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.