Vegetable-Mania

I decided that we were eating too much meat and that a vegetarian meal would be good for us. So I went a little crazy at the Central market and bought a multitude of vegetables for a red curry.




This is the end result. Colourful, vegie goodness with rice. Unfortunately my girlfriend isn't quite the 'spice lover' like me and found it a little bit too much (although she did eat it!) It was full of flavour and the cunch of the vegetables was fabulous.

This is a vegetable roast with danish feta. It is simple, quick and soo good for you. You simply pick your favourite vegetables, cut them to similar sizes, drizzle some olive oil and season then roast them in the oven until tender. Add broken up feta and grill for a couple of minutes. Then its ready to enjoy.

This is it with a side of homemade garlic bread. You can pretty much taste the crunch.

Nostalgia

I am very lucky to have the pleasure of my girlfriend cooking for me and i was especially lucky this sunday when i was introduced to a Mellett Family Favourite 'Pine-Camp Casserole' which is undoubtedly the most amazing casserole to walk the planet. It takes a while to make, but the pleasure you will get from it erases that thought immediately. The dish is a trip down memory lane, taking you back to cosy family dinners sitting by the fire.

The following photos are a stroll through the pleasure of cooking it and the delightful end result.

The Wine, a very important part of a delicious meal.

Watching my favourite show has taught me some amazingly clever 'tips' and this one works brilliantly. Slow boil the potatoes, then to mash (only do a couple at a time) and use a utensil to push them through a sieve. Then pour in slightly warmed milk and a dollop of cold butter at the end. Season to taste. It will be creamy and lump free- guaranteed.

The end result, with green beans, honey and sesame seeds.

The best winter dish yet!

Goulash or maybe a pasta bake, either way it's amazing and you won't stop eating it until there is none left. I make this for the kids i nanny for and they love it and so does everyone else. Below is the secret recipe to this belly warming sunday classic.

Ingredients:

600-800 gms Mince

Large Tin of Tomato Soup

2-4 Cloves of Garlic

1 Brown Onion

3-5 Rashers of Bacon

Small tin of Corn

1 packet of cooked pasta (best choice- Barossa Valley Egg Noodles)

1 Cup grated cheese

Salt and Pepper

Paprika and Cayanne Pepper (to taste- the warmer the better i say though!)

Method:
Chop onions, garlic and bacon. Place into large casserole dish. Brown onion and and add to bacon mixture, add all other ingredients (the spice to taste), stir well and place covered in a moderate oven for an hour.
Then enjoy how easy it was to create a new lifelong family favourite.

Sunday Morning Delight.

To sleep in on the weekend is definately a treat but to top it off why not extend that to a delicious brunch as well. My girlfriend was utterly amazing this weekend and i was spoilt rotten for both Saturday and Sunday with a bacon and egg sandwich. This sandwich is slightly pimped out but never forget that it's the simple things that are the best.

You will need:

2 Slices of toast, one with basil pesto dip
1 Poached egg
Bacon
Tomato sauce

It is super easy and from the pictures i'm sure you can guess that is tastes amazing.

Sunday Night Splendour to Weeknight Treasure.

Sunday night Shanks provided mass leftovers and you can only have shanks a couple of times in a row before needing a change on the palette. So with that I purchased some puff pastry and vegetable stock and decided to make pies. With the leftovers, i cut the meat to decent portion sizes (and enjoyed feasting on the bones before throwing them in the bin), I added some stock to form a gravy, then I added a couple of tbls of flour. I put pastry into a muffin tray and made mini pies. They were amazing, I even attempted a potato pie- which was slightly messy but tasted great.

Filmer Family Masterchef

All of my family enjoys cooking, my brother and i procastinated through uni quite often by cooking elaborate meals such as home made ravioli (pasta from scratch) or mushroom stuffed chicken breast wrapped in pastry with a creamy mustard sauce. So last year in July i went home to Alice Springs to visit my parents and we decided to have a masterchef cook-off between us. This was more for fun than anything else, however it became apparent that we were more competative than first predicted and decided next time to bring in external judges.

My dish was chickpea bruschetta with grilled cherry tomatoes to start and for mains I made haloumi pasta with mango chutney and grilled naan bread.

Bluey (Dad) made amazing lamb shank pies with a side of mash (and a chickpea and pumpkin casserole for our vego friend next door)

Mum made a fabulous sweet potato and bean salad with a stunning dressing and fish with spring onions, rice and a lot of love.

Unfortunately my brother wasn't home at that time but i'm sure he would have made something spectacular if he had been. Next time we will have the judges and all four of us will compete. Until then.

Cooking in Thailand.

When i went to Thailand in 2008 i left the girls to their 'tiger visiting' and 'yoga' and decided to try thai cooking. I was in my element.
We were picked up from the hotel and taken with a boot full of empty baskets to the local market place, where we picked out the ingredients for our dishes. The markets were full of amazing fruit, vegetables and seafood. The colours were amazing and the smell was intoxicating.

We made both red and green curry paste, which is a great work out when using the pestle and motar. They tasted amazing.

This is a hot and sour soup- they use tomatoes in this and it was actually really delicious.

This is the green curry from our homemade paste and a chicken and cashew stirfry.

And of course the famous... spring rolls. Easy and yummy.

Baking.

Towards the end of last year my friends Mum was getting married and i was asked to cook the cake or should i say 'cakes' with him. We made both chocolate cupcakes and carrot cakes, both topped with philly cream cheese icing. We spent 13 hours on them, baking over a hundred of them and wrapping them each individually in tissue paper and ribbon, also making the cupcake stand... no-one thought of buying a premade one! Needless to say the cake stand was slightly wobbly, but luckily the cake were scrumptious. We made a yummy tower out of them and guarded it with our lives as the kids at the wedding were somehow drawn to it and were most likely going to knock it down before it was eaten.

Now one of my followers turned 21 last year, she is also the inventor of the "Mc Noods', these were the cupcakes i made for her birthday!

Sunday Night Dinners...

Sunday night dinners at my home when I was a kid were always Dad's famous roasts, often my brother's favourite: Pork Roast with crackling and Mum's fabulous roasted potatoes or roast chicken on the mini-spit. They were a tradition that I will forever remember. The smell of the roast cooking mid afternoon while we played outside in the pool, mmm... delicious!

Sunday dinners have changed a bit since i moved out of home, but whenever i can i try to make it a special one and last night it was my favourite... Lamb Shanks with mashed potato. It has cooled down enough to enjoy a nice warm dinner like that and i have been craving it for weeks. Here are some pics of it.