Sacred Chef Introduces Real Food Guide
Even though I have been studying astrology for over twenty years, when I look up at the night sky the clearest constellation to me is the “frypan, ” which tells me that cooking is pretty important in my life. It is my connection with the earth. When I am sharpening my knives on a stone & hefting my stainless steel frypan I feel that connection with an essential human activity that has been going on for millennia. There is in my experience nothing as grounding as cooking, an endeavour that places you firmly in the moment, & if you slip into day dreaming a sharp cut or burn brings you back smartly.
In this Real Food Guide, my fourth annual collection of recipes for WellBeing readers, I hope to pass on a few more yummy dishes that suit the winter months & perhaps inspire you to make a culinary difference in your life & in the lives of those around you. Feeding your tribe, family or loved one is an important pastime & the more you put into it, the better the outcome for all concerned. If life is moving too fast in your neck of the woods & there are not enough hours in the day to fulfil requirements & you find yourself skipping meals, eating takeway most days, & looking for quick & easy recipes then STOP IN THE NAME OF LOVE! Reprioritise & put the shared meal back up at the top of your list. Bowel cancer is now one of the biggest killers in Australia & New Zealand & what we eat, how we eat it & when we eat it, all contribute to the state of our gastrointestinal health. Take the time to slow down when eating & preparing food, as our bodies are not speeding up for technology’s deadlines, no matter how much money is involved.
The slow food movement is more than just some arcane gourmet trip, it is as much about good health as it is about great flavours. So make something with your hands, touch the earth, feel the coarse skin of your wooden spoon as it stirs the sizzling victuals in your frypan & smell the delicious aromas of cooking food. Get out of your head for a moment (without the aid of psychotropic drugs) & get into your senses inside your kitchen. Good food can be a true work of art, what other art form do you take inside your body?
Bon appetite!
©Sacred Chef
Hazelnut & Banana Cake
Hazelnut & Banana Cake
1 cup plain flour
1 cup SR flour
1 cup LSA mix
1 cup hazelnut meal
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 tspn lemon zest
1 tspn baking powder
1 tspn mixed spice
4 eggs
150g unsalted butter
1 cup castor sugar
2 bananas mashed
1 cup soy milk
1 tbspn canola oil
Preheat oven to 180 degrees
Grease & line a loaf tin. In a large bowl sift flours & rub or blend in butter, then add all dry ingredients to this mix. In a separate bowl beat eggs, sugar, soy milk & banana. Fold mixtures together with all remaining ingredients & pour into cake tin & bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
©Sacred Chef. Cooking School Sunshine Coast
Steamed Sweet Polenta Fingers with Coconut, Almonds & Mixed Fruit.
Steamed Sweet Polenta Fingers with Coconut, Almonds & Mixed Fruit.
2 cups fine polenta
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup LSA
2 tbspn honey
1 cup roasted almond slivers
1 cup mixed dried fruit
3 cups purefied water
Mix your polenta with the water & cook slowly in a heavy based saucepan – I usually do a mix of 1 cup cold water to 2 cups boiling water. Cook for 10 minutes. Then stir in all the other ingredients. Cook on a low heat for another 5 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a greased dish & refrigerate for an hour. When solid cut into fingers & steam. Serve with whipped cinnamon & honey yoghurt.
Serves 4.
©Sacred Chef. Cooking School Sunshine Coast
Warm Salad of Baby Beetroot, Sesame and Goats Cheese
Warm Salad of Baby Beetroot, Sesame & Goats Cheese
1 bunch whole baby beetroots boiled in their skins
220g goats cheese sliced
150g mixed lettuce leaves
1 cup baby spinach leaves
½ cup purple basil leaves
1 tspn sesame oil
1 tspn avocado oil
1 cup cooked green beans
1 tspn balsamic vinegar
1 tspn sea salt
black pepper to taste
lemon juice
In a large bowl arrange all your greens & herbs. Toss through vinegar, lemon juice, sesame oil, avocado oil, salt & pepper. Remove beets & peel whilst still hot using rubber gloves & cut in half. Arrange greens on plates & lastly add beets & goats cheese slices.
Serves 4.
