Summer Chicken Salad

This salad is amazing, fresh and delicious, and summery with mango and pineapple mixed through it.  Again, you can substitute the chicken with tofu strips, and leave the meaty bit of the dressing to make it acceptable to the non meat eaters.  I was so worried at first when she announced she didn't want to eat meat, but it's not going too badly at all.

Summer Chicken Salad

Ingredients

750g chicken breast

440g can of pineapple pieces (juice not syrup)

1 small brown onion finely chopped

1 tbsp mild curry powder

1 tbsp mango chutney

1/2 cup whole egg mayonnaise

1 butter lettuce

1 mango peeled and sliced

1 avocado peeled and sliced

1/2 cup macadamia nuts

4 sprigs lemon thyme

1 tbsp olive oil

Method

Poach chicken in pineapple juice with thyme.

When cooked, set aside and reserve 1/4 cup of poaching liquid

Slice chicken diagonally across grain

Fry onion in oil, add curry powder, and cook for 30 seconds till aromatic, add mango chutney.  Remove from heat, add reserved poaching liquid and mayonnaise.

Tear up lettuce and put it in a bowl, mix in avocado and mango and sliced chicken (or tofu)

Pour over dressing, and toss.  Sprinkle with macadamias.

This is another one from the old recipe book, such a winner.

Thai Beef Salad

I often order this if I'm out and it's offered, so delicious, so many flavours.  I found an old recipe book in the cupboard recently that I'd forgotten about, or dismissed as boring, but looking through it, realised that the reason I had written all of them down was because they were amazing.  Kind of like the analogue version of this blog, which I started for the kids so that when they leave home they can cook my recipes :).  Such vanity.  Maybe they will be relieved to experiment on their own without my interference.

Thai Beef Salad

Ingredients

800 g rump steak cut into strips as thin as you make them
150 g baby spinach (or any other green you fancy, I've been bulking it up with extra fancy lettuce I've had in the fridge to make it go a bit further)
1 red capsicum sliced - sometimes I fry up the slices, and sometimes leave them raw, depends how I'm feeling, both are nice
2 lebanese cucumbers cut into matchsticks
2 carrots cut into match sticks
1/2 cup snow peas cut in strips
1 cup bean sprouts (this is optional, I don't always have them on hand)
1/2 cup coriander leaves

Dressing

2 tbsps of lime juice
1 tbsp soy
1 red chilli chopped
1 clove garlic
I tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsps olive oil


Cook meat quickly in small batches in the oil
cover with foil and allow to rest
Mix all dressing ingredients
Prepare the vegetables and toss together
Toss meat and vegetables together
Pour over dressing and serve


I make a vegetarian option for the one who doesn't eat meat by frying up strips of tofu (with or without soy, it doesn't matter to her, she loves tofu either way), and make a separate dressing omitting the fish sauce, because, fish).  She says its really good.

Slow cooker lamb korma

Lamb Korma in the slow cooker

I'm working a couple evenings a week, so I've dragged out the slow cooker to use on those nights.  I love the slow cooker, if you use it correctly, you can make tasty meals that don't all taste the same.  Which was my initial criticism of it, having grown up in a household where it was in use fairly often, with unvaried results - whatever was put in, the same thing came out at the end,  and I didn't like it.   My mum often says she is a bad cook, I don't think this is true, but she isn't an adventurous cook (although sometimes adventure can be alarming, I've watched my dad empty jars of this and that into his meals in combinations that would make you weep), and she doesn't like it, so she takes short cuts.

This mornings efforts have left me with a houseful of smoke from rendering the fat on my piece of lamb, but the spice combo was nice, and I think the hours in the cooker should finish it off nicely.

1.5kg lamb (the recipe I am basing this on said shoulder, I hate lamb shoulder so I'm using a leg, I've done this before and it worked, so I expect it will again).
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 onions
3 garlic cloves
5cm piece of ginger
1 tsp cumin, nutmeg, garam masala, cinnamon, chilli flakes
3 bay leaves
1/2 cup greek yoghurt
1/2 cup chicken stock
coriander and papa dums and rice to serve, naan would be good too but I don't have that, and I'm not making it today.

