Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn!

Now that the debilitating migraine-inducing humid summer weather is (hopefully) finally gone, and autumn has officially started with end of Daylight Saving, I can enjoy sharing some more food and nutrition ideas with you. I promised more apple recipes in my last post, but not today. Today, in salute to the end of summer, I give an easily adapted leek frittata, and pear and raspberry bread.

Leeks are available all year round, but psychologically, feel more like an autumn food to me. Others may disagree, but it's when the heat and humidity start to ebb that I remember the pleasures of leeks. Related to garlic and onions, leeks offer all the health benefits of garlic, including antioxidants and antibiotic properties, but are milder and sweeter in flavour. Leeks were favoured by the Egyptians when they were building pyramids, and the Welsh have a leek as their national symbol. Perhaps it's the Welsh in me from my grandfather that makes me love the leek!

Pear and raspberry bread has become very popular on the Sydney cafe scene, so I determined to make some myself. I don't claim this recipe as an original so much as an amalgam of the various recipes I found on the web. Mine uses frozen raspberries, as fresh ones have such a short season and are ridiculously expensive, unless you live in a raspberry growing area, or have raspberry bushes in your garden. Frozen raspberries are not as delicious as fresh picked ones still warm from the sun, but they are an adequate substitute that you can have year round. Raspberries have good levels of Vitamin C, even the frozen ones. My only gripe with the frozen ones is they go purple when baked!,

So, to the recipes:

Leek Frittata
The name 'frittata' is a bit of a misnomer, as I actually bake it in a 26x16x5cm (10x61/4x2inch) pyrex lasagne dish. It's an adaptation of a frittata recipe from the early 90s; I gave up trying to fry it, as I always made a mess! The beauty of this recipe is you can substitute the cheese with whatever you have in the fridge or feel like eating - extra tasty cheddar, Swiss, fetta, whatever takes your fancy. Ditto with the zucchinis. I often swap them with celery, a flavour that goes well with leeks. You can also substitute the herbs. I like dill, but try oregano, marjoram or tarragon. Be adventurous!

• A good slurp of olive oil
• 3 small leeks or 2 large ones, thinly sliced
• 2 medium zucchinis (courgettes), julienned (matchsticks)
• at least 1 clove of garlic , chopped fine
• 5 eggs lightly beaten
 • 11/2 cups milk, or milk and yoghurt blend
 • 4 tablesp freshly grated Parmesan cheese (NOT the packaged powdered stuff!)
 • 4 tablesp of another cheese, cubed (cubes can be as large or small as you like)
 • 2 tablesp plain (all purpose) flour with a good pinch of baking powder
 • salt and pepper to taste (white pepper is better than black in this pale dish)
• 2 teasp dried dill

Sauté the leeks in the oil, until starting to soften, cover and cook on low for 10 minutes. Add your garlic and julienned zucchini, stir, and cook covered for another 10 minutes. If substituting celery for the zucchini, sautée it with the leeks, and make sure all vegetables are very soft before you do the next step.

Tip into a large bowl and leave to cool. When cool, mix in the cheeses and herbs.
In a large bowl or glass jug, mix the flour carefully with a little of the milk to make a smooth paste. Stir in the beaten eggs. Add the rest of the milk and the seasonings, stirring well to eliminate any lumps.

Spread the cheesy vegetable mix over the base of your oiled dish, pour in the milkand eggs, and stir gently until well combined.

Bake in the middle of a 180C (350F) oven for 25-30 minutes. at the 25 minute mark, test with a skewer to see how close to cooked it is. It should be slightly runny in the middle. If so, turn the oven off for the last 5 minutes to avoid overcooking.

Leave to cool completely before you attempt to cut it; this allows it to firm up.

Sue's Gluten-free Café-style Pear & Raspberry Bread
This is yummy toasted and spread with butter or smooth ricotta, and makes a great breakfast loaf. (Toast under a griller, not in a pop-up toaster - it will stick and burn.)

• 4 medium cooking pears, peeled, cored and grated or chopped fine.
 • 1 tablesp lemon juice
• 3 cups plain (all-purpose) flour
 • 1 teasp bicarb (baking soda) and 1/2 teasp baking powder
 • 3/4 cup melted butter
 • 3 eggs
 • 2 teasp vanilla essence
 • 2 tablesp milk
 • 1/2 cup frozen raspberries (or fresh, if you can)
 • 3/4 cup sugar, preferably brown, but raw or white are good

Grate or chop pears and toss in the lemon juice to prevent them browning. make sure all the juice from the pears goes in the bowl.

Sift together the dry ingredients. Whisk together the eggs, milk and vanilla, add the melted butter and whisk until blended.

Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients, add the pears and mix until combined, but do not overmix. Fold in the raspberries.

Pour batter into a greased and lined large loaf pan and smooth the top. Bake in 180C (350F) oven for an hour, checking with a skewer at the 55 minute mark. You might need to reduce the temperature a few degrees if the top is browned but the inside is not yet cooked.

Leave cake in its pan for at least 15 minutes to cool and firm before removing it. Place on a rack to cool completely before cutting.
Buon Appetito!

Colour-change your Menu to Autumn Tones

Autumn has just arrived in Australia, and I feel as though I have emerged from a long hibernation. Now at last the cooler weather is starting and I’m beginning to feel alive again, and looking forward to being creative with the season’s foods.

