Chilli Chicken with Cucumber – Jan 31st 2006

First of all I should say how happy I am that after 1 WHOLE WEEK I finally have my home internet connection up & running again – it was finally established that a new modem was required. So sorry for the bombardment of posts, they have been patiently waiting to be added in, hope you enjoy!

Tonight’s dinner was a quickie as we have netball on Tuesdays so a) cant afford to stuff our faces on a feast or would not be possible to move off the couch & play & b) no time to prepare such luscious dishes anyway. This one was from the Sep table magazine, nothing difficult, just a different mix of the usual ingredients. Have to say that again the end result was really quite nice, light, refreshing & should give us plenty of bounce on the court tonight for our 9.45pm VERY LATE game – Go Nances!

Chilli Chicken with Cucumber

2 skinless chicken breasts, thinly sliced
2 red chillies, deseeded & finely chopped
2 teaspoons peanut oil
2 spring onions, sliced diagonally
2 lebanese cucumbers, halved, seeds scooped out & cut in strips
¼ cup chopped coriander leaves
1 tablespoon lime juice
Cooked Hokkien noodles

Place chicken, chillies & oil in a bowl, mix & stand for 15 minutes. Place a wok on high heat & stir fry chicken in batches for 1-2 minutes each until browned & tender. Place in a bowl.

Reheat wok & stir fry spring onions for 1 minute. Return chicken to wok & toss until heated.

Remove from heat & add cucumbers, coriander, lime juice & noodles, toss to combine & serve.

Thats finally it for a couple of days!

Fragrant Green Chicken Curry – Sunday 28th Jan 06

Sunday night I cooked up a curry from Jamie Oliver’s original ‘The Naked Chef’ cookbook, the flavours were very fresh & it was very simple to make. I have cooked various curries from his different cookbooks & they are all fantastic so this is another winner to add to the collection. He suggested serving with his chunky coconut, tomato, cucumber & lime relish which I sort of did apart from the fact that I could not buy coconut anywhere yesterday so it was minus the coconut. I have since been told that coconuts are too old at the moment, will have to try & remember - no coconuts in January!!! Still it was nice to have something fresh to serve on the side. Sorry the photo once again doesnt do the curry justice, I find curries generally arent that photographic at any time (for me the amateur photographer anyway).

Fragrant Green Chicken Curry

4 skinless chicken breasts, each cut into 5 pieces
1 x 400ml tin coconut milk
1 handful chopped pistachio nuts

Green Curry Paste

6 spring onions, washed & trimmed
4-6 medium green chillies, deseeded & finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon fresh root ginger, peeled & finely chopped
1 tablespoon coriander seeds, pounded or crushed
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salt & pepper to taste
Handful of lime leaves, torn
2 lemon grass stalks, trimmed back & finely chopped
2 good handfuls fresh basil on the stalk
3 good handfuls fresh coriander on the stalk
3 tablespoons olive oil
zest & juice of 4 limes

Put all the curry paste ingredients in a food processor and whiz to a smooth green paste. Marinate the chicken in a little of the paste for 30 minutes, then add a little oil & chicken pieces to a hot pan. Fry for 4 minutes, thenad the remainder of the paste. Stir in the coconut milk, bring to the boil & simmer for 8 minutes until the chicken is cooked. Season to taste.

Sprinkle with the pistachios & some coriander leaves & serve with steamed rice

Roasted Duck breast Salad – Dinner Jan 26 2006 Australia Day

Sorry its not lamb! Duck however would have to be one of my fave foods & most of the time you can whip up somehting absolutely yummy that makes you look like a star in the kitchen & it only takes you 5 minites to prepare, like this next one. For dinner I cooked up this duck salad from Marie Claires ‘Luscious’, it was really really good & seriously only took abt 5 minutes to prepare & not much longer to cook & throw together

Roasted Duck Breast Salad

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
¼ teaspoon chinese 5 spice
1 teaspoon sea salt
4 boneless duck breasts, skin on
½ teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
100g mixed lettuce
2 mangoes, peeled, seeded & sliced
2 spring onions, finely sliced on the diagonal
2 tablespoons Chinese Black vinegar

Preheat the oven to 180c (350f/Gas 4). In a small bowl combine. Sugar, five spice & salt. Lightly score the skin of the breasts in a crisscross pattern, then rub the sugar mixture into the duck skin.

