Pink Love-Heart Cake

So Ninny has landed herself a full time job. Congratulations!! Her recent success deserved a cake, so I promised Ninny I would bake her a pink cake. I had to try out my newly purchased Love Heart Cake Pan, Pink Food Colouring and ready to roll ready icing....Someone had to be the guinea pig.

To save time, I picked up a ready made cake mix (chocolate), baked that, slapped the ready made icing on top which I had coloured with pink icing a few days ago and this is what I got. Not too bad for a first timer ey? Although the cake didn't look that smooth, most likely because I rushed it - but overall it looked pretty good for my first attempt.

Potato and Broccoli Bake

I served this with Braised Diced Lamb and Red Cabbage Salad.

Ingredients

• 6 potatoes, diced and boiled
• broccoli small bunch, boiled
• salt
• Mozzarella Cheese, shredded
  

For the bechamel sauce

• 3 tablespoons margarine
  
• 6 tablespoons flour
• salt/pepper
• 2 tablespoons cheese spread (kraft brand)
• 2 cups milk, heated

Method

1. Boil potatoes for about 10 minutes, add broccoli and boil further 5 minutes. Drain.

2. Make the bechamel Sauce. Melt margarine, brown the flour, add in heated milk slowly whilst whisking so that lumps do not form. Add salt/pepper, stir through cheese spread and cook until sauce thickens.

3. Grease baking dish, add in the potatoes and broccoli, mix through with the bechamel sauce and sprinkle generously with mozzarella cheese. Cook until golden brown and crusty on top.

Braised Diced Lamb

I made this and served it up with Red Cabbage Salad and Potato and Broccoli Bake.



Ingredients

1 kg diced lamb
Salt/Pepper
Season all (optional)


Method

1. Wash the lamb.

2. Place the lamb in a pot and cook on high heat until it starts to absorb its juices.

3. Add some hot water until the meat is covered and reduce the heat to low and let it simmer Check the water level every now and then as you may need to keep adding more. I usually cook this for about 1.5-2 hours. Until the meat is nice and soft.

4. Add seasoning and serve.

Red Cabbage Salad (Kirmizi Lahana Salatasi)

I made this salad and served it with some braised diced lamb and potato and broccoli bake.



Ingredients

• 4 leaves of lettuce, sliced
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• 1/4 small red cabbage, sliced

Salad Dressing

• Half a lemon
• Oil
• Salt

Method

1. Wash all ingredients.

2. Slice the red cabbage and place in a separate bowl. Add oil and salt to soften it.

3. Slice/dice rest of ingredients and place in a bowl. Add the softened red cabbage.

4. Squeeze lemon and add to salad ingredients, add oil and salt and mix.


Notes

Depending on what I have available other things I usually add to this salad are:

• capsicum
• 4 bean mix
• parsley
• cucumber
• onions
• carrots
  

Chicken and Mushroom Pasta Bake

This pasta bake actually turned out really nice. It's probably because I threw it together using leftover ingredients I had from dinner the night before - Chicken with Mushroom Sauce.

All I did was cook some pasta (I used spiral pasta), drain and lay into a greased baking dish. Stir through the mushroom sauce and add the cooked diced chicken, sprinkle generously with mozzarella cheese, cook in the oven until the cheese is brown and crusty. So easy when you have everything ready. If you wanted to make this dish from scratch then here is the recipe. This recipe would probably feed about 4 people.

Ingredients

• 300g chicken breast, cooked and diced
  
• Chicken Seasoning/Season All (Whatever you prefer to season with)
• salt
• half a packet of pasta (your choice)
• mozzarella cheese, shredded
  

For the sauce

• 300ml thickened cream
• 200g mushrooms, sliced
• chicken stock powder (optional)
• 1 tablespoon cornflour/flour
  
• salt/pepper

Method

1. Cook the chicken according to preference and dice. Either pan fry/grill or boil it. I think pan frying is the tastiest but probably not the healthiest.

