Vegetable lasagne

I have just come from the kitchen and thought I'd better get this down now while it is still fresh in my mind.  I haven't had vegetarian lasagne in a long, long time. I think I have been put off it for two main reasons-
1) It takes hours to prepare
2) The boys will hate it

If I get one out of two then that is OK. I am as surprised as you are when I tell you that I was 100% correct- the boys hated it!
 Actually that is not really a fair statement because Max didn't even taste it. I picked him up from a late birthday party at a rock climbing centre and on the way home he asked what was for dinner "lasagne" I said. I got the face wiggle and the air pump, all good!

We get up stairs, I start cooking and about half way into the prep Max and his brother are sitting in the loungeroom playing when my little foodista asks "does the lasagne have any meat? (long pause and crashing of pots), mum.....mum DOES IT HAVE ANY MEAT????"
To this I simply lift my head and shake 'no' hoping not to attract Alex's attention, but thanks to Max's dispeasure he adds...

"Oh that is it, I am NOT having any dinner" (yeah, well I also know that you just polished off four slices of pizza and a massive piece of chocolate cake so thank your lucky stars my boy!).

In a way I was happy not to see him sit at the table with his usual dark cloud over his head whenever I serve a vego meal. So Max sat on the couch (with a full belly) and read the adventures of Astrix while Alex graced us with his presence. Don't worry my bubble soon burst when Alex found the eggpalnt under his beloved mozzeralla cheese.
Nic and I managed to polish off two delicious pieces of lasagna while master Alex picked out all the pasta coated in pesto and crunchy cheese, ate those and then told me it really isn't a good idea to make that ever again.
Sorry boys but I am hear to tell you I will be making it again, for two reasons-
1) It was so yummy
2) It was really quick and easy to make
 Of course it isn't as quick as a pasta cabonnara but from start to scratch we were were sitting down eating dinner in just over an hour and that is pretty good for a lasagne (cooking time included).

I was suppose to bring home some parmesan cheese from work (I've been saying that for about a month now much to Nic's disgust), so I had to make the pesto without cheese and I have to tell you it was totally fine.
To spice up the dish a little I popped in a teaspoon of leftover Ethiopian chicken spice mix we had in the cupboard and it was a fantastic idea. The cinnamon and chilli flavours complimented the vegetables really well and blended beautifully with the pesto (minus the cheese). I highly recommend you make the Chicken dish- get the leftover spice mix and then make the lasagne- two meals for the week!

(On a side note the Ethiopian chicken is another Saveur recipe we revisit often).

Vegetable lasagne

Pesto sauce

2 garlic cloves

2 cups basil leaves

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts

good pinch salt and pepper

Place garlic cloves into a food processor and turn on until chopped.

Turn off, place in basil leaves and process again until leaves are roughly chopped.

While motor is running slowly add oil followed by pine nuts and seasoning.

Once all blended and combined remove to a small bowl and place to one side.

Tomato sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon spices (if you want to try this mix one part paprika, 1 part cumin, 1/2 part cinnamon & 1part chilli powder for a quick alternative)

1 small onion, diced

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 cup tomato puree (or tomato passata)

1/2 cup quartered cherry tomatoes

salt and pepper

Heat a medium sauce pan on medium high and add oil.

Once oil is warm add spices and onion, saute for 2-3 minutes, stirring.

Add tomato paste and cook out for another 3-4 minutes, stirring.

Add tomato puree, cherry tomatoes and seasoning, bring to the boil then simmer for 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and place to on side until needed.

Other ingredients needed

1 eggplant, sliced and chargrilled

2 zucchini's, sliced and chargrilled

2 capsicums oven roasted and peeled

1 pkt lasagne noodles

4-6 mozzerella balls, sliced

(I chargrilled my vegetables while the sauce was simmering to cut down on time)

Putting it all together
Preheat oven to 200.

