I'm going a bit bonkers. I woke up an hour ago, felt that I'd had a very restful sleep, lay there for a few minutes listening to the rain and got up. I had no idea what time it was but I didn't want to be late this morning, I have to go out later and have a few things to do before I go. I looked at the bedside clock in the darkness, it was 4.45. Damn, I'd slept in. Quietly I went into the bathroom, dressed and came to the computer to finish my blog. When sat down here, I looked at the clock, it was 1.50 am! I debated whether to go back to bed or not, so here I am up and wide awake two hours early.
I have an easy, frugal, vegetarian recipe for you today - stuffed sweet potato. It's delicious and I'm guesstimating that it cost less than four dollars to make for two people.
Start off by peeling the sweet potato and cutting them lengthwise - you want a larger piece and a small piece, about 2/3 and 1/3. Spray lightly with olive oil. Put them in an oven-proof dish and bake until they're just cooked, about 20 minutes.
When they're cooked, allow them to cool down enough for you to handle them and scoop out the middle of the larger piece, leaving nice, sturdy potato boats that will hold the filling. Add the smaller piece to the filling and mash it all together with a small knob of butter.
Have a look in the fridge and see what aged vegetables you have in there. If it's all fresh, that's even better. Take out what you want to use, chop it all up finely and mash it in with the sweet potato middles. I used red onion, celery, capsicum and corn. If you have people who just can't eat a meal without meat, add a small amount of cooked bacon or finely chopped chorizo. Pile the stuffing into the sweet potato boats, add a sprinkling of grated cheese and bake in a hot oven for about 15 minutes, or until the filling is cooked and the cheese melted.
THE BEST MOIST CHOCOLATE CAKE
Just so you're well aware that it's not all angels, love hearts and sweetness in my kitchen, here (below) is the beginning of the ugliest cake I've ever made. I made this on the same day I make my last batch of butter and cultured butter and I used the buttermilk as the liquid element in the cake. This is the recipe I used, the only change I made was I halved the sugar portion. I find North American recipes are far too sweet for my taste and even with one cup of sugar it was sweet enough. As you can see in the photo below, it looked good when the batter was poured into the cake tin.
When it was baked, there was a weird volcano-like lump on the top corner. Ahem. I thought I had some cream in the fridge, I didn't, so after I sliced the top off, I spread it thinly with some of the just made cultured butter and topped that with a spread of cherry jam. Finally, I iced it with a frosting made with icing sugar, cocoa, and the last of the buttermilk.
It was absolutely the worst looking cake I've ever made.
It sat on the kitchen bench for a couple of hours and then we had a cup of tea and sliced off two portions. No matter what it looked like, we had to eat it. It was without doubt, the best chocolate cake I've . ever . tasted . in . my . life. The cake was richly moist and very chocolately, it wasn't too sweet and for some reason, the hodge-podge of fillings and frosting worked very well. It stayed moist for the four days it took us and our visitors to demolish it. I wish I had taken a photo of it when it was iced and ready to eat. It looked really terrible! Just goes to show that you can't judge a book by the cover. This recipe is now written out in long-hand in my Real Food recipe book. I encourage you to try it and I hope it looks better than mine did. My thanks to Jennifer at Foodess for sharing her recipe.
