Best Asian Salad

Here is my favourite and most popular "gourmet" salad. This is a fantastic salad as you can use pretty much whatever you like, and you can make it vegetarian or even vegan, and you can use different meats in it as well. If you have the time, I recommend making this the day before you want to eat it, to allow the flavours to develop and infuse. Fried tofu is my favourite protein for this salad. It tastes totally different when made this way.

For 4 big serves, you need:

1/2 packet of Rice Vermicelli noodles (The very fine dried white noodles)
1/4 of a wombok (Chinese Cabbage)
1/4 small red cabbage
1 small red onion
Leaves of 1 bunch coriander
1 punnet of fresh bean shoots (or 2 tins, drained REALLY well)
1 tin water chestnuts, roughly chopped
Tofu/meat of your choice

Dressing:
1/2 cup Soy Sauce
1/4 cup Kecap Manis
1 Tablespoon Sesame Oil
1 Tablespoon Sesame Seeds
1 Teaspoon Fish sauce (not for vegos though)
1-2 small fresh chillis (to your liking), chopped finely
The stalks of one bunch coriander, chopped finely
1 clove garlic, crushed and finely chopped
2cm piece of ginger, grated
Lime juice
Sugar, to taste

The first thing to do is to make your dressing. Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and put on a medium heat.

For the meat/tofu component, you need to have it cut into reasonably bite size pieces. Cook it to your preference while the dressing is still cooking. When your protein component is cooked, add it straight to the hot dressing. You can serve it hot but it is better if you can leave it to cool and allow the flavours to soak in.

For the salad, put the rice vermicelli in a bowl and pour boiling water over to cover. Allow to stand, and drain when they are soft. You can cool the noodles down by rinsing them under the cold tap.

Cut the wombok and red cabbage as finely as you can, so it resembles coleslaw. Also finely slice or chop the red onion.

Place all these ingredients in a large bowl, along with the bean shoots and water chestnuts. Add the cooled noodles as well. Now place your protein in with the salad, and add dressing to coat everything. Garnish with the coriander leaves and enjoy.Keca

Vege Lasagne

This is one of my most popular dishes I have made at the different kitchens I have worked in. It is very hearty and its as delicious as a meat version.
I like to make a combination of slices of veges and using them in the sauce as well, making a sort of vegetable bolognese.

This is as an example, but you could interchange the veges used to change the flavours a bit.

For the bolognese sauce:
1 Brown onion
1 Tin of crushed tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1 Zucchini
1/4 pumpkin
1 carrot
1 Dessertspoon of dried Mixed Herbs

Finely dice the onion and crush the garlic. Heat about 2 Tablespoons of Oil in a saucepan and cook the onion and garlic over a medium low heat until onion starts to go clear. Add the tin of tomatoes and refill the tin with water, and add that as well. Also add the dried mixed herbs.
For the rest of the veges, you have 2 choices. You can grate them all up or dice them finely. If you grate them, you will have a smoother end product, if you dice them, you will have a slightly chunkier sauce. Entirely up to you!

Cook the sauce on a simmer (a few bubbles in the sauce) until the pumpkin is cooked.


For the rest:
1 packet of Lasagne Sheets
1 Eggplant
1 Sweet Potato
2 Zucchini
2 tubs of Ricotta Cheese (500g)
1 cup of Cream
Grated Tasty Cheese (or your other favourite melting cheese)
Oil
Salt, pepper
Mixed Herbs


Thinly slice the eggplant, peeled sweet potato and zucchini
Toss through oil with salt, pepper and mixed herbs to lightly coat.
If you have a char grill, or a bbq, cook the sweet potato, eggplant and zucchini slices until they are soft. The Sweet potato will probably need to be transferred to a tray in the oven at about 180C to finish cooking.
If you don't have something to grill them on, you could cook them under a grill or in the oven until they are soft.

To Assemble:

Mix the ricotta and cream together to get a smooth sauce consistency. You may need to add some hot water to get it to loosen up and thin down.
Spoon a thin layer of your tomato sauce on the base of your lasagne dish. Lay out lasagne sheets to cover (you might need to break some to fill in spaces). Then place a layer of your cooked sliced veges, a layer of ricotta mix and a layer of tomato sauce. Keep going in this manner until you have 4 layers. The top layer should be just ricotta on the top, and then cover with tasty or other cheese.

Cook until a knife will go through easily - approximately 35 - 40 minutes at 180C.

This is enough for about 8 serves of lasagne.

More Pasta - Creamy!

My last post was about making tomato pasta sauce bases more exciting on the cheap. This one is creamy instead.

You can use different types of creams, thickened or pure or sour cream all work well, as do low fat versions.

Different things work better with tomato based sauces than creamy ones. There is hardly any work to be done for creamy sauces. The same principle as before applies. Get a pot of water on to boil for the pasta, and get everything else happening while that is boiling.

You can put pretty much anything in a creamy sauce, but I generally like strong tasting things with cream, as the cream will damp the strength a bit down a little bit.

So, while you pasta is boiling, chop up whatever you want to use in your sauce (again, get whatever is cheapest)and start cooking it in butter or oil. When you are ready to serve it, drain the pasta, and stir enough cream in to draw all your other ingredients together.

Good ingredients for creamy sauces include:

Mushrooms
Chicken
Bacon
Onion
Garlic
Sundried Tomato
Chargrilled Eggplant
Chargrilled Zucchini
Roasted Capsicum
Chilli
Parsley

Remember again, cut your ingredients small so they cook quickly, and you can have dinner ready is 15 minutes!

A super easy creamy sauce can be made by cooking off a tablespoon or two of pesto, then mixing through cream to make it a sauce consistency.

PASTA!

Pasta is one of my favourite things to cook. It is so cheap and easy, and you can do pretty much anything you want to it!
Last night I made a really tasty sauce. Its so easy to make these kind of things up - just get the cheapest veges on special, Home brand pasta sauce- if you look up or down at Woolies or Coles you will find these under the Dolmio and other expensive brands for sometimes a quarter of the price. Essentially the same product! Same goes for pasta - at the moment, home brand pasta (Smart buy at Coles) costs 70c for a bag! So you can realistically cook a meal for 4 or 5 people (or more) for $5, in about 15 minutes!

The pasta sauces like Dolmio etc are usually a basic Napoli sauce - that is tomato, onion, garlic, and herbs.

First thing you need to do is put some water on to boil for the pasta. While that is happening, get your veges going - you can use anything you like, bear in mind that the smaller you cut things, the quicker they will cook. Heat up some oil in another pan, and add your veges of choice hardest to softest. Once they have been going for a couple of minutes, add the softer veges, and then your pasta sauce. Let that cook away until your pasta is ready. Drain the pasta and put the pasta in with the sauce, mix it and serve!

Good veges to add to tomato pasta sauce:

Capsicum
Eggplant
Zucchini
Onion
Garlic
Carrot
Squash
Pumpkin
Spinach
Silverbeet
Mushrooms (cook in a little oil or butter first)
Sweet Potato
Asparagus
Broccoli
Corn Kernels


I also like to add legumes, like tinned chickpeas, 5 bean mix. You can get these for about $1 a tin at Woolies and Coles.