Good old honey, with its many varieties, is a staple household ingredient produced all over Otago.
It’s something that has always been in the pantry since my childhood, we often know our suppliers by name and it’s a great natural sweetener collected on our back door.
Often known as a “condiment” that has traditionally been used predominantly as a spread on toast, which I am absolutely a big fan of, it has so many more uses in all cooking. Whether it’s to sweeten homemade granola and hot drinks or to caramelise carrots and parsnips for dinner, the list goes on.
And rather than having five different sweetener options in the pantry that may not get used very often, I like to use honey in various ways.
Here, we are making pancakes for brunch, bliss balls for snacks, and roasting pears in honey for salads.
For recipes calling for other sweeteners like white sugar or brown sugar to balance flavours or take off the bite of acidity, I like to use a spoonful of honey instead.
Apricot, almond & honey balls
A great and healthy snack while out on adventures, a work morning tea or a sweet treat with a cuppa after dinner. It is gluten free, dairy free, refined sugar free.
MAKES 15 BALLS
1½ cups almonds
1 cup coconut thread
½ cup dried apricots
4 Tbsp coconut oil, melted
2 Tbsp runny honey
½ tsp vanilla bean paste
Pinch sea salt
2 Tbsp hot water
Method
Using a food processor add almonds, coconut and apricots, blend for 2 minutes until mixture resembles a fine crumb.
Add remaining ingredients and blend for 3 minutes, scraping the sides down often until a sticky dough is formed.
Blending for this long will bring the mixture together without needing to add more liquids as it allows the oils from the nuts and coconut to release to form the dough sticky.
Using a tablespoon, spoon out dough and roll with your palms to create a round ball. Mixture will make 15 good-sized balls or 25 small balls.
Refrigerate balls to allow them to become firmer. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for 10 days or in the freezer for 2 months.
Note: Dried pitted dates are also a great alternative to dried apricots.
3 Winter Nelis pears
6 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp runny honey
6 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
400g green beans, stalks removed
4 shallots, skins removed
100g goats feta
40g toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped
Large handful of greens - rocket or parsley (roughly chopped)
Sea salt, to season
Preheat the oven to 180degC.
Cut pears into quarters, remove core and slice each quarter again into quarters longways. Place pears in a medium bowl and toss with 2 Tbsp olive oil, 1 Tbsp honey and 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar to evenly coat pears.
Using a parchment lined baking tray, scatter pears on the tray, evenly spaced out so they have room to caramelise. Place in the oven for 35 minutes, flip pears after 20 minutes to evenly colour. Once cooked, remove from the oven to cool in the tray.
Meanwhile, for the sticky shallot dressing; place a large pan on medium-low heat. Slice the shallots in half long-ways and finely slice each shallot. Add 2 Tbsp oil to the pan and fry off shallots for 20 minutes, stirring often so they don’t burn and evenly caramelise. Add 3 Tbsp apple cider vinegar, 2 Tbsp honey and ¼ tsp of sea salt to the shallots, stir for 1 minute until the liquid has evaporated and shallots are sticky and caramelised, remove from heat to cool.
Place a large pan on medium-high heat, once hot add 1 Tbsp olive oil and fry green beans for 5 minutes. Add a dash of water to help cook the beans and toss them every 30 seconds with tongs, season with a good pinch of sea salt. Remove beans from the pan and transfer to a medium bowl to cool.
Using a small bowl and a fork whisk together 2 Tbsp olive oil, 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp grainy mustard and a good pinch of salt. Mix in half of the sticky shallots, this will be your dressing.
To assemble the salad, add to the bowl with green beans, the roasted pears, chopped hazelnuts, parsley or rocket, goats feta roughly crumbled and the shallot dressing, lightly toss together and place salad in the centre of a salad plate, heap the salad in a dome like shape and finally dollop the remaining sticky shallots on top of the salad.
SERVES 3-4
Pancakes:
2 large bananas, peeled
3 free-range eggs
1½ cup oats
1½ tsp baking powder
Light olive oil or coconut oil for cooking
Honey coconut crunch:
1 Tbsp coconut oil
1/3 cup coconut chips
1/3 cup almonds, roughly chopped
1 Tbsp honey
2 sprigs fresh thyme, roughly chopped
2 tsp vanilla extract
Roasted blueberries
2 cups blueberries, frozen and thawed or fresh
1 tbsp honey
Zest of ½ orange
1½ cups Greek yoghurt or coconut yoghurt
Extra honey for serving
Method
Blueberries:
Preheat the oven to 180degC.
Place blueberries, honey and orange zest into a small roasting dish. Roast in the oven for 15 minutes, stirring the berries halfway through to evenly coat in hot honey. Once roasted, remove from the oven and allow to cool.
Honey coconut crunch:
Using a small bowl, mix together all coconut crunch ingredients and transfer to a lined baking tray. Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown in colour, allow to cool for 20 minutes, it will crisp up once cool.
Yoghurt:
Place yoghurt in a small bowl, add half of the blueberries to the yoghurt and fold in with only 3 movements. You don’t want the blueberries to be fully combined.
Pancakes:
Place all ingredients except oil into a blender and blend for 1 minute until well combined and slightly aerated.
Place a large pan on medium heat, once hot grease the pan with 1 tbsp oil, pour some of the mixture into 3 small pancakes, cook until the pancakes start to slightly bubble in the centre (1-1½ mins), flip and cook for another minute.
Repeat with remaining batter, greasing pan between batches.
Assemble:
Stack two pancakes on each plate then dollop a spoonful of yoghurt in the middle of each pancake stack.
Place another pancake on top of each stack and dollop another spoonful of yoghurt on top.
Divide roasted blueberries between all plates, scattering them on top of the yoghurt and some around the pancakes.
Sprinkle a small handful of honey coconut crunch on top of each pancake stack. Drizzle with extra honey if needed.
