Thai Crusted Baked Salmon

by Liz N on May 17, 2012

When I cook meals and design recipes, I tend to favour simple combinations of few ingredients.    Today’s Gourmet Garden Blogger-Come-Chef  competition recipe has only three ingredients, five, if you count the accompanying greens.

Gourmet Garden Thai Chilli Paste, natural almonds (30g packet) and fresh skinless salmon….

 

Grind the almonds until coarse and add a generous dob of Gourmet Garden Thai Chilli paste and mix thoroughly until mixture is just wet.

Press the mixture on the salmon fillet and bake, covered for twenty minutes at 170 degrees.  Then remove cover and bake a further two minutes.  You will have enough mixture for two fillets using a 30g packet of almonds.

 

Serve with a big heaping pile of steamed greens and you have a simple, yet extremely tasty meal full of good fats and very filling to boot.
I’m seriously in love with this meal – I can’t wait to bake it again as salmon is one of my “desert island foods”.

Have you got a desert island food – if I had an oven and some thai paste on my island, I’d be set!

{ 6 comments }

Moroccan Chicken with Chilli and Date Couscous Stuffing

by Liz N on May 16, 2012

Somewhere back a few posts I mentioned that I’d love to be involved with Gourmet Garden, because I use their herbs and spices in a lot of my cooking.  When the opportunity came up to be involved in the “Best Blogger Come Chef” comp, I thought that there was just a touch of serendipity there!   Thus over the last few days I’ve been thinking about what I could enter that was a 100% original Last Chance Training effort and still remain true to my desire to make my food fit in with all things health and fitness.

May I present to you, today’s effort – “Roast Moroccan Lemon Chicken with Date and Chilli Israeli Couscous”.   It’s a mouthful to read, but it tasted delicious!

Here goes:

Gourmet Garden Moroccan spice paste,  Gourmet Garden Hot Chilli Paste, Medjool dates, an RSPCA approved chook, lemon, onion (which didn’t make it into the eventual product) and Israeli (gourmet pearl)  couscous feature in this recipe.

As well as pumpkin, dressed with Gourmet Garden Moroccan spice mix, sea salt, a touch of olive oil and cracked black pepper, ready to roast with the chook.

I prepared the couscous and added Gourmet Garden Chilli paste, Moroccan spice mix, lemon rind and Medjool dates (chopped).

I dressed the chicken, spreading Gourmet Garden Moroccan spice paste and lemon slices under the skin.  I also coated the top of the chook with the remaining spice mix and stuck lemon slices between the legs and body.

Then I roasted the chicken and covered it with foil for most of the baking process to retain moisture, then crisped up the skin at the end by removing the foil.

The couscous stuffing was inserted before the chicken was roasted.

The end result was a dinner that tasted amazing!

Can’t wait to see what I whip up tomorrow night!

Have you ever used Gourmet Garden herbs and spices?  Big thumbs up from moi :)

{ 15 comments }

Leave that ego at the door – the performance enhancement edition

May 15, 2012

  Two years ago, I wrote a blog post about leaving your ego at the door and why it’s so hard to do.   I suggested that reducing one’s ego needs to be counter balanced by learning the art of humility – something I strive towards, yet don’t always succeed in doing! Where fitness is concerned, [...]

Read the full article →

Mother’s Day 2012

May 14, 2012

Many people say that Mother’s Day is way too commercialized and not worth celebrating, but the original idea can be attributed to an American, Anna Jarvis, who suggested the idea of honouring our mothers with ‘a day of rest’ in 1908. Personally, I have always loved Mother’s and Father’s days as I think it’s a [...]

Read the full article →

Yoga teacher training – the end before the beginning!

May 10, 2012

  I finally made it to the last four days of my yoga teacher training certification which I did through Power Living Australia (the pic above is of Keenan, our facilitator and trusty guide) and to be quite frank, what I came out with at the end of the course had nothing to do with [...]

Read the full article →

Winners are grinners!

May 7, 2012

  Last Tuesday, I drew the winners of the Blackmores Sports Giveaway and like my good mate Kek, was inspired to do the draw the old fashioned way. I tallied up all of the entries and got one of the little Lucys to help me…   The winners are  BROOKE  and RACHEL!! Congratulations girls, I [...]

Read the full article →

Sadness

April 30, 2012

  It seems that there are always tragedies unfolding around us that we feel awful about, however, they never happen in our backyard.  People become victims of horrific crimes – but it’s very easy to acclimate to them with the continual media coverage, because they never happen in your backyard. My backyard has always been [...]

Read the full article →

Ugly, but awesome!

April 27, 2012

Following on from the theme of slacker lunches, have you ever cooked anything that looked disgusting, but actually tasted amazing.   This Sweet Potato and Tuna slice actually started its life as burger patties, but unfortunately they were too sloppy to make into decent burgers, so I added some egg whites and feta cheese and ended [...]

Read the full article →

Being a slacker

April 26, 2012

  Ever have one of those days where you just feel “meh”? I’ve had one of the Little Lucys at home sick all week, which has impeded on my regular workouts. Whilst I’m grateful for a rest day or two, the week has descended into one of complete laziness- to the point where we’ve spent [...]

Read the full article →

In your head

April 25, 2012

  Does anyone remember this song from “The Cranberries”? The lyrics include, “hey hey hey, what’s in your head, in your head, zombie, zombie, zombie”. I have to admit that these thoughts, as well as fellow instructor Bronwyn’s famous line of “don’t be a sook!” were resonating in my head on my last bike ride.  [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries