Aubergine and Mint Bruschetta With Beetroot, Red Apple and Watercress Salad

These meals are not from the J.O. 30 Minute Meals cook book but they are from his website http://www.jamieoliver.com/  They are fantastic and I highly recommend them even if you aren't used to eating either beetroot or aubergine/eggplant.

Disclaimer: I have never been a big fan of aubergine or eggplant as it is called where I grew up. I have always found it to be foamy when raw and gooey when cooked and particularly lacking in flavor or bitter. But as my favorite vegetarian pointed out to me once-"you probably don't like it because you have never had a good eggplant before". I think that was true, but really it was only one of the problems. The second problem was that I had never cooked it in the right way before.

So tip #1 Picking Your Eggplant

If your eggplant sounds hallow it will turn out to be the foamy kind inside. Pick them heavy, shiny, on the smaller side, and give it the thumb press test. Press your thumb into the side and if indents and springs back it is ripe :) I don't know if it is true but I read that you should look for an eggplant that has the smallest dimple in the bottom, rather than those with larger dimples.

 For the first time in my life I picked the right egg plants. They made the most wonderful bruschetta ever. This Aubergine and mint bruschetta is now one of my favorite J.O. recipes. The crusty bread soaks up the olive oil, mint, garlic and other flavors from the aubergine and tastes healthy and refreshing. 

Tip #2 Cooking the eggplant

Most things I have read tell you to sweat your eggplant before cooking to avoid the bitter taste, but in this recipe I didn't find that necessary. I simply grilled the eggplant dry without oil and they dried up in cooking and never got soggy. 

 Now on to the beetroot, red apple and watercress salad. This was wonderful as well. It has a light taste full of complicated flavors. Sweet apples and beets contrast the more peppery taste of the watercress. The highlight of the salad though for me, has to be all the fresh marjoram. It does something wonderful to the salad that is hard to describe. It seems to pull it all together and make your mouth say YUM!

I do have a tip for making this salad as well though: make sure your watercress is really fresh. It starts to loose its nice flavor and gets old more bitter.To do this look for dark green leaves and stems that are firm. Avoid any that are turning yellow or feel slightly slimy. The other tips for the salad have to do with the beats. One is to wear gloves when thinly slicing your beet root to avoid red fingers for the next three days :) The other is to peel them. He says just to wash and not peel but if you are even slightly worried about the flavor of the beets I would peel them. I always peel mine and I never get that dirty bitter taste.

Overall this meal was a huge success with the family and and will now be added to our list of favorite summer dishes. Here are the links on Jamie's website for the recipes.
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/bread-recipes/aubergine-mint-bruschette
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetarian-recipes/beetroot-red-apple-watercress-salad

FYI: I didn't have any white wine or herb vinegar for the bruschetta so I substituted red wine vinegar instead and it was wonderful.

Back to Blogging

Wow, it has been way too long since I have added any new posts to the blog here. We have been traveling around for the last half a year and have been living in and out of hotels and temporary housing where good Internet was expensive and/or hard to come by. That has meant this poor blog has been left largely alone. It is finally time to get back into the swing of things and start blogging about food and JO's 30 minute meals :) Check back for the next post soon.

Sea Bass & Crispy Pancetta, Sweet Potato Mash, Asian Greens, 1-Minute Berry Ice Cream and Sprarkling Lemon Ginger Drink

Sea Bass & Crispy Pancetta, Sweet Potato Mash, Asian Greens, 1-Minute Berry Ice Cream and Sparkling Lemon Ginger Drink p. 182 

This meal is probably my favorite meal so far out of the JO 30 Min. Meals Cookbook. If not my favorite then in my top 3 for sure.  It was amazing.  We had a small cooking competition at our church recently and I made this for it. It won first place for best tasting. It really is GOOD!!  I am big into textures in food and this one has so many textures and flavors too that complement each other. It is a symphony in your mouth for sure. 

