This post is sponsored by Nuffnang.  Please see here for my policy on sponsored posts and advertising.

I was lucky to get some awesome gifts for my birthday last week, but Mother's Day is coming up and it's time to start thinking about what to get your mum!  Magshop are currently running a Mother's Day promotion where you could win an amazing trip for 2 to Italy!  All you have to do is subscribe to one of their many titles.  A magazine subscription could be a great gift for your mum: there are titles for every taste, and the gift lasts all year long.

For Mother's Day this year, I'd like to make my mum a delicious Italian meal featuring her favourite ingredients.  My mum loves pumpkin and feta, so maybe a pumpkin and feta risotto, with homemade basil pesto and a rocket salad.

Another option could be homemade pizza.  My mum doesn't often eat pizza at home, so it would be a special treat.  I'd make the dough from scratch, and top it with thin slices of pumpkin and decadent buffalo mozzarella.

I've got a few more Nigella Kitchen recipes to share.  Today's theme: Salads!

Panzanella

I knew I would love Nigella's panzanella (Italian bread salad) as soon as I read the recipe.  The dressing starts with some finely sliced red onions, soaked them in red wine vinegar.  Always delicious.  (Remember?) There are also stale bread cubes, basil leaves and diced tomatoes.  A classic combo of flavours - you couldn't really go wrong!  Nigella's version majors on the bread, and looks rather like a big oil-soused pile of bread cubes, but I tried to keep all the elements a bit chunkier and separate.  I think it looks prettier that way, don't you?

This recipe is included in the Cook it Better chapter, which is focused on using up leftovers productively.  Antithetic, I know, but I really luxed it up, by adding a ball of DOP buffalo mozzarella.  Proper buffalo mozzarella is a world away from those depressing (and surprisingly pricey) little bouncy bocconcini balls they sell in the supermarkets.  Fabulous!


Crisp chicken cutlets with salad on the side

This recipe for crumbed chicken, (from the What's for Tea? chapter), just sneaks into the 'salad' category thanks to the salad on the side.  Schnitzel was one of the first things I learned to cook (along with pancakes and mustard chicken), but I've picked up some tips from Nigella to make it even more tasty.


Here, the chicken is marinated in buttermilk and mustard, and coated in crumbs mixed with oregano, grated parmesan cheese and cayenne pepper.  You could use any breadcrumbs (and I think Nigella recommends panko), but I couldn't resist the brightly coloured box of Cornflake crumbs.


The side salad is made of tomatoes, spinach leaves and parmesan shavings, with a dressing of red wine vinegar and olive oil.  Come to think of it, the crispy chicken and salad is rather like her crunchy pork chops, from the Ultimate Feasts chapter of Feast.  Equally wonderful.


Chicken, Bacon and Avocado Salad

Some tasty, healthy dishes to usher in a new year of eating!

Cambodian Hot & Sour Beef Salad

This dinner was a slightly adapted version of Nigella's Cambodian hot and sour beef salad, from the Low Fat chapter of How to Eat.  It is the first of her many recipes that follow the "thin slivers of meat strewn across salad leaves" theme.  The others include her gingery-hot duck salad (Nigella Bites), cold roast beef with lemon salad (Forever Summer), the Anglo-Asian lamb salad (Nigella Express), and of course, her Christmassy tagliata recipe (Feast).

So anyone who thinks that Nigella doesn't have any healthy recipes is really just not looking hard enough!  What I like about Nigella's healthy recipes (and yes, I do concede that they are hidden between many puddings, roasts, pies, cakes and butter-laden dishes), is that they taste great and just happen to be healthy, without needing modification for health concerns.

But let's get back to the recipe.  I seared a lovely piece of eye fillet very briefly on both sides, so that it was nice and rare in the middle, and charred on the outside.

I ate one in my salad, Sandra had the other with chips and mushroom sauce.

I wrapped it up in foil and let it rest while I got on with everything else.  The dressing was a mixture of lime juice, fish sauce, chilli, sugar and spring onions.


And now, the adaptation I mentioned - I bulked up the salad with some brown rice vermicelli, making it more a Vietnamese bún than a salad.

