We needed something to take to a potluck, but I was dead tired yesterday. These cookies were both tasty and easy to make. I really like them. This recipe is defineitely a keeper. And it's a fun thing to do with Weetbix if you get bored of eating them as cereal.

The icing on them is nice and adds another layer of flavour, but they're also delicious without it. If you do opt to make the icing, you may want to start with a half batch. I made a full batch and ended up with quite a bit left over.

Pineapple Biscuits

Slightly adapted from Taste.com.au

Ingredients

Cookies

• 100g (1/2 c.) sugar
• 100g (1/2 c.) brown sugar
• 140g (1 c.) flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 6 Weetbix, crushed
• 1 large egg
• 125g butter, melted
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3/4 c. dried pineapple, chopped

Icing

• 1 3/4 c. icing (powdered/confectioners') sugar¹, sifted
• 10g butter, melted
• 3 Tbsp. pineapple juice

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F).
2. Combine the sugar, brown sugar, and flour.
3. Sift in the baking powder and mix well.
4. Mix in the Weetbix followed by the egg, butter, and vanilla.
5. Stir in the dried pineapple.
6. Working with ~1 Tbsp. of dough at a time, roll into balls and drop into baking sheets.
7. Bake at 150°C (300°F) for 20 minutes.
8. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to finish cooling.
9. Meanwhile, combine the icing sugar, butter, and pineapple juice to make the icing.
10. Spread icing onto cookies.
11. Decorate the tops with a bit of minced dried pineapple if you wish.

---

¹ I carefully weighed out my sugar on the scale and then forgot to look at the weight once I was done measuring it out. So I don't have a mass to add to the recipe here, sadly. ^Back

Apple Oatmeal (CakeLove in the Morning)

I've made a few different versions of apple oatmeal before. This one was meant to be apple-cranberry -- which I think would have been delicious! -- but I didn't have any dried cranberries on hand, so I had to do it with dried currants instead. Still tasty, but the cranberries definitely would've been better and also would've made it a little more distinctive relative to the other apple oatmeals I've done before. That said, even without the right berries, cooking the oats in apple juice was an interesting twist that I hadn't tried until now. It should ideally have been apple cider (unfiltered apple juice), but I only had the filtered stuff, so I just used what I had. Either one will work, but I think the cider would've given a slightly richer flavour.

Apple Oatmeal

Slightly adapted from CakeLove in the Morning

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp. butter
• 1-2 apples, peeled and chopped
• 1 c. rolled oats
• 1 c. apple cider (unfiltered apple juice)
• 1 1/4 c. water
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 1/2 c. dried cranberries
• milk, to serve

Directions

1. Melt the butter over medium heat.
2. Add the apple and sauté for a minute or two.
3. Add the oats, cider, water, cinnamon, sugar, and dried cranberries.
4. Reduce heat and simmer gently for ~15 minutes.
5. Serve with a splash of milk.

Pineapples seem to be pretty consistently $4.50 each here. Except when the green grocer has ones that have gotten a bit overripe. Then they get put in a separate bin and marked down to $2. It means you probably need to make sure to eat it within the next day or two, but they're very good as long as you can be quick about it.

I did not manage to eat my pineapple within a day or two. It was still fine, but I had to trim it a little more aggressively than I might otherwise have done. And it seemed like this might be a good time to enjoy a cooked pineapple recipe, rather than just devouring it raw like I often would other times.

I have a bunch of cooked pineapple recipes, but many of them either took ingredients that I didn't have readily to hand or time that I didn't want to put in on a day when I was already tired. That left me settling on this grilled pineapple recipe. Which I then cooked under the broiler in the oven because I didn't want to fire up the barbecue for a few pieces of pineapple. Reiver then kindly hit it with the kitchen torch to give it a bit of colour and char to finish it off. A good compromise on a lazy day.

