Savoury quinoa and blackbean stuffed marrows

I can categorically now say that I do not love marrows. I can’t say I hate them given they are basically tasteless but I do not love them. We scored some free marrows from the taller half’s mums farm so I felt it my duty to find something creative to make with them. On investigation I discovered that stuffing them seemed popular so I made up my own stuffing recipe which got the thumbs up in a big way. The marrow itself however, didn’t get rave reviews. I’ll keep the stuffing recipe files for s surplus of baby pumpkin, capsicum or eggplant in the future.

Stuffing

1/2 a cup of red and white quinoa – boiled
1/4 cup of black beans
1/2 a yellow onion – finely diced
2 garlic cloves – mashed
1 rasher of bacon – roughly chopped
1 handful of oregano leaves – torn off the stem
2 tomatoes – diced
1 tablespoon tomato paste

Sautée onion and garlic in olive oil in a heavy based frying pan on medium heat until soft then add in bacon and stir until lightly browned. Then add in the rest of the ingredients and simmer until flavours combine (10 minutes).

Cut off either end of the marrow and remove the inside (seeds). Stuff with stuffing mixture, coat with a little butter then wrap well in aluminium foil and bake on about 200ºC for 1.5 hours. Yep, 1.5 hours. I took mine out at just over an hour and they weren’t quite cooked. This will depend on the size of the marrow too but better to be cooked well than undercooked.

Remove foil, slice into rounds and serve.

Fig, prosciutto, rocket and two cheese tart

Seeing as fig season is in full swing I’ve been making full advantage of it. They are amazing in salads, savory dishes, sweets, stuffed with cheese, stewed with icecream. What’s not to love?

6 fresh figs – quartered
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons water
1 sheet puff pastry – thawed and halved
50 grams chevre – crumbled
100 grams mozzerella – grated
Salt
Pepper
A few sprigs of rocket

Place figs, balsamic, brown sugar and water in a baking dish and bake on 180ºC for 15 minutes. Remove and set aside.

Place pastry on top of baking paper inside a baking dish, top with another sheet of baking paper and another baking dish to weigh it down and bake on 180ºC for 15 minutes.

Remove and top with cheeses and salt and pepper then put back in the oven for 10 more minutes. Remove and top with figs, rocket and prosciutto as well as drizzling with the pan juices from the baked figs.

Serve.

A week in review

Well I thought I’d better go back and check how the last week turned out after participating in last Monday’s challenge from Inner Pickle.

Monday: Crab and apple salad. I’d been wanting to experiment with this for a long time and being home alone gave me the perfect opportunity. It wasn’t THAT great but I’m convinced it can be with some work. (tick)

Tuesday: It’s valentines day. We’re splitting dinner into bits and making it special. I lost the coin toss so I’ve got main course. My taller half will do entrée and dessert and I’m pretty sure I’m going to make a mussel pot with a decadent creamy white wine sauce. ‘Pretty sure’ is probably not good enough as it is tonight but I have faith. (Mussel pot got made along with oysters, salmon carpaccio and a tasty dessert)

Wednesday: No idea, my taller half will cook. (Ended up being a combined effort of chicken, fig, prosciutto and chevre salad with honey/mustard dressing)

Thursday: Same as Wednesday. (Ended up being takeaway Thai – deep fried bean curd and chicken and cashew stir fry)

Friday: We will probably stop in at Olivers as we will be on the road to up near Foster to see the Taller Half’s mum. (Yep, we stopped at olivers and shared a roast lamb and vege wrap)

Saturday: Whatever the plan ends up being at the ranch. (BBQ prawns, salad, potato and pavlova)

Sunday: Probably takeaway Thai as we will have driven back that day. (Watermelon, chevre and mint salad with roast chicken wings)

It went roughly according to the almost-non-plan, the only differences being who cooked and Thursday swapping with Sunday. Good know I roughly know what I am doing and what I’m not doing in life, as well as knowing that sometimes I don’t know. lol.

Thanks again for the challenge Pickle.

Roast chicken wings with watermelon, mint and chevre salad

I’m loving the use of fruits in salads at the moment. We had the pleasure of ducking away to seeing the Taller half’s mum and husband on the weekend. They live on a lovely property in the Manning Valley with a marvelous vege garden and an orchard to yearn for. We scored ourselves half a watermelon and after the long drive home on Sunday (after a weekend of eating and lazing about) I wanted to make something quick and light.

1/4 watermelon – cut into cubes
1 small spanish onion – sliced into thin rings
1/2 a round of chevre – crumbled
1/2 cup of packed mint leaves – separated from their stem
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
salt and pepper

Mix ingredients together in a bowl and serve with chicken wings roasted with a drizzle of season all. And how great is the colour?

Fig, prosciutto, chicken and chevre salad with honey mustard dressing

It’s terribly satisfying when you can cobble together something so yummy out of what’s in the fridge.

6 figs – quartered
Enough rocket for two
1 chicken breast – cut into strips and shallow fried in olive oil (you could also steam if you wanted to be healthier)
1/2 a round of chevre – crumbled into pieces
6 slices of prosciutto torn into strips

Honey/mustard dressing

1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon mustard
1-2 tablespoons verjuice
1 teaspoon olive oil

Throw ingredients into a bowl then drizzle with dressing and serve. Too easy!

Valentines day dinner

My taller half and I split the planning, lumped entrée and dessert together then tossed a coin to see who would do main. I lost the toss so main it was. (We both wanted to do entrée and dessert.)