These are the Asian greens. Asparagus is out of season here so we went with broccoli alone. You can tell in the picture that they are overcooked as well. Once you loose the bright green color of your veggies you know it is too late-they're over cooked.  I am learning more though about resting your meat after it is cooked though and I can't see why this wouldn't work for veggies. A famous chef here in New Zealand said something in a class I took from him that made me think a lot about the way we do dinner at my house.  He said that home chef's always think they need to serve food piping hot, but really it is good for your meat to rest and better that your food is served less hot than overcooked!!  Good point don't you think? Next time we are waiting dinner on dad we will take the food out early and let it rest rather than trying to keep it hot and letting it overcook.

Crispy pancetta-this is 8 slices of pancetta that goes on top of the fish. it's cooked in a drizzle of olive oil until crispy. When crisp you remove it from the pan and leave the fat in the pan to cook the fish in.  Put the fish in the pan skin side down and press it down onto the pan with a spatula(the recipe calls for 4X 150g fillets of sea bass).  Next pound up 1 tsp of fennel seeds in a pestle and mortar and scatter them over the fish with a pinch of salt and pepper. Then finely grate over the zest of 1 lemon. Cut the lemon into quarters and save for serving.

Sweet Potato Mash- take 700g of sweet potatoes and wash, trim and stab with a knife. Put in a large microwave safe bowl. Halve a lime and add it to the bowl cover with cling wrap and microwave on full power for 12 minutes  or until cooked through.  While that is cooking, finely chop the coriander on a large wooden board and set aside a few leaves for the garnish. Add the mango chutney, a good splash of soy sauce, a drizzle of olive oil, the juice of 1/2 a lime and 1/2 a chopped red chili.

Take the sweet potatoes out of the microwave when cooked through, then use tongs to squeeze over the juice from the hot lime halves and discard them.  carefully tip the sweet potatoes on top of the mango chutney mixture and use a knife or masher to chop and mash everything together, including the skins. Season to taste, adding more fresh lime juice if needed.

I added just a tablespoon or two more of the mango chutney to it because it tasted so good.

Here it is with the sea bass and pancetta on top, lemons on the side, and a little coriander (cilantro) to garnish. Magnificent food!  Can't wait to try it again.

Here is a picture of the second batch of broccoli I cooked up and didn't over cook. It is bright green and not dark at all. It tasted SO much better.

And if you just couldn't tell--here it is with the flash on :) I should add that I didn't make the berry ice cream for desert but will try to go back and try it another time and put up a post later.

This meal got a 10 from everyone in the family as well as wining the cooking competition at church. I had so many people come up to me afterwards and ask me about the meal. The purpose of the competition was to let people try different recipes that were healthy and under a certain price per/serve as they would say in New Zealand and this was one of Jamie's less expensive meals and one of my favorites so I chose this one. It was fantastic.

I highly recommend that you try this meal, so to get you started I found this link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-1312675/Jamie-Olivers-30-minute-meals-Sea-bass-pancetta-sweet-potato-mash-Asian-greens-berry-ice-cream-sparkling-lemon-ginger-drink.html

Shrimp Tacos

These shrimp tacos had cilantro/coriander, tomatoes, onions, lemons, guacamole, red chillies finely chopped, tamarillos, some people had a dollop of creme fraiche, and of course shrimp.

This shrimp was cooked in a lot of fresh lime juice, a small knob of butter and sprinkled with red chili and coriander/cilantro.  It was cooked perfectly (not overcooked like people tend to do with shrimp).

How can you go wrong with all this goodness wrapped up in a tortilla??  My husband loves to put kiwi fruit hot sauce over the top to finish them off.

If it's been a while since you have eaten fish or shrimp tacos I suggest you get on that and serve them for your next meal :) So good! The only problem is that you usually want to eat more than is needed to fill you up.

