Cooking Crusade

Heyhey.

It’s been awhile.. as usual!

I’ve finally gotten myself one of those facebook-fan-style-thingymajiggy pages, so if you feel so inclined, give me a like by clicking here. It’s totally cool because I will be posting up some better quality pics, more info on posts / pics, and you comment, say hi, and all that bizzo fun stuff

Now that’s out of the way, here’s a great weeknight meal to whip up for your loved ones.

It’s corned beef with lemon garlic potatoes, broccolini and sesame honey dutch carrots – good for a weekend dinner and great for leftovers.

Corned Beef
1 kg corned beef cut
2 T brown sugar
2 T apple cider vinegar
6 cloves
1 bayleaf
6 peppercorns
1 cut up onion
(optional: 1 carrot, 1 celery stick).

Place corned beef in a big pot and cover with cold water. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to the boil and simmer on medium for about 3 hours or until corned beef is tender. Slice and serve. Great cold, for leftovers, or on buttered bread! Mmm.

Lemon/Garlic Potatoes
1/8 cup melted butter
juice of two lemons
teaspoon garlic powder
teaspoon dried parsley flakes
seasoning
1/2 kilo – 1 kilo of washed potatoes, diced

Blend together melted butter and lemon juice. Add garlic powder, dried parsley flakes and seasoning. Place diced potatoes into a lined baking dish and pour over lemon/butter mixture and toss to coat potatoes. Bake in a hot oven (180 degs) for about 1-1.5 hours until potatoes are cooked through. Serve.

Honey Sesame Carrot recipe from Taste.com
1 bunch of baby dutch carrots
1 T sesame seeds
2 T honey

Rinse and trim carrots, place in a saucepan with cold water and bring to the boil until cooked. In a separate saucepan, toast sesame seeds until lightly browned and add honey. Pour over cooked carrots to serve.

Assembly:
Slice corned beef (serve with seeded mustard if desired). Add potatoes, carrots and steamed/blanched broccolini. Serve

xoxox
Christine

Hmm. It’s been awhile between posts! I promised myself I wouldn’t abandon my blog with the mad craze of the wedding plans. Plus for some reason I decided to start a wedding blog, which y’all can read here. It taint nothing fancy, and it’s called Christine Wedding Notes.. haha. Mainly a space for me to keep all my ideas and thoughts in one place!

I was waiting to post this recipe for awhile until I got some decent pics of me making it, but I haven’t had the time lately. All I can promise is that once you make this.. you will never go back!

Here we go!

Did you know, dear readers, that I used to hate cous cous? Yep. I despised it. Why, I pondered, would anyone make the decision of cous cous over rice? I couldn’t understand why so many people loved it. It just seemed so, well.. tasteless and completely bland.

Until I tasted this cous cous. My job often involves organising catering for meetings at work – and this is one of the recipes that is regularly in use. As soon as I smelled that wonderful scent of coriander and garlic infused into the cous cous, I knew I had to have the recipe! Luckily the caterer is very generous and lovely with her recipe-sharing, so I finally got my hands on it! And I’ve been making it ever since. I asked for her permission to put the recipe on my blog and she agreed – but she asked me not to put her name up for credit, since she said she got the recipe from a Sanitarium booklet. Good job, Sanitarium. Good. Job.

Shall we begin?

Ingredients: To serve 4 people (as a side-dish.)
1 cup cous cous
1 cup vegetable stock (plus another cup handy in case you need it – I have found that I often need a little more. I usually use Massell Chicken Stock. Plus instead of making actual chicken stock, I just add hot water and sprinkle the stock powder over.)
1 diced onion
2 cloves of garlic, diced, minced, grated – whichever takes your fancy.
1/2 red capsicum, finely chopped. (I usually omit this cos .. me and capsicum aren’t great friends. But feel free to add it – it adds lovely colour to the dish.)
1/2 a cup of currants (Sometimes I go overboard and add a whole cup. I just love the couscous studded with the yummy currants.)
1/4-1/2 cup of pine nuts (These can get a little expensive, so you can add as little or as much as you want to this dish. But I would encourage you to add them – they add a lovely nuttiness to the dish)
1/2 bunch of coriander, finely chopped
olive oil

Heat oil in a large pot over high heat. When the oil is nice and hot, add your diced onion, garlic and capsicum (if using.) Sautee until soft. Add parsley flakes if you like (which I always do!)

