Fresh Spring roll of herbs, cos lettuce and cucumber with a peanut chilli dipping sauce

I made these to take to a wee New Years shin dig. We make a similar thing at work. They are nice a fresh tasting and go well with the spicy peanut dipping sauce. You can add poached shredded chicken to the mix or poached prawns, sticky beef or if you really want to step it up a notch Confit duck!! The Cos lettuce, Vietnamese mint, Thai basil and chives all came from our garden.


Fresh Spring roll of herbs, cos lettuce and cucumber with a peanut chilli dipping sauce

12-14  large rice paper wraps
1 cup coriander leaves
1 cup Thai basil leaves
1 cup mint leaves
20 Vietnamese mint leaves
a small bunch of chives, cut into 5cm lengths
1 small cos lettuce
half a cucumber, seeded and cut into thin batons

First pick all your herb leaves and place them in a bowl. Wash the lettuce and finely slice, prep the cucumber and cut the chives. Mix together in a bowl.

Boil the jug and fill a large bowl. Dip the rice paper wraps into the boiling water for about 2 seconds, drip dry and place on a clean surface or a chopping board. Place a small handful of the salad herb mix on the rice paper. Roll in the bottom then the sides and then keep rolling up to seal the herbs in.  Repeat until you run out of herb mix.

To serve cut diagonally in half and arrange on the platter with the dipping sauce.


Dipping sauce

1/2 cup boiling water
5 T coconut sugar
5 T fish sauce
3 T lime juice
2 T rice wine vinegar
1- 2 T Japanese soy
1 T Hoisan sauce
1 red chilli, seeded and finely chopped
2 T coriander stalks, finely chopped (from the leaves you picked for above)
1/4 cup finely chopped roasted peanuts

Place boiling water and sugar together. Mix and cool. Add remaining ingredients.
This dressing is also nice for a Thai beef salad but just put the peanuts through the salad at the end.

Homemade Granola with nuts and seeds

This granola was part of my homemade Christmas goodies that I gave away this year. I have had quite a lot of feed back about it so I thought I would share the recipe. I don't like my granola very sweet as I usually eat it with fruit but you can always add more honey to your taste. You can of course change the nuts and dried fruit in the recipe to whatever you fancy.

I made this recipe times 5 and it filled 12 x 1L jars and made just under 10kg of Granola. This recipe is more domestic kitchen friendly and makes around 2 kg.


Homemade Granola with nuts and seeds

320g whole oats
60g sesame seeds
80g sunflower seeds
60g coconut shavings or chips
200g pumpkin seeds
120g cashew nuts, chopped
200g blanched almonds, chopped

40g honey
60g unsweetened apple puree
100g coconut oil

200g dates, chopped
200g apricots, chopped
60g Goji berries
60g linseed

Place the first seven ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.
Heat the honey, coconut oil and apple puree over a low heat until everything is melted.
Pour into your oat seed mix and mix well.
Spread out on to two trays and place in a 160 degree oven stirring every 10 minutes until everything is a nice light golden colour.
Cool and then add in your chopped fruit and linseed.

Keeps in a airtight container for about 3 months.

Oatmeal-Chocolate-Walnut Cookies

I recently had my birthday and Jen always spoils me - generally with a cookbook. This birthday I was spoilt yet again with a beautiful cook book released by an American Bakery called Tartine.

This book has some delicious recipes and according to Jen they are foolproof! I can now confirm that the recipes are foolproof!!! I have NEVER been able to make cookies and using a recipe from this book I mastered cookies! Yesterdays choice of cookie was a chocolate-oatmeal-walnut cookies - and they were delicious.
Most of the recipe is done using a stand mixer. The mixture also has lots of chunky bits making a very textured and tasty cookie. Yum!

The recipe made a large stack of 24 giant cookies!

And the best way to enjoy a cookie - in true American style with a glass of milk.

Potato Harvest

We have just done our first harvest of potatoes. It is so satisfying digging through the soft dirt and finding little (sometimes huge) potatoes. There is always a slight competition as to whose potato patch will have the most and the biggest potatoes.
Growing potatoes is so so easy. They are especially good to grow if you don't have much space. We grow our potatoes in a stack of tyres. Although there has been some talk that perhaps the tyres might leach heavy metals into the soil. You could also use a large pot too if you didn't want to use tyres. Or you can plant them straight into the garden.
We brought seed potatoes a number of months ago, just from the local garden store. You then place the potatoes in the dirt placed in the bottom tyre or pot (or you can plant them straight into the ground).
As the potatoes sprout and you see the green shoots starting to sprout through the dirt you top up the tyre/pot/garden with more dirt - ensuring that you cover the green shoots. You keep doing this until you have a stack as high as you like. We usually have a stack of tyres between 2-4tyres high.
Once the stack has reached as high as you want to go you just leave the shoots to grow. Make sure the potato plants have plenty of water and sun. You should also give them some regular liquid fertiliser to help get a bumper crop.
Once the shoots start drooping and turing yellow you can start harvesting. If you want smaller potatoes you do it early, if you want larger potatoes you leave them a little bit longer. You can get some new potatoes without disturbing the rest of the crop too much. Just scrap away the top layers and pull out the small ones.
When you want to harvest the potatoes you basically just sift through the soil and pick out the potatoes. Don't use a fork or spade as you could accidentally stab your potato, ruining it. You can buy fancy little potato harvesting scoops from garden shops and online but we just use our hands. They are just as effective.
Store your potatoes in a dark, cool place. We generally keep ours in a hessian or cotton bag at the back of the pantry.

