This is an easy midweek meal idea that tastes so so good. There is just something fabulous about a creamy mushroom sauce.

I fry the chicken thighs in two batches and I try to make it uniform in thickness, so if you have thick parts on the thigh, butterfly them open, but keep the piece whole. I fry them uncovered for the first side, then when I flip them, I tend to cover them, to ensure they get cooked through properly.

Mushrooms-I used swiss brown, but you can use button, portabello or any mushroom you like really. I absolutely love enoki mushrooms in it as they act like noodles to the dish.

Now I love this with mashed potatoes, but you can serve it with rice, polenta, pasta or simply with fresh bread. I also love this with a green salad.

This is something you can make as a quick midweek meal or something fancy enough to serve at your next dinner party. ​

Recipe adapted from www.recipetineats.com/

Serves 6-8

8 large chicken thigh fillets
 salt and pepper, to taste
20g unsalted butter
20ml olive oil

Mushroom Sauce:
60g unsalted butter
600g swiss brown mushrooms, sliced 
3-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
200g enoki mushrooms, ends trimmed
1/3 cup dry white wine
3/4 cup chicken or vegetable stock
450ml thickened cream
2/3 cup parmesan, finely grated
2 tablespoons chives, chopped

Mashed potato, to serve
​
Sprinkle each side of your chicken thigh with salt and pepper, then sprinkle with flour and use your fingers to spread it all over the surface.

Melt butter with the oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium high heat. Add 4 chicken thighs and cook for 4-5 minutes until golden brown, flip the chicken, cook for 1 minute, then cover with a lid and cook a further 3-4 minutes or until the chicken is just cooked through. Remove from pan, cover and keep warm. Repeat with the next 4 chicken thighs.
​
In the same frying pan, add remaining butter and increase heat to high. Add mushrooms and cook for 4 minutes, until starting to turn golden brown on the edges.

Then add garlic and the enoki mushrooms and a pinch of salt and pepper, and continue cooking for another minute until both garlic and mushrooms are golden.

Add the white wine, cook for 30 seconds to a minute, scraping the bottom of the pan, until wine is mostly evaporated and the alcohol smell is gone.

Add the chicken stock, cook vigorously for 1 minute so it mostly evaporates. Then add cream, lower heat to medium and simmer for 2 minutes until it reduces and thickens slightly.

Stir in parmesan, taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.

Return chicken to sauce for a minute or two to reheat. Garnish with chives and serve as-is in the pan, for people to help themselves (or transfer to serving platter, if you prefer). Alternatively, serve a portion of chicken onto each plate, spoon sauce over and garnish with more chives.

Serve with mashed potato or fresh bread. 

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Recipe adapted from Manuela Darling-Gansser's cookbook Winter in the Alps

Serves 4-6

1.5 litres water
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
​300g coarse polenta

Put the water and salt in a large pot and bring to the boil. Add polenta in a steady stream, whisking constantly to avoid lumps. Turn the heat down to low and cook the polenta for 30-45 minutes, stirring from time to time. When the polenta comes away from the sides of the pot, it is cooked.

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​Unfortunately I never got to grow up with my grandparents, as they lived in Croatia and I grew up in Australia. I never got to eat anything my grandparents cooked, unfortunately that is just how it is. So these days I ask my parents what they ate as kids so I can try and replicate some things from their memories. Now I don't have their recipes, I have to rely on my mothers memories (a lot) or try things from the cookbooks I have, or simply google someone else's grandmother. But at least I get to try things my grandparents made or liked to eat. For instance my mum's dad loved pork with sauerkraut on polenta, my dad's mum made amazing gnocchi, adding chicken fat into her dough, my mum's mum baked amazing bread.

So now here we have pogaca (pronounced pogacha). My mum described to me the bread my grandmother made, she even told me she decorated the bread with a fork, so the fork decoration is here to keep that tradition alive.

Now when I bake this bread I always make two. One to eat as normal bread (as I usually bake bread when I don't have bread in the house and I really don't want to go to the shops for just bread) and one gets eaten hot with garlic and parsley oil on top. It's the same recipe, just an added step or two which I've described below.

​To turn it into garlic bread mix together

50ml olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3g salt
20g parsley, chopped
20g parmesan cheese, finely grated (optional)

Now after you have let rolled out the dough and rested it for 30 minutes. Use a pastry cutter to make the indents into the dough, in a criss-cross pattern, you want to go in deep with your indents, but do not cut all the way through. Pour over the garlic-oil mixture and bake as in the recipe below.


This bread is nostalgic to me, and I love making it, hope you give it a try and love it like I do.

