Blueberry Muffins

I recently went blueberry picking at a local farm and because it was rediculously cheap brought a lot of blueberries. This recipe makes 8-10 depending on size, these also freeze well. If you would like to make it into blueberriy and chocolate muffins just add 1/4 cup chocolate chips and 1/2 cup blueberries instead of 3/4 of a cup of blueberries.

1 1/2 cups self raising flour, sifted 
3/4 cup brown sugar 
3/4 cup blueberries 
1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 egg, beaten 
3/4 cup milk, warmed 
100g butter, melted 
1tsp lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Mix the flour, cinnamon and brown sugar together with a whisk, making sure there are no lumps of sugar left. Add the blueberries, being gentle, and stir them in. Mix the egg, milk, butter and lemon zest together (the milk ought to be warm enough that the butter does not solidify when they are combined).

Combine the two mixtures, and fold together with a spatula until there are no dry ingredient pockets left. Be very gentle: overmixing will yield rubbery muffins!

Pour the mixture into greased muffin tins, filling right to the top. Sprinkle each muffin with raw sugar or chocolate chips.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Cheap eats for Uni

Most students are beining to start Uni again so here is a good meal that is in season and can be made in 15mins.

Meal constists of:

• 1 Corn in husk* - 40c
• 1 med Potato* - 30c
• Skirt steak - 250gm steak for $3.50

Total meal cost of $4.20

Extras - Salt, pepper, butter and milk.
*Vegetables are from the market maybe slightly more expensive at supermarket.

1. Get steak out of the fridge and place on the bench to get to room temp.
2. Dice potato and place in bowl cover with hot water, salt and cover. Place in microwave for 6mins checking every 2mins, may need more or less depending on size of chunks.
3. Heat fry pan to high.
4. Meanwhile drain cooked potatoes and mash with a fork, add a teaspoon of butter and 2 teaspoons of milk. You may need to add more to get the potatoes to a smooth consistancy. Cover the mash.
5. Place steak on hot pan.
6. Put corn in the microwave for 3 mins.
7. Flip the steak and cook to your liking.
8. Leave the steak to rest while you husk the corn.
9. Serve the potatoes, stake and corn on plate. Serve corn with butter, if desired.

Crock pot/Slow cooker Vietnamese Curry.

Serves 4
Ingredients:

• 1 Onion sliced
• 2 medium carrots diced into 1cm chunks
• 1 Kumera or sweet potato or pumkin or potato diced into 1cm chunks
• 1 chicken breast diced into 1.5cm chunks
• Optional - more veges like broccoli beans peas ect Ones that don't take long to cook. 
• 1 and 1/4 cup of coconut milk.
• 1 Packet of Vietnamese Curry paste 

Instructions:

1. Place your onions in a pan and saute. Once done place in crock pot
2. Place the carrots, kumera (or whatever you are using) and chicken breast into the crock pot.
3. Pour  coconut cream and curry paste into crock pot. Stir until well combined. 
4. Cook on high for 4-6 hours and on low for 6-8 hours for the last  hour to half an hour add the extra veges in to the crock pot.

Zucchini noodle pasta

Okay so I have to admit I was a little dubious about this one, I mean Zucchini noodles? However I had brought some zucchini's because they were crazy cheap at the markets this week and thought I'd give it a try.

Serves 1
Ingredients

• 2 small zucchini 
• 1 large tomato diced
• red onion slices very thinly
• 1 garlic clove crushed
• 2 tsp of balsamic vinegar or red wine vinegar or lemon juice. 
• 2 tsp of oil.

Instructions:

1. Very thinly slice your zucchini into noodle strips. There are three ways to do this:

• Use a julienne slicer/peeler 
• Use a spiraliser
• Or if your like me and don't have anything that fancy you can use a peeler to thinly slice the zucchini and once you have done that use a knife to slice the zuchhini into ribbons. 

2. Put the noodles in a bowel season with salt and pepper and garlic. Coat with oil and balsamic vinegar (or whatever you are using).

3. Dice your tomato and place on top of your noodles. 

4. Drizzle with more oil and balsamic vinegar desired and season with more salt and pepper if desired. 

Beans!

Beans can be beautiful. I have always thought they were boring and kinda gross but here are some cheap ways to flavor up your beans. All recipes serve 1

Lemon beans:

• 1 lemon
• 1 garlic clove - use less or none if you don't like garlic
• 1 cup of beans
• salt and pepper.
• 1 tsp of oil

1. Place your beans in a bowl and add 1cm of water. Microwave for 2 mins covered.
2. Meanwhile zest and juice lemon. 
3. Drain Cooked beans.
4. Pour 1 tsp of oil over cooked beans along with 1 tsp of lemon juice and 1/2 tsp of zest. Salt and pepper beans. Toss beans and taste. Add more lemon juice/zest if need be. 

Minted green beans:

• 1-2 tsp of butter
• 1 cups of beans.
• a couple of mint leaves.
• salt and pepper
• Garlic - 1 clove if you love it. - half if you enjoy it or none if you hate it.

1. Place beans in bowl and add 1cm of water. Cover and cook on high for 1min in microwave.
2. Chop garlic and add to peas. 
3. Return peas to microwave for 1min.
4. Meanwhile chop mint. 
5. Drain cooked beans.
6. Stir the butter, mint and salt and pepper. 

Garlic green beans - Yum!

• 2-3 garlic cloves (depending on size.)
• 1 tsp - butter or oil.
• salt and pepper.

1. Place beans in bowl and add 1cm of water. Cover and cook on high for 1min in microwave.
2. Chop garlic and add to peas. 
3. Return peas to microwave for 1.5min.
4. Drain cooked beans.
5. Stir the butter and salt and pepper. 

Lemony

Lemon zest. It;s something that I don't use often and I don't want to go buy a whole lemon just for the zest. So I started freezing the lemon zest. If I buy a lemon before I use it I just peal all of the zest off. Then pop that into a zip lock bag and grab it when I need it.

Mashed Potatoes

I don't know about you, but as as a student mashed potatoes are on the menu wayyy to often. I get sick of them fast. This is a cheap way to liven up your mash.
Feel free to make this vegan.

Serves one:

• Potato - 1 large
• 1 peel of lemon zest. - see here for a tip.
• Rosemary 1 small fresh sprig or about 1/2 a tsp dried - depends how much you like it.
• 1 piece of stale bread
• 1/3 garlic clove
• teaspoon of oil
• Salt and pepper

1. Chop potatoes into 1.5cm cubes and place in boiling water. 
2. Meanwhile if your bread is stale enough or just not stale pop in the oven and grill until golden brown on both sides.
3. When you can stab the potatoes and the knife enters easily then they are cooked. Drain them and leave them in the pot - this will remove excess water and keep them warm till serving. 
4. Add 1 teaspoon of butter to the potatoes and mash continue to milk until potatoes are combined.
5. Turn grill onto high.
6. Combine bread, lemon zest and rosemary in blender or whatever you have (I have a bullet). Blend until combined and then add oil. 
7. Place mashed potatoes on oven proof dish. - If I think my plate will survive then I just chuck it on that. 
8. Cover potatoes with bread crumbs and place in the oven. It's done when crumb is crispy.