Bibimbap

Or, Korean mixed rice with assorted vegetables and meat. New recipe tried on the guinea pigs family today for lunch - or in my case breakfast, since I've gone back to intermittent fasting until 12pm - and was a great hit with the four out of five of us who tried it. (For those keeping score at home, we have lost a housemate since the beginning of the year, but temporarily scored a teenager home for the holidays). This is one of those handy recipes served buffet-style, which in a house with kids is known as “Look, just eat the stuff you like and don't whinge about the stuff you don't, okay?”. At this time of year, it also usefully fits under “add extra protein to things by breaking a few eggs in somewhere”. Although I currently have two mums off the lay and a broody hen sitting on most of the output of the rest of the flock, so I'm having to *gasp* buy eggs occasionally. And it was handy because I had leftover rice from last night so didn't have to cook any.

I originally heard about this on a blog somewhere and noted down the name, then forgot where I'd seen the original. So this morning I googled for recipes and read about half a dozen to get the general idea, then put something together to fit what I had in the fridge and what I know my family eats. I gather this is one of those highly-customisable recipes where this is the general procedure in any case.

Meat

coconut oil

1 small onion, finely diced

250g mince

grated zucchini (yes, I have a lot of zucchini to use up)

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

slosh in a bit of fish sauce and soy sauce near the end, to taste

Vegetables

½ carrot, grated

½ red capsicum, thinly sliced

raw cabbage, shredded

cucumber, thinly sliced

more shredded cabbage, sauteed in coconut oil and a bit more fish sauce 

Or whatever you happen to have in the fridge. My kids like raw veg more than cooked so that's what I put out, but feel free to steam or saute anything if you prefer.

leftover rice, reheated

4 runny fried eggs

chopped peanuts (this didn't occur in any of the recipes I read but appears to be an indispensable accompaniment to any Eastern-inspired mince-and-salad combo as far as my family is concerned)

sweet chilli sauce (ditto)

The cooking of the mince I imagine is fairly obvious. Prepare the veges while the meat is doing its thing, then the assemblage is basically thus: put everything on table, serve yourself whatever you like into a bowl, put a fried egg on top, and gleefully mix it all up into a moosh. Except nobody had done the washing up this morning so there were no bowls, but it worked almost as well with plates. Which were almost licked clean. Will definitely make again.

Egg Curry

Oh dear, I have been ignoring you, haven't I?

Tonight's curry was so sublime I had to write down the recipe before I forget it. It was cribbed from this recipe although I'm too lazy to do it properly and didn't have some of the ingredients so had to make some substitutions. And I added cream and ground almonds because cream, and also because younger daughter does not eat hard boiled egg curry and this way at least the sauce would be proteinaceous (as it happens she didn't eat the sauce either, but still, four out of five in favour is pretty good).

knob of butter3 small onions, finely diced
1/2 medium zucchini, grated (stealth veges FTW!)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
heaped tsp ginger
slightly less heaped tsp chilli (or to taste)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tin tomatoes
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup ground almonds
8 hard-boiled eggs, halved length-ways

Saute the onions in the butter until golden, add spices and zucchini. Continue to gently saute until everything smells divine and the veges are well and truly soft because this is more or less all the cooking they'll get. Add the tomatoes and then attack everything with the stick blender til it's less chunky (if you are less lazy than me and can be arsed washing up the food processor afterwards do it in that, but then you might as well follow the original recipe, no?). Stir through the cream and ground almonds, bring to a very gentle simmer, plop in the eggs and warm through. Serve over rice for them wot eats it, or in my case, over stir-fried silverbeet and mustard greens from the garden. Nom.

I Aten't Dead

And I do still cook pretty much every day. I just haven't been inspired to find or create new recipes for a while so have not had much to blog about. But I discovered a recipe for Spinach and Lemon Quinoa Bake today which was extremely nommy, and since I tweaked it a bit I wanted to write down the modifications before I forgot.

We've acquired a vegan housemate in the last few months, and since I am possessed by a compulsion to feed people, we generally cook and eat vegan meals together 3-4 nights a week then do our own thing the rest of the time. I cook a lot of vegan food anyway, but I rarely modify very non-vegan recipes to make them vegan, since that generally involves substituting with fake dairy products and frankly, since none of the rest of us have a problem with dairy, I'd rather just not bother. But this one sounded yummy, plus it would be a variation on my popular silverbeet rice pie which our housemate (who is intolerant to rice as well) can eat. Since I'm still sticking with a lower-carb diet and have largely eliminated rice, quinoa is slightly lower in carbs and higher in protein than rice so is a better option for me too.

