lasagne sheets
500g chopped pumpkin
olive oil
medium onion, chopped
clove garlic, crushed
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
1/3 cup tomato paste
3/4 cup mozarella cheese, grated
1/2 cup tasty cheese, grated

Cook & mash pumpkin. Add olive oil, onion and garlic. Place a layer of pumpkin, lasagne sheets, half the ricotta… Then lasagne sheets, tomato paste, etc, etc until ingredients are used up and dish is topped with cheese.

Bake at 180 degrees C for around 35 minutes or until pasta sheets are cooked through.

*Tip* Frozen pumpkin, cooked and mashed when in season, is fine for this recipe too!

900g pumpkin, sliced thinly
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbspn olive oil
6 eggs
1/2 cup cream
40g spinach leaves
sprinkle of parmesan & grated cheddar

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Bake pumpkin, brushed with oil and garlic, till tender. Line baking dish with paper. Whisk eggs and cream and season. Layer ingredients in dish & bake for 25 minutes.

250g butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed pumpkin
2 cups wholemeal flour + 1 tsp baking powder
250g mixed fruit of your choice, diced

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and beat well one at a time. Add the pumpkin, flour with baking powder and fruit. Mix well and bake at 170 degrees C or until brown on top and inserted skewer comes out clean.

*Tip*  At harvest time, boil or steam pumpkin, mash and freeze in 1-cup portions in the freezer. Then you have pumpkin for this cake (and other recipes) for months to come.

To celebrate our beautiful Autumn days, I’ve put together a prize pack!  To enter, you need to order from Spiral Garden.  The order must be over $40.00, not including postage, and received before Friday 1st May, 2009.

The prize pack includes: Autumn cotton playcloth, beeswax candle, nut baby, Farm Yard Friends Snap Cards, Sarah Laidlaw Autumn card, red medium main lesson book, Spiral Garden magnet, The Nature Corner by M v Leeuwen & J Moeskops and Lono & Coco Boato by Susan Whitehead, posted to winner’s Australian address.  Prize drawn and posted Friday 1st May, 2009.

Total value approximately $100.00.

Terms and Conditions can be found here

Good Luck and happy Autumn Equinox to you and yours!

I’ve been attempting my Buy Sustainably Challenge challenge for nearly three months now.  It’s taken me ages to get around to an update.

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I first saw this one on Simple Savings and this is our variation.  My daughter tried it last week for the WOW factor and the kids voted it as “delicious!”

4 tablespoons flour

3 tablespoons rapadura sugar

2 tablespoons organic cocoa

1 large egg, beaten

3 tablespoons milk

3 tablespoons sunflower oil

small splash natural vanilla extract

1 large coffee mug

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well.  Add the egg and mix thoroughly.  Pour in the milk, vanilla and oil, mixing again.  Put your mug into the microwave and cook on High for 3 minutes.  The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but that’s fine!  Allow to cool a little and top out onto a plate to serve.  Cream or ice-cream are optional.  It’s moist enough on its own.

Not healthy, but delish!

1/2 cup organic cocoa powder

450g icing sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup dessicated coconut

Mix cocoa and icing sugar in a microwave safe dish.  Slice butter on top.  Pour milk over but do no mix.  Cover and cook on High for 2 minutes.

Add vanilla and coconut, stir well to combine.

Pour into a greased 18cm square pan.  Chill for one hour and cut into squares.  Keep refrigerated.

3 eggs, beaten

180g raw sugar

250g dessicated coconut

Mix ingredients together in a bowl.  Form into balls about 2cm in diameter and place onto 2 greased trays.  Bake at around 180 degrees C until golden brown.  Enjoy!

I’ve been making this for over 10 years.  I’m not sure if it was a Jackie French recipe I first used, or another book or article…  I’m so grateful for this recipe as it has saved us thousands of dollars over the years, costing only 20c/L to make at current prices!  I found that when we went away to stay with family recently, some of us got mild skin irritations.  It could have been the soap, water or washing powders (I’m not sure).  But now we’re back to our rainwater, mild soap and “washing goop” the rashes are disappearing.

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