Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

These are the savoury muffins I made for our Melbourne Cup Day picnic at the Canterbury Gardens. I personally don’t quite understand the races I am happy for any excuse for a day off. We ended up going to the Canterbury Gardens and feasted on these little muffins, garden salad, chicken and beetroot sandwiches, best-ever scones*, fresh strawberry ‘jam’ and my homemade lemonade. We even missed the drizzle and got all the sunshine hours. Bliss.

This recipe was based loosely on Stephanie Alexander’s American Muffin from the Cook’s Companion.

Muffins for the Race Day

(Makes 6 muffins or 12 mini muffins – this recipe uses standard Australian measurements.)

1. 220 g. self-raising flour
2. 3/4 cup milk or buttermilk
3. 1 egg
4. 3/4 cup vegetable oil (not strong-flavoured like extra virgin olive)
5. pinches of salt and pepper, to taste
6. 1/4 red capsicum, diced into very small pieces
7. 1/4 block of feta, diced into very small pieces
8. 2 rindless rashers of bacon

Note the capsicum, feta and bacon should come to about 100g all up.

Preheat oven to 180′c. Whisk together the wet ingredients (milk/buttermilk, egg and oil) together until combined. Add dry ingredients and mix together just until combined. Do not overmix as this will toughen the muffins. Bake in non-stick muffin tins for about 20-30 minutes. Leave to cool before attempting to remove the muffins from the tin otherwise they stick!

This recipe has also appeared on my new blog, With What We Have. It won’t be a food porn blog like this one but I hope you’ll find it interesting.

This time last year I made: A Most Excellent Rogan Josh and Saffron Rice

* Coming soon to Spatula, Spoon and Saturday. Soonish. Some time. Promise.

Cookbook Challenge Week 20

Book: The Food of China: the Journey for Food Lovers Theme: Tangy Recipe: Sweet-and-sour Prawns and Vegetables

Who came up with this bloody stupid theme? Oh wait, it was probably me. Anyway, I had capsicums lying around the house from Jim’s garden and since I have everything else around the house, I figured I should kill two birds with one stone (hang on, this sounds a lot like the last post, doesn’t it?) Although I hardly think sweet-and-sour prawns could pass for ‘tangy’ theme but it’s better than being yet-another-week behind, which I’m about to be,  since I’m off to Vanuatu for a week next week. Yay!

Sweet and Sour Prawns (for two)

1. 12 large green prawns, shelled, deveined and semi-butterflied*
2. 1 small red capsicum, diced irregularly
3. 1 small green capsicum, diced irregularly
4. 2 slices of ginger, chopped
5. 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
6. 4 white parts of the spring onions, chopped
7. 2 tbsp of chopped spring onion leaves (green part

Prawn marinade

1. 2 tbsp Shao Tsing rice wine
2. 1 tbsp corn flour
3. 1 tsp sesame oil
4. 2 slices of ginger, bruised

Add the ingredients together and mix well. Add prawns, toss and leave to marinade for 15 minutes.

Heat 3 tbsp of oil in a wok until very hot. Remove the ginger pieces from the prawns and drain. Fry the prawns in hot oil for a few minutes until the prawns changed colour. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Remove some of the oil until there are about 2 tbsp of oil left.

Fry the white parts of the green onion, garlic and chopped ginger until fragrant. Add the capsicums and fry quickly for two or three minutes. Add the prawns back. Make sure you keep the heat nice and high all the time and stir quickly. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m really tired and lazy tonight, so I give you one of my breakfast inventions while I was in Singapore:

The Breakfast Bruschetta!

First of all, I have an issue with people correcting my pronunciation. I may not be Italian, but we’re talking about food here. So believe me. I know. And it’s broo-skeh-ta. So please, dear twenty-one-year-old-uni-student-slash-actor-slash-waiter-at-the-pub, do not try to correct me with broo-chet-ta non-sense.

What it is, really, is just toast topped with veggies sauteed in a bit of pasta sauce. I was just trying to make it sound posher than it is

For 4 pieces of toast:

1. 4 pieces of toast, obviously. I recommend GOOD crusty bread.
2. 4 slices of cheese (I just use Colby because it’s always in the fridge)
3. 2 cups of sliced zucchini, red capsicum, eggplant,
4. 1 tablespoon of pinenuts
5. 2 tablespoons of Leggo’s Stir-Through pasta sauce – Tomato, Olive and Chilli

This recipe dates back to my time in Singapore when my then-housemate used had a little toaster oven.  I would toast the bread slices topped with cheese so that the cheese was nice and melted. I haven’t tried to replicate this back in Melbourne where I am toaster ovenless. Nevertheless, I’m sure you’ll figure something out.

