Crafty Meals – easy recipes for healthy meals

Blue Cheese Polenta
Serves 4 as a side
Prep time : 1 minutes
Cooking time : 25 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
4 cups chicken stock. Shop bought is OK, or use our easy to make chicken stock recipe.
1 1/4 cups cornmeal polenta.
75 grams crumbled blue cheese.

Method
Bring stock plus 2 cups of water to the boil.
While whisking, pour the polenta in a steady stream into the pot, whisk until combined.
Reduce heat and cook gently for 20 minutes or until the polenta is soft and not “gritty”.
Add water if needed to stop the polenta drying out.
Remove from heat and stir through blue cheese.

Serving
Delicious with any meat mains.

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Spinach and Feta Pie
Serves 4
Prep time : 10 minutes
Cooking time : 35 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
1 bunch English spinach, washed and stems removed. Either discard the stems, or very thinly slice them and use them for the pie.
250 grams ricotta cheese.
100 grams soft feta cheese, crumbled.
3 spring onions, finely shredded.
2 tablespoons fresh dill sprigs, finely chopped.
2 eggs, lighlty beaten.
4 sheets filo pastry, partially thawed.

Method
Preheat oven to 180C.
Grease a deep 8 cup capacity oven proof dish.
Bring a pot of unsalted water to the boil.
Add spinach and remove as soon as it becomes wilted and refresh in iced water. Repeat with stems if using them.
Drain well, and then squeeze all remaining water from the leaves.
Combine the ricotta, feta, eggs dill and spring onions in a bowl. Stir in the spinach, then season as you wish.
Pour the mix into the baking dish and bake for 20 minutes.
Remove from oven, reset the temperature to 180C.
Use a fork to make puncture marks all over each of the file sheets.
Cut the filo into 3 cm strips and criss cross over the baked mixture.
Spray with a little oil and return to the oven to bake for a further 10 minutes, or until light and golden.

Serving
Allow to stand for 10 minutes in the dish before serving.

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Asian Potato Salad

This salad is best made 24 hours in advance.

Serves 4 as a side
Prep time : 10 minutes
Cooking time : 25 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
500 grams new potatoes, skins scrubbed.
100 grams short cut bacon, sliced.
1/2 a continental cucumber.
1 cup home made mayonnaise, check out our tangy homestyle mayonnasie recipe.
100mL Japanese cooking wine (mirin)
2 teaspoons sesame oil.
1/2 teaspoon seeded mustard.
2 spring onions, finely chopped.
Salt and pepper to season.

Method
Cook potaotes in boiling water until just tender. Drain and allow to cool.
Cook bacon between sheets of absorbent paper in the microwave, about 2 minutes on high. Remove and allow to cool.
Finely dice the cucumber, leave it unpeeled.
Combine mirin, sesame and mustard in a small bowl, set aside.
Cut the potatoes into a large dice.
Combine the potaotes, bacon, cucumber and spring onion in a bowl.
Drizzle over the mirin sauce, mix well to combine and coat all ingredients with the sauce.
Allow to sit 24 hours in the fridge before serving.

Serving
Serve at room temperature.

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Minted Lamb Cutlets
Serves 4
Prep time : 5 minutes
Cooking time : 6-8 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons wholegrain mustard.
1 tablespoons brown sugar.
2 tablespoons freshly chopped mint.
800 grams french trimmed lamb culets.

Method
Combine mustard, sugar and mint.
Wipe mixture onto both sides of each cutlet, place in a dish, cover and refrigerate for 60 minutes.
Preheat a ridge grill to medium high.
Cook cutlets for 2-3 minutes each side for medium rare, 4-5 for well done.

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Salmon Infused with Bay Leaves and Juniper

This dish is prepared a day before eating.

Serves 4
Prep time : 5 minutes
Cooking time : 40 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
1 kilogram of skinless atlantic salmon cut into 8 (125 gram portions).
300 mL olive oil.
1 tablespoon crushed juniper berries.
6 fresh bay leaves.
6 spring onions, finely diced.
4 cloves of garlic, crushed.
1 lime, zested.
100 mL white balsamic vinegar.
Salt and pepper to season.

Method
Combine 200 mL of oil, juniper berries and bay leaves in a saucepan.
Heat the saucepan over extrememly low heat for 30 minutes, without allowing the contents to fry.
Transfer oil, bay and juniper to a jar and store in the fridge.
In a non stick pan, heat a litle of the infused oil and cook the salmon until cokked through.
Transfer cooked fish to ceramic or glass dish.
Combine 250 mL of the infused oil with the garlic, spring onions, lime zest and half the balsamic vinegar, pour over the cooked fish and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Serving
Remove fish from fridge at least an hour before serving, allowing it to return to room temperature. Alternatively use the defrost function of a microwave to heat the fish gently.
Serve with a fresh salad dressed with a vinagrette made from the remaining balsamic and infused oil.

