Category: Savoury

Chicken with mustard lentils

Browsing through some new cooking magazines the other day, this puy lentil dish reminded me of some of the everyday home cooking we enjoy when we visit Jerome’s parents in France. So of course I had to try it. It’s only in the last few years I have started using lentils and beans in a lot of my cooking. I really like using them now as they add a different texture to food, and are also very filling.

Although the recipe takes a while to cook, it doesn’t require a lot of effort and the end result is very satisfying, rich and filling while still having a freshness from the addition of lemon and parsley.

I found the sauce tasted great even before the addition of mustard and crème fraiche at the end, so if you can’t eat dairy or want a slightly lighter meal, you could omit the crème fraiche and still have a great dish. I admit, it isn’t the prettiest looking dish , but the flavour more than made up for the appearance.

IMG_2712

Click here for the recipe

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Sweet potato, tomato and asparagus frittata

I really like watching cooking shows and reading cookbooks. However, a lot of the food featured in these shows and books isn’t the best for everyday cooking and eating. I also love to bake, but I know I can’t eat desserts and baked goods every day. Well I could, but it wouldn’t be very good for me.

A few years back, when browsing the cooking magazine section, I discovered the Australian Healthy Food Guide magazine. This magazine is different to other cooking magazines, with half of the magazine devoted to articles on health, food and nutrition, and the other half healthy recipes. The magazine and website are now my first stop when looking for a quick, easy and healthy weeknight meal, like this frittata. A few of the recipes from the magazine are now regular weeknight favourites of mine. Reading the articles in the magazine gives me a better understanding of healthy eating and nutrition, and the recipes demonstrate that healthy food can still be exciting and tasty.

Frittata

Click here for the recipe

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The Hairy Bikers – Pork belly with apple and sage

This Hairy Bikers recipe has got to be my favourite dinner party recipe. It tastes amazing, has wow factor and most importantly, is very easy to make with the oven doing most of the work for you. Which I think is important when you are entertaining. The point is to spend time with your family and/or friends, not to spend the whole time in the kitchen.

Even though we normally have a ‘cold’ Christmas lunch (due to the Perth summer heat at Christmas), I couldn’t resist making this for our family lunch this year. The pork just melts in your mouth, with the wonderful contrast of super crackly crackling. And the apple cider sauce is just beautiful with it.

Pork belly

Click here for the recipe

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The Hairy Dieters’ Chicken Korma

My threshold for hot/spicy food is very low, so when we do eat Indian food a korma is usually my dish of choice. Unfortunately, a creamy korma isn’t the best choice if you are trying to watch what you eat. So my interest was sparked by a recipe in the Hairy Biker’s latest book and TV show The Hairy Dieters’ : How to Love Food and Lose Weight for a chicken korma that was less than 300 calories per portion (without rice). As I’ve said on this blog before, I really like finding healthier alternatives to favourite foods/dishes rather than cutting them out altogether. That way I don’t feel like I’m missing out.

I’ve cooked this twice now and have been happy with the results both times.  It doesn’t feel like a light/diet version of something. It still has the creamy texture and rich taste of a korma from the blended cooked onion mix and the very small amount of cream added at the end. So now I can enjoy my korma at home without the guilt.

I like to add some steamed green beans at the end, as I feel the dish needs some added vegetables. I also prefer to cook this with chicken thigh fillets, though the original recipe was for chicken breasts. Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients. That is mostly the spices. The actual recipe itself is, in my opinion, quite easy to cook. Next time I think I’ll try it just with a variety of different vegetables.

Chicken korma

Click here for the recipe

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Mushroom tart

After my fairly unsuccessful attempt at Jamie Oliver’s 15 minute mushroom soup, I still had some mushrooms, parsley and thyme left over in my fridge. And a desire to make something that I actually wanted to eat once it was cooked. I also had some leftover bacon as well that needed to be used up.  Not wanting to waste these ingredients I set about finding something I could cook with them.

I didn’t have to look far. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s latest TV cooking series from River Cottage (and associated cookbook of course) is called 3 Good Things. It is based on the premise that all you need for a great dish is three great ingredients that work well together. Each episode has Hugh competing with two other chefs to cook the best dish created out of the ingredient of the day, with each chef being able to pick the two other ingredients to go with it to make 3 Good Things. Basic seasonings, herbs etc are allowed in addition to the three main ingredients

Episode 4 was based around the theme of mushrooms and Gill Meller matched the mushrooms with pastry and pancetta to make a simple mushroom tart, with thyme and parsley used as well. I always have some puff pastry in the freezer, and pancetta can be easily replaced with bacon. Perfect, a recipe for lunch to use up my leftover ingredients was found and after picking up a few more mushrooms (I bought a tray of different gourmet mushrooms to go with the swiss brown/button mushrooms I already had) I was ready to cook.

The recipe, although taking longer to cook than the 15 minute meal mushroom soup, needed a lot less of my time and energy to make. A few minutes chopping and frying and then it was all in the oven. Easy. Which was just as well as I was starting to get a migraine. The end result tasted great (although I couldn’t eat it until later in the day once my migraine was gone), and I felt redeemed after the mushroom soup disaster.  I didn’t feel like eating much that night after my migraine, so it was a perfect light dinner, while Jerome had it earlier in the day as his lunch.

Mushroom Tart

Click here for the recipe

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Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals? Mushroom soup with croȗtes

Work has been very busy since I got back from my holidays, and as a result  I’ve been looking for quick meal ideas for dinner.

Jamie Oliver’s previous book and TV series, Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals (published as Jamie Oliver’s Meals in Minutes: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast
in America) received a lot of bad press after its release, with people complaining that it was impossible to cook the dishes within 30 minutes. I know the one meal I tried, with the help of two friends, took over an hour to cook. However, the recipe itself was a success flavour wise and I have cooked components of it again.

It has been reported that a lot more recipe testing went into the 15 minute meals recipes, including testing by home cooks. So I thought I’d give Jamie another chance. Plus the book was 40% off the day I was looking at it, and I can’t resist a cookbook on sale. With Perth receiving winter like weather conditions (at the start of summer) recently, the mushroom soup with stilton, apple and walnut croȗtes seemed like a good place to start. Although I replaced the stilton with goat cheese, as I don’t like blue cheese.

The catch with both the 30 and 15 minute meals “mindset” is that before you can start the timer, you have to have all your equipment and ingredients out and ready, kettle boiled and pans and oven ready and hot. But that’s okay; you can do other things while the pans warm up, like read the recipe again, check your emails…

After about 10 minutes everything was ready and I started the timer on my phone. The next 25 minutes of cooking were not very enjoyable. That’s right; it took me 25 minutes even though I thought I’d picked one of the easier recipes, read it quite a few times and know my way around the kitchen. The whole time I felt like I was sprinting in a race, and losing…and I don’t like to run. The experience was not enjoyable and I have to say that the end result was only partially a success. The soup was way too thick and I had to water it down a lot and add extra cream (photo taken before the soup was watered down). The croȗtes however were a success (and could certainly be done in 15 minutes) and I will be making them again.

All up though, I don’t think this style of cooking is for me. I would rather cook something that takes longer but can be cooked in a much more relaxed manner. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with a recipe that takes 30 minutes on the stove or in the oven, especially if you only have to spend 5-10 minutes at the beginning doing the prep and then stir it occasionally. I personally find that much more enjoyable and relaxing. I do however applaud Jamie for his ongoing efforts to get people cooking more nutritious food at home and I’m sure I will try another recipe from the book at some point in the future. Mushroom soup Click here for the recipe

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