So toast the pinenuts in a non-stick frying pan on medium heat until browned. Keep moving the nuts, they toast really fast if you’re not careful and the last thing you want in the morning in burnt bits of pine nuts to set off the smoke alarm. Set the toasted pine nuts aside. Drizzle a bit of olive oil and add in the veggies. Keep moving them around the pan until they colour nicely. Add the pasta sauce and stir around for another two minutes or so. Sprinkle in the toasted pinenuts In the pictures, I added some spring onions but this isn’t necessary at all. I think I must have just had them lying around.

Chuck the veggies on the toasts.Gobble. Run for the train. Miss the train. Be late for work. C’est la vie.

I was lazy so I got Josh to make lunch. Since I took over most of the cooking (unemployment, y’know?), I almost forgot what it was like to just sit there and wait for food to appear!

This is how he does a carbonara for two*:

1. 1/2 onion, diced
2. 2 rashers of bacon, chopped
3. 1/2 red capsicum, cut into thin strips
4. 3 button mushrooms, sliced
5. 1/4 cup of white wine
6. 1 egg
7. 1/2 cup cream
8. 1 tbsp of grated parmasan
9. 1 tbsp of grated Colby cheese
10. a pinch of dried tarragon
11. 1 tsp of dried parsley
12. 2 shakes of freshly ground black pepper
13. 200 g. of spaghetti

Cook spaghetti in hot boiling water. Add a bit of olive oil to the frying pan and sautee the onion, bacon and garlic until the onion is softened. Add mushroom and capsicum for a minute or so. Add the white wine to the vegetables and let them steam in the wine for a minute or so. Add cream, tarragon and parsley and bring to boil. Turn the heat all the way down and add in the egg, whisk very quickyly so it doesn’t scramble. Add the cheeses.

Toss the spaghetti through the sauce. Serve.

* Actually that is how he does a carbonara this time. He has a tendency to put in whatever he can find in the fridge. If you’re interested, this is how I make carbonara.

When I was in a boarding school, chicken a la king was one of those dishes that was served and I actually liked. The way I recalled it, it had chicken in a pure white sauce and it was always served with this rice dish that had onion and peas cooked into it. Never had any pimiento in it though.

After consulting many many chicken a la king recipes online, it seems like most of the recipes are a blend of those two dishes I was served in a boarding school (minus the rice of course). So I just went with the general idea. Unfortunately, at the time I had no onion in the house. Definitely a required ingredient in chicken a la king!

This is the result.

You’ll need, for two people:

1. 2 cups of cooked chicken (I used the barbecued chicken that we bought earlier)
2. 1/2 onion, chopped (I didn’t have any and it definitely was lacking)
3. 1/2 red capsicum, cut into thin strips
4. 1/2 cup of frozen peas
5. 3 mushrooms, sliced
6. 2 tbsp of plain flour
7. 2 tbsp of butter
8. 1 tsbp of Vegeta stock power (or some salt)
9. 1.5 cups of milk
10. 1 bay leaf
11. 2 tbsp of tomato ketchup
12. 1 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce

Add butter to a frying pan until it bubbles, add onion, bay leaf, capsicum and mushroom to fry. Stir for 4-5 minutes until the mushrooms colour and the capsicum softens. Add the flour and keep frying for a minute or so until the flour is cooked. Add milk and stir vigorously to get rid of any lumps. Season with the stock powder or salt and pepper and bring the sauce to boil. Season with the tomato ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. Add any water if necessary. Add the cooked chicken and frozen peas and simmer for 10 minutes until the peas are cooked.

Serve on a bed of rice or cooked fettucine.

Edit: OMG I completely forgot to write about the tomato ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. Add them!

This is part 3/3 of this week’s $20 Mexican Feast.

This is a really easy side dish. I looked up a few recipes on the internet and came up with this one. I used my rice cooker and it takes minimum of two cups of rice (there’s always leftover rice in this household! I had this for breakfast with bacon and eggs the next day). This makes a lot of rice! Enough for 4-6 people.

