Meatless Monday

I've decided to have at least one meat free day a week, hence 'Meatless Monday'. Although it took some time - I've been trying for many years - I've finally convinced H'o'M that it is good for both our bodies and  the environment to eat less meat.


As today is Monday, we're having a Mexican dinner with Vegetarian chilli, with the 'whole enchilada' - excuse the word play there ;-)


We took all the fixins around to mum's and made our tortillas there.


I have to say I didn't miss the meat at all!

Left to go...

there are 5 recipes and only 2 days left to the original challenge.

Mmmmmm

Well if I don't make it, I have given myself permission to extend the challenge until the spring equinox, which is actually officially the end of winter anyway.

I hope you are all OK with that too ;-)

It's not cheating ...


it's not ...


is it?

Brunch

A brunch in Melbourne today with Mez, Tut and the kids led to cooking a couple of favourite Donna dishes as well as a couple of new ones.


Firstly I put together the 'maple baked beans' and the ricotta baked breakfast loaf'. Both were tasty - again. Tut - the family baked bean aficionado - even admitted he would eat these in preference to the Heinz English recipe in a tin!


Had a small issue with the breakfast loaf - of course, isn't there always an issue with me.  I didn't take enough bread out of the loaf first, so the egg mixture ran out as I was pouring it into the bread and the loaf looked a bit lopsided.
Also it cooked too long for the bottom of the loaf, so it was actually too crunchy to cut properly and looked a bit of a disaster when we were trying to serve it. Luckily the recipients were family and just ate it anyway ;-)


The first new dish created today was 'chocolate sandwiches'. Although a bit dubious to start with - "I don't think hot Nutella will be very nice" was one comment - these sandwiches went down a treat with Leo and Stells in the end. Both waiting very impatiently for these treats to be cooked.

 Sylvie however,  just licked all the chocolate from the bread and left the unwanted detritus! :-)


I finally had a couple of tasters for Donna's 'hazelnut-spiked coffee with vanilla cream'. As I have said before I think, this is my least favourite recipe of all time...I don't drink coffee, am allergic to hazelnuts, and don't like cream. Mez & Tut though were willing to sample said drink! Both gave it a resounding YUM!


An indulgent pleasure with no need for a repeat though.

A true inedible disaster...

I don't like to eat vanilla slice, I don't like the look of vanilla slice and I've never made vanilla slice.

Vanilla slice and I just don't get along! The pastry didn't cook properly, and clearly, the custard didn't set properly - even though I left it over night! 

I don't know what Donna was thinking with this recipe. Disaster pure and simple! Of course.... it could have been me ;-)

A production line

What a glorious afternoon I had in the kitchen yesterday! For some reason I went into overdrive at about 4pm and cooked constantly til about 7. It was quite exhilarating actually and although there was one disaster - see next post - I was pretty happy with the results!

Firstly I made lemon meringue cupcakes - again! These are lovely little mouthfuls and fun to make. If only I had that bruleé torch! I promise I will get one of those utensils one of these days...next paycheck I promise! ;-)

Pre colouring

I was dead happy with the meringue on this lot. For some reason the kitchen gods were with me and I whipped me up a mean meringue. It sat beautifully on top of the cakes and although I couldn't have too many cute little peaks - going under the grill remember not hand colouring with a bruleé torch - the ones I did make, stayed put and didn't flop over! Woo Hoo! A success!

I haven't tasted one in it's entirety yet, and am waiting for the verdict from the neighbours B & M, and mum who all got a sampler last night!

While these were cooling I whipped up a batch of sausage rolls for brunch tomorrow. A slight hiccup when I added some grated carrot and forgot to squeeze all the juice out of said carrot. Made for some wetter rolls than I am used to, but with a few minutes more in the oven, I think they crisped up OK. This did lead to another issue I've never had before though. I usually use some pork mince in my sausage rolls, but for some reason I only got beef mince - and very lean mince at that. As a result, with the extra cooking time needed for the carrot issue, and no fat in the meat mince, the rolls are a little drier than ideal. However as we all know... there is nothing a little tomato sauce won't fix!

To the extra pastry sheet left after the sausage rolls were made, I added some apple, pear and raspberries. Folded the pastry up over the top of the fruit and created a rustic pie! Sprinkled with some demarara sugar, it baked up a treat! 

Forgot to take a photo though ;-)

I found some Roma tomatoes I bought last week in the fridge drawer too, so I cut them up and roasted them with some olive oil and basil. While the oven was hot - you know ;-) We'll have them next week on a pizza or pasta I think. I'll definitely come up with a use for them sometime soon!

