Crafty Meals – easy recipes for healthy meals

Lamb Souvlaki
Serves 4
Prep time : 10 minutes
Cooking time : 10 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
800 grams of lean lamb, cut into thin strips.
2 medium brown onions, halved and sliced.
4 large pita bread wraps.
2 large rip tomatoes, sliced.
4 large lettuce leaves, shredded.
1/2 cup natural yoghurt.
1 tablespoon lemon juice.
4 cloves garlic, crushed.
1 teaspoon dried oregano.
1 teaspoon ground cumin.
1 teaspoon smoked paprika.
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper.
1 teaspoon mild curry powder.
2 tablespoons of olive oil.
Salt to taste.

Method
Mix 2 cloves of crushed garlic into the yoghurt, cover and refrigerate.
In a bowl, combine the remaining garlic, onions, cumin, paprika, pepper, curry powder, lemon juice and half of the oil and mix well to combine.
Add the lamb, mix well to coat, cover and refrigerate.
Marinade works best if left for about 4 hours before cooking.
In a frying pan, heat the oil over medium heat.
Add the meat and marinade to the pan and cook the meat and onions.
Heat the pita breads in a microwave, 10 seconds per piece on high.
On each pita, spoon some of the garlic yoghurt and spread it done the middle of the pitas.
Top with tomato and lettuce, then evenly divide the cooked lamb betwen them.
Roll and serve immediately.

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Simplest Lamb Roast
Prep time : 15 minutes
Cooking time : 25 minutes per 500 grams
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
Lamb roast, leg, shoulder or rolled boneless. Lamb on the bone produces the best tasting roasts.
8 leafy sprigs of rosemary
15 cloves of garlic, peeled.
Cooking twine.
Olive oil.
Salt and pepper to season, or use our “Magic Seasoning” mix which can be found here.
1 tablespoon self raising flour.
3/4 cup of water.

Method
Preheat your oven to 180C.
For the leg and shoulder roasts:
Cut incisions through the skin, poke 10 of the cloves of garlic and part of 5 of the rosemary sprigs into each.
For the boneless rolled roast:
Cut the string tying the roast, unroll the meat.
Cut into the flesh and evenly distribute 10 of the garlic cloves, evenly distribute 5 of the rosemary sprigs as you re-roll the roast.
Tightly tie off the roast.
For both types of roast:
Place the roast into a roasting pan.
Lightly rub the roast all over with the olive oil.
Season all over and rub the salt and pepper and oil over all exterior parts of the roast.
Crush the remaining garlic, remove the rosemary leaves from the stems. Add both to the pan.
Cook for 25 minutes per 500 grams. Baste the roast with the juices in the pan every 20 minutes.
Rest for 10 minutes, covered in foil, before carving. Pull the stems of the rosemary from the rolled roast before you carve it.
To make the best, simplest and most delicious gravy:
While the roast is resting, carefully pour off excess fat from the pan, you want to keep all the brown concentrated sticky bits in the pan.
Add the flour, and with a wooden spoon use the flour to clean these bits from the bottom of the pan.
Add the water, dissolving all the flour and remaining pan juices.
Pour this into a saucepan, heat over a medium heat stirring until the gravy thickens.
Strain into a preheated gravy boat.

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Italian Lamb Steaks
Serves 4
Prep time : 5 minutes
Cooking time : 15 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
Lean boneless lamb steaks, about 200 grams per person.
1 small red chili, finely sliced.
2 cloves garlic, crushed.
1 teaspoon dried rosemary.
1/2 cup white wine.
1 teaspoon vinegar.
1 tablespoon olive oil.

Method
Heat a pan over high heat, add half the oil and swirl to coat.
Cut the edges of the steaks at 4 points (north, east south and west). This will stop them curling.
Sear the steaks for 2 minutes each side, remove from pan and set aside.
Add the remaining oil, add the chili and garlic and cook until the garlic is golden.
Add the wine, vinegar and rosemary, turn heat to low and add the steaks plus any juices back to the pan.
Cook another 4 minutes each side, remove and serve immediately.

Serving
Beautiful with blanched snowpeas and a tomato and onion salad dressed with balsamic vinegarette.

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Teriyaki Beef
Serves 4
Prep time : 10 minutes
Cooking time : 10 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
600 grams lean beef steaks, sliced into thin strips.
2 large onions, thinly sliced.
600 grams of stir fry vegetables – see our tips on using stir fry vegetables here.
1/2 cup teriyaki sauce.
1 tablespoon of honey.
3 cloves garlic, crushed.
1 tablespoon of cornflour.
1/4 cup of water.
3 tablespoons of peanut oil.