My taller half excelled at entrée serving up fresh oysters followed by a salmon carpaccio. Dessert was a angel cake, mascarpone, chocolate sauce and almonds recipe and for main I did mussels in white wine sauce.

Mussels in white wine sauce

500g mussels
3/4 cup of cream
1/2 cup of white wine
1 small onion finely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of half a lemon
2 cloves of garlic – crushed
1 large handful of parsley – finely chopped

Heat oil in frying pan and sautée garlic and onion on a medium heat until softened. Add in white wine and lemon juice and bring to a simmer, add in cream then oysters and simmer with the lid on until mussels are all open. Mix through parsley then serve with crusty bread.

Baked lamb with home made olive tepanade and home grown salad

I’m pretty sure I’ve posted this lamb recipe before but it really is so fab. The olive tepanade is so easy to whip up using a mortar and pestle and doesn’t have to be precise to make the lamb turn from an ordinary cut into eatable gold. I’m still working through the fresh produce we’ve got on offer from the garden at home so this salad is somewhat similar to the last one just a bit lighter on the carbs.

Home made olive tepanade

1 handful of kalamata olives – finely chopped
3 anchovies
1 tablespoon of capers – roughly chopped
1 clove of garlic – mashed
1 tablespoon olive oil
Juice of half a lemon

Put olives, capers, anchovies and garlic in the mortar and pestle and mash toegther. Add olive oil and lemon juice and continue to mix well. Spoon ingredients onto one side of the lamb cuts and bake in the oven on 200ºC for about 20 minutes depending on the thickness of the cut. Leave to rest then serve.

Home grown salad

Dill (ours has gone to seed and is dying off rapidly)
Beans – blanched and sliced into thirds
Eggs – hard boiled and sliced
Basil – torn
Parsley – chopped
Cherry tomatoes – halved

Loving the home grown salads

A game with a pickle

So it turns out that even the internet is a small world and as it turns out there is a lovely woman who is married to a school friend’s brother who has a delightful blog that includes many foodie things. Check Inner Pickle out. Particularly if you’re a fan of made from scratch, home grown or have a slight sweet tooth. I’m more a fan of the former but in any case it’s a genuinely delightful read.

This will by my first ever non-recipe blog post but all in aid of being a good sport. Inner Pickle’s idea is to get people sharing their menu plan for a week. It’s not only a great way to inspire but also a bit of a fun observation of the differences in people’s lifestyle habits. Even not having a plan is ok so I’m going to be as honest and do it again at the end of the week to see how closely it matched what I thought would happen and fill in the gaps that I know exist.

Monday: Crab and apple salad. I’d been wanting to experiment with this for a long time and being home alone gave me the perfect opportunity. It wasn’t THAT great but I’m convinced it can be with some work.

Tuesday: It’s valentines day. We’re splitting dinner into bits and making it special. I lost the coin toss so I’ve got main course. My taller half will do entrée and dessert and I’m pretty sure I’m going to make a mussel pot with a decadent creamy white wine sauce. ‘Pretty sure’ is probably not good enough as it is tonight but I have faith.

Wednesday: No idea, my taller half will cook.

Thursday: Same as Wednesday.

Friday: We will probably stop in at Olivers as we will be on the road to up near Foster to see the Taller Half’s mum.

Saturday: Whatever the plan ends up being at the ranch.

Sunday: Probably takeaway Thai as we will have driven back that day.

Thanks for the game Pickle.

Home alone salad

I wasn’t 100% happy with the balance of this dish. Some people I know posted a picture of a crab and apple salad a fair while ago but they lost the recipe. I adore crab so I decided to start with some trial and error and see if I could create something similar that tastes great. I have a certain amount of success recreating dishes I eat when out and about so why not? Anyway, the outcome was too sweet for my liking. Could have something to do with the type of apple I used. I’m also most definitely missing ingredients and I’m a bit stumped as to what.

Crab and apple salad

300 grams of crab meat
1 apple – finely grated
A few sprigs of chopped fresh dill (ours has gone to seed to really I’m just using it up)
A dash of whole egg mayonnaise
A dash of lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Now this is too easy. Mix ingredients together, place in a ramekin or mould and turn out onto plate. Top with a sprig of dill. This could either be eaten as a simple salad or with crackers as a type of dip.

Still needs some work though. I think it has the potential to be amazing.

Advice most welcome.

Dinner from home

I’m just about more proud of this meal than any other I’ve ever made due to the number of ingredients that came directly from our inner suburban back yard.

Pork chops with honey mustard sauce and a spelt pasta salad with eggs, tomatoes, beans and herbs

Half a punnets worth of fresh home grown cherry tomatoes – halved
Handful of home grown beans – blanched and sliced in three
Handful of fresh basil leaves
Finely chopped fresh chives
Finely chopped parsley
3/4 cup of boiled spelt stars
1/2 preserved lemon – finely diced (grown next door and preserved by me)
4 hard boiled eggs – halved (laid by Daphne, our delightful chicken)

Pork chops
1 teaspoon honey (from my taller half’s father’s friend’s bees)
1 tablespoon mustard
4 tablespoons rose verjuice

Throw salad ingredients together in a bowl once all prepared ingredients have cooled. Mix together and drizzle with olive oil

Pan fry pork chops for about 4 minutes each side. Remove from pan to rest then deglaze pan with other ingredients premixed to make sauce.

Pour sauce over pork and serve with bowl of salad for self serving.

Enjoy!