Roasted Sweet Potato And Cashew Pesto

I've had so much fun over the past few weeks experimenting with the fantastic MOO Dahi Indian style yoghurt.

This is my last recipe for the moment, but I can see that I'll be buying more of the Dahi in the future. It really is such a versatile yoghurt that you can use in sweet and savoury recipes, cooked and raw foods. Being low in sugar and quite mild in flavour, the Dahi is not too overpowering. Perfect when you want other flavours to dominate.

I'm calling this recipe a pesto, but it really is a chunky dip. With the lovely flavours of roasted sweet potato and garlic, nutty cashews and some tartness from the lemon and yoghurt, it is a great combination of flavours. If you find the pesto too thick for your liking, add a little more MOO Dahi and another drizzle of lemon juice. Nice and thick, this pesto would be perfect served with crackers and vegie sticks for an easy starter or nibble at a BBQ.

I served my pesto with golden pan-fried haloumi and a light salad of cherry tomato, avocado and baby spinach. You could even spoon it over pan-fried chicken fillets or fleshy white fish and then pop it into the oven for 5 minutes to warm through.

Use your imagination and see what wonderful ideas you can come up with!

Roasted Sweet Potato And Cashew Pesto

1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks
2 cloves of garlic, skins on
1/2 cup cashews
1 1/2 cups MOO Dahi yoghurt
Juice of half a lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
Place sweet potato and whole garlic cloves on a baking tray and spray with oil spray.
Roast for approx 30 minutes or until the sweet potato is soft and the garlic is golden and bursting out of the skins.
Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

While the sweet potato is roasting, place cashews on a small tray and roast for 5 minutes, or until golden. Keep an eye on them as they can burn easily.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

In a small food processor, combine sweet potato, cashews, MOO Dahi and lemon juice.
Whiz until just combined. Season to taste.

To serve, place in a bowl with crackers and vegie sticks and use as a dip.

If you're feeling more creative, like I was, serve golden fried haloumi slices on the pesto with a light salad over the top. Perfect on a warm night when a lighter meal is in order.

Vegie Stacks

For this week's vegetarian meal, I thought I'd try and get a bit creative and do some thing different. It's so easy to get into a rut and just do the same old things week in and week out!

I saw some beautiful zucchini and eggplant at the fruit shop and decided that chargrilled vegies were going to be the way to go. With a pack of haloumi in the fridge and a few other bits and pieces, my mind was made up.

Vegie stacks are a bit 90's, but I figured that these would be pretty tasty none the less.  I layered the grilled zucchini, eggplant and haloumi and then baked it in the oven until the vegies were really soft. To give a nice crispy topping, I used grated parmesan, panko bread crumbs and some pine nuts, which browned up nicely in the oven.

The sauce I served it with was blended roasted red capsicum and hummus, but you could use any dip, pesto or tomato pasta sauce you had on hand. I didn't have time to make my own hummus, so don't worry if it's shop bought, rather than homemade!

This dish does take a little bit of preparation, but you could easily grill the vegies and make the hummus one night and then prepare the stacks the next. If you do, you might need to cook the stacks for a bit longer as the vegies will be cold, rather than warm.

Let's revive the 90's vegetarian line-up with something a bit more modern!

Grilled Vegie Stacks With Red Capsicum Hummus

1 medium zucchini

1 medium eggplant

200g packet of haloumi

1 Tbs grated parmesan cheese

1 Tbs panko bread crumbs

2 tsp pine nuts

Olive oil spray

Salt and pepper to taste

1 roasted red capsicum, skin removed

1/2 cup hummus

A handful of oregano leaves

Rocket to serve

Slice zucchini and eggplant lengthwise into 5mm thick slices.

Heat a chargrill pan on medium heat.

Spray vegie slices and grill for about 2 minutes on each side or until there are brown grill marks and the vegetables have softened. The eggplant may need slightly longer.

Repeat with all the slices and set aside.

Cut the haloumi into 5mm thick slices and pat dry with kitchen paper.

In the same grill pan on medium heat, grill haloumi for 1 minute each side or until grill marks appear.

Set aside.

To make the hummus, in a small blender, whiz up the roasted red capsicum with the hummus and a few oregano leaves. Season to taste and set aside.

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees.

Line a baking tray with foil.

