Pesto Lamb Pizza (slowcooker lamb part 2)

The holy grail combination. Everyone has some. Theres the very common dark chocolate and raspberry, honey and soy, lemon and fish... to the less common olives and white chocolate, oysters and kiwi or mushroom and blueberry (some of Hestons crazy favourites of course!) Everyone has favourites and to me, pumpkin and pesto and lamb and goats cheese ALWAYS hit the spot together. Put the two holy grails together and throw in some caramelized onion pine nuts and a delectably crispy pizza dough and this would have to be in my top 3 favourite meals ever. Just trust me. Don't question it, just make it!

Lamb Pesto Pizza

Prep time:20 (not including dough prep) Cooking time:30  minutes  Serves:4

Ingredients:

• Leftover slow cooked lamb
• 2 pizza bases or 1/2 quantity of pizza dough recipe
• 1 cup diced kent pumpkin 
• 1/4 cup toasted pinenuts
• 1 brown onion
• Small knob of butter
• 1 tablespoon of brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons of vinegar 
• 75g of goats cheese
• 4 tablespoons basil pesto

Method:

1. Place diced pumpkin in saucepan and boil until soft but not mushy. Place into a bowl with salt and pepper and set aside to cool.

2. Chop onion in half and thinly slice onion. Add them to a frying pan over medium heat with the knob of butter and a small dash of oil to stop the butter from burning. 

3. Cook the onions until soft and transparent and add in sugar and vinegar. Cook for a further few minutes until mixture has thickened and is bubbling.  

3. Roll out your pizza dough into the shape of your pizza or baking tray and evenly spread on a layer of pesto- this can be as little or a lot, depending on how strong you want the pesto to be.

4. Top the pizza with pumpkin, lamb, caramelised onion, pine nuts and crumble on goats cheese. 

5. Bake in an oven until the pumpkin and goats cheese are browned and the bottom and edges of the pizza are crisp. 

Creamy Chicken Volovants

Today is a sad week for me. My younger cousin, who happens to be one of my best friends is off on the trip of a lifetime to America for 10 months. I'm incredibly proud of her for taking on this adventure at only 17 but already feeling so lonely without her. Some comfort food to fill my sad little lonely self was on the cards and these volovants certainly helped- rich + creamy + hearty = comfort.

Creamy Chicken Volovants

Prep time:10 Cooking time:15  minutes  Serves:4

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken breast
• 3/4 cup button mushrooms
• Small bunch of spring onion
• 1 cup full cream
• 1-2 teaspooons seeded mustard
• Small knob of butter
• Salt
• Cracked pepper
• Olive oil
• 1/2 cup tasty cheese
• 4 large volovant cases

Method:

1.Dice chicken breast and cook in a large frying pan with a dash of olive oil and cook until sealed on all edges (not browned). Add bacon into the pan and cook with the chicken until both are browned and thoroughly cooked.

2. While the chicken and bacon is cooking, slice the mushrooms and spring onions. And add to the pan with a knob of butter until softened.

3. Pour the cream, seeded mustard and cracked pepper into the pan and let the mixture cook until thickened. 

4. Into the pan add the cheese and turn off the heat and let it sit until the cheese is melted. 

5. Pour the mixture evenly into the volovant cases and bake according to the instructions or until the shell is golden and the top of the volovants are browned.

Easy Peasy Pizza Dough

Some things matter. World peace, falling in love, getting an education, spending time with your family... and using fresh pizza dough. The flavour of fresh dough improves any pizza and with a recipe this fast and easy theres no excuse for using a pre-made base when you can take your pizza to the next level whipping up this quick delicious base.

Easy Peasy Pizza Dough

Prep time: (20 plus proving time) Cooking time:As needed by pizza recipe  Serves:6

Ingredients:

• 750g plain flour
• 250g wholemeal flour
• 14 grams of yeast
• 2 teaspoons of fine sea salt
• 2 tablespoons of castor sugar
• 600ml-650ml warm water
•  3 tablespoons of olive oil

Method:

1.In a jug or bowl, mix water, oil, yeast and sugar, cover with gladwrap and set aside for 3 minutes.

2. In a large mixing bowl or bowl of your mixmaster using a dough hook, add in your flour and salt.

3. In a mixing bowl form a well and add yeast mixture and use a fork to bring in the sides of the well and gradually combine until a rough ball is formed. If using a mixmaster turn onto the dough 'kneed' setting and pour in yeast mixture.

4. Kneed until mixture is clumped together in a rough ball.

5.Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and kneed until the ball is smooth and springs to the touch. 

6. Place the dough into a bowl lightly sprayed with oil and cover with a tea towel dampened in warm water and leave in a warm place for roughly an hour or until doubled in size.

