Prawns and Snowpeas pasta in a zesty yogurt sauce

This is a great dish when you're short on time on a warm night. The zesty yogurt sauce is appetizing, light and creamy. In another word....PERFECTAMENTE!

Creamy Zesty Light pasta with Prawns and snow peas

I love this dish so much! Basically my friend Squishy showed me two different pasta dish and I thought it would be perfect to combine them. Here's what you will need.

Ingredients:

• Pasta
• Prawns
• Snow peas
• Cherry tomatoes
• Chili
• Parmesan cheese
• Small Tub/cup of Greek yogurt
• Half a lemon ( Zest & juice)
• Garlic
• Basil
• Dill
• Salt & Pepper
• Butter
• Olive oil
• White wine

Directions

• Cook pasta per direction. I used spaghetti but use whatever you like. Same same.
• Heat oil in pan, add the butter to melt then add the garlic, cook til golden and add the prawns
• Toss in the tomatoes and snow peas, add some fresh herbs (I put in dill and basil), add a dash of white wine and chili and add the pasta to toss through. You can actually stop here and have a yummy pasta dish (this was one of the recipes)
• If you wanna try something new - empty of the tub of Greek yogurt into salad bowl, add zest of half a lemon plus the juices, salt and pepper and Parmesan cheese
• Combine everything together and top with more cheese. Trust me it's so good, even my Italian flatmate was impressed ;)

Jamie Oliver's Pumpkin and Spinach Rotolo

So Mr ShyGuy is going to the Freezing Land of nowhere to teach for a year, so I figured I'll make something fancy for one of the last meals he'll have at home. I recently bought a copy of Jamie Oliver's Save $$$ Cookbook and this Vegetarian Pumpkin and Spinach Rotolo caught my eye.

I must admit it's alot more effort than what I usually make (1 pot wonders) and this involved 3 pots and a baking tray....but it's kinda one off (for now) unless I need to impress someone I might make it again. But saying that is not to put you off from trying it, because it was really yum! And looks impressive, it wasn't very hard to do - kinda like rolling sushi, but just need to get all the components ready. Took about 1hr and 30 mins include the 30 mins baking time.

Alrite so let's get started.

JO's Pumpkin & Spinach Rotolo

Ingredients:

• Peeled and roasted pumpkin
• English Spinach
• Garlic
• Parmesan Cheese
• Feta
• Can of  diced tomato
• Onion
• Chili
• Basil
• Pasta sheet (Lasagna)
• Salt and Pepper

Directions:

• Mash up the roasted pumpkin
• Heat up the olive oil in pan, add the garlic and onion, brown and then add the spinach to wilt it and add the chili
• Cook the pasta sheet as per instructed
• Assemble the ingredients as you would with sushi: pasta sheet down, add pumpkin layer, then spinach, then feta, and roll it up. Leave it resting with the "flap" side down
• Heat up the can of diced tomato with more onion and garlic, chili, basil and season with salt and pepper
• Cut up the roll, and plate up with the sauce, add the rolls and top with parmesan

Vegetarian Baked Eggs with Mushrooms and Tomato

Sunday Brunch....my favourite meal of the week.

This is the time I can get up leisurely, make a cup of coffee and peruse over my fridge and pantry and decide what to start my week with. Sunday is the beginning of the week right?

I've already made the big breakfast with scrambled eggs, mushrooms, tomatos and avocado on Saturday, so figured I'll mix it up a bit.... I've made pancakes the last couple of Sundays....I Looove Pancake. But yeah time for a change... so browsing through foodblogs...I came across these little baked eggs in muffin tins. Score!

Yummy Baked Eggs

Here's how I made mine:

Ingredients:

• Sliced bread (white or brown or whatever you have)
• Desired number of eggs
• Tomatos, chopped
• Mushrooms, chopped
• Spring Onions, chopped
• Parsley, chopped
• Tasty Cheese, gratted
• Butter
• Salt and Pepper

* Feel free to subsitute filling with what you like, say....BACON!!!

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 180C
• Saute the mushrooms, tomatos and spring onions in butter
• Spray the muffin tin with oil (I forgot to do it and was a bit difficult to get them out afterwards)
• Smash the bread with your palm/fist to flatten it a bit and then smoosh it into the muffin tin
• Fill each bread cup with the coked veggies
• Topped with some cheese
• Crack an egg into each cup
• Put in oven and cook for around 15 -18 minutes until the eggs are cooked to desired consistency
• Scatter some chopped parsley on top and serve!

I also squirted some Siracha Chili Sauce on top heh

My Aboslute Favourite - Jamaican Curry Goat

If you ask me what's my favourite Jamaican dish is......the list of probable responses would be:
a. Jerk Chicken
b. Escovitch Fish
c. Oxtail stew
d. Curry Goat

and my answer every time would be Curry Goat, I've only had it a few times here in Oz (always at a restaurant) and have been wanting to make my own. Finally the other day we went to the markets and came across an ethnic butcher and I decide to poke my head in and see what's available and what do you know, right in front of me is a tray of "curry goat" meat. It's like calling to me to take it home.

I was so excited and quickly messaged a few friends to come over for a Sunday night dinner party.

