Chicken, Sage and Pumpkin Pie

When I think of winter dishes I think of hearty soups and casseroles and of course pies!! This pie is really quick and easy and is packed with flavour.

 This recipe makes a medium pie (for 2)
What you will need:
200g pumpkin, cut into 2cm pieces
3/4 chicken breast or roast chicken, cut into 2cm pieces
Olive Oil
Garlic clove, crushed
1/2 brown onion, chopped
25g plain flour
25g butter
200g chicken stock
1/4 cup chopped sage leaves
1 sheet puff pastry
egg/milk to brush pastry

How to create:
- Oven to 180 degrees
- Place pumpkin onto a tray and drizzle with oil 
- In a frying pan, add some oil then cook chicken until cooked through, remove from pan
- Add butter to pan and melt, add onion and garlic, cook until soft 
- In a small bowl, make a paste with the flour and some of the chicken stock, add this to the onion mixture, cook for a couple of mins
- Add the rest of the stock to the pan, stir well and make sure there are no lumps, bring to the boil then remove from heat
- Put chicken in a bowl with pumpkin and sage, season and then add to the stock mixture
- Pour pie mixture into pie dish and cover with pastry, trim sides if you want or leave them if you want a bit more pastry to have with your filling
- Brush with egg or milk and prick a few holes in the top 
- Bake in the oven for about 30-40 mins or until pastry is cooked and golden
- Serve with roasted veggies

Vegetable Tagine

A nice warm, healthy dinner to sooth the soul after a busy week at work. This is really easy and full of vegetable goodness!!

You will need:

2 tbs olive oil 

1 onion, chopped 

2 garlic cloves, crushed 

1 tbs grated ginger 

2 tsp ground cumin 

2 tsp ground coriander 

1 tsp paprika 

1 cinnamon quill 

1kg pumpkin, peeled, cut into 2.5cm cubes 

400g can chopped tomatoes 

2 cups (500ml) vegetable stock 

175g thin green beans, topped 

2 tbs chopped mint 

2 tbs chopped coriander 

2 tbs honey 

Couscous, cooked to the packet instructions 

Natural yoghurt with paprika sprinkled on to top to serve

To create: 

- Heat the olive oil in a large deep frying pan over medium heat. 

- Cook the onion for 3-4 minutes or until softened. Add the crushed garlic and grated ginger to the pan and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds until fragrant. 

- Add the ground cumin, coriander, paprika and cinnamon quill, then stir for a further 1 minute until fragrant. - Add the cubed pumpkin, canned tomatoes and the vegetable stock, and stir to combine. 

- Season to taste 

- Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer the tagine for 12-15 minutes, uncovered, until the pumpkin is tender. 

- Add the green beans and cook for a further 5 minutes until they are tender and bright green. When ready to serve, stir in the chopped mint, coriander and honey. 

- Serve in bowls with couscous and natural yoghurt

Spiced Indian Pies

This is one of my favourites and you can have a bit of fun with the spices as well. It's one of those simple dishes that are easy, no fuss and they are delicious hot or cold.

You will need:
- A good handful of diced zucchini, pumpkin, sweet potato, cherry tomatoes and fennel (or any of you favourite vegetables, like eggplant etc)
- Short crust pastry (1 sheet will make 4 small-med tarts)
- Olive oil
- Garlic cloves (up to you how many)
- Milk
- 6 curry leaves (fresh are best, but dried work fine)
- Paprika/cayenne pepper


Spice mix:
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
- chilli flakes
- salt and pepper
- 1/4 tsp garam marsala


For yoghurt mix:
- Natural yoghurt
- A good squeeze of lemon juice
- Cucumber, finely chopped

How to create:
- Defrost pastry sheet(s)
- Combine all vegetables in a bowl, drizzle with oil
- Put spice mix in a mortar and pestle and crush together
- Sprinkle the spice mix over veggies and stir to coat them all, add the curry leaves
- Place on a baking tray and bake for about 40 mins, or until cooked through 
- Cut the pastry into quarters and put a good spoonful of the veggie mixture into the
centre, twist the sides in a clockwise format to create a case around the veggies
- Brush the edges of the pastry with milk and sprinkle with paprika or cayenne pepper
- Bake at 180 for about 15-20 mins or until the pastry is cooked and golden
- For the yoghurt mixture, combine all ingredients in a bowl


Serve these delicious pies with a dollop of the yoghurt mixture and a nice fresh salad.


