Deluxe Hot Dogs

Hot dogs are without a doubt one of my favourite foods. I know, I know, mystery meat, preservatives, calories, carbs but do you know what? I just don't care. I love them!

My dad is also a hot dog lover, and while I don't think he shares my level of devotion, I know he enjoys a good hot dog, particularly with all the trimmings. So I figured for a treat this Father's Day I would up my hot dog game and cook up some deluxe hot dogs, combining some of the best foods (in my opinion) with hot dogs, cheese, bacon, onion and of course tomato sauce.

While they may not look like stunners, these fancy suckers are super delicious, super decedent, super impressive, and I'll let you in on a little secret, super easy!

This weeks hints & tips:
* I cooked my hot dogs in the oven but you could just as easily cook them on the bbq or in a fry pan.
* You can add any of your favourite hot dog toppings to these deluxe dogs. I add onion, avocado and spicy red tomato sauce. My Dad added onion, mustard and spicy red tomato sauce to his. It's all up to you!
* Make sure you get the skinless hot dogs (known as American style or Footy franks), they are generally available pre-packaged in the fridge aisle of the supermarket.
* If you are an extreme bacon lover, you could finely dice the left over bacon and fry it off to add as a garnish to your deluxe dogs.

Deluxe Hot Dogs

Serves: 6
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients
Hot dogs
6 skinless hot dogs
6 bacon rashers
Cheese Sauce
25g butter
1 tablespoon plain flour
1.5 cups milk
2 cups grated cheese
25g grated parmesan cheese

6 bread rolls
any extras you choose

Method
Preheat oven to 190°C.
Trim the bacon rashers, removing the short cut and the rind so you are left with just the tail.
Wrap the tail around the hot dogs, securing with a tooth pick at either end.
Place hot dogs in the oven for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, melt butter in a medium saucepan.
Once the butter has melted, stir in the flour and cook off for a couple of minutes.
Slowly add milk, whisking constantly.
Bring your sauce mixture to a simmer, stirring regularly.
Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring regularly, until it has thickened.
Stir in all the cheese until melted and season to taste.
Let sauce cool slightly, stirring regularly.
Once the hot dogs have finished, go crazy! Place your hot dog in a bun and top with cheese sauce and all your favourite toppings!

Bombay Beef, Lemon Saffron Rice and Homemade Naan

Hello again fellow food lovers! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. I spent just over a week away, first at a Hot Rod run in Narrandera, catching up with family and old friends and then some time visiting my Nan. I love the Easter long weekend. Every year we travel down to attend the hot rod run, that I have been attending since I was 6 weeks old. I get to see friends that I often don't see at any other time of the year. And it is a great weekend, with great food, music, company and fun stuff to do, with the extra bonus of cool cars and awesome style. After the weekend I often hang around to spend some time with family because the town I grew up in is only 20 minutes away.

How I spent most of my long weekend. Relaxing with a view like this.

I haven't lived in Leeton for almost 15 years now, but I still have family there. While I love where I live and I have no desire to move back there, I love visiting once a year, returning to familiar places and seeing how the town has changed. I mean when I lived there we had just gotten Woolworths and that was a big deal. Now there is a McDonalds, Red Rooster, ONE set of traffic lights and other things I never dreamed of. But the heart of the town is the same, as shown by the out pouring of love, support and grief shown by the whole community following the tragic events surrounding the disappearance and murder of Stephanie Scott. Leeton is the kind of town where even if you don't personally know someone, you know someone who does or who has been affected by an event. My heart is breaking for a family and community in mourning. And I will admit that (as anyone who knows me can attest) this all hit a little too close to home and shook up a few of my own thoughts and actions.

Some of the hot rods in my family.

