Apricot and Muesli Bliss Balls

This week autumn has well and truly arrived with gale force winds and driving rains. Unfortunately the wild weather has arrived at the same time as my holiday week but on the bright side I am lucky to be staying inside whilst the rain pours down outside!

I've just finished my second placement which was my community nutrition/public health placement. I was placed at a not-for-profit charity that aims to promote healthy eating in schools. They do great work including helping canteens to have healthy menus and implementing fruit and veg programs in schools. Indeed the food environment in schools these days has come a long way! I had a fantastic time on placement - I was lucky to do quite a bit of hands-on work, I got to work at a couple of school canteens, and I learnt a lot about the challenges of implementing public health policy.

I made a cardboard cash register - harder than I thought!

Of course, as usual, Mr Duckie and I had our fair share of emergency and drama. A few posts ago I wrote about the breakdown of our old car Jeeves during my first placement. That was a pretty big scare, so what else could happen right?

We were shown what could in fact happen on only the second day of my placement. That morning, Mr Duckie was having a shower and I needed to duck into the bathroom to grab something. As I pushed open the door I thought, why does the door knob feel funny? I kept jiggling the door knob and it felt stiff and unmoveable. Then, for goodness knows what reason, I decided to close the door. Big mistake, as lo and behold, I had locked us into the bathroom.

I had never been in this situation before. My brain took some time to adjust to the situation. The reality took some time to sink in, as I thought that perhaps if I shook the door knob hard enough, it would move. Then I thought I could break the door down. When I realised we were stuck, hysteria started to take hold. Luckily Mr Duckie stayed calm and he tried to figure out a solution.

Luckily the bathroom had windows, albeit very small windows. So I was sent forth to climb out of the window and get help. With a bit of a leg-up from Mr Duckie, I managed to get out, with a few scratches on the way. Now the next challenge - the fence to the front garden was too high for me to climb, as were the fences to the neighbours on both sides. Luckily I found a way to get into my back door neighbour's garden and eventually I got through and knocked on her door!

Give as a gift to those who have been good help!

My back door neighbour, whom I had never met before, turned out to be a very kind and generous lady who was more than willing to help. She helped me to call a locksmith and so eventually we managed to get back into the house and open up the bathroom door. What a relief!

Anyway, in times of unexpected dramas, something sweet is always good to help give an energy boost. Whilst I was on placement, I looked up a number of healthy sweet treat recipes to pass on to schools and parents, and I became quite familiar with the concept of bliss balls!

These balls are very easy to make and only use a few basic ingredients, pretty much just dried apricots, muesli and sesame seeds. Whilst many bliss ball recipes contain nuts, this recipe is nut-free, so can safely be taken to school. They also smell amazing whilst cooking from all the lovely spices added in!

Hope you enjoy this recipe! I'm off to my food service placement next so we shall see what happens then!

Apricot and muesli bliss balls

Adapted from taste.com.au

100g dried apricots
3/4 cup cold water
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
60g sesame seeds
3 cups natural (untoasted) nut-free muesli

1. Combine apricots, water, cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom in a saucepan and bring to the boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes or until apricots soften. Uncover and set aside until cool.
2. Place sesame seeds in a pan and toss over medium heat for 2-3 minutes until golden. Place into a bowl to cool down and set aside.
3. Place muesli in bowl of food processor and process until finely chopped. Add apricot mixture and process until a stiff dough forms - you may need to add a bit of extra warm water. Transfer to a bowl.
4. Use teaspoonfuls of mixture to roll into small bowls. Roll in toasted sesame seeds. Place in fridge to firm up a bit then serve.

Makes approx. 30 balls

Apple "pie" breakfast apples

Hi there! Again sorry for the much extended break between posts. There indeed has been a lot that has happened since I last posted. I've just finished my exams (yay!) - I can never seem to get myself well organised enough to do much else when I'm studying, so unfortunately there are no pictures of my cooking during that time. Mr Duckie and I also entered the Cooks River Fun Run, which raised money for Bowel Cancer Australia. We entered the 10km run, which I know probably isn't a very challenging run for most fit people, but it certainly was an achievement for Mr Duckie and I! We battled a very chilly and grey morning, and despite being quite out of shape, we managed to finish the run, although we were the last to cross the finish line ;) It was a really lovely community event and a fun family day out (there were some very fast kids competing in the shorter races!), raised money for a good cause, and most of all I am very proud of Mr Duckie for getting out there and getting active!

This recipe is something that I sort of just made up one Saturday morning during this busy period. Mr Duckie's parents had very kindly given us lots of fruit to take home with us. However, by the end of the week, I still had lots of apples left over! The apples we had were Fuji apples - Mr Duckie loves Fuji apples because they are so sweet, but for some reason, I am not such a fan, even though I generally love most other apple varieties. In fact, I have a weird problem with certain fruits, which is that when I eat them raw, they make me feel quite nauseous - the worst culprit is watermelon, and I don't think I've actually eaten any watermelon since high school.

