Tag Archives: recipes

My Favourite Salad

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Does anyone else take notes on the ingredients and structure of dishes which you enjoy when dining out?

During our recent trip to the USA and Canada we ate at ‘Antique Taco’ in Wicker Park, Chicago.  We discovered it because it was rated as one of the 10 best tacos in the USA by Fodor’s Travel.  After reading the email containing this information, it was an absolute must-do when we were in Chicago and we were not disappointed.

The kale salad was amazing and I have managed to create something similar at home.

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This is what was left in the bowl after dinner tonight and using some for lunch tomorrow.

There are no specific quantities for the ingredients.

Curly kale (thick vein removed and finely chopped)
Finely chopped red onion
Diced capsicum
Dried cranberries (chopped)
Spiced peanuts (I buy raw peanuts and toss them in a bit of oil, chilli powder, cumin and sea salt)
Dressing

Lime juice
Red wine vinegar
Pomegranate molasses
Olive oil
Herb salt
Black pepper

Use the dressing sparingly.  Tos salad well to ensure that all surfaces are coated.

Unlike most salads, I think this improves after standing for 6 – 12 hours.

If you decide to try this, please let me know what you think.

 

Dinner – Tuna Mornay

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Here is another dinner recipe and as a bonus, my version is gluten free.

I don’t remember tuna mornay being a meal we ate when I was a child but GMan certainly ate it when he was growing up.  So, I learned how to make it.  About 4 years ago I changed to a gluten free diet so tuna mornay was off the recipe plan.

After various experiments, I have managed to make a very satisfactory white sauce, therefore I can make tuna mornay as well as bechamel sauce for lasagne and cauliflower in cheese sauce.

Now, on to the recipe.

TUNA MORNAY

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
2 heaped tablespoons chickpea flour
2 heaped tablespoons potato flour
2 cups milk
Ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon herb salt
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 large tin tuna
1/2 tin corn kernels
3/4 cup frozen peas
3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese

Here are my ingredients assembled and ready to begin.

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Method

Melt the butter over a low heat, add flour and stir until it combines to a stiff paste.

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Cook for about 1 minute, making sure it does not burn.  Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly.

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The gluten free flours will not combine and thicken as nicely as regular wheat flour so my secret weapon is my hand-held stick blender.

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I use this to combine the milk and flour mixture and it quickly thickens as required.  Add seasonings and mustard to taste and then the drained tuna, drain corn kernels and peas.

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Break up any large pieces of tuna and stir the tuna and vegetables through the sauce.  Cook gently for a few minutes and finally add the grated cheese and stir through.  The mornay is ready to serve with rice and/or vegetables.

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There are many ways you can adapt this recipe.

I use powdered skim milk for cooking and make up 2 cups of milk before starting the cooking.

If you do not need it to be gluten free, simply use regular plain flour.

I choose to use a mixture of chickpea and potato flours as I find it gives the best result.  The potato flour can be a bit like glue and the chickpea flour has a nice savoury flavour which offsets this.

You can also use this mixture as the base of a pie and top it with mashed potato – like a shepherd’s pie.  Use as a filling for crepes or burritos for another variation.  You may wish to use a bit less milk in order to create a stiffer mixture for these options.

Tinned salmon, leftover shredded chicken or a selection of vegetables could also be used.

I generally prefer to have more vegetables in my meal but this will not hurt you every now and then.  It is a great last minute option as all of the ingredients come from the pantry and refrigerator.

Food as Fuel

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Sometimes I think food is over-rated.  Thanks to shows like Masterchef and others in the same vein, we have been conned into thinking that every meal needs to be a creation and cooking is a competition.

Cooking for your family is actually providing fuel for their bodies to perform the necessary tasks – nothing more, nothing less.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing I love more than creating a special meal for family and friends.  However, we need to look past the hype of cooking shows and concentrate on what is important – nutritious food to re-fuel.

Tonight I want to show you what I am making for dinner.  It is not overly fancy but I know we will enjoy a wholesome meal made with basic ingredients.

