Quick Meals - Purple Cauliflower Cream Cheese Pizza with Lamb and Honey

Sometimes when colleagues see me eating leftovers at work, they ask if I have kids. When I say no, they then ask why I “hide” so many veges in my dishes. I don’t deliberately hide veges, I just like veges and try to include lots in my dishes - and processing is a lazy way of prepping them! But, if you do struggle to get your kids to eat veges and need to hide them, this pizza is a really good way of doing it. Pizza in general is a great way of doing it, because I’m yet to meet a kid who doesn’t love pizza. Check out my pizza sauce with beans here. But the vegetables in this pizza are 100% hidden in the sauce. It gets the wonderful pinky-purply colour from a purple cauliflower, but you can use a regular cauliflower. I know I’ve only ever come across the purple cauliflowers once in Perth!

The tortilla crusts were because I had leftovers. Sub in real pizza bases or lebanese loaves.

 

This is a great midweek meal, because it is super quick and easy to prepare. Everything is done in the food processor, then 10 minutes in the oven. 15 minutes total and you have a delicious meal.

Cauliflower Cream Cheese Pizza with Lamb and Honey 

¼ head cauliflower

200g Philadelphia Cream Cheese
2 tsp za'atar spices
2 tomatoes
2 lamb steaks
honey
parmesan
Tortillas or Lebanese loaves

Preheat your oven to 180C

Break the cauliflower into large florets and place in a food processor. Pulse to ‘rice’ it. Add the philly cream cheese, spices and tomatoes, then process until evenly chopped and combined, scraping down the sides as necessary.

Spread onto tortillas, slice lamb steaks thinly and scatter on top, top with grated parmesan, drizzle with honey.

Pop in the oven and bake until base is crispy and the parmesan is golden and melted

 

Party Inspiration - Camp Molloy

 

In Perth, we’re coming up for a long weekend, and I know hundreds of us WAliens flock Down South for a lovely and relaxing break. What a perfect time to reminisce over my 30th birthday – an American Summer Camp Themed week-long adventure in the Augusta/Margaret River region we dubbed Camp Molloy. Maybe inspire a few of you on day trips and activities in the area. Opportune timing also as I haven’t gotten around to processing any food photos lately (don’t blame me, blame the new Donkey Kong)

Molloy Island is a small residential island in the Blackwood River, accessible via a 4-car barge. I’ve been going to Molloy Island ever since I was born and I love it. My husband has grown to love it, too. I learnt to ride a bike there, got proposed to there and spent a month there on my honeymoon. I absolutely love this area of my state. It only made sense that my 30th should be there, too.

Given that it was a week holiday, Lance and I designed and made the invitations early to give guests ample opportunity to take time off work and things like that. The invitation I am still particularly proud of. It consisted of 4 parts. A postcard written from Lance and I, telling people we had discovered this camp. A ‘brochure’ outlining the details of the camp, including activities planned, rules of the camp and a few joke paragraphs. A permission slip and an invitation for my actual birthday “dinner” on the Saturday night, for people who could only make it down for the weekend.

 

 

Despite the fact that it was a group ‘holiday’, we treated it like it was a camp in terms of organisation. It’s really hard to get a bunch of adults to make decisions, so we planned all activities and running schedule so that the time away was used to maximum enjoyment! And everyone going had expectations of what they’d be doing. It worked really well. A few weeks before my birthday, we sent a detailed itinerary.

For the activities, we went to the beach, played archery, had a limousine brewery tour day, a limousine winery tour day, Halloween happened to fall during the holiday so we had a dress-up mini-golf and maze day. Lance planned a quiz night one night, we played tennis and we had lots and lots of good food and wine.

Some of my favourite places and businesses we visited on Camp Molloy are:

Cape Naturaliste Winery – my favourite winery ever. Ever.

Margaret River Venison Farm - Venison Chorizo, need I say more?
Vasse Virgin Olives
Eagle Bay Brewery
Cheeky Monkey Brewery
Cruising the Cape Limos
Amazen
Woody Nook WInery - definitely worth hitting for a good lunch spot on a winery trek

Vasse Felix Winery

Peacetree Estate Winery

Voyager Estate Winery
Leeuwinn Estate Winery

Margaret River Dairy

The Berry Farm

 

 

And a whole bunch more I can't currently remember. Shoot me an email if you are interested in anything in particular. Or check out MargaretRiver.com 

 

Have you ever planned a road trip party? What did you find that worked really well? What were the struggles? Would you do it again? I'm hoping to plan a foodie weekend down south soon!

Bagel Bombs Part 2 - Garlic and Cream Cheese Bombs

I think I mentioned in Part 1 of this Bagel Bomb series that I made the sweet potato and bacon bagel bombs because someone attending the party didn't eat cheese? Well, I decided I wanted to have cheese ones anyway, so I made two lots.  I've started making both types every time I make them, just doubling the dough recipe (my awesome new KitchenAid can handle it!). I honestly cannot choose my favourite of these. Everyone else tends to lean one way or the other. I'm happy to eat two though. And usually, two more...

I don't have many photos from these ones, or at all currently. I've been very slack with my food photography . Which is possibly for the best, seeing as my laptop screen is cracked and it's not so easy to process them! Hopefully things will get back on track in the new year!

