Spring Chicken Terrine - Red Tractor November

The Red Tractor calendar recipe for November is Spring Chicken Terrine.  I am not a huge fan of terrines, but they are OK.  Terrines are great for picnics or serving with crackers or bread as a starter at a dinner party.

This month's calendar quite is as follows:

When I was at University, jacarandas struck terror into the hearts of students, as legend had it that you were doomed if you had not started studying before the jacarandas bloomed.  It was also said that if a falling jacaranda flower hit you on the head, you would forget everything for your exam.  For this reason, this month's quote brings back that feeling of Swat Vac and exams - not the most pleasant feeling in the world.

This terrine is made with a mixture of pork mince, chicken mince, spinach and prosciutto. My terrine was a half recipe only.  I quite liked it, though would have loved some chilli to give it a bit of oomph.  Instead, I gave it oomph by serving it with mustard pickles and gherkins:  

If you would like to try this terrine for yourself, you will need:

500g pork mince
500g chicken mince 
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 tablespoon fresh chopped thyme
2 tablespoons green peppercorns
2 eggs
1 packet frozen chopped spinach, thawed and with excess water squeezed out
Splash of balsamic vinegar
100ml chicken stock
salt and pepper
12 slices prosciutto

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

Mix the minces together in a large bowl.

In a small frypan, saute the onion until soft, and add to the bowl of mince with the allspice, peppercorns, thyme eggs, spinach, balsamic vinegar and chicken stock.  Season with salt and pepper to taste, and mix together well (your hands work best for this).

Grease a terrine dish and line with the prosciutto, reserving two slices for the top.  Put the mince mixture into the prepared terrine dish and pack down well.  Place the two reserved slices of prosciutto on top and press down well.

Place the terrine in a baking tray, filled halfway up the sides with hot water.  Put the baking tray in the oven and bake the terrine for one and half hours or until cooked through.

Remove the terrine from the oven and allow it to cool to room temperature on a wire rack.  Once cooled, cover the terrine with foil, and place a heavy object on top of it and put it in the fridge to chill overnight.

Serve with bread, crackers and your choice of condiments.

Italian Sausage and Barley Soup

I enjoy looking through the free supermarket magazines for recipe ideas, and often come up with great new dishes to try.  One of my favourites this last year has been the Italian Sausage and Barley Soup from the Coles magazine.

This soup takes sausages that have been removed from their casings, and adds them to a flavourful soup of carrot, celery, pearl barley and tomatoes.  It is both tasty and hearty.  It is also very simple to make.

To make this soup, you will need:

4 cups water
4 sausages removed from their casing
1 chopped carrot
3 chopped celery sticks
1 x 400g can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup pearl barley

Heat a large non-stick saucepan, and add the sausage. Cook the sausage, breaking it up into pieces as you go, until golden brown.

Add the carrots and celery to the pan and cook until the vegetables are softened.

Add the pearl barley to the pan, then add the tomatoes and stir to combine.

Add the water to the pan and bring to the boil.  Reduce the heat to medium to low, then cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes until the soup thickens slightly.  Add salt and pepper to taste, then serve with crusty bread.

This is a perfect meal for a cold day, warming you on the inside.

Sweet Potato, Mince and Pasta Bake

In my quest for the perfect lunch dish, I recently found a recipe for Sweet Potato and Mince Pasta Bake published in the Australian Women's Weekly featured in an advertisement for sweet potatoes.  I liked the sound of the ingredients, which included both meat and vegetables.

I made some changes to the recipe  that were mostly accidental.  I used fusilli rather than penne because that is what I found at my supermarket.  I left out the spinach because I forgot to buy it, and the pine nuts because I couldn't find them in my pantry cupboard.

I recommend using a food processor to grate the vegetables as this will save you a lot of time and grief. 

This is a really hearty, warming winter lunch, and I would happily make it again.  

If you think that you'd like to make this dish (my version), you will need:

• 350g dried pasta
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 500g beef mince
• 400g sweet potato, peeled, coarsely grated
• 1 small zucchini, coarsely grated
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 400g can diced tomatoes
• 1 cup  beef stock
• 4 sprigs thyme
• 100g ricotta
• 1/2 cup grated cheese

Preheat your oven to 220°C.

Cook the pasta according to packet instructions.

Heat the oil in a frypan and cook  the onion and garlic until softened. Add the mince and cook until browned. Add the sweet potato and zucchini and cook until softened slightly.  

Add the tomato paste, tomatoes, stock and thyme, then simmer, uncovered, for 15-20 minutes until thickened slightly.

Combine the pasta and the sweet potato mixture in a large ovenproof dish. Crumble over the ricotta, and sprinkle with grated cheese. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden.

Remove from the oven and serve with a garden salad. 

Tuna Pasta Bake

I have said before that I struggle to find good dishes to make for lunch that go beyond the stodgy sandwich.  Recently, in a Taste magazine newsletter, I found inspiration in a really good recipe for a simple Tuna Pasta Bake.  This pasta bake only uses six ingredients.  I bumped it up to seven by adding frozen vegetables to make it a true "one pot" dish that is transportable and can be heated up in the microwave for lunch at work.