I don't have a lemon zester, so I did thinly slice some zest off and chuck it in, but mostly relied on lemon juice instead. The zest would definitely be better, so go with that if you have a better option for parting it from its lemon than picking it out of a cheese grater with a toothpick.

Ingredients

• 1 cup quinoa, cooked in 3 cups water
• olive oil, coconut oil
• 2 onions
• 2 cloves garlic, finely diced
• 1 bunch silverbeet, shredded
• 1 tsp fresh lemon zest
• 2 tsp flaxseed meal + 4 tbsp water
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 300mL medium tofu, drained
• 2 tbsp tahini
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• salt, pepper
• 1 large tomato
• almond meal

Slowly saute the onion and garlic in a mix of olive and coconut oil until caramelised. Add the zest and shredded silverbeet and cook down, adding more olive oil if necessary. Meanwhile, combine the flaxseed meal and water and leave to sit til it coagulates a bit. Then combine tofu, flaxseed mixture, tahini, lemon juice and seasonings in the blender until smooth. Combine the tofu mixture with the silverbeet and the quinoa, and pour into a baking tray. Top with sliced tomatoes and a sprinkling of ground almonds. Bake at 180 for an hour, let sit for a few minutes, then serve.

Odds and Sods Muffins

These are adapted from a recipe by Alison Holst, which is my go-to recipe for sweet muffins. We make porridge for breakfast a couple of times a week,and the kids randomly eat or leave it depending on the phase of the moon, so there are always leftovers. Which is not a big deal, it's a few cents worth of ingredients and the pigs are always happy to take care of leftovers, but as of Wednesday this week we won't have pigs and anyway I don't like waste even if it is waste which is eventually recycled into bacon. Sometimes Dylan puts leftover porridge in bread, so I tried incorporating it into muffins. You can't tell it's there at all, but it makes them lovely and moist.

Ingredients:
1 quantity leftover porridge (can be anything up to about 1.5 cups)
2c plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
2/3 cups brown sugar, sifted if you can be arsed
1 tsp cinnamon
currants (I add more or less depending on how much porridge there is)
choc chips (optional but OMG)
3/4 cup liquid
75mL bland-tasting oil
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence (optional)

Drain the porridge. Combine dry ingredients and stir well, then stir the porridge into it and break up any lumps. Whisk up the liquid ingredients, stir through the dry ingredients as briefly as possible, and lop into muffin trays and bake. My oven, which is non-fan forced and thus deeply idiosyncratic, cooks these best at around 200C provided I remember to swap shelves halfway so the bottoms don't burn, but if yours is fan-forced try 180C instead.

Without the choc chips these are really yummy with jam and butter or cream, like scones.

Chickpeas with Chorizo and Silverbeet

This was absolutely spectacular. I entrusted it to my husband, who does everything by the letter when following a recipe, except I hadn't written down anything except a list of ingredients when I first came up with the idea. This is one of those recipes where the flavour comes from very very slowly caramelising the onions with the chorizo and grated zucchini, which in this house is usually accomplished by me forgetting about it for half an hour but in this case was deliberate. Do not skip this step (although stirring it every so often is preferable to the buggering-off-and-reading-the-internet-and-coming-back-when-you-smell-burning technique *cough*).

olive oil

3 chorizo sausages, thinly sliced

3-4 onions, finely sliced

grated zucchini (optional, although not at this time of year in my garden)

garlic

at least 1/2 bottle passata

3 cups cooked chickpeas

½ cup sun dried tomatoes, sliced

herbs, paprika

balsamic vinegar

1 bunch silverbeet, shredded

Halve the onions and slice into half-moons. Thinly slice the chorizos and saute them both, together with the zucchini, if using, over a low heat until the vegetables are deliciously brown and melty. Add garlic, balsamic vinegar and herbs at some point in this step. When everything is caramelised, add the rest of the ingredients except the silverbeet and simmer until the sauce is at the thickness you prefer (ours ended up fairly stiff, which leads me to suspect that Mr Bat only put in half a bottle of passata, but to be honest I can't remember because I am a slack tart and blogging this about two weeks later). The silverbeet only needs to be folded in at the end and simmered until it's just wilting into the sauce. Try not to actually have a public orgasm while eating, it's that good.

