Opps...or when life gets in the way

Trouble....

Sorry I disappeared for a while there, life reared its head and this bloggy business fell by the way side. However, you will be pleased to know that I am working on a new summer menu plan, which I am hoping to implement next weekend. Summer in Sydney is a pretty great time to be into food, the amount of fresh produce we have right now is just incredible. I am trying to come up with ideas/menus to utilise all this great produce over the summer months.

In the meantime here is a list a some of the cookbooks I have been using - my meal plans are always a combination of my recipes, recipes straight from other people and an amalgamation of the two.

Cooking Under The Influence by Ben Canaider & Greg Duncan Powell.

I have had this book for years and I still find it delightful. Great recipes, funny antedotes, nice photos, what more could you want?

Jaime at Home by Jamie Oliver

Yes I know, Jamie Oliver is awfully annoying but I like this book as it is organised by seasonwith several different recipes based around single ingredients. I have not made a huge amount from it but the recipes I have tried have been great.

Rump and a Rough Red by Greg Duncan Powell

(How funny, I only just realised that this is written by the same person who wrote Cooking Under the Influence). This is a new book that I have not cooked a lot from but have been enjoying reading, very similar to Cooking Under the Influence.

Simply Japanese by Yoko Arimoto

Another new to me book, we adore Japanese in this house so I am planning on trying to make some more myself. This outlines both traditional meals and modern interpretations.

Hopefully I will have my new meal plan up soon and can start sharing again!

BBQ'd snapper

So, we finally bought a bbq, a requirement to live in Australia it seems. We also went to the Sydney Fish Market for the first time (how we have managed to live here so long without going is beyond me!), so tonight we christened the bbq with some beautiful snapper.

Luckily, the man who served us knew a lot about sustainable fishing, something I feel quite strongly about. He pointed us to the snapper, which is line caught and sustainable, and delicious!

All we did with it was rub some olive oil and salt into the skin side and bbq'd it for 3 minutes skin side down. It could have done with slightly longer but was still really good.

I served it with some boiled and then bbq'd potatoes and a salad with a thai style dressing.

Beetroot Risotto

This meal was not on the menu plan anywhere but we were home one night we were meant to be out so I thought I would give it a go. I was very torn with this one as we love beetroots round here but I was not sure about putting sour cream in a risotto. I was also struggling to figure out how it would taste, I just could not imagine it. In the end it was actually quite nice, not the same as my normal risotto but a nice alternative. It is very earthy and I think needed the sour cream to sort of level the flavours out a bit. It was also a talking point when I took the leftovers into work, lots of "What on earth are you eating??".

A friend sent the recipe to me and I am not sure where she got it so I will share it here:

4 roasted beetroot, skins removed, and chopped into 1cm cubes

3 cups chicken stock

Olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

3-4 gloved garlic, crushed

1 and a half cups arborio rice

half a cup red wine

2 tablespoons sour cream

Firstly, put the stock in a pot and bring to a simmer. Leave this simmering throughout the cooking process.

Then, fry up the onion and garlic in the olive oil until the onion is soft. Add the rice and fry until it starts to brown a little. Add the red wine and let the rice absorb all the moisture. Then slowly add the stock, roughly a ladle full at a time, letting the rice absorb all the moisture before adding anymore. Sir often throughout this process.

Once the rice is cooked stir through the beetroot and sour cream. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

Enjoy!

Ricotta Hotcakes!

At our house we often go all out for breakfast at the weekend, with either a big cooked breakfast or pancakes. We sit down at the table, drink coffee, eat good food and chat. Today I wanted to try something a little bit different, I decided to try out Ricotta Hotcakes, something I have had at cafe's but have never attempted myself. I used this recipe, from a blog I just discovered this morning. These turned out so perfectly, they honestly were perfection.

I served mine with some vanilla yogurt, fresh strawberries, passionfruit and a drizzle of honey. The hubby also decided to sprinkle some chocolate over his...

I recommend giving these a go asap.

Lasagna!

So, Tuesday nights we normally would go out but this week we decided to stay at home, so I asked the husband what he would like for dinner and he, typically, wanted lasagne, as opposed to something easy like an omelette!

