While I spend a lot of time pleasing myself, my husband does not. He is working very, very hard at the moment, and comes home spent each evening. I know that for him the days can seem like one blur of waking, getting ready, going to work, coming home, eating dinner, collapsing on the couch for an hour then crashing into bed. In an attempt to break the monotony of the working week, I came up with a cool idea to make each Friday night ‘Friday Feast’ time. We will cook together, sampling and trying new and interesting recipes. Dinner will be eaten sitting on the sofas, chatting, or in front of a movie. Some kind of nice wine will be consumed as well. I think in a marriage one has to come up with fun little traditions such as date-night or special couple time. As we don’t have children, we can do our Friday night thing at home, and it is better than going out at this stage.
As things normally go, the moment I planned this, we had two church events on consecutive Fridays. We have had two subsequently, though, and it has been a lot of fun. We made the foray into deep-fried food (I have never deep-fried anything in my LIFE!) with tempura prawns and other vegetables the first night. I set out some interesting little dipping sauces and we enjoyed this immensely.
Last Friday I set out a platter with some home-made dips, veggies and crackers, along with a couple of nice cheeses. I also tried out fried onion strings (a la The Pioneer Women – too lazy to link!) which were great. I’m gonna have to watch this frying business, though! We had a delicious N.Z. Sauvignon Blanc with it all, and watched a movie together.
We have a hair appointment this afternoon, and she usually doesn’t finish until 6.30 or so, so tonight I am taking some dahl out of the freezer, grilling some roti bread and I am also planning to make this little chickpea flour patties if I have time. I bought some chickpea flour from the healthfood shop, and will mix it with some garam masala (a spice mix) extra cummin (love this spice!), buttermilk and some grated carrots and chopped green beans. I’ll fry these (again with the frying!) in little patties, and serve with some tomato kausandi. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Filed under: food
Other people, when they finally feel better after a stomach bug probably think about things like going out, being able to work and so on. I am thinking about those things, too, but I am thinking more about what I would like to cook and eat. After nine days of chinese food, then a week of not much at all and wishing I was dead, I am finally feeling better and thinking tonight of cooking something nice.
On the menu is some fresh salmon, poached or baked – I haven’t decided – fresh asparagus and broccoli, steamed, with home-made hollandaise sauce and maybe a baked potato. I will go easy on the sauce, but I have to have it – I love hollandaise sauce! Pudding will be fresh, ripe strawberries.
I love feeling better.
Filed under: food
I’ve got rather a busy week at work this week, and I neglected to take anything out of the freezer for dinner tonight. My mother told me on Saturday about this little chinese restaurant which is next to the place I buy our fruit and veggies, which sells roast duck for a reasonable price. I had to do my weekly produce shop this afternoon, and decided to give the duck a go.
It looks great! They chop it up for you (I bought half a duck) and include a dipping sauce. It has already been roasted with spices, and just needs warming. I bought some beansprouts and chinese vegetables, and plan to stir fry these with some chilli, ginger and garlic, and also cook some jasmine rice. The pears looked lovely today, so if we’re still hungry, I’ll slice some pears and cheddar cheese for an easy pudding. Too easy! I’m looking forward to including this menu as a fairly regular treat.
Filed under: food
We’re going to our Bangladeshi friends’ house for dinner tonight, and I’m looking forward to an array of spicy curries. I love me a good, hot curry! I actually like it so hot that tears spring to my eyes and I break out into a light sweat. I hardly ever eat it that way, though, because my husband likes curry a bit milder than that. What I love about authentic Indian or South-East Asian food is the subtle differences in flavour that different types of curry have. You just don’t get that when you use a jar. When I’m feeling anal I ground up my own spices using the mortar and pestle – mustard seeds, coriander, cummin, cardamom – whatever the recipe requires. If you roast them first the flavour is incredible. Call me a food snob, I know it!
I love spicy Mexican food, too. I love it with cheese and sour cream. That probably isn’t authentic, but it tastes good! Thai curries are great, too.
I also love Japanese food. I like wasabi. I love that brain-freeze sensation when you have just a bit too much! (By the way, you can lessen that burn if you keep your mouth closed after putting it into your mouth. There is something about the air getting to it that makes it hotter. Apparently.)
Other weird tastes that I love include plain cheddar cheese with tomato ketchup on it. I often have this as a quick snack after school. Yum! I know. Weird. I think this stems from my childhood when mum and dad were going out to a dinner party, and she just wanted to throw together a quick meal for us. She would boil spaghetti, grate cheese over it, and splotch on a good wodge of ketchup. She was the kind of mother who made fresh tuna and salad sandwiches for our school lunch, or some other lovely combination, and we would beg for ketchup and cheese. Weird kids.
Other food love affairs for me include pecan pies, chocolate cake and plain chocolate. I can’t stand lemon flavoured puddings, like tart or pie. Blech. I can’t eat meringues (how DO you spell that word??) or cheesecake. Way too rich or something. I love anything that is almond flavoured. I drool over an almond croissant.
I love fresh salad. I’ve got to eat a salad at least three times a week. Our favourite one at present is with mixed leaves, sprouts, feta, tomato, spanish onion, garlic, semi-sundried tomatoes and something else crunchy, like snow-peas. We have this with a fresh vinegrette.
