Brown Rice & Vegetable Rolls

A rediscovered recipe, scrawled on a piece of paper and found languishing between pages of a rarely-used recipe book, reminded me of a lovely version of sausage rolls that I haven't made for a good twenty years of so!  Instead of a meaty filling, these rolls are filled with healthy brown rice and lots of nutritious vegetables. They are most lovely, warm from the oven and with a dollop of fruity chutney on the side. 

Delicious!

Brown Rice & Vegetable Rolls

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked brown rice 

1/2 cup corn kernels

1/2 cup frozen peas

1/2 cup grated carrot

2 spring onions, finely chopped

1 capsicum, finely chopped

1 cup grated tasty cheese

1 Tablespoons fruit chutney

2 eggs, beaten

3 sheets puff pastry

Method:

1.  Preheat oven to 210C.

2. Combine all ingredients, except pastry sheets, in a large bowl to make the filling.

3.  Spoon filling along  one edge of each puff pastry sheet.

4.  Roll up the filling inside the pastry and seal by pressing pastry ends together.

5.  Cut evenly into individual rolls.

6.  Glaze with a little egg or milk before baking. (You could sprinkle with sesame seeds too.)

7.  Bake for approximately 30mins or until pastry is golden.

8.  Serve with some extra fruit chutney.

Ingredients for a meat-free meal.

These rolls are a delicious alternative to everyday sausage rolls and have lots of extra goodness wrapped up in them from the brown rice and the vegetables. It certainly won't be another twenty years before I make them again!

Meg

First Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns, warm and fresh from my oven, were my Easter imaginings very early on this Good Friday morning. These imaginings ignored my somewhat hopeless record when making breads, rolls or buns that require yeast, kneading and proving. On the very few occasions I have attempted this bread-making caper, I have ended up with a variety of rocks shaped like loaves. Once, when I actually managed to get a dough to rise after placing it in a sunny spot at the top of my front steps, the whole thing managed to roll itself down to the bottom. That certainly knocked ALL the air out of it! But I promptly forgot all this in the midst of my imaginings this morning and this was the result...

A half dozen little hot cross buns.

While one has to ignore the less-than-uniform shape of these little Easter buns and imagine more defined crosses on their tops, made with a paste of flour and water, they are otherwise delicious. They are very light, not the least bit rocky and the little choc-chips inside, which are my substitute for the sultanas and mixed peel that we do not favour, are just sweet enough. With their shiny glaze of a little local honey on top, they are a step in the right direction along my bread-baking road and I couldn't be happier about that given my previous attempts.

 Mixing the dough in my favourite big bowl.

A little ball of dough after kneading on my kitchen bench.

Ready to place in warm spot to rise. 

Light & fluffy dough after hours in the oven.

There could very well have been a different outcome of hot cross rocks. Today is not ideal for baking bread. It's actually overcast, showery and cold so there was no warm sunshine in which to sit my dough to rise. (Tomorrow, it's meant to be 31C, but I could not wait.) I ditched the first sachet of yeast, declaring it dead, and used one that smelt like beer when I opened the packet. It seemed like a good omen. I followed Jamie Oliver's recipe, for if I was going to bake buns then I decided I'd rely on an expert. All was kneading together nicely until the time came to cover my little ball of spiced dough, all round and smooth and sitting in my favourite bowl (that seemed like a good omen too) and find somewhere warm for it to rise. I covered it and carefully carried it downstairs and under the house to sit it on top of our hot water system and then realised there was no heat coming off that towering tank of water. So, in desperation, I put it in my oven. Thankfully, I only preheated it to 30C because I subsequently read, while fretting that it wouldn't rise, that yeast begins to die at around 45C. I let my dough sit in the warmth of the oven, switched off and door closed, for a lot longer than the hour recommended. I left it for more like three hours and, despite my 'best' efforts, it rose!  

Dark chocolate chips instead of dried fruits.

