lactose-free bread and butter pudding

Ingredients:

- one loaf of fruit bread
- one 300ml tub of lactose-free yoghurt
- 500ml soy milk
- several apricots (/fruit of your choice)
- some apricot jam (/jam of your choice)
- two eggs
- 1/4 cup sugar
- around 0.5-1 tsp cinnamon
- around 0.5-1 tsp ginger
- around 0.5-1 tsp nutmeg
- nutellex butter-type stuff
- misc dried fruits

Method
1. Grease a deep casserole dish with butter.

2. Butter up a couple of slices of fruit bread, spread jam on one of the slices then make a sandwich out of the slices. Butter the top of the sandwich (so one slice is buttered on both sides), then halve the sandwich (triangles are nice!). Arrange the triangles in your dish so that the crusts will become deliciously crunchy (do not remove crusts!), and repeat for as much of the loaf as you have room.

3. Cut up the apricots and distribute amongst the fruit bread - try and poke the fruit down amongst the bread, as if it is too close to the top of the dish it will burn and not be particularly pleasant. Add dried fruit if you want too.

4. Combine milk, sugar, eggs, and yoghurt in a mixing bowl. Add spices to taste. Pour all over the bread.

5. Leave to soak through for a while - 30 mins - 1 hour - until the liquid has soaked through the whole lot and the liquid level has gone down. Make up more yoghurt-milk-sugar-spice mix (no need for more eggs) if you need more liquid in the dish. Sprinkle some more sugar over the pudding before it goes into the oven.

6. When soaked through, place dish in a medium oven, and let the bastard cook until it is looking delicious, all liquid has been cooked, and the crusts are rather crunchy. [Sidenote - if the top is getting burnt faster than the middle is cooking (i.e. it's still liquid), cover it with foil and put it back in the oven]. The pudding, being made with yoghurt rather than cream, will still be quite light and springy when cooked.

Red Bean Pancakes

Red bean paste:
* can of red beans
* up to 1/2 cup of sugar
* some water

1. blender up the beans with the sugar and some water. I think 1/2 cup is too much sugar.
2. "fry" the bean mix, stirring continuously, until it's more of a thick paste and has darkened in colour.

pancakes:
* 2 cups of flour (plain or self raising, depending on how fluffy you want the pancakes)
* up to 1/3 cup of sugar
* 1 egg
* enough water to get it to a good consistency
* butter/light oil for frying

1. blender up the flour, egg, sugar, and water until you've got a nice pancake mixture.
2. cook up some pancakes.
3. spread some bean paste over half the pancake, then roll up the pancake, making sure the mixture is evenly spread. seal the roll with a little uncooked pancake mixture.
4. in a little butter, place the rolled up pancakes in the pan and fry until it starts to brown.
5. eat!

Nacho nacho man

superduper lots of nacho mix for when you're feeling tired and in need of irons.

bits:
* 500g of beef mince (or more if your'e feeling particularly meaty - just use less vegetable or elseyou'll have nachos for a month)
* one small zucchini (or half a big one)
* one small - medium sized capsicum (doesn't matter what colour)
* one onion
* two or three tomatoes or one tin of diced tomatos
* one or two tins of three or four bean mix, depending on just how big and beany you want it
* some tomato paste
* quarter teaspoon ground cinnamon
* half teaspoon ground nutmeg
* tablespoon of cumin powder (i think...you need a fair bit of cumin power)
* quarter - half a teaspoon of paprika
* as much cayenne pepper and/or chili as you're into
* half a teaspoon of dried oregano is also nice sometimes
* quite a bit of parsley - helps mute the digestory effects of the onion and beans, and it won't alter the taste too much
* bit of oil
* condiments - salsa, jalapenos, sour cream, cheese, refried beans, whatever

rules:
1. cut up the onion into smallish pieces - pretty much however big you want the onion to be when you find it in the final product.
2. start sweating the onions in a little oil in a big pot (soup pot or the like). when about half done, chuck in the mince and turn the burner down to medium low so that you can go off and do other things and it doesn't burn. stir it around a bit to loosen the mince up.
3. dice one tomato into quite small bits and stir it into the onion meat mix. by now, there should be a bit of juice happening in the pot.
4. start putting the spices in. you can alter the amounts, cuz it'll start smelling super good right about now, so you'll know when you've hit the right combination. be very sparing with the cinnamon though, otherwise it turns into nacho doughnuts.
5. cut up the res tof the tomatoes, zucchini, capsicum, mushrooms, and any other vegetables you've decided to add. cut 'em up pretty small.
6. when you can't see any pink in the meat, you can start adding more stuff. add the tomato paste (like, a table spoon and a half? one or two scoops, anyway) and remaining tomatoes, then add the zucchini first, then the capsicum. hold off on the mushrooms for now.
7. drain and wash the beans. add them around the same time as the zucchini and capsicum. stir it all about, cuz it's getting to the stage where it'll start wanting to catch on the bottom.
8. turn the heat up as far as you can handle it. if you're going to wander off and do other things, keep it down to simmer by itself. if you're going to stare at it and stir it, you can turn it right up. just make sure it's not burning on the bottom.
9. when it's looking just about ready, chuck the mushrooms in (and chopped parsley, if you're using fresh rather than dried parsley). keep cooking and stirring until the mushrooms are done enough for you.
10. serve with corn chips, cheese, salsa, jalapeno chilis, and sour cream. good with beer and british comedy.