Tuesday 28 August 2012

When Niamh's away...........

I'm all alone this week, Niamh is on her first school residential trip until Friday, and to make it worse, today is her 11th birthday :(
As I'm sure you've gathered, I love to cook, however, I don't love to cook for just me, so I didn't.




Sunday 26 August 2012

More soup and stuff.

This was almost a bit of a disaster, due to some idiot (yes, that would be me), not reading a recipe thouroughly.
I had wanted to make these trout croquettes from Valentine Warner, and had got in all the ingredients, but on reading through at 5oClock, realised It needed 5 hours chilling time.
Eek, that wasn't going to happen.
I needed something else, so went back to Good Food, and found this recipe, for salmon fishcakes which I made instead, subbing the salmon for trout, and still shaping them into croquette shapes before deep frying in panko breadcrumbs.
The pea soup was really quick and easy, and very sweet tasting, which we liked.  It went really well with the croquettes.
I actually got the idea for the meal from Jen's blog.


Saturday 25 August 2012

Korean fried chicken (Yangnyeon Dak)

We love us a bit of fried chicken here, and have tried all sorts of different recipes, but I'd never tried this before, or any other Korean food.
I found it on a Vietnamese site I read here.
It was dead easy, though there are different elements.  You could make the chilli sauce in adcance, be warned, it's very spicy!
I had to buy the corn syrup for ir on Amazon.
We loved, loved, loved this!

Indian potato pie

I accidentally over ordered sweet potatoes, which is why they've featured a lot this week, I had a couple more to use up, and found this recipe for an Indian potato pie, using filo pastry.
I knew I had filo in the freezer, so it was decided.
I've never worked with filo before, and pastry isn't my strong point, but it sounded easy.
It erm, wasn't really.  The filo tore badly, but it turned out that in this recipe, it was quite forgiving as I could just patchit.
The filling was easy, and fairly quick to make, and so frangrant.
It could be made earlier in the day if you like.
I burned the top, but since it was filo, those bits were easily removed.
I was really pleased with this, shame the pictures didn't turn out very well, but I'd recommend this.
I'd think the leftovers would be great in a lunchbox.
I served it with some honey roast tomato wedges.

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Fragrant aubergine curry

I had other plans for this meal, but really fancied aubergine instead, so looked up a recipe and then went out to buy some.
I had everything else in.
I deep fried the aubergine first, as we both love the soft texture it has this way.
The ingredients for the paste all get whacked in the mini chopper, so no bother at all.
We had this with plain basmati rice, which Niamh cooked as usual.
Recipe

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Prawn noodles with peanut dressing

I had a bag of raw king prawns in the freezer, which I wanted to use so typed prawns into BBC Good Food, and choose this recipe, as I love peanut sauces.
For the chilli sauce, I used sriracha, I also subbed udon noodles, as I'd bought some at the Chinese supermarket, and swapped the mange tout for mushrooms, as I had some to use up.
This was really quick to cook, perfect for a quick midweek meal, and very tasty.
Recipe

Smothered pork chops

This is yet another US recipe!
Don't worry, I'll get bored soon I'm sure.
This was easy to make and tasted great, a real family winner.
We had the chops with mashed sweet potato and green beans, I halved the recipe for the two of us.
Here

Sunday 19 August 2012

Chicken burgers

More American food!
This seems to be my newest craze, and it's a recipe from an American Chain-Chick Fil A.
I got it from Jen's blog
The only difference is that I also put in some sliced dill pickles.
Oh, and the bread is actually a lovely crusty roll, but somehow manages to look like cheap sliced bread, not sure how that happened!

Saturday 18 August 2012

Cajun chicken, sweet potatoes and salsa

This is another recipe from Jamie's America.
It actually calls for alligator, but small Scottish towns are not know for stocking that!
I used chicken thighs instead, which are actually my favourite part of the chicken.
This was suprisingly tasty, the sweet potatoes and spices, and punchy salsa go so well together.
Niamh has demanded this go on the repeat list!
Cajun chicken

Saturday 11 August 2012

Soup and stuff.