Beef Casserole with Sweet Potato Mash, Broccoli and Balsamic-Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

I made the casserole a couple of weeks ago in the slow-cooker and divided it into 2 containers.  One container is 2 serves.  This has been defrosting since I took it out of the freezer this morning.  The sweet potato is already cooked and mashed from Sunday evening when I made a double quantity.

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I will serve this with steamed broccoli and the cherry tomatoes.

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I made the casserole using gravy beef (3 pieces), 1 onion (diced), 400g frozen cherry tomatoes (you can use a can of crushed tomatoes) and 1/4 cup homemade Worcestershire sauce.  Place all ingredients in the slow cooker on High for about 6 hours or until the meat is tender and breaks apart easily with a fork.  Add 1 heaped tablespoon of cornflour or arrowroot blended in 1/4 cup of water to thicken the mixture.  This can been done in the last hour of cooking or transfer the casserole to a saucepan and cook for an additional 5 minutes.  If you are going to freeze the casserole you may prefer to thicken it when you are ready to use it.

The sweet potato is mashed with some butter and a sprinkle of nutmeg for extra flavour.

To roast the cherry tomatoes place about 2 teaspoons of oil and an equal amount of balsamic syrup in a small pan with the tomatoes and place in an oven at 180C for 10 minutes.  If you do not have the oven on, you can do it equally as well under the griller for about 5 – 8 minutes on ‘High’.

The sweet potato and cherry tomatoes are both from our garden.

Here is the meal served and ready to eat.

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What is on your dinner plate tonight?

Welcome & the Work Begins

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This is just a quick blog post to welcome anyone who is new to the blog.  If you are here for recipes, be sure to check out the tab ‘Recipes – Food’ at the top of the page.  I have tried to add all of the recipes scattered throughout the blog to links on that page.  There will be more add all the time.

In other breaking news, the work on replacing some of the verandah boards and all of the railings as well as some concreting and a new entrance to the verandah will be starting tomorrow.  The will be some blog posts with photos coming up to show the progress.

This is what it currently looks like.

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Dinner – Mexican Quinoa

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The blog post tonight was not going to be another meal but I was not sufficiently organised to take the appropriate photos, so here we are with tonight’s dinner.

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Another night and another one pan meal – One Pan Mexican Quinoa and here is the link to the original recipe which I found on Facebook.

As always, mine has been adapted slightly so this is my version.

1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 birdseye chilli, chopped
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 can corn kernels
1 cup black beans (soaked and pre-cooked) – measured after cooking
4 slices hot salami, diced
15 olives, pitted and chopped
1 cup quinoa
3 cups water
1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder
300g cherry tomatoes
1 teaspoon powdered tomatoes

Lightly fry the onion, chilli and spices.  Add all other ingredients except salami and olives.  Simmer gently until the quinoa is cooked.  Add more water as required.  Stir in salami and olives.  Serve topped with a little grated cheese.

 

 

Dinner – Fried Rice

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Last Sunday I posted the menu for the week here.  Tonight was Spicy Mexican Quinoa, however, this evening I realised that I had forgotten to soak and cook the black beans.  There was no meat thawed, no pre-made pizza bases and not even any refried beans for nachos.  I remembered that I had some cooked rice in the refrigerator so I decided on fried rice.  I have never used a recipe as such for this and it is based on how my mother made it.

This is what I used (quantities made 2 generous serves):

1/2 onion, diced
2 rashers of bacon, diced
1/4 capsicum, diced
1 egg
1/2 can corn kernels
1/2 cup frozen peas
2-3 cups of cooked rice
Tamari

Saute the onion, bacon and capsicum, push to one side of the pan.  Fry the egg, flip and cook both sides then cut into strips.  Add corn and peas and cook for a couple of minutes.  Add the rice, stir to combine all ingredients and heat through.  Add a splash of tamari or soy sauce.

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The photo is before I added the tamari.  There is nothing terribly fancy about this but it is a quick and easy standby meal.

Dinner – Tumeric Chicken

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This was on the menu plan for last week but got bumped as I did not have time to marinate the chicken.

