Int food week : Italianesque

TUES: minestrone soup (bacon, onion, carrots, cannellini (white kidney) beans)) with french bread; brocolli quiche. yum.
Only thing is, if I call this meal Italian, does that mean I cant make any pasta later on in the week??

"Yo" night

To use up the cabbage (I just remembered when I was cracking up at J about this, he threw out the stellar "but I thought you liked cabbage" gotta laugh) I made a yummy vege soup. Had actually planned on this soup for a few days, after I got a lovely bunch of leafy celery.

* vege soup (cabbage, carrots, onion, celery and a couple of potatoes thrown in for good measure). Pureed up half of it to freeze for future comfort food/soup base usage.

* spag bol, with "hidden" spinach and carrots

* herb bread (basil, rosemary, paprika, oregano).Unfortunately I forgot that the "french bread" setting takes 6 and a half hours, so when I put it on at 1:30pm, it meant that it wouldn't be ready until 8pm, but I was hedging my bets that J would get home around that time anyway....of ccourse last night he was home at 7:30pm haha. I enjoyed the bread for "supper" anyway, and today for breakfast for K (with peanut butter on it - it is not that herby) and me with soup leftovers for lunch.

Also just made up a batch of lemonade scones, which I am gonna have with whipped cream and jam for afternoon tea and I cannot WAIT!

Notes for self:
* converted plain flour to sr by adding 2teaspoons of baking powder per cup of flour.
* always forget how sloppy this is, as only using regular cream. Maybe I should whip all the cream to try thicken it, and use it whipped instead next time?? Of course, the scones still turn out LOVELY!

herb bread

K said she wanted pasta for lunch....so I compromised with her and said we would have it for dinner! Made a mushroom, chicken cream sauce spag like this:

»Fried off some chicken.
»Then Fried off some mushrooms and onion in:
»1/4cup sake, (since no dry white wine, but basically the same, right)
»1/4 cup chicken stock (鶏がら - chinese chicken stock, lol turning very asian style already)
»s, p, bit of garlic
»added some white sauce to it to thicken, added some ham and 枝豆 (for a bit of colour)

and that was it. Sort of followed this recipe, I guess.

Served with tomatoes in sea salt and olive oil, and lettuce/avocado/cheese salad.

Oh and the main event (despite being at the back of the photo) was my first attempt at HERB BREAD!! I managed to remember to put the breadmaker on just after lunch time, but I wasn't sure how much herbs to put in. One recipe said oregano and basil, but had no basil so went with
about 1/4tbs each of paprika, oregano, rosemary (ie, just less than a tablespoon of herbs). I think I could have added more - it smells very herby, but the taste is very mild. Will get some basil and try again I think. Was still good tho!!




While searching, I came across this Chicken, Ham and Mushroom squares recipe: now this looks NOICE! Once I get some pie pastry I am gonna have to try this one out for sure!

frugal Tuesday

Still trying to save pennies and use up what is in the fridge and cupboard rather than keep buying bits and pieces. So today was a mish-mash of left over vegies:
* eggplant
* shiitake mushrooms
* enoki mushrooms
* broccoli
* onion
* bacon

served in a tomato sauce with spiral pasta.

We made bread again today, so K and I took egg s/w (the last of the 2 eggs!!) for lunch on our playdate.

fresh bread for breakfast

yuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmm! freshly cooked out of the bread maker bread for breakfast. I don't think there is anything better.
There were even a few slices left for K's cheese s/w for lunch.

PIL dropped by this evening with a box of mikan (they had another 18boxes in the car, to give out to people, like a mini-o-seibo I guess). As we had only about 15mins notice, there was nothing for dinner, so J suggested the new Chinese place down the road, beside the 焼き豚 place. He rang up and booked, so we got in (lucky as by the time we left at 7pm there was still a line up of people trying to get in).