2. Make the sauce by sauteing mushrooms in some oil, when the mushrooms have softened remove them from the pan, into a bowl and stir through some cornflour or flour until the mushrooms absorb and look gluggly. Add cream back into the same pan, place the mushrooms back in, add in your seasoning. Simmer until sauce thickens.

3. Cook pasta and drain.

4. Grease baking dish, add chicken, sauce and pasta and mix through. Sprinkle genouroulsy with mozeralla cheese and cook in the oven until the top is golden brown and crusty.

5. Serve with salad.

Notes

You could omit the chicken if you didn't have any on hand.

Chicken with Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

• 1kg chicken breast, thinly sliced
• Chicken Seasoning/Season All (Whatever you prefer to season with)
• oil, salt
  

For the sauce

• 600ml thickened cream
• 400g mushrooms, sliced
• chicken stock powder (optional)
• 2 tablespoons cornflour/flour
  
• salt/pepper

Method

1. Cook the chicken according to preference. Either pan fry/grill it. I think pan frying is the tastiest but probably not the healthiest.

2. Make the sauce by sauteing mushrooms in some oil, when the mushrooms have softened remove them from the pan, into a bowl and stir through some cornflour or flour until the mushrooms absorb and look gluggly. Add cream back into the same pan, place the mushrooms back in, add in your seasoning. Simmer until sauce thickens.

3. Serve with some rice and/or salad.


Notes

If you have any leftovers, you can make chicken and mushroom pasta bake.

Tahini Cookies

I had some Tahini left in the fridge that was annoying me, I came across this recipe from the Devletsah website and it was so simple I had to try it. These cookies are the melt in your mouth type, I enjoyed eating them because they don't contain any butter/margarine, so it seemed a little healthier than the usual shortbread type cookies.

Ingredients

• 1 cup Tahini (sesame seed paste)
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 cup oil
• 25g Vanillin Sugar
• 1 cup walnut pieces (cut into smaller chunks)
• 4.5 cups plain flour

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients together and form a soft dough

2. Rest the dough for 10 minutes under a wet tea towel

3. Divide dough into small balls, roll and flatten

4. Place cookies on a greased tray and cook in the oven for about 30 minutes. Until it looks golden brown

5. Dust with icing sugar whilst warm.

Carrot Yoghurt Dip

Ingredients

• 6 carrots, grated
• 1 kg yoghurt
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced

Method

1. Grate the carrots and saute in some oil until they are cooked. Don't overcook them.

2. Cool the cooked carrot.

3. In a separate bowl, mix the minced garlic and yoghurt, and salt and mix it together with the cooked carrot. You need to make sure the carrot is well cooled down before you mix it in with the yoghurt.

Easy Red Lentil Soup - Chunky Style (Kolay Kirmizi Mercimek Corbasi)

There are so many ways to make lentil soup.... I make this when I feel like having a chunky style soup. Enjoy with lots of lemon :)

Ingredients

• 1 cup red lentils, picked and washed
• 1 cup chicken stock (optional)
• 7 cups water
• 1 onion, diced
• 3-4 tablespoons tomato paste
• salt
• vegetable oil

Method:

1. Pick through the lentils to ensure there are no stones, and wash a few times in water until the water runs clear.

2. Then place the lentils in water and leave it to boil. As the lentils boil, you will notice foam build up at the top of the pan, keep scooping this foam off with a big spoon until the lentils boil. Once boiled, turn off the heat and let the lentils sink to the bottom of the pan. The reason for this is its easier to drain some of the water without losing the lentils. So drain some of the water off the top and refill with hot water and let the lentils boil.

3. In a separate pan, heat up some vegetable oil and fry up the onions, add some hot water to the tomato paste so its runny then add this into the onion mixture.

4. Add the onion mixture to the lentils and mix. Add your salt.

5. Blend the soup if you wish.

6. When serving squeeze some lemon juice and enjoy with crusty bread.

Hummus

I got this recipe from the Exclusively Food website. They suggest making this dip one day earlier so the flavours develop. I modified this recipe according to my taste buds - I like my hummus quite garlicky and lemony.