Beetroot, carrot and courgette salad with orange and herbs

This is quick, easy and refreshing salad that took no time at all to whip up. Most of the time I enjoy cooking dinner, even when I cook all day at work. Other times I just want to get it over and done with so I can relax and enjoy the rest of the evening. This salad was definitely made so I could relax and enjoy the rest of the evening and it even turned out pretty good!

I was going to shred all these vegetables on my mandolin but it appeared that my mother has borrowed it. Then I was going to use the grater attachment on the food processor but I couldn't find it. I did however find the slicing attachment so I just went with it as I was running out of options and cutting it by hand wasn't one! Anyway you could use any of the above options and it would work perfectly fine.

I better stop going on and tell you the recipe huh? It's as simple as this!

2 beetroot, peeled

1 carrot, peeled

1 courgette, ends trimmed

1 stick of celey

1/2 a small red onion

a small bunch of dill and parsley, chopped

salt and pepper

Dressing

Juice of one orange

1-2 T red wine vinegar

1-2 T Virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

Cut the vegetables to fit the chute of your food processor and fire them through. Place in a bowl and add the chopped herbs. Mix up the dressing and add to the vegetables. Season and adjust the vinegar if necessary. If it is too sharp add a bit more olive oil. 

Serves 2.

We served this with some fresh fish and new potatoes.

Simple Pleasures

Some of my favourite dishes are the most simple. This dish makes the most delicious breakfast that really sets you up for the day. It also makes a yummy, light dinner for when you can't be bothered cooking.

This is also another great way to use the cured fish from the previous recipe.

All I have done is blanch some young, fresh asparagus. Finely sliced some cured salmon and topped it all with a soft poached egg. Serve with a wedge of lemon, and, freshly cracked salt and pepper.

If you are wanting a sauce you could serve it with a hollandaise sauce or something similar. However, remember if your egg is still googy (runny) in the middle that will provide a sauce.

Dips, Dips And More Dips

We had excess beetroot, pumpkin and kale from the garden that all needed eating. So as a quick easy way of using some of them up I made a trio of dips to enjoy on crackers as a snack.

Beetroot Dip

Ingredients

1 medium beetroot or 2 small beetroot

1 cup of thick natural yoghurt

2 crushed cloves of garlic

a pinch of fresh thyme leaves

salt and pepper

toasted cumin seeds to sprinkle on top

Place the whole beetroot (skin and all) in a saucepan and cover with cold water.

Bring the water to boil and simmer until the beetroot is tender.

Once the beetroot is cool enough for you to handle without burning your fingers peel the skin off the beetroot.

Roughly cut the beetroot up and place it in a food processor with all of the other ingredients apart from the cumin seeds.

Blend until you get the consistency you like.

Sprinkle the toasted cumin seeds on top to serve.

Pumpkin and Cashew Dip

Ingredients

half a medium sized pumpkin cut into small cubes

olive oil

salt

1/2 cup of cashew nuts

2 cloves of garlic

2T grated parmesan cheese

Place the pumpkin, oil and salt in a bowl. Toss until the pumpkin is well coated.

Roast the pumpkin in a 180 degree oven until tender.

Place the cashew nuts in a food processor. Blend until you get a texture that you like. If you blend them to a fine mixture you will tend to get a creamier dip, if they are a bit chunkier you will get a more textural dip.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the food processor and blend until the pumpkin forms a smooth texture.

Kale Pesto

Ingredients

a handful of kale leaves - middle stem removed

1/4 cup of walnuts - toasted

a clove of garlic

olive oil

juice and zest of one lemon

salt and pepper

Blanch the kale leaves for about 30seconds in boiling water and refresh in ice cold water. 

Attempt to remove as much excess water from the kale as possible.

Add the kale and the rest of the ingredients to a food processor and blend until you get a consistency that you like.

Add as much olive oil as you need to get the texture that you want. I used about 1/4 cup. The smoother you want your pesto the more olive oil you will need.

The measurements of the ingredients in these recipes is only a guide. You can play around with them as you please to get the flavours that you want. 

I served my dips as part of a plater with cured fish (see previous post), home grown and brined olives and crackers. It was delicious and healthy!

