Mum Dijk's Ontbijt Koek /  Mum's Dutch Honey Breakfast Loaf

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 2 Cups self raising flour
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons golden syrup or Appel Stroop (Apple Syrup)
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon each of nutmeg, ground cloves and ginger powder
• 2 teaspoons Dutch cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon mixed peel (or tablespoon of good marmalade) and milk (OR 1 dessertspoon orange peel and 1 cup orange juice)

Method

• Mix all ingredients  together and pour into a large loaf pan, greased and lined with baking paper. 
• Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for about 35-50 minutes in a regular oven. 
• Less time for fan forced. 
• Check for browning and insert fork or similar and when it comes out clean it's ready.

Enjoy with a good smear of real butter or plain with your morning coffee or anytime of the day really.

Pictures are of a half eaten Koek but shows the texture and colour! 

It was very yummy and went fast.  

For a larger recipe use two smaller loaf pan and increase to these measurements:

• 3 eggs
• 3 cups SR Flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 4.5 tablespoons honey
• 1.5 tsps spices
• 3 tsp cinnamon
• 1.5 cups liquids

Easy to make.

Enjoy!

 Mum Dijk's Dutch Croquettes

These are traditionally served on New Year's Eve, but now they are eaten really any time. They do take a little bit of work but are delicious as a snack served on a serviette with a dollop of French Mustard or also served with a salad as a meal.  Enjoy!

You will need:

• 1 pkt of Continental Dutch Curry and Rice Soup (Still  available at Woollies or IGA in Australia)
• 600 mls cold water
• 500 grams mince steak or veal
• 60 grams butter (of mararine)
• 5 tablespoons plain flour
• Handful of fresh parsley chopped

The coating:

• Large packet breadcrumbs
• Several egg whites 

For frying: 1-2 packets Supa-Fry solid white oil (This oil gives the best results)

To Serve: French Mustard prepared or Seedy Dijon

How to do it:

1. Place minced meat, water and packet soup in a saucepan and simmer for 1/2 hour, stirring often to keep mixture from sticking to bottom of pan. 
2. After 1/2 hour, add butter to mixture and simmer for a further 1/2 hour
3. Add parsley and mix through
4. Sprinkle flour over mixture and immediately stir flour through and continue cooking the mixture for about 5 minutes until a smooth paste is attained.
5. Spread mixture in large baking or lamington tin. Spray with oil and line with baking paper if you want first.
6. Allow to cool until set and cold.

Putting it all together:

1. Take a knife and score the set mixture into rectangular portions.
2. Prepare 2-3 egg whites with a drop of oil and 1 tablespoon of iced water and beat till lightly frothy
3. Place breadcrumbs in shallow bowl
4. Roll meat mix between your hands into you short, sausage like shapes
5. Roll each one in breadcrumbs, then egg whites, then breadcrumbs again.

To Fry:

1. Melt solid oil in a deep saucepan til very hot. 
2. Add several croquettes and deep fry them until golden brown. If oil is too hot it will burn the crumbs, if not hot enough, they tend to fall apart. Good idea to try a piece of bread first, or a croquette to see how quickly or not it browns. 
3. Serve immediately or put in hot oven until all croquettes are ready to serve.

Please note:

      Croquettes can be frozen after bread crumbing them. I find they are better unfrozen, but          you could freeze some and see.

Enjoy your Dutch Croquettes!

German Apple Cake

Every so now and then I'm required to bring a cake to a get-together of friends or family.
The occasional cook that I am always wants to do something pretty simple.
I have two standby cake recipes which I acquired...you guessed it, from friends. Both are simple, but I'll share one of them with you today - German Apple Cake.
As I mentioned, I like SIMPLE. You can use two kinds of apple, either fresh or canned.
Today I chose to use fresh apple, mainly because I actually had some nice, green Granny Smiths in the crisper. (For the very rare person who doesn't know...it's not a granny I've stowed away in the fridge, but the name of the lovely green skinned, crisp cooking apple.) So all that's a little more fiddly about using fresh apples, is that you have to peel and slice them. If that's going to put you off making this yummy, but EASY cake, just open up a tin of pie apples instead.

To  see the recipe please click the Recipe Tab above or here

The finished product...nomnomnom

Egg plant and ricotta 'lasagna'

I made this recipe last night from my new cook book: Tiffiny Hall's Lighten Up Cookbook.

This is really yummy and quite easy to do.

The half that was left before I took a pic ;-))

Serves 4 

This is what you need:
3 medium eggplants (750gr) cut lengthways into 1.5 cm slices
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups (or 375gr tub) ricotta
1/4 fresh grated parmesan cheese
3 eggs lightly beaten
1/4 cup torn basil leaves
3/4 cup tomato pasta sauce

This is what you do:

1. Brush eggplant slices with olive oil and season.
2. Place under grill 12mins each side until soft
3. Put into 20cm x 20cm oven proof dish
4. Beat eggs lightly, stir to combine with basil, ricotta and parmesan
5. Layer eggplant, pasta sauce and ricotta mix alternately, finishing with ricotta mix.
6. I sprinkled a little more parmesan over the top.

Bake at 180C for 30 mins.

Enjoy