Christmas sweet wontons

I love Christmas mince pies! It almost an addiction, I'm always on the search for a good one - (Pandoro's Italian Bakeries, have the best one, in my opinion) and I eat them in a most peculiar way. I love them frozen! The pastry goes nice and hard and crunchy, whilst the fruit mince remains sticky (I suspect due to the alcohol content?). And I eat them, the same way each time, biting around the edges of the crust, taking the top off and eating it, before getting stuck into the sticky centre.

I've never had any inclination to make them, sometimes the process, especially a long one, can ruin my appetite - and I doubt I would have the patience to get through to the end. But I wanted to be creative and try out a new twist on my all time Christmas favourite. I'm also aware, at this time of year, that everybody seems time-poor! So this post is intended to be easy and all about the assembly.

Everything can be bought from your local supermarket (wonton wrappers from your local asian supermarket). However I did make the sauce from Boysenberry and Rhubarb Jam that I had made a little while ago but you could use store bought jam also. But the jam sauce is optional, they were delicious just as is.

What shape? I couldn't decide which shape worked best so I tried them all out - Triangles turned out the best, the stars weren't as successful - the fruit mince oozed out of the star shape. To make the stars work, I needed a bigger star cutter.

I love how Christmas and New Year gets everybody thinking about resolutions and new challenges for the coming year, so I thought it would be a nice touch to have some paper fortunes scattered around the plate.

I used brown parchment paper, and wrote wishes on them - I'm not a crafty person, so everything needed to be super easy. But you could go all Martha Stewart with this idea, using crinkle cut snips to cut the paper edges or cut the fortunes into Christmas shapes.

For the next five weeks, Vanessa and I are going to bring you all sorts of Christmas ideas - all simple and easy to make or assemble, and I promise nothing will be frozen! I'll keep that quirk to myself. Enjoy, Ingrid

Christmas fruit mince wontons
Makes 24
What you need
24 wonton wrappers (bought from your local asian supermarket)
200g Fruit mince (store-bought or homemade)
50g melted butter
icing sugar (to dust)

How to make
Preheat the oven to 180C and line a tray with baking paper.

Have a bit of fun and try out different shapes by laying out each rectangle of wonton wrapper, place a teaspoon of fruit mince, and see what shapes work out for you. An easy place to start is folding the wonton wrapper diagonally into a triangle, brush edges with melted butter and fold edges over pressing to seal in the fruit mince. Then brush the entire wonton with melted butter. Bake in oven for around 10mins or until golden and crunchy. Dust over with icing sugar to serve. 

Jam sauce (optional)
1/2 jar of Store bought or homemade jam (any type)
water


How to make
Put the jam in a saucepan, add a tablespoon of water and simmer adding water until it becomes a sauce consistency.

Summer Dips

I love dips especially in summer but has anyone noticed how one pot of gourmet dip bought at the supermarket doesn't go far? Its really easy to make your own and you can get creative at the same time and devise your own concoctions...
The first dip came about when I was heading to Ma and Pa's for "Guy Fawkes" night and didn't have a huge amount to contribute. Of course my parents don't mind but I always love taking something new for them to try. There was 3/4 of a tin of beetroot slices leftover from the good old "KIWI" burger (for those who don't know its basically a burger with beetroot, egg, cheese and pineapple as well as the other usual things) and a few gherkins as well as a tub of cream cheese. All I did was blitzed these things together with a touch of lemon juice and some chives from the garden and ended up with a pretty pink dip.

Beetroot and cream cheese dip with crunchy garlic Ciabatta

What you need
300gram tin of beetroot
2 big spoonfuls (tbs) of cream cheese
1 gherkin
Juice of 1 lemon
A few chives or coriander

How to make

Put everything into food processor and blitz until smooth

Serve with anything crunchy!

Hummus - the perfect picnic snack

Hummus is possibly the most popular dip in the chiller at the supermarkets in Auckland. Why? probably because its reasonably healthy as well as delicious. Its between $3.00NZD - $5.00NZD per tub and to be honest a tub doesn't go far if you like dipping. It's so easy to make at home, all you need is a food processor. Traditionally hummus has tahini (sesame paste) in it. I never buy it, never use it so improvised with sesame oil (just a dash) and it worked a treat!

Like with the beetroot and cream cheese dip you can get creative and add your own touch. I love spicy food and had a few jalapenos in the fridge so in they went.

Other ideas could be...
Baked pumpkin or Kumara (sweet potato)
Sun dried tomato
Wilted spinach leaves
Roasted carrot
Avocado

Jalapeno Hummus - addictive!

What you need
300gram tin chickpeas (drained)
Juice of 2 small lemons
2 cloves of garlic
4 tbs olive oil
a splash of sesame oil
4 jalapeno slices (optional)

How to make
Put everything into food processor and blitz until smooth
Serve with anything crunchy!

I ended up making a second batch of this dip because I ate so much of the first batch, there wasn't enough to fill the bowl for the images!
I also forgot the garlic the second time round (DUH) but am please to announce it still tasted great and full of flavour thanks to the lemon and jalapenos.
Get blending and blitzing this summer!
Vanessa x

Lemon and marmarlade cake

With these kitchen basics at hand a cake is only moments away...

I often get the urge to cook/bake and feel like there is nothing in my cupboards. I looked through my recipe books and realised I didn't have coconut, almonds, cocoa, buttermilk, sour cream, cream cheese or even fruit needed in the recipes that caught my eye. OK so I had the basics, a BIG jar of homemade marmalade from the next door neighbours and a lemon tree. What can I create?

I couldn't resist including some of the lyrics to Lady Marmalade, first recorded by an all girl group called Labelle in 1974 

Lemon cake seemed the obvious choice so scanned through the books to find one that looked moist.

Lemon syrup cake from the AWW (Australian Women's Weekly) book titled “COOK” PG 148 hit the mark and I decided to add the marmalade to the lemon syrup for a zesty moist finish.

It takes a lot of butter but I guess that’s what makes it moist! 

Like the title says rich, syrupy and sticky - perfect with a cup of tea!

What you need

250g softened butter

1 tbs lemon rind (I added 2 maybe 3)

1-cup caster sugar

3 eggs

1 cup of buttermilk (I used regular)

1/3 cup lemon juice

2 cups self-raising flour

Lemon syrup

1/3 cup lemon juice

¼ cup water

¾ cup sugar

2 tbs marmalade

How to make

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C and grease a pan with the removable sides (24cm)

Cream butter, sugar and lemon rind

Beat in eggs one at a time

Fold in milk, lemon juice and flour in t batches and spread into the pan. (I was cautious about over mixing)

Bake for about 50 minutes but do keep checking as I think I took mine out earlier.

Whilst its cooking add the syrup ingredients to a saucepan and simmer to reduce and thicken. It really doesn’t matter too much if your measurements are out, you just need to simmer until its thickened and stick. I wouldn’t advise reducing the sugar though.

When your cake is ready add a few deep holes into it with a knife pour the hot syrup all over – be generous.

Put the knife around the side of the cake tin and remove it before the syrup has time to stick.

Let it cool a bit before serving. 

The amazing marmalade from the neighbours and Greek yoghurt to dress the cake

We ate it warm soon after cooking with thickened Greek yoghurt and it was delicious. I also ate it cold the next day and not to bad BUT microwaved a piece one night and had it with vanilla ice cream and that’s the way to go – eat warm!

Vanessa  

(PS recipe method is written in my own words - not straight out of the book)