Quinoa

Last night I was wondering what I could do with some quinoa I had in the cupboard that needed using up. One of the things I love about quinoa is that it’s a complete protein – brilliant for vegetarians. Anyway, I found inspiration in the June 2012 issue of Australian Good Taste magazine. Of course, being me, I had to mess around with the original recipe. So Melissa’s Quinoa Cakes have metamorphosed into a quinoa frittata. Hope you enjoy it. 

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked quinoa (about 3/4 cup raw)

100 g feta, crumbled

4 eggs, lightly whisked

1 carrot, peeled, coarsely grated

55 g (1/3 cup) toasted pine nuts

20 g baby spinach, chopped

2 Tbs fresh mint, chopped

2 Tbs sultanas

1 tsp finely grated lemon rind

1 tsp each of ground cumin, coriander, turmeric and paprika

Combine quinoa, feta, egg, carrot, pine nuts, spinach, mint, sultanas, spices, and lemon rind (everything really) in a bowl and mix it all up. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat a small amount of oil in a frypan over a low-medium heat. Pour quinoa mixture into pan and cook until base is cooked – probably about 5 minutes. Place under a hot grill to finish cooking.

This is a great way to use up any quinoa leftovers lurking in your fridge, but seriously, don’t wait until you have left-over quinoa. 

Do what I did and use the recipe for inspiration. Vary the spices, maybe add some chilli. Some fried onion and garlic would be great in it. Or ramp up the fresh flavours with loads of fresh herbs. 

(If you’ve never cooked quinoa before, just put 1 part quinoa in with 3 parts of water and simmer it for about 15 minutes. You can also add flavour by using stock, or some wine.)

Cumin has to be one of my favourite spices

Cumin has to be one of my favourite spices. I love its wonderful flavour that goes with so many things. 

A quick keyword search through my Evernote trove of recipes came up with 68 that include cumin. From carrot fritters to marinated olives, from white bean soup to a spiced chickpea and potato fry-up, it’s found its way into recipes featuring a diverse range of ingredients including mushrooms, avocado, spinach, eggplant and lentils.

Here are just a few of my quick fave ways to use cumin seeds.

Slice up some steamed or roasted butternut pumpkin (butternut squash). Toss some cumin seeds in oil in a fry pan, then throw in the sliced butternut and cook over a medium-high heat until it gets crunchy bit. This is great with leftover steamed or roast potato too – or a mixture of both.

Fry some cumin seeds with onions in oil. Toss in some chopped carrots, a potato and cover with vegetable stock. Simmer until vegies are soft then blitz with a stick-blender. Serve the soup with a spoonful of natural yoghurt.

Or for really special cheese on toast, toast ½ teaspoon of cumin seeds in a dry frypan over a medium heat until it smells gorgeous (chefs and cookbook writers seem to say until it’s ‘fragrant’). Grind the seeds until fine then add to 50 g of grated Emmental cheese. Pile onto toast and whack it under the grill until the cheese melts and goes bubbly. If you want to you could use this on top of soup too. Delish!

Loving the Leftovers

Do your leftovers pine away at the back of the fridge, forgotten and unloved, and then get thrown out? Finding new things to do with leftovers not only helps reduce your food bills because you’re not wasting so much, but it’s kinder to the planet. Not to mention that it can be great fun to experiment.

I love roast vegetables. A plate piled high with roasted potatoes, pumpkin, carrots and beetroots is truly delicious. Add some greens – beans, peas, broccoli, broccolini – for a veritable feast.

Thing is, when I roast veggies somehow I always seem to cook too much. Especially with the pumpkin.

Not wanting to waste it, I’ve been messing about and have discovered delicious ways to use any leftover roasted pumpkin. These taste so good that now I deliberately cook too much. I have been using what in Australia is called “butternut pumpkin”. In other places it’s referred to as “butternut squash”. But I figure these recipes should work pretty well with any kind of pumpkin. Sorry I can’t give you accurate quantities. Part of the fun of leftovers is experimenting … if you get really stuck, drop me a line and I’ll help you out.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Fry up diced onion and finely chopped garlic in olive oil. Throw in a teaspoon of cumin seeds and cook until onion is soft and cumin smells lovely. Toss in the roasted pumpkin and some vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for a couple of minutes. Blitz with a stick blender. Check seasoning and serve with a swirl of natural yoghurt.

(For this recipe I used about 5 pieces of roasted pumpkin with one medium sized onion and 2 cloves of garlic.)

Roast Pumpkin Sauce for Pasta

Years ago I ate pumpkin filled ravioli with pumpkin sauce at a restaurant in Venice. Rather too much pumpkin was my thought at the time, but I did like the idea. So I serve this pumpkin sauce with spinach and ricotta filled ravioli.

Mash pumpkin. Add enough white wine to make a fairly thick sauce. If you think the mix needs too much wine, or if you prefer not to use wine, use vegetable stock or a combination of both. Warm through and season with salt and pepper.

I like the sauce to be quite thick and put it in the bottom of a large bowl. Then arrange pasta on top. When I want a meal to be extra special, and feel that I can survive the additional calories, I serve it with a sage and butter sauce, and grated Parmesan. If you’re not using the sage butter, why not add some chopped sage to the pumpkin mix? The flavours go together wonderfully.

