Tag Archives: pineapple

Beautiful Thai canapés

Let me begin by telling you about the thing that I’ve wanted to do for a very long time. Ocean swimming. Dropping into the sea and swimming in the cool mineral rich water as part of my daily routine. What could be better. An activity to nourish the soul and clear the mind, at the same time of course as keeping everything trim, muscles toned surrounded by the cold.  Well the past few weeks I have been lucky enough to do just this with a lovely lady that I met at the beach (there was no way I was going to do this activity alone). And that’s where these beautiful Thai canapés come in.

beautiful Thai canapés

Sam is the lovely and very interesting lady mentioned above. Bobbing in her blue swimming cap, she patiently waits for me as I catch up to her in the sea. With no pushing and gliding at either end like in a pool and a slight sense of vertigo as my body rolls in the swell, I’m still acclimatising to open water swimming. We jump in to the sea at the end of Palm Beach ocean pool and swim parallel with the shore for 500m or so and then back again.

beautiful Thai canapés

Let me be clear at this point. I find this activity extremely scary. Rips, swell, breaking waves, deep water. No problem. But not being able to see what’s beneath me. The thing that nightmares are made of. Conquering your fears though is kind of addictive, and every time I get out of the water after another swim, I want to get straight back in. Plus I guess being scared makes a morning swim just that little bit more exhilarating.

beautiful Thai canapés

Sam is also a mum, and a runner, and she’s done ski seasons. I feel at home in her company. After sharing a few drinks with her and her husband’s one Sunday afternoon, Mark and I wanted to continue the conversation, so the following weekend we invited them to dinner. Cue the beautiful Thai canapés. Sweet, salty and nutty. The perfect flavour combination to enjoy with a few pre dinner drinks.

beautiful Thai canapésIt’s funny. I’ve owned David Thompson‘s Thai compendium for years, and enjoyed glancing at its fuchsia spine on my bookshelf, but I’ve never cooked anything from it. I’m a little nervous of Asian recipes, slightly fazed by their long ingredient lists and confused about what to substitute for items that aren’t readily available. But this recipe. I felt confident about it. And now I’ve made it once, I want to make it again. A bit like diving in to the ocean I suppose. Scary at first, but definitely something to repeat.
beautiful Thai canapés

Beautiful Thai canapés – Ma Hor – Galloping horses

Minced chicken, pork and prawn with pineapple

From David Thompson’s book Thai Food

  • 100g prawn meat, finely chopped
  • 100g chicken mince
  • 100g pork mince
  • 1 cup palm sugar, grated
  • 1/2 cup fish sauce
  • 1/2 cup fried garlic
  • 1/2 cup fried shallots
  • 4 tbsp ground toasted peanuts (unsalted)

Coriander and garlic paste

  • 4 coriander roots
  • 5 garlic cloves
  • 15 white peppercorns
  • pinch salt

Fry the prawn mince with a pinch of salt in the oil of your choice. When cooked, transfer to a bowl to cool and repeat with the chicken and pork mince.

Next make the coriander and garlic paste by pounding all the ingredients together with a pestle and mortar.

Now fry the paste in a little oil and when fragrant add the palm sugar and fish sauce and then simmer for a few minutes until the mixture is thick and syrupy.

To the syrupy mixture add the prawn, chicken and pork mince and half each of the fried garlic, shallots and peanuts. Cook for a few minutes than remove from the heat and add the remaining garlic, shallots and peanuts. Taste the mixture. It should be sweet, salty and nutty. Adjust accordingly

Leave the mix to cool. It will firm up considerably. While it’s cooling cut the pineapple into bite size slices.

Moments before you are ready to eat the canapés, top the pineapple pieces with the punchy topping and enjoy.

Love canapés? Then you might like this recipe for gougers-bite size balls of cheesy choux pastry.

Gluten free granola in 10 minutes.

gluten free granola

I have a confession to make. Some recipes scare me. A few because I have tried them and failed. Others simply intimidate me with their seemingly complex steps. These types of recipes, I avoid. Jam actually falls under the category of scary recipe, which now seems a funny thing to admit, seeing as the apricot jam I made in my previous post was a great success. Even Grandma Elma, veteran jam maker, who I gave a jar to agreed. Delicious. So with my new found confidence I embarked on a gluten free granola recipe that I had stumbled across a while back. Granola comes under the scary heading. Even though I love eating it, I avoid making it. So many times my efforts have resulted in charred, inedible birdseed, instead of lovely, chunky, toasted clusters of nuts and seeds. Not this recipe. It’s easy. It’s quick. It’s delicious.

gluten free granola

The original recipe is very straightforward, and I managed to make it even simpler by chopping the nuts in the food processor, after I’d made the pineapple paste that all the dry ingredients are mixed with. I swear. From picking up my knife to chop the pineapple, to putting the trays of gluten free granola in the oven took 10 minutes. And an hour later, as my oven is as hot as the inside of a volcano, which is great for cooking meat, but not for baking delicate morsels, the gluten free granola was done. A lovely golden toasted colour, with clusters of crunchy goodness. It was a success! So much so that Thea, who was in my arms when I checked it for the final time, spied it and demanded some then and there. She has recently become very good at demanding and is so persistent that she almost always gains what it is that she wants. This is not something that I was prepared for as a parent, little people being so insistent upon what they want. Still, it’s nice to know that I have one fan of my latest scary recipe conquest.DSC_0312

Another thing that scares me that I’ve been doing more of recently is surfing. I’ve been meeting up with a wonderful group of surfing mums. Being a complete novice, I panic when I’m in the water among experienced and competent surfers. And when I catch a wave I balk. Wide eyed I freeze on my knees as I’m propelled forwards. Thoughts like, should I try to stand. Surely I’m too late to stand. Am I really on this wave. Am I going to hit someone, go through my head. So I bail. Don’t get me wrong. This whole process just described is so much fun. To be out in salt water, fresh air, free, is the best. The feeling of exhilaration when it all comes together is such a rush, the smile on my face hurts it’s so wide. And I guess thats what this post is about. Overcoming fears. Doing the things that you are scared of. Because you never know. You might just succeed. And that feels great.

gluten free granola

Pineapple gluten free granola.

From a recipe by Nom Nom paleo

  • 1 cup cubed fresh pineapple
  • 5 pitted Medjool dates
  • juice and zest of 1 orange
  • 1 tbs vanilla powder
  • 1 tbs ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup melted coconut oil
  • 2 cups raw whole almonds
  • 1 cup raw whole cashews
  • 1 cup flaked almonds
  • 3 cups shredded coconut
  • 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
  • 1 tsp sea salt flakes

Place the pineapple, dates, orange juice and zest, vanilla, cinnamon and coconut oil in a food processor and whizz to a paste.

Add the whole almonds and cashews to the processor and pulse three of four times until the nuts are coarsely chopped.

In a separate large bowl, place the flaked almonds, shredded coconut, sunflower seeds and salt and then add the contents of the food processor and mix well.

Spread the pineapple coated nuts and seeds out over two baking paper lined trays and put the trays into an oven pre heated to 100 degrees C.

Bake the gluten free granola for one to two hours, but make sure that every 20 minutes during this time that you toss the granola to make sure that it cooks evenly.

When you feel that it is sufficiently coloured and dry, turn the oven off and leave the gluten free granola to cool inside. When cool, transfer to storage containers with a good seal. Consume within about two weeks.

Love granola. Then you might like to try this savoury granola recipe