Grilled pork with pea puree

I have been very quiet these past few weeks, I am embarrassed almost that I have only 4 posts in November!  I've been away traveling for the most part and we got home to our daughters 5th birthday and Thanksgiving... A busy busy time with family and so very enjoyable.  I will try and make it up to you in the next few weeks although I sense the lead up to Christmas is going to be equally as crazy.  I have yet to post my incredible Thanksgiving stuffing recipe, although it's far too late for that those of you here in the States - I think some friends in Australia may like to try it for Christmas lunch if they eat a hot meal.  U.N.B.E.L.I.E.V.A.B.L.E and I don't often boast about my dishes like that.  Give me another few days and it will be up.

For now, I have a few everyday dishes to share.  Some old favourites and some with a new twist.  

Roasted pork and apples are a traditional success story and are always delicious together but to add another element, try this pea and parsnip puree with your next roast pork leg or tenderloin.  I think parsnip and anything is a winner but this dish is a lovely alternative to using regular mash potato or pureed cauliflower as it gives the pork something to hang on to.  The girls think the green mash is pretty unique so it makes for some fun jokes at the dinner table.  

We all enjoyed this simple and tasty mid week meal.

Pea puree
2 cups frozen peas
1 large parsnip, diced
handful of fresh mint leaves
1/2 apple, diced
butter
salt and pepper

Method:

• In a saucepan, with boiling salted water, add your diced parsnip and apple let cook until tender - approx 6-8mins. 
• Add your frozen peas and bring back to the boil
• Remove from heat and drain, retain 1/3 cup of water in case you need to add some back in.
• Using a hand blender, puree the pea and parsnip mixture with some mint, butter and more salt and pepper if necessary until smooth

Season a pork tenderloin simply with sea salt and cracked pepper, maybe some fresh thyme leaves and rub a little olive oil into the skin then roast in a hot oven for approx 25mins or until cooked through.  Cook your other vegetables, like butternut squash, carrots or potatoes, in a pan next to it and serve the pork sliced over the pea puree with apple sauce.

Apple sauce:
2-3 apples, diced
1 1/2 - 2 cups of water
up to 1/3 cup sugar, brown or white
cinnamon, a good shake

Simmer all ingredients over medium heat for 20-25mins.  Mash with a potato masher or use a hand blender to puree half of the mixture, leaving some chunky.

On a short break

A quick note to say I'll be back next week! I'm on a little holiday with my hubby in Eastern Europe and won't be posting any delicious recipes until I get home after Thanksgiving.  Also, my blog site is appearing in German at the moment and I only managed to remember enough from my four years of high school to navigate my way to enter this post! Stay tuned, I'm having some wonderful beef stroganoff, goulash, schnitzel, apple strudel and soups this week.

Beef Wellington

A beautifully presented dish for a weekend dinner with friends, or in our case a quiet night in with our girls. I have had this on my radar for months now and just haven't had the right moment to pull it together.  It was honestly not as time consuming as I had remembered and it is certainly not difficult so please give it a try, it will impress you.  Get yourself a lovely cut of beef fillet or tenderloin and you can't go wrong.  My boss at Scotch College, Colin, shared his technique with me about 12 years ago and I still refer to my scrap of paper with his instructions on it!  I did add the prosciutto this time to help keep it altogether and I like that addition.  He used to make individual ones I remember which I've done in the past but this is an easier method I think and looks great when you are ready to slice and serve.  (NB. I do like my meat medium rare so you can cook slightly longer for a more well done result).

serves 4 - 5

Ingredients:
1.3lb (600gm) beef fillet or tenderloin
1.5 cups portobello mushrooms, finely diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 sprigs thyme
80g / 3oz duck liver pate
prosciutto or parma ham, approx 6 slices
sea salt and pepper
1 sheet, puff pastry
1 egg, beaten (egg wash)

Method:

• Pre heat the oven to 425'F 
• Begin to defrost a sheet of puff pastry on a lightly floured surface
• Season the beef fillet with salt and pepper
• Sear the beef on a hot pan for 2-3 mins and roll on each side until fully seared.  Remove and allow to cool

• Place the mushrooms in a mini processor and blitz until finely diced
• Sauté the mushrooms in the hot pan, add the garlic and thyme and season well with salt and pepper.  Remove and place on paper towel to help absorb the excess water
• Place a large piece of cling film (glad wrap) on the bench and lay the prosciutto down, overlapping to form the casing of the dish
• Now spread the mushrooms evenly over the prosciutto
• Spread a thin layer of pate over one side of the cooled beef fillet and place face down on the mushroom spread.  Continue spreading the pate over the other side of the beef until fully coated in pate

• Using the cling film as a blanket, roll the prosciutto over the beef and roll until tightly encased. Wrap the cling film tightly over to seal and place in the refridgerator for 15-20mins

• Roll out the pastry to ensure an even sheet
• Remove the cling film from the beef roll and place on the prepared pastry sheet.  Brush the edges of the sheet well with the egg wash to ensure the edges seal properly and fold the pastry over to seal.