After such a long wait, I very happily  kneaded in those chocolate chips, made six little buns and left them to rise once more which, to my amazement, they did! While they were baking, their scrumptious scent wafted through the house. They emerged from the oven golden on top and all soft on the inside. Enjoyably edible and not in the least bit like rocks. Yes!

One sweet little hot cross bun.

Tomorrow, I am going to bake these hot cross buns again for they are now all gone. I'll see if I can shape them a little more uniformly and perhaps I'll pipe those crosses on instead of painting them on with the edge of a spoon. And, with a 31C day forecast, I should have plenty of warm spots for the dough to rise in though I won't be resting it at the top of my front stairs!

Have you been baking for Easter?

Meg

Making Meals in my Kitchen

I grew up eating my mother's homemade food. It was rarely anything fancy but it was good and filling and nourishing and there on the table every day. Now I cook for my own family. The food I make isn't that fancy either but it's fresh and wholesome and there on the table every day. 

This past week there was one roast dinner and lots of salads among other homemade deliciousness. I planned out our meals for the week, substituted what I did have for what I didn't have, shopped for what I needed and made the most of the ingredients I bought. Nothing was wasted; the compost bin got the peelings and my enthusiastic Labrador "supervisor" got the tidbits with roast chicken and leftover gravy being one of his favourites ... among his many favourites!

A lovely roast dinner.

On the one cooler evening we had this past week, I roasted a whole chicken (I had one left in the freezer that I did not cook up for Christmas lunch) with lots of roasted vegetables and made pan gravy from all the goodness stuck to the bottom of the roasting tray. We had leftover chicken wraps for lunch the next day too. Yum!

An oven baked frittata filled with roast veg.

From the leftover roast vegetables, I made an oven-baked frittata for dinner the next night. It stretched to lunch, accompanied by a summer salad, the following day.

Mmm ...  Macadamia & Mango Rice Salad

Salads are on our plates often during these Summer days. They are quick to make, full of revitalising colour and healthy goodness, taste amazing and there's always leftovers if you make a big enough bowlful to begin with. 

This Macadamia and Mango Brown Rice Salad is full of flavour and crunch! I bought the mangoes and raw macadamia nuts from Aldi and I have enough of both to make another big bowlful of this over the coming weekend. Besides roasting the macadamias and cooking the rice, there's very little else other than chopping up some fresh veg, throwing in a handful of currants and whisking up a two-ingredient dressing. So simple and so good!

Macadamia nuts roasted in my oven.

I roasted beautiful macadamia nuts for the salad while I was toasting a batch of homemade granola. Granola, or toasted muesli is so simple to make and so versatile. I added dried cranberries and chopped almonds and shaved coconut to this one. My husband loves coconut-everything (me, not so much) but you can add in your own favourites be it coconut or dates or dried apricots or pecans or sunflower seeds. That was breakfast taken care of!

Toasty homemade granola.

While the oven was on, I baked a lovely lemon slice using more of the rolled oats I bought for the granola, a tin of condensed milk I had in my pantry and some lemon juice I had in the freezer. I should have photographed that slice before putting it out for afternoon tea because it was gone before I remembered ... and I don't think the aforementioned Labrador had anything to do with that!

Meg

My Routines for Saving Money on Food

Working part-time takes me away from our home for a significant portion of the the week now. That's a lot less time in the kitchen but I am looking for and finding routines that see us continuing to save money on food. Given food can be one of a household's biggest expenses, I am trying to make sure the amount we spend doesn't blow out with last-minute takeaways!