Heat a non stick frying pan over high heat & sear the duck, skin side down for a few minutes, or until crisp – the skin will go quite dark as the sugar caramelises. Put the duck, skin side up, on a rack set over a baking tray & roast for 15 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven, cover with foil & allow the duck to rest for a few minutes.
Roughly grin the peppercorns in a mortar & pestle. Arrange salad leaves, mango & spring onions on 4 serving plates, Finely slice the duck breasts & arrange over the salad. Drizzle the duck with the vinegar & sprinkle with the ground peppercorns

Choc Banana Bread – Australia Day 26th Jan 2006

I had a bunch of very overripe bananas to use up thanks to all of the recent scorchers so the second treat I cooked up was some chocolate banana bread from Bill Grangers ‘Bills Food’, this was amazing, esp when still hot from the oven & the chocolate all oozy, yum. You can see in the photos how high the loaf rose & all of the chunky banana pieces & melty chocolate, mmmm, cant beleive I gave this one away after only 1/2 a piece (only half as I'd already scoffed 2 huge choc chip cookies)

Choc Banana Bread

250g (2 cups) plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
125g (4 ½ oz) unsalted butter, softened
250 g (1 cup) caster sugar
4 ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
175g (1 cup) good quality dark or milk chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 180c (350f/gas 4). Sift the flour & baking powder into a large bowl. Mix the butter, sugar, bananas, eggs, vanilla extract & chocolate chips in a separate bowl. Add to the dry ingredients & stir to combine, being careful not to overmix.

Pour the batter into a non-stick or lightly greased & floured 19 x 11cm loaf tin & bake for 1 hour 15 minutes or until bread is cooked when tested with a skewer. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 mins before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

Chocolate Chip Cookies – Australia Day Jan 26 2006

Today we had another scorcher so my plans to go to the Hanging Rock Races were unfortunately cancelled. Woke up & felt like baking so thought I would whip up some treats & take them over to Michaels parents, they have a pool which was just the thing for us to cool down in.

Luckily downstairs at our place stays nice & cool so having the oven on all morning didnt heat things up too badly

The first thing I made were some gorgeous chocolate chip cookies from Marie Claire ‘Cooking’. Very simple to make, the brown sugar & coconut adding lots to the flavour, the photo doesnt do them justice, here’s the recipe

Chocolate Chip cookies

125g (4oz) butter, softened
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup plain flour
1 cup SR Flour
1 cup desiccated coconut
250g (8oz) chopped chocolate (I used Nestle dark)

Place butter, vanilla & sugar in a bowl & beat until creamy. Beat egg into mixture & then stir through flours, coconut & chocolate. Roll 2 tablespoons of mixture a ta time into balls, place balls on lined baking trays & flatten slightly. Bake in a preheated 190c (375f) oven for 15 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned. Cool on trays. Makes 20

Margaret River March 2004 Randon Travel Note 5

A couple of years ago Michael & I had the pleasure of spending a week in Margaret River. We stayed at a friends beach house in Dunsborough which was fantastic, it was right on the beach so every morning when we woke up we literally stepped out the back door & onto the beach for a long walk & swim before heading off to the wineries. We usually visited 3 or 4 a day & some of our favourites were:

Vasse Felix, though I'm disapointed we didn’t get a chance to have lunch here as its supposed to be great. Their wines never dissapoint & I still re order now
Clairoult, where we had a magnificent lunch on the Al fresco deck
Voyager, though this is one of the larger wineries, the dutch style gardens are gorgeous & worth checking out
Flying Fish, which was quite a unique little winery
Leeuwin Estate, set in beautiful grounds
Wise, Had a superb lunch here with possibly the best views in the whole of the Margaret river - check out the view in the photo
Wildwood Winery in Yallingup - another beautiful boutique winery with a few good drops
Pierro, Caves Road, Willyabrup, another one where a few purchases were made

The day we did a mini bus tour so we could all enjoy the tasting we were always the last on the bus taking a lot longer than the others, we were trying it all & buying most of it too while the others seemed to be just in it for fun!

