Opps...or when life gets in the way

Trouble....

Sorry I disappeared for a while there, life reared its head and this bloggy business fell by the way side. However, you will be pleased to know that I am working on a new summer menu plan, which I am hoping to implement next weekend. Summer in Sydney is a pretty great time to be into food, the amount of fresh produce we have right now is just incredible. I am trying to come up with ideas/menus to utilise all this great produce over the summer months.

In the meantime here is a list a some of the cookbooks I have been using - my meal plans are always a combination of my recipes, recipes straight from other people and an amalgamation of the two.

Cooking Under The Influence by Ben Canaider & Greg Duncan Powell.

I have had this book for years and I still find it delightful. Great recipes, funny antedotes, nice photos, what more could you want?

Jaime at Home by Jamie Oliver

Yes I know, Jamie Oliver is awfully annoying but I like this book as it is organised by seasonwith several different recipes based around single ingredients. I have not made a huge amount from it but the recipes I have tried have been great.

Rump and a Rough Red by Greg Duncan Powell

(How funny, I only just realised that this is written by the same person who wrote Cooking Under the Influence). This is a new book that I have not cooked a lot from but have been enjoying reading, very similar to Cooking Under the Influence.

Simply Japanese by Yoko Arimoto

Another new to me book, we adore Japanese in this house so I am planning on trying to make some more myself. This outlines both traditional meals and modern interpretations.

Hopefully I will have my new meal plan up soon and can start sharing again!

BBQ'd snapper

So, we finally bought a bbq, a requirement to live in Australia it seems. We also went to the Sydney Fish Market for the first time (how we have managed to live here so long without going is beyond me!), so tonight we christened the bbq with some beautiful snapper.

Luckily, the man who served us knew a lot about sustainable fishing, something I feel quite strongly about. He pointed us to the snapper, which is line caught and sustainable, and delicious!

All we did with it was rub some olive oil and salt into the skin side and bbq'd it for 3 minutes skin side down. It could have done with slightly longer but was still really good.

I served it with some boiled and then bbq'd potatoes and a salad with a thai style dressing.

Beetroot Risotto

This meal was not on the menu plan anywhere but we were home one night we were meant to be out so I thought I would give it a go. I was very torn with this one as we love beetroots round here but I was not sure about putting sour cream in a risotto. I was also struggling to figure out how it would taste, I just could not imagine it. In the end it was actually quite nice, not the same as my normal risotto but a nice alternative. It is very earthy and I think needed the sour cream to sort of level the flavours out a bit. It was also a talking point when I took the leftovers into work, lots of "What on earth are you eating??".

A friend sent the recipe to me and I am not sure where she got it so I will share it here:

4 roasted beetroot, skins removed, and chopped into 1cm cubes

3 cups chicken stock

Olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

3-4 gloved garlic, crushed

1 and a half cups arborio rice

half a cup red wine

2 tablespoons sour cream

Firstly, put the stock in a pot and bring to a simmer. Leave this simmering throughout the cooking process.

Then, fry up the onion and garlic in the olive oil until the onion is soft. Add the rice and fry until it starts to brown a little. Add the red wine and let the rice absorb all the moisture. Then slowly add the stock, roughly a ladle full at a time, letting the rice absorb all the moisture before adding anymore. Sir often throughout this process.

Once the rice is cooked stir through the beetroot and sour cream. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

Enjoy!

Ricotta Hotcakes!

At our house we often go all out for breakfast at the weekend, with either a big cooked breakfast or pancakes. We sit down at the table, drink coffee, eat good food and chat. Today I wanted to try something a little bit different, I decided to try out Ricotta Hotcakes, something I have had at cafe's but have never attempted myself. I used this recipe, from a blog I just discovered this morning. These turned out so perfectly, they honestly were perfection.

I served mine with some vanilla yogurt, fresh strawberries, passionfruit and a drizzle of honey. The hubby also decided to sprinkle some chocolate over his...

I recommend giving these a go asap.

Lasagna!

So, Tuesday nights we normally would go out but this week we decided to stay at home, so I asked the husband what he would like for dinner and he, typically, wanted lasagne, as opposed to something easy like an omelette!

But, I love lasagna too so really didn't mind making the effort. Here is my personal recipe but the great thing about lasagna is that everyone puts their own personal flair on it.

Bolognese

1 brown onion, diced
3 gloves garlic, crushed
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stalks, sliced
500g beef mince
1 tsp salt
1 tblsp sugar
1 can crushed tomatos
1 sachet tomato paste
2 bay leaves
half tsp dried thyme

Fry the onion, garlic, carrot and celery until onion is cooked. Add the mince, salt and sugar, and fry this until the meat is cooked through and is starting to brown and caramelize. The add the tomatos, tomato paste, bay leaves and thyme. Turn the heat right down and simmer for a couple of hours, stirring occasionally.

Bechamel Sauce

2 tblsp butter
2 tblsp plain flour
water
half cup chedder cheese, grated
salt and pepper

Melt the butter and flour together in a saucepan until combined. Add a small amount of water and using a whisk stir into the flour and butter until smooth. Continue adding small amounts of water and stirring until combined. If you do this process slowly you should not have any lumps. Do this until you reach the consistency you desire and then add the cheese and season.

Lasagne

Grease a baking dish, and put in a layer of Bolognese and then a layer of either fresh or dried lasagna sheets, then some bechamel sauce. Continue in this order until you reach the final layer of bechamel, then add some parmesan cheese to the top. Bake in an 200 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

Serve with salad and enjoy!!

Cookies!

These are lemon and vanilla cookies, recipe from this cookbook I'm afraid but I am sharing the pretty pictures. They were so so good, but then I am very much partial to a bit of lemon so I knew these would be right up my alley.

Ricotta Gnocchi

This is another one of my all time favourite meals, delicious and so easy to make (if a little time consuming and messy). I have made this so many times and have never had a "bad" batch so it seems pretty fail safe. The recipe I use is from a cook book but this one seems very similar.

Normally I keep the sauce really simple, I like to just fry up a couple of rashers of bacon and some crushed garlic in a little olive oil and then add some beautiful heirloom tomatos in a range of colours. Finally, some fresh basil and salt and pepper to finish and that is it. I swear I could eat it like this every day and not get bored.

However, as I did not make it to the farmers markets this week I had to make to with some vine-ripened cherry tomatos, and I had a little bit of left over cooked chicken so threw that in as well. It was not as good as my normal sauce but still, I could not complain!

Also, in case you were wondering, I did end up using up all my leftovers! There was some bechamel sauce left over from the onion tart so I simply made a quick macaroni and cheese and served it with the steak, which I seasoned and fried for about a minute on each side and then cut into slices. I also made a rather green onion heavy salad, I was worried it would be a really piecemeal dinner but it actually all worked really well together and got two thumbs up from the husband, success I would say!