Thanksgiving in a Bun - Turkey and Cranberry Burger

I watched all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes come and go on pinterest and then Instagram as people in the Northern Hemisphere started their holiday period. Obviously, it's not a holiday we have down under, and it's Spring/Summer here, not Autumn/Winter, so the flavours and style of food aren't necessarily seasonal at the moment. But it doesn't stop me drooling! Luckily the Perth climate means a lot of things do grow year round, like butternut pumpkins. 

So, in the spirit of the holiday we don't have, I created these burgers which is like a whole Thanksgiving dinner in a bun. The patties have turkey and cranberry and I've paired it with a roast pumpkin slice. The patties are also gluten free, using the nutty flavour of chick pea flour sees to that.

Easy to make, easy to eat, and great in warmer weather. As with most of our meals, I didn't have any buns when I made these, so I served in bread rather than buns. But buns would be better. Use buns. 

Turkey and Cranberry Burgers

1 red onion, diced
1/2 tsp salt
generous twisting of pepper
1/2 tsp dried thyme
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1 cup chick pea flour
1/2 butternut pumpkin, sliced in to rings


to serve
red cabbage
pickle
fetta
mayonnaise
bread or buns

Shred the cabbage and pickle and mix together. Cover with a few tablespoons of the pickle juice and set aside to soften the cabbage a little.

In a frypan on medium heat, heat a little oil and add the red onion, salt and pepper. Sweat the onion until it's translucent. Add the garlic and thyme and cook for a further 5 minutes. The onions should be golden at this point. Add the dried cranberries and 2 tbsp water, stir it all together and cook until the liquid has cooked off. Set aside in a bowl to cool.

Mix the turkey mince into the onion mix. Add the chick pea flour, starting with half a cup and adding more as required to create the correct consistency.  Form the mixture into patties and set aside in the fridge to cool and 'set' for half an hour.

Brush the butternut pumpkin rings with oil and cook for 10 minutes on each side in the same pan, or until soft. Set aside, and cover to keep warm.

Add a little oil to the frypan and, without crowding the pan, cook the burgers. 5-10 minutes on the first side, then flip when golden. Cook for a further 8 minutes or so until cooked through.

Assemble the burgers, adding your favourite sauce if desired and enjoy.

Inauthentic Deliciousness- Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry

When Lance and I were dating, he took me to an Indian restaurant in Vic Park. Both of us particularly liked the Mango Chicken Curry at our local Indian takeaway, and so it was one of the dishes we ordered that night. It was served up in one of those beautiful copper bowls, which was sat on a plate. I accidentally knocked the plate and threw Mango Chicken Curry all over me. ALL over me. Lance just shook his head and laughed. “I can’t take you anywhere!”

That story isn’t hugely relevant to this recipe, but I wasn’t too sure how to start this post and that story came to me. I guess it’s because the Mango Curry is a sweet, fruity and mild curry, and this is too. Lance isn’t a huge fan of banana (unless it is in a chocolate peanut butter smoothie), but he still really enjoyed the fruitiness it added to this curry. The secret is to use ripe, but still ‘hard’ bananas. You don’t want them to break down too much, or be too sweet. The rest of the flavours are just normal curry spices. I don’t know a great deal about cooking curries, I only know I enjoy eating them. So it’s in no way traditional, but it is incredibly flavoursome.

So, if you’re clumsy like I am, and you can’t be taken anywhere, at least you can still have a good curry

Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry

2 tsp salt
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp pepper
1 tsp coriander seeds, ground
1 tsp cumin seeds, ground
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 brown onion, diced
thumbsize piece ginger, peeled and finely grated
1/2 butternut pumpkin, 2 cm dice
1 chicken breast, chopped into 2cm chunks
1 red capsicum, 1cm dice
1 tin coconut cream
2 firm but ripe bananas, peeled and cut into 2cm chunks
to serve
black rice
cashews
chopped coriander leaves
 Heat a large pot to medium heat and place the dry spices in. Cook until nice and fragrant – around 1-2 minutes. Add a good splash of olive oil, then the onion, garlic and ginger, stirring well to coat in the spices. Cook for 10 minutes until the onion is translucent.

