Please don’t mistake this breakfast as something I would only make for my children. Mainly because I have no children, just a bunch of lifelike Monkey soft toys. The reason I tried this is not to introduce pumpkin into my diet (it already features frequently), or to add vegetables (I eat a lot of veges). Its because, even before I cooked it, I knew this would be really good.

The spices in it, cinnamon and nutmeg, along with the milk give it an oatmealy almost pumpkin pie taste. Once you have the puree, its a cinch to make-indeed I made it on a busy work day morning using frozen pumpkin puree stashed in my freezer and microwaved for 1 minute. I preferred to add the raisins in while it was cooking as I love fat plump raisins. As far the peanut butter goes, it does enhance it but I think only 1 teaspoon of peanut butter would have done me or left out altogether would have been fine. And because I loathe the taste of skim milk and never have it in the fridge, I used a half water half full cream milk. It would be equally as fabulous on a weekend morning, tarted up with chopped pistachios and dried sweetened cranberries.

Oatmeal with pumpkin from Deceptively Delicious

• 1 cup nonfat (skim milk)
• 1/4 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup canned pumpkin or sweet potato puree (I didn’t use canned, I used real pumpkin pureed and frozen in batches)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice (I used cinnamon and nutmeg)
• 1 cup old-fashioned oats
• 2 teaspoons natural peanut butter (optional, I’d say go with 1 teaspoon)
• Dried fruit and nuts (optional)
• Pure maple syrup, for serving

1. In a small saucepan, combine the milk, sugar, pumpkin, vanilla, and if using, and spice. Bring to a gentle boil and stir in the oatmeal. Reduce the heat and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, until the oatmeal is soft and creamy. Stir in peanut butter, if using.

2. Spoon the oatmeal into bowls, sprinkle with dried fruit and nuts, if you like, and serve warm with maple syrup.

By Jessica Seinfeld from Deceptively Delicious

A very Happy New Year to my NQN readers, your friends and family! I hope that 2008 is filled with lots of fantastic feasts and fun. Speaking of feasts, my sister Blythe gave me Nigella Express for Christmas and I’ve already earmarked many, many recipes to cook and I thought what better time to start sampling than on the eve of the new year. Nigella’s Scallops-on-the-shell was just crying out to be made.

The dessert recipe that I chose however is not from Nigella Express as I needed something much simpler and quicker, in fact, its made in 5 minutes although the chilling time is much longer than a few minutes. You’ll best make it in the morning or the night before. Its by Rachael Ray who I know some are divided about. I appreciate the swiftness of the cook, if not necessarily her overt enthusiasm as much as her fans do. In any case, its a rather easy dessert to make which can only be a good thing when you’ve got a NYE outfit to bother with.

So with no further ado, and because I need to get dressed, I have for you, a sample of NYE dishes: two cocktails, an appetiser and a dessert, for of course any day of the year but especially NYE.

NQN’s Balmoral Bathing Beauty

The name is purely arbitrary, we happened to be enjoying these while out on our balcony and looking down at Balmoral Beach.

• 4 parts apricot nectar chilled
• 1 part of raspberry vodka (we use Absolut)
• Raspberry puree
• cream to decorate

1. Mix the nectar and raspberry vodka together and pour in martini glass
2. Add raspberry puree and cream to decorate and make into patterns if you wish.

For a Apricot Bellini:

• 1 part chilled apricot nectar
• 3-4 parts chilled Proseco or other fizzy dry white wine

1. Pour nectar in glass
2. top with the Proseco

Recipe from Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson

Scallops-on-the-shell

I can’t believe how simple yet luscious these are. I prefer to get my scallops from the fishmomger for this, which is just as well as I don’t think I could ever get a supermarket to supply me with shells.

You don’t need to take the corals off, but I like to turn this into two meals, and fry up the corals the next day, with some butter and garlic oil and eat them squished onto chunky bread or toast, and spritzed with lemon juice and carpeted with parsley.

These are really a starter, but I certainly wouldn’t mind knocking a couple of shell’s worth back for a special supper any day of the week.

Ingredients

• 6 scallop shells
• 18 scallops o 24 if very small, roes or corals removed
• 100g fresh breadcrumbs
• 6 teaspoons butter
• 1 lime, cut for squeezing
• 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic oil
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 250c/gas mark 9 (you need a really hot oven). Rinse and dry the scallop shells and arrange them on a baking sheet.

2. Put the scallops in a bowl and sprinkle the breadcrumbs over them. Toss them around to get each one well coated in crumbs.

3. Put 3 breaded scallops into each shell and sprinkle with any leftover breadcrumbs that remain in the bottom of the bowl.

4. Add 1 teaspoon of butter on top of each scallop filled shell, a squirt of lime juice, 1/4 teaspoon of garlic oil and salt and pepper to taste.

5. Put the scallops in the oven for 15-20 minutes-you really want the breadcrumbs to be crispy and the butter turning black around the edges of the shell.

P.S. I found that these really benefited from a liberal dousing of fresh lime juice just before eating

Recipe from Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson

Chocolate cups in 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup whole milk
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• Pinch salt
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 Tbsp. hazelnut liqueur or dark rum
• 4 demitasse cups
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• Mint sprigs, for garnish, optional

When planning your menu, make this dessert first to allow these chocolate cups to set and chill.

1. Heat milk in a small pan over moderate heat until it comes to a boil. In blender or food processor combine egg, sugar, a pinch of salt, semisweet chips and liqueur. Run processor or turn on blender to low setting. Pour in boiling milk in a slow stream. The hot milk will cook the egg and melt the chocolate. Process or blend 1 minute, until smooth.

2. Spoon chocolate into 4 demitasse cups and chill. After dinner, beat cream until soft peaks form. Add a little sugar and beat to combine. Top the chocolate cups with a dollop of cream and garnish each cup with mint sprigs. Place cups on saucers and serve with demitasse spoons.

If you use teacups, this recipe will yield 2 cups, rather than 4.

Recipe by Rachael Ray

I love the idea of edible Christmas tree decorations and the fact that I happen to like gingerbread is an added bonus. Last year I bought some chocolate Christmas tree decorations but thought that I’d try my hand at making some gingerbread this year.

I had some major issues with the original recipe, the amount of flour that they specified (2.5 cups) was not enough to make a dough that was kneadable so I had to add more in order to make it so. This recipe is for the crisp, not chewy gingerbread although apparently if you cook it for less time (closer to 7 minutes than 10) then it turns out chewy. It is also a fairly mild tasting gingerbread so you could certainly up the ground ginger content or grate some fresh ginger if a stronger hit is desired.

This is my first foray into using royal icing and I am painfully aware that it shows. Seemingly I have no dexterity when it comes to icing gingerbread despite the fact that I can ice and decorate cupcakes just fine. The amount of royal icing that this makes is quite a lot-enough for you to use to cover the cookies and pipe them in a myriad of shades although I used pre bought cake icing pens as I don’t have any disposable piping bags and they’re much easier to deal with. The recipe didn’t say so but I found the royal icing much easier to use a while after it was made, it was simply too runny otherwise, certainly far too runny to pipe with when first made. Oh and whatever you do, do wait til the icing sets, it does take a while, but any nicks or smudges are hard to get out. Go wild with the colours, the more colours the better I thought and silver cachous are fabulous although I just happened to run out of them much to my chagrin. ..

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