Breakfast of Champions - Coffee and Mango Chia Pudding

You’ll remember I was coffee-soaking oats for breakfast a while back. I still do that. It’s still delicious. You should still do it. (And incidentally, with these colder Autumn mornings, you should cook your oats in coffee). But my feeds were full of chia puddings, and so was my pantry so I thought I would just slightly alter my work breakfast of choice. Our mango tree was amazingly prolific this season. At final count we got 56 (!!) mangoes, so I knew that this would be an ingredient. Mango and coffee match really well even though at first thought they might seem odd together – the smoky bitterness of the coffee complements the sweetness of the mango. The ginger and cinnamon just round out the flavours and create quite a complex flavour profile. I don’t have a lot of sweet foods in my diet – I naturally crave salt – so the sweetness of the ripe mangoes was sweet enough for me. But feel free to add honey or maple syrup to sweeten things up.

I also eat mine with plain greek yoghurt for the same reason, substitute with a sweeter style yoghurt, or even cream or coconut cream for a more decadent breakfast. And finally, you can substitute whatever crunchy add-ons you have. I’m currently addicted to bee pollen. I first had it when I went to Germany around 16 years ago and am so glad it’s fairly readily available here now. I often just sprinkle some on nut butters on fruit toast, or on top of smoothies. Divine

 

Coffee and Mango Chia Pudding
(one serve)

¼ cup chia seeds

1/3 cup cold-brewed coffee
1 mango, finely diced
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ginger
Dollop greek yoghurt to serve
Toasted walnuts, coconut and bee pollen to serve

Mix the chia seeds, ginger and cinnamon (I shake it in a jar). Add the coffee and mango, stir well. Leave to sit at least 15-30 minutes for the chia seeds to swell. Add more coffee if it looks like some of the seeds didn’t turn gel-y. (I usually make this before bed and take it to work in the morning)

Serve with yoghurt drizzled with your crunchy add ons

 

 

Fusion Flavours - Carrot and Nori Fritters with Wasabi Coconut Cream

I am a huge fan of Japanese cuisine – but it’s not something I’ve really had a great deal of experience cooking. Apart from the odd okonomiyaki and teriyaki here and there, most of my Japanese eating has been out at restaurants. But I had a craving for Japanese, a few sheets of nori left over from a failed cauliflower rice sushi experiment  and a couple of sachets of wasabi floating around from my last takeaway. I didn’t have a great deal of veges left in the fridge, which is where the rest of the main ingredient inspiration came from – carrots. I always buy carrots…but I very rarely actually cook with them. They usually only ever get chopped up into salads or munched on raw (with almond butter and dukkah). So given they’re not my go-to vege, I often end up having lots in the fridge. It was time to try carrot fritters/okonomiyaki.

To serve, I made a wasabi coconut cream. Mainly because I wanted to temper the heat of the wasabi, as my husband isn’t the hugest fan, and I didn’t have any greek yoghurt – which is what I normally would’ve turned to first. Not shopping can provide so much inspiration! We had just come home from a trip fishing on the Blackwood River on Molloy, so I also had fresh bream fillets to serve with it which you will see in the photos – but they are flavoursome enough to be a vegetarian meal on their own. Slightly sweet, delicious, crispy little things that they are!

Carrot and Nori Fritters

5-6 baby carrots
1 tbsp cornflour
1 sheet of Japanese nori/seaweed
2/3 cup plain flour
1 tbsp of corn flour
1/4 tsp of salt
2 egg whites
1 cup cold water
oil for frying

Wasabi Coconut Cream

1 tin coconut milk, refrigerated overnight
2 sprigs coriander, leaves removed and shredded
Pinch salt
1-2 sachets wasabi (or a 2-4 cm squeeze from a tube)

Preheat the oven to 150C for keeping cooked fritters warm whilst you cook the remainder.