Then, well it was 6:45 and time to think about dinner. Earlier in the day, I had bought some fish for dinner while I was buying the clams at the fish monger. After some discussion with the bloke there, I had a fillet of Atlantic salmon and a fillet of Kingfish! Both looking particularly fresh and fine! A beautiful fish stew was in the offing. Perfect for a cold wintry night!

Recently I had come across a fish stew in the recipe file on my gorgeous little laptop. Heaven knows where it originally came from, but it's mine now. 

It has all sorts of yummy things in the tomato base ... chilli, bay leaves, anchovies, herbs ... and then with a handful or so of mini pasta shapes ( I used fusilli last night) and some fresh fish, it is particularly flavoursome.

On the side I blanched some 'fresh from the garden at the farm' swiss chard, and some broccoli! I think I covered all the food groups there! 

Happy as a clam

Made the trek out to the seafood shop at the airport today and snagged me some clams for Donna's 'clam chowder'. I don't know what makes a chowder different to a soup - "anyone, anyone ... Bueller?"


Up until today I thought the difference was that chowder was very thick and almost edible with a fork, while soup was much thinner. Time to think again really, as Donna's clam chowder...not so much!

It was tasty, easy to make but not exactly what I was expecting. More a milky/seafoody broth!

PS On an existential note.... why exactly are clams happy?? ;-)

Catching up

Well it's been a while between posts - again - and sadly there has been very little cooking since the last post. Definitely none from 'the bible'. Well, you see ....

• there are only a few recipes left and I got a bit smug about finishing
• there are only a few recipes left and I got a bit bored with the whole deal
• we went away for a few days
• the ingredients are getting a little harder to find

Meatball soup

I did cook a couple of recipes from the magazine, but unfortunately for my tally, they were ones I had already done before. I cooked the 'pancetta, onion and olive pasta' on Wednesday night for dinner - Yum! No picture though - sorry about that!

Yesterday I re-made the 'tomato soup with meatballs'... again I have to say - Yum! Although, having said that I think it's a little bland. I did add chilli to the meatballs and sauce already, but next time I would add more zing with some lemon zest perhaps or maybe more chili.

Tarragon chicken and cauliflower
salad

We do like a bit of chicken in our house but I don't ever buy it with the skin left on, as we find it's nicer without the extra fat!  It was interesting then when I was looking for chicken breast for the 'tarragon chicken, cauliflower and fennel salad' recipe - which stated 'skin on', I couldn't find any in the shops. I'm sure that says something about the healthier shopping/eating habits of Australians. 

H'o'M was not overly impressed with this salad when he came into the kitchen while it was being prepared. Not only did it have cauliflower in it - we all know his feelings there - but it was raw cauliflower at that! 

 I thought it was very tasty though and would use the concept to make another similar salad in summer - clearly it would have to be different as cauliflower and fennel are winter produce! Last night was just too cold for a salad really!  As you can see from the picture it is a very 'white' dish - not a whole lot of colour to it. I generally do like a bit more colour in my salads. Maybe next time a red capsicum or some zucchini or even basil (would that work with the tarragon?) would liven the salad up a bit! 

While down on the farm this week I whipped up a batch of these biscuits. They are an oat, nut, chocolate combination and as I made them quite small are very easy to eat, and eat and eat! 

A wet Wednesday in winter

What else is one to do on such a cold miserable day but continue to cook (and read)! So I did ;-)

For lunch I made the 'ricotta stuffed pasta shells'. These have been the bane of my existence for far too long! Everywhere I go I have been looking for the large pasta shells, but I just couldn't find them anywhere (well that's not completely true, as I did find a 1kg bag at the Vic Market when we were there one weekend, but as I only needed 9 shells, this was way too many!).
Every supermarket, every deli, every specialty shop I entered I looked but no-one seemed to stock them.
I decided today, that really, to get the gist of the recipe, I only needed to use some kind of pasta and stuff it with Donna's ricotta stuffing. Surely I could work around my lack of a specific pasta shape - right?

Right...

Problem solved..... I simply made some little stuffed parcels from fresh lasagne sheets. How easy is that?! Worked a treat too!
Just laid the mixture on half a lasagne sheet, folded it up and bunged it in the oven with the required sauces on top and let it cook away! The taste was OK, but there was nothing too special about the ricotta stuffing.
 If I made this sort of thing again I would add some zing to the ricotta mix - maybe some different cheeses, some herbs perhaps, even some chili...all a bit bland really.






