The Best Barbecued Turkish Lamb Sandwich with Spiced Pumpkin

Recently I purchased this recipe book of Peter Evans who has worked with the Heart Foundation to bring us his favourite recipes.

So far I have cooked half a dozen recipes and I am very impressed. 

They are simple, tasty and healthy.

Please do consider adding this book to your collection.

Pumpkin is roasted and then mashed with caraway, cumin, garlic, chilli and lemon.

The lamb backstrap is lightly seasoned, we added a little sumac too, and cooked on a hot barbecue.

Toast some delicious fresh turkish bread.

Slice up your lamb.

Tempt the dog with the best meat you have ever tasted.

And assemble your sandwich with natural yoghurt, grated carrot, fresh mint and rocket leaves.

It was seriously good, we savoured every bite.

Perfect for longer daylight, warmer weather and dinners enjoyed outside.

Butter Chicken with Okra

Recently I discovered this recipe on Dani Venn's blog for Indian Butter Chicken. 

With its promise of authenticity, as the recipe was learnt in India I knew I had to try it.

The chicken is marinated with garlic, ginger, chilli and lemon juice for a couple of hours.

A paste is prepared by cooking cashews, water, milk and red onion and then pureed.

The sauce begins with cooking the whole spices, then adding fresh ripe tomatoes, water and ground spices.

I decided to add some okra to my curry, so I sliced it up and added to the sauce until tender.

I then picked out all the okra and whole spices (yes a little tedious!) and blended the sauce until smooth.

Meanwhile the marinade is drained off the chicken, and yoghurt, more ginger and garlic, and other spices added to coat the chicken.

Cook the chicken on the bbq to intensify the flavours (traditionally a tandoor is used).

The sauce goes back in the pan with some extra spices and combine some (or in my case all - it tasted so good) of the cashew puree.

The chicken and okra are then added to the sauce, along with salt, crushed fenugreek leaves and honey.

It was amazing.

The sauce tasted beautifully spiced, the okra was melt in your mouth tender, and the charred chicken was just perfect.

(There were plenty of jealous tastebuds whilst enjoying the leftovers at work the next day).

I will definitely be cooking this one again.

Zumbo honey comb-over

I finally decided to have a go at making one of Adriano Zumbo's creations.

As you flick through the pages of his book there are so many wacky, wonderful and delicious looking sweets.

I mainly chose this one because I had the ingredients (well most of them) and I do love honeycomb.

Really it is a straight forward cake, right? a cake rolled with buttercream covered in a glaze then topped with some honeycomb.

But as you make your way though the recipe it does get a bit more complicated. 

You start with the glaze which requires a 'neutral glaze' that you must prepare first.

It also requires ingredients such as gelatin leaves (I used powdered), pectin (I used jam setter - yes really) and liquid glucose (left it out).

Not surprisingly my glaze was not perfect, but it still tasted good.

The honey comb is poured into a shoe box to cool, seriously that is what Zumbo recommends!

A decent chunk is broken off, chopped finely and folded through the buttercream.

The buttercream also requires preparation of creme patisserie, and it contains almond meal which I found odd but actually it tasted great.

I loved the spiced cake which was made mainly of honey that is whipped with butter.

It is coated with coconut then rolled up with the delicious buttercream.

The glaze is then poured over the cake and decorated with honeycomb.

The aroma of this honey cake was heavenly, and it tasted beautiful, very sweet.

The best part - sharing it with friends under fairy lights.

Princess Merida Disney Brave Cake (Lemon White Chocolate Mud with Raspberries, Fluffy Frosting and Lemon filled Macarons)

I know I've shared in the past how much I love the blogging community but I just wanted to say it again. You all inspire me so much and this cake is a reflection of this. 

So a special thank you to Angie Lives to Eat for the idea of a lemon chocolate mud cake, and to One Bite More for the suggestion of fluffy meringue frosting.

I really wanted to make this cake delicious as well as beautiful enough for my daughter to love it, and I managed to do both!

So it all began with macaron baking. As always my batches were varied some perfect, some not so perfect!

I baked 6 layers of white chocolate mud cake made with a good amount of lemon juice and lemon zest, then topped with a few frozen raspberries.

The macarons were filled with a lemon classic egg yolk buttercream.

How cute were my teeny weeny ones!

I layered the cakes with a raspberry white chocolate butter icing then cut the cake to shape.

The fluffy meringue frosting then covered her up.

The macarons which had firmed up in the fridge were then attached.

We had a beautiful day for Miss Evie's birthday in the park.

And the cake went down a treat.

Sweet and Sour Rhubarb Pork with Noodles

I have not actually cooked many of Jamie's recipes, not sure why.

We do have one of his books, Jamie at Home, and after including it in a pile of books to flatten something I decided to have a peruse. 

Well this Jamie Oliver recipe sounded fantastic and so I gave it a go!

And it was so simple. 

The marinade of rhubarb, honey, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, chilli and five spice is pureed.

The marinade is then put in a roasting pan with some chunks of pork belly (rind removed), covered with foil and baked for an hour and a half.

The pork is finished off in a hot pan until its nice and caramelised. 

I reduced the majority of the sauce down separately.

Serve your cooked egg noodles with the thick sauce and top with the tender tasty pork.

Serve with coriander, chilli and spring onions.

It was so delicious, the sour sauce clung perfectly to the noodles, it reminded me of satay.

The pork was tender and delicious. I love that the recipe used rhubarb.

Warm Mushroom, Cheese and Kale Loaf

Last month a good friend of mine gave me the winter issue of the Donna Hay magazine.

It has been fantastic, so many seasonal recipes that in true Donna style are fast, fresh and simple. Not to mention delicious.

Since we converted to being farmers market shoppers Kale has intrigued me.

I have cooked it a couple of times, and yes it was tasty, but it wasn't something I picked up every week it was in season.

But now that has changed, Kale is so diverse from soup, tart, baked, pasta, pesto.... 

and of course this recipe, in bread! Thank you Donna Hay.

After making your bread dough a tomato sauce base is prepared from garlic, tinned tomatoes, tomato paste, and herbs.

The mushrooms are browned and then the kale cooked until wilted.

Then on your rolled out dough, layer up the cheese, tomato sauce, kale and mushrooms.

Wrap it up, give them some snips with scissors and bake away.

Yes half way through I remembered to add some sesame seeds.

It was so yummy!

Oozy cheese, rich tomato, delicious kale and tasty mushrooms all wrapped up warm in bread.