These came from a recent edition of Donna Hay magazine, of course with several adaptations based on what I had in stock. The dumplings are quite similar to a ricotta gnocchi recipe I have made previously by Maggie Beer. This is a nice light meal but is still satisfying because of the protein from the ricotta.
I used spinach leaves from our garden – sadly the spinach plant has since been fried by the heat. The recipe calls for baby spinach but you could also use normal spinach – you would just have to cook it briefly first and squeeze out the moisture.
The dumplings would also work well with a more traditional tomato pasta sauce, or you could do a brown butter sauce (much like Maggie Beer’s recipe). I recommend serving with a nice fresh green salad – my philosophy is you can never have too many vegetables!
Ingredients
- 200 grams Baby spinach or other spinach, wilted, wrung out and chopped
- 1 cup Fresh ricotta
- 2/3 cup Parmesan, finely grated
- 1/3 cup Plain flour, plus extra for dusting
- 2 Eggs
- 1/3 cup Chives, chopped
- 1 clove Garlic, chopped or crushed
- 40 grams butter
- 300 grams Cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1-2 Ears of corn, kernels removed
- 1-2 Anchovy fillets, chopped (or to taste)
- 1/2 Red onion, finely sliced
- 1 clove Garlic, chopped or crushed
- 2 tablespoons Olive oil
- 1 tablespoon Vinegar (I used apple cider but recipe calls for white wine)
- Salt and pepper
Directions
- In a medium sized bowl mix the tomatoes, anchovy, corn kernels, red onion, mint, garlic, olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper and toss to combine. Set aside until you are ready to serve.
- In a medium bowl combine the spinach, ricotta, parmesan, flour, eggs, chives, garlic, salt and pepper. Mix until a sticky dough forms.
- Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil on the stove.
- Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls and roll in extra flour in a bowl or on the bench.
- Cook in batches (5-8 balls at a time depending on your saucepan size) for 3-4 minutes. You'll know when they are done because they float to the surface.
- Remove with a slotted spoon, set aside and cook the rest of your dumplings.
- Heat a large frypan over high and melt the butter.
- Add your dumplings and cook for 2 minutes each side until they are golden.
- Toss through the tomato salsa and extra parmesan and cracked pepper to taste.
This recipe is a little more time consuming, as the stuffing can take a while to prepare. To save time, you could pre-cook the barely, or even make the stuffing in its entirety the day before. It’s worth the effort and the stuffing makes a great salad or lunch on its own. It is quite similar to a recipe I have published before, from Smitten Kitchen, for a Mediterranean barley salad. You could also substitute another grain – rice, quinoa or bulgar would all work here.
For some reason, I love to stuff vegetables. I’m not sure why I feel this way – it just seems like such a nice way to present a meal. I’ve used capsicums in this recipe, but you could easily stuff eggplants, tomatoes or zucchini. We ate these as a meal in themselves, but you could also prepare them in advance and serve with a protein – steak, fish, prawns, chicken – almost anything would work. They would also be a lovely, impressive-looking dish for a dinner party – and I know many of us probably have several of those in the upcoming weeks!
Details
15 min
65 min
1 h, 20 min
Ingredients
- 2 cups Stock (chicken or vegetable)
- 1 cup Pearl barley, soaked
- 1 Onion, diced
- Olive oil
- 1 small Eggplant, roughly chopped
- 2 medium Zucchini, roughly chopped
- 1/2 Red or green capsicum, chopped
- 2 cloves Garlic, diced finely
- 1 teaspoon Ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon Ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon Dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon Red chilli flakes (or to taste)
- 1/2 teaspoon Tumeric
- 1 cup Natural or Greek yoghurt
- large Handful cherry tomatoes, halved
- large Handful kalamata olives, halved
- 1/2 cup Feta, crumbled
- Handful Parsley and mint, to taste
- 4 large Red capsicum, hollowed
Directions
- Preheat oven 180*.
- Cook your barley in the stock for 35-45 minutes until it is cooked through but still chewy. Add more water while cooking as necessary.
- Meanwhile, splash some olive oil in a large frypan and bring to medium heat.
- Cook your onion until it starts to become translucent, then throw in your eggplant, zucchini, capsicum and any other veges you want to add. Cook until they start to soften slightly.
- Add the garlic and stir briefly, then add your spices - I used cumin, coriander, oregano, tumeric and red chilli flakes.
- Stir well and cook until fragrant.
- Add the cooked barley to the pan, stir well and then add natural yoghurt.
- Finally, add your cherry tomatoes, olives, herbs (parsley and mint) and feta. Stir to combine.
- Stuff mixture into hollowed out capsicums. Sprinkle with a little more feta if desired.