Sage and Butter Sauce

Melt butter in fry pan with sage leaves. When butter starts to turn brown remove from heat and quickly add lemon juice. Make sure your butter doesn't burn.

Divine Dessert - with Chocolate, of course

Some years back I enjoyed a fabulous foodie holiday at Cascina Papaveri in Italy. Not only did I get to cook fabulous food every day in a magnificent kitchen, but I also discovered Pilates. 

Poppies at the Poppy Farmhouse - Cascina Papaveri

 Anyway, I thought I’d share the recipe for one of the delightful, decadent, delicious, divine desserts that we made. Chef Gino called it a Chocolate Soufflé. Most of us now would recognise it if it were called a Chocolate Fondant. You know, the ones with the gooey middle ...

Chocolate Fondant

Prep and Cooking time – about 45 minutes

Serves 6

4 eggs

100 g caster sugar

100 g butter

100 g flour

100 g dark chocolate (Chef Gino used 79%)

1.      Melt butter and sugar in a bowl over a saucepan of hot water. Make sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water. You want indirect heat.

2.      Beat the sugar and eggs together until light and fluffy.

3.      Fold in the flour.

4.      Add the melted chocolate and butter.

5.      Place into small moulds (grease with butter).

6.      Bake in oven at 170-180 C for 7 – 8 minutes.

7.      Serve with crème anglaise, whipped cream or a delicious, real vanilla icecream.

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S is for Salads

Salads are so good for us and they have so much potential. The days of lettuce, tomato and maybe onion and cucumber are long gone. There is nothing as satisfying as a salad when a salad is what you really want to eat. You know those times when you want to feel the crunch of the vegetables, enjoying the different textures and flavours. Add to this the visual delight offered by a multi-hued array of food and what more could you want. By the way, did I mention that they’re mostly quick to prepare as well.

 Salads are a great way to get your five-a-day. And making salads is one area where cooking can be fun. Let your imagination go. Making salads isn’t a precision science. Play around with quantities and ingredients to suit your own tastes. 

Here are some of my favourites.

Spinach, Peas and Feta (thanks to Jamie Oliver for this one)

Make a salad of baby spinach, fresh green peas straight from their pods and bite-size chunks of feta cheese. Dress it with lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil (I use about 2 parts juice to 5 parts oil). Season with pepper. Taste it and add salt if it needs it (remember, the feta is salty).

 

Watermelon and Feta

Toss cubes of watermelon in a bowl with thinly sliced red onion. Throw in chunks of feta. Drizzle some good quality balsamic vinegar over the top – not a lot. 

My Version of Caprese Salad – Mozzarella with Slow Roasted Tomatoes

To slow roast cherry tomatoes, cut them in half and place cut side up on a baking tray. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast in a slow oven , about 100 C for about 90 minutes, until they’ve almost dried out. Tear up a ball of mozzarella cheese. Arrange mozzarella tomatoes and some fresh basil leaves on a plate – mix them together, make nice patterns, whatever you like. Drizzle over some extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. 

ANZAC Biscuits for ANZAC Day

In Australia and New Zealand, ANZAC Day is our day of remembrance. On 25 April 1915 our forces were part of an allied force that landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula. 

It being ANZAC Day I thought I would make some ANZAC Biscuits. The last time I made these was over 20 years ago. On that occasion I was making them to sell for a charity fundraiser and I pretty much felt like never baking ANZAC Biscuits again after making hundreds and packaging them into cellophane bags. But being away from Australia and seeing messages posted on various social media forums by my compatriots put me in the mood for a taste of home ...

The recipe I used today is by Merle Parrish (viewers of the Aussie version of Masterchef might remember her), and I downloaded it from here. I’ve also copied it for you. I made some of mine small and some larger; the photo is of some of the bigger ones. If you make them all small I’m sure the recipe makes 45, but the size I made, I think I made around 30. 

 This is a very simple recipe - great for making with kids. And it's quick so from the time you decide on the spur of the moment that you really want something sweet, to the time you bite into your first warm ANZAC biscuit is about 30 minutes. But a ward of warning, they really are nicer when you give them about 10 or so minutes after taking them out of the oven to crisp up.

Enjoy! 

Merle Parrish's Anzac biscuit recipe

Prep time: 20 mins

Cooking time: 6-7 mins per batch

Makes: 45

1 cup plain flour

2 tsp ground ginger

1 1/2 cups rolled oats

1 cup desiccated coconut

1 cup white sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

2 tbsp boiling water

1 tsp bicarb soda

160g butter, melted

1.      Preheat oven to moderate (170C) and grease two large baking trays.

2.      Sift the flour and ground ginger into a mixing bowl, and add the oats, coconut and sugar. Make a well in the centre.

3.      Stir the golden syrup, boiling water and bicarb in a small bowl until combined. Add to the dry ingredients, along with the melted butter. Mix well.

4.      Take heaped teaspoons of mixture and roll into balls. Place onto trays, and flatten gently. Bake for 6–7 minutes, until lightly golden.

5.      Cool on the trays for 10 minutes, until they firm up slightly, then lift onto wire racks to cool completely.