• Brush the top of the pastry with the egg wash and score the pastry with even strikes.  Bake on a lined baking tray for appox 25-30mins or until the top is golden brown.
• It is important to allow the meat to rest for 8-10mins before slicing.

• I served this with some sautéed baby spinach leaves, pan fried roasted potato wedges and a rich brown gravy.  

Flat bread pizza breakfast

This is a fantastic weekend brunch.  My husband and I were in Boston recently and had this in a groovy little cafe near Harvard, Tory Row.  Here are two versions, flatbread with scrambled egg, bacon and tomato, a little cheddar cheese and arugula.  Mark had his with chicken sausage, egg, tomato, herbs and hot pepper sauce.  Absolutely delicious and we figured, not too unhealthy either.

Ingredients:
Flatbread, lavash or naan, or make your own pizza dough I suppose
a good aged cheddar cheese
eggs
bacon
tomato, diced
arugula
1/4 red onion, finely diced

Method:

• Preheat your oven to 400'F and pizza stone.
• In a bowl, crack two eggs and beat with a fork until well combined.  Add a good drop of milk and stir well.  
• Dice your bacon, tomato and red onion.
• Cook the onion in a small skillet until slightly clear, do not overcook.  Remove and sprinkle over the flatbread. 
• Add the bacon to skillet and cook until browned, add the beaten eggs and cook until lightly cooked.  Use a fork and stir constantly so the egg is ribbon like, not thick and chunky.  
• Remove and pour over the flatbread, season with salt and pepper, sprinkle the tomato and cheese and cook until browned on top. Approx 3-5mins
• Garnish with baby arugula and chop the bread into 2"strips

My Pizza Oven - "Just Pizza" Maker

Jambalaya

Wow.  This dish is amazing.  A true Southern soul food which has taken me by storm. It's similar to a good paella or gumbo but easier in many ways as the rice is cooked in the same pot with stock, the vegetables and meat and seafood.  You don't use okra either in a traditional Jambalaya which makes it super easy. This is spicy and  has a party of flavours happening - it is just awesome, I love it.  I didn't serve this to the girls but they ate some of the core components before they were melded with the beautiful southern creole seasoning.  I think next time I will, I'll just go easy on the spices on the chicken for them.  The tomato flavor is gentle but complex enough with the peppers and onion so I think they'd enjoy it, they love risottos so it wouldn't be a big stretch for them. 

I had all these spices in my cupboard already, so I made up the full 2/3 cup mix ready for another time.  I can see now I will be making this again and again.  

Ingredients:
12 medium peeled, deveined and chopped shrimp/prawns
2 chicken thighs, chopped/diced
1-2 tblspn creole seasoning (see below)
2 tblspn olive oil
1/2 onion, diced
1/3 cup green bell pepper, diced
1/3 cup red bell pepper, diced
1/3 cup celery stalk, diced
2 tblspn garlic, crushed
1 tin diced tomatoes
3 bay leaves
4 cups chicken stock
2 tspn worcestershire sauce
1 tspn tabasco
3/4 cup rice
3 andouille sausages, sliced (substitutes are difficult: it has to be heavily smoked and spicy, so perhaps a good spanish chorizo except the texture isn't quite right or perhaps a spicy kielbasa)
salt and pepper

Creole cajun seasoning: makes 2/3 cups
2 1/2 tblspn paprika
2 tblspn salt
2 tblspn garlic powder
1 tblspn black pepper
1 tblspn onion powder
1 tblpsn cayenne pepper
1 tblspn oregano
1 tblspn thyme

Method:

• In a bowl, combine the chicken pieces and sliced sausages with the creole seasoning. Keep the shrimp in a separate bowl with its own creole seasoning.
• In a large saucepan, wok or soup pot, heat the oil and cook off the onions for 2-3mins
• Add the celery and peppers and cook until tender

• Add the garlic, tomatoes, bay leaf and worcestershire sauce and tobasco sauce
• Stir in the rice, and add the stock in 2/3 cups at a time and continue to stir,  I added more stock once the first had been absorbed almost like a risotto.
• Add the chicken and sausage and stir until almost cooked.  You could add more stock or even another tin of tomatoes, pureed if you want it looser or more soup like but I thought this was spot on.

