Pasta with Broccoli, mushrooms and sundried tomatoes in a cream sauce

Tonight’s recipe is a classic pasta dish, and I use rigatoni, but you can use penne or pasta shells, or any type of pasta.

Start by cooking your pasta according to packet instructions. While the pasta is cooking, take 75 grams of button mushrooms and thinly slice those.

Also take a small head of broccoli and cut that into florets, and a ¼ cup of sun-dried tomatoes, which I also cut into small pieces.

I steam my broccoli florets for about four minutes, and then in a pan of oil, I cook my button mushrooms, before adding the broccoli and sundried tomatoes to the pan and warm these through.

I then add 1/3 cup of sour cream to the pan, and bring this to a simmer. At this stage, you could also add some chilli flakes – I don’t have any at home – but I do think they’d add another great dimension of flavour.

Once the pasta is cooked, add it to the pan, and coat it with the sour cream sauce. Then simply add some parmesan and the dish is ready to go. All up, 15 minutes. This dish is so easy, you could practically cook it in ad ad break of your favourite television show!

It’s delicious too – you can taste the creaminess of the sour cream, as well as the citris flavous of the sundried tomatoes, which combine to create a really rich flavour.

For other recipe ideas and food delivered to your door each night, why not try The Convenient Kitchen today. Visit www.theconvenientkitchen.com.au for more info.

 

Soy honey drumsticks with apple coleslaw and basmati rice

The official recipe tonight in The Convenient Kitchen’s kitchen is tamari honey drumsticks with apple coleslaw with basmati rice, but I don’t have any tamari, so I decide to opt for some gold old fashioned soy sauce, which I think will do the trick just as well.

I pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees, and I start by making my marinade. I combine some soy sauce, honey, olive oil, crushed garlic and finely grated ginger in a bowl, and reserve about two tablespoons of that, which I’ll use for a little later.

Creating the marinade

Then, I get four chicken drumsticks, and add those to the bowl and coat them with the marinade.

Coating the drumsticks

I then add them to a baking dish, and they’re ready to go into the oven for about half an hour. It’s that simple. I do baste the chicken quite regularly with the marinade, but it’s a pretty simple dish to prepare.

Once I put the chicken drumsticks in the oven, I also boil my basmati rice., and then get onto my apple coleslaw.

I chop up and combine some thinly sliced cabbage, one grated apple, a grated carrot, some spring onion, some olive oil, some lemon rind, and lemon juice from one lemon. That’s the coleslaw done.

The apple coleslaw

One the chicken is cooked, just take the marinade that you set aside earlier, and use that to coat over the chicken once again.  Serve the chicken with the coleslaw and rice for a quick, delicious meal.

Ready to go!

The chicken has a real rich Asian flavour with the soy and honey, and the coleslaw is a real palette cleanser with the lemon and spring onion flavours – they balance one another out perfectly – and it’s a meal that is both light yet hearty at the same time.

For other recipes like this delivered to your door, why not try The Convenient Kitchen’s food delivery service.  Visit www.theconvenientkitchen.com.au

Beetroot risotto with parmesan

Tonight’s recipe is beetroot risotto with parmesan and a side salad. Before I begin telling you about my adventures with this dish, I need to declare my hand. I actually dislike beetroot immensely. I’m the type of gal that picks it out of a salad, asks for no beetroot in a burger, and has never (and I mean not even once) cooked with that insidious purple vegetable. So, the thought of a beetroot risotto fills me with dread even before I begin to cook this dish.

However, I really should have known that The Convenient Kitchen would never lead me down the garden path astray…

So, off I start. The recipe calls for two beetroots to be grated, but given my dislike for this little vegetable (or is it a salad?), I decide to only grate one and a half. I then take my grated beetroot, and with two and a half cups of chicken stock, I simmer it in a pan, which takes a few minutes.

Simmering beetroot

I then chop up a couple of rashers of bacon and an onion, and cook that in a pan with some oil.

 

Cooking the bacon and onion

Once that’s ready, I add a cup of Arborio rice to the pan and cook that for 2 minutes before adding a little extra stock into the pan. Then, I add the beetroot stock.

