Stacking Up The Vegetables

Recently I was lucky enough to receive a pack from Gourmet Garden 

and with the busy week we have just had I finally found time tonight to use some of them
The first thing I noticed was the great packaging, that you can see the yumminess inside the tubes.
The second thing was that each tube told you how many ‘real’ fresh ingredients were in the tube
Eg: the 115g tube of chillies contained 5 chillies .
and the other thing I noticed was the amazing aroma that escaped when you peeled back the foil lids!
Inspired I decided to cook two dishes to share with you
the first was a modified Chilli Honey Mince with Beans
This one is a new family favourite and is great because I use whatever mince and vegetables I have on hand,
so this time we had lamb mince and loads of vegies

Ingredients

Peanut oil
500g lamb mince
1 onion, chopped
1 Tablespoon Gourmet Garden chunky garlic
1/2 tablespoon Gourmet Garden hot chilli paste 
2 carrots, diced
200g green beans, chopped
1/4 cabbage, shredded
1 small zucchini, diced
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1/4 cup honey
Instant Noodles

I started by chopping up all the vegies

Want a tip for cutting onion??
Get someone else to chop it for you!
I am such a sook when it comes to cutting onions, truly sad!!!!

Once the oil had heated in the wok I cooked the mince



Once it was brown I removed it from the wok and put it aside in a bowl.
Then I fried the onion, garlic, chilli, carrot, cabbage, zucchini and green beans in same heated, oiled wok until just tender.

Returned beef to wok and cooked until hot.

Stir in sauce and honey.

To cook noodles, I used 4 “blocks” of noodles (what do you call them??)
to feed the 7 mouths that were at our dinner table tonight (Grandma is here tonight. HOORAY)

Serve mince on a bed of noodles

The other thing I decided to try was some Thai mushrooms

I simply cut up my mushrooms, I think there were 9 or 10

then fried them off in some olive oil

when they had softened I squirted in about 1and a half tablespoons of the Gourmet Garden Thai Seasoning
I served these with the mince

So some things to note…

I thought the HOT chilli paste might have been hotter than the chilli we normally use, hence me using a little less than normal.
However the amount I used wasn’t hot at all.
You didn’t get a chilli bang at all and the only hint was when you had finished eating and then you noticed a slight tingle on your lips.

I wasn’t sure how the Thai would go with the mushrooms.
I don’t like Mushrooms.
But everyone else does.
So my Mushroom lovers were my taste testers and all but one gave it big thumbs up!!!
And I have to say that cooking this one made me salivate because the smell was amazing!

I so wish I had more time for baking/cooking this week
I had plans in my head of making some herb scones with the basil or thyme that I was sent.
I also wanted to make a pumpkin and feta salad with the coriander
But sadly it didn’t happen but I’m glad I’ve been able to share these two recipes with you as part of the

_{Disclosure: This is not a paid sponsored post. I received complimentary pack of Gourmet Garden products, for review purposes, and all opinions expressed are purely my own.}

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