©Sacred Chef. Cooking School Sunshine Coast
Sardine and Fetta Cheese Pastries
Sardine & Fetta Pastries
Pastries
1 packet filo pastry
2 cups crumbled fetta
250g tinned sardines in spring water
1 cup spanish onion diced
1 tbspn garlic minced
2 tbspn capers
1 tbspn fresh dill
1 tbspn fresh parsley
2 tbspn butter melted
½ cup kalamatta olives sliced & pitted
½ cup ground parmesan
1 tbspn olive oil
1 tspn sea salt
black pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
In a saucepan over a medium heat, add in oil, garlic, Spanish onion, capers, salt and pepper and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat & transfer to a large bowl, mix in sardines, fetta, parmesan, fresh herbs & olives. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in fridge before wrapping in filo.
Lay out 2 sheets of filo & brush with with melted butter, spoon a desired size of filling & fold into desired shape & brush outside again with melted butter. Repeat until you have enough pastries & then place on tray & bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Serve with a tomato chutney or tangy salad.
Serves 4
©Sacred Chef. Cooking School Sunshine Coast
Thin Crusted Pizza with Goat’s Cheese and Chorizo
Thin Crusted Pizza with Goats Cheese, Chorizo & Mediterranean Vegetables.
Pizza Base
Sour Dough Starter or Bakers Yeats
3 cups best bakers flour or wholemeal flour
1½ cups warm purified water
1 tspn sugar
1 tspn sea salt
Topping
1 punnet cherry tomatoes sliced in half & dry roasted
1 cup drained & pressedcrushed tomatoes
1 red capsicum sliced into strips & grilled
1 chorizo sausage grilled & sliced
1 lime
6 slices butternut pumpkin grilled
6 slices eggplant grilled
3 cloves garlic finely sliced
220g fresh goats cheese
1 tbsp fresh rosemary chopped
1 tsp minced preserved lemon
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 cup ground parmesan
1 cup buffalo mozzarella grated
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
sea salt & black pepper to taste
Pre-heat oven to 220C
In a large bowl stir yeast into warm water & sugar, or conversely add sour dough starter to flour & water. If using bakers yeast place bowl in warm place & stir yeast mix until it foams up, ensuring a powerful rise. Then add in sifted flour & salt, working into a dough & kneading until smooth & stretchy. Place in a covered bowl & allow to double in a warm place.
“double, double, toil and trouble,” as Macbeth’s witches warned us. The alchemy of food is with us if we take the time to be part of it & forget the fast food shortcuts.
Whilst our dough is rising use your griller to pre-cook our chorizo & then slice into fine rings & drizzle with fresh lime before scattering over our pizza. Likewise grill eggplant, pumpkin & capsicum with a little oil to get a smoky blackened edge effect.
Roll out a ball of dough to a very thin consistency to cover your pizza tray. Gently spread crushed tomato base over & arrange vegies, chorizo, cheeses, herbs, and pepper.
Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until crispy edged & slice & serve.
Serve with a salad of rocket leaves & balsamic.
Serves 4.
©Sacred Chef. Cooking School Sunshine Coast
Carrot and Roast Almond Soup
Carrot & Roast Almond Soup
6 carrots chopped into chunks
2 brown onions chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 tbspn roasted almonds chopped
1 cinnamon quill
1 tbsp grated ginger
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1cup purified water
1 can coconut milk
1 cup chopped fresh coriander
½ tsp ground nutmeg
1tsp sea salt
½ tsp ground cummin
1 tsp black pepper
½ cup finely chopped spring onion
In a heavy based large saucepan place your carrots, onions, stock, water, spices, garlic & ginger & cook over a moderate heat for 20 minutes. Blend your carrot mix when cooked & then return to the pan where you can stir in your coconut milk, almonds & coriander. Finish with spring onions & ladle into bowls. Fresh black pepper to finish.
Serves 4.
©Sacred Chef. Cooking School Sunshine Coast
Spicy Beans with Cous Cous
Spicy Beans with Cous Cous
A simple yet very satisfying dish, which is packed with good nutrition, as legumes are a wonderful food to eat several times a week. For absolute best flavour results make the spicy beans the night before & let them stew gently in the fridge overnight & serve with cous cous the next evening.