Couldn't help myself really, so I made the 'choc topped honeycomb' again! I can't stress enough how good this stuff is. I know my co-tenant E agrees with me. I think between us we polished of the majority of the last lot! Seeing as we're having no visitors in the near future, it seems this batch is all for me hahahahaha

You'll note there is currently no 'choc top' on the 'choc topped honeycomb ... well you see what happened was.... basically I prefer it without chocolate.
I might put some on tomorrow. I'll let you know ;-)

 
Lastly I knocked up the 'asian pork and noodle soup'. Nothing too spectacular, but quite tasty. It was good to use a different Asian vegetable than I'm used to. I usually buy the baby pak choi but this recipe called for gai larn! Very healthy tasting soup really.






H'o'M and I just went through Donna's mag aka 'the bible' and marked down the recipes we want to make/eat again. Of the 95 of them, 29 made the cut. That's not a bad average from one book/magazine I'd say!

Tonight's soup didn't make the grade though!

Dinner results...

.... so, the 'maple and apple cider vinegar braised pork' was cooked to perfection!  This was quite the achievement if you consider we were transporting it to mum's mid cooking! It's only 5 minutes away, but it still could have resulted in a disaster! 

The pork was all crispy and shiny on the outside - as it was supposed to be. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the end result and only took one of it all carved on the plate. Sadly, I seem to do that all the time. I guess most of the 'meat' photos throughout this challenge look exactly the same. They're not, I promise ;-)

The marinade the pork was braised in - by the way I found out braising just means 'roasting in juices' - became all sticky when it was done, so we poured that over the pork on each plate.


The 'Marsala poached pears' for desert was another success!  Mum particularly liked it, and I think is looking forward to tomorrow night when she gets to eat the extra pear!

What with the sweet marsala and sugar in the pears and the maple syrup added in the pork marinade, I'm feeling a little sugar rush right now. Perhaps I 'll use some energy doing the ironing.








....nah! ;-)

Ahead of the game

After a mammoth effort in the kitchen this afternoon I now have fewer recipes to complete than days in which to complete them! Woo Hoo!!!
Yes it's true, only 13 recipes in exactly 14 days. 


Can I do it???? Yes I can!!! (thanks Bob)

Today I made 'coconut and lemongrass soup with prawns' for lunch. Neither of us loved it to be honest. As it was made with just coconut cream and a little fish stock, it was just too creamy for me. The flavours were good though, and I like the added crunch of the snow peas.

I have the 'maple and apple cider vinegar braised pork' in the oven,  where it is merrily braising away in some yummy sounding ingredients, the marsala poached pears' are poached and the marsala sauce is simmering away getting nice and thick and sticky, so.... what do I do? 

Make 'tempura cauliflower' of course :-) It had to be done... so why not now?


I was nervous with this one, not sure why really. The first batch of tempura batter didn't work .... mmmm, maybe that's why ;-) 'Not to worries' though, I just made another one.... no time limit to work to here thank you Master chef! 


The second batch worked out fine. I poured the chilled water into the flour gradually and didn't even use it all. This made the batter nice and thick - although not lumpy as Donna assured me it would be. 
No problems at all though once the batter was made. I just chopped up the cauliflower, dredged it in flour, dipped it in the batter and fried it up. Of course it doesn't look like any tempura battered dish I've ever seen in a Japanese restaurant, but for a first time effort I am pretty chuffed! 


H'o'M even ate more than one piece (unlike the pickled cauli) and says this method of cooking makes cauliflower edible! 


Stay tuned for the results of the dinner menu ;-)

A long time between posts...

Oops, life has got in the way of my posting on this blog, but thankfully not in the way of my cooking! I have been chugging along and slowly working my way through the list of dishes left to create.

A quick run down of dishes:

'Spicy chicken dumpling soup'... this was really yummy! I made it again two days later as it was so tasty, and so easy. I loved making the little wonton dumplings! Firstly I minced up the chicken breast using the wonderful attachment that one can purchase for one's Kitchen Aid (not that I have one here at the beach house, but mum does...phew!), then mixed with a few of Donna's secret ingredients and BAM! Chicken dumpling soup!



'Pickled cauliflower bruschetta'. This was always going to be a bit tricky as we know the majority of my family don't like the cauliflower so much, still it had to be done. H'o'M and I were heading to mum's for dinner one night, so I thought I'd make a little pre dinner snack. I know mum likes a good 'giardiniera' (there was always a bottle of pickled vegies in the fridge when I was growing up), so I knew she'd help me out of said 'pickle' ..... scuse the bad word play ;-)
The cauliflower went very well with the blue cheese - we didn't use gorgonzola this time, but a wonderful King Island Roaring 40s blue instead - the tang of the pickled cauli cut through the strength of the blue - or vice versa perhaps

Next was the 'spatchcocks with red currant glaze and bread sauce'. I had been quite concerned about sourcing these spatchcocks since the very beginning of this challenge - where o where would I be able to buy them?!  In the end I just decided to use a chicken! I know, I know it's not quite as classy to look at, but so much easier to source, to carve and to eat.

