Lamb with haloumi and chickpea salad

This midweek dinner installment was completely designed around using lamb cutlets. More specifically, the butcher in our local village has the best lamb cutlets I have ever had and every time we eat them, Mr Shady Pine and I are planning the next time when we can devour them again.

Our butcher is a lovely country butcher who gets in some of the best quality meat I've yet to see. The best thing is that he is no more expensive than the big supermarkets but the quality of the meat is streets ahead of anything you will see in the supermarket.


Every week when we go to get our meat supply, we are greeted warmly and asked about how we found the meat the previous week. This butcher shop is tiny, the range is not huge but we wouldn't buy meat anywhere else. There is even a shelf stocked with locally made goodies like marinades, chutneys and sauces.

I really like the recommendations I will get here if I am cooking for a dinner party too. For example how long to cook a roast to get it to medium or different flavour variations to try. I hope shops like this can continue to thrive in the future. That is why I am a big supporter of our small local retailers and producers.

Anyway, back to the lamb. When deciding what to pair with these little cutlets, I couldn't go past grilled haloumi cheese and chickpeas. This dish is completely full of flavour yet it still meets the midweek criteria of being ready in a flash.

Where do you buy your meat or other produce? Do you try to support smaller retailers and producers or do you rely on supermarkets for your core food supplies?

Lamb cutlets with grilled haloumi and chickpea salad
Serves 2

Ingredients:
4-6 lamb cutlets (depending on their size and your appetite)
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp cumin
50gm haloumi, sliced
Olive oil spray
S&P

Chickpea salad:
140g canned chickpeas, rinsed
½ red capsicum, diced
1 small carrot, diced
½ avocado, diced
Juice of half lemon
1 Tbs olive oil
¼ cup coriander, chopped
S&P to taste

1. Combine all the chickpea salad ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Set the salad aside.
2. Spray the lamb cutlets with olive oil. Sprinkle the paprika, cumin and S&P on each side. Cook the lamb on in a hot pan to your liking (I like mine around medium). Remove the lamb from the pan and allow to rest for a few minutes.
3. In a non stick pan, fry the haloumi on each side until golden brown.
4. To serve, place some chickpea salad on the centre of a plate. Arrange haloumi and lamb cutlets on top. Serve with a wedge of lemon if desired.

Individual orange almond syrup cakes

In yesterday's post I wrote that Mr Shady Pine and I were to celebrate Australia Day with our lovely friends Peter and Maria and a barbecue lunch at their place.

I mentioned that I made a batch of these orange almond syrup cakes without dairy for my lactose intolerant friend. Having recently baked with macadamia oil, I decided to use this again in place of butter. I'd never made these before yesterday, so once they were out of the oven, Mr Shady Pine and I had to test one out just in case they weren't up to scratch....luckily they were delicious.


The texture of these cakes is quite dense but moist at the same. And the addition of the orange syrup makes these little cakes sing! You can read the recipe below.

Before arriving at Peter and Maria's place, Peter and I had an email conversation that went a little something like this:

Me: 'You know Peter that all the food these days gets photogrphed for the blog. Are you ok if I take photos?'

Peter: 'Yes that's fine'

Me: 'Do you want me to use real names or aliases?'

Peter: 'Simple equation. If food is good=real names. If food is bad=aliases.'

Peter and Maria are their real names.

Being foodies themselves, Peter and Maria laid on a wonderful spread so while the meat was cooked on a barbecue, the rest of the meal was way more upmarket than an everyday backyard barbecue.


We started with some prepared nibblies which were really moorish. Baked walnut filled prunes wrapped in bacon, spiced olives, and smoked salmon and dill. While I went back for more of each of these, my favourite were the bacon wrpped prunes with the walnut filling resulting in a crunchy, sweet and salty appetiser.


Next came the main meal of marinated lamb and chicken kebabs, rosemary potatoes and big colourful salad. The chicken kebabs were Peter's creation; moroccan marinade while the lamb kebabs were inspired by Maria. These were marinated in the most intriguing marinade I had ever heard of and the recipe comes from her Russian father. This marinade consisted of mayonnaise and mineral water! The result was really delicious lamb with no hint of mayonnaise which had tenderised the meat.


To finish, Peter took out of the oven his famous chocolate puddings drizzled with rasberry sauce. These are not as sickly sweet as a fondant which is a very good thing after a full meal. They are light in texture but still choclatey and rich enough to be perfect with a coffee.

By the end of the day we were thoroughly full and satisfied from this wonderful shared feast our friends had put on....ahhh bliss!

Individual orange syrup almond cakes
Makes 12

Ingredients:
½ cup macadamia oil
¾ cup raw caster sugar
2 eggs
1 ¼ cups self raising flour
1 cup almond meal
Zest from 1 orange

Orange Syrup
Zest & juice from 1 orange
½ cup raw caster sugar

1. Preheat oven to 180 C. Prepare a 12 hole muffin tin.
2. In a mixing bowl, add sugar and macadamia oil and beat with a wooden spoon until sugar starts to dissolve. Add one egg at a time and beat until creamy and the sugar is fully dissolved.
3. Mix in the flour, almond meal and orange zest.
4. Distribute the cake mixture in the muffin tin.
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes, testing if ready with a wooden skewer. When cooked take out of the oven and leave the cakes in the pan ready for the syrup topping.
6. For the syrup, add the orange juice, zest and sugar to a small saucepan over low heat. Allow the sugar to dissolve and bring the syrup to a simmer. Simmer and do not stir the mixture for about 5 minutes until the syrup has thickened slightly.
7. Using a wooden skewer, pierce through a few holes in each cake.
8. Pour over each cake in the muffin tin the hot orange syrup.
9. Leave for 10 minutes for the syrup to be absorbed before removing the cakes from the tin and letting cool on a cake rack.