Add the chicken pieces and stir to brown, 5 minutes. Add in the capsicum and pumpkin, the coconut cream and rinse the can out with water (about 3/4 of the tin), adding that to the pot as well. Stir well, then put the lid on and simmer 15-20 minutes until the pumpkin is almost cooked through. 

Add the banana pieces in for the last 10 minutes of cooking so they heat through, but don’t completely break down.

Check for seasoning, then serve with black rice and cashews and coriander leaves, if desired

Breakfast of Champions - Carrot Cake Bircher Muesli

I’m a big fan of carrot cake. It’s not my favourite cake (not actually sure what that would be), but it’s generally a good safe cake. If you’re spoiled for choice and aren’t leaning towards anything in particular, it’s always going to be there. In all it’s cream-cheese-icinged glory. There’s a reason it’s a classic. Now that I’ve been getting up and it’s not entirely dark and you can feel the hint of Spring just over there, I’ve gone off of my coffee porridge just a little. And instead of going back to just soaking the oats in coffee, I decided I wanted something a bit fresher. A bit fruity. A bit carrot cakey. This is just my riff on the traditional Bircher muesli, where you soak your oats in grated apple and apple juice to soften them, and then served with yoghurt and nuts.

The traditional carrot cake flavours are there, cinnamon and ginger and orange. I’ve used earl grey tea to help the soaking process rather than apple juice so I’m not overwhelming the muesli with the apple flavour. Or sugar. The bergamot is subtle here, but really adds a little something. I cover one teabag with cold water and leave for 2 hours.

Instead of the tangy cream cheese icing, I’ve still just used greek yoghurt, then drizzled a nice bit of honey over the top and topped it with more traditional toppings – walnuts, coconut and pumpkin seeds. The muesli itself is vegan, to keep it that way, just substitute Co-Yo for the normal yoghurt. It can also be gluten free if you use GF certified oats.

Carrot Cake Bircher Muesli

(serves 2)
1 cup grated carrot
1 large Pink Lady Apple (or similar tart apple)
2 tbsp sultanas
4 dates, chopped into small pieces
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup cold-brewed earl grey tea
Juice and zest from one orange
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp ground cardamom
¼ tsp salt

To serve

½ cup Greek yoghurt
Drizzle honey
Chopped walnuts
Pumpkin seeds
Toasted coconut flakes

Coming into Spring - Roast Strawberry and Broccoli Warm Rice Salad

Remember my roast strawberry salsa? That was good, you should try that. But when it comes down to it, it’s the roasting of the strawberries that really make it. Roast strawberries are good. Really good. It intensifies the flavours and sweetness in a way that suits both sweet and savoury dishes. This is another dish that uses roast strawberries to great effect paired with roast broccoli and garlic to create an amazing warm salad. Just add a protein and it’s a complete meal.

It’s a simple dish, which can come together in the time it takes for the rice to cook. Pop the rice on, chuck the strawberries and broccoli in the oven while you toast the nuts and seeds and by the time that’s done, so is the salad. I used red rice for becuse I like the colour and texture of it here, but your favourite grain would work. Quinoa would be a nice nutty alternative, or buckwheat.

I was feeling particularly decadent, so I grated some dark chocolate over the top. It’s next level stuff that’s not at all necessary but so good! Some goat’s cheese crumbled over the top would be another good add on.

Roast Strawberry and Broccoli Warm Rice Salad

1/2 cup red rice
1 cup water

1 head broccoli, cut into florets
250g punnet strawberries, hulled
2 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
¼ cup pepitas
½ cup hazelnuts
1 tbsp capers
½ tbsp. mustard seeds
½ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 180C

Rinse the red rice and place in a glass bowl. Cover with 1 cup of water and microwave for 22 minutes or cook til al debnte using your preferred method.

In a large casserole dish, combine the broccoli, strawberries, olive oil, salt and garlic. Toss to mix well, then put in the oven and roast for 15 minutes or until strawberries are soft and broccoli starts to colour.

