Sweet potato, silverbeet, and goats feta pies

You know sometimes you cook something, and it's nice but not quite perfect. So you tinker with it and perfect it. Sometimes you cook something and it is nice, but... not quite perfect, and not really nice enough for you to want to tinker with. That is what I thought of this dish. The cream cheese pastry was suitably short and crumbly, and great with the caramelised onion and garlic spinach. The sweet potato, in my opinion, added unnecessary stodge to the recipe.Rather than tinkering with it to make it better,I think omitting the sweet potato all together and making it a caramelised onion and spinach tart would be better...




The original recipe is found at Sweet potato, silverbeet and goat's feta pies - Gourmet Traveller

Vegetarian Sausage Rolls

Vegetarian sausage rolls - better than the meaty kind in my book! There are two variations for the filling. I have a weakness for sanitarium nutmeat so that will usually be my first choice of filling, but the chickpea and cannellini beans also work really well. Great snacks for a kids party, or for munching as an informal dinner on movie night.

This recipe makes about 20 mini sausage rolls, or 10 larger ones.
 

Ingredients

2 cups/ 500g mashed potato
2 cups beans/peas/lentils of choice [I find one cup each of chickpeas and cannellini beans gives the balance of not too dry or mushy] or 1 tin of sanitarium nutmeat.
1/4 to 1 tsp curry powder - to taste
1 tsp mixed herbs
1 cup of onion, fried (shrinks to about 1/2 cup)
season to taste 





2 -3  sheets of puff pastry

Method

Finely dice the onion and fry till translucent. Add in the curry powder and stir till combined. 
Mash or food process the beans/chickpeas or nutmeat.
Add the onions, herbs, and mashed potato into the bowl.
Mix together well with your hands.

Lay your thawed puff pastry sheets out. Cut into halves. Roll your filling into sausages/snakes and lay along one side of one half of the puff pastry. Gently roll the pastry and filling ensuring the pastry meets and slightly overlaps at the end of your roll. This seam forms the bottom of your roll. Press down gently to make sure your sausage roll is nicely shaped and the filling distributed evenly. Continue with other pastry sheets.

Cut your sausage rolls in half for large rolls, or in quarters for mini sausage rolls.
 
Bake at 200 degrees for about 20 mins or until the pastry is brown and crispy

Beetroot with Cranberry sauce

This is a very simple condiment that goes really well with game meats.

Ingredients

Beetroot with cranberry sauce,
served here with venison stew.

2 beetroots, sliced or cubed
2 or 3 tablespoons of cranberry jelly
1 tablespoon  butter
1 tsp of vinegar

method

Melt butter in a pan. Add beetroots and other ingredients. Cook gently until beetroot is tender. If needed a little bit of extra jelly or water can be added if it is too dry.

Venison and Ale Stew

Not an everyday dish, what with venison being so expensive! It is very tasty, and a fantastic stew for winter.

Ingredients

60g butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
6 spring onions
4 cloves garlic
500g venison
15ml Whisky
300ml ale
2 tablespoon vinegar
2 teaspoons brown sugar
300ml beef stock


Pepper and salt to taste

Method:

Heat the butter and oil in a saucepan and saute the onions and garlic. Lay the venison on top then tip in the whisky and stir the ingredients together. If you don't have whisky just use some of the ale. The whisky just adds another hit of flavour.

Add in the ale and stock, along with the vinegar, sugar and bay leaf. Season with salt and pepper.

Bring to boil, then simmer until the meat is tender - about 40 minutes. Check occassionally to make sure the sauce is not over-reducing.

Serve with your choice of vegetables. This goes particularly well with red cabbage, potato, sweet potato, and beetroot.

Pea and fennel soup

This is a lovely soup, with the sweetness of leeks and peas, the fragrance of fennel, and the savouriness of garlic. I just love the vivid green of this soup, it really brightens my day!

Quick and easy to make, and reasonably cheap when in season (fennel is really cheap at the moment!) this is a fantastic go-to soup for weekday meals. Serve with crusty bread for optimal eating pleasure ;) 

Ingredients

1 fennel bulb, finely chopped
1/2 leek, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
750ml vegetable stock
500g frozen peas - fresh or frozen
1 bunch spinach, chopped.

Method

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat, add fennel, leek and garlic, sauté until soft.
Add stock, peas, fennel, and spinach.
Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer until all the veg is cooked.
Purée until soft and smooth. 

