So I promised a meatier dish and here it is!

Chicken and Chorizo Paella.

This has got to be my favourite one pan dish. It's super fragrant, delicious, full of vegetables and loved by everyone.

I have to say it probably isn't the most authentic paella but if you want to impress, this is an easy dish to win anyone over. Except my parents; they're not paprika fans....

I recently made it at my birthday party and it was enjoyed both fresh from the pan and reheated at 1am in the morning! 

When I say this is a 30minute dish.... it may be pushing it a bit. You know how Jamie Oliver has those 15min and 30min meals where you're suppose to have done half the prep? Well this is that kind of 30min dish. 

Don't be scared off by the long ingredients list, they're all simple things you can keep in your pantry or use for other things. 

• 1 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into a 1/2-inch dice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 link chorizo, cut into 2cm slices
• Half dozen prawns (reserve the heads)
• 1 onion,diced
• 1 medium sized carrot, diced
• 1 capsicum, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 and 1/2 cups arborio rice (Or if you can find the authentic bomba rice)
• 3 cups reduced salt chicken stock
• 1 tomato diced or half a can diced tomato
• 1 generous pinch saffron threads
• Handful mushrooms chopped
• 1 lemon, juiced
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Set a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat. Toss the chicken with the olive oil and paprika. Cook, stirring occasionally, until chicken is cooked through – about 5 minutes. Remove chicken from the pan and set aside.
2. Add the sausage, onion, capsicum, and garlic to the pan. Cook until sausage has browned and vegetables have softened – about 5 minutes.
3. Add the rice, stock, tomatoes, mushrooms, carrot and saffron. Throw in the prawn heads too.
4. Bring to a simmer, then cover and cook for 20 minutes, or until most of the liquid has absorbed and the rice is soft. Stir in the cooked chicken and prawns. 
5. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper (It doesn't really need salt in my opinion!). Let stand for another minute or two before serving.

  







I've added some wilted spinach leaves into the last one and used scallops instead of prawns. Adding the prawn heads to the dish really gives it a great seafood flavour but I guess scallops are a little bit more no fuss!

I think the great thing about this dish is how much vegetables you can put in it while still being able to satisfy meat hungry individuals. I used mostly vegetables that are firmer so they can keep their shape after cooking. After cooking for 20mins the vegetables soaked up all that meaty chorizo taste so my siblings didn't even blink an eye at the mushrooms (their least favourite vegetable!).

You can see from my photos that the things I've added can vary. Other vegetables that could be added include peas, pumpkin, corn, cauliflower, beans and rocket. This dish can handle anything your fridge has or doesnt have. I do feel the essentials are paprika, saffron, arborio rice, onion, garlic and stock. Everything else you can vary so whether you like your seafood, chicken or snails (apparently in an authentic paella!) paella it's up to you!    

What's your favourite one pan dish?

I had grand plans to post up a meaty dish but instead this dish took my fancy so meatier dish will have to wait.

This was something I came up with in less than 30mins. If I was smarter and didn't forget to cook pasta for a pasta dish... it probably would have taken a shorter amount of time...

I have recently worked with Australian Avocados and felt inspired to put avocados in everything... This was one of the successes. If you like guacamole dip then you will love this dish!

Beef Spaghetti Tossed in a Guacamole Sauce

Serves: 1
Preparation and Cooking Time: <30mins

Ingredients: 

• Enough fettucine for one 
• 6 button mushrooms 
• 6 snow peas in pods
• 1/4 of a carrot
• Palm size piece of lean beef
• 1/2 a large avocado
• 1.5 tablespoon of salsa dip
• 2 tablespoons chopped coriander
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon of honey wholegrain mustard
• Optional: jalapeno

Method: 

1. Bring some water to the boil and add fettucine (follow packet instructions to see how long you should cook it for. Don't overcook!)
2. Prepare the ingredients that need to be cooked: quarter the mushrooms and cut each snow pea into 3 segments. Slice the beef into thin strips
3. Scoop out 1/2 an avocado into a mixing bowl and mash it up so there aren't any big chunks.
4. Add the salsa dip, chopped coriander, lemon juice, wholegrain mustard and jalapeno to the mashed avocado and mix
5. Place the mushrooms, snow peas and beef into a non stick pan and stir fry for 5 minutes or until cooked. 
6. Hopefully your pasta is done by now so strain it and place the pasta into the mixing bowl with the guacamole sauce. Mix so that the sauce coats the pasta well.
7. Transfer the cooked mushrooms, snow peas and beef into the mixing bowl as well. 
8. Grate some carrot into that mixing bowl as well. 
9. Toss everything together in the mixing bowl with a fork and add salt and pepper to taste!
10. Transfer to a bowl and enjoy or if you're lazy like me and sitting at home by yourself it's totally acceptable to just eat from a stainless steel mixing bowl.... Don't judge me...  

Because there's elements of cooked and raw ingredients in this dish, it's only mildly warm when ready to eat. This means it's fantastic in summer!

What's also good is the abundance of good fat in this dish. Avocados are a great source of monounsaturated fat which actually helps lower LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) and raise HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol) in the blood. You can say monounsaturated fat is often misunderstood as a bad thing just because it's associated with the word fat! Fat soluble vitamins such as Vitamin E and K are also found in fat so avocados are a good source of these vitamins.

What's also suprising is that half an avocado actually has 5g of fibre (almost 17% of our recommended daily requirements for fibre!) despite it tasting soft and creamy!