Recipe adapted from www.youtube.com/@appetizing.baking (watch the video here)

Makes 1 pogaca

300ml warm water
5g dried yeast
5g caster sugar
5g salt
​25ml olive oil
450g bread flour

Extra virgin olive oil, for brushing​
Sea salt flakes, to taste


In a large bowl add your warm water, yeast and sugar, give it a stir, leave for 5 minutes. Add oil give it a quick mix, add flour and salt, mix with wet hands, until a dough forms, then knead a few minutes until a smooth dough forms. Cover bowl with cling film and a tea towel, and leave to rise for an hour, or until at least doubled in size.

Preheat your oven to 180C/160C fan forced. Line a 32 x32cm baking tray with baking paper.

Remove dough from the bowl with wet hands. Knead for a minute, then shape into a circle, flour the bench, if needed. Roll with a rolling pin to make a circle approximately 2cm thick. Place on your baking tray. Cover with a tea towel and let rise for about 1 hour. After the 30 minutes if you want to make garlic bread, now follow the instructions above.

If you are just making a plain pogaca, decorate your dough now by pressing on it with a fork to form a pattern. Brush a little extra virgin olive oil over the top. Sprinkle with sea salt flakes, to taste.

Place in your preheated oven for 25 minutes.

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There is another flavour chinotto, that I tried, not quite my favourite. But worth a try, you might like it. I think I made this one with bacardi instead.

Now I personally love them with tequila, but you can use vodka or bacardi, whatever you like best.

So if you spot these on sale, this is great for parties, you just put the cans next to the tequila and ice, add a lime wedge, and your guests can make whatever flavour they like. ​

​30-45ml tequila, to taste
1 can San Pellegrino Italian Sparkling Drink
-Clementina (Clementine)
-Limonata (lemonade)
-Aranciata (Orange)
-Aranciata Rossa (Blood Orange)
-Pompelmo (Grapefruit)
-Melograno & Arancia (Pomegranate & Orange)
Ice
Lime wedge, optional
​
Add ice to a glass, add tequila, top with your favourite flavour of San Pellegrino Italian Sparkling Drink and add a lime wedge if you like.

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​It's Saturday night, my two older kids are out, my youngest is on playstation and my husband is asleep next to me on the couch.

What does one do, one makes a cocktail.

So so good. Amazing flavour.

If you served it in traditional 180ml old fashioned glass, you would get two serves.

For the watermelon, from a quarter of a watermelon, I used 4 x 1-2cm slices, quite chunky.

If you don't want watermelon bits in your drink, you can remove the lime wedges after they have been crushed and blitz the drink. I don't, but you can.

This would be great on a sunny afternoon out on the deck.

Serves 1-2

1 lime, cut into 8 wedges
1 teaspoon caster sugar
10ml sugar syrup
4 x 1-2cm slices ​watermelon, from 1/4 of a watermelon
45ml vodka
15ml watermelon liqueur
ice
​
Place 6 lime wedges, the sugar, sugar syrup and watermelon in a small jug. Using a muddler or rolling pin, crush all the ingredients together. You won't get the watermelon perfectly smooth, that's ok. 

Add the vodka and watermelon liqueur, stir.

Place ice in your glass. Pour over your watermelon mixture, remove the crushed lime wedges, but do not strain. Add remaining fresh lime wedges.

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​Burek is usually just made with meat, let me get that out of the way before I get criticism on this issue. But when I was making this, I decided to add potato as I do it in my mince and potato pita, and as we like it there,  I thought why not add it here. We love it with potato, so the potato stays, and we are still calling it burek, as it is burek to us.

Now burek is truly one of our favourite things to eat. Normally my husband would head out to Rockdale and buys a meat burek, with either a cheese or a cheese and spinach burek also. They go so quickly. That homemade pastry with their fillings. Delicious.

But recently I ventured out to visit my parents and near to where they live is Ivan's Butcher in Chester Hill, I found homemade filo dough, so I grabbed two packets not knowing how to even make cook with them, but I knew I was going to try.

Well this worked out perfectly, the end result is just like a bought one. 

Now I have combined two recipes here, my mince and potato filling I found years ago on coolinarka, but I didn't want the topping I put on my pita. Then I found the water-oil mixture idea from one of my Dobar Tek cookbooks Savijace i Gibanice od vucenog tijesta. 

Now the first time I made it, I doubled the filling, as I had no idea how much I would need. It turned out more like a pie. Now my boys loved it, but I found it wasn't like burek, there was a lot of filling, but the pastry got lost. So the next time, I made it as per this recipe and it was perfect. For me although I love filling, you need to taste the pastry. 

