Bean and Goats Cheese Cannolini

This is Rebecca, she does not eat meat. So this dish is for her. I am so not used to cooking different meals so it is a quick and easy dish. Yes i know everyone with children is saying you should see my house at dinner time.

Filling:

Puree one can cannelli beans or any white bean in a food processor
Add in 2 teaspoons crushed garlic
Boursin cheese
Lemon Juice
Ground coriander
Bread crumbs
The mix should not be runny

Cannelloni

Don't buy the dried shells because they are a pain, instead by fresh pasta lasagna sheets, in the supermarket, Cut in half and fill and then roll them up placing the seal at the bottom of a creased baking dish.

Sauce
1 Jar of Dolmio Chicken carbonnara sauce
Pour sauce over the top added grated Parmesan and cinnamon

Bake at 180c for about 40 mins

Duck Breast on a Warm Cabbage Slaw

This is one of my favourite foods. I simply love duck breast. I did this meal for my friend VJ and her family.

Duck Breast

Place skin side down in a cool fry pan turn on medium heat, allow to cook until skin browns, this rends the fat from the breast, Then turn and brown the other side. That's it your done, for best results it should still pink in the centre. The fat is great for roasting potatoes so you may want to keep it in the fridge.

Cabbage Slaw

Dice Some bacon, about a rasher per person, and cook in a non stick pan
Add a diced Spanish onion and cook until soft
Toss in a finely sliced savoy cabbage, remove core before slicing
Add 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
Juice of one lemon
Half a bunch of chopped chives
1 packet of Bousin cheese (soft goat cheese, Australian and French versions readily available in Supermarkets)
Stir and cook until cabbage softens and cheese melts through.

Serve the duck breast on top of the slaw

Green Tea Tiramisu

I don't usually do deserts but this one jumped out at me from November 08 Delicious. It comes from Simon Bryant from the ABC show The Cook and the Chef.





Ingredients:
3 separated eggs
75gms caster sugar
250gms mascapone
Pinch of cream of tartar
300mls thickened cream
1 tsp vanilla paste or essence
1tsp orange liqueur
12 savoiardi
500mls brewed green tea
1/3 cup green tea powder
chopped unsalted pistachios to dress

Method:
1) Whisk yolks and sugar over boiling water till thick and pale (5 mins)
2) Beat egg whites and cream of tartar till you get thick peaks
3) Whip the cream, vanilla, and liqueur
4) Now fold all three bowls into the cream mixing thoroughly
5) Dip the savoiardi briefly in the brewed green tea, and make a layer in a 1.5 ltr dish
6) Top with half the filling and dust with green tea powder
7) Now repeat the process and place in the fridge for at least 3 hours
8) Just before serving sprinkle with the crushed pistachios.


I would serve it with a nice vanilla ice cream.

Chicken Kapama

This is a Greek chicken casserole served on macaroni or risoni, Very tasty and quick to put together.

Ingredients:
chicken pieces, should include skin and bone.
ground cinnamon (NOT the sweetened or Dutch Cinnamon)
salt pepper
butter
olive oil
2 cans diced tomatoes
250 gms tomato paste
1 cup water
2 minced onions
4 cloves minced garlic
1 bay leaf
3 cinnamon sticks

Macaroni, or risoni
Cheese for grating Kefalorteri is normally used but Parmesan does just as well.

Method:
1) Season the chicken well with cinnamon, salt and pepper. Brown the chicken in olive oil and butter, do this in batches
2) Place chicken in a large pan and add tomato, tomato paste, water and spices simmer
3) Use a food processor to mince the garlic and onions
4) Soften the garlic and onion in olive oil and butter being careful not to burn
5) Mix everything together and simmer for 50-60 mins
6) Cook pasta as per instructions

Serve the chicken on top of the pasta and sprinkle grated cheese on top.

Summer Sardines

I have always loved fresh sardines, to me they speak of summer and all its flavours. This is a simple recipe, but tasty and satisfying. It's also a bit different so you can impress your friends, without having to go too much trouble.

