Neely

Take out/ away rich butter chicken from the freezer from a previous meal, plus I made a yeast Nan type bread. Served with pickled cucumber, chutney, rice and yoghurt.

Went to a restaurant for lunch. I had Ceviche which was delicious. You can see my grandson’s fingers making a grab for my bowl. I managed to divert him, save the bowl and take the photo so was quite pleased.

I haven’t posted many breakfasts mainly because my homegrown tomatoes did very badly this year. I’m not sure if it was weather or soil but disappointing. Breakfast this morning was bought tomato on toast.

Mushroom risotto using a box of mushroom stock.

I saw a traditional moussaka recipe demonstrated on a TV program and thought I’d try to cook one similar. It didn’t quite turn out as I intended as the cheesy creamy sauce was still pretty runny although set in some places ( eggs in the sauce/custard ) and I layered in the eggplant as suggested instead of just chopping it in with the lamb as I usually do, but it all fell apart as I was serving instead of keeping its nice layers. It tasted fine but not the “Traditional Greek“ serving of puffy topped, layered moussaka I was intending to serve.

I have a bounty of red peppers atm which is good. I am one of the “doesn’t like green peppers” people. Below. Stuffed red pepper, baked potato and salad Made a batch of ratatouille

One of our typical breakfasts… egg, speck and lightly cooked tomato. Basil garnish from the garden. One slice of toast as usual.?

@Ann_T Quote… ‘Canned peas are a must for hot chicken sandwiches, frozen peas are a must with roast beef dinner, with mashed potatoes and Yorkshirepuddings.’ Absolutely agree. Dinners have been all over the place here. I had to lend my car to son’s wife so didn’t do any large shopping for a week. Then I shopped big time and bought steak and marinara mix plus other goodies like figs and yummy Brie for desserts. Steak frites with salad. Butter was the steaks only accompaniment meaning no sauce. The steak was what we call a Scotch fillet. Below…Seafood risotto, another recipe I came across in Rick Steins Venice to Istanbul series. Yes I’ve cooked risotto like this before but this time doing it his authentic way with a touch of all spice and cinnamon it turned out very good. Red peppers were $1.00 a kilo at the market so we’ll be having them for a while. !!! Below stuffed red pepper with a lamb chop and tabbouleh with fresh mint and parsley from the garden.

Hot grapes with chicken and fennel, a small rocket salad on the side. Crusty bread provided the carbs to soak up the juices.

Hi @Acelestialobject Sorry …. I don’t use a formal recipe but have made these for many many years and here’s what I usually do or thereabouts. Place 1 and half cups of plain flour in a bowl, pinch of salt, 2 eggs and enough milk to make a mixture about the consistency of double cream. This means I start with less milk and add as I go mixing by hand with a fork. I use a small cast iron pan which I heat to very hot, add a teaspoon of melted butter and oil and then pour in a soup ladle of the pancake/crepe mixture and swirl it around till the bottom of the pan is covered. Leave for a couple of minutes till small bubbles form on the top, flip it over with a spatula and cook for a further minute. Remove and do it again. I think the difference between these and puffy pancakes is that the mixture is more liquid and NO baking powder so they don’t rise and no sugar. I would call these English pancakes. French pancakes or crepes have an even thinner liquid mixture to get an even finer pancake. Hope this has been helpful.

Saturday morning breakfast was avocado on toast with hard boiled egg and pomegranate seeds. Slice of tasty sourdough bread plus OJ.

Ordinary chicken schnitzel with nuked new potatoes and coleslaw salad. Pomegranate seeds added.

Sunday roast but not the full on kind. Flattened Roast chicken with spices, sprinkled chilli flakes… I’m trying to replicate the chicken we can buy at a nearby shop. Also roast pumpkin, which we have hot or later cold with a salad. I seem to have a lot of roast pumpkin around at the moment as my little 11 month old grandson loves it either warm or cold ( I freeze some) I guess it’s the natural sweetness.

I like it when we have no bread in the house and therefore no toast for breakfast which means I have to make pancakes. Grated cheese and avocado pancakes.

@Shelby Yes it really was good thanks to the recipe … very authentic. I prefer a sweet and sour style coleslaw more than creamy and here is last nights dinner. Chinese style roast pork plus pieces of Char Sui type pork ( left over from another stir fry I forgot to take a photo of ) with salad and the said coleslaw.

Hi @ybot123. In this case to make the sauce I sautéed the sliced mushrooms in butter in one pan, while cooking the steaks in another. When steaks were out and resting, I added more butter to the steak pan added a little flour ( only about a teaspoon I recall ) after that had mixed I put the mushrooms in with the steak juices, butter and flour, added some white wine, a splash of brandy , pepper and salt. Mix …. done.

In preparation for a trip I’m planning to Italy in a few months I’ll watch anything I can about the food there. I found this on an Australian streaming device … it’s called “Rick Stein’s Venice to Istanbul.” I really like Rick Stein’ s programmes and books so was delighted with the episode on Venice. Of course I had to make his seafood spaghetti after watching this and made it faithfully to his recipe… well as much as I could from the programme including shallots, fresh tomato, white wine, splash of brandy and a tiny pinch of spices, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, dried coriander. It was good. Fresh crusty baguette to mop up the sauce.

The weather was cool, well 19’C, and I felt like corn beef and cabbage. This cut was what we call Silverside. It looks dry but it wasn’t and besides the mustard sauce took care of that. Much later we had a dessert which I make quite often or variations of it. It’s poor man’s tiramisu I put little biscotti soaked in Tia Maria in the bottom, scatter on some blackberries, cream and a generous sprinkle of cocoa powder. A

Of course it’s sour cream @Dejah. We don’t use sour cream very often so couldn’t think of it . Our dinner was pork chop with nuked potato, corn and salad

Hi, I made a batch of the ubiquitous cinnamon scrolls.

Love your cooking @Dejah always so tasty looking. I was wondering what is the white creamy looking food on what I think are potatoes in the photo of the small pork blade roast?

Dear Husband is cooking again. Got to love him. This time he found some turkey I had put in the freezer at Christmas. So it was turkey pie. Thank goodness for bought puff pastry. When he was describing how he’d made it my stomach kind of went ”Oh No” especially after the previous ham, onions and beans. This time he said he’d found some dried cranberries and included them which is fine but then he said he’d added a spoonful of strawberry jam. Anyway, the pie was quite edible despite a weird sweetness. He said he remembered his grandmother in England making savoury meat pies which had a sweetness and he was trying to replicate???

I’m always envious of the delicious winter food that shows up during our summer. Dinner was chicken fillet marinated in grated fresh ginger, honey and soy sauce. Salad included mango and white beans as well as the usual suspects.

I make us this soup quite often. Pork dumplings in a quickly made broth. Chilli oil for heat.

My husband has been cooking again… sometimes he has successes and sometimes not ( don’t we all ). There was left over ham in the freezer which he thawed and made a ham and beans pot pie. Let’s just say I would have made a quiche!!!