Kylie's Wild Lasagne

Another recipe from Kylie Kwong's Heart and Soul recipe book I felt capable of tackling was this one - her Wild Lasagne. We all have our favourite way of cooking lasagne and my version is with very rich tomatoey beef, loads of grilled veges and cheesy sauce. So this recipe is quite different to that.

The preparation begins. Firstly the leeks are prepared and roasted in some oil and balsamic.

I love when tomatoes look like this - its as if we picked them from our garden :)
We bought them at the farmers markets. 

The tomatoes are cooked on the stove top by being layered on top of some onion, leek and garlic and left to simmer.

The silverbeet is sauteed with some butter and garlic, then finished with lemon juice.

The mushrooms are cooked up with some butter and red wine vinegar.

Then of course there is chopped mint and parsley. Pitted and halved green olives. Three types of cheese - ricotta, parmesan and mozzarella. And don't forget the fresh lasagne sheets.

It also layered in an unusual method with the pasta going down first and then in between each layer is different.

The house smelt glorious (although the kitchen was a mess!) and my husband said when he hopped out of the car on the street it smelt really good. And after baking it was truly enjoyed, the flavours were kind of unusual but yet delicious. The mint and the acidity of vinegar really came through. The stretchy mozzarella and the soft ricotta both added amazing texture and taste. The spinach, mushrooms and tomatoes were amazing. The leek I think would have worked better sliced but it still was very tender and delicious.

It took alot of effort to get this in the oven but it was worth it!

Braised Chicken with Vibrant Flavours

I was inspired the other day by one of my fellow bloggers Wholesome Cook (via twitter) to pick up my Kylie Kwong recipe book Heart and Soul that has been in my cupboard for a long time but I have never actually cooked anything from it. And wow, when I looked there are so many inspiring recipes, why was it so neglected?

So lastnight I chose to cook the most colourful dish of braised chicken with vibrant flavours. As I prepared and added ingredients I started thinking, this is the weirdest dish I've cooked yet.....

The chicken pieces coated in seasoned flour are browned with some oil and then removed from the pan. In goes ginger, tumeric and garlic. After this is lovely and fragrant, add carrots, spring onion, tomatoes, bay leaves and my extra addition, baby golden beets. Coat the vegetables and then add palm sugar (the recipe says 5 tbsps - I added half of that) and cook until everything starts to caramelise. Add fish sauce (1/4 cup) and bring to a boil before adding preserved lemon, fresh dates, whole chillies, cumin, lime quarters, and my addition of wood ear mushroom (very sadly :( realised I forgot to put them in my seafood dumplings). Next add 1/2 cup red wine and 1/2 cup sherry vinegar ( I added 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar - I just couldn't add that much vinegar). Return the chicken to the pan and simmer covered for 40 minutes.

I served with quinoa. What an interesting dish - the moroccan flavours were the dominant, the sweetness of the sugar and dates, with the sourness of the lemon and lime. I thought it tasted quite strange but actually really loved it.