But it was very dissapointing - we won't be going back. Expensive, small serves (even for Chinese) and just average taste (should have heard MIL go on about how the 酢豚 was too sour, haha. And all we ordered was:
* subuta
* chicken and cashew nuts
* fried rice
* prawns in sweet sauce
* mixed entree (which had pieces of chashu pork, 1 pitan egg cut into 1/4s, about 5 slices of tomato and some shiitake mushroom slices and cost 2300yen!)
* and a 焼きそば
and it came to nearly 9000yen (no drinks as we were PIL were driving home)
Very dissapointing.

Feels like we are on a chinese food boom, but it was just random, and last minute that the PIL came. I am guessing we won't be having chinese for a while now.

和, 豪 and 伊

So it turns out only FIL came today, and when J went shopping last night (after K chucked a tanty and thus I pulled the pin on her and me going) he couldn't find any nice meat for a nabe, so he made 豚の角煮 instead. I haven't had it for ages, and it was pretty yummy!! K ate two whole eggs out of it, but didn't like the daikon, which I can understand as it is a bit bitter. So lunch went well.

I also made some anzac biccies for afternoon tea, but as the first time in the new oven, it took a bit longer than I thought, trying to work out how to use it etc, so they came out of the oven as jiji was ready to leave, so he had it hot - obviously not the way Anzacs are meant to be, oh well. K, J and I had some after they had hardened up a bit, and they were delish, although perhaps a bit too buttery?? This time I used actual golden syrup that I had brough back with me, and as always cut the amount of sugar down to half that of the recipe. Oh, and they seemed to spread a lot more than they ever did in the old crappy microwave oven, so I guess next time I will have to consider that while making them.

ANZAC BISCUITS

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
1 cup sugar (I only use half a cup to make them, I think it is enough)
3/4 cup coconut
125g (4 oz) butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup (I have used manuka honey and kuromitsu successfully as substitutes in the past)
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon boiling water


Combine oats, sifted flour, sugar and coconut.
Combine butter and golden syrup, stir over gentle heat until melted.
Mix soda with boiling water, add to melted butter mixture, stir into dry ingredients.
Take teaspoonfuls of mixture and place on lightly greased oven trays; allow room for spreading.
Cook in slow oven (150ｰC or 300ｰF) for 20 minutes.
Loosen while still warm, then cool on trays.
Makes about 35 according to the recipe, but I have never gotten any more than about 2 dozen out of them.

For dinner, J whipped up a tomato and onion pasta sauce which we served with oven baked chicken breast. Just as the smell of hot, crispy chicken was wafting through the house, I thought how perfect it would be to have some baguette to go with it, so jumped in the car and drove to bakery No.2 (the one near the 100yen lawson) and YES they were open and YES they had baguettes (at only 250yen) and YES it was yummy!!! Finally, some luck with the bread! I even managed to control myself and not overeat at dinner time.....which I reckon means that when the bread cravings come later tonight, I can act on them without feeling guilty♪

bread and butter!!!!!

So, as it turns out, the biggest eel is not always the nicest. Actually, it is usual the toughest. Doh! So there goes my theory of bigger is better, lol. So last night's dinner was a bit of a fizzer.

But yesterday, I found a supermarket down at T-station that has the bestest chicken carcasses ever. At 190yen, the carcass had heaps of meat on it, and made a really nice stock - much better than the 130yen crap from Itoyokado. I threw in some carrot, long onions, zucchini (was a bit unsure about how this would go in the soup, but it did come out very nice), potato and quinoa and served it with a YUMMY batard from Kobeya. Unfortunately, there is no Kobeya bread shop close by, and I got it while out on a play date at a train station about 15mins away, but it has fulfilled the yummy french bread craving for the meantime, so all is good. I reckon we (I) ate half a...half a....half a what of French butter? Half a pound? Half a block? whatever it was, it is now half gone. And so is the batard, which is a shame, as I could go another piece of bread and butter about now.....