Weekend Lunch - Mountain Bread Nachos

Janet often has her version of nachos for lunch on the weekends.  The Janet Nachos involves Corn chips and cheese. The Ali version of Nachos has a few more ingredients, but is still very simple!

I begin by making the chips from Mountain bread - I cut 2 pieces of Mountain Bread into triangles and bake in a hot oven until crispy (only takes a few minutes)

I make the "meaty topping" by mixing Quorn mince with taco sauce or tomato salsa (sometimes I substitute Kidney Beans for the Quorn Mince- just dont make it too wet, or you will Have soggy chips).  I warm this mix up in the microwave before dolloping on top of the crisp Mountain bread chips, topping with grated cheese and baking in the oven until the cheese is melted. Yummo!!

Breakfast!! - Creamed Corn Scrambled Egg Wrap

After training on Saturday mornings, I sometimes like to cook myself up a tasty morsel for breakfast.  This creamed corn scrambled egg wrap hit the spot quite nicely!

Simply beat together 2 eggs and one of those little tins of creamed corn, then cook gently in a frying pan, scrambling as it cooks - it doesnt look pretty......



once cooked to your liking, spread egg onto a piece of mountain bread (split between 2 pieces is proabably the best way to go - make 2 wraps), drizzle with bbq sauce if you so desire....



roll up and eat!


and yes, sometimes we eat off paper plates. especially for breakfast!

Dinner at home - Potato and Vegie Cakes

What to do with the leftover potato from the stuffed potatoes???

How about some Potato and Vegie Cakes!!

Because the amount of leftover  potato will vary depending on how many stuffed potatoes you have made, its a little hard to give exact quantities - This is how I used up the potato left over from 3 stuffed potatoes (probably less than a cup of potato).

I simply added 1 egg to the mashed potato, along with some frozen peas, corn, garlic chives and a little grated haloumi. I mixed this together well, then fried  spoonfuls gently in olive oil. Don't have the heat too high, the mix is quite fragile, and requires some gentle slow cooking in order to form a nice crust and to set before flipping.






Janet had her potato cakes with a couple of Sausages



I had mine with some cooked tomato and a Sanitarium Vegie Delight Schnitzel

Dinner at home - Sunday Night Stuffed Potatoes

This was a quick and easy Sunday night dinner.

I took 3 potatoes with their skin on, and cooked them in the microwave (stab them a little first so they don't explode).  I just pushed the "potato" button on my microwave, so its best you follow your own instructions :-).  If you weren't trying to make this quickly, you could of course bake the potatoes in a conventional oven!

After the potatoes were cooked, I sliced them each in half lengthways, and scooped out most of the flesh, leaving behind potato cups, ready to be filled.  I put the hollowed out potatoes onto an oven tray and baked in a hot oven to crisp up a little while I prepared the filling.

What you fill them with is up to you - the possibilities are endless - you could even just mash the potatoes insides, add a little cheese and refill with this. I however, decided to make a vegetarian mince filling.
Into a frying pan, I cooked half a red onion in a little olive oil.  To this, I added a chopped clove of garlic, a chopped red chilli, and some fresh rosemary & thyme.  Once the onion had softened, I added some vegie stock, chopped cherry tomatoes and the cheek of a red capsicum. I cooked this until the capsicum was quite soft, and sweet.  To this tomatoey mix, I added about a cup (maybe less - it was a shake of the packet) of frozen Quorn mince, a little frozen corn, and cooked till the mince was heated through.  As the mix was a little wet, I stirred in a couple of spoonfuls of the potato to thicken it all up. 

I then spooned the filling into the now slightly crispy potato cups, topped with a little cheese and put back into the oven for the cheese to melt.

Dinner at Home - Lemon Chilli Chicken with pan fried potatoes

An easy weeknight dinner - Before work, I put a chicken breast into a bowl with the juice of a lemon, a tablespoon of olive oil, a sprinkle of paprika, and a chopped red chilli, and left this to marinate in the fridge for the day.

 Spend the day at work, then come home and start to prepare the potatoes!

I simply sliced a potato into 3 lengthways, leaving the skin on. Into a cold frying pan I put some olive oil, a red chilli, a peeled clove of garlic and some thyme and rosemary from the garden. I gently heated this up and then added the poato slices, and cooked slowly until the potato slices were cooked through. Before serving, I turned up the heat a little to increase the crispness of the potatoes.





The chicken, I simply panfried until it was golden brown and cooked through





I was quite impressed with the colour of the chicken!




For myself, I threw together a quick, but delicious salad - I panfried some Soyco Thai Tofu, and served it on a salad of baby spinach, red capsicum, cherry tomatoes (from the garden), red onion, and a coupe of raw purple beans.  I squeezed over some lemon juice just before serving. YUM!!

Hommus - with macadamia nuts

Looking for something garlicy to make, I turned to my old faithful friend, Hommus.  And since I have a rather healthy supply of roasted salted macadamias in the cupboard, I decided to put a few to good use.

Ingredients
1 can chic peas
50g roasted salted macadamias (shake off as much salt as you can)
juice of 1 lemon
2 cloves of garlic

place all ingredients in food processor and blend till smooth (or smoothish).  Add a little water if it is all too thick. I couldn't get all of the nuts blended smoothly, but they added nice little bits of crunch to the hommus!

variations - oven roast a head of garlic and add some of these cloves instead

So far, I have eaten it on crackers, in wraps, on bread and on toast, topped with tomato! Perfect for every meal :-)

Australia Day 2011

Australia Day 2011 - found us doing the usual things, wearing the flag, fake tatoos and eating :-)

We went to my parents place for our "traditional" Australia Day meal - Pie, Mashed Potato and peas!


Deliciously fluffy potato mash! I have now decided I need a potato ricer!


peas!


some of these beans came from my garden. Although I was a little disapointed that purple beans turn green when cooked.  I have been eating them straight off the vine, so didn't know this little fact!


Meat Pie - there was also a chicken and mushroom pie. Pies came from my Mum's "Good Butcher" James' Connoisseur Meats Address: 4/2069 Moggill Rd, Kenmore, QLD, 4069

(I had the vegies and a Quorn Southern Style Burger)


For dessert - a pavlova, which was topped with icecream, mango, peaches, grapes and cherries!

Then we rolled home and relaxed!



We even managed to get Jeya & Shadow to pose together for this photo (and to look happy about it!)!