Fish Tacos

These fish tacos are one of our default meals. They are fast, comforting and full of fresh ingredients. And they taste AMAZING!! Plus you can throw whatever is in fridge on top :) 

Usually we do tomatoes, onions, cilantro, fish, cabbage, fresh lemon, tamarillos, cheese and either tartare sauce or sour cream and/or guacamole. Sometimes I grate carrots on top or capsicum/bell peppers. You can also grate a little beetroot over the top for some yummy and really healthy crunch. The problem with beetroot is that the dark red color of the beets stain :(

This time we ate them on flour tortillas (because that is really the only thing you can find here), but sometimes we make our own corn tortillas which are really yummy!

The next post will have our shrimp version of these tacos.  I usually keep some frozen fish on hand for these so that they are something I can make when I don't have the ingredients for anything else or when I need to use up some leftover fresh ingredients getting a little ripe in the fridge.

BBQ Chicken Sandwiches with Memphis Style Coleslaw

BBQ Chicken Sandwiches with Memphis Style Coleslaw

These are not "real" southern states BBQ sandwiches but they certainly hit the spot for us since we have been missing some good BBQ since we moved here.

The rolls are the same recipe I got from the cooking class I took. I brushed the tops with the beaten egg and then added my own touch of sprinkling them with dried herbs before baking 

(these had dried thyme on them).

I slow cooked the chicken in the crockpot with 1/2 a bottle of Smoked Manuka  BBQ sauce and 1/2- 3/4 of a can of coke. So good!

The recipe for the coleslaw came from here: http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/09/memphis-style-coleslaw/ 

and we were really happy with it.

We cut open the warm rolls and put on some hot chicken, squeezed on a little BBQ sauce and then topped with the cold coleslaw and the top of the bun. They were FANTASTIC and we have already repeated the recipe but with Pork shoulder and Root Beer instead of coke (either one works).

So like I said they aren't anything like southern BBQ but, as my sister-in-law pointed out, it's hard to beat a meat smoker. And as I added-yeah and some really good homemade southern BBQ sauce made by somebody named Dave or Bill who has been making if for 25 years or more :)

My Newest Kitchen Acquisition-And Learning to Appreciate Tea

These beautiful tea cups are my newest kitchen acquisition and I am in LOVE with them. They are made in Italy and I have had my eye on them since we moved here over 8 months ago.  I finally decided to buy a set of six and I am really enjoying them.

Here where we live now they have 3 meals a day and then morning and afternoon tea and sometimes pudding which comes after the last meal of the day. It depends on where your roots are I am told.  I used to have a huge amount of tea in my cupboards in the USA, but only drank it for medicinal purposes because I forgot it was there until someone couldn't sleep or had an upset tummy or something. Here I drink a glass of tea everyday and sometimes two.  I am really enjoying the Fijoa tea, the lemon and lemongrass tea, the strawberry and mango and my staple Mint tea. 

For me it makes it even more enjoyable to drink it out of my new tea cups. It combines beauty with taste which is something I have always had an appreciation for. My kids LOVE having tea as well. Their favorite (and mine) is to eat biscuits with their tea. I couldn't really understand the obsession with small hard round biscuits that are barely sweet. Until the day we had some with out tea and it all made sense.  They really are quite good with tea (not good for much else though).

My two year old really enjoys her tea and she and the boys were quite put out with me when I wouldn't let them drink it out of my new tea cups. But they would drink it from anything as long as these homemade gingerbread men were on the side :)

This is one of the homemade gingerbread men that we made to decorate at my sons birthday party. These were also really great with tea. I was glad I made an extra batch. I had to go all over to find molasses here. I finally found it at "Common Sense Organics" and it was just what I wanted-unsulferd molasses.  Here is the link for the recipe to make you own homemade gingerbread men to dunk in your tea: http://www.joyofbaking.com/GingerbreadMen.html  I like this recipe because it is real gingerbread made with molasses. It has a wonderful flavor. I used fresh nutmeg in mine as well which was nice. Hope you enjoy your tea and little men as much as we have.