Pasta Salad with Ham and Asparagus

2 packets of Rice & Corn Pasta (Gluten Free) - about 500gm in total
About 12 fresh asparagus stalks
Bertocchi Mini Roast Ham
Lite Coconut Milk - 1 Can
Tumeric
Garam Marsala
Coriander
Nutmeg
Paprika
Sugar - 1 teaspoon
Salt
Pepper
Sunflower seeds


Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil and add the pasta. Cook until al dente. Drain and rinse under cold water. When cold, add to Salad Bowl.
Cut Aspargus into small pieces and steam - drain, and rinse in cold water, add to salad bowl.
Cut the Ham into small chunks, eat about a quarter of it while you're cooking and add the rest to the salad bowl.
Add sunflower seeds.
Mix the coconut milk with the dried herbs and spices and seasonings ... it's to your taste ... I thought I was adding fairly generous portions, but the flavour was quite mild, so ?
Add the dressing to the salad, toss well. Paprika looks nice, so sprinkle some more on top of the salad, just for looks!

Cheater’s Tomato and Basil Risotto

1 Family Size SunRice Pre-Cooked Microwaveable Brown Rice
2 handfuls of Fresh Basil Leaves
2 punnets of red grape tomatoes
1 small handful of Pinenuts - toasted
250 ml of Dolmio Classico Tomato and Basil pasta sauce
200 ml of Lite Sour Cream

Microwave the rice for 2.5 minutes per directions, then empty into a large bowl.
Add the chopped basil and tomatoes and toasted pinenuts.
Stir it all together. Cover and leave till you’re ready.

When you’re nearly ready to serve, add the Pasta sauce to the dish, stir it all together and microwave for five minutes.

Then add the sour cream, stir through, some salt and pepper for taste.
Would serve a decent helping to 4 adults and a small side dish to about 8!

Creamy Chicken & Bacon with Tortellini

8 Chicken thigh fillets
Olive Oil
A packet of McCormick 'Slow Cooker' Country Chicken Casserole Recipe Base
10 rindless bacon rashers (no fatty bits!)
Baby Spinach Leaves (the big Coles Packet)
200gm sliced mushrooms
600ml Lite Sour Cream
Fresh Sage leaves
Fresh Rosemary
Latina Fresh Cheese and Spinach Tortellini (Family Size)
Parmesan
Salt / pepper

In a baking tray, cover the chicken thighs with a little bit of oil, and all of the Recipe Base with Qtr cup of water to make sure all the dry recipe base is moistened and all the chicken is covered. Add the washed spinach leaves (add some salt) and mushrooms and chopped sage and rosemary. Chop the bacon into whatever size you like and fry the bacon. Add cooked bacon to the chicken dish. Stir through 2/3rds (400ml) of the Sour Cream and make sure everything is combined well.

Place chicken dish in the oven and cook through. I cooked it for an hour on 125 degrees and turned the oven off. It probably rested for about half an hour in the heated oven. When I started the Tortellini, I turned the oven back on 150 degrees for about 20 minutes. Wanted to make sure it didn't dry out ... but it could all be done at once on a higher heat.

Boil salted water, add the Tortellini and cook till al dente. Drain, place back in the saucepan and stir in the remaining third of the Sour Cream, some parmesan and salt / pepper and more chopped sage / rosemary.

Plate the Tortellini first, then plate a chicken thigh or two to each person on top. Spoon over the spinach, mushroom and bacon mixture including a spoonful of juicy stuff on top of the chicken.

Add more parmesan or salt / pepper if needed, but it probably didn't need it!

I served four adults and had left overs so it could probably stretch to 8, if you dole the chicken thighs out more judiciously!

