Burritos

I just finished my tasty dinner and am excited for lunch tomorrow because I'll be having tasty left overs.
Dinner was burritos, here's the run down:

Turkey mince, re-fried beans, onions and some burrito seasoning made the filling which i put on top of the grainy wraps. On top of that I added some tzatziki, corn, tomato, capsicum and baby spinach leaves. Delish!

Lamb with Bean Salad Recipe

Last night I cooked Lamb cutlets for the first time and.....they worked out perfectly! Maybe it was the magic of my new frying pan or perhaps the fact that I let them rest for a while but they really were nice. I seasoned them with a little salt, pepper and some dried rosemary.
To accompany the lamb I prepared a bean salad. It's simple, fresh and very tasty. I've included the recipe below.
To top off the meal, I cooked T some Masala flavoured Maggi 2-Minute noodles, his favourite comfort food.

Bean Salad

500g Green beans (cut up, blanched and drained)
1 can 4 Bean Mix (optional)

1 Tomato, diced
3 or 4 Spring onions (chopped)
1 handful of Toasted almonds
Dressing of your choice (I love Yumm, 'Very Original')

Mix all beans, tomato and almonds together. Pour over your dressing and sprinkle with almonds. Enjoy!

Lunch at San Sebastian

San Sebastian

Address: 303 Hampton Street, Hampton

Phone: 03 9533 4755

For lunch today we headed to a cafe in Hampton. The menu had many tempting options and it took us longer to decide what we wanted than it did for the dishes to come out once we'd ordered them.

I ordered the Mediterranean Lamb Salad ($18.50). It consisted of plenty of lamb, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, onion (which always pick out), goats cheese, olives and crispy bread strips and was dressed with an Italian dressing. It was delicious! Especially the crispy pieces of bread. I think the menu said the salad also came with macadamia nuts, which mine didn't have. They would've been a nice addition but the salad was super tasty without them.

T ordered a simple Chicken and Avocado Focaccia ($12). As well as the avocado and chicken, the focaccia had cheese, lettuce, onion and mayonnaise. From the nibble I had, it seemed to be little more than an average sandwich. I think some extra avocado would have made it tastier. Also, I think it could have been improved if the lettuce was served on the side and the focaccia was toasted for longer.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed my salad, we both had a nice coffee, and our waitress was friendly so lunch was an overall success. However, if we were to visit San Sebastian again I doubt we would be ordering a focaccia.

Roast Chicken Dinner

A good roast dinner is always well received and can be very easy if you cheat a little, like I tend to.
I am no expert when it comes to cooking or marinating meat so I tend to buy pre-seasoned roasting meat from the supermarket.
For this particular meal I cooked peri-peri flavoured chicken pieces and roast vegies. I chopped up pumpkin, potato and sweet potato which I roasted on the shelf below the chicken. I also steamed some broccoli then quickly stir-fried it with chilli, garlic and spring onion.
Just before the meat was ready I realised I had no Gravox so I improvised and made gravy from scratch using water, corn flour, vegetable stock powder and chicken juices. I didn't do a very good job stirring through the lumps, so just sieved the gravy as I poured it over the meal.

T and I both enjoyed our dinner and there are plenty of left overs. Win, win!

Shepherd's Pie

Mince is a pretty versatile ingredient, so I had many options when deciding what to cook for dinner the other night. I didn't feel like having pasta so I decided to make a rustic, pastry-less Shepherd's Pie.
It was my first attempt at making a pie in many years and the result was average, nice enough but nothing special.

With the turkey mince I cooked up onions, garlic, dried herbs, tomatoes, mushrooms, peas, celery, some tomato paste and seasoning. The mashed potato on top was just potato, evaporated milk and a little parmesan cheese.

Half Home Made Indian

I had no meat in the fridge and some wraps left over from a previous Mexican meal, so I decided to serve Indian for dinner. I grabbed a can of dahl from the pantry (as dodgy as that sounds, it is actually really tasty & super convenient) and a couple of potatoes. I cooked up the simplest Indian dish I know, Aloo Jeera (Potato with Cumin).

All I did was boil some potatoes, easy. Fried some cumin seeds, chilli powder, garam masala and tumeric in my new frying pan. Then added the potatoes to the spice mix with some salt. Nice and easy.

I quickly made some raita too. I chopped up a little cucumber and added it to Greek yoghurt along with some coriander, garlic and a little pepper.

While it was not a beautiful Indian meal made from scratch, it was a quick, convenient and tasty mid week meal.

Bircher Muesli

Mmm-mmm, Bircher Muesli, my favourite! I love bircher and have it for breakfast most mornings. I discovered my enjoyment for it about 2 years ago and make it slightly differently each time. However I did measure ingredients when I made it the other day, so that I could post an accurate recipe here. As with all recipes, quantities should be played with to suit your tastes and so you can claim the recipe as yours!

Bircher Muesli

Ingredients

2 1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup fruit/seeds/nuts (any combo you like; sultanas, almonds, pepitas, sunflower seeds, craisins, dried apricot etc)

sprinkling cinnamon

sprinkling nutmeg

250ml fruit juice

1 cup yoghurt

Method

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge over night. 

In the morning you might like to add a little extra liquid or yoghurt or maybe drizzle with some honey.

We serve ours with fruit. Here is a his and her's bircher breakfast.

T likes his with fruit salad or two-fruit mixed with a generous helping of bircher.

I have mine with a chopped banana and All Bran.