Holidays and a kangaroo salad

I've just realised it's been AGES since I last blogged! It's been a busy few months [yes, not the best excuse, but it will have to do!]. For those of you who don't know, I went back to uni earlier this year to study a Master of Public Health. In the interests of getting it finished as fast as possible, I went back as a full-time student. Which is great, but I'm still doing a bit of marketing comms consulting, so time is stretched!

I also went to Adelaide for a few days about a month ago to go to the Population Health Congress. A real highlight was catching up with Amanda from the wonderful blog Lambs' Ears and Honey - she took me to The Locavore for lunch in the beautiful Adelaide Hills. The drive there was stunning, but what I really love is their commitment to serving local food. Wherever possible their food is sourced from within a 100 mile radius, and their wine list is 100% from the Adelaide Hills. I was very impressed [so impressed I didn't take any photos!]. I would love to see a restaurant in Brisbane with this commitment to local food and wine.

I was only home from Adelaide a few days before going to Killcare [on the NSW Central Coast] for about 10 days. My brother and I are lucky our parents had the foresight to buy a holiday house there about 20 years ago, and we have been having family holidays there ever since. We do rent it out for weekends and holiday rentals, so if you are interested check it out on Stayz. My brother and I both love to cook, so a priority in the recent reno was a decent kitchen with a 90cm cooker. On our last visit I think we had friends pop in for a meal almost every day, so it and the BBQ outside were well used!

One of my contributions to the garden was to plant a small herb garden with a few basics [parsley, oregano, thyme, chilli, chives and lemongrass in the backyard], and on our last visit we added a lime and lemon tree. Hopefully they survive our sporadic visits!

The parsley has gone a bit crazy!
Sadly a possum scoffed the only chilli that looked very impressive on our last visit.

One of our favourite things about Killcare are all the gorgeous birds, who are always very well fed with our leftovers!

Sometimes I think the birds eat better than we do! The kookaburras certainly enjoyed a large amount of our leftover lamb roast!

Anyway, we have been home for about a week and straight into Brisbane summer! It's almost been too hot to cook so it's been a week of salad.

This kangaroo and bbq veggies salad I made last night was a particular winner! I first had it when my friend Sharon cooked lunch for us a few months ago and it's based on a recipe from a Michelle Bridges cookbook.

Terrible photo that doesn't do the meal justice!

I haven't eaten a lot of kangaroo - mainly because I had a bit of a bad experience when I made a kangaroo spag bol some years back. I didn't realise what a strong flavour it had, and that you only needed about half the amount of meat compared to using beef mince. The strong flavours were a bit of a shock! However after the gorgeousness of last night's dinner, it will be making a regular appearance on our dining table.

One of the things I love about kangaroo is that it is very lean [so cook it quickly and to medium rare so it doesn't get tough], and it's also high in protein, zinc and iron.

What you need [serves 2]:
250-300g kangaroo steak
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 zucchini, thinly sliced longways
1 bunch of asparagus
1 red capsicum, seeded and cut into chunky strips
1/2 small bunch of mint, stalks removed, chopped
1tbs lemon juice or a good white wine vinegar
salt and pepper

What you do:
Marinate the kangaroo steak with about 1 tsp olive oil, garlic, about 1/4 of the mint, bit of salt and pepper. Leave for about 30 minutes.

Pop the zucchini, asparagus and red capsicum in a bowl and coat with 1tsp olive oil, bit of salt and pepper.

Heat the BBQ (or a frypan/grill pan if cooking indoors). Once hot, cook the kangaroo, turning once. I had 3 small steaks, but one was twice as thick as the other two. The thin steaks cooked to medium in about 3-4 minutes, the thicker steak was cooked to rare in that time. Ideally you want it cooked to medium-rare. Once cooked, set aside to rest for about 10 minutes, then slice thinly.

Once the kangaroo is cooked, cook the veggies, turning after about 1-2 minutes. I found the asparagus cooked in about 2 minutes as it was quite thin, the zucchini and capsicum took about 3-4 minutes. I cooked it on the grill side and did have a bit of a mishap with a few pieces falling onto the burner [sigh].

When the veggies are cooked pop them all in a bowl. Add the mint, another tsp of olive oil and the lemon juice/white wine vinegar. Mix it lightly and serve. Add the sliced kangaroo fillets on top of the veggies.

Have you eaten kangaroo before? How did you cook it?

Summer BBQ days - with mushrooms

As much as I would love to say I have always loved mushrooms, that would be a big fat lie. Because I haven’t. In fact, they used to be right up there with the dreaded Brussels sprouts - I had to be bribed to eat them. Even to try them. Then one day, not tooooo many years ago, I did. And WOW! What a revelation! What had I been missing all those years! 

Now I just can’t get enough of them! I happily eat a few mushrooms nearly every day - for either breakfast, lunch or dinner. Yes, that’s right. For breakfast. One of my favourite mushroom breakfast dishes is my “scrambled-omelette” - quick to make, gorgeous to eat. 

The most amazing array of mushrooms I have ever seen was when I went to the Fisherman's Wharf Farmer's Markets in San Francisco a few years ago. The variety was just incredible: lobster, hedgehog, oyster, wood ear and so many more! 

Amazing array of mushrooms - all colors, shapes and sizes...

As one of my food goals for 2012 is to eat less meat and more vegetarian meals, I suspect mushrooms will be making a lot of appearances on my menu! 

Lucky for me, mushrooms are also one of those foods that are really good for you! A 100g serving of mushies has more dietary fibre (2.5g) than 100g of celery (1.8g) or a slice of wholemeal bread (2.0g). And also more protein than most other veggies. And let's face it. Mushrooms are soooo much yummier than celery sticks! 

