Butternut squash gnocchi with roast garlic, burnt butter and crispy sage

#butternutsquash #gnocchi with #burntbutter and crispy sage with a bit of #pecorino

A photo posted by Lara Beans (@beanslala) on Nov 12, 2016 at 1:52pm PST

This was a really lovely easy recipe to make!  I’ve adapted it from Daniel Ottolenghi’srecipe for gnocchi in today’s guardian, using what I had at home to make the sauce plus my love of sage with butternut is no secret! 

I have a lot of butternut at the moment. And i mean a lot! I‘ve been cooking it in roasts and stews and salads, and still they keep on piling up.  I get at least 1 with every veggie delivery! I was looking for something new to make, and I’ve been thinking about gnocchi so when the recipe came up today, I thought, why not?

This recipe can be easily multiplied.  You can also make the gnocchi in batches ahead of time – simply freeze on the tray after shaping into individual gnocchi, then place in freezer bags in whatever size portion you want).  I’m definitely going to make a couple of night’s worth of portions, this recipe is easy enough as it is, but to have the veggies roasted and the gnocchi prepared beforehand means dinner could be on the table on a weeknight in the time it takes to make the burnt butter sauce! J  These little pillows of happiness are softer and definitely tastier than ready-made ones you get at the shops – and as an added bonus, you feel like a total “nonna” making these and pushing each one down on a fork!  I look forward to making these with my nieces, they will love it!

Butternut squash gnocchi with roast garlic, burnt butter and crispy sage

Stop Chasing Ganesh! a.k.a. Chocolate cake with Dulce de Leche filling and Chocolate Ganache

Chocolate Dulce de Leche Layer Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache

I know, I know!! The title’s misleading!  There is no Indian elephant god Ganesh in this cake, however honestly if there was to be a cake that represented a god, this would be, at the very least, a contender!

The title comes from a line out of an episode of The Simpsons, where Homer dressed up as Ganesh and tries to stop Apu from getting married.  In turn, my lovely friend Joe always says “Ganesh” instead of “Ganache”, and frankly, that stuff is pretty godly so it does make sense in a way ;)

Anyway, I was looking for a cake that would fit perfectly with one of my best mates – she adores chocolate and toffee like substances, so what better cake for her than a moist dark chocolate cake, filled with lashings of dulce de leche, topped with smooth dark chocolate ganache??  YUM! 

This is definitely, no doubt about it, a celebration cake.  This isn’t something you do on a weekend to have something with tea.  This is a cake to be placed at the centre of attention, shared and enjoyed. 

I have accidentally also found one of the best chocolate cake recipes ever!  I will most definitely be using this when I make chocolate layer cakes.  It’s moist, dense, insanely dark (I don’t know what it is about an almost black chocolate cake that just excited me!), wonderfully chocolatey, and yet, somehow, it still manages to be delicately soft and light.… YUM!  For the Maltesers, what I was looking for essentially was a cake I can make from scratch that rivaled the old school Fontanella cake.  Unfortunately, I believe they have gone downhill over the last few years, hence the need to replace it with something! AND.. SUCCESS!!   I have finally found the right cake!  And to top it off, I know exactly what goes into it as I’ve made it myself (always a concern when ordering cakes from out) J

Zoe's Blue cheese, honey and walnut salad

I love blue cheese.  I'm actually surprised that I only have one other recipe that involves blue cheese on this blog so far, and I assure you that I will make every effort to include more!

I have memories of tasting it for the first time many many moons ago, at a large family gathering (possibly Christmas or one of my many cousins' birthdays), the cheese platter would be presented and there would be all manners of cheesy goodness.  I remember one of my uncles explaining to me that the blue green veins were mould, and that the white velvety covering on a piece of brie was also mould.  It grossed me out, but also totally fascinated me that we would deliberately eat it!  So naturally, I tasted it, and that is where the love affair started!

My love for the blue veined cheeses grew when i discovered certain combinations of flavours.  My first love was blue cheese and cured meat - Salami and Parma ham in particular.  Then came blue cheese with walnuts! then came blue cheese with pears! and then finally, and i must say it was one of those epiphany moments, came the discovery (thanks to Warren, chef at Barracuda restaurant) of the foodgasm that is blue cheese and honey.

