Ultimate Middle Eastern Feast!

Well it's been a friggin long time since I last posted... to be honest I was feeling a bit meh about the whole blogging thing. I realised that I don't actually really like sitting behind a computer editing pictures. I also don't really like being sat around with all the yummy food I've just cooked, styling it and making it look like all the magazines for the benefit of a good picture. Bazillion different vintage plates, planks of wood, napkins haphazardly placed across the table just so... The overhead shot with things strewn everywhere, placed exactly where they might lay if it were a family dinner (but there's no one there... 

Being online and active on social media exposes you to the way that so many people showcase their lives. It's not necessarily a bad thing... Instagram has resulted in people seeing beauty in normal every day things, and you see end up seeing the parts of peoples lives they want you to see, and in the light and filter through which you should view it. The thing is, that doesn't really suit me. I can display my life how I like on social media, but if what I show is not 100% true to life, I feel like a fake. I can take a photo of my basil plant and make it look like I grow everything and am totally self sufficient. Not true. But I could make it look that way...

Impression: I went shopping and am totes a
fashionista, yah.
Reality: I went shopping last minute for
a dress and the gold one makes me
look like a gay care bear
(little round legs and belly).

Impression: I'm like, super hipster and the
abstract lighting is a
reflection on my state of mind, amazeballs.
Reality: OOOOO pretty shiny things!

Impression: I'm super important at my job
and manage to juggle it all,
and make it look easy,
cos I've totally got my
shit together #awkwardlean #ditzygrin.
Reality: ERMERGEEERD kill me noooow #dies
#meltdown

You get the point.

I prefer to live a more honest lifestyle. When I cook food, I do it to eat it, to feed others, to show love. That sounds corny but I'm an emotional cripple - so if I cook for you, it means something. Sitting around styling food shots is not my style, I cook to eat, not to make everyone else look at it and say oooo. Just come over and let me feed you.

This dinner was one of the ones where I didn't spend much time making it look pretty. Because who cares, it was bloody delicious. No props, no white boards behind to reflect the light, no wooden slabs underneath to make it look like it was taken on a rustic French table. Just tasty food to eat, that might be something you've not had before. But you'll do it again!

I bought some local flatbreads and slathered on some olive oil and a generous sprinkling of zaatar, a Middle Eastern spice blend that is made up of sumac, salt, sesame seeds and thyme. A quick blast in the oven yielded a soft in the centre, crispy on the outer, base to start layering! As long as it's all in there, it doesn't matter how you layer it. 

Just make sure you style it and Instagram it!

Roasted Cauliflower with Citrus Tahini Sauce
Serves 4, adapted from Suzanne Husseini's Modern Flavours of Arabia.

Ingredients

1 head of cauliflower
Olive oil
sea salt
juice of 2 lemons
zest and juice of 1 orange (save some zest to garnish)
1 cup water
3/4 cup tahini
3 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, mashed
2 medium onions, sliced thin
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts, to garnish
1/4 cup slivered almonds, to garnish

Method

1) Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. 

2) Take the whole head of cauliflower and cut (core included) into 4 thick slices. Place on a large baking sheet, coat with oil and season with salt (I used some pretty awesome smoked salt that I picked up from Pimlott and Strand, extra layers n all that!) 

3) Roast until golden and crisp and cooked through, it should take about 20 minutes. 

4) Mix the lemon juice, orange juice and zest, water and tahini to make a creamy sauce and leave aside.

5) In a frying pan, heat 3 tbsp olive oil and saute the onions and garlic until golden and soft. Pour the tahini sauce over the cooked onions and bring to a simmer until  it thickens slightly. Taste and adjust seasoning as you need to. 

6) Serve drizzled over the roasted cauliflower and garnish with toasted nuts and orange zest.

Roasted red pepper dip (Muhammara)

Adapted from Suzanne Husseini's Modern Flavours of Arabia.

Ingredients

2 red capsicums
2 red chillies
1/2 cup toasted almonds
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
2 cloves garlic, mashed
2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
Juice of 1 lemon
1 cup fresh or panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for garnish
Extra nuts, for garnish

Method

1) Pre-heat your grill until very hot. Place capsicums on a tray lined with baking paper and grill until the skins have blackened. Put the caps into a plastic bag or into a plastic container to sweat and cool down (this will make it easier for you to take the skins off later).
2) Peel the blackened skin from the caps and place into the food processor. 