So, I layered the vermicelli, a huge amount of shredded baby spinach/Thai basil/coriander, and the beef in a bowl, and poured over the dressing.


Poached Chicken with Shredded Spinach and Yoghurt

For Christmas, my dad got me Karen Martini's new book, Feasting.  I love it!  I've made a couple of recipes from it so far, and plan to blog it in more detail soon, but for now I just wanted to share the first dish I made - roast chicken with shredded spinach and yoghurt.  I love a good hearty salad, and this is really a meal-in-a-bowl.

The salad contains spiced bulgur, pine nuts, loads of shredded herbs and baby spinach, and cooked chicken, all tossed through a creamy yoghurt and red onion dressing.


I did stray from the recipe slightly, in that I used a mixture of spices (cinnamon, coriander, cumin) instead of the suggested ras-el-hanout, and that I poached my own chicken breasts instead of buying a roast chicken.  My local supermarket does sell roast chickens (free range too!), but they all looked a bit dried out and unappetizing, with wizened little drumsticks.  No thanks!  I actually poached the chicken breasts in the chicken stock for the dumpling noodle soup (see below), which added extra flavour and kept them moist. Win!

The salad was delicious, and tasted surprisingly rich for having so little fat in it - the Greek yoghurt I used was low fat, and there were only a couple of tablespoons of oil in the whole salad.  I had it for work lunches, and it lasted a good 3 days.


Dumpling Noodle Soup



You may remember the turkey noodle soup that I made with leftover Christmas turkey.  (And indeed, why wouldn't you?  It was just my last post).  It was wonderful, but not very filling, so when I made it again, I made some dumplings too.  I love Chinese dumpling noodle soup, but when you get them at restaurants they can be really greasy and MSG-laden.  When you make it yourself, however, you can control exactly how much oil, salt and veggies go in, making a healthy little meal all up.

The filling for the dumplings was very simple - just a hastily knocked-together mixture of minced lean pork, sesame oil, pepper, soy sauce, spring onions, coriander, chilli and garlic.


I wrapped the filling up in wonton wrappers (my mum says they're good for the complexion), and boiled them in the soup.  As you can see, I didn't do any fancy pleating or folding, just pinched the dumplings closed.  Looks plain but did the trick!

In the bowl were the dumplings, somen noodles, carrots, celery, onion, coriander and spring onions.  I served it with loads of Chiu Chow chilli oil, and inhaled the lot in front of the TV.  Yum.

Hello my lovelies! Now that Easter, and therefore Lent, is over, I thought it was time for a meaty meat-filled post! Not that I was going through any self-denial before Easter- far from it! - but I know a couple of my carnivorous Catholic chums were suffering some serious meat withdrawal symptoms during those 40 days and 40 nights. (Read into that what you will. Can I get a holla?)


Pork Wellington

First up is a dish I actually made up myself! Well, I say made up, but what I actually did was to combine a couple of recipes.

I layed out some prosciutto, and rolled it out to get it even flatter. Then I wrapped the prosciutto around a pork fillet, and seared it off in a frying pan. As you can see, I used the same pan to fry off some mushrooms until soft (this was for a creamy mushroom sauce!). I then wrapped up the seared pork log in puff pastry (home made, naturally). I baked it in a very hot oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown and cooked through.

I served it in slices (you can see a cross section at the top of this post), with bratkartoffeln and creamy mushroom sauce. I used mainly button mushrooms in the sauce, but boosted the flavour with some porcini powder and dried chanterelles.

For something I made up on the fly, it was quite a success! I thought the prosciutto added great flavour to an otherwise bland cut of meat, and I loved the way the creamy mushroom sauce soaked into the pastry.


Maple Chicken 'n' Ribs


The recipe for Maple Chicken 'n' Ribs comes from Nigella Express, and is very simple to make. Just marinate chicken pieces and ribs (I used pork) in a mixture of apple juice, maple syrup, oil, soy and some spices. Leave it overnight and bake rost it the next day. Ta-dah!


They were tender and juicy, but were rather lacking in the flavour and colour department. I prefer my ribs sticky and burnished and covered in awesome barbecue sauce, like Hurricane's ribs, or those standard "Chinese" chicken wings that Elizabeth Chong made throughout the 80's.