After a day at the wineries it was then relax time, so we would stock up on bbq supplies & some good local produce, cheese, etc
We would then fire up the barbie which as you can see from the photo was no easy task (it took Michael hours before the girls stepped in to help out) but a lot of fun, there is always something so comforting abt a fire! After eating we settled down to our books or a game ready for the next day to begin, cant think of a more perfect holiday myself, sun, beaches, great wine & food, what more could a gal ask for?
Also the scenery of the whole area was spectacular, from the ripe green grapefields to the sandy red roads & beaches it was quite a unique part of the world which I hope to visit again some day

Sui Sha Ya - Random Travel Notes no 4

Having had a fantastic tepinyaki meal in Brisbane on the weekend brought back fond memories of my favourite restaurant in The Hague. Michael & I lived there for abt 18 mnths from abt Nov 01 - Apr 03 & during that we time we were lucky to be able to do a lot of travel throughout Europe.




Our favourite restaurant by far was Sui Sha Ya in Scheveningen, we went there abt once a month & every time we had visitors in town this is the place we took them out. The tepinyaki was fantastic & heaps of food at a pretty good price too, there are several menus to choose from with all staring with miso soup, then a 'Japanese Hors D'oeuvre' usually some sushi rolls or rare thin sliced beef & salad, followed by zuchini, onion & mushroom on the grill. Next is a selection of seafood & or meat depending on your choice of menu, I almost always had the combo which included prawns, duck, Seawolf (fish), Rib Eye & some more bee all cooked to perfection!

With this also came a salad which no one was much bothered with, had to save room for the best bits. And of course accompanying this was the fried rice cooked on the grill with the egg that was flicked at us all with amazing speed to see who could catch it in their mouth the best. Many cheers for all were heard at this stage, the chefs here were very friendly & great entertainers, have a look at some of the phots of us there on various visits.

The prawn heads you can see in the photo were always cooked to a crisp & presented to each of us at the end, despite being told how delicious they were I never could bring myself to try them - what a wus you say!

Fish & Salsa Monday 23rd Jan 2006

Well the holidays over & I'm back on my cleanse though I have relaxed the rules a bit & am not ever going to cook a dull recipe from that book again!

Tonight I cooked up some lovely blue eye on the grill which I season & brushed with olive oil first. And I served the fish with with mixed lettuce & a gorgeously fresh salsa of coriander, tomato, spring onion, a dried chilli that I managed to grow myself, some cucumber my mum grew for me, lime juice, olive il & seasoning.

it was very light & fresh with the chilli giving it a nice kick & the coriander lending an nice asian flavour to the whole dish.

Flying Food Sunday 22nd Jan 2006

Flying home from a weekend in Brisbane last night I couldnt resist taking a photo of my plane food. Its amazing how unappetising they make these meals look, this was mustard chicken with potoato & veg, a bread roll, butter & a mars bar. I know you wont believe it but it tasted a lot better than it looked & lets face it the meal is always one way of helping the flight go a bit quicker so I always try it out.

Despite this pic here which is the only one I took, I ate many a very lovely meal in Brisbane, one of them being a fantastic tepinyaki of lobster, scallops, moreton bay bugs & steak.

Also for brekky Saturday morning went to a nice little cafe in the Cleveland shops & as well as serving some tasty food I was very impressed with the fact that they did a big brekky of eggs, bacon, mushies, tomato & toast or turkish bread in 3 different sizes. What a fantastic idea, my eyes are always bigger than my stomach & I have to have a bit of everything so always end up with a huge brekky that I can only eat half of, this way the portions were as you chose (I had the small) so I managed to eat it all, yum.