We probably stink all the time, because we both love garlic. I can eat it raw, chopped finely over a salad. I often roast whole cloves, and squeeze them over vegetables or mix into mashed potato.
I love a really good cup of coffee, or a lovely cup of tea, made with leaves, not bags.
What else? I love olives, but hubs hates them. He doesn’t like mustard, but eats it often (he doesn’t know about this). Same goes for anchovies.
What foods do you love or loathe? I’ll ask this of any readers who are still hanging around!
(I’m off for a bit of cheese and tomato sauce.)
Filed under: food
My lovely husband is fighting a yucky cold at the moment, so I thought a dinner of hig nutritional value is in order. We are starting with fresh oysters, some with a dipping sauce (either wasabi, worcester or garlic) and some with just a squirt of fresh lemon juice. Next will be a pile of roasted vegetables: sweet potato, pumpkin, potato and onion, with rosemary. I’m making a big tabbouli salad with that: cracked wheat, tons of fresh parsley, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and salad onions all mixed together. All that garlic and all those veggies are good flu busters.
Filed under: food
I’ve had a couple of goes at making my own sourdough bread. I spent a small fortune on organic biodynamic rye flour, and did the whole filtered water, careful feeding and waiting for several days. By the end of it, my wonderful sourdough starter was a flat, stagnant mess. I don’t know what went wrong, but wrong it went.
I visted a friend yesterday who is seriously into healthy eating, and she very kindly gave me two jars of starter. She also ground some rye flour for me (she grinds her own flour!) and gave me a pile of organic bakers flour. I have no excuse. It is time for sourdough part deux. What motivates me is the fact that I fork over $5.50 for one loaf of good quality sourdough. It is the only sort of bread I really should be eating, so I’ve handed over the cash up until now, but being able to bake my own would certainly be a boon. I will report back later.
Filed under: food
I was going to make this Moroccan dish I found, tonight – this one:
Tagine, Beef – with dried fruits
Ingredients
Serves 6 – 8
1.5kg oyster blade steak cut into chunks
4 marrow bones
1 tablespoon ground ras-el-hanout
1 large brown onion chopped
4 threads of saffron
Couple cloves of garlic
about 400mls water
1 large cinnamon stick
extra virgin olive oil (evoo) for frying
24 dried apricots
18 large prunes – pitted
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoon rosewater
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup of roasted almonds
Method
Mix the chunks of meat and ras-el-hanout together and leave to marinate for about an hour. Heat a little oil in a heavy based frying pan, and sauté the onion and garlic until translucent. Add a few strands of saffron. When cooked remove from the pan and set aside.
Put the apricots, prunes & rosewater into a small saucepan with the brown sugar and a little water to just cover the fruit, bring to the boil and reduce the heat to a simmer until the fruit plumbs up. The fruit will absorb just about all of the liquid.
Heat a little more evoo in the frying pan and fry off the meat in batches, until it’s sealed and golden on all sides seasoning with salt and pepper as you go.
Place the meat, onion, water, cinnamon stick and marrowbones into an oven proof casserole dish or a cast iron pot with a tight fitting lid and put into an oven pre-heated to 150˚C. Cook slowly for about 2 hours until the meat is just softening.
Add the dried fruit mix at this stage and mix through the meat. Continue to cook for another half hour to an hour until the meat is soft, but not falling apart. You may find that there is a lot of liquid over if you’re not using a tagine so strain off the liquid and reduce until a little syrupy, add all of the other ingredients back to the pot / tagine and adjust seasoning if necessary.
The ‘tagine’ can be served immediately, but the flavour does improve if made a day or two before use. This also allows you to remove any excess fat that may rise to the surface overnight.
Serve with a little chopped parsley, some roasted almonds and if you like, topped with the marrow from the marrowbones.
But then I looked at the process, at 3pm, and realised that I wasn’t going to have time. The meat was only partially defrosted, and it wouldn’t have time to marinate, and the recipe says it is better the next day, anyway, so I think I’ll do it tomorrow and have it Sunday night. We’re going to an engagement party tomorrow night, and won’t need much dinner beforehand, so I think this will be perfect after church tomorrow evening.
Tonight, instead, we’re having a scotch fillet each, with sweet potato wedges (drizzled with olive oil, sea salt and a little smoked paprika), broccoli and some bruschetta. We ended up with a glut of roma tomatoes this week (they were on special) so I’ve chopped up a few, added a couple of cloves of garlic, some olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar. I’ll serve this on some Italian bread.
Pudding will likely be a bit of dark chocolate – we’re halfway through this sublime block of Lindt with flecks of orange. Mmm.
Filed under: food
I like to talk about food. You may have noticed. Tonight we are having a leg of lamb which has been slow-cooking all day with a whole bottle of red wine poured over it. It promises to be tender and juicy and to fall off the bone. With that, I’ll do polenta with parmesan, some roast parsnips and broccoli. Dessert will be left-over lemon cake which I made yesterday for bookclub. I’m looking forward to being home tonight for what seems like the first night in aeons. I’m tired and droopy and probably not much fun to be around, but a nice glass of red and a quiet evening will do wonders, I’m sure.
