looks like we are into broccoli at the moment

Sun breakfast- croissants
Lunch- ramen at chinese restaurant near garden shop that has like 50 old bats working in the kitchen, a bit like a co-op type restaurant. Old-style ramen taste.
Dinner - J made a mac'n'cheese type pasta dish

Mon breakfast - croissants
L had yogurt/farex and kiwi fruit

lunch - out at friend's house cream stew
L also had a banana and some cream cheese pita-rolls

dinner -
L had rice with pureed broccoli, and a selection of broccoli, cherry tomatoes, blueberries
K had rice with tofu, and side selection as above
I got left over curry
J had rice, salad, アジ干物, 冷奴

Tues breakfast
Lunch - egg sandwiches
Dinner - ginger pork (that K helped me make, which meant she actually ate it!!) with rice, salad, and stir-fry eggplant/asparagus and maitake in oyster sauce

Wed breakfast - pizza toast
Lunch - rice with fried cod.
Dinner - J has work drinks, so I am using up the eggs (we bought them 2* times this week, so have a bit of an overload. Vege Quiche (broccoli, sweet potato and eggplant?? hmm, wonder how that will go) and mashed potato.

***
edit: So I ended up doing a slightly twisted version of this recipe which basically means I added eggplant, capsicum and asparagus. Was pretty good! ended up serving with steamed sweet potato. L lapped it up (K not so much so, but she enjoyed the sweet potato at least)

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??

The week in meals

Mon 12th night - chinese chicken & cashew nuts and mabo nasu, egg roll at mum's request :-)
Tues 13th night - mum's famous hot pasta salad with sausages. very nice.
Wed 14th night - curry; leftovers frozen for post-baby quick meals
Thurs 15th night - made my folks suffer through 和食 with salmon, rice, pickles, egg roll with nira, mushrooms and spinach in butter/garlic/めんつゆ sauce, side salad and dad's soup! (they thought it was a veritable feast with so many different dishes, lol)
Fri 16th night - quiche and mashed potato
Sat 17th night - since I have so much pie crust left (why this time I have enough for three, when I usually only have enough for 2, I donU't know, but it is a VERY GOOD pie crust - I may almost be tempted to say I have found my pie-crust groove!!) am going to make a shepherds pie for dinner. yum!
Wow - never done so much cooking while J is away, lol. And making bread most days - breadmaker working hard!

cooking for 4

Apr 1st: (first night my parents are here, and I am hit with a mix of allergies and fever and headaches....) Dinner: chicken, 青梗菜 and mushroom alfredo sauce spaghetti

Apr 2nd (Fri): K's 3rd birthday party at home. Lunch was yakiniku (we remembered as the meat came out that it was Good Friday, oops). Redeemed ourselves (?) at dinner time with 手巻き寿司

Apr 3rd (Sat): Flounder ムニエル with baby potatoes and エリンギmushrooms, salad for mum and me. Wa-style sea mackeral 煮物 for dad and J. (J's idea to cook it like that ;-))

Apr 4th (Sun): Chinese at home, thanks to J. Fried rice, ふかひれsoup, 青梗菜 in oyster sauce, mabo nasu

Apr 5th (Mon): Asparagus, bacon, onion and spinach quiche (pie crust was one of the best I have ever made, yay! may have gotten my pie-crust "mojo"?? FMIO: 5eggs used with about 1 cup milk and it made a nice consistency, cooed at 180deg for 25mins, then another 10mins before serving), salad and pumpkin soup (with some onion/carrots/potato/garlic thrown in too - this was yum!)

Apr 6th (Tues): planning to have mash potato, pumpkin, zucchini, corn on the cob, and steak. Just like being at "home"

I am not used to making meals for 4, so this is an interesting challenge - to have enough for everyone to eat!! And to be able to make enough without being stuck in the kitchen all night. Getting lots of help from J over the weekend, and Mum too so am grateful for that :-)

kinda chinese, quiche and cookies

Another couple of days of pure laziness - I left the camera in the kitchen, and couldn't be bothered getting up from Kotatsu to get in once I was settled (it is also getting harder to get up from the Kotatsu, lol)

So, in review:

Tuesday night Dinner
* brown rice/white rice mix
* Chinese style daikon and Chicken recipe, borrowed from Kel ;) I think I marinated the chicken too long, and didn't cook it long enough (tried to pre-cook the veges first, then chicken at the end as were out late at 29week check-up) as still a bit of sake flavour to the meat, but otherwise nice! (and it was even better the next day just on rice for lunch)
* Potato salad, with special guest, broccoli (another cookpad recipe); no tuna used but it was nice enough without!I don't usually go for potato salad so much, but it was ok. I think perhaps the egg in it made it nice.
* cabbage egg drop soup hmmm, average.Only did this as didn't have any spinach to make a spinach egg drop soup (which I think would have been nicer)
* big salad! daikon, carrots, avocado, tomato
and * left over fish from the other night.


oh and for dessert - bread and butter pudding, made in the bread maker (steam setting), served with honey YUM!

Wednesday night Dinner:

Although I had said that I was lucky I didn't have to faff around in the kitchen making a bug dinner, as J had to go out for work (someone's retirement) I actually ended up faffing around like crazy in the kitchen, making a quiche (bacon, mushrooms and spinach) with the pie crust left over from Aust. Day pies (it was easier to handle after having been frozen, and I used a whole heap of flour when rolling it out this time).

FMOI (for my own info, the quiche was 3eggs and 1cup milk, and it was the perfect amount for the small oval pie dish - must remember that!)


I also tried some innovative/fusion cooking, and put the remainder or the daikon/carrot/chicken dish into a small pie crust and it came out quite nice, a surprising match. (I don't think I would make it from scratch like this, but it definitely gave the daikon dish a new life, lol!)


As for the faffing, I figured since I already had the oven on, I should bake cookies, the almond cookies from my to-try list. They came out really nice, despite my failed attempt at creaming the butter and sugar (butter was still too cold, so all that happened was it kept on getting caught up around the beaters. I need to be more patient). Also, I have never really made biscuits before, so I wasn't sure what kind of consistency the dough was supposed to be, and was a bit surprised (scared) when it was so crumbly - what did I do wrong?? But after letting it settle in the fridge for a bit, it came together better, and I was able to cut out heaps of cute patterns with the cookie cutter. We gave some biccies to Jiji and Baba today when they came over as a Valentine treat from K, and even gave some to 3 of J''s friends he has gone out dinner with (they are discussing their up coming wedding, where J will be MC at the 2nd party), and still have enough for me to have a pig out on the tomorrow, so yay! I really liked these biscuits, not too sweet, and the almond taste was good. Will definitely make again!

you can even just see little "swiper`s" fingers trying to swipe the cookies (Dora reference - we have been watching it too much, K is obsessed!!lol) She has also spent the afternoon saying "Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!"
Thursday Dinner:
So tonight K and I cleaned up the quiche - she doesn't even baulk at the mushie or spinach in it, yay. We ate out at the yakiniku joint again and enjoyed a big bowl of 石焼ビビンバ and heaps of 焼肉 so I really shouldn't need too much for dinner, lol.