Build your stacks by layering eggplant, zucchini and haloumi with a spread of the hummus mixture on the vegies. I managed 3 stacks with 3 layers each.

Season the eggplant and zucchini well as you layer.

Sprinkle the panko crumbs and parmesan over the top.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until the vegies start to soften and the crumbs brown.

Throw the pine nuts on the top and cook for another 5 minutes, or until the pine nuts have browned.

Remove the stacks from the oven before the pine nuts and crumbs burn!

To serve, place one stack on each plate, sprinkle with the oregano leaves and top with some rocket. Dollop the hummus mixture around the stack.

Enjoy!

Warm Eggplant And Pomegranate Salad With Haloumi

Meat free Monday came a day late this week! And I'm back on the haloumi bandwagon after forcing myself to make vego meals without it for the last month or so.

Tonight I was inspired by the Middle East, with gorgeous fried Lebanese eggplant, capsicum and tomato with a tart, but sweet, pomegranate molasses dressing. The salty fried haloumi complemented it perfectly.

This was actually quite a light meal, so would be perfect on a warm summer's night, sitting outside, eating by candlelight. I can't wait for the weather to warm up!

I hope you like this simple meal as much as we did. Especially if you match it with a crisp, dry Riesling.

Warm Eggplant And Pomegranate Salad With Haloumi

2 Lebanese eggplants, halved and chopped into chunks
1 red onion, cut into 8 wedges
2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 red capsicum, cut into chunks
2 tomatoes, cut into quarters
A couple of handfuls of fresh mint, finely chopped plus extra to serve
250g block of haloumi, sliced into 5mm slices
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbs pomegranate molasses, plus extra to drizzle
1/2 Tbs white wine vinegar
A handful of pine nuts, toasted

Combine the pomegranate molasses and vinegar in a small bowl and season to taste. Set aside.

Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil and add the chopped eggplant.
Boil for about 3 minutes, or until starting to soften. Drain well.
Heat a good drizzle of oil over medium high heat in a large frypan and cook onion, garlic and eggplant until starting to brown and soften.
Add the capsicum and stir for a minute or two or until it just begins to loose it's crunch.
Remove the pan from the heat and gently stir through the tomato and mint.
Pour over the molasses dressing and stir to combine.

Heat another good drizzle of oil in a second frypan.
Place haloumi slices into the hot pan and fry for 2-3 minutes each side, or until golden brown and crispy. Drain on paper towel.

To serve, place the warm vegetables on to plates and top with the haloumi. Sprinkle with pine nuts and extra chopped mint, if desired. Drizzle with a little bit more of the pomegranate molasses for extra flavour.

Enjoy!

And To Drink....

To go with the strong flavours in the warm salad and the salty cheese, you need a wine with plenty of body, but also some acidity and freshness. The 2011 Cofield King Valley Riesling was perfect. Plenty of lemon and lime on the palate, with a dry finish and lots of acidity.

The only thing that could have made this dinner better is a warm night, sitting outside under the stars. I'll definitely be making this one again in summer when I can really appreciate the food and wine.

Haloumi and Herb Stuffed Mushrooms

It's meat-free Monday again and I couldn't go two weeks in a row without using haloumi in my recipe! If that makes me a bit boring, well then so be it. Instead of just frying up the haloumi in slices, I did grate it and stuff mushrooms, so I was a bit creative!

The haloumi went all oozy in the oven and mixed with some herbs it tasted delicious with the juicy mushrooms. To top it off, a homemade red capsicum and cashew pesto made a dressing of sorts. A nice light vego meal to start the week.

Haloumi and Herb Stuffed Mushrooms With Red Capsicum Pesto

1 medium sized red capsicum

1 clove of garlic

1/2 cup toasted cashews

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1-2 Tbs olive oil

4 large field mushrooms

180 g haloumi, grated

A few sprigs each of oregano, thyme and parsley, finely chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

A few handfuls of baby spinach

To make the pesto, cut the capsicum in half and remove the stem, seeds and membranes. 

Place skin side up on a sheet of foil under the grill and grill until the skin is charred and blistered.

Wrap the capsicum up in the foil and set aside for 10 minutes to make the skin easier to remove.

When cool enough to handle, peel the blackened skin off.