3) Add the lemon, bread crumbs, garlic cloves, lemon, pine nuts, almonds, pomegranite molasses and olive oil, and blend until it reaches a consistency you like. 

Layer up the dip with the cauliflower, tahini sauce and chopped cucumber and tomatoes for a tasty, healthy, vegan dinner. It's so delicious you won't miss the meat - in fact, we cooked some chicken to go with it and I ended up taking the chicken off as it was better without it!

You can hashtag this recipe all day. #cleaneating #vegan #meatfreemonday #dairyfree #glutenfree (if you use GF wraps) all that stuff.

Get around it.

PS - Do you  have loads of tahini sauce left, like I did?

Try these recipes to use it up - they sounds fuggin delicious and are on my to do list!

Roasted Butternut Squash and Red Onion with Tahini and Za'atar - Ottolenghi

Carrot soup with crispy chickpeas - Smitten Kitchen

Barbacoa beef cheeks with green sauce and salsa

I wandered around Stirling Farmers Market on Sunday and headed over to the caravan which always has some great quality meat, and this day was no different. I picked up some chunky beef cheeks for $12, enough to feed quite a few, it was a bargain! I wasn't really that keen on making a stew, it's too wintery for this weather. What could I do with this tough, sinewy cut?

I decided that I would go down the Mexican route, and slow cook the meat, in a heady mix of spices until it was falling apart, and make tacos. Now if tacos aren't summery and vibrant then what is?

I chose this recipe from Food 52 for Barbacoa Beef Cheeks, but adapted it to suit what I have in the cupboard... Looking up Barbacoa, I found out that it's actually a way of cooking meat that originated in the Caribbean and Mexico, and it means to barbeque, usually in a coal pit. Pork cooked this way is called carnitas, which you'll see in many a Mexican restaurant. But interestingly, I found that a typical Mexican barbacoa cooks the meats without any sauces or spices, rather adds them once they're cooked. However there are variations, and the Arawak people, who lived in the Caribbean, are thought to be the first to use this method of cooking, and they add the sauces and spices before cooking as a means to preserve the meat, and this is the method the recipe calls for. It ends up saucy from the cooking juices, and richly spiced, which can be forked apart and piled onto a taco! The recipe includes a teaspoon of instant coffee, which gives the dish a richness and really works together with the smokey characters that the chipotle and smoked paprika give.

It's traditionally served with mole or salsa, and so I decided to have both!

I wanted a tasty, tangy sauce to counter the rich, unctuous (that's a wanky food word, but really, I can't think of another word for it!) meat, and so I threw together a bright green sauce of rocket, spring onions, garlic oil, cumin, chilli, tomato, vinegar and cayenne pepper into the blender. What came out was, to quote Nigel Slater, such a bright tasting sauce. I would have preferred to have lemon/lime instead of vinegar, and garlic instead of garlic oil but some days, you run out of things in the house! Today was one of those days. Room for improvement yes, but it was still great. Isn't that what cooking is about? An experiment here and there, finding out what works and making it better!

The salsa I served it with has got to be one of the simplest sides you can serve. It goes with any meat. Really. Roast beef, grilled fish, or slow roasted barbacoa beef! Slice up a couple of tomatoes, spring onions, and if you like, cucumber. Add a generous pinch of salt to draw out the moisture, and a shlug of white wine vinegar. That's it. It's delicious straight away, or after you let the juices develop into a tangy dressing - I make this aaaall the time! 

This whole meal requires very little effort, just a little forward planning! This cut of meat is cheap and all the ingredients are easy to find, you'll probably have them all already anyway! The chipotle we found at a specialist spice shop at Coventry Market. We served our meal with corn wraps - in hindsight, get something sturdier, like actual tortillas, you need something to hold onto the juicy contents without splitting!!