Tunisian Lentil Stew with creamy (and probably not very Tunisian) polenta

I had a recipe I was going to blog when Blogger was having its hissy fit the other week and unfortunately I neglected to write it down anywhere else. So this isn't it. It is, however, equally yummy, but slightly less kid-friendly since it only met with the approval of three out of four scroggins tonight.

It was initially going to be Tunisian Lentil Stew with couscous, but apparently I like having to make last-minute substitutions, because I neglected to check if I actually had any couscous until I was ready to serve dinner. So I picked polenta as a substitute, because we had rice last night, and a bag of polenta needing to be used up. I don't like polenta but according to the people who ate it, this was a nice iteration.

Tunisian Lentil Stew
3 onions, diced
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp caraway seeds
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)
2 celery sticks, diced
1 carrot, diced
2-3 cups of diced pumpkin (I had Jarrahdale)
~1/2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tins diced tomato
1/4 cup currants
1 cup dry red lentils
1 heaped cup cooked chickpeas
1 heaped cup cooked kidney beans
1 cup frozen peas
stock

Creamy Polenta
3 cups water or stock
1 cup polenta
salt and pepper
1/4 c cream
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice

Serve with toasted pinenuts or slivered almonds.

Paprikash Pork Sausages and Beans

This was an unexpected success with all the smalls, although perhaps not all that unexpected because sausages and beans is one of those combinations which so far has never gone wrong. Paprikash purists will frown (and they have a point) because I wasn't working from the recipe and used a bottle of passata instead of just a bit of tomato paste for flavour as I had written, but it was still delicious.

• 4 onions
• 1 tray of pork chipolatas (or use better quality butcher sausages if you are less poverty-stricken)
• 2 carrots
• 3 sticks celery
• 1 large zucchini, grated
• 1/4 cabbage, shredded
• 1 tsp thyme
• 4 tbsp sweet Hungarian paprika (at least - I just upended the jar and stirred in what fell out)
• 1 can of butter beans, drained
• passata
• loads of sour cream (embarrassingly, I had to buy this, because we forgot to put out some of ours to sour)

Slowly saute the vegetables for at least half an hour, preferably longer, stirring occasionally and tipping in a bit of liquid if it is sticking too badly. When everything is gorgeously caramelised, add the rest of the ingredients except the sour cream. Add a couple of cups of chicken stock, bring to the boil and simmer, with the lid off, until the sausages are cooked and the sauce is reduced a bit. In the meantime, steam some potatoes and mash them with plenty of butter and a bit of milk, or prepare your preferred accompaniment. Eat, to the accompaniment of busily champing jaws if it is as popular in your house as it was in ours!

Chickpea, Tofu and Walnut Burgers

2 onions, quartered

6 mushrooms

1 tub of firm tofu

1 tbsp paprika

2 cans chickpeas OR 2 ½ cups cooked chickpeas

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 eggs

~1 cup wheatgerm

125g walnut crumbs

In a food processor, roughly chop the onions and mushrooms. Add tofu, paprika, chickpeas, Worcestershire sauce and process. Add the eggs and about half the wheatgerm with the engine running, and process until mixture has come together, but stop before it turns into a smooth paste. Scrape the mixture into a bowl, and stir in the walnut crumbs and enough of the wheatgerm to make the mixture thick but not dry. Cook for about eight minutes each side, or until brown.

I made ours in our two sandwich presses and they were perfect, holding together really well but still moist and flavourful inside. This might be a good one to feed to the kids' friends or family members who are a bit dubious about meatless cooking – with the paprika tinting it pink it looks remarkably like a real meat burger and the mushroom gives it a bit of a meaty texture. Everyone in our house devoured it, including Mr I-Don't-Liiiike-That, who had seconds (hence why the first thing I did after finishing my dinner was to write down this recipe so I can reproduce it!). 

I suspect that this recipe could be made vegan fairly easily, possibly with the addition of some soy flour. It's the tofu which makes the vegetarian versions stick together, since if I make it with just the eggs they fall apart. 

