Out for Dinner - Bean To Cafe Regents Park

This is our local cafe http://www.beantocafe.com.au/ - we recently were invited to their "Bubbles & Bites" event, where we were treated to samples from their new menu. So we were keen to get back for dinner! (we had been previously, but not with their new chef!) (they are only open for Dinner on Friday & Saturday nights)


We started with the garlic bread, because we like it! Delicious toasty bread with garlicy butter!


Janet had the Chicken Schnitzel with Creamy Mash & Lemon sauce.  She actually had this last time we went for dinner, but this time, it was much better - the mash was not runny, and it came with vegies! (or salad)


I had the lentil patties with roasted capsicum vinaigrette and salad. I loved this! It is nice to get a vegetarian meal with some protein in it! And the Capsicum sauce was delicious! Thumbs up for this one!

We love the friendliness of this cafe, and we also love the fact we can walk here from home! Next time, we will be going in the morning to try out the Breakfasts!

Garden Goodness Pasta Sauce

A nice simple dinner that begins with a walk around the garden to gather ingredients!!

In a saucepan with some olive oil, saute a chopped onion and fresh herbs from the garden (I used sage, parsley stalks, oregano, thyme and basil).

When the onion has softened, add some vegies from your garden - today, I added zucchini and silverbeet stalks at this stage.  I also added some firm tofu which I diced quite small.  After the vegies had softened and the tofu was nicely covered in herby goodness, I added a tablespoon of tomato paste, which I allowed to cook for a minute of two before adding a can of diced tomatoes. (if I had any I would have used tomatoes from the garden, but none are ready yet!!).  Season to taste with salt and pepper, and add a splash of Worcestershire sauce.  I use Spring Gully brand because it is VEGETARIAN (no anchovies!!).

A couple of minutes before you want to serve this, add the chopped silverbeet leaves and some more fresh basil & parsley.


boil up some pasta - I used small shells in this instance - the chunky sauce fills up the shells quite nicely! Serve the sauce with the pasta!


serve with a sprinkling of Parmesan and some more parsley if you like!

Janet likes to eat from a plate

whilst I like to eat from a bowl!

and dinner is always nicer with some fresh flowers on the table!

If I was making this dinner for just myself, I would have added a tin of 4 bean mix to the sauce! In fact I might just do this with the left overs!

Pink Fried Rice

I have some lovely Bulls Blood Beetroot growing in the garden, so am using it up in as many ways as I can..... on this occasion I added it to my fried rice, resulting in pink fried rice!

To make the beetroot component, I simply chopped it into small cubes, and microwaved until soft, but not mushy in some soy sauce (a couple of teaspoons) and a squeeze of lemon juice.  This created beetroot in lovely pink sauce, which I stirred through my fried rice at the end!  (other things in my rice included zucchini, carrot garlic, onion, parsley stalks, peas, corn and tofu, oh, and some brown rice!)


(apologies for the kind of blurry photo...and it was pinker in real life :-) )


Janet had the same, minus the tofu and beetroot, plus some beef mince.

Zucchini and beetroot fritters - from the garden!!

 

How exciting is it to be able to make dinner that the majority of the ingredients were grown just outside in the garden??? Very very exciting indeed!

Our zucchini crop is doing quite well, and I had to thin out the beetroot in the patch, so the result was these fritters -

Ingredients
3 large zucchini
2 baby beetroot
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
fresh herbs (I had parsley, basil, thyme, rosemary & oregano)
2 eggs
3 tablespoons cottage cheese
4-5 tablespoons SR flour

In a food processor grate zucchini & beetroot. Put into a large bowl.

Then with the chopper blade, whizz up the onion, garlic, and herbs.  Add the eggs and cottage cheese and whizz till combined.

Mix this through the grated vegies in the large bowl.  Add the flour a couple of spoonfulls at a time.  You may need more, you may need less.  When the mix looks like it is not overly runny, I usually make a test fritter - fry in a hot frying pan with a little oil and see if the mixture holds together.  If its a disaster, add a bit more flour and try again!

If your test fritter is ok, continue to fry heaped spoonfuls of mix until browned on both sides.  I take the cooked fritters and put into a preheated oven so they don't get cold while I am making the rest.

I served my fritters with some tomato salsa (tomatoes were from the garden also!) made with chopped tomatoes, a little olive oil, balsamic vinegar, black pepper and oregano.

Spaghetti Pie!

Here is an easy dinner - delicious too!!

It involves cooking some spaghetti and mixing with a tomato sauce (I make my own with garlic, onion, tomatoes and basil, but use a jar if thats easier!).  You want the sauce to just coat the spaghetti, you don't want it swimming with sauce.

Spread half of the tomatoey spaghetti in the base of an oven proof dish. 

