Roasted Vegetable Salad with Sugared Walnuts and Danish Feta

Every year I get a food assignment for Christmas dinner and this year I scored what I love to make, salads!! I wanted to do something a little bit different, but still yummy and memorable. At my work Christmas party, one of the girls made the above salad and it was so gorgeously divine, I was hooked and new I had to make it for my Christmas dinner! It is super easy to make.

Zuccini
Sweet potato
Grape or cherry tomatoes
Red onion
2-4 cloves of Garlic - up to your preferred taste
Capsicum - at least two different colours
( this is what I used, but you can adjust to what is in season, but never use potato!)

I small bag of baby spinach
1 small packet of walnuts
1 cup of sugar
Danish Feta - at least 150-200gs
Balsamic vinegar
Olive Oil.

Method
Pre heat oven to 180C.Chop up veges in to medium sized pieces(leave garlic whole or mince) and add to a plastic bag or larg zip loc bag and drizzle generously with oil and balsamic vinegar. Season to taste and toss veges so that all are covered well. If you have the time, marinade the vegetables for an hour or two, this will increase the flavour intensity.

Add to baking tray with juices and bake in oven for 30-40mins or until cooked well and a bit crispy. You can take the veges out once or twice during cooking time and toss and coat the veges. Once cooked leave out to cool down.

On low heat in a saucepan, add walnuts and sugar and toss to coat the walnuts until sugar is dissolved and walnuts are well coated and smell sweet. Be careful not to burn the sugar, as this will make them taste awful!! Set aside to cool.

Assembling the salad

Pour spinach leaves onto serving bowl or platter - I think its best not to have a deap bowl, more a large shallow dish. Add vegetables will juices. Add walnuts then crumble feta all over salad and serve immediately. You could also add semi dried tomatoes and olives if you like, but its not necessary. You can add more balsamic if desired.

This is a great recipe for BBQs or family gatherings because it doesn't cost too much to make a large quantity.

I also made an Asian cabbage and crunchy noodle salad that I added roasted silvered almonds too. It was super yummy and a natural crowd pleaser! Unfortunately I didn't get a pic of this:(

Craftsie Finds for the Week!

I have seperated my craftsie crusades to a new blog, http://www.craftsie.blogspot.com/, or you can always click on the side bar picture to the right. Here is where I write about all things craftsie and I will add a weekly roundup of craftsie peeps who are in business. So please check the list out, like their facebook pages and buy handmade!

 Please feel free to share the list by tweeting it and FB sharing it, we need to share the word about buying handmade as there is so much amazing talent in our creative world!

If you would like to be on the Craftsie Finds directory or you would like me to do a review, please feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me.

Snow Covered Rocky Road

I think for me, making rocky road usually means its Christmas. I don't normally make it any other time of the year and I don't really think of making it any other time of the year. I have posted about Rocky Road bites before, but this time I wanted to do something a little bit different.  This years mix included:

Pascall marshmallows (best marshies on the planet!!!)
rasberry lollies
almond M&Ms
Roasted silvered almonds
Malteesers

To this I added melted Cadbury dairy milk chocolate and mixed through to coat all the ingredients and put it in a pan to set.

Just before I put this in the fridge to set completely, I decided, for something different to melt up some Nestles premium white chocolate for the snowy effect, because it really suits the climate of Sydney, Australia this time of year!!! Hahaha!! Na, it was just for something different and it looked good!

I then cute up the Rocky Road into bite size pieces so you don't feel overwhelmed when you eat it!  I didn't get a picture of the pieces, but it was super delicious!

The best and easiest Cupcakes Ever!!

Wow, its has been a while since I have posted a recipe. I have dozens in my files that need to be posted, so I thought I would start with a really good one! A week before Christmas we met up with some great friends for a Christmas picnic. It was a blast, and we share some great food. One of my friends made some simple cupcakes that were just divine. I asked her what her secret was and she told me cream!! Just a few basic ingredients and then cream! She didn't have the recipe on her (not too many of us carry around our favourite recipes in our handbag!) So when I had some time, I googled for a recipe and I was directed to a cute blog by the name of Chocolatesuze. Susan Tye is the author and she has a delicious recipe for cupcakes here. I doubled the recipe and used one cup of thickened cream and then another of dollop cream, the batter was so fluffy and smooth I couldn't help but lick my fingers more than once! There is no need for vanilla in this recipe.

 I didn't do the curd nor did I ad any frosting, I didn't feel the need to. That being said, any kind of frosting would work well with this cupcake. I would also say that its a great base for adding flavours and colours to jazz them up whenever you need to. They freeze well too. These cupcakes and not only easy to make, are light and fluffy, and taste so damn fine, that you will have to stop yourself from eating the whole lot!

In future, I when I make these puppie again, I will be cutting the top off a little and filling them with some frosting! Or cutting them in half and making a cupcake sandwich!

3 Things I'm looking forward to in 2012

I came across Lisa's blog post about 3 things she was looking forward to in 2012. It got me to thinking about what I am looking forward to this year. I am really hoping this year will be an amzing year for me. I am hoping for a lot of good things to come to pass. Three things that I am looking forward to are:

Power of Moms retreat which will be held here in Sydney in March. Its going to be a good experience hearing these women and learning more about what I can be as a mum and strengthen my relationships with my children.

My daughter will be in year 6 this year, so I am looking forward to all the challenges and triumphs this will bring. I am excited for her as this was a memorable time for me and and exciting time. She will be looking forward to highschool this time next year....wow, that's crazy!!!

I am also looking forward to doing something for me once a week. I am not sure what this will be as yet, but I want to do something like a dance class, or yoga, or something fun and good for my health just once a week. I will have to keep you posted on what it is, but I have told myself it will happen!!

So there's at least 3 things I am looking forward to this year. I am sure there will be heaps of wonderful experiences in stall for me. I am a thinker, and I hope to be a doer as much as a thinker and act on the things that I know will work. I have wasted some good opportunities in the past because I have be insecure and let others tell me not to act upon things when I should have done. Does this make sense? Anyway, here's to an awesome 2012!!

Fast Ed cooks with Levi

I am a big fan of celebrity chefs! I tend to like the chefs that not only cook great food but have a wonderful presence about them. I have always liked Fast Ed. He seems like a genuinely nice guy, as he presents his food segment on Better Homes and Gardens. I was even more delighted with him when I discovered on my facbook page that he spent some time with Levi McCormack at
Bear cottage in Manly.It was a wish of Levi's to spend some cooking time with his chef hero, Ed Halmagyi. Levi has a rare and unsolvable heart condition and some of you may remember him from a story that Karl Stefanovic did on 60mins a couple of years back.

I know his parents and his uncle and aunty well. They are lovely people. To read more about Levi's experience with Fast Ed, click here.

To donate to Bear Cottage click here.