Place the capsicum, cashews, garlic, oil to taste and lemon juice in a small food processor and blitz until combined but still a bit chunky. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add more oil if it seems too thick.

Set aside until you are ready to serve.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Place mushrooms on a baking tray and drizzle with oil. Bake for 10 minutes or until starting to soften and release their juices.

Meanwhile, combine the grated haloumi and finely chopped herbs.

Take the mushrooms out of the oven and pile the cheese and herb mixture on top. Grind some pepper on the top and then return to the oven.

Bake for another 10 to 15 minutes or until the mushrooms are soft and the haloumi is golden.

To serve, toss the baby spinach with some of the pesto and pile on to plates. Top with two mushrooms each and another few blobs of pesto.

Enjoy!

A Light Vegetarian Option After Too Much Chocolate!

After some pretty indulgent eating and drinking over Easter, and maybe a little too much chocolate, it's nice to get back to regular eating habits.

We had a beautiful roast pork on Easter Sunday, with the best crackling I've ever had! I love roast pork with lots of vegies and gravy, but it can leave you needing a nap afterwards!

Tonight's dinner is a nice light vegetarian meal with lots of vegetable goodness. I've added my favourite haloumi as well, for some salty, cheesyness. I know that the fried haloumi doesn't really make this overly healthy, but it still tastes pretty good!

When you cook the broccoli, make sure that it is slightly under cooked, so that there is still a bit of crunch. There is nothing worse than soggy vegetables.

Adding a bit of extra texture to the dish are the toasted macadamia nuts. I love macadamias, but when they are toasted or roasted, they just have so much more flavour. I always have to roast more than I need, otherwise there don't end up being any left over to cook with! If you didn't want to turn on the oven just to toast a few nuts, you can easily do it in a dry frying pan on the stove. You won't get quite the same flavour and the nuts won't brown evenly, but it can be quicker and easier to do it this way. Just keep tossing the nuts in the pan so that they don't burn on one side.

Pickled radishes have become a bit of a staple in our house since I made them a few months ago and absolutely fell in love with them. I've never been much of a radish fan, as I find them too hot. Pickling them changes all that and makes them sweet and vinegary at the same time. They are really easy and quick to pickle too, so you can whip up a batch in the morning to eat that night or the next day. As long as you store them in the fridge in a sterilised jar, they should keep for a week or so. I make up a solution of 1/2 cup white vinegar, 1/2 cup caster sugar and 1 tsp salt, stirred to dissolve. Pour this into the sterilised jars which are packed to the top with thinly sliced radishes. Seal, tip a few times to ensure the air bubbles are out and put into the fridge. The radishes are great as an accompaniment to roast pork or chicken, in sandwiches, salads or just on their own. Give them a try, especially if you're not normally a radish person!

Broccoli, Haloumi and Toasted Macadamia Salad

1/2 cup macadamia nuts

350g brocoli, cut into florets

180g packet of haloumi, sliced into 5mm slices

2 spring onions, trimmed and thinly sliced

1 Tbs pickled radishes

1 Tbs pickling solution

1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

Freshly ground pepper to taste

A few sprigs of parsley, to serve

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees.

Place macadamias on an oven tray and toast for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. 

Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil. Add broccoli florets and boil for about 2 minutes or until just cooked.

Drain and transfer to a large bowl.

Add nuts, spring onions, radishes, pickling solution and oil to the bowl and toss to coat. Season with pepper to taste. You shouldn't need any salt, as there is some in the pickling solution and the haloumi is salty.

Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a fry pan over medium heat.

Add haloumi slices that have been patted dry with kitchen paper, and fry for a couple of minutes each side, or until a beautiful golden brown.

To serve, toss the haloumi through the salad and pile on to plates. Top with a couple of extra macadamias and fresh parsley.

Enjoy!

Haloumi And Chargrilled Eggplant Salad

Haloumi is a cheese that I often use to cook with when I'm making a vegetarian meal for dinner. It's so tasty when fried until crispy on each side and gives a beautiful texture and saltiness to any meal.

Often I match haloumi with asparagus and orange to make a light and fresh salad for when the weather is warm. Now that the weather is starting to cool down a little bit, it's nice to have a bit more body to a salad to make it more filling and hearty.

I often chargrill zucchini, but don't tend to use eggplant so much. When eggplant is roasted or chargrilled, it becomes soft and starts to fall apart, giving it such lovely flavour and soft texture. If you don't like the regular spongy texture of eggplant, then you must give this a go.

