Aussie Style - Pumpkin Pie

It's nearing that time of year again .. Christmas ...
Every year my eldest son asks me to make him a pumpkin pie, so of course I do, then once it's on the table, it's by pure luck anyone but my eldest  gets a slice!

I know pumpkin pie isn't traditional down here in Aus - but neither is Halloween, and we love Halloween! We can 'borrow' the American's pumpkin pie and they can 'borrow' the good old Aussie Lamington! =)

I always make my own pastry unless it's puff (that's just easier to buy) so in this recipe, I make a cinnamon sweet shortcrust. Have a go at making your own, I think it's well worth the effort and the end result tastes better!

If you aren't confident in making your own pastry just grab some store bought shortcrust pastry.

PASTRY

• 3 cups of plain flour
• 190g unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 2 tbls cinnamon
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 tbls chilled water

METHOD

In a food processor, process the flour, cinnamon, butter and sugar until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add the egg yolks and the water and process until a dough.

Take out the dough on knead on a lightly floured surface.

Roll into a ball, wrap in cling wrap and put in the fridge for 30 minutes. 

Take out your dough from the fridge and put between two sheets of baking paper and with a rolling pin roll out until even and smooth. 

Grab a flan tin and grease and line with baking paper - gently put your pastry in until it fits snug in the flan tin. 

Put some baking paper on top, and fill with baking weights. Bake for 15 minutes at 180C  - once done, take out, take away the weights and baking paper and further bake for another 5 minutes. 

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PUMPKIN PIE INGREDIENTS

2 cups of chopped roasted pumpkin pureed in the food processor.
1 1/2 cups thickened cream

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs plus the yolk from a third egg

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp cardamom 

1/2 tsp of lemon juice

METHOD

Pre-heat your oven to 220C

Mix sugars, salt, spices  - whisk the eggs and add

Stir in the pumpkin puree

Stir in the cream and the lemon juice

Whisk together until well combined.

Pour into your prepared pastry shell

Bake at 220C for 20 minutes

Turn the oven down to 180C and bake for a further 40 minutes. 

Stick a skewer in the middle of the pie and if it comes out clean, then it's ready.

Serve with some whipped cream. 

Fairy Floss (Cotton Candy) frozen Cheesecake

I like giving myself a bit of a challenge and I thought this cheesecake would be difficult, but it was eesy peesy.
The challenge comes later today when I get started on the Xmas Macaron's ...
This cheesecake is going to the son's Xmas party on the weekend, the one I have been invited to but have to do most the cooking for!!

INGREDIENTS

• 200g pkts of classic Tim Tams x 2
• 250g pkt cream cheese at room temperature
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 300ml thickened cream
• 250g mascarpone
• Pink food colouring
• handful red glace cherries, finely chopped
• 2 bags of strawberry flavoured fairy floss - plus extra to decorate.

METHOD

1. Lightly grease a 7.5 deep loaf pan and line the bottom and sides with baking paper.
2. Process one packet of Tim Tams in the food processor until finely crushed. Press firmly into lined pan with the back of a spoon. Place in the fridge.
3. Use an electric mixer to beat the cream cheese and sugar in a bowl until smooth. Beat the cream in a separate bowl until almost whipped. 
4. Fold the mascarpone into the cream cheese mixture. Fold in the cream, until combined.
5. Tint with a drop of food colouring.
6. Fold in the cherries. 
7. Fold in the fairy floss
8. Spread the mixture over the biscuit base - smooth - Freeze overnight.
9. Once fully frozen, decorate with the extra Tim tams (grated) and fairy floss.

Vegan Chocolate Beetroot Cake

This weekend coming up is full of Christmas parties with both sides of my family. Which means lots of cooking and baking for me to take food to these parties .. Especially the one at my son's house, he has invited us over for Christmas lunch but I have to make most of the food! How does that work? lol

The first Christmas party I am off to is at my MIL's on Saturday - besides my husband being a vegan, his older brother is also! Which means double the work for me ... as long as they enjoy what I make them, then the double work is no problem!

Last year I made them a vegan pumpkin pie - this year I went a little different and have made them a Vegan Chocolate Beetroot Cake ...

Who knew that beetroot and chocolate went so well together - but then again, chocolate goes well with most things!

So if you want to give this a go, it's quite easy ..


