foodly update

yes i know foodly is not a real word lol i have been too flat out this week to blog at all...

so let me see - on thursday geoff stayed home with rory (who has a chest infection) and i asked him to make this soup - i was really in the mood for checkpeas for some reason! while it was nice it was not quite what i was after - i think another tin or two of chickpeas and it might have been right. as it was it seemed really quite similar to this soup of mine. (though maybe my memory of the second is faulty, the recipes seem quite different lol)

last night of course was the maccas birthday dinner (gosh their burgers are pathetic, i have only eaten the deli choices rolls for the past years and the chicken burger i had was so tiny and shockingly bad!)

tonight i am going to make Dani's Javanese Beef Curry in the slow cooker. i'll still do the beans one night but probably slot it into the end of the week's plans.

yesterday of course involved making birthday cakes (yes, multiple). first thing in the morning i realised i hadn't made anything for ryan to take to preschool (i had also forgotten it was his birthday til mum reminded me but that's another story lol). so i whipped up a batch of carrot cup cakes (last time we did a big aldi shop i stocked up on cooking butter but g froze it all - aaagh! so i went for the butter free carrot cakes). they were literally straight out of the oven into a container to preschool so no frosting lol

then in the afternoon i made his birthday cake which was pretty much a disaster...
if you have a look at the picture here, the story is underneath


plus... i remembered this mroning that i had planned to put blue and green sparkly sprinkles all over it too and totally forgot - but i guess that's what happens when you have less than an hour to decorate a cake from scratch as well as getting 3 children and yourself dressed, picking up your mother (who thankfully helped with the dressing children part) and drive to the maccas of choice!

PS: thank goodness it wasn't a party, just 2 of his friends for dinner (their families also tagged along ;)b)

i also have some soups to make this weekend after my choku bai jo shop on thursday - i bought a 6kg pumpkin to cook up (i'm hoping for a recipe where i can roast the pumpkin mostly whole to save the effort of cutting it up LOL and parsnips which i'm thinking i might use in this recipe, it sounds delish!

dixiebelle

if you're reading this... i thought you might be interested in this link http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/smartspending/archive/2008/05/23/elephants-in-the-room-blogger-tackles-issue-of-food-waste.aspx

(i'm at work so can't find your blog atm!)

Menu plan

got a busy busy week ahead so need easy stuff...

tonight - moussaka from the freezer with homemade snitzels (overlocker course)
tomorrow - dinner at mum's not sure if i need to take anything (michael buble concert)
thursday - birthday cake making night so need something easy - maybe one of the soups from here - creamy beetroot, chicken & couscous or spicy red lentil ...
friday - dinner at macca's for the birthday boy LOL
saturday - not sure, maybe bean trenchers with sausages and grilled tomatoes
sunday - tacos or burritos
monday - beef in red wine in the slow cooker, pasta or mash (will post the recipe soon, i can't find it so might have to reinvent it LOL)

Slow Cooker Roast, a beginners guide

one of the most common winter questions on eb is about cooking a roast in a slow cooker. it's SOOOO easy - and it's actually great for summer too, as the slow cooker puts out less heat into the kitchen than an oven!

anyway, here's a brief guide to doing a roast in your slow cooker:

• in the bottom of your cooker put some quartered potatoes and / or halved onions and / or balls of foil
  
  
• put the meat on top (make sure you remove all wrapping / any chicken guts etc first)
  
  
• cook on whatever temp you need ie: if it'll be cooking all day long put it on low. if you wnat it quicker or it's frozen put it on high all day, or for 3-4 hours then turn down to low. you'll still need to remove the meat shortly before cooking to 'rest' it.
  
  
• use the juices to make gravy (just add a little stock powder and flour and boil to thicken). of course i make my gravy in my thermomix now but i have done it on high in the SC before, or on the stove. if you have time it's preferable to cool the juices and remove as much fat as possible (i rarely get time to do this)
  
  
• i do prefer beef and marinated whole chickens for the SC roast but lamb and pork are fine too, they just don't get that same roasting as you get in the oven ie: dry heat.
  
  
• you can also put other vegies in around the roast - pumpkin, sweet potatoes, carrots and even your greens such as brussel sprouts etc, but you need to add them later or they will be overcooked.
  
  
• you DON'T need to add water or any other liquid!!!! a splash of red wine is acceptable ;p you can also add any other seasonings you want eg: garlic and rosemary to lamb etc.
  