- Cook on trays in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the capsicum starts to soften slightly. Serve as is, or with any leftover barley.
We’ve launched headfirst back into renovating our “fixer-upper” post war home. It’s all good fun, but it does mean my creative outlet is occupied elsewhere, and leaves limited time (and motivation) to cook exciting meals.
But then, I was thinking tonight, perhaps I should show some of what we eat on those nights when I don’t feel like going to a big effort? We still eat well, after all. And usually the meals are reasonably nutritious and certainly easy.
So, here it is. Our simple dinner.
Ingredients
- 3 cups Pasta (or as many servings as you require)
- 1/2 head Broccoli, chopped into florets
- 2 small Zucchini, sliced into rounds
- 1 medium Onion, thinly sliced
- 2 cloves Garlic, sliced
- 400 grams Tin chickpeas, rinsed well
- 1 medium Lemon
- 1/2-1 cup Greek yoghurt
- Salt and pepper
- Olive oil
- Parmesan/Pecorino to serve
Directions
- Place a large pot of salted water on to boil for your pasta.
- Meanwhile, prepare your vegetables.
- Heat a splash of olive oil in a medium to large frypan.
- Add your onions and reduce the heat to medium/low.
- Cook the onion gently until it starts to soften and turn translucent. You don't want it to get too brown.
- Put your pasta on to boil.
- Add your sliced zucchini to the frypan. Alternatively, you can remove the onion and fry the zucchini up separately in the same frypan with more olive oil. This will give the zucchini a lovely golden colour and great taste. However, I was feeling lazy.
- Stir gently, letting your zucchini get some colour - 5 minutes or so.
- Add your garlic and stir until fragrant, but be careful not to burn the garlic.
- Add your chickpeas and heat through.
- Reduce heat to low, cover until your pasta is cooked.
- In the last couple of minutes of your pasta cooking, add the broccoli florets to the pasta water.
- Pluck out before you drain the pasta and blanch in cool water.
- Reserve about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of pasta water, then drain your pasta.
- Squeeze half a lemon over your zucchini/chickpea mixture.
- Add the yoghurt and broccoli and stir through.
- Taste your sauce, then add a bit of pasta water to dilute. Add salt and pepper to taste and more lemon juice if you want a bit more tartness.
- Finally, stir through your pasta and grate a generous amount of parmesan or pecorino over your dish.
- Finish with more cracked pepper.
- Enjoy with a side salad.
Ratatouille always makes me think of this movie, which in turn, makes me think about my childhood pet rat (Foo). From there, it’s a leap into memories of our old house, my much missed dog Rusty and the enormous frangipani tree that stood in our front yard…
Of course, that has nothing to do with this particular recipe!
Orangette was blogging about food long before I had any idea that there was such a thing as food blogs, and probably about the same time I was living on such culinary delights as two minute noodles and Pizza Hut pizzas (what? I was at uni!). She’s written one book: A Homemade Life, and is in the process of writing another. This recipe is adapted from her Ratatouille recipe in A Homemade Life. It’s slightly different to the one my Mum used to make, which basically just cooked all the vegetables together. This one requires a bit more effort – but you can successfully multitask to save time. Alternatively, you can cook the eggplant the day before which allows you to save on a few minutes.
The finished product was served with a runny fried egg and chunks of crusty bread. Then I enjoyed it again for lunch – it’s one of those dishes that improves over a couple of days. In fact, I may have some more for lunch tomorrow!
Ingredients
- 3 medium Eggplants, sliced into 2cm thick rounds
- Olive oil
- 4 medium Zucchini, liced into 1cm rounds
- 1 medium Onion, thinly sliced
- 1 large Red capsicum, chopped
- 4 cloves Garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 Tin diced or whole tomatoes
- Handful Cherry tomatos, in half
- 3/4 teaspoon Salt
- 3 Sprigs fresh thyme
- 1 Bay leaf
- 1/4 cup Chopped basil
Directions
- Preheat oven to 200*.
- Line a baking dish/tray with baking paper and spray with olive oil spray (or coat eggplant in oil in a bowl).
- Arrange the eggplant on the tray in a single layer. Spray tops with olive oil spray.
- Bake in the oven for 30 minutes, flipping halfway. The eggplant should be soft and slightly browned.
- Meanwhile, warm 2 tbs of olive oil in a large deep frypan or dutch oven.
- Add zucchini rounds and fry on a medium high heat until golden on one side. Flip and continue frying on the other side. This should take about 10-12 minutes all up.
- Remove the zucchini from the pan and put to one side. There should be some oil remaining in the pan, but add more if you wish.
- Reduce the heat to medium, and add the onion to the pan.
- Cook, stirring occasionally, being careful not to brown. The aim is translucent - it should take about 6 minutes.
