Minto pesto

Randomly stumbled upon this yesterday, perusing an email from our local supermarkets - it was one of their Christmas lunch ideas (potato salad with mint pesto dressing).  I made a couple of minor changes (we didn't have any almonds, so used toasted pine nuts and cashews instead) and made a really tasty wee dressing.  I enjoyed it as a dressing for the potatoes, but to be honest I think this will really sing as a drizzle over salmon, or perhaps BBQed asparagus or steak...  Watch this space! 

1/2 cup fresh mint

1/4 cup nuts 

2-3 cloves garlic, crushed 

good squeeze lemon juice 

1/4 cup oil (I used rice bran this time) 

2 tbsp aioli/potato salad dressing/mayo (thick and creamy is good) 

salt and pepper, to taste

1. Blitz all ingredients, except mayo, in blender until loose paste starts to form.  
2. Add in mayo and blitz again.  Voila!  

Enchilloni

We had lots of milk, so cheese sauce.  We had leftover bolognese mince, so lasagna.  Boys come home, they're keen for enchiladas.  This is that moment in the kitchen when things can go two ways - dinner dissension, or full-on fusion.  We hit the full-on fusion last night.  

Added some black beans and Mexican seasoning to our bolognese mince.  Boom - Mexican mince! 

Spread some sour cream over tortilla wraps, lay our a line of mince and roll up, place in baking dish like you would an enchilada.  But once all your little enchiladas are neatly lined up in their dish, there comes a curve ball - instead of grated cheese and salsa on top, we top with cheese sauce!!  Boom - these little enchiladas just became Mexican cannelloni!   

The enchilloni was born!!  (apologies to anyone else in the world who may have come up with this revolutionary idea before I did)

They were sublime - and the best part is that you can add or subtract to suit your tastes.  Want more beans, add in some kidney beans too.  Like lots of veges in your mince, or none at all - not a problem.  Viva la fiesta muchachos!! 

PS: You could also use fresh lasagna pasta, in place of wraps, if you prefer.  

Quinoa keen (wa!)

Keen-wa!!  Quinoa is a funny one - slightly crunchy, but soft at the same time.  Not a big flavour, but subtly nutty.  It's a great alternative to rice, when you just feel like a change.  Also, the red quinoa looks really pretty in a salad!  This recipe can be adjusted, if you prefer more quinoa, cook 100 g (use just over a cup of water).  Or use less, if you just want to coat the roasted veges with it.  Great for summer, but also perfect alongside a steak in winter!  

2 capsicums, in cm slices

1 onion, in chunky slices

3-4 cloves garlic - in skin

kumara, carrot, beetroot, for roasties

50 g quinoa (I used a mix of red and white)

handful fresh mint leaves, finely chopped

zest and juice of lemon/lime

1 small red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped (less, if you prefer)

1 spring onion, white and green sliced

50 g feta, chopped into smallish chunks

olive oil and butter, for dressing and roasting

1. Place roasties, onion, garlic and capsicum with butter or oil in roasting tray.  Roast at 180 degrees celcius (fanbake) for about 30 mins, until caramelising.  
2. Mix lime zest and juice with chilli and olive oil (a dash, so about 2 tbsp) in a bowl or jar.  Set aside.  
3. Add a little more than half a cup cold water to quinoa.  Bring to the boil.  Reduce to low heat, cover and cook for 15 minutes.  Add a little more water if not cooked enough once water gone. Once cooked, drain, add mint and set aside.  
4. Squeeze garlic into the dressing, smoosh around with a fork.  
5. Mix quinoa, roasted veges, spring onion and feta in a large bowl.  Stir through the dressing.  
6. Buon appetito!!  

Teriyaki tastiness

Teriyaki chicken is one of my stepson's favs.  If we get sushi, he goes for the TC.  Japanese restaurant, TC.  Stir fry at home (where he chooses the sauce), TC.  So I thought it was about time I made some teriyaki sauce from scratch, rather than the pre-made ones, which we often find a bit too sweet and thick.  