1 cup cooked kidney beans
1 cup cooked borlotti beans
1 cup cooked pinto beans
2 brown onions sliced
1 tbspn olive oil
2 red chillies
1 tbspn sweet paprika
1 tbspn ground cumin
1 tbspn ground coriander
1 tsp fresh rosemary or a stalk
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 tsp sea salt
1 tbspn white vinegar
½ cup red wine
1 tbspn raw sugar
1 cup chopped fresh coriander
2 cups cous cous
1 tspn dried vegetable stock
In a heavy based saucepan sauté oil, onion, sugar, vinegar, spices & rosemary for 5 minutes before stirring in wine & tomatoes. Simmer for another 10 minutes before adding in your beans & cooking for another 40 minutes over a low heat. Add in fresh coriander just before serving.
Pour boiling water to cover your cous cous & dried stock & leave for 5 minutes.
Fork through to fluff cous cous before serving over heat if need be.
Serve spicy beans atop cous cous.
Serves 4.
©Sacred Chef. Vegetarian Cooking Class Series
Smoked Tofu and Tomato Lasagna
Smoked Tofu & Slow Roasted Tomato Lasagna with Ricotta Pesto.
250g lasagna sheets
6 vine ripened tomatoes
1 block smoked tofu crumbled
2 cups soft ricotta
2 tbspn basil pesto
1 tbspn chopped garlic
1 tspn chopped rosemary
2 tbspn fresh basil chopped
1 tbspn olive oil
1 tspn chopped oregano
½ cup parmesan
½ cup white wine
1 tspn sea salt
1 cup shallots
black pepper to taste
This is a slow food dish & I recommend that you devote at least half a day to the relaxed creation of this very tasty meal.
Set your oven to a very low heat 100 degrees.
On a baking sheet lay out your thinly chopped tomatoes, garlic, sea salt, rosemary & oregano & slowly oven dry for several hours. The smell that begins to emanate from these after sometime is heavenly & you begin to understand what this slow food thing is all about.
In a heavy based saucepan sauté your shallots, salt, tofu, oil & wine.
When your tomatoes are ready fold into the sauté mixture & set aside.
In a bowl fold together ricotta & pesto.
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees.
In a greased loaf tin or baking dish lay out a sheet of lasagna pasta, top with the smoky tofu & tomato mix, another layer of lasagna & then ricotta pesto. Repeat again & sprinkle over parmesan to finish. Cover with grease proof paper & alfoil. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until pasta sheets are cooked.
Remove & slice into serves.
Serves 4.
©Sacred Chef. Vegetarian Cooking Class Series
Poached Egg with Dukkuh
Poached Egg with Dukkuh on Spelt Bread with Garlic Mushrooms
4 slices of toasted spelt bread
4 FR eggs
2 cups sliced cap mushrooms
1 tbspn olive oil
1tbspn chopped garlic
1 tbspn chopped parsley
sea salt & black pepper to taste
In shallow saucepan pour in 3cm of purified water, pinch sea salt & place over medium heat to reach a steady boil & gently crack your eggs into rings or free form. In a separate saucepan sauté your oil, mushrooms, garlic, salt & pepper. On a plate place your toasted spelt bread & arrange with perfect poached egg & garlic mushrooms.. Sprinkle with wonderful Dukkuh & Salt & pepper to taste. Serves 4.
©Sacred Chef. Cooking School Sunshine Coast
Noni Chai Fruit Muffins
Noni & Chai Fruit Muffins
1 cup wholemeal plain flour
1 ½ cups wholemeal SR flour
1 cup psyllium husks
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup yoghurt
2 tbspn chai spiced tea syrup
1 cup dried mixed fruit
1 cup finely chopped almonds
1 tsp grated lemon peel
200g unsalted butter
4 whole 60g FR eggs
1 cup soy milk or alternative
1 cup raw sugar
½ cup blue berries
2 cups chopped banana
1 tspn cinnamon ground
1 tspn mixed spice
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease muffin trays & or line trays with muffin cases. Sift flours & dry ingredients in to a large mixing bowl. Either rub in softened butter by hand to this dry mix or whizz together in a food processor until you achieve a breadcrumb-like consistency. In a separate bowl whisk eggs, sugar, yoghurt, soy milk, lemon peel & chai, before folding in banana, blue berries & dried fruit. Slowly & gently fold this wet mixture into the dry ingredients. When well mixed spoon cake like mix into individual muffin rings. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool on wire rack & serve with butter. Serves 6-8.