The recipe says to cook this risotto the traditional way, by adding a small amount of the beetroot stock a little at a time. However, I’m feeling a little lazy, so I decide to add everything into an oven proof dish, and I oven bake my risotto. So, I add my risotto into the oven for about 30 minutes.

Into the baking dish

Once the risotto is cooked, I stir through some parmesan and spinach leaves – the warmth of the risotto will make the spinach leaves wilt.

The risotto looks incredibly vibrant due to the beetroot, and you know what – it tastes delicious. I’ll probably still remove my beetroot from salads and burgers, but this is one dish I’d happily cook again. It’s rich and creamy, but balanced nicely with the spinach leaves and I even go back for a second helping!

Find out about The Convenient Kitchen’s delivery service at www.theconvenientkitchen.com.au

Chicken burgers with cucumber and yoghurt sauce in Turkish bread rolls.

Tonight’s recipe is chicken burgers with cucumber and yoghurt sauce in Turkish bread rolls, which I like the sound of because it sounds light and healthy – just perfect for the start of the week after an over-indulgent weekend!

So, I start with a couple of chicken breasts that I place into a bowl and combine with some lemon rind, the juice from one whole lemon, a little olive oil, cumin, and some thyme leaves. I basically ensure that the chicken is coated with all of these ingredients, and then I place the chicken into the fridge to marinate for fifteen minutes.

Chicken marinade

While the chicken is marinating, I make a simple cucumber sauce. I chop one Lebanese cucumber and add ¼ cup of natural plain yoghurt and half a teaspoon of paprika. I combine these ingredients together, and voila – 60 seconds later, I have my sauce.

The cucumber sauce

I also chop an avocado, which I’ll use in the burger.

After 15 minutes, I remove the chicken from the fridge and cook that in some oil in a pan until it’s golden. While that’s cooking, I take my Turkish bread roll, cut it in half and place it until the grill to toast it for a couple of minutes.

When the chicken is cooked and the roll is ready, I basically assemble my burger using the cucumber sauce, avocado, some mixed lettuce leaves, and a little mint.

Building the burger

This recipe has only taken me about 30 minutes to make from start to finish, so it couldn’t be any easier, and it tastes so much yummier than any chicken burger I’ve ever tasted from a fast food outlet!

The burger – looks better than a Big Mac to me!!!

Ready to serve

If you wanted to make this recipe again at home, you could easily add some cheese, tomato, or fried bacon for a little variety, and it would become a firm family favourite.

For other recipes like this delivered to your door, why not try The Convenient Kitchen’s food delivery service.  Visit www.theconvenientkitchen.com.au

 

Beef stir fry with bok choy, carrots and basmati rice

Tonight we go a little Asian in the Convenient Kitchen house with a beef stir fry dish with bok choy, carrots, and basmati rice, which sounds like a simple, but tasty dish to whip up.

I first start by cooking my basmati rice on the stovetop for about 12 minutes. While this is cooking, I take one carrot and cut it into matchstick size pieces, and some bok choy, which I also cut up into pieces. I also grab a green chilli, which I split in half, de-seed, and chop into small pieces, and also chop up some spring onion.  All up, it takes no more than 10 miuntes to do this prep work.

The prep work

I then take 250 grams of beef strips (you can either buy them from the butcher already cut into strips to save time, or you can buy a piece of beef and cut it into strips yourself) and combine that with a little cornflour, some sesame oil, and some tamari sauce. The sesame oil and tamari sauce spell so fragrant, and really give the beef that sweet, traditionally Asian flavour.

The beef sizzle

I then heat some oil in a pan (or a wok – it makes no difference) and I cook my beef. Once that’s cooked, I add the carrots and cook them for a few minutes to soften then, before adding the bok choy, spring onion and chilli.

Cooking the carrots

The carrots take a little longer than the other ingredients, but they all only take a few minutes. I then add a little more tamari sauce, a stock cube mixed with water, and let the sauce thicken, and then we’re done.

The Asian Dish

All up, from the time I start this recipe to the time I’m serving it, it has probably only taken about 30 minutes, so it couldn’t have been any easier.

