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Saturday, April 28, 2012

Spicy Chicken with Quinoa Patties


Until a couple of weeks ago I had never made quinoa. I'd read a lot about it and seen it on some of my favourite blogs but hadn't gotten around to trying it out myself. I'm always a little skeptical of trendy grains, you hear lots of people talking about this or that grain that you must eat and I always wonder if they are actually going to taste good enough to be worth the extra effort of finding them and often the extra money to buy them over say rice or cous cous. My boyfriend and I are trying to eat healthier, better proportioned meals though so when I saw this recipe from Joy the Baker it reminded me that I should give quinoa a go despite my skepticism. I was thinking that if the woman who created these things of delicious evil could get behind it then so could I. 

So I made up these patties from 101Cookbooks with some additions and subtractions according to what I had/could buy from the limited selection in supermarkets in the centre of Sydney. When it comes to healthy tasty food, Heidi from 101Cookbooks has it all worked out and this recipe baked up really nicely and was shared with many family friends. My boyfriend and Mum ate the leftovers and I'm told they gain a lot when served cold. This recipe made MANY patties.

This time I wanted to try some different flavours because I feel like quinoa can handle them. I went for a blend of some of my favourite flavours, fried onions and garlic with herbs and cheese is pretty much a staple around here. I paired them with a grilled chicken dish which I normally make to go into fajitas. It's mildly spicy with no burn and some soft garlicky flavours to accompany the chilli. It was delicious and I think I prefer this version of the patties. I'm sure there will be many more experiments to come.

Spicy Garlic Chicken with Quinoa Patties
Serves 4 (Quinoa adapted from 101Cookbooks)

Spicy Garlic Chicken

2 large chicken thighs (cut into strips)
6 garlic cloves (minced)
1/2 - 1 tsp chilli powder (adjust to taste)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 lemon (juiced)
2 tbsp olive oil

Mix all ingredients excepting the chicken into a paste. Marinate for 2 hours or more. Grill or BBQ.

Onion and Parmesan Quinoa Patties

1 cup quinoa
1 white onion (finely diced)
3 - 4 garlic cloves (minced)
1 tbsp dried thyme 
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
3 eggs 
3 tbsp milk

1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup grated parmesan
3/4 cup bread crumbs

Place quinoa in a sauce pan with 1 2/3 cups of water and a pinch of salt. Bring to boil and then simmer on low until quinoa is tender. Leave to cool.

Over a medium heat fry onion, add garlic, thyme and pepper when onion is translucent and cook until onion and garlic are beginning to brown. Leave to cool.

Beat eggs with milk and set aside. Add salt, parmesan and breadcrumbs to onion mixture and stir well to combine. Add quinoa and gently stir through making sure ingredients are well distributed. Pour over egg mixture and stir through. If the mixture is too dry, add a couple of tbsp of water to the mixture, you want it to be fairly moist. 

Preheat oven to 200C. Using damp hands form mixture into patties and place onto a baking tray covered with baking paper. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes turning after 20mins. 

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Pork Mince & Green Bean Stirfry


We eat a lot of asian food, it's not that we don't like and appreciate other cuisine types it just ends up that way. Most days as a meal time approaches one of will ask 'Asian or Non?' Asian wins probably more than it's fair share.  It might be the quick prep and cooking times, the flavour packed dishes or the light feel that most dishes have, whatever the reason it has always been something I've cooked a lot of. Over time I've built up a fair repertoire of dishes from stir frys to currys, they've been adapted over time to suit growing skill and changing preferences. I'd guess that none of them are traditional in the slightest but adaptation is the fun of cooking.

The dish above is a fairly recent addition. I started messing around with it about mid way through last year and have been tweaking it since. It's inspired by a Sichuan dish of green beans with pork mince which I often find served as a side at Northern Chinese places where the mince plays more of a supporting role to the beans. I turned it into more of a stir fry by merging it with one of my favorite sauce mixes and increasing the amount of mince. The result is a dry stir fry which still has quite a high vegetable to meat quotient. It's also a new favourite for dinner.

Pork Mince & Green Bean Stirfry
Serves 4

Ingredients
250 grams pork mince
4 handfuls green beans (sliced into 2cm pieces)
4 lrg garlic cloves (sliced)
4 shallots (sliced)

Sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
3 tsp dark soy
5 tsp light soy
4 tsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp chilli powder

Mix together the sauce ingredients in a small bowl. In a wok, fry garlic and shallots until shallots are wilted and garlic is beginning to brown. Add pork mince, trying to break up the mince as much as possible, and fry until cooked through. Add sauce and bean and fry until sauce is completely absorbed and beans are cooked to your liking.

Serve with steamed rice.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Starting over


So I did a small swatch of the lace pattern for the scarf and realised I was noticeably off. I'm a bit further along than in this picture, I've been knitting a row every now and then and sometimes a little more in the evening. It was a little painful to frog it all but I'm glad I did it. 