Oxtail with Mackeson and Marjoram

I love oxtail stew, and this is the same recipe that I first made 4 and a half years ago (!!) from Nigella's How to Eat. Now, oxtail is pretty hard to come by, and when I saw some beautiful oxtail at my local butcher, all wrapped up on a little tray with a parsley sprig garnish, I just had to buy it.


Nigella says you should aim to get oxtail pieces that are all roughly the same size - hah! - that is being very optimistic. If you are lucky enough to find oxtail at your butcher, it will most likely come from the same actual tail and thus will vary in size, from the thick top part, tapering down to the tiny end pieces. I highly doubt they'll have enough tails in for you to be able to chose enough similar-sized pieces to make a whole stew.

Of course, if you happen to know of a kick-ass butcher who always has heaps of oxtail in, please let me know about it!!


I love the deep red colour of the sauce, and how thick the sauce gets thanks to all the gelatinous goodness in the oxtail. Totally fabulous. I've blogged this stew in more detail here, if you're interested. It's definitely one of my favourite stews of all time.


If I'm not eating it with mashed potatoes, I like oxtail (and osso buco) with short round pasta, to echo the shape of the meat.

Been a while since I did one of these "3 Dinners" posts. But then, it's been a while since I cooked at home consistently. (Oven chips don't count). This post's theme is "healthy".

Vegetable Jalfreezi

This one is from Jamie's Ministry of Food, and seemed like one of the healthier curries we could enjoy - no coconut milk or cream involved. I found the Curries chapter of this book really useful. Jamie suggests using bought curry pastes (good for time-poor or beginners, but also has recipes for making curry pastes from scratch).

As you'll see from the first picture in this post, I went for the more laborious version. (I also couldn't find Jalfreezi curry paste at the supermarket. I got a jar of Jalfreezi simmer sauce, but I'll save that for a time when I need a quick quick dinner).

Even if you do make the curry paste from scratch, it's pretty easy, especially if you already have all the spices (y'all know I do, haha) - just a lot of chopping and stirring. It smells a-mazing when you're frying off the paste and the onion/garlic/chilli mix.

Simmer those veggies with stock and tomatoes for an hour or so, cook some rice, and dinner is ready.

Because we happened to use yellow peppers (cheaper at the market), the finished product was a gorgeous Mika-style Golden Golden curry. Fabulous.


Roast Monkfish with Steamed Kipflers, Mint Salsa and Superfood Salad

Just because it's healthy doesn't mean it can't be glamorous. I found some lovely fresh monkfish at Vic Market one day, and had to snap it up. I'd never seen it here, but read about it in lots of European cookbooks. Even during my How To Eat project, the one time I cooked it, I had to substitute different fish. (And I can't believe that dinner was over 4 years ago!!!!!!!)

Ooh... fresh.

I fried the fish on both sides to get it brown, drizzled with oil and lemon zest, and finished it off in the oven. In the meantime I steamed some kipflers, sliced them, and drizzled them with a mint salsa (mint, parsley, capers, cornichons, olive oil, white wine vinegar) whilst still warm so they could soak up all the flavours. Yum yum. Served with leftover superfood salad.


Lamb Cutlets, Brown Rice with Caramelized onions and Semi-Superfood Salad

We had a couple of rack-of-lamb leftover from Father's Day dinner (still to be blogged), so in the interest of thrift, later that week I sliced them into individual lamb cutlets, and grilled them on both sides. We served it with a kinda cross between the Superfood Salad and Jamie Oliver's chop salad - i.e. put all ingredients on a board and chop chop chop until it's mixed. The chopped ingredients included spring onions, cucumber, parsley, mint, and cos lettuce. I added a few tablespoons of red quinoa, mixed seeds, pine nuts and avocado, and dressed it with a mixture of lemon juice and buttery rapeseed oil. (Horrible name, lovely oil - tastes like popcorn but full of healthy-heart oils). With that, I made brown rice, and topped it with finely-sliced red onions, cooked until soft and sweet. Asian parents don't like non-white rice, so I had to make it at least a little interesting for them!

Of late, I have been super busy and tired with work, and ashamedly resorting to take-away and freezer meals, even on weekends. No more!


