A Simple Sunday Supper

A simple supper makes for a relaxing change to the roast dinner I quite often bake on a Sunday evening. Every now and then, I simply don't feel like the full production so I make something much easier and with a lot less washing up! On the Sunday just passed, I made these quick and delicious parcels filled with different cheeses and grated zucchini. Mmm...

Scrumptious Cheesy Parcels

These parcels are filled with delicious ingredients, baked in the oven until golden and brown and can be served up with salad or baked beans or soup. They are easy to make and even easier to eat. You don't even need cutlery if you serve them up with just a little pot of sauce or chutney for company. (You will need a napkin though!)

Loosely following Susan Austin's recipe, from her fantastic cookbook, Frost Bite: Freezer Recipes for Toddlers to Teenagers, I made them like this:

 Mix together 180g fresh ricotta, 1 grated large zucchini, 1 egg, 60g parmesan and 60g tasty cheese.

(I grate zucchini onto an old tea towel first, fold it up and squeeze out all excess moisture.)

Defrost 3 sheets ready-made puff pastry. Cut each sheet into 9 little squares.

Place spoonfuls of cheesy ricotta mixture in centres of half of these pastry squares.

 

Lay the remaining pastry squares over the tops of those with filling on them.

Press around four sides of each parcel to enclose filling and seal.

 

 Cut a slit in top of each pastry parcel. 

You can then brush with egg/milk wash if you wish (but I don't bother).

 

 Bake in a hot oven until puffed and golden.  Yum!

 

You can make your cheesy parcels a bit fancier by adding extra ingredients to the filling if you wish. You could add fresh herbs, finely chopped spring onion or little pieces of semi-dried tomato. And, if there are any leftover (which invariably there are not at our place), you can enjoy them for lunch the next day.

What do you make when you just want a simple Sunday supper?

Meg

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Home-Mixed Trail Mix

Trail mix, made from nutritious nuts, seeds, dried fruit and dark chocolate is a delicious snack. While you can buy prepared and packaged Trail Mixes at the supermarket or health food shop, it's a very simple thing to make your own. 

All you have to do is choose your ingredients and mix them together. In my home-mixed Trail Mix, I put in these yummy ingredients:  coconut chips, whole almonds, dried cranberries, currants, dark chocolate chips, pepitas and sunflower seeds.

Delicious and nutritious Trail Mix ingredients.

Put an equal number of scoops of each ingredient into a jar. Secure the lid and shake until you have a lovely jumble you can dip into when you need a little snack. Yum!

 A handy and healthy snack.

When mixing up your own, you can add whatever nuts, seeds and dried fruit you have on hand. You might like to use cashew nuts instead of almonds. You might prefer sultanas to currants. You might add pieces of dried apricot instead of cranberries. All variations would result in a yummy mix that's good for you!

Trail mix is great to tip into little take-with-you-tubs when you are heading out. Having it in your bag stops those hasty, hungry purchases of packaged snacks like chips and chocolate bars. It's so much better for you too than over-salted, trans-fat laden and super sweet snacks.

So, if you have a spare five minutes this weekend, why not make up your own version of a Home-Mixed Trail Mix. Let me know what you put in yours.

Meg

A Garden Visitor 6

Native birds visit our garden every day. There's food for them in the form of bugs and grubs and juicy worms. There are birdbaths for drinks of freshwater and feather-cleansing, splashy swims. There's shelter and "just-right" nesting spots in the many trees and shrubs in and around our garden. The verandah railings, fences and tree tops offer perfect places to perch and observe the world before taking flight. And, of course, the humans provide much entertainment as they go about their work in the garden...and occasionally toss up (or dig up) a free lunch!

 A kookaburra waiting for a free lunch!

Kookaburras are among the birds that visit us daily. They love to sit on our back fence and wait for  tasty morsels to present themselves. When one's infectious laughter begins, it's not long before a whole riot of them are cackling away together; a distinctive avian chorus that echos out and around the hills.

Nicknamed "the laughing jackass", the kookaburra is such an iconic Australian bird whose laughter is always welcome here in our garden. Their joyous noise is a lovely reminder of the power of laughter in one's day!

I hope you'll find something to have a long laugh over today. (Just start with a chuckle before throwing your head back, opening your beak and cackling wholeheartedly for a significant length of time...like this!)

Meg

p.s. If you'd like to read more about this unique bird, the Birdlife Australia website has a great profile. There's an audio file, at the bottom of the webpage, that you can click on to hear the Kookaburra's laugh.