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Poached Chicken with Ginger and Shallots


This recipe is so easy, its one of my favourites to whip up when I'm feeling lazy or in need of some healthy comfort food. It's inspired by Chinese Hai Nan Chicken, but in a version more accessible for home kitchens. The chicken is poached with the rice in chicken stock laced with garlic and ginger. The punch of flavours come from the sauce made from grated ginger, finely chopped shallots and sesame oil and a drizzle of soy sauce. Better yet you can pre-make and freeze the ginger, shallot sauce in an ice cube tray for an even easier weeknight meal.

Poached Chicken with Ginger and Shallots
Adapted from Dona Hay's No Time to Cook.
Serves 4

Ingredients 

4 chicken thighs (cubed)
4 garlic cloves
6 slices ginger
1 1/2 cups rice
3 cups chicken stock

Ginger and Shallot Sauce
2 shallots (I use the top 2/3rds sliced thinly and save the bottom third for stir frys later in the week)
2 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp canola oil
1 pinch salt

8 tbsp good quality light soy sauce (I drizzle 1 - 2tbsp in each bowl start slow though and season to taste)

Place stock, whole garlic cloves and ginger slices in a saucepan and bring to boil. Turn heat down to low, add rice and cover. Cook for 5 mins and then add the chicken, cook for a further 20 - 30mins or until rice is cooked. Meanwhile make the sauce; slice the shallots and add them to the grated ginger, oils and salt, stir to combine.

Once rice is cooked remove ginger slices and stir thoroughly to mix through the garlic. Serve with ginger and shallot sauce and soy sauce.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Easy Chicken Noodle Soup


The last month or so have been a small reprieve from the rainy weather which, apparently was the main feature of summer in Sydney this year. However today the rain is back and my day is looking very indoor bound, lots of reading, catching up on my blog roll, a bit of knitting and keeping the sick boyfriend company. So due to weather and temperamental stomachs, chicken noodle soup seemed like a pretty good lunch option.

Now I know that chicken noodle soup is nothing ground breaking, I have vivid childhood memories of chicken noodle soup from a packet with toast soldiers. My boyfriend always seems to have a can of chicken and pasta soup somewhere, as an easy back up to actual cooking. I'm sure none of this is uncommon. But while we were in Rome we were caught in a sleet storm and I came up with this soup recipe to keep us company that afternoon. It's dead easy and it will leave you wondering why you bothered with the tinned or packet stuff for all this time.



Easy Chicken Noodle Soup

10 + extra cups chicken stock (homemade, pre-made or even stock powder works fine)
1 bulb garlic
1/2 - 1 tsp ground black pepper
5 sprigs thyme
2 tsp chopped chives
1/4 - 1/2 tsp chilli flakes (optional but it adds quite a nice bite to the soup)
2/3 cup short pasta (any short pasta will do in Rome we used tiny tubes, today I used rissoni)

Feel free to add your own mix of herbs and spices, this recipe is really easy to tweak to suit your tastes.

Peel most of the skin off the whole garlic bulb. Chop the top off the bulb of garlic. I of course forgot to take a photo at this stage but if you want a pic of how it's meant to look pop on over to Smitten Kitchen and while you're there make sure you check out the rest of that recipe for Baked Potato Soup, it's fantastic.

Place the all ingredients except the pasta in a large sauce pan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 1 hour adding some more stock half way through to make sure the quantities remain the same.

Remove the garlic bulb, any skin which has peeled off during cooking and the sprigs of thyme from the pot. Add the pasta and cook until al dente. Meanwhile press the cooked garlic out of its skin and mash into a paste. Add desired amount garlic paste to soup. We like our really garlicky but everyone's different. I add about 3/4 of the paste back into the soup.

Once pasta is done serve and enjoy.



Sunday, April 15, 2012

More Knitting Cotton Scarf

Sydney is having a lovely mild Autumn so far. Over the last week the temperature does seem to be dropping, especially in the mornings and evenings, and while it's not time to pull out the woollens yet I am feeling the need to add a couple of extra layers to my outfits. I found this ball and a half of Bendigo Woollen Mills 8ply cotton in the colour parchment when I raided Mum's stash just before I left Australia.

                               Photo Courtesy of klement1983                                Date Night by Nikol Lohr

I was thinking about making it into the lace short sleeve top above but this morning I was thinking about how nice a light, lace, cotton scarf would be right now and so impulsively cast on this.


It's meant for 4ply bamboo yarn but with something like this I'm pretty certain that it won't matter in the end. I cast on less stitches than the pattern specified. I got a little way into it today but I'm not certain that the pattern is working properly. I think I may not have cast on the right number of stitches so I'm going to have to check that and then maybe frog the whole scarf and start again. Ah such is the ways of knitting. It still seems such a shame to rip out a whole days work, but it's better than always looking at a pattern repeat that's not working.