Cured Fish

This has to be the easiest and yummiest thing I have ever made! It is definitely going to be on my list of things to make for christmas day. It barely involves any preparation and no cooking. It would be great as part of a plater, canape or entree for a party. Its tasty, fresh and easy.
In this recipe I have used salmon but you can also use trout. You could experiment with other fish also.
I used dill to flavour this recipe but you could use any flavour you want. For example, you could add the zest of lemons and/or limes, toasted fennel seeds, toasted coriander seeds, anything that tickles your fancy really.
The amount of sugar and salt doesn't matter so much, its more that you need equal quantities of them both. You can adjust the recipe to how big your fillet of fish is. Its important that you have enough salt mixture to cover the whole fish.

Ingredients

150g salt

150g castor sugar

a large handful of dill

1 fillet of salmon - no skin or bones

Mix the salt, sugar and dill together.

Place half the mixture in a tray that will snuggly fit your fish. 

Place your fish on top of the salt mixture. 

Use the rest of the salt mixture to completely cover your fish. 

Cover with cling wrap.

Cover the fish with another tray and place weights on top of the tray to weigh the whole thing down. I just use tins or jars from the cupboard.

Place the whole thing into the fridge for overnight (at least 8hours).

Using a paper towel wipe the salt mixture off as best you can.

And now you have a yummy snack!

I have served mine with slices of lemon and a horseradish cream, but again, the choice is all yours.

Roast Portabellos with Taleggio, Puy lentils and Asparagus

Mmmm Taleggio. One of my favourite cheeses... so melty and great with so many things. I set out to make this a meat free meal but then I found some smokey bacon in the fridge and it was game over. Smokey bacon and Taleggio together, as I like to say a lot in the kitchen are so banging! You of course use a 1/2 tsp of smoked paprika if you weren't as much of a bacon fan as I am and then it would be vegetarian friendly.

Mushrooms and Taleggio are also a delicious match, so during my yoga class this evening I thought this up. I always seem to plan my dinner when I should be concentrating on something else!  

Roast Portabellos with Taleggio, Puy lentils and Asparagus

1 large onion, finely sliced

35g butter

2 rashers of smokey bacon, chopped (Optional)

1/2 a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes (You could probably use a whole tin if you didn't have some to use up)

250g puy lentils

1 bay leaf

1 cup water or stock

4 large portabellos

4 sprigs of thyme

olive oil

70g Taleggio, sliced into 4 

handful of parsley

70g-100g baby spinach

Zest of half a lemon

1 bunch a asparagus

Start by getting your lentils on to cook. In a small pot cover them with plenty of water and add the bay leaf. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 or so minutes or until just tender. Strain and briefly rinse. Put a pot of water back on for cooking your asparagus.

Place your Portabellos on a lined baking tray and drizzle with olive oil, thyme leaves and flaky salt and black pepper and roast in a 200 degree oven for 5 or so minutes. Place the Taleggio on top and switch the oven to grill. Leave them aside until you are ready to serve.

Heat a pan and add the butter, onion and bacon and cook slowly with a pinch of salt until the onions are soft and sweet. Add the strained lentils, tomatoes and 1 cup of hot water and cook until the lentils are tender and most of the water as evaporated. Season and add the baby spinach, chopped parsley and the lemon zest.

Now to finish everything off... Place the mushrooms under the grill and melt the cheese and let it caramelise. Place your asparagus into salted boiling water and cook for 2 minutes or until they are done to your liking.

Plate up the lentils, place the asparagus on top and finish with the cheesy mushrooms and if you like things to look pretty then sprinkle on some basil leaves from your garden. Yum!

The left over lentils, if you have any would be pretty delicious with a poached egg on top the next day.

Stephanie Alexander App

For all of those who love Stephanie Alexander check out her new app available from the Apple App Store. I love Stephanie Alexander and was super excited to see that she had a cooking and recipe app!The app is based on her best selling cookbook The Cook's Companion. It has all the same recipes and tip bits as the book. It also has a tab with each recipe so that you can add your own notes.Now when I searched for the app I discovered that it was free! I thought wow this is way too good to be true! And it was. The app is free to download but when you go into the app everything is in sections. For example, pasta and noodles, basics and equipment, vegetables and herbs etc. The first section, pasta and noodles, is free to access and use. However, you have to individually pay to access each of the other sections. They range in price from 99c for the basics and equipment section, to $9.49 for the vegetables and herbs section. So to get all the sections it can add up pretty quickly.Having said that it is a really good app. I find the iphone has too small a screen to read recipes off but if you had an ipad it would work really well. However, if you are like me and think that you can remember your shopping list and then get to the supermarket and realise that the shopping list has slipped your mind, its very handy having the recipe on your phone to refer back to the ingredients list.