Heat oil in the fry pan and render the fat.  This is smoky, open your windows, or you will be accused of trying ot burn the house down.

Cut onions into quarter and put in slow cooker
Place the lamb into the slow cooker, on top of the onions.  Add ginger and garlic to the pan.  I washed the pan this morning and used fresh oil at this point, because my oil was a bit sooty.  Maybe I did burn it just a little.  Fry for a couple minutes, add dry spices and cook for 30 seconds, add chicken stock and yoghurt and mix well.

Pour over lamb in the slow cooker.  I've set mine to 9 hours on low.  I am hoping this will work out ok.  Tonight, when I leave work, I'll ring home to let J know to shred the lamb and stir through some more yoghurt and sour cream, probably totalling about a cup extra.  And to put some rice on.  The bone will come out of the lamb at the shredding stage, nice and tidy.

I tasted the spice and stock mixture before I put it in the cooker, it was yummy.  I'm hopeful.

Oreo cheesecake

We had a birthday this week, and it seems there finally been a movement away from pavlova.  Thank heavens.  I actually don't like pavlova particularly, so when everyone was choosing pav as their birthday cake I was a bit sad.  Cheesecake is the new pavlova in this house, so much more scope for creativity and tastes so much better.

We had a cheesecake for the family party, and I made the raspberry one I've already blogged about, except with blue berries, which was tasty and delicious.  Then for the friend party, I made an Oreo cheesecake.  I quite like Oreos, and I'll buy them if they are on special.  They weren't on special this week, and I felt a bit gypped having to pay full price for them, but this is what happens when it's a birthday.  I've also paid $7 for a punnet of strawberries for the birthday pav in May.  Which didn't please me either.

So the Oreo cheesecake was requested, but I didn't like the recipe I found online, and there has just been a cheesecake cooked on MKR that scored two 10's, so I looked at that recipe, which wasn't an Oreo one, then I had a look at the raspberry/blueberry/ricotta one, and decided to reinvent the whole thing.  Fortunately it was a great success.  I also managed to cut it into exactly the right number of pieces for the guests present.  Which is good and bad - bad because there was no piece left over to have with my coffee this morning.  Good because it made me look super efficient and clever at dividing things up nicely.

OREO CHEESECAKE

1 pkt chocolate ripple biscuits 

100g butter500g cream cheese

125g sour cream

3 eggs

170g brown sugar 

12 Oreos

Preheat oven to 150 degrees (this was fan forced)

Crush chocolate ripple biscuits (I did all this in the thermomix, and it didn't explode and give me third degree burns, that poor woman, horrific, but don't purée 100degree stuff at high speeds and expect things to end well, just saying).

Melt butter in the microwave.  Technically you could do this in thermomix too, but I'm all for making washing up easy, and tipping the bikkies out into another bowl and adding the butter pre melted is in line with that personal philosophy.

Grease a flan or whatever you are using, I have a lovely glass fluted flan pan that I got for my 21st that I always use for cheesecake.  Press biscuit mix into the pan and refrigerate while you do the other bit.

Rinse the thermomix and give it a dry.  Whiz up the rest of the ingredients, except the Oreos in thermomix until smooth.  You can do this just as easily with beaters/mix master/food processor.  I use the thermomix because that's what I have.

Pour the mixture into the biscuit  

Chop up the Oreos, I cut them into quarters, and poke them into the top of the cheesecake.

Bake for 30 minutes until set.  It will brown a little on top.  My oven is quite fast I think, so maybe the cooking time will be longer in another oven.  I'm always burning things in my oven, because it cooks quicker than I expect.

Once it's cool, refrigerate until serving.  Keep it covered so it doesn't absorb fridge smells.  

Very happy with this one.  I should have taken a photo, but I didn't.  Again.  Whoops.  