News Years Resoltion - Liver Cleansing Diet!

Well after a week & a bit of complete excess which followed from a month of Christmas lunches, dinners, parties & you name its, the pants were feeling a bit tight so I thought it was absolutely neccessary to start the New year off with the Liver Cleansing diet.

I started on 2nd Jan as I first had begin the new year well so went to my mums for dinner & had some lovely peirogi to start with followed by a Roast beef, can you get more comfort food than that, was delicious & nice way to start off 2006, good food, wine & with the family.

Anyway the diet is suppsoed to go for 8 weeks & we will see how I go. There will def be a break on the weekend of 20th Jan as I'm flying up to Brisbane for a girls weekend. On day 4 now & feeling much lighter already & the food is not too bad apart from the fact that I have to cut out all dairy, red meat & of course anything that contains sugar, white flour, etc! Oh well sure it will all taste even better than I remember after depriving myself for a few weeks. The diet has one saving grace, I am still allowed 4 glasses of wine a week, yippee, am really looking forward to Friday night now.

The photo is of some Banana & walnut muffins which I made from the book, they really arent too bad though not good enough to share the recipe thats for sure. Will not bother to share all the gory food I have to eat unless one of the recipes takes me by surpirse so see you back when I am in the real world again all cleansed & ready to destroy all my hard work

Bye for now

Sweetcorn & Ricotta hotcakes with smoked salmon & basil dressing

To use up some more of my smoked salmon I cooked up a treat for Michael & I on Christmas morning, we were not expecting the whole family over until dinner time so wanted something nice to start the day.

After doing the Allan Campion cooking class at Vic Market & him making it look so easy I thought I would try this recipe out for myself. Again it was really easy & have heaps of leftover hotcakes to have for brekky over the next few days. Think the corn & smoked salmon teamed with the basil is a great combination too.

The recipe is from 2006 Seasonal Prodcue Diary, here it is

Sweetcorn and ricotta hotcakes with smoked salmon and basil dressing

1 cup basil leaves
1 garlic clove, peeled & sliced
120-160 ml (1/2 - 2/3 cup) olive oil
salt & freshly ground pepper
2 medium eggs
250g ricotta
60 ml (1/4 cup) milk
125g (1/2 cup) natural yoghurt
150g (1 cup) self raising flour
1/2 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn salt
2 corn cobs
olive oil for cooking
rocket to serve
12 slices smoked salmon

Place basil & garlic in food processor & blend until chopped. Slowly add the olive oil until the basil is pureed & forms a thickish sauce. Season with salt & pepper & set aside.

Beat eggs & ricotta. Add milk and yoghurt & beat until smooth. Sift flour with baking powder and salt & add to ricotta base, stir until combined.

Remove husks and silky tassells from corn. Run a sharp knife down each cob to remove the kernels. Stir kernels through pancake mixture.

Heat a heavy based pan over medium heat. Add a splash of oil to hot pan, then a few ladlefuls of ricotta mixture. Mixture should spread to abt 6 cm wide. Cook until bubbles form on top & base is golden brown. Turn over & cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Keep warm until all hotcakes are cooked.

Place one hotcake on each plate, add a handful of rocket, place another cake on top. Add more rocket & arrange 2 slices of salmon on top. Repeat with remaining hotcakes. Drizzle basil oil around hotcakes & serve immediatley

PS - As you can see from the photo I didnt do the fancy arrangement just for the 2 of us!

Tiramisu Cake Sat 24th Dec 05

After dinner at Tolarnos we came home for coffee, cake & traditional early present opening!

