Quick Lamb Curry

This simple lamb mince dish is based on one from Simple Indian Cookery by Madhur Jaffrey – an old book that I came across at work recently, with loads of terrific and EASY Indian dishes.

There is no rocket science here; the key is in the use of fresh spices – get your mortar & pestle action on!

You could serve this as is, in a bowl, or make it a bit more glamorous with rice, tortillas or naan bread, raita, and maybe a side dish of sauteed mushrooms or mashed potato!

Minced Lamb With Peas

2 tbsp olive oil

1 brown onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tbsp freshly grated ginger

1 tsp cumin seeds, ground

1 tsp coriander seeds, ground

1/4 tsp turmeric

1/4 tsp cinnamon, ground

1/4 tsp nutmeg, freshly grated

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tomatoes, chopped

4 tbsp low-fat Greek yoghurt

500 gms minced lamb

cracked pepper, to taste

1 cup water

juice of 1 lemon

3/4 cup frozen peas

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan or frying pan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic and ginger; stir until lightly browned.

Add the cumin, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg and cayenne pepper, and stir for 10 seconds. Add the tomatoes and yoghurt. Cook over medium heat until the tomatoes have softened, stirring often.

Add the lamb and cracked pepper. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes, breaking up all the lumps.

Add the water and bring to a simmer, then cover and simmer on low heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add lemon juice and peas, return to a simmer and cook gently, uncovered, for a further 10 minutes.

Serves 4

Happy Fooding!

Zucchini Bread (Cake?)

It’s interesting that carrot cake is always cake, but banana cake and zucchini cake are often called breads. The ingredients for all of these are very similar, but we never say carrot bread (or beetroot bread!) do we! I think they’re all really cake, because bread in my view is generally a savoury thing. But who am I to argue with the masses…….

Anyway I came across this great looking zucchini “bread” recipe a couple of weeks ago via a Food.com e-newsletter, and decided to make it for morning tea at work, last week. As I had successfully made my usual carrot cake in the bread machine the week before, I looked at the zucchini bread ingredients and thought hmmmmm they’re very similar in quantity etc. so I’ll do this one in the bread machine too.

It worked, but it was not as moist as the carrot cake, so I think this one would be better eaten straight after cooking (I made it the night before taking it to work). Also it didn’t rise quite as much and I think would have been better on the medium crust setting, which would have baked it about 8 minutes longer. It was good enough to be a “keeper” though, so I will change the baking time slightly next time.

Below is my bread machine version for 1 cake – if you want to do it the original, oven way, here is the website I got it from – which is in fact quantities for 2 loaves.

The Ultimate Zucchini Bread (CAKE!!)

In order, place the following ingredients in bread machine bowl:

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

1 1/4 cups grated zucchini

1 tbsp orange zest, grated

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1 3/4 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp bi-carb soda

1/2 tsp salt

Bake on bread machine’s Cake setting, with Medium crust and 750gm loaf settings.

If you’re feeling like a more savoury bread, try this lemon & dill bread, also in the bread machine. I made this again recently and we had it at work with apricot & almond cream cheese on top – a great combination with the bread flavours.

Happy Fooding!

“Food must do more than just be filling”

Really enjoyed watching this 3 part documentary, on my favourite subjects – food, history and England. So interesting to watch (and makes you want to rush off and roast some eggs!).

 

Happy Historical Fooding!

Mulling Over This One….

This Mulled Pork recipe looked excellent on the face of it – anything that calls for a whole bottle of red wine can’t be bad! I did enjoy it; however, the meat was too dry, particularly with the leftovers the next day. The flavours were fabulous and my flat smelled amazing – lots of citrus and red wine and cinnamon and cloves in the air – it was quite Christmasy in fact!

The dish is adapted from a recipe from More Than a Schnitzel, a German cookbook recently acquired by my library. I will make this again quite happily, but use beef instead of pork – slow cooking for 8-10 hours is just too much for pork, in this instance. Venison would probably be good with these flavours, but might also dry out I suspect.

Mulled Pork

1 kg diced pork

750 mls red wine (I used a Merlot)

2 1/2 tbsp brandy

juice and zest of 2 oranges

juice and zest of 1 lemon

1 tbsp brown sugar

6 cloves

1/4 cup raisins

1 tbsp beef stock powder

4 apples, sliced

3 onions, sliced

4 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

cracked pepper, to taste

1 tbsp cornflour

Place all ingredients except cornflour in crockpot bowl, and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours (or leave overnight in fridge).

Place bowl into crockpot base and cook on LOW for 8-10 hours. About an hour before serving, mix the cornflour with a little cold water and blend to a smooth paste. Add this to the meat and stir through.

Serves 4-6

Happy Fooding!

Christmas Baking & Cookie Cutter Giveaway!

The Cookie Family!

You know it’s Christmas time when you have the smells of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves wafting around the house! I ended up using my own gingerbread recipe, and didn’t decorate them. I was going to, but then I thought meh I can’t be bothered. I find it hard to get motivated to go to that much trouble when there aren’t small children around anymore. When my kids were little I would spend the first weekend in December baking up a storm, but now they don’t live in the same state as me and I only see them a couple of times a year.

One day when there are (hopefully) grandchildren in my life, I will again get really into the Christmas sweet baking, but for this week just a batch of gingerbread to take to work was enough for me.

The cookie cutters worked really well. Don’t forget to “like” this posting (or make a comment) to be in the running for a free set! I will draw the 2 winners’ names out of a hat next Sunday.

My recipe did not turn out as sweet as I thought it should – but it all got eaten at work on Monday so I guess it tasted okay! It makes quite a large batch, but can be halved easily (the photo below shows half a batch). Or use your own favourite recipe, or the one I shared from the cookie cutters the other day.

Gingerbread

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup treacle

2 eggs, beaten

4 cups plain flour, sifted

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp bi-carbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

approx 1 cup plain flour, extra

Melt butter in a saucepan until just melted. Remove from heat and add brown sugar, treacle and eggs. Mix well and cool for a few minutes, then add flour and spices and mix well.

Turn mixture out onto a floured board (it will be quite gooey still), and knead extra flour in by hand, to make a firm dough. Set aside in fridge for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180C (160C for fan forced).

Roll dough out on a floured board (work in more extra flour if you need it) to 4-5mm thickness and cut into shapes with cookie cutters.

Place shapes on a greased or lined tray (baking paper works brilliantly) and bake for about 10 minutes depending on how hot an oven you have.

Store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Note: you can make the dough beforehand and keep in fridge, wrapped in plastic, for a few days – soften to roll out then cut and bake as above.

Happy Christmas Fooding!

I threw in a couple of stars & angels as well.