Honey baked figs and pears with orange and cardomom

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Figgy pudding

I made this for dessert after following the mushroom soup and squid pasta, it was nice and light after all that food! I really just made this up on the spot, the cardamom really worked well with the orange and made a kind of syrup which was delicious. Also I served it with 'Rachel's' organic vanilla yoghurt. The vanilla really complimented with the other flavours so I would recommend serving it with vanilla flavoured yoghurt or icecream.

Ingredients (serves 4)

4 fresh figs

4 small comice pears

3-4 tbsps honey

Juice of 1 large orange

1 small wine glass sweet white wine

6 cardamom pods

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 220c. Cut the fruit in half from stem to bottom and remove the cores from the pears. Arrange the fruit on a baking tray and drizzle with the honey. Ope the cardamom pods, remove the balck seeds and sprinkle them over the fruit. Sprinkle the cinnamon over too. Then add the juice and wine to the baking tray. Bake for about half an hour or until the fruit is soft. Check regularly through cooking to make sure that the liquid does not dry out. Top up with more juice or wine if neccessary.

Serve drizzled with the syrup and, as i mentioned above, I think it would be important to serve this with something vanilla. Rachel's organic yoghurt is AMAZING with this.

Roast Pear & Parsnip Soup

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The Bare Necessities

My sister in law Jessica is the healthiest person I know. She's a veggie who rarely indulges in sugar, wheat or dairy and as a result she is never sick, has a figure that I would kill for and perfect, skin, hair, teeth etc etc. Her two year old has never had a cold or any other ailment in her life. Go figure...
 

Anyway, Jessica is also a great cook and over the years has become adept at making delicious recipes with none of the naughty stuff included, but you would hardly know. I'm talking baked goods here, chocolate brownies, muffins and the like with no sugar wheat or dairy but still amazingly light and delish. (I'm angling for a guest blog from her some time soon!). I was telling her about our vegetable box and the fact that we had a surplus of parsnips, and she suggested I try making pear and parsnip soup. So I did, and here is my version of what sounds like a strange combination... its pretty sweet but if you don't eat any refined sugar I guess it could be a nice treat if you have a sweet craving. In typical me - style, I ate it with toast slathered in butter and melted cheese, which kind of defeats the purpose of such a healthy, satisfying and filling soup.
 

Ingredients

1 onion
6-8 parsnips
1 pear
1 ltr veg stock 

salt & pepper

Cut up the onion into 8ths, peel the parsnips and cut them lengthwise into quarters and then cut these quarters in half. Cut the pear in half and remove the core. Place everything on a roasting tray and drizzle with olive oil. Roast in a hot oven for about 3/4 of an hour until the parsnips are soft all the way through.

Transfer to a large saucepan and add the hot stock. Using a stick blender, whizz everything together until smooth. If you think it's too thick, add more stock. Season to taste.

Reheat and serve!