Those intervening months have seen floods, cyclones, droughts and bushfires in various food producing parts of the continent, which as well as causing pain and loss to the people affected, also means some fruits and vegetables are scarcer and more expensive than normal. But, the canny shopper can generally find a bargain, especially if they don’t mind surface blemishes, or produce that needs to be eaten or preserved quickly. As ever, the rule is “don’t go with a specific food item or recipe in mind, go and see what produce is cheap and plentiful, and base your meal around it.”

Autumn – a colourful season for produce

Summer’s on its way out, and so are all the tropical fruits, berries and stone fruits. No more mangos! Some summer fruits are lingering, but no longer at their peak – late ripening plums and the last of the melons. Rockmelon & honeydew melon are still sweet and relatively cheap, so farewell summer with a melon bowl.

But in their place is a colourful cornucopia of autumn fruits: many varieties of apples and pears, nashis, grapes – red, black and green, figs – purple and white, an abundance of limes, passionfruit, oranges, tamarillos, cumquats and persimmons. All of them packed with Vitamin C and other antioxidants, fruit sugars, fibre and flavour!

Veg it up in Autumn

Glorious as the autumn fruits are, they don’t have it all to themselves. There are lots of colourful, tasty and healthy vegetables waiting for the discerning cook to choose them.

For end of season salads before the weather demands warm meals there are Fuerte avocadoes with their deep green glossy skin darkening to a purplish brown as they ripen, red, green and yellow capsicums, cucumbers and late season tomatoes.

Autumn veggies are some my favourites, coming as I did from a cold climate state. Pumpkins come into their own in Autumn, and when the weather gets cold enough, I’ll be making pumpkin soup with my home-made chicken stock. That warm golden hue comes from pumpkin's rich supply of alpha- and beta-carotenes. Pumpkin also goes remarkably well with lamb or chicken in a slow cooked casserole, or as the old Aussie favourite: lamb chops with mashed pumpkin, peas and potato. Or roasted in the oven either with a lamb roast, or in a baking dish with onions, garlic, potatoes, some olive oil, sea salt, black pepper and rosemary stems. The smell as they’re cooking is positively aphrodisiacal!

Other veggies offer themselves for creative colourful and flavour-rich dishes – shiny purple eggplants (aubergines), for example, appear in Greek, Turkish, Lebanese, Egyptian, Indian, and probably lots of other nationalities’ cuisines, usually with onions, tomatoes and garlic. Leeks and zucchini are also wonderful mixers, adding their own gentle flavours to soups, casseroles, quiche fillings, omelettes and bean dishes.

Mushrooms are in their element in autumn – the delightfully named ‘Slipper Jack’ which grows in pine forests and is related to porcini, is available at gourmet greengrocers. But for the mushroom lover on a budget, the standard white mushroom is wide open as big meaty flat caps, great for grilling or roasting, stuffed with a breadcrumbs, thyme, garlic and olive oil.

Then there’s sweet corn. Available all year round frozen or tinned, these are nothing like fresh sweet corn. Corn on the cob is a childhood favourite, simply boiled or steamed and slathered with butter or olive oil. The butter runs down your chin, the corn skin gets stuck between your teeth, the corn cob burns your fingers – the experience is sheer messy fun!

So, to the recipes:

One for the meat-eaters among us, and one for the vegetarians. I’ve adapted a Lebanese recipe for stirfried chicken strips marinated in lime juice, by adding julienned pumpkin.

Chicken with lime and spices

4 chicken breast fillets, or 8 chicken thigh fillets (thigh fillets have more flavour and are usually cheaper than chicken breast)
3 tablesp freshly squeezed lime juice
3 tablesp olive oil
1 teasp ground coriander
1 teasp ground cumin
½ teasp turmeric powder
at least 1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
A chunk of pumpkin about half the quantity of the chicken pieces, cut into julienne strips

Cut the fillets into thin strips and marinate in 1 tablesp of the oil, with the lime juice and spices. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour, longer if possible.

Heat remaining oil in wok or heavy frying pan. Stirfry the chicken strips for about 5 minutes, add the julienned pumpkin continue stirfrying until both are cooked, about another 5 minutes.

Serve in pita bread or on rice, garnished with the fresh mint and with hummus and or salad on the side.
Serves 4-6

And from my 40-year-old Greek cookbook, comes this Greco-Turkish eggplant dish, Imam Bayaldi.
Imam Bayaldi

1 kg (2lbs) small to medium eggplants
6 ripe tomatoes, or 1 large tin tomato pieces
4 onions, chopped fine
4 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
1 tablesp parsley, chopped
1 teasp sugar,
1 cup olive oil (you may not need all this)

Cut the eggplants in half and spoon out the seeds and most of the pulp, leaving a thin layer inside the shell. Discard seeds, and put the pulp in a dish. Sprinkle salt inside the shells, and stand upside down in a colander for 30 minutes. Either fry eggplant shells gently, or cook in boiling water, until cooked but still firm.

Mix together chopped onions, garlic, tomatoes, sugar, parsley and eggplant pulp, and season with salt and pepper. Gently fry the mixture in about ½ cup of oil. Allow mixture to cool and stuff into the shells. (If the mixture is too sloppy, firm it up with breadcrumbs or ground almonds.) Drizzle a little more oil over the top

Pack the filled shells into a wide bottomed pan or baking dish and either cook gently on top of the stove or in a medium-low oven for 45 minutes. Leave to cool and serve at room temperature or warm.
Serves 4-6


Buon Appetito!