The other thing I love about returning to the Riverina? The food! There is no point beating around the bush, while Port Macquarie does somethings well and has a great hospitality industry, there is some food they just do better in the Riverina. I was enjoying the food so much (and posting so many facebook updates about it) that a friend had to ask if I was on a 'food-cation'. And if I'm honest that was pretty much what it was. I had a list of foods I wanted to eat and managed to tick them all off. Everything from Chinese, battered savs, pizza, to my version of bottled heaven, Portello and my favourite sweet treat, Junee White Gold (soft liquorice covered in white chocolate). The food was everything I remembered it to be, but I'm sure I put on several kilos! Haha

See what I mean about awesome style? This is one of my all
favourite dresses by Pigtails and Pirates.
Seriously check them out!

One cuisine we do have here at home that I have just fallen in love with is Indian. I have always steered clear of Indian as I am in no way a fan of hot, spicy food. In fact I am quite a sook. I can't stand it and I'm not a big fan of the taste of chilli, something that the rest of my family just can't understand. So while I am careful to order only mild dishes, I still often find them quite hot. I am growing to love the cuisine though so last weekend I decided I should try my hand at my favourite dish, and control the spice level myself. So like always I read quite a few recipes and adapted them to suit my own tastes. I also attempted a red lentil dhal, which was a complete flop. So just ignore it in the pictures. I am going to keep searching for the perfect dhal recipe.

I can't even explain how much I loved this meal. I wasn't terribly confident about making the naan, but it was far easier than I anticipated and was just plain awesome. All three of these dishes will go into regular rotation I think. In fact I cannot wait to make them again! So without further ado here are my recipes for Bombay beef, lemon saffron rice and homemade naan. Enjoy!

This week's tips/hints:
* I used imitation saffron powder as I had never cooked with it before and was too nervous about it to spend $14 on the real stuff.
* I found these great frozen cubes of ginger in the freezer section. I hate grating ginger and always end up with left overs in the fridge that go to waste. These were great, I just popped out the right amount of cubes, added them straight to the pan and the rest are in the freezer until I need more.
* I didn't add any chilli due to my own personal preference, so basically add as much as you want!
* Same with the garlic. I only added half a teaspoon as it upsets my mother's stomach. You might like to add a bit more.
* I cook most things in coconut oil these days but you can obviously fry in what ever you like.
*Finally I will apologise for the picture quality this week. I was far to excited to eat my feast and far to lazy and tired to stage proper photos. So sorry for the bad iphone pictures!

Bombay Beef, Lemon Saffron Rice and Homemade Naan

Bombay Beef

Ingredients
500g stewing steak/gravy beef
2 onions, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 small eggplant, chopped
1 large potato, chopped
2 teaspoons fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon fresh garlic
1 teaspoon tumeric
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander
1 tablespoon tomato paste
400g chopped tinned tomatoes
200ml beef stock
240ml coconut milk

Method
Gently fry onions, carrots, potato and eggplant until it starts to soften.
Add the ginger, garlic, spices, tomato paste and beef. Mix to coat thoroughly.
Add tinned tomato and beef stock. Bring to the boil.
Reduce heat and add coconut milk.
Cover and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, until beef is tender and potatoes are soft.

Lemon Saffron Rice

Ingredients
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 1/4 cups basmati rice
4 cups chicken stock
1 whole lemon, zest and juice
1 teaspoon saffron powder
3 cardamom pods, gently crushed

Method
Place butter and oil in a large saucepan. Melt butter over a medium-high heat.
Once it is shimmery hot, add rice and stir to coat.
Cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add saffron, cardamom pods, stock, lemon zest and juice.
Bring to the boil.
Cover and reduce heat.
Simmer until the rice has absorbed all the liquid (about 10-15 minutes).