INGREDIENTS

• 2 Large beetroots, skin on, grated
• 1 extra beetroot - sliced thinly
• 3 cups of plain flour
• 2 cups of caster sugar
• 6 tbls cocoa
• 2 tsps baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups of water
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tbls white vinegar
• 2 tbls vanilla paste
• Half a packet of glazed cherries

METHOD

Pre-heat oven to 190 C
Grease and flour a large springform cake tin or bundt cake pan

Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt cinnamon, sugar in a large bowl

Add a well in the centre and pour in the water, oil, vinegar, vanilla and beat with a whisk until smooth - add the grated beetroot and make sure the mixture is well combined.

Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. 

In the meantime make some vegan buttercream 

1/3 cup soy milk

2 Tbls Nuttelex

1/2 cup cocoa

In the electric mixer, cream the nuttelex, add the other ingredients and beat until creamy. 

Once your cake is done, let it cool on a wire rack and meanwhile while you are waiting, get your beetroot chips ready.
Deep fry your sliced beetroot chips until crispy - place on a paper towel to drain the excess oil. 

Time to now buttercream your cake, top with some glazed cherries and the beetroot chips.

I think it's almost Christmas!

It's that time of year again and the madness of cooking lots of Christmas goodies begins.

I was racking my brain as to what to give some family and friends as part of their presents - so I just made some little Gingerbread Christmas Tree's ..

This is a little time consuming but well worth the end result.
I started making the dough at around 8 in the morning - finished the baking process by 2 pm  - went to work and got home around 9.30 pm - looked at them and thought I would finish them tomorrow ... Got up around 2 am to grab a drink and thought 'Bugger it - I will do the rest now!" finished them at 5 am!! lol

But they are done, ready to be wrapped in some pretty cellophane with ribbon .. =D

So if you have some patience then give this a go ..


INGREDIENTS

• 3 1/2 cups Plain flour - 
• 1 Tsp Baking Powder
• 1 Tsp Bicarbonate Soda
• 3 Tsps Ground Ginger
• 1/2 Tsp Ground Cardamom 
• 150g Soft Butter
• 1 Cup Honey or Golden syrup
• 1 Egg
• 1 Eggwhite
• 1 1/2 Cups sifted icing sugar
• 1/2 Tsp Lemon Juice

METHOD

Sift flour, baking soda, bicarb soda, ginger and cardamom together.
Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy.
Add Honey / Golden Syrup and egg - Beat until well combined.
On a low speed, beat in sifted ingredients until well combined and turns into a dough.
Divide the dough in half and wrap in cling wrap and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Note; If Dough is too dry (crumbles) add a tablespoon of milk.

Roll out dough halves between baking paper, around 4mm thick.
Get a large, medium and small star cookie cutter and cut out 27 large stars.
If any dough is left over, start cutting out 45 medium stars, you will start using the other half of the dough by now. With the remaining dough cut out 9 small stars.

With the large stars bake in the oven at 180 C for 7 - 8 minutes. Put on a rack to cool
With the medium stars, bake for about 5-7 minutes. Put on a rack to cool
With the small stars, bake for about 5 minutes. Put on a rack to cool

Once you have all your stars, it's time to make some royal icing.

In an electric mixer, add the egg white and beat until glossy, add the lemon juice and continue to beat.
Little by little add the sifted icing sugar and keep beating until you have a nice smooth glossy icing.

Divide the royal icing in two
Put a bit of green food colouring in one half of the royal icing.

Get two piping bags with a small nozzle

Fill one up with the green royal icing and the other with the white royal icing.

Start with a large star and blob a bit of green icing on each point. Then blob a bit of white icing in the middle of the star. (The white icing is the glue that holds it together)

Start stacking 3 large stars at offset angles, then continue with 5 medium stars and finish with one small star.

Keep continuing until you have 9 little trees.

I then sifted some icing sugar over the trees to make it look a bit snowy ..

Ok I know I suck at tying bows lol 

Fried Cabbage & Bacon

This is good for those Winter night dinner side dishes - or even in Summer as a side dish on the BBQ ..
Tonight I have made my kids some slow cooked lamb shanks with mash and put this as a side dish.

I had some cabbage that really needed to be used up, same with the bacon I had in the fridge.

So I chopped up the bacon and cabbage, smashed a couple of garlic cloves, chopped up an onion and threw it all in large fry pan  - added a knob of butter, salt and pepper and it was ready in less than 10 minutes. ...

Rosemary Salt

I use rosemary salt in heaps of dishes. It's just yummy!
Put it on chips, potatoes, in stews ect ..


In this recipe I have used packet dried rosemary - but it's best if you use fresh .. =)


INGREDIENTS

Handful of Rock Salt
Handful of Rosemary


METHOD

Get out your mortar and pestle

Put the ingredients in it.