- Add the tomatoes, salt, thyme and bay leaf. Stir to combine.
- Reduce the heat to low, cover with a lid and cook for 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, your eggplant should be just about done. Pull it out of the oven and cut into small pieces (if you wish - I didn't bother).
- Add the eggplant and zucchini back into your pan, stir, and cover and cook on low until everything is tender (15 to 20 minutes).
- Discard the bay leaf and stir in the basil.
- I served with a fried egg and a side of crusty bread. It also makes a great side for meat (particularly lamb sprinkled with cumin) and a great pasta sauce.
Spring is teasing us at the moment – one day the weather is beautiful, the air is crisp but it’s warm in the sun. The next, it’s blowing a gale, bitingly cold (for Brisbane) and overcast and rainy. I shouldn’t complain too much, at least it’s not sweltering hot yet!
At least spring means fresh produce and one of my favourites is fresh asparagus. Did you know, for the longest time I thought I didn’t like asparagus? Turns out I just don’t liked tinned asparagus (abomination! No offense Mum!).
I was perhaps slightly overzealous when I saw it at the markets and bought up several bunches. I was browsing the internet with a vague idea that I wanted to make a savoury bread pudding (half a loaf of slightly stale sourdough to use up). My searches turned up this, from internet superstar blogger Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks.
I made a few changes (no surprises there) and here is my take on her recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 medium Loaf crusty bread (sourdough)
- 3 cups Milk
- 1 cup Stock (vegetable or chicken)
- 3 large Eggs
- pinch Salt
- Cracked pepper to taste
- 2 cloves Garlic, diced finely or crushed
- 1-2 Sprigs thyme
- 1 bunch Asparagus, wooden ends cut or broken off and cut into 3-4cm pieces
- 100 grams Mushrooms
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 medium Leek, washed and sliced
- 1 cup Cheese, grated (I used combo cheddar and parmesan)
Directions
- Preheat over to 180*C.
- Grease a 25-30cm baking pan or casserole dish with butter or oil spray.
- Roughly cut the loaf of bread into 2-3cm cubes.
- In a bowl whisk together milk, stock, eggs, salt, pepper and thyme.
- In a fry pan heat the butter, leeks and garlic over a moderate to low heat (so you don't burn the garlic).
- Throw in the mushrooms and fry off slightly - to make delicious garlic mushrooms!
- Add the mushrooms, bread, asparagus and milk mixture together and fold through.
- Spoon into the baking pan and press down well with the back of the spoon.
- Sprinkle cheese on top.
- Bake for 45 minutes. You want the cheese to be melted and brown on top and the pudding should not be too liquidy (but still moist).
- Let set out of the oven for another 10 minutes and serve with a side salad.
I came across a recipe for zucchinis stuffed with a tangy sourdough stuffing and thought I’d give it a whirl for dinner this week. Of course, when I got to the supermarket late on Sunday afternoon, there were only tiny zucchinis left – none even close to big enough to stuff.
Well necessity is the mother of invention after all, so I rethought my approach and adapted the recipe to a bake instead. I think it worked quite well. In some ways it might even be better than the original – surely I’m not alone in always ending up with far too much stuffing for my vegetables? This way, you get to use all the stuffing, without any of the stuffing around (I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist).
Originally I had planned on making this for dinner – but somehow stuffed zucchini didn’t sound nearly as filling when converted to zucchini bake. Instead, I served it beside a tomato and feta salad, and a potato and broccoli frittata. This would make a great side to take to a BBQ or as part of a pot luck dinner. I think it tastes pretty good – and I caught J stealing bits of the topping…
Ingredients
- 4 small Zucchinis, sliced lengthways
- 100 grams Butter
- 1 Onion, finely diced
- 2 cloves Garlic, crushed or diced
- 1-2 Roasted red capsicums or peppers
- 3 tablespoons Flat leaf parsley, chopped
- 1 teaspoon Dried oregano
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 100 grams Sourdough breadcrumbs
- 1/4 cup Grated pecorino or parmesan
Directions
- Preheat oven to 180*.
- Slice the zucchini thickly and layer in a greased casserole dish.
- Melt the butter in a large frypan over a medium heat.
- Reduce heat to medium-low and add the onion and garlic. Gently fry for a few minutes until the onion is soft but not coloured.
- Add capsicum, parsley, oregano, lemon zest and breadcrumbs and stir until well combined.
- Remove pan from heat and season with salt and pepper.
- Sprinkle the zucchini with the stuffing.
- Grate pecorino or parmesan cheese over the top to taste.
- Bake uncovered for 20-25 minutes or until the zucchini is soft and the stuffing browns slightly.
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