Salmon with Soba Noodles

This is an adaption of Anna Gare's Beef, Bean & Soba Noodles recipe.

I am in love with Anna's recipes, no kidding I've cooked half of her book! So when I saw Anna was hosting a Lifestyle Food Chefs Table I bought a ticket, so I could experience Anna cooking her own food :) 

Yes here I am, one of those obsessed fans. 

I told Anna I loved this dish and she said that it is also delicious with salmon. Who am I not to take such advice?!

Simply marinate the salmon briefly in a little of the dressing, made from ginger, garlic, soy sauce, peanut oil, rice vinegar, mirin and honey.

I substituted the beans with some beautiful asian greens.

This dish is so simple, while you cook your soba noodles, your salmon is pan fried for a few minutes each side.

The greens are cooked with the noodles.

Then serve with some spring onions and sesame seeds, and a generous amount of dressing.

It was delicious, healthy and simple cooking, thank you Anna!

The family loved it.

Chai Smoked Duck Breast on Soba Noodle Salad

You will not be surprised to read that this is yet another recipe of Anna Gare's.

My smoking technique was not done as Anna describes in the recipe and I suggest you don't follow my method! 

I did not have wood chips or a smoker, instead I heated up this gorgeous mix of chai tea, sugar and rice in our baby weber Q.

It certainly produced some lovely smoke but our bbq doesn't seal so our duck did not really retain that smoky flavour. I would love to buy a smoker and have a real crack at it.

After smoking the fat was rendered down and the duck breast finished in the oven.

Served with the salad of soba noodles, fresh enoki and shitake mushrooms, capsicum, spring onion, snow peas, basil and coriander.

The dressing consisted of mirin, rice wine, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, soy and sweet soy.

The whole dish is then drizzled with some pomegranate molasses.

It was certainly beautiful in taste and looks.

Honeyed Pear and Macadamia Tart

This is a really simple delicious tart recipe. 

It requires no pastry and is easy to assemble.

It is yet another of the amazing Anna Gare's recipes.

The pears are cut into even chunky slices and assembled on top of butter, honey and lime zest.

A few macadamias are sprinkled around before spooning over the tart base.

The base is a delicious mix of pureed macadamias, butter, sugar, a little flour, egg and lime zest.

Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes until very golden and let rest for about 20 minutes before turning it upside down and carefully removing the foil.

I was actually surprised at how tasty this tart was.

 The honey really came through with the juicy pears and the crunchy macadamias, it was good!

Anna's Lamb Rack with Ratatouille

Honestly I have cooked so many recipes of Anna Gare. 

They are amazing simple recipes packed full of flavour and fresh ingredients, her cookbook homemade is a must.

This recipe for Lamb Rack with Ratatouille was no exception.

The fresh eggplant, capsicum, tomato, onion, whole garlic, herbs.....whatever you like really.....are cubed up, seasoned and tossed in olive oil, then baked.

I baked mine for about an hour as I love them getting all soft and caramelised. 

The lamb rack is trimmed and rubbed with a paste of garlic, rosemary, thyme, lemon zest, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Then simple, just pop it in the oven with the veges and bake for about half an hour.

Be sure to let the lamb rest. 

What a beautiful meal of roasted vegetables and beautifully moist succulent lamb.

The 'muppy' house could not have been happier!

Slow baked Bloody Mary Lamb

Hope you all have had a great start to the New Year, lets hope its a good one.

I spent my New Years Eve wandering the aisles of a bottle shop with many others, but unlike everyone else I was only interested in buying vodka to cook my lamb.

And to make raspberry, rose and vodka jelly I must add (it was delicious!).

Most of you would know I am a huge fan of Anna Gare's recipes, many of them favourites in my home.

I finally have her book 'homemade' now, it is almost shocking how many recipes I have cooked (and loved!).

This Bloody Mary Lamb recipe, named of course after the drink, is a slow cooked lamb dish served with rigatoni.

The lamb is slow cooked with leeks, carrots and celery, topped with a sauce made up from passata, chicken stock and vodka. The recipe I linked to is slightly different to the one in her book.

Considering this was a rather wintery dish, it really was quite light to eat. 

The flavours were refreshing but did not offer as much depth and guts as I usually find in Anna's recipes. We did really enjoy eating it but I probably wont cook it again, not sure it was worth that much vodka!

Texan Beef Ribs with Bourbon Sauce

This is an amazing recipe of Anna Gare's Texan Beef Ribs with Bourbon Sauce.

The ribs are rubbed in a intense mix of smoky paprika, salt, cumin seeds, pepper corns, fennel seeds, chilli flakes, brown sugar and olive oil.

The ribs are then slow roasted for four hours, we did it on our baby Weber Q.

Yes it is meant to be blackened! 

Served with honey roasted vegetables and couscous.

A perfect summer dinner to be shared with friends.

The bourbon sauce is quite expensive, requiring two cups of bourbon, but the results were outstanding.

A sweet bbq sauce that was perfect with the flavoursome fall apart beef just asking to be chewed off the bone....