Chorizo, tomato, parmesan orecchiette

I found two big tubs of an interesting mix of tomatoes at Aldi the other week, and thought of this meal.  Usually, I would just buy cherry tomatoes, or maybe grape if they were on special, but the special was a good opportunity to mix it up a bit.  And they were yummy in this.

400g mixed tomato varieties (I had yellow ones, grape tomatoes, black tomatoes, all small ones though).
olive oil
2 chorizos, sliced thin
3 garlic cloves crushed
2 cups cream
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup grated parmesan
pasta of your choice, I like orecchiette
basil leaves

Drizzle the tomatoes with olive oil and bake for about 10 minutes at 180 degrees
Heat ore oil in a fry pan and fry chorizo, cooking until golden, add garlic, and stir it for a few minutes over the heat.  Add cream, and simmer until it has reduced slightly.  Stir in the peas, then the cheese.

Serve over cooked pasta, and scatter the tomatoes and basil leaves over the top.

Spicy Chicken with caramelised onion and cous cous

This began life in a recipe book far far away, as a fish dish.  But since half the family refuse to eat fish, and make gagging sounds when it's even suggested, I changed it to chicken, because who could resist caramelised onion and cous cous?

700 grams of chicken breast
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon of harissa paste
2 red onions
1 more tablespoon of olive oil
60 ml red wine vinegar
2 tsps of brown sugar
1 1/2 cups cous cous
mint
parsley
1 1/2 cups of chicken stock
cranberries
1 tin of chick peas


mix harissa and olive oil, let it marinate for an hour or so.
Make caramelised onion.  I did it in the thermomix, because onions make me cry.  These onions still made me cry, but I got mopped up while the thermo did the majority of the work, so it's a win for me.  I just can't cope with onions, the fumes kill me.  Every time.  I cut them with my eyes squeezed shut, but it's still not enough to stop the fumes from overwhelming me.  I'm pathetic.  So slice your onions thin, heat oil in the thermo on varoma for a minute, 2 minutes would be even better, but I only did 1.  Add onions and cook on varoma for 15 minutes reverse, speed 1.
Add red wine vinegar, cook for another 2 minutes on varoma same speed etc.  At this point I also added brown sugar, just a touch to sweeten the whole thing up, because what is the point of caramelised onions if they're not sweet?

Fry chicken

Chop up herbs.
Pour boiling stock over cous cous and add 1 tsp of extra harissa.  Cover for 5 minutes.
Separate with a fork, then toss through cranberries, herbs, chickpeas, and caramelised onionsand a splash of olive oil. 

Serve with chicken on top.

Yoghurt and Raspberry Cheesecake

I made this a couple different ways, the first was with dried blueberries, which are like sultanas or currants, but nicer (and heaps more expensive).  Then I made it with raspberries - frozen ones.  The raspberry version is my favourite.

200g malt biscuits
160g butter (I use salted, but unsalted would be fine, whatever your preference is)
300g thick Greek yoghurt
3 eggs
170g brown sugar
300g ricotta
2tbsp plain flour
raspberries, or other berry of your choice

Preheat oven to 160 degrees

Line a lamington tin with baking paper.

Blitz biscuits in the thermomix, 10 seconds at speed 8, then check.  Make them nice and fine.
Melt butter in microwave, then add to biscuits.  Give it a quick whizz, then press into prepared tin.  Refrigerate while you do the rest.

Give thermo a tidy up, you don't want biscuit crumbs in your cheesecake mix.

Combine eggs, yoghurt, ricotta, sugar and flour in thermo bowl.   Give it a quick blast, 5 seconds speed 6, then check, and do it again if it needs it.  It's a surprisingly wet mixture.  Pour over base, then scatter berries over the top.  I just put as many as I felt like on, and I felt like quite a lot.

Bake for 30 - 35 minutes until set and just a little bit golden around the edges.  Cool, then refrigerate.

This is before it was baked, but it gives you an idea of how I feel about raspberries :).