This was a really tasty sauce - it is quite salty, but you can replace a little of the soy sauce with water, or (as I will be doing from now on) use a reduced salt soy sauce.  A friend who has spent quite a lot of time living in Japan suggested adding a dash of mirin - the original recipe also had that as an optional, but unfortunately I didn't have any on hand.  Mirin is a sweet rice wine, similar to (but less alcoholic than) sake.  It has been suggested that a dash of dry sherry is a reasonably substitute.  I don't however keep sherry in our cupboard, so...think I'll just grab me a bottle of mirin - it's in most supermarkets, in the international section.  

We had this with chicken, done in the crock pot.  You could, however, cook it in a pan (probably what I'll do next time).  You can use strips of beef (schnitzel would be good!), or tofu, or just a truckload of vegetables.  Thinking of veges - if you can't find edamame beans (I couldn't find them locally), then Watties do a frozen bean mix - it has yellow beans, snow pea type ones and edamame.  It was perfect for what I was wanting (steamed vege on the side).  However, some larger supermarkets do stock packets of frozen edamame beans.  

3 chicken breasts, cut into strips/chunks

2/3 cup soy sauce (reduced salt preferable)

1/3 cup honey

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar (apple cider vinegar will do too)

1 tbsp mirin

1 tsp sesame oil

2 cloves garlic, finely grated

1 tbsp ginger, finely grated 

2 tbsp cornflour

3 tbsp cold water

mushrooms, capsicum, carrot - optional to add into the sauce

veges, steamed - beans, broccoli etc

sesame seeds, to garnish

rice, to serve

1. Mix soy, honey, vinegar, mirin, oil, garlic and ginger in a bowl until combined. 
2. Panfry chicken in pan, to sear a little.  Add sauce and cook on medium temp until chicken is cooked through.  
3. While chicken is cooking, prepare rice and cut up veges.  
4. If adding any veges directly into the teriyaki (mushrooms etc), do this now.  
5. Mix cornflour and water together, to make a slurry.  Stir this into teriyaki, and continue to cook for a further 10 minutes, or until thickened.  
6. Serve on rice with steamed veges alongside, sprinkled with sesame seeds.  

Mozzarella madness

Spaghetti and meatballs.  Mozzarella cheese.  Tasty tomato sauce.  Need I say any more?  I love spaghetti bolognese, lasagne, all those tasty tomato-cheese-pasta dishes.  Meatballs however, are not something I often make.  So when I stumbled on this recipe, from Annabel Langbein, I had to stop and wonder why not?  I mean heck - this is a little parcel of meat-patty-style goodness, stuffed with melty, stretchy mozzarella!  

We made ours with pork mince, and they were amazing.  So tasty, so quick to throw together, and everyone loved them, from Miss 3 through to all the adults.  I'm going to make them again tonight, this time trying lamb mince.  Can't wait!  

400 g mince

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 egg

1/2 - 1 cup freshly grated parmasan (I used a cup because I grate my parmasan using a microplane, which makes it really fluffy.  If you were using a normal grated, half a cup would probably be enough) 

2 tsp dried oregano (makes it taste like pizza!!!!)

2 cloves crushed garlic

1/2 tsp salt

ground black pepper, to taste

70 g mozzarella, cut into wee cubes (I actually used pre-grated mozzarella, and just grabbed small amounts and had KB roll them into little balls)

1 tin tomatoes 

1 tin pasta sauce (or you can use 2 tins of tomatoes and a good squirt of tomato paste)

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp chipotle sauce (optional - maybe a dash of BBQ sauce if you don't like any spice)

spaghetti and extra parmasan, to serve

1. Mix together all the meatball ingredients in a bowl (except the mozzarella).  Set aside until you're ready to cook the meatballs (I made this a day early then left it in the fridge).  
2. Once ready to cook, preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius.  
3. Mix sauce ingredients together in ovenproof dish (large enough for the meatballs).  
4. Form about 20 golf-sized meatballs from meat.  Flatten ball in your palm, push mozzarella in centre, and reform the ball around the cheese.  Place in sauce.  
5. Mix the sauce around and over the balls a bit, pop into the oven.  
6. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the meatballs are cooked.  
7. Serve with spaghetti and extra parmasan cheese.  Buon appetito!!     