 To go with the extra body of the chargrilled eggplant, I wanted a dressing that also had a bit of oomph. Roasted red capsicum it was to be! I had some roasted and preserved red capsicum in the fridge that needed using up, which were perfect to whiz into a dressing. You could use bought red capsicum, but making it yourself is so easy.

Simply cut a red capsicum in half, remove the seeds and membrane and then grill under high heat until the skin blackens and blisters. Really, the blacker the better! Wrap the whole lot up in some foil or place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap for about 10 minutes. When cool enough to handle, the blackened skin will peel right off.

To make the dressing, you need the soft, juicy roasted capsicum, some extra virgin olive oil, verjuice or vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Whiz it all up in a small food processor until it's of a drizzling consistency and season. You don't want the sweetness of the capsicum overpowered by the acidity in the verjuice or vinegar, so add a little bit at a time. I used about a tablespoon for 1/2 cup capsicum and 1 tablespoon of oil. Adjust to suit your taste.

Chargrilled Eggplant Salad With Roasted Red Capsicum Dressing

3 small vine ripened tomatoes, halved

Olive oil for drizzling

2 eggplants, sliced lengthways into 5mm slices

Salt for sprinkling

1/2 cup roasted red capsicum pieces

1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbs verjuice

A handful of rocket leaves

1 spring onion, sliced into thin rounds

A handful of pine nuts

250g packet of haloumi, cut into 5mm slices

A teaspoon of sumac

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Place halved tomatoes on a roasting tray and drizzle with oil and season to taste.

Roast for about 10 minutes or until the skin starts to split and the flesh softens.

Remove from the oven and set aside.

While the tomato is roasting, place the pinenuts in a small tin and roast in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes, checking and shaking frequently so they don't burn.

When they are golden brown remove from the oven, tip onto a cold plate and set aside to cool.

For the eggplant, sprinkle salt generously over the eggplant slices and leave for about 15 minutes until the bitter juices start to seep out.

Rinse the eggplant to remove the salt and bitter juices and then pat dry with paper towel.

Drizzle the oil over the eggplant and fry in a chargrill pan until the flesh starts to soften and grill marks appear on one side. Turn and cook on the other side.

Remove eggplant from the pan and set aside in a bowl to cool.

For the dressing, place red capsicum, verjuice and oil in a small food processor and whiz until combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Into the same bowl as the cooled eggplant, add the rocket, spring onion and toasted pinenuts.

Pour the dressing over the top and mix carefully to combine. Add the tomato at the final moment so it doesn't break down too much. Season with a bit of extra pepper, if you like.

For the haloumi, heat a good drizzle of oil in a frying pan until hot.

Fry the haloumi slices for a couple of minutes each side, or until crisp and golden. Sprinkle each slice with a pinch of sumac for extra flavour.

Remove and briefly drain on paper towel.

To serve, place the salad on to 2 plates and arrange the fried haloumi around the eggplant.

Enjoy!

And to Drink....

Now that I've started to enjoy and develop an appreciation for chardonnay again, I seem to be drinking a lot of it.  Not such a bad thing!

This beautiful 2006 'Ithaca' chardonnay from Nepenthe in the Adelaide Hills is a cool climate chardonnay that retains so many beautiful fruity flavours, while still having some buttery oakiness and complexity.

Admittedly, we opened this wine to have with our roast pork belly the night before and had some left over. It also matched perfectly with the sweetness of the roasted capsicum dressing and the saltiness of the haloumi. The saltiness actually enhanced the citrus flavours in the wine. The toasted pine nuts also brought out the nuttiness from the oaking process.

What a beautiful match to a lovely salad.

If you didn't have a chardonnay, any other dry style of white wine would match perfectly too. Even a dry rose with plenty of red berry and plum flavours would be perfect, especially if the weather was warm.

Salads and sun!

I love that time in spring when the weather starts to warm up and you can move away from eating all those heavy winter dishes. Don't get me wrong, I love a slow cooked casserole and rich pudding, but it is nice to have lighter flavours, which don't leave you just wanting to have a snooze on the couch.

Melbourne has recently turned on the weather, and my thoughts have turned to stuffing vegetables with tasty combinations of mince and fresh herbs. Lots of herbs and lemon juice sing spring and summer to me.

