Menu Plan Monday - June 25

I've been flattened by a cold. So lots of comfort food this week (especially comforting when cooked by Ryan).
Satay Meatballs
Chickpea and Vegetable Soup
Sweet Potato Pizza
Bangers and mash
A something pie. Not sure what yet.

Sesame Date Muffins

These muffins were really good. Definitely one of my best muffin experiments so far! Just in time for the next round of Muffin Monday too! The theme for this round was a muffin and your favourite muffin-matching drink. I've been drinking a lot of apple tea and mint tea lately, so I concocted a muffin to match.

Sesame Date Muffins

1 Cup Self Raising flour

1 Cup Wholemeal Self Raising flour

small pinch ground cardamom

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

1/2 Cup milk

1/2 Cup cream (you could double the milk instead)

1 egg

1/3 Cup tahini *

3/4 Cup chopped dates

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease the muffin tins

2. Sift flour into a large bowl with the cardamom, then stir in the sugar.

3. In another bowl, mix the milk, cream, tahini and egg.

4. Combine wet and dry ingredients, and dates. Stir as little as possible to combine. Use a spoon to drop into muffin tins, sprinkling with sesame seeds if you have some. Bake for around 20 minutes or until golden.

I can't wait to see the other muffins at the round-up!

* tahini is sesame paste (like peanut butter, but not). if you have to substitute, canola oil with a tablespoon of sesame oil would probably work.

Lamb Cutlets and Fritteda

I finally cooked the fritteda! I didn't half the ingredients, so I made it up. I like this way of cooking vegetables though, so I'll probably do it more often.
Fritteda
2 small potatoes
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and squashed
300g of green beans
half a cauliflower
2 medium zucchinis
1/2 Cup frozen peas
a handful of mint leaves
Chop all the vegetables into around 1cm pieces. Heat some oil in a heavy based frying pan, then add the potato and garlic. Cook, stirring, until the potatoes are slightly browned. Add the green beans, cauliflower and 1/3 Cup of water. Simmer over a medium-low heat until the water is almost all gone (about 10 minutes). Add the zucchini and peas, and some more water if it needs it. Simmer for another 5 minutes, or until all the vegetables are tender. Stir in the mint, and serve.
Lamb Cutlets
Trim the cutlets, drizzle with lemon juice and set aside for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with cracked pepper. Grill (under the griller) for two or three minutes each side. Easy!

Basic Minestrone Recipe

This soup is so simple, I made it during CSI (and didn't mess it up). It's also very versatile - pick the veggies of your choice! So it's perfect for the Heart of the Matter #4, being hosted by Joanna. The challenge was for new ways with vegetables. I guess there isn't much new about minestrone, but it's quick, easy, tasty and comforting. So I thought I'd share it.

Basic Minestrone

2 Tbs olive oil

2 celery stalks

1 leek

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 carrot

3 small chat potatoes

2tsp tomato paste (salt reduced, for extra heart healthiness)

2 bay leaves (if you look closely at the picture, you'll see Ryan is about to eat one. oops!)

2 sprigs fresh oregano (any italian herbs will do, though - basil, thyme, anything)

6 Cups of stock - vegetable or chicken. (I used 2 cups of chicken, and the rest vegetable. Again, if worried about sodium, you could substitute water for some or all of the stock)

1 Can of cannellini beans

2 small zucchini

1 Cup frozen peas

Sprinkle of grated parmesan, to serve.

Chop all the vegetables finely. Heat the oil in a large saucepan, then saute all the hard veggies (leeks, garlic, carrot, potato, celery) until the leek is translucent. Add the tomato paste, herbs and stock and bring to the boil. Simmer until the potato is tender (around 20 minutes). Add beans and soft vegetables (peas and zucchini). Simmer for another 10 minutes. Serve with a sprinkle of freshly grated parmesan, and basil pita crisp.

Wholemeal Basil Pita Chips

1 Wholemeal Pita bread

Spray olive oil

Dried basil leaves.

Spray the pita with the olive oil, then sprinkle with the dried basil and pepper. Rip into pieces, then cook under the grill until crispy. Eat as soon as possible.