This is how our soup nights have come to be known, soup with interesting 'stuff', to go with it.
This week's came from Jamie Oliver, red pepper soup with chilli cheese cornbread.
Now, I don't actually like peppers, but do make an effort to eat them on occasion as Niamh loves them, and it won't kill me to have some.
It was OK, Niamh loved it though, and had three bowls!
The cornbread was delicious, full of flavour and a great texture too, and easy to make.
I've definitely realised the answer to making soup interesting is a good accompaniment, in fact, I've spent the morning bookmarking ideas to try over the next few weeks.
Red pepper soup  Chilli cheese cornbread

Thursday 9 August 2012

More Valentine Warner.

I absolutely love Valentine Warner's writing and everything I've tried from him has been amazing, but can a successful dish be made from something that looks like this?
Not very appetizing are they?
But, don't worry, a great dish was made, fried oysters with attitude sauce
I used frozen oysters, which I got from the Chinese supermarket, and to serve with it, a simple salad of sweetcorn and red onion, dressed with lime juice.
If you don't like oysters, or can't get hold of them, I'd still reccomend trying the sauce, possibly with mussels, or even chicken nuggets!



Monday 6 August 2012

Chinese Feast

Well after all that shopping, there was only one thing we could eat for dinner, Chinese food.
I made deef fried tofu puffs, which I drizzled with chilli oil, steamed pak choy with oyster sauce, plain rice, served in my new bowls, mushrooms fried in a dash of sesame oil with hoisin sauce, served as duck, in pancakes with spring onion and cucumber, and prawn crackers, which are fun to cook as they look as though they are coming alive!
We loved everything, even Niamh enjoyed the tofu!


Sunday 5 August 2012

Chinese Supermarket

Back in December, at the grand old age of 34, I got my first ever car.  I love it, it's a tiny white Toyota IQ, which I have stuffed to the brim with pink furry things, and I love to play loud music in it!
Anyway, ever since then, I've been planning to go to one of the Chinese Supermarkets in Glasgow, but for one reason or another, only got round to it on Friday.
Of course, I got hopelessly lost, I can't go anywhere in Glasgow without getting lost, even though I have a Sat Nav, but somehow stumbled on the Supermarket, which wasn't the one I'd been planning to go to, but turns out is the best one, so that was lucky.
They have such a huge range of produce, some I'd heard of, and some I hadn't.  I was the proverbial kid in a sweety shop, throwing things in the trolley with gay abandon.
I didn't buy anything too adventurous this time, but would like to try some of the more adventurous meats next time.  Pig's tails I think!

Saturday 4 August 2012

Satay and aubergine.

I absolutely love satay, and have eaten it many times in Malaysia and Indonesia.  I love the subtle spicing and peanut sauce.
I've made a version at home before, which was a mash up of recipes from Rick Stein and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, but this time I tried a Malaysian recipe.
It was for beef and cvhicken, I used fillet steak, as I had some in the freezer and chicken thighs.
It does have three stages, but isn't hard at all.
The results were great, very authentic tasting, shame I don't have anywhere to cook outside though!
Malaysian chicken and beef satay
I picked a veggie side to go with this, using one of my favourite vegetables-aubergine.  It's not dry at all, quite the opposite, soft, moist, oily, in a good way and melt in the mouth.  I can't recommend this enough, perhaps not for dieters though!
Dry fried aubergine
I also served plain rice, and crisp cucumber slices, to cut through the richness, as is done in SE Asia.
It works really well.
Another success!


Wednesday 1 August 2012

Mac and cheese in ham cups.

I saw this on Chowhound recently, and since we love Macaroni cheese, had to try this new way of serving it.
As you know, anything fiddly, and presentation really isn't my strong point, so mine were a bit messy, to say the least, and one looks like it has wings!
They tasted great though.
Prosciutto wrapped macaroni cheese cups