This week I was inspired by one of my favourite foodie blogs, Delicieux. Jen always makes the most amazing looking food and her photos are fantastic. Her recent post for Moroccan Chickpea Salad started me thinking about all the possibilities with this great legume.

I had some haloumi left over from the blood orange and chicken salad, so thought I'd use that too, along with some middle eastern flavours. An abundance of mint and parsley in the garden, a lemon tree heavy with fruit and some spices in the cupboard, and I was set.

Now that the salad was organised, I needed something light, but tasty to go with it. I love the flavour of roasted capsicum and thought that the sweetness of the capsicum would work perfectly with a meaty stuffing, again with middle eastern flavours. 

We are lucky enough to live in an area with loads of middle eastern grocers and butchers, so finding the right ingredients is never hard. We eat a lot of goat, and this was the perfect choice to go with the capsicum.

I pre-browned the goat mince with the spices, onion and garlic, so it was sure to be cooked when the capsicums were roasted. I also pre-roasted the capsicums for 10 minutes to start softening them and releasing their juices.  You could have everything prepared the day before, or in the morning, so the final roasting is quick and easy.

Depending on the size of your capsicums, it's likely that you'll have some of the filling left over. Not at all a bad thing. For a simple and easy lunch, heat the left over meat and eat san choy bau style, wrapped up in crisp lettuce leaves. Another option is to make quesadillas by putting some of the filling and grated cheese between two tortillas and frying it up in a dry pan to crisp the outside and melt the cheese. I went with this option for the kids dinner and they devoured it in no time!

Chickpea, Sumac and Haloumi salad

1 400g tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/4 small red onion, finely diced
1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped
1/2 cup mint, finely chopped
2 tsp sumac (or to your liking)
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil (I used the lemon infused from Cobram Estate)
1 Tbs verjuice
Salt and pepper
100g haloumi, sliced into 1/2cm slices
Olive oil for frying

Combine all the ingredients, except haloumi, in a bowl.
Adjust the seasoning or sumac to your taste. Allow to sit for an hour, if you can, for the flavours to infuse.
When ready to eat, heat a fry pan on moderate heat with a thin layer of olive oil. Fry the haloumi slices until browned, then flip and brown the other side.
Gently toss the hot haloumi into the salad and serve.

Goat Stuffed Roasted Capsicums

2 red capsicums
1/2 a red onion, finely diced
2 cloves of garlic, finely diced
500g goat mince (or lamb if you prefer)
1/2 cup fresh coriander, chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
juice of half a lemon
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
Cut capsicums in half and scoop out the seeds and membrane. Place them on an oven tray sprayed with oil spray and roast for 10 to 15 minutes, until they are just starting to soften, but not fall apart.
While the capsicums are roasting, prepare the filling.
Heat a drizzle of oil in a fry pan and cook mince until just starting to brown, breaking up the big pieces with a wooden spoon. Drain the fat off and set aside.
In the same pan, cook onion and garlic until starting to soften. Add the browned mince, ground cumin and coriander, chilli flakes, salt and pepper to taste.
When combined and you are happy with the flavours, take the pan off the heat and add the fresh coriander and lemon juice.
Take the capsicums out of the oven and fill with the mince mixture. Put left overs in the fridge for tomorrows lunch!
Return tray to the oven for another 20 mins or until the filling is cooked and the capsicum is nicely roasted and softened.

Serve with the chickpea salad.

Chickpea salad with goat roasted capsicum

The Perfect Drop

Even though this was a nice light dish, it still had pretty strong flavours with all those middle eastern spices and the sweetness of the goat and roasted capsicum. We love a nice big red in this house, so a Barossa Shiraz from one of our favourite wineries, Kellermeister, was perfect. This big red, the Dry Grown Barossa Shiraz, was actually under the Trevor Jones label but they went their separate ways a few years ago.It was full of berry and plummy flavours with a good amount of tannin. 

We recently went to the Kellermeister annual tasting in Melbourne and stocked up on some of their amazing premium red wines. They do also make wonderful white wines and a very quaffable rose, which are perfect for summer. It's well worth checking out the wines that these guys make. They are a talented bunch!

Trevor Jones Dry Grown Barossa Shiraz