Barbacoa Beef Cheeks

Ingredients
1kg beef cheeks

4 cloves garlic

1 chipoltle chilli (soaked or zapped in water in the mincrowave)

1 tbsp honey

2 tsp cumin

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 handful fresh rocket

1 tsp instant coffee

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

1 lemon/lime

Method

1) Place all the ingredients aside from the beef and the lemon/lime into a blender/mortar and pestle and mix until you get a loose paste.

2) Trim the beef cheeks of any excess fat and sinew, then marinate the beef, covered, in the paste overnight.

3) Place the beef in an ovenproof dish with all the marinade, and roast slowly  for 5-6 hours on 100C. Make sure you cover the meat up with foil or a lid, otherwise it will dry out. Turn the beef every now and again (not the end of the world though if you can't). You can also use a slow cooker, but I have not tried this.

4) When there is about an hour to go, turn the oven up to about 150C and cook until the meat is tender and the sauce has thickened.

5) Take the meat out and let it rest while you prepare the other sauces etc. When it has cooled slightly, use 2 forks to tear the meat apart and coat generously in the cooking juices. Squeeze the juice of a lemon (to taste) over the meat before serving.

6) Serve with tortillas, mole, salsa, avocado, and some greens.

Creamy chicken and cashew curry

My cousin LOVES butter chicken. In fact, as part of my payment plan for her giving me her Kings of Leon tickets, butter chicken and lasagne are the accepted currency. I made her a huge lasagne for when she had some friends coming over, which I'm told she LOVED. She also passed it off as her own, so it was lucky that the friends coming over were her boyfriends, not hers - they would have seen straight through that lie!

This time though my sister organised for us to have a pot luck -  she would being entree, I would make the mains and my cousin would bring dessert. So I decided it had better be butter chicken, as she'd been asking for it for a while, and I still hadn't made it. I used a recipe from taste.com.au and while the recipe was easy, using accessable ingredients and really tasty - a butter chicken it was not. That's why I've not labelled this post as butter chicken, it just didn't taste like it, as good as it was!

This was a delicious, mild curry, I liked the inclusion of ground cashews to thicken the sauce, which is the traditional thickening agent used in butter chicken. It's creamy and rich, and it's easy to increase portions to feed a crowd. I didn't add any chilli to this one, as my family are chilli-phobes, but it would be great with a hit of heat to warm the richness of the sauce.

Next time I think I will change this recipe. The way it is now is great for a quick meal to serve a family or friends when you haven't got loads of time (unless you follow the recipe which tells you to marinate the chicken overnight!). I think this sauce would benefit from being cooked with chicken frames to give them flavour - but grilling the marinated chicken and adding it towards the end of cooking to give more depth of flavour.

Don't be put off by the long list of ingredients - if you already cook curries, you should have most of this in the cupboard anyway!

Creamy chicken and cashew curry
Serves 4 with leftovers

Ingredients
1/2 cup natural yoghurt
1 tbs lemon juice
2 tsp turmeric
3 tsp garam masala
1 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1.5kg chicken thigh fillets, chopped
125g cashews, roasted
60g unsalted butter
1 tbs sunflower oil
1 onion, finely chopped/blitzed
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
2 tsp sweet paprika
425g can tomato puree*
3/4 cup chicken stock
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 cup thickened cream

Serve with Turban Chopsticks Royal Festival Biriyani and naan breads.

Method

1) Combine yoghurt, lemon juice, turmeric, garam masala, chilli, cumin, ginger and garlic in a bowl. Add chicken and stir well. Cover and refrigerate overnight (This is optional, the curry is fine if you do it as far in advance as possible - I marinated it for about 30mins).

2) Place cashews in a food processor. Process until finely ground, and set aside. Since you have the FP out, blitz the onions too.

3) Heat the butter and oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the onion, cardamom, cinnamon and bay leaves and cook until the onion starts to soften. Reduce heat to low, then add chicken and marinade, paprika, tomato puree, tomato paste, half the cashew powder and stock. Simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in cream and cook for a further 10 minutes. Check the sauce, and if it is too runny add more of the cashew powder, and reduce it down a little further.

4) Garnish with whole cashews, chopped coriander (if you don't hate it like I do!) and serve with Turban Chopsticks biriyani.

