Beef and Balsamic Ragu

The world has been throwing everything possible at me as of late and while we have still been cooking up a storm in the kitchen and eating I have had little time to do much else besides work and be a mam.  I cannot believe my last post was 3 months ago... before we all know it the jolly man in the red suit will be coming down our chimneysI  Yikes!!!!

Everyone knows that I love reading cookbooks, cooking magazines or basically anything with a recipe in it or even on it!  Yes I have too many cookbooks, in fact the house is full and I have been banned several times from puchasing anymore!  However there is nothing more enjoyable than the feel of a cookbook, flicking through the pages reading and drooling over the stunning pictures. Not to mention finding a page of a recipe you have cooked before, once or many times, which has been splashed on or scribbled on as you've adapted the recipe.

Coles and Woolworths both produce a wonderful monthly magazine that's actually free and readily available at most service counters or checkouts. While there is quite a lot of product advertising there are always lots of really good recipes inside also.  Why am I promoting these magazines?  Well I can take them home and technically I didn't buy them so that's a win! And secondly because I have actually cooked some wonderful and tasty dinners from each of them.

When I cook Spaghetti Bolognaise it is jam packed full of vegetables much to my kids disgust.  There is always complaints about "why are there so many vegetables?" or "Can't you just make it plain?"  Listening to their pleas of agony I remembered that I had seen a recipe for a Ragu (which is pretty much the same as a Bolognaise) in a recent Woolworths magazine so I decided I would test this recipe out and see if it would appease the natives.

To my surprise it was well recieved, no complaints, no facial expressions as there were no surprise vegetable finds.  This nice, thick tomato based sauce laced with rosemary and a hint of the sweet yet acidic flavour of balsamic made for a very comforting meal.  While one would think that it had been slow cooked for hours to achieve the consistency and develop the flavours it was literally on the table within 40 minutes.

Beef and Balsamic Ragu

(recipe adapted from Woolworths.com.au)

Serves: 4
SmartPoints Per Serve: 14

325 gram pasta of your choice

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 red onions, cut into thin wedges

1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary, plus extra to garnish

2 garlic cloves, crushed

500 grams lean beef mince

1/3 cup tomato paste

400 gram can crushed tomatoes

1 cup salt-reduced chicken stock

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup finely grated parmesan

garlic bread, to serve

Cook pasta in boiling, salted water according to packet instructions. Drain and set to one side.

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or until tender and starting to caramelise.

Add rosemary, garlic and mince. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring to break up any lumps, or until mince is browned. Add tomato paste and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.

Add tomatoes, stock and vinegar and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes or until sauce thickens.

Sprinkle with Parmesan and serve with garlic bread (if desired).

(Click here for a printable version of this recipe)

Rioja Chicken

My beautiful friend Bernadette gave me an absolute stunner of a cookbook for my birthday, ABC's Delicious - Love To Eat, and I think I have already read it from front to back a couple of times now.  It's a book covering several cuisines from around the world.  The book's layout is clear and pictures of each dish are enticing and well taken.

I have to be honest, as you can all probably imagine, I am addicted to actual cookbooks.  While the internet makes it very easy to find a recipe, explore new opportunities and pinpoint certain ingredients or cuisines there is nothing like sitting down and flicking through a cookbook - reading the instructions and drooling at the pictures.  I have a bookshelf full of cookbooks - I'm talking about 200+ as I just love them.

Another this I also enjoy is sitting down to a Sunday Roast dinner.  The Sunday Roast is a big thing for me as it's a time when all the family are together.  We are normally all home either relaxing (maybe even recovering from a big weekend) or getting prepared for the new week ahead but we are together.  That's always been very important to me.  It's also something that my parents ensured happened every week extending their hospitality to my aunties and uncles, along with their many friends.  I remember Sunday afternoons with 20 or more people at the table as my father loved being surrounded by people and it was always a case of the more the merrier in the Davies household.

While flicking through the new cookbook I stopped immediately when I cam across this recipe for Rioja Chicken. Rioja (pronounced Ree-OH-hah) is a Spanish style Roast Chicken.  The picture looked amazing and as soon as I read the recipe I knew that was what we were having for our Sunday Roast.  While I knew it wasn't going to be a traditional roast it sounded delicious and my eyes were just fixed on the picture.

