Beauty and food. The ultimate combination.
I’ve been trying to get a bit more organised with week night dinners lately and, at the same time, I’ve been getting creative with my slow cooker. The creativity for this dish started when I scored a six pack of chorizo sausages from Countdown on sale for $4 and figured I’d try my luck with them in the slow cooker. This was the result, purely trial and error – with, ha ha, no error. We’ll be having this warm and hearty dish again!
We’ve been having a fair bit of pork in our house, largely as I’ve been doing a bit of dinner prep in the morning and engaging my slow cooker in an attempt to eradicate ‘6.00pm dinner madness’. So, as a lover of my slow cooker, pulled pork, and anything with a BBQ sauce (coz everything is better with a sauce, as I’m sure Manu from MKR would agree) I’ve been trying to perfect a slow cooker pulled pork recipe, accompanied by a BBQ sauce that’s got no refined sugar (Sugar Free September last year has changed how I view sugar for life).
Anyhow, I’ve been faffing around in my kitchen trying to perfect this recipe to get it to the point where it’s blogworthy. TAAA DAAA: My kitchen play time is done: This is a mighty fine dinner I’m rapt to be sharing with you! Bonus too: The delicious BBQ sauce is ‘sugar free’, though I have used honey to sweeten it (I wonder if apple puree would work? I’ll try that next time). The addition of kicked up slaw is a must in my opinion: I can’t get enough Broccoslaw (as mentioned in my recent March favourites blog post) or Sriracha Hot Sauce at the moment.
Give this a go – I reckon you’ll rate it as much as we do!
PS: Do I need to mention that a great mayonnaise to use in the Kicked Up Slaw is this one?
PPS: This meal is delicious with cauliflower mash, roast potatoes, or good old fashioned mashed spuds. Knock yourself out.
I used to make this deliciously simple zucchini bake dish all the time but I forgot about it until I was gifted a sh*tload of zucchini last month…I had zucchini coming out the wahzoo. I beavered away in the kitchen making zucchini salad, zucchini chocolate cake, zucchini curry, zucchini fritters (anyone else thinking of Forrest Gump right about now?) when something jolted my memory and a little voice in my head said ‘hang on!’ – what about zucchini/tomato bake? And I’ve made it three times since in the last few weeks, it’s that good.
Note, it might look a tad dry on top, but trust me: Once you cut into it, the moist goodness of the melted zucchini and tomato hits you. I love the crunchy topping as a contrast. Mmmm.
I’m a little bit excited about this recipe. Salmon is easily my fish of choice – I just can’t get enough of it. It definitely is a wonder food which is why we should be promoting sustainable aquaculture to ensure that we still have access to this amazing fish! Add pesto into the same sentence as salmon and you’ve got me grinning like a Cheshire Cat. Bonus too – this has sod all ingredients (I know my recipes can get a tad lengthy – so enjoy this!). This definitely falls in the ‘easy mid week’ dinner category – despite looking like it’s something you’d cook for a flash dinner party (that’s my kind of dinner!). (more…)
I put a call out on my Facebook page a while back to see what recipes you lovely blog readers would like to see: Speedy savoury dinners seemed to be a bit of a popular theme! Well, you said, I’m delivering.
This speedy meatball recipe totally fries my burger as I can get this dinner on the table within 25 minutes, while multi-tasking with those those tedious domestic activities like supervising homework and getting lunches ready for the following day. This recipe is also really versatile: Haven’t got pesto? Add a sauce (sweet chilli sauce, tomato paste, BBQ sauce, hell, tomato sauce if you like). Don’t like/haven’t got cheese? Leave it out. If you want to speed things up, use a pre-made pasta sauce (I make pasta sauce in bulk from scratch and keep it in the cupboard in sterilised jars… Since Operation Sugar Reduction I find pre-made pasta sauces like Dolmio far too sweet).
Lastly, here’s a tip: Make double the meatball recipe (get the kids to help you with the rolling) and keep them to cook the next night. Stuff them into wholemeal pita breads, or roll them up in tortillas. Add salad and your favourite sauces/dressing (mayonnaise, pesto, hummus, sweet chilli sauce, you get the idea). This is another speedy, popular, tasty and healthy mid week dinner.
My new love of kale and stodge rice came together recently in this delicious and creamy pumpkin and kale risotto. (more…)
A classic Greek Moussaka is made by layering eggplant with a spiced meat filling and topping it off with a creamy bechamel sauce (I’ve called it a cheese sauce here, I’m not that flash), which is then baked until golden. YUM. I first had this dish in Italy and I’ll never forget that first mouthful: Heaven on a plate! (The memory is possibly firmly entrenched by the romance of the quintessential Italian restaurant complete with red and white tablecloths and the hot Dutch guy I was hanging out with at the time…)
So, here’s my version of Moussaka, which probably isn’t terribly authentic, but it is the kind of dish where everyone asks if there’s any leftover for seconds!
Note: The price of lamb mince would have required a home remortgage, so I used beef mince instead. Tasted great. Secondly, as I’m doing #sugarfreeseptember I made a few tweaks as I’m taking it seriously and having zero gluten. Accordingly I substituted the cheese sauce with cauliflower puree and it was DELICIOUS. I actually preferred it to how I usually make it (i.e. with a traditional cheese sauce made with flour). Our friends at the dinner party scoffed it blatantly oblivious that it contained a ‘cauliflower puree sauce’. If you are looking for a gluten free option (or want to up your vegetable intake) I’d definitely recommend using cauliflower puree instead of cheese sauce. The recipe is here. Just make sure you drain out about 1 cup of milk before you puree the mix, otherwise the puree will be too runny. Add extra Parmesan if you like it cheesy…
Note – in the photo I had doubled the recipe as I was feeding a large group!
I love cauliflower. I reckon it’s the king of vegetables. Ever since I discovered cauliflower rice and cauliflower puree I’ve got my creative on. Some bright spark suggested on my blog’s Facebook page that I have a crack at making Cauliflower pizza base. Alright, game on! If you haven’t heard of this slightly odd sounding combo, you use grated cauliflower to make the pizza base, as opposed to using flour which is typically used. Add your favourite toppings and you are good-to-go.
My verdict? Big ups to the original person who came up with this idea – I love it! Not only is cauliflower pizza base super tasty and fun and easy to make: It’s a definite game ;changer for people who are gluten intolerant, or cutting down on carbs. It’s also great for those wanting to lose weight, or simply if you want to up your vege intake!;Those who don’t eat dairy can simply omit the cheese… It’s fair to say the recipe is quite adaptable.
I spent a long time scouring the internet for suitable recipes. There’s a tonne out there. In the end I used this recipe by Tasty Kitchen as the base for my inspiration. I think the secret is to add herbs, Parmesan cheese, sesame seeds and a good amount of seasoning to the base for flavour. Lots of recipes just call for cauliflower and beaten egg, but that didn’t sound particularly appetising to me! (more…)