We split 1/8 cow with J’s family (from local supplier Bonnie Beef) and towards the end of my stash I’m always left wondering what to do with the final batch of sausages. On Saturday night I put my powers of Google to work and came upon this recipe from Coles.
Always keen to get some additional vegetables and use what I have, I added carrot and celery, subbed beef stock for chicken stock and used fresh corn. Instead of cooking it in a saucepan (not sure how I am supposed to cook sausages in a saucepan Coles!) I used my extra large frypan and cooked my rice like a paella.
The result was a tasty Saturday night dinner and a different use for those excess sausages. And there were lots of leftovers, which made for a tasty Monday lunch. And on Mondays, anything that gets me through is worth a try!
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons Oil
- 6 Sausages (I used beef)
- 1 Onion, diced
- 1 Celery stalk, diced
- 1 Carrot, diced
- 1 teaspoon Cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon Paprika
- 1 teaspoon Tumeric
- 1 1/2 cups Basmati rice
- 3 cups Stock (I used half beef half water)
- 1 Cob of corn, kernels removed
- 1/4 cup Currants
- Natural yoghurt to serve
Directions
- In a large, deep frying pan, heat olive oil on high.
- Cook your sausages, turning regularly, until browned and cooked through.
- Remove from pan and set aside, covered to keep warm.
- Using some of the sausage fat in the pan (depending on how much fat your sausages cook out) saute onion, garlic, celery and carrot on medium heat until onion is translucent.
- Add the cumin, paprika and tumeric and stir through until fragrant.
- Add the rice and stir until coated.
- Add stock and reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and leave to simmer gently for 12-15 minutes or until stock is absorbed and rice is cooked. You may need to add more water - check on your rice as needed.
- Slice up sausages and add to rice, together with currants and corn.
- Serve with natural yoghurt or raita and cucumber slices or coriander.
Last year I bought some venison from the farmer’s markets at the Powerhouse and J used it to make this recipe. Nearly a year passed before I came across some venison at SuperButcher the other day, and I knew I had to try to recreate it. This time it was my turn to slave in the kitchen over the recipe.
The recipe is from Gordon Ramsey and produces a beautiful thick, tender stew. The recipe can be found here.
A word of warning – this is a Sunday dish, a labour of love. Nothing too hard is involved but it requires a fair bit of cooking time and has quite a few steps. However, I think it’s worth it.
Another quick and easy dinner (vegetarian again). This would also make a lovely side to almost any meat. If you have dietary restrictions, quinoa would be a great alternative to use here. If you don’t have haloumi, feta would be delicious.
What I love about meals like this is that you can adapt based on whatever you have in your pantry at the time. When I’m not following a recipe (and even when I am!) I try to use what I have on hand, rather than buying ingredient specifically for that meal. I am lucky that I have a very well stocked pantry!
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 1/3 Large pumpkin (I used Kent), skin removed
- 1 teaspoon Smoked paprika
- 1 tablespoon Ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon Ground coriander
- 2 cups Vegetable stock
- 4-5 Dried prunes, chopped
- 3-4 Sundried tomatoes, chopped
- 1 cup Dried cous cous
- 1 teaspoon Butter
- 4-5 Slices of haloumi (half a packet)
- Lemon juice
- 2 Pickled onions, chopped. Red onion would be fine, or slightly cooked brown onion
- Handful Baby spinach, washed
- Sprinkle Slivered almonds
Directions
- Preheat oven to 200*.
- Grease a baking tray or line with baking paper.
- Chop pumpkin into bite-sized chunks.
- Toss pumpkin in a dash of olive oil, paprika, cumin and ground coriander and distribute on baking tray.
- Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes or until pumpkin is tender.
- Meanwhile, bring the stock to boil, together with dried prunes and sundried tomatoes, in a medium sized saucepan.
- Once boiling, turn off the heat and stir in the couscous and butter.
- Stir and leave to rest so the stock absorbs into the cous cous.
- Slice the haloumi and fry until golden in a frypan sprayed with some olive oil. Turn once.
- Remove from heat and drizzle with a little lemon juice.
- Fluff the cous cous with a fork and add some olive oil if you wish.
- Add in the onion.
- On a place place some washed baby spinach leaves, pile on the cous cous and then top with roasted pumpkin. Sprinkle with some almonds and finish off with the haloumi.
I’ve been a bit quiet on here for the last few weeks as it seems a bit trite to write about food when so many people in Brisbane, Queensland and the greater East Coast of Australia have been affected by flooding. My hometown of Brisbane was badly hit last week and some of my favourite suburbs were inundated. Houses, businesses, and even lives have been lost. It’s devastating to see this happen to a place you know and love. If you’re interested in donating, you can do so here: http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/
However, life does, inevitably, go on. And through it all, we still need to eat. This is a quick and easy recipe, perfect for a mid-week dinner. I hope you enjoy it.
Ingredients
- Dried pasta (quantities depend on type of pasta and serving size)
- Large bunch Basil, washed
- 1/4 cup Slivered almonds, or pine nuts
- 1 clove Garlic, crushed
- Olive oil to taste
- Pecorino or parmesan to taste
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 150 grams Chicken, diced into bite sized pieces
- Handful Cherry tomatoes
Directions
- Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil.
- Cook your pasta according to directions. I used spinach fettuccine.
- Drizzle some olive oil in a frying pan and fry off your chicken pieces until golden brown.