One of the routines that I find really works for me, in terms of keeping homemade food on our table and in our lunchboxes, is baking on Sunday mornings. I get up early, when all is still quiet, and bake at least two items ready for the week ahead. Biscuits, slices, muffins and cupcakes that freeze well are popped into lunchboxes for morning tea and are ready for a hungry, high school boy to "gobble up" after school.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

(Recipe from Nigella Lawson)

Being organised for breakfasts is another routine that is working well. There's always eggs and either baby spinach or leftover roasted veggies for omelettes at our place. This is my favourite breakfast, as I really believe that it's important to have some veg at brekkie time. I am NOT a fan of boxed cereals as they typically have significant amounts of sugar in them, so on my days off work I make homemade granola and batches of breakfast muffins. I adore Jude Blereau's muffin recipes as they are made with healthy and nourishing ingredients.  I have a tub of her breakfast muffins, from her cookbook Whole Food for the Family, in my freezer right now and it's just so easy to take one or two out to defrost for a quick breakfast if I'm running late. Faster that a drive through queue even!  

 Homemade Granola

(A lot less sugar than supermarket cereals.)

Using up the food we do spend our money on is something else that I am trying to keep on top of. If I buy fruit in bulk, like the tray of mangoes I bought earlier in the Summer for a really good price, then I chop them up and freeze portions. It's easy then take out a portion of frozen fruit chunks for smoothies. There's always at least one banana in our fruit bowl and at times they reach that over-ripe state where the only thing I think they are good for is banana bread. 

 Making sure food, like these over-ripe bananas, doesn't go to waste...

 Banana bread instead!

Freezing extra fruit. 

(Ready for quick and easy smoothies after school.)

Making breadcrumbs from the ends of loaves.

(I use these when I'm make meatballs.)

Another routine working for me is doing my grocery shopping on Friday mornings straight after school drop-off. I don't work Fridays so this means I am not rushing around the shops and I have time to spot bargains. I picked up some bottles of our favourite pasta sauce (and one with a much lower % of sugar than many on the shelves) for half price last week. I bought bulk and have these stored in my little stockpile. 

 A bargain on our favourite pasta sauce.

(I now have many bottles in my stockpile.)

When I do forget to defrost something for dinner, which I inevitably do, then these bottles of pasta sauce come in very handy. One of my go-to meals, besides homemade pizza, is to fry up a chopped onion with some diced bacon and capsicum (if I have it). I then add lots of diced zucchini (I always have zucchini) and fry that until it's cooked but not squishy. I usually throw in a handful of frozen peas too! I then turn the heat down and add a bottle of this pasta sauce. While all that is happening, I boil some pasta. Mixed through the pasta, and with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese, it's yum and it costs a lot less than takeaway.

Leftovers are still making it into lunchboxes though we have 'tweaked' the lunch-making routine somewhat. When I wasn't working, I would pack lunches each morning. Now, my sweet hubby makes his own lunch the night before, popping leftovers in, making sandwiches and getting fruit and yoghurt ready. I still make my lunch and my son's lunch early in the morning but somehow, only having two to pack instead of three seems to work better up at our kitchen bench. I have no idea why!

These are the routines working for us at the moment. I think those working and trying to save money at the same time would have their own routines that work for them. I'd love to hear what you do at your place!

Meg

Nutty Chocolate Chip Cookies

The nuttiness of these scrumptious chocolate chip cookies comes from nut butter rather than chopped nuts mixed through the cookie dough. I've experimented with several different nut butters such as cashew, brazil, macadamia and hazelnut. Some I've bought and others I've made myself. My favourite one to use though is macadamia nut butter because I find the resulting cookies are lovely and moist. 

Scrumptious!

I came across the original recipe, from Paula over at the blog, Mixing It Up Hong Kong, a few years ago and I've only tinkered with it minimally. The original recipe is one written for the Thermomix but you can make it without one. As usual, I've reduced the sugar content. I find that less sugar is just fine as the chocolate chips add a sweetness too. I love to use dark chocolate chips in these cookies but you can use milk or white chocolate chips instead. I sometimes use nut butter instead of grinding whole nuts and blending with coconut oil as per the original recipe. This substitution is one of Paula's suggestions that you'll find at the bottom of her recipe page. It works well and saves some time too!