Ingedients:
10 Sardines(this recipe is for 2 I allow 5 per person)
500gms of potato, cut into wedges, or chips
2 Roasted capsicum cut into strips
1tsp Hot paprika
1tsp smoked paprika
2 rough chopped tomatoes
1/2 Spanish onion diced
Diced Corriander
Juice of half a lemon and the other half sliced to dress

Method:
1) Cook the potato Microwave or boil, your choice but make sure its firm, we are going to bake it.
2) Pour 1tbsp Olive oil into a dish with paprika and coat potato pieces
3) Place potato on a baking sheet in a 180c oven until golden brown 20-30 minutes
4) Meanwhile assemble and combine the other ingreients and mix in a bowl
5) When the potatoes are nearly done heat up a pan or the BBQ and cook your sardines until the skin starts to go crunchy, make sure not to let them burn, but you do want the crunchy skin.
6) Combine the cooked potato and other ingredients, and put them on your plates
7) Place the sardines on top and drizzle a little lemon juice

Ready to Eat, Had this last night it's really good.


NOTE:
Some people don't like to use whole sardines, if you can't get fillets, they are easy to fillet yourself. Take a sharp knife and remove the head, turn the fish onto its spine and widen the cut on its belly now turn it over and flatten it out with your hand. Now when you turn it on its back you should be able to pick up the spine at the head end and simple pull down and it should come straight out, cut the tail if you need to. Now you have fillets.

The Kitchen Diaries Nigel Slater

This is one of my favourite books about food. Nigel Slater is too little known here in Australia, his writing on food is at once thought provoking and gets to the heart of why we eat and the pleasure we get from it. Nigel has been a hero of mine for some time. He is not a chef but someone who loves his food. His TV shows as yet unknown here, link food and our lives so well.

His best current show is called A taste of my life and on each show he traces the life of a well known person through the key foods they have eaten. Family and friends contribute but rather than be a chef he is a cook who looks at the link between what we eat and who we are.

This book is a great introduction to what cooking is really about. Good food and friends. For me Nigel's philosophy of food is one I share. This is not a recipe book. It tells us what he he thought about food to cook and why he chose to cook some things. This was the first book that convinced me that a food diary was a good idea.

This was the first in print that i am aware of and is really a great read. it won't be the only book by Nigel that i will mention. It is not a cook book though so maybe if you don't like food books you might borrow it rather than buy it. It follows through a year looking at what Nigels feels like eating and how he prepared it, It does not give a recipe for every day and a lot of it is about what he sees in the food. An enjoyable book to sit down with.

Nigel is my sort of cook, some quotes:

"Food is, for me, for everybody, a very sexual thing and I think I realised that quite early on. I still cannot exaggerate how just putting a meal in front of somebody is really more of a buzz for me than anything. And I mean anything."

"Eating, and that feel of food in the mouth, is all part of comfort and affection and warmth, and I think that a lot of the reason that I turned to food was because I was actually quite a lonely child."

He also was the one who introduced Nigella to the world.

It deserved its awards, but as I said its more about food than a cookbook.

Chargrilled Thai style Chicken

This one at Jodie's request.

To start you will need to spatchcock your chicken, easy to do and makes for very even cooking.

1. Place the chicken breast side down, using poultry shears cut along one side of the backbone, now cut along the other side and remove the backbone. Now open it out and turn it over
2. Using your hand or a second cutting board press down, firmly to flatten the bird out
3. Push a long skewer from left leg through to the right wing, and another from through the right leg to the left wing

We are now ready to marinate the Chicken

Marinade

4 finely chopped garlic cloves
1 lemongrass stem peeled and finely chopped
4cm piece of peeled and finely chopped ginger or Galangal (if you can get it)
2 Finely chopped red chillies (remove the seeds if you don't want it hot, or leave out the chilli)
2 tbs spoons chopped corriander stems (we will use the leaves later)
1 tbs honey
1 tbs fish sauce (soy if you don't have fish sauce at a pinch)
Juice of 1 lime (lemon if you don't have lime)

Pound in a mortar and pestle until you make a semi smooth paste, start with the solid ingredients add salt and then the liquid ingredients last.

Rub the marinade into your chicken and stand in the fridge for at least 3 hours.

To Cook

Place on a pre heated BBQ hotplate at medium or a char grill pan on medium, This is going to take 30 minutes or so to cook and we will turn it every 3 to 5 minutes, using any left over marinade to keep the bird moist. If BBQing make sure the bird is not over direct flame, use the burner/s to either side. If on the stove place the browned bird into a 180 C oven.

To Serve

A green salad with mango perhaps and a side serving of Thai Chilli Jam, available at good delis.
Also use the corriander leaves for garnish

If you need carbs, jasmine rice would work or some glass noodles

My Hints

If you don't have something swap in something else or leave it out.
You can buy crushed Garlic, Ginger and sliced Lemon Grass from most supermarkets.
If you don't like chilli don't use it, or if you love it add more.
If you only want to do a serving for one or two use chicken maryland rather then the whole chicken