Flourless Orange Cake with Syrup

The thing that I hate the most is wasting quality produce. So every weekend I go through the fruit bowl and pick out all the fruit that is nearing its 'time to go in the compost' date. I then google for a cake recipe that has the fruit I have picked out in the recipe. This way we have a cake to eat with lunch for the week and we don't waste any fruit. This is how the above orange cake came to be in our cake tin, and, boy was it a good one.
Usually my partner juices any left over oranges so that we have fresh OJ in the fridge. However, when I saw this recipe I wrestled the oranges off him.
We usually always have Navel Oranges in the house. We find that, one, they usually have the best flavour and juiciness, and, two, the local oranges tend to be all navel and we try to buy all local produce. Its good for the environment, good for the local economy and produce tends to be tastier as it is fresher. However, you could use any type of orange, mandarin, tangelo, etc.
I have given you two syrup recipes to choose from. In the photo above I have used the orange syrup but I have previously made a killer orange cake using the spiced coriander syrup which is delicious!! So use what ever one you feel like. I know the coriander syrup seems weird but definitely give it a go sometime - you will be pleasantly surprised.

FLOURLESS ORANGE CAKE

2 Oranges

3 Eggs

1cup sugar

3cups almond meal

1t baking powder

Pre-heat oven to 170C. Grease and line a cake tin.

Place oranges in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring the water to the boil and boil for 15mins.

Drain the water and repeat the process again.

Once the oranges have been twice boiled drain them and chop the whole orange roughly. Remove any seeds. Then place the whole orange (pith and all) into a food processor. Blitz until a smooth puree is formed.

Meanwhile beat eggs and sugar together until pale yellow and thick.

Fold almond meal, baking powder and orange puree into the egg/sugar mixture.

Pour mixture into prepared tin and bake for 1hour.

Once cooked let sit for 15mins then carefully using a skewer poke holes in the top. Then pour either one of the following syrups over top and allow it to soak in.

Serve with organic natural yoghurt.

ORANGE SYRUP

1 orange

3/4 cup sugar

Zest the orange and place zest in a small saucepan. Cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and boil for 5mins. Drain.

Juice the orange. 

Place the juice, sugar and boiled zest into a saucepan.

Cook over low heat until the sugar is dissolved and the syrup has thickened slightly.

SPICED CORIANDER SYRUP

2t coriander seeds

100g sugar

100ml water

2t lemon juice

Toast and grind up the coriander seeds.

Add ground coriander to saucepan with the rest of the ingredients.

Simmer until the sugar has dissolved and the syrup has thickened slightly.

Spiced Lamb and smokey chilli Lahmacun, Eggplant Zaalouk, Mint and radish salad and Labne

I ate a variation of this dish while in Turkey, well the Lacmacun part anyway. Its basically their version of a pizza and you can get them all over Turkey. They are so delicious hot from the wood fired oven! I want!

To make it more of a meal, I served it with a warm eggplant salad, a refeshing mint and radish salad and some homemade labne

There are a few recipes in this post post but don't let it scare you away. They are either quick and easy or can be done in advance. For the Lahmacun I adapted one of my favourite chefs, Greg Malouf's recipe.I love his food! I used his dough recipe exactly but changed the topping.


Lahmacun dough

1 T dried yeast
3/4 t sugar
40 ml warm water
150g thick natural yoghurt
60ml extra virgin olive oil
310g strong bread flour ( I just used high grade)
1/2 tsp  sea salt

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm water and set aside for about 10 mins.
Place the flour, salt, olive oil and yoghurt in a bowl of the stand mixer fitted with a dough hook and add the yeast mixture. On a low speed knead for about 10-15 minutes or until the dough is smooth and shiny.
Cover with a damp tea towel and leave for 2 hours until its doubled in size.
After 2 hours knock back the dough and divide into 10 x 55g balls. Roll out to about 14cm rounds and lightly brush with olive oil and spread with the lamb topping.

Chopping all the topping ingredients together.

Spiced lamb and smokey chilli topping

200g minced lamb - not too lean
1 red chilli
1 small red onion, finely diced
1 tomato, seeded and diced
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp sumac
1/4 tsp dried mint
1/2 tsp allspice
1 clove garlic, microplaned
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper


Char the outside of the chilli and put in a bag to steam. Peel off the skin and chop the chilli up.
Place all the ingredients in a chopping board and with a large knife chop everything together to form a fine paste. Season well.

To make the Lahmacun heat your oven to 220 degrees. I used my pizza stone so I heated that up too but you could just use a baking tray.

Roll out your dough and flop the rolled dough onto the hot stone and brush lightly with olive oil and spread over the filling. Bake for about 4-8 minutes depending on how hot your oven is. You want the edges brown and the base cooked.

I cooked all of mine in batches of 3 and then when the time came to serve I flashed them in a hot oven to warm through.


Eggplant Zaalouk

2-3 T olive oil
1 eggplant, diced
2  cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp each of coriander and cumin seeds, ground
1/2 tsp sweet paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/2 tin of cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup water
pinch sugar
1/2 cup of coriander and parsley, chopped
juice of 1/2 a lemon
salt and black pepper

Heat oil in a pan on a high heat, add the eggplant and cook for 5 minutes. Add the spices and cook out. Add the tomatoes, water and sugar and cook until the tomatoes reduce and coat the eggplant. When the eggplant is tender its done. Season and add the herbs and lemon juice.