Blue cheese is one of those cheeses that I cannot NOT like.  I can not be in the mood for it, but I have loved every single type of blue cheese that has entered my mouth, whether it be pasteurised, cave ripened, sheeps, goats, cow's, speciality, cheapo grocery bought cheese.  I have almost as much love for cheap Danish blue than I have for an unpasteurised speciality Roquefort or a pot ripened Stilton soaked in port.  YUM!

I guess I've been somewhat of a foodie since I was weaned, and one of the main reasons was CHEESE!  I love cheese so much!  My (food) highlight of every family gathering is the cheese platter after dinner, sitting there sipping wine, nibbling on cheese and having the inevitable lively discussion, whether it be politics, religion, or some topic that will raise a few voices and possibly end in someone sulking :P (i adore the fact that we can do this and still have so much love for each other).

ANWAY, I am lucky to have found fellow foodie friends, amongst them my lovely half-Maltese, half-French friend Zoe :)  We bonded over how much we have in common all those years ago, and cemented it with cheese.  We are both obsessed with cheese!  It's so tasty! so delicious, and we have spent many a nights just having one more piece of cheese to finish the wine, or one more glass of wine to finish the cheese, repeat ad nauseum and/or drunken food coma :)

This salad is her creation!  Blue cheese, walnuts, prosciutto crudo, pears, dressed with  honey, served with masses of fresh baby salad leaves... perfection!  All these ingredients go so well with each other, it's only natural that we would bring them all together into one of my favourite salads on this planet!

Sorry about the bad quality camera pic! 

Wild Asparagus and Greens Pasta (Wild, Natural foods take 2)

Springtime is a great time for foraging in Malta.  There are plenty of delicious and healthy options to find just on your weekend walk in the countryside (and sometimes, even just walking around residential areas!)

Happy Spaghetti sauce :)

Chocolate Guinness Cake

If you want a dark, moist chocolate cake, this is the one for you.  I was looking for a dark chocolate cake for Halloween - we had red velvet cakes, and I was thinking about making black velvet but a friend noticed this recipe in the Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book, and since I happened to have a can of Guinness, it was the perfect time to try!

The recipe is for a single cake, however I've found that Hummingbird bakery cakes always work out well as cupcakes too! 

• Some notes about this cake mix:  It will be MUCH runnier than many cake mixes. 
• At first, it smells kinda beery.  Then once it's all mixed in together, life is good :) 
• Before I took it out, i touched it lightly and the cake sprung back anyway, however please note that even though it did this, it still didn't actually look cooked.  This is fine.
• This particular time,  I used regular butter-cream as I was making millions of little cupcakes, however I believe it would probably taste even better with the cream cheese frosting
• I made regular cupcakes, mini muffin, and also mini cupcake size.  I adjusted the cooking time by sight, I figured about 10 minutes for the tiny ones, 12-14 for the medium size.  If you are making a whole cake, it should take about 45 minutes, until the top is springy (bounces back when touched lightly) and a skewer comes out clean when put through the middle of the cake.

Ingredients

(for 24 large cupcakes, approx 40 fairy cakes, about 50-60 mini cupcakes)

For the cake/s

250ml Guinness

250g unsalted butter

80g good quality cocoa powder

400g caster sugar

2 eggs (at room temperature)

1 tsp vanilla extract

140ml buttermilk (if you can't find buttermilk, use runny plain unsweetened yoghurt)

280g cake ("OO") flour, sifted

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp baking powder

For the frosting

50g unsalted butter, softened

300g  icing sugar

125g full fat Philadelphia cheese

Cocoa powder, for dusting (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C, then line 2 x 12 muffin pan thingie with muffin liners (fairy cake liners are too small) 

Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarb together into a large bowl. 

Pour the Guinness into a small saucepan, add the butter and gently heat until it has melted. Remove the pan from the heat and stir the cocoa powder and sugar into the warm liquid. 