Mongolian beef, round 2

A few years ago I stumbled on a Mongolian beef (or lamb) stir-fry recipe which tasted amazing (and just like the stir-fried meat served at Genghis Khan's in Wellington!).  We threw the stir-fry together again this week and it was as good as remembered.  Added bonus - you can prepare all the veges, and set the meat in the fridge to marinate, hours before you're ready to cook.  

This time around used beef schnitzel, cut into strips, rather than rump steak.  But either is fine.  I also misread my own instructions and mixed the stir-fry sauce ingredients into the marinade.  But that didn't matter - I just used the marinade as the stir-fry sauce.  

500g beef, cut into strips

butter, to fry

1 egg

2 large cloves garlic, crushed or finely grated

2 tbsp fresh ginger, finely grated 

2 tbsp soy sauce (I used 1 tbsp each soy sauce and kecap manis)

2 tsp brown sugar

2 tsp cornflour

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp black bean sauce (or 1 tbsp hoisin sauce, or oyster sauce)

1 tsp five-spice powder

1 onion diced

lots of cut-up veges (I used broccoli, carrot, finely chopped (or grated) beetroot, celery, capsicum, mushrooms)

rice, to serve

1. Mix together marinade ingredients.  Add beef and set aside (in fridge if prepared earlier).  
2. Prepare veges.  
3. Heat butter in large pan until hot.  Cook beef in batches (used a slotted spoon to lift out of marinade - you don't want to pour all the liquid in at this stage 'cause it would just boil the meat, rather than frying it).  Remove from pan to a plate, cook next batch.  
4. Once meat all done, add more butter and throw veges into pan.  Cook on med-high heat, covered for a few minutes (to allow the broccoli and carrots to steam a bit - or you could have pre-steamed these).  Once veges are done to your liking, remove lid, add meat back in and the sauce (marinade).  Increase heat and fry together for a minute or two.  
5. Serve with rice.  

Brown-sugar banana cake!!

I get recipe suggestions all the time, as ads etc on social media.  A lot of the time I scroll past without even looking, but every now and again one catches my eye.  This cake was one of those, and I'm soooo glad I stopped to read.  It was amazing!  The original recipe (found here) had a butterscotch syrup drizzled over it (so more of a pudding), but I didn't both with that.  We ate the cake cooled, dusted with a little icing sugar.  It was heaven!!  I had to use the photos from the original website 'cause my cake was demolished before I could get a pic!  Next time I'm going to make the cake as muffins... 

125g butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 ripe bananas, mashed
200g yoghurt (I used a honey yoghurt, but plain is fine too)
200g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking soda

Icing sugar, to dust
Ice cream, to serve (this would be yum, if you're eating the cake warm!)

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees celcius.  Grease and line a 22cm spring tin (I think mine was actually 20cm and that was fine). 
2. Beat butter and sugar until creamy and fairly pale (being brown sugar it won't go pale pale). 
3. Fold in the mashed banana and yoghurt, then the flour and baking soda until just combined. 
4. Pour mixture into prepared tin and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until inserted skewer comes out clean.  If you make as muffins, bake for 15 minutes.  
5. Remove from oven and stand in tin for 5 minutes.  Serve warm, or allow to cool on cake rack. 

Ota ika round 3

I've blogged about ota ika before, not long after a trip to Tonga and again more recently.  It's a dish that would be somewhere in my top 5.  So fresh, so refreshing, full of flavours straight from the outdoors.  We had gurnard cerviche (another term for ota ika) at a local restaurant, Fahrenheit (amazing, by the way!), over the weekend, so determined to whip up a batch at home for our Monday-night meal.  

