Saffy
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Posts posted by Saffy
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I love desserts! as my increasingly voluptuous figure illustrates.
This evening for dessert we had a nectarine and raspberry tart - delicious.
Tomorrow I have a chocolate chestnut cake planned
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We eat lentils in our house quite often and this recipe definately rocks!
Lentil Soup with roasted tomato
4 cups DePuy or green lentils ( pref organic )
1 medium carrot diced
1 medium onion diced
1 large leek diced
2 cups finely cut spinach
1 tblspn freshly ground cumin
5 fat garlic cloves crushed or finely chopped
1/2 cup olive oil
3 litres of vegetable or chicken stock
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Soak lentils in water for a couple of hours then drain. In a large pot place olive oil, leeks, carrot, onion, cumin and garlic on medium heat
Saute until leeks are transparent and then add the drained lentils. Mix into vegetables
Add 2 ltrs of the stock and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, stir occasionally.
Add more stock if it looks a little thick. Simmer for around an hour, until lentils are tender.
Add salt and pepper.
Add spinach a couple of minutes before serving and serve with slow roasted tomatos.
For a non vegetarian version make a slightly thicker soup and serve with a nice spicy sausage.
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Wild Mushroom and Sherry soup... with a crusty loaf of fresh bread
nothing better :)
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I roast parsnips quite regularly, the key is choosing nice young fresh parsnips otherwise they will definately be stringy. I just toss them in with a medley of other root veges ( sweet potato, potatoes, red onions etc ) and a little oil or fat maybe some seasoning of somekind depending on the menu..
I never have any trouble with them. They do need to be turned over when cooking them too so they don't dry out.
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NZ is another of those tea drinking countries. I would struggle to find what those of you in the US describe as a Teakettle here. Pretty much everyone here has a cordless kettle or more commonly a jug.
The one I have at the moment is a Sunbeam electric cordless jug, although we have had Russel Hobbs in the past. I would not be without an electric jug/kettle.
I had to boil water in a saucepan last time I was in the US.. not a teakettle to be seen anywhere in the place I was staying.
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Bizcochitos! Love them with their light lemon/aniseed flavour and sprinkling of cinnamon sugar. I usually cut them into star shapes for Christmas.
I also make chocolate hazelnut biscotti, which are great for all those cups of hot tea and coffee which abound in this hemisphere at Christmas.
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People either love the strong, herbal taste of the leaves or hate it. There seems to be a genetic component involved for those who hate it, perhaps a receptor that others do not have. Coriander haters describe the taste as bitter and soapy.
I am one of those corriander haters. I really can't stand the stuff at all, soapy is a perfect description of how it tastes to me. It tastes like I have licked the washcloth in the bathroom. It obviously does not taste like this to my husband who adores it.
The seeds I use in cooking quite frequently.. but the leaves --- BLAH .. they just plain taste bad to me.
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The pudding cookies are soft on the inside and crisp on the outside. Then again, maybe they don't sell Jello pudding in New Zealand either!
Yep they do sell it here, different brand though
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Ah. I guess in New Zealand you've never heard of Toll House Cookies.
Indeed we have, and I make that recipe from time to time. I prefer the recipe that is the fake " neiman marcus choc chip cookie recipe though.
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Nice to see a timely discussion here on clams/cockles.
We are lucky enough to live beside the sea, this past weekend we went and dug up a bucket of clams/cockles, cooked them up with a garlic and light chile sauce and ate them over pasta. Yum!
We never have the not fresh enough problem, we ate them less than an hour after we dug them up.
Fresh clams/cockles are great, don't give up on them.
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Thanks everyone for your get well wishes. I do feel a bit better thanks. One of the down sides to being a mum is that you don't really have time to feel unwell.
Miso for lunch ( as suggested )
and I had - corn and red pepper soup for dinner and some hot buttery toast.. that was pretty much my lot for the day today.. but tomorrow hopefully I will be feeling more like myself.
Thanks again for all the suggestions. I will keep them up my sleeve for next time
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a nice thai or vietnamese salad might be just the ticket!
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I am not feeling so well today.. slightly icky stomach.. feeling very low in energy, but since I have 3 kids going to bed is not an option.
What do you like to eat when you are not feeling so good to give you a bit of engery and keep you going ?
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our fav way to eat polenta is grilled with EVOO brushed over the top to help it brown slightly. I cut it into diamonds and toss in with mixed green leaves, cherry tomatos, asparagus or beans and other seasonal fresh raw or slightly blanced veges and hunks of smoked cold chicken. Yumm!!!
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I found another lovely cheap dinner recipe last night
for a vietnamese chicken salad.. very tasty and uses cabbage as the base cabbage seems to be one of those veges that is eternally cheap here.
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Thank you Rperlow!! I use the epicurious site a lot and I never actually thought to look for egg recipes.. sometimes I am a bit slow!
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I personally think this type of cooking is a really sad reflection on the type of society we live in.
"Her recipe for success in the kitchen includes using disposables, which "provide quick preparation and cleanup -- you'll minimize your work while maximizing your leisure time."
You will also pollute the planet more .. should we all eat of paper plates on a daily basis - sure would save time.
Time spent preparing a meal and eating it with family or friends is time well spent. I always see cooking a nice meal for people as a gift.
Cooking is a wonderful skill and is sometimes elevated to an art by those that excel at it.
It saddens me greatly that many people seem to be willing to throw this skill away.
