BAKE THESE COOKIES.  I swear you will not be disappointed – adapted and tweaked from a couple of other recipes into my own mongrel favourite;

You will need:

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup caster sugar

1 cup butter, room temp

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 3/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 coconut

1 cup porridge oats

1/2 to 1 cup dried fruit, raisins, cranberries or chopped apricots

1 cup chopped white chocolate buttons

Preheat oven to 180° C, cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time beating well between.  Add flour, salt and baking soda – stir gently.  Add remaining ingredients.  Stir to combine.

Roll into balls with wet hands and press down to flatten.

Bale 8-10 mins until golden brown.

It’s cold and rainy and we LOVE soup in this house, Ethan devours it.

Here’s the recipe we use;

25g [1oz] butter
2 onion sml-med [chopped]
2 cloves garlic [chopped]
1kg [2.25lb] pumpkin [seeded, skinned, cubed]
3 cups water
2 teaspoons instant chicken stock powder
1 teaspoon curry powder [optional]
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup milk

Melt butter in a large pot, cook onion and garlic until soft but not browned,
add pumpkin to onion ‘n’ garlic with water, stock, spice, sugar, cook until pumpkin is soft.
Puree or mash with potato masher, add milk or water to taste and serve with croutons and parsley.

I am awash in zucchini right now, my vege bin in the fridge is literally groaning under their weight in fact.  Which is good, because it is a staple vege in our house and one all three of us really love.

So, I have frozen them, baked them in muffins, made pasta sauce out of them, put them in every stir-fry, sauteed them with WHATEVER we were eating at the time and made bread, but I needed another recipe.  This one is a winner.  The BEST, most moist and rich cake I have ever personally made, plus you can get part of your 5+ a Day while eating dessert, win!

I found this recipe on the aptly named chocolateandzucchini.com and can reccommend it 100%

My Chocolate Zucchini cake w/ Passionfruit buttercream icing served with homemade strawberry icecream

Chocolate & Zucchini Cake

- 1 1/2 C (180 g) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 C (60 g) whole wheat flour (of course, you can just use 2 C / 240 g all-purpose flour, I was just trying to be good)
- 1/2 C (40 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 C (110 g) butter, softened
- 1 C (160 g) light brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp instant coffee granules (the Nescafé type, the stronger the better)
- 3 eggs, at room temperature
- 2 C zucchini, unpeeled, grated (about 280 g, two medium)
- 1 C (170 g) chocolate chips

Topping :
- 40 g light brown sugar
- 1/2 C (70 g) hazelnuts, toasted and chopped

(Serves 10.)

Preheat the oven to 180°C (360°F). Grease a 3 quart (3 L) springform cake pan, and flour it or sprinkle with cocoa powder : this is to help the cake unmold easily, especially if you’re not using a magic non-stick pan.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In your food processor, combine the sugar and butter, and mix until fluffy. Add in the vanilla extract and espresso powder, then the eggs, one at a time, mixing thoroughly between each addition.

Spoon in the flour mixture, reserving the last half-cup of it. Mix thoroughly, the batter will be thick.

Add the grated zucchini and the chocolate chips to the reserved flour mixture, and toss to coat. Fold in the batter, and blend thoroughly, it’s fun. Pour into the prepared cake pan, and flatten the surface with a spatula.

In a small bowl, combine the topping ingredients, and sprinkle all over the batter. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Turn out on a rack to cool for half an hour, then unmould.

Mum bought this recipe book for me last Christmas and it is just choc full of yummy things to whip up.

I made this cake for the first time this week and I think it might be one of those awesome recipes that is just about fail safe.  It gets better……you only need one bowl.  I know.  Get baking!

You will need;

• 150g butter, melted
• 2 cups drained, slightly stewed apple or 1 can of apple pie filling (I bought this from the store for the first time and OMG it’s so yummy!)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup sultanas (Iused raisens)
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• icing sugar to dust

Preheat oven to 160, mix all ingredients, spoon into greased pan, bake for 55-60 min until skewer comes out clean, cool on wire rack and dust with icing sugar to serve.

This cake is divine, super moist and yummy and couldn’t be easier to make.  Loved it.