But, I love lasagna too so really didn't mind making the effort. Here is my personal recipe but the great thing about lasagna is that everyone puts their own personal flair on it.

Bolognese

1 brown onion, diced
3 gloves garlic, crushed
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stalks, sliced
500g beef mince
1 tsp salt
1 tblsp sugar
1 can crushed tomatos
1 sachet tomato paste
2 bay leaves
half tsp dried thyme

Fry the onion, garlic, carrot and celery until onion is cooked. Add the mince, salt and sugar, and fry this until the meat is cooked through and is starting to brown and caramelize. The add the tomatos, tomato paste, bay leaves and thyme. Turn the heat right down and simmer for a couple of hours, stirring occasionally.

Bechamel Sauce

2 tblsp butter
2 tblsp plain flour
water
half cup chedder cheese, grated
salt and pepper

Melt the butter and flour together in a saucepan until combined. Add a small amount of water and using a whisk stir into the flour and butter until smooth. Continue adding small amounts of water and stirring until combined. If you do this process slowly you should not have any lumps. Do this until you reach the consistency you desire and then add the cheese and season.

Lasagne

Grease a baking dish, and put in a layer of Bolognese and then a layer of either fresh or dried lasagna sheets, then some bechamel sauce. Continue in this order until you reach the final layer of bechamel, then add some parmesan cheese to the top. Bake in an 200 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

Serve with salad and enjoy!!

Cookies!

These are lemon and vanilla cookies, recipe from this cookbook I'm afraid but I am sharing the pretty pictures. They were so so good, but then I am very much partial to a bit of lemon so I knew these would be right up my alley.

Ricotta Gnocchi

This is another one of my all time favourite meals, delicious and so easy to make (if a little time consuming and messy). I have made this so many times and have never had a "bad" batch so it seems pretty fail safe. The recipe I use is from a cook book but this one seems very similar.

Normally I keep the sauce really simple, I like to just fry up a couple of rashers of bacon and some crushed garlic in a little olive oil and then add some beautiful heirloom tomatos in a range of colours. Finally, some fresh basil and salt and pepper to finish and that is it. I swear I could eat it like this every day and not get bored.

However, as I did not make it to the farmers markets this week I had to make to with some vine-ripened cherry tomatos, and I had a little bit of left over cooked chicken so threw that in as well. It was not as good as my normal sauce but still, I could not complain!

Also, in case you were wondering, I did end up using up all my leftovers! There was some bechamel sauce left over from the onion tart so I simply made a quick macaroni and cheese and served it with the steak, which I seasoned and fried for about a minute on each side and then cut into slices. I also made a rather green onion heavy salad, I was worried it would be a really piecemeal dinner but it actually all worked really well together and got two thumbs up from the husband, success I would say!

The inevitable arises

So, according to the meal plan tonight we should have had a beef and pumpkin stir-fry, but... I just did not feel like that, I didn't feel like eating it and I did not feel like cooking it. It has been wet and windy here in Sydney and I wanted something I could take my time over, that would warm the whole kitchen. So, I tried out this recipe for Onion Tart with a couple of little changes. The main change is that when I make bechamel sauce I make it with water instead of milk as the man is slightly lactose intolerant and a sauce with both milk and cheese would not be appreciated. I find making it with water works just as well, you lack some of the creaminess but it still tastes pretty good. Because of this I decided to add a couple of ingredients to the onion to add to the flavour, garlic and bacon. This was really tasty, much sweeter then I had anticipated but still so much more satisfying then stir-fry. I served it with a beautiful salad and some mash potatoes, which made for a really hearty meal.

So, because I changed the plan I need to think about what to do with the ingredients I have not used. I have some beef, pumpkin and spring onions that I do not want to go to waste. Friday nights meal includes pumpkin so I can use that then, but the beef and spring onions need to be used but I am still undecided as to how. Perhaps I can make a beef salad for our lunches one day? I need to have a system in place to deal with this situation otherwise my plan is for naught.