  
• there is also a highly popular recipe floating around that involves a beef roast, a packet of french onion soup and a can of coke. i've tried it once and it wasn't my style but it is very popular so is probably worth trying!

let me know how you get on with your next slow cooker roast!

PS: this is so easy it's what we had for dinner last night after arriving home from our weekend away at 11am ;)

a week between posts??!

i do have a valid excuse - we were in tasmania for a long weekend!!

i have posted some brief descriptions of the food and drink we had in my livejournal but will hopefully get the chance to be a bit more descriptive here :D

in the meantime here is my aztec chili hot chocolate and our shared truffles, from the House of Anvers chocolate factory...


if you'd like to see more (non-food related) photos of our trip they are here

New Link - Mealopedia

i was told about this site this morning, haven't had time to look at it yet but sounds great so thought i'd share.

http://www.mealopedia.com/

Spinach and Potato Soup

emelia complete with green tongue lol
and thumbs up from ryan

G just made this for dinner, it was very nice, definitely one ot make again. this quantity only just went around the 5 of us though as a main meal (with homemade garlic bread) so i would double or triple it next time. the kids were a little unsure of the green at first but a bit of bribery worked wonders and they ate a bowlful. they decided it was green chicken soup - usually i would tell them the truth but decided not to this time lol

recipe from Family Circle Soups and Stews 1996

30g butter
1 large leek, sliced (or onion)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 bunch english spinach or silverbeet
4 large potatoes, peeled and chopped
4 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup sour cream
S&P

1. melt butter, cook leek / onion over med heat for 10 mins. add garlic and cook 1 minute
   
   
2. wash spinach thoroughly, discard stalk and shred leaves. add to pot with potato, stock and bring to the boil. reduce to simmer, partially covered, for 30 mins
   
   
3. allow to cool slightly and use a stick blender to puree til smooth. don't OVER blend as it will make the potato go like glue paste! stir in the sour cream and S&P
   

menu plan

i think i might have overplanned for the coming week (given we are off to tassie on thursday and MIL probably doesn't cook my sort of food lol)

Roast of some sort
thai curry / laksa / soup type thingie
pumpkin risotto
spinach and potato soup
thai beef salad
penguin's chicken

we went out for dinner last night - yum! to my fave restaurant (i'm having a mental blank atm as to the name though). the kids were so well behaved given none of them were very well (just colds but they're exhausted on thursdays at the best of times)

rory, ryan and g had rice vermicelli with spring rolls (plus salad and nuoc mam for g)
emelia had rice with stir fried beef and baby corn (g ate the vegies)
and i had my fave pho (rare roast beef)

then g took us for frozen custard at rubees after, what a treat!

ohhhhhh it's called the PHO PHU QUOC in dickson :D

Tacos and Tortillas

i didn't get the tamale pie ready this morning, plus G had used all the corn the other night. so anyway, i decided to stop by choku bai jo after work while the kids were at M&D's and make tacos tonight. however i knew we had no taco shells lol

a few weeks ago dani had mentioned getting a tortilla maker / oven / some kitchen appliance of which i was deathly jealous LOL

so idecided to make my own tortillas. not a bad idea for a night i don't get home til 6pm right? LMAO!!!

anyway, rang G and he kind of got it started (he had only started heating the meat which i had cooked yesterday anyway lol) . as soon as i got home i went to the link i had found to make tortillas and got started.

i'm not sure if thermomix over mixed them (never my fault of course ;p) or i over rolled them or what but they certainly weren't soft enough to roll. however we discovered that they WERE soft enough to fold! and they weren't too bad really. definitely worth doing again, though maybe not on a work night LOL as you can see from the photos the kids were pretty keen!

oh and i cooked in them our sandwich press which cooked them twice as quick! (though maybe the weight of the top plate stopped them puffing and thus made them tougher?

anyone got another recipe to recommend?

oh and the taco spice review - very nice... a bit spicy for ryan *rolling my eyes* i couldn't even feel any heat in it but he couldn't eat it! it was maybe a touch salty. but otherwise great, definitely one to repeat.