All I can say to that, is YUM!!

Left over Veggie Tart

For an easy dinner last week, I made a filo pastry tart with lots of left over vegetables and feta.


Ingredients:


4-8 sheets filo pastry
Olive Oil
Broccoli, chopped
Feta
Cherry Tomatoes, halved
Pumpkin, cubed
Zucchini, cubed
lemon Juice
Haloumi, cubed
Rocket
Eggs, whisked


Method:


- Roast the pumpkin and zucchini with a dash of oil
- Line a baking tin or pie dish with filo, over lapping it and rubbing a bit of oil in between sheets
- Steam the broccoli for a couple of minutes
- Put the pumpkin, broccoli, cherry tomatoes and feta crumbled onto the pastry
- Pour over the eggs to cover vegetables
- Bake for about 30-40 mins or until eggs are all cooked
- whilst the tart is baking, fry off the haloumi and pour over a bit of the lemon juice
- When tart is cooked, put the haloumi and rocket on top
- serve with a nice fresh salad


Note: You can put pretty much whatever vegetables you want in this, caramelised onion would be nice, proscuitto, chorizo, carrot etc.

Chicken Roast... it's actually quite easy and did I mention delicious!

An easy chicken roast, on a cold day (even if it's the middle of spring!)


I rubbed the chicken with smoked salt (purchased at the Prarahn Market), pepper and finely chopped garlic. I placed a lemon- cut in half in the middle of the chicken which gently infused the chicken and baked it at 190 degrees for a little over an hour. Too easy.


Served on a bed of creamy mash and steamed broccolini.

The Wonders of Pastry

When you are tired and can't be botherd cooking anything fancy one thing I love are Pastry Pizza's. They are simple and you can have a lot of fun with the toppings.

































Ingredients:
Puff pastry (approx 1 sheet per person)
Egg
Goats Cheese or your favourite soft cheese
Roasted Pumpkin
Cherry Tomatoes
Caramelised Onion
Rocket to serve
Add any of you favourite toppings
Method:
Pre-cook the pastry slightly (place another tray on top to keep it flat or just flatten it out when you remove from the oven)
Then put the toppings on and then bake for approx 15-20 mins or until pastry is cooked
Serve with fresh rocket or anything else you fancy

Summer BBQ

Warm summer days have been few and far between lately, with spring being far colder than it should be. But on those rare warm days its the perfect time to light the BBQ and have a nice cold beer.


We cooked some frenched lamb cutlets, haloumi cheese, asparagus and turkish bread on the BBQ and roasted some sweet potato and carrots in the oven. Once the lamb cultlets were cooked I put a homemade pesto and smeared it on top, this was made from marinated capsicums finely chopped, grated parmesan and a small pinch of bread crumbs. All the vegetables and turkish bread was combined as a salad and the cultlets were placed on the side. Needless to say it was fantastic and soo easy.

Who said being a vegetarian is boring...

Vegetable pie with pesto, parmesan and rocket.

A few of my friends happen to be vegetarian and I have claimed (over the years) that I am (if that involves me still being able to eat yummy bacon, mince and my favourite... lamb!!) ok so that's not exactly being vegetarian, but i enjoy vegetarian food and last night decided to make something I have never really attempted. A Pie. A Vegetable Pie to be exact.

It was made with short crust pastry (I didn't make this myself)

Bake the pastry for roughly 15 mins with pie weights or rice (and don't do what I did and put the rice straight onto the pastry, needless to say there was a 'take 2' and I have learnt my lesson to use baking paper in between, rookie mistake!!) then remove rice or weights and bake for a further 10 or so mins until golden brown and the base is cooked.

The filling:

- The base was smeared with pesto (I had a gourmet capsicum and tomato one but any is fine!)

- Then roughly 500g mashed sweet potato, combined with 2 tbsp cream, 200g ricotta and 2 tbs grated/ shaved parmesan

- Top with cut pieces of zucchini, eggplant and red/ green capsicums, then place halved cherry tomatoes on top (I roasted all the vegetables slightly so they weren't too crunchy)

- Bake it in a moderate oven for roughly 10 mins until the vegetables are cooked

- Top with fresh rocket and shaved parmesan.

Then enjoy.

I know I did and I had left overs for lunch the next day. Yum.

And as I usually do, I made some miniture pies. They are great cold as well as hot.

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.