Anyway, I wasn't up to eating a whole lot of Fuji apples, but I did not want them all to go to waste! So I decided to see how they would taste cooked up with lots of spices and some sultanas.

Much to my pleasure, they tasted amazing! The cooked Fuji apples seemed to take on an almost jelly like consistency once cooked. There was a bit of tanginess from the lemon juice, and a delicious fragrance from the cinnamon.

I served the apples with some toasted and buttered baguette (because I also needed to use up the baguettte!). Mr Duckie was very pleased with his breakfast, and decided that the combination of the sweet apples and crunchy bread tasted almost like eating apple pie for breakfast!

I think this would also be a great dessert, replacing the bread with some sweet biscuits and maybe some ice cream ;) And this is a relatively healthy recipe, so you can eat apple pie for breakfast without feeling too guilty about it!

Apple "pie" breakfast apples

Serves 2

Ingredients

4 Fuji apples
Juice of half a small lemon
Sprinkle of cinnamon
3 tbsp raw sugar
Sprinkling of sultanas (I used about 2 tbsp, but add as many or few as you please!)

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan. Add a splash of water, and cook on a medium heat for about 10 minutes until apples are soft and cooked.

There's no real recipe for this so you can change the amount of sugar and spice that you add, use your own favourite apple variety, and cook for a shorter time if you prefer your apples a bit more crunchy! Feel free to play around with this recipe to suit your own taste!

Saucy microwave puddings

I’m so sorry it’s been such a long time since I last posted! Since that time things have been quite crazy – I managed to lose my building security pass, break my iron (I dropped it on the ground), get sick, look after Mr Duckie whilst he was sick, and make sure I had all my assignments ready to hand in at uni. After all of this, my brain just decided to give up. In fact, I spent most of last weekend asleep or doing not much at all whilst trying to recover. Hopefully things will calm down a bit now, and I can get my head back in order again.

During these busy weeks, I’ve been heavily reliant on meals that are quick and easy, whilst still giving the required nutrients. This microwave pudding is simple, quick, and requires very little fuss. It isn’t exactly the most healthy, but it does help to lift the spirits (which is undoubtedly another important role of food!). When Mr Duckie was ill and in need of something sweet and comforting, and I didn’t have much time to spare, this was my go-to dessert.

Apart from its ease, the best thing about this recipe is that it is so versatile. I’ve provided both a vanilla and a chocolate recipe here, depending on what you feel like. I used the vanilla cake base to make a saucy lemon pudding, just by adding some store-bought lemon curd to the bottom of the bowl! This gave a bubbling lemon sauce underneath the vanilla sponge top (it got quite hot, so be careful when eating this!). I’ve also made this into a jam pudding by dolloping some jam into the bottom (using my favourite cherry jam). This was also delicious and I think I even liked the jam version better than the lemon!

I used a very special-looking vanilla bean paste for the vanilla sponge. The paste contains lots of vanilla seeds in it, and a spoonful of this paste is equivalent to a whole vanilla bean! The pudding had lots of lovely tiny black flecks throughout thanks to the vanilla paste.

For the chocolate version, I added big chunks of chocolate in the middle to give it a melty chocolate centre – I ended up with little pools of chocolate sauce throughout the pudding! I would definitely experiment with different types of chocolate as well – maybe some caramel chocolate to add some caramel sauciness to the centre ;)

This pudding is egg-free and can easily be made dairy free by using a milk alternative and dairy-free chocolate. Also note that the serving is big enough for two or even three people, so you’ll have plenty to share with your special someone. Feel free to play around with your favourite additions and jam flavours to make this pudding your own!

Mr Duckie polished off his pudding!

Saucy lemon pudding

Adapted from the Stir

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 tbsp lemon curd or your favourite jam

4 tbsp plain flour

2 tbsp sugar

½ tsp baking powder

A pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

4 tbsp milk

2 tbsp oil

1. Place lemon curd or jam into the bottom of a bowl.

2. In another bowl, combine dry ingredients and stir well.

3. Make a well in the centre and add in milk, oil and vanilla paste (add a little extra milk if you feel the mixture is too stiff - it should have a dolloping consistency like regular cake batter). Stir well to combine.

4. Spoon over the lemon curd/jam. Microwave for 3 minutes, stopping every minute to check whether the cake is cooked (do not overcook cake otherwise it can be dry).

5. Serve straight from the mug!

Chocolate microwave pudding

Adapted from allrecipes.com

Serves 2

Ingredients

4 tbsp plain flour

2 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp cocoa

½ tsp baking powder

1 pinch of salt

4 tbsp milk

3 tbsp canola oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

50 g chocolate chunks (I used 8 squares/2 rows of chocolate from a Cadbury Old Gold block)

1. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

2. Make a well in the centre. Pour in milk, oil and vanilla extract and stir to combine (add a spoonful of extra milk and oil if you prefer a fudgier texture).

3. Push chocolate chunks into the centre of the pudding. Microwave for 1 minute. If cake is not yet cooked, microwave for another 30 seconds.

4. Serve straight from the mug, with a scoop of your favourite ice cream!