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

Home-baked Chocolate Chip Bars

There's always a home baked offering for morning or afternoon tea at our place. It might be  our favourite biscuits, fruity muffins, a simple slice, fresh scones or, on the odd occasion, a cake. This past week, we enjoyed home-baked chocolate chip bars which are a homemade alternative to store-bought, plastic-wrapped, super-sweet chocolate chip muesli bars.

Yum!

These homemade chocolate chip bars are very easy and quick to make. With a few minor adjustments to this original recipe, for Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Bars, from Lydia at the Thrifty Frugal Mum site, this is how I made them:

Home-baked Chocolate Chip Bars 

Dry Ingredients:

3/4 cup plain flour

1/4 cup wholemeal spelt flour (or plain wholemeal flour)

1 cup quick cooking oats

1/3 cup brown sugar (loosely packed)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Wet Ingredients:

1/2 cup oil (I used macadamia nut oil but canola or a light vegetable oil would also work.)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1.  Preheat oven to 180C and line a 20cm cake tin or medium size slice tray.

1.  Combine all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.

2.  Whisk together wet ingredients in separate bowl or jug.

3.  Make well in centre of dry ingredients and pour in wet ingredients.

4.  Mix until combined. 

5.  Press mixture into your lined tin or tray.

6.  Bake for 15mins or until lightly golden.

7.  Cool on wire rack before cutting into bars. 

One of these chocolate chip bars is just right for morning or afternoon tea at home but also perfect for putting into a lunchbox too. With a list of easily-recognisable ingredients, that does not include things like humectant, modified starch, invert sugar and some unknown flavour, they are a more wholesome alternative to that store-bought something that comes in a packet.

Well worth baking!

Meg

Yesterday's Bake

Baking started early for the day was forecast to be unseasonally hot. If I was going to turn the oven on, it was going to be before the sun got too high in the sky. 

Wholemeal Pesto Bread Rolls

As I am trying to bake better breads, I decided to practise with wholemeal pesto bread rolls. I followed this Taste recipe, with the addition of a few scoops of tomato pesto I had in the fridge to use up, and then left my dough to rise out in the warmth of the sun. It doubled in size quickly and from it I made eight little bread rolls. 

Simple Weetbix Slice

While the bread roll dough was proving, I helped my son to bake this simple cereal slice. Just crushed Weetbix, butter and a few other pantry staples make a scrumptious afternoon tea time treat. Icing always seals the deal as far as my son is concerned anyway!

Nutty Choc-Chip Cookies

As soon as the slice was in the oven, I made a batch our favourite nutty choc-chip cookies. I used brazil nuts in these cookies this time but I sometimes make them with cashew nuts or macadamia nuts. I always mix in dark chocolate chips which I buy when they are on special. This batch of cookies went into the freezer to save for later.

All of this baking, and the resulting washing up, was finished well before lunchtime. With freshly baked and soft bread rolls for lunch, full of wholemeal goodness and pesto flavours, it was rather a delicious way to end yesterday's bake.

What have you been baking of late?

Meg

Wholesome Brown Rice Salad

Our Christmas Day lunch is a cold meats and salads affair; it's too hot for a roast dinner when it's 40C in the shade in our down-under Summery Australia. (The weather was actually milder this year (at our place) but I had already roasted the chickens on Christmas Eve so no last-minute switch to a hot roast dinner was entertained.

A big bowl of Brown Rice Salad. 

Yum!

Amongst the array of salads I made for our family feast was this delicious and wholesome brown rice salad. It's made with healthy brown rice, lots of colourful vegetables, crunchy nuts, fresh herbs and my-favourite feta. The lemon and honey dressing is so very simple. My kind of food! 

My version of this salad combines the basis of this recipe, from Katie Workman of The Mom 100 with the currants, nuts and feta from this recipe by Nicola of Eat Well NZ. I reduced the olive oil from 1/3cup to 1/4cup for the dressing and used pecan nuts, instead of cashew nuts, because I had pecans in the pantry. It all mixed together deliciously!