1. 1/2 onion, sliced
2. 1/2 red capsicum, cut into strips
3. 1/2 yellow capsicum, cut into strips
4. 1 coriander (4-5 stalks), chopped
5. 1 tsp tumeric
6. 1 tsp ground coriander
7. 1 tsp ground cumin
8. 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or chilli powder)
9. 2 cups of basmati rice
10. 4 cups of water

(in the rice cooker)

Turn the rice cooker on ‘Cook’, add 2 tbsp of oil to heat up (you might need to hold down your rice cooker button), fry the onion and capsicum for a minute. Add the spices and rice. Stir until the rice is heated through. Sprinkle with coriander. Add water (this depends on your rice and rice cooker, so you’ll need to adjust accordingly) and cook in the rice cooker.

If you don’t have a rice cooker, do the same on a stove. Add water and cover the rice and turn the heat down to simmer and for to cook for 10 minutes. Rest the rice off the heat for another 10 minutes.

Part 2 of the $20 Mexican Feast continues…

I felt like a bit of fish and since enchilada seems to accommodate fish very well, I decided that enchilada would be perfect. I bought a nice ocean trout fillet from the fish monger (possible about 200g) and that was plenty enough for two of us. Remember to uncook the fish because you’ll have to bake it.

I ended up buying the Old El Paso enchilada kit from the supermarket which consisted of 8 (tiny!) corn tortilla and enchilada sauce. I know. It wasn’t supposed to be though. Unfortunately, my local supermarket didn’t carry corn tortilla on its own. And there was no way I was going to make enchilada with flour tortilla. So recap: corn tortilla not flour tortilla.

Note: this recipe makes 6 small enchiladas (there were 8 in a pack, used 2 for the soup)

Making the enchilada sauce

(Peeled, roasted capsicum – still steaming!)

I start by roasting a capsicum under the grill on medium for about 5 minutes on each of the four sides until the skin blackened and blistered. Cover and rest the capsicum. The steam will continue to cook the capsicum until soft. Peel the capsicum, discard the seeds and chop it into piece.

(Adding roasted red capsicum, fresh chilli and coriander to prepacked sauce)

Bring the pre-packed enchilada sauce to boil (or if you want to make it from scratch, simmer a can of diced tomatoes, chopped onion, garlic, 1 each tsp of cumin, coriander, tumeric, salt and a bit of chilli powder for 20 minutes), add the chopped roasted capsicum, 1 chopped fresh red chilli (alter depending on how spicy you want it) and 4-5 stalk of fresh coriander chopped. The one trick I learn is to add fresh ingredients to zing up bottled sauces. It tastes fantastic like you make it from scratch!

(the sauce after fresh ingredients have been blended in)

Simmer the sauce for a few more minutes. Blend the sauce and put aside while you prepare other ingredients. I used my Sunbeam Stickmaster and I can’t rave about it enough. It was the best wedding present ever!

Making the enchilada fillings

(cooking the vegetables)

1. 200 g. ocean trout, pinboned and cut into 3 cm cubes (don’t worry about remove the skin)
2. 1/2 onion, sliced
3. 3 button mushrooms, sliced
4. 1/2 red capsicum, cut into strips
5. 1/2 yellow capsicum, cut into strips
6. Yet more coriander! Pile them on!

First of all, start by preheating your oven now to 200′C. Fry the onion, capsicum and mushroom together in a bit of oil until the vegetables soften and start to colour. Add chopped coriander. Set aside.

(pan-frying the trout)

Turn the heat way up and add oil. Cut the fish into 3cm cubes and fry very them quickly on high. No more than half a minute on two sides only. You need to really under cook the fish here because it will be baked later on as well and nothing is worse than overcooked fish.

Putting them together

Heat the sauce up and fill the bottom of a baking dish up to about 2 cm.

