{Meat Free Monday : Eggplant Pizzas}

Last week I found some eggplant at a local green grocer for $3 a kg and couldn't pass it up. I didn't know what I was going to create with it at the time, but love a good challenge and am trying my best to eat as healthy as I can. This recipe turned out to be such a winner and I will definitely make it again!

Before you start, prep your eggplant by salting it to draw the bitterness out. I thought this was common knowledge until a conversation with someone recently and they couldn't figure out why they liked eggplant when cooked at a restaurant but not at home. Turns out they never knew to salt it first. For some good tips on this process, click on {this link} for more info from one of my favourite sites taste.com.au.

Once you have prepped your eggplant your are ready. These are the ingredients I used:
1 Eggplant Cut width-wise into circles
Fresh Basil
Tomato Paste
Mushrooms or Lean cut Ham (depending if you want it to be fully vegetarian)
Parmesan Cheese
Salt and Pepper

 

Step 1:
Once Eggplant is prepped (as above)drizzle with a little evoo(extra-virgin olive oil) and either grill or bake until they start to golden. 

Step 2:

Spread with a little tomato paste and salt and pepper. I think you need the consistency of the paste rather than a sauce. If you use a pasta sauce type consistency, it may make the end product too watery and hard to pick up.

Add finely cut mushrooms, zucchini, lean ham, salami or whatever you like as your main topping. 

Step 3:

Add a fresh basil leaf or two and sprinkle with Parmesan. Its really worth splurging on fresh basil here, it makes it. Also, if you choose a stronger hard cheese (as opposed to a tasty style) you need less cheese (therefore calories) to achieve a nice taste. 

Step 4:Bake for about another 5 minutes in moderate oven, just to melt cheese really. If you like, tear a few extra basil leaves over before you serve. YUM!

I hope you enjoy as much as I did!

Lauren x   

 

 

{Free Form Pumpkin and Spinach Lasagna}

I was HANGING to make this recipe like you have no idea! Not because I just saw a recipe for it like often inspires me. But because every now and then when I cook, I have my mojo ON and I don't have a recipe, I actually have no idea what the final outcome will be or look like when I start, but it just works. This was one of those times. I made it up as went and it was tastier than I thought it was going to be! The best thing was that this ended up like a restaurant dish and I bough everything from Aldi or had it in my pantry.

The downside is I don't measure when I cook like this, but here is my attempt at documenting this delicious dish :)


Ingredients: (made 3 large portions)
1 packet fresh lasagna sheets (you'll only need 1/2 packet and if you normally buy dried, its worth splashing out for the fresh sheets)
1/2 butternut pumpkin
1 packet of baby spinach (buy 2 if you want some for a side salad/ garnish)
2 cloves garlic
about 40g butter
handful of pine-nuts
handful of walnuts
1 tub of ricotta
Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper


Method:
1. cut your butternut pumkpin into thin slices (about 2mm *ish) and pop into water and microwave for a few mins until tender.
2. Place butter, spinach, nuts & garlic in a saucepan on a medium heat and saute till spinach wilts. Season with S&P and turn off heat.
3. Once the spinach mix and pumpkin is cooked you are ready to assemble.
4. Cut each lasagna sheet into thirds (Aldi's sheets are folded into thirds, so I just followed the folds). Here are my layers in order:
-Place one sheet as the base.
-Then lay a few pieces of the cooked pumpkin on top and season here
-another sheet of lasagna
-then spoon some ricotta on top
-sprinkle some parmesan on the ricotta
-then a spoonful of the spinach mix on top
-lasagna sheet
-spoonful of ricotta
-another layer of pumpkin
-final layer of lasagna sheet
-top with more ricotta, parmesan and s&P

You don't need much of each ingredient on each layer, it's the layering itself that will make each mouthful taste so good.



It sounds like a very long process, but even with doing 3 of these, it took me longer to write this than do it. It's worth it!

{A Vegetarian Christmas: Sweet Potato & Leek Roulade}

We hosted a Christmas Dinner/ Feast for two of our dear friends last Friday night. I had a blast planning the menu and trying to find a yummy main for my beautiful friend who also is a vegetarian. Now I don't have a problem using imagination for meat free meals normally, as we eat that a lot here.
However, when I think Christmas, I think hams and roast lambs, chicken or pork. I wanted something delicious and not an 'after thought'. I would never want anyone coming over for dinner feel like an after thought just because they don't eat meat. Insert Google and here was the menu:

Entree
Goats cheese and Cranberry Tartlets

Mains
Minted Roast Lamb
Sweet Potato and Leek Roulade

Sides
Balsamic Vine Tomatoes
Chili and Almond Asparagus
Honey Carrots
Rosemary and Garlic Smashed Potatoes

Drinks
Chilled Egg Nog
Warm Mulled Wine

Dessert
Christmas Pudding Ice Cream with Frozen Chocolate Sauce
Tea & Coffee

The mulled wine was a little bitter as I think I let it simmer too long but it was still worth a try.
Here is the recipe for the Roulade...Mine didn't look that pretty, but it held its shape and was DE-LISSSHH!!! Its worth the effort ;)

(image from taste.com.au)

INGREDIENTS:
Roulade

20ml (1 tbs) olive oil
1 leek, finely chopped
60g butter
1/3 cup plain flour
300ml milk
4 eggs, separated
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup grated parmesan

Stuffing
30g unsalted butter
1 brown onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 1/2 cups fresh white breadcrumbs
1 tbs chopped fresh sage
1 tbs chopped flat-leaf parsley

Filling
500g sweet potato, peeled, chopped
15g unsalted butter
100ml thin cream
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 39 x 26cm Swiss roll pan.

