Moroccan Quorn Tagine

I’ve been eating a lot of quorn lately – trying all the different forms of it, both refrigerated and frozen. So far I’ve liked everything except the “sweet chilli stir fry strips“, which were very dreary tasting and in texture were more like tofu than anything else. Meh, won’t be going for those again. Everything else, however has been quite delightful, and this Moroccan Quorn Tagine recipe from the quorn Australian website, using frozen quorn pieces, was very good.

Mine even looks pretty much like theirs, too! I didn’t bother serving with couscous or rice, as for just me it was enough to scoff into a bowl of it without any accompaniments. Very nice indeed.

I broke my vegetarian phase the other night, with a Crust mediterranean lamb pizza (loads of garlic!) – it tasted great but afterwards I felt really bloated and yuck, almost like I was being punished for eating meat! I didn’t feel at all well for the rest of the evening, a bit like when you have an MSG overload at a Chinese restaurant, which thankfully doesn’t happen often these days. I for one won’t go back to a place that does the too-much-MSG thing. The pleasure is just not worth the gesplurgledness (my word) – headache/nausea/palpitations/breathing trouble and “dry horrors” all night afterwards. Don’t get me wrong –  if you like MSG in your food then go ahead, it’s just not my thing, especially after living in Suriname where the shops sold big bags of “aji-no-moto” and didn’t understand why I didn’t add heaped tablespoons of it to every dish I cooked!

So, I think I’ll skip the meat for a while again….red meat at least. I do have a bit of a pang for chicken occasionally, and this Winter weather does makes me feel like a nice comforting roast sometimes.

Terrible weather here still…..cold, wet, windy…..roll on Spring.

Happy Fooding!

Crockpot Vegetable Chilli

Healthy and filling, this slow cooker chilli is the perfect example of the ‘chuck it all in and turn it on’ philosophy that slow cookers are all about. To me, a slow cooker should be about convenience, so the recipes where you still have to saute things on the stove first etc are just not my idea of fun. I want my crockpot to serve my needs, and this chilli suits the slow cooker ideal so well. Plus, it tastes great!

Vegetable Chilli

2 medium zucchini (OR 1 large eggplant), chopped

1 green or red capsicum, chopped

1 medium carrot, peeled & chopped

2 celery sticks, sliced (optional – include leaves as well)

2 brown onions, chopped

425 gm can chopped tomatoes

425 gm can chickpeas, drained & rinsed

2 tsp chilli paste

2 tsp cumin, ground

225 jar salsa (hot)

140 gms tomato paste

425 gm can corn kernels, drained

cracked pepper, to taste

Place all ingredients in crockpot. Cook on LOW for 8 hours. Serve with rice or tortillas.

It doesn’t get much easier than that!

Happy Fooding!

Vegetarian (or Not) Barley Stew

This Barley Stew is something I’ve been making for years, from the Internet somewhere, no idea where. It is true comfort food, perfect bowl food for a chilly Winter’s evening. This time, however I decided to make it as a meat dish, by simply adding a couple of chicken breast fillets to the pan. I was pleasantly surprised at how well this worked – no tweaking of the recipe was needed, I just added them along with the onion etc at the beginning.

So it’s your choice – without chicken as a great vegetarian main dish, or with chicken for the meat eaters.

Barley Stew

2 tbsp olive oil

2 chicken breast fillets, chopped into 2cm cubes (optional)

1 brown onion, finely chopped

4 cloves garlic, crushed

1/2 red capsicum, chopped

1/2 green capsicum, chopped

300 gms button mushrooms, chopped

1 cup pearl barley

425 gm can chickpeas, drained & rinsed

1 tsp cumin seeds, ground

a few drops Tabasco sauce, to taste

cracked pepper, to taste

1 tbsp soy sauce

4 cups vegetable stock

Heat oil over medium heat. Add chicken (if using), carrot, onion, garlic and capsicum and saute until onions are translucent. Add the mushrooms and saute for 2 minutes.

Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until barley is tender (about 50 minutes).

Serves 4

Happy Fooding!

1 medium carrot, peeled & finely chopped

Elies Tent

Here’s another restaurant review for you…….I love Middle Eastern food – Lebanese, Arabian etc. so I was really looking forward to this meal at Elies Tent.

Overall opinion – quite nice, but not outstanding and I think I’ll try elsewhere before I go back again.

Hummus & Babaganoush

We had a banquet as this was the best value and is a good way to try a bit of everything. Whilst the dips were pretty good (hummus and babaganoush) I’m sure the pita bread to go with it was just a bought one from the supermarket – VERY dry and brittle – whereas it should be piping hot and soft, served freshly out of the oven.

Falafels & lamb puffs

The nibbles of falafels and lamb puffs were delicious, as were the lamb and chicken kebabs – a tad burnt but for my taste I didn’t mind that really.

Lamb & chicken kebabs

The tabbouleh was superb – lemony fresh and salt with loads of fresh flat-leafed parsley; my photo of that turned out blurry though 😦

Finally there was a big plate of rice, which was quite sweet with cinnamon, fruit and almonds in it – very gluggy – topped with shaved cooked chicken and lamb that was very dry. I ate as much as I could anyway as I hate waste, but in the end we really did leave quite a bit on the plates.

Meat & rice

It was worth a try, but I won’t go back there again except maybe for a big bowl of their tabbouleh one lunchtime!

Happy Fooding!

Real Falafels…

I’ve been making my own baked falafels for a few years. About a year ago I tried one of those dried falafel mix boxes, where you just add water and an egg or something. Disgusting! Then a couple of months ago I saw some nice looking ready-made ones in a vacuum-sealed packet, in the supermarket. They came in different flavours and were on special so I thought I’d try them, as we were going away on the boat that weekend and wanted easy nibbles to take with us. Also disgusting! SO dry and tasteless.