Menu Plan Monday - June 18

I'm still finding new and interesting recipes in my Delicious magazine. Here's the plan:
Minestrone
Lamb cutlets and fritteda
sang choy bau
chicken with Vietnamese caramel sauce
lentil salad
crispy bacon & cauliflower pasta

Happy Monday!

A very sweet husband

I was trying to explain to Ryan why I haven't posted much lately. First, I've been working a lot. So I get home and make faces at the computer, not wanting to go anywhere near it. Second, we've cooked a few things lately with very complicated recipes (like the pie from the cover of Delicious). They turn out ok, but I'm too lazy to type them up, and I worry about duplicating somebody else's hard work. Finally, most of the photoworthy food around here has been Ryan's creations, not mine. Ryan said that was silly, I could post about his stuff. So here is a selection of his recent endeavours:

Chocolate Dessert Cakes. Yummy, and fudgy, and I think I blogged about them already.

Then a chance conversation brought an urge to make souffle. Chocolate, of course.
At this point, I tried to exert a healthy influence, and opted for Apple Cobbler. But that just made Ryan feel like shortbread, with icecream and jam.

The next night, Ryan felt compelled to complete the biscuits, by making the caramel filling that the recipe suggested.

He forgot we'd already eaten 10 biscuits, so there was a lot of caramel left. Not wanting to waste it, he made caramel & cherry ripe tarts.

I think I've just realised why I've gained a kilo this month. Oh dear.

Experiments in cheese

Or, how not to make palak paneer.
I found an awesome site about cheesemaking, here, via simplesavings. It's a very cool site, and has explicit instructions on making many cheeses, including panir, which is an Indian cheese. One of Ryan's favourite Indian curries is Palak Paneer, or Saag Paneer, which is this cheese in a spinach sauce. So I got all excited, thinking we could make the cheese and then the curry and it would be GREAT!
This was a great lesson in following instructions. I used the wrong sort of pot, treated the measurements as guidelines only, and finally, decided the texture looked funny. I pressed the cheese, even though the recipe only said to hang it. My cheese turned out dry, with a vinegary after taste, and a 'squeaky' texture. If you've ever eaten unheated haloumi, you'll know what I mean. But anything covered in a good curry sauce tastes ok, doesn't it?
I had to find a recipe for the curry. I eventually found one where I recognised most of the ingredients (still not sure what methi leaves are). There was no way that I could quit at this stage, so even though I only had half the required spinach, I pressed on. Normally, the spinach sauce for this curry is almost pureed, and a very lurid green. But mine was really only slightly mashed, and the spinach shortage made for quite a yellow result (almost as much onion as spinach).
The end result was edible. Not much like Ryan's favourite, but we both ate it. That could have been politeness though. Ryan made chapatti's from scratch to go with the curry, and they were fairly experimental as well.

Menu Plan Monday - June 11

We went bushwalking this weekend (today was a holiday in most of Oz). This morning I was cooking over an open fire, making chapattis and scrambled eggs and tomatoes. Now I am home, and clean again, and I have to figure out what we're eating this week.
Here's a quick guess, based on what we didn't eat last week, and what's living in the freezer:
chilli bean soup
roast veggie couscous
yellow chicken curry
lamb cutlets and fritteda (I really am going to try it this week!)
spicy beef, olive, and caramelised onion pie (it's on the cover of delicious)
chicken and leek pasta bake (because Ryan won't let me cook any of the parsnip recipes in the new Donna Hay magazine)
I think that will do.
Now I'm going to sleep.
Good night! Happy Monday!

Ignoring my cookbooks

I've been neglecting my hardcopy recipe books lately, and trying some great recipes on the web. My menuplan this week was deliberately vague; I didn't know what sort of stew I wanted to make, I just knew I wanted to find one with lamb chops. And I found one on the ABC. It was pretty good, but a bit greasy. Next time I'll trim the chops a bit better.

Tonight's meal was a bit more spectacular. I had spaghetti and meatballs on the menu plan, but when I saw Bill Granger's Baked Meatballs with Tomato and Tamarind Sauce, I changed my mind. I actually followed the recipe to a T (even substituting lime juice for the tamarind, which I didn't have). I even made all the side dishes. Everything tasted good, but there was way too much rice.