Method
Blend the water, cornflour, teriyaki sauce and the honey in a jug, set aside.
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a wok until smoking.
Add half the beef and stir fry until sealed, about 1 minute.
Remove to a bowl and set aside.
Repeat with remaining beef.
Heat remaining oil over medium heat.
Add the onions and garlic and fry until garlic is fragarant.
Re-add the beef and any juices, stir fry for 2-3 minutes.
Add remaining vegetables and toss to heat through, 2-3 minutes.
Add the contents of the jug and toss through until sauce begins to thicken.

Serving
Serve over rice or rice noodles.

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Creamy Mustard Dressing
Will dress 4 serves of salad.
Prep time : 5 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard.
3 tablespoons whole mayonaisse.
1 tablespoon vinegar.
1 dash tabasco sauce.

Method
In a cup combine the ingredients.
Whisk until emulsified.

Serving
Pour over salad, toss to coat all ingredients.

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Tangy Mustard Vinagrette
Enough to dress 4 servings
Prep time : 5 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard.
1 teaspoon wholegrain mustard.
2 tablespoons olive oil.
2 tablespoons white vinegar.

Method
In a cup combine the ingredients.
Whisk until emulsified.

Serving
Pour over salad and toss to coat the ingredients.

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Seasoning is the key to bringing out the natural flavours in any food that you cook. Salt and pepper are perhaps the only ingredient you could travel to any house on the planet and find in every pantry or cooking supplies cupboard.

As we are reminded constantly, salt is not good for us, yet the flavour enhancing it adds to food makes its inclusion mandatory. Still, some time ago I developed a seasoning mix that uses far less salt, and blends 2 other simple flavours with black pepper to create a mix that just works.

We use this to season beef, lamb, chicken, pork, fish and vegetarian dishes. Whenever you would break out the salt and pepper we use this mix, even for adding a little pizzaz to a tomato sandwich.

Magic Seasoning Mix
This mix is made with equal parts of the ingredients below.
You will need a spice grinder or mortar and pestle to make this mix. For ideas on these items, see our article here.

Ingredients
Rock Salt (this form of salt helps to blitz the remaining ingredients in the spice grinder).
Sechuan Pepper Corns.
Black Pepper Corns.
Brown Mustard Seeds.

Method
Measure and combine equal amounts of the above ingredients.
In a typical spice grinder 1 tablespoon of each will be about the maximum for efficient grinding.
Blitz with the grinder until you start to get fine grindings sticking to the top of the grinder.
Tap the grinder on your bench top and repeat twice.
Using a tea strainer, sift the ground ingredients to remove the stalks from the sechuan pepper corns.
Seal in dry containers and store in a cool dry place.

Hints
I like to make large amounts of this to make the effort of getting the spice grinder out worth it.
I combine a cup of each ingredient into a large bowl and mix, taking half a cup at a time and grinding it.
I grind, then sift the ingredients into another bowl, and once all the batches are done I carefully fold all the batches together to ensure even distribution of the ingredients.
I store it in empty spice jars, and when I need to use it transfer it to a pepper shaker to easily spread it over whatever I need to season.

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Romanian Beef Steaks
Serves 4
Prep time : 10 minutes
Cooking time : 15 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
4 nice trimmed beef steaks, about 200 grams each.
2 teaspoons of olive oil.
1 large onion, thinly sliced.
1 clove garlic crushed.
2 teaspoons paprika.
2 teaspoons caraway seeds, ground.
1 tablespoon of cornflour.
1 cup chicken stock.
1 1/2 tablespoons of tomato paste.
2 tablespoons sour cream.

Method
Sauce needs 5-7 minutes to prepare, steaks will need about 3 minutes to rest.
Blend the cornflour, stock and tomato paste together.
Cook steaks to your desired stage of “done”. See our article about cooking steaks here.
Remove steaks, cover in foil and rest.
Add oil to a fry pan over medium heat.
Add the garlic and onions and fry gently until onions are soft.
Add the paprika and caraway seeds and stir in.
Add the stock mix and stir until thickened.
Stir in the sour cream.

Serving
Serve steaks with your choice of steamed vegetables. Top steaks with the creamy onion sauce.

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Honied Beef
Serves 4
Prep time : 10 minutes
Cooking time : 14 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
600 grams lean beef steak.
4 shallots, trimmed and cut into 3 cm lengths.
1 clove garlic, crushed.
2 teaspoons honey.
1 tablespoon soy sauce.
1 tablespoon peanut oil.
1/2 teaspoon grated ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin.
1 tablespoon cornflour.
1/2 cup water.

Method
Trim steaks and cube.
Heat oil in a wok over high heat, until smoking.
Add beef and toss to seal.
Reduce heat, add garlic, ginger and cumin, toss to coat beef.
Add half the water, soy and honey.
Cook for 10 minutes over a low heat.
Mix cornflour with remaining water and add to wok.
Stir until sauce has thickened.

Serving
Serve with steamed vegetables on a bed of rice.

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