Sweet Potato Souffle

It was one of those mornings where you don't want to get up for an hour.

So I didn't.

This brekkie (or meal for any time, really) is perfect for one of these types of mornings, ie, when you have time for it to cook but you're not bothered to physically do much. It's really simple and you could do it with your eyes closed - which is the state you're in to start with!

I based this recipe on a brekkie I tried one day. It was meant to be 'warm sardine and sweet potato dip' but the temp was put up too high for it to just 'warm up' so it turned into a souffle! Sardines have never tasted better! But the cucumber I was meant to use as the dip-holder tasted really boring in comparison. Anyway...

Grab your prebaked sweet potato and mash it up in an ovenproof ramekin or bowl.

Whisk an egg and mix it in. If you're feelin' fancy, dust in some cinnamon too.

In the same fancy manner, smooth out the top and pop it into a preheated oven and go back to bed for half an hour after all your hard work.

I tried to make some roasted macadamias to go with it...

and ignoring the fact that it's unstable and expensive I roasted them in macadamia oil. Like goes with like, right?

But... um... I spent too long doing nothing while waiting for my souffle to cook.

I put a little maple syrup on top of the souffle when it had about 7 - 10 mins left, but it didn't make all that much difference.

Take the souffle out of the oven and go back to bed for another ten minutes. It's hot. Believe me. And it's going to stay hot for a while.

Top with whatever you fancy. I spooned on a bit of kefir and tried some of my little bombs of burnt nuttiness.

NB. I only called it a souffle because it rose. Don't assume it's puffy and airy and doesn't weigh a thing. Take a scoop and see how almost puddingy it is!

Sweet Potato Souffle

Serves 1

1 1/3 cups baked sweet potato

1 egg

cinnamon (optional)

maple syrup (optional)

something creamy like yoghurt, kefir, double cream or coconut butter (or ice cream?!), for serving

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Mash the sweet potato in an ovenproof bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg, then add to the sweet potato.

Mix until combined, and add cinnamon and/or maple syrup if using.

Place the bowl in the oven and bake for 20 - 30 mins, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Serve with creamy topping.

This might be better with coconut flour to make it less dense, and maybe some baking powder to fluff it up. And maybe some baking paper too...

Easy Poached Eggs

After five days of charred, (natural) barbecued food, I wanted gently cooked eggs for breakfast. But boiled eggs just weren't working for me. So I poached eggs it was. On a weekday morning.

I can't say I cannot poach, because I've only really tried it once or twice. And it didn't work, so I've given up prospecting on that. Hoping for the albumen to remain in a singular state doesn't mean it will.

So I tried something new out. Using a larger surface area in water, not as much water, tension and area taken up by neighbouring eggs, and the idea of frying, I came up with this.

How to Poach Eggs when you have the Cooking Skills of an Amoeba

1. Fill a high-lipped saucepan with water a third of the way up. Bring the water to a ferocious simmer (mine didn't want to boil).
2. Crack an egg, and very slowly and carefully slide the egg into the water. You can do this by either opening the egg so that the shell is so close to the water that it might be wet, or crack the egg into a small cup and slide it in that way. Whatever you do, keep it close to the water and don't move it around once it's in there.
3. Once the first egg is in, fill the saucepan with enough eggs to cover the surface area of the top of the pan, by following the method in step 2. This will keep all the eggs together.
4. Cook on the same temperature you had it on before until the whites are cooked. I did mine too long, so my yolks were cooked too.
5. Use a flat-headed strainer-on-a-stick to pull out the eggs, and place on paper towel to drain. It would be better to do each individual egg for this, but they may have stuck together, making this an extremely difficult task to keep the yolks in tact.

This may be an easier way to poach eggs, but if you like your yolks runny and in one piece, all I have to say is: good luck!

Super Lazy Almond Spread

I'm not going to lie. This stuff is not amazing. It's nothing like almond butter. It goes to show that if you're bothered to put the effort into something, it will turn out great. The opposite is true in this: I didn't try and so the result was not so fabulous. But I knew it wouldn't be spectacular, and I didn't try to make it spectacular, so that's ok. This stuff comes down to versatility, patience and time

I soaked a big batch of almonds nearly a week ago and they've dried a bit on the outside but they're nowhere near dehydrated. I wanted to make almond butter with almonds in this weird middle state so I popped a few in the blender and carelessly knocked the power to high.

And after a few scrapes and moving-of-chopped-almondy-bits and spooning around in there, I had spready, kinda oily stuff. It was chunky - super chunky at that, I found some whole almonds in there - and moist from the water but it was a quick almond butter style spread. And because the almonds are soaked, you won't feel like you've swallowed a brick when you eat a massive spoonful.

90% of the time, my nut butters just get blended into my smoothies so it doesn't really matter what it looks like or how moist it feels. What DOES matter to me, though, is the time it takes to make, and the cleaning up, which this nutty spread doesn't require a lot of.

So if you're really looking for an easy way to making nourishing nut stuff, have a try of this. You probably don't have to wait a week for the nuts to be in the fridge, but make sure they're not dripping wet or anything. They should only be moist on the inside.

But I'm just going to say, it's not the same as true almond butter.

Lazy Stuffed Zucchinis

Neither mum nor I wanted a big dinner tonight, and neither of us wanted to do anything fancy. Mum said that she'd be happy with toast for dinner. But on the weekend we picked up a couple of cute little (like 15cm long) fat, organic zucchinis and I didn't want them to go yuck. And I'd planned this meal at the beginning of the day so it was going to happen.

This recipe is a very, very laid back recipe - if you could call it a recipe at all. I was pretty demotivated to take good photos so what you see is the best my laziness could do with an iPhone. Which is very little.

I gathered a collection of paleo stuffed zucchinis and found that it's basically just minced meat, a few bits and bobs, herbs and spices if you're feeling snazzy, and your scooped zucchini. The recipe that really wowed me the most was this one from Eat Drink Daily with the addition of olives. Boy, were they a good addition! They really tied the whole thing up, and I think that without it, this recipe wouldn't even be that fantastic enough to write about.

Thai Chilli Coconut Roast

What do you do when you want beachy, summery flavours and a comforting wintery meal? You combine them of course! Last night it was a little colder than usual but I felt like a bit of chilli and coconut so I came up with a bit of a concoction:

Coconut oil
Chilli flakes
Cayenne pepper
Desiccated coconut
Thai seasoning



And mixed my chicken breast into it. If I wasn't being so lazy, I would've made more and mixed the veggies in it, but the coconut oil was in the fridge so I had to scrape it out instead of scooping it out. I need a small jar of it to keep in the cupboard for easier use. If you don't have coconut oil, feel free to use a light oil or some olive oil (my veggies got a dash of EVOO - extra virgin olive oil). It shouldn't make too much of a difference.