Arancini balls

You may think I haven't been eating much lately even the lack of posts...but it's been quite the opposite. We've had Lucy's birthday recently and a few visitors from out of town so I have been extremely busy in the kitchen really.  To be honest we have been eating recipe after recipe from my existing posts so there hasn't been a lot of new dishes to report.  We had a buffet of succulent baby back ribs, crispy noodle salad as well as satay chicken skewers for Lucy's Luau party and then pork banh mi for a quick friday night meal with our Australian friend, Kev.  We've eaten lamb and cous cous, then the spicy beans and feta for breakfast, I fear I may have plateaued... I need a holiday to find time to search for some more delicious recipes!  Luckily enough, we are off to Disney World tomorrow and then taking a 6 day roadtrip from Orlando back up to Milwaukee through the south.  Perhaps I'll find the secret to great southern fried chicken or taste the best Cherry Pie in a diner somewhere along our travels.  I don't expect to find much culinary inspiration at Disney that's for sure.

So the arancini balls came about from hosting our second Trivia night challenge recently and everyone made a tapas dish.  These arancini balls were my contribution and they seemed to go down really well.  I kept them simple this time but you could add any sort of combination of flavors to the actual risotto or the centre filling.  They are great because you can do them a day ahead, deep fry them and just re-heat in the oven when you need them.  I have done them before using semi dried tomato and basil in the risotto and stuffing them with a little cube of mozzarella or gorgonzola cheese, they were really yummy. So get creative, make a delicious risotto and then stuff them with your favorite surprise!

Makes 24-30

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock)

1/2 cup dry white wine

2 tblpsn butter

1 small onion, fnely chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 cup arborio rice

1/3 cup parmesan cheese

1/3 cup pecorino cheese

24-30 pitted green olives

1/3 cup breadcrumbs (panko)

vegetable oil, for deep frying

Method:

• Pour stock into a medium saucepan, bring to a boil and then let simmer
• Melt butter in a medium saucepan, cook onion and garlic stirring until onion is tender.
• Add rice and stir, coating the rice in the butter over low heat
• Add the white wine and let it almost fry off, once the wine is absorbed add a ladle of hot stock and stir until the liquid is absorbed.
• Continue adding the stock in 1/2 cup batches until the liquid is absorbed after each addition. Total cooking time should be about 30mins or until the rice is tender
• Turn off the heat and add another knob of butter and the cheeses.  Stir through and let cool.
• Prepare your olives ready to be placed inside each risotto ball.
• Line a baking tray with gladwrap on the bottom and enough to cover the top as well.
• Prepare your breadcrumbs in a large dish and season with a little salt and pepper
• Once the risotto is cooled and easy to handle, mold into large teaspoon full size balls and push the olive into the centre and ensure the risotto joins around it. Then roll in the breadcrumbs.
• Place on a lined tray and continue rolling until mixture is used up. 

• You can either store them in the refridgerator (or freeze them) at this point and deep fry them when you are ready for them or, as I prefer to do, get the smelly deep frying out of the way well before I need them.  I fried them during the afternoon and then just re-heated them briefly in the oven when we were to serve them.

Minted Lamb "lollipop chops"

A favorite in our house is lamb.  No matter how good the beef is here in the US we can't pass up a lovely lamb roast or baked lamb rib chops... these are absolutely sensational!  Back home we refer to them as lollipop chops and I bake them in a delicious blend of mint jelly and tomato sauce.  This is what I am used to as convenience food, but to mix essentially two store bought sauces to get this sort of result is just heaven!   Now I am going to make this hard for my US friends as the mint jelly I use I still have imported from Australia... but I'm sure you can use what you're used to here as a substitute.  This is a healthy, quick and absolutely knock out meal.  You can serve it for a mid week meal for the family or spruce it up with some roasted mixed vegetables for a dinner party.  It takes me about 20mins from start to finish and because the lamb is done in the oven, you could chose to cook your other vegies alongside it at the same time.  We love the simplicity of this and could eat it once a week for sure.  There are never any leftovers on lollipop chop night as we find the girls easily eat two chops each.

Serve 4

Ingredients:
lamb rack, 7-8 ribs (or lamb loin chops)
sea salt and cracked black pepper
extra virgin olive oil
2 tblspn (masterfoods) mint jelly
2 tblspn tomato sauce/ketchup
1 tspn soy sauce
1/2 cup warm water
1 tblspn brown sugar

Method:

• Pre heat the oven to 380'F / 190'C
• Mix together the mint jelly, tomato sauce, water, soy and sugar in a measuring cup and whisk until combined.  
• On the stove top, heat your roasting pan (preferably a non-stick scanpan type pan)
• Season your lamb rack generously and massage it in with olive oil
• Brown the lamb rack in the roasting pan on both sides for approx 2-3 mins a side
• I then cut the rack into smaller portions of 2 ribs each before baking in the oven.
• Pour the mint jelly sauce over the lamb and bake for approx 12-14mins.  Turn them over or baste them half way through cooking.  Lamb is best cooked medium so don't over cook.
• In the meantime, prepare your other sides dishes - eg. serve with israeli cous cous, cooked in chicken stock and asparagus done on a plate in the microwave (under gladwrap) for 2 mins with a knob of butter and a good squeeze of lemon, salt and pepper
• When cooked to your liking, let the meat rest for a few minutes then cut each portion into individual ribs before serving.  
• Use the extra sauce in the roasting pan as the gravy.  If you wish to thicken it quickly, place the roasting pan back on the stove top and add a little gravy base / gravox to thicken it up before pouring over your lamb.