©Sacred Chef. Vegetarian Cooking Classes in Maleny
Eco Living Health Aware Magazine
Beetroot Risotto
Roast Beetroot Risotto with Oyster Mushrooms
1½ cups Arborio rice
6 cups vegetable or meat stock
2 tbspn olive oil or butter
4 cloves garlic
1 tspn sea salt
1 cup pinot noir
2 beetroots finely sliced and roasted
1 punnet oster mushrooms
1 cup freshly ground parmesan
1 tbspn chopped parsley
black pepper to taste.
The magic of risotto always enthralls me, its metamorphosis from rice and water to creamy, rich food of the gods. What price this piece of divinity? The commitment to stay with it and stir for 20 minutes. The key is a really good stock, so I recommend making your own.
Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees for the beetroot & roast with some sea salt for 10 minutes or until cooked & set aside.
You will need one saucepan with your stock simmering gently with a ladle ready for the gradual inclusion into the rice.
In another heavy based saucepan add in your oil & or butter, garlic, salt & rice sautéing for a few minutes before adding in your wine. Cook wine off for a couple of minutes before adding your first ladle of delicious stock. Wait for that to be absorbed by the rice & continue to repeat the process for 15 minutes. At this point you can stir in your beetroot, parsley & parmesan & continue to cook for another few minutes. Gently fold in your oyster mushrooms just before serving & add black pepper to taste.
Serves 4.
©Sacred Chef. Vegetarian cooking classes in Maleny
frisson online magazine
Canned Tuna Fettucine
Fettuccine with Tuna, Tomato & Kalamatta Olives
This is a dish where you can use canned tuna & still get a really good eating result. It is great when the cupboard is bare & time is fleeting.
250g fettuccine
2 cups leeks sliced
1 can tuna in water or brine.
2 cans crushed tomatoes
1 tbspn garlic chopped
2 tbspn olive oil
1 tbspn fresh basil chopped
1 tbspn fresh parsley chopped
1 cup merlot
2 tspn sea salt
½ cup kalamatta olives pitted & chopped
1 fresh lime juiced
½ tspn fresh chillie
2 tbspn fresh parmesan (optional)
In a large enough saucepan boil your pasta with salt.
In a heavy based large frypan or saucepan sauté your oil, leeks, garlic, chillie & salt for a couple of minutes before adding your wine & tomatoes. Simmer for 5 to 10 minutes or until leeks are soft. When your pasta is al dente & draining fork a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil through it & a little black pepper. Add your basil & parsley to the sauce & black pepper. Serve pasta onto plates & cover with a ladle of sauce. Open & drain tuna before forking a portion onto the top of the sauce on each plate & drizzling with fresh lime juice. Arrange a spoonful of olives around the tuna & serve. Parmesan is optional.
Serves 4.
©Sacred Chef. Cooking school on the sunshine coast
Tofu and Mushroom Wellington
Tofu & Mushroom Baked Wellington with a Shiraz Red Wine Sauce
1 block tofu sliced & marinated in soy & ginger
2 brown onions finely sliced
3 cups sliced cap mushrooms
1 tbspn garlic chopped
1 tbspn olive oil
1 cup cream cheese
½ cup yoghurt
½ cup chopped roasted almonds
1 tbspn chopped fresh basil
1 tbspn chopped spring onions
1 tspn sea salt
1 cup shiraz
black pepper to taste
4 sheets puff pastry
Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
In the midst of cold winter a baked Wellington with creamy mushrooms & a red wine sauce can really warm your soul.
Pan fry your 8 slices of tofu gently on both sides in a little olive oil until golden & set aside on kitchen paper.