This is the kind of dish that speaks for itself, so without further ado, here is how to make it.

Gather together:

300g dried macaroni
40g butter or margarine
2 tablespoons plain flour
2 cups skim milk
3/4 cup reduced fat melty grated cheese
425g can of tuna in springwater, drained
250g mixed frozen chopped vegetables
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 220 degrees Celsius.  Lightly grease a large casserole dish.

Cook the macaroni according to packet instructions then drain, reserving a quarter of a cup of the cooking water.

Melt the butter or margarine in a saucepan, then add the flour and stir for a minute over the heat.  Remove the saucepan from the heat and pour in the milk.  Stir to combine then return to the heat, and continue stirring until the sauce thickens.  Season with salt and pepper, and stir through a quarter of  a cup of the cheese.

Combine the cooked macaroni, tuna, frozen vegetables and reserved cooking water, then arrange evenly on the bottom of the greased casserole dish.      Sprinkle the top with the rest of the cheese, then bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden.

Serve and enjoy!  (I got 6 servings out of it.)

EwE - Asian Chicken Wrap - Picnic Day

This week's Eating with Ellie theme is Picnic Day, chosen by moi.  For my recipe, I chose Ellie's Asian Chicken Wrap from So Easy, also online here.

I made a couple of changes to the recipe.  The recipe called for Asian cabbage (wombok) leaves, but my supermarket rarely stocks those, so I used lettuce leaves instead.

I also detest raw capsicum, so I subbed in sliced tomatoes.

Here is the filling before being wrapped: 

I really liked the sauce that Ellie included in the recipe to drizzle over the ingredients.  It lifted the wrap from boring to interesting.

To see what the others made for Picnic Day, visit the LYL section of the Eating with Ellie website.

EwE - Chicken and Mushroom Quesadillas - Cinco de Mayo Fiesta

Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, so Peggy has chosen the seasonal theme of Cinco de Mayo Fiesta for this week's Eating with Ellie.

I decided to make Chicken and Mushroom Quesadillas from So Easy - because they were so easy!  There was a traditional Mexican stew in another of my books, but it called for ingredients that I would find hard to obtain (hominy, tomatillos).

I was a bit worried that Chicken and Mushroom would be a little bland, but it is far from it - Ellie spices things up with cumin, chilli and oregano, so the end result is anything but bland.  I also highly recommend investing in the salsa and sour cream for the side.  I bought them thinking that they went into the quesadillas, and was miffed to learn that they were sides.  However, they really made the quesadillas delicious.

To see what everyone else made for Cinco de Mayo, visit the LYL section of the Eating with Ellie website.

EwE - Roast Beef Sandwich with Watercress and Horseradish Sauce - Lunch! Soup Salad or Sandwich

For Eating with Ellie this week, our theme is Lunch! Soup or Salad or Sandwich.  I made Ellie's Roast Beef Sandwich with Watercress and Horseradish Sauce from So Easy (also online here).

They don't sell bread as pumpernickel here, so I opted for dark rye bread.  (Fun fact - pumpernickel means farting devil.) I also didn't find watercress, but I did find micro watercress, so I went with that.  I figured the flavour profile would be the same.

This was quite a tasty sandwich.  There was just the right balance of zing vs sweet, and the flavours melded well.

To see what the others made this week, visit the LYL section of the EwE website.

EwE - Waldorf Chicken Wraps - Nuts and Such

For Eating with Ellie this week, our theme is Nuts and Such, chosen by Peggy.  I went with something that is perhaps less obvious to the theme, a Waldorf Chicken Wrap recipe from So Easy.

These were good and really were so easy.  The nut component is in the toasted walnuts in the wrap.  There is also crunchy apple, chicken (I just used pre-cooked BBQ chicken), lettuce and a home-made yoghurt based dressing, all wrapped up in a wholemeal wrap.  This was a terrific lunch.

To see what the others made this week, visit the LYL section of the EwE website. 

EwE - Eggs in a skillet with spicy tomato and bell pepper sauce (Shatsuka)

For Eating with Ellie this week, Chaya chose eggs in a skillet with spicy tomato and bell pepper sauce.

This dish was terrific - canned tomatoes are cooked up with onions, garlic and capsicum, an egg is broken on top, goats cheese is sprinkled on top and the whole  thing is garnished with parsley.  I made a serve for one for Saturday lunch and I loved it.

To see what the others thought of this dish, visit the LYL section of the Eating with Ellie website.

WWDH - Chilli Chicken Wraps

It's officially hump day - hope everyone has been having a good week.

Being Wednesday, it is Wednesday with Donna Hay time at my place, and this week, it's my pick of chilli chicken wraps from p142 of Off the Shelf. 