This time we used snapper, but have used gurnard, trevally and tarakihi in the past as well.  The key is to use more lemon or lime than you think you need, and more herbs.  We used a kaffir lime leaf too, finely chopped.  

2 fillets fish

3 lemons, juiced

1 tin coconut cream

heaps of fresh coriander

1 kaffir lime leaf

2 tomatoes, half a telegraph cucumber, 1 red onion, 1 capsicum - finely chopped into salsa

1. Cut fish into small pieces.  Cover with lemon juice.  Cover bowl and place in fridge for several hours to cure. 
2. About an hour or 2 before ready to eat mix through all other ingredients.  Return to fridge. 
3. Serve with extra coriander and some chopped nuts or seeds.  

Lemon herb butter (for outta this world fish!)

Fish, roast potatoes and steamed vegetables.  A pretty standard early-week dinner staple at our house.  Last night was that night, but I wanted to try something new.  I was thinking of swapping out the crispy roast tatties for some other form of potato dish (maybe rosti?), but in my recipe trawling stumbled upon this little beauty of a sauce from Chelsea Winter.  Lemon, herbs and garlic butter, drizzled all over our snapper.  It was tangy and divine!  I was supposed to fry up some capers too, alongside the fish, but I forgot - will have to make this again next week!!  

Makes enough for 4 people's fish 

50 g butter

1/2 cup finely chopped herbs (I used chives, parsley and basil - dill would be nice too)

1 clove garlic, crushed 

zest of one lemon

1.5 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 cup capers, to fry alongside the fish

1. Melt butter and cook garlic on medium heat.  Cook for a few minutes, remove from heat and stir in lemon juice, zest and half the herbs.  
2. Drizzle over cooked and plated fish.  Sprinkle with remaining herbs.  

Nek level banana choc chip muffanos

Who doesn't love a freshly-baked muffin?  Banana choc chip and blueberry would be my favs.  Oh, and apple cinnamon.  

These little beauties are a recipe from Chelsea Winter's latest cookbook, Eat, and I was curious to try a recipe which used brown sugar and curdled milk was used (buttermilk would work here in place of the milk + lemon juice).  I'd heard through the grapevine that they were "the best banana choc chip muffins ever!", and they have lived up to that praise!  

Now, what makes these nek level?  I didn't have any choc chips, so used mini M&Ms.  YUMMMMM!!  

1/2 cup milk

1 tbsp lemon juice

200 g butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla essence 

2 very ripe bananas

1 cup choc chips (or similar hee hee) 

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees fan-bake (or 200 normal bake).  Grease muffin tins (I made 24 mini muffins and 6 normal ones).  Probably would make about 18 normal sized ones? 
2. Add lemon juice to milk (in a mug, or something non-metallic) and set aside to curdle.  
3. Mix dry ingredients in large mixing bowl.  
4. Beat eggs in another bowl until smooth.  Melt butter and brown sugar in saucepan until just melted.  Add butter, milk and vanilla to eggs and whisk to combine. 
5. Pour egg mixture into dry ingredients and whisk to combine - don't overmix it, just enough to combine everything.  Once combined fold through the banana and chocolate.  
6. Spoon into muffin trays (fill to top).  
7. Bake for 10 minutes (mini muffins) or 20 minutes (normal muffins) - they'll be slightly golden on top but still nicely soft in centre. 
8. Once removed from oven leave in trays for 10 minutes before turning onto cooling rack.  Enjoy!!   

Curried sausages 2.0

It's been a crazy busy few months - hence the solo post so far in 2018.  But here we are - post numero deux!  No real excuses for the lack of meal inspiration, simply we've been away from home so much that I haven't really been cooking to far outside the box, trying new recipes.  