Ryan just wandered in to ask what I wanted for dessert.

Happy Thursday!

Menu Plan Monday - June 4

Here's what we are eating this week :
Vegetarian Lasagne
Roast Veggie cous cous
Spaghetti and meatballs
A lamb chop stew
chicken curry & chickpea curry
chicken with butterbeans

Last week I got a challenge to menu plan for Pissed Off Housewife.
"Between them I need one meal to feed all that includes nothing with a mushy or lumpy consistency and nothing white. The rule is food must have a different consistency going down than it would coming back up. We eat a lot of chicken, lamb rice and fresh steamed veggies but I'm bored... And Adam won't eat "girly" food but he also won't give me a definition of "girly" food except to tell me that boys eat BBQ ribs."

I've been dreaming of summer food, so here's the boy-food-no-mushy-white-stuff plan:
Barbecue! That's gotta be boy-food. I'd go with recipe, or chickpea burgers, with lots of roast vegetables, and maybe this. Anything with tentacles is boy-food.
Chicken (or whatever) with Roast Vegetable Couscous – we eat variations on this a lot. This recipe doesn’t look too bad. You can add oven roasted chickpeas, or some toasted nuts for a bit more crunch.
Homemade pizza - I think this probably fits the boy-food label too, especially if they get to add their own toppings. And you can load them up with vegetables. And serve them with salad.
Spicy green beans and baby corn - with the curry protein of your choice. I can post the recipe if you think your kids will eat it. The short version is blanch the beans, sauté some onion, throw in spices, desiccated coconut and baby corn. Serve with lots of rice and poppadums. Poppadums in the microwave are great, because they puff all by themselves - which is an easy thing for the kids to do.
Chicken Parmigiana and Fritteda - I've only just discovered fritteda. It's an Italian dish with lots of green vegetables cooked with stock. I have a slightly different recipe to try, and I'll hopefully post about it later in the week.
Lamb Parcels – I thought this sounded pretty good too.

There’s also Freddie’s adventures at The Great Big Vegetable Challenge, if you still need some veggie inspiration. So let me know what you think!

The Best Chocolate Pudding Recipe

Ever.

Right now, I swear at the weather report. Because 12 Degrees is not a bloody maximum!!

Ryan just laughs at me, and starts making wintery desserts. This one, from Donna Hay's 'the instant cook', is the best one we've ever found. The book is worth it, just for this recipe and the bread and butter pudding.

My only advice for messing with this recipe: smaller servings are good, if you've eaten dinner. And don't over cook it - it's better fudgy.

chocolate dessert cakes

185g butter, melted

1 Cup caster sugar

1/3 Cup brown sugar

3 eggs

1 1/4 Cups plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 Cup cocoa

double cream to serve

Preheat the oven to 160 Degrees Celsius. Place the butter, sugars and eggs in a bowl and mix unti combined. Sift over the dry ingredients, and mix until combined. Place in 4 x 1Cup capacity coffee mugs (or whatever). Bake until 20 minutes or until fudgy. Serve warm or colded topped with the cream.

Oh, I forgot! These are also really awesome heated up in the microwave! They rise, and taste just as good as when they first came out of the oven. I might have to make some more...

Mushroom Wonton Soup

It is deep soup weather here. It was negatve 3 last night! Ice on the car, gloves on the hands. I needed hot, spicy comfort food. Anh at food lovers journey also has a beautiful soup recipe - and much prettier pictures than me.

The instructions for making wonton soup are here, thanks to taste magazine. I pretty much followed the wonton part, except I used chopped fresh shitake mushrooms instead of the pork mince. The recipe I want to share is the broth, which is equally good with dumplings, meatballs or wontons. Wonton's are fun though.

Simple Spicy Soup

1L Chicken Stock

2 big tablespoons of fresh grated ginger

Sliced shitake mushrooms

a pinch of chilli flakes

1 star anise

a splash of soy sauce

a splash of fish sauce

fresh coriander

There isn't much in the way of a method. Get the stock boiling, then turn down the heat to simmer. Add everything else, and let it simmer until the wontons are ready! I like boiling the wontons in a separate saucepan, because I like a LOT of wontons. I drain them, add them to bowls and then pour the soup over the top.