(putting the fillings together)

Place a corn tortilla on a plate. Spoon some vegetable filling (about 1 tbsp), place two cubes of cooked trout (the skin will come off easily here if you wish to remove it) and flatten the fish a bit. Roll the tortilla by folding the two side into the centre. Hold the side that the two ends meet up. It won’t stay close, don’t worry. Place the tortilla into the sauce in the baking dish, move the tortilla in the sauce a bit and then turn it upside. So now you end up with the sealed part at the bottom and the other side nicely sauced. Are you confused yet? This is basically to dispense with the need to spoon more sauce on top of each enchilada. It gets messy so I do it this way. Do the same for the rest of the enchilada. It’s important to use a baking dish that fits all of your enchilada properly.

(bake until the cheese melts)

Sprinkle with some grated cheese. Tasty is good. American Cheddar even better. But I have mozzarella. It doesn’t matter so much (imo, anyway). Bake for 10-15 minutes until the cheese melts.* We don’t really have the luxury of baking it until it’s nice and golden because the fish will be overcooked. If you’re using another meat, or like to cook the hell out of your fish, I recommend baking it for longer.

* The more I think about it, I should have just grilled it so the cheese will melt and browned and the fish won’t overcook. Ah well. Next time.

This is also known as What To Do When You Have Leftover Roast Lamb.

There are four main ingredients in this salad: salad leaves, lamb, grilled veggies and dressing. We already have the lamb of course. This is inspired by a recipe in this month’s Delicious. (what’s with the full stop at the end of its name?) by Tobie Puttock but as usual I went off on my own tangent.

I bought the salad leaves from the market – this is the mixed salad leaves (including three-four different lettuce, radicchio and rocket leaves) and I threw in some fresh flat leaf parsley. Some fresh basil would have been really nice but, well, didn’t have any.

For the grilled veggies, I use zucchini, red capsicum and eggplant. I made up some rosemary oil (olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper crushed together in a shaker) to brush on them before grilling them.

Brush the veggie slices with the rosemary oil before grilling:

Grill the veggies in a sandwich presser (you can easily just pan fry though) – I also add two garlic cloves to the grill for the dressing later:

Where are we with the salad? Oh, the grilled veggies. Toss them on the salad mix.

And on goes the lamb:

And then the dressing. These are what I used for the dressing:

1. 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2. juice of half a lemon
3. salt & pepper
4. 2 cloves of roasted garlic (made at the same time as the grilled veggies)
5. 1 tsp rosemary leaves (fresh)
6. pinch of sugar

Bung on the dressing and serve with some bread. I have some sundried tomato foccacia – which was kinda average (as average as supermarket foccacia goes) but good enough since I didn’t buy it.

And there you have it – leftover roast lamb salad for two. Josh approves.

Yes. I am guilty of butchering the real Mongolian lamb. But we were very hungry and needed some quick fix.

For the two of us, I cut one lamb leg steak (about 150 g.) into cubes. For vegetables, I chop up a small carrot, half a large zucchini, half an onion, a handful of cauliflower florets, half a red capsicum and a handful of long beans.

I toss the cubes of lamb into a smoking hot wok (I <3 my wok! I bought it for like $12 and seasoned it myself and now it’s beautiful) with the onion slices. I fry them up until the lamb is browned, which only takes a few minutes. I toss in the carrot and cauliflower (these take a bit longer to cook) until they’re softened before I toss in the rest of the vegetables.

(before sauce)

I then cheat (massively) and add a pack of Lee Kum Kee Mongolian Lamb sauce. And it’s done.

Well, that was easy, wasn’t it? Serve with perfectly steamed rice (which I don’t really steam because I now have a rice cooker! Yay!)

I’m getting quite sick of zucchini actually but I shall soldier on.

This is from last week after I made cauliflower and cheese and had leftover Bechamel sauce (which actually sat quite nicely in the fridge for a day without complaining too much). Since I am such a terrific wife, I throw together a nice bit of pasta for Josh’s lunch.

I dice up whatever vegetables I have lying around (what’s new?) and that includes zucchini (again!), red capsicum, cauliflower (how much food can one make from cauliflwer? I still have some more left), and a bit of ham. I toss them into the tasty Bechamel sauce and simmer them for about 5 minutes or until the veggies are tender.

On the side, I boil up some wholemeat pasta. Once done, toss the pasta into the sauce. I find a nice vine-ripened tomato from Jim’s garden, peel it and squash it in. I dress the tomato slightly with a bit of balsamic vinegar mixed with olive oil. And then it goes into the lunchbox with leftover cauliflwer and cheese for Josh for the next day with some shaved parmasan.