The original recipe is for chicken skewers cooked on a barbecue.  Here is the recipe.

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As with most recipes, I have adapted this to suit our own requirements.  Since I am cooking 1 chicken breast fillet to serve 2 of us this is what I do.

I make up a bulk amount of the spice mixture (dry ingredients) using the proportions in the original recipe.  I use considerably more of this mixture than the recipe as I found it very light on flavour if you use the quantity stated for 2.5kg of chicken.

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In my version there are 4 ingredients.

20ml olive oil
Juice of 1 lime
1 chicken breast fillet (diced)
1 and 1/2  tablespoons of pre-made spice mix

Mix all ingredients thoroughly.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

You can use lemon juice but lime is better.

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Fry in a pan with a little oil until cooked.

I serve mine with brown rice, vegetables and fresh cherry tomatoes.

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Dinner – Thai Beef Salad

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I stuck to my menu plan even though it would have been easy to capitulate and opt for takeaway.

Thai beef salad was on the plan for tonight before I realised we were going to a free screening of Casablanca.  The scheduled time was 7pm for a 7.15pm start and we normally don’t arrive home until close to 7.30pm so clearly we had to make some adjustments.  I caught a train which had me arriving home about 5.30pm and GMan came in at about 6.40pm.

I sliced the beef and marinated it last night.  I used a splash of olive oil, lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoon of ginger and tiny red chilli (very hot) finely chopped.  Here is the mixture this afternoon before I cooked it.

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I prepared the remaining ingredients for the salad – lettuce, carrot, cucumber and cherry tomatoes.

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The carrot and cucumber were cut using a spiral cutter.

Due to the time constraints we had decided to pack our dinner as a picnic to eat when we got to the hall for the movie screening.

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I fried the meat in a tiny bit of coconut oil.  To add some extra flavour I mixed up a sauce and added that to the pan at the end.  I used a tablespoon of lemon juice, a teaspoon of red wine vinegar, 2 teaspoons of crunchy peanut paste and a pinch each of ginger and chilli powder.  I stirred the sauce through the meat and cooked for a further minute.

The meat was added to the salad and we were ready to go – complete with cutlery and serviettes.

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This was really delicious and I think the improvised sauce really added a nice finish to the meat.

Dinner – Tuna Patties

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For anyone following along with my menu plan for this week, here is the next instalment.

In the simplest form, tuna patties are a 425g can of tuna, drained and flaked mixed with mashed potato and lightly fried.  Beyond that it is entirely a matter of choice.

I chose to use sweet potato tonight so the very first thing I did was to peel the sweet potato, chop them roughly and cooked them in the microwave.

Meanwhile, I prepared the other ingredients.

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The tuna is flaked in the bowl and I will add some freshly ground black pepper and a cube of frozen lemon juice as well as about a tablespoon of some gourmet mustard.

You can use whatever herbs, spices or flavouring you choose.  I decided on the mustard as it was given to me and I thought it would work nicely in the patties.

Mash the cooked potato but do not add any milk or butter as it needs to be fairly dry for the patties.

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I also added 1/2 cup of grated cheese and a tablespoon of besan (chickpea) flour which helps to bind the mixture together.

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Rather than using a frying pan, I cook these patties on the sandwich maker with not additional oil and the lid down so that they brown on both sides.  The cooking is simply to heat them through and brown the outside as there no raw ingredients to be cooked as such.

We ate them with a salad lettuce, capsicum, cucumber and cherry tomatoes and a dollop of sweet chilli sauce.

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The mixture made a total of 9 patties so the others will be used for lunches.

As always, if you have any questions about the recipe please ask.

Tomorrow is bean tacos so I have taken a pack of refried beans out of the freezer tonight in readiness.

I am already starting to form ideas for the menu for next week.  I am pretty sure it will include pizza as I have these semi-dried cherry tomatoes in oil with garlic and herbs.  I dehydrated the tomatoes and packed them in oil on the weekend.  We have such an abundance of cherry tomatoes that I am always looking for new ways to use, store and preserve them.

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