Panko and sesame crumbed fish with basil, parsley and lime salsa verde

- Salsa Verde is a beautiful, tangy, tasty sauce and a great way to use up your basil and parsley!

500-600g fish- I have use snapper, slice into large slices

You need 2 plates and 1 bowl plus another plate to put your fish on when crumbed

On one plate put about ¼ cup of corn flour and season it with salt and pepper

In the bowl put in 1 beaten egg

On the other plate put about ½ cup or so of panko crumbs and 2 tsp each of white and black sesame seeds, you could leave the sesame out if you wanted. You can use gluten free crumbs as well.

Dredge your fish in the flour, shake off the excess, then put in the egg and then the crumbs. Continue until all the fish is used and place on a plate and put into the fridge until needed.

In a large pan cover the bottom of the pan with oil, heat up and then when hot cook your fish until golden brown on each side. The thinner the fish the shorter the cooking time. Cook on a medium heat you don’t want the outside burnt and fish raw!

Serve up with basil, parsley and lime salsa Verde and vegetables. I used steamed carrots, beans and asparagus.

Basil, parsley and lime salsa verde

Ingredients

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Juice and zest from 2 limes (you could use 1 big lemon instead)

1 cup lightly packed basil leaves, roughly chopped

1 cup lightly packed flat-leaf parsley leaves

2 tablespoons capers

2 anchovy fillets

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Salt

Method

You can either chop everything by hand and then mix the oil and juice through, or you can use a food processors and blitz together. Store the rest in the fridge. You can use this as a salad dressing, mix through some cannellini beans and salad, serve with grilled chicken or fish.

Asian stir fried snapper with wombok, mushrooms and greens

Feel free to use any combination of vegetable you like, anything you have in the fridge that you want to use up. Make sure you add in leafy greens near the end of the cooking time.

Serves 4

Ingredients

600g snapper, cut into 2 cm chunks- you need to use a firm fish or it will fall apart. If you do not use a firm fish you can panfry in whole fillets and not stir fry

¼ cup of oyster sauce

2 tbsp tamari or soy sauce

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

2-3 tsp finely chopped turmeric

2-3 tsp finely chopped ginger ( you can blitz the garlic, turmeric and ginger together in a little food processor)

¼ of a wombok (Chinese cabbage), chopped

300g mushrooms, sliced, feel free to use exotic mushrooms like shitake, enoki black fungus etc

3 stalks of celery

1 bunch of asparagus, woody ends trimmed and cut into 3 on an angle

1 bunch broccolini, chopped into 3

2 small zucchinis, sliced thin on an angle

Method

Put the fish, garlic, ginger, turmeric, tamari and oyster sauce in a bowl, set aside.

In a large pan or wok heat some oil and panfry your fish for 2-3 minutes or until its cooked, it will continue to cook through with the residual heat. Wash the bowl out and use that bowl to put your cooked fish into. Cover the bowl. Rinse the pan out to reuse.

In your large pan or wok heat some oil and add your zucchini, broccolini, celery and asparagus, Stir fry for 3-4 minutes on a high heat and then add in the mushrooms, cook another minute and then add the wombok, cook until just wilted.

Serve up vegetables with some soba noodles or some rice. Put your fish on top on your vegetables, you can garnish with some chilli if you like. Any juice that came out the fish you can pour over your meal.

Middle Eastern meatballs baked in a tomato and vegetable sauce

Serves 4- you can use 750g mince and serve 6

Ingredients

500g pork and veal mince

2 browns onions and 5 cloves of garlic finely chopped

2 carrot, ½ cm dice

2 stalks of celery ½ cm dice

1 cup of tomato passata

1 cup of beef or chicken broth

1 big handful each or mint and parsley, washed and chopped

1 tsp ground cumin/1 tsp ground coriander- you can double these spices if you want more flavour

1 tsp salt

Optional- 250g tub of buffalo mozzarella, sliced thinly- you can find this in this nice cheese section at the supermarket, it’s a fresh mozzarella and is white in colour, will be in brine or most likely oil.

Optional chopped red chilli if you like some heat

Method

Preheat your oven to 200c or 180 c fan forced.

In a large bowl knead together the mince and 1/3 of your onion/garlic, salt, spices, most of your chopped parsley/mint (reserve some to sprinkle over the top when cooked. Knead until sticky and form 16 balls and set aside.