In a heavy based saucepan sauté onions, garlic, oil, salt & mushrooms for 5 minutes before adding in your Shiraz, yoghurt & cream cheese. Cook these in for another 5 minutes before finishing with basil, pepper, almonds & spring onions. Remove from heat & cool down in a bowl in the fridge.
Defrost your sheets of puff pastry & one at a time lay out a sheet & place a slice of tofu in the centre. Cover this with a liberal dollop of creamy mushrooms & one more slice of tofu. Fold up the pastry to form a parcel, your Wellington. Repeat the process until you have 4 & then bake for 20 minutes or until golden.
Shiraz Red Wine Sauce
2 cups shiraz
1 cup butter chilled chopped into small pieces
1 tbspn finely sliced garlic
1 cup finely sliced Spanish onion
1 tsp sea salt
black pepper to taste
In a heavy based saucepan sauté onion, garlic, salt & little butter for a couple of minutes before adding in the Shiraz. Turn the heat right up & begin adding the remaining butter pieces. As the wine reduces it will begin to thicken with the butter & intensify in flavour. Finish with pepper.
Pour sauce over baked Wellingtons & serve.
Serves 4.
©Sacred Chef. Vegetarian cooking classes in Maleny
Poached Salmon Fillet in Miso Soup
Poached Salmon in Miso Soup
with Udon Noodles.
I like to use a lighter coloured miso, like a rice & soy miso paste.
1 cup miso paste
1 tbspn mirin
1 tbspn minced garlic
1 tbspn finely sliced ginger
1 tbspn bonito flakes
1 cup shitake mushrooms sliced
1 cup button mushrooms sliced
1 tbspn umeboshi vinegar
1 tspn sesame oil
1 tbspn soy sauce
1 fillet salmon chopped into chunks
1 cup shimenji mushrooms sliced
2 tbspn chopped spring onions
250g udon noodles
1 tspn sea salt
6 cups purified water
black pepper to taste
In a large heavy based saucepan begin with your water & heat over a medium flame. Add in your garlic, ginger, bonito flakes, salt & mushrooms & cook for 5 minutes. Mix your miso paste with a little of the stock that you have been creating in the large saucepan in a separate bowl until you have a creamy consistency. When the stock is at a steady simmer add in your noodles & salmon, about 4 minutes before serving. Then stir in your miso & season with mirin, soy & umeboshi vinegar. When the salmon is perfect begin serving into bowls & top with black pepper, tiny drizzle of sesame oil & black pepper.
Serves 4.
©Sacred Chef cooking school sunshine coast
Eco Living Health Aware Magazine
Maleny Reserve Cellar Restaurant
In a big pink house, with lights winking out over the range, is a restaurant of rare brilliance. Rare for a regional area and all too rare here on the Blackall Range, on the Sunshine Coast hinterland in Maleny, Queensland. The Reserve Restaurant Cellar delivers quality like a leading light of a big city restaurant scene. This is the best restaurant on the range and deserves all the accolades it receives.
It isn’t easy to run a restaurant under any circumstances, good or bad, but to do it exceedingly well away from the crowds and the support of your peers is doubly tough. The Maleny Reserve Cellar Restaurant may have an old fashioned name but the menu and what you get on the plate are cutting edge in regional Australia.
Double baked Moreton Bay bug soufflé is an entree to die for, so many textures and such a creamy rich yet delicate flavour mix. This is what really good cooking can be and it is exciting to sit at table and be part of. Very rarely do I walk into a restaurant, scan the menu and realise that I would be happy ordering nine out of the ten entrees and the mains. Actually I usually struggle to find a single green light on most of the menus up this way. The Tasmanian Atlantic salmon cerviche was delicious, the produce extremely fresh and the dish perfectly prepared.
The Reserve Cellar part of the name is where the wine action kicks in, these chaps pride themselves on having a great cellar of wines that fly in under the radar. Stephen, sommelier and partner in the business, challenges you to taste another wine when ordering your selection, this stimulating menage à trois gets your taste buds primed and gives you a rare opportunity to taste something different by the glass.
It is little things like this, in concert with outstanding attention to detail in the kitchen, that deliver big city standard food in a relaxed beautiful setting and set Maleny Reserve apart. Is it expensive? For all the crapola meals I have endured in this neck of the woods I would say you will be surprised by the value when you get up to pay. This place delivers and they do it with aplomb.