🤎 Wholesome Brown Rice Salad 🤎

*** Omit the nuts if you have a nut allergy.***

Salad Ingredients:

4 cups cooked brown basmati rice

1 cup coarsely grated carrot

1 cup diced cucumber

1/2 cup diced red capsicum 

1/2 cup thinly sliced celery

1/2 cup chopped spring onion

1/2 cup toasted and roughly chopped pecan nuts

handful (or two) of currants

1 block of your favourite feta cheese

1/4 cup chopped parsley

2 Tablespoons fresh thyme leaves

Dressing Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil 

3 Tablespoons lemon juice

2 Tablespoons honey

1 Tablespoon white white vinegar

1 Tablespoon mustard

salt & pepper

1.  Mix all the vegetables, nuts and herbs through the cooked brown rice. 

2. Crumble in the feta cheese and sprinkle over the currants.

3. Whisk up the ingredients for the dressing and pour over the top of the salad. 

4. Toss to combine. Refrigerate in an air-tight container.

I doubled the recipe and made a huge bowl of this rice salad so there was plenty leftover; some to send home with family and some for us to enjoy bowlfuls of for lunch and dinner the next day. Lazy leftovers have to be one of the best things about Christmas Day lunch!

What did you cook for Christmas at your place that you have leftovers of?

Meg

Zucchini Slice Muffins: Freeze For Later

Simple and nourishing, good 'ole Zucchini Slice is on the menu here regularly. It's usually baked in a tray but I make it into muffins because I freeze them individually. They are perfect for discovering in the freezer on busy nights when you've forgotten to defrost something for dinner. (Ahem! Yes, I do that more often now that I work outside of home a lot.)  A quick reheat and served with salad, they can be a saviour!

A quick and delicious meal for busy nights.

My Mum taught me to make Zucchini Slice and she never used a recipe. The recipe I use now for these muffins is based on the one from Stephanie Alexander in her cookbook, Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids. (Great for teaching children to cook!) I have fiddled very minimally with the recipe, namely changing from self-raising flour to spelt flour.  Here's how I make them in my kitchen:

Healthy ingredients for muffins.

Zucchini Slice Muffins

2 medium zucchini, finely grated

1/2 cup grated tasty cheese

1/2 cup corn kernels

1/2 cup chopped ham (*optional)

5 small or 3 large eggs

1/3 cup olive oil

150g white spelt flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

black pepper

tomatoes

1.  Put sifted spelt flour & baking powder, cheese, corn and ham (if using) in a large bowl.

2. Wring moisture out of grated zucchini by wrapping in a tea towel and squeezing over the sink.

3. Chop grated zucchini finely and add to other ingredients in the bowl.  Slice tomatoes.

4. Make well in centre of these dry ingredients.

5.  Whisk eggs and olive oil in jug or separate bowl.

6.  Add to ingredients in bowl and mix until just combined.

7. Put spoonfuls of mixture into muffin pan being careful not to overfill.

8. Place a slice of tomato on the top of each muffin.

8.  Bake in a 180C oven until risen and golden.

9. Eat when warm from the oven or freeze individually (and then thank your organised self when you 

   take them out of your freezer on nights when you've forgotten to defrost something for dinner!

Some with and some without tomato.

I was so very glad to find my stash of Zucchini Slice Muffins in our freezer this past couple of weeks. With a trip to the hospital's allergy clinic, carpets being ripped up and floating floors put down (half my house is still in my lounge room) and a boy on crutches, I was beyond happy to find them there!

Do you have a recipe that you learned to cook when you were young and that you still make today?

Meg

Chocolate-y Choc-Chip Cupcakes

Small chocolate-y choc chip cupcakes, made light and moist by a mixture including both sour cream and yoghurt, are a lovely semi-sweet treat.

Delicious treat!

I took this recipe, for Sour Cream Double Chocolate Muffins, and tweaked it just a little so I could use up a little bit of sour cream and a little bit of plain yoghurt I had in the fridge. As usual, I made them with spelt flour but you could always use plain flour. Here's how I made them:

Chocolate-y Choc-Chip Cupcakes

(Makes 12 small cupcakes)

Dry Ingredients:                                                                           Wet Mix:

3/4 cup white spelt flour                                                              1/2 cup sour cream                

1/4 cup cocoa powder                                                                   1/4 cup plain yoghurt

1/4 cup brown sugar or coconut sugar                                      1 small egg

1/2 teaspoon baking powder                                                       30g melted butter

1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda                                                             1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

1.  Preheat oven to 180C and prepare pan by lining with cupcake cases.

2.  Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and whisk until well combined with no lumps.