Chicken Soup for the sickies and Farmhouse bake for us

this recipe for tonight's dinner needs cooked chicken. so instead of buying a BBQ chook i tossed the 1.5kg of chicken breasts i had in the fridge into the slow cooker, sprinkled oregano over it and put a mostly peeled and trimmed bulb of garlic on top. cooked it for maybe 3 hours on high - only because i forgot about it LOL and then turned it down to warm for an hour or so. if there wasn't wine in the recipe i would have put in a splosh of white wine too.

used two of the breasts shredded in the recipe above. 2 of the breasts went into the freezer to use for quick after work meals, and the juices - probably 1.5 cups - which smelled divine, went into a saucepan with a grated carrot and zucchini, and some alphabet pasta, and enough water to cook the pasta and still be chicken soup-y. ryan and rory are currently demolishing it! i would have also put garlic in it for the sick ones, but ryan has a mouth ulcer that is very sensitive so thought it best to be safe than sorry...

the pasta bake will be ready in about 10 minutes, it was pretty easy to make and easy to use as a starting point - i already added spinach and fresh basil into it and feta on top of it lol

review: it was bland :( it kind of grew on me as i ate it but dh wasn't keen. it needed some more oomph - maybe some stock intead of just water, some feta chunks through it and some sliced olives?

Spiced Sweet Potato Scones

to your favourite scone recipe (i just used the thermomix recipe which is not my usual) add:

1 medium white sweet potato / kumara, steamed or microwaved until soft enough to mash (you could also use the orange, i just thought it would be hidden more if i used white ;))

nutmeg, around 1/4 tspn (unless you're a huge nutmeg fan, which i am not!)
cinnamon, 1/2 tspn
cardmom, 1 tspn

if you're doing it in the thermomix add the spices with the other dry ingredients, then when breadcrumbed add the sweet potato in large chunks and quickly mix through on speed 7 until smooth. continue the recipe as it says - though it might be a little wetter than usual so you could adjust the amount of milk or add more flour as you roll it out as i did.

cook and eat as usual. YUM!

Links - Slow Cooker

crock pot falafel

crock pot african peanut soup

Corn Chowder

as i posted a week or two ago my mum had a very quick easy and yummy recipe for corn chowder which i will probably use some time over winter for a work night dinner, but it does use mostly tinned ingredients. I wanted something similar but with mostly fresh ingredients. using the chowder recipes on taste for inspiration i came up with this recipe...

the amount i made will last us for 2-3 meals so it's a lot

olive oil
2 large onions, finely diced
6 slices shortcut bacon, finely diced
garlic to taste, chopped (i used a whole bulb as i have sick children)
around 1L water
5 chicken stock cubes
1 large carrot, diced
2 potatoes, diced
6-9 cobs of corn, de-husked, rinsed and kernels cut off the cob
about 1L low fat milk (you might need more, i'm not really sure. i used up the container of buttermilk as well)
cornflour to thicken (maybe about 6 tablespoons), mixed with small amount milk
can of creamed corn, optional
1/2 bunch spinach, chopped finely, optional
fresh lemon thyme
cayenne pepper, optional - only a small amount
black pepper, optional
fetta cheese, optional

heat oil, gently fry onion, bacon and garlic
add water and stock
add rest of the vegies
add milk and cornflour mix, stir well.
when carrot and potato is soft without being mushy add creamed corn, spinach, thyme and cayenne. let spinach wilt.
serve with cracked black pepper if desired and crumbled feta on top

would be nice served with fresh bread or damper :) YUM!

oh this would be easily done in the slow cooker, would probably take about 4-5 hours, maybe 6 depending on how small your diced vegies were.

Raspberry Cream Cheese Brownies

250g butter, chopped
100g (1 cup) cocoa powder
220g (1 cup) caster sugar
240g (3/4 cup) raspberry jam
4 eggs, beaten lightly
1 tspn vanilla
185g (1 1/4 cups) plain flour
1/4 tspn bicarb (baking) soda

SWIRL TOPPING
250g cream cheese
75g (1/3 cup) caster sugar
1 egg
1/2 tspn vanilla
135g (1 cup) frozen or fresh raspberries

1. preheat oven to 160'c. grease a lamington pan
2. meltbutter. whisk in cocoa and cook til bubbling. remove from heat and whisk in sugar and jam. add eggs and vanilla, stir until smooth. fold in combine flour and soda. spread into pan.
3. swirl topping: beat cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. fold in raspberries.
4. spoon swirl topping over chocolate mix. using a spoon or knife swirl to give marble effect
5. bake 35 mins. cool in oven with door ajar

suitable to freeze
AWW April 2006

review: made these to give to mum for mothers day. LOVE the idea of the raspberries in it and the jam too but wasn't keen on this recipe. i have another similar recipe (that is supposed to be a slice, this was really nothing like brownies) which is a much nicer recipe and i think i might try it with the berries. even the girls weren't keen on it.