Grease a 8x8 inch pyrex dish with butter or cooking spray.
Place a small amount of tomato sauce on the bottom of dish then lay down two sheets of lasagne, covering the bottom of the dish.
Cover with slices of cooked eggplant and then smooth 1/2 the pesto sauce over eggplant.
Add two more lasagne sheets, side by side.
Layer on grilled zucchini slices, cover with more tomato sauce then another two sheets of lasagne.
Cover with strips of roasted capsicums, add the rest of the pesto and smooth over peppers.
Place the last two lasagne sheets side by side, add extra eggplant slices and remaining tomato sauce.
Once tomato sauce covers lasagna sheets and eggplant, place on a layer of sliced, fresh mozzarella cheese.
Pop dish on your middle rack of your oven and bake for 30 minutes.
Remove from the oven, let rest for 5-10 minutes then slice and serve.

This will always taste better the day after but we loved it on the night.

Lamb Salad-Saveur style

Succulent slices of lamb, roasted pistachio nuts, capers and roast garlic vinaigrette are a few of the flavours that went into this delicious dish and I cannot claim credit for any of it. Here at the Baker residence we have decided to dip into the culinary world of Saveur magazine for a few weeks and try some of the hundreds of recipes I have collected over the past 7 years.

I LOVE Saveur magazine as I have said many times. Nic and I have also made quite a few recipes over the years and always enjoyed the end result. However, like many other families out there we got caught up in the 'usual' family cycle meaning making the usual meatballs, making the usual roast chook. Now there is nothing wrong with this and I am certainly not complaining about the lack of flavour, but it was time for a change of flavours in our household. I/we wanted to taste other people's food.
 Don't get me wrong I love experimenting with flavours, textures and ideas but I also love to taste the way other people think when preparing food.
A prime example was this delicious lamb salad I found in issue 123 (page 66) of Saveur.
 The heading splashed across the magazines front cover states "Why lamb rules", and there on the front cover are two fabulous looking cutlets you just know taste sweet, juicy and down right delicious--of course I wanted to flip the page and read it from cover to cover back in 2009 and again last week!

I have made many a lamb salad and eaten oodles of lamb cooked in many different ways but one thing that stood out in this recipe was the use of mushrooms, capers and anchovies all mixing in with the regular lamb flavours (rosemary, roast potato wedges and thyme just to name a few). We added this recipe to our weekly list.

Another aspect to this challenge was for ME to follow the recipe as closely as I could. I am not allowed to do the usual skimming through the recipe, not really reading the method (thinking 'of course I know how to make a roast lamb salad')and doing what I think best. NO, I am making an extra effort to follow instructions and looking forward to the end result- untampered to the best of my ability.

Now having said that, I did need to change a few ingredients--for example when I asked my butcher for lamb top round he just looked at me and asked what the heck I was on about. In the end we both decided a butterflied leg would be a great substitute. Second, the recipe called for oyster mushrooms.....I love oyster mushrooms however the boys think they taste like a slippery, slimy- yeah, I don't think I need to go any further, you get the drift! Instead I bought enoki mushrooms and thought they would work a treat. My third and last sub was frisee lettuce. I once served this to the boys last christmas. Alex didn't touch it at all while Max chewed through a few leaves telling me it tasted like chewing on thorns, I just stuck with arugula leaves.
I'm not to sure I am allowed to reprint this recipe (copyright etc) so if you pop on over to Saveur's website, you can look it up in their archives, just remember it is from issue 123 and simply named 'Lamb salad'.

Ok now for the Baker families opinions:

The dressing of roasted garlic, sherry vinegar, capers, anchovies and olive oil was fantastic! A crisp, rich and tart flavour all rolled into one and when paired with the lamb itself, you couldn't stop eating it.

Alex being Alex decided he didn't like lamb (?) but loved the dressing so he sucked the salad dressing off the arugula leaves (no surprises) and lamb. Devoured all the oven roasted potato and rosemary wedges and of course didn't touch the butter and thyme sauteed mushrooms.
Max ate everything except, wait for it, the mushrooms!
I would definitely make this salad again, however I did find it took much longer to prepare than I thought it would, but maybe that was because I followed everything to the T? Not sure but next time I will no doubt take short cuts and possibly make the dressing ahead of time--great BBQ salad without a doubt.

