Well, we finally won something…..a seafood tray! I am not a huge fan of any seafood except fish and the occasional prawn, dripping with sauce, more like a bit of prawn with your sauce kinda thing! My husband on the other hand loves it all, so he was happy happy that he won. He decided he wanted to make the oysters really good by cooking them…..somehow. I suggested the Worcestershire/Kilpatrick style without the bacon, as we didn’t have any, but he wanted to make something completely original! He is quite chuffed with himself because they were delicious and just what he felt like to eat! I will have to say, even though I couldn’t bear to eat one, they did look rather delicious and tempting! Maybe next time!

What You Need:

• 1 doz oysters
• 1 ripe tomato
• 1/2 onion
• cheese, finely grated
• salt and pepper

What You Need To Do:

Heat the oven to 170 degrees and line a baking tray with scrunched up foil or baking paper. This helps to hold the oysters upright. Finely dice the onion and the tomato, mix together and place a spoonful on each oyster. Season with the salt and pepper and then sprinkle on the grated cheese. Place the tray in the oven for about 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted and golden brown.

If you are serving them nicely, as opposed to eating them straight off the baking tray as he did, (well it was Sunday night dinner, you know the toasted sandwich/leftovers/make your own type of dinner!) place some rock salt on a plate before putting the oysters on top. This will keep them upright so all the juice doesn’t run out. Serve with some lemon wedges.

Hello!  Yes, I know it has been ages since I have put any recipes or photos on Nattycook but I have been extremely busy with working, studying and now managing the canteen at my children’s school!
I will ease back into it with a simple lunch recipe.  Well actually it is really nice for dinner if you add some roasted pumpkin or sweet potato.  A lovely lady that I work with is really into vegetarian and organic foods so when we work together we have Fine Food Tuesday!  This is one of the favourite meals we make the most.  You can also add avocado, capsicum, snow pea sprouts, whatever you like.  Sometimes we put homemade pesto on the bread.

What You Need:

• Turkish Bread
• Olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Baby english spinach leaves
• Onion finely sliced
• Cucumber
• Cherry tomatoes
• Fetta cheese

What You Need To Do:

There are a few ways to make this really tasty.  You can simply toast the bread in the toaster or under the grill but if you really want to ramp up the flavour brush the bread with some oil and grill it on a hotplate, the bbq is perfect!

Once the bread is toasted, put it on the plate you are going to serve it on because you don’t want to be moving it around too much!  Drizzle some of the oil over the bread to moisten.  Layer the spinach, cucumber, tomato, onion and fetta over the bread and pour a little more oil over the salad.  Next tip a little of the balsamic over the top.  You need to moisten the salad enough so some of the oil and vinegar mix and soak into the bread a little ( this is divine!).  Season with a little salt and pepper and dig in!

It’s a really easy and quick meal to make and really flexible with the ingredients.  I usually try to use red onion but I didn’t have any today so I had to use brown.   You can even reduce the balsamic over a low heat and add some brown sugar to sweeten it up if you like.  This makes a really tasty sticky dressing that is perfect with the fetta!  Enjoy and I will try to take some more photos soon!!

I like these as a nice treat for breakfast!  They look fancy but are easy to put together and take the fuss out of having everyones breakfast cooked at the same time!

What You Need:

• 1 sheet puff pastry
• 1/2 bunch spinach (silverbeet)
• 6 rashers bacon
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• salt and pepper

What You Need To Do:

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees.  Wash and finely chop the spinach and cook it with the olive oil and the garlic, until wilted.   Transfer this to a dish and let sit for a while.

Finely chop the bacon and fry in the same pan as the spinach and garlic.  Cook lightly, about 3 minutes, then drain on paper towel.

Cut the thawed pastry sheet into 4 equal squares and place each square into a muffin tin hole.  Remember to spray the tin first!!

Make sure the spinach is not too wet, you may need to lightly squeeze out the excess liquid and divide equally between the four pastry cases.  Divide the bacon and then carefully crack an egg into each case.  It is good to crack the egg into a bowl first so if you break the yolk you can use it for something else because they look better with the yolk whole.  Season with salt and pepper and place in the oven

Cook for about 10 minutes, depending on how you like your eggs and whether the pastry is golden brown and flaky.

Serve with some rocket and a light dressing and some cherry tomatoes.  You could also add some fetta cheese or put the cherry tomato with the spinach and bacon, for some extra flavour.  Makes 4.

Do you ever have those lazy, drizzling with rain, Saturdays when not much is happening, even the dog is asleep on its bed and it is 2pm before you know it, and you want to eat something warm and comforting.  This is it!

What You Need:

• Bread
• Bacon
• Baked Beans
• Cheese

What You Need To Do:

Step one is to extract yourself from the lounge, open your tired, half asleep eyes, unwrap yourself from the blanket and shuffle toward the kitchen.  Turn on the grill and let it heat up while you cook the bacon.

Put the bread in the toaster and cook to your desired burnt-ness and then top with the baked beans.  Drain the bacon for a bit and then put it on top of the beans.

Lastly place slices of your fave cheese on top and grill it until golden and bubbly!