Mint and Radish salad

1 cup of mint leaves
4-6 radishes, thinly sliced on a mandolin
150g baby spinach
juice of half a lemon
1 T virgin olive oil
flaky salt and freshly ground black pepper

Mix all together before serving.


To serve

Labne
Extra red pepper flakes if you like it a bit spicy
Pomegranate molasses to drizzle over the Lahmacun

When eating this I like to pile everything on top of my Lahmacun so every mouthful is delicious and balanced and then fold it over and eat it with my hands. Yum!!

As you can see a wee friend popped into the photo...

How to make Labne

Labne with olive oil and sumac

Labne

Labne is strained thick yoghurt. It is one of my favourite things and you can use it in so many ways. I like to keep some in my fridge most of the time. It has a great shelf life, especially if you cover it with a nice olive oil. Or you can keep it in an airtight container and it pretty much keeps as long as your yoghurt would. You can also roll it into balls and roll them in herbs, nuts or seeds. Spread it on toast with fresh tomato on top or use it as a dip. Add it to salads like I did here. Serve it with barbequed meat or roast vegetables. The possibilities are endless!


1kg plain unsweetened yoghurt (don't use low fat!)
1 1/2 tsp table salt
zest of a lemon
a new chux cloth or piece of muslin
sieve
bowl to sit under the sieve

In a bowl mix together the yoghurt, salt, and lemon zest.
Line the sieve with the chux cloth and pour in the yoghurt mix.


Gather the edges of the cloth up and tie in a knot and place the sieve over the bowl. This catches all the liquid that strains out of the yoghurt

Yoghurt straining and ready for the fridge

You want to strain your yoghurt for 24-48 hours. The longer you strain the thicker it gets. I checked it after 6 hours once and there was quite a lot of liquid in the bowl and it had definitely thickened so it is personal preference really.

You can also flavour the labne as you wish before straining or after. Fresh herbs are nice, spices, Harissa, lime instead of lemon. You could fold in toasted nuts before serving too. See! So many possibilities!

Puy lentil, quinoa and haloumi salad with baby carrots and asparagus

On a hot Sunday night this was just what we felt like for dinner. We picked up fresh asparagus and baby carrots from the market so they were super fresh!

The lentils and Qunioa can be cooked in advance and the dressing can be made up to a day a head or earlier if you omit the tomato and add it on the day. The onions can also be done the night before too.

There are only two of us here but if you upped the carrots and asparagus to say 500g each then it would be plenty for four. We had enough for dinner and some for a lunch the next day.


Puy lentil, quinoa and haloumi salad with baby carrots and asparagus

200g Puy lentils
2 cloves garlic
100g quinoa - I used black Quinoa
200g baby carrots
250g asparagus
1 T olive oil
1 tsp each of cumin and coriander seeds
flaky salt and black pepper

1/2 red onion, finely sliced
1 T red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp Allspice
1/2 tsp Sumac

1/2 cup hazelnuts - roasted and roughly chopped
200g haloumi, thickly sliced
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
1/2 cup labne or Greek yoghurt

Dressing
1 tomato, deseeded, small diced
2 T red wine vinegar
2 T pomegranate molasses
3 T virgin olive oil
Black pepper
1 tsp flaky salt
2 cloves garlic that you cooked with the lentils, mashed
1/2 tsp sumac


First bring the lentils to boil with the garlic cloves and a couple of bay leaves and simmer for about 20 minutes or until tender. Drain and briefly rinse. Set aside.

I cooked the Quinoa using the absorption method with the ratio of  one and a half times as much water. You don't want it crunchy so keep adding more water if you need.

Finely slice your onion and place it in a bowl with 1 T red wine vinegar and the sumac and allspice, mix it together and leave while you sort out your other bits.

Mix everything for the dressing together and set aside.

Place the carrots, 1 Tablespoon of oil and the cumin and coriander on a roasting tray and roast for about 6 minutes at 180°. Then add your asparagus and cook for a further 5 minutes.

While the carrots and asparagus are cooking you can start mixing your salad together.  In a bowl add the lentils, Quinoa, marinated onions, parsley and dressing. Season well.

Arrange the lentil salad on a serving platter and pile your roast carrots and asparagus on top.

Next you want to cook you Haloumi as you want it more melty and less squeaky. Heat a non stick pan on a medium heat and heat 1 T of oil. Add your Haloumi slices and turn when caramelised. When cooked place the Haloumi on top of the vegetables. Sprinkle with the roast hazelnuts and dollop on the Labne.

Finish with a squeeze of lemon and serve!

Lets Make Some Seeds!

Now you may be forgiven for thinking that we have terrible design skills at our house if you judge us by this photo! However, we are collecting seeds...kale seeds to be exact.
We had a bumper crop of kale this year. We had three different kinds on the go - Tuscan Kale, Curly Leaf Kale and Purple Kale. The purple kale is still going strong, however the other two types went to seed a while ago.

