Apologies for the lack of updates over the last couple of weeks, posting took a bit of a hold due to buying my first home.  I’ve put down a deposit and am now looking to sign off on a contract and choose colours, options and whatever else needed.

If you have some great ways of saving money or tips on buying your first home, I’d love to hear them!

As for today’s offering, this lovely pasta dish is great for a warm day.  It’s quite easy to make as you can either buy your marinated deli pieces or make some roasted treats yourself.

Drizzle a little olive oil on top before serving and a garden salad as a side.

Makes:

• 2 serves

Ingredients:

• 1/2 capsicum - colouring your choice
• 0.25 onion
• 3-4 mushrooms, cut in half
• 5 pitted olives
• 4 slices of marinated artichokes
• 1 tsp garlic mince
• 2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tbs white balsamic vinegar
• 2 serves cooked spaghetti, set aside and cooled off
• seasoning

Instructions:

1. On your stove with an open flame cut the capsicum and burn the skin totally.  Cover in a container and let sit for five minutes.
2. Mix the garlic and balsamic in a pot and warm lightly.
3. Mix in the mushrooms and onions and allow to soften.
4. Grab your capsicum and remove the blackened skin, slicing into bite size pieces.
5. Mix through all ingredients into the pot and drizzle a little olive oil through before seasoning to your liking and serving.

For those wondering what recipes are coming up, some of these include a workout pizza and easy enchiladas.  I’ve definitely not stopped cooking in the kitchen, and will post a new recipe later this week.

As for your favourite celebrity Chef, Jamie was your clear winner, with the foul-mouthed Gordon Ramsay second choice.  It’s funny, because I really don’t think I have a favourite myself.

There were a lot who chose “other” so I’d be interested hearing from you about who is your favourite?

• Jamie Oliver (25%, 13 Votes)
• Gordon Ramsay (21%, 11 Votes)
• Nigella Lawson (17%, 9 Votes)
• Other (15%, 8 Votes)
• Anthony Bourdain (12%, 6 Votes)
• Rachael Ray (6%, 3 Votes)
• Martha Stewart (4%, 2 Votes)
• Ainsley Harriot (0%, 0 Votes)

Current poll:

How many cookbooks do you own?

After successfully cooking up the Bhaji Burgers, I decided I would like to make an authentic vegie burger!  The result was great and I definitely will be swapping the recipe around in the future to try and match the Grill’d’s spectactular Tofu Protege.

Makes:

• 4 large burgers

Ingredients:

• 400 grams soy beans
• 1 packet steam vegetable packet, cooked
• salt
• white pepper
• 1 tsp garlic flakes
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 10 tbs besan flour
• pinch cumin
• 1 cup SR flour
• 2 tsp green curry paste
• 2 tsp coriander paste

Instructions:

1. Drain the soybeans and mash mixing in the salt and pepper.
2. Stir through the steamed vegetables.
3. Mix in the garlic flakes, paste, cumin, onion powder green curry paste and coriander paste.
4. Once the spices have been mixed through throughly, add the flour and form a dough.
5. Split the dough into four burgers and brown off the burgers in a pan.
6. Lower the heat, place on a lid and cook for five minutes before serving to your liking.

This weekend I’ve been spending my time looking at houses.  I’m nearly ready to buy my own house with a great kitchen and can’t wait.  Our Government has increased the first home buyer’s grants but it looks like it won’t do much good because houses are going up at the same time.  I’ll have to wait and see how much they do go up by…

As for cooking, this lovely pasta was an attempt of changing the mix on pesto.  So why not broccoli and almonds?  Let me tell you, it’s a great variety and a little milder than your average pesto varieties.  Chuck in some good quality olive oil, chilli and some parmesan, and you’ve got a spicy pesto ready to go!

