This recipe was given to me quite few years back by a friend’s mum when we went to stay on their farm in central Queensland.

Its very quick, easy and tasty and is surprisingly filling. It can be served as a posh starter to a meal, or, as I prefer, in a big warm bowl on a lazy night in front of the TV.

This recipe yields 2 large serves or 4 small starter serves. It is best eaten on the day of cooking, but you can keep it in the fridge for about a day if you like.

INGREDIENTS

Half a head of Cauliflower
Generous teaspoon of Crushed Garlic
2 Tablespoons of olive oil
pinch of nutmeg
2 vegetable stock cubes or about 3 cups of veggie stock
3 tablespoons of grated parmesan
a knob of butter
1/2 cup cream (or milk)
salt and pepper

METHOD

Cut the Cauliflower into medium sized chunks.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan with the garlic. Add the cauliflower and stir until the cauliflower is lightly browned.

Add in your veggie stock and nutmeg then simmer until the cauliflower is soft (about 5 minutes).

Using a stick mix (or your blender, carefully!) puree until it is no longer lumpy.

Add the parmesan, butter and cream. Puree again until combined. Taste your soup and season as needed. Warm again slightly before serving.

VARIATIONS

You can make a healthy variation of this soup by omitting the butter, reducing the parmesan (or using low fat cheese) and using light milk instead of cream. If you do this you may need to add in 2 teaspoons of corn flour to thicken the soup up.

I am the first to admit that I don’t like eating bananas once they get to that brown spotted stage. Usually when my bunch of bananas start to ‘turn’ they are immediately peeled and chopped into small bits to be frozen and used in smoothies. This time I got to them a bit late and they were already quite brown and beginning to go soft, perfect for banana bread.

Because the weather is starting to warm up I wanted to make a summery banana bread, I was searching around for a recipe and came across Janelle Bloom’s Banana and Coconut bread (as featured in Super Food Ideas magazine), which intrigued me because it used coconut milk as the ‘wet’ ingredient.

So now I am writing this waiting for my banana bread to bake and enjoying the delicious scents wafting from the oven. My teapot is waiting and the water is boiled so I can have a nice cup of tea with that first slice hot from the oven…

An hour later the banana coconut loaf is ready, it has a nice sweet chewy crust and a very moist spongy texture. Definitely my new favourite recipe for banana bread, this is going into my permanent collection, nice one Janelle!

Two days later and the banana loaf is still moist and delicious, it has a wonderful texture with lots of little bits of banana and the coconut flavour complements it wonderfully.

This recipe makes a large loaf… don’t do what I did and put it in a small tin! Janelle’s recipe states that it will keep well in an airtight container for about a week.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup castor sugar
1 1/2 cup self raising flour
1 cup mashed banana
1 cup coconut milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

METHOD

Grease and Line a large loaf tin, and preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celcius.

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients.

Mash your banana and combine with the rest of the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.

Pour wet mixture over dry mixture and mix until combined. (it will look a little lumpy due to the chunks of banana and the coconut)

Place batter in your prepared pan and cook for about one hour until your loaf is lightly browned and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.