- Meanwhile, prepare your pesto. In a small food processor (or mortar and pestle) add basil, almonds (or pine nuts), and garlic. Whizz briefly until combined.
- Add grated parmesan or pecorino and olive oil to taste. Whizz again until combined.
- Add salt and pepper to taste, and adjust ingredients based on personal preference.
- Once your chicken is cooked, throw the cherry tomatoes into the pan to heat up.
- Drain your pasta.
- To serve, combine pasta, chicken, cherry tomatoes and pesto and toss until evenly distributed. Finish with a bit more cheese.
- The leftover pesto can be kept in the fridge for several days, or covered in olive oil and kept for slightly longer. Pesto is also great on sandwiches.
At this time of year, leftovers are a source of anxiety. I hate to waste food, but there are only so many ham sandwiches I can stomach in a short space of time! One night this week I had ham to use, and leftover chilli. The solution came to me in moments – crepes!
Crepes are a clever way to package and present leftovers as a new dish. Growing up, my mum often made crepes when we had leftover spaghetti sauce – she’d stuff the crepes with sauce (and sometimes even leftover pasta), roll them up and grill some melted cheese on top. I tried to ensure we had leftovers whenever we ate spaghetti, just so we could have crepes later in the week.
When it came to finding a recipe for crepes, who else would do but Julia Child? She wrote the book on French food (literally!). This recipe is adapted from her classic. One thing worth noting, you need to plan ahead as the crepe mixture needs 2 hours resting time.
We ate our crepes stuffed with chilli, or stuffed with ham and grated pecorino cheese. And the other beauty of crepes? Instant dessert – several crepes were enjoyed drizzled with lemon juice and sprinkled with sugar.
Ingredients
- 1 cup Cold water
- 1 cup Cold milk
- 4 large Eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 1 1/2 cups Flour
- 4 tablespoons Melted butter
- Additional butter to butter the pan
Directions
- In a bowl or food processor put water, milk, eggs and salt.
- Add the flour, then melted butter.
- Blend, process or beat on high for 1 minute. Scrape down the side of the bowl for any flour. Blend again briefly.
- Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
- Once rested, head a large frying pan on moderately high heat. Rub the pan with butter.
- Using a ladle to measure out your batter, pour a ladleful of crepe mixture into pan and tilt pan in all directions to run the batter over the bottom of the pan in a thin film.
- Any excess batter should be poured back into the bowl.
- Return the pan to heat for 60-80 seconds. When you toss the pan slightly the crepe should start to come away on its own.
- Flip the crepe - either with a clever flick of the wrist or, if this is beyond you (as it is me) with a spatula.
- Brown lightly for about 30 seconds on the other side. Slide onto a plate and begin your next crepe, re-buttering the pan each time.
- You can keep the crepes warm in a low oven or reheat when you're ready to eat.
- Wrap the crepes around a filling of your choice, roll up and enjoy.
I recently discovered a fantastic new deli on Rode Road: Loria Deli. It has an excellent range of cheeses and also dried food. A recent trip saw me walk away with a bag of black turtle beans. Dried beans take a little more work and foresight than canned ones, but they are easy to store and usually quite a bit cheaper than tinned beans. Also, you can get a far greater variety of dried beans than the range of tinned ones available in most supermarkets.
I used half a small chorizo sausage in a pasta dish (recipe to come) and was wondering what to do with the remaining 1 1/2 sausages. A bit of google research led me to this website and I found the perfect dish to try out my new beans.
You can increase the amount of spice if you wish - I would probably increase them as I like a bit of kick in my chilli. The chorizo adds a wonderful depth and richness to the dish and the beans help it stick to your ribs. If you are using dried beans, you need to soak them overnight and then drain off the water before cooking. You can either cook them separately and add towards the end, or add at the beginning and let the chilli simmer for a few hours until the beans are tender. You may need to add more water throughout the cooking process. I didn’t want to dirty another pot, and I had a bit of time to spare, so I cooked mine with the chilli. I think it helped the flavours to develop. If you used tinned beans, you will basically just be warming them, so the cooking time is greatly reduced.
I enjoyed this dish during the rainy weather at the beginning of the week, but it has started getting far too hot to enjoy a big bowl of chilli… More salads will be making their way onto the menu.
Ingredients
- 1.5 Chorizo sausages, diced
- 1 tablespoon Olive oil
- 1 cup Onion, diced
- 1/2 cup Green capsicum, seeded and diced
- 2 cloves Garlic, minced
- 1 cup Black beans, soaked overnight or two tins black beans or kidney beans
- 1.5 cups Beef stock
- 1 tablespoon Chilli powder
- 1 teaspoon Ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon Dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon Dried thyme
- 1/4 teaspoon Dried chilli flakes
- 1 teaspoon Salt (or to taste)
- 1/2 teaspoon Ground pepper or to taste
Directions
- Heat oil in a dutch over or large saucepan over medium-high heat.
- Add onion, green capsicum and chorizo. Saute for about 5 minutes.
- Add remaining ingredients.
- Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the beans are cooked. Stir occasionally. If the beans have been soaked but not cooked this will probably take 2-3 hours and you may need to add more water several times. If they are pre-cooked it should only take 30 minutes or so. A tip though, the longer you cook it the more the flavours will develop.
- Serve with various sides - avocado, corn chips, sour cream or natural yoghurt, cheese, rice.
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