Friday: Bottomless Quiche
Saturday: BBQ (sausages and chops) with friends
Sunday: From the Freezer (beef sausages and lentil stew)
Monday: With my folks
Tuesday: BBQ (sausages and kebabs, and white bean salad) with friends
Wednesday and Thursday will be part of the next week, because I’ll have to shop then—I’m not braving the shops on Boxing Day for groceries!
Off to sew!
Friday: Nachos
Saturday: Tapas. I was reminded how good it was when I finally posted about doing it at the beginning of the year. I’ll try and actually add the recipes. I have a couple of new recipes to try as well… (Deep-fried Aubergine with honey, Roasted Almonds and Spanish Omlette).
Sunday: Picnic for both lunch and dinner (an end of year thing, and under the Christmas tree). I haven’t decided for certain which way around it will be, but one will be Scotch eggs and Onigiri (with sundried tomato, pickled ginger, tuna, and avocado as the fillings), the other will be bottomless quiche.
Monday: We eat with my folks.
Tuesday: Pasta with Pesto
Wednesday: BBQ night. Pork skewers and More-ish Crunch salad (I’ll post the recipe this week). Making Peppermint Creams.
Thursday: We eat with Paddington’s folks. Making Shortbread.
+
+
with a sprinkle of
= Meat and Lentil Rice (Adas Polo) from Passion for Pulses: A Feast of Beans, Peas and Lentils from Around the World
250 grams rice, long grain/basmati
200 grams lentils, dried green (just ordinary green… I’ve done it with the French-style ones, and while it works, the texture is definitely better with the softer ones)
2 tablespoons oil, olive
1 large onion, chopped
200 grams mince, beef or lamb
1 chilli, green or red, seeded and finely chopped (or chilli flakes)
salt
pepper, black
2 centimetre ginger, fresh, finely chopped (I’ve been known to use ground ginger)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
½ teaspoon cinnamon, ground
¼ teaspoon cardamom, ground
1 teaspoon rosewater
½ teaspoon saffron (or a shake of turmeric)
⅓ cup water
60 grams sultanas
50 grams dates, pitted and chopped
nuts, cashews or pistachios, raw or roasted, roughly chopped
Cook rice in salted boiling water for about 15 minutes (longer if using brown rice) until just soft. Drain.
Rinse lentils. Put in pot and cover with plenty of fresh water. Bring to the boil; simmer for about 20 minutes until lentils are tender. Drain.
In a large frying pan, sauté onion in oil until golden.
Add mince, chilli, salt, black pepper, ginger, garlic, cinnamon, cardamom, rosewater and saffron mixed with water; cook over medium heat until mince is done (about 15 minutes).
Stir in lentils, rice and fruit. Cook for a few minutes until heated through.
Mix well; sprinkle with nuts just before serving. I usually serve it with green beans, but I’m still looking for other options for side dishes. It freezes really well.
This is one of my favourite meals:-) I first came across it at my hen’s night (I had a hafla, and every one brought a middle eastern food to share.) It was so good I asked for the recipe. I didn’t ever get around to making it though. Then we eventually got the book, and this recipe leapt out at me and I made it and thought it was fabulous… It was only a couple of years later when looking for something in my email archive that I found the recipe I’d been sent:-) It’s now a fixture in my menu plan:-)
I keep seeing Meal Plan Monday, but I never feel as though I can join in because of the timing of my planning. So I’ve decided to start Friday Food—because I plan on Thursday, to start the food week on Friday. Essentially I have a monthly rotation (summer and winter plans), but most days have a couple of options, so it is more like a two month rotation.
Friday: Meat and Lentil Rice (I can’t believe I hadn’t blogged it yet! Definitely to come…). We’ll also be making Speculatius.
Saturday: Dinner at a friend’s. We’re taking Bisschopswijn (still haven’t decided on a recipe, but I’m thinking of a chilled variety:-) )
Sunday: Takeaway of some sort. We’ll see. Fish and chips or Thai most likely.