Grilled Pineapple with Rum & Molasses

Slightly adapted from Dessert of the Day by Kim Laidlaw

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp. molasses¹
• 1 Tbsp. honey
• 1 Tbsp. rum
• 1 pineapple
• 1-2 Tbsp. sugar

Directions

1. Combine the molasses, honey, and rum and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat and simmer until thickened slightly (~4 minutes).
3. Trim the top and bottom off of the pineapple and cut it into 6-8 wedges. Trim off the skin and core.
4. Cut each wedge/spear crosswise into bite-sized pieces and thread one row each onto wooden skewers.
5. Prepare barbecue/grill for direct heat cooking.
6. Brush pineapple pieces with a bit of oil and sprinkle with the sugar.
7. Cook over direct heat until grill marks appear (~4 minutes per side).
8. Transfer to plate and drizzle with molasses sauce.

---

¹ The original recipe called for 2 Tbsp. each of molasses, honey, and rum and 3 Tbsp. of sugar. Since I had to trim away so much of my pineapple, I only used 1 Tbsp. of each of the sauce ingredients and 1 Tbsp. of sugar. Having tried it, I think you might want more sugar if you're working with more pineapple, but I honestly feel like we had plenty of sauce, so I decided to write it up with the half quantity that I used. Feel free to double it if you'd like your pineapple extra saucy though! ^Back

Apparently mustard sauce is a favourite with corned beef here. I'd never had it before, but it's quite nice. You can make it as mild or punchy as you like. And I appreciate the use of the corned beef cooking water in the sauce.

Mustard Sauce

Slightly adapted from NZ Women's Weekly

Ingredients

• 40g butter
• 2 Tbsp. flour
• 150mL milk
• 1 c. corned beef cooking water
• 1-2 Tbsp. grainy or Roman mustard
• 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Directions

1. Melt the butter over medium heat.
2. Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes.
3. Mix in the milk, followed by the cooking water, and cook until thickened.
4. Stir in the mustard and parsley (if using).
5. Serve over corned beef and veggies.

I think this was meant to be a take on Sicilian apple cake. Which is an extremely apple-heavy cake flavoured with lemon that normally includes pine nuts and often dried fruit as well. My version had the apples, the lemon, and the pine nuts, but not the dried fruit. Looking at the recipe, it also seemed like it would be quite sweet and not apple-y enough -- unless they were expecting you to use very large apples indeed!¹ -- so I adjusted it a bit. I also tossed in a few sultanas, since a lot of other recipes seemed to include them. And I tried to mimic the dusting of crushed walnuts around the outside of the cake that I'd seen elsewhere.

I'm quite happy with all of my changes. Even the ones that seemed at first like they hadn't worked out.

I decided to be lazy and "crush" my walnuts in the spice grinder. But, it turns out that even using quick pulses to try to break the walnuts down gently gets half of the mixture most of the way to walnut butter by the time most of the biggest chunks have been broken down. I couldn't really press the walnut paste I'd made onto the sides of the pan as planned, so I ended up mixing a little flour in to try to help things a bit. This still didn't seem to work very well and I decided it was a lesson to do it "properly" next time and crush the walnuts by hand. Until I tasted the cake... The wanuts and flour had made a delicious crust! Almost like the graham cracker crust you might expect on a cheesecake. But thinner and crispier. I loved it! So, I think I will be doing this on purpose from now on! Just need to dial in the amounts.

Oh, and while the pine nuts in this certainly weren't unpleasant, I didn't really feel like they added much. And they are quite expensive, so I might just omit them in future.

