Chicken, Bacon & Corn Salad

Summery salads have been a bit of a thing in my kitchen lately. I'm loving this one. It's a salad that certainly doesn't leave me hungry and the honey mustard dressing is to die for. 

Chicken, Bacon & Corn Salad

1/2 cup frozen corn

mixed lettuce leaves

4 bacon rashers

chicken, cooked and shredded 

1 avocado, sliced

coriander to garnish

Cook corn in a frying pan until lightly toasted. Remove from pan and allow to cool. Dice bacon and cook in frying pan. While cooking make the dressing. When cooked, allow to cool then combine and toss all ingredients.

Dressing

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

1 teaspoon honey

1 teaspoon lime juice

olive oil

In a small bowl, add mustard, honey and lime juice, whisk until creamy. Slowly add olive oil while whisking, keep adding olive oil until dressing is at desired thickness, taste and quantity (don't add more than 1/4 cup or other flavours will be lost)

Baked Chocolate Cheesecake

The smooth combination of white and milk chocolate cream on a dark chocolate base makes this a deliciously rich and sweet dessert.

Baked Chocolate Cheesecake
Base
250g chocolate ripple biscuits
70g melted butter
Filling
2 x 250g cream cheese
1 cup thickened cream - divided into 1/2 cup and two 1/4cups
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
180g milk chocolate
100g white chocolate

To make the base, blend the biscuits in a food processor until they are fine crumbs. Mix in the melted butter then press into the base of a spring-form pan and refrigerate while making the filling.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees.

For the filling: in a mixer combine the cream cheese, 1/2 cup of thickened cream, caster sugar and vanilla. Mix until light and smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Divide the mixture between two bowls.

Place the milk chocolate and 1/4 cup of thickened cream into a heatproof bowl and melt over a saucepan over simmering water. Once melted allow to cool then combine with one of the cream cheese mixtures. Pour over the base and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

While cooking make the white chocolate layer. Place the white chocolate and 1/4 cup of thickened cream into a heatproof bowl and melt over a saucepan over simmering water. Once melted allow to cool then combine with the other cream cheese mixture.

Remove milk chocolate cheesecake from the oven and pour white chocolate cream cheese mixture over the milk chocolate layer. Return to the oven for a further 20 minutes.

Allow the cheesecake to cool and then set in the fridge over night.

Bircher Muesli

Do you like breakfast? I have a love hate relationship with this morning meal. I despise cereal. I get bread guilts with toast. I'm finicky about eggs and bacon. I'm fussy about pancake toppings. Breakfast is a tricky thing.

I was one of those kids that took 45 minutes to eat one piece of toast and then spent the morning being lectured by mum about being late and wasting time. Stupid breakfast, getting me in trouble. In a bid to get me out the door in time each morning, mum forced boxed cereal down my throat (mostly in the form of Weetbix and Cornflakes). Child Me thought cereal was just tasteless mush. Adult Me thinks cereal is sugar fill expensive mush. I went through the liquid breakfast phase. Adult Me shakes my head pitifully at this, again such a waste of money and so much senseless sugar consumption.

So what's the solution? My perfect world? Eat banana bread for every breakfast! Reality: variety. I try to pre-plan all of my breakfasts. If I have variety I actually have something to look forward to instead of the same old box of expensive sugar coated processed grains.

While I hate cereal I LOVE oats. Porridge is my winter love. Bircher Muesli is the summer version. This is the perfect pre-plan breakfast because, to get the full flavour and texture development, it needs to sit in the fridge overnight. It is lovely with some dried fruit and seeds mixed through or topped with fresh fruit and honey.

Bircher Muesli
1 cup yoghurt
1/2 cup wholegrain oats
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 apple, grated
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
sprinkle nutmeg

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, cover and refrigerate overnight. Simple, easy breakfast is done!

Banana Bread for Two

Banana Bread For Two
My Banana Bread love affair has been documented in the past (and even past-er past) and honestly I am a little ashamed of this recipe. To me, banana bread is one of those things that there should be more of, not limited "for one" (or in this case "for two") portion sizes. Actually, that's how I feel about most food.