• Now add the shrimp, you don't want these overcooked and tough so only add them when you almost ready to serve.  I forgot to cut the tails off mine but I will next time as it made for a bit of fiddling around.
• Season to your taste with more creole seasoning, salt and pepper

Busy Day Chicken

This has been a favourite of ours for many years.  It's not flashy, or difficult but it is certainly the easiest thing in the world to do and has all the necessary ingredients for a wholesome and healthy every day meal.  I had all my vegetables cut up earlier in the day - already laid out in the baking dish, the potato and pumpkin I left soaking separately in cold water so they didn't go brown. I put the oven on when the girls got home from school, arranged the (raw) diced chicken, added the potatoes and pumpkin, spooned on the soup, mayonnaise and seasoning and away it went to cook.  We were eating in an hour and I had one dish to wash up.  I hadn't made it for the kids before but they enjoyed it, well - as much as they enjoy eating that many vegetables normally.  I serve it on a little rice and the soup bubbles away at the bottom of the baking dish to make a sauce which helps bring it all together.  It was delicious, hubby and I love it.  A great go-to recipe when you think there is nothing in the cupboard to eat or you want to finish up stray vegetables in your fridge.

Arrange all the chopped vegetables and chicken

Add the soup, mayo mixture and cheese and bake

Serves 4

1(440g) tin fat free cream of mushroom soup

2-3 cups mixed vegetables - cut in roughly the same sizes (1'inch cubes) broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkin, potato, zucchini, mushrooms, carrots

1 chicken breast, diced

salt and cracked pepper

1 tspn mild curry powder

2 tblspn mayonnaise

1/2 cup grated tasty or cheddar cheese

1/3 cup sprinkle of breadcrumbs

sml knobs of butter

As you can see, we ate it before I had time to photograph it -
it smelled SO good!!

Cook in a preheated oven at 375'F for about 1 hour or until the top is golden brown and vegetables are cooked through.

Halloween Party Ideas

Five little pumpkins sitting on the gate, the first one said "Oh my it's getting late", the second one said "There are witches in the air", the thrid one said "but we don't care", the forth one said "lets run and run and run" the fifth one said "Isn't Halloween fun!!".... Well Halloween was certainly fun for my two little pumpkins this year!

School had a fabulous Halloween parade for all of Lower School followed by classroom parties all over the Pre-Primary area!  The girls were surrounded by Halloween fever from mid last week through to the weekend.  Here are some cute ideas to use at your next Halloween party.  Most of it comes to life with some thoughtful presentation but a few little treats can make all the difference.

I used a lot of short clear plastic cups which I drew on with black markers, different jack o lantern faces. I used these for both portion control as I was dealing with 5 yr olds (!) and as a cute way to fill the table.  I had orange cheetos in some and had sliced peaches with an orange fork my older daughters classroom as a healthy treat.

Larger plastic cups decorated with black and orange ribbon added some height to the table and I placed dried apricots and cracker mix in others.  A big bowl of candy corns added color as well and the kids thought all their halloweens had come at once!

Rice Krispie Jack-o-lanterns

makes approx 60 pumpkins

Ingredients:

11.5 cups rice bubbles/rice krispies
1 full stick of butter / 113 gm
1 tspn vanilla essence
16oz bag of mini marshmallows
red and yellow food coloring
mini tootsie rolls




Method:

• In a large pan or wok, heat the butter until melted.  
• Add the marshmallows and stir constantly until they melt completely.
• Add the food coloring and vanilla
• Now add the rice bubbles and stir until well combined
• Take off the heat.
• Using mini muffin trays, spoon a good teaspoon of mixture into the muffin tray and mold using the back of the spoon and your fingers, until you get a dense ball. 
• Once in a ball shape, remove and place on a lined baking tray.  Continue until all the mixture is used up
• Then using green icing or a gel cake decorating pen, scribble some green 'leaves' on the top of each pumpkin
• Melt one end of a mini tootsie roll, using a hand stove ignitor (a 'clicker' I call them) and push onto the top of each pumpkin to form the 'stem'
• Using black cake decorating pen or a bag of icing with black food colouring pipe on your jack o lantern faces.

Ghost cupcakes

Using my vanilla cupcake recipe already posted, http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3258279163478692852#editor/target=post;postID=4692017559725332244 make a batch or two of cupcakes, however add red and yellow food colouring to make them orange.  I made these about a week before I needed them and froze them in plastic cupcake trays wrapped in plastic, so I only had to decorate them the day before the party.

• Using rolled white fondant, (found in most cake decorating stores or good supermarkets) roll out your fondant until it is about 2mm (1/8th inch) thick.  Use a circular cookie cutter and cut out as many circles as you have cupcakes.  Roll each circle then into a slight oval shape. 
• Use your index finger to help mold the ghost shape or hang it over a small rounded top bottle if that is easier so you can create the ghost folds.  Allow them to sit on a baking tray until fully dry and hard, about 3-4 hours.  Don't over work them, they're ghosts - they don't have to be perfect.
• Using the same black icing as above or decorating pen, pipe on your little ghost eyes.

Make your preferred frosting or icing, or use a store bought vanilla frosting and pipe on each cupcake enough to cover the top.  When you're ready, sit your ghost on top and display on a tiered cake stand for the best effect.