Vegetarian Enchiladas

I love beans, not the green variety (though I do like them too), but legumes. They are incredibly versatile, nutritious, satisfying and tasty.
I use beans in salads, Indian and Mexican cooking. In Mexican dishes I generally use beans instead of meat.
For this meal I soaked some dried beans over night (kidney beans and another variety which I've forgotten) then boiled and processed some, I left some whole for the texture. I was using an Old El Paso Enchilada meal kit so I mixed through some Mexican spices and half of the tomato based sauce. I filled the tortillas with the bean mix, rolled them, placed them in an oven tray and covered them with the remaining tomato sauce and some cheese, as per the instructions. As a side to the enchiladas I made some guacamole and a salad.
I really enjoyed this meal, however eating lots of beans can tend to have a bad side effect....

Kangaroo and Salad

I recently needed some read meat, not because I like it, but because I need to look after my iron levels. I had some kangaroo meat in the freezer and cooked that up. Apparently kangaroo meat is very good for you, it's lean, low in fat, high in iron and it's quite cheap. That is all good and well, but I feel very strange about eating the national animal of Australia. I'm caught in a mental struggle; I know the meat is good for me but I feel some moral conflict when eating it. I don't think i'll be having any kangaroo meat again anytime soon but I will explain a bit about this meal.

I cooked the meat just enough because it has a tenancy to be chewy when even slightly overcooked. I then mixed it with some Worcestershire and tomato sauces and made a runny gravy with the pan juices and some Gravox.
The salad was really tasty. I recently bought a jar of gherkins and have been adding them to most of the salads I'm making. The are a tasty addition. Along with the gherkins, the salad had some tomato, capsicum, lettuce, olives, celery and cucumber.

Agnolotti and Ravioli Two Ways

I recently bought some Ricotta and Spinach Agnolotti and Chicken and Mushroom Ravioli on special. I don't eat a great deal of pasta (T does) but I consider this kind if pasta a real treat.
I decided to cook both pastas together, make a big batch and have enough for leftovers. I prepared two different 'sauces,' both of which were delicious!

The tomato based sauce was made up of onion, garlic, sun dried tomatoes, chopped tomatoes and some tomato paste. Simple but yummy.

The other 'sauce' was a new one I tried out. I visited taste.com.au and found a recipe for Avocado and Rocket Pasta. The flavours were fresh and delicious. I definitely recommend this recipe to anyone.

Tofu Stir-Fry

I've made a few tofu stir-fries lately and this one was a real winner.

 

The tofu was pre-marinated and the delicious selection of vegies were from a frozen packet. I also added some extra broccoli and sauces. It was served with Maggi 2-Minute noodles.

Smoked Trout Pita Wrap

Last night for dinner I made myself a tasty wrap. The pita bread was fresh (M-mmm!) and I filled it with smoked trout, sour cream, baby spinach leaves, green capsicum, tomato avocado and gherkins. Nice.

T's Birthday Lunch

Monday is T's birthday so we had some friends over for lunch today to celebrate. I had planned and cooked ahead so I had nothing to stress about today.
I tried a few new recipes, each of which were quite successful, as well as making some tried and tested favourites.

Here is the menu:

Nibbles
Savory celery sticks
Hommus with rice crackers and pita bread
Corn chips with salsa

Home made hommus

The Celery sticks were a winner. The mixture in the middle would make a nice dip, it consisted of cream cheese combined with finely chopped red onion and gherkins. I found the recipe in a 4 Ingredients cook book.

Savory celery sticks

Main

Thai Pumpkin Soup

Potato and Leek Soup

Tuscan Bean Soup

This was a new recipe. It was simple and delicious.

+ Vienna Loaf
+ Sweet chilli pull apart
+ French stick

Dessert
 Orange mini muffins with cream cheese icing

Gluten-free choc biscuits

Laurant Folie Cake

I was super happy with all the food. Everything was well received, there was plenty left over and I got a fair few compliments! Perfect for a birthday lunch!!

Happy Birthday hubby!