Monday: We eat with my folks. We’ll be making the Ice-Cream Plum Pudding.
Tuesday: Vietnamese Spring Rolls.
Wednesday: We eat with Paddington’s folks.
Thursday: BBQ night. Sausages and potato salad.
My planning for the week is definitely simplified by our regular meals with the grandparents, but we normally cook more than this—it’s just that we’ve entered the Silly Season, so we actually have a social life at the moment:-)
(Edited to add a link to the recipe.)
I really enjoy reading The Pioneer Woman. A lot of the recipes she makes work for me—because she doesn’t use ‘exotic’ ingredients (US specific) like a lot of other US sites. So I’m a regular reader of her cooking pages. I’ve even made a few.
Of course, the ones I’ve decided to make regularly, do use not-easily findable ingredients:-( So here’s what I actually do.
Chicken Spaghetti (based on the recipe from The Pioneer Woman, hers is supposed to serve 6, but I’ve cut it down a bit and now it serves about 6 of us:-) )
2 cups chicken, cooked (this is one of my ‘using up leftover chicken’ recipes)
2 cups stock, chicken
500 grams spaghetti, thin
2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons flour, 1 1/2 cups milk (to replace 600 milliliters Cream of Mushroom soup, (2 cans) )
1/2 onion, grated
1 capsicum, green, diced
1 capsicum, red, diced (instead of the pimentos we can get, but have to search out)
2 cups cheese, cheddar, grated
1 teaspoon seasoned salt—dash of paprika, garlic, turmeric and onion powder with some salt (instead of the Lawry’s seasoned salt)
cayenne pepper
pepper
salt
1 cup cheese, cheddar, grated (extra, for the top)
Dice the green capsicum, red capsicum and grate onion.
Next, break the thin spaghetti into pieces until you have around 2 1/2 to 3 cups.
Cook the spaghetti pieces in boiling chicken stock to cook (water with a little stock powder).
Allow the spaghetti to cook for several minutes, until very al dente (or, until it still has a nice “bite” to it.) You do NOT want to overcook the spaghetti, as you’ll be baking the dish again later.
Meanwhile, make a white sauce of the butter, flour and milk (be sure to warm the milk). Add the chicken stock. Sprinkle on the seasonings (dash of paprika, garlic, turmeric and onion powder with some salt, pepper and cayenne pepper). Add the chicken, the capsicum, the onion and the grated cheese.
Now, place the cooked spaghetti into a casserole dish.
Stir thoroughly, then take a bite and check your seasonings. Add a little salt if needed, a little more pepper, and maybe a little more Cayenne if you didn’t have enough the first time around. Make sure it’s seasoned enough!
And top with an additional 1 cup of grated sharp cheddar.
Bake it at 180˚C for 35 to 45 minutes until hot & bubbly.
Notes:
This can be frozen, unbaked. Or you can cover it and refrigerate it, unbaked, for up to two days before baking. I actually prefer it about a day after it’s been cooked… the ’sauce’ is just a more pleasing texture.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently on Menu Planning (I have a post in progress all about it:-) ). This post struck me as a fun idea—and given my sister has been talking to me about starting, I thought I might try it… assuming I can find a suitable time:-)
Now that Cygnet is here, I figured it was time to return to bread-making (partly prompted by reading In Defense of Food… Paddington talked about it here… Not sure if I’ll actually get to write a review myself, but I definitely thought it was worth a read). Only, I couldn’t see that I was actually going to get to it:-( Then I remembered that although my father had borrowed our bread machine, he hadn’t actually begun using it (after about a year)… In spite of my preference to make it entirely by hand, I thought that might be the solution.
Of course, I’ve never actually used a bread machine before. So I figured I’d start with a mix, to get a feel for how the dough works (I really don’t like the upright shape of the loaf, or the paddle hole in the bottom, so my plan was to use it for the dough, and then shape it, rise it in a loaf tin and cook it myself). Then I’d make the transition to using my own recipe (unless the bread mix was fabulous!) We got a multigrain mix which essentially was just like the bread we’d been buying (aside from slicing it ourselves)… but that meant it was kind of white. So I’ve started experimenting with making my own.
