Maple Roasted Potkins & Lemon Butter

May 14, 2012 by lisa @ tofudie

I had a very pleasant weekend in the country with my family picking citrus fruits, riding horses, eating a vegetarian counter meal at the local pub and attending my primary school centenary celebration.  It was a wonderful way to spend the Mother’s Day weekend (which I was lucky enough to spend with my Mum and my daughters) and I picked up a few little home-grown goodies while I was there.

A few posts back I wrote about the cute little fruit and veg honesty boxes that you find scattered along the sides of the road in the country.  Well, let me tell you how very excited I was on the drive home when I spotted a mountain of potkins and pumpkins waiting ever so patiently on the side of the road for someone to take them home – me!  We quickly pulled over and my Mum and I jumped out of the car, popped our $6 each into the little money tin and grabbed ourselves couple of potkins (little pumpkins that taste like a cross between a pumpkin and potato) and a pumpkin each to add to our citrus haul (collected earlier that weekend).  I couldn’t wait to get home and into the kitchen to start cooking.

In this week’s post I have included two recipes, one for maple roasted potkins and another (which is my Nanna’s recipe) for lemon butter, made with the fresh lemons I picked from her garden over the weekend.  Lemon butter is delicious on toast with a hot cup of tea or baked in mini tart shells and served with whipped cream.

Maple Roasted Potkins

To make 3-4 delicious serves:

• 1-2 potkins
• ¼ cup maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Cracked pepper & sea salt
• 1 tablespoon each of maple syrup & melted butter to serve

Preheat oven to 180°c.  Peel and cut potkins, discard seeds, leave skin on.  Place potkins and all other ingredients (leaving out only the syrup and butter to serve) into a large mixing bowl and toss to coat.  Place on oven tray and bake for 45-50 minutes until golden.  Remove from oven and brush with melted butter and maple syrup before serving.

Lemon Butter

• ¾ cup sugar
• Juice and rind of 2 lemons
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 eggs

Place all ingredients into a glass bowl and whisk well.  Bring a saucepan of water to the boil on the stove, reduce to a simmer and sit glass bowl on top (just as you would when melting chocolate).  Alternatively you can use a double boiler.  Heat mixture until it thickens (this will take 15-20 minutes) stirring occassionly.  Once mixture has thickened allow to cool slightly before pouring into an airtight jar.  Store in the fridge for up to two weeks.