GINGERBREAD MEN

This is one of many festive posts I will publish over the next few weeks (mostly recipes I expect), with a very special post to come next week!

This recipe is from Donna Hay’s Christmas edition magazine (December 2013).  It is very easy and has a great flavour. I think this would be a fun one to make with children and you can use all sorts of cookie shapes.  Of course you can also have fun decorating the biscuits with icing and lollies. 

My end product was quite crunchy so if you prefer your gingerbread soft, perhaps roll the dough thicker.

What you need

125g unsalted butter, softened

½ cup brown sugar

2/3 cup golden syrup

2 ½ cups plain flour, sifted

2 tsp ground ginger (I like ginger so I ‘heaped’ these)

1 tsp bicarbonate soda

How to make it

Preheat oven to 160°

Place the butter and brown sugar in a bowl and mix with an electric mixer until pale and creamy.  This takes around 8mins or so.

Add golden syrup, flour, ginger and bicarbonate of soda.  Beat together until the mixture just comes together to form a smooth dough.

Roll the dough out between 2 sheets of baking paper.  I would also give the paper a light dusting with flour before you role it out.  This will prevent the dough from sticking to the paper.  Roll out the dough to 4mm thick and place in the refrigerator for 30mins.

Remove the dough and take one of the sheets of paper off.  Using cookie cutters, cut out the gingerbread and place on a lined baking tray.

Continue to roll the dough out and cut the shapes until all the dough is used.  I needed to use a bit of plain flour to stop the dough from becoming too sticky.  Just dust the bench top /paper before you roll.

Cook the gingerbread until just browned.

Remove from oven and place on cooling rack.

Enjoy!

If using a small cookie cutter you should get about 30 – 40 small biscuits out of this recipe.

SWEET POTATO & GINGER SOUP

This is a very simple soup recipe that I made up on recent winter’s day. 

There are so many exciting ways to combine ingredients to make soup.  I find it is just best to play around with seasonal vegetables and whatever is left in your fridge at the end of the week.

This week I had a very sad looking bunch of flat leaf parsley so that is a feature in this soup.

This recipe is probably enough for three serves.  It takes just less than an hour to make from when you start to when you eat!

What you need:

• One sweet potato, peeled and roughly chopped
• One potato, wash and roughly chop (I tend to leave potato skins on unless there are some particularly funky bits)
• One leek
• Half a bunch of flat leaf parsley
• One centimetre of fresh ginger, peeled & roughly chopped
•  One teaspoon vegetable stock powder
• One tablespoon olive oil
•  salt & pepper to taste
• One teaspoon coriander powder
• Approximately four cups of water

How to make it:

There are lots of substitutes you can use (eg. garlic instead of ginger, coriander instead of parsley, onion instead of leek) but I quite like the ingredients I have chosen which is why I used them.  But it is really personal taste!

Sautee your leek and ginger in the hot olive oil in a saucepan.

When soft, add the chopped vegetables, coriander, stock powder, salt and pepper.  Give this a rough stir so it is combined.  Cover in water (about four cups). 

 

I like soup to be quite thick so I would suggest starting with 3 – 4 cups of water and add more if you need to.

Bring to the boil then reduce heat.  Simmer until vegetables are soft.

Add the chopped parsley right at the end and whizz everything together until the vegetables are smooth. You can add more water if you need to here (just make sure it is hot water).

Serve with crusty bread.  

Enjoy!