Recycled Cake

For many years, I spent my summer holidays at grandpa and grandma's beach house in Guarujá, Brazil. My grandpa is the impersonation of health: he runs, swims, eats his fruit and veg everyday and he taught his grandchildren (all adults now) the importance of good nutrition. He used to make us delicious juices (that I hated back then, hehe), mixing orange with carrots, beetroot with apple and so on...

I spent years flirting with the idea of getting a juicer. And the other day, after a couple of glasses of wine and listening to a 40  year old woman who looked like she was 20 telling me the wonders of juicing, I grabbed my phone and bought my juicer then and there, at the pub (oh, the wonders of technology...).
Now, my diet includes many different juices with carrots, apples, oranges, celery, ginger and whatever we have in our fridge.

Right. So what does all this have to do with the cake?
Whoever 'juices' knows how much fruit and veg is considered "waste". Well, I don't think it needs to be wasted though! It hurt me to bin all that pulp, so I started making cake out of it.

And here is the one I made today - which, apologies for not being modest, is delicious.

Ingredients:

(rest of):
- 3 oranges 
- 2 apples
- 3 carrots

And:
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups Whole Wheat Flour 
- 1.5 cup oat
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda 
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2.5 cups of milk or natural yogurt
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 3/4 cup coconut oil
- 2 tablespoon raisins

17 cupcakes
Calories per cupcake: 263

Broccoli, Potato and Onion Soup

I can't stop making soup!

This one was invented the last time I went to my dad's, in Brazil, last Christmas.
I was talking to him on the phone the other day and he told me he really liked it... I had to ask him what I put in it when I made if for him, and I decided to try it again with English ingredients.
It is quite good, but I have to say that the broccoli I had in Brazil works better in this recipe. It is a different broccoli, it looks more like cow's food than the very pretty broccoli I normally find here, the one that looks like a wedding bouquet.

Anyway. It was still quite delicious and we had the whole thing very quickly, so I think you might want to try and make it yourself :)

Ingredients:

1 onion
1 wedding bouquet, oops, one broccoli
3 medium sized potatoes
Salt

How to make it:

Chop everything, sauté de onions in a little bit of olive oil, throw in all the rest, add water, close it and cook for about 20 minutes - the first 10 in high and then in medium.
Blend it and serve it with parmesan, if you are so inclined.

Servings: 4
Calories: 159 per serving

Vegetable Soup

It has been very cold for the past three weeks and one of my favourite things for this weather is to have soup. I make a different one every night, depending on what I have in my fridge. It is healthy, it warms you and it is very easy to make.

I make my soup the way mom taught me: chop everything, chuck it in the pressure cooker with vegetable stock and then blend it enough to look like baby food, just the way I like it.

Here is today's recipe:

Ingredients

1 onion

2 carrots

2 small potatoes

1 parsnip

1 leek

1 vegetable stock cube

Chop the onion and sauté it with a little bit of olive oil, in the pressure cooker or whichever cooker you have.

Chop all the other ingredients and add them to the cooker, together with the vegetable stock and salt and leave it to cook for about 20 minutes.

Carefully open the pressure cooker (never forget to let the pressure out before trying to open it) and blend it. If you have some leftover pasta (no sauce) or rice, put it in and blend it too, so as not to waste food and make it more filling :) I added white rice to this one, you can see it if you look carefully at the picture. Go ahead, look!

Serve it with grated parmesan or basil leaves (these were added to make the picture look nice :D)


Calories (4 servings): 321 per serving

Auntie Nena's Brigadeirão ♥

This is a delicious and very easy to make dessert. As my auntie told me, it's ready in 11 minutes: 1 in the blender e 10 in the microwave... :)

Ingredientes:

1 can of condensed milk

1 can of single cream

1/4 cup of sugar

1 cup of cocoa powder

1 tbsp butter

3 eggs

Sprinkled chocolate

Blend everything (except the sprinkled chocolate :P) and put it in a buttered microwavable cake mould.

Microwave it for 10 minutes, full power.

Take it off the tin while still warm and sprinkle the chocolate :)

195 calories per serving (12 servings)

Banana, Apricot and Walnut Cake

I've been making this banana cake for several years... usually using only bananas.
I decided to be a bit adventurous today and added apricots and walnut and it turned out quite nice. So here's the (very easy) recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups of breadcrumbs
2 cups of sugar
1 tbsp of baking powder
1 cup of dried apricot, chopped
1 cup of walnuts, chopped
* 3 bananas
* 1/3 cup of vegetable oil or extra virgin olive oil
* 3 eggs

Method:

Blend all the items marked with *. Pour the paste into a bowl, add the other ingredients, gently mixing (baking powder last). Put it in a buttered cake tin sprinkled with cinnamon and bake it at 200C for about 30 or 40 minutes. To check if it's ready, stick it with a toothpick (clean, please) and see if it's dry.

Eat moderately, so you don't get fat :D

Calories: 295 (serving size 100g)

Baked Aubergines (Caponata)

This is one of my favourite dishes of all times. It is very easy to make and everybody loves it. I got the recipe from Sérgio, my friend's stepdad, in a very fun day of food, cards and wine, years ago.
I have made this aubergine so many times that I consider it mine now. :)

Ingredients:

1 large onion
8 garlic cloves
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 green pepper
1 cup of raisins
2 medium-sized aubergines
1 cup of olives

"Sauce":
1 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup of vinegar
1 cup of water
2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp dried oregano

The amount of each ingredients vary according to taste, obviously. The above are more or less what I usually use. Today, for example, I used two onions, because they were quite small. And a good amount of garlic, which I randomly called "8 garlic cloves" for the sake of giving you a quantity :P
Always remember that you are free to cook however you like. Recipes are for inspiration only, not to restrict you.

How to make it:

Chop everything... and I mean everything! (except the raisins :P) Mix it all and put it in a baking dish. Make the "sauce" by mixing it in a cup and throw it upon the vegetables. Cover it with foil and put it in the oven for about 40 min or until the aubergine is very soft. It smells great, so you need to control yourself and leave it for as long as necessary, so that the aubergine is soft... the longer you wait, the better it tastes :)

Here is a picture of the vegetables in their "sauce" before going inside the oven


Serve it hot or cold with pitta bread or as a side dish.

Vegetable "pie" (or cake? I don't know)

I had a bit of an accident at home: I left the spread outside of the fridge and it got really strange, as it melted.
How could I possibly do that? Forget the spread outside of the fridge? "How silly!", one would think.
But you have to remember, dear reader, that in England it is normally OK to leave stuff out of the fridge overnight, because it is a COLD COUNTRY. I am not used to the existence of a proper temperature inside my home without having turned the heater on.

But anyway.

Since I hate wasting anything, I looked for a recipe with lots of butter/spread... and found one here (in Portuguese).

Ingredients:

"Dough":

- 4 tbsp plain flour
- 2 cups of milk
- 4 tbsp of butter or spread
- 4 tbsp grated cheese (anyone you like. I used cheddar this time)
- 4 eggs
- 1 cube of vegetable stock
- 1 tbsp baking powder

"Filling":
Whatever you want :)
I used about half a recipe of Aubergines in the oven and a chopped courgette.

Put the eggs, butter and milk in the blender. Then, add the flour and vegetable stock and let it blend for a few minutes. Put it in a bowl and add the cheese, the baking powder and the filling of your choice.

Bake at 200C for about 30 min, or until brown.