Christmas Rice Salad

I know I said I wasn't going to post any of my Christmas recipes but I made an exception for this salad. Because it is exceptional!

The original version was supposed to be made with quinoa rather than rice. We had the quinoa cooked on Christmas day but with all the other food we had, we totally forgot about it sitting there in the pot and ended up having to throw it away.

So a couple of days after Christmas I decided to make it with rice and use up all the yummy herbs etc that I had bought specially for it. While the nuts and cranberries do make it very festive and therefore perfect for Christmas, I guarantee it will be welcome at any BBQ anytime!

Christmas Rice Salad
Recipe by me

4 cups cooked brown rice
1 red capsicum, diced
1 green capsicum, diced
3 shallots/spring onions, finely sliced
100g cashews, roughly chopped
100g dried cranberries, roughly chopped
1 bunch mint, chopped finely
1 bunch parsley, chopped finely
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tbs soy sauce

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Serve warm or cold. Especially good served with leftover ham or roast turkey. Serves 8-10 as a side dish.

Meatless Monday - Chickpeas in Spicy Tomato Sauce

I'm sure I never ate curry when I was 2 but luckily both my kids are big fans!

This was a hit at our place this week and in spite of the name it's basically a curry with a rich tomato hit from both tinned tomatoes and tomato paste. It's also one of those dishes where you will likely have all the ingredients on hand already and can whip this up easily for a mid-week dinner.


Chickpeas in Spicy Tomato Sauce
Recipe Source - Cheap & Cheerful from The Australian Woman's Weekly, p68-69

2 tbs ghee (I used rice bran oil)
2 brown onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
20g piece fresh ginger, grated
2 ts cumin seeds (I used ground cumin)
1tbs coriander
1 ts turmeric
1ts cayenne pepper
2 tbs tomato paste
2 x 400g tins diced tomatoes
2 cups water (I used vege stock)
2 x 420g tins chickpeas, drained
1 large sweet potato (500g) cut into a small dice
300g spinach, chopped coarsely
(Salt, pepper and sugar to taste)

Heat ghee in a large pan and add the onion, garlic and ginger. Cook until the onion is soft, stirring often. Add the spices and cook for another minute. Add the tomato paste and cook for 2 minutes.

Next add the sweet potato and cook for another 2 minutes, stirring well to coat in the spice and onion mix.

Add in the tinned tomatoes, chickpeas and water and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook stirring occasionally for about 30 minutes, or until the sweet potato is cooked through. Just before serving, add in the chopped spinach.

Serve on basmati rice.

I didn't make many changes to the recipe but you can see them marked above. I always use vege stock in place of water in these sorts of dishes, and I added a teaspoon of sugar to counteract the acidity of the tomatoes.

We'll definitely make this again!

Daring Cooks March - Risotto

This month's Daring Cooks challenge was all about comfort food. The meal? Risotto!

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

I adore risotto so we tend to have it quite regularly. I do admit to cheating though and using premade stock. Not this time though.

The recipe in the MasterChef cookbook (which I happened to receive for Christmas) was for a pumpkin risotto. Hubby hates pumpkin with a passion so I chose to do a roast chicken and garlic risotto instead.

You don't really need a recipe for stock. I roasted 2kg of chicken drumsticks with 2 whole heads of garlic at 200 degrees for a couple of hours. I sauteed a couple of leeks in olive oil then added the chicken and garlic. Covered the whole lot with water, brought to the boil then simmered for 2 1/2 hours. Removed the meat from the bones and stored separately. Refrigerated the stock overnight then removed the fat on the surface. Bring the stock back up to the boil then strain and you are ready to go.

The verdict? Yum! The homemade stock really takes this dish from easy weeknight meal to dinner party showstopper. Absolutely delish and very easy to do.

Thanks for a great challenge girls! You can find the challenge recipe on MelbournefoodGeek or Jessthebaker.

Daring Cooks August - Rice with Prawns, Mushrooms and Artichokes

It's Daring Cooks time again! Actually it was Daring Cooks time 2 days ago and I am only just getting around to posting.

This month the lovely Olga from Olga's Recipes chose a Spanish dish by José Andrés of rice with cuttlefish, mushrooms and artichokes. I am a little squeamish about some seafood so went with prawns instead of the cuttlefish.

This was an interesting dish to make but unfortunately we didn't love it. We even ended up with a huge dish of leftovers in the fridge that just never got eaten (a rarity in this house).

The flavour was to come mainly from the sofregit, a thick sauce made from simmering tomatoes, onion, garlic, capsicum and spices for an hour or so. The recipe called for just 2 to 3 tablespoons of this sauce to be added to the dish. Well, we did that and our rice was almost completely flavourless. I mean if I had closed my eyes I could have been eating almost anything. So I added in the entire batch of sofregit (a good 2 cups worth) which did help. The $7 of saffron we added was indetectable. Our allioli was also a disaster, turning into garlic flavoured oil rather than the thick greeny-golden sauce it was meant to be. Hmmm.

Maybe I missed something? Maybe there was some vital ingredient or process that I completely overlooked? Otherwise this really was a bit of a dud for us. Sorry Olga!

Make sure you visit Olga's blog for the recipe and to see how this dish should be made!