Homemade Naan

Ingredients
4 cups plain flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup hot water
3/4 teaspoon dry yeast
3/4 cup warm milk
1 cup greek yoghurt
melted butter, for brushing
herbs for topping, option (I just topped mine with salt and pepper)

Method
In a medium sized bowl or jug dissolve sugar in warm water.
Add dry yeast and stir until dissolved.
Let sit for about 10 minutes, until mixture begins to froth and rise.
Add remaining dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl, form a well in the centre
When yeast is frothy, add warm milk and yoghurt.
Pour wet ingredients into the centre of dry ingredients.
Mix ingredients together with a wooden spoon or spatula. When dough starts to come together, use you hands to finish mixing, stop as soon as it comes together and forms a ball. It should be sticky.
Cover bowl with a damp tea towel and let sit in a warm place for 1 hour.
Divide dough into 8 equal balls. Using a rolling pin, roll each piece of dough into an oval shape about 1/4 inch (1/2 cm) thick.
Heat pan over medium-high heat until quite hot.
Brush both sides of naan with melted butter and sprinkle with your desired herbs or spices.
Place in hot pan cook for 1-2 minutes, until you see bubbles start to form. Flip and cook for a further 1-2 minutes, until large toasted spots appear on the underside.
Place naan in a tea towel lined dish.
Repeat with the rest of naan.

Spiral Vegetable Tart and Fruity Port Steaks

Well this week was the first week of the challenge. All week I had friends and family asking me when I was cooking, what I was cooking, when was I going to post about it. Being the first week I wanted to take my time and choose a recipe that I really, really, really wanted. I landed upon a recipe I had seen several months ago on Facebook for a spiral vegetable tart. I watched the video several times when I first came across it and have been dying to try is ever since. So I started trawling back through my posts trying to find the video I had shared. But unsurprisingly, if you know Facebook, it seemed to have been eaten and was never to be seen again. Luckily a quick Google search led me to the Food Republic website. I mean really it just looks amazing!

Now that I had decided on the tart, I had to choose a meat to accompany it. I decided to use meat that we had already purchased, so I set out to find a pork steak recipe to complement the rest of the meal. I settled on this fruity pork steak recipe from the BBC Good Food website. It sounded simple, but delicious.

I first ran into problems when I was shopping for ingredients for the tart. This was mainly my fault for trying to cook an Autumn or Winter dish on Summer! But I pushed ahead. I wasn't able to find the appropriate squash or carrots, instead I used regular carrots and added sweet potato in place of the squash.

I decided to speed up the process by using a mandolin slicer to slice the veges instead of a peeler. I have to say that this made the job of slicing all those veggies way less daunting.

I was worried about the coordination I would need to wrap the veggies into a neat spiral. But I found it far easier than I anticipated and was very happy with the results. Doesn't it look gorgeous! And it hadn't even been cooked yet!

Once the tart was in the oven (and yes I will admit that I checked every 5 minutes until it was ready!), it was time to start on the pork steaks. I liked the minimal amount of prep this recipe required. I took the time to slice the onion and apple before starting, so that once I started cooking everything moved smoothly.

From the moment the steak hit the pan the house smelt amazing. The smell of the Chinese five spice and pork was just mouth watering. I appreciated that it was a simple matter of adding each new ingredient at the right time. When it came to the glaze I had been unable to find red currant jelly, so I substituted raspberry jam. I think I was actually drooling from the smells by now.

Now all that was left was to pull the tart out of the oven and see how well it had cooked. It was stunning! My only criticism is how difficult the tart was to cut. I was worried that I was going to ruin the aesthetics when I was serving it. It was also very difficult to cut when eating. I do wonder if cooked for slightly longer, in a slightly cooler oven would have made the vegetables softer and easier to cut without over cooking the pastry. Or possibly blanching the vegetables before putting the tart together. The flavour however was divine! It was a huge hit and I will definitely be cooking it again.   

The pork was also a huge hit. The glaze was a bit runny, more like a sauce but the flavour was delicious! There were many 'Mmmmmmm's issuing from the family when they tasted it, and the plates were all scraped clean, as was the saucepan.

Overall I would call this week's feast a success! Both recipes will be added into my regular rotation and I would highly recommend them. 

In case you missed the links before you can find the vegetable tart recipe HERE, and the fruity pork steak recipe HERE.

Well that's it for this week, a GIANT thank you to everyone who has stopped by and please leave a comment. See you again next week!