Cooking school practices

I know I have been a little absent this week, it is not through lack of interesting food by any means. As some of you may remember I bought a catering business with another chef at the end of last year. It is all going well and the stress hasn't killed us yet, so we decided to mess with it a little and find a bigger space with the hope of adding on a cooking school.
 To cut a long and stressful story short, we found the bigger space, so big in fact we decided to add on a cafe out the front, cooking school in the middle and catering kitchen in the rear.
Mad you might be thinking?
Absolutely!
With that said, my partner and I have been playing around with food ideas, trying to come up with some interesting classes for the folks of Sydney.
 We will be offering basic cooking classes, specialty classes and also kids' cooking classes but we also wanted to offer something extra- a chef's table for those cooks out there who want a one-on-one personal lesson with a chef. With the Chef's table you can help design your own menu, prepare the meal and then invite 6-8 of your friends to come for dinner and taste your menu. The fun part is you get to go home, pop your glad rags on grab your partner and come out for the dinner you created, leaving the plating and washing up to us. We are excited and can't wait to get the bench tops up and ovens in to get this show on the road!

Just to wet your appetite here are a few images we have been playing around with.
Below is a delicious gravlax of salmon filled with an avocado, dill and wasabi oil filling topped with caviar.....

and we couldn't go past the classic melon and prosciutto with buffalo mozzarella and basil for those warm evenings. Can't you just feel the champagne bubbles tickling your nose! 

I'll keep you up dated on the progress and hopefully have some images of the glamorous new kitchen really soon.

Apple turnovers for you and a four year old

Alex has been nagging me senseless to come and cook at his school. I have promised him I will, just as soon as I have a spare afternoon (something a 4 year old gets very tired of hearing!).

Last year when I was working 3 days a week, I spent one morning at Alex's then preschool 'cooking' with him and his class. It was great fun. At first I had a bit of a panic attack because cooking with 18 three to four year olds wasn't something I ever thought would be fun, let alone think of doing more than once in my life.
However, when your son keeps on going on about the apple turnovers he once made, while at the same time staring up at you with his big blue eyes and pulling on your jeans saying, 'let's make those again, can we, can we, can we mum?', you have to resign to the fact that it WILL happen again and sometime soon.

To make life easier I decided to come up with a fool-proof recipe so the kids can do more of the work and I can be more of a 'helper'.
 The kids can make one each and take it home for their whole family to try (I can't run the risk of eating some other kid's booger smeared turnover- a little lesson I learned from the last time!).
If all goes well I'm planning on doing the class next week so I'll let you know how it goes but until then, if you have a youngster floating around or just want an easy recipe to whip up in under 20 minutes then pre heat your oven, pull a sheet of puff pastry out of your freezer and get to work!

Apple turnover
3-4 sheets of frozen puff pastry or sweet short crust
50 g unsalted butter, melted
4 small granny smith apples, peeled and sliced
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon heaped brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1-2 tablespoons demerara or raw sugar (optional)

Remove sheets of pastry from freezer, preheat oven to 180c and spray oven tray with cooking spray.

Place the next 5 ingredients into a medium bowl, stir to combine.
With a small knife (butter knife is fine if kids want to do it), make slits in the middle of the pastry like goal bars, leaving about 5cm from each end of the pastry.
Place apple mixture on a 1/3 of the pastry long ways, brush one end of the pastry with egg wash then fold over opposite end to make a fold.
Once ends are joined, grab a fork and press down edges to seal.
Brush the top of pastry with more egg wash then sprinkle on demerara sugar.
Place back in fridge for 5 minutes to firm up pastry.
Once pastry is firm, bake until golden in colour.

Cool, dust with icing sugar and eat as is or with your favourite custard, ice cream or cream