In a large pan heat some olive oil and fry off your meatballs for 1-2 minutes until browned. Then put in the other 2/3 of your onion/garlic, carrot, and celery- cook a further 1-2 minutes and then add  your passata and broth- simmer, stirring a further 1-2 minutes until the broth is hot. Transfer to an oven proof dish and bake for 30 minutes, uncovered. Serve up by putting some sliced buffalo mozzarella on top and your reserves parsley and mint and chilli if using.

Serve this with some rice, cous cous, flatbread or some zoodles (zucchini/vegetable noodles)

Also have with extra steamed vegetables or a nice big salad.

Apple and cinnamon scrolls

Ingredients

2 granny smith apples, peeled & cored and 1 cm dice

2 tbps panella or similar (rapadura, coconut sugar, brown sugar)

2 tbsp sultans or raisins

1 tbsp melted butter

½ tsp ground cinnamon

Method

Mix together and set aside

Dough

2 cups of spelt flour

1 cup of natural yoghurt

2 tsp baking powder

Method

Preheat oven to 180c fan forced or 200c normal

Line the bottom of a 20 cm springform tin with baking paper and grease the sides with some butter. If you don’t have one you can just arrange the scrolls on a lined baking tray.

Mix dough ingredients together and then knead until dough has come together, roll out to a 45 x 25 cm rectangle, it should be quite thin. Have the long edge towards you. Down the long edge put your apple mix along the bottom 3^rd, leave one third empty, you will be rolling up to the empty side.

Carefully roll up the dough. 

Then using a sharp knife cut 2 cm slices to get about 13 slices.  Line the outside of the tin with your scrolls, pop any filling that falls out back in, then place the rest in the middle, they will be touching. Bake for 20-22 minutes, until golden brown and not doughy in the middle. 

While still hot brush over a mix of 2 tsp honey and 2 tsp melted butter. Eat while warm. Keep the rest in an airtight container in the fridge.

 

Quinoa, cannellini beans with vegetables and tahini & lemon dressing

Ingredients

½ cup of quinoa, cooked- cook while your vegetables are cooking

1 x 400g can of rinsed and drained cannellini beans- add these in the last 1 minute of cooking the quinoa to heat through

½ a large cauliflower

1 large broccoli

400g of thinly sliced pumpkin, skin off and slice  as thin as you can sliced it otherwise it won’t cook in time

Method

In a large pan or wok add some olive oil and butter, stir fry your veg for 5-6 minutes until it is cooked to your liking. When done add in your cooked quinoa/cannellini beans and mix through. Season well with salt and pepper. Serve up with tahini dressing and optional garnish.

As a garnish sprinkle over some pumpkin seeds and some Persian or normal feta cheese, feel free to have more veg/salad on the side J

Tahini dressing is 1 tbsp tahini, juice of one lemon, small clove of crushed garlic (not too much!) 1/4 cup of natural yoghurt plus salt and pepper, mix well.

Ricotta gnocchi dumplings with Italian tomato sauce

The second thing I did with the ricotta was these ricotta dumplings, one way to get some calcium too :)
The other I did was those ricotta hotcakes I posted the other day.
Anyway this is the recipe for you all, enjoy!


Ingredients for Gnocchi
500g ricotta cheese
1 egg
Juice of half a lemon
2 tbsp chopped basil
2 cups of spelt flour approx or gluten free flour plus extra
Salt and pepper

Method

Mix together the ricotta, egg, lemon and basil and 1 cup of the flour. Keep adding more flour until you get a dough consistency. Knead only until it comes together, you don’t want to over work it or it will toughen. Add extra flour as needed. Roll as traditional gnocchi or you can roll into tbsp. sized balls (this takes less time). The littles ones take a little less time to cook.

Ingredients for Sauce
3 large kumatos (or normal ones) this is about 400g, 1 cm dice
1 brown onion, diced
2 carrots, small dice
3 stalks of celery, small dice
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 cup of vegetable stock- you could use chicken stock
2 tbsp tomato paste (the thick concentrated one)
2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp chopped basil (you can use more if you want)

Method

Fill a large pot of salted water for your gnocchi.

In a large pan heat a little oil and fry off the onion, garlic, carrots and celery for 2 minutes, then add in vinegar, stock, tomato paste, kumatos and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until it has thicken to form a sauce for your gnocchi. Then add the sugar and the basil. Stir through.

While that is simmering away you can cook off your gnocchi’s in the boiling water, you can do half the gnocchi at one time. Put the gnocchi’s in gently and cook until they float up to the top, then scoop out with a slotted spoon out and place in your sauce to keep warm. Then cook the other half. Check the first one to make sure it’s cooked through and not doughy in the middle. 

Then serve up with parmesan cheese and steamed veg on the side.