Tues: Passover at Suncoast

Wed: Passover at Chancellor

Thurs: Slow cooked Chilli Con Carne. (I’ll just be modifying this recipe by putting it in the slow cooker)

Fri: Passover meal with my family, so I’ll be cooking Moroccan Lamb Shanks with cous cous.

Sat: Mousakka (Combo of Bonnie‘s recipe and the WW one)

Sun: TBA

Mon: Mushroom Risotto

Tues: Paneer Koftas

Wed: Pasta and vegies

Thurs: 40 clove chicken

Fri: Mac and Cheese

Sat: TBA

Sun: TBA

Just a little reminder that if you haven’t gone and answered the 8 quick questions about my blog, it’s still up there waiting just for you- so far I’m thinking that I only have a couple of people who read my blog, and that’s making me a bit sad.

I honestly really appreciate you taking the time to answer the questions, plus you go in the draw to win a secret prize as well!

Ingredients:

1 kg ripe tomatos, cut in half

1 400g tin tomatoes in juice,

drained 2 tbsp tomato paste

1 litre liquid chicken stock

2 tbsp sweet chillli sauce

1 onion, chopped roughly

2 tsp minced galic

3 tsp sugar

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp dried oregano

How To:

1. Turn on slow cooker on high and preheat.

2. place onion and olive oil in a microwave safe dish and cook on high 2 minutes.

3. place all ingredients excluding tomato into slow cooker and stir to combine. add halved tomatoes and cover, cook on high for 2-3 hours or until tomatoes are soft.

4. Puree soup in a blender and season with freshly cracked salt and pepper. If desired garnish with a dollop of sour cream and parsley

By the way, this looks really bland, but it’s NOT! It’s really, really, yummy.

Really creamy and flavoursome!

Ingredients:

1 X 3 second spray Always Fresh Simply Canola Spray

1 medium onion, finely chopped

750 g mushroom, chopped

2 clove garlic, crushed

1 tbs (s) soy sauce

4 whole chicken stock cube, make 4 cups stock

240 g Potato, boiled, peeled and chopped

1 cup (s) skim milk powder

Process:

Coat a medium saucepan with cooking oil spray and gently cook the onion, covering with a lid if necessary, over a low-medium heat until soft. (It may help to add a little of the stock when softening the onion.)

Add the mushrooms and garlic and cook, tossing constantly, for 3-4 minutes or until soft. Add the soy sauce, stock and potatoes and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Stir the skim milk powder through.

Using a stick blender or food processor, blend the soup until smooth. Season to taste with salt and black pepper and ladle into 4 warm bowls to serve.

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 30 mins

If you’re on weight watchers, this recipe is from them, and it’s 1 point per serve.

Yumm!

So, here it is, this week in the Carbis household:

M: Creamy Mushroom Soup

T: Slow Cooked Tomato Soup

W: Pasta

Th: Chicken sald with chilli cream dressing

F: Risotto

S: Warm lentil, roast pumpkin and goats cheese salad

S: Ricotta & spinach chicken with polenta & tomatoes

I’ll be putting a few of the recipes up as well…

3 egg whites

1/2 cup castor sugar

1 cup plain flour

125g almonds

240 g glace cherries

Method

Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in sugar, beating will after each addition, until all sugar is disolved. Fold in sifted flour, whole almonds, and cherries.

Spread into a 25cm x 8cm bar tin, lined with baking paper.

Cook in an oven for 30-35 mins (180ºC) or until just firm. Cool out of tin.

When cold, wrap in alfoil and put aside for one or two days. Using a very sharp knife, cut bread wafer thin and put the slices onto a baking tray. Bake in a SLOW oven for 45 mins, or until crisp (not too dark- just starting to colour).

Makes about 40.

180g Butter

150g Dark Cooking Chocolate

1 3/4 cups caster sugar

4 eggs

vanilla essence

3/4 cup plain flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp Peppermint essence

STEPS

Preheat oven to 160ºC. Grease lamington pan and line with baking paper.

Combine butter and chocolate in a saucepan. Stir over low heat until melted and smooth. Add peppermint essence.

Add eggs, essence, flour, cocoa and lastly sugar. Mix quickly.

Pour into prepared tin and bake for 50 minutes or until firm.

Things to remember:

When it’s ready, and you stick the skewer into it, it will stil come out a bit sticky- this is GOOD.

1 tsp of Peppermint essence might taste pepperminty in the batter, but once it’s cooked it will be quite faint. If you really like the peppermint flavour, then make sure you add a bit more.

Photo via weightwatchers.com.au

Ingredients

Pizza Dough

Put 1 sachet of yeart (approx 2-3 tsp) of dried yeast into a mixing bowl with 1 tsp sugar and enough luke warm water (really, really important that it’s not too hot!! Better to be too cool, then too hot- you’ll kill the yeast!) to cover the bottom of the bowl.

