Jamie's Salads

After a hugely decadent Christmas, and a 42C welcome to Perth, we ate nothing but salad for a whole week. I brushed off my old favourites: mango, mint and bulghur wheat; salad nicoise; and simple greens with lots of avocado. Toward the end of the week I recovered some appetite, enough to try a couple of new, more filling salads: Jamie's superfood salad, which reminded me of how good salad can be when you just chuck in the contents of the fridge, and Jamie's sexy salad, which is as good a salad as you can expect, having spent around $20 on the ingredients.

The best thing is, it's summer here, so it's the season for figs (as above), but also mangoes, peaches, apricots, and cherries. Love it!

French-ish Salad with Sauteed Potatoes

We spent another weekend away - this time attempting to dive in Exmouth, in north-west WA. Unfortunately the weather was against us, with a cyclone a few 100km away causing massive sea swell and poor visibility. So we cut the holiday short and came back, just in time to do some really zonked-out shopping. After all the sunshine and travelling, I had only enough energy to throw together a quick salad for a nutrient hit, with just a couple of potatoes, few and sliced thickly enough that I could sautee them altogether in a single batch.

Ingredients:

• one tomato
• half an avocado
• a handful of lettuce or mixed leaves
• a few slices of prosciutto
• two eggs
• a handful of sprouting seeds
• one generous tsp dijon mustard
• one flat tsp grain mustard
• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
• salt and pepper

Boil the eggs to your liking - I prefer to put them in cold water, allow it to come to the boil, give them 2 minutes 30 seconds, then take them out and leave them in a bowl to cool. That way I can also boil the potatoes in the same water.

Chop the tomato and avocado, and wash and tear the lettuce into a large salad bowl. Tear in the proscuitto and tip the seeds in over the lettuce. Shake the dressing ingredients together in a jar and pour over, then toss. Peel the eggs, quarter them and arrange over the salad on individual plates.

BBQ Challenge Week: Day 4: Mushroom, Ricotta and Prosciutto Calzone

I bought some large field mushrooms in the market at the weekend, thinking we'd perhaps marinade them and have them on toasted buns with some cheese. But I'm a bit under the weather at the moment so quite forgot to put the marinade on, and they were looking quite sad when I got home, so I knew they wouldn't last much longer in the fridge. Some friends at work were asking me today how I come up with my recipes, and this was a classic example. The thought process went somewhat along the lines of

juicy bbq'd mushrooms -- yum but plain -- inna bun? -- no time to cook buns -- besides I suck at making buns -- salad? -- hot mushrooms make leaves wilt -- what else do I have? -- ooh, ricotta! -- ricotta-stuffed mushrooms? -- what is this, the 70s? -- would go so well in cannelloni -- but I can't use the oven -- what can I put them in? -- pizza? -- they would go very dry -- calzone??

And at that point I felt I was on to something, so I switched the laptop on and googled for 'bbq calzone' recipes, as I'd never made one before, let alone made one on the barbie. I found this hilarious American youtube video where they make a calzone that would quintuple your risk of pancreatic cancer in a single mouthful. But it had great tips for the basic method, and after another foray into the fridge and storecupboard I was ready to get going. This is enough for two; we doubled it so we'd have lunch ready for another day. I'm sure you could use any fillings you like, but this is what we made.

Ingredients:

• Your favourite pizza dough
• 4 large field mushrooms
• 3 generous tbsp of tomato puree
• 150g ricotta or mozzarella cheese
• a small handful of parsley
• a roasted red pepper, deskinned
• 3 slices of prosciutto or spicy salami
• salt n pepper n flour n olive oil

Let the dough rise up for 15-60  minutes after kneading - longer time will give you better flavour and airier crust. Meanwhile, grill or bbq the mushrooms until tender and juicy, then cut into fat slices. Finely chop the parsley and combine with the cheese, then season well with salt and pepper. Tear the red pepper into strips. Heat a pizza stone on your bbq - or get the flat plate hot but indirectly heated.

When ready, roll out the dough on a well-floured surface into a 30cm x 30cm square piece. Leaving an inch gap around the edge, spread the tomato puree evenly over the surface. On the half closest to you, lay the mushroom slices down, then the pepper strips, then the cheese mixture, and finally cover with slices of prosciutto. Fold the other half over the toppings toward you, then pinch closed around the edges,  making sure it's a good seal. Get a giant spatula, breadboard or plate, and flour well, then put the calzone on and transfer to an again well-floured pizza stone. Cook for 15 minutes on the first side, then 10 on the second, then leave for 10 minutes to rest. If you don't, you will end up with explosive hot sauces going everywhere, and the flavours will be too hot to taste properly. In the meantime you can make a nice salad to go alongside :)

Prosciutto, Avocado and Egg Salad

Always wonderful to come home and find something like this waiting for you :) Rocket, avocado, prosciutto, perfectly-cooked eggs and lovely sprouting seeds tossed together in a mustardy sauce, with a pumpkin scone I prepared earlier ready for slicing in the background - probably the last one until autumn, as the pumpkins seem to lose all flavour in the summer, and this one had to be heavily spiked with thyme and pepper to give it enough flavour.