Mix together a tub of ricotta cheese, 2 beaten eggs, a little grated parmesan and a grated zucchini (or baby spinach), and whatever fresh herbs you like.

spread this over the spaghetti.  Top with the remaining tomatoey spaghetti, sprinkle over some grated cheese and backe in a moderate oven for 30-40 minutes!  Cut into pieces to serve. YUM!!

dinner at home - tacos

here is an easy dinner! it just takes a little organisation and putting stuff out in containers! For our tacos, I made 2 fillings, 1 with beef mince, 1 with Quorn mince. The beef mince, for Janet, I cooked up simply with some bbq sauce. The Quorn mince, I cooked up with some red kidney beans, chilli, cumin and tomato.

The other fillings we had were - baby spinach, grated cheese, corn, fresh tomato, greek yoghurt, and taco sauce (this came in the packet with the taco shells).

I bought a box of "hard & soft Taco kit", which is perfect for us, because Janet likes the crunchy tacos, and I like the soft tortillas!

dinner at home - garden marinated chicken/tofu

I marinated the Chicken & Tofu in mostly things I picked from my garden - I pounded together in the mortar & pestle -  lemongrass, chilli, basil, and a clove of garlic (from the shop!), with a drizzle of vegetable oil, and rubbed this over the chicken and the tofu, then left it in the fridge for about an hour.  I then simply panfried until the tofu was crisp, and the chicken was cooked.




I served both with some steamed rice and some braised vegies (cooked with a little soy sauce).

Delicious and Simple!

Dinner at Home - Pumpkin & Feta Ravioli

I finally got around to making ravioli with actual fresh pasta rather than with wonton wrappers. And yes, it is worth the effort.  I did not go to the trouble of cutting out circles to make my ravioli - I cut rectangles, which meant that I didnt have to waste any of my pasta sheets.  A more patient and perfectionist-minded person would probably have taken more time to make sure that all the rectangles were the same size, but I just cut them with a knife using my eye to roughly guess the right measurements :-)

I filled the ravioli with pumpkin I had cooked with some garlic, onion, fresh herbs and olive oil in a frying pan, mixed with some danish-style feta.

I put small amounts of the filling onto one side of the pasta rectangle, brushed the edges with egg and folded in half to create roughly square-shaped ravioli. Once the pasta was cooked in boiling water, I tossed it through a light tomato sauce (simply tossed some diced tomato through some butter, garlic and onion in a pan)

This dish was based on the below recipe that I got when I did the Perfect Pasta Class at Focus by James restaurant at Springwood last year - just substitute some homemade pasta for the wonton wrappers and add some tomato to the butter sauce.



Ravioli filled with Roast Pumpkin, Persian Fetta, Garlic and Lemon Thyme, with a Sage Burnt Butter Sauce

Ingredients – serves 2:




¼ pkt fresh wonton sheets
100g butternut pumpkin
1 brown onion
¼ bunch fresh basil
¼ bunch fresh sage
¼ bunch lemon thyme
1 clove garlic
35g Persian fetta
75g grated parmesan cheese
100g butter
1 egg
olive oil
salt and pepper


1. Pre-heat oven to 200°C
2. Cut pumpkin into small pieces place on roasting tray, splash a bit ofolive oil and lemon thyme over it and roast until soft

3. Meanwhile, dice the onion and garlic finely

4. Fry onion, garlic in the pan on a low heat until soft, add pumpkin

5. Chop basil and add to mix (save some leaves for garnish)

6. Add fetta to the mix. Season to taste, take off heat

7. Put large pot of water on the boil


8. Brush outside edges of wonton wrappers with egg

9. Place filling in centre of each ravioli, and fold circle in half to form pasta parcels, press edges together to seal, then trim edges

10. Cook ravioli in boiling water till pasta is soft and rises to the surface. This should take about two minutes


11. Grate parmesan with microplane while you wait


12. In a frying pan, melt butter and add chopped sage


13. Cook on medium heat until butter just begins to brown, andsage leaves go crisp

14. Season to taste


15. Immerse cooked ravioli in sauce briefly to take up sauce

16. Plate the ravioli, and sprinkle with parmesan cheese and topwith saved basil leaves


17. Serve hot and immediately

Out to Dinner - Urban Burger, Browns Plains

Urban Burger opened a while ago at Village Square, Browns Plains.  They grabbed my attention by having not 1, not 2, but 3 different vegetarian burgers on their menu! I hae visited them four times now, so have had a chance to try out all 3, and have settled on my favourite.

Janet has had the same burger each time we have been there - the BBQ "100% prime beef, cheddar, bacon, bbq sauce, salad, relish, aioli" ($10.90). 