I wanted to stick to a 680 gram loaf (I’m keen to end up with a nice sandwich shaped loaf—so I need a reliable size:-) )I started with mum’s recipe and compared it with the quantities used in the mixes I had, and the recipes in the book (there were no wholemeal recipe in the book, or I’d probably have tried that for starters). The flour quantities were close (as far as I could work out, given mum’s is measured by volume, but the book uses weights), but there was more than twice as much water, and double (or more) the quantity of yeast in any of them. I tried halving the water… which was too dry. I was watching the dough at that point, and added more—but too much… it was rather sticky:-( But it worked. It turned out though, that I thought the yeast was more of an issue. It almost opened the top of the bread machine when it was rising, and I had to lower the shelf in the oven when I turned the bread around, because I couldn’t fit it back in!
So the next batch I did, I used half the water plus a dessertspoon, and half the yeast. The texture of the dough was better (and the bread was the same), but it still rose the same way!
So next I lowered the quantity of sugar, but that made no difference.
The only other thing to try was adjusting the flour/gluten flour mix. Mum’s recipe is supposed to be stone-ground flour, but I generally just use wholemeal… If you’re using stone-ground, you really need the lift of gluten flour to make good bread. (When I eventually sort out somewhere for the grainmill to work, I’ll have to play with this again, but that could be a while:-) ). The next loaf was rather flatter, because I tried without any gluten flour. So, I added some back, and that seems to be working out:-)
So, all that’s left to do is experiment with adding some grains so that we have a Wholemeal Multigrain Loaf (why are multigrain loaves all white?)
Wholemeal Bread Machine Loaf
300 millilitres of water (for a Breville upright, for others you may need to adjust)
450 grams wholemeal flour
50 grams gluten flour
1 teaspoon yeast
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon olive oil
pinch of salt
Place the ingredients in the machine, in the order listed. Set it on the dough cycle.
At the end of the cycle, remove dough and place in an oiled loaf tin. Bake at 180˚C for 30 minutes.
I used to like tinned baked beans. We’d regularly have them for breakfast. Then Paddington made me these. They have exactly the flavours that I loved, but I know exactly what’s in them:-) So much better:-)
Baked Beans from Stephanie Alexander’s A Cook’s Companion
Serves 6 (makes about 20 breakfast sized serves)
375 grams beans, borlotti or red kidney, dried and soaked or a can of beans
2 tablespoons oil, olive
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 carrots, diced
2 rashers bacon, thickly sliced streaky, cut into 1 cm wide strips
2 capsicum, red, seeded, cut into 2 cm squares
1 capsicum, green, seeded, cut into 2 cm squares
1 tin tomatoes, peeled, 400 grams
1 bay leaf
1 sprigs thyme
1 teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed
3 tablespoons maple syrup
Preheat the oven to 160˚C. Rinse soaked beans, then put into a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil then strain and rinse with cold water. Heat oil in a large enamelled cast-iron casserole and sauté onion, garlic, carrot and bacon. After 5 minutes, when onion has softened and bacon is sizzling, add red and green peppers. Purée tomatoes and juice in a food processor and add to casserole with beans and remaining ingredients, except maple syrup. Mix well. Add sufficient cold water to cover beans by 4 cm. Transfer casserole, tightly sealed, to oven and bake for at least 4 hours. Stir well after 2 hours, checking tat it is still reasonably sloppy (if it is too dry, add a little water and reduce oven temperature). After 4 hours, stir in maple syrup, extra salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. The beans should now be in a rich sauce. If too thick, add a little extra water; if too runny and the beans are tender, increase oven temperature and continue to cook.
Notes:
Freeze in muffin trays, then decant into bags for quick breakfast—thaw and serve on toast.