So, curried sausages - that's how you're going to shake things up?  Ha ha, yes and no.  I realise that curried sausages are something of a traditional staple of many a kiwi families weekly meal rotation (especially in winter!).  This is not just curried sausages however - this is curried sausages 2.0.  It's like the iPhoneX of the curried sausage world.  Thanks to Chelsea Winter, this is going to revolutionise your relationship with sausage casseroles and the like.  So tasty.  I think it's all the spices and the fresh ginger and lemon.  

(NB: I added a couple tsp of ras el hanout too, by mistake.  I'd totally make the same mistake next time too, 'cause it was awesome!)

6 sausages

dash olive oil

50 g butter

1 onion, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 apple, finely chopped (leave skin on)

3 cloves garlic - crushed, grated or finely chopped

1 tbsp fresh ginger - grated or finely chopped

2 tsp mild curry powder (if you want a spicy curry then use hot powder, and a little chili) 

2 tsp garam masala

2 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp ras el hanout

1/2 tsp black pepper

400 ml coconut milk

2 cups chicken stock

3 tbsp fruit chutney 

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 cup chopped zucchini (or frozen peas)

juice of 1 lemon
salt, to season to taste

chopped coriander or parsley, to serve

1. Pour a little oil into large frying pan and brown the sausages.  They don't need to be cooked through, just browned.  Remove and set aside to cool a little.  Once they're cool enough to handle, slice 'em up.  
2. Add butter to pan saussies were cooked in and cook onion and carrot over medium heat for 5-10 minutes, until soft and golden.  Add the onion, garlic and ginger, cook for a few minutes.  Add in all spices and combine.  
3. Add sausages back to the curry, coat with spices etc.  Add in coconutm stock, chutney and paste.  Simmer on low-medium heat for about 40 minutes. 
4. Add zucchini and simmer for a few minutes more.  If there is too much liquid, ramp up the heat factor for this cooking.  
5. Squeeze lemon all over and season to taste with salt. 
6. Serve with mash or rice (I'm going kumara-potato mash) and sprinkled with fresh herbs.  Enjoy!!

Tataki beef salad with ponzu

Salads, they're a staple of summer.  Hot days, light foods.  And BBQ, another summer staple.  So when the two get together we're talking serious summer chemistry.  Chicken caesar salad is definitely a popular go-to in the warm meat salad category.  But personally I prefer a warm beef salad.

Tataki is a type of cooking where the meat/fish is more or less just seared, then sliced up.  So essentially it's close to a sashimi salad - the meat is not cooked through (you can cook your meat more, if you prefer, but if you like rare meat, this will be right up your alley!).  

As a dish, it was sort of like eating deconstructed sushi, which I loved!  I'm not normally a fan of brown rice, but with some ponzu dressing (or just good ol' soy sauce), it was awesome.  

1 cup brown rice

1 tsp oil (I used sesame)

2 cups water

300 g beef rump steak

2 tsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp rice wine vinegar 

1/2 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp sweet chili sauce

1/2 tsp oil (I used sesame) 

10 cm cucumber, halved and sliced

1/2 capsicum, finely sliced

2 radishes, finely sliced

50 g mesclun lettuce (or chopped up cos)

ponzu dressing, to drizzle *

Serves 2-3

1. Boil water in kettle.  Put rice and oil in saucepan (one with a lid) and stir to coat.  Once water boils add to rice and stir.  Keep stirring until water level has reduced almost to the level of the rice.  Turn element to low, cover saucepan with a paper towel and firmly put lid on.  Leave simmering for 20 minutes then turn off.  Keep covered until you're ready to eat (this will stay hot for another good 20 minutes.  
2. Place beef into bowl with mariniade ingredients (I like to do this earlier in the day, so the flavours have plenty of time to meld - if you do this, cover and pop into the fridge).  
3. Prepare salad.  
4. Heat pan for beef (or BBQ plate).  Sear and cook for about 2 minutes on each side.  Remove and rest for 5 minutes.  Slice against the grain and serve alongside rice and atop salad.  Drizzle the whole with ponzu * (you can make this yourself, or you could just use a little soy mixed with a dash of lemon/lime and brown sugar).