Makes:

• 4 serves

Ingredients:

• 4 serves cooked pasta of your choice
• 2 stalks broccoli
• 1 tbs chilli paste (or to your heat)
• 1 tsp garlic mince
• 3 tbs parmesan cheese
• handful sliver of almonds
• salt
• cracked pepper
• good glug of good quality olive oil

Instructions:

1. Dry heat the almonds in a pot to brown.
2. Blitz the broccoli (raw), chilli, garlic, olive oil together in a blender.
3. Mix in your salt, pepper and parmesan.  Blitz again.
4. Add 3/4 of the almonds and blitz.
5. Pour the sauce into a pot and heat it up cooking your broccoli.
6. Mix in your cooked pasta and add the remaining almonds.
7. Serve with cracked pepper and parmesan on top.

This recipe here was made up after not knowing what I was going to have for tea.

I’m a big fan of the thai coconut rice and decided that I would combine this style of rice with an all-in-one curry.  It’s a delicious vegan dish with chickpeas, mushrooms and lots of spice that’s easy to make.  It uses only one pot and pretty much can be left on it’s own to cook, whilst you go off to do other more important things!

Makes:

• 3-4 serves

Ingredients:

• 3-4 serves rice
• tab of “chicken-style” vegetable stock
• pinch cumin
• 2 cloves
• 2 cardamons
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 cinnamon stick
• pinch garam masala
• 2 tbs coriander paste
• 1 tbs chilli paste
• 420 grams chickpea
• 1 can coconut cream
• handful cashews
• handful mushrooms
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 glass water

Instructions:

1. Mix all the ingredients together in the one pot and stir.
2. Simmer for 25 minutes with a lid on.
3. Turn off the heat and leave for 10 minutes before serving.

These easy to make burgers are absolutely delicious with a little tomato kasoundi or chilli chutney.  Using a little besan flour and some cooked vegies, these make a mean indian burger.

The burgers are vegan and what’s great about them is that they are a great base for any type of burger.  Next week, I’ll post another variety using the same base.  Try it out yourself or post some ideas you might have.

Makes:

• 4 large burgers

Ingredients:

• 8 tbs besan flour
• 0.25 red onion diced
• 1/2 carrot grated
• 1/2 cup SR flour
• pinch salt
• pinch white pepper
• 2 pinches cumin seeds
• water (enough to allow for a dry workable dough)

Instructions:

1. Brown the onion and cook the grated carrot till soft.  Set aside.
2. In a jug, mix all the dry ingredients together.
3. Mix in the cooked ingredients.
4. Pour enough water for a dry workable dough and knead.
5. Seperate into four balls and flatten to a burger shape.
6. Brown off the sides quickly.
7. Place on a lid to the pan and place on a low heat for five minutes, allowing to cook the insides and rise a little.
8. Serve with salad in a bun and kasoundi on top.

I’m a little late in posting the first recipe this week, after having a fairly big weekend.  We had our presentation night for hockey on Saturday night and, not only did I have a couple of drinks, but won Best & Fairest for our team.  It was certainly a surprise on my behalf and had not even thought about a speech!  However, I think it’s made me reconsider my thoughts of not playing on.

Moving on to the recipe…  This one is something I used to love as a meat eater and wanted to come up with a vegetarian version.  This came after ordering some meat subsitutes from veganperfection.com.au including the Cheatin’ Beef-Style Roast.  The roast was cooked the day before and the next day I used it for this recipe, tearing up into beef chunks.

Spezzatino is rich in flavour and is generally eaten as a casserole, but a few restaurants combine it with pasta for a chunky beef pasta.  This vegetarian / vegan version certainly is a great alternative and I’ll definitely be making this a regular in my kitchen.