I made a tiramisu cake from Allan Campion & Michele Curtis' 'Food with Friends', it was so easy to put together & a big hit with all. Here's the recipe

Tiramisu Cake

200g dark chocolate chopped into chunks (or use the melts like I did)
3 medium eggs, seperated
60 ml (1/4 cup) marsala
250 g mascarpone
150 g Italian sponge fingers
100 ml strong coffee
cocoa powder
cream to serve

22cm springform cake tin

Put chocolate in a heatproof bowl & set over saucepan of simmering water until melted. Beat egg yolks with marsala until pale & creamy. Add mascarpone to beaten yolks & beat until smooth. Add melted chocolate to mix & stir until well combined. Whip egg whites until stiff, fold into the mix.

Line springform tin with greaseproof paper. Lay half the spnge fingers in the bottom of the cake tin & drizzle with half the coffee. Pour the mascarpone mix into cake tin. Top with remaining biscuits & drizzle with remaining coffe. Cover with glad wrap & refrigerate for 3-4 hours or overnight until set.

To serve, remove cake carefully, dust with cocoa powder & serve with cream

Tolarno's Mums Bday 24 Dec 05

Christmas Eve is my mums birthday so we always take her out somewhere nice for dinner. Being a big fan of Heweys she requested Tolarnos this year.

The food here is very different to most menus in that it is very old fashioned. To start with we all had the polenta chips with mayonaise & crumbed mushrooms with tartare sauce, strange combination but it worked well, very nice to start with though lots of crumbed & fried food which not really used to.


Next I had the shephards pie pictured, not normally what I would try but thought that I should try & house specialty & steer away from my usual type of choice. It was delicious, the meat has a lovely tomatoey flavour & the mash was very creamy with loads of melted cheese on top, very heavy & def could not eat this all the time, & of course I did not finish it at all. It came with a side of buttered cabbage which sadly was hardly touched.

We noticed Huey cooking in the kitchen which of course thrilled my mum & the waitress who was lovely said it would not be a problem to go up to the kitchen window & say hello. So I dragged my very excited mum up there & intoduced her letting him know it was her bday too. He said a quick hello, didnt listen to what my mum was trying to say & then turned his back, my mum was very disappointed in him, expecting that as on his cooking shows when he tell everyone to come down to his restaurant that he would be more than happy to chat to a devoted fan for a minute or so. My mum has now decided she wont be watching him anymore! Sad as the food & staff were great!

Smoked Salmon - Wednesday 21st Dec 05

This Xmas I was lucky enough to be given a kilo of smoked salmon from one of my clients so will be getting creative & trying out lots of new recipes over the next couple of weeks, luckily I'm doing lots of entertaining so plenty of opportunity!

Wednesday night my good friend Jane moved into one of the houses in my block so to celebrate I made up these little treats. Pumpernickel bread with a dollop of creme fraiche, a sprig of dill & some salmon on top, yum!

Glazed Salmon with warm broccolini Tuesday 20th Dec 05

Another busy day was had & lots to do at home so Michael cooked me this simple but yummy Salmon dish from Bills Food by Bill Granger, heres the recipe



Glazed Salmon with warm broccolini

80 ml (1/3 cup) Mirin
80 ml (1/3 cup) Soy Sauce
2 tblspns grated ginger
2 tblspins red miso
2 tspns sugar
2 tspns lemon juice
4 Salmon Fillets - skin on
1 bunch broccolini

Dressing

125ml (1/2 cup) soy sauce
125ml (1/2 cup) mirin
2 tspns sugar

To serve

1 tspn black sesame seeds
steamed rice

Stir the mirin, soy, ginger, miso, sugar & lemon juice in a bowl, add the salmon & marinate in fridge for at least 15 minutes & up to 1 hour

To make the dressing, bring the ingredients to the boil in a small saucepan, then reduce heat & simmer for 10 minutes or until syrupy or like thin caramel. (At this point in the recipe we realised we had now run out of mirin & had to leave it out - still tasted fine though)

Heat the grill, remove salmon from marinade & place skin side down in a lightly oiled non stick frying pan, cook until fish is still pink in the center & is nicely colored

While Salmon is cooking, steam or blanch the broccolini for 2 minutes or until tender but still bright green & crisp. Sprinkle the salmon with sesame seeds & drizzle with dressing, serve with broccolini & rice. Serves 4

Kent Hotel - Nances Victory Lunch Sun 18th Dec 05

Well its been a busy pre xmas week & only now am I getting the chance to put on some of my posts.