the secret to my addiction...

a few weeks ago someone on eb mentioned bloglines... suddenly i didn't have to miss posts because clicking all my links was too tedious and time consuming to do, or miss blogs because adding them to my list took ages too.

now i have a few (*cough* nearly 100 *cough*) blogs subscribed to and bloglines tells me when there are new posts so i know to go straight to them. i can comment immediately and my only problem is that i keep adding new blogs, and i see so many recipes i have trouble remembering where i saw one i want to make LOL

do yourself a favour and check it out http://www.bloglines.com/

and if anyone knows why i am all set on being public subscriber and yet i never show up as public i'd love to know!!!

early morning Menu Plan...

I"m about to head off to choku bai jo - they open at 6am on saturdays, i was awake at 6am but way too tired to get up that early lol - so i need to work out what i actually need to get!

moussaka
onion, garlic, eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, potatoes, basil and oregano
plus mince, cheese

tamale pie
corn, onion, capsicum, sweet potato
plus mince

vegetarian tacos
onion, capsicum, sweet potato, lettuce, tomato
plus kidney beans, taco stuff

farmhouse chicken & tomato risoni bake
onions, garlic, spinach,
plus chicken, passata, white wine

corn chowder
onions, potatoes, carrot, corn, lemon thyme
plus bacon,

speaking of indian food...

when this thread was first on eb i wasn't in the mood for indian food, so i'm glad it's been bumped back up - some of the recipes sound amazing! if you love indian food or vegetarian food go check it out :)

Dhal

the indian dinner the other night was soooooo good and the best bit ws the dhal - which was only supposed to be the side dish LOL

1-2 tspns ghee, melted
1 onion, finely chopped
1-3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into small dice (about 3/4cm)
1 potato, cut into small dice
black mustard seeds, maybe 1 tab
fenugreek seeds, maybe 1 1/2 tspns
cumin seeds, maybe 1 tspn
(you can also add turmeric or saffron for colour if you like)

fry all of the above on a medium heat until the onion and garlic are translucent
add water to cover by a few inches. put in lentils, maybe 2 cups (i really have no idea how many i put in lol)
add 2 zucchini in small dice
chicken stock powder, maybe 1.5 tabs

simmer until lentils become thick and soupy. add more water to have a soup like consistency.

this was a bit different to my usual dhal and a very happy mistake as it was divine, much better than usual! LOL
i have a feeling i might have left something out above so might come back to this recipe later...

oh and i also can't dcide how to spell it LOL

Cake for Mothers Day

I already gave mum her MD present earlier in teh week (a gift voucher for IPOD songs. i gave it already because i got her a bigger one because i realised i hadn't bought her birthday present yet - bad brazen!)

anyway, i thought i'd make her a cake for MD as a treat.

I just found this in my email so I'll either make this one or a carrot cake (but i'd have to buy cream cheese for the carrot cake)

Greek Yoghurt & Lemon Loaf

not much to say this week lol

yesterday i put the spag bol sauce in the slow cooker for the day, it gives it so much flavour. i have decided i need to up the vegies in the sauce and put less lentils, the lentils keep absorbing and make the sauce too thick after you've put it in the spaghetti! LOL

i just had a freak out as i remembered i start my overlocking class tonight and didn't have everything to make most of the things on the list - but i can do the tandoori chicken. i just have to see what vegies i've got to add into the dhal. just about to put the chicken in the tandoori paste (jsut a bought one these days).

felt very weird only spending $17 at choku bai jo on monday lol I was DEVESTATED (hope i spelled it right) to find no golden delicious apples SOB!!!! they are my dream perfect divine apple! i can't eat most apples as they either hurt my teeth or my tummy (IBS) and these not only did neither but were the perfect crunch and taste... sob again...

menu plan

hmmm seems i'm not doing well at sticking to the menu plan. i'm just going to copy and paste items from teh past 2 weeks and i don't even need to add anything new lol i guess i'll jsut be fruit shopping this week...

Spaghetti Bolognese (ryan's choice)

Pasta Carbonara and Salad (emelia's choice)

rice paper rolls (geoff's choice)

tandoori chicken, rice and daal

moroccan beef fillet and couscous

to buy
brown onions
carrots
apples (golden delicious, yum)
eggs

hmmm that's about it LOL not sure how we managed to do that - we had dinner at mum's on thursday. i think we might have bought dinner on wednesday. and tonight was friday's leftovers with the stir fry veg steamed on the side.

and it's reminded me that i need to go and cook the mince so the spag bol sauce can go in teh slow cooker tomorrow, and make the apple sauce with the granny smiths i have in teh cupboard...