Let it sit until the yeast is all frothy.

Add 1 1/2 cups of flour and 3/4 cup of luke warm water. Mix in your mixer using dough hooks.

Let this mix sit until it’s doubled in size. It’ll probably be pretty wet.

Add 1/2  cup of flour and mix again until flour is mixed. Let it sit again until it’s doubled again.

(I find that this mix, when risen properly can make about 4 pizzas, or 2 of these scroll logs)

Scrolls

Put 1 grated zuchini, 2-3 diced shallots (depending on their size), handful of fresh basil- finely chopped, and 4-5 cloves of garlic- diced or pressed, into a bowl and mix around.

Grate 3/4 cup of cheese (cheddar).

Roll all of the dough out onto a bench. Spread with some tomato paste. Add the zuchini mix, and the cheese.

Roll into a log, and cut into 12 pieces. Put each piece into the hole of a muffin tin. Cook for 20-30 mins in a moderate oven.

Weight Watchers:

Each scroll is about 2 points each, and you could cut down of the points by using cottage cheese instead of cheddar (1 1/2 points each), or using less dough. We find that four scrolls is plenty for lunch!

M&D send me to a cooking class for my birthday this year. While my actual b’day was a while ago now, I just went to the class this last weekend. It was a FANTASTIC day. LOTS of fun! The place is called “On The Ridge“, and as you can see from the picture, it’s set in the beautiful area of Kureelpa, up near Montville.

The Amazing View

One of my favourite things to do was make pasta. I’ve made pasta before, but Tonya gave us some really good tips that I didn’t know before. On Tuesday night I made some pasta dough (100g flour to 1 egg and some oil) after home group, and last night Luke and I had some pasta with the pesto I made as well (I got the recipe for that from the class).

Pasta we made drying on clothes rack!

At the cooking class we split into groups to cook the various things- there were a LOT of different dishes (we got to eat them ALL at the end!). One group made Veal ‘Olives’ with mushroom, sage and proscuitto. Isn’t it nice to cook them out on the deck?!

Is there anything much better then cooking on the deck?

I would 100% recommend going to one of Tonya’s cooking classes. It was a fantastic day filled with learning and cooking in a BEAUTIFUL location. Lots of wine and food afterwards. We ate for SEVERAL hours after we’d finished cooking!! Rachel and I think this would be great for Carmy’s hens day as well- but we’ll see what happens with that- it could be a little too expensive for everyone, but I would go back in an instant! If you love food and cooking then I would definitely recommend this cooking school!

This was an Italian day, but there are lots of others themes as well. Check out their website for more details and FREE recipes!!

My group made the pesto for the pasta. Delish!

His whole philosphy is about passing on recipies from the book so that we’re learning to all cook and eat healthier. The recipe for Chicken Korma on page 74 made me hungry, and on page 99 he includes the recipe on how to make the korma curry paste from SCRATCH! Of course, I’m automatically going to make the paste myself, and you know what? It turned out to be SO yummy! I can’t wait for you to try it and then let me know in the comments.

Korma Paste

2 cloves garlic

thumb sized piece of fresh ginger (I used a teaspoon of minced ginger from the jar)

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (I used regular pepper)

1 tsp garam masala

1/2 tsp sea salt

2 tbs groundnut oil (I used olive oil)

1 tbs tomato puree (Only a tbs?! I just used tomato paste instead)

2 fresh chillies (I used about a tsp of chilli flakes)

3 tbs desiccated coconut

2 tbs ground almonds (I just skipped this cause I didn’t have it)

1 small bunch of fresh corriander

For Toasting:

2 tsp cumin seeds (I just used ground cumin)

1 tsp corriander seeds (I just used extra fresh corriander, even though I know they have really distinctive tastes)

How To Do It (what you’re SUPPOSED to do):

Add spices for toasting (cumin and corriander seeds) to a really hot, dry pan. Lightinly toast for a few minutes until golden brown. Add them to a pestle and mortar and grind till fine. Add the rest of the ingredients. Wolah!

What I really did:

Mixed them all together. Wolah!

Also, once this is made, I just got some stir fry lamb strips (SO much easier then cutting the meat up myself), put them in the wok, and tossed them round. I didn’t cook them too much, cause I didn’t want them to go dry or anything… then I just added the curry paste and stired it round to get it all hot and the flavours going, and then added really small squares of potato, sweet potato and onion. Mixed all those round, added 1 tin of evaporated milk, and 1/2 tin of water (read: filled the tin half way with water and poured it in, I do NOT BUY water in a can, or at all….), and forgot to put in the cocounut essence (AGAIN), and then let it simmer for a while! Just add more water if it’s getting dry. Serve with rice. Yumm-o!

Would love to hear from people who actually use the CORRECT recipe, as well as those who wing it like me!!