3.  Blend wet mix ingredients together in a large measuring jug or bowl.

4.  Make a well in centre of dry ingredients and pour wet mixture in. 

5.  Mix together until just combined.

6.  Half fill each of your cupcake cases with batter.

7.  Bake 15-20mins until cupcakes have risen and are springy to touch.

8.  Cool in pan for a few minutes before finishing cooling on a wire rack.

Silicone cupcake cases.

You can use paper or silicone cupcake cases to line your pan. I tend to use my set of individual silicone cases when I know the cupcakes I'm making are going to be quite moist or I want a little fluted cupcake shape. 

While not overly sweet, these little cupcakes are very chocolate-y indeed! Pop one into a lunchbox or on your afternoon tea plate for a little burst of chocolate-y choc-chip goodness in your day!

Meg

Home Food

Our kitchen is often a hive of activity! There seems to be always something being chopped, grated, mixed, stirred, fried, blended or baked in what is the heart of our home. Up at the island bench I love, which looks out to a distant horizon, I make the food we love to eat. Home food! There are so many benefits to cooking and eating this way. Benefits way beyond the deliciousness and naughtiness of a big bowl to lick ... 

A very lick-able bowl.

(That's chocolate pudding mixture in there!)

Each morning, starts with a nourishing breakfast. Perhaps an omelette or toast with egg and bacon or mushrooms. Perhaps warmed slices of a nutty, breakfast-y bread made days before and frozen for those busier mornings when someone has to be out the door a bit earlier than usual. Granola in the warmer months and porridge, with warmed blueberries, when it's colder. Always a fulfilling start to the day no matter what's on the table.

A slice of  nutty banana bread for breakfast.

An omelette with spinach and leftover roasted veg.

Weekday lunches are prepared and packed in a mini production line upon the kitchen bench (I have never quite mastered the night before packing of lunches). Leftovers from dinner the night before or fresh salads and always a sandwich or two! Weekend lunches are more leisurely, rounds of toasted sandwiches or fresh Turkish bread, if I've been to the little local shop that sells it, spread with each of our favourites. Weekend lunches are made whenever we are hungry and eaten with noses in our local paper or a good book.

Leftover roasted chicken and salads for lunch.

Snacks for morning and afternoon teas are mixed and baked on the weekends for the work and school days ahead. This week, it was Anzac Biscuits and a simple cereal slice. Often it's muffins, pear or banana, studded with little chocolate chips. 

A batch of little muffins ready for the oven.

Each night, at our little wooden dining table, we sit and share a home cooked meal. Nothing fancy, just simple food we enjoy. Over these meals, the highlights of our days are shared and the things we are thankful for are voiced. If we are cooking for a crowd, we still keep it simple and just increase the quantity!

 A quick macaroni & cheese bake.

A stir fry with lots of healthy vegetables.

A nourishing salad with lots of greens.

Many homemade pizzas!

Home food is real food! It's the way we eat most of the time. Cooking and eating this way doesn't mean that we never have takeaway or that I've never resorted to opening a packet of very convenient biscuits. Of course we do and I have! These are rarities though and not our normal, everyday way of preparing and eating food. 

Home cooking not only fills our tummies, it nourishes our bodies and our hearts. Beginning with the breakfasts that provide sustained fuel for the day ahead through to the homemade meals around our table at night, that bring us together and over which we talk and laugh, I know what's in this food. I know what ingredients I've used and how it's been cooked. I know those lunches made with leftovers prevent waste and save us money. While there's more washing up involved (Let's be realistic!), I also know there's a lot less food packaging and plastic too. I know that the birthday cakes I make my boy and the cheesecakes I make my husband are  baked with all of my love. I know the meals we cook and contribute to share with friends are made with a fondness for those we hold dear. In so many ways, home food is good for our family, our bodies, our wallets and our planet. 

Chocolate pudding to share.

(Imagine generous scoops with dollops of cream!)

Now, back to that big bowl in which I mixed this chocolate pudding. I absolutely did lick that bowl! I was home all by myself so there was no-one to see me really...except Sir Steve dog who knows that chocolate is no good for dogs:D

Have a lovely weekend. What will you be eating at your place?

Meg

Honey & Ginger Anzac biscuits

Sweet and oat-y and thought to be a welcome inclusion in care packages sent to loved ones fighting in a long-ago war so far from home, Anzac biscuits are an Australian tradition that take their name from those first brave ANZAC soldiers who landed on a far away beach at Gallipoli in Turkey, on April 25th, 1915. On that April date each year, our nation solemnly remembers those long-ago soldiers and all those who have come after them. 