Grate the carrots using a coarse grate. (I do this in my food processor). Use a pair of kitchen scissors to chop the nori up into thin strips. Mix the carrot and nori together and toss through 1 tbsp cornflour.

In a separate bowl, whisk together plain flour, the second tablespoon of cornflour and salt. Whisk the eggs gently and add the cup of water to the eggs, mix together. Pour this batter over the carrot mix and gently fold together until it comes together. Don’t overmix it.

Heat a frypan to a medium-high heat. Add a layer of oil to the pan and allow to heat as well. Ladle the mixture into the pan to form fritters to the size of their choosing. I like pikelet size ones – around 10cm diameter. Cook for 2-3 minutes until crisp and golden. Flip over and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Remove to a plate and keep warm in the oven.

Meanwhile, pour the thin watery layer of the coconut milk off and reserve for another use. Beat the wasabi and salt to taste into the remaining cream with a hand beater. Stir through the coriander.

 
Serve alongside the carrot and nori fritters

Restaurant Inspired - Sweet Potato and Coconut Gnocchi with Cashew Basil Crema

I recently had a lunch date with my husband at Solomon’s Café in Highgate. It was on the to-visit list for a while and the menu item that most put it there was the famed sweet potato and coconut gnocchi. When we got there, we ordered out meals with a side of sweet potato and coconut gnocchi. And we were told…it’s actually beetroot gnocchi now. They haven’t been able to source any organic sweet potatoes for a while, so they’ve had to amend it. The whole restaurant is organic (and gluten and dairy free), so obviously this is an issue for them. And the gnocchi was soooo good. Everything was delicious, but the gnocchi was definitely the stand-out.

The next morning I was trying to work out what to make for breakfast. The idea of toast wasn’t thrilling me, so in spite of telling Lance that I was going to make some form of ratatouille with the almost-too-ripe tomatoes in the fridge…I wasn’t really in the mood. So I still made the ratatouille (which we had for lunch), and I thought I’d give the sweet potato gnocchi a go.

This isn’t gnocchi in the traditional boiled pasta route, I just fried the pieces until crispy. And I already had some cashews soaking, so I made a kale, basil and cashew crema to go with it. To make it more breakfast-y, I served it with an egg and a few zucchini chips as more of a garnish. To keep the dish quick, I microwaved the sweet potato instead of roasting it.

All in all, not a bad breakfast – and it all came together before 8:30am! Unfortunately, it was too early for me to bother with many photos, so there’s only a couple of the finished product.

Sweet Potato and Coconut Gnocchi with Cashew Basil Crema.
(serves 2)

1 medium sweet potato
3 tbsp coconut flour (depending on how big your sweet potato is)
Pinch sea salt
Pinch black pepper
pinch cinnamon
¼ tsp sweet paprika
Coconut oil for frying.

2 handfuls cashews, soaked overnight

2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 kale leaves, stripped off the rib
Big handful basil
Big handful parsley
¼ tsp sea salt
¼ cup olive oil
Water for thinning

Prick the sweet potato a few times, put in a glass bowl, cover with a piece of paper towel and microwave for around 6 minutes until soft. Set aside to cool.

In a food processor, blend the all the ingredients except the olive oil and water. Pulse at first, scrape down the sides, then run on low, adding the oil and water to reach your desired consistency. Check for seasoning and adjust as necessary.

When the sweet potato is cool enough to handle, peel and discard the skin. Mash well with a fork. Add the salt, pepper, cinnamon and sweet paprika, and mix through with the fork. Add coconut flour 1 tbsp at a time until it makes a dough. I only needed 3 tbsp for my sweet potato.

Scoop teaspoonsful of dough and roll into gnocchi shapes, flatten slightly with the tines of the fork to shape.

Heat a nob of coconut oil in a fry pan to medium high heat. Fry the gnocchi pieces for a few minutes until golden – around 3 minutes, then flip over and cook that side. Don’t crowd the pan. I did mine in 2 loads, moving the first to a plate in the microwave to keep warm.