Taco Spice Mix

just made a batch of taco spice mix. haven't tried it yet (maybe tomorrow night) but want to record quantities so i can repeat it if it's good :)

based on recipes from here http://www.recipezaar.com/bb/viewtopic.zsp?t=179384

i think this quantity will only make 2 meals of tacos

1 tab dried garlic
1/2 tab dried onion
1 tspn oregano (had none so used italian)
1/2 tab paprika
3 tabs cumin seeds
1.5 tabs beef stock powder
1/2 tab black peppercorns
1 heaped tab cornflour
1 tab ground coriander

mix in thermomix

YUM! sunday cooking

had to duck to lincraft to get a zipper for emelia's princess dress which is my main project this weekend, so i didn't get home til noon. finally cooked up those two caulis into soup which the kids have devoured - it is soooo good!

slight variation on the usual due to lack of ingredients and time:

onion, stock powder and water, about 1-2 garlic cloves crushed, 2 whole caulis cut into florets (large), 1 apple - cook til falling apart
add in some chive cream cheese and buttermilk and blend

serve with homemade garlic bread - yum~


we are also making jam drops as i bought a packet of raspberry tartlets the other day and ryan was addicted but no way i'm buying them all the time. used this recipe but had to add quite a bit more flour (but forgot to weigh it).

Moroccan Chicken and Pumpkin

The Chicken was pretty good (i call it chicken to entice the children, to be honest there were twice as many vegies as chicken lol). the spice was a bit hot for us - everyone can eat spicy food except ryan, but he can hardly tolerate any. also it was a little cinnamon-y for me - i LOVE cinnamon, but not so much in a savory dish. i think I'll update the spice recipe for next time...

if i was cooking this for anyone else other than my own family i would have included some currants in the chicken (or possibly in the rice if i was doing it with turmeric etc) and maybe some capsicum or whatever took my fancy.

please note i have never eaten moroccan food so have no idea what authentic tastes like!!!

Moroccan Chicken and Vegies

1 tab olive oil
1 large onion diced
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed

gently fry until nearly see through. turn up heat and add

2 chicken breasts, diced into 1-2cm pieces
2 tabs moroccan spice mix

fry until starting to turn white

top with enough hot water to nearly cover.

add diced pumpkin (maybe 500g????) and 1 sweet potato diced, approx 1-2cm pieces
1 tin diced tomatoes
(add currants and capsicum at this stage if desired)

simmer until vegies are cooked and sauce is slightly thickened.
add in some chopped coriander

serve with steamed vegies (broccoli & peas were ryan's request, who am i to say no to a child requesting vegies???!!!) and rice.

brazen's moroccan spice mix blend:

i made mine in my thermomix so used a mix of whole spices (i used slightly more of the whole ones) and ground. feel free to use whatever's easiest. also i actually used tablespoons instead of teaspoons but that made a lot LOL (one tupperware oval one full) so you might want to stick with teaspoons ;)

• 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
  
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin (i used 3 of cumin seeds)
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
  
• 2 teaspoons turmeric
  
• 2 teaspoons salt (i used stock powder but it wasn't enough, i added in quite a bit more, probably doubled it)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
  
• 1 teaspoon paprika
  
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper (i'm not sure i used this much, i got tired of grinding LOL)
  
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  
• 1 teaspoon cardamom powder
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (i used whole cloves but didn't add extra, i'm not a huge clove fan)
• around 4 tspns of cornflour
  

if you're thermomixing just put everything in and slowly turn up the speed all the way to 10 and stop when you can't hear any whole spices. store in an air tight container (such as tupperware lol)

Moroccan Spice Mix

i just made a huge batch of this moroccan spice mix (remember about a month ago i stocked up on spices to make my own mixes, this is the first lol)

it smells divine!!

i did change it a little - i didn't have allspice and i used extra cumin (i love cumin) and stock powder instead of salt, plus after i used it i added cornflour in as a thickening agent.

i'm making a moroccan chicken inspired by someone's blog but i have no idea whose lol so i'm just winging it. i wanted to use up the last of that huge ironbark pumpkin my neighbour gave me weeks ago!!

i will post more on the chicken later depending on how it turns out ;p