An ode to Risotto

There are a couple of staple dishes in my repertoire that I just love, and what is more I love the versions I make so much that I would now never ever order them at a restaurant. One of these is risotto, in particular my mushroom and leek risotto. I don't know about you but I have had some truly dire risottos in the past, ones where you know that the chef has taken short cuts to achieve the creamy texture of risotto (such as adding cream to it, yuck!). Now I know everyone's palate is different and everyone has different ways of doing things but if you are going to make a risotto, please take a little bit of care with it and no short cuts!

So here is how I make mine...

2-3 rashers bacon, diced
3-4 gloves garlic, minced (chop finely and then using the back of a knife and about a teaspoon of salt mulch it till is is a fine paste)
1 leek, sliced
a selection of mushrooms (we can get lovely gourmet packets here with 3 or 4 different varieties of mushrooms, these are perfect for a risotto and give a much greater depth of flavour then just using button mushrooms)
1 cup arborio rice
1 small glass white wine
2-3 cups stock
20g butter
a generous amount of parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Firstly, put the stock in a pot and bring to a gentle simmer, keep it simmering throughout the cooking process.
Fry the bacon and garlic in olive oil until the bacon is golden, keep stirring to ensure the garlic does not burn. Add the leek and fry for a few minutes, add the mushrooms and the rice. Fry off the rice for about 5 minutes before adding liquid.
Add the wine and let the rice absorb all the moisture before you add anymore liquid. From here is is a process of adding small amounts of hot stock (about half a cup each time) and continually stirring, always make sure the liquid is absorbed before you add more. The stirring is what is going to help you achieve the creaminess. This whole process should take about 45 minutes.
Once the rice is cooked through stir in the butter and some parmesan. Serve with a generous amount of cracked pepper. Voila, beautiful, creamy risotto!

The first run of the KitchenAid

Was bagels!

I have made these by hand in the past but the dough is quite wet so I found it very frustrating to knead by hand. These were a breeze using the KitchenAid, plus they were delicious.

I am back to the start of my meal plan now, the last two weeks were unsuccessful but I am hoping I can get it going again. We have a couple of reasons to start really saving money so are actively going to stop going out quite so often!

I am also thinking about setting up a separate plan for lunches as that is another area where we could improve.

My new toy!

Look what my darling got me for our wedding anniversary! So so excited! Sadly we are going away tomorrow so I won't get to use it till we get back but I am loving looking at it sitting in my kitchen. Happy anniversary my love x

Zucchini and Carrot Muffins

My plans have gone very very astray the past two weeks, I seem to have been going out a lot which turns my kitchen plans on their head. I am going to have to sit down and nut out how to resolve this (quite possibly I should just stop eating out so much). In the meantime here is a very yummy muffin recipe!

Firstly, this recipe is slightly adapted from this one here, this is a really great blog for baking recipes and general life goodness.

Zucchini and Carrot Muffins

125g plain flour

125g wholemeal flour

half a tsp bi-carb

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsps ground cinnamon

1 tsp mixed spice

half tsp salt

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

half cup vegetable oil

1 cup brown sugar

1 zucchini, grated

1 carrot, grated

Pre-heat oven to 180 C

Sift all dry ingredients into a bowl. In a separate bowl mix egg, vanilla, vegetable oil and sugar until smooth. Add the dry mixture to the wet and stir until combined. The mixture will be quite dry but don' worry the vegetables will add a lot of moisture. Add the zucchini and carrot and mix until just combined. Spoon into 12 muffin cups and cook for 25 - 30 minutes.

Once these are cool make a cream cheese icing (these do not need to be iced but it makes them so good and decadent)

Cream Cheese Icing

2 tblsp soft butter

3 - 4 tblsp cream cheese

quater tsp vanilla extract

pinch salt

half cup icing sugar

Whip together all ingredients until smooth and until there are no lumps.

Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup

At the end of last week I still had some pumpkin and half a large sweet potato left. My husband and I ended up going out to dinner on Friday night which didn't help (we went to El Bulli which was so good). So yesterday I made a pumpkin and sweet potato soup with scones. This turned out really well and used up the last of my leftovers. I love soup, it is so versatile and easy and perfect for chilly winter days.