This quickly became my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe. Here's how I make it:

Nutty Chocolate Chip Cookies

(Unsuitable for those with nut allergy.)

80g oat flour or ground whole oats
120g macadamia nut butter (store bought or homemade)
35g coconut or rapadura sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large free range egg
100g - 120g wholemeal spelt flour
1 Tablespoon milk 
180g small choc chips


1.  Preheat oven to 180C and line baking trays.

2.  Beat nut butter, sugar & vanilla until very well blended.

3.  Add egg and beat again until well blended. The mixture at this point is quite "sticky".

4.  In a separate bowl, mix the oat flour and 100g of the wholemeal spelt flour.

5.  Make a well in the centre of the flours and spoon the sticky nut butter mixture into it.

6.  Add in milk and then mix until well combined. *While this cookie dough is fairly sticky, 
      mix in the extra 20g flour if you feel it is too wet at this point.*

7.  Gently mix through chocolate chips.

8.  Using damp hands, roll tablespoonfuls of cookie dough into balls and place on trays.
      Flatten each slightly with your fingers.

9.  Bake until lightly golden and cool on wire racks.

Every batch of these I make NEVER makes it into our biscuit tin without several or more cookies mysteriously disappearing from the cooling rack. I often have to stand guard just so they don't all disappear in one go!

Do you have a favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe?

Meg

Roasted Carrot & Quinoa Bake

I adore roasted carrots and I'm fond of fluffy quinoa so I was always going to love this delicious dish. A flavourful and nutritious bake, all roasted in the one tin, makes a perfectly simple meal just as it is or a lovely side dish. Leftovers most definitely make for a healthy lunch salad the next day too! 

Simple & delicious!

There are roasted parsnips along with carrots in Rukmini Iyer's original recipe from her cookbook, "The Roasting Tin:  Simple One Dish Dinners". While I don't mind parsnips, I didn't have any so I just roasted plenty of delicious carrots instead! Here's how it came together in my kitchen:

Carrot & Quinoa Bake

4 - 5 large carrots

2 cloves garlic

fresh rosemary, 2 sprigs 

2 bay leaves

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 Tablespoon honey

salt & pepper

120g quinoa, thoroughly rinsed 

350ML boiling water

lemon

1.   Preheat oven to 180C.

2.   Peel carrots and halve lengthwise then cut into long chunks.

3.   Put carrots in a roasting dish with crushed garlic, chopped rosemary, bay, olive oil & 

       honey. 

4.   Toss together with your hands so carrots coated in herbed & honeyed oil. Season with

       salt & pepper.

5.   Bake, uncovered, for approximately 40minutes. 

6.   Remove from oven. Carefully mix in rinsed quinoa and boiling water making sure you 
      loosen all the caramelised goodness from the bottom of your roasting tin.

7.   Cover with foil and return to the oven to roast for further 20minutes.

8.   Remove from the oven and lift off the foil. Fluff up the quinoa with a fork and then leave
      for a further five minutes. 

9.   Serve with a wedge of lemon so it's lovely juice can be squeezed over the top. 

This beautifully simple bake can be served with peppery rocket, as it is in the cookbook, or you could mix in some baby peas, bright green and sweet, instead.  Either way, it's delicious!

Meg

Two Salads for one Yoghurt Dressing

We eat salads year round here. In Winter, warm salads made with baked and nourishing veggies and in Summer, as it is here now, fresh and simple salads are a staple. With our Summer salads, I like dressings that are light and tangy. My favourite is a very simple yoghurt dressing that I use as an alternative to mayonnaise.

Light & tangy yoghurt dressing.

This dressing works really well with homemade potato salad and coleslaw too.  It takes just a few minutes to whip up. All you need for a small salad is 1/3 cup natural unsweetened yoghurt, 1 teaspoon of seeded mustard and 1/2 to a full teaspoon of raw honey. Salt and pepper too if you wish.  

Homemade coleslaw with yoghurt dressing.