Roast pumpkin with lentils and fetta

~1kg pumpkin, diced and roasted
mixed Puy and green lentils, cooked in stock until almost dry
3 onions, thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, finely diced
cumin, coriander, cinnamon, paprika
celery
grated carrot and zucchini
bunch of chard
big wodge of home made fetta cheese
pine nuts
olive oil


While the lentils are cooking, saute onions in butter over a low heat until very soft and starting to caramelise. Add garlic and spices, saute celery, grated vegetables and chard. Combine roasted pumpkin and cooked lentils with onion mixture, and add some more stock if it looks too dry. Cook down until mixture comes together. Remove from heat, toss through fetta and pine nuts and a bit of olive oil (or serve separately in small bowls so you don't waste the fetta on ungrateful children!).

Lentil and Vegetable Stew

This was nom for dinner tonight and even Mr I-Don't-Liiiiike-That ate it, so it deserves to go on the blog for posterity.

Ingredients

4 small onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 1/2 cups dried mixed lentils (I used blue, brown and red)
3 cups diced pumpkin, carrot and sweet potato
1 bottle passata

1 cup kalamata olives

½ cup sun dried tomatoes

1 tsp each dried basil and oregano

½ – 1 tsp chilli (to taste, optional)
1-2 cups green beans, roughly chopped
shredded cabbage

tbsp balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper

Saute the onions til starting to turn translucent, then add the root vegetables and sweat for a while. Add the garlic, then after a few minutes, the lentils and enough water to cover everything generously. Put the lid on and simmer until the vegetables are tender and the lentils are part-cooked. Add the passata, olives and sun-dried tomatoes, herbs and chilli (if using), bring back to the boil and simmer until lentils are cooked. Check and add water occasionally to stop the lentils from sticking. About five minutes before serving, stir through the cabbage and green beans and balsamic vinegar.

Hey ho, another change

This blog has become pretty erratic. I blame the acquisition of a life. This cottage farming bizzo dramatically lessens the allotment of sitting-on-arse-blogging time, who knew?

Anyway, latest news on the farm front is that we have a house cow. The two pigs we acquired a couple of months ago are not immediately contributing to the food supply, but the cow is another matter! So in the immediate future, this blog will probably move towards chronicling my attempt to find more lower-carb vegetarian dairy recipes. Lower-carb meaning not containing pasta, potatoes, rice or flour, which is a big ask in itself, and vegetarian because the point is to replace other sources of protein with our own produce. Meeting both of these requirements is actually quite tricky, especially since it will be a while until we can start incorporating any cheeses which require ageing. But since we can now provide pretty much all of our own yoghurt, butter, cream, sour cream and milk as well as paneer, haloumi, mozzarella and ricotta, there are still quite a few options out there. I just need to find them (and remember to write them down here).

Housemate Dylan is the dairy queen, so I'm not going to be sharing much of the actual basic recipes for any of the above, more what I then do with them. And hopefully, it will be really cool to watch this blog become more of a chronicle of how much of our own produce we can live off, as the garden becomes more productive and we add more animals. I, for one, am really really looking forward to the day when our Saturday morning ritual of Eggs Benedict is made with our own butter, eggs and ham!

Meatballs in a Fruity Chickpea Sauce

This can be made with your mince of choice. Lamb is particularly nice with the Moroccan flavours of the fruity chickpea sauce, but this is my go-to recipe for all mincey creations like hamburgers or meatloaf, or with cooked chickpeas, lentils, beans or even tofu in any combination substituted to make a vegetarian version (although they don't hold together as well as the meat ones). I make a variation of this recipe at a minimum once a fortnight, and no one ever gets tired of it. Just scale up the amounts if you're making something more substantial (eg. after I'd made the meatballs to this recipe, I used nearly a kilo of mince to make a dozen hamburgers and just increased the amounts of the dry ingredients and added another onion and another egg).

Meatballs

• 1 onion, quartered
• 6 mushrooms, roughly broken up
• 4 heaps dessert spoons each ground almonds and wheatgerm
• 250g mince
• 1 egg

 Roughly whizz up the onions and mushrooms, then add the mince, ground almonds and wheatgerm and process until it starts coming together. Add the egg either when it starts coming together, or after a minute or so if it isn't combining properly. You want it to start folding over itself at the top and combining all the layers into a big sticky lump. When it's ready, wet your hands and roll small handfuls of the mix into balls. Refrigerate until the sauce is ready (or if you prefer to get rid of some of the fat, you can put them in the oven to par-cook and then drain before adding to the sauce).

