Lamb Skewers and computer issues.

It's been a month since the last post because we've had major computer issues.

SO... the next few posts will be backdated from the past month.

This meal is a slight nod to Australia Day since apparently lamb is THE thing to eat when feeling Australian. I don’t necessarily agree but my husband LOVES lamb and I get to have lots of veggies as well so everyone’s happy! We cooked the lamb on our little kettle grill outside but you could easily cook them under a grill inside or on a bbq hot plate. Just remember to keep turning regularly and to wet the skewers before you use them.

Meal of 26^th of January 2012 – Lamb and vegetable skewers with rice and chickpea salad

1. I used rice that I’d cooked the day before so it was already cold in the fridge. If you are making this from scratch, cook the rice first, rinse in cold water and put in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

2. Cut up the veggies (I used eggplant, mushrooms, red capsicum and zucchini) into bite sized pieces that are easy to skewer.

3. Cut up about 200 g of lamb fillet or backstrap into slightly smaller pieces as the veggies will cook slower than the lamb and you still want it a little pink.

4. Thread the veggies and meat onto pre soaked skewers.

5. Combine some olive oil, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice (or thereabouts) and a clove or two of crushed garlic. Brush this onto the finished skewers.

6. Grill until the lamb and veggies are cooked through.

7. For the rice salad, combine the rice, chopped cucumber, cherry tomatoes (halved or quartered), parsely and canned chickpeas (rinse them first).

8. Dress the salad with olive oil and red wine vinegar.

9. Serve with the skewers!

The verdict: The girls ate all the rice salad, which was to be expected, and a bit of the lamb but they weren’t really that into it. My husband ate many skewers and a lot of salad and seemed to finally be full at the end of it!

Happy Eating!

Baked salmon with vegetable tempura

We received our box of fruit and veggies today and the prospect of carrot soup (the recipe suggested on the newsletter that comes with the box) didn't really appeal.

So I happened to have some tempura batter mix in the cupboard and a heap of root veggies in the fridge. Add some salmon, rice and a bit of soy and you have a healthy Japanese meal!

Meal for January the 25th - Baked Salmon with Veggie tempura and rice.

1. Cook some sushi or medium/short grain rice.

2. I wrapped the salmon fillets in baking paper with a bit of coriander sprinkled on top and baked at 200 deg cel for around 15 minutes.

3. Mix the tempura batter with very cold soda water but take care not to over mix it. It can still be a bit lumpy.

4. Cut up some veggies into slices. I used carrot, sweet potato and zucchini but eggplant, potato and beans are also really good.

5. Put the vegetables in the batter and make sure they are well covered.

6. Heat enough oil (I used a combination of peanut and grapeseed) in a wok so that you can deep fry the sliced vegetables. Don't worry that they stick together a bit, they should cook anyway.

7. Deep fry the vegetables for a minute or so. They won't turn golden brown but remain a light colour. Check the first few to see if the vegetables are soft.

8. Serve the rice, salmon and tempura with a splash of soy sauce and top with sliced spring onions. Alternatively you can serve a dipping sauce of soy and a splash of water for the tempura.

The verdict: Do not eat too much tempura! I felt quite sick afterwards... I ate what was on the plate and a bit more but I could only manage half of the salmon. It is a rich dish so take it easy.

A and M ate the rice and most of the salmon (the rest they rubbed in their hair and all over the table) and were eventually persuaded to eat the tempura after the addition of the dipping bowl. Although A seemed to just suck the soy sauce out of the tempura instead of actually eating it.

My husband enjoyed it and I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been so greedy!

Happy Eating!

Spanakopita

After a lovely break in Sydney where we dined on some glorious but very meaty dishes, I am ready for vegetables! I was going to make filo triangles but with the weather being so hot and the children being rather unhelpful I decided to make the pie version - Spanakopita.

Meal of January 24th - Spanakopita (Cheese and spinach pie)

1. Wilt a big bunch of English spinach in a frying or saucepan.

2. Beat 4 eggs and add about 350g of ricotta cheese, 150g of Danish feta, 1/4 cup of parmesan and 1/4 cup of tasty cheese. Mix this all up and add salt and pepper. You could also add some fresh dill here but I had none... about a handful chopped would be good.

3. Saute a cup and 1/2 of chopped spring onions in a little olive oil.

4. Drain the spinach and chop roughly, then add this and the spring onions to the cheese mixture and combine well.

The next part requires speed if doing this on a 33 deg day as I did! Cover the exposed filo pastry with a damp t/towel.

5. Melt around 100g of butter with a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a small saucepan.

6. Grease a rectangle casserole dish with the butter/oil then place a sheet of filo over the dish. Using a pastry brush, cover the pastry with butter and add another sheet. Continue this until you have 8 sheets of filo, all buttered in your dish.

7. After the 8th sheet, fill with the spinach and cheese mixture and fold the edges in.

8. Place another sheet of filo on top of the cheese and spinach mixture then brush with butter and repeat until there is another 8 (or 9 if your 3.5 year old is counting) sheets all buttered on top.

9. Trim the edges and brush with butter. Score the top of the pie into diamonds and sprinkle with water to keep the edges from curling.

10. Place the pie in a preheated oven at 200 deg cel for 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 180 for around 30 minutes or until it's golden on top and has risen or puffed up.

11. This should be served with a garden salad but we are totally out of salad until tomorrow so we just had slices of cucumber!

The verdict: M ate a big bowl full and then picked most of the pastry off my husband and my serves! A seemed to like the spinach and cheese more than the pastry which surprised me but she ate a lot too. My husband ate a HUGE serve so it obviously passed the authenticity test. A brief warning though... this is a messy meal to eat, especially if you have small kids!

Happy Eating!