Add the vegetable stock to the pot and bring to the boil (or like me, add hot water and sprinkle over stock powder.)

Add cous cous and stir until all the liquid is absorbed. You may need to add a little more hot water/stock powder – taste the cous cous. If it is still gritty, add more water. If it is soft and fluffy, it’s all good.

Stir in pine nuts, currants and coriander and a little olive oil if it is dry.

Super-delicious and super-easy… my two favorite things! I love how quickly you can make this – soo much faster than rice! It also microwaves really well (important factor for leftovers. lol). I love making a batch of it to take to friend’s houses for dinner – it’s a great versatile dish that goes with lots of other dishes. Of course, it goes without saying that it goes perfectly with Crispy Moroccan Chicken .

Enjoy the conversion to cous cous!

xx Christine

Hey y’all.

Since going on my ‘bridal diet’ or whatever you wanna call it, I’ve been trying to come up with some low-cal sweet treats I can still keep in my life without feeling too guilty. I’m also planning a huge dessert table for our engagement party in 1 month, so I will definitely need to be super-strict with my treats up until then cos it is going to be a super sweet (ok, calorific) affair. So excited! I have always wanted to do a dessert table It is gonna be off the hook.

These honey & cinnamon stewed apples are simply delectable. They’re also perfectly vegan, low in sugar and sooooo versatile. Yes.. I think I’m in love.

Ingredients.
Six apples (I used royal gala, you can use whatever you like. since you’re not adding a great deal of sugar, probably best to stick with sweeter apples, as opposed to Granny smith apples)
1 large Tablespoon/dollop of honey
1 teaspoon + of ground cinnamon
3 capfuls (yes, that’s how I measure things) of vanilla essence
1 cup of boiling water

Peel, core and chop apples and set aside. Heat a large, thick bottom pot with a fitted lid over high heat. Add apples to pot and dust with cinnamon.

Pour over hot water, add honey and vanilla, stir to combine.

Pop the lid on and leave to simmer for about 20 or so minutes on medium heat, or until apples are fully cooked (but still retain their shape). If you feel that it is a little watery, just add a little mixture of cornflour and water mixed together to thicken it. But whatever you do, do not drain that liquid away! It forms this wonderful cinnamon honey syrup that tastes oh-so fine.

Sure it ain’t as pretty as some other desserts – but it sure tastes reaaal good. (And compared to the rest of my desserts, is probably waaay healthier. lol).

Here are a couple of things you could do with this super-deliciousness.

+ Blend for a delicious baby-food dessert, or as an apple sauce
+ Pop into a baked pie crust for a delectable apple pie
+ Pop into a greased baking dish & cover with a mixture of oats, flour, butter and sugar for a perfect apple crisp
+ Layer between cake batter for apple cake
+ Warmed, with a big dollop of vanilla bean Greek yoghurt (I am loving the black swan brand at the moment)
+ Makes a mean smoothie + aforementioned vanilla bean Greek  yoghurt + soy milk (or regular.) I bet a banana wouldn’t go astray in there either..
+ OR, do what I do and pop it on your morning breakfast cereal. I betcha it would go great on French toast.

So dear readers, how was your weekend?
I spent it watching terrible movies. I watched Agent Cody Banks (epic cliche), Sex in the City 2 (awful, just so awful. Kind of ruined the characters and the series for me – each line and joke was soo contrived in a false attempt to be charming but just came out.. grating and irritating. Even 99% of the fashion was hideous) and Burlesque (Christina needed about twenty thousand years of acting classes before she took that movie. Dang, girl).

xx

Christine