The actual recipe required a little faffing around... making a bread sauce and a glaze and roasting the chicken and vegies and having them all come out ready to serve at the same time took some doing...to be honest I don't think I quite made it ;-)
My bread sauce lacked the correct consistency I think. Maybe I didn't use enough milk as it was very thick - almost gluggy!?! "soggy bread is the term used by H'o'M to describe it!
The glaze was good, but very sweet and I wouldn't rush to use it again! Poured all over, it would make a whole chicken look rather special though.

Today I made cheesecake swirl chocolate brownie'. I have made many brownie recipes in my day, and they are usually very 'moreish', but this one was great. The brownie part was light and fluffy and the cheesecake part added a wonderful texture and taste.


I don't think I did a terribly good job of swirling the two together  actually. The brownie part was much thicker than I expected, so the cheesecake part didn't get too far down into the brownie.

Tasted good though ;-)

Left overs

Lunch today was a left over day! I had one lamb shank portion left in the freezer, and lots of various ingredients taking up room in the fridge and in my plastic containers! They had to be used - if only so I could see into the fridge again - so 'harissa artichoke & bocconcini bites' and/or lamb shank pasta was on the menu! In the end, H'o'M had the pasta and I polished off the small bites ;-)

As we know, lamb shanks are not his favourite dish, so he was pleased to know today that this was the last portion! It looked quite nice on top of the pasta, sprinkled with parmesan and parsley, but really, it just tasted like lamb shanks ;-)











I had the bocconcini bites which were good - see photo here - but I had to remove some of the harissa on the last few pieces.... a bit heavy handed with the spoon I guess!

Miso soup

I am getting to the end of the magazine now and there are lots of soups left... all those ones I left as they needed a little more preparation and/or ingredients now need to be cooked. Damn it ;-)

Last night for dinner H'o'M and I had the 'chicken miso soup with tofu'. It was really good! I'm not a huge fan of the miso soup actually, and when we eat out at Japanese restaurants, I generally skip the miso. This was easy and tasty though!

I was impressed that I could buy miso paste and nori sheets at the local supermarket here in our beach side town, but sadly they didn't run to the red miso paste needed for the recipe, only selling white miso paste. This did mean that the soup was very pale, but H'o'M and I decided 'close enough was good enough'.... aren't we getting lax as this challenge progresses?!

Tonight another soup ....

A fish by any other name...

A couple of fish recipes recently completed! Only three left to go

Last night around at mum's I made the 'crunchy herbed fish & potatoes'. What a simple recipe. So easy to make and so quick to cook!
There was quite the discussion with mum however about the length of time Donna recommended for cooking the fish! We decided that her fish must be nowhere near as thick as ours, so we cooked ours for a longer time before we grilled the breadcrumbs on top to make it crunchy ;-)

A good decision too as our Ling was cooked through without being tough.

Um.... about those breadcrumbs though .... well ... I had to have a second attempt as I burned the first lot when I shut the door to the grill. Oops! Apparently you're not supposed to close the oven door while grilling. Mmmm, well I say that each oven is different and it's hard sometimes for me to keep track of which kitchen I'm in and which oven I'm using!
At times I do long for my own kitchen - wherever that may be ;-)

Today for lunch, keeping the fish theme going, I made 'salmon and dill bites' - sans dill! My only excuse here is that I hate dill with a vicious hate! It is just way too strong a flavour for me and when it is used in a dish, that is all I can taste!

So, I used basil instead and they tasted just fine!

The clock is ticking....

....there are exactly 25 recipes left to cook and 22 days in which to cook them!

Pressure is on ;-)

A cooking weekend

Spending a weekend with a ravenous 8 year old - Seamus and a not quite so ravenous but equally interested in food 5 year old - Finnie - meant some serious cooking to be done!

I made the 'choc-topped maple honeycomb'! OMG this stuff is amazing. It all came together so well too thanks to the new natty piece of kitchen equipment I now own... a candy thermometer! I am a bit of a honeycomb lover - 'Violet Crumble' anyone? - so I was particularly excited about the idea of making my own. With the addition of a little maple syrup - cause there's just not enough sugar normally - it is super yummy!