Purple Kale

Since we had such a great crop this year we thought we would attempt to catch seeds for next year. It is extremely simple to collect seeds and is very satisfying when your caught seeds turn into produce. You really feel like you have grown the produce from scratch. Furthermore, if you collect seeds from a strong crop you are more likely to get a strong crop the year after as well. So how to collect seeds...

1. - Let the kale go to flower in the garden.

2. - Continue to let the kale flower and then form seed pods.

3. - Allow the seed pods to dry a little on the plant.

4. - Pull the plants out of the ground and place them upside down in an old pillow case. Hang the pillow cases up somewhere dry and out of the direct sunlight. Once again our verandah was perfect. At this time of year our verandah doesn't have room for humans with all the drying of veges and seeds going on!

5. - Allow the seed pods to dry so that they crack open and let the seeds fall to the bottom of the pillow case. This can take a few weeks. To help this along you can gently hit or shake the pillow cases.

6. - Collect the seeds, store them in a paper bag (a small envelope works really well), and have them ready for planting next year.

You can also do this with herbs and instead of using them for replanting you can use them in cooking. For example, you can do this with coriander, fennel or dill, just to name a few. Instead of keeping them in a paper bag keep them in an airtight container. To get the best flavour use the seeds within 6 months. Imagine how much better your cooking will taste with home grown, fresh seeds!

Carrot and Cabbage Tabbouleh

Having a garden has really improved my inventiveness, creativeness and flexibility in the kitchen. When food is ready in the garden it has to be used or all of your hard work ends up in the compost! Today we had cabbage, spring onions and carrots that desperately needed eating...This lead to the following recipe - Carrot and Cabbage Tabbouleh. 

This is a really nice light, fresh salad that is a bit of a combination of tabbouleh and coleslaw. It is healthier than coleslaw as it doesn't have mayonnaise in it. You could leave out the cracked wheat/burghul, olive oil and lemon, and, add a mayonnaise to make an equally yummy, more traditional coleslaw. 

You can use either cracked wheat or burghul. It depends on what you have in the cupboard and what taste you prefer.

I have put quantities in the recipe but I usually just keep adding ingredients until I feel there is a good ratio of them all. The secret is to try and slice everything as finely as possible.

2 cups cracked wheat/burghul

2 cloves garlic, finely sliced

3-4 spring onions, finely sliced

1 small/medium cabbage, finely sliced

3-4 carrots, finely sliced

5-6 inner stalks of celery, finely sliced

at least 2 large handfuls of flat leaf parsley, chopped

large handful of mint leaves, chopped

juice of 2 lemons

4 T olive oil

salt and pepper

Place cracked wheat in a mixing bowl. Cover with boiling water. Allow to soak for 30minutes. Once tender, drain as much liquid from the cracked wheat as possible.

Mix all vegetables and herbs with the cracked wheat.

Mix lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper together. Pour dressing over salad.

Then all there is to do is enjoy!

Broccoli, Hazelnut and Asparagus Fettuccine

I had a few greens in my fridge for dinner and not much else so I made this quick pasta dish for our dinner tonight. The 400g packet of pasta says it feeds 4 but I'm thinking its more like 3 people... If you didn't have asparagus you could use green beans when they are in season or rocket in place of spinach. Just what ever really. Baby peas or broad beans would be nice too! The pureed broccoli makes a delicious kind of creamy sauce.

Broccoli, Hazelnut and Asparagus Fettuccine

1 head of broccoli roughly chopped

1 clove garlic

a handful of skinless roasted hazelnuts (around half a cup)

zest of a lemon, juice of half

1/4 cup virgin olive oil

pinch of chilli flakes

a handful of parsley

5 or so leaves of basil (optional)

2 T grated Parmesan plus extra for garnish

500g of asparagus, ends trimmed, sliced on the angle

100-200g baby spinach

400g pack of fresh pasta

Bring a large pot of water to the boil (about 3 litres) and add about 2 T of salt.

Add the broccoli and the garlic and boil for about 1-2 mins or until tender.

Scoop out the broccoli and garlic with a slotted spoon keeping the water on the boil and place in a blender or food processor. Add in the hazelnuts, zest and juice, olive oil, chilli flakes, herbs, 1 tsp of flaky salt and a few grinds of black pepper into the blender. Process until smooth. Check seasoning, you want it to have a bit if guts as it is going to coat all the pasta.

Place the fresh pasta in the reserved boiling water and cook for 1 minute and then add the asparagus. Cook until the pasta is just tender.

Drain the pasta and asparagus in a colander with a small bowl underneath to catch some of the liquid.

Pour the pasta and asparagus back into the pot and add the broccoli puree. Add in enough pasta water to make a nice saucy consistency - I added just over 1/2 a cup.  

Fold in the baby spinach and check the seasoning, adding more lemon or salt and pepper to your taste.

Serve up into bowls and finish with some shaved Parmesan and a little olive oil.