But the real kicker for me is that 100g of raw mushrooms only has 100kj. Yes, you read that correctly! Only 100kj! Or less than 24 calories. Which, when you love cheese and butter (two foods that go brilliantly with mushrooms by the way...) as much as me, is a REAL bonus! 

I made this for a quick and simple lunch the other day - despite it being a MISERABLE day, I fired up the BBQ, but you could just as easily cook it on the stove. 

Mushrooms on toast with haloumi. Boring name, mouthwatering flavours!

All you need for 1 person is:

• 1 slice of sourdough or other gorgeous bread
• 1 clove of garlic cut in half
• 1 slice of haloumi (yes, yes I know my pictures have 2 pieces. And yes, I ate them both...)
• about 100-125g mushrooms, cut into halves or quarters (I used Swiss brown but you could use flat, button or whatever else you fancy)
• 1 cloves of garlic, finely chopped 
• 1 tbs olive oil
• squeeze of half a lemon
• sprig of rosemary, finely chopped
• salt and pepper

Pop the mushrooms, garlic, rosemary, olive oil, lemon juice, s&p into a small bowl, mix together and let it sit for 10-15 minutes. 

Rub the slice of sourdough with the piece of cut garlic (I then chopped this up too and added it to the mushroom mix - according to my beloved, I REEKED of garlic that night. And the next morning. Oh well. It tasted AMAZING!)

Heat the BBQ - you need the flat plate. I use a silicone mat on our BBQ flat plate as it is easier than constantly cleaning the plate! Plus, ours is a bit rusty and manky. It's also non-stick, so you don't need to add extra oil.

Once the plate is hot, add the mushroom mix, the haloumi, and pop the bread on the grill (the grill section doesn't need to be turned on as there should be enough residual heat). TURN THE BBQ HEAT DOWN so nothing burns (learnt this the hard way the first time I cooked haloumi!). 

On the BBQ

It all takes about 5-8 minutes to cook - I normally take it off when the haloumi is cooked - you want it to look a beautiful golden colour.

Cooked haloumi

Once cooked, serve it up! This is gorgeous for a quick breakfast too, especially when entertaining. 

Instead of haloumi you could add a fried egg - the beauty of the silicone mat I used is that you don't need to use oil, so your fried egg is actually healthy. 

A few variations to this:

• use thyme or basil instead of rosemary
• add some chopped red onion 
• add some bacon or proscuitto
• pop some butter on the BBQ to cook the mushrooms (I don't think it needs it, but many disagree!)

What’s your favourite way to eat mushrooms?

Big thanks to the Australian Mushroom Growers Association for sponsoring this post and recipe as part of their Summer Mushrooms campaign. Check out these sites for many more gorgeous summer mushroom ideas.

BBQ Salmon - a Good Friday feast!

I had been wanting to cook a whole salmon on the BBQ for quite a while and decided that Good Friday would be the way to go! We had a friend coming for a late afternoon BBQ, and knowing how much she loves salmon, thought she would be a good guinea pig!

So on Thursday morning I wandered down to Super Butcher at Eagle Farm (yes, they now sell fish - I was intrigued - I thought I'd give it a go as their meat has always been top quality). A 4.5kg salmon later, I was home.

As I quickly realised I had overestimated how many people 4.5kg of salmon would feed, I invited a few others for our Good Friday feast! Yes, it's very convenient my brother and his family live nearby - and that they are all salmon lovers!

What do to with it was the next challenge. I decided simple would be key.

I (well, hubby) had to de-head Mr Salmon as it was too big for the biggest serving platter I had. A quick rinse later, and he was ready to be stuffed with fresh lemon (from the backyard tree), fresh dill and Italian parsley. I also put lemon, dill and parsley under and on top of the salmon so the flavours would be absorbed through. A bit of pepper, salt and olive oil and it was ready. As I was cooking on the BBQ I wanted it to be well wrapped - I used a layer of non-stick baking paper, then a layer of alfoil.

I preheated the BBQ to about 180c, put the salmon on an upturned roasting tray (so it was a few cm away from the heat), turned off the middle two burners, and closed the hood. Approximately 1 hour later it was cooked.

I served the salmon with baked potatoes and a couple of easy salads. And of course a few bottles of white wine.

Chickpea Salad
I absolutely LOVE chickpeas - and most legumes - and am determined to eat more of them. This seemed like a good excuse!

1 can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed well
1 red pepper, washed and chopped
1/2 red onion, peeled and chopped
150-200g cherry tomatoes
100g baby spinach leaves

Mix all together. Add a splash of olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar and some cracked pepper to taste. Mix well.

Broadbean, rocket and feta salad
I had a packet of broadbeans in the freezer that I bought to make a feta and broadbean dip. However, as another friend was bringing nibbles, I thought I'd use those ingredients in a salad instead. My sister-in-law Emma gave me the inspiration for this, as she makes practically the same salad but with peas (which I think came from a Jamie Oliver book originally). Anyway, it tasted pretty good, and I'll now be adding broadbeans to a lot more salads! Even though I underestimated the time it would take to peel them - talk about fiddly!

2 cups of frozen broadbeans, cooked according to packet and peeled
100g rocket (arugula)
100g feta cheese, crumbled

Place all in a bowl, add a splash of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, cracked black pepper, and toss to combine.

The whole meal was delicious - but as we didn't even manage to eat half the salmon, I'm looking for some creative solutions for what to do with the rest of it!