Start grounding until it becomes smooth 

And you have a mixture of Rosemary salt .. 

You can do this with anything really - parsley salt, garlic salt, mint salt for something different, corriander salt ..The list can just go on and on ...

Creamy Garlicy Rosemary Mash Potato

Mash can be so boring so to keep it interesting I usually jazz it up.
One of those days where I am pressed for time because I need to leave for work soon and the kids need dinner.

Last night my husband was in charge of dinner - I got home at 8.30pm .. Kids had not been fed .. Animals had not been fed! So after working my arse off, I had to cook dinner for the kidlets and dish up some food for the two cats, dog and fish!

So note to myself: In future, make sure you make dinner before you go to work always!!!! lol


INGREDIENTS

I am feeding two teenagers

6 medium whole potatoes with skin on
50g Butter
1/4 Cup thickened Cream
Fresh Rosemary - chopped
2 garlic cloves crushed
Rock Salt

METHOD

In a large pot of salted water, add the potatoes whole - make sure the water covers the potatoes.

Boil the potatoes for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile - add your chopped rosemary and rock salt to a pestle and ground until you have a nice smooth rosemary salt.

Once your potatoes are cooked (stick a skewer in them and if they go right through they are ready)
Drain the potatoes and leave to cool

Once cooled, peel the skin off with your fingers, the skin will just slide off .. Add potatoes back to the pot you cooked them in. Add butter, cream, garlic and your rosemary salt and Mash until smooth ..

Vegan Chocolate Chilli Cake

My husband has been a vegan for the past 22 years, so I have had to learn how to cook a lot of vegan food.
He is a chocoholic - not long ago I made 50 vegan chocolate truffles - left them in the fridge, went to work - by the time I got home, the whole lot was eaten .. By him!!!!  And he has requested more ..

This is one of his favourite chocolate cakes that I make for him, as he loves spice.

It is delicious and it is very chocolatey but leaves that spicy tingle at the back of your throat.


INGREDIENTS

3 Cups of plain flour
2 Cups of caster sugar
1/2 cup Cocoa
2 tsp Baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp cayenne
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp vinegar
10 tbs vegetable oil
2 Cups of water

METHOD

Put the dry ingredients in a large bowl and give it a bit of a mix.
Gradually add all the wet ingredients, mixing until smooth.

Tip into a well greased spring cake pan and bake at 180 C for 30 minutes.

Decorate with some vegan ganache or vegan buttercream

Tim Tamming it Up (Timtam Cheesecake)

Who doesn't love Timtams? And who doesn't like cheesecake? So what better way than to have your (cheese) Cake and eat it too!! let's combine the two!

My eldest son lives on the other side of the Earth .. Well he lives over an hour away from me, but as a mother it feels like the other side of the Earth to be so far away from my boy!

Like most early 20's kids, he only comes to visit when he wants something lol  - but even so, I love the days when he comes home, so I usually make his favourite desserts when he comes back, which is cheesecake or pumpkin pie.

I made a timtam cheesecake and he ate almost the whole thing, lucky he left a piece for his other two siblings!

INGREDIENTS

2 Packets of original Timtams
80g butter - melted - cooled
1/4 cup boiling water
3 tsp gelatine powder
Double pack of Philly Cream Cheese - softened
1/2 Cup of caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla paste or essence
1 cup of thickened cream
180g block of white chocolate - melted
Extra chopped Timtams

METHOD

Process 300g of Timtams until crumbed - add cooled butter
Press mixture over base and sides of a 20cm spring pan and put in the fridge
Sprinkle gelatine over boiling water and stir - set aside
Roughly chop remaining biscuits
Beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla until fluffy
Add the cream
Gradually add the gelatine
Beat until thoroughly mixed
Spoon into the base
Top with extra Timtams
Put in the fridge preferably overnight, but for about 6 hours to set.

Basic Fasta Pasta Bake

I work nights, I leave my house for work at 2.30 in the afternoons, which means I need to get dinner prepared for the kiddies everyday before I head out the door. I usually don't have time to get too complex for their dinners and when I leave it for my husband to 'cook' them dinner, his idea of cooking for them is going out and getting Macca's or a Pizza!

I was buggered if I knew what to cook for dinner, it was a couple of days before I could go food shopping and I hardly had anything in the cupboards / fridge / freezer to cook!

I had a packet of Penne in the cupboard, some mince in the freezer and some cheese in the fridge .. Voila - pasta bake is on the menu tonight!