Janet also added snack fries and a drink for $4.50. I skipped the fries. Due to my no deep fried food rule for this year.



my burger of choice was the Urban Red "chickpea & red vegie pattie, brie cheese, basil pesto, salad, relish, aioli" ($10.50). I think this is my favourite vegie option here, because it has heaps of flavour, and the cheese doesn't hurt either! my next choice would be the Vegan Vibe - it has a lentil & kidney bean pattie, and comes with avocado!

I like the rolls that they serve the burgers on, as they seem to be quite light and airy, so don't completely fill you up before you get to the burger part!  Urban burger also have gluten free buns available.

Dinner at home - Potato and Vegie Cakes

What to do with the leftover potato from the stuffed potatoes???

How about some Potato and Vegie Cakes!!

Because the amount of leftover  potato will vary depending on how many stuffed potatoes you have made, its a little hard to give exact quantities - This is how I used up the potato left over from 3 stuffed potatoes (probably less than a cup of potato).

I simply added 1 egg to the mashed potato, along with some frozen peas, corn, garlic chives and a little grated haloumi. I mixed this together well, then fried  spoonfuls gently in olive oil. Don't have the heat too high, the mix is quite fragile, and requires some gentle slow cooking in order to form a nice crust and to set before flipping.






Janet had her potato cakes with a couple of Sausages



I had mine with some cooked tomato and a Sanitarium Vegie Delight Schnitzel

Dinner at home - Sunday Night Stuffed Potatoes

This was a quick and easy Sunday night dinner.

I took 3 potatoes with their skin on, and cooked them in the microwave (stab them a little first so they don't explode).  I just pushed the "potato" button on my microwave, so its best you follow your own instructions :-).  If you weren't trying to make this quickly, you could of course bake the potatoes in a conventional oven!

After the potatoes were cooked, I sliced them each in half lengthways, and scooped out most of the flesh, leaving behind potato cups, ready to be filled.  I put the hollowed out potatoes onto an oven tray and baked in a hot oven to crisp up a little while I prepared the filling.

What you fill them with is up to you - the possibilities are endless - you could even just mash the potatoes insides, add a little cheese and refill with this. I however, decided to make a vegetarian mince filling.
Into a frying pan, I cooked half a red onion in a little olive oil.  To this, I added a chopped clove of garlic, a chopped red chilli, and some fresh rosemary & thyme.  Once the onion had softened, I added some vegie stock, chopped cherry tomatoes and the cheek of a red capsicum. I cooked this until the capsicum was quite soft, and sweet.  To this tomatoey mix, I added about a cup (maybe less - it was a shake of the packet) of frozen Quorn mince, a little frozen corn, and cooked till the mince was heated through.  As the mix was a little wet, I stirred in a couple of spoonfuls of the potato to thicken it all up. 

I then spooned the filling into the now slightly crispy potato cups, topped with a little cheese and put back into the oven for the cheese to melt.

Dinner at Home - Lemon Chilli Chicken with pan fried potatoes

An easy weeknight dinner - Before work, I put a chicken breast into a bowl with the juice of a lemon, a tablespoon of olive oil, a sprinkle of paprika, and a chopped red chilli, and left this to marinate in the fridge for the day.

 Spend the day at work, then come home and start to prepare the potatoes!

I simply sliced a potato into 3 lengthways, leaving the skin on. Into a cold frying pan I put some olive oil, a red chilli, a peeled clove of garlic and some thyme and rosemary from the garden. I gently heated this up and then added the poato slices, and cooked slowly until the potato slices were cooked through. Before serving, I turned up the heat a little to increase the crispness of the potatoes.





The chicken, I simply panfried until it was golden brown and cooked through





I was quite impressed with the colour of the chicken!




For myself, I threw together a quick, but delicious salad - I panfried some Soyco Thai Tofu, and served it on a salad of baby spinach, red capsicum, cherry tomatoes (from the garden), red onion, and a coupe of raw purple beans.  I squeezed over some lemon juice just before serving. YUM!!

Spring Rolls!!

One of my New Years Resolutions, or RULES as I like to call them, is to not eat any deep fried foods.  The main obstacle I see in following this rule is my love of Spring Rolls.  So  I decided to make an experimental batch of oven baked vegie spring rolls. And I must say they were quite a success!!

TO make the filling, I blitzed a variety of vegies in my little food processor - carrots, zuccinni, capsicum, onion, until they were fairly finely chopped.  You could also grate them as an alternative. I then cooked these in a frying pan with a little vegetable oil, along with some garlic, ginger and chilli.  I also added soy sauce to taste, and a pinch or so of brown sugar.  And some bean thread noodles that had been soaked in water till soft.  I also added some Quorn mince.  Basically, anything I could find!!

Once the filling was cooked and tasting delicious, I set it aside to cool. 

Then, using spring roll wrappers I bought from the freezer section of Woolworths, I rolled up my spring rolls, and gave them a brief spray with some spray on cooking oil.  I baked the rolls in a hot oven until they were golden brown and crispy