Baked Potatoes and sausages

Initially this was just going to be baked potatoes but when I was in the supermarket I suddenly fancied some free range English style pork sausages so that's what we had! Luckily our friend who popped in for dinner didn't mind our meat addition to what was supposed to be a vegetarian meal. I was concerned she wouldn't have enough with just potato but they were surprisingly filling.

Meal of January the 18th: Baked Potatoes (and sausages)

1. Wash 1 large potato for each person and microwave until beginning to get tender. Then place on a baking tray. I like to spray the potatoes with a little olive oil. Bake in the oven at 225 deg celcius until crisp on the outside and soft in the middle. Or if barbecuing, wrap in foil and cook in the coals.

2. For the coleslaw, I chopped some white and red cabbage, two spring onions and grated 1.5 carrots. The dressing was Thomy mayonnaise mixed with some seeded mustard. I left a portion out for the girls without the mustard dressing though.

3. Grill or fry the sausages until brown and cooked!

4. When the potatoes are cooked, cut into quarters without breaking the bottom skin and add grated tasty cheese, sour cream and coleslaw. I also had some canned corn kernels which everyone ended up adding too.

* Please excuse the photo for this one as we had a friend around for dinner and I forgot to take one at the beginning of the meal so this was taken towards the end!*

The verdict: M ate heaps and loved the coleslaw (possibly because she helped make it), A was a bit picky but ended up sitting on our friend's lap to finish most of hers. She did eat all the corn and sausage quickly though. Our guest enjoyed it, I enjoyed it and it was difficult to get my husband to stop eating so he obviously enjoyed it!

Happy Eating!

Tuna pasta

It's been a few days because I've been out, then tired and then stuck in bed with a migraine so the next couple of meals are not exactly feats of culinary brilliance... but they're tasty, healthy and easy to make!

Meal of January the 16th: Tuna Pasta

It was a bit of a shame making this meal as we just received our new Global cook's knife in the post and I was dying to do some serious cutting... but considering almost everything in this dish comes from a can or a packet all I chopped was parsely! Having said that though, great dish for camping as nothing is fresh.

1. Cook some pasta, I prefer spaghetti or linguini.

2. In a saucepan or saute pan, empty a jar of pasta sauce, a 425g can of tuna chunks in springwater, a tablespoon of capers and a handful of sliced kalamata olives. Heat.

3. When the pasta is cooked, add to the sauce, sprinkle with fresh parsely and voila!

The verdict: It's very tasty and the whole family ate good serves. It is also really yummy cold the next day.

Happy Eating!

Pork Cutlets with Red Cabbage and Apple Slaw

This dinner was requested by my husband who suggested it would be "a good one for the blog"... I'm sure he was thinking of the blog and not his stomach!

Meal of January the 13th:

Pork Cutlets, crackling, Red Cabbage and Apple slaw, new baby potatoes and stir fried zucchini and broccoli.

1. Cut the rind off the cutlets and place on a baking tray. Score and rub with olive oil and salt.

Put these in the oven at 250 deg cel until they are golden brown and bubbly. Remove from oven and place on paper towel to drain.

2. Rub olive oil, salt, pepper and dried sage into the pork cutlets and allow to rest out of the fridge for about 15 minutes.

3. Thinly slice 1/4 head of red cabbage (you can use green as well), 2 spring onions and one pink lady apple.

4. Place into a bowl and add 1 tablespoon of capers.

5. Combine 1/4 cup whole egg mayonnaise, 1/4 Greek style yoghurt (or sour cream) and 2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard. Add the dressing to the cabbage and combine thoroughly.

6. Steam the baby potatoes for about 15 minutes.

7. Stir fry sliced zucchini and broccoli florets in olive oil until tender, add a little water to help.

8. Heat a non stick frying pan over a med high heat and cook cutlets until golden brown. Pork shouldn't be too rare but it can have a pink tinge so I like to slice one to check or you can use a

thermometer and make sure it's over 60 deg cel.

9. Serve the potatoes with a little butter and everything else as is!

The verdict: My husband ate 1 and 1/2 cutlets and at least 1/2 the salad. He also ate WAY too much crackling which was good if you like crackling but I think it tastes like deep fried sponges stuffed with fat. I couldn't eat much of it. The girls both enjoyed the pork and the broccoli, but neither ate the zucchini and A just squashed the potato. M loved the potatoes and after some cajoling seemed to enjoy the slaw as well so I think it was a successful meal.

Happy Eating!

Quick veggie soup

This is one of my staples. The kind of meal I make when I suddenly realise it's 5.30pm and I've not started cooking yet. So simple, yet really tasty.

Meal of the 12th of January: Veggie Soup with noodles

You can use any veggies for this, just chop them up very small. It is also good with bite size chunks of firm tofu or shredded chicken.

1. Heat a litre of reduced salt vegetable or chicken stock in a medium saucepan with a splash of soy sauce.

2. Add some finely chopped garlic, ginger and spring onions.

3. Bring to the boil and add vegetables. I used broccoli, carrot and mushrooms. In this case I added the mushrooms toward the end so they didn't get too mushy.

4. Boil for 7-10 minutes or until veggies are tender. Add mushrooms/snowpeas/zucchini at the 7 minute mark if using.

5. Add soba or ramen noodles

(I used both this time) and cook for about 4 minutes.

6. Remove from the heat and add chopped fresh coriander.

7. Right before serving add a handful of baby spinach so that it just wilts.

The verdict: It was saltier than previous attempts so perhaps I was a little generous with the soy sauce. Best to add a little at a time.

The girls, however, LOVED it! There was much joyous slurping and both bowls were finished in no time. My husband also enjoyed it, despite the lack of meat. But he did comment on the saltiness and, considering he adds salt to everything, that is testament to the taste.

Happy Eating!