Sunday Prep = Work Lunches - Baked Bean Casserole

Sunday’s whilst generally recovery days after the frivolities that Saturday nights inevitably bring, they’re also prep days for me. With a little bit of time and effort, my husband’s lunches are ready for the whole week and it’s one less thing to worry about day-to-day. He’s graduated from his quinoa biscuits to baked bean casserole. Baked bean casserole became a common dinner dish when we were saving to go on a 2 month trip to the US around 6 years ago. Back then, the only late night shopping was Thursdays, so we’d spend our night grocery shopping and fix a baked bean casserole in 10-15 minutes when we got home, then cook it in the microwave while we unpacked the bags. It was a super cheap, but highly nutritious meal and really tasty. It evolves constantly, depending on what we have in the house. Leftover roast veges are common elements, as is any type of leftover meat. The grain can be changed out too. Quinoa or buckwheat can take place of the rice. Or you can leave that out altogether if you aren’t feeling it.

The recipe below is one of the most common combinations when making it from scratch for lunches. I divide this up into 5x 500mL plastic containers that Lance then cooks in the microwave at work for around 4 minutes on high and eats with corn thins. When I take one to work, I usually have it with some rye toast.

Baked Bean Casserole

1 425g tin baked beans
1 400g tin chick peas, rinsed
2/3 cup passata
1 heaped tsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp mixed Italian herbs
1 cup capsicum, finely diced
1 cup mushrooms, finely diced
1 cup zucchini, finely diced
1 cup roma tomato, finely diced
1 cooked sausage, finely diced
1 large red onion, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 cup brown rice, rinsed
2 ¼ cups water

Put the brown rice and water in a large glass bowl and microwave on high for 24 minutes. Set aside to cool

Heat the olive oil in a frypan to medium heat and add the onion and salt. Fry for 5-10 minutes until translucent and then add the balsamic and garlic. Cook for a further 5 minutes until caramelized and then take off the heat and allow to cool.

Dice all the vegetables. You want them as small as the baked beans, or smaller. Dice the cooked sausage as small as this as well. Stir together all of the vegetables, the cooled onion mixture, sausages, baked beans and chick peas. Mix the paprika, herbs and passata together, then mix into the rest of the mixture. Finally add the cooled rice and mix very thoroughly. You want it to be completely mixed up.

Divide the casserole into individual containers, then store in the fridge ready for lunch throughout the week.

When ready to serve, microwave for 4 minutes to heat the casserole and cook the vegetables. Serve with corn thins, corn chips or hot toast

Dream Inspiration - Cheese Platter Pie Hazelnut and Balsamic Pear Galette with Goat's Cheese Ice Cream

I had a dream in which I was at a café and I was eating an apple pie with goat’s cheese ice cream. A lot of other random stuff happened in the dream, but when I woke up I had this strong sense of needing to make goat’s cheese ice cream. My mind started churning (not unlike an ice cream maker) and I decided to make the pie to go with it, and as a whole, the dessert was going to be an homage to a cheese platter. I am a huge cheese fan, so I was already drooling over the concept. 

So the ingredients in this pie are all things that you might typically find on a cheese platter, there’s crisp buerre bosc pears, balsamic vinegar and hazelnuts. Then there is three types of cheese – cream cheese in the pastry, a soft stracchino cheese as part of the pie filling and the goat’s cheese in the ice cream. I decided to go with the rustic galette form of tart, rather than a more formal tart or pie – because that’s more what a cheese platter is for me. Rustic. You can change the stracchino out for a sharper style of cheese – I have also made it with an Emmenthal to great effect, or a basic sharp chedder. I like the stracchino best.

This is currently my favourite ice cream. I've made litres and litres of it. It is creamy and rich, with the subtlest hint of tanginess from the goat’s cheese. It’s perfect by itself, and is the perfect accompaniment to the galette. But even if you don’t want to make the pear galette or make the hazelnut dough to go with it – I really urge you to try just the ice cream. Maybe serve it with some balsamic roasted strawberries!

Goat Cheese Ice Cream

4 egg yolks
1 cup whole milk
1 cup cream
1 vanilla bean
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup honey
¼ tsp salt
½ tbsp. white balsamic vinegar
200g goat cheese, broken up into small crumbles

Set a large fine mesh strainer over a medium bowl and set the bowl in larger bowl of ice water.

Add the sugar, salt, honey and balsamic vinegar to a medium saucepan over low heat. Stir briskly to mix well. The honey mixture will lighten in colour as the sugar starts dissolving into the honey. Turn the heat up to medium. Add the milk, cream and scrape the vanilla bean and add the seeds and pods to the pot. Heat the milk mixture until sugar and honey are completely dissolved and small bubbles start to appear.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and slowly stream in 2 ladles full of the milk mixture, whisking constantly as you pour. This tempers the eggs and stops them scrambling. Add the eggs/milk mixture slowly to the pot with the milk mixture, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Continue to cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly, until it starts to thicken and coats the back of the spoon, around 4-5 minutes. Strain the ice cream into the bowl set over the ice water bath.