Makes:

• 3 plates

Ingredients:

• 1/4 onion, diced
• 2 tsp garlic mince
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1/4 cup dry red wine
• 1 can tomatoes, peeled and mashed
• salt
• white pepper
• 0.5 package of cheatin beef-style roast, torn into bite-size pieces (cooked using instructions on pack)
• 1 tab porcini stock
• 1 tbs capsicum paste
• 3 serves fresh pasta, cooked and set aside

Instructions:

1. Brown the onion with the olive oil.
2. Mix in your garlic, capsicum paste and brown the beef pieces.
3. Add the stock, wine, tomato and seasoning.  Simmer for 30 minutes on the lowest setting.
4. Mix in the pasta and serve.

For those vegetarians that really miss their chicken schnitzel, I reckon this recipe might just resolve that problem for you.  I’ve seen many varieties but this seems to take on the same consistency as well as the beautiful breaded crumb outer layer.

Now if only we get some pubs to put it on their menu as an alternative to Schnitzel and beer special!

Makes:

• 4 schnitzels

Ingredients:

• 3 tbs gluten flour
• 1 tbs chicken salt flavour
• 1 tbs nutritional yeast
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 1 tsp dill seeds
• 20 grams oats
• 1 tsp mustard
• 2 tbs rice flour
• 1/2 cup water

Breadcrumb mixture

• 3 tbs breadcrumbs
• 1 tsp parmesan
• cracked pepper

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C or 360 degrees F.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a jug.
3. Place the wet ingredients in and stir until it starts to form a dry dough.
4. Leave for five minutes, so the dough settles.
5. Once it has settled, split the dough into four balls and flatten out to a schnitzel shape.
6. In a clean bowl, mix the parmesan, pepper and breadcrumbs togehter.
7. Pat the schnitzel in the mixture each side and sit aside.
8. Repeat for a double layer.
9. On a oiled tray, place in the oven for 5-10 minutes each side or until golden brown.
10. Serve straight from the oven.

If you don’t have any vegetarian mince handy for a quick pasta, don’t fret!  Head to your freezer and grab a couple of frozen vegetarian hamburgers!

This dish could easily be an alternative to the classic meatball dish, just defrost the burgers and tear them up into little bite size pieces.  Mix in some fresh basil and you have a delicious summer pasta.

Makes:

• 3 plates

Ingredients:

• 2 hamburgers, defrosted and torn
• handful basil, torn
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 2 tbs Kraft pourover cheese
• 1 tbs pepper / capsicum pure
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1 tsp garlic mince
• 0.25 can tomato juice
• cracked pepper
• 3 serves rigatoni, cooked
• 2 tbs parmesan, grated

Instructions:

1. Brown your onions in a pan with the oil.
2. Place in the burgers and brown off each side.
3. Mix in the garlic, pepper paste, tomato juice and pourover cheese.
4. Toss in the pasta and basil and turn off the heat.  Allow the basil to wilt.
5. Mix in the parmesan and cracked pepper before serving.

I love a mean Thai!  Nothing beats the spicy hot chilli and the creaminess of the coconut with the crunchy fresh vegetables of your choice. Oh, and who can forget the tofu soaked up with all the flavoursome juices of the dish! Mmmmm!

This noodle dish combines the flavours of your traditional green thai curry but packs them into a one-bowl dish full of fresh singapore noodles.

A great treat to top it off would be some fried and crunchy spring onions on top.  However, I didn’t really think about it at the time of the concoction!

Makes:

• 4-5 serves

Ingredients:

• 100 grams shitake mushrooms, sliced
• 2 baby bok choy, torn into the leaves
• 110 grams water chestnuts, sliced thin
• 1 carrot sliced thin
• 1 tomato, diced
• 3 tbs green curry paste
• 375ml can coconut cream
• 250 grams tofu, diced and drained
• 1 packet singapore noodles for 4 (you can swap to your favourite noodles)
• 1/2 onion diced
• 1 tbs peanut oil

Instructions:

1. Brown your onions in a pan with the oil.
2. Mix all the vegies in and stir fry quickly.
3. Heat your noodles seperately and set aside.
4. Mix in the paste and stir throughly before mixing in the coconut cream.
5. Add your tofu and noodles, quickly stirring before serving.