When it’s been a while, I always find I’ve forgotten just how simple this is! It’s one of my favourite soups, and it’s always delicious:-)
French Onion Soup from Australian Good Taste, July 2006
Serves 6
1 tablespoon oil, olive
50 grams butter
1 kilogram onions, brown, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon sugar, brown
2 tablespoons flour
1 litre stock, brown
125 milliliters wine, dry white
french stick, cut into 1 centimetre slices
cheese, sliced swiss/parmesan
Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring for 10 minutes or until the onion softens. Add the brown sugar and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3-4 minutes or until the sugar dissolves and the onion is golden.
Add the flour and cook, stirring for 1-2 minutes or until foaming. Remove from heat. Gradually add the stock and wine and stir until combined.
Place the onion mixture over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly for 5 minutes or until the mixture thickens slightly. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until the mixture thickens. Taste and season with salt and pepper.
Meanwhile, preheat grill on medium. Place the bread slices on a baking tray and cook under grill until toasted on each side. Divide the cheese amongst the bread slices, and grill until the cheese has melted.
Ladel the soup among the serving bowls. Top each soup with 2 cheese croutons. Season with pepper and serve immediately with the remaining croutons.
I’m kind of always on the lookout for more vegetarian recipes. Recently I have been looking through Complete Vegetarian Cookbook
Ratatouille from Charmaine Solomon’s Complete Vegetarian Cookbook
Serves 6
750 grams eggplant (skin on, cubed)
cooking salt
3 small zucchini (skin on, cubed)
2 capsicums (red or green, seeded and sliced)
3 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
2 large onions (finely chopped)
4 large, ripe tomatoes (diced)
1/2 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon dried basil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Sprinkle the eggplant and zucchini cubes with a little salt and set aside in a colander for about an hour. Press out and discard the liquid drawn out by the salt (I did this using paper towel, and I did wonder what the non-paper alternative would be? Tea towels?) Heat the olive oil, and gently cook the onions and garlic until they are soft but not brown. Add the eggplant, zucchini and capsicums. Cook over a low heat for half an hour (I see now I was supposed to cover it, but it worked fine). Add the tomatoes, coriander, basil and salt and pepper (I went very easy on the salt, because I wasn’t sure how much would remain on the vegetables, but I could safely have added more). Cook for another half an hour or so. Vegetables should be very tender. It suggest serving with Middle Eastern or crusty French bread. Sadly, although I pre-read the recipe, I missed this, so we had it without. It would definitely make it a more ‘complete’ meal though. She also suggests putting the cooked meal in an oven proof dish, making hollows in the top and breaking in an egg for each person before baking at 180˚C until the eggs are cooked.
I’ll definitely be remembering the bread (and I think I’ve seen a version with chickpeas included that might also be a nice alternative?), but otherwise this will become somewhat regular as it is:-)
Meredith has been doing an experiment. She’s blogged the whole thing, including the menu and her conclusions.
I found the whole thing an interesting read, and thought that there would be a few of my readers who would also be interested:-)
We often have French Toast for breakfast on Sundays. When I can face the thought of cooking… I’ve been fairly slack for a while though:-(
This morning Puggle said he really wanted it. “I’ll get out the bread, and the eggs. And which frypan do we use?”
Struggling (:-( ), I figured at least if he got everything out, that was one less thing to do:-) Then I realised that apart from reaching a couple of things from up high (vegemite, pepper, cinnamon and sugar, and cutlery), he could do everything other than the cooking (and tying on of his apron:-) )!
So, he did:-)
He got out all the crockery. He got out the frypan. He got out the eggs and milk. He broke the eggs (one at a time, into a glass), poured them into the jug and mixed them. He added the milk and pepper. He got out the bread. He spread it with vegemite (well, I helped with that bit). He cleared away all the extra bits. He got the plate for spreading the egg. He poured the egg onto the bread. I heated the frypan, and he placed the eggy bread into the frypan. I cooked it, and flipped it (he did one) and put it on the serving plate. I cut it, and he sprinkled it with cinnamon and sugar.