Meanwhile, heat a pan over medium heat and toss in the pepitas and mustard seeds. When both start popping (around 2 minutes), remove from the pan and set aside. Toast the hazelnuts in the same manner, tossing to toast each side. Approximately 5 minutes. Remove and set aside. When cool, chop roughly.

When the broccoli is ready, stir through the nuts, seeds, rice and capers.

Finely grate some dark chocolate over the top

 Serve! I served here with pork steaks seasoned with some of the rub from my lamb ragu recipe

Two Recipes - Roast Beet and Lentil Patties - Crab with Smokey Tequila Sabayon

 

Lance often mocks me the various random frozen things in ziplock bags I have in the freezer. He quizzed me the other day on whether I knew what was actually in them and he pointed out a bag of crab flesh from a summer crabbing trip. Given it’s recommended to be frozen 3-6 months, we decided it needed to be eaten. I enjoyed the pomegranate gin sabayon so much, I decided I’d do something similar. But I was in a tequila-y kinda mood.

This post is really two distinct recipes. Crab with a smokey tequila sabayon and a beetroot and lentil patty. Both of these recipes are fully standalone dishes. They taste amazing by themselves. I make a variation of this patty for burgers quite often (so good with sweet potato chips!). And the crab with a toasted sabayon in smaller portions on top of a fancy cracker/toast makes the most elegant canapé. But the flavours go together really well and I’ve only photographed it together, so I’ll serve it up here in the one post! But the combination of earthy beetroot, sweet crab and smokey sauce is brilliant. Add a peppery leaves salad and you’ve got a perfect meal!

Word to the wise – don’t decide to make a sabayon after you come home from an arms session at the gym! The whisking is a work-out all in itself.

Oh, and the beet patties are fairly fragile, so be super careful when flipping and serving.

Roast Beetroot Patties

2 large beetroot

1 tbsp olive oil, plus more for frying

400g tin lentils

1 cup cooked quinoa

½ tsp salt

1 tsp dried basil

1 egg

2/3 cup oats (GF if need be)

Preheat the oven to 170C. Scrub the beets, then drizzle with 1 tbsp oil and wrap tightly in foil. Place in the oven and roast until fork-tender – around 40 minutes. Set aside to cool. When cool, rub with your fingers to remove the skins. Cut into quarters.

Place the beets and lentils into your food processor and pulse 4-5 times to break up the veges a bit and combine. Add the salt, basil and egg and pulse another 4-5 times to blend well. Remove to a bowl and add the oats, mix in with your hands, blending together well. Form into approximately 8 patties and lay out on a lined baking tray (just to save dishes) and place in the fridge for half an hour to firm up.

Heat a layer of oil in a large frypan to a medium heat and gently slide 4 patties in the pan. Cook for 5 minutes, or until the patties are crisp on the bottom. Again, very gently flip with a spatula and cook for another 3 minutes. Remove to a paper towel lined plate and tent with tin foil to keep warm while you cook the next 4.
 

Smokey Tequila Sabayon on Crab

1 clove garlic, sliced

1 tbsp honey

2 egg yolks

2 tbsp tequila

¼ tsp salt

1 tsp smokey paprika

200g cooked crab flesh, picked over for shell and cartilage.

Heat a tbsp. of oil in a frypan over a low heat and put the slices of garlic in. Toss around in the hot oil until browned and crisp. Drain on paper towel.

Preheat the oven to 150C. On a lined baking tray, form 6 small, tight piles of the crab flesh.

Fill a small saucepan with water and place a glass bowl over it. Heat to medium, until there are gentle bubbles. Add the egg yolks and honey to the glass bowl and whisk constantly until the eggyolks triple in volume and lighten. Take off the heat and whisk whilst slowly drizzling in the tequila. Keep whisking until fully incorporated and then whisk in the salt and paprika.

Spoon a few tablespoons of the sabayon on top of the crab piles, then place in the oven for 10 minutes until the top is just browning and the crab is heated through.

To serve, place a beetroot patty on the plate and gently slide a crab pile on top. Serve with a green salad