A combination of smokey chorizo, garlic, red wine and chillies made this an exotic but well balanced flavour sauce and the chicken was melt in your mouth.  Cooking it covered for 1 hour definitely sealed in the juices along with the flavours.  The sauce was thick and very rich but not overpowering.

I managed to find a bottle of Rioja in Liquourland, which I was surprised about,  If you love the structure of Cabernet Sauvignon but the fruitiness of Grenache then you'll love Rioja .  It's made from Trempanillo grapes, popular here in Australia but originating in Spain.  If you cannot find Rioja then substitute it for what red wine you have.

Served with some roasted hassleback potatoes and steamed vegetables this Spanish take on a roast chicken was perfect.

Rioja Chicken

(Recipe adapted from Delicious - Love To Eat Cookbook)

Serves: 8

SmartPoints per Serve: 14

2.2 kilogram whole chicken

salt

freshly ground black pepper

2 onions, sliced

2 tablespoons crushed garlic

300 grams chorizo, casings removed and chopped finely

4 cups chicken stock

2 cups Rioja or other red wine

2 x 400 grams cans diced tomatoes

2 teaspoons brown sugar

4 bay leaves

4 small dried chillies

1 x 400 gram can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Ensure chicken is rinsed thoroughly and pat dry with kitchen towel. Season with salt and pepper.

Spray a heavy based casserole dish or oven safe frying pan with cooking spray and heat over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook for 2 - 3 minutes until softened and golden (not browned). Add chorizo and cook, stirring occasionally for 3-4 minutes or until starting to crisp.

Add stock, wine, tomatoes, brown sugar, bay leaves and chilli. Stir to combine.

Place the chicken, breast side up, on top of the sauce mixture. Cover with a lid or foil and place in the oven. Cook for 1 hour 15 minutes then carefully remove from oven. Remove lid or foil and brush chicken with some of the sauce.

Return chicken to the oven and cook, uncovered, for a further 45 minutes to an hour or until juice runs clear. Remove from oven.

Transfer chicken to a plate and cover loosely with foil. Set aside.

Place the casserole dish or frying pan full of sauce over a medium-high heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, for approximately 5 minutes until sauce has reduced and thickened. Add chickpeas and stir through to heat.

Place chicken back on top of sauce and serve immediately.

(Click here for a printable version of this recipe)

Conchiglioni with Italian Sausage



One of the best things about pasta is that it's so versatile and there are many different types to choose from.  However the ultimate bonus about pasta is that it is nearly everyone's go-to comfort food.

 

There is always an air of excitement when the family know pasta is on the menu - pasta is always normally easy to prepare and easy to eat. 

 

This recipe was one of the easiest but flavour packing sauces I have made. In fact I cannot believe the pasta took nearly as long to boil as it did to make the sauce.  Minimal ingredients were used which is also a bonus.  If you do not have the Conchiglioni (large pasta shells) and pasta will be perfectly fine for this recipe.

 

The flavours of fennel, chilli, garlic and parsley were perfect with the pork mince - literally this was the insides of store-brought Italian sausages... yep you read right - store-brought sausages.  Some tinned tomatoes, cream and seasoning and voila - dinner is served!!

 

You must give this recipe a go.....

Conchiglioni with Italian Sausage

(Recipe adapted from Australian Women's Weekly)

Serves: 6

SmartPoints per serve: 14

1 kilogram Italian-style sausages

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

4 cloves garlic, chopped finely

3 x 400g cans crushed tomatoes

2 tablespoons cream

2 cups loosely packed basil leaves

500g conchiglioni (large shell pasta, see Cook's Note)

1⁄3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese

Make a slit along the length of the sausages and remove sausage meat, discard skins.

Heat a large frying pan over high heat, coarsely crumble sausage meat into the pan and cook, stirring, until browned. Remove meat with a slotted spoon and drain on absorbent paper. Discard fat.

Heat oil in the same pan over low-medium heat, add garlic. Cook, stirring, for about 5 minutes, until fragrant but not coloured. Increase heat, add tomatoes and sausage meat; simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes or until sauce is thick. Season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Stir in cream and half the basil.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in plenty of rapidly boiling, well-salted water until al dente; drain, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Add pasta to sauce mixture, stir to combine. Remove from heat, stir through parmesan. If mixture feels dry, add some of the pasta cooking water. Serve sprinkled with remaining basil leaves.

 

(Click here for a printable version of this recipe)