Hassleback Courgette

Hassleback Courgette

I first discovered the 'Hassleback' concept when I was in Sweden in 2010 and I have my Swedish Aunt Ia to thank for introducing me to the simplicity of swedish cooking. These special cutters were on sale in a supermarket and I thought they were for cutting 8 slices of cheese off a block at once....but, obviously, they were not! The idea of Hassleback potatoes has stuck with me for a while but for some strange reason, I havn't gone ahead and made them. Perhaps because I have cut so many unnecessary calorie dense foods from my diet.....however I think these will make an appearance at Christmas this year.

And on to the courgette. As I prepare for my competition in 10 days (I compete as a figure athlete in bodybuilding) I have begun to think more and more about the foods I am going to slowly ease back into once I am no longer quite so limited by the size of my sparkly bikini. One food I have been eating quite a bit of in an attempt to fill me up is courgette. I was beginning to get a bit sick of it until I thought today "what if it was baked without the soggy aspect"?
So off I went on a mini flurry of creativity in my kitchen to create something new - and I think I hit the jackpot.

So obviously these babies had to have a little garlic - not raw, squeezed out of a mincer garlic! It had to be roasted softened fragrant garlic...but I had 20 mins to get these together...never mind an hour to roast the garlic bulb. So I separated the cloves, left the skin on and put them in a dry pan on a very low heat. I covered them with a glass cover and every couple of minutes turned them so they wouldn't burn. I turned the heat off and left them for a further 5 mins in the warm pan while I mixed some olive oil, coconut oil and butter with some fresh thyme and rosemary. Then I peeled and smashed the garlic and squeezed it into the butter. I allowed the mix to melt in a pan and just come to a bubble before I turned off the heat.

So, the trick with Hassleback is to allow a thin line of uncut spine to allow the item to fan out as it cooks. To do this, I lay a chopstick down beside the courgette and the knife hit that every time instead of the chopping board. Once this was done, I lay the courgette on tinfoil and bent it to one side so all the layers opened up. This allowed the butter and garlic mix to fall between the layers as I brushed it on generously.

I then sprinkled a pinch of himalayan sea salt and some cracked black pepper along the courgette and put it in the over wrapped in tinfoil for 40 mins at 180 degrees. Once it was done, I opened the foil and sprinkled the courgette with a tablespoon of parmesan cheese and banged up the temperature to 200 degrees for a further 15 minutes to allow everything to crisp up.

Let me tell you, the smell of this alone in the kitchen has my stomach rumbling.
This dish would go wonderfully with a roast or as my crew had it this evening with baked hake.
If you do decide to make it - I would love if you would send me a picture on facebook.com/westcorkfit or on twitter @westcorkfit.
Let me know what you think or if you have any ideas you would like to run by me :)

Gluten Free, Sugar Free Muffins

Muffins are difficult.....not that they are difficult to make, they are in fact, rather easy to make and there are hundreds of recipes out there. What I mean by difficult is that they are difficult to resist....and once eaten, they are difficult to shift from the hips. So, in a huge attempt to eat as clean and healthy as possible, I have altered the recipe somewhat to make these little treats a little less difficult! I made these at 7:45 am today while the kids were eating breakfast and the smell in my kitchen was simply amazing. So much so that after their scrambled eggs, my little minions begged and begged for a taste of warm muffins fresh from the oven. Knowing that these are made with grass fed butter and a rice flour blend along with ground flaxseed made the handover easy and I was eager to see what my little food critics thought.
 The response was very positive...no words...just moans and
mumbles....always a very good sign in my house. Two elements I will mention about these little cases of bliss, is that depending on your tastebuds, you may prefer to substitute a tablespoon of xylitol for a tablespoon of honey. This always add a richness to the flavour of the vanilla muffins as I occasionally find xylitol even a little too sweet - but this is down to personal preference. So, without further waffling from me....Im sure you want the recipe. There are one or two steps here that are essential to keeping these muffins super light and fluffy - so do try to be precise with the technique!

Ingredients; 

-150 g Doves Farm Baking Flour Blend
(If you don't want GF, just use self raising flour)
-150g butter (If you even consider using margarine for these, I'll have to track you down and beat you with a block of kerrygold!)
-150g of xylitol OR (120g xylitol & tblsp honey)
- 3 tablespoons of linwoods milled flaxseed
- 3 eggs separated
- tsp of baking powder
- tsp of vanilla essence
- 60g of greek yoghurt
For the Chocolate Muffins-
3.5 tblsp of raw cacao (this is the healthy version - use regular cocoa if thats all you have)
2-3 tablespoons of coconut milk (again regular milk is fine as a substitute)

Instructions;

Before you do anything else, separate the eggs and whisk the whites until they form stiff peaks. Switch the oven on to 185 degrees and allow it to heat up while you throw the mix together.
Cream the butter and xylitol, then add the egg yolks one at a time and mix them through well. Sift in the flour and baking powder. Add in the flax and finally the greek yoghurt and vanilla. Now for the important step....With gluten free cooking, we try to keep as much air in the mix as possible so be careful not to mix these muffins to death.....fold in the egg whites and mix through. Fill 12 cases with half the mix, then add your cacao and fill another 12 cases. If you want all chocolate mix, use about 4 tblsp of cacao. Bake until golden on top and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Don't wait until these are cold....you just have got to try one of these luscious buns while still warm!

If you want to be really bold...(you didn't hear this from me), throw a handful of white chocolate buttons into the vanilla mix or some dark chocolate chopped up....whatever your preference is!

In the meantime, if you bake these babies, Please Please Please share a picture with me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/westcorkfit or on twitter @westcorkfit ....OR of course on Instagram @westcorkfit. Enjoy!!!