Serve and enjoy!
 

Sweet potato and goats chèvre ravioli

I am glad to report my pasta making skills seem to be improving. While this still isn't the silkiest, thinnest, most luscious ravioli I've ever had - it was certainly presentable, the pasta was a good texture, and the filling was definitely delicious. You don't need a pasta machine to make ravioli, though it does help to get the dough nice and thin. A rolling pin and some patience work just as well. Fortunately, courtesy of a christmas present from my best friend I have a pasta machine so I didn't have to be so patient ;)

Method 

 The pasta dough:
200 g flour, Italian Type 00
2 eggs
olive oil

Sift the flour into a huge mixing bowl or on a chopping board. Make a well in the centre, add  the eggs, then incorporate the flour with your fingers and knead for about 5 minutes or until the dough comes together nicely. If the mix is too firm, add another egg or egg yolk or a teaspoon of olive oil (or, at a pinch a  little water), if it’s too soft, use a little more flour. Knead it lightly, and then shape it into a ball, tightly wrap in cling film and let rest for at least 30 minutes on the counter.

The filling
100g goats chèvre or ricotta (drained, squeezed dry in a cheesecloth)
2 sweet potatoes, roasted till soft and then cooled and peeled
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Mix together the sweet potatoes, chèvre and nutmeg, season with salt and pepper to taste.


Assembly
Roll the pasta into thin sheets with either a pasta machine or your trusty rolling pin.

Place teaspoonful balls of the sweet potato mixture on the dough, and then cover with more dough. Press down to form sealed edges, and cut into shapes.

Cook in boiling salted water until the pasta is al dente.

for the sage burnt butter sauce
100g butter
1 tablespoon lemon juice
5 sage leaves

Add butter to pan and heat until butter begins to foam. At this point, add the sage and cook until butter has browned. Squeeze in the lemon juice and serve sauce immediately over ravioli.

Variation: I had actually intended to use toasted walnuts instead of the sage leaves, but did not have any at the time. I've used them since, and they work well.

Putting it all together

Place the ravioli on a plate with some extra goats chèvre crumbled on top. Finish with the sage burnt butter sauce. Enjoy!

Skidne Æg - Dirty eggs

This is part of our Eurovision inspired Danish-fest. Skidne Æg is a traditional dish, and makes a lovely sharing entree when plated up as we did, or you can serve in individual dishes.

The eggs are meant to be a little runnier than this - that lovely inbetween softboiled and hardboiled, but we overshot the mark as we were too engrossed in the pre-show buildup! Even so, it was a very tasty dish. I'm thinking, too, that you could replace the mustard with curry powder for a, well, curried version.

You can use whatever mustard you enjoy, but be cautious with the hotter ones as you may need to use less or face the wrath of the mustard god.  We used dijon because it is one of my favourites, and I had it in the house at the time!

Ingredients

4 eggs
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
1/2 litre milk
3 tablespoon mustard
salt to taste

Method

Boil eggs and boil until they are cooked as you desire (technically medium boiled is what you aim for, but do whatever you like best). Peel.

Make a roux with the butter and flour.  Add milk in gradually until you have a white sauce. Add mustard, stir through, season with salt and pepper to taste. If your eggs have cooled too much add them to the sauce to reheat, otherwise place eggs in bowl/s and pour sauce over.

Eat with rye bread, flatbread, or even with strips of crispy bacon... we served it with my flatbread recipe (just omitting the caraway!)

Lazy winter vegetable soup

I remember in my early 20's a friend of mine asking me "How do you make soup?" I remember staring at her with bemusement. How could anyone not know how to make soup? It's as easy as toasting bread - well, some soup is. I realised later that there are some techniques with cooking soup that you do need to know, even though most of them are fairly simple. Anyway, I guess she was never taught to cook at home, another thing I couldn't fathom. I remember making pikelets with my mum when I was very small - maybe 4 years old - and soups with my Babcia when I was maybe 8 years old. I grew up cooking, helping to cook, and trying to avoid having to cut up all the vegetables... I guess not everyone is lucky enough to have these experiences.

Anyway, I digress. I think this is the first soup I taught my friend to make. It is super easy, as all it requires is to prepare the vegetables and use a bought stock - a good quality one though, that relies on the flavour of the ingredients and not an over-abundance of salt. No blending, no roux, no cream to add and hope it doesn't split, just a simple basic vegetable soup. I think it is delicious though, and I make it a lot during winter. Obviously if you have the time and know-how to make your own stock that will make it even better. 