Inside the restaurant it is light and airy; and the ambience is one of accessible luxury, no uptight unnecessary ritual just professional ease. When people in the business know what they are doing, you can sit back and really enjoy the experience. Asian style pork belly as a main dish was sublime and the cheese to follow was creamy and divine. Presentation was perfect and the dishes were outstanding.
I waited too long to enjoy the Maleny Reserve, perhaps we both held back a bit, a little too reserved, but I won’t be waiting that long again.
Now open seven days.
©Sacred Chef cooking school on the sunshine coast
Eco Living Magazine
Heading: Eco Living Magazine
Subheading: Australia’s best quality eco living health aware publication.
Eco Living Magazine is the latest and greatest holistic health and eco magazine to hit the shelves of newsagencies around Australia. Beautifully presented and containing inspiring information, Eco Living Magazine, is great reading for the twenty first century.
If you are interested in healing, natural health, green issues and consciousness then Eco Living Magazine is for you. With articles on NLP, Theta Healing, sustainable building, green cleaning, tantric sex, retreats and spas – there is a wealth of positive information. Anthony Ackroyd commedienne extraordinaire shares the secrets of the funny bone; Bernie Prior writes about love as a pathway to enlightenment; and Dixon Hammer points the way to making relationships work. Eco Living Magazine is the freshest new voice in the media.
As an editorial contributor, the Sacred Chef is excited to be involved with a magazine that sparkles with elan and good living – Eco Living Health Aware. Grab a copy at the newsagency and check out a great magazine.
Foodmatters DVD Documentary Review
Heading: Foodmatters DVD Review
Subheading: You are what you eat.
“Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food”
Hippocrates.
If you only watch one doco this year make sure it is Foodmatters. This excellent DVD captures your attention from the outset and does not let go until the credits come up. It shares information, which goes to the heart of our corrupt capatalist industrial state and lets you know whose vested interests are being served by the current state of western health.
Foodmatters gathers together some of the most credible natural health and environmental experts, and allows them to say what they really believe. Andrew W Sau,l is most impressive in his dissection of the oligopoly of power, which the pharamaceutical corporations hold over the health industry – medical associations and government departments. Illustrating how the system is set up to create disease, through the production of unhealthy processed foods, and then the doctors come with their scalpels and pills, with little thought or money put into prevention.
Charlotte Gerson talks about the levels of pollution poisoning our communities and the food chain. Australian Professor Ian Brighthope (hopeful by name and by nature?) points out the importance of reversing the current situation before its too late. Nutrition is coming out of the closet in the twenty first century and these crusaders are going to make sure that we know about it. Raw food and intact enzymes- and just how important they are to our bodies. Organic food with all the phytonutrients in place, and conversely, how depleted supermarket food is nutritionally.
One of the most salient points, is that a majority of parents are investing more time and money in bricks and mortar – the security of owning their own home – than they are in feeding their children the most nutritionally rich food available. What sense is there in creating the outer walls of wealth and abundance, if you have neglected their health at the most vital time of their life. These children will grow up with immune systems vulnerable to chronic illness for the rest of their lives.
Foodmatters – You are what you eat - is a well made documentary and was produced by nutritionists, turned film makers, James Colquhuon and Laurentine Ten Bosch. This is the film that may begin the food revolution, with people taking responsibility for what they put in their mouth and demanding governments stop the pharmaceutical companies rorting the health system. With the current economic situation, now is the perfect opportunity to dig up your lawn and get some organic soil to plant your own veggies. Grow your own vitamin source in the backyard or on your balcony – lettuce grows from seed in 3 weeks. Compost your waste and let the cycle of life recycle – go those worms.
Every time you eat cheap fast food, you might think that you are saving money, but in the longer term it costs you more, as your health declines and your quality of life with it. Learn to cook if you cannot, and spend time and money sourcing the freshest ingredients possible. Making good food for you and your family, is the greatest gift that you can bestow upon them. Its a sacred act.
Foodmatters the DVD – five star rating.
Sacred Chef Cooking School Sunshine Coast
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