Fruity Chickpea Sauce

• two onions, roughly diced
• 4 sticks celery, diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely diced
• 1/2 tsp chili paste, or dried chili to taste
• 1 tsp each coriander and cumin, or use a Moroccan spice blend if you have one
• 2 cups diced pumpkin
• 2 cups diced carrot
• 1 turnip, grated (optional, but you can't tell it's in there and it bulks out the sauce)
• 1 tbsp currants
• two tins chickpeas (or two heaped cups of cooked chickpeas if you're more organised than me or at least don't switch around your weekly menu plan as much)
• two tins of diced tomatoes
• water

Saute the onions, add the celery, and then the garlic, chili and spices.Toss through the pumpkin, carrots and turnip (if using), then add the tins of tomato, currants, and enough water to cover. Put on a lid, bring to the boil, then turn down the heat a bit and simmer until the veges are soft but not disintegrating. Par-cook the meatballs while it's simmering, if you want to. When the pumpkin is just tender, put the meatballs on top of the sauce, put the lid back and simmer gently for about ten minutes until the meatballs are cooked through (depending on size). While the meatballs are cooking, make some instant couscous to serve it with. Nom.

Crockpot Baked Beans, refinements

About 500g (dry weight) navy beans, soaked and pre-cooked (for about half an hour), or any combination of cooked legumes (brown lentils and black beans in addition to navy beans is good!)
2 tins of tomatoes
3 tbsp each Worcestershire sauce*, golden syrup or honey, and apple cider vinegar
2 very large onions, finely diced
handful of diced bacon (use more if you have it, or leave it out)
3 heaping teaspoons (none of these anaemic measuring spoons, just splodge it in) of wholegrain mustard
1 tbsp paprika
water

I used to saute the onions and bacon, but now I can't be arsed, especially since I'm usually putting this in the crockpot at 11pm after forgetting about it until bedtime. It doesn't make a noticeable difference, but by all means saute away if you want to. Also, I used to only put in one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, but last time accidentally put in three and it was superb, so that's what I've included.

So, easy-as method: half fill the crockpot with beans or mixed legumes, then add the rest of the ingredients and stir. Add water until about an inch below the top of the crockpot (the top of the ingredients should be about two inches below, otherwise add more beans). Leave on Auto overnight. Provides breakfast for everyone on Sundays, and a couple of people most of the rest of the week.

* If like me you start making this at 11pm and realise you've run out, I've had success replacing the Worcestershire sauce with a mixture of Vegemite, fish sauce and Balsamic vinegar. 

Spanish Fish and Chickpea Stew

Fish stews of various description seem to be a big hit around here. I'm trying to serve fish once a week, but the budget doesn't run to serving a fillet on a plate each. So I've been trying various recipes to stretch out around 500g of fish and half that of prawns between seven people. This one was really, really yummy. I was originally planning to add either chorizo or diced bacon, but I forgot, and it was very nice without it. I also forgot to add the lemon juice and parsley of the original recipe I adapted.

These quantities provided four adult servings, four child servings, and enough for all the kids to get some for lunch tomorrow.

Spanish Fish and Chickpea Stew

olive oil and butter
3 onions, finely diced
1 chorizo sausage, finely diced or a handful of diced bacon
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp chilli spice mix (or to taste)
1 tsp turmeric
2 large carrots, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
1 green capsicum, diced
250g green beans, sliced
bay leaves
2 x 400g can chopped tomatoes
500g cooked chickpeas
stock
250g cooked cocktail prawns
500g skinless fish fillets (I used barramundi)
handful flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
1 tbsp lemon juice

Saute the onion in the oil and butter til translucent. Add garlic, chorizo or bacon (if using) and spices and cook for a minute or two. Stir through the vegetables and let them brown for a little while. Then add tomatoes, bay leaves, chickpeas, and enough stock to cover. Bring to the boil and simmer gently until the carrots are cooked. Lay the fish on top, cover the pan, and simmer for five minutes or so until the fish flakes. Add the prawns for the last minute or two to warm through. If you are less forgetful than me and actually check the recipe at this point, stir through the lemon juice and parsley before serving. Nom!

Goan Fish Curry

This was gorgeous, and the fussiest person in the house devoured his serve and asked for more. Will definitely make this again!