I think I’ll just stick to my tried and true homemade ones. I bake them rather than fry, as I do not like food where all you can taste is oil. These are easy and delicious, and if you don’t like the yoghurt dipping sauce, sweet chilli is just as good.

Falafels

425 gm can chickpeas, drained

3 tbsp fresh mint, finely chopped

2 tbsp fresh coriander, finely chopped

1 medium carrot, peeled & grated

1/3 cup breadcrumbs

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 egg

1 tsp cumin seeds, ground

Sauce for Serving:

1 cup low-fat Greek yoghurt

1 tbsp fresh mint, finely chopped

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp lemon zest

1/2 tsp chilli paste (optional)

Mash the chickpeas in a food processor until smooth. Place in a bowl and mix with all other ingredients.

With clean hands, form into smooth oval shapes of about 1 tbsp of mixture each. Refrigerate for an hour, then bake on a greased oven tray at 200C for 20 minutes (turning over after 10 minutes).

Serve with dipping sauce – mix all sauce ingredients together and refrigerate until needed.

Makes 16.

Happy Fooding!

Vegetable Curry

Freshly ground spices and garlic make this into something out of the ordinary – not particularly hot, but full of flavour. Serve with brown rice, yoghurt & naan bread, and take the leftovers to work for lunch the next day (if there are any….).

Vegetable Curry

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp cumin seeds (whole)

1 cinnamon stick

1 large brown onion, chopped

6 cloves garlic, crushed

250 gms button mushrooms, cut into 3mm slices

425 gm can diced tomatoes

1/4 cup water

1 tbsp cumin seeds, freshly ground

2 tsp coriander seeds, freshly ground

2 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp chilli paste

2 x 425 gm cans chickpeas, drained & rinsed

1 bunch fresh coriander, chopped (about 3/4 cup)

cracked pepper, to taste

100 gms baby spinach leaves

1 tbsp lemon juice

Heat oil in medium saucepan over moderate heat.  Cook cumin seeds and cinnamon stick for 30 seconds, stirring until fragrant.  Add onion and garlic; cook for 3 mins until soft.  Add mushrooms; cook until wilted.  Stir through tomato, water, ground cumin, coriander, turmeric and chilli.  Simmer for 10 mins, stirring occasionally.  Add chickpeas and coriander and pepper; simmer for 10 mins longer.  Stir through spinach and lemon juice until wilted.

Remove cinnamon stick before serving.

Serves 4

Happy Fooding!

Travel Food Fare 6 – Pleasures Both Sweet & Palatial

I’ve just been to Brighton for 2 days, and visited the Royal Pavilion, built by George IV in the early 1800s. Wow, it was SO impressive, especially the banqueting hall and music room. No photos allowed inside but above is the outside of the building. I bought some postcards of the interior, but they just do not do justice to the spectacular ornateness (my word!) of this marvellous pleasure palace.

As well as the palace itself, there is currently an exhibition of Regency costumes, dotted through the various rooms. As I am a very keen stitcher, and my boyfriend’s mum used to be a seamstress, we were both really excited to see the costumes, which did not disappoint.

The weather was very similar to Melbourne (our lovely hot days have come to an end, but we have been extremely lucky so cannot complain at all) – cold and windy – but as long as you are rugged up, quite comfortable walking around.

We had a lovely lunch on the first day – I had a yummy grilled haloumi & hummus sort of burger thing on foccacia bread. Then for dinner that night the 5 of us went to a place called Bill’s in the Lanes part of the city (lots of alleyways full of antiques, junk shops, hippy clothing etc – great character). Bill’s is a rustic, home-y looking place with shelves of homemade produce (for sale) and baskets all around the walls, and mismatched, distressed tables and benches. Also a good choice of vegetarian dishes on the menu, important as we had one vegetarian in the party.

I had a roasted vegetable tart with salad (trying to be as healthy as possible, not always easy on holiday), but the most impressive meals were the desserts! I didn’t have anything, but here you can see two choices that others in the party had – a very rich chocolate brownie, and a stunning meringue nest with strawberries. It isn’t obvious from the photo, but the meringue was enormous! It was shared between two and they still couldn’t get through it all.

Absolutely delicious, and a lovely evening all round, ending with G&Ts in the hotel bar.

Happy Fooding!

Spiced Pork Stew…..Jury Out On This One….

Hmmm…..this week I made a Margaret Fulton (super well-known Aussie cook, I keep thinking she must be like 100 by now, but it’s just that she’s been around since forever….ie all of my lifetime haha) Spiced Pork Stew With Chickpeas recipe, which I pulled out of a foodie mag. You can see it on the Woolies website here.  It was very easy and used easily-available ingredients, and I doubled the quantity – so 1kg of pork etc.

It went down okay and was quite edible, but was not out of the ordinary or particularly spicy – the amount of crushed chillies was not much when spread through the entire dish.  As it turned out, one of the eaters didn’t like spicy food, and she went back for seconds, so I guess that’s a plus if you want to make it child-friendly or suitable for people who like their food mild.

I don’t think my version looks all that much like the picture either, but then mine has not been doctored and who knows what kind of Photo-Shopping or airbrushing Margaret’s end result has had lol!

So I would say, if you want something easy and family-friendly, this recipe is quite okay.  For sure you could do it in your crockpot as well if you liked. But don’t make it to impress friends at your next dinner party!  Next time I’ll be adding some REAL spicy-ness – giving it some balls!!!

Happy Fooding!