Seriously this stuff is good - I think I am addicted ;-)

With 2 small boyos in the house, it was the perfect time to make the 'cinnamon infused hot chocolate'. With 2 small boyos in the house it was also the perfect time to forget the cinnamon part!
Both boys decided to give the cinnamon a miss, and go for the unadulterated chocolate flavour. I know, I know this means I have to make the drink again, to stick to the 'recipe unchanged rule' but that's OK too as I am sure there are others around who will be only to happy to help me out!
Seamo doesn't like marshmallows so he opted for the straight choc flavour, but Finnie went the whole hog and used 3 marshmallows in his cup. As a result, Finn's was much sweeter than Seamo's but both were supremely happy ;-)

As we were having a late dinner to fit in with returning parents and plane schedules, I decided to make a 6pm appetizer to eat while Harry Potter sorted out that nasty basilisk!

'Harissa, artichoke and bocconcini bites' were the order of the day. I have been itching to make these since I first looked through the magazine, as they looked so good, and to be honest, I can't really think why I haven't already made them already! The recipe lived up to it's hype. I would definitely make these again. Perfect to have with cocktails! Seriously though, what's not to like; crusty bread topped with loads of yummy bits then finished off with grilled cheese! Seamus was a fan - except for the artichoke!

While in the cooking zone on the weekend, I had decided to knock the 'prosciutto and caramelised onion roasted beef' off the list too. This was a huge success - marred only by the dearth of roasted potatoes (apparently there can never be enough). The beef was moist, tender and generally fabulous to eat. The prosciutto was very crumbly when the beef was carved, but that stopped none of us from enjoying the flavours! YUM!
For those regular readers, you will be pleased to know that I had a lot of butcher's string left over after tying the beef fillet. I will freely acknowledge this was more due to receiving loads of twine from the friendly butcher in Moonee Ponds, than any planning on my part ;-) Note the cut twine hanging from the pre carved beef fillet in the photo!

With the help of my sous chef, Finnie that left only a breakfast on Sunday to create. After an enormous pancake entree (capably created by said sous chef Finn and Ec), we all managed to leave room for 'maple baked beans with thyme toast'. Unfortunately we were sans the thyme toasts....well, we'd had a lot going on in the kitchen that morning with the pancakes and all, I forgot to preheat the oven, we'd already had loads of maple syrup on the pancakes, and well the bottom line is I couldn't be bothered! Not to worry though, the beans were so good I'll be making them again, and next time I will definitely bake the thyme toasts - are you happy now??! ;-)

The beans were really good. There were 4 types of beans, just a dash of maple syrup with some other loverly flavours! Mmmm, seconds were even requested! 

What...no meat?

such was the refrain from H'o'M when I told him the menu for dinner last night ;-)


'Spicy spinach & ricotta lasagne' was the actual dish, and nary a piece of meat to be seen or tasted!

So the verdict?

Well we both enjoyed it, but thought there was a fraction too much lemon zest, the first tastes were all lemony zing!

Sidebar....it was definitely spicy, not too much really, but a little left over tingle on the lips! 


Luckily, for lunch I had made 'chicken, risoni and lemon soup' (I tell ya, I gotta get rid of these lemons). 

The dish contained all the protein he needed ;-)

Complacency?

So, I still have far too many recipes left in this challenge!  I thought I was well and truly on track. Seems I'm not now ;-) Today is a day for some cooking! 


If only there were more people around to eat! 

Roasted Lamb

Last night I made the 'rosemary roasted lamb chops'. Well, let me say straight out, I didn't like it. 

It's been a long long time since I've eaten a lamb chop - they just aren't a cut of meat I tend to buy... too much fat attached! I realized last night that it'll be a long time before I eat another one too! 

The chops went into the oven on top of the vegies but at the end of the cooking time, the lamb was just grey, it had no colour at all! In hind sight a good searing in a pan before roasting would have been the way to go!                                 

Now I love a good lamb roast as much as anyone, but the flavour in these chops was far too strong for me - funnily enough it was very 'lamby'.

Let me hasten to add that H'o'M and mum disagreed with my assessment, and enjoyed the meal very much! 

An added extra

An old favourite of ours was on the menu for dessert last night.  Not part of the Donna Hay challenge, but well worthy of a mention

With loads of 'Granny Smith apples' in the bowl on the bench, I made the classic 'Dorset Apple Cake'. I know I'm supposed to use 'Bramley' apples, but we don't have those in Australia and I think that a Granny Smith is the next best thing!

There are many many recipes in Dorset for this cake but I used the recipe written on a postcard bought from that little gift shop at the top of Gold Hill ... the gift shop doesn't exist anymore but I'm sure the postcard is still readily available ;-)

This is a classic recipe in that it has never failed to turn out beautifully! It's such a versatile flavour that it is perfect for afternoon or morning tea or in our case an easy and yummy dessert!