Menu Plan Monday - May 28

Still eating our way through our bulk lamb purchase. This week it's the roast. We are also using the three small butternuts that we bought last week, and oddly, forgot to eat.

Lamb Roast with lots of vegetables (including pumpkin).
Pumpkin and Feta Pasta
Souvlaki Wraps
Fish. I'm not sure how yet, but I'm sure there will be pumpkin.
Pizza. From scratch, of course. Maybe with pumpkin.
Quiche. Can you put pumpkin in quiche?
Chicken with Butter Beans

Happy Monday everybody!

Layered Shepherds Pie

I am one of those odd people that plans to have leftovers. Most of our leftovers go straight into lunch-size containers and into the freezer, so we never have to buy our lunch at work. Sometimes though, I plan leftovers to be eaten in another meal. Lamb roast becomes lamb fritters or Greek souvlaki wraps. Roast chicken becomes chicken risotto, which becomes arancini. (yum!)

For this Leftover Tuesday, it's a bit different. We bought a whole side of lamb a month ago. I made stock with the bits I couldn't identify, but I rescued all the meat that got boiled up. Sounds appetising, I know. But this meat is so tender, it deserved to be rescued. And Leftover Tuesday was a good excuse to use it. This recipe would work equally well with any leftover roast meat, or chicken, I think. I'm sorry it's such a loose recipe, but it doesn't really need a lot of measuring. Trust yourself!

Layered Shepherds Pie

Dried shittake mushrooms

An onion and a clove of garlic, diced

Left over meat, chopped as finely as you can

Tomato paste, soy sauce, vegetable stock powder (whatever seasonings you like, really)

Assorted root vegetables (I chose 4 small potatoes and a renegade beetroot. The beetroot had somehow escaped from being roasted earlier in the week)

Two big leaves of silverbeet (leftover from Ryan's spinach and ricotta

Milk and butter for the mash

Grated cheese

Boil the kettle and soak the mushrooms. Meanwhile, chop the potatoes (and beetroot) and put them on to boil. Heat some oil in a pan and add the onion and garlic, stirring until the onion is soft. Add the lamb, just to heat through. If you have any other vegetables to add, now is the time. Capsicum or tomato (finely diced) would be good.

When the stuff in the pan is all heated through, throw in the mushrooms with their soaking liquid. This is the base for the gravy, so add a tablespoon or so of tomato paste, a dash of soy sauce, and any other herbs or flavourings. Let it simmer for 10 minutes, then take it off the heat.

When the potatoes are soft, drain them and mash. Adding the beetroot made for a funky pink version, and added some depth of flavour. Chop the silverbeet finely and then steam it briefly (just until it darkens in colour slightly).

Finally put it all together - the meat at the bottom of a casserole dish, topped with the silverbeet, topped with the mash and then cheese on top. Heat in a medium oven until the cheese is melted. Enjoy!

Thanks for hosting this Pam!

Chilli Chocolate Muffins - Muffin Monday 3

We got pretty excited when the third Muffin Monday was announced. The first one had started an Iron Chef competition here. The second one resulted in very green Green Tea Muffins. This time we are going spicy!
Ryan and I decided to experiment with Chilli and Chocolate. The trick is making it spicy, without making it inedible. Chilli syrup seemed like a good starting point. And we were encouraged by Clotilde's Chocolate Chilli Bites. Ryan went first with a chocolate chip style muffin, but we weren't brave enough with the chilli's. Mine were much richer, with much more bite. We hope you enjoy!
Ryan's Chilli Choc Chip Muffins
1 1/2 Cups Self Raising Flour
1/2 Cup Wholemeal Self Raising Flour
1/4 Cup Cocoa
3/4 Cup milk
100g melted butter
2 eggs
3 Tablespoons chilli syrup (we could have added a lot more)
3/4 Cup Dark Chocolate Chips.
Sift together the dry ingredients. Mix the wet ingredients together, then stir into the dry ones, with the chocolate chips. Stir until just combined (or as little as possible). Spoon into muffin tins, and cook for 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. The muffins are cooked when they spring back from a gentle touch.

