A comforting autumnal Dark Chocolate, Pear, and Pistachio Cake, served with drizzlings of chocolate ganache and honey caramelised pears.  Jump to Recipe 

These two weeks off university are flying by, much faster than normal lecture-filled weeks seem to, and I feel like I really have not accomplished much. Besides a couple of brunch missions, a bit of catch up uni work, and extra clinical skills tutorials yesterday, I really don’t know where my time is going. Then again, maybe that is just what a break is meant to be. I just wish I had good kitchen access to make some of the beautiful recipes I have seen on other blogs lately! These Greek Chicken Souvlaki from Erin Made This, this Feijoa & Pear Anzac Crumble from From The Kitchen, and this Lavender Honey & Raspberry Rhubarb Galette by Half Baked Harvest are particularly tempting..

Anyway, today I have another recipe for you chocolate lovers out there. Rich and dense but not your standard chocolate cake, this recipe is a winner: dark chocolate, pear, and pistachio cake, served with drizzlings of chocolate ganache and honey caramelised pears.

I first made it sometime last year for a birthday, then again over Easter when we were in Queenstown. The crisp autumnal mornings and evenings and rusty yellowing and orange leaves covering the ground seemed fitting for this cake: comforting, rich chocolate batter with both grated and larger tender chunks of pears adding moisture and texture and the coarsely crumbed pistachios adding a hint of nuttiness, topped with silky lashings of ganache and sliced pears slowly caramelised with manuka honey and butter. Perfect served with vanilla ice cream or greek yogurt to offset the chocolately sweetness.

From the Queenstown experience, I refined the recipe and photographed it in Auckland in the couple of hours before I left for the airport back to Melbourne, using a smaller sized cake tin, drizzling the ganache rather than covering the whole cake, and adding grated pear to the mix. Too much ganache can overwhelm the pear and pistachio flavours that add depth to the cake, so I found that a bit of artful (or random!) drizzling with the end of a fork gave just the right amount.

Looking back at photos like this does make me miss my kitchen in Auckland!  This recipe is adapted from The Gourmet Traveller and the Little and Friday Celebrations cookbook.

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Harvest pear, beetroot and walnut salad with barbecued lamb – caramelised vegetables tossed with goats cheese, basil pesto dressing and served with ciabatta.  Jump to Recipe 

Last time I sat on a plane, it was a week ago and I was hurriedly finishing off this chocolate date brownie post on my way to Queenstown. That week went way too fast. This time, I am heading back to Melbourne, ready (hopefully!) for a busy few weeks of exams and assignments. (Actually, this now the day after- but the bulk of this was written on the plane!). Queenstown was amazing: I had never been there in autumn before, and the spectrum of yellows, red and oranges against the backdrop of the mountain and lakes was incredible. Google ‘Queenstown autumn’ for pictures that do the landscape much more justice than those that I took. Although my brothers did a lot of extreme mountain biking (including a terrifying descent straight down Coronet Peak, with a broken wrist achieved along the way), Mum and I stuck to biking the more leisurely trails between Queenstown and Arrowtown, going for morning runs (jogs) around Lake Hayes, sitting outside gorgeous cafes (thank you, Provisions and Vudu Larder), and doing lots and lots of cooking. That last part was mainly me. Actually, make that all me. I think we were probably some of the first people staying at Millbrook to cook in more than eat out and actually do some baking there!

This harvest beetroot, pear and walnut salad with barbecued lamb is one of my all time favourites. Deep red beetroot, juicy pears and red onions are roasted and caramelised before being tossed with greens, toasted walnuts, and a pesto dressing and topped with goats cheese. Serve with grilled lamb and toasted croutons for a supremely delicious, very autumnal, and healthy meal. And easy, too. It is (barely) adapted from a old Annabel Langbein recipe.

Just backtracking slightly: goats cheese. I am really not a cheese person, having shied away from it through my entire 18 years. However, many of the cafe smashed avocados I have been loving recently have contained a white, creamy sprinkle of cheese (which I have always assumed to be feta) – which occasionally I have devoured, but mostly ended up surreptitiously shoving larger chunks towards the side of my plate. Until this week, I had never known or given much thought to what the difference was. But guess what!! I have come to the mind-blowing realisation (well, for me, anyway) that it is the sharp, salty flavour of feta that I do not like, and in fact, the subtle tang of crumbly goat’s cheese is totally to-die-for!

In NZ we have bought the Puhoi Valley Goat’s Cheese (delicious, but unfortunately a bit expensive for the student budget), and I know that in Melbourne I have enjoyed Meredith’s goats cheese at a couple of cafes – so look out for those. Anyway, for me that was a huge deal: I no longer have to occasionally branch out and buy feta, hoping it will be the one, and then be disappointed – I will be heading straight to the goats cheese. The difference between the two is that feta has to be at least 70% sheeps milk, and needs to be aged at least 3 months according to EU regulations, though in Australia ‘feta’ is often made using cow’s milk too. Goats cheese is 100% goats milk, and, interestingly, is much higher in protein. But in terms of taste, does anyone else have this preference for goat’s cheese over regular feta? I would be interested to hear.

The point of that little tangent was that this salad goes with goats cheese perfectly. The combination of  balsamic, pear, beetroot, pesto, and crusty warm olive oily bread is SO so good.

The next few weeks will be pretty quiet in terms of blogging, with exams and assignments coming out my ears, but I DO have a lot of awesome recipes photographed and stocked up from my week off that I will try to get up for you! Think passionfruit pavlovas, vietnamese grilled chicken burgers, salted caramel chocolate brownie…..

But first, here is this harvest beetroot, pear, and walnut salad: enjoy.

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