Mix together the eggs, vanilla essence and buttermilk by hand in a jug or bowl, and then add this to the mixture in the pan.

Add the liquids to the bowl containing the flour, and whisk on a low speed until incorporated, making sure you scrape down the sides and get it all well mixed.

Spoon the batter into the cake liners until 2/3 full.  If there is any extra, put it to the side, you can cook it in another batch after the first batch is done.  

Bake for approximately 15-18 minutes or until the sponge bounces back when lightly pressed.

Leave cool in the tin for about 5-10 minutes, then remove them from pan and cook on a wire rack.  

Make sure the cakes are completely cold before frosting. 

To make frosting: 
Sift the icing sugar into a bowl (the bowl of free standing mixer if you're using). 
Chop the butter into small cubes, and if it's not soft, put in the microwave in 5 second intervals until it's soft and pliable. 

Work the butter into the icing sugar with the back of a spoon.  This is my method of preventing the whole kitchen becoming a cloud of icing sugar, as whilst it does smell quite nice, it's also horrible and messy.  

Once you've worked the butter in, using the electric whisk (or freestanding mixer with paddle attachment) mix the butter and icing sugar together until there are no large lumps of butter and it is fully combined with the sugar in a sandy mixture.   You can choose to cover your freestanding mixer with a clean teatowel at this point, to make sure the clouds of icing sugar don't puff out. but if you've worked in the butter, this shouldn't happen.  Having the butter at room temperature REALLY helps for this!

Add the cream cheese and mix in a low speed (I "pulse" it in until it's combined then increase the speed to medium and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy.  Be careful not to overbeat the cream cheese frosting, as it can go from voluminous and fluffy to runny in a surprisingly short amount of time.  You can beat the hell out of it for a couple of minutes though!  it DOES need to be nice and fluffy!
Place the cooled cake on to a plate or cake card and top generously with the cream cheese frosting. The cake can be decorated with a light dusting of cocoa powder.

As I used buttercream, I piped the frosting on.  The frosting above should just be spread on using a palette knife :)  

Lala's lasagne

This recipe is pretty much my mum's recipe.. although we always manage to make it taste completely different.  To be honest mine tastes different every time. but i must say, I do like my own (and my family's) lasagne.  There are a few other people's lasagne dishes I've enjoyed, I can literally count them on 1 hand (my Uncle Kiki's, and my Aunt Isabel's, and my best friend's mum Pat).  I'm sure there are plenty of delicious lasagnas out there but i haven't had the pleasure, and frankly, I don't even really want to try cos there's not much I abhor tasting more than a bad lasagne. 

anyway here goes:

Spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, herbs and ricotta

This is one of those simple sauces that i love! When we started making it, it was going to be an "olio aglio" but found a small amount of ricotta in the fridge so in it went, along with some of the basil we have growing in the courtyard :)

So simple, so good! :)

Ghagin Tork jew Griek ("turkish" or "greek" pasta, but it's actually Maltese!)

I have no clue as to whether this pasta sauce originates from Turkey, Greece, or anywhere else but Malta, but all I know is that it's absolutely divine, and So ridiculously easy.  You will need at 1.5-2 hours of simmering, so this is not something you make when you're starving after work :)

i love the simple look of this sauce, and the meat is literally melt in your mouth!

baby balls of meat

Today and yesterday I took on the task of sorting through everything we had in the fridge and freezer, throwing out expired stuff, and arranging the rest so that it's easily accessible and ready to be used in time for it to still be good.

Sorting out the freezer was interesting, have found lovely packets of fresh artichoke hearts that my dad lovingly prepared when it was artichoke season, some delicious looking pumpkin ravioli, amongst so much other stuff like desserts, meat, veggies and a heap of ready chopped garlic and ginger :D very handy to know :D

I took out 500 grams of pork mince, as i had an idea brewing when I'd cleaned the fridge yesterday and found some pork stock (leftover from a roast this weekend - recipe to follow!) and leftover 10 minute pasta sauce (well, my dad's version of). Plenty of the other ingredients are also leftover, or bits that were found in the freezer that i thought would be nice to add.