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Tomato, Bacon and Rocket Pasta
Serves 4
Prep time : 15 minutes
Cooking time : 12 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
400 grams dried spaghetti or fettucine pasta.
500 grams cherry tomatoes, quartered.
150 grams short cut bacon, rind and excess fat removed, diced.
100 grams baby rocket leaves, washed and drained.
1/2 red chili, deseeded and chopped.
2 cloves of garlic, crushed.
1/2 red onion, finely sliced.
1 tablespoon olive oil.
1/2 cup grated parmesan.

Method
Cook pasta to packet directions. Sauce needs about 10 minutes, time pasta to be ready just before the sauce.
Heat the oil in a non stick pan over medium heat.
Add the onion and fry for 3 minutes.
Add the chili, garlic and bacon and cook for 1 minute.
Add the tomatoes and cook until they begin to collapse, about 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir through the rocket leaves.

Serving
Drain pasta, keeping 1/4 cup of the water.
Return to pot, stir through the sauce and retained water.
Serve to plates and top with parmesan.

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Sticky Chili Pork Ribs
Serves 4
Prep time : 10 minutes
Cooking time : 60 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
800 grams American styled pork spare ribs.
1/2 cup tomato sauce.
1/3 cup hoisin sauce.
1/3 cup sweet chili sauce.
1 tablespoon chili bean paste or sambal oelek.
2 cloves garlic, crushed.

Method
Divide the ribs so there are no more than 6 bones in each section.
With a sharp knife, cut between the bones, leaving 1 cm intact at each end. This makes for easier “pull apart” eating once cooked.
Combine sauces with chili bean paste and garlic, cover ribs and refrigerate for at least 60 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 170C.
Line a baking tray with baking paper, spread the ribs out in a single layer, cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Keep leftover marinade.
Increase oven to 220C, remove foil and baste with reserved marinade.
Cook for 10 minutes, repeat basting then cook for a further 10 minutes.

Serving
Goes well with our crispy baked potato wedges recipe and a chunky salad.

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Garam Masala is a blended mix of warm to hot spices used in Pakistani and Indian cooking. There really is no “correct” spice mix, each house would have their own tweaked family recipe passed down over generations.

Traditional mixes mostly use cinnamon, roasted cumin, caraway seeds, cloves, nutmeg (and/or mace) and green cardamom seed or black cardamom pods.

Commercial mixes often include other less expensive spices and may contain dried red chili peppers, dried garlic, ginger powder, sesame, mustard seeds, turmeric, coriander, bay leaves, and fennel.

It’s all about getting a taste you find pleasant. If you feel the recipe below does not give enough mouth heat, add some dried chili. If you like a more aromatic mix, dried garlic and ginger powder will add to the nose of the mix.

Cooking Tips – Garam Masala
Makes 1/4 cup
Prep time : 10 minutes
Cooking time : 5 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
2 tablespoon fennel seeds
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 teaspoon cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon ground clove
2 bay leaves

Method
Dry-fry ingredients in small frying pan, stirring until fragrant.
Blend or process mixture, or crush using mortar and pestle, until mixture is ground coarsely.

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Passionfruit Tart
Serves 8
Prep time : 15 minutes
Cooking time : 30 minutes
For conversions, click here to use our handy guide.

Ingredients
1 cup of passionfruit pulp including seeds. Fresh is best, tinned pulp is not anywhere near as flavoursome.
4 eggs.
1 cup castor sugar.
125 grams softened chopped butter.
200 grams plain sweet biscuits (Arrowroot, Marie etc).
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon.
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg.
100 grams melted butter.
1 tablespoon pure icing sugar.

Method
Grease a shallow (2cm deep) 24cm spring form flan pan.
In a food processor, blend biscuits to fine crumbs.
In a bowl, mix the crumbs, nutmeg, cinnamon and 100 grams melted butter and combine well.
Press the mixture into the flan pan evenly distributing it across the bottom and sides.
Refrigerate for a minimum of an hour.
In a heat proof bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together to combine them well.
Add the passionfruit pulp.
Move the bowl over a pan of boiling water and gently cook the mixture until it thickens and becomes custard like. At this point the curd will coat the back of the spoon without running off.
This may take 20 to 25 minutes, and you MUST stir the mixture constantly.
Do not allow the bottom of the bowl to sit in the water at all, remove the bowl from the pan if you think it is even coming close to boiling.
Once the curd has thickend, add the softened butter and whisk in until well combined.
Pour the curd into the cold base, and refrigerate overnight.

Serving
Dust with the icing sugar.

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