Eggplant and Goats Cheese Involtini

I am a huge believer in giving. 

We are so lucky to live in an amazing country where we have so much.

Recently I became aware of the Oxfam Australia campaign for

 Stop Hunger, Start Growing.

Just $50 "can provide a family with tools for home gardening so 

they can grow their own food and stop hunger."

Why not donate to this? I did.

As part of the campaign they have compiled a cookbook! You can download it here.

I immediately fell in love with this recipe for Eggplant and Goats Cheese Involtini, created by another food blogger Scoff and Quaff.

The peperonata sauce is firstly prepared from capsicums, garlic, onion and parsley, then simmered away with some tinned tomatoes.

The eggplants were sliced and cooked on the griddle pan both sides until soft but still intact.

The filling is a combination of goats curd, ricotta, baby spinach and sage.

Simply add some filling and roll.

Spoon over the peperonata sauce, sprinkle with some cheese and bake.

The result is a delicious meal. 

The goats cheese was perfectly balanced against the substantial eggplant and rich sauce.

Even served on a plate I bought from Oxfam!

Please do go check out the wonderful collection of recipes and consider supporting such a worthy cause.

Lentil Chickpea Patties with Tomato, Chilli and Apple Sauce

I somehow stumbled across the gorgeous blog recently Veggie numnum, and this recipe for Lentil Patties immediately took my fancy!

What a gorgeous blog it is with vegetarian recipes sure to inspire any food lover.

Firstly chickpeas, red onion, mint, and fresh dates are pureed before folding in spices of ground cumin, sweet paprika and some oregano.

Cooked and cooled lentils are then folded through and the patties rolled into balls.

The patties are then cooked off with a little oil in a frypan.

Meanwhile prepare the sauce by blending chilli, tomato, cooked apple, cumin seeds, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, pinch of sugar and olive oil.

I served the patties on some wholemeal wraps with fresh cucumber and drizzled with the sauce.

It was delicious, the patties were soft and very tasty. An ever so slight sweetness from the dates and a touch of flavour from the spices. 

The sauce was so fresh tasting and really balanced the dish well.

An excellent recipe, I encourage you to check it out over at Veggienumnum.

Orange Cake

This recipe is from the lovely Ellie at Gourmand Recipes.

I was totally convinced to try the recipe and I was not disappointed.

I love finding an excuse to bake so when we had guests over for dinner this was one recipe close to the top of my list.

The cake came out beautifully.

It is covered with icing tinted with orange juice.

It was delicious, the cake so soft and delicate yet robust!

Perfect for an afternoon tea treat.

Chicken Wonton Noodle Soup

For those of you who watched Masterchef Australia you would know Dani, one of the top eight contestants. 

She posted this recipe for Chicken Wonton Noodle Soup on her blog and so I thought I would try it out.

Whilst watching the show I often questioned her cooking abilities compared to some of the other contestants, but I now need to eat my words - because this was an amazing meal.

The soup stock is prepared quite simply simmering softened onion, garlic, and ginger with star anise, cinnamon, sugar, fish sauce and chicken in water for an hour and a half. I actually used some of my homemade chicken stock as well as water.

The wonton filling is prepared with chicken mince, sesame oil, sugar, fish sauce, spring onion, soy sauce, coriander roots, lime juice and white pepper. It is marinated for an hour before making your wontons.

The soup is then served over fresh egg noodles and the cooked wontons. 

Top with mint, coriander and chilli.

We loved this meal and I will be cooking it again. 

My daughter asked shortly after we started eating "can we have this for my birthday mum?"

That, by the way, is the reason for my absence, we had my daughters 4th birthday on the weekend. I will have to post some of the photos, including the castle cake!

The Heart of Food Photography Course

I really love beautiful photos. 

I wish I could take them.

Before blogging I was interested in photography. Now that I have joined the realm of blogs I have an increasing desire to be able to capture the food I have created in a real and appetising way. 

The Heart of Food Photography course was a good overview of photography.

 Simon inspired us to try and think outside the box and be creative with the way we capture a moment in time.

We also covered aspects of how to manually use our cameras and different angles we should try.

In this I need a lot of practice.

As part of this blog I really want to share with you the meals we share together as a family. 

I felt encouraged to continue to include that in my photos, and to try and improve on capturing these special times.

He also shared the importance of post editing of photos and how that can make an amazing difference. At the moment I don't have a program to allow me to but hopefully in the future I will. 

Some fantastic bloggers attended, Everybody Loves Ramen, Nic Cooks, Sweet Life by Mel, Wholesome Cook, Sugarpuffi, Berry Butter, it was great to meet you! 

And I shall not forget the food! 

Mumu Grill gave us some beautiful dishes, perfect for practicing on.

Dessert I found a little bit disappointing.

For this photo, using the colour accent feature on my camera, I selected only the red.

I really enjoyed the day, found it a great overview and although I need much practice in manual photography at least I know where to start. Thankyou Simon.

Gang Bao Chicken

This recipe for Gang Bao Chicken was posted on Everybody Loves Ramen. Now I really love a stir fry but  I must confess they are not my strong point. But this one looked soooo good I just had to try. Fortunately the fantastic Shaun told me I needed a wok, and that I needed to season it (isn't twitter a wonderful thing!).

My new 'seasoned' wok

Otherwise words of advice were to be organised, so organised I was.

Check out my new knife thanks to TheIntolerantChef :)

The chicken is marinated in a mix of oyster sauce, soy sauce and sesame oil.

Then the cashews are toasted. I attempted to do this in my wok and it took about 2 seconds so watch them!

The chillies are soaked and then dried. Prepare garlic (I actually used fresh garlic - you can pick up amazing bunches of fresh garlic at the markets), spring onions and onion. Measure out the Szechuan pepper. Mix up the sauce of raw sugar, sesame oil, soy sauce, and Shaoxing wine. Prepare a little cornstarch with warm water. And finally coat your marinated chicken in a little flour.

Then go go go. Add oil to the hot wok, throw in your pepper and chillies briefly. Remove the chillies and add the garlic. After a few seconds add the chicken separating out the pieces with some tongs. Once the chicken starts looking crispy add the sauce allowing it to deglaze the pan. Throw in your onions and chillies. Finally thicken the sauce with a little of the cornstarch and then add the cashews.

I was so happy, it was delicious. The chicken was melt in your mouth moist and tender. The sauce was so so tasty. I am so pleased, my first ever truly successful stir fry. I love my wok :) 

Cuban Street Tacos

This recipe for Cuban Street Tacos is from the amazing blog of Sweet Pea's Kitchen. It really caught my eye and I was keen to try it. I have been fortunate enough to do a little travelling but would love to do more. Fortunately due to everyone sharing such incredible recipes we can still experience a little bit of a different culture right in our own home.

In this recipe the pork is slowly cooked in the oven with a complex mix of flavours including stock, orange, lime, oregano, bay leaves, cumin, pepper, chillies, garlic and onion. It smelt incredible and once cooked was so incredibly soft. 

The pork is removed and the sauce reduced before recoating the pork and grilling it to a lovely brown. The pork is then broken up and served with warm tortillas, sliced red onion, cheese and coriander. We also scraped up the extra sauce and served that too!

It was so delicious, although a little salty (My stock must have been a too salty). But wrapped up in the tortilla it was so good.

I even cooked some Cinnamon rolls to make it a Sweet Pea day :) yum.