Mexican turkey meatball soup

I often make a large batch of soup on the weekends, so that I have a tasty healthy lunch every day at work.  This was a soup that I made last week and enjoyed for 4 lunches.  Luckily I am quite happy to eat the same thing several days in a row, but it would freeze well if you had problems with that. Though warming and comforting as all soups are, it has the tastes of Mexico so invokes a little taste of summer at the end of winter.

Turkey meatballs

• 
  
• 1lb ground turkey
• 1 jalapeno pepper finely chopped
• 1 clove of garlic finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon of ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon of ground coriander
• salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients together

Form in to small meatballs, about the size of a large marble, and place on a lined cookie sheet.

Cook in a preheated 350 oven for about 15 to 20 minutes until cooked and turning golden.

Lime and blueberry pavlova

I am not a big dessert person and I rarely make one unless I am entertaining and sometimes not even then.  But I had some lime curd left over from making the coconut lime cake last week and it seemed a pity to see it go to waste.  Cooking for an appreciative audience is always a pleasure and I knew if I made a meringue based dessert I would have an appreciative audience in Nancy who loves meringues and pavlovas.

And so a dessert is born

4 egg whites
1 1/2 cups icing sugar

Lime or lemon curd, you could buy this if you did not want to make it.

1 small carton of whipping cream whipped

Preheat oven to 250. Place the egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until stiff peaks form. Gradually add the sugar, when it has all been added beat for 5 minutes until the mixture is thick and glossy. 

You could just dollop this on to a parchment paper covered cookie sheet, or, as I did pipe it into two equally sized oblongs. I had marked out shapes on the paper and then turned it over.

Coconut lime cake

There are some flavours that seem to just be perfect companions for each other, such as tomatoes and basil and lamb and mint, and in my opinion coconut and lime.  So when I saw this recipe for pina colada cake at bountifulkitchen.com I decided to swap out the pineapple filling for a lime curd.

Apart from the filling and the frosting I stuck exactly to the recipe after all it was a winner at the Ohio State Fair. Though I did not have any coconut extract, so had to leave it out, but actually it had a strong coconut flavour any way.


Cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups coconut milk
1 1/2 teaspoons coconut extract
5 egg whites (keep the yolks for the filling)

Mix flour, baking powder in a bowl and set aside. Place the butter in a mixing bowl and beat on medium speed with a mixer for 1 minute. Add sugar and beat for another minute. Add coconut milk and coconut extract to butter mixture. Gradually add flour mixture into the butter mixture and beat for 2 minutes.

In another bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Fold the egg whites into the batter and mix until all ingredients are incorporated.

Grease and line two 8-inch cake pans with parchment paper and divide batter evenly between them.

Barbecued chili lime chicken

It is no secret I love spit roast meat and chicken, and the spit roast on my barbecue gets a regular work out during the summer.  I was making dinner for a couple of friends and my family on Sunday evening, so I picked up a large roasting chicken from Hopcotts, and was searching for a new flavour rub to use.

I saw a chili lime chick pea recipe that I thought I would like to try out some time, and thought that chili lime is a wonderful combination and would go very well with chicken.  So I made a chili lime rub for my spit roast chicken.  You could of course just roast this in a regular oven if the weather was not conducive to barbecuing or you are not lucky enough to have a spit roast.

Chili lime rub

3 tablespoons of chili powder (I used combination of chipotle and regular chili powder)

1 teaspoon of salt

grated rind of two limes

Vietnamese Seared beef salad

To go along with the fried noodles with spicy peanut sate that we had on Saturday we wanted a fresh salad to complement the noodles, and we found the recipe in the same book.

I was also delicious and did have a wonderful fresh crunch. Again the recipe called for vegetable oil, but as always I substituted olive oil.

1lb of flank steak (or any steak really)
1 tablespoon of oil
1 cup of bean sprouts
1 small romaine lettuce
1 bunch each of mint basil and cilantro stalks removed
1 lime cut up to serve

Dressing
Grated rind and juice of 2 limes
2 tablespoons of fish sauce
2 tablespoons of raw cane (or brown) sugar
2 garlic cloves grated
2 lemon grass stalks finely sliced
2 red chillies seeded and finely sliced.

Combine all the dressing ingredients together.

Pan fry or barbecue the steak until it is wonderfully golden on the outside, but very rare inside. rest for 10 minutes, and then slice thinly

Sweet potato fries with spicy lime salt

I saw this idea somewhere in the last week and I am afraid I cannot remember where, so I am unable to credit the originator.  But when I found I was having someone over who is unable to eat potatoes, but can eat sweet potatoes I decided to try this out.  The idea of lime and hot pepper in with the salt on with the sweetness of the yams really appealed to me.

For these I used the yellow sweet potatoes instead of the orange ones, which one is called yam?  I am not really sure but it seems to be interchangeable.

I cut the potato in to sticks simulating french fries and tossed in a little olive oil, then laid them out on a parchment lined cookie sheet.