Jambalaya

Dice 2 brown onions
Dice 3 celery stalks
Dice 1 red capsicum
Saute until soft
Add
2 cubed chicken breasts
3 sliced chorizo sausages
2 sliced chillies
300 gms of prawn meat

Add 1 litre of chicken stock
700 gms pasata
2 bay leaves
2 tbs smoked paprika
Salt and pepper
2 cups basmarti rice

Simmer until rice is cooked, add water if the dish starts to dry out.

Eggplant in Coconut Milk

This is a mild dish with a very gentle flavour.

Dice 1 brown onion
Dice 2 cloves of garlic
Saute
Add one cubed eggplant
Add one can coconut milk
Simmer until reduced

 Serve on white rice
 To add a bit of extra taste some chilli sauce or chilli and palm sugar
 Serve with a generous amount of coriander

Pan fried Monk fish with Cabbage Slaw

Pan fry the monk fish (stargazer) fillet in a little olive oil, do it gently it doesn't need to be burnt

Slice your cabbage into thin strips
Saute a goodly quantity of diced bacon until crisp add in the cabbage
Add a generous dash of white wine vinegar
Plus a touch of soy sauce
Cook until reduced and softened

Serve with baked potatoes

Stuffed Capsicum on a Cauliflower Mash

Take 1 cauliflower remove stalks and leaves spray with olive oil and sprinkle generously with curry powder

Slice and deseed 1 red capsicum
Stuff with your favourite vege
In my case I used Semi dried tomatoes
and marinated sliced mushrooms
Add either goats cheese or bococcini
Top with grated cheddar or parmesan
Oven bake until top turns golden

Blend the cauliflower with greek yogurt and some finely crushed garlic.

Serve on a warmed plate

Eggplant "Meatballs"

I don't want to call these eggplant balls but thats what they are. These were so nice that even a meat eating 16 year old said they were better than actual meatballs.

Firstly cut a large eggplant in half oil and oven bake
remove from oven and allow to cool.

In a blender combine the flesh of the eggplant
60gms of roasted pine nuts
60gms of grated parmesan
1 egg
Blend until smooth
Combine with bread crumbs

Roll into balls place on a baking tray and allow to set for 15 minutes in the fridge
Oven bake at 180c for until golden brown (a spray of oil will help)

Then serve them as you would with meatballs
Your favourite pasta and pasta sauce.
I think they will also make a very nice rissole

Mustard Chicken Bake

Ingredients 

1 x 75g pkt powdered cream of chicken soupmix

• 4 (about 600g) sebago (washed) potatoes,thickly sliced
• 2(about 200g each) single chicken breast fillets
• 300ml thickened light cream
• 300ml chicken stock
• 2 tbs Dijon mustard
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Steamed vegetables, to serve

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Place the soupmix in a plastic bag. Add the potatoes and chicken and toss to coat. Arrange half the potatoes over the base of a 2L (8-cup) capacity rectangular ceramic or glass ovenproof dish. Top with a layer of the chicken and then a layer of the remaining potatoes.
2. Combine cream, stock and mustard in a jug and pour over the potatoes. Season with pepper. Cover and bake for 1 1/4 hours or until chicken is just cooked through. Serve with steamed vegetables.

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Wine and Cooking

I am not a trained chef (yes I know you knew that) but I have opinions about the best wine to use for cooking.

Asian food is routinely cooked with wine that is unfit for any other purpose.

Yet chefs always say never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink.
Well personally I don't agree.

I cannot taste the difference in most dishes between a good wine and a cheap one.

I doubt many people can, particularly in a slow cooked dish where the wine imparts a blended flavour.

For me I will keep my good wine for drinking and use only my cheap cask wine for the pot.

This may make me a philistine, but the good wine I get to drink!

Beef Ribs

I had not cooked beef ribs before this, they are far meatier than pork ribs but not as sweet. Because of there size you will want to get your butcher to cut them in half.

Place your ribs in your slow cooker
Cover with 1/2 cup of bbq sauce
Sprinkle with a tablespoon of powdered beef stock
Pour on red wine until nearly covered
Add 1 can of diced tomatoes
Cook on low for 8-10 hours

I served these on a bed of cous cous with steamed vegetables

Baked Bread

This is a very generic style dish and it seems very popular at the moment with Australian cooking magazines. It could be vegetarian or meat based, it is simple to prepare, tasty and warming.

Slice, cut into triangles and butter a loaf of white bread.
Place in the triangles corner side vertically in a well greased baking dish.
Cut up a handful (or more) of cherry tomatoes and place around the bread

Mix together 3 eggs and 2 cups of milk
Pour over the mixture and allow to stand for 5 minutes

Scatter over the top diced bacon or ham
Cover with grated cheddar cheese

Oven bake at 180c for 30 mins

I served this with sausages and a salad.

You can of course alter the meat and the vegetables based on taste and what is at hand.

Mushroom Rosti

This is my first attempt at a rosti and it turned out ok, it takes longer than you might think to cook so be patient.

Take 4 large potatoes and boil until cooked allow to cool
Grate potatoes with a course grater
Heat olive oil in a smallish frypan, enough to cover base of the ban to a couple of millimetres
Place grated potato in pushing down firmly
Cook until golden and then reverse and repeat until top is golden.

Saute a mixture of mushrooms in olive oil

To serve tope the rosti with the mushrooms place mushrooms on top
Sprinkle with crumbled goats cheese and chives

Eggplant Lasagne

The first step to this dish is to make up your eggplant slices. Simply slice a large eggplant into thin slices and lay in a baking tray, spray with olive oil and oven bake until browned.

Prepare your filling
Saute
1 finely diced brown onion
1/2 a celery finely diced
2 large carrots finely diced
When softened add
2 diced garlic cloves
100gms diced mushrooms
1 can of brown lentils
2 cans diced Italian tomatoes
season well

Start by placing in a well geared baking dish a layer of eggplant
Then a layer of the filling
Top with a layer of light Ricotta cheese
Repeat

Finely cover with grated cheese and oven bake until golden
Serve with crusty bread
Followed by a thin layer of