Add the goat cheese to the sauce and whisk until melted and incorporated. Keep stirring for a further 4-5 minutes to help the custard mixture cool down. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, pressing down onto the surface to stop a skin from forming.

Refrigerate until completely cold – at least 4 hours or overnight if possible. Pour into your ice cream making and churn according to directions. Transfer to a freezer-safe container and store in the freezer until hardened, around 4 hours.

Hazelnut and Balsamic Pear Galettes

1 cup spelt flour
¾ cup hazelnut meal
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
60g butter cold and cubed
60g cream cheese, cold and cubed
2-3 tablespoons cold water
2 buerre bosc pears, quartered, cored, sliced thinly
2 tsp white balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 tbsp water
50g Stracchino cheese, as finely sliced as possible
1 tbsp Milk for brushing galettes
2-3 tsps Raw sugar for sprinkling

In a food processor, pulse the spelt flour, hazelnut meal and sugar until combined. Pulse in the butter and cream cheese until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Tablespoon by tablespoon, add in water pulse until dough only just comes together. Take out of the processor and form into a disc, wrap with plastic wrap and put in the freezer for 15 minutes (or the fridge for an hour).

While dough is chilling, combine water, vinegar and brown sugar. Then add the pear slices and stir until coated. Let sit until dough is done chilling.

Preheat oven to 180C

Remove dough from freezer and roll out into 30cm circle or divide dough into quarters and roll out into smaller circles for individual galettes. Place gently on baking trays covered with baking paper. Leaving a 3cm ring on the edge free, cover the pastry with slices of stracchino and top with slices of pear in a swirling pattern. Fold the edges up and over, pinching together to hold the pears in place and form the crust. Brush galettes with milk and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for 45 minutes until crust is golden and pears are softened. Leave to cool for 10 minutes before serving with the ice cream

Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl

I’ve never made croquettes before, but when someone suggested on Skamp’s facebook page that it was a good way for using leftover roast sweet potato and pumpkin, I thought it was time to give it a go. I had almost exactly 200g of roast sweet potato and pumpkin leftover from a roast the night before and this made the perfect amount of croquettes for the two of us for dinner. These would be great served as a hot snack at a dinner party with maybe some sweet chilli sauce or creamy sriracha dipping sauce.

I had a fairly salty style Danish fetta in these croquettes, so if your fetta is less salty, you may need to season. I used coconut as well as bread crumbs for the coating, because I love that combination and it just tends to work for frying anything. Seriously.

To make it a complete meal, I served it with a chipotle rotkohl – a sauerkraut made with red cabbage. This is in no way a traditional recipe, but it tastes pretty amazing! A nice briny sauerkraut with a smokey kick of heat. This with the naturally sweet flavour of the roast veges in the croquettes was a match made in heaven. And then to round it out, some rye bread toast and some chorizo fried in muscat. The rotkohl makes way more than you’ll need for a meal for two, but it keeps well, just reheating it as you need it for a few days

Roast Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Croquettes

200g roast pumpkin and sweet potato, mashed
85g fetta
1 tsp dried basil
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup panko
1/2 cup dried coconut
1 tsp coriander powder

In a large bowl, mash the sweet potato and pumpkin together, then mix through the dried basil to distribute evenly. Gently fold through the fetta. You want it to be evenly mixed through, but not necessarily smooth. A few small lumps of fetta are fine.

Set up a crumbing station. Have two shallow bowls, one with a lightly beaten egg. In the other, mix together the panko, coconut and coriander powder.

Form the croquettes by rolling 2-3tbsp of pumpkin mixture into logs. Roll in the egg, then in the panko mixture. Place on a tray and refrigerate for 30 minutes to set.

Heat a thin layer of olive oil in a pan, and fry each side of the croquettes until golden and crispy on the outside, and warm and gooey inside. About 2 minutes per side. Drain on paper towel for 5 minutes to cool to eating temperature and eat straight away!

Smokey Rotkohl (Red Cabbage Sauerkraut)

1 red onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt
1 red cabbage, thinly sliced
1 chipotle chili
1 cup hot water
2 roma tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp honey

Pour the hot water over the chipotle chili and set aside to soften.

In a large pot, heat the olive oil to medium heat. Add the red onion and salt, and sautee until translucent. Add the garlic and cook until aromatic.

Add the cabbage, tomatoes, apple cider vinegar, cumin seeds and honey. Remove the chipotle from the hot water, and add the water to the pot as well. Bring the liquid to the boil, pushing the cabbage into the liquid as well as you can. Then turn down to a simmer.

Core the chipotle, then finely slice and add to the rotkohl. Simmer for 30 minutes or so, until the cabbage is soft. Serve!

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