Herbed Lamb with Almond Olive Couscous

This is another recipe that has been inspired by Donna Hay and her book Fast, Fresh, Simple. To be honest, it's not a book that I flick through and find much inspiration from. There are A LOT of recipes in there, they're all really short and it seems a bit impersonal. However when I used Eat Your Books, a website that catalogues your cookbooks and allows you to search for recipes by book/ingredient etc) there were a lot of recipes from the book that appealed to me, and as such I have cooked quite a bit from it! This is another recipe, but I tweaked it a bit as it was a bit TOO simple for me!

Sorry about the phone pic, I had just been for a run and was STARVING!

This is a great post workout meal, as you've got a big hunk of protein sitting on top of a bed of carbs! It's also a great lunch, it'll keep you going for hours! This is so fast, delicious and will leave you feeling satisfied afterwards! You can sub in quinoa or any other similar grain/carb that can soak up flavours.


The quantities will be a bit free n easy - it's really up to you to add as much or as little as you like! You should end up with some couscous leftover for lunch the next day!


Ingredients
2 portions of lamb (whichever you prefer to eat)
3 tbsp oregano or marjoram (dried or fresh - I used dried)
1 cup couscous
Hot stock (enough to cover your couscous about 1-1.5 cups - I used chicken that I made earlier)
Handful of almonds
Handful of green olives (chopped)
Handful of fresh spinach
Lemon wedge
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper


Method
1) Lightly oil your lamb and sprinkle 2 tbsp of your herb over the lamb, and grill them over a high heat to your preferred "doneness".
2) Pour your couscous into a large bowl with the rest of the herbs, and pour over the hot stock. Cover and leave until you are ready to serve.
3) Chop your almonds and olives roughly. When the lamb is done, take it off the heat to rest until everything else is done.
4) Fluff up the couscous with a fork (if you use a spoon it clumps) and add your almonds, olives, and spinach and mix to combine. Add a generous squeeze of lemon, a glug of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
5) Slice up your lamb, pile the couscous onto your plate and place the lamb on top. EAT!

Baked Beans - Bill Granger

In an effort to have bigger and more filling breakfasts, we've been buying more baked beans. But really, making your own beans is really easy, you know exactly what goes into it and you can put some extras in that you really like! I've made baked beans before, for my Breakfast with Benefits , and they went down really well - so I thought I'd give it another go! I saw the recipe in Bill Grangers book "Everyday" and the ingredients looked delicious, so that's the recipe I followed. I realised when making it I only had one can of cannellini beans - so I used a can of chick peas instead. It's still really delicious.

I'd love you to try these, they're delicious and what an amazing start to the day, if you have a chunky piece of good sourdough, a poached egg, and these beans poured over top! A hearty breakfast like that will set you up for the day, and will make you a morning person!

Serves 6
Ingredients


1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
100g pancetta, chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 anchovies, chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1/2 tsp dried oregano
400g tin chopped tomatoes
2 x tins cannellini beans, rinsed
sea salt and fresh ground black pepper


Method


1) Preheat the oven to 160C
2) Heat the olive oil in a large flame proof casserole dish over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring for 5-6 minutes until the onion is soft.
3) Add the pancetta and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until slightly crisp.
4) Add the garlic, anchovies, thyme, and oregano and cook, stirring for another minute.
5) Add the tomatoes, 1/2 cup of water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
6) Stir in the beans, put a lid on the casserole dish and bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Roast cod with a hot garlic and chilli dressing - Movida Rustica

I've been getting into running this week. This is unusual, really unusual. Running has always been my nemesis, I've never excelled at it, always last, always struggling. That's not to say I wasn't good at sport, it was all I was good at. I had a lot of  "potential" at school apparently, but I never really lived up to it. I was too busy mucking around and being a smartarse. What a surprise huh ;-) But despite being a pretty decent basketball and netball player, handy in tennis and squash, and a trophy holding swimmer - I was, and still am, not a runner. My dad used to tell me that it's one of the only ways to get truly fit, but that he was never a runner either. He played for South Fremantle as a ruckman for years, so his job was to run up and down the field. But you can tell by his gait, he's not a natural. Talented athlete, but not a runner. So it runs in the family? Well, I can try to defy that. 

