Mexican Rice

ingredients:

• 1 cup of long grain white rice
• 2 cups of low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 4 cloves of garlic, finely minced
• 1/4 cup of tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• Salt to taste

 what you do:

1. In a medium-sized pot, add rice and chicken broth. Bring to a boil over high heat. Stir. Cover the pot, lower the heat to low and simmer until done. 
2. While the rice is cooking, heat the olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Cook the onions in the hot oil until translucent and starting to brown. 
3. Add the garlic to the skillet and cook for one minute, stirring constantly. 
4. Stir in the tomato paste and cumin and cook for another minute or two. 
5. Mix in hot, cooked rice until well combined. Season to taste with salt. Serve immediately.

Honey Lemon Slow Cooker Chicken

 This was good. Will definitely make again.  Very easy! Serve with rice and asparagus. From here.

Ingredients:

• handful of fresh thyme leaves
• A couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 1 1/2 lemons
• 2 heads of garlic peeled and and separated into cloves
• 2 medium onions
• sea salt
• fresh pepper
• 1/4 cup of honey
• 1/4 cup of chicken stock

For the sauce:

• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1/4 cup of cold water

1.  Rinse and dry your chicken.  Rub the chicken with olive oil and season with sea salt and fresh pepper.   Get a fry pan, drizzle with some more olive oil and let it get really hot (somewhere between medium and high).  Fry chicken on both sides to get a nice golden colour all over the chicken. 
2. Put half an onion inside the cavity of the chicken as well as half a lemon and 6 garlic cloves whole.
3. Cut up an onion on the thicker side as well as one lemon.  Take a whole head of garlic and remove the skin but leave the garlic whole.  Get a handful of fresh thyme.  
4. Put the sliced onion on the bottom of the crock pot.  Add the chicken to the crock pot breast side up.  Sprinkle the chicken with the thyme.  Cover the chicken with more onion slices, lemon slices and garlic.  
5. Finally, pour 1/4 cup of honey all over the top of the chicken and 1/4 of chicken stock to the bottom of the crock pot.  Cook  on high for 1 hour then turn to low for 4-5 more hours.  When there is one hour of cooking left add rosemary to the crock pot-just throw it in there.
6. When chicken is done strain the juice into a pot and add a mixture of 2 tbsp of cornstarch with 1/4 of cold water.  Bring the strained juices to a boil and add the cornstarch a bit at a time until your desired thickness.  Pour this over the chicken before serving. 

Crepes

Here is my go to recipe for crepes:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 large egg

3 Tbsp. sugar

1 cup milk

 

 

Banana Bread/Cake

This will definitely be my go to recipe for banana cake from now on.  It's simple, moist, and very tasty.  Awesome.  From here.

Serves 1 x 20cm round cake or 1 x 30cm oblong fluted cake
The recipe can easily be doubled and baked in a 24cm round cake tin.


Ingredients

• 125 grams unsalted butter, softened
• 125 grams sugar
• 2 medium bananas, very ripe
• 2 eggs (about 60g each)
• 125 grams plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder

•  icing sugar, nutella, or whipped cream for serving

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.  Line a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper. 
2. Beat the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy and the sugar has dissolved.  Cut the bananas into a few pieces and add to the butter and sugar and beat until the banana is fully incorporated into the batter.  Add the eggs and beat well.
3. Sift together the flour and baking powder and add to the batter, beating until the batter is light and fluffy.  Scoop the batter into the prepared cake tin and level the top.
4. Bake at 180°C/350°F for about 45 minutes or until golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.  When cooked, remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.  When cool, remove carefully from the tin.
5. Dust with icing sugar to serve. Or serve with whipped cream or nutella

Burger Patty Melts & Special Sauce

Oh man, awesome. Definitely making again. Served this with my Cajun French Fries and some salad (would have been good with corn on the cob too). Burgers from here.  Sauce from here.

Burger Ingredients:

• 1 pound (~450 g) 85% lean ground beef
• 1 medium yellow onion grated
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon of kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
• butter
• wholemeal bread
• slices of cheese

 What you do:

1. In a medium bowl, combine the meat, grated onion, egg, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Form into 6 thin patties.
2. Heat a bit of olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the patties for about 3 minutes per side, or until browned. Remove from the pan and place on paper towels to drain. Set aside. Drain the grease from the skillet.
3. Spread the butter on one side of each slice of bread. Place butter side down in the skillet. Top each with a slice of cheese and a burger patty. Top with the remaining cheese, if desired, and a final slice of bread, butter side up.
4. Cook for about 2 minutes per side, or until golden brown. Remove from the heat and serve with special sauce (recipe below).

Burger Sauce

• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon ketchup
• small squirt of mustard 
• 1/2 teaspoon sweet pickle relish
• 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

*Mix all sauce ingredients together. set aside.

 

Hasselback Baked Potatoes

 Mark loved these. He said it was the best thing he's ever eaten. Needless to say, these will be made again! Recipe from here.

INGREDIENTS

4 medium Potatoes, cleaned & leave skins on
4 cloves of Garlic, sliced thin
3 tablespoons of Olive Oil
pinch of Salt
pinch of Black Pepper
pinch of Smoked Paprika
1 ounce shaved Parmesan Cheese (have some additional for sprinkling as a garnish)
sour cream for garnish

METHOD

Pre heat oven to 425˚F (220 C) with rack in the middle of the oven. Lay potatoes flat on cutting board and starting from one end of the potato, make slits about 3-4mm apart. Cut to about 1/4 inch from the base of the potato. Be careful not to slice all the way through. The potato will fan out a bit as it bakes.

Combine olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, smoked paprika and parmesan cheese in a small bowl. Carefully insert pinches of this mixture in between the slits of the potatoes. Rub the outsides of the potatoes with residual oil. Arrange potatoes on baking sheet and bake for about 40-45 minutes. The inside should be cooked through and the outside of the potato should be a bit crispy. Garnish with additional salt, smoked paprika, pepper, parmesan and sour cream.

Crispy Oven Chicken

This was good! The chicken was perfect! Next time I will make a few changes, reflected below in the recipe.  Original recipe found here.

Ingredients

• Mixed legs & thighs of chicken
• New potatoes
• Shallots or small onions
• Few sprigs of Thyme
• Rosemary 
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup chicken Stock
• 1/2 cup white wine

For the Chicken Seasoning

• Garlic Powder (approx 2 tsp)
• Celery Salt (approx 2 tsp)
• Salt
• Black pepper
• Corn flour to coat the chicken

What you do:

• Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C
• Coat the chicken in the seasoning ingredients then add a light coating of corn flour. Dust off the excess.
• In a frying pan heat the olive oil and butter and fry the chicken until golden on both sides.
• Put the potatoes and onions to your baking dish and season with salt, pepper, and rosemary.
• Add the chicken on top (we leave the chicken sitting on the potatoes to remain crisp). Pour off some of the frying oil and butter on top of the chicken and potatoes.
• Place in a hot oven (200 degrees) for 10 minutes to crisp up
• Mix the stock and white wine and add to the oven dish (half cover the potatoes/chicken).
• Add fresh thyme (or rosemary) and place back into the oven.
• Reduce the heat to 180 degrees and allow to cook/reduce for about 30-35 minutes or until the chicken has cooked.
• To serve we removed the ingredients and mixed in a little cream into the remaining gravy, then poured over the chicken