My two older children are both competant cooks and enjoy pottering about in the kitchen with me. At 14 and 12 I would say they have all the basic cooking skills they need to whip up a fabulous meal. Once a week they are the house " chefs " and have to make a meal for all of us from scratch, including the shopping within a budget for the meal.
I hate seeing packages of cake mix and instant pancakes and ready made cookie dough on the supermarket shelves. You certainly will never find any in my kitchen pantry.
As for speed.. so many meals can be made in a matter of moments using fresh ingredients. It's just an excuse for culinary lack of knowledge to say that convience foods are faster.
And as for better ..
lemme just say that kraft Mac 'n' cheese .. is SCARY. The colour of that stuff alone should tell you that it should not be eaten. It looks more like toxic waste than food!!!
Yes I am a slow food advocate, I like my food GE material free, preferably organic and I like to know exactly what went into the things I am eating. Call me old fashioned.. but I like my food REAL
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Refried beans (I do them myself) on tortillas with some chopped up tomatos and a minimal sprinkling of cheese
Snowangel would you mind sharing your refried beans recipe? I have one here but I have never been all that happy with it. My family all have fire proof mouths and love things nice and spicy!
The recipe I have here just does not seem to have enough taste, easy to increase the heat with more chili, but there is something lacking in the flavour. :/
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It looks like I am not the only one out there that loves good food and has to produce it on a tight budget!
We do eat a lot of beans, lentils, rice, pasta and potatos. We are lucky enough to have a good sized vege garden where I grow lots of herbs and organic veges.
The bulk of them are just not quite big enough to pick at the moment. I have tons of swiss chard and celery right now, but not much else. Lettuce and spring onions are a few weeks away yet. But it certainly makes a difference to our food bill when the garden is in full swing!
We are big on desserts in our house too, they help fill up those little corners and a little fruit can go a long way.
I will definately try the Musakka'a. Many of the other things we make already, although Frittata was not something that I had thought of. So I will give that a try this week. We have tons of eggs and get them for free from a friend that has an egg/poultry farm, which is wonderful. There is never any shortage of eggs in our house.
Torakris I can only imagine how expensive things must be in Japan. We had a Japanese exchange student for a while, and he was always saying how cheap everything here was in comparison.
Tonight I think we will be having a fish pie, since there is some fish in the fridge at the moment, teamed up with some tabouleh. I always try to have bulgar wheat and couscous in the cupboard, since they can be made to go a long way without too many additionsl to make them interesting.
Torakris, like you I find it frustrating, I love to eat well, and sometimes I just wish I could hop down to the local store and pick up some salmon steaks, or a bag full of mangos without worrying about the cost. But I guess we just have to make the most of it and cook and think creatively
Thank you everyone for the suggestions and inspiration
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Well, yet another payday and I can see that the budget is going to mean some penny pinching again this month.
I have quite a number of things in my repetoire that don't cost a lot to make, but would love to hear other peoples favourites for eating cheaply.
Living in NZ our quality of food is really good, but unfortunately it can also be pretty expensive.
just as an example. chicken breasts - $16.00 a kg
tomatos $7.00 a kg at the moment
milk $3.25 for 2 lt
cheese $8.00 a kg
It was interesting .. I went through a " feed your family of 4 for $100 a week " list the other day - it was on an american website and worked out how much their $100.00 list would cost me to buy. It was $254.00.
Sooooo any and all cheap eating ideas welcome!
My family of 5 thanks you in advance.
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LOL well silly me .. why would I want to cook from a cookbook of all things!
I forgot they were just supposed to sit on coffee tables so that people can pretend they can actually cook that kind of thing .. - but just not tonight since they have already taken that frozen lasagne out of the freezer.
The Ultimate in decore.. a cookbook that has only had the pictures devoured and not the food.
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I find it hard to believe that books can be published - distributed to thousands ( often hundreds of thousands or more ) people with recipes in there that have not been tested over and over again to make sure that they work.
Is it not also the editors job to make 100 % sure that it is correct? I know when I write out a recipe for myself that I triple check to make sure that I have it right. I know with many dishes a glob of this and a handful of that type of approach is just fine, in fact that is what I do the majority of the time. BUT with baking - there is usually a need to be precise with the quantities.
How can a recipe that does not work get into a book.... to my mind no chef/cook that allows a recipe to go in that has not been tested more than once in more than one kitchen is not doing themselves any favours.
One good word for the sultry food lady here - Nigella - I have not yet found one of her recipes that does not work, and her narrative often gives helpful suggestions and warnings about things that can go wrong. Giving the maker of the recipe the best chance possible to get it right.
Don't get me wrong I am not advocating a " cooking for dummies " type approach to all cookbooks, just wishing they/cooks/chefs/editors would check to make sure things are correct so that people don't waste time and ingredients on something that is not gonna work!
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When greasing pans etc.. do you go for traditional butter or a non stick vegetable spray.
I use a tasteless non stick spray for those things that have a real tendency to stick , but many times I will still grease and flour the traditional way. My Bundt pan I always use the non stick spray.. ( and it's a non stick pan!! )
I am terrified of things getting stuck in it with all those lovely curves.
If you use a non stick spray, what brand ?
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Something to think about ....
Masaman aka Massamun aka Masamam etc
in Elsewhere in Asia/Pacific: Cooking & Baking
Posted
I quite often have this delicious curry at one of our local Thai resturants, so I decided to look for a recipe. I found a couple, and they are all quite different.
The only things that seem to be consistent are small potatos, coconut milk, small onions and nuts ( either cashews or peanuts)
I would love to hear from anyone that makes this particular curry frequently and what you consider the essential ingredients.