Mushroom Steak Sandwich


I've made this at least twice before, (in '05 and '07), and was reminded of it when I saw cheap Portobello mushrooms at Colonial Food Market in Doncaster Shoppo. I picked up some parsley and some sourdough rolls from Bakers' Delight (not foodie-chic, but they did the job)... and dinner was sorted!


You smear the mushrooms with a mixture of butter, garlic and parsley, and grill until cooked and juicy. Then you shove them in a Dijon mustard-smeared bun, squeeze with lemon, and eat. I added some baby spinach leaves for extra vitamins. The bread wasn't too bad, but it was very sour (i.e. more sour than normal sourdough), and super-duper chewy. I think toasting the bread first might have been a good idea.


Superfood Salad

After enjoying the Superfood Salad served at Match Bar, I decided to google the recipe and give it a go myself. (Link to recipe is here!) It's pretty easy, but kinda time-consuming - quinoa, broccolini and peas all have to be cooked separately, but the result is ultimately rewarding. It's so virtuously nutritious and filling. As you can see, I served it with some rare-grilled tuna - wonderful.


A Casual Mezze/Aufschnitt Supper


Last Saturday night's dinner was going to be a simple yet decadent Aufschnitt (cold-cut dinner) of salami, triple-cream brie and light-rye bread, but in the afternoon I realised my cousin Gina and my niece Cheryl would be coming over to hang out, and decided to pad out the dinner a bit.

I made a batch of Nigella's delicious eggplant, saffron and yoghurt dip, some taboulleh (with red quinoa replacing the usual burghal) and some Lebanese-style garlic chicken wings. I think there are a gazillion versions of classic Lebanese garlic chicken wings, but I follow the recipe from How to Eat, which involves boiling the garlic cloves first, to mellow the flavour, before mixing it with lemon juice and slathering it on the chicken wings.
After the allotted cooking time, the chicken was cooked through but still white. In normal circumstances I would have just eaten them like that, but I know that Cheryl hates bumpy white chicken skin, so I blistered them under the grill for a couple of minutes to crisp up. It turned out to be a winning move, because crispy chicken skin is fantastic, especially sprinkled with a little salt. Best. Chicken Wing. Recipe. Ever! (Well, maybe apart from Agnes' soy sauce poached chicken wings!)


Superfood Pilaf

This one is (gasp!) my own creation, which is big news coming from a girl who slavishly follows recipes. Inspired by the success of the garlic chicken wings and taboulleh, I was planning a weeknight re-run. However, by the time that weeknight came around, it was freezing, and I wanted comforting rice, rather than refreshing salad.


I cooked onions with spices, tossed in some basmati rice and red quinoa, added stock and chopped broccoli, clamped on a lid and let it cook through. When it was cooked, I tossed through some soaked sultanas, chopped parsley/mint, and toasted nuts and seeds (pine nuts, almonds, sunflower, pumpkin). Yum yum. It was pretty substantial, and would make a nice meal with or without the chicken wings. (Pilaf fans should also consider checking out Nigella Lawson's Safron-Scented Chicken Pilaf).

To make this pilaf truly "super", I'd probably suggest using brown basmati rice - does anyone know where to find this? I also considered using famously super cranberries instead of sultanas, but wasn't sure if this would taste too sweet. Perhaps next time I will be more adventurous.

It's freezing outside. Half my family have colds (including me *cough cough*). Time for proper comfort food.

First up we have a reprise of Nigella's baked veal and ham pasta, first made over 3 years ago as my 300th recipe for my How to Eat project. Cooked penne, white sauce, cooked carrot/onion/celery/minced veal/pancetta. All mixed together, sprinkled with parmesan cheese and baked. Oh Yum!

Earlier this week I made a sausage and bean casserole, from the Comfort chapter of Joanna Weinberg's How to Feed your Friends with Relish.

You start by boiling some large cabbage leaves until floppy (interesting fact: I really like the smell of boiled cabbage!), then drain them, and wrap them around "excellent pork sausages", which will need to be skinned first. I used hot Italian pork sausages from my local organic/biodynamic butcher.

I love the way they look like the creature from the black lagoon...