Last Sunday The Nances (our mixed netball team) got together for our xmas victory lunch at The Kent Hotel in Rathdowne street, Carlton. Technically we came adraw with Gertrude & we didnt even play the match due to dates being screwed up from a previous weeks flooding incident at the center. Anyway no one could lock in another date so we called it a draw - I'm happy with that, there is so much on at the moment, no time for anything sensible or healthy like netball.

Anyway we booked a table at The Kent. I was running a tad late as had a monster night the night before, hitting just abt every bar in Fitzroy/Collingwood & then some. Needless to say I wasnt up for a drink at lunch which is very unusual for me, was very hungry though & looking fwd to a nice lunch. To start with we had some pizzas to share which were very nice though the waiter was very pushy about us ordering them & wasnt very happy that we only wanted 2. Next I had the steak you can see pictured, it was very delicious & a huge serving which Lofty siiting next to me was happy abt as he got lots of my leftovers. When the food was over we had to practically beg to put in coffee orders & dessert menus were never offered. So all in all even though the food was great the service really sucked which is a real shame

Pork Dumplings in Chicken Broth Thursday 15th Dec 05

Well tonight I thought I would try something different & make some dumplings. I used a recipe from a table magazine that promised prep time to be only 20 minutes. This was my first attempt though I am sure that for those of you who have ever made wontons of any kind before you will know this is a lie. Also the recipe called for 30 square wonton wrappers, I only used about 2/3rds of the ingredients yet made about 45 wontons so some adjustments may be neccessary. As you can see from the picture I had to move from wonton wrappers to gyoza wrappers when I ran out! I also used noral mushies as couldnt get my hands on any shitake. Having said all that the recipe was very easy to follow even though time consuming & the end result was delicious. As I was only cooking for 2 I also froze the leftovers for another day or 2 (after steaming) which will be nice for a low fuss dinner some night.



Here is the recipe as it was printed to serve 6



Pork Dumplings in Chicken Broth

400g lean pork mince
2 green onions finely chopped
80g drained water chestnuts, finely chopped
2cm piece fresh giner, finely grated
2 garlic cloves, , crushed
3 tspn soy sauce
2 tspn sweet sherry
1 tspn sesame oil
30 squar wonton wrappers
1.25 ltr (5 cups) chicken stock
1/4 chinese cabbage (wong bok), finely shredded
100g shitake mushrooms, thinly sliced

Place pork, onions, water chestnuts, ginger, garlic, soy, sherry & sesame oil in a bowl & mix together well

Line a tray with non stick baking paper. Spoon 1 tspn of mixture into the center of a wrapper, brush edges with water & bring edges together so corners meet, now pinch in the edges. Place on preapred tray until done with all the mixture. Cover with a damp tea towell & place in fridge until ready to use.

Place 1Ltr stock & 1 cup water in a large wok on high & bring to the boil. Line 2 bamboo steamers with non stick baking paper & arrange wontons in single layer. Stack baskets, cover with lid & place over stock in wok. Reduce heat to medium & steam for 5 minutes.

Carefully lift baskets out, add cabbage & mushrooms to stock, swap baskets so top is now on bottom, cover with lid & return to wok. Steam for 5-7 minutes or until wontons cooked.

Remove baskets, add remaining stock & 1 cup water to wok, bring to boil. Divide wontons between bowls & ladle over broth & vegetables

Yummy & will definietly be trying out some variations!

Downstairs at The Stokehouse Sunday 11th Dec 05

Saturday was my work Xmas party & I have to admit I think I overdid it on the champas a bit so Sunday was a very slow day, slept in very late & then woke up ravenous.