We all ate it:-)
If I can remember the night before to get down the things that are out of his reach, that will make for a much more relaxed start to the day:-)
“Thank you for making breakfast, Puggle:-)”
This is one of my favourites from childhood:-) It’s pretty forgiving in terms of the sausage quality.
Curried Sausages
Serves 6
2 knobs butter
1 onion, chopped
1 apple, granny smith, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon curry powder
500 grams sausages
400 milliliters stock
1 squeeze lemon juice
1 handful sultanas
rice
Put rice on to cook.
Place sausages in warm water, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Drain, skin (if necessary) and cut into pieces.
Melt the butter in a frypan, add apple and onion. Stir well and add tomato. Cook until soft.
Add curry and flour, stir until smooth and leave until it colours. Add stock, sultanas and lemon juice.
Boil, add sausages, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
Serve over rice.
Another recipe from our Summer Menu.
Greek Salad (from Cook With Jamie)
6 ripe plum tomatoes
handful black olives
2 avocados, cut into wedges and tossed in lemon juice
1 large shallot, peeled and diced
1 heaped teaspoon dried oregano
herb or red wine vinegar
EVOO
1 cos lettuce, outer leaves discarded, inner leaves washed and dried
340 grams feta cheese
3 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (about one lemon)
10 tablespoons EVOO
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Cut the tomatoes erratically. Mix them in a bowl with the olives, avocado, shallot, most of the oregano, a few splashes of the vinegar, a glug of olive oil, salt and pepper and set to one side for a few minutes.
Tear the larger lettuce leaves into pieces and leave the smaller leaves whole, add them to the bowl. Put the dressing ingredients in a jar, shake well and dress the salad.
Crumble large churks of feta over the salad, drizzle once more with EVOO and sprinkle with the rest of the oregano.
(Photo to come later this evening, after I’ve made it:-) I’m posting it now so I’ll be able to access the recipe wherever I am:-) )
We’ve officially changed to our Summer Menu:-) (Actually, that’s another post I haven’t written!)
And tonight, it’s pizza:-)
With one exception (Mmm… Matteo’s!) we don’t buy pizza. Instead, our freezer is generally stocked with pillows of pizza just waiting to be used:-)
Today though, was also a restocking.
Pizza Dough (based on a recipe from The Return of the Naked Chef)
500 grams plain flour (you can use only plain if you wish)
500 grams wholemeal flour (don’t make it solely from wholemeal… it makes for an unpleasantly dense pizza crust )
pinch of salt
30 grams yeast (dry)
30 grams honey
300 mls tepid water
325 mls tepid water
flour for dusting
Put the flours and salt in a bowl, make a well in the middle. Dissolve the honey and yeast with the 300 mls of water, and leave for a few minutes. Pour into the centre of the flour, and mix well. Add most of the remaining water and continue mixing (add the rest of the water if necessary… it may depend on the weather or your flour). Tip onto a floured surface and knead well, for at least five minutes. Return to the bowl (possibly oil it a little), cover, and set to rise in a warm and draught-free place for 40 minutes.
While the dough is rising, put your pizza stone (unglazed terracotta tile) in a hot oven to heat up.
Take a bottle of sundried tomatoes in oil (or sundried capsicum works nicely if you have folk allergic to tomatoes) and blend it well.
Assemble your pizza toppings.
Knock down and divide the dough into eight. Each of these pieces will make one pizza base. At this point, they can be wrapped in gladwrap and put in the freezer. We generally eat about one pizza per person.
Roll out or stretch one pizza base to shape. Take the stone out of the oven, spread some tomato paste on the base, and add your choice of toppings. With these pizzas, less is more. Spread the topping thoroughly, but they don’t need to be especially thickly spread.
Put in the oven for about 14 minutes. Remove, cut and serve. Take a photo quickly, or you’ll miss your opportunity!
We usually do at least one prosciutto and bocconcini pizza, and add basil after cooking. Bacon and banana is another favourite. Seafood and avocado (add the avocado after cooking) is good.
by A. A. Milne
by Andrew Lang
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