thursday recipe: emily rose brott's chocolate pecan brownies

We're moving house this week.

I'm surrounded by brown cardboard boxes, a few filled, many empty waiting for the contents of our cupboards and shelves to be placed inside sealed with tape and transported to...our new home!

Our new home that we've waited almost ten years for.

When River was six weeks old we moved to our current little beach shack which is in a fantastic location between the ocean and the bay.

We've had what I think is possibly the cheapest rent in Australia while we've been here - believe me the antiquated kitchen and bathroom haven't deserved a dollar more - but the location is the drawcard.

It has been the perfect little nest to raise our babies into boys, and the easy to handle rent has given us freedom, freedom to travel each winter to remote communities for Peter's work and freedom to save.

For the past three months Pete has treated getting our new house ready like a job leaving home early each morning to go 'on site' and work through a long list of plastering, painting, laying new floors, designing and creating new bathrooms and kitchen and and and the list goes on. We've been blessed to have the help of my uncle with this work and a great young carpenter who has enjoyed honing his craft on Pete's creative design ideas.

I'm looking forward to showing you some photos soon!

But for now there's brownies. I thought you'd be ok with that. Personally I don't see what the fuss is about brownies I'd rather eat chocolate but I know a lot of people love them. My sons and husband included!

Thanks to mum of four and cookbook author Emily Rose Brott for sharing her brownie recipe here today. This recipe comes from Emily's most recent book My Secret Ingredient. If you don't eat wheat flour you can use spelt or your favorite gluten free option. I also don't use rice bran oil so I'd use almond oil or butter.

You can read more about Emily and get her recipe for apple, oat, cranberry and chocolate muffins here.

Ok I'm off to make school lunches and then pack some more boxes.

Enjoy the recipe x

Emily Rose Brott's Chocolate and Pecan Brownies

Ingredients

3 eggs

2/3 cup (165ml) rice bran oil

120g 70% dark chocolate

2/3 cup (190g) honey

¾ cup (120g) wholemeal (whole-wheat) plain (all-purpose) flour

¼ cup (25g) almond meal (ground almonds)

¼ cup (60ml) milk

½ cup (55g) chopped toasted pecans (refer to cooking tips)

To make
Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F) fan-forced.

Beat eggs and oil together. Melt chocolate, and mix honey into the chocolate until dissolved. Add chocolate mixture to egg mixture, and beat.

Mix in flour, almond meal and milk until combined.

Stir in toasted chopped pecans.

Grease a brownie tin (28cm × 18cm) with oil, and line base with baking paper. 

Pour mixture into tin, spreading it evenly, and bake for 25 minutes.

Leave to cool in tin for 20 minutes before removing and leaving to cool further on a cake rack. 

Slice and serve.

Makes 15

Cooking tip: As an alternative to pecans you can use toasted walnuts or macadamia nuts.

thursday recipe: emily rose brott's apple, oat, cranberry and chocolate muffins

Some of you may remember Emily Rose Brott from one of my previous posts, especially those who love Emily's mango sorbet!

I'm happy to share with you today Emily's latest book My Secret Ingredient - don't you love the tagline? 'delicious, healthy, achievable' Isn't that what we all want?

Emily is a Melbourne mum of four (!) and a passionate cook who loves to create nutritious AND delicious meals for her family and friends.

There are over 120 recipes in Emily's new book covering breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between. Emily's recipes do not contain refined sugar, white flour, or butter due to Emily and her son being lactose intolerant. You'll be pleased to know Emily's recipes require no fancy ingredients and are easy to put together.

Now, speaking of ingredients you'll notice in this recipe Emily uses rice bran oil and wheat flour. These are two ingredients that personally I don't use, I prefer to use coconut oil, butter or almond oil and in place of the wheat flour I use spelt flour or sometimes a gluten free flour option. You can read more about rice bran oil here and here.

I'm mentioning this to highlight the fact that every family is different and every family is at a different place in their understanding of ingredients, where they come from and how they are tolerated by family members. Emily's recipe is a great foundation to create some delicious muffins from scratch and you can substitute ingredients as you need to.

apple, oat, cranberry and chocolate muffins

ingredients

2 eggs

½ cup (125ml) rice bran oil

½ cup (150g) honey

2/3 cup (75g) rolled (porridge) oats

1 ½ cups (240g) wholemeal (whole-wheat) self-raising (self-rising) flour

2/3 cup (165ml) orange juice

2 apples, peeled, cored, diced

2/3 cup (90g) dried cranberries

½ cup (65g) chopped 70% dark chocolate

Preheat oven to 170°C (335°F) fan-forced.

Whisk eggs and oil together until fluffy. Mix in honey.

Add oats, flour and orange juice, and whisk until combined.

Add apples, cranberries and chocolate, and mix through.

Grease muffin tins with oil, and fill each muffin case three-quarters full with mixture.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Leave to cool for 10 minutes before removing the muffins from the tin and placing them on a cake rack to cool further.