Dylan cooked tonight, and she adjusted the recipe a little to use red chilli paste instead of the dried red chillies, and doubled the onion, tomatoes (two tins) and coconut milk and cream (1 tin each) and used 1kg of basa fillets. The carbivores had theirs with rice, but Dylan (who is going off carbs for a while too) and I had ours like soup with extra sauce and it was heaven in a spoon...

Chicken Jambalaya

Based on this low-carb recipe. My quantities made two substantial roasting trays full of food, which was handy, because with two trays I could customise the sauce for our various cauliflower-hating peeps. So one tray was made with rice, as usual, and the other was low-carb, with the rice replaced by grated cauliflower as per the linked recipe.

4 large chicken Maryland portions

250g Spanish chorizo sausages

250g diced ham

2 onions, diced
2 huge cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 large green capsicum, diced
2 celery stalks (I didn't have any so I subbed the rest of the green beans in the fridge)
1/2 medium cauliflower
1 cup rice
2 tins tomatoes
2-3 tsp Cajun seasoning
water

Trim all the manky bits off the chicken portions. If you are a clever person, you will already know that chicken Maryland means "chop the back half of a chook into half again, and leave spine and gristle and horrible squishy bits cunningly hidden at the bottom of the nice tidy packaging to surprise the unwary", and you will have a cleaver ready. If you are not, you will try and do this with kitchen scissors and an inadequate knife, and It Will Not Be Pretty. But when you have finally tidied everything up, remove the skin, brown the chicken in a frying pan and then transfer to the two roasting trays. Chop the chorizo and scatter the sausage chunks and ham all around the chicken portions. Then you should probably refrigerate the trays until the sauce is ready, although I didn't.

Saute all the veges in olive oil and butter until tender (do not do what I did and use the really hot burner and burn the crap out of the onions, okay?). While they are cooking, chop the cauliflower into florets and whizz them in a food processor until they are about as grainy as rice. Don't over-fill the food processor or it will probably turn into mush with lumps in it. I did it in two batches, added the first one to the pan, then realised that Certain People in my house have an irreconcilable hatred of cauliflower. So at that point, I decided to make two different sauces.

I separated the sauteed vegetables into two, leaving as much of the cauliflower as I could in the pan, and put the other half into a pot to wait. Then I added tomatoes and Cajun seasoning to the pan, and about half a cup of water, brought it to the boil, and poured it over one of the trays of chicken. Then I returned the second batch to the pan, added tomatoes and seasonings, about a cup of rice (it may have been more - put in as much as you think will fill up your roasting tray when it's cooked, and add more water if necessary), and two cups of water. When it was hot, I poured it over the second tray and put both into the oven at 180C.

Check the rice after about half an hour and add more water if it needs it. If the rice on the top is going crunchy, stir it around a bit. I baked mine for about an hour, but it's ready whenever the rice is cooked. I served out the rice or cauliflower mixture, then we hacked the chicken off the bones and shared that out. This made enough for three adults, four kids, and one lunch-worth of leftovers. And everyone ate it, or at least some of it, which makes it successful enough to be worth a blog entry.

Crockpot Baked Beans

A different recipe this time; I've never used Worcestershire sauce before. I made this last night and so far the verdict from all the kids in the house (plus a ring-in) is that it's at least edible. So here's the recipe, so I don't forget what I changed. Adapted from here. (ETA: I've adjusted my original recipe again to reflect my standardised quantities. I now put this in the crockpot every Saturday night).

About 500g (dry weight) navy beans, soaked and pre-cooked (for about half an hour)
2 tins of tomatoes
1 tub of tomato paste (optional)
3 tbsp each Worcestershire sauce and golden syrup or honey
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 very large onions, finely diced
handful of diced bacon (use more if you have it, or leave it out)
2 heaping teaspoons (none of these anaemic measuring spoons, just splodge it in) of wholegrain mustard
3 heaping teaspoons or 4-5 cloves of finely chopped garlic
1 tsp each cumin and coriander
1 tbsp paprika
4-5 bay leaves
water

Combine beans, tomatoes and paste, and liquid ingredients in the crockpot. Saute onions in butter and olive oil until soft, then add the other measured ingredients and stir over heat until fragrant. Add to bean mixture and stir thoroughly, deglaze the pan with some water and add to the crockpot. Finally, add enough water to cover the beans by about 2cms. I put my crockpot onto Auto (in case I forgot to turn it down) until I went to bed, when I turned it down to Low, and we woke up to an extremely fragrant kitchen. Nom.

