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. 

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. 

Lemon thyme fish

There's a family story I am always reminded of when I make fish. As a toddler, my Dad used to go fishing quite frequently and for some unknown reason I fell in love with a particular type of fish. A yellow belly fish to be exact (technically Golden Perch), or, as I used to call it a 'lellabelly'. Often as he came home from a day of fishing, I would immediately pester him "Daddy you bring me a lellabelly?!" If the answer was yes, I was of course delighted, but if the answer was no I would cry, sook and sulk. Not even a consolation of "but sweetie look I caught you these big red fins!", could make it better. Thankfully, I'm now older (and hopefully a bit wiser) and love most kinds of fish and seafood but this marinade in particular has been making frequent appearances on my dinner table. This spring, pink ling has been my 'go to' fish for this recipe, although I hope that soon I'll get a chance to try it with some 'lellabelly'!

  

Lemon thyme fish

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

Ingredients:

• 4 fillets of your chosen fish either fresh or fully thawed (I used pink ling)
• 1 cup of plain flour
• A small bunch of lemon thyme 
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp dried thyme leaves 
• 2 tsp onion salt
• 2 tsp garlic salt
• Cracked pepper to season 
• Oil for frying 

Method:

1. Combine flour, onion salt, garlic salt and a generous amount of cracked pepper on a large plate. 

2. Finely chop lemon thyme and combine with lemon juice and a dash of olive oil.

3. Prepare a frying pan with oil on place on medium to high heat. As the pan is heating, place the fish in the flour mixture and liberally coat both sides 

4. Place fish into the pan and cook until the side that is down is a rich golden brown, and then flip.

5. Once the fish is flipped, spoon on some of the lemon thyme mixture on top. Only placing it on one side makes sure that while the flavour still sinks in to the fish, it is overpowering and the outer of the fish still stays relatively crisp. 

6. Cook until the other side of the fish is golden brown and crisp, adding more oil between fillets as necessary and serve with sides of your choosing. 



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!*



Mango chicken

As the days are getting warmer, I'm finding it hard to match the cravings I'm having with  flavours that are suited to summer. On the hottest of days, I've been unexpectedly feeling like hearty meals. While a stew or roast might fill me up, it certainly doesn't have the fresh flavours that are so suited to Aussie heat. For me, this mango chicken is the perfect solution. Rich in flavour and colour, it's made relatively quickly and the sauce can be prepared earlier if needed. Every bit as substantial as a winter meal and balanced with all those refreshing summer flavours I love.

Mango chicken

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

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken breasts
• Coconut oil to cook
• 1 red capsicum
• 1 green capsicum
• 2 carrots

Mango sauce:

• 2 cups of mango- fresh or frozen is preferable but canned can be used also
• 3 large red chillies
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1 tbs rice wine vinegar
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 2 tbs kecap manis
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 2 tbs fish sauce
• 1 thumb sized piece of galangal or ginger
• 1 can of coconut cream
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1. De-seed and roughly chop chili. If using fresh ginger, peel and grate. Cut and juice lime.

 2. Add the chili, ginger and lime as well as all other ingredients for 'mango sauce' into a bowl, blender or food processor.

3. Don't put away any ingredients as you may need to adjust the balance of flavours once blended and then again once heated. I blended my sauce using a stick blender but the easiest way to do this would be in a food processor. Blend until it is combined and of a smooth consistency, add more coconut cream or a touch of water if its too thick.

4. Once blended you should have a delicious smelling sauce looking something like this ^ you now need to taste the sauce and see if its 'missing' anything.

• For saltiness add fish sauce or salt. 
• For sweetness  add kecap manis or brown sugar
• For a more sour flavour add lime or rice wine vinegar
• For a spicier sauce add more chili

Remember its better to add things in a little at a time- its very easy to go overboard with these strong flavours!

5. After adjusting the sauce, set it to one side. Dice the chicken breasts and add them along with some oil, into a large pan or wok to brown.

 6. While the chicken is browning you can peel and chop the carrots and chop the capsicums. They can either be diced or sliced, just try to keep the pieces a similar size.


7. Once the chicken is browned, add the sauce to the pan and allow it to heat through. Taste the sauce again, once heated and adjust it to taste.

8. The sauce should thicken sightly and bubble at the edge of the pan, add your vegetables and stir well. If desired you can now also add a handful of mango chunks to really highlight this flavour in the dish.


9. Cook the dish for a further 5-10 minutes until the vegetables are cooked to your liking.

10. Serve the meal with rice and roti bread for a delicious, filling meal. 



Garlic zucchini pasta

3 early morning starts in a row do not make for an inspired cook! I start off my week with high hopes and a huge grocery list and come the weekend (and a motivation 'slump') more often than not, my new recipe plans are thrown by the wayside in favour of tried and tested family favourites that I know I can rely on. This dish is one of those that makes a frequent appearance in our household as its regularly requested by Gabby who has a love for pasta and garlic like no other! The simple flavours of garlic and lemon make a delectable combination in this quick dish and prove that sometimes, easy is best.

Garlic zucchini pasta

Prep time: 5 mins Cooking time: 15 mins Serves:4

Ingredients:

• 1 large zucchini (or equivalent) 
• 1 large chicken breast 3 cloves of garlic 
• Juice of 1/2- 1 lemon 
• 250g pasta of your choice (I used shells for this but fresh linguine is my favourite)
• Small knob of butter 
• Salt and cracked pepper to taste 
  

Method:

1. Set a pot of water on to boil in preparation for the pasta with a generous dash of salt
 
2. Crush or finally chop garlic and add it to a frying pan on medium heat along with a splash of good quality olive oil
 
3. As the garlic is softening, dice the chicken breast and then add to the pan along with salt and fresh cracked pepper to season
 
4. Chop the zucchini roughly into even pieces similar size to the chicken
 
5. Flip and stir the chicken as needed and once completely sealed and starting to brown, reduce the heat to medium and add the zucchini pieces and more olive oil if necessary

 
6. Once the water is boiling add the pasta to the salted water and cook until just al dente, then drain and add a small knob of butter. The heat from the pasta will melt the butter and helps to bind the garlic, oil and lemon into a lovely sauce when the meat and vegetables are added
 

7. Cook the zucchini and chicken mixture until the chicken is browned and the zucchini softened. The great thing about cooking them together is the zucchini releases water that helps to keep the chicken moist and not over cook

 
8. Remove the frying pan from heat and squeeze in the fresh juice of half a lemon to the pan and add any extra salt and pepper to taste. Pour the mixture into the pasta, stir to combine and serve