In which we finish one year with a Moroccan tagine and start a new one with an apple and oat cake.

2011, the year that was … harder than we expected.

It’s been a long time between blogs and I’m sorry about that. 2011 didn’t end up being the year that I’d hoped. For one, studying and working full-time was much harder than I expected.  It made me extremely conscious of how much time I must normally waste. On top of that stress, we lost Wilhemina, Norman and, just a few days short of 2012, we lost Chuck Norris too. We almost lost Otto Macduff to a tick just before Christmas and had to watch Chester suffer on his own for the week Otto was at the vets. We had our share of illnesses and personal ups and downs. We ate more than our normal quota of takeaway and for a while cooking was just a necessity.

Of course, it wasn’t all bad. Otto joined our family and gives us a lot of joy. He is hands down the laziest puppy I have ever seen. He seems to have about an hour of energy which he spreads out over the day. The rest of the time he spends sleeping! He has a really lovely nature (although he is a bit grouchy sometimes!).

I got to have a fantastic birthday party, and to go to dinner with one of my favourite authors. Our chickens started laying and we have the joy of collecting our own eggs. And I managed to do well in my course, which made all the stressful hours worthwhile. And at the end of the year, we were all healthy and happy.

At the moment, we’re both taken with Moroccan, so for New Year’s Eve, I decided it was time to break out my tagine for the first time. Since I didn’t really know what I was doing, I used a recipe from a book (Women’s Weekly Moroccan). I decided to make a vegetarian dish and serve it with steak which I marinated in oil and ras el hanout (which I bought pre-mixed). The dish was white beans and lentils, with garlic, ginger, onion, capsicum, tomatoes (tinned) and harissa paste. The onion is browned in the base of the tagine; the garlic and ginger are added along with the harissa paste. The remaining ingredients are added and it’s brought to the boil.

Heat is reduced and the dish simmers for about 15 minutes. Fresh mint and parsley are stirred through at the end.

It was delicious. Also easy and pretty quick. This first time, I used tinned lentils and beans, and that makes it very convenient dish. I did think that this might be a nice dish in the slow cooker using dried lentils and beans. I may try that in winter.

I cooked the steak on the barbecue and then sliced it.

I also made a cucumber salad to accompany it which went beautifully (and we had loads of fresh cucumbers from the garden).

It was a really lovely dinner, and the weather cooperated with some sunshine so we ate outside and played canasta until the sun went down.

Perfect evening. Even the dogs enjoyed it (after we finished eating!), although I susect Chester was more interested in Dino's beer at that stage!

Now that I know how it works, I think I’ll be able to experiment a bit next time.  I’m also thinking that our lemon tree is doing really well this year so I may attempt to preserve some of the lemons.

A few days into the new year, I felt like baking. I wanted to make something that was at least partially healthy and I knew I had some pie apples in the cupboard. A tin of cooking apples is one of the odd staples I keep in the house. Generally, I use fresh apples when I’m baking but sometimes I use a combination of fresh and tinned for different textures. And some times, green apples are not great, and then the tinned ones come in handy. So I decided to make an experiment apple and oat cake. I have a basic vanilla cake recipe that I often alter to suit. Before Christmas, I was mixing in some ground almond, cinnamon, nutmeg and orange oil to create a slightly spicy cake which was lovely and nutty.

Apple and Oat Cake

4 ounces (113 grams) of butter/margarine

½ cup of sugar

¼ cup of maple syrup

4 drops of vanilla essence

 2 eggs

1 cup self-raising flour’

1 cup rolled oats

½ cup of milk

800 gram tin of cooking apples

1.       Grease and line and grease the paper of a square baking tray (20 x 20 cm).

2.       Beat butter, sugar and vanilla until smooth.

3.       Add eggs and maple syrup and beat well.

4.       Add flour and oats alternately with the milk. Beat for one minute and then transfer to a bowl (if using a food processor etc) and stir the apple through.

5.       Spread into tin and cook at 180°C for 40-45 minutes. Once it’s almost cooked, remove from the oven and baste with some extra maple syrup.

6.       Cool in tray before turning out on to wire rack. It’s nice warm from the oven but also really lovely after it’s been refridgerated.

So that’s me for the start of 2012. Uni goes back at the end of February and I am doing two courses a semester, which I now know will be very challenging, but I am going to try harder to post regularly – it’s one of my resolutions!