Sweet & Sour Sauce

If there’s one recipe you have in your collection, it has to be this one. This recipe was given to me by an online friend years ago (hi Lyn if you’re around) and it the best and easiest Sweet & Sour sauce recipe I’ve ever tried. Its made using basic pantry ingredients and is a cinch.

You can serve it without any pineapple or vegetables and use it as a dipping sauce for chicken, fish, meatballs etc when you’re entertaining or add any vegetables and pineapple with the meat of your choice for a quick, easy mid week meal.

Sweet & Sour Sauce

• 1 tbs cornflour
• 4 tbs juice (I used the pineapple juice from the canned pineapple but have used normal orange juice before)
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 2 tbs sugar
• 2 tbs tomato sauce
• 200ml chicken or vegetable stock

• Vegetables of your choice, eg onions, carrots, capsicum (bell peppers), beans, peas, zucchini
• Fresh or canned pineapple

1. Combine juice and cornflour.
2. Add to a saucepan with vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, tomato sauce and stock. 
3. Stir until thickened.
4. You can par-cook vegetables you’re adding but I just add them to the sauce straight away and as the sauce thickens the vegetables get cooked. (I prefer them a little crunchy anyway.)
5. Add pineapple and heat through.
6. Serve with meat of your choice and rice. (Tonight mine was sausages which is actually pretty tasty but it’s perfect with fish, chicken, pork or beef.)

{Sour} Pineapple Pudding Cake

You’ve heard the saying “if life gives you lemons, make lemonade”? Well, if life gives you a sour (or tart) pineapple, make this pudding cake. While I was out with my Aunt on the weekend, I was explaining how it’s disappointing when you pick a pineapple and it’s sour. My son and I love pineapple and eat it quite often, especially in the warmer months, but get disappointed when it’s sour and nearly inedible.

My Aunt told me about a recipe that my Nanna (her Mum) would make all the time when the pineapples were a little tart. Just grate the pineapple, put it in a baking dish, top with a sprinkling of brown sugar and then a basic cake mixture and bake until brown. Serve with cream or ice cream.

It took me all of 5 minutes while I was getting dinner ready. I didn’t think much of it when I pulled it out of the oven. It looked pretty bland. I thought I’d just try a corner bit (like I usually do) and OH. EM. GEE! I have never tasted a pudding/cake/dessert as nice as this. I called my son straight away to taste it and he gave a big thumbs up. I never saw him eat his dinner so quickly just so he could have dessert.

It was like a self saucing pudding, with a light, sweet smooth pineapple bottom. I just used a vanilla cake box mix I found in the cupboard left over from the big birthday cake bake-off that happens every November but you could use any basic cake recipe. I think the No Fuss Fudge Cake recipe I use all the time would be perfect for this. I know it’ll be too hot for puddings soon but I might have to make an allowance for this. This was just gorgeous! Thanks Aunty!

Pineapple Pudding Cake

• fresh pineapple, grated
• enough brown sugar to sprinkle lightly on top of pineapple
• vanilla cake box mix (I used half the cake batter as I only had a small amount of pineapple left) or basic sponge or cake recipe

1. Grease a baking dish or cake tin to suitable to hold the amount of pineapple you have.
2. Sprinkle lightly with brown sugar.
3. Top with cake batter and bake until cooked through and browned on top.