It was a very hot 29 degrees or so in Melbourne so we headed to the beach for a bite to eat & a walk on the beach. Stomach came first so we had a quick bite at The Stokehouse. Had to wait abt 20 minutes or so for a table which wasnt too bad though I would say the place is slightly overrated downstairs. I had the Marinara (above), which was quite nice, full of heaps of seafood, mussels, pipis, fish, prawns & calamari rings all covered in a rich tomato sauce, all in all very nice. Michael had the hamburger which he said wasnt all that flash. Not too worry the stomach was now satisfied & we went for a lazy walk along the waters edge before heading home for lots of naps & tv time

Think I have just recovered & caught up on my sleep now!

Moroccan Lamb Cutlets Monday 5th Dec 05

Tonight I cooked up these tasty lamb cutlets from a recent Delicious Magazine - very very good

Moroccan Lamb Cutlets with Couscous salad & Tahini Dressing

2 x French Trimmed Racks of Lamb (6 cutlets each)
1/2 cup (140g) Greek style Yoghurt
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 tspn ground cumin
1 tspn ground coriander
1 tspn sweet paprika
1/2 bunch coriander leaves, chopped
Zest & juice of 1 lemon

Salad

1 3/4 cups (350g) couscous
2 tspn ground tumeric
1 small red onion
1 lebanese cucumber roughly chopped
1 ripe vine ripened tomato roughly chopped
1/2 bunch coriander roughly chopped
1/2 mint, leaves chopped
1/4 cup currants
1/4 cup toasted pine=nuts
1 tsp ground cinamon
1/3 cup olive oil
Zest & juice of 1 lemon

Tahini Dressing

1 cup Greek style yoghut
1/4 cup tahini paste
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
Zest & juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsn honey (Oops just realised I forgot this!)

Combine lamb with remaining ingredients, rub into lamb, cover & marinate in fridge overnight.

Salad - Place couscous in a large bowl & pour over 2 cups of boiling water, cover & set aside for 5-10 minutes, then fluff with a fork, add remaining ingredients & season with salt & pepper

Whisk all dressing ingredients together, season to taste

Grill the lamb racks & serve with salad & dressing

Grilled Prawns Sunday 4th Dec 05

Last night I cooked up some prawns from my 'Slice of Port Douglas' Cookbook, it is full of yummy recipes form local restaurants, This one was quite easy to make & quite yummy though if I did it again I would probably only serve as an entree

Grilled Prawn Skewers with lemon myrtle and mango dressing and Jasmine Rice Pilaf - From Ilios bar & restaurant

16 leader prawns or large tiger prawns
4 leaves of fresh lemon myrtle of kafir lime leaves julienned
1 lemon, zested & juiced
1 tsp cracked black pepper
100mls vegetable oil

Dressing

4 mango cheeks, fresh or frozen (prefer just under ripe)
1 tbspn lemon myrtle oil
2 tbspns virgin olive oil
1 tbspn lemon juice (omit if mango not ripe)

Jasmine Rice Pilaf

1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 tbspn oil
1 cup jasmine rice
2 cups water of good quality fish stock
salt & pepper to taste

Peel prawns, leaving heads & tails intact then thread onto skewers (I cheated & used peeled prawns & didnt skewer). Combine lemon myrtle, lemon zest & juice, pepper & oil & pour over prawns. Refrigerate & marinate for at least 2 hours.

To make the dressing place all ingredients into food processor & pulse until mixture has a thick consistency

To make the pilaf, place onion, garlic & oil in a baking tray & cook over medium heat until onion soft. Add rice & continue to stir allowing the heat to evenly disperse. Add the water or stock then bring to the boil. Cover with foil & place in preheated oven at 200c for 20 minutes or until cooked. Remove foil & season with salt & pepper, running a fork through

Chargrill prawns on hot grill for approx 1 minute each side until cooked

Pretty easy stuff!