Anyway, this came about due to the fact that my poor body becomes a trash compactor on the weekend. I seem to fill my weekdays with smoothies, nuts and vegetables but in contrast, on the weekend, I am transformed into a sugar guzzling, carb craving maniac. I spend the majority of my weekends in stretchy pants and an awful mood brought about by a combination of sugar-crash and food guilt.

Enter portion control and a perfectly sized banana bread for a normal sized breakfast with a reasonable amount of sugar.

Banana Bread for Two
3 tablespoons wholemeal flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
1 egg, whisked
1 banana, mashed
1 tablespoon butter, melted
scattering of chopped walnuts
splash of milk (if necessary)

Pre-head the oven to 180s degrees.
Combine all the ingredients and spoon mixture into muffin or loaf pans.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until browned and cooked through.
Serve topped with yoghurt or ricotta, honey and more walnuts.

Prawn Chop Salad

Prawn Chop Salad
I'm really becoming an advocate of the spring/summer salad trend. It's a bit new for us as my husband has so frequently booed salads off our menu but he's somehow become more open minded and accepting of leaves for dinner.

This one was especially popular as he is a huge fan of prawns. I am not such a huge fan of prawns….or any seafood for that matter (see the fish taco saga of Hawaii) so this was a gamble for me from the very beginning. It worked out surprisingly well and was a quick and tasty weeknight dinner.

Prawn Chop Salad
Prawns
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
prawns
1 tablespoon butter

Melt butter in a frying pan. Add prawns and spices. Cook until prawns are golden in colour.

Salad
Avocado, sliced
Chopped baby spinach leaves
Chopped coriander leaves
1 zucchini, shredded
toasted peanuts

Combine all ingredients.

Dressing
1/4 teaspoon minced ginger
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
sprinkle salt

Combine all ingredients.

Assemble prawns and salad components into sections of a serving bowl. Top with dressing when ready to serve.

Chocolate Dream Tart

Chocolate Dream Tart
Be ready. You will need strawberries. You will need whipped cream. You will need willpower. It's a miracle this lasted in our fridge for more than several hours. It's one of those desserts that you portion out carefully after dinner because you certainly don't want to "over do it"….and by the morning, somehow, mysteriously, there is far less left in the fridge. The strawberries and cream really just serve to break through the rich, creamy, ganache like filling and the buttery chocolate base. Drool.

Chocolate Dream Tart
Base
250g chocolate biscuits
125g butter, melted

Line a spring-form pan with baking paper and butter. In a food processor, process the biscuits until they are fine crumbs then mix through the melted butter. Press the mixture in to the base of the pan and allow to set in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.

Filling
250g dark chocolate
1/3 cup thickened cream
125g butter, chopped
2 eggs
3 egg yolks (preserve the whites for a pavlova!)
1/3 cup white sugar

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.

Place the chocolate, cream and butter in a meltproof bowl and place over a pan of boiling water. Mix until the chocolate and butter are melted and combined.

Gradually mix the chocolate mixture into egg mixture. Pour on top of the biscuit base and bake for 15 minutes or until top is starting to set. Allow to cool and then refrigerate until set through.

Thai Beef Salad

Summer is coming….which, as Game of Thrones has taught me, indicates that the weather will be warm, people will be prosperous and the snow loving walking dead will stay on their side of the wall. It also signals the time of year when salads are an acceptable dinner option. For many people I'm sure salads are an all year round affair but we consistently fall into the pasta, pastry, potato slump of winter. Which is amazing, but also has to come to an end. So salads. This is a thing now.

Thai Beef Salad
Beef
Sliced beef
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon soy suace
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon chilli flakes
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
splash olive oil

Combine all ingredients and allow to marinate. Cook over a low heat until sauce has reduced and beef has browned slightly. Rest and let cool.

Salad
Capsicum, thinly sliced and lightly cooked
Spinach/kale, shredded
Carrot, thinly shredded
Zucchini, thinly shredded
1/2 red chilli, thinly sliced
Cashews, crushed
Edamame

Lightly boil the edamame let cool then shell the beans. Combine all the ingredients apart from the cashews in a large bowl.

Dressing
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon water
1/2 tablespoon vinegar
1/4 teaspoon ginger
splash olive oil
splash lemon juice

Process all ingredients until combined.

When ready to serve, layer the salad into a bowl and mix through the cashews, top with the beef and dressing.