14 posts tagged “cooking”

I think one of the barriers to people eating more healthily is that people just don't know how to cook from scratch any more.  It makes it harder to overcome when this becomes a multi-generational thing.  Do kids still do cooking classes at school in the US? I think this is an elective subject in Australia these days so a lot of students would miss out on learning to cook at school (although can't say we did anything too useful in my school cooking classes, eg, remember making radish flowers at one point as part of a subject called 'Survival Cookery'!). 

One of the first things I did after moving to the new house was set up the slow cooker in a permanent position on the kitchen bench and make some beef rendang.  I usually cheat when I make curries in the slow cooker and just use pre-prepared curry pastes from the supermarket or Asian grocery.  This one was a new brand for us called Cap Ibu.  This picture is of another product in the Cap Ibu range.

For meat, I just used gravy beef and also added some fresh garlic, onions, half a can of coconut milk and water.  It was absolutely delicious - really tender meat and delicious flavour.  The only problem is that my husband can't remember from where he purchased the Cap Ibu rendang paste so we will have to do a hunt around the various Asian grocers we frequent and try and find it again.  I still have half a jar of it left but have decided to try and make it last and use a Patak's Vindaloo paste for this week's curry.  I like the Patak's pastes as they don't have thickener added like some other brands do.  They taste nice too (although sometimes a bit salty).

Show us something gold, silver, or bronze.

Some (golden) lemon butter I made yesterday using some of the lemons from the lemon tree we received as a wedding present more than 10 years ago.  I used my grandmother's recipe but instead of faffing around with double saucepans and constant stirring, I just tossed all the ingredients into the bread maker, turned it onto the jam setting and let it cook itself!  Here is the list of ingredients (which I doubled):

• 1 large cup of sugar
• 2 oz or 50g of butter or margarine
• juice of 2-3 lemons
• grated peel

ETA: For those without a breadmaker, you ideally need a double saucepan and at least an hour to spare.  If you don't have a double saucepan, you can boil water in a large saucepan and place the ingredients in a smaller saucepan, put that into the large sauce and stir for one hour until the mix thickens, taking care especially not to get streaks of egg in it (this was always my downfall when I did it this way). 

I have made this quite a few times as it is very easy (and I am not one of those mums who excels at making fancy cakes!).  Also this book has been one of my son's all time favourites for the past few years. 

All you do is make up basic cupcakes or mini muffins, ice and decorate with lollies/candy and then arrange on a tray to look like a caterpillar.  I have a few different cupcake recipes I use but here is an easy one here. 

For the icing, I just use icing sugar with a bit of butter and/or water and maybe some lemon juice and then only add in a tiny drop of food colouring. 

The candy I have used on this version of the cake is cut up pieces of soft licorice (for legs and hairy bits), smarties for eyes and little jubes for antennas.  I have also dipped them in sprinkles.  REally you can use your imagination though depending on what candy etc you can get your hands on.  I usually ice more than I need for the caterpillar and have these on a separate plate so all the kids in the class can have one each.  

I had actually planned to try and make gluten free this time as one of my son's classmates is coeliac but forgot to buy the mix last week.  I might send in something different for her like a jelly cup.      

My son has a project to do (for Kindergarten) which is to make an insect at home.  Here is what we came up with using a stocking, newspaper, fabric paint, pipecleaners, pom poms, glue and eyes.

 

Seeing the possibilities of the fabric paint, the kids then decided to decorate a whole lot of (previously) boring white underwear!

 

My husband's project for the weekend was making this Lego truck (with the kids' help of course!):

 

I also did a fair bit of cooking for the week ahead including some biscuits (that nobody liked!), a chicken and vegetable curry in the slow cooker, a roast chicken, a load of fried mince with hidden vegetables (will use for spaghetti bolognaise, burritoes and/or just serve with rice) and a pot of vegetables to put into vegetable lasagne.  Managed to use up just about everything that was hanging around in the fridge and think we now have pretty much every dinner (and some lunches) for this week covered.  We are out for dinner tonight and Friday night is "pizza night" so that is pretty easy.  Cold weekends are good for getting lots of stuff done!

 

 

Loathes:

• sawdust
• powertools
• general disorder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Loves:

• cooking for fun (and not under pressure)
• friends who invite my children over to play at their place when my own house is a pigsty needing attention
• my kids' Kung Fu instructor (not love love - he is just really good with the kids and so un-PC that it always makes me laugh)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking forward to:

• watching the Hollowmen on ABC TV tomorrow night
• going out to dinner on Saturday night for a surprise birthday party
• my daughter's choir performance

We just got our electricity bill the other day.  Not only have we reduced consumption since the same period last year but EnergyAustralia kindly thought to send us some recipes along with the bill.  I made the pumpkin and feta cheese quiche (see page 8 and 9 of this Energy Wise booklet) and it is delicious!  The pumpkin I used was Jap or Kent variety and the feta was Bulgarian (the best kind!).  One more item to add to my things to do with pumpkin list.

 

(or squash as the Americans call it).  By way of background to this, I once shared a house with a woman who described herself as an "urban peasant" and was into things like keeping chickens, growing her own vegetables, composting etc etc.  One year she grew these amazing gigantic Russian pumpkins (one of which actually won a prize at the local Agricultural Show) and we ate pumpkins for months and months.  In another effort to use them up, she threw a Pumpkin Party.  A few days before the party, she delivered a slab of pumpkin to all the guests at home asking them to make something with it to bring to the party.  I was in charge of the pumpkin curry from memory.  Here are a few things we ate that night and on other occasions when trying to use up the pumpkin.

 

 

1. Pumpkin soup

2. Pumpkin frittata

3. Pumpkin lasagne

4. Pumpkin moussaka

5. Pumpkin gnocchi

6. Pumpkin scones

7. Pumpkin in a salad

8. Pumpkin cake

9. Baked pumpkin

10. Pumpkin stir fry

11. Pumpkin curry

12. Pumpkin pikelets

13. Pumpkin tart.

 

 

There are probably more but I have blocked them out of my mind.  Took me ages to be able to eat pumpkins again after that.  Now I am back to using them a lot in my cooking.  I like the sweetness they bring to an otherwise savoury dish.  My daughter also likes cooking and eating pumpkin soup. 

 

 

1. Not stay at work too late tonight (although this may be difficult as I am waiting on things from a few different people before I can go home).
2. Eat pizza made by the kids for dinner (kids are insistent that Friday night is Pizza Night).
3. Go to bed early as I have had a hell of a week.
4. Get up early to go to yoga.
5. Send husband grocery shopping (or do it myself).
6. Tidy the house while the kids are at Kung Fu.
7. Sort through the kids clothes and toys with a view to making more space in their bedroom.
8. Go bunk bed shopping (my son has started sleeping in the food end of his sister's bed - I suspect because his toddler bed not as comfortable).
9. Watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on dvd (with finger on remote to speed through any sexy bits).
10. Try and think of something fun to do with my son on Sunday while his sister off at the movies with her schoolfriend. 
11. Do some baking - maybe a birthday cake for the Queen!  (this might be the fun thing I do with my son - he loves cracking eggs and sticking his hands in the mixture).
12. Babysit for a friend.
13. Get meals, uniforms etc organised for the week ahead.

 

Such an exciting life I lead!