Greek Omelets with Tomato, Avo and Tsatsiki .... It's what's for dinner.

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I am always on the lookout for a good quinoa recipe.  I also LOVE omelets.  This to me, seemed like a match made in heaven.  And I was right.  I loved this!  It wasn't complicated to make either.  Just do it in the five steps listed below and you'll be fine.

This recipe was my inspiration, and while I followed the ingredient list, I didn't follow any of the measurements.  I thought it looked like a recipe that would be easy enough to do with out measuring and I was right.  I'll give you estimates, but if you want exact measurements, go to the original recipe.  Also, I make my tsatsiki different.

I made four omelets and we had enough quinoa leftover to eat as part of two lunches today.

What you'll need for the tsatsiki:
Greek yoghurt
Cucumber
Garlic
A Lemon
Salt and Pepper

What you'll need for the omelets:
12 eggs (if you are making four omelets ... basically, it's three eggs per omelet)
Milk
Butter
Quinoa
Baby Spinach Leaves
Kalamata Olives
Roasted Red Bell Peppers (Capsicum)
Sun Dried Tomatoes, in oil
Feta Cheese
Pine Nuts
Dried Oregano
Dried Basil
Salt and Pepper
Shredded Cheese
Cherry Tomatoes
Avocado

Cook the quinoa ... I cook my quinoa in the rice cooker.  You can cook it however you like, but get that started.  For the four of us, I did two of the rice cooker measuring cups of uncooked quinoa.  

Make the tsatsiki ... I used four or five big spoonfuls of greek yoghurt, added about a 1/4 of a large continental cucumber (finely diced), squeezed in some minced garlic (to tasted) and then the juice of what ended up being 1/2 a lemon.  I just kept tasting as I went.  Add a tiny bit of salt and pepper ... again, to taste

Make the quinoa salad ... to your cooked quinoa, add chopped spinach (I probably used 2 cups) kalamata olives (sliced) and a couple of spoonfuls of the brine out of the olive jar, roasted red bell peppers (chopped), sun dried tomatoes (chopped) and a couple spoonfuls of the oil out of the sd tomato jar, crumbled feta cheese, pine nuts, the herbs and salt and pepper.  I just kept adding and stirring and tasting until I like what I saw and tasted. 

Make the omelets ...
(Do this for each individual omelet) Whisk three eggs, a blub of milk and a pinch of salt and pepper in a bowl.  Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium-low heat and add a scoop of butter.  The original recipe said to add 1 tablespoon of butter but we were at the end of the butter dish so I probably only used a teaspoon for each omelet and I would do the same next time. Once butter is melted, pour egg mixture into pan.  Tip the pan up and around so that the uncooked egg goes up the side of the pan and cooks. Using a spatula, push the cooked egg down towards the middle of the pan.  Tip the pan again to repeat this process until there is no runny egg left.  I found that when the runny stuff was gone, the egg in the middle was still a bit wetter than I liked so I left it to cook just a little bit longer. (this is when I whisked the eggs and milk for the next omelet!) Sprinkle with a little bit of shredded cheese.  Let that melt for a minute or two and then slide the omelet onto a big plate.  Add butter to the fry pan and start again .... 

To assemeble ... Add a few scoops of quinoa salad to one side of your omelet.  Fold the empty side over the quiona.  Top with halved cherry tomatoes, slices of avocado and tsatsiki.

Yum Yum Yum.

PS. The omelets cooked up pretty quick but I still had each person grab theirs and start eating straight away.  Omelets are always better hot!  They are quite big portions too ... my omelet was made last and I still finished eating it before my daughter who had been served second! In fact, she never finished eating ... it was too big a serve.  She saved about 1/4 of it for today.


Ham, Cheese and Pickle Quesadillas

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I love ham, melted cheese and dill pickles.  I love quesadillas.  I thought I might try the two together.  I'm glad I did.  This was a quick, easy and tasty throw together lunch. 

I used ham, provolone, thinly sliced dill pickles and a bit of mayo on two flour tortillas ... toasted in our sandwich press.

