Ideas for Cooking Kangaroo Mince

Kangaroo Con Carne.

Shepherd's Pie with Kangaroo Mince.

From what I've read, it appears you can substitute roo mince for beef mince in any recipe where there will be extra moisture added (eg. a tomato-based sauce). Because of the low fat content, I would be wary about trying to make rissoles or burgers, although making smaller meatballs which are cooked in sauce would probably also work.

Bacon and Mushroom Quiche

I just made this for dinner and it was so scrummy I have to write down the recipe pronto before I forget. The quantities given for the filling were too generous for the size of the pastry, so I cooked the overflow in a loaf tin lined with baking parchment.

Ingredients:
1 sheet of short crust pastry
3 eggs
milk
1 onion, diced
1/2 tub of silken tofu
1-2 tsp garlic
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
100g bacon pieces
1 cup diced mushrooms
3/4 cup grated cheese
basil and black pepper

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C. Line a square quiche dish with the pastry, fill with beans, and blind bake until puffed and beginning to go golden. Fry bacon until browned and crisp, cool slightly, then combine with mushrooms and cheese. Put three eggs into a blender and make up to 250mL with milk. Add diced onion and blend until smooth. Add tofu, garlic and balsamic vinegar and blend until smooth. Combine with bacon, mushroom and cheese, and pour into pie dish. Cook for a bloody long time until browned on top and mostly firm in the middle. Turn oven off and leave quiche to firm up for fifteen minutes. Feed to your fussiest child and discover that she actually likes it!

Yummy!

New recipe to try. I have made a crockpot chicken and apricot tagine before to a different recipe, but this one looks quite similar and pretty simple.

Cake!

I've been annoyed at not finding a basic cake recipe which I can use for topping pie fruit as a quick dessert, so tonight I made one up. I grabbed a 1/3 cup measurement (what came to hand) and made sure that everything was in increments of 1/3 so I would find it easier to remember. The recipe was as follows:

2/3 cups plain flour
1/3 cups wholemeal plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
2/3 cups milk
1 egg
cinnamon (for an apple cake)

I poured it over a small tin of apple pie fruit, and cooked it at 180 til cooked through. It could probably have come out a little earlier as it was a bit dry. To make it into a plain cake, I'm going to try doubling the quantities, adding 2/3 c applesauce in lieu of any fat (whick I forgot about in the above recipe), and make it in a baking tray so I can cut it into squares.

Tuna Pasta Sauce

Made a very yummy tuna pasta sauce last night which I think will be a request in the future. I think I will double the quantities and make tuna lasagne sometime as well.


Ingredients:
1 onion, diced
1/2 cup water
1/2 red capsicum, diced
1.5 cups mushrooms, finely diced
1-2 tsp garlic
1 425g tin tuna in springwater, drained
1 440g tin diced tomatoes, with juice
1.5 cups corn kernels
black pepper

Blend onion with water until frothy and liquid. Saute mushrooms and capsicum until soft, add garlic and cook until fragrant. Add tuna, tomatoes, onion water and corn, bring to a gentle boil, and simmer until liquid has evaporated and sauce is thick. Serve over pasta with freshly grated Parmesan.

Next time I might try blending the capsicum along with the onion, because of course Beth whinged about having that in her food as well, although at least she did actually eat a fair amount! There was enough left for E to be able to take one serving for lunch on Monday as well.

Not a success...

The pumpkin and spinach lasagne recipe I linked to below was not received with approbation by my family. Nobody finished their serving except me, and I didn't like it all that much! I ended up making it for dinner instead of for the freezer as originally intended, because I very cleverly missed a bag when I was putting the frozen foods away yesterday afternoon, and the bag of spinach portions sat on the floor with the non-perishables for about six hours before I finally put everything away. By that stage, of course, it was well and truly defrosted, so I slung it in the fridge and bumped up my lasagne production date to use it all up. Now to figure out what to do with the big bunch of silverbeet I actually bought for that purpose...

Next time, I won't bother with the ricotta sauce (I've never understood the appeal myself but I figured I'd stick with the recipe at least the first time), and make my usual cheese sauce. To appease Beth's tastes, I'll mix the spinach into that layer instead of leaving it separate. And I will try to be very careful about not overcooking the pumpkin - it was tasteless and watery, and even though I seasoned it quite generously with ginger and garlic powder, black pepper and a little salt, you couldn't taste any of it. I just wish I knew the recipe for the one they make at the Coffee Club in the Mall, because that stuff is quite seriously addictive!

Cooking for the Freezer: More Frustrations

We finally managed to get out and do our monthly shop today, but discovered (after circulating through half the supermarket filling the trolley) that they didn't have the right kind of large foil trays! Bah. I visited so many places looking for the darn things last time that I forgot where I actually bought them. I think it was Home and Variety. We had two trolleys full of bags and a bunch of frozen stuff, so couldn't really go past and pick some up afterwards. Will have to go back to the mall yet again before I can finally make this darned lasagne. Curses...

Still, I got everything else on my list. More food for freezer cooking, and some more jars and tins for can't-be-arsed-cooking nights. One of those occurred tonight, but we got takeaway Chinese from King Fook instead. Yum!