Tis almost the season of fruit!

The feijoa is flowering and the apples are growing. It won't be long now until we can harvest and gorge on some delicious fresh fruit! These are two of my favourite.

Harvest Time

We harvested our red onions today. We have been using them straight from the ground but its time to use the ground for other veges and we also don't want the onions to rot. We will leave them outside under the verandah for a few weeks to dry out. Then we will trim the roots and cut the leaves off. After drying to keep them as long as possible we keep them in a woven bag in a dark cool place.
You cannot compare fresh, home grown onions to store brought. The flavour is so much better. Once you have grown your own you will never buy onions from the supermarket again!

Hot smoked salmon, labne, snowpea, avocado and sunflower seed salad

A quick salad I made for lunch today with bits and bobs from the fridge and garden. It just looked so pretty and tasted delicious!


1/2 baby cos, leaves picked
a handful of rocket
1/4 cucumber, diced
8 snowpeas, sliced
1/2 cup labne (strained yoghurt)
2 small avocado, diced
1/4 cup sunflower seeds, toasted
1/3 cup sunflower and parsley pesto
juice of a lime or lemon
a few sprigs of dill
black pepper and a little flaky salt

Layer the baby cos and rocket around the plate you wish to serve it on.
Sprinkle over the diced cucumber, the avocado and snowpeas.
Dollop little teaspoons of the labne and the pesto around the plate so every portion gets some.
Flake over the hot smoked salmon, squeeze over the lime or lemon and sprinkle over the seeds.
A few cracks of black pepper and a bit of flaky salt and you're done!

This fed 3 of us for lunch.

Sunflower seed and curly parsley 'pesto'

I always have an abundance of curly parsley. It seems to grow better and faster than its friend Flat leaf or Italian parsley which I also happen to  prefer. You need to cut curly parsley quite fine or it gets stuck in your teeth and it doesn't have a nice texture when roughly chopped. It does have a good flavour so has its place in my kitchen. 

This recipe is great because everything goes in the blender. It makes a good dip or it would be nice with BBQ'd meat or vegetables. Adding rocket or any other soft herbs you have available would make a good variation and you could also thin it out with a bit of water to make a nice dressing.

Sunflower seed and curly parsley pesto

1/2 cup of raw sunflower seeds, soaked in water over night

1 clove garlic

1-2 cups of well packed curly parsley

1/4 -1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 T water

zest of 1 lemon

juice of 1 1/2 lemons

a good tsp of flaky salt

2 tsp honey

black pepper to taste

pinch of chilli flakes

Place soaked sunflower seeds and remaining ingredients in a blender or small food processor and blend until smooth. Check seasoning and serve as you wish.

Been Painting All Day

After painting our architraves, windows and door frames in a matt paint we have decided to repaint them all again in the same colour but in gloss.

The upkeep and cleaning required to keep light coloured matt architraves clean is insane! As much as I hate painting, I hate cleaning more.

The problems with matt, light coloured, architraves (I have learnt all these since the initial painting) are that it marks and stains really easily and with time, if they are white, they fade to yellow. So by painting the architraves with gloss paint they become easier to clean, the dirt doesn't stick to the architraves as much, they don't stain and the paint doesn't fade to yellow. 

Another tip to keep your white from fading to yellow (and this counts for anything you are painting white) put a drop of black paint in it. It won't change the colour but it will stop it fading to yellow.

So moral of the story if you hate cleaning, don't paint your architraves in matt paint.

The end.

Shaved cauliflower and radish salad with caper raisin dressing

I have been going through a bit of a raw vegetable salad faze of late. Keeping the vegetables raw gives them such a great texture and paired with a great dressing it makes for a delicious dinner. I had a brocoflower in the fridge that I picked up from the market and a few radishes. Cauliflower or romesco would also be lovely. You could use red or green cabbage instead of the radish or even both.

This recipe makes enough for a generous 4 as part of a meal.


Shaved cauliflower and radish salad with caper raisin vinaigrette

1/2 cauliflower or brocflower or romesco
4 or so radishes
a handful of chives, finely chopped
a good handful of Italian Parsley, chopped
60g local walnuts, roasted


Dressing

40g raisins
50ml boiling water
2 T capers, chopped
1/2 a small garlic clove, microplaned
2 anchovies, finely chopped
pinch chilli flakes
zest and juice of 1 1/2 lemons
zest and juice of a small orange or a mandarin
1 tsp Dijon
1 T wine vinegar
45ml good olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
flakey salt to taste

Pour the boiling water over the raisins and leave to plump while you sort the vegetables.

Using a mandolin slice the cauliflower so you have thin shavings. It will break and crumble a bit but that doesn't matter. Do the same with the radishes. Place in a bowl and add the herbs and toasted walnuts.




























To make the dressing, strain the plumped raisins reserving the liquid and finely chop. Add to a small bowl with the chopped capers, anchovies, chilli flakes, zest and juice, vinegar, and Dijon. Add the raisin water and the olive oil and mix well. (Alternatively you could blitz everything in a blender to save some time)

Then simply dress the salad and season it with plenty of black pepper and some flaky salt to taste.