Quick n Easy Seafood Stir-Fry

Buy some fresh prawns and mixed seafood. About 200 gms per person.
Some veges for stir-frying - snowpeas, purple cabbage, broccoli florettes, onion - anything! Safeway has them in a pre-packaged pack in the fresh aisle for the absolute cheats!
Olive Oil.
Lemon

Heat Olive Oil
Toss Seafood for a few minutes until the prawns are bright orangy-pink.
Add the veges and toss so that the snowpeas glisten and green-up.
Squeeze the lemon juice over it all.

10 minutes!

Serve in bowls, so you can pour the juices over and make sure a nice green snow-pea is on top - the colour of it makes the dish stand out and look delectable.

YUM.

Extra ideas:
Add bean shoots for crunch.
Chilli for those that can handle it.
Rice Noodles if you need a bit more substance, but then serve less seafood per person, I guess ... depends if you're hungry!

Cowburgers and Cockadoodledooburgers

My brother is going to be a Dad. I am thrilled for Davo and Alli ... and cannot wait ... Alli is only 4-5 weeks pregnant and so my niece / nephew is going to be born in about February 2011. They tolD Mum yesterday and she nearly broke AlLi's ribs with her hug.

Both of them came over last night with Melissa and Dave and baby Saxon; Matt and Bec and baby Harmony. Davo practised his Dad-skills - he'll be alright!

Home-made hamburgers:

THE COWBURGER
Beef Mince
Chopped Chives
Parsley Flakes
Chopped Onion
6 eggs (coz I used about a kilo of beef mince and I have plenty left over)
A medium jar of tomato-based pasta sauce - I can't remember which one - just choose a flavour you like.
Corn-flour / Maize Flour.
Mush all the above together ; Roll it into balls; Roll the balls in a bit more flour.... so easy it probably isn't worth posting about!

THE COCKADOODLEDOOBURGER
Chicken Mince
Chopped Chives
Parsley Flakes
Chopped Onion
6 eggs (which was too many I think ... maybe 4 would do)
A small jar of Basil Pesto - could have used two I think.... flavour was subtle but I wanted it to punch through...
Corn-flour / Maize Flour and Almond Meal (coz I ran out of flour, coz it was too mushy and I had to keep adding the dry ingredients so I could get the mixture tacky enough) ...
Mush all the above together ; Roll it into balls; Roll the balls in a bit more flour or almond meal....as above!

SERVED WITH:
Hamburger Rolls (der-Fred)
Sliced Tomato
Sliced Beetroot
Baby Spinach leaves
Mushrooms
Pineapple Slices
Cheese
Mayo
Tomato Sauce
BBQ Sauce
Basil Pesto

You name it you could have had it!!!!!
We will be eating burgers for a week - there's so much left over!!! I think I can make the leftover mixture into a pie, but this involves baking ... and it might be beyond me.

You can see that I completely make my recipes up, and have no idea what quantities I use .. so sorry if these recipes are no use to you whatsoever. Craig joked last night about my hit and miss experimental cooking and he's right ... very often we have to throw the concoction away and get pizza.

I can proudly announce, however, that I am three for three .... the last three meals I made which are all posted on this blog - have been successes. This was clearly a simple case of cookery so let's not mince words (get it?) and pretend we're on MasterChef .... still it tasted good and when served with love, laughter and a healthy dose of scotch, bourbon, beer and wine (and the other condiments!!) it makes for a heartily contented little old me.

Ostensibly the shin-dig was for Ben' birthday and the donut cake (which was "made" by me as further evidence that I can't bake! Make a pyramid of donuts and stick candles in it...)) was quite cute with it's eleven candles upon it. We regailed him with a horrifying rendition of Happy Birthday (we all start at different times and sing it as loudly and off-key as possible, peeing ourselves laughing the whole way through). This was David and Alli's first experience of Happy Birthday for this side of my clan ... at first Davo thought we were starting it like a choir - with harmonies and the like ... well no. He stands corrected. Ben was delightedly embarrassed.

So filled with happiness right now ....

