Posts tagged as:

oranges

The Breakfast Challenge – Custard Apple and Orange Juice Smoothie

by Linda on July 22, 2011

On Mondays I travel an hour and a half to work, and I car pool which means I can’t be late.  So Monday mornings are somewhat rushed (to put it mildly!)  To make matters worse, it’s a full on day when I really don’t want to be fuzzy brained, and I often end up with a rushed and less than perfect lunch. I also work in a room full of people so I’m exposed to every  germ going round.

Fruit smoothies are a perfect breakfast solution.  There’s one for every season.  This is my current winter version. I have a tree full of navel oranges to get through. Custard apples are in season, and though they’re hard to go past just eating as is, to my taste the acidity of orange juice and yoghurt actually improves them. Custard apples are a good source of vitamin C (actually just as rich as oranges), and the magnesium and calcium in them are good for staying centred under stress. Add in some yoghurt for the protein and its a good balanced breakfast for on the run days.

(The Breakfast Cereal Challenge is my 2011 challenge - to the overpackaged, overpriced, mostly empty packets of junk food marketed as “cereal”. I’m going for a year’s worth of breakfast recipes, based on in-season ingredients, quick and easy enough to be a real option for weekdays, and  preferable, in nutrition, ethics, and taste.  The Muesli Bar Challenge was my 2010 Challenge.)

The Recipe:

Blend together

  • 1 small peeled and seeded custard apple
  • Juice of a large orange
  • two or three heaped dessertspoons of plain low fat yoghurt

That’s it. Pour into a glass and drink it, in the car on the way if you have to!

You Might Also Like:

 

{ 3 comments }

The Breakfast Challenge – A Breakfast Homage to Crepes Suzette

by Linda on July 7, 2011

I do draw the line at Cointreau for breakfast, and I like breakfast pancakes to be higher protein and lower fat and sugar than desserts. But with a bit of tweaking, Crepes Suzette work perfectly for a citrus season Breakfast Cereal Challenge recipe. They’re fast and easy, healthy and very delicious. We have a tree full of oranges at the moment, and this recipe uses a couple of them per serve, so they meet the criteria of being based on local in-season ingredients. I’m making these a couple of times a week at the moment, until the oranges run out.

The Recipe:

This is the recipe for a single adult serve. Multiply by the number of people.

Ideally you need a large, heavy based frypan for this. If you don’t have one, you can manage with a couple of smaller ones.

Start with the crepe batter.

All pancake batters work better if they get to sit for a few minutes, for the flour to soak up the moisture. I use a stick blender to blend (for each serve)

  • 1 large egg
  • 1/4 cup of milk (semi skim or full cream)
  • 2 dessertspoons of wholemeal plain flour

(For US readers, a dessertspoon equals two teaspoons, and wholemeal flour is wholewheat flour)

The Orange Sauce

While that is sitting, grate the rind and juice two medium oranges per person. (Much easier to grate the rind first)

  • You need one good teaspoon of grated rind and a cup of orange juice per serve.
  • Add a teaspoon of butter and
  • a teaspoon of raw sugar per serve.

Cook the Crepes

Melt a little butter in a large heavy frypan. Pour in a little crepe batter and tilt the pan to spread it as thin as you can. You want to end up with a crepe about 15 cm (6 inches)  across.

As soon as it is set, flip it and cook the other side.  The crepes don’t need to be browned, just set.

Take the crepe out and put it on a plate and repeat for all the batter. You should end up with three crepes per serve.

Assembling

Pour the orange juice, rind, butter and sugar into the pan.  Cook for a couple of minutes to melt the butter and sugar, then put one crepe in.  Turn it to coat in the sauce, then fold it in quarters and push to the side of the pan.  Keeping the orange mixture at a gentle boil, add the next crepe, turn and coat, fold and put to the side.

Continue until you have all the crepes in quarters in the pan.  They should very nearly have soaked up all the sauce. You can spread the quartered crepes around the pan and flip them again to soak up the last of it, then serve onto warmed plates.

They really don’t need anything else, but if you like you can serve with some slices of orange for decoration.

You Might Also Like:

 

 

{ 1 comment }

Mandarin, Macadamia and Poppyseed Cake

by Linda on September 13, 2010

For practically the first time in my adult life, I have no chooks at present.  This is the culprit.

I am working on a new roost design.  If it works, the chooks will be able to put themselves to bed at night.  I will be able to let them free range in the daytime and she (or he) won’t be able to get them at night.

I am missing them for many reasons, but right now because it is egg season.  Luckily though, I have friends who have free-range, ethically raised chooks and, at this time of year an abundance of eggs.

My Muesli Bar Challenge series is a series of recipes for healthy lunch box baking based on fresh in-season produce.  This recipe melds the last of the citrus season with the start of the egg season.  It is a flourless cake with no butter but no less than six eggs.

Eggs are a great source of protein, but they go extra well in school lunches because they are rich in choline, which is needed for nerves and brain to function properly. Using them in baking makes them safer in the heat of a lunch box.

You need a cup of macadamia meal for this recipe.  You can substitute almond meal – in fact I would be fairly sure that somewhere back in time I had an original version of this recipe  based on almond meal.  But for me, macadamias have no food miles at all. And they’re super healthy, with monounsaturated heart healthy oils  and a huge range of vitamins and minerals.  And fresh, in-the-shell macas in season are a taste sensation.  This little tool makes cracking macas easy, and the kernels blend to a meal easily in a food processor.

Once you have your maca meal, the recipe is dead easy. Let’s see what the reviewers think.

The Recipe:

Turn your oven on to heat up to medium.

Grease a 20 cm cake tin and line the base with a circle of greaseproof paper.

Blend together until smooth:

  • 1 cup of macadamia meal
  • 1½ teaspoons of baking powder
  • 1 cup of orange, tangelo, mandarin, or lime segments with seeds removed.
  • ¾ cup of brown sugar
  • 6 whole eggs

Stir in 3 good dessertspoons of poppy seeds.

The mixture will not be at all like a cake mix.  It will be quite liquid.

Pour it into your prepared cake tin and bake for around 40 minutes till the cake is set and a skewer comes out clean.

{ 13 comments }

Macadamia Ma-amoul

August 30, 2010

The rules of my Muesli Bar Challenge series are that the Challenger must be healthy (low in sugar and saturated fat, low GI, wholegrain), based on in-season fresh produce, easy enough to be a realistic option for busy parents and kids themselves to make, and rated by my school age reviewers as no-way-going-to-be-left-in-the-lunchbox. So many [...]

Read the full article →

Orange Date Bars

August 23, 2010

Number 23 in the Muesli Bar Challenge - my weekly series of  recipes for school lunch box baking  that is healthy, easy, cheap and based on fresh produce – features oranges.  It is coming to the end of the navel orange season, and once they finish there will be a gap of a few months until the [...]

Read the full article →

Macadamia and Orange Friands

July 19, 2010

When I was a kid, every block in suburban Brisbane had a backyard macadamia tree. Maca season meant finding a good rock with the right kind of hollow to stop the nut flying off, and a good hand sized rock for hitting them with. And for the gourmets, lighting a backyard fire to roast them in. [...]

Read the full article →

Orange and Almond Cake

May 24, 2010

There are two recipes for one in the Muesli Bar Challenge this week.  The jumping off point was Stephanie Alexander’s adaption of Claudia Roden’s adaption from a Middle Eastern classic that uses whole boiled oranges.  Oranges and almonds are right in season, and I liked the idea of using whole oranges, because most of the “bioflavanoids” [...]

Read the full article →