Homemade Coleslaw:  Wash and finely shred cabbage. Chop spring onion, capsicum and celery. Grate carrot. Mix together with yoghurt dressing and chill.

Homemade potato salad with the same yoghurt dressing.

Simple Potato Salad:  Wash, chop and steam potatoes until tender but not too soft. (Leave the skin on for extra nutrition and fibre.) Rinse under cold water and drain. Mix through yoghurt dressing. Add some chipped spring onion or chopped chives if you have some. Chill until ready to serve. 

On warm Summer evenings, homemade salads made with a tangy and refreshing dressing like this one are perfect  for lazy dinners and barbecues. What's your favourite Summer salad or dressing?

Meg

Fried Cauliflower Rice with Chicken

Different versions of cauliflower rice appear on blogs, in health-conscious recipe books and in lifestyle magazines.  Touted as having many nutritional benefits in comparison to white rice, and with a cauliflower in the crisper to use up, I thought I would give it a try. I made  a fried cauliflower "rice" with it and this is how it turned out:

Fried cauliflower rice...with chicken!

All you need to turn a creamy white cauliflower into an alternative "rice" is a food processor. I put florets of fresh cauliflower into my processor and blitzed it for a few seconds at a time until I had a rice-like texture. A great base for a fried "rice"!

A great alternative to rice!

I added this blitzed cauliflower to a large frypan where I had some chopped vegies & spring onion already stir-fried in a little olive oil. I put in some frozen green peas and leftover chicken from the night before too. Tossed together with a good glug of tamari sauce and cooked until the cauliflower was tender, but not soggy, it made for a delicious meal. 

So,  is it my new favourite way to eat cauliflower? No! That title shall forever be held by the creamy, cheesy and decidedly not-as-healthy cauliflower gratin that my Mum used to cook for us as girls. Would anyone mistake the cauliflower for rice? No! But it was a different way to enjoy cauliflower and was relatively quick to cook too because blitzing the cauliflower took me less time than it would to prepare the brown rice I usually use for fried rice. Nutritious and easy! 

I used this online recipe as a bit of a guide while I was cooking. These are plenty of other recipes out there for everything from a plain cauliflower rice that you can serve with curries to this version of fried rice with all the trimmings. 

The humble cauliflower waiting to be turned into cauliflower rice.

If you have a creamy, fresh cauliflower and want to try something new, you might enjoy this easy and delicious fried "rice" too.

What's your favourite way to cook cauliflower?

Meg

Red Lentil, Bacon & Sweet Potato Soup

A nourishing soup on a cold Winter's night, served with toasted sandwiches or some fresh bread and butter, is a simple and warming meal. 

 Soup & Sandwiches

This particular soup is a firm favourite here. It is quick and easy to make from simple and wholesome ingredients. It tastes delicious and freezes well. My recipe is an adaptation on this one for a Lower GI Ham and Red Lentil Soup.

Red Lentil, Bacon & Sweet Potato Soup

2 Tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 brown onion, peeled and chopped

3-4 rashers bacon, trimmed and diced

3 stalks celery, washed and chopped

2 large carrots, peeled and chopped

1 medium sweet potato, peeled and diced

1.5 Litres vegetable stock (or chicken stock)

500mLs water

1 & 1/4 cups of red lentils, rinsed and drained

black pepper 

1.  Heat oil in a heavy-based soup pot over medium heat.

2.  Add crushed garlic, onion & bacon to the pot and fry lightly until onion is soft. Stir often.

3.  Add celery and carrot to the pot and cook for few more minutes stirring regularly.

4.  Add stock and water to the pot. Bring to the boil at higher temperature and then reduce 

     heat to medium again.

5.  Add red lentils and sweet potato and simmer (turning heat down if you need to) until 

     lentils and sweet potato are tender.

6.  Season with a little freshly ground black pepper to taste.

7.  Garnish with finely chopped parsley if you wish & serve with fresh bread and butter or 

     perhaps some toasted sandwiches.