When all done, go and find that lovely spot on the lounge again and finish watching the tv show/movie you were watching before, with half asleep eyes, so now you can totally rest those eyes!  Oh, and of course later you will be going for that 5km run so don’t worry about the calories!!

I suppose you all think we only eat sweet biscuits and cakes here, but sadly we do not. We do like savoury just as much! These are a great snack, or for in the lunchbox, we even had them for tea the other night with some roasted veges and cous cous. The husband was dubious about the meat content of that meal, or lack thereof, but was pleasantly surprised by how tasty and, more importantly, how filling they are!

What You Need:

• 2 cups chickpea flour
• 2 large potatoes (about 600g)
• 2 large brown onions (about 400g)
• 100g baby spinach leaves
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon garam masala
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
• 1/4 cup water
• oil for frying

What You Need To Do:

This is a great recipe because it is easy, quick and more importantly only uses one bowl! So, grate the potato into a large bowl, add the thinly sliced onion, spinach leaves and the garlic. Give it a little mix, trying not to break the spinach up too much.

You can sift the flour and spices over the top of the mix. Add the water and, using your hands, combine all the ingredients. (cue telephone!)

Shape 1/4 cups of the mixture into little patties using wet hands (cue child who needs help with something!). It helps to stop the mix sticking to your hands. This amount should make about 15 but you can make them any size you like! You can shallow fry them in a pan, or if you have a large pot or wok, you can deep fry them.

Cook them for a few minutes and then turn them over when they are golden in colour. Drain them on some paper and sprinkle a little salt on them while they are still hot.

You can have them with a little salad with some yoghurt and cucumber or just eat them for an afternoon tea snack.

I was watching Jamie Oliver on the TV today and he was chucking everything in the bowl – as he does- and I thought I might go and make something. We only had the crust left of the loaf of bread so i thought i would try and make some bread.  Being late in the afternoon, (not used to daylight saving yet!) to make a loaf might be a bit adventurous so I thought I would try a flat bread and so came a cross a recipe for foccacia.  With my bread making efforts previously a bit well, err, umm, not so good, this seemed easy enough.  Chuck it in the bowl, a la Jamie, mix, knead and wait.  Well it is in the oven now and the smell is divine so go and make some for tea tonight to have with a steak and salad or a nice bowl of soup.

What You Need:

• 3 cups plain flour
• 2 1/4 teaspoon yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon dried mixed herbs
• 1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon fresh parmesan cheese

What You Need To Do:

Grab a large bowl, metal or ceramic is better than plastic, and sift the flour and salt together.  Sprinkle in the yeast and the mixed herbs.  I use instant dried yeast, the same as the little packets you get, but it is in a 250g container.  You can get it at the supermarket and just store it in the fridge.  Mix it all together so the yeast and herbs are even throughout the flour.

Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the water and the oil.  Mix it all up.  Get your hands in there and knead it for about  (is it sounding Jamie Oliver-ish?!)  3 minutes to form a soft dough.

Place it back in the bowl, cover it with some glad wrap and put it in a warm place for about and hour or so until it doubles in size.  I actually put mine in the office right next to me on the desk because it is quite hot in here with the computer going!

When it has doubled in size you punch it down so it deflates and then knead it for another 3 minutes until it is quite smooth.  I think this is great, any bread I have made has at least 10 minutes of kneading so this is really quick and easy on the arms!

Roll it out to a rectangle shape to fit a tray about 36cm x 26cm and poke a few holes into the dough but don’t go all the way through.  These will catch a bit more of the toppings. Scatter the onion, some more herbs, salt and the parmesan.  I also sprinkled a little more olive oil over the top just to help keep it a bit moist and brown up.

The smell is amazing as it is cooking and you will want to devour it as soon as it is out of the oven!!!

I bought some corn this morning at the local fruit shop, still in the husk, really fresh and golden yellow inside. I was going to cook in the fire tonight, wrapped in some foil, but I just had to have some for lunch! I just took all the husk off and then all the silk from inside, you know those long stringy bits, and put it into a pot of boiling water. Let it cook for about
five or six minutes and then drain it. I put a decent slice of butter on a plate and put the cob on top and turned it a few times to really coat it in the butter. Sprinkle with some salt and go and sit in the sunshine and enjoy !

Well, technically this isn’t a recipe but we were HUNGRY!  And I love anything with melted cheese!

I had some nice multigrain bread in the cupboard and it was nearly three o’clock – way past lunch!

What You Need:

• Bread
• Cheese
• Onion
• Butter
• Sandwich Toaster (Press)

What you need to do:

Butter the bread.  I used multigrain, because we always have that, but some nice thick slices of white bread, fresh from the bakery, would be just as good!

Put the buttered sides together and assemble the cheese and thinly sliced onion on top of the bread.  Add more cheese on top of the onion if you want that extra cheesy, melty, goodness to ooze out a little bit and go crunchy on the sides!!

Toast until golden brown and sizzling.  You want the onion to be slightly cooked so it is sweet within the cheese.

Cut into triangles and consume with gusto!

Enjoy!