I recently started the Couch to 5km program, and am currently in week 2. Though still early days, I can feel myself getting better at it each run. I feel like there are more times where I find a rhythm, than where I struggle and shuffle along. I felt like a run today (I can't even believe I would say that. I've always hated to run), so I went down to my new spot, around the lake, and ran. I felt good most of the time! I was starving by the time I got home though...

This is what we had. Simple, healthy, quick. There are fabulous flavours, what you save in time you certainly do not lose in deliciousness! This recipe calls for cod in the title, and groper or trevalla in the recipe (huh?), but we used flounder, which was great for us. We aren't big fish eaters so don't really want a strong flavoured fish, which this wasn't. Meaty and satisfying, covering the fleshy fish in the hot garlic, parsley and chilli oil produced an aroma that will make you call someone over to get a whiff! Served with some boiled new potatoes and a dressed salad, this is a light meal that can be done in no time at all. This WILL be made again!

Roast cod with a hot garlic and chilli dressing

Ingredients (Serves 4)

2 tbsp EVOO

1.2kg skinless groper or blue eyed trevalla fillets, cut into 2 pieces (we used flounder)

Ajada

160ml EVOO

6 garlic cloves, sliced

2 red bullet or othe rmedium hot chillies - halved, seeded and thinly sliced

2 tbsp finely chopped chilli

Method

1) Preheat the oven to 180C.

2) Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large, heavy based ovenproof pan over a high heat. Add the fish, season well and cook for 6 minutes on each side. Transfer to the oven, and bake for a further 6-8 minutes or until just cooked through.

3) Meanwhile, to the ajada, heat the oil in a small heavy based frying pan over a low-medium heat. Add the garlic and shake the pan for 1 minute, or until the garlic is golden but not burnt. Add the chilli and stir for 30 seconds, then stir in the parsley and remove from the heat.

4) Place the cooked fish fillets on a warm plate, spoon over the ajada and serve immediately.

Tomato and cumin soup - Movida Rustica

As a part of the Fitness for Foodies course, they gave us a meal planner that I've found really helpful. It's made me more organised and able to try some recipes from books I've been wanting to get stuck into, because I've been able to buy everything I need for each recipe in advance, on the weekend! There is now less trips to the shops when I realise I haven't got this or that, to make a recipe. It's made life much easier!

One of the books I've wanted to try was Movida Rustica by Frank Camorra and Richard Cornish. I've bookmarked quite a few recipes, and last week I tried a couple. One of them was this tomato and cumin soup, which I chose because it looked like an easy midweek meal, and we had made something similar before and enjoyed it. A twist in its serving, is the inclusion of an egg, poached in the soup just before you dish it up. 

This was such an easy meal to prepare, with few ingredients. It lived up to my expectation of being an easy midweek meal, but exceeded my expectations in flavour. This was a lovely soup, so light and full of flavour, but when you cracked open the poached egg and let the yolk be swirled through the soup, it became silky and gorgeous. The egg made this soup, without it, it is a tasty tomato soup flavoured with cumin and sweet red peppers. But with the egg, it's something much more special. It's simple and healthy, and it's deliciousness is enhanced by quality ingredients - you have nothing to hide behind when you create something so simple. I blended mine, which added to the smoothness, but it would equally as good were it left chunky as rustic, like the book intended.

Ingredients

50ml olive oil

1 red onion roughly chopped

1 red pepper (capsicum) seeded and roughly chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely sliced

1 kg ripe tomatoes

1 tsp cumin seeds, roasted and ground

2 tsp caster sugar

2 tsp sweet smoked paprika

2 tsp fine sea salt

6 eggs

Method

1. Score a cross in the base of each tomato, place in a heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave for 30 seconds then transfer to cold water and peel the skin away from the cross. Cut the tomatoes in half and scoop out the seeds. (Alternatively you can cheat and use canned tomatoes).

2. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook for 5 mins or until soft and translucent. Add the capsicum and garlic and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally for 40 mins or until the mixture has a jam like consistency.

