life gives you green peppers..?

Stuff 'em!

I got a bagful of green peppers from the "staff" box at work, and devised a recipe around stuff I already had in my pantry.

I cooked some brown rice and black-eyed peas, mixed that up with onion, garlic, salt, pepper, lemon, cumin, cinnamon and paprika.  I chopped the tops off the peppers and stuffed the mixture inside, and put them in a baking dish.  I made a quick tomato sauce (this one) and poured it over the top of the peppers, and sprinkled some nooch and breadcrumbs over the top, and stuck it in the oven for half an hour to bubble and brown.

It was pretty damn tasty.  Yum!

25.

I celebrated my 25th birthday a couple of weeks ago. It was an afternoon of sun, fun, food, and rude conversation. I had so much fun, actually, that I only took one picture the whole afternoon!



Here's Toby in my backyard. Please excuse my underwear on the line.

Toby, Kristy, Bron and Liz are vegan, and Preethi is vegetarian, so I wanted to cater for them - after all, the rest of us could still eat the vegan food, and I wanted everyone to be able to eat everything! With that in mind, I whipped up a bunch of tasty treats - green pea puffs, baked artichoke dip and quinoa salad, all borrowed from Cindy and Michael).

My housemate made a killer guacamole, and I also made a chocolate-almond torte and an orange polenta cake. With a heap of gorgeous summer fruit and Kristy's cute cupcakes, we ate and ate and ate until we were stuffed full, and then kept eating!

And two weeks later I'm STILL working my way through the 650g of Belgian chocolate from Bronwyn and Simon....