Hearty Chicken and Bean Casserole

We now have housemates, so I'm adjusting to cooking for seven. Fortunately they have similar carb Isshews, so we're not trying to cater to too many competing eating styles. Although now the Elder Daughter is a confirmed vegetarian it does make for some extra cooking when she is here - of course it is entirely consonant with her nature that she would be determinedly omnivorous for the years I was trying to feed my family vegetarian food and as soon as we go back to being omnivorous she switches to being vegetarian.

Anyway, last night I made this hearty chicken and bean casserole, modifying it a bit. I bought drumsticks instead of thigh fillets, left out the carrots, substituted one can of kidney beans and one of cannelini beans since that was what was in the cupboard, and left out the celery when I discovered that the new bunch I bought that morning turned out to be manky (damned greengrocer's green lights which disguise that yellowy tinge just long enough to fool you when you're in a hurry). So I ended up subbing a couple of red and green capsicums for the celery and carrots, and upping the amount of onion. I was hoping that I would get some leftovers for Mr Bat's work lunches, but nope, it all evaporated very quickly!

oil for sauteing
10 chicken drumsticks, skinned *
2 chorizo sausages, cut into bite-size pieces
4 medium onions diced
2 small red capsicums, diced
1 medium green capsicum, diced
1/4 small cabbage, finely shredded
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 800mL tin diced tomatoes, undrained

1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed

Brown the chicken drumsticks in the oil, then lay in two roasting trays and scatter with chorizo slices (I used one small and one large tray, since my original pan wasn't deep enough for all the bean mixture). Saute the onion in the pan drippings for a few minutes, then add capsicum, cabbage, and finally garlic. Turn oven onto about 180C. When veges are starting to brown, add beans and tomatoes and heat through. Pour sauce over the chicken and sausages and put the trays in the oven for about half an hour. Serve with sour cream for those wot likes it, and watch it disappear.

* This was for two adults and four children under 6 - I don't eat drumsticks cuz I'm fussy like that. Adjust for your own family's preferences. Next time I will probably add another sausage and another two or three drumsticks, and then we might have enough for a lunch for Mr Bat!

Bratwurst with Beans and Silverbeet

A simple, easy one-pot dish which was a big hit with my whole family after a long, tiring weekend.

3 medium onions, cut into rings

5 turkey bratwursts, cut into chunks
3 rashers bacon, diced
4 cloves garlic, finely diced or crushed
1/8th green cabbage, shredded
1 bunch silverbeet, shredded
1 x tin cannelini beans, rinsed *
1 tsp balsamic vinegar (or use red wine vinegar to be really strict on carbs)
1/2 sachet PureVia (equivalent to 1 tsp sugar)

In a large frying pan, start gently sauteing onions. When they start to soften, add the meats and continue to fry, stirring frequently. When bratwurst is almost done, add cabbage and cook for 5-10 minutes, until tender. Finally, add the garlic, silverbeet and cannelini beans, sprinkle with the vinegar and sweetener, and stir continuously until the silverbeet is wilted and the beans are warmed through. Devour.

* According to the information on the can, the cannelini beans contained 15g carbs per 100g, and 7g protein. I estimate that a serve of this was probably about 75g of beans per person (4 serves).

Menu Plans

Hmm, I have a couple of menu plans to post, in case anyone is finding them handy.


This Week
Monday: Kangaroo Spag Bol
Tuesday: Sausages, Roasted Vegetables
Wednesday: Roast Vegetable Fritatta
Thursday: Tomato Soup with Tiny Turkey Meatballs
Friday: Slowcooker Silverside
Saturday: Lentil burgers
Sunday: Almond Crusted Fish with Sweet Potato and Leek

Last Week
Monday: Creamy Chicken Pasta (or cauliflower)
Tuesday: Enchiladas with salad
Wednesday: Silverbeet and onion quiche/mini fritattas
Thursday: Lamb Koftas
Friday: Laksa*
Saturday: Burritos*
Sunday: takeaway**

* We went away for the weekend so meals had to be planned and ingredients bought in advance.
** Planned as takeaway so I wouldn't have to cook after a long drive home.