The goat turned out amazing! I saw a piece left on Mr ShyGuy's plate and I thought he wasn't having it so I quickly stabbed it and transferred it to my plate, only to have him turn around and tell me he was saving it and was just going to get a knife to cut it down.... o well, you snooze you lose....heehee

Here's the Jamaican Curry Goat Recipe:

Ingredients:

the curry goat bubbling away happily on my stove

• 500g curry goat meat
• 2 onions, sliced
• 5 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 potatos, cubed
• 2 carrots, cubed
• 2 sprigs spring onion, chopped
• 1 habernero chilli, chopped
• curry powder
• all spice
• thyme
• Ketchup
• Apple Cider Vinegar
• Supar
• Salt and Pepper
• Oil

Directions:

• Add 1 of the sliced onion, garlic, chili, curry powder, salt and pepper to the goat meat and let marinate for at least 5 hrs or overnight
• Heat up oil in your heavybased sauce pan and brown the goat meat, leaving the onion/chili stuff behing
• After meat is browned on all sides, all remaining marinating stuff to the pan and top with some boiling water until meat is covered, put lid on and simmer on medium/low heat for 1 hr
• Add the chopped up vegetables and top with more curry powder
• Add seasoning and cook down uncovered til the sauce is thick and gloppy

Serve with white rice, I'm so making this again soon!

BEST Tuna Salad - Super Healthy

 

So the other day at work, Ms KB brought this amazing tuna dip to our Cheese Day Extravaganza and I loooved her dip, if you left me with it I would have polished it off and maybe even ignored the cheese (!). It was that good. She told me it was super easy to make, just 1 tub of Philly cream cheese and tuna with some lemon juice, S & P. Seriously it was good and simple.

I've made it and loved it. But the whole experience was shadowed by a twinge of guilt with the philly cream cheese. When I reported back to Ms KB about how much I loved the dip, she told me the alternative healthy version was to use cottage cheese. Well I know how much my friend ItsyBitsy's partner Hulk30 was loving cottage cheese during his bulking up stage, so I know it's super healthy.

Here's the tried and tested BEST Tuna Salad Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 medium can tuna in springwater
• 1 250g tub of cottage cheese (lite, if you want)
• 1/2 sliced spanish onion
• 1/2 apple chopped
• 1 handful of chopped parsley
• 1 tablespoon seeded mustard
• Generous squirt of lemon juice
• Salt &  Pepper

Directions:

Mix it all up and eaaaaat it now!

Breakfast and Brunch

Breakfast and Brunch - definitely the most important meal of the day. Well especially Brunch since that's 2 meals in one and usually the highlight of my weekends.

Shashuka with Feta

This morning I was having a craving for poached eggs in a spicy tomatoey sauce - Shashuska. It's a popular Israeli dish that can be eaten at brekfast/lunch or dinner, but usually doesn't have cheese, but I'm a rebel! heh

I've made it once before and it was great. But alas, my fridge was empty :( and needed to make a quick trip to the local fruit and veg shop for some ingredients

Ingredients

• Onion
• Garlic
• Capsicum
• Can of diced tomato
• Eggs
• Chili
• Cumin
• Salt & Pepper
• Parsley
• Feta (optional)

Directions

Cook the diced onion, garlic and capsicum, add in the can of tomatoes, season, cook uncovered to reduce the sauce and then crack in eggs, cook til eggs are almost ready, top with feta and parsley. Served with toast

Vegetarian Frittatas

 Vegetarian Frittatas

These gorgeous little frittatas are made with so much veggies, they're really good for you - plus it's low carbs!
Basically cook mixed veg (onion, garlic, capsicum, mushrooms and spinach) and then add in beaten eggs, fill the muffin pan and topped with feta of course and bake in oven. Perfect snack and great for picnics!

Weekend Brunch

More Brunch

Here's just some other breakfast I made, the poaching technique is coming along  

2014 Cooking and Eating

I meant to post earlier but then my laptop died O.o and I really couldn't do it properly from my phone, so that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

There's been a few highlights so far:

Firstly Fijian Kokoda, this was one of the food highlights from my trip to Fiji last year, I kept thinking about it upon my return. It was the perfect meal on a 40+ degrees C day.

Fijian Kokoda - Cerviche with Coconut Cream

Ingredients 

• Any Firm fish 
• Celery 
• Spanish Onion 
• Tomato
• Capsicum
• Chili
• Salt & Pepper
• Light Coconut Cream
• Lemon/Lime juice
• Parsley

Directions:
Dice up all the ingredients, add the Lemon/Lime juice to "cook" the fish for 30 minutes, then add in the coconut cream and mix. Top with chopped parsley.

Pan seared Salmon, Creamy Feta with Beetroot Salad
and Orange Sesame Salad

Another dinner I was particularly pleased with was this Pan-Seared Salmon with 2 salads. The Feta was the souvenir from my trip to the Hunter's Valley with some friends at the Smelly Cheese Shop and it is divine! Really lifted the simple Beets and Mint with Feta salad.
The 2nd salad was an orange with sesame salad for some citrus notes to cut through the creaminess and sweetness of the other side. the Salmon was cooked skin side down until the skin was crispy and there's still a hint of the bright pinkness in the middle of the flesh. Perfect!








It's been a while since I made my Jamaican curries and since Mr Shy Guy doesn't eat beef, the usual meat substitute I use is Kangaroo, when I first posted this picture on FB, my Yaardie friends were all slightly horrified (and intrigued no doubt). It was actually really yum, the sweetness of the kangaroo meat added a twist to the usual Caribbean flavours, with thyme, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon and habanero chili for the extra kick - which is what makes it stand out from the other curries.

Jamaican Curried Kangaroo

Tikka Masala Chicken with Raita

 Here's a couple more dinners I made

Sweet potato and Quinoa Patties with Fig Salad