Rich Chilli Chocolate Muffins
1 1/2 Cups Self Raising Flour
1/2 Cup Cocoa
1/2 tsp Paprika
150g Dark Chocolate
100g Butter
1/2 Cup Chilli Syrup
1 Egg
Sift together the flour, cocoa and paprika. Melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave, stir well and allow to cool slightly. Mix the egg and chilli syrup into the chocolate mixture. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mix until just combined. Spoon into muffin tins and cook for 20 minutes at180 degrees Celsius. Makes around 12 muffins.

Chilli Syrup
4 birds eye chillies
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup water
Bring to the boil in a small saucepan. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the chillies and cool the syrup. Keep in the fridge until needed.

Simple Beef Curry

I love slow cooked beef - stews, roasts or curries where the meat is falling-apart tender. This is one of my favourite ways to cook it. It creates a really mild, really succulent beef curry. There's a picture of it here.

Simple Beef Curry
Onion
Curry Paste (this time I used Thai Green Curry Paste - tandoori or penang are good too)
Stewing Beef - chopped into pieces
Coconut Milk

Heat the curry paste with some oil in a small pot. When it's fragrant, add the beef, and saute until it's browned all over. Add the coconut milk (I usually use a whole can) and if it isn't enough liquid to cover the beef, add some stock. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down. Simmer, uncovered, until the beef is tender. Stir it occasionally to make sure it isn't sticking.
This is a pretty flexible recipe. I often add a potato or a carrot to it, once the coconut milk has gone in. I haven't had a bad batch yet.

Simple in-a-hurry Chickpea Curry

Ryan and I both like curry. We will happily eat any sort, Thai, Indian, Fijian, Ethiopian or Somali (just some of the taste sensations available in Canberra). But sometimes you have to cook them up yourself.

Curries make great frozen lunches, so usually we do two or three big batches and freeze the leftovers. This week we made a chickpea curry, a mixed-lentil dhal and a hybrid green beef curry. Don't worry, I haven't been cross-breeding livestock. But I used the green curry paste in ways that no self-respecting Thai chef would admit to. It's the chickpea curry I'm going to share today, because it's the easiest one to make.

Simple Chickpea Curry

1 Tablespoon Cumin Seeds

1 red chilli (you can leave it out if you like)

1 red onion

1 400g can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed

2 big handfuls of spinach (or silverbeet)

2 Tablespoons sour cream (or cream)

squirt of lemon juice

Heat the cumin seeds in a frying pan until they are aromatic. Add enough olive oil to coat the pan, then add the chilli and onion. When the onion is soft, add the chickpeas. When the chickpeas are warm, throw the spinach on top. Put the lid on, and let the spinach wilt a little before stirring it through. Add the cream and lemon juice, stir through and serve.

How easy is that?

Menu Plan Monday - May 21

I have given up forever on Tidbit Thursday.
Apart from the cute name, it just didn't fit in with my life. Menuplanning on Monday makes a lot more sense in our house.
So here is a renewed Menu Plan Monday:

• A big curry cook up (dhal, chickpea curry and a green beef curry)
• Spinach and Ricotta Canelloni (as inspired by the Australian's Weekend Magazine)
• Sweet Potato Cottage Pie
• Roast Chicken Thighs with Roast Vegetables
• Creamy Fish Pasta

and... something with lamb.

Happy Monday!

Happy Birthday Ryan!

After all the eating out, it was nice to have dinner at home. With cake of course!

This is a cherry ripe mud cake from the Women's Weekly Kitchen. And now ours : )

I'm still here, just not cooking

Just apologising for not posting. We have a houseguest, and it's been busy at work, and we are attempting to buy a house. All in one week.

So instead, I'm going to post a list of blogs I love to read:
At My Table - his descriptions of mushrooms are even better than pictures.
The Great Big Vegetable Challenge - go Freddie!
Morsels and Musings - the first food blog I discovered. and I'm still hooked.
Milk and Cookies - beautiful photos.

Meanwhile, our beautiful houseguest has cooked us a beautiful meal. Lambchops with asparagus, green beans and sweet potato mash. Yum. And Ryan made bread and butter pudding with white chocolate and raspberries. There may be pictures.