Creamy Chicken Casserole with Roasted Veges

3 large Carrots
3 Parsnips
8 Potatoes
Olive Oil

Fresh Oregano
Fresh Rosemary

2 x Large Brown Onions
4 cloves garlic
12 Chicken Skinless Thigh Fillets
1 Tbsp Butter
750 ml Chicken Stock
Baby Spinach Leaves
Swiss Brown Mushrooms sliced
500 ml Lite Sour Cream
Salt / Pepper

Chop veges into bite sized bits and season with salt, pepper, rosemary and oregano. Toss in some olive oil.

Cook sliced onions and garlic in melted butter with rosemary and oregano. Chop chicken into bite-sized bits and add to the cooked onions. Toss on the heat until just starting to cook through.

Convert the onion / chicken etc to an oven pan and add chicken stock and spinach leaves.

Roast the veges and cook the chicken through in the oven. When the chicken is cooked through remove from oven and cover with foil. I cooked the veges at 150 degrees for two hours and the chicken was in for about 1 hour.

Convert the chicken, veges and a 3-4 big spoonfuls of the stock back to a wok or large fry-pan. Add mushrooms and sour cream and warm it through.


... would have been nice with crusty garlic bread or just warm crusty rolls ... but we didn't have that. It was very filling and there were leftovers, but this served 4 adults and two teenage boys! Next time I would use less chicken and have more roasted veges like sweet potato, but the flavour worked. The leftovers could be added to some tortellini or gnocchi ..... it was warm, comfort food ....

Blue Grenadier with Yellow Capsicum and Buerre Pear

2 x large Blue Grenadier fillets.
1 x Lemon
1 x Lime
3/4 cup (ish) Fish Stock
1 Tbsp (ish) Fish Sauce
Olive Oil - use it how you like - little or lots

2 x Yellow Capsicum
2 x Buerre Pears
Lemon Thyme
Basil - a good handful of nice fresh leaves
White wine (I used whatever I was drinking - don't think it matters if it's sauvignon blanc, semillon or chardonnay)


Served with
Roasted Dutch Carrots (I served about 4-5 to each person)
Steamed Asparagus (About 12 spears)
Wok-tossed Shimeji, Enoki and Oyster mushrooms - (doesn't really matter how much - they were an afterthought!)


Season fish with salt and pepper
In a shallow tray which can go in the oven, pour over the fish stock. Stock should just lap the sides of the fish. Drizzle the fish sauce over the top of the fillets. Squeeze juice of one lemon and one lime and grate some zest from both fruits over the fish. Drizzle the lot with olive oil.
Cover and pop in Fridge till you're ready to cook it.

Slice the yellow capsicum finely. Toss with salt, pepper and olive oil over medium heat so that the skin starts to caramelise and it gets nice and soft. Just keep cooking it over a low heat. Add little bits of lemon thyme.
Chop basil and pears into small pieces and add to the capsicum mixture. Keep cooking! When the pear has cooked down, take off the heat and cover.

Wash and take the ends off the dutch carrots, add salt, pepper, olive oil and sprigs of the lemon thyme and roast in the oven for half an hour or 40 depending on how big they are. You want them to be soft and to show caramelisation - nice texture!

At the 15 - 20 minute mark pop the fish in the oven, for about 15 - 20. 180 degrees. I'm never sure of times, so keep an eye on it so it's cooked through but not over-cooked.

Steam the asparagus (i use a microwave steam bag for 3 - 4 minutes). Wok-toss the mushrooms with olive oil, salt / pepper - just a few minutes, then take off the heat.

When it's all getting close to ready, start re-heating the capsicum and pears, and add a splash of white wine and stir it all through, cooking off the alcohol.

Lay the mushrooms on the plate and spread around evenly. Plate the fish in even segments and place the asparagus and carrots over the top. Drizzle the fishy marinade over - just a little bit. Then sppon good size chunks of the capsicum, pear, basil on top.


Serves 4 hungry people.
IT WAS YUM!