Drizzle the sauce onto your serving plates, then top with sweet potato gnocchi.

Serve with an egg if you’d like.

 

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

 

Romantic Summer - Salmon Ceviche Brulee

Along with our wedding anniversary, Lance and I still like to acknowledge our ‘dating’ anniversary. We’re both fairly romantic folk, so it gives us another opportunity to celebrate us. We just passed our 6th anniversary of our first date. That first date was Epic. With a capital E. With castles and flying roses and passionfruit wine and dancing. It was seriously wonderful and thinking back over that night and everything that has happened between us in those last 6 years makes me all warm and fuzzy. That first night, we had sushi for dinner (something that Lance had not been a fan of before we became friends and I showed him how good it can be) and as a nod to that, we went to a wonderful Omakase and Teppenyaki restaurant in Mosman Park – Fu Ku. It’s a little pricey, but the food is incredible, so if you like Japanese and want somewhere to go for a special occasion, I highly recommend it! But, seeing as I always have recipe ideas running around in my head and things I want us to try, I thought I’d also make Lance a special meal for our anniversary too.

Given the recent heatwave we’ve been having in Perth, a lot of the dishes I have on my ‘to-cook’ list are ruled out as either too heavy to want to eat, or too labour intensive to want to cook. Which lead me to ceviche. We both love ceviche. We had it often on our last US trip, and since coming back we’ve found it popping up on menus around Perth. Don Tapa in Fremantle and El Publico in Highgate both do great ceviche. And it is so incredibly simple. Whilst you can get all fancy about the ingredients, essentially all you need is fresh seafood and citrus juice to “cook” it. On our last day in New York City, Lance and I went to a fantastic Peruvian restaurant that served a few different types of ceviche including what they called Salmon Brulee. A salmon ceviche formed into a neat square, with a layer of cream cheese on top, and a very thin layer of sugar that had been caramelised to a crisp on top. It was so unique and so delicious. So I decided to make a version of that for Lance.

I kept the whole thing very basic for my first attempt and the result was so good. Using my current citrus favourite - grapefruit and a cheeky little shot of Gin. You can substitute the grapefruit juice for lime or lemon (or a combination). And omit the gin if you're not into it - but I think the flavours go particularly well. I served this with a mango salad on the side, and used some of the marinading liquid to ‘dress’ it (this liquid is called Leche de Tigre in Peru and is considered a potent aphrodisiac AND hangover cure!). And a few home made tortilla chips. I also kept the pieces chunkier for my first attempt - nice and rustic. If you are like us, kind of romantic but looking to keep things fairly low-key with dinner at home on Valentine's Day, this is a fantastic quick and impressive dish for you to share with that special someone.

 

Salmon Ceviche Brulee

250g skinless salmon steaks

Grapefruit juice from one large grapefruit (around ¾ cup)
1 shot (30mL) gin (I used Gin Mare because of it’s olive flavours)
1 jalapeno, finely minced
1/4 tsp good sea salt
100g cream cheese
2 tbsp white sugar
 
Mango Salad

2 medium mangoes

2 roma tomatoes
½ sweet paprika
1 small Lebanese cucumber
1/3  Leche de Tigre (from the ceviche)

 

Finely slice the salmon portions (the smaller you cut it, the less time it’ll take to ‘cook’). Sprinkle with salt. In a glass bowl, add the grapefruit juice, gin and jalapeno. Add the salmon and mix well. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge to cook. As a minimum, 30 minutes. Up to a few hours before you’re going to serve it.

Using a cutter, form a disc (or shape of your choosing) of cream cheese 1cm or so thick. Sprinkle a fine layer of sugar over the top and carefully unmold without pulling the sugar off with it.

To make the salsa – finely chop all of the ingredients and set aside until ready to serve.

When the ceviche is ready, strain through a sieve and reserve about 1/3 cup of the juice. Pour this reserved liquid into the mango salsa salad and mix well.