7. Put the dough back onto a flour dusted service and knock the air out of it by kneeding it again and divide the dough into 6 even pieces, if freezing wrap in glad wrap and freeze immediately.

8. If using straight away, roll the dough into a circle or a rectangle about .5-1cm thick, place on a pizza tray or baking tray sprayed with oil and top with your favourite pizza toppings and bake until the bottom is crispy. 

*Tip* When cooking pizza from the frozen dough, make sure you allow the dough to become fully thawed and room temperature before its rolled.

The perfect sausage roll

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! I'm sorry for my absence.. it seems I thought I was a bit better at understanding blogger than I really am. I set up a quite long queue of recipes which somehow didn't post and has also disappeared from the face of the earth (or should I say, the face of blogland). If anyone knows what could have caused this/ if theres anyway to get them back your insight would be highly appreciated. Luckily I still had some edited photos on my laptop so I'll be able to retype some including this one I'm giving you today. From memory, the opening for this recipe was some witty remarks about how sausage rolls can be perfect for every occasion, perfect for every kind of person and perfectly easy to make for lunch dinner ... which is still all very true. This is an amended family recipe and can be as plained or jazzed up as you wish, the possibilities are endless. 

The Perfect Sausage Roll

Prep time:20 (using pre-made pastry)  Cooking time:30  minutes  Serves:6

Ingredients:

• 500g sausage mince
• 1 packet puff pastry slightly thawed or 2 quantities of puff pastry (link below)
• 2 large carrots
• 2 cloves of fresh garlic or 2 1/2 teaspoons or minced garlic paste
• 1 brown onion
• 1/4- 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
• 1 bunch of parsley
• 1tbs worcestershire sauce
• Salt
• Cracked pepper
• 2 eggs

Method:

1. If making puff pastry from scratch, follow directions found in this link here to allow for chill time (for the purpose of this recipe I made puff pastry from scratch, images shown below). If using pre-made frozen pastry then take from the freezer to allow to thaw slightly. 

Pastry at the 'breadcrumb' stage

Pastry at the 'clumping' stage

The folding and rolling of the pastry

2. Preheat oven to 200c 

3. Cut the tops from carrots and chop in half (or smaller depending on the abilities of your food processor), peel and quarter onion, peel garlic and add all these ingredients and your bunch of parsley to your food processor and chop until pieces are small and well combined. 

4. In a large mixing bowl combine vegetable mixture, sausage mince, worcestechire, salt, pepper and 1 egg and use hands to combine, alternatively this can be done in a mixmaster on the 'dough' setting.

5. Once the mixture is well incorporated, slowly add breadcrumbs and mix until your sausage mixture can hold a sausage shape when squeezed into it but is still slightly gooey to the touch.

6. Cut the square of puff pastry into 2 or roll a portion of your pastry into a rectangle that is approximatley 20 x 10cm. Beat 1 egg and set aside with a pastry brush.

7. Working a centimetre in from the edge closest to you, spoon a sausage width amount along the length of the pastry with a little extra built up on the end. 

8. Brush the beaten egg along the opposite length of pastry, fold over the top edge of pastry and continue rolling until a log shape has formed. Brush the tops of sausage rolls with beaten egg.

9. Cut the sausage rolls into even sized pieces and place on a baking tray, seam side down and brush with beaten egg. Repeat for the remaining sausage mixture and pastry.

10. Bake sausage rolls for 20-30 minutes until dark golden and serve hot with homemade tomato relish.

Lemon and coconut syrup cake

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Well not today! A lemon and coconut syrup cake was on the menu today for a little afternoon treat. It originally started off just as a way to use up some of the abundance of lemons my parents had on their tree (thanks again!) but a normal lemon cake is something I make regularly so I decided to add some coconut for another flavour dimension and make this cake with greek yogurt making it delectably moist.

 

Lemon and coconut syrup cake

Prep time:20  Cooking time:40  minutes  Serves:8

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup lemon juice (for me this was 2 and a half lemons)
• Zest of a large lemon
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1 cup of greek yoghurt
• 2 cups of self raising flour 
• Shredded coconut to top 

{For lemon syrup}

• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• zest of 2 lemons
•  1/2 cup castor sugar
• 2 tbs of water

Method:

1. Preheat oven to and grease cake tin. Make sure it ISN'T springform as you will be pouring syrup over it while in the tin and don't want to lose any of the sweet flavour. I used a silicon heart mould from ikea.