I cut my vegetables on the chunky side, but if you prefer them finely sliced that will work just as well.

Ingredients

1 onion, chopped
2 carrots,sliced
1 parsnip,sliced
1 turnip, sliced
1 potato, diced
1 litre of stock

Method

Sauté onion in a little oil or butter until translucent.
Add in the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer until all the vegetables are cooked. If soup is too thick, add water to increase the liquid.

Serve with crusty bread. 

Kale Stew

I've been enjoying kale over the last few months - baby kale in salads, older kale in stirfrys or cooked similar to cabbage and served with whatever it is I'm eating. And crispy kale chips are a perennial favourite in this house! This dish is nowhere near as healthy as any of those options, but it is very delicious. This stew is great as an accompaniment to ham or other meats, and it is just as nice on its own with some mashed potato.

Ingredients

1 kg Kale
75 g butter
200ml cream
1 cup of good quality vegetable stock
2 tablespoon flour

Method

Rinse kale well and Discard any discoloured leaves and tough stems.

Slice into ½ inch thick slices with a sharp knife.
Make a roux with 50 gram of butter and the flour, stir in the vegetable stock and stir till it is smooth.
Add kale and the cream, then season to taste.

Boil gently for 10-15 minutes. The kale stew should not be overly runny, it should have a rich creamy consistency.

Caramelised Potatoes

This is another of those nice-but-naughty recipes. Not especially healthy, but very tasty. This little side dish comes from Denmark, who were the hosts for Eurovision this year. In honour of our hosts we had a traditional Danish dish - ham, with kale stew, and caramelised potatoes. The sweet caramel potatoes went very well with the saltiness of the ham.

1kg Small potatoes, peeled
40g sugar
50g butter

Boil the potatoes until cooked.

Heat the sugar in a frying pan over a medium-low heat for 2-3 minutes until the sugar melts. DO NOT STIR THE MIXTURE. If you need to redistribute the melted sugar shake the pan. If you stir it you may crystallise the sugar.

Add the butter & When it starts foaming add the potatoes and coat them with the mixture. I find a pair of tongs and a spoon works well to do this.

Cook for a further 4-5 minutes until nicely golden and browned. Serve.

Dad's Meatloaf

I just love my dad's meatloaf recipe. It is moist, savoury, with a rich deep sauce.  It is one of the tastes of my childhood, a comforting reminder of days past. Add to that the fact that it is easy to make, lasts well in the fridge, and makes terrific leftovers for reheating or for sandwiches and, well, how can you go wrong?

Ingredients

250g sausage mince
250g minced steak
1/2 cup of fresh breadcrumbs


1 onion
1 teaspoon of curry powder
1/2 tablespoon of fresh chopped parsley
1 egg
1/4 cup milk

sauce

1/4 cup strong espresso coffee or 1/4 cup water and 1 or 2 teaspoons coffee powder
1/4 cup of tomato sauce
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon vinegar
1/8 cup of brown sugar
15g butter
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method

Meatloaf

• soak the breadcrumbs in the milk for 5 minutes. Combine with the meat, finely chopped onion, curry powder, parsely, and beaten egg in a bowl. Mix until well combined.
• Place in a greased loaf or bar tin and bake for 25-30mins at 200c.

Sauce

• combine all sauce ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to boil and then simmer for 5 mins.
• Remove loaf from the oven, pour off fat and turn loaf over in the pan. Spoon some of the sauce over, place back in the oven for 10 mins until the top is browned.
• Serve with the remainder of the sauce and your choice of seasonal vegetables.

Cauliflower Purée

Cauliflower Purée is a great substitute for mashed potatoes. It is low in carbohydrates and high in nutrients, and while the taste of cauliflower is there it is a little milder than when eaten whole. Even my young niece who doesn't particularly enjoy cauliflower said it was "OK" to eat, so it can't be that bad!
 
It is possible to use water instead of milk, but I love the creaminess the milk adds to the dish and it doesn't seem to matter if you use low-fat or not! Milk also adds a bit of extra protein to this dish, which is a bonus.

I'm not giving you exact quantaties here, as this really is a cooking method that can be easily adapted. Obviously the more cauliflower you use, the more milk you will need.

