dinner date - nutty rice salad

This week's post comes courtesy of Sarah.


This simple and tasty salad is based on a recipe given to us by good friend Mary Bollard. After all the rich food over the summer holidays, this salad was fresh and delicious. It can be served as a side salad but is also substantial enough to eat a bowl full on its own. I also thought it would be a good thing to take to a BBQ to keep the vegetarians happy.

Nutty Rice Salad
1 cup uncooked brown rice
¼ cup soy sauce
3 spring onions, chopped finely
1 red capsicum, diced
½ head broccoli, steamed
½ cup chopped dates
½ cup cashews, chopped coarsely
½ cup each of roasted sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds

Dressing
¼ cup olive oil
2 Tbsps lemon juice
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
1 tsp honey

Cook rice, mix the soy sauce through and leave to cool. Put ingredients for dressing in a jar and shake together. Add all remaining ingredients and the dressing to the rice and mix well.

dinner date - homemade baked beans

I love homemade baked beans; for some reason they are something we have become so accustomed to buying that we forget how easy they are to make at home, and how tasty. Sarah made some the other night for dinner, which we ate with cornbread. I am going through a cornbread phase at the moment, and after trying a few recipes have settled on the one I like best and tweaked it a little. Cornbread is delicious with baked beans, scrambled eggs, tomato based soups, Mexican beans....or just toasted and enjoyed on its own.

The baked bean recipe is pretty loose, I make them a bit differently each time, so this is just the version we ate the other day. If you wanted to include meat in them some smoky bacon or shredded ham hock is perfect added at the start with the vegetables.

The beans in the picture were the leftovers I had for lunch the next day, so they aren't quite as saucy as they were at dinnertime. We ate them with baby spinach leaves and a handful of diced red pepper to add a little crunch. It made a colourful winter meal. The beans freeze well so it's worth making up a big batch and freezing some in single serve portions for homemade convenience food!

baked beans

1 onion
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
1 clove garlic
a little olive oil
1 x 750ml bottle tomato passata
brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, smoked paprika to taste
2-3 tins cannellini beans
Italian parsley, chopped

Blitz the first four ingredients in a food processor or chop really finely. Saute in the oil until soft and slightly coloured. Add the passata and other seasonings to taste and reduce down for about 10 minutes. Add the beans, and adjust seasonings. Sprinkle with parsley.

sweet chilli cornbread (adapted from NZ House and Garden)

100g butter, softened
50ml oil
2 tbsp sugar
3 eggs
1 x 400g tin creamed corn
1/2 c corn kernels (optional)
1/4 c sweet chilli sauce
2 spring onions, finely chopped
1 c grated cheese
1 c flour
1 c polenta/cornmeal
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp polenta, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 180c. Beat butter, oil and sugar til creamy. Add eggs and mix well, don't worry if the mixture splits. Stir in the creamed and corn kernels, chilli sauce, spring onions
and cheese. Add dry ingredients and mix very lightly just enough to combine, it will be a bit lumpy like a muffin mixture. Tip into a loaf or square baking tin lined with paper. Smooth the top and sprinkle with the extra polenta. Bake 30-40 mins (if you use a loaf tin it takes quite a bit longer, more like an hour) until a skewer comes out clean. Serve warm.

dinner date - vege nachos

Dinner comes courtesy of Sarah this week...

When looking for a snack in the fridge recently, Becs found some leftover Mexican spiced tomato soup in the fridge. Having thickened up, the soup made a delicious dip for corn chips. Next time we had nachos I decided to use this as the base for my vegetarian version. I used the soup recipe but reduced the amount of stock and added in a can of chilli beans that I mashed up a little. It ended up being quite similar to the refried bean mix I normally make, but the lentils were a nice addition.

With nachos I often make "chips" by cutting tortillas into triangles and grilling them. Sometimes I mix these chips with some from the shop. My favourites are the Signature Range sea salt ones. Served with salad and guacamole, it makes for a healthy and tasty version of nachos which are often a little on the greasy side...

dinner date - pumpkin, feta and brown rice tart

The other week it was just my sister Sarah and I for dinner (who is vegetarian) so I made this tart for our dinner. This is an old favourite of ours, the original recipe featured in the Healthy Food Guide many years ago, and we adapt it according to what veges we have on hand. This time we filled it with broccoli.

The crust is made by mixing cooked brown rice with mashed pumpkin and crumbled feta, so tastes similar to a risotto cake. The exact quantities are not really important, so use more or less of the crust ingredients depending on what you have available (just not too much pumpkin or the crust will be a bit wet.) I like to make the crust quite thick and substantial. Likewise for the filling, just use whatever veg takes your fancy...

To cut down on prep time I tend to cook extra rice when we are eating it for another meal, and freeze it and do the same when I am cooking pumpkin. This makes it faster to whip up on a weekday and you use hardly any dishes. It is really delicious. Topped with a spoonful of tomato chilli jam and served with a crunchy green salad it made a very tasty dinner and lunch the next day.

Pumpkin, brown rice and feta tart

crust

4 c cooked brown rice
2 c cooked pumpkin - roasted/steamed/boiled and roughly mashed
1 pkt feta
1 egg

filling

4-6 eggs, beaten with salt and pepper to taste
1 head of broccoli, chopped and cooked
(or use about 2 c of any other cooked veg that takes your fancy)
Parmesan

Preheat oven to 180c.

To make the crust, combine all ingredients and press mixture into a 25cm loose bottom cake tin that has been lined with baking paper. Or a quiche dish would be fine too.

Bake for 30 minutes until the crust dries out a little. Fill with the cooked veges and pour in the beaten eggs. Grate Parmesan over and bake at 180c for another 45mins or until set.

Cool slightly and enjoy warm or at room temperature.