Salted chocolate caramel slice

I've been meaning to experiment with an old fashioned caramel slice recipe, here's my twist on the Aussie classic.

Base:


-  220g plain flour
-  165g chopped butter
-  80g caster sugar

Caramel filling:


-  1 tin condensed milk
-  120g butter
-  2 tbs golden syrup

Topping:


-  200g dark chocolate
-  100g milk chocolatee

Pre heat oven to 190C and line the base of a slice pan with baking paper (no grease).  Put the base ingredients into a food processor and pulse until it resembles breadcrumbs, press firmly into the bottom of the pan and bake for about 15 minutes.  Cool.

Put the caramel filling ingredients into a pan and melt, bring to a low simmer for a few minutes.  Be careful as you don't want it to burn - it can catch easily on the bottom of the pan.  Pour over the base.  Cool and refrigerate for an hour or two.

Melt chocolates together.  I just break it up and put it in a bowl in the microwave on low heat for 5 minutes.  Check it every minute and stir so it doesn't burn.  Pour over the caramel and spread with a spatula.  At this point I sprinkled over some pink Murray River sea salt.

Cool and refrigerate for 30 mins, then cut with a hot knife.  The salt really brings out the flavour of both the caramel and the chocolate.  I think salt is something our grandmothers secretly knew added to the flavour of sweet food, hence the use of salted butter and adding a pinch of salt to most old fashioned baking recipes.

Garlicky "green" soup

Husband T is feeling under the weather, suffering the effects of a terrible 'man flu'.  To be fair, he has actually been pretty sick - something he really struggles with being such an outdoorsy person.  A fair test of the severity of any illness affecting T, is whether he can bring himself to potter around the garden.  Four days and counting, he was still curled up on the couch on Saturday morning.

This was a rare weekend when I had no plans, so I determined to make him a very healing winter soup.  He's not such a fan of the watery varieties though, which rules out my favourite Chinese chicken soup recipe.  But he does love broccoli.  And garlic.  Both of which happen to be in season.

Garlicky green soup (man flu remedy):

• Two heads of roughly chopped broccoli
• Half  a bulb of garlic (about 6 cloves) - peeled and chopped
• Two celery stalks
• One chopped brown onion
• 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• 2 cups water
• 150ml cream (or milk)
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 20g butter

In a big pot, melt butter and add olive oil, onions, garlic and celery.  Saute until softened, then add broccoli, stock and water.  

Make sure there is just enough liquid to cover the broccoli - if not, add a little more.  Simmer until broccoli is cooked through, then cool slightly.  Use a stick blender to blend until smooth, then add cream or milk.  Season with white pepper - it shouldn't need salt as the garlic should give it enough flavour.