Cooks Club - April 2014

So it is a little late to be encouraging you head on to participate since it closed about 30 minutes ago. However there is a much loved Taste recipe in that so hopefully we will get some additional pics from those who this is a regular meal in their house.

For the April I decided to take on the the Chicken Satay burgers they are raved about by the people on the forum so I decided that i just needed to join in the fun, They were incredibly easy to make. I didn't realise the sauce needed to cool so. It got put off a day.

I was really pleased with the result. the satay is fabulous and i am sure that it could be used in any number of dishes.

I infact used the leftover chick meat and fashioned them into meatballs, thinned the sauce down with some stock, added vegetable and I had another dinner and lunch meals. I was really impressed with how well this worked.  

Cooks Club - Spicy Mushroom & Tomato salad

Another entry for the taste.com.au Cooks Club. I really loved this salad. It was perfectly filling with just some scotch fillet steak. 

I had some tomatoes that are in between cherry & regular size and they have such a rich tomato flavour. I put them on the bbq to char them up a bit. It gave such fabulous flavour. I didn't have any fresh chilli but I do have a chilli infused olive oil so I used some of that in the dressing. The other half of the oil I used a garlic infused olive oil mainly because I am not keen on the flavour of raw garlic in things. It gave a lovely garlic flavour with a bit of a kick at the end. I think that it would have also been good if the mushrooms had been grilled but it was still really good with the fresh mushrooms. I would definitely make this again. 

Peppered Beef Stir-fry

I made this for the Cooks Club Challenge over on Taste. This month it has been recipes from the 30 Minute Meals collection. There is still some time left in the month so if you are an Aussie pop on over, make a recipe and post a photo. This month the prize is a copy of the Sydney Seafood School cookbook by Roberta Muir. I am not really big on seafood but I am sure there is someone out there that would love the book.

I am going to admit to being a food magazine snob. When I search for a recipe on Taste I tend to bypass recipes from Super Food Ideas. I have found that so many of them call for a jar of this and/or a packet of that. Some of them really aren't recipes at all as far as I am concerned just combining pre-prepared items. I have found the occasional good one and this Peppered Beef Stir-fry is one of them. I actually had some char siu sauce in the fridge, who know how long it had been there, so it was definitely time to use it up. I would suggest that 1/3 cup is too much though. I think that 1/4 cup would be plenty. I also didn't put the left over marinade in as there was enough still on the meat. I used snow peas, asparagus and spinach for the vegetables and served with noodles. I really enjoyed this. The pepper came through nicely even with the strong flavours from the char siu sauce and soy sauce. It was nice and quick for a mid-week meal. I would definitely make it again. 

Pork Belly with Caramel Dressing

Like my last post this dish was made for the September Cook's Club Challenge over on Taste forums. The challenge was to choose a recipe from the Spring recipes collection. There was some fantastic looking recipes in the collection and there was a number of different ones that I had bookmarked to make. However this was the only one that I did get around to making. My cooking as been rather dull lately. Nothing too exciting but it is food and keeps me alive. I am hoping to get back into some more exciting food with this month's challenge, the latest delicious magazine and some of my cookbooks. The cookbooks have been languishing on the shelf so time to pull them out and cook a few things. 

The Pork Belly with Caramel Dressing recipe comes from the November 2010 issue of delicious magazine. I love pork belly and have often looked at this recipe while browsing through the pork belly recipes on Taste. So when it came up in the collection I decided it was the recipe to make. It was so good. I ended up cooking it for closer to 2 hours but my piece of belly was a bit bigger. I ended up turning the grill on at the end to finish off the crackle. What made it for me was the dressing. The flavours were just wonderful. It was beautifully spiced with the star anise and the sweetness partners so well with the pork. I don't think that I reduced it quite enough. I think it would be better if it had been a bit more syrupy and it just didn't get there for me. I served with steamed broccolini and rice to which I added mint. I highly recommend this dish. 

Cooks Club Challenge - Spiced lemon chicken

Over on Taste forums this past month there was a new Cook's Club challenge. The three chosen recipes looked really good. I only ended up making one of them though. 

The recipe that I did end up making was the Spiced Orange Roast Chicken. I didn't have any oranges but did have plenty of lemons so I decided to use them.  I made half the recipe, as I usually do, and the only change was substituting the orange for lemon. It was a really good recipe. I think that, for me, the orange would have made it too sweet. The lemon added a wonderful tang to the dish. The coriander, cumin and tumeric. I think a little pinch of cayenne would have added another dimension to it as well. I served it with rice and steamed zucchini. A very successful meal from the challenge. I can't wait to have a go at this month's challenge which has just been posted over on the forums.