Pear and walnut cake (1 colour)

I made this with freshly bought pears, but next time I shall leave them to ripen for a day or two.

Ingredients
Plain flour - 250 g
Caster sugar - 180 g
Baking powder - 2 tsp
Pears - 3 ripened, peeled and coarsely chopped
Walnut pieces - 80 g
Eggs - 2, beaten
Milk - 100 ml
Butter - 125 g

Methods
1) Melt the butter in a pan and leave to cool. Preheat the oven to 180 °C and grease a 9 inch round baking tin.
2) Sift the flour, sugar and baking powder into a large mixing bowl. Add the pear and walnut pieces and mix well.
3) Place the milk and eggs together in a small bowl and whisk for a couple of minutes.
4) Add the milk and egg mixture together with the butter to the mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly.
5) Pour into the baking tin and cook for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Serves 6-8.

Chocolate orange and almond cake (1 colour)

I've made this cake twice now. The first time we had no electric mixer so I stirred it as much as I could by hand. It came our rather flat and we ended up cutting it into brownie shaped pieces. Last night I mixed it in our new food processor and it came out much more 'cake-like'. Both were delicious.

I haven't got the hang of juicing and grating the rind of the same orange yet. Last time I juiced it first and then found it difficult to hold it to grate the rind. Last night I grated it first, but when I came to juice it the orange just fell apart. All suggestions welcome!

Ingredients
Orange - 1, juiced and rind finely grated
Raisins - 100g
Blanched almonds - 55g
Dark/plain chocolate (at least 50% cocoa solids) - 100g, broken up
Butter - 175g, chopped into pieces
Eggs - 4 large, beaten
Caster sugar - 100g
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
Ground almonds - 55g
Plain flour - 55g
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp

Methods
1) Soak the raisins in the orange juice in a small bowl for 20 minutes.
2) Melt the butter and chocolate together in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Leave to cool.
3) Meanwhile, chop and lightly toast the blanched almonds in a frying pan, taking care not to burn.
4) Preheat the oven to 180°C. Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence together in an electric mixer for 3 minutes until light and fluffy.
5) Stir in the cooled chocolate mixture.
6) Sift the flour, ground almonds and baking powder into a large bowl. Fold in the egg, sugar and chocolate mixture. Drain the raisins of any remaining orange juice and add to the mixture with the orange rind and chopped almonds. Stir well.
7) Spoon into a greased 8 inch round cake tin (the recipe says 10 inch, but I found it turned out a bit too thin) and bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.
8) Dust with icing sugar and serve with a couple of strawberries on the side. Serves 6-8.

The 7 colours of health

I bought a book entitled "What color is your diet?" several months ago and though I've yet to read it from cover to cover have dipped into it countless times and read and reread a few of the key sections. The book, written by the director of the UCLA center for human nutrition, contains lots of useful information on the properties of foods and how they impact the body. It explains the major differences in diets across the world and how these influence the incidence of cancer, heart disease and other health problems.

The book suggests that to stay healthy and reduce the risk of cancer etc we should eat not 5, but at least 7 portions of fruit and veg each day. It presents 7 colour categories and provides a list of fruit and veg that fall into each category. Each colour is important for a different reason and the book recommends that we eat at least one item of each colour every day.

At present I do not eat the 7 colours or even 7 portions of fruit and veg each day, but I do consider this to be my goal. Even ignoring the possible health benefits it will make for a varied and interesting diet and encourage me to grow some more unusual fruit and vegetables in the garden and on our land when we get some.

I shall blog the 7 colours, why each is good for you and a list of foods of each colour over the next couple of weeks. I shall also state in brackets how many colours each recipe I post contains.

Another new blog

Until leaving my job at the University I've always considered myself too busy to play around with cooking and if asked I would say that I "couldn't cook properly" whatever that means.

I guess I've had a difficult relationship with food so far. As a child I was the awkward one who wouldn't eat anything. As an adult that changed a little, but I think it's only in the last three or four years that I've realised that I'm not awkward - I just don't really like eating and hate preparing meat. If meat couldn't be bought in non-animal shapes in tins or cardboard boxes in the freezer section of the supermarket I would have turned vegetarian years ago.

As it is I'm not currently vegetarian, but I eat meat probably at most once every couple of weeks. I don't know if I will become fully vegetarian and if I do what time scale that will be on - we will just have to wait and see. I'm creating this blog as a journey on the way to being healthier and more inventive with food, and in addition to posting recipes will be writing my thoughts on food in general, particularly 'new foods' that I've only just tried or starting cooking.