Chocolate Bread and Butter Pudding with Honey Roasted Pears

This one is for you Ella! This recipe is from Cuisine Magazine, September 2005 Issue 112 Page 90.

For the Pears
3 firm Beurre Bosc pears sliced lengthways to 1cm thickness and cores removed.
3 Tablespoons liquid honey
4 Tablespoons brown sugar
Seeds from 1/2 a vanilla bean

Preheat oven to 190 degrees. Combine all ingredients in an ovenproof dish and mix well. Bake for 30-45 minutes until the pears are starting to caramelise. Allow to cool before using.

For the Pudding
3 tablespoons butter
4 croissants sliced into 2cm slices
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
3/4 cup of 70% cocoa chocolate, chopped
3 eggs
2 tablespoons castor sugar
3 tablespoons brown sugar
cream or marscapone to serve

Preheat oven to 160 degrees. Grease a 2 litre pudding dish or similar with the butter. Press down a layer of croissant, then a layer of pears, a sprinkling of cinnamon, followed by a layer of chocolate. Repeat until all ingredients are used up, ending with a croissant layer and sprinkling of chocolate. Whisk eggs, cream and sugar together and pour mixture over pudding and press down on croissants so that they absorb some of the liquid. Allow to sit for half and hour. Sprinkle with brown sugar and bake for 45-60minutes until the liquid has been absorbed. Cool for 20 minutes before serving.

Quick and Easy Dhal

I made this for a quick dinner on Sunday - we ate it like soup with bread. Should probably have got some Naan! I made this using patak's so its not that authentic.

1/4 jar Patak's Korma paste
1 Onion
1 400g tin of chopped tomatos
1 cup of Red Lentils
1/4 teaspoon chilli powder
Water

Fry the onion and curry paste until onion is soft. Add lentils, chilli powder and tomatos and 1 1/2 tomato tins of water. Stir and simmer for half an hour until lentils soft. Put it through the blender and serve.