Spicy beans with feta

Bill Granger (spunky Aussie chef with a myriad of great restaurants around the world) does some mean beans, this is his recipe from his book Feed Me Now which I absolutely love. A few girlfriends and I went to a breakfast he put on in Brisbane a few years ago and he served these... well I was in heaven. The feta was melt in your mouth, and the combination of flavors were so fresh and unlike I ever thought of when I pictured beans on toast.  I couldn't wait to try it at home.  Of course this is a hearty breakfast dish but every time I've ever made it, we've eaten it as a healthy vegetarian dinner. It's simple and quick.  A one pot winner. The feta, spring onion and cilantro make it a sensational meal.  You would never imagine beans could taste this good but Bill style, it is possible.  Kids would enjoy this I think, perhaps without the added toppings as there is nothing in the dish that would turn them off. Perhaps a rendition of 'Beans, beans are good for your heart, the more you eat them the more you fart, the more you fart the better you feel, so eat your beans for every meal...' may make them appreciate the good nature of beans!

Serves 2-4 

Ingredients:
1 tblspn extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 x 14oz tins red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 x tin tomatoes
1 tspn ground cumin
1 tblspn brown sugar
sea salt and pepper
juice of 1 lime
1 fresh green chili, finely diced
2 spring onions, finely sliced
1 handful freshly chopped coriander/cilantro
100g soft feta, crumbled

Method:

• Heat a pan with a little extra virgin olive oil
• Add onion and cook until translucent and tender add garlic and cook
• Add tomatoes, sugar and about 2/3 cups water and let simmer until thickened approx 5-8mins
• Add kidney beans and continue to cook.  (Bill suggests you bake this in the oven at 350'F/180'C for 30mins but I've always just let it simmer on the stove top).  So...either move to oven or continue to cook on stove top until liquid reduces and sauce thickens, 20-25mins
• Just before serving, add lime juice adjust seasoning if necessary
• Serve on toasted ciabatta or sourdough loaf, sliced thick with a sprinkle of crumbled feta, spring onions, cilantro and chili

Blueberry Lemon Muffins

Muffins, bread, cake... make it what you will, any which way it's going to taste so good.  This recipe is so light, not overly sweet and with a subtle taste of lemon it gives a freshness you don't often get in a cake or muffin.  My good friend Angie makes this time and time again in a loaf pan...she can't keep it in the house long enough! It's a beautiful combination and I love it, so I thought I'd make it into muffins and see what the girls thought.  Verdict: A hit!  I probably put a little too many blueberrries in mine today (more than the suggested 1 1/2 cups) as it didn't leave much room for the cake to form around them at the bottom but it was delicious I couldn't eat just one.

Ingredients:
3/4 stick (6 tblspn) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 tspn vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups all purpose (plain) flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tspn salt
1/2 cup milk
1 tblspn vegetable oil
1 1/2 cup fresh blueberries (if using frozen - defrost, drain to remove excess water)
2 tblspn lemon zest
4 tblspn lemon juice

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 350'F (180'C)
• Prepare your muffin trays or loaf tin, with cupcake cases or well greased/sprayed tin
• In a mixer, cream the butter and 1 cup of the sugar until light and fluffy
• Add the eggs, one a time, mixing well between each addition
• Add the vanilla essence and continue to mix
• In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest 
• Add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture alternating with the milk/oil until well combined
• Turn off your mixer and fold in the blueberries by hand using a large spoon 
• Bake for 22-25mins or until golden brown on top.  
• For a loaf tin, bake for closer to 1 hr - or until a skewer comes out clean in the middle

For the glaze:

• Heat the remaining 1/3 cup sugar and lemon juice over heat until the sugar is dissolved and it turns to a nice syrup.

Once the muffins are baked, pierce the top all over with a skewer and brush over lemon glaze to finish.  Remove from pan and allow to cool.  Eat!!

Roasted Tomato Basil Soup

We have a gluttony of homegrown Roma and grape tomatoes from our vegetable garden this season.  This Labor Day long weekend has had us eating bruschetta every day for lunch so it was time to make something else with these delicious tomatoes.  The basil was starting to go to seed so I harvested the rest of that and roasted the tomatoes to make this incredible healthy soup.  It is a Barefoot Contessa recipe I found online and I decided not to change a thing.  I went easy on the red chili flakes only because the girls will be eating it also, but you can always add extra to the adult portions if you feel like it.  I wanted to keep it sweet and untainted.  It was just that... so sweet, pure and hearty.  A fabulous end to a wonderful weekend with friends.  We feel ready for Fall now. 

Ingredients:
3 lbs (1.5kg) ripe plum tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise
1/4 cup plus 2 tblpsn good extra virgin olive oil
1 tblspn sea salt
1 1/2 tspn freshly ground black pepper
2 brown onions, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 tblspn unsalted butter
1/4 tspn red chili flakes
2 x 14 1/2 oz (411g) tin tomatoes
4 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
1 tspn fresh thyme leaves
2 cups chicken stock

Method:

• Preheat oven to 400'F (220'C)
• Toss cut tomatoes with 1/4 cup olive oil, salt and pepper.
• Spread the tomatoes on a lined baking tray with parchment paper in one layer and roast for 45 mins
• In a large stock pot, over medium heat, saute the onions, remaining olive oil, garlic and butter with red pepper flakes for 10 mins until translucent.  
• Add the tinned tomatoes, basil, thyme, and chicken stock
• Add the oven roasted tomatoes, including any juices on the tray
• Bring to the boil and simmer uncovered for 40 mins.
• Pass through a food mill with the coarse blade or use a hand blender to puree the soup.
• Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
• Serve hot or cold.  With a little dollop of greek yoghurt and some toasted ciabatta.