I've paired the cauliflower purée here with a lovely steak and my favourite red cabbage and caraway, but it goes well almost anywhere you would serve mashed potatoes. 

Ingredients

fresh cauliflower
milk

method

Place the cauliflower in a pan and just cover with milk.

Bring to a high heat and cook until the caulflower is soft but not overcooked.

pour off the milk mixture into jug - and keep it, you may need it later.

Blitz the cauliflower in the pot, or place it in a blender, and blend it until it is smooth and creamy. You may need to add extra milk from your reserve jug if it is not blending smoothly or if it is too thick.

Season with salt and pepper and enjoy!

Crispy skin duck breast with honey & orange glazed carrots

This is a rich indulgent dish, perfect for a cool autumn evening. There is a reason why orange is often paired with duck - it provides a sweetness and fruitiness that pairs well with the strong flavour of the duck meat.

The secret to crispy skin is to render out all of that duck fat under the breast, and making sure you pour off the excess fat so that you do not end up with soggy or chewy skin.

The honey and orange glazed carrots are one of my dad's recipes, which I have loved since a child.

Ingredients

2 duck breasts

2 large carrots

1 tbs butter
2 tbs honey
1/4 cup of orange juice
zest from an orange
pinch of nutmeg

salt and pepper

Method - the duck breast

1. Pat the skin of the duck breast and score the through the skin, This helps the fat to render and run out.
2. Season with salt and ground pepper.
3. Place skin side down in a cold non stick pan on a medium heat without oil for 6-8 minutes or until golden brown. Pour off the fat regularly and seal the other side for 30 seconds.
4. Place the skin side up on a rack in a roasting tin in the middle of the oven. The following guidelines give you approximate times for roasting the breast, but as with all meats the size of the breasts will affect how long the cooking will need to be.

Rare - 10 minutes
Medium - 15 minutes
Well Done - 18 minutes

When the duck is cooked rest in a warm place for 10 minutes.

Method - the honey and orange glazed carrots

1. Slice the carrots finely (peel if you prefer, I find I don't need to).
2. Cook in boiling water until soft but not mushy.
3. Drain the carrots in a colander.
4. In the same pot melt the butter and honey, then add the orange juice, zest, and a pinch of nutmeg. Add the carrots and stir until the sauce has coated the carrots and is reduced to your liking. 
5. Season to taste.

Serve with your duck breast, and any other accompaniments you may desire. As you can see I added some baby spinach and mashed potato to mine!

Enjoy!

Rose-petal custard

This is a continuation of my scandalous love affair with custard. This custard uses the same basic recipes as the lemon verbena custard, but uses rose petals to flavour it. The red and deep pink rose petals I used imparted a lovely soft colour to the custard, and a fragrant sweet turkish-delight flavour. This is one I shall definitely make again and again when the roses are in bloom!

Ingredients

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornflour

2 egg yolks

1 1/2 cup milk

Petals of 3-4 fragrant roses. The more fragrant the roses, the more fragrant and flavourful your custard will be.

Method

Place the milk and rose petals in a pot. Bring just up to the boil, then take immediately off the heat and leave to cool. Strain the milk to remove all the petals.

Mix the sugar, cornflour, egg yolk, vanilla and milk in a saucepan and stir with a whisk to remove lumps. Taste to make sure you are happy with the sweetness etc and adjust as necessary. Place over a low-medium heat and stir with a whisk until it thickens. 

Enjoy!

Lemon verbena custard

 I can remember my mum making custard when I was younger, and trying to teach me - but I was always too impatient with it and cooked it too quickly so it curdled. Now that I am older, I am much more patient and am reaping the rewards.  After all is there anything better than soft, silky smooth, warm custard on a cool night? This custard is all that with a lovely lemony flavour.

Ingredients

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornflour

2 egg yolks

1 1/2 cup milk

Sprig of lemon verbena leaves.

Method

Place the milk and lemon verbena in a pot. Bring just up to the boil, then take immediately off the heat and leave to cool. Remove the lemon verbena leaves and strain if necessary.

Mix the sugar, cornflour, egg yolk, vanilla and milk in a saucepan and stir with a whisk to remove lumps. Taste to make sure you are happy with the sweetness etc and adjust as necessary. Place over a low-medium heat and stir with a whisk until it thickens. 

Enjoy!