Swordfish in tomatoes with olives and capers

I got my inspiration for this from a regular newsletter I get from eatingwell.com  And they say they were inspired by Mediterranean cooking in Sicily and Calabria. Ah Magna Graecia! I didn’t follow their recipe exactly and amongst other changes substituted their green olives with my favourite mammoth black ones. I served it one evening with roast vegetables and another with gnocchi whereas the original recipe had polenta as a core element. Mine tasted like I was in Athens. 🇬🇷

Ingredients

Olive oil

2 stalks celery including leaves

3 cloves garlic crushed

1 can (400 gr) diced tomatoes

8 mammoth black olives

3-4 tbs chopped fresh basil

1 tbs capers

400 gr swordfish

Mode

Heat the oil in a pan large enough to simmer all the ingredients

Chop the celery

Crush the garlic

Lightly fry the garlic and celery

Add the tomatoes and olives and stir occasionally

Chop basil and add it and capers

Turn down heat and simmer for about 5 minutes

Add the swordfish steaks and stir to cover the fish

Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes

Prawn pizza

Another weekend another pizza but not one for the Sunday pizza group. I had bought some prawns for a pizza on Friday and couldn’t resist making something with them on Saturday. It was delicious! How grateful am I to have fresh seafood on hand at my local Piedimonte’s! 

Ingredients

1 wholemeal Lebanese bread

Sundried tomato pesto

Mozzarella 

Cooked prawns about 250 gr

Green pepper

Mushrooms 

Mode

Preheat oven to 220c

Spread pesto sauce on the Lebanese bread

Slice Mozzarella and add

Place prawns over sauce and cheese

Slice mushroom and sprinkle over

Slice green peppers and sprinkle over 

Bake in 220c oven for 12 minutes

Enjoy on a Saturday or Sunday (or any time). 

Swordfish pie

Well, dear friends of Sunday night pizza from of old (and anyone else who is reading), there is no pizza tonight! Instead last night I cooked a #godoggies pizza which was lovely to eat but with unsatisfactory outcomes for the team I was barracking for on behalf of my mother who lived a long drought supporting them.  

Tonight instead became a swordfish pie night. It ended up being a simple combination of swordfish, rocket pesto, red capsicum and spring onions in puff pastry, but the simple is delicious especially teamed with lemon roasted vegetables as it was. With those flavours I could have been in Greece, though who knows when that may be possible or advisable for any of us?

Ingredients 

250 gr fresh swordfish fillet

2 sheets frozen puff pastry

1 tbs rocket pesto

2 spring onions

1/2 red capsicum

Poppyseeds 

Mode

Preheat oven to 350c

Remove pastry to thaw

Peel and chop spring onions

Roughly chop capsicum

Once pastry thawed place one sheet on bottom of baking dish

Place swordfish on pastry

Spread pesto on fish

Sprinkle spring onion over

Add red capsicum

Place second sheet of pastry over ingredients

Cut off excess and form edges of pie

Add pastry decorative features if desired

Sprinkle with poppyseeds

Cook in 360c oven fir 45 minutes

Lemon potatoes and carrots

Whoops! I had a plan of roast vegetables and swordfish pie for dinner tonight. Then a question on Twitter from @sandrodemaio about what everyone was cooking made me realize that timely cooking of the vegetables was necessary so a sort of compromise Greek lemon vegetables was the result. 

Ingredients

2 large potatoes 

2 carrots

Olive oil

Dry rosemary

6 cloves garlic

1 lemon

Mode

Preheat oven to 220c

Chop potatoes and carrots as desired

Place in ovenproof dish

Sprinkle with rosemary

Crush garlic cloves and add

Douse in olive oil

Cook in 220c oven for 30 minutes

Meanwhile juice the lemon

Pour the juice over vegetables

Return to 350c oven for 45 mins

Sardines with lemon

And with the rest of the sardines, I cooked them with lemon, breadcrumbs and pinenuts. They are to be eaten another night or even frozen and enjoyed even later as I know from previous experience.

Ingredients 

1 lemon

25gr pinenuts

Breadcrumbs 

20 fresh filletted sardines

Mode

Preheat oven to 180c

Juice the  lemon

Arrange the sardines in an ovenproof dish

Sprinkle breadcrumbs over

Add the lemon juice

Sprinkle over the pinenuts

Bake in 180c oven for 30 minutes

Sardines pizza

Sardines!! Yum!! I have never made a pizza with fresh filleted sardines before (or any sardines for that matter). So Sunday night pizza friends this is one to have and repeat. I love sardines and this combination is delicious - πολύ νόστιμο! 

Ingredients

1 Wattle Valley wholemeal wrap

Sun dried tomato pesto

Ricotta

12 fresh filleted sardines 

6 black olives

Pinenuts

Mode

Preheat oven to 220c

Spread pesto on wholemeal wrap

Spoon on ricotta and spread evenly

Place sardines over pesto and cheese

Chop olives and sprinkle in middle

Sprinkle pinenuts over

Bake in 220c oven for 12 minutes

Enjoy on a Sunday (or any time). 

Another Sunday pizza!

Another Sunday and another Sunday pizza though not the one I had planned to cook! Conscious of a request for vegetarian one, I had some chargrilled red capsicums on hand but had forgotten to buy the mushrooms and green pepper I wanted to use. Ah well next Sunday! This pizza is rather one of leftovers I had on hand but nonetheless delicious.

Ingredients

1 Wattle Valley wholemeal wrap

Basil & rocket pesto

Mozzarella 

Sopressa 

1/2 zucchini

1/4 red pepper 

1/4 green pepper

2 black olives

Mode

Preheat oven to 220c

Spread pesto on wholemeal wrap

Slice mozzarella and add

Place sopressa over pesto and cheese

Grate zucchini and add

Slice red and green pepper and olives and sprinkle over 

Bake in 220c oven for 12 minutes

Enjoy on a Sunday (or any time).