Now my daughter recently went to Croatia and learnt how to make the dough from her baka.

​So one day soon I will post one with homemade dough.

The baking tray I use is the biggest one that fits in my oven, use whatever tray size you have.

In the original recipe it says to boil the water, oil and salt, then cool. Not sure why, but I don't do it. But you can if you want to.

Try as best as you can to divide the filling evenly between the layers of pastry.

But for now this store bought dough is amazing and is definitely something I will be buying again and again. And burek making will be something we will be making again and again. Can't wait to try different fillings also.

600g-700g packet homemade burek dough

​​Filling:
1 tablespoon sunflower oil
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
500g pork and veal mince
3 medium potatoes, peeled, coarsely grated
1/2-1 teaspoon vegeta
Salt and pepper, to taste

Topping:
250ml water
5 tablespoons sunflower oil
2 teaspoons salt
​
​Add a tablespoon of oil into a large frying pan. Add the chopped onion and sauté over a low-medium heat for about 3-4 minutes, or until the onions have started to soften.

Add the mince, salt, pepper and vegeta. Increase the heat to medium-high, sauté, breaking up the mince as you stir, for about 4 minutes or until the mince has browned.

Add the grated potato, sauté for 2 minutes, stirring regularly. Taste for seasoning. Allow to cool for about 30 minutes.

Topping: In a bowl, combine the water, oil and salt.

Grease a 33 x 42cm baking tray with a little oil.

Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan forced.


Place two pastry sheets on the base of your prepared tray, make sure it overhangs over the edges a bit. My tray is large, so I cut another sheet in half and add it to so the entire base is covered with overhang also.

Lightly sprinkle the dough with the topping mixture.

Now sprinkle on some of the mince mixture. You really do just put it on sparingly, the  mince is just scattered over the filo, it does not cover the filo.

Place another single layer of the pastry, no overhang now, again I cut sheets to make up the single layer.

Lightly sprinkle the dough with the topping mixture. 

Now sprinkle on some of the mince mixture. Remember sparingly.

Place another layer of filo on top, dab on the topping mixture, then scatter over the mince, keep layering filo, topping mixture with a scattering of the mince until all the mince has been used up.

Once the mince is used up, place the last two sheets of filo on top to finish, just like on the base. Pull over all your overhanging sides to enclose the burek.

Now generously moisten the pastry with the topping mixture, you don't want it soaking, but you want it wet.

Place in your preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes or until the pastry has browned nicely and is crisp.

​I use scissors, as I don't want to scratch my oven tray to cut them into slices. But you can easily cut it with a knife. Serve hot.

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​If I was to name a childhood salad that I remember eating regularly and that I loved it would be this one. 

This accompanied seafood so often in my house, it really is the perfect side for barbecued fish. My husband on our last trip to Croatia from Pula to Ston, ordered barbecued fish with blitva everywhere we went. I had octopus salad everywhere we went. My kids had the greatest time to, ordering whatever they wanted.

My mum discards the stalk, I don't, as I love them.

You could use butter to fry the garlic, if you like.

Your extra virgin olive oil has to be great, the best you can afford. I honestly watch for 1/2 price sales in supermarkets and stock up, as paying $18 for a litre is crazy expensive.

With the potatoes, if you put too many, it will be like mash, you can figure out if you want to add more or less potatoes, it really is to taste. Sometimes I want it to be like mash.

We grow swiss chard in the garden, but if buying it, look for silverbeet in the shops.

This is simple, but it's delicious.

​2 bunches Swiss chard, about 900g
3-4 medium potatoes, peeled, cut into bite sized pieces
1/3-1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
Salt and white pepper, to taste
​
​Trim the ends from the stems of the chard leaves. Cut off and discard any wilted or yellow parts of the leaves.

Strip the stems from the leaves, and cut the stems into 3-4cm lengths. Wash thoroughly, drain. Set aside.

Using a knife I tear the leaves into 3cm strips, I don't measure, it's just rough strips. Wash thoroughly, drain. Set aside.

​Add potatoes to a large pot filled with cold water, leave about 3-4cm from the top, season water with salt. Bring to the boil, and cook for 8 minutes. Add the stems, and cook for 3 minutes more,  add the leaves and cook for about 5 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked and the swiss chard is tender. Drain well.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil into the pot you cooked the silverbeet, over a medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for about 1 minute, turn off the heat. Return the Swiss chard and potatoes to the pot, and season lightly with salt and pepper. Add the remaining extra virgin olive oil, slowly, stirring and smashing the potatoes as you go, keep adding oil until you are happy with the flavour. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

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