Form the salmon into a pile, carefully slide the cheese disc on top and use a brulee torch to burn the sugar on top.

 

Serve immediately with some fresh tortilla chips

 

Community Inspiration - Chilli Fig Jam with Chorizo tacos

So you might be looking at this and thinking, really? ANOTHER fig recipe? But they’re in season, they’re plentiful and they’re currently being supplied to me for free from a friend’s tree. So I am using them in everything. And loving every single dish of them! And as they are in season, they’re popping up on my Instagram feeds quite frequently and one that caught my eye was from Perth Breakfast – she was making a fig and chilli jam. Um…yum! Two of my favourite things in a jam! Something I was definitely going to try!

As you probably know by now if you’ve read this blog a few times, I am more than slightly addicted to tacos. So my mind immediately went to tacos for a good use of said jam. So beyond the fig jam, the next idea of these was to use a big range of textures. So you have the chewiness of the chorizo, the soft, squishiness of the zucchini, the pop of the corn kernels the crunch of the peanuts and the stickiness of the jam (is stickiness a texture??), the smoothness of the cheese and the crispness of the cucumber. All at once. And it was wonderful.

I used venison chorizo because I have a stockpile in my fridge. When we head down south for a weekend, we tend to stock up on a few products without fail. Venison chorizo, chilli beer sticks and kangaroo biltong from the Margaret River Venison Farm are high on that list. Being venison, it has a more intense flavour than standard chorizos, slightly gamey but not super obviously gamey. If that makes sense? It’s perfect for adding sweet flavours like fig jam to. But any chorizo you’ll have will work. I also served it with the jam still warm. Do this. It blends in with the cheese better as you eat it.

 
I was deliberately light on the chilli in the jam for two reasons. Firstly, the chorizo already has a heat to it and I didn’t want to overdo the spice, but for all other purposes, I think I would prefer it hotter. And secondly, the jalapenos I used are from my own shrub and they are so inconsistent in their heat. Some are basically capsicum, some will knock your head off – I tend to err on the side of caution. I’m sure you know your own tolerance, add the chilli to your tastes. As per our Instagram conversation (and because I prefer natural sweeteners) the jam is sweetened with honey rather than white sugar. And traditionally, you would add some water but this I deliberately wanted super sticky and thick. You can add a cup of water to make a runnier jam.

Chilli Fig Jam

(makes one 300g jar)
10 figs, cut into 1cm pieces
2 jalapenos, de-seeded and minced
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
¼ cup honey

First up, make the jam. Add the figs, jalapenos, vinegar and honey to a small pot, bring up to a medium low heat and allow to simmer away for half an hour so until the figs start breaking down and the texture goes all jammy. Around half an hour or so. Bottle in a clean glass jar when still hot.

Spicy Peanuts

1 tsp butter
½ cup raw peanut kernels (no skins)
¼ tsp cumin seeds
¼ tsp smokey paprika
Pinch sea salt

Heat a frypan, melt the butter and throw the peanut kernels in, toss around for 2-3 minutes. Add the cumin seeds, paprika and salt, toss everything very well to blend. When the cumin seeds are at the ‘popping’ stage, the peanuts should be slightly brown and toasty. Remove to a serving bowl and allow to cool.

Chorizo Tacos

(serves 2)
1 chorizo sausage (around 250g)
1 medium zucchini, diced
½ cup corn kernels (fresh or frozen)
handful chopped coriander
To serve
Tortillas, cucumber strips, fetta (try get one that’s smoother rather than dry and crumbly)

In the same frypan as above, add the diced chorizo pieces. Leave to fry 5 minutes or so for them to render out some of their fat and start to get crispy. Add the zucchini and corn, and cook for a further 5-10 minutes or so until the zucchini is cooked. At the end, stir through the coriander.

Serve all immediately with warmed tortillas.