Avocados have a million other health benefits but I think what everyone wants to know is that this dish rocks. It's creamy without the cream, tart and tangy from the lemon and salsa and keeps you feeling full for a long time! For those that have never used avocados I've included some tips on how to choose and ripen an avocado below:

Ripening and Storing Avocados
The best way to ripen avocados is in a brown paper bag with a banana or apple.  I normally buy 1-2 already ripe Hass avocados (they are purple-brown when ripe) and the rest I buy green unripe avocados to keep for longer in the fridge.

If you've got an avocado cut open, put a few drops of lemon juice or white vinegar on the flesh and wrap up to pop in the fridge. This stops it from browning.  

I know, I know.... Another meatless post!?

But veggies are awesome! 

Before you click the close button and think "Urgh Wendy's gone vegetarian; I guess we can't be friends anymore" hear me out!

This dish LOOKS like a meat dish! =D?


See!? Okay this may be a bad angle for meat imitation. But it COULD look like some chunks of meat!

It fooled my brother. Multiple times. Before he asked me "what kind of satay is this?? I can't find any meat!"

I know though, that there are people that hate deceiving dishes... it's like your eyes promising your tastebuds some meat and it never gets any... And I'm not going to be one of those people who say "It totally tastes like meat! You won't even miss it!" So if you need some meat you can always add some in. I think chicken will go nicely.

So what's with the infux of veggie dishes?

I hate cooking with meat. It just feels slimey, and smelly and HARD to do! Yeh you'll probably never hear "I just can't be bothered to cook meat" from a vegetarian....But I promise the next recipe post will be a meat dish! In the meantime if anyone wants to make me a nice piece of lean steak (or even better take me to have some!) I'm always up for it ;) Don't lose hope in me though! I will have a meatier post soon! 

I found this recipe from the dozen or so mini recipe books I got at the recent conference (I'm really working up a collection!) I actually picked up this booklet not knowing it was all vegetarian recipes until quite a few pages in. The dishes looked so good, I was salivating anyway.

The recipe book is produced by Sanitarium, a company owned by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church so all it's products are vegetarian, in accordance to its teachings. You can actually order the book online for free and it has amazing photos that will make you drool, vegetarian or not!

Onto the recipe! I couldn't help myself and did make a few changes though.  The ingredient list may seem long but don't be scared! There's no weird ingredients that you only use for this dish and leave rotting in your fridge. Also it's a pretty simple one saucepan dish.

Pumpkin Chickpea and Spinach Satay
Adapted from: Sanitarium Food for Health and Happiness Cookbook

Serves: 4-5
Preparation and cooking time: 30mins

Ingredients

• 2 tsp olive oil or peanut oil
• 1 brown onion
• 2 garlic cloves 
• Small piece of ginger the size of your pinky 
• 700g pumpkin
• 200ml Carnations light and creamy coconut flavour evaporated milk 
• 1/2 cup salt reduced vegetable stock 
• 2 cups cauliflower florets 
• 1 medium carrot
• 1/3 cup crunchy organic peanut butter
• 1 tbsp soy sauce 
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 400g can chickpeas
• 1/4 cup chopped coriander 
• 60g baby spinach
• Boiled rice to serve  
• Chilli (optional)

 Method

1. Make some rice if you don't have any leftovers like me. 
2. Prep all the veggies: Dice the onion, pumpkin and carrot. Chop up the garlic, ginger and coriander finely. Cut the caulifower into small florets.  
3. Heat oil in a large saucepan and cook the onions for 2mins until soft. 
4. Add the garlic, ginger and chilli if you're using it and give it a stir to mix. 
5. Add in pumpkin followed by coconut flavoured evaporated milk and stock. 
6. Bring everything to the boil, cover and simmer for 5-8mins.
7. Add the cauliflower and carrots followed by the peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar and chickpeas. Stir to combine, cover and simmer until cauliflower is cooked (About another 5mins)
8. Turn off the heat and stir in coriander and spinach leaves.
9. Serve with rice.

Per serve: Energy: 1840kJ (440kcal), Carbohydrates 27g, Fibre 10g, Fat 26g, Saturated fat 6g, Protein 20g, Sodium 515mg, Potassium 1245mg, Calcium 115mg, Iron 3.6mg (These values are based on the original recipe and although not stated, I believe it is without rice)


The recipe book is at the back. My dish looks better right? =D 

 

 

I don't usually cook with coconut milk due to it's saturated fat content so to me using flavoured evaporated milk still gave it a nice coconut taste (Don't kill me if you think it doesn't taste 'authentic!') You could also use evaporated milk and add your own coconut flavouring. I had a look at some reduced fat coconut milk, which is where they use coconut extract and water, and some had less kilojoules per 100ml than the flavoured evaporated milk. However the saturated fat content was still higher.

Eg. per 100ml:
Carnations coconut flavoured evaporated milk: 1.1g sat fat
Amoy regular coconut milk: 21.6g sat fat
Amoy light coconut milk (44% less fat): 12g sat fat

How much fat you should have per day depends on your energy needs but I usually recommend 20-35% of your energy should be from fat in accordance with the NHMRC. Also <20g of saturated fat/day, as recommended by the National Heart Foundation Australia. You can see how easy this is to go over when having these products and we havent even gotten into coconut cream!  

Anyway back to the food! The original recipe actually asked for longer cooking times but I found my veggies got too soft and mushy especially when I stirred in the sticky peanut butter. So don't overcook!  My parents tried it without rice and weren't a big fan as it was too mushy but there won't be any problems if you don't overcook it =)

If you want to add meat, lightly stir fry it until cooked and put it aside then toss it back in with the cauliflower. 

As always this will be delicious: I guarantee it! (I should design a Wendy stamp of approval...) All that fibre and protein will keep you full and your body will thank you for feeding it vegetables!

I've got a little bit of leftover coconut flavoured evaporated milk so anyone have suggestions on what to make with it?