Ingredients

400g canned chickpeas, drained
salt to taste
3 medium cloves garlic, peel and mince
Juice of one lemon (you may need more depending on how juicy the lemon is)
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons tahini
2.5 tablespoons water

Method

Blend all ingredients together in a food processor until well combined. Easy!! You will need to taste it and see if you need to add any more garlic or lemon juice depending on how you like it.

Peri-Peri Chilli Chicken Burgers

This burger is great for those days you just don't want to cook anything. You can either buy a pre-cooked roast chicken or buy yourself some chicken breasts and cook it up on the grill (George Foreman or something similar) or just pan fry. We used roast chicken for the above photo. These burgers were prepared by Foofer and his buddy Dilshan.

Ingredients

Pre-cooked Roast Chicken or chicken breast, grilled/pan fried.
Burger Buns
Tomatoes, sliced
Avocado, either mashed or sliced
Lettuce, sliced
Mayonnaise
Tomato Sauce
Peri-Peri Sauce Hot or Mild (This is a must!)

Method

1. If you are using chicken breast, slice it into thinner strips and cook whichever way you like.

2. Toast your buns

3. Butter buns, add tomato sauce, lettuce, tomato, chicken, avocado, tomato sauce and peri-peri sauce, top with mayonnaise and there you have it, your very own burger. Very easy and very yummy!

Cracked Wheat (Bulgur) Pilaf

Ingredients

1 onion, diced
2 green chilli peppers (omit if you don't like chilli or you can substitute with red capsicum), diced
4 ripe Tomatoes, peeled and diced
1/2 cup cracked wheat (bulgur), washed
2 tablespoons Canola Oil (Olive oil if you prefer)
2 cups hot water
1 cube chicken stock powder, or use chicken stock if on hand (optional)

Method

1. Sweat the onion and peppers in the oil, add the tomatoes and cook on low heat crushing the tomatoes as you cook it.

2. Pour in the hot water and boil up the tomatoes, then turn the flame to low heat and add in the bulgur, let it simmer for 10 minutes.

3. Finally mix in the chicken stock powder and season with salt. I don't like my bulgur pilav too dry so i turn off the heat when its a little juicy.

I usually serve this dish with some chicken. In this instance I marinated some chicken drumsticks and potatoes with paprika,olive oil, salt and pepper and cooked in an oven bag for 1.5 hours at 180c.

Bocconcini Salad

It doesn't get any easier than this! This was made by foofer. You could even have this for breakfast with some yummy crunchy toast.

Ingredients

1 large tomato, sliced
2 pieces of Bocconcini cheese, sliced
Olive oil
cracked black pepper
salt

Method

1. Layer up the tomato and cheese on a plate.

2. Drizzle some olive oil over the top, season with salt and pepper.

Black Eyed Pea Salad (Borulce Salatasi)

Ingredients

1 Bunch Black Eyed Pea
2 lemons, juiced
2 tablespoon oil
1 onion, diced
1/4 cup water
Salt to taste

Method

1. Cut up the black eyed pea and boil in water.

2. Drain and set aside.

3. Add oil into a separate pan and saute the onion.

4. Add the boiled black eyed pea, lemon juice and water. Mix together for a minute on low heat, adding salt to taste.

Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 onion, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 kg peeled pumpkin, coarsely chopped 
• 1 medium potato, coarsely chopped 
• 2 cups chicken stock
• dash of nutmeg (optional)
• water
• cream for decoration when serving

Method

1. Cook onion in oil until softened.

2. Add pumpkin, potato and chicken stock, pour in water to cover the vegetables and bring to the boil.

3. Simmer for 30 minutes, add salt (and nutmeg if you wish).

4. Blend the soup, you may need to do a few batches.

5. Return soup to pan, and reheat gently. Add some cream when serving.

This recipe is suitable to freeze. I have done it before and it tastes just as good. If you plan on freezing the soup, make sure you freeze without adding the cream.