3. Stir in the tomatoes and 700ml of water and simmer for 25 mins or until the mixture has a soupy consistency. Add the sugar, 1 1/2 tsps paprika and the sea salt and mix well.

4. Crack the eggs, one at a time into a cup, then gently slide them into the soup around the edges. Cover and simmer gently for 6 mins.

5. Carefully divide the cooked eggs and soup among bowls and sprinkle with the remaining paprika.

This should serve six, but I made it for just 2 of us, and we took leftovers to work the next day!

The journey begins...

Ok, I'm going to get serious about this health thing. I need to sort my shit out.

I am NOT  one for crash diets, quick fixes, or slogging it out at the gym for 2 weeks and then giving up. I can't change my habits that fast and expect them to stick, because I am actually mentally quite weak sometimes and I can justify anything.

Nipping through Red Rooster for nuggets on the way home is ok when I want nuggets. But when I think about it, it goes against so many things I stand for. You can tell how processed they are when you eat them, I'm sure at some stage they USED to be chicken, but they're not now. This crazy stuff has to stop.

I really like food, and good food. So when I look at what we eat, it's actually usually pretty good (aside from ninja stops at Red Rooster). We just probably eat a bit too much, and we eat out a lot. We shop at the markets so very little of what we cook is processed, because we really only buy the raw materials - fruit, veges, meat, milk and bread. Portions need to be controlled, and we need to be a little smarter about things we eat.

I also need to exercise A LOT more. Steve has a naturally fast metabolism, and goes to the gym at work most days - he's lucky he has a more flexible job than I do. As a teacher, I have set times for everything, I can't pop into the gym on my lunch break, I just don't have time. I need to find times when I can do 10-20 minutes of exercise, make it not seem like a chore. I've started the Couch to 5km program, which is pretty good. It basically makes you follow a set routine - run 60 seconds, walk 90 seconds, for 20 minutes. You end up running more, the longer you do it. The app is pretty good too, it just beeps at you when you need to start to walk/run. I also downloaded the Nike+ Runner app, which at the moment seems really cool. Once I've used it more, I'll review it. But it tracks your run via GPS, times it, and has a bunch of other cool features, including posting that you're going for a run on Facebook, and when anyone likes your status, if you're listening to music, it cheers! So cute.

I signed up for this Fitness for Foodies (FFF) 8 week course, and to make sure I don't cop out, Carolanne is coming with me. It's pretty good value, $139 and for that you can go to 3 group fitness sessions, and you get a weekly email with a bunch of really useful info, recipes, and charts. The thing that has really appealed to me has been the charts. I need to have a routine and it needs to be planned out. FFF gives you a meal planner, a really good shopping list, and an exercise planner. I love these. They're going to go on the fridge! It also has a chart where you can measure progress - your fitness, blood pressure, weight (only if you want to though!), and body measurements. This is also something I need. I need to see progress, benchmarks. These progressive checkpoint sheets are great because they're varied, you may not lose much weight one week, but you've managed to lose some cm's off your arms and can do more sit ups!

I'm also playing netball again on Monday nights, which is sweet! I get to chase a ball around again! YAY!

It's about celebrating the little wins, all the different ones! I don't JUST want to lose weight (though that is a big factor), I want to be fitter, and healthier. I want to be one of those people who enjoys going out running, and needs to do some exercise or they get restless. I'm sure that with all the little things I'm trying to change, I'm hoping to see a different "win" each week.

This is my plan, and I WILL stick to it this time!

Banana and blueberry bread

S has been struck down with the man flu, and luckily, I haven't! I don't know how I've avoided it, but I have. My diet has been loaded with Beroccas, blueberries and fruit, trying to keep my immune system strong so I don't get sick, as S has taken 2 days off work which is testament to the strength of this cold! I've been feeling run down, and we've both been in bed by 9:30... So I was very much in fight off the bugs mode!

I decided to make something that would give us some energy, fill us up with antioxidants and most importantly, be delicious. So banana bread it was - and to make it extra yum, I added blueberries, walnuts, and cocoa nibs. The cocoa nibs were added for their health benefits - when we visited Gabriels Chocolatier in Yallingup, I was told cocoa nibs contain 300 times the amount of antioxidants than blueberries! So I figured these both had to go in...