2. To make the roulade, heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the leek and cook gently for five minutes until soft. Remove leek from pan. Wipe pan, then add the butter. When it has melted, add the flour and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Start adding the milk, a little at a time, whisking until all the milk is combined and the sauce has thickened. Remove from the heat, beat in egg yolks, one at a time and season.

3. In a separate, clean bowl, beat the eggwhites until stiff. Add a quarter of the eggwhites to the roux, then gently fold in the remaining eggwhites. Fold in leeks and cheddar until just combined, then pour into the prepared pan and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden and puffed.

4. Meanwhile, to make stuffing, melt butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Add onion and cook for five minutes until soft and translucent. Add garlic and breadcrumbs and cook for a further 3-4 minutes. Stir in herbs and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

5. For the filling, steam or boil the sweet potato until tender. Drain and mash with the butter, cream and nutmeg. Season well and set aside.

6. When the roulade is cooked, place a clean tea towel on your workbench and sprinkle with the parmesan. Turn the roulade out onto the tea towel and peel off the baking paper. Allow to cool for 1-2 minutes, then spread the sweet potato over the roulade.

7. Sprinkle the stuffing over the sweet potato. Using the edge of the tea towel, carefully roll up the roulade from the longest side finishing with the seam-side down. Slice and serve warm.

I hope you enjoy the idea and even if I wasn't serving for a vegetarian...I would definitely make this again :)

Lauren x

{Homemade Ricotta Gnocchi}

I love a great recipe that is healthy, quick and easy! This has een on my to-try list for ages and I can't believe that this has taken me so long to try this. Gnocchi.
Its one of those recipes that seems so mystical. So Italian and authentic.
So, I had some left over ricotta in the fridge after making Cannelloni and I decided to try and use it and give ricotta gnocchi a go (not sure how it would turn out). It turned out to be a MASSIVE hit and everyone gave it a 2 thumbs up.
I was hoping it would be a success or baked beans was on the menu ;) Here is a rough recipe (as usual I made it up as I went).
1/2 kg ricotta (the dry kind from the deli or that comes with a colander works best)
1 egg
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup parmigiano regianno (parmesan is fine)
salt and pepper
1 cup of plain flour (can use rice flour to make it gluten free)

1. Place cheeses, spices and egg in a bowl and mix together.
2. Add 1/2 the flour and mix in. then add a little at a time until the mixture resembles a dough consistency.
3. Sprinkle some plain flour on the bench / board and roll out handfuls of the 'dough' into a thin sausage shape.
4. Cut off little bite sized pieces and set aside.
5. Repeat until the 'dough' mixture is all rolled and cut.
6. Boil salted water and place gnocchi in the water. They are ready when they rise to the top of the water and float. Take out immediately and place into your favorite sauce.






I simply fried some eggplant, onion, garlic, zucchini and a tin of tomatoes. Topped it with fresh basil, parmesan and freshly ground pepper to serve. Enjoy; Lauren x

Delicious Falafel

Sorry for being quiet on the blog front, we have had a busy week or two around here and there are some sewing projects I am working on too.
DON'T forget to enter the Lime Light Giveaway also as it's drawn on the 30th ;)

Recently I have had a few people asking for my Falafel recipe so I tried to remember how I do it (I don't use a recipe, so each batch may be slightly different but componants are the same).



INGREDIENTS:
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic (ish depending on size, but we like our garlic too)
2 heaped tsp ground cummin
2 heaped tsp ground corriander
1 tsp of ground cardomom
2 cans of chick peas
1 bunch corriander
salt and pepper
1/3 cup rice flour (can substitute plain or chick pea flour also)

METHOD
1. In fry pan, fry dry spices first with NO oil to release aroma slightly.
2. Add a little olive oil or vegetable oil with onion and garlic and cook on medium heat untill onions are transperant.
3. Drain and add chick peas to your food processser with onion mixture.
4. Blitz until smooth
5. Add a handful of fresh corriander and the salt and pepper (not much required)
6. Remove mixture into a bowl and gently mix through the rice flour. 7. Chill mixture for about 1/2 hour or so (optional, just allows mixture to set better)
8. Roll into small balls, sprinkle with sesame seeds (optional) and put onto an oven tray and bake at 180' until golden (usually about 20 minutes in my oven).

Best served HOT and we usually eat in a mountain bread wrap with homemade hummus, homemade tabouli and avacado.

Enjoy adding this meat free meal to your family menu, we do!
Lauren x