Makes 14

My Secret Ingredient is available as an ebook for $4.99 or paperback for $12.95 Available for purchase here.

thursday recipe: crumbed chicken and salsa in pita by Emily Rose Brott

Today's recipe comes from mother of four and cookbook author Emily Rose Brott. I hope you've had a chance to try Emily's mango sorbet recipe from last week. There were actually squabbles in our kitchen last week over who got more in their bowl as we finished off the last of the sorbet, sound familiar? (sighs). Anyway, back to today's recipe, this one also comes from Emily's latest book Healthy Home Cooking for Kids and what I like about it is that it does that clever thing of combining the foods parents want their children to eat (vegetables) with foods that kids want to eat (crumbed chicken). It ticks the healthy, nutritious, tasty and fun boxes. 

For those on a gluten free diet you can substitute the bread crumbs with home made gluten free crumbs made from gf bread, if you've never made your own bread crumbs it is soooo easy just whizz some gf bread up in a food processor or blender and voila you have breadcrumbs. Or, you can use gf ricecrumbs. And in place of the pita you could roll this up in a gf wrap.

What do you think? Think your family will go for this? 

Thanks Emily for sharing your recipe with us, it is much appreciated! Saves us from thinking what to cook!

Healthy Home Cooking for Kids, by Emily Rose Brott. Published by Random House RRP $19.95

Crumbed chicken and salsa in pita

Serves 4

crumbed chicken

2 chicken fillets, butterflied

1 and a half cups wholemeal (wholewheat) breadcrumbs 

1 teaspoon mild paprika

salt

salsa

1 avocado, diced

1 cucumber, peeled and diced

2 tomatoes, diced

1 and a half tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon olive oil

salt

4 wholemeal (wholewheat) pitas

mayonnaise

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) fan-forced.

Slice chicken into nuggets, approximately 4 cm long. Place breadcrumbs, paprika and a pinch of salt in a bowl and mix (for preparation of breadcrumbs, see cooking tips, page 8).

Dip chicken nuggets into breadcrumbs until coated. Line a baking tray with foil and place nuggets on tray.

Cook for 25 minutes.

To prepare salsa, gently combine avocado, cucumber and tomatoes in a bowl. Toss with lemon juice, oil and salt to taste.

To warm pitas, wrap in foil and place in oven for 2 to 3 minutes.

To serve, slice the pitas in half, spread some mayonnaise over the base of the pita, and top with chicken nuggets and salsa.

thursday recipe: mango sorbet by Emily Rose Brott

I'm typing quickly because the keys on my computer may melt. It is 41 degrees celsius here in Victoria today!! Never a better time for a beautiful mango sorbet recipe. My plan this year is to post a recipe for you every Thursday. 

Today's recipe comes from Melbourne mother of four and cookbook author Emily Rose Brott. 
Emily's first cookbook Have Your Cake came about because she began experimenting with baking healthier, wholefood versions of her kids (aged 6-14) favorite treats. Chocolate chip biscuits were the first test recipe made with real dark chocolate and no trans fats or artificial additives, just real food. The biscuits were a hit with the kids and all their friends, soon mums were asking Emily for recipes and her book was born.

In her recently released second book Healthy Home Cooking for Kids Emily shares delicious lunches and dinners in addition to sweet favorites such as this summer sensation: mango sorbet. The recipes in Emily's books are made without refined sugar, white flour, or butter due to Emily and her son being lactose intolerant. 

I had a chat with Emily last week and asked her how she handles any requests from her kids to eat processed foods. Emily explained that she involves her children in cooking at home and talks to them about the difference between real food ingredients and what additives, preservatives, colourings etc; can do to their bodies and behaviour. So, when her daughter came home from school and asked if she could have a particular lunch box snack that her friend had Emily and her daughter took a look at the ingredients next time they were at the supermarket. "I read the label and it had so many additives in it I physically couldn't put it in the trolley", Emily told me. Her daughter said, "It's ok mum, I understand why you can't let us eat that sort of food". Pretty cool huh? 

I know some of you may be reading this thinking that would never happen with my kids, they would still want it! But I am a huge believer in educating our children from a young age about the ingredients in the food they eat as Emily is doing with her children I believe it does make a difference in the long run because they grow up with an awareness which is a great beginning for a real food future.

So, thanks Emily for the inspiration for all us mums who are doing our best to feed our families well in the face of so much fake food. Thanks for sharing your recipe and for taking the time to put your book together.

Tune in next week and I will post Emily's recipe for crumbed chicken and salsa in pita.

Healthy Home Cooking for Kids, by Emily Rose Brott. Published by Random House RRP $19.95

Mango Sorbet

1.5 mangoes

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon boiling water

2 tablespoons orange juice

2 egg whites

Remove the skin and seed from the mangoes and blend until smooth (if using frozen mangoes, allow to thaw). Dissolve the honey in the boiling water and mix into the mangoes. Add orange juice
and mix.

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff.

Gently fold egg whites into mango mixture until combined.

Place the mango sorbet in an airtight container and freeze. Prepare the day before serving, to allow the sorbet to freeze.

Serves 4