Sausage Rolls

Home-made sausage rolls are so easy, quick, cheap and yummy!!! A great treat for Saturday lunch - and fantastic for parties. And the best part about making your own is that you can add whatever you want! It's a great way to get extra veggies into a food kids love!

Ingredients

Puff Pastry

Chopped Onion

BBQ Sauce

Breadcrumbs

Sausage Mince

Egg

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Take puff pastry out of freezer and allow to defrost flat - will take about 10 minutes.

3. Mix mince, onion, sauce and bread crumbs until combined. One portion of sausage mince from the grocery store (~$2) needs ~3 tablespoons of sauce and ~6 tablespoons of breadcrumbs.

4. Add in any extra ingredients you wish - veggies etc. and mix thoroughly.

5. You can get two lengths of sausage roll from each pastry sheet. Form the meat mix as so:

6. Cut pastry in half, apply a bit of egg wash to pastry on one side of meat, then roll pastry around meat, brushing top with egg. Cut into desired lengths and place on tray in oven for 20-30 minutes.

You can freeze the sausage rolls once they are made. Best to unfreeze them naturally, rather than putting them in the microwave, because of the pastry.

A note on freezing


If you buy the sausage mince fresh and use it fresh, you can freeze the rolls after they have been made. If you buy the mince frozen, or freeze the mince before you make the rolls, you need to cook the sausage rolls before you freeze them. Also, did you know that puff pastry can be thawed and refrozen? Very handy when you're making this sort of thing, as you often don't know how many sheets you'll need! I find i need 2.5 sheets for one portion of sausage mince.

Enjoy!

What to do with leftover cake

OK, i know this probably isn't an issue you deal with on a regular basis, but if you've got a birthday coming up (or you just had one!!), chances are that you've got lots of cake left over!! My son just turned 2 and i made twice as much cake as necessary, plus i had the off-cuts from turning a rectangle into a number 2! WHat did i do with the leftovers? Well, with the offcuts i turned them into trifle!! A very cheap and easy dessert that will go a long way! All you need is some cake, custard, cream (although, i don't like cream, so i leave that off and only my husband adds it!), jelly (49c a pack at woolies!) and a can of fruit (about $2 from woolies). How easy is that!

Everyone does trifle different, but i layer cake first, and then drizzle with some sherry if no kids are going to be eating it (which is very rare for me these days!!!), then i layer the drained fruit (i'll add in any bits of fruit i have in the bowl which are about to turn too), custard and then jelly on the top. WHat could be easier?

I've made 'single serve' trifles before too - same idea and same sort of layering. Last week i had some jelly that i'd made with some strawberries set in it that i wanted to do something a little extra - plus i was trying to amuse my toddler in that crucial 10 minutes before food is on the table!! Along with the jelly, what i had on hand was some choc chip cookies and ice-cream, so we broke up the cookies in the bottom of each bowl, then added some jelly and extra strawberries and finished with some ice-cream on top. We put them in the fridge while we ate dinner to allow the ice-cream to just melt a tiny bit over it all and when we served them it was perfect - hubby couldn't believe how much he liked it!!! What a quick, easy crowd pleaser :D

Pumpkin & Feta Pasta

I got this recipe off the Facebook page "$120 food challenge" and my hubby just LOVES it!! I've actually altered it a little, and you can do the same!! Take out anything you don't like and add in anything that you do like or have in the cupboard!!

The "$120 food challenge" is a really great Facebook group - it's by a mum who has a budget of $120 to feed her family per week - so most of the recipes she posts are really cheap to make!!

Ingredients

Pumpkin

Olive Oil

Rosemary/Mixed Herbs

Garlic

Bacon

Onion

Feta

Lemon Zest

Lemon Juice

Pasta

Zucchini

Pine Nuts

Salt & Pepper

Method

Ok, there's LOTS going on with this recipe, but the beauty is that you can do them ahead of time and then just throw it all together at the end!

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Dice pumpkin into small pieces & place on roasting tray with oil, freshly ground pepper an half the rosemary leaves or mixed herbs. Put in oven and bake for 30min/until done.

2. Place pine nuts on oven tray and place in oven to cook for ~5 minutes. Keep a pretty close eye on them because they cook really quick!! Alternatively, you could fry them in a pan.

3. Cut up 8-10 cloves of garlic and place in a bowl. Mix with more olive oil and the remaining herbs. Dice fetta into 1cm pieces and mix through garlic and oil. This forms the pasta sauce, so use heaps of olive oil!!

4. Cook pasta ~15 minutes before serving (or 15 minutes after pumpkin has been put in oven if you are doing it all at once)

5. Dice bacon, zucchini and onion and fry.

6. When everything is ready and you are ready to serve, mix all the ingredients together quickly and serve! A recap, this will include:

- pasta

- roasted pumpkin and herbs

- feta mix

- fried bacon, zucchini and onion

- pine nuts

- lemon zest and juice to taste

Enjoy!!!

My Fortnight Menu

OK, proof that i DO do a menu a fortnight in advance:

Tonight: Steak Sandwiches

Mon 7/11: Carbonara

Tues 8/11: Apricot Chicken

Wed 9/11: Spaghetti Bolognaise

Thur 10/11: Chicken Snitzel & veg

Fri 11/11: Tacos

Sat 12/11: BBQ ribs with corn on the cob and potato bake

Sun 13/11: Satay Chicken

Mon 14/11: Imperial Beef & Fried Rice

Tue 15/11: Sugar spiced pork cutlets & corn fritas

Wed 16/11: Lamb patties with beetroot & tzatziki (new recipe for us!)

Thur 17/11: Chicken wings & veg

Fri 18/11: Slow roasted lamb with roast veg (another new recipe!!)

Sat 19/11: Rice noodle salad (look out world - 3 new recipes in 1 week!!)

Sun 20/11: Chicken enchilladas

Now, i can make everything up to Friday with what i've got already, so i'm going to get the groceries delivered Friday morning and we get our fresh fruit & veg every saturday morning at the markets. It cost us about $15 for fruit and veg for the week yesterday and i think the only thing i missed was carrots, which is only about $1 from the shops - and i don't have to get any of them until Tuesday :D I'll keep you posted on how much my Friday shop is for the rest of the fortnight!

I'll probably try and stretch this shop out to the following Tuesday as well, when i'll do another grocery delivery (i like to do them Tuesday and Friday because my son is in daycare and i find it easier without him around!!). I know i've got at least one meal already made in the freezer, and we might have pizza one night, so that should do us!!!

The best crumble recipe EVER!!!

Well, i think it is anyway! This is a recipe from my mum and it is the yummies crumble mix you will ever taste!! I usually use Apple as the base, but you really can use any fruit you want. Apricot, peach - even strawberries work well!! I will often mix in a little of whatever fruit i have that's about to turn with my apple. Anyway, here's the crumble recipe:

Ingredients

Flour: 3/4, 1 1/8, 1 1/2 cups

Brown Sugar: 1/2, 3/4, 1 cups

Softened Butter: 90, 135, 180 grams

Milk Powder: 3 , 4 1/2, 6 tablespoons

[i've included 3 different amounts for each - depends on how much fruit and how big your baking dish is. It's kinda a small/medium/large serving guide]

Method

1. Put fruit in baking dish and spread evenly.

2. Mix flour, brown sugar and milk powder. Rub in butter until crumbly.

3. Pour mix over fruit and bake in moderate oven for 30 minutes.

Easiest, yummiest dessert you'll ever make!! Goes great with cream, custard and/or ice-cream!!