Neely

My son cooked mezze rigatoni with a tuna tomato base sauce. It was delicious. He hadn’t heard of the ‘no cheese with seafood’ Italian rule so he piled the cheddar on which made it even more delicious. Ha!

My dear husband has been cooking most of our meals lately as I am busy organising my trip to Europe which starts this weekend. This meal was his chicken fillet and onions, olives, bacon and red pepper with mashed potato.

Still with the Asian inspired breakfast. Omelette with pork and egg plant.

Faux Congee, I am making it up as I go along. Rice, char siu pork, portions of braised in soy sauce egg plant. Anyway?, it is an enjoyable breakfast for me.

@TdeV Yes that is the Nigella recipe I was referring to. I made the cake as per her recipe but added the passion fruit icing as I had quite a few passion fruits to use up and it was quite nice.

@Paul Bacino sorry but even after an online search I can’t figure out what all the meat means in reference to Pasqua gravy. Can you help me understand? My cultural denseness at play. We had a Sunday lamb roast with all the trimmings ( stuffing, mint sauce, gravy, pumpkin, roast potatoes, peas ) but I forgot to take a photo with all the busyness of little grandson , Freddy (14 months old) I made some raspberry muffins and a passionfruit drizzle apple almond flour cake ( Nigella Lawson ) before guests arrived so I remembered photos for those.

Friday early dinner. After much thought about what fish dish to have I ended up making a simple salmon and dill quiche which we enjoyed. Asian salad with Nuoc Cham dressing as a side salad. Quiche included both fresh salmon and smoked salmon

Not my cooking but still this was a dinner we had Bought fish and chips. There‘s battered flake, a battered potato cake, chips/fries a dollop of sate sauce and a dollop of mixed ketchup and BBQ sauce. The big white ball is a pickled onion traditional for this meal

I had some left over black beans from a soup I had made … so I made black beans fritters with a coriander sauce. Small diced salad to go with.

I’ve got a thing about poached eggs ATM. Breakfast was mushrooms and bacon and a poached egg all on top of a sourdough toast again.

Breakfast this morning was poached egg and avocado on sourdough toast

Penne with a ground pork sauce. If I use rigatoni pasta, I call this dish rigatoni saltati, so I guess I could call this penne saltati. I used to think ’saltati‘ referred to the pork but I have looked it up online and ’saltati can mean ‘ sautéed ‘ or ‘jumped’.in Italian. So I guess after all this time, I was wrong about it meaning something to do with pork. I do make this sauce in a pan rather than a pot hence sauteed. ( I guess )

This lunch was a ‘sort of’ congee made from left over cooked rice. Added green curry paste, pieces of chicken, soy sauce, fish sauce. It cooked together nicely smooth and porridge like and made me want to try the real thing which I’ve never had. Sprinkled my pickled red onions on top.

Left over mashed potato and Brussel sprouts from dinner last night became ‘ ‘bubble and squeak’ with a poached egg on top for breakfast.

We had slow cooked short ribs , mashed potatoes and Brussel sprouts. It wasn’t a big piece of beef and I first rubbed it with a sauce which I concocted myself and wrapped it in foil to sort of marinate for a couple of hours. Placed in oven 160’C for 3 hours, then opened foil , splashed on more sauce and cooked for another hour. It was fall off the bone tender.

Dinner was chicken satay strips marinated for a few hours in an easy sauce found online. Served with broccolini and rice. Rice yet to be on the plate.

Some more dumpling and noodle soup. This was a pork broth made from bones and my soup is the top one … I wanted the pure tasting pork broth with pork dumplings and noodles. ( not even green onions )My husband said he’d rather the added vegetables same as usual so I added them for him.

@Smithy & @weinoo who mentioned okra last time I cooked it by frying. I said I was intending to buy some more okra to make Gumbo… which I have now done. I placed a more detailed description on the Gumbo: cook up 3 topic that Smithy mentioned on the previous page of Dinner page 25. It turned out good, rich and very flavoursome and my husband loved it. I stuck to “trinity” of okra, green pepper and celery which many people say is a real gumbo prerequisite and I used shrimp as I like them a lot. I understand there are many ways of making gumbo but the ‘roux’ is essential. I didn’t find making the roux a problem other than time consuming standing there stirring. The brown roux is something I learnt when young and the family would call it ‘brown stew.’I made my own seafood stock by boiling the heads and shells of the shrimp/prawns which were all Australian. There was enough left to put in the freezer for another meal in a couple of weeks.

@Smithy suggested I look at this thread as I was about to make Gumbo for the first time. I went to get some more okra at the market, good thing I did as they were almost sold out. I proceeded to make New Orleans Shrimp Gumbo as stated in a recipe I found online. To the recipe I added cayenne pepper powder to a heat we both like. I also chopped parsley, basil and thyme for the garnish topping which added freshness. I used a bought Cajun seasoning mix. I also sautéd the vegetables first as was mentioned in a posting here sometime ago. Verdict: Yes it was good, rich and very flavoursome and my husband loved it. I stuck to “trinity” of okra, green pepper and celery which many people say is a real gumbo prerequisite and I used shrimp as I like them a lot. I understand there are many ways of making gumbo but the ‘roux’ is essential. I didn’t find making the roux a problem other than time consuming standing there stirring. The brown roux is something I learnt when young and the family would call it ‘brown stew.’I made my own seafood stock by boiling the heads and shells of the shrimp/prawns which were all Australian. There was enough left to put in the freezer for another meal in a couple of weeks so that’s good. The roux before stock The sautéed vegetables Gumbo for dinner

No cooking involved but what I call Dutch breakfast. Gouda cheese and ham on a split English muffin.

One dinner was a breaded pork chop with ratatouille and a small corn I saw small ( 3 inches) fresh okra at the market and bought some to try again having had bad experiences with slime previously . I looked up recipes online and decided to sprinkle them with a little cornmeal and fry them. I cut off the little cap as suggested and there it was again, gloop / slime which came out and wet the cornmeal but I pressed on. I fried them until almost burnt as I read to do somewhere and YES they were good … very crunchy and tasty. I’ll go and get some more while they’re available and try to make gumbo … (never had it ) next time. Served it on left over ratatouille with chorizo.

Dinner was breaded pork chop with ratatouille and a small corn cob.

I just made us a Saturday lunch dumpling broth. We have these regularly and I add what vegetables are languishing in the fridge. The broth is quickly made from chicken powder, tube lemon grass and various herbs I have growing - Vietnamese mint, Vietnamese basil, green onions, mint, chives etc. The vegetables I added in this soup were mushrooms, beans and spinach. Little noodles and pork dumplings from Aldi. Splash of soy. It was a gorgeous day so we ate outside.

Early breakfast was a sort of scrambled omelette with avocado.

Pork fillet topped with grainy mustard, a typical salad this time with sorrel leaves which I have growing. I like sorrel for its bitterness and that it looks interesting. The rice was a sort of pilaf.