Mango Salad

I made this salad to go with some grilled lamb chops that had a mango/curry sauce on them. It was so light and delicious. Was able to use the spinach and spring onion from our veggie patch.

You will need

Packet of baby spinach leaves (or around 5 cups) or your other favourite leafy vegetable.
2 spring onion stalks chopped
1 mango sliced (I added a tin of mango slices too to cut down on cost, but you could add another mando instead)
juice from tin mango
handful snow peas chopped
1 cup cucumber- finely cut
1 avacado cut into slices

prepare it all and put into your salad bowl, pour the mango juice over at the end.

Chicken and Broccoli pasta

Quick and easy meal that used our home grown broccoli!

You will need
2 chicken breasts diced
2 cups broccoli pieces
2 spring onions chopped
handful parsley
2 cloves garlic
1 cup grated parmesan (or shaved)
250 mls cream (I used light thickened cream)
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 chicken stock cube and 1/2 cup hot water or half-1 cup of chicken stock

1.Cook chicken in pan until nearly cooked
2. Add in garlic and broccoli
3. once the broccoli has been cooking for a few minutes add in the onions, cream and let it simmer gently for about 5 minutes. Add some salt and pepper to taste.
4. Add in the parsley and cheese at the last minute (saving some cheese to put on once you have served into bowls).
5. Serve with your favourite pasta, I used linguine. Top with some extra parmesan cheese.


Kids loved this, I have made it again and I didn't use stock but put some chicken seasoning on the chicken instead, still tasted pretty similar. I have also added mushrooms. Asparagus would be great with this too, and some bacon!

I'm still here

Hi all, I'm still here, just been a little snowed under lately and haven't experimented as much. I have made a broccoli (home grown!!) pasta and a chicken mango salad that I need to blog about. And I will hopefully next week!

Thai/Vietnamese Inspired Chicken Salad

I wanted to try an asian style salad I saw in a magazine. I did change it alot as there didn't seem to be that many things they had in their salad to make it filling enough.

After eating it I comfirmed that I don't like this type of asian sauce. Give me soy, honey, ginger, garlic. But not fish sauce and lime and coriander and mint. But hey, you might like those things! If I were to do it again I would use a different type different type of dressing. Maybe balsamic, or lemon, or even soy and honey.

What you will need:

I was lazy and used a bag of mixed lettuce and spinach leaves...

half red capsicum (pepper)

1/2 cucumber

cherry tomatoes (around a punnet)

1 carrot cut into matchsticks

1 stick celery

handful snow peas

1-2 chicken breasts

handful of fresh mint

handful of fresh coriander

dressing:

1/3 cup lime juice

1/3 cup fish sauce

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 chilli finely chopped (I didn't add the chilli).

Method:

1. place chicken breast in pot and cover with cold water. Place on medium heat and when it starts to boil, turn it down to simmer, cover with a lid and let it simmer for around 10-12 mins or until cooked. Once it is cooked shred the chicken.

2. Cut all the salad ingredients and place in a bowl

3. Put shredded chicken into salad bowl and pour over dressing.

Menu for the week

Our menu for the week

Monday- Lamb Yiros
Tuesday- Honey Lemon Chicken with Rice
Wednesday-Beef stroganoff
Thursday- left overs
Friday-Vietnamese inspired Chicken Salad
Saturday-???
Sunday-Taco's

Greek Style Lamb Yiros

I LOOOOVVVEEEEEE Yiros! I thought it was time I made some of my own as I never really get to them much as we don't buy take away that often.

Very easy and delicious. Grace (4 yrs old) LOVED it. I was surprised, she doesn't normally like lamb, or lettuce but she gobbled it up and asked to have it the night after too :) The lettuce was grown in our own veggie patch, as well as some of the herbs that I put in the marinade.

What you will need: (for 4 people)

1 tomato sliced

2 cups lettuce sliced

1/2 red onion sliced

Yiros bread

Lamb marinade

500 gms lamb (I used leg steaks which are nice and tender and have alot of meat. You could use back strap, or use left over roast lamb, or just use plain old lamb chops and just cut the meat off) I cut my lamb into strips, you could do strips or chunks.

3-4 garlic cloves crushed or finely chopped

1/4 teaspoon sumac (dry you can get it in the herb section)

1 teaspoon thyme (fresh or dry)

1 teaspoon oregano (fresh or dry)

1 teaspoon rosemary

1 teaspoon all spice

juice and rind of 1 lemon

salt

pepper

3 tablespoons olive oil

Yogurt (tzatziki)

Greek Stlye yogurt (I used a 200 ml tub but that was way too much, unless you want to use it as a dip the next day too) so perhaps only 100ml for just the yiros

1/2 continental cucumber (around a cup) peeled, and de-seed, then grated.

juice of 1 lemon

2 garlic cloves (crushed or finely chopped)

salt

pepper

parsely (1 tablespoon)

optional is mint or oregano

Method

1. Cut lamb and herbs for the marinade and place all of those ingredients into a air tight container and place in the fridge (preferbly for atleast 4 or 5 hours so you can really get the taste).

2. Place the yogurt, lemon juice, herbs, cucumber into a bowl and stir around, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for the same amount of time as the lamb. (taste to see if you want to add more of anything, your tastes will be different to ours).

3.Heat pan or grill and cook lamb until its cooked to your liking (some like it rare, medium etc).

4. Slice the salad ingredients.

5. Place yiros bread in warm oven wrapped in foil for a few minutes or in the microwave (without foil!!).

6. Once lamb is cooked you can assemble your yiros. No real art to it, whatever takes your fancy. We put some lettuce, tomato and onion down, lamb on top and the yogurt and then wrapped and enjoyed :)

Serve with fries or garlic bread

Menu this week

Monday- Greek style lamb yiros
Tuesday- Crispy chicken with tomatoes and garlic
Wednesday-Lamb chops with mango
Thursday- Honey mustard chicken cutlets
Friday-Spaghetti bolognaise
Saturday- Spaghetti bolognaise
Sunday- Taco's