And of course I made dessert, my rhubarb obsession continues. This one inspired from the "Great British Menu" where instead of using lemon juice in a custard style tart use rhubarb juice. Along with a layer of cooked rhubarb and then topped with a caramelised white chocolate crumble.

The crumble was amazing. I firstly baked a basic crumble of butter, flour and a little sugar in a tray, once it just started to brown I mixed in melted white chocolate and then returned to the oven for two minute stints, giving it a good mix in between. Will definitely be using it again -yum :)

I want to eat this meal all over again.....

Jerusalem Artichoke Tart with Artichoke Tapenade

This is an Anna Gare recipe I saw on Quickies in my Kitchen a while back. At the time I realised that jerusalem artichokes were not in season, so when I spotted some at the markets last week I bought them immediately!

The jerusalem artichokes are peeled and chopped, they have the texture and smell of potatoes but due to their shape are very annoying to peel. They are boiled to cook and then pureed with eggs and cream before being poured into a tart base and baked. I made the basic pastry base anna suggests, using wholemeal flour and it rolled out beautifully. It is sprinkled with freshly grated parmesan before filling.

The artichoke tapenade is a blended mix of jarred artichoke hearts, capers, spring onion, garlic, parsley, parmesan, almonds and lemon. It is served with the tart.

I was amazed when I tried this, it was fresh and delicious. We had a picnic with some friends and took it cold as our lunch. The tapenade was quite strong and salty but complimented the creamy tart perfectly. The tart had a distinct flavour of the jerusalem artichoke but was overall quite mild in flavour. Very pleased I tried this and will be looking out for other recipes with jerusalem artichokes.

Anna's Pork Roast

I have actually cooked this recipe of Anna Gare's for pork roast many times - it is absolutely delicious and results in crispy crackling every time. I was inspired to cook pork roast as we bought some fennel and the lovely lady we bought it from said it could be roasted. I did a little bit of searching and found Not Quite Nigella had a pork roast with fennel. Normally when I have cooked Anna's I have gone all out and cooked all the suggested accompaniments - potatoes and balsamic pears with prosciutto, buttery spinach and beans....but this time it is roasted potatoes, apples and fennel.

We bought a lovely piece of rolled free range pork from our excellent local butcher. As part of Anna's recipe you blanch the skin in boiling water very briefly and then rub onto the flesh a paste of fennel seeds, garlic, rosemary and salt that you smash together with a mortar and pestle. The pork is then placed upon a vege bed (carrot, onion and celery) to roast. The final 30 minutes of cooking time you crank up the heat in the oven to make sure your skin crackles perfectly.

I roasted my apple, potatoes and fennel separately. The funny thing is I completely overcooked and hence dried out my fennel making it basically inedible - the whole reason I was inspired to cook the pork roast!!
It didn't matter, the whole thing was delicious, once again. I especially liked the roasted apples. If you have never managed to master the crackling on a pork roast I recommend you try this recipe - just make sure you buy good quality pork.

Anna's Persian Spiced Beef with Spinach and Chickpea Terrine

This recipe for Persian Beef and Chickpea Terrine is Anna Gare's from Quickies in the Kitchen.
It is quite simple but you need to make the terrine in advance. The terrine has three components - wilted spinach, caramelised balsamic onions, and chickpeas with yoghurt/herb dressing. When tasted on its own the flavour of the terrine is nice yet very rich but when paired with the spiced beef it becomes really something special.

The beef is coated in a very flavoursome rub including spices, coriander leaves and pistachios.
I really loved this dish, so much flavour.

Anna's Giant Mushroom Ravioli

 

Yesterday we travelled into the city to check out Eveleigh Markets. I really love buying fresh produce from farmers markets and when I saw the post for these markets on The Adventures of Miss Piggy I really wanted to check it out. It was a really vibrant market with heaps of fresh vegetables and fruit for us to buy.

Every time we go to the markets we are so excited by the mushroom stand but have never actually bought the array of mushrooms they have on offer. That all changed yesterday.

I was very sad to chop them all up, although i did have a little taste of all of them!

I found this recipe of Anna Gare's for mushroom ravioli. I love Anna's food, I have cooked so many of her recipes and she always adds so much flavour to her food so I knew I wouldn't be disappointed.
Sadly making my own pasta didn't go so smoothly when I realised one of my eggs had cracked in the carton and was no good to use. I made up for it with olive oil and water but then the consistency was hard to work with. Luckily my lovely husband stepped in and rolled it for me, he is really good at making pasta. The next mistake we made was not to roll it thinner. We usually have it a little thicker for ravioli but we couldn't remember which setting to use exactly.

The recipe also required making a white wine reduction sauce and a roasted tomato salsa. So it was a lot of work but it was worth it. I had a little extra mushroom filling so I added this to the sauce at the last moment.

I didn't have any cream to add to the sauce and when we tried the dish it did taste a little unbalanced, like it needed the cream. Luckily at the market we bought a soft pecorino and with a few slices of this on top it was perfect.

The most exciting part of this dish was definitely the mushrooms. Even with our overly thick pasta the amazing flavour of the mushrooms was the most obvious. I loved it! (And my daughter loved it too).