Italian Apple Torte

Adapted from Dessert of the Day by Kim Laidlaw

Ingredients

Crust

• 1/2 c. walnuts
• 1/4 c. flour
• 2 Tbsp. sugar

Cake

• 500g apples, peeled and sliced
• 2 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1/2 c. sultanas
• 1/4 c. pine nuts, toasted (optional)
• 3 large eggs
• 1 c. sugar
• 100g butter, melted
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 140g (~1 c.) flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F).
2. Working in batches, finely grind the walnuts in a spice grinder or similar.
3. Mix the flour and sugar into the ground walnuts to form a crumbly mixture.
4. Press the crust into the bottom and halfway up the sides of a 23cm (9") round springform pan.
5. Toss the apples with the lemon juice and mix in the sultanas and pine nuts (if using).
6. Beat the eggs with the sugar until lightened.
7. Beat in the butter, followed by the milk, lemon zest, and vanilla.
8. Sift in the flour and baking powder and mix it into the batter.
9. Pour a little batter into the bottom of the prepared pan.
10. Add the apple mixture in to top. Try to spread it as evenly as possible.
11. Pour the remaining batter over the apples.
12. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for ~50 minutes.
13. Allow to cool in tin.
14. Run a knife around the edge of the pan and carefully remove the sides.
15. If you're brave, carefully lift the cake off of the bottom of the tin and transfer to a plate. Otherwise, serve directly from the tin bottom.

---

¹ The recipe called for 2 large apples. I used ~500g of apples. For me this was actually six apples. But then, my apples were quite small. ^Back

I loved these pancakes. My only complaint is that they use a partial tin of cocont milk. Partial, but more than half, so you can't get around it by simply doubling the recipe. The easiest way to solve this would be to double the recipe and fill in the missing coconut milk with cow's milk (or whatever milk you happen to have in the fridge). The way that I'm most excited to try is replacing both the missing coconut milk and the lemon juice with pineapple juice. Just to lean into the tropical vibe even more.

Tropical Pancakes

Adapted from CakeLove in the Morning by Warren Brown

Ingredients

• 4 bananas, mashed
• 1 (400mL) can coconut milk
• 6 Tbsp. milk¹
• 1/4 c. lemon juice
• 2 large eggs
• 2 Tbsp. honey
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 280g (~2 c.) whole wheat flour
• 1/2 c. instant (creamy) oats
• 1/4 c. buckwheat flour
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda

Directions

1. Combine the bananas, coconut milk, milk, lemon juice, eggs, honey, and vanilla and set aside.
2. Combine the whole wheat flour, oats, and buckweat flour.
3. Sift in the baking powder and baking soda and mix well.
4. Por the wet ingredients into the dry and stir to combine.
5. Heat a pan over medium heat.
6. Add a little butter or oil to the pan and cookoff your pancakes, using ~1/4 c. of batter each.
7. Serve with butter, yogurt, chopped pineapple, shredded coconut, maple syrup, and/or yogurt with an optional dusting of ground allspice.

---

¹ Or replace both the milk and lemon juice with pineapple juice. ^Back

Pork ribs were still on sale at the grocery store, so I got another rack and decided to try a different recipe with them. This is a more traditional BBQ ribs preparation. But I wanted to try the initial low-and-slow wet cooking followed by the direct heat this time around to see how it compared to Iyer's method that cooks them entirely over direct heat.

These ribs did come out moister than Iyer's, but I think I preferred the flavour of his.

Classic BBQ Ribs

Slightly adapted from The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp. smoked paprika
• 1 tsp. onion powder
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 1/4 tsp. ground cayenne (optional)
• 1-1.5kg pork ribs
• 1 Tbsp. oil
• 1/4 c. chicken stock
• 2 Tbsp. cider vinegar
• ~3/4 c. barbecue sauce

Directions

1. Combine the sugar, paprika, onion powder, grlic powder, salt, pepper, and cayenne (if using) and mix well.
2. Coat the ribs in the oil and then sprinkle on the spice rub, coating as evenly as possible.
3. Set grill up for indirect heat and preheat to 150°C (300°F).
4. Place the ribs meat side down on a baking sheet.
5. Add the chicken stock and cider vinegar to the baking sheet and cover with foil.
6. Cook over indirect heat at 150°C (300°F) for 2 hours.
7. Now oil the grates and set the grill up for direct heat cooking at 190°C (375°F).
8. Brush the ribs with some of the barbecue sauce on one side and place sauce side up over direct heat.
9. Cook for 5 minutes, then flip and put some sauce on the other side.
10. Repeat the process of flipping and basting with barbecue sauce, cooking for five minutes after each iteration, another once or twice on each side.
11. Cut ribs apart and serve with additional sauce.