To fight a cold, blueberries are a pretty amazing way to go - one serving has about 25% of your daily vitamin C needs. Speaks for  itself doesn't it! The antioxidants (which it is EXTREMELY high in) work to neutralize free radicals (unstable molecules linked to the development of cancer), cardiovascular disease and other age-related conditions such as Alzheimer’s. Substances in blueberries called polyphenols, specifically the anthocyanins that give the fruit its blue hue, are the major contributors to antioxidant activity (info found here). I'm also told that purple carrots contain these anthocyanins, which is why they are more nutritious than their orange brothers (not only are they way cooler, they're better for you!).

Cacao nibs are said to be even higher in antioxidants than blueberries! What's great about the antioxidants in the nibs, is that they're more stable than other food sources, and so are more easily taken in by your body. They're also really high in magnesium, which plays a major role in nerve and muscle function, bone strength and circulation. It cannot be produced by the body, and therefore, must be obtained through food sources or supplements.

Is there anything BETTER to throw into your banana bread? I think not.

I used my fave Tessa Kiros recipe and changed it up a bit...

Banana, Blueberry and Cacao Nib Bread

Ingredients

125g Butter

1 cup dark brown sugar

350g (3 or 4) old bananas (mashed or chopped)

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp ground cinnamon

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

3 tbsp milk

1 generous cup frozen blueberries

2 handfuls crushed walnuts

1/2 cup cacao nibs (you can add more if you want to!)

Handful rolled oats

Method

1) Preheat oven to 180C and prepare your loaf tin.

2) Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth, and then add the bananas and cacao nibs.

3) Add the milk, eggs, vanilla, cinnamon, and mix well.

4) Sieve in the flour and baking powder, and mix well until smooth.

5) Pour in the walnuts and blueberries, and mix gently to ensure even distribution.

6) Pour the batter into your loaf tin, and sprinkle the rolled oats on top.

7) Bake for about 50 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

8) Leave your cake to cool for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

Enjoy on its own, with butter, toasted... However you like! It's worth waiting till the next day though, the loaf will cut better, and the flavours will have made friends by that stage, and will be a much more cohesive flavour. 


Without the additions of blueberries, walnuts and cacao nibs, this is my fave recipe for banana bread, I don't use any others now. It's soft, tasty, not too sweet, but just sweet enough. It's really worth trying!

Keep your eyes open for an even better version of this loaf! Im going to be experimenting with different flours and sweeteners to make this a snack that is healthy, not just "healthy"!

Chicken, Tomato and Basil Pasta

Operation "use up everything in the house before moving" is in action. Were trying to only buy the basics and use up whatever we already have - sauces, fridge and freezer items!


So tonight I had a scour through the cupboards. I also had to take the effort factor into account. Could I be arsed really making anything complex? No not really. We've been going through our house throwing things out, packing up a few boxes and just organising the house for the move all day, so complex cooking was not on the cards.


I picked up half a bag of organic pasta, a bag of ripe organic tomatoes, and 2 massive free range chicken thighs and figured that these were the main things I needed to use today. The tomatoes weren't going to last much longer, and the chicken was a day off being dodgy, so I decided that it was chicken tomato pasta night!

Awesome organic box of veges!

For this sauce, it's important that you use GOOD tomatoes - don't bother making this if you have the floury, anaemic sorry excuses for tomatoes you see in the supermarket out of season. This is what you do with a glut of good quality, juicy, ripe, RED, delicious tomatoes, such as the heirloom varieties we found at the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne. These tomatoes, when you ate some from the little tasting bowl, stopped us both in our tracks. It was the best tomato I've ever had. I'm going to try and get some seeds next summer so I can try and grow some of my own - they were amazing, better than any tomatoes I've had here!

Also, make sure the handful of basil you use is a generous one, it makes a huge difference! If you can get it from someones garden then get that instead of the stuff from the supermarket, it's got SO much flavour! Its fragrance is so much stronger, it has the basil aroma that you recognise, but with a hit of aniseed. The supermarket bunches have nothing on home grown.