Then you cook some onion/carrot/celery in a pan - the recipe calls for pancetta but I'd already blown the budget on the organic sausages - add the parcels, stock and tinned tomatoes, and simmer for 25 minutes. You add some beans at the end and let them heat through.
This was gorgeous. It's very different from what we'd normally eat at home, and delicious. I served it with buttery mashed potatoes (again, incidentally, organic ones from Vic Market). The flavour relies totally on the quality of the sausages, so it makes sense to get good quality, spicy ones.


Wiener Schnitzel with Bratkartoffeln and Coleslaw

I previously mentioned how much I enjoyed the April 09 edition of Gourmet Traveller. One of the reasons for this was a small feature on Wiener Schnitzel, which inspired me to make some for dinner last week. I did a mish-mash of the Gourmet Traveller recipe and the one from Neil Perry's Good Food.

I also made my own mayo to go with, and served it as a condiment, rather than mixing it through the coleslaw, as I thought it might make the whole meal a bit too rich. After much swearing and getting half the equipment in my kitchen greasy and feral, I realised the easiest way to make mayonnaise is the old fashioned way - a bowl and a whisk.

Coleslaw, simply dressed with red wine vinegar and olive oil.

Bratkartoffeln. This is something I learned how to make in Germany. You boil some potatoes, then peel and slice them, and cook them in a pan with onions and speck until crispy. There is nothing about it I don't like.

And the schnitzel! Not nearly as good as Figelmüller's iconic schnitzel, but still good enough to make us happy on a cold night.

I am on a mission to cook more at home and not rely on expensive takeaway. Here are a few things we've been cooking in the last couple of weeks to keep our tummies and wallets full.

Chicken Skewers and Saucy Mushrooms
Chicken pieces (marinated in teriyaki/soy/garlic), onion, peppers - threaded onto skewer and grilled
Mushroom sauce - just fry mushrooms in some butter, add a few spoons of flour and then some milk, and cook until thick. This was an impromptu sauce, and I was surprised by how amazing it tasted.

We served the skewers and mushrooms with plain rice. Sauce + rice = happy tummies.


Fish with cauliflower and potato salad
Plain white fish, crumbed and baked. The potato salad is steamed slices of potato, combined with lemon juice, olive oil, onion and parsley while still warm. The creamy cauliflower is a staple of German home cooking, and is similar to the saucy mushrooms. Except you cook the cauliflower in boiling water first, and sneak in an egg at the end to thicken.


Mustard Lamb with Braised Potatoes and Beans
This one is inspired by a recipe in Donna Hay's No Time to Cook. The lamb is crusted with seedy mustard and sugar, and grilled. The potatoes (supposed to be made with peas), are braised in beef stock - a great way to add more flavour. Despite someone's reassurance, "of course we have peas in the freezer", we had no peas, and had to substitute beans. Still good. We made a simple salad to go with.

Creamy Chicken and Mushrooms

Inspired by the success of the aforementioned saucy mushrooms, I wanted to expand on the idea and turn it into a whole meal. In with the mushrooms went chunks of chicken, peas and carrots. It was rather like the inside of a chicken pie. (My dad says the Hainanese chefs used to make chicken pies like this back when he was a kid - so he really liked it).


Paella
Not a true Spanish paella, but a tasty dinner nonetheless. I got the recipe from Jamie's Ministry of Food (50% of at Borders last month, wahey!). His recipe includes mussels and other fish, but as I live with someone who doesn't like seafood, we skipped this. Instead, I upped the quantities of chorizo and chicken. As you can see, I was a bit T.A. with the saffron, so it wasn't as gloriously golden as I'd hoped. Next time I won't be so stingy.

This recipe was fantastic - my family love all-in-once rice meals, and this one had great flavour from the chorizo and saffron. Will definitely be making this again.

Please note the use (finally), of the paella pan, bought 1.5 years ago, and before this paella, only used for roasting chickens.

Mini Shell Pasta with Peas and Bacon
Again this recipe comes from Jamie's Ministry of Food. It was very quick, taking about 20 minutes in total, and really tasty. It's not quite as insanely unhealthy as it looks - it doesn't contain a whole lot of cream, but a few spoons of sour cream (I used lite because that's what we had in the house).