Delishioso

The recipe as promised ...

Apple Crunch/Crisp

Ingredients for the topping:

1/4 cup almond meal or almond flour
1/4 cup finely shredded coconut
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup extra virgin coconut oil
3 T muscovado or rapidura sugar (the molasses flavour of these sugars really works in this topping)
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t all spice
big pinch of salt

1. Mix the nuts with the almond flour, shredded coconut, sugar, salt and spices.
2. Pour melted coconut oil over the top and stir to combine. Pat down slightly and refrigerate for 20 minutes to an hour, to harden.

Ingredients for the apple part:

6 Medium green apples.
1 t finely grated lemon zest
2 T lemon juice
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t cardamom

1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Peel and core apples, then cut into bite sized pieces.
3. Toss the apple with the lemon juice, lemon zest, cinnamon and cardamom.
4. Place the apple in the bottom of a 9" casserole dish.
5. Remove the nut mixture from the fridge and crumble it over the apple, making sure there are a few chunky bits.
6. Bake for 40 minutes then turn up the heat to 220C and cook for a further 5 mins to brown the crisp, but don't let it burn.
7. Remove from the oven and serve warm with coconut cream, or pure cream, or ice cream or even custard.  Those of us on Paleo would go with coconut cream.

The nutty topping is lovely and crunchy and the apple mixture is still quite crisp. This dessert is not too sweet and is very healthy.

Tonight I made a roast chicken by mixing 5 minced garlic cloves with butter and chopped parsley and then filling the space between the skin and the meat over the breast with it. I chopped up half a lemon into 4 pieces and put them inside the chicken, then baked it in the oven for 90 mins.

I poured the juices that oozed out of the chicken, into a container, then I browned some tapioca flour in the bottom of the pan and then added the juices back into the pan. So flavourful and went beautifully with the chicken and the roasted turnips, beetroot, sweet potato, red capsicum and onion.

Food glorious food!

Today I've been studying about solutions, solvents, molarity, solids/liquids/gas, intermolecular forces, colloids, osmosis, the Octet rules, organic structure, covalent and ionic bonds blah blah blah blah blah.

My lecturer sounds exactly like Julia Gillard, only she has a very sad sense of humour that I really don't feel amused by and I find myself rolling my eyes often during the lectures. Sometimes I wonder if she thinks we are all 5 years old because she can be quite patronising and uses a childlike voice to explain some things.

Anyway, I do know that when I complete my studies, I will be giving her and the institute some much needed feedback about some of her techniques, especially the amount of time she wastes at the beginning of her lectures trying to get microphones working for everybody present online.

When the lectures are 'live', it's understandable, but when she puts the recorded lectures up for us to download and listen to, she should be deleting those parts. It drives me bonkers.

The weather is stinking hot and humid, so I've been locking myself inside the house with the air con steady on 25C and the column fan blowing directly on me. Very comfortable.

I've enjoyed a couple of early nights (by early, I mean BEFORE 11pm) and I think I'd like to make it a habit. Let's see how I go.

Nite all.