1 large onion, diced

3 gloves garlic, sliced

500g pumpkin

300g sweet potato

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cumin

half a teaspoon ground coriander seeds

pinch of chilli powder

1 lt chicken or vegetable stock

Fry the onion and garlic until soft, add the pumpkin, sweet potato and spices and fry for a few minutes until you can smell the spices. Add the stock and salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and then simmer for half an hour or so, until the vegetable are soft. Let cool slightly and then blend (I just use a hand held mixer and it works just fine). Heat up again and serve with a little parmesan and fresh parsly on top.

I serve this with fresh scones but it would also be lovely with some garlic bread.

Enjoy!

Week 2 - Wednesday

This week is pumpkin week, so far we have had roast pumpkin, pumpkin soup, pumpkin muffins (I will share these recipes in another post) and last night we had beef and pumpkin stirfry.

This meal is so tasty and so quick and easy. I used the recipe in the Thrifty Kitchen cookbook. I love this cookbook, the meals are perfect for weeknights, delicious and quick. It has a whole chapter dedicated to using up leftovers creatively, it is one of the few cookbooks I have seen that is realistic about eating well, while not spending a fortune.

I have made this meal so many times, it literally takes about 15 minutes and it is full of vegetables so is good for you too. Sorry I can't share the recipe but I do recommend the book!

Saturday, Sunday, Monday

Well, we just had a long weekend, one spent at home due to a combination of terrible weather and track works.

My plan has so far gone really well. On Saturday we had pizza's, using the left over beans from Friday. Of course pizza bases are a personal preference but I have had success with this base from Elegant Musings.

Sunday, we ended up having some friends over so I cooked up two chickens in an attempt to keep to the plan. No photos I'm afraid but I did try a new trick that I had seen in a cookbook. I put half a lemon into the cavity of each chicken. This gave the chicken a lovely delicate flavour, but I would not recommend using the meat juices in a gravy. The gravy had this odd flavour, and it was the lemon, while the chicken itself was delicate the meat juices had a very strong lemon flavour which was quite unpleasant.

Monday I used the left over chicken to make chicken and leek pot pies. These were very tasty, although I am a pastry fiend. Here is my recipe for the pie filling:

1 tablespoon butter

1 leek, sliced

3 gloves garlic, crushed

3 rashers bacon

Left over chicken meat

1 cup chicken stock

2 desert spoons cornflour

half a cup peas

salt and pepper

Fry the leek, garlic and bacon in the butter until the leek is soft. Add the chicken and the stock. Put the cornflour in a cup with about half a cup water and whisk with a fork until there are no lumps, add this to the pie mix. Add the peas and cook for a few more minutes. Put in pie dishes and cover with puff pastry. Cook in oven at 200 degrees until pastry is golden.

Enjoy!

Week 1 - Friday

I feel like I haven't cooked in ages! Luckily Friday night dinner was one of my favourites, tortillas with beans and guacamole.

For the tortilla I used this recipe from the Homesick Texan, I swear once you have tried these you will be unable to go back to store bought tortilla's. These are light and fluffy and so easy to make, as long as you follow the recipe exactly, particularly the resting times. It is also important to roll them out quickly, if you work them for too long they will be tough.

As the tortilla's are the star of this particular dinner I keep the rest really simple. This is the recipe for the bean mix

1 onion, diced

3 gloves garlic, crushed

half a medium sized red chilli (I de-seed mine and will explain why later)

2 cans drained kidney beans

1 can diced tomatoes

salt and pepper

Fry the onions, garlic and chilli until the onion is soft. Add the kidney beans and fry for five minutes or so. Then, using a potato masher, mash up the beans until soft. Add the tomatoes and continue to fry. Add a generous amount of salt and pepper.

I serve this with guacamole, and what I like to do is make the guacamole quite hot. This way the bean mixture is mild but people can choose how hot they want their tortilla's with how much guacamole they add. If I was cooking for more people then myself and my husband I would also serve some sliced avocado as well. I then put all of this one a big platter with some tomato, lettuce, cheese and sour cream and everyone can assemble their own.

So, this is a really tasty dinner and really quite easy to make.

