Indian rice pilaf with spicy mince
This is a great recipe, but the real star of this dish is the rice. It’s one of those versatile recipes that you can build so many simple meals around. You can’t really tell from the photo, but the flavour comes from a mixture of cumin seeds, caraway seeds, turmeric, garlic & onion. A great combination.
I’ve actually tagged this as a ‘kids’ recipe because it’s one of my boys’ favourite dinners – just the rice on it’s own with a few peas thrown in. I don’t blame them. It’s pretty great. In fact this would be up there as one of our top 5 family meals. It’s simple, it’s flavoursome and I know that as long as I have thawed mince on hand, I can have a great meal on the table in 20 mins.
If spicy mince isn’t your thing, try serving the rice with sliced tandoori chicken breast or a simple pumpkin and cauliflower curry. Yum!
Indian rice pilaf with spicy mince
Recipe source: The Australian Women’s Weekly
Cooking time: 20-30 minutes
Ingredients
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1 tsp. caraway seeds
1/8 tsp. ground turmeric
1 cup basmati rice
2 cups chicken stock
500g beef mince
1½ tsp. curry powder
1/3 cup sweet chilli sauce
¼ cup water
4 green onions, sliced thinly
2/3 cup frozen peas
Coriander leaves, roughly chopped, to garnish
Method
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a medium saucepan. Add onion, garlic, seeds and turmeric and cook until onion is soft. Add rice and stir over heat until rice is coated with oil. Add stock, bring to the boil, then reduce heat to very low. Cover & cook for 12 minutes.
While rice is cooking, heat remaining oil in a frying pan. Add mince and cook until browned. Add curry powder and cook for 1-2 minutes or until fragrant. Stir in sweet chilli sauce, water, green onions and peas. Cook, stirring occasionally until peas are soft and heated through.
During this time, keep an eye on the rice and once it has cooked for 12 minutes, remove from heat, keep lid on and stand for another 5 minutes or until rice is tender.
To serve, top pilaf with spiced mince and coriander leaves.
Tiny teddy racing cars
Drive it like you stole it!
These were my first introduction to the world of kids party food (thanks Caitlin) and I couldn’t believe that something so creative could be so simple. I especially love that the expressions on the Tiny Teddy’s faces seem to match their race car driving perfectly.
Like this one…
He must have gotten into a fender-bender on the track. Or maybe he’s still peeved about what happened earlier…
Sorry little buddy.
Tiny teddy racing cars
Ingredients
Fun size chocolates (Mars bars or Milky Ways)
Smarties
Musk Life Savers
Tiny Teddies
Small quantity of chocolate icing (or a chocolate icing pen)
Method
Lay out all of your ingredients. Cut your musk lollies in half & chop the legs off the Tiny Teddies (apologising to each one of course).
If you are using homemade icing you can make your own piping bag by putting it in a Ziplock bag and snipping the corner edge. Pipe a dollop of icing onto each Smartie.
Glue the Smarties onto the side of each chocolate bar. Put a little dollop of icing on the ends of the musk lollies and stick your steering wheels on the front of the cars. Lastly put a little icing on the cut ends of the Tiny Teddies and put the drivers behind the steering wheels. You might need to push the teddies down into the chocolate bar, but don’t push too hard or you’ll end up with smashed cars. Refrigerate to set the icing.
Greek salad bites
This isn’t so much a recipe but rather a brilliant little idea. In our house we call these ‘the man salad’ because they are the first thing my husband requests whenever we host a BBQ and every time they are served they are eaten by the dozen by the men and kids. In fact, you can see one of my little monkeys hovering in the background waiting to pounce…
Just one more minute Harrison!
Because they are such a novelty for the kids, they also make a quick and easy lunch during the week. My little monkeys love to be involved in the preparation too but the olives tend to go missing before they make it onto the toothpicks.
Greek salad bites
Recipe source: I spotted these in a magazine once but I don’t know which one or when
Ingredients
Cherry tomatoes, cut into halves or quarters
Pitted Kalamata olives, cut into halves
Continental cucumber, cut into circles then into quarters
Fetta, cut into cubes
Olive oil (optional)
Method
Assemble salad bites on toothpicks starting with tomato wedge, then olive, cucumber and finish with fetta. Drizzle lightly with olive oil just before serving if desired.
Tips
The cherry tomatoes I used were extra large, so I cut them into quarters. If your tomatoes are small, halves will look great too.
The fetta can crumble easily so I would suggest keeping the salad bites in the fridge until just before serving. Also, don’t push the toothpick all the way through the fetta because it will break the cheese. I’ve tried both hard & soft fetta and both of them become fragile when skewered so choose one that has great flavour.
