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.