Those original Anzac biscuits had a long way to travel to reach loved ones on faraway shores. While traditionally made with rolled oats and golden syrup, without eggs and with lots of sugar, there are many twists now on the original recipe that began appearing in recipe books from the 1920s.  Traditional or with a twist? Chewy or crunchy? However you like them best, they are a biscuit with ties to our nation's history.

ANZAC biscuits with a ginger twist!

I discovered this version, for Nourishing Anzac Biscuits, over at Georgia Harding's blog,  Well Nourished, while looking for a healthier version that had far less refined sugar. In my much-loved, old and splattered copy of the Day-to-Day Cookery Book by I.M. Downes, the Anzac Biscuit recipe calls for a whopping 3/4cup of sugar. While Georgia's recipe incorporates ground, mixed seeds, I have tweaked the recipe to make these biscuits without them. Here's how I made them:

Honey & Ginger Anzac Biscuits

100g butter

60g raw honey

1 teaspoon bicarb soda

1/2cup wholemeal spelt flour

1 cup rolled oats

1/2cup dessicated coconut

1/4cup of coconut or brown sugar (optional)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger powder

1.  Preheat oven to 170C.

2.  In large bowl, combine all dry ingredients, except bicarb soda. 

3.  Melt butter with honey in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Remove from heat as 

     soon as butter has melted.

4.  Add bicarb soda and stir in very gently as mixture becomes frothy.

5.  Pour frothy butter mixture into dry ingredients and mix well. 

6.  Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls with wet hands (as mixture is somewhat sticky)

      and place on lined baking trays. *Leave room between each biscuit to spread as it bakes.*

      Flatten each biscuit ball slightly with a fork.

7.  Bake until golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool considerably on trays before 

     transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

8.  Store in an air-tight container. 

Try not to munch on too many of these before Anzac Day on April 25th otherwise you'll find yourself up early baking an extra batch!

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

Apricot Jam Drops

Jam drops, those little biscuits with a fingerprint-sized puddle of jam in the middle, have been among my favourite biscuits since I was small. Batches of them, round and filled with jewel-coloured jams, would be baked in the old stove ready for morning and afternoon teas. They were always hard to resist; I could never wait for the jam to be cool enough before sampling one and so regularly burnt my mouth on them. Dangerous biscuits! 

My favourite jam drops are those filled with golden, tangy apricot jam. Oh, how I love apricot jam! Of course, you can fill the fingerprints you press into the little balls of biscuity dough with any or all of your favourite jams ~ strawberry, raspberry, plum, blackberry or any other jam you fancy. For me though, apricot will always be the best!

Homemade apricot and strawberry jam drops.

Kathy, over at Our Simple and Meaningful Life, recently made these delicious jam drops and I felt a batch at our place was sorely needed for I haven't made them in awhile. In the recipe my mother made, and that I learned to cook, the butter and sugar are creamed together. The recipe I make now, and which I adapted from one by Deborah Wray (founder of Wray Organics) begins with a different process. Here is how I make our jam drops now:

Apricot Jam Drops

80g coconut oil (heated very gently if not already in liquid state)

50g coconut sugar (or brown sugar)

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups white spelt flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

apricot jam (or any favourite jam)

1.   Preheat oven to 160C.

2.   Line two biscuit trays.

3.  Beat coconut oil, coconut sugar and eggs until mixture is thick and creamy.
     (Make sure your coconut oil is not too hot so that you don't cook the eggs in it!)

4.  Sift spelt flour and baking powder.

5.  Add sifted flour to coconut oil mixture and mix well to form a soft dough.

6.  Roll tablespoons of dough into balls, placing them on biscuit trays.

7.  Press your fingerprint into the top of each little ball of biscuit dough to make a place for

      puddles of jam.

8.  Fill each fingerprint with apricot jam.

9.   Bake for 15mins or so until biscuits are lightly golden.

10. Leave to cool slightly on baking trays before using an egg flip to transfer to wire rack to 

       finish cooling.  Store in airtight container in the fridge (particularly if you live in a warm
       climate).

Creamy coconut oil, coconut sugar and eggs.

Adding flour to form a soft biscuit dough. 

Fingerprints waiting to be filled!

Little puddles of apricot jam. Mmm ...

Delicious!

Remember to wait for the biscuits to cool before sampling any of these little jammy treats...otherwise you may end up burning your mouth on one too!

Meg