INGREDIENTS

Packet of Penne
Bit of butter
Mozzarella Cheese
Basic Bolognese sauce;
400g beef mince
1/2 cup red wine
1 brown onion finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 red capsicum, chopped
1 tin of chopped tomoatoes
1 cup of beef stock
Salt / Pepper for seasoning
Italian Herbs

METHOD

Cook the penne according the packet directions (salted and oiled water for about 12 - 15 minutes)
Drain
Throw it in a deep baking dish, add a bit of butter to melt through the pasta
In a large frypan cook the onion and garlic until soft, add the mince and brown. Add the capsicum and chopped tomatoes and stir. Then add the red wine and beef stock - leave to simmer for about 20 minutes.
Season and add Italian herbs

Stir the sauce through the pasta, top with mozzarella cheese and bake in the oven at 200 C for about 35 minutes.

Thai Mussels

One of the best things about living on the Mornington Peninsula is the sea .. Another great thing about living on the peninsula is when your daddy knows a fisherman and gets you fresh seafood for free ..

The other day my dad came to my house with about 3 kilos of fresh mussels ..

Unfortunately in my house - besides my two cats and my dog, I am the only one who likes seafood.

I knew straight away what I was having for dinner that night, and fortunately for my dad, he got to take home a crapload of cooked mussels because there was no way I could eat 3 kilos worth to my self!

With the mussels, I put them in the sink with salted cold water (make sure you salt the water, otherwise the mussels will die)  I left them to soak for a while while I made up the mix that the mussels were going to steam in.

2 cups of white wine
1/2 stalk of lemongrass chopped finely
1/4 cup of fish sauce
Handful of chopped corriander
1 green chilli, chopped finely
1 red onion chopped finely
60g Butter
2 cloves of garlic, crushed


Once you have put the above ingredients in a large pot, start either scrubbing your mussels or pulling with your fingers their beards off ..

If any of them are open, give them a bit of a tap and if they close, they are alive, if they don't close - discard them. If you have any broken ones, also discard them.

Once beards have been taken off - throw them in the pot with the liquid - put a lid on the pot and on a very low heat steam the mussels for around 12 - 15 minutes .. Once they have opened, they are cooked, just be careful not to overcook them or they will taste rubbery!

Ground beef Wellington

Love a traditional Beef Welly but sometimes time just gets you by - so this is a quick ground beef version.

If you have time it's always best to make your own pastry - however, again if you are pressed for time - just use packet pastry.

I usually make my own pastry but this one is with packet pastry.

INGREDIENTS

500g ground beef
40g Butter
1 small green capsicum - chopped finely
2 small brown onions - chopped finely
1/4 cup pizza paste or passata
1 egg
2 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped
2 sheets of puff pastry
1 cup of cheese
1 cup of breadcrumbs
Handful of button mushroom chopped finely
1 extra egg for glazing
Salt/Pepper

METHOD

Melt the butter in a saucepan and cook the onions, mushrooms and capsicum until soft.
Combine the mince, garlic, breadcrumbs, pizza paste or passata and egg in a large bowl - then add the mushroom mixture. Season the mixture with salt and pepper ..
Put the two sheets of pastry flat and cut crossways across - then add the beef mixture on top.

Then add some cheese to the top of the meat mixture.

Egg wash the sides and then start criss crossing the pastry ...

When finished, egg wash the pastry and put on a lightly sprayed baking tray with baking paper.

Bake at 200 C for 40 minutes. 

About Bamba Jay

I am not great at writing and blogging - nor am I that good at photography.

I can however cook. As a young child I was brought up by my nan and pop, my nan could not cook to save her life, if my pop cooked it would be most likely Hungarian Goulash, as my pop is Hungarian.

As a kid, my diet consisted of pub food (which I still love) and Macca's! However, my great grandmother lived in Tasmania, and about 6 times a year, my nan would take me and we would spend weeks in the tiny town of Deloraine. It was there I watched my Grandmother cook everything from scratch, in her old woodfire oven. I loved to help her with the traditional Sunday roasts and making Pavs from scratch and apple pies and whatever else she had planned on the day. I soaked in everything.

As a young teenager, I would cook for my friends and myself, so we wouldn't get food poisoning from my nana's cooking! I had plans on becoming a chef but an unexpected pregnancy at 17 overtook my plans at that stage for an apprenticeship. Ever since and three more kids later, I have had jobs as a cook and went back to school and became qualified.

  So in this blog, there will not be great writing, nor will there be fantastic photographs. But there will be recipes - tried and tested.