When it is cold or frosty outside, a bowl of homemade soup is something to look forward to. I find that the warmth of that soup not only fills our tummies but reminds us too what it is to be safe and warm inside on a cold night. 

 Do you have a favourite Winter soup that you make often for your family?

Meg

Nourishing Winter Breakfasts

An early morning storm is rolling through, the sky is dull and grey and the horizon invisible behind the cloud. It began as a gentle pattering on the roof, in keeping with the forecast showers, but it wasn't long before we heard thunder rumbling in the distance and the rain began bucketing down. The cold has settled in around us and will probably linger after such a damp and chilly start.

Just the type of morning for porridge! Topped with little blueberries and the distinct sweetness of a swirl of maple syrup, it's delicious. There are other breakfasts that we love just as much:

Our Breakfast Porridge

You can top it with any berries you like or a banana or add some coarsely chopped nuts.

Creamy avocado & feta on toast with last night's leftover roasted veggies.

(You can also make Bubble & Squeak with leftover roasted veggies too:)

Breakfast Banana Bread

(Toasty, warm and delicious on a cold morning with a warm drink.)

Omelette with the goodness of eggs, greens from the garden & leftover roasted veggies. You could add toast, bacon or some baked beans on the side, of course!

Breakfast Muffins

(You begin these the night before & bake the next morning for a warm start to the day.)

All of these breakfasts are a nourishing and filling way to start a Winter's day...or any day really. Perhaps you'll be able to make yourself a hearty breakfast or two this coming weekend. Perhaps someone could even be persuaded to make it for you and serve it to you in bed on a tray with a warm cuppa and the day's newspaper (Now, I'm getting ahead of myself!). 

Have a lovely weekend.

Meg

Beautiful Beetroot Salad

Homegrown beetroot is something special. Plump, purple and full of earthy flavour ... so very different to the beetroot that comes in a tin! With some of our fresh beetroots, harvested this past weekend and roasted until tender, I made this beautiful beetroot salad. It was full of flavour and goodness. Delicious!

Beautiful Beetroot Salad

The main ingredients of Emma Jansen's recipe for Roasted Pumpkin, Beetroot, Chickpea & Feta Salad were the inspiration for this version. The main difference is that I used marinated feta and the herby marinating oil for the dressing. This is how it came together:

Roast beetroots and pieces of pumpkin until tender.

(See note below on how to roast beetroot.)

Rinse and drain 1 tin of chick peas & put in a salad bowl.

Crumble pieces of a marinated feta & mix with chickpeas.

Lightly steam broccoli florets until bright green but still crisp & add to salad bowl.

Mix in pieces of roasted pumpkin.

Peel & then cube roasted beetroots & put into a separate dish.

Drizzle over dressing, toss to coat salad & serve with pieces of roasted beetroot on top.
(See note below on how I made dressing.)

I haven't written exact quantities because, with a salad like this, you can put in as much or as little as you like. I used half a decent sized pumpkin, 4 large beetroots, a fair bit of feta (because I love it) and 1 small head of broccoli. You can tweak those amounts to suit, you could add fresh baby spinach leaves instead of broccoli, you could experiment with the marinating oils you use for different flavours too.

Dressing:  Blend together 1/4cup of the herby oil from the marinated feta, squeeze in juice of half a small lemon or lime, add a few teaspoons of Pomegranate molasses (or you could use balsamic vinegar) and season with freshly ground black pepper to taste. Mmmm...

How to Roast Beetroot:  Cut the stems of each beetroot to around 2cm. Wrap each unpeeled beetroot in foil. Bake in oven, at 180C, until tender. You know they are ready when you can poke a skewer through the foil and easily into the beetroot.

I'm so glad I planted many beetroots this year. I'll be making this salad (and versions of it) as long as there is fresh beetroot coming in from the garden. YUM!

Meg