Dough – adapted from the Momofuku Milk Bar Cookbook:3 ½ cups flour (I used 2 cups plain, 1 cup wholemeal and ½ cup spelt)
1/2 tbsp salt
1 tsp raw sugar
1 1/8 tsp active dry yeast
1 ¾ cups water, at room temperature
1 tablespoon vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil)

Filling

1x 250g packet Philadelphia cream cheese
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1 clove galic, minced
2 tbsp oil (I used bacon fat)
¼ cup flat leaf parsley leaves, roughly chopped

Egg Wash Topping:

1 egg, at room temperature
¾ tsp freshly ground rock salt
1 tsp sesame seeds
1 tbsp rolled oats, roughly chopped

Heat the oil to medium/low heat in a frypan and add the minced garlic, stir around until fragrant and starting to go golden. Turn off the heat and set aside.

Using a hand beater, blend the cream cheese on low until smooth. Add the garlic (include any oil left in the pan), salt, parsley and sugar, then beat to combine.

Using two teaspoons, roll heaped teaspoonsful of this mixture between the spoons, pushing down to compact slightly and put on a tray lined with baking paper. Put in the freezer for a few hours (while you make the dough) to set hard. This makes it much easier to form the bombs later. You will need 16 balls.

Stir together all of the dry dough ingredients with the hook of your standmixer in the bowl of your standmixer by hand. Add the water, and mix with your hand until it’s mainly come together. Attach the bowl and hook, and beat the dough on low for 5-10 minutes, until it comes together into a smooth ball.  You might need to add more flour to get the right consistency. Lightly coat another large bowl with oil and put the dough ball into it, roll to coat the dough with oil too. Cover with plastic wrap and put in a warm corner for 45 minutes until the dough has almost doubled in size.

Heat the oven to 175C

Punch down and flatten the dough on your countertop. Cut the dough into 16 pieces and loosely cover the dough you aren’t currently forming with the plastic wrap from the bowl earlier to stop it drying out.

Roll each portion into a neat ball in your palms, then use your palm and fingers to stretch out into a flat disc. Place a ball of the filling in the centre, then pull all of the edges up and around the mixture. Pinch shut, then roll the ball gently in your hands to smooth into a neat ball. Place on a lined baking tray.

Whisk egg, then brush each bun with a generous amount. Mix all of the other wash ingredients together in a bowl and sprinkle over the top.

Bake for 20-30 minutes until golden, allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before eating because the filling stays quite hot!

Quick Meals - BBQ Black Bean Pizza Sauce

In my mind, there are two things that make or break a pizza. The sauce and the cheese. If you get these two elements right, then the pizza will be good. The cheese is fairly self-explanatory - above all it needs to melt well. The sauce has to be the right amount of tangy, and there needs to be a decent enough amount of it. Normally I will make my own sauce out of passata, herbs, chilli and salt and pepper, but I was in the mood for something a bit different. Knowing I wanted pizza for dinner, and that we had a leftover steak from the night before that had been marinated in a Spur's Grill Basting that was going to form the meat portion of the toppings, I thought a BBQ pizza sauce was the go.

Lately, one of my favourite things to make is bean dips. Usually chick peas, white beans or a combination of the two are my go-to canned goods for dips. Just throw a tin in the food processor with a touch of oil, then some flavouring ingredients (sun-dried tomatoes, chilli and Italian herbs is a favourite) and you've got a delicious dip for pop-around visitors. I thought I'd use this as a base for my pizza sauce to ramp up the vege content of dinner without overloading the pizza with too many ingredients. The hickoryness of the sauce made me think more of Southern and Mexican style dishes, so I figured black beans was more the go.

I always have some Lebanese loaves in the freezer for use as pizza bases, but feel free to use whatever base you choose. The toppings were simple, and what I had to hand - steak, corn kernels, zucchini and jalapanenos. These are all interchangeable - remember, it's all about the sauce and the cheese. And the cheese I had was a Provolone. Most of the cheeses I use for cooking are made by Borrello Cheeses. I'm particularly fond of their romano, pecorino, provolone and bocconcini. Provolone melts perfectly and is my go-to pizza cheese.

The resulting pizza was amazing. A tangy, thick and creamy tasting sauce topped with freshly shaved provolone cheese. Add a glass of red wine, and it's the perfect cold night after a long day at work's meal. Notice the paper-lined trays - dishwasher still not replaced!

BBQ Black Bean Pizza Sauce
(makes 4 individual pizzas)
1 tin black beans
3/4 cup BBQ sauce of your choosing (I used Spur's Grill Basting, but would recommend any hickory flavoured one)
4 lebanese loaves
1 steak, cooked to your liking and thinly sliced
Half zucchini, thinly sliced
1 cup corn kernels
4 jalapenos, thinly sliced
1/2 Provolone cheese, thinly shaved

In a processor, blend the tin of black beans and BBQ sauce. Check for seasoning and consistency. It should be spreadable.

Spread a thick layer onto your lebanese loaves. Preheat oven to 180C.

Scatter over your chosen toppings, add cheese last.

Cook for 20 minutes or so until cheese is golden and melted.