I served it with some pan-fried fresh fish and it was banging!

Vin d’ Orange

A few weeks ago I got married. (Yay!) For my Hens Party I decided to have a ladies lunch, good company good food and a nice afternoon in the sun. The weather pulled through and it was a wonderful day. I had seen in a few cookbooks and online and aperitif called Vin d’ Orange and thought it would be perfect for my ladies lunch. This recipe takes a bit of forethought as you leave it for 40 days but  it makes plenty! You can of course cut the recipe back and make as much as you like. I used a mix of Blood orange and Navel but you can do whatever split you like. Traditionally you would use Seville Oranges.  I couldn’t help adding some Campari for an extra bitter hit.

I ended up adapting this recipe here

Vin d’ Orange

Makes about 8 Litres                                                                                    

7 bottles of Rosé

1 litre of vodka

750g to  1kg organic cane sugar

2 vanilla beans

2 cinnamon quill

6 Navel oranges – thinly sliced

8 blood oranges – thinly sliced

1 Meyer lemon – thinly sliced

Half a bottle or more of Campari to taste

Place all the ingredients together in a large clean bucket or glass jar with a fitted lid. Stir to dissolve sugar.  Cover and leave in a cool place for 40 days.

After 40 or so days, strain the liquid through a coffee filter or a piece of muslin. You don’t have to do this step but it makes for a beautiful clear liquid. Pour into sterilised bottles and keep in the fridge for up to a year.

Serve straight with plenty of ice or topped up with soda. Perfect for a hot day.

There are plenty of things to do with the orange slices too… Marmalade for one or dip them in sugar syrup and dehydrate them and then dip them in dark chocolate. My mother in law this this one and they were delish! Yum! I ended up cooking them slowly in sugar syrup covered in the oven for 1-2 hours and serving them with a Valrhona chocolate tart and whipped cream. They were also delicious in croissants!

Broad Bean Hummus

We have had a decent crop of broad beans this year and so every broad bean recipe known to man has been tried in our household.

After a day at work I got home to a note saying 'harvested the broad beans today and made some hummus' and a couple of containers of the broad bean hummus were waiting for me in the fridge.

So far this is definitely the winner of the broad bean recipe participants! Its made just the same as regular hummus but you replace the chickpeas with blanched, de-skined broad beans instead. Make sure you add lots of lemon juice as it really enhances the broad beaniness. Its delicious on everything!

The Wall!

We have recently been renovating our dining room. When we shifted into our house we had two of the most ugliest brick bars attached to the back wall of the dining room. Needless to say we were pretty quick to rip them out. However, this left us with another issue - a big, boring wall. The wall needed to have something exciting on it to bring the room to life.

So off I went to the shops and searched the Internet for this mysterious exciting ‘thing’ that was going to bring this room to life. So after searching high and low what did I find… WALLPAPER.

And not just any old wallpaper - $500 a roll wallpaper. Now there were 3 problems with this.

1 – the glaringly obvious – its $500 a roll! Well and truly out of our budget!

2 – I have never hung wallpaper before and I didn’t think the time to start was with $500 a roll wallpaper.

And lastly,

3 – the intricate pattern means that I would have to line up the wallpaper, creating lots of wastage, and that meant buying 2 if not 3 rolls of wallpaper – definitely out of the budget!

Being in the ‘I must have it’ type mood I had to think of some way of getting this wallpaper. Eventually the thought popped right into my head – I’ll paint it! And so began ‘The Wall’. I was going to attempt to recreate the geometric pattern found on the wallpaper with paint.

Off I trotted to Bunnings and brought up all their painters tape – about 8 rolls. I have attempted something similar before and I can give you good advice that it is most definitely worth spending a few extra dollars and getting the painter’s tape rather than plain masking tape. It will save a lot of tantrums when you are trying to peel the tape off.

Back home I went, prepped the wall for painting and painted 2 coats of the base coat colour – white on white by Dulux. Then the ‘fun’ began.

I marked out with pencil marks where the tape needed to intersect and run horizontally and vertically. Then I began to tape…

About half a days work later I discovered that this wasn’t going to work and so the tape came off and went in the bin with my efforts.

Take 2 – I rejigged the markings and so the taping began again. I started with the vertical and horizontal lines.

Then carried on the diagonal/intersecting lines.

2 days later and we were done … well with the taping at least.

Next it is very important to paint overtop of all your hard work with the base colour again. This creates a seal and stops the colour coat from seeping through the edges. It gives you a nice clean line.

Once dry pain 2 coats of your chosen colour – ours is ½ white duck by Dulux. You must then wait until the topcoat is well and truly dry. Then take a big breath and start to pull the masking tape off. It’s very very nerve-racking!

But after 2 days of taping, 5 coats of paint and lots of tantrums I can now present you The Wall (undressed).