Reuben - with Crock Pot Ham


So, I made this ham in the crock pot the other day.
It made A LOT! 
I didn't really like the ham ... but there's no way I was throwing it out.
I put it in the freezer and have been thinking of creative ways to use it.  I didn't like it
because it tasted more like corned beef than ham.  I don't care for
corned beef.  But, I thought since that's what it tasted like,
maybe we could use the ham in a Reuben sandwich.
I did.  And it worked.  But not the
first time.

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The first time, I did it like a regular sandwich.  You know, between two pieces of bread.  And toasted.
It didn't have much flavor.

The second time I did it as an open melt and drizzled the dressing on the top.
It was MUCH BETTER ... quick tasty ... that way!

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Here's how I made it ..

Leftover crock pot ham that tastes like corned beef ... or you could use actual corned beef.
Saurkraut, out of a can
Jarlsburg cheese
Homemade Russian Dressing (recipe to follow)

Pile the first three ingredients onto the bread (I used a light Rye) and toast in the sandwich press, or under the griller (broiler).

Once cheese is melted, drizzle with dressing ...

Russian Dressing:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon (or a little more, I didn't measure) diced onion
salt and pepper to taste
Mix ingredients together.



Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese


I had a bit of leftover chicken the other day. 
I mixed it with a bit of butter and franks hot sauce, threw in a few diced onions, added a bit of mozarella cheese between two pieces of bread ... into the sandwich press and 
voila ... buffalo chicken grilled cheese.
yum. yum. yum.

Jono's Spicy Mince

Jono (12) brought this recipe home from school. He has cooked it for us a couple of times now.

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500g beef mince (ground beef)
olive oil
1 tomato, chopped
1 small onion, diced
2 small cloves garlic, diced
3 tablespoons Moroccan seasoning
1/2 cup beef stock
small handful of pinenuts
handful of parsley
1/8th of an lemon

Here are the directions as Jono told them to me ...

Cook the meat in a little bit of olive oil.  Add the tomato and the onion.  Cook until the meat is browned.  Add the garlic.  Add the Moroccan seasoning.  Stir.  Add the beef stock.  Cook until liquid is gone.  Add pinenuts and parsley.  Serve on top of rice and drizzled with lemon juice. 

He always does something green on the side.  Peas are his favorite.

I don't even need to be in the kitchen when he cooks this!

Ps ... We call this spicy mince but it's not spicy spicy ... Alia eats it and she's got a kitten tongue!

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Apple Dip

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I've seen these recipes all over the internet ... had to try it.
'twas tasty.

I think I used this recipe ... but I didn't do the whole recipe ... as you can see.

The full recipe is ... 
1 (8oz) package of cream cheese, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract.  
Mix all ingredients together with an electric mixer.
Dip into it with apple slices.

mmm. mmm. good.

Easy Peasy Crockpot Pork

EDIT: I don't have much time after work to cook dinner, so I've been making meals that I can put in a ziplock, freeze, and then dump into a crock pot to cook all day.  This is one I'm trying!  I've heard it does well in the freezer.  Just dump all the ingredients into a bag, label, and freeze.  You can either thaw it before you put it in the crock pot, OR stick it in a bit of hot tap water to get everything unstuck from the bag and put it in the crock pot frozen to cook all day.  Now THAT is easy!



Super Easy - Super Yummy

- Pork chops (or favorite pork cut) - I used two family packs for the 7 of us

- Cream of chicken soup - we like plenty of gravy so I used 3 cans, probably could have gotten away with two cans for the amount of pork used

- Ranch dressing packets - I used two for the amount of soup and pork


Place Pork in Crock pot and top with soup and ranch.  I kind of stir the ranch into the soup a little.  Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours. Serve over rice with a veggie beside. 

Done!  YUM!

El's Buttermilk Chicken

I've made this twice.  
Both times from a text my sister sent me ...

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You get three bowls. Two with self rising flour. One with buttermilk. Cut the chicken into strips. (Or whatever, but I like strips best) put a bunch of seasonings in the first flour bowl... Salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, 21 seasoning salute, whatever... Then dip the chicken in the seasoned flour, the buttermilk and then the plain flour. Then fry. Then marvel in its deliciousness!!!