The First Hurdle

Well, this is something I was expecting but I have to admit not quite so soon into my little experiment. The husband and I ended up going out for dinner last night, we went to Tomislav which was beautiful, but it has thrown my plans a little bit. My plan for Week 1 Wednesday was a green curry but luckily I was going to use frozen vegetables and green curry paste all of which will keep. However I do need to use up the coconut milk and the chicken. So here is what I am thinking. I will use the coconut milk in porridge, this is the husbands favourite way to have porridge. Here is how I make this:

1 cup quick cook oats

1 cup lite coconut milk

1 cup water

pinch of salt

honey & banana to go on top or

brown sugar and sultanas on top.

Add oats, coconut milk, water and salt to a pot. Bring to boil then reduce heat and cook while stirring for about 40 seconds. I love quick cook oats as they literally take 2 or 3 minutes to make. We do prefer the banana and honey topping but as bananas are still about $14 a kg I am having to come up with different toppings, either way this is perfect for a chilly mid week breakfast.

The chicken will keep until Friday when I will have to use it in my tortillas, which will be lovely but I was planning on keeping that meal vegetarian.

So, I am going to have to come up with a solution next time this happens as I do not want my meal plan to dictate my life. This is meant to help me, not hinder me.

Sweet Potato muffins

Tuesday is a dinner day off for me but each week I try to do some baking (not on my plan as of yet but maybe soon). One of my favourite recipes at the moment is for Sweet Potato Muffins, sweet potatoes are currently in season and these are perfect lunch box fillers. They are also lovely for desert with a spoonful of vanilla ice-cream.

The recipe I use is exactly like this one but without the nuts (although I am liking the sound of them, maybe I will add them next time). I recommend these, they are delicious!

Sweet Potato Muffin Recipe

Week 1 - Monday

Tonight I made a thai red curry, it is a very easy, quick dinner, perfect for a Monday night. I made it with chicken but you could easily substitute the chicken for chickpeas to make it vegetarian. This is my recipe for two people.

1 onion, diced

2 gloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon thai red curry paste

200g chicken thighs, cut into strips

100g butternut squash

1 can diced tomatos

1/2 can lite coconut milk

handful of frozen peas

Fry the onion, garlic and curry paste together until the onion is soft. Add the chicken and brown. Add the butternut squash and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the tomatoes and the coconut milk. Cover and simmer until the chicken is cooked through, add the peas in the last few minutes of cooking. Serve with brown rice.

From this I know I will have about 200g of chicken left and half a can of coconut milk. This will all be used in a green curry on Wednesday night so so far no waste!

The Explanation

This blog is a little project that I set for myself for several reasons.

Firstly, while I love cooking, I hate grocery shopping and I hate having to come home from work and having to figure out what to make for dinner. I tend to go to the grocery store everyday and figure it out there. This leads to frustration (weeknight supermarket shopping is my idea of hell), food waste, expensive grocery bills and uninspired meals.

Secondly, the amount of food I waste really weighs on my mind. In Australia alone it is estimated that we throw out $5.2 billion worth of food a year. Imagine what that sort of money could do in a third world country, and then imagine how much that is going into our land fills. It horrifies me, and what makes it worse is that I am one of these people throwing out roughly $600 a year in food.

Finally, I am hoping that this will help me eat a little more seasonally, which again impacts on our planet.

So, how does this all work?

Essentially, I have written up a 5 week meal plan in which I only repeat one meal (pizza) and in which I factor in what I think I will have left over from previous meals. So, for example I always seem to throw out coconut milk and pumpkins (I have no idea why, it is just these two seem to end up in the rubbish a lot). In order to prevent this I have factored in two curries in one week, and I have a week of pumpkin dishes because I know that I will have left overs from previous meals. Also the reason I have two pizza nights on my plan is to try use up the last of bits and pieces in the fridge. I am hoping that come Sunday morning (when I plan on having next weeks groceries delivered) I will have a lovely empty fridge.

Along with the meal plan I have created a monthly (pantry) shopping list and a weekly shopping list for fresh ingredients. This way I only need to do grocery shopping once a week. And hopefully will only be buying what I need to each recipe.

I will also be posting recipes and photos and will generally ramble on about how it is going. I do have many concerns and will document those as I go along.

I am also making my menu plans an shopping lists available for anyone who might be interested.

Wish me luck!