This one is exactly what it says on the tin - cooked shredded chicken is heated briefly with chilli paste, then placed in a wrap (flatbread) with grated carrot and salad of your choice.  I used tomato and baby spinach.

I enjoyed these wraps - the chilli chicken is what lifts it from drab to fab, and I enjoyed the chilli flavour.  I'd definitely make this one again.

To see what my fellow Donna Hay devotees, Margaret, Chaya and Sarah, thought of this dish, visit their websites.  And of course, you can join us at any time - just contact any one of us.

Corned beef and cabbage

Every week, I attend a clinical Pilates to keep mind and body together.  When I mention "mind", I have been lucky enough to fall in with a terrific bunch of girls in my class, and each week we chat about all manner of things during the class.  A regular topic is "what are you having for dinner?" A couple of weeks back, Alison said she was having corned beef.  Now I love corned beef but I had never cooked it myself before, so I was inspired by Alison to give it a go.

I had to look up a recipe for cooking corned beef, and after some unsuccessful searches thorugh my recipe books, I chanced upon this Donna Hay recipe on the Internet.  I left out the onions and carots, but otherwise cooked the corned beef as instructed.  The end result was magnificent - just like mother used to make, even though mother did not put all the extras in  she just adds a splash of vinegar, apparently.  My corned beef is topped with some chutney out of the jar - perfect!

 I had also never cooked cabbage before, and was wary of all the bad cabbage stories that I had heard.   Initially, I intended to boil the cabbage, but another trusty Internet search yielded a forum thread with a method for sauteeing shredded cabbage on the stovetop in oil, all purpose seasoning, salt (added last to avoid drying out the cabbage) and soy sauce.  This cabbage tasted pretty good, and stayed crispy rather than turning soggy.

Chuffed, I served my corned beef and cabbage with a jacket potato, cooked simply in the microwave and sprinkled with salt and all purpose seasoning, with a dash of low fat cream.  This was a dinner of champions! 

Even better, I have leftover corned beef for corned beef sandwiches for my lunch - solving the difficult question of what to have for lunch this week.  Corned beef, pickles and tomato on crusty bread is a winning lunchtime dish.

I hope that if, like me, you are a corned beef and cabbage novice, you find this post useful.

Wednesdays with Donna Hay - Roasted Pistachio and Honey Yoghurt and Smoked Ham and Cheese Toasties

Hooray!  I am so excited, because my blogging buddy, Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table, and I are going to be making Donna Hay recipes together this year, and posting the results on Wednesdays.  Kayte is from Indiana in the US, so it will be double the fun to watch her post exactly the same thing as me all those miles away and approximately 16 hours or so apart!  (As I write this on a Tuesday evening, it is currently an obscenely early hour on Tuesday morning in Kayte's part of the world - hopefully she is still asleep.)

Kayte first suggested last year that if I had the same Donna Hay book as she did, we could both make things together out of it.  I didn't have the book, so time ticked by, but the end of Tuesdays with Dorie gave me the kick I needed to raise it again with Kayte.  In time, we may go to one of Donna's fabulous books, but for now, we have decided (Kayte's suggestion) to cook recipes from Donna Hay's website.  For the uninitiated, Donna Hay is a phenomenal Aussie foodwriter, food stylist and cook; you can read more about her here.

On to the recipes!

Week 1 is breakfast, and was actually last week, but I was away from my own kitchen, so I am catching up this week.  Kayte chose Roasted Pistachio and Honey Yoghurt - you can see Kayte's post, which includes the recipe, here.

My version is pictured at the top of this post, served in a martini glass a la Mad Men (I would love to look like Joan Holloway in another life!).  I used roasted pistachios and passionfruit yoghurt.  I may have been a little heavy on the honey, as my nuts sank right into it.  (See Kayte's version for nice layers.) 

My Christmas present to me was a DSLR camera - you can see from the yoghurt shot that although my photos should get better, I have a way to go.  (Gotta love the auto-focus though - makes life so much easier.)

This week's Wednesday with Donna Hay (it rhymes!) is lunch - and I chose Smoked Ham and Cheese Toasties:

You can't see it that well in the photo, but these decadent toasties have Dijon mustard, smoked ham and grated cheese on one side, and cheese sauce on the other side - oh so good!  I had to flood the pan with the leftover cheese sauce, because I kept dipping my finger in to eat it as is! I used light Coon cheese instead of Swiss cheese, but otherwise made the recipe as suggested. 

The only catch with these toasties is that you need to make my nemesis, the roux, to make the cheese sauce.  I tried to use an ordinary saucepan first up to make the sauce instead of a heavy bottomed pan (because I didn't have a small one).  This was a disaster - the roux burned.  Luckily, I was making this recipe for one and didn't get past the first step, so there wasn't any harm done, and I ended up making the tiniest amount of cheese sauce in a whopping great pan.

Go visit Kayte in a few hours time to see what she thought of these toasties - and check out her fab nutty honey yoghurt.

Next week: Dinner - Sticky chicken parcels