Quinoa Lettuce Wraps

Uploaded from the Photobucket iPhone App 

Found this recipe over on The Naked Kitchen. Delish.  I pretty much followed the original recipe, but I also added bean sprouts.  The flavor of this recipe was my favorite part.  They were messy, they weren't Rory's favorite ... but quinoa never is ... and they didn't look all that great.  But the flavor ... the flavor was GREAT !  Here's what I did ...

3 cups cooked quinoa
1 can black beans
2 spring onions, finely sliced
1 can sliced water chestnuts, roughly chopped
2 carrots, julienned
a handful of bean sprouts, chopped

1/2 cup reduced sodium tamari or soy sauce
2 tbsp  sesame oil 
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp minced ginger
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp honey 
 
1 head of bibb lettuce (called butter lettuce in australia), to serve

Mix together first six ingredients and set aside.

Add the next six ingredients to a jar and shake until combined. 

Pour liquid over the quinoa mixture and stir to combine.

Scoop mixture into lettuce leaves to eat ...

Chicken, Avo and Feta Salad with Dijon Vinaigrette

Uploaded from the Photobucket iPhone App 

 Another Pinterest find.   Here's the original recipe.
I know that chicken looks pink ... it's the light!  I wasn't pink, I promise! :)

for the salad ...
1 bag baby spinach
250g cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup corn, I used canned
2 chicken breasts, salted, peppered and cooked by husband on BBQ
1 large avocado, chopped
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup pine nuts, you could toast them.  I never do.

for the dressing ...
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

I'm pretty sure you don't need instructions from here but just in case.

Put all salad ingredients in a big bowl.

Put all dressing ingredients in a small jar.  Shake.  Taste, adjust to taste. 

Top salad with dressing.

Enjoy.



Crock Pot Vegetable Stock

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I hate wasting food.  I do it, but I hate it.  I want to not do it as much as possible.  This week as I was cleaning out my crisper drawers, I decided to make vegetable stock out of the scraps and veg that didn't get used during the week.  It was so easy.  And now I have five cups of delicious vegetable stock in my freezer.

I used this hints and tips in this post.

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I used mushrooms, celery, green bell pepper (capsicum), carrot, garlic, apple, and spring onion scraps.  I grabbed some parsley, thyme, basil and rosemary out of the garden and added those too ...   Covered it with water and cooked it through the evening and overnight.  In the morning, I drained the liquid off through a strainer and froze it in 1 cup portions!  Easy peasy! 

Thai Massaman Curry - in the Crock Pot!


 HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
I can't believe it is 2014 already!  Where does the time go?

**

This was so good!  I have not mastered curry yet.  I have made one amazing curry that was not in the crock pot but it took me ALL DAY LONG!  I love a good crock pot curry because it takes all day to cook, it just doesn't take me all day!

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I used this recipe ... I didn't change it ... the credit is all theirs!

1 tablespoon peanut oil

750g beef chuck steak, trimmed, cut into bite size pieces

1 onion, halved, thinly sliced

1/4 cup thai massaman curry paste

2 garlic cloves, crushed

6 cardamom pods, bruised

1 cinnamon stick

2 kaffir lime leaves, vein removed, chopped

270ml can coconut milk
 
500g potatoes, peeled, cut into same size as beef
2 large carrots, peeled, thickly sliced
1/4 cup fish sauce

1 tablespoon palm sugar

1 tablespoon lime juice

Rice, cooked (I do ours in the rice cooker)

Chopped dry roasted peanuts and coriander leaves, to serve 
Brown the beef in batches in 1/2 tablespoon peanut oil.  Put in crock pot.

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Saute onion in remaining 1/2 tablespoon peanut oil until soft.  Add curry paste and garlic.  Cook for a minute ... until it smells amazing.  Put in crock pot. 

Add cardamom, cinnamon, lime leaves, coconut milk, potato, carrot, fish sauce and sugar.  Cook on low - 8 hours, or until beef is tender.

When finished, pick out the cardamom pods and cinnamon stick.  Add lime juice.  Serve on top of rice, sprinkled with peanuts and coriander.