Chicken, tomato and basil pasta


Ingredients
1kg tomatoes, chopped
Small bunch of spring onions, chopped
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
2 chicken thighs
500g pasta
Handful of basil


NB - for this pasta sauce, you really don't need the chicken, but I wanted to use it up. It does add extra flavour, but the tomato sauce is special on its own as well! 


Method
1) In a hot pan with oil (I use Cobram Estate Garlic Oil), fry the chicken thighs (whole) in the pan. Once they're almost done (time depends on the size of the thighs) turn the heat off and let them sit in the pan until you need them.
2) While the chicken is cooking, add the onions and garlic to a saucepan with some oil and gently fry them for a few minutes, then add the tomatoes.
3) Keep the heat med-high and you'll see the tomatoes start to break down and become much saucier. Turn the heat down to a low simmer, and cook until it becomes thicker and less watery, stirring occasionally.
4) The chicken  has cooked and rested by now, and so chop it up into pieces and return to the pan.
5) Add the sauce to the pan the chicken is in and give it a stir, making sure all the chicken juices are incorporated into the sauce! Season to taste.
6) Wash up the tomato saucepan and cook your pasta in it! Add plenty of salt to your cooking water to make sure your pasta is seasoned - it makes a big difference! In the time it takes for your pasta to cook (mine took 10mins) your chicken tomato sauce will reduced, hot and ready for the pasta.
7) Add in a generous handful of chopped basil, then pour in your drained pasta. Don't drain it too heavily, some of the starchy pasta water can go into the sauce to bring it all together. 
8) Give it a good stir and serve it up!

I served mine with a buttery homemade garlic bread which was heart attack inducing but amaaaazing!

Spiced apple muffins

I realised at about 7pm that I was meant to bring something to school tomorrow for morning tea... We spent the day out, checking out Sculptures by the Sea at Cottesloe, wandering Fremantle buying books, and then having tapas at Duende for dinner. I really couldn't be bothered, but I had pretty much everything I needed to bake, and it was better than leaving the house again to buy something. And really, homemade is so much better... I know there will be a spread of last minute shop bought cakes, party pies and chips/dip. I'm totally ok with the party pies though.


I had a quick look through my cookbooks and found a Bill Granger recipe for crunchy topped pear muffins which looked easy and I had all the ingredients. Cept for the pears, cinnamon, pecans and yoghurt.... Its ok, I subbed apples, allspice, slivered almonds and milk. They turned out pretty great! They're the kinda bake that tastes a lot better the next day, as I ate one when it was still pretty hot and I wasn't impressed. An hour later, I ate the other half of it, and it was much better! Hot tip - bake these the day before you need them!

The recipe stated that it made 6 muffins. 6? That's not many... so I doubled the recipe. It made 12 muffins and a cake. I think Bill was using a mega muffin tin! Its OK though because now we have muffins that can be chucked in the freezer ready to be eaten whenever we need em, and I'll take the cake to work! Bonus!


The following recipe is my adaption of Bills recipe, from Holiday.


Crunchy topped spiced apple muffins

Makes 12 cupcake sized muffins

1.5 cup plain flour
3 tsp bicarb
2 tsp allspice
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup skim milk
1/2 cup canola oil (or any flavourless oil)
2 apples, peeled and diced into 1cm pieces

Topping

brown sugar
slivered almonds (I didn't measure them I just poured until it looked right!)

Method

Preheat oven to 180C and line/grease your muffin tin.

1) Add flour, oats, bicarb, allspice, and half the sugar into a bowl and combine.

2) Add the eggs, milk and oil into another bowl and mix thoroughly.

3) Combine the wet and dry ingredients, being careful not to overmix.

4) Fold in the apples gently.

5) Spoon them into the muffin tray, filling them pretty close to the top.

6) Combine the topping ingredients and put a heaped tsp on each muffin.

Pre bake

7) Cook in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Post bake

I doubled this recipe, and ended up having enough for a small cake - this took about 30 minutes and turned out looking gorgeous! I prefer it to the muffins! The muffins didn't rise as much as I thought they would, but they are still light. 

Will I make these again? Yes. But with cinnamon instead, and a little more sugar in the batter, it'll make a world of difference!

Were they easy to make? Yes.

Should you make them? Yes!