2. In a large mixing bowl crack the eggs and beat together with the sugar until they are pale and creamy.

3. Zest and juice the lemons and stir into the egg mixture.

4. Pour in the yoghurt and coconut oil to the batter and stir to combine.

5. Sift over self raising flour and fold into mixture. 

6. Pour into tin and bake for 30-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. While the cake is baking make the syrup as directed in the following steps.



7. In a small saucepan combine ALL ingredients listed for lemon syrup. Stir over a low-medium heat until the sugar is dissolved and syrup has thickened. 

8. Immediatley after pulling the cake from the oven, stab at least 20 more holes into it so the syrup will sink in more easily and pour syrup onto the cake in an even layer.

9. Add the shredded coconut to the pan that held the syrup and this will absorb any left over juices. Then top the cake with the shredded coconut.

10. Stand cake for at least 15 minutes to absorb syrup (I left mine for around 25).

11. Remove  cake from tin and place onto a plate or serving platter and serve cold with extra greek yoghurt or warm with thickened cream. 

Slow cooker lamb (part 1)

"Daddy, I'm never eating lamb EVER AGAIN!!!" I cried with as much passion as my 10 year old self could muster. It was the summer 10 years ago and I'd just spent the weekend on my great Aunts farm. Along with having a great time during shearing season, I had also unfortunately learnt some of the harsher truths of farming, namely, that orphaned lambs don't often survive. At the time, I was distraught and stubborn in my "no lamb" stance but  to be honest, I think I resisted maybe 2 lamb roasts before caving and coming back to the dark side (ironically I ended up being vegetarian for quite some time in my teens but thats a post for another time) . Thinking about it now, while my intentions were good I think I was crazy! Lamb is one of my favourite proteins and the convenience and adaptability of this recipe makes it irresistible. 

Slow cooker lamb

Prep time: 15 mins Cooking time: 6 hours  Serves: 6

Ingredients:

• Boneless lamb shoulder (leg can also be used)
• Dried or fresh rosemary
• 4-5 cloves of garlic 
• 500ml of chicken or vegetable stock 
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Cracked pepper

Method:
*To cook this recipe I used the Breville 'Fast Slow Cooker'*

1. If your slow cooker has a 'sear option' like mine, place a good splash of olive oil into it as well as your lamb and season with salt and pepper. Sear for a few minutes on every side until its thoroughly "sealed" to keep the lovely flavour and juices inside as it cooks. Once seared, remove and set aside on a plate.  Alternatively, if your slow cooker DOESN'T have a sear function then sear your lamb in a large frying pan following the same instructions as above.

2. Chop garlic and add to slow cooker with a little extra olive oil and sauté until softened. Alternatively, cook garlic in frying pan and then add to your slow cooker. 

3. Add rosemary  (I used approx. 2 tablespoons of dried rosemary as my plant is looking a bit bare at the moment) and made up chicken stock to the slow cooker and stir to combine. Add a trivet to the slow cooker and place your lamb on top. Re-season with salt and cracked pepper and sprinkle the top with some extra dried rosemary.

4. Set slow cooker for 6 hours on high and enjoy the delicious aromas that are sure to fill your whole house and keep your mouth watering all day. 

 5.  After 6 hours the lamb will be done. Take care when you pull it out of the slow cooker as its so tender it will be sure to fall apart, 2 egg flippers and steady hands did the trick for me. 

6. This night we served the lamb with some sweet potato that I had peeled, diced and seasoned with olive oil and salt and pepper (yep, this girl loves her seasoning!) and roasted in the oven and some simple steamed green beans. 

8. The meal was complete with some thickly cut slices of crusty sourdough to mop up those delicious juices. 

*Stay tuned for most posts on ways to use this slow cooker lamb including a pesto pizza and of course, soulvlakis!*



A mighty big imagining

Same blog, different year and a whole lot more motivation!

A very boring life update: 

If you weren't a follower before or you're not someone I regularly chat to in blog land, then this life update will give you a brief insight into what's currently happening with me (and all that boring basic info you need to know). 

My name is Lara and I'm 19 years old from a regional town in Victoria, Australia. I'm a full time correspondence student studying early childhood education and also work as a nanny. 

In December 2011 I started dating the love of my life Gabby and in September 2014 asked her to marry me- she said yes! We live together with our fur baby, a very pampered cavalier King Charles spaniel named Wilson. We're both very close to our families and luckily nearly all live in the same town, which means we get to see (and feed them) all the time. 

I'm a lover of musical theatre, travelling,  baking, photography, reading and being an all round crafty minx. My guilty pleasures are spending too much time on pinterest (mostly the wedding tag), too much money on makeup and dresses (I just can't help myself) and eat too much chocolate (this needs no explanation)! 

I'm so very happy with my life (not always but mostly!) and can't wait to share and document it with you all on this blog.