If that sounds like your style of cooking, contact The Convenient Kitchen to have this recipe and it matching ingredients, and plenty more, delivered to your door. www.theconvenientkitchen.com.au

Chicken sausages with sweet potato mash and brown sage butter

I like the sound of this recipe already, because it only takes 30 minutes, there are only a few simple steps, and anything with brown/burnt butter gets my vote. It reminds me of an amazing dish I had many years ago at an Italian restaurant where they served gnocchi with a burnt butter sauce – it was pure bliss.

So, for this recipe, the first thing I do is take two Desiree potatoes and one sweet potato, and peel all three and chop them up into 1.5cm pieces. I place them into a saucepan of cold water, and I’m going to boil them for 15 minutes.

While the potato is cooling, I also steam some broccoli florets, which only take a couple of minutes. I prefer them to be a little bit crisp, rather than steamed until they’re hanging by a thread, because that way, they don’t lose all of their nutrients and taste so crisp and fresh.

Back to the potatoes – when they’re done, I add ¼ cup of sour cream to them and mash them until they’re really smooth.

Mashing the sweet potato, potato and sour cream

I also take my chicken sausages and cook them in a pan with oil, which for me, takes about 20 minutes, because I like my sausages to be well-cooked, and completely brown on all sides.

Into the pan for the sausages

When the sausages are almost ready, take 40 grams of butter and place that into a saucepan and heat it until it starts foaming, and then add a bunch of sage leaves and continue to cook it until the sage leaves become crisp, and the butter turns a golden brown.

Browning the butter and sage

To serve this dish, place the mash and broccoli on the plate, the sausages on the side, and drizzle the burnt butter and sage mixture over the sausages. The nuttiness of the butter and the crispness of the sage provides a lovely contrast to the sausage and makes this dish a winner of a cold night.

The finished dish

For other dishes like dish (and to have your meals delivered right to your door-step), check out the Convenient Kitchen’s website – www.theconvenientkitchen.com.au

 

Char-grilled chicken and corn with zucchini pilaf

Tonight’s recipe is char-grilled chicken and corn with zucchini pilaf. I’ve made pilaf once before, and was so impressed with how easy it was, and yet how flavoursome it tasted. The more I’ve researched it, it seems to be one of those recipes where anything goes – there are seafood pilafs, pilafs with veggies and raisins, and curry pilafs. So, I’m looking forward to creating the zucchini pilaf for tonight’s dish.

I start with a little prep work for my pilaf – I finely dice a small onion, finely chop a garlic clove, and also chop up one zucchini into small pieces. I then add some oil and utter to a pan, and I cook my onion first for around 5 mins, and when that is cooked through, I add the garlic and zucchini, and cook that for another 5 minutes.

Cooking the onion and zucchini

Once the zucchini has softened, I then add one cup of basmati rice to the same pan. I cook that for a minute (until the rice is coated with the onion and zucchini flavours).

Adding the rice

I then add 450 ml of chicken stock and a ½ teaspoon of cumin. I bring all of this to the boil, and then reduce it to a simmer – and let it simmer for 15 minutes.

A slow simmer

While this is simmering, I add some corn-cobs to a saucepan of boiling water and cook them.

I also take a bowl and mix together some oil, some lemon juice and black pepper. I then add my chicken breasts with the skin left on, and basically coat the chicken breasts with the oil mixture. The recipe says to leave the chicken breasts whole, however I have cut them into small pieces, as it will allow me to cook the chicken quicker. So, I leave my chicken pieces in the oil and lemon for 10 minutes to marinate, while the pilaf is cooking.

Once the pilaf has cooked, I remove it from the heat, cover it, and let it side for another 10 minutes.

I then cook my chicken. The recipe says to char-grill it, but I simply cook it in a pan on the stove-top until it’s golden brown. I only have a grill in my oven, so it’s easier to just use my stove-top.

When everything is ready, simply place a little pilaf onto your plate, toss some chicken pieces on top, and serve with some piping hot corn.

Ready to serve!

For more delicious recipes like this one, and for home delivery of all of the ingredients needed to cook it, simply visit www.theconvenientkitchen.com.au