Warm peach upside down cakes

Ingredients:
olive oil cooking spray
415 g can peach slices in natural juice, drained
2 tablespoons reduced fat spread, melted
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 cup self raising flour
150g light French Vanilla fruche
pure icing sugar to serve

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Lightly dpray base of four 1-cup capacity ramekins with oil. Line bases with baking paper. Arrange 2 to 3 peach slices over base of each ramekin. Finely chop remaining peaches.
2. Combine spread and sugar in a bowl. Whisk buttermilk, egg and vanilla together. Add to sugar mixture. Sift flour over batter and stir until well combined. Fold in chopped peaches.
3. Spoon batter over peach slices. Smooth surface. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
4. Use a knife to loosen cakes. Turn out onto serving plates. Dust with icing sugar. Serve warm with Fruche.

Serves 4

Variation: Try replacing canned peaches with fresh peaches when in season, or canned apricots or pears.

Mexican bean tortillas

For my birthday, Meegan bought me an annual subscription to Super Food Ideas! I love trying out new recipes each month. Here's two yummy recipes from the October magazine that I made for my mum and brother on Saturday night.

Ingredients:
olive oil cooking spray
1 small brown onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tomatoes
420g can red kidney beans, drained, rinsed
1 tablespoon taco seasoning
1/4 teaspoon chilli powder
4 flour tortillas
1/2 green capsicum
3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 cucumber, diced
1/2 cup coriander leaves
1/4 cup chunky tomato salsa
1/4 cup low fat yoghurt
2 iceberg lettuce leaves, shredded

Method:
1. Lightly spray a saucepan with oil. Heat over medium heat. Add onin and cook, stirring, for three minutes or until soft. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Finely chop 1 tomato. Add chopped tomato, beans, 1/4 cup cold water, taco seasoning and chilli powder to saucepan.
2. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium low. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes or until liquid has reduced and thickened. Using a potato masher, roughly mash.
3. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Lay tortillas on a workbench. Spread with bean mixture. Top with capsicum. Roll up tortillas tightly to enclose filling. Tranfer to a lightly greased baking dish. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until cheese is melted and tortillas warmed through.
4. Meanwhile, dice remaining tomato. Combine tomato and cucumber in a small bowl. Slice tortillas in half and place on plates. Top with coriander. Serve with salsa, yoghurt, lettuce and tomato salad.

Serves 4

Tomato and goat's cheese crumble

Firstly some trivia. The English don't appear to use cups as a measurement in cooking and instead weigh absolutely everything. This sometimes poses a bit of a problem for me, who in an attempt to avoid acquiring possessions while o/s, hasn't purchased kitchen scales!

Now, I think this dish is truly delicious. But because one of the main ingredients is cheese, I tend to make it only for guests or a special occasion.

I serve it with rocket + roasted pumkin + balsamic mixed together as a salad and some warm, crusty olive bread. Yumbo.

Tomato and goat's cheese crumble

1kg / 2 1/4 lbs tomatoes (mixed varieties, including 1 punnet of cherry toms)
5 tablespoons olive oil
225g/8 ounces goat's cheese (firm or soft)
50g/2 ounces pine nuts
100g/4 ounces breadcrumbs
50g/2 ounces parmesan cheese, freshly grated
salt and pepper

1. Pre-heat the oven to 375 F, 190 C/ gas mark 5.
2. Roughly chop the tomatoes, leaving the cherry ones whole; heat 2 tablespoons oil in a pan, add the chopped tomatoes and seasoning and cook for 10 minutes (stirring occasionally) until softened; remove from the heat and stir in cherry tomatoes.
3. Spoon half the tomato mix into an oven proof dish (1 litre/1 ¾ pints size) and crumble half of the goat’s cheese on top; repeat the layers.
4. Heat remaining olive oil in a frying pan and lightly fry the pine nuts and breadcrumbs; remove from the heat and stir in half the parmesan; scatter breadcrumb mix over the tomatoes and cheese, then top with the rest of the parmesan.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden.

Cheers to Damien for introducing me to this recipe!