A quick, tasty meal

After spending an hour and a half at a friends in their spa, I managed to talk myself out of going home via a takeaway shop of some description, instead, cooking a quick, tasty, simple meal.  I had a portion of mince in the freezer. When I buy mince, I divide it into five 120 gm lots - which is all I need when cooking for myself. So I took one of these out of the freeze and thawed it. While it was thawing I grated half a carrot, a small zucchini, chopped up a few mushrooms, a small red capsicum and minced up some garlic.

Garlic on my garlic grating saucer

As soon as the mince was thawed, I put it in the pan to brown off. I had bacon for lunch and hadn't washed the frypan, so cooked the mince in that.  To this I added firstly the mushrooms and capsicums then after a couple of minutes, carrot and zucchini. Once the vegetables had softened up, I added a pour of homemade tomato sauce (probably about 1/4 cup) and a 50 gm sachet of tomato paste plus a sprinkle of paprika. Stir this around to mix, and let simmer for  a couple of minutes. Add some water, or stock if you prefer, put the lid on and cook, stirring occasionally. It only takes a few minutes to be ready.

Dish up and enjoy. It really is a tasty dish, even if it doesn't look that appetising in the photo. If you want, you could have it with pasta, rice or quinoa. I'm happy with it just on its own as the vegetables add enough carbs for me. Of course, you can add any herbs you like.  

2 comments Cooking, Mince dish

Baby Food Making

To help Bernie, (daugther-in-law) out, which is part of the point of me not working in paid employment at the moment, I told her I'd make some food for Tamara.  Bernie normally does a big cook up and freezes it in Tamara sized portions.

I bought some pork mince and cooked it up with onion, garlic, grated sweet potato, carrot and zucchini, added some of my homemade beef broth, a bit of tomato pasta sauce left over from what I froze the other day and a sachet of chicken casserole flavouring. I also boiled up some small pasta and added that too.  Bernie gave me the moulds she has to freeze them in, as one is the right amount for Tamara for tea.

Then I cooked up sweet potato, potato, carrot, granny smith apples and sweet corn kernals. I pureed this with my whizz stick and froze it as well. Hopefully this will keep her going for a little while along with the other vegetables and meat she eats. It is handy to have these types of things in the freezer for days when both Ross and Bernie are working or the day has just been particularly busy.

Bernie had been given a bag full of avocados that were rapidly becoming too ripe, so I scooped all the nice flesh out of them into my food processor, added some lemon juice and some stewed apple and whizzed it all up, then froze that in an ice cube tray. It tasted delicious and Tamara is lucky she is getting any of it.

Tamara is developing into quite an avid eater, after being a bit picky about textures that went in her mouth. She is still a reluctant bottle drinker though. Next I'm going to make her custard, using almond milk, egg, flour and sugar and I'll put a bit of maple syrup in it to sweeten it. I just need to find out if custard can be frozen, I don't see why not. I'll ring my Mum in NZ and ask her.

1 comment Cooking, family, Food Prep

Pete's birthday cake

It's Pete's birthday on Thursday and he's actually home for it this year. When I was helping my daughter-in-law with the girls on Monday night, feeding, getting to bed, folding washing, hanging out washing, dishes etc, I told Annika (Miss 4) that it was Grandpa Pete's birthday. Her eyes lit up and she immediately said, "are we going to make him a cake?" I said I'd make the cake and we'd have the birthday tea at her place, since little Tamara goes to bed between 5 and 5.30pm.  Anyway, yesterday we picked Annika up in the morning, went to the supermarket, bought another round cake tin and the pre-made Betty Crocker Chocolate Frosting, M & M's and and candles, the numbers 5 and 6, to make 56.

Home we went and cake making began. I didn't have that much patience cooking with my own kids when they were little, and have even less now, preferring to just get in and get it done. So, I suggested to Miss Annika she may like to watch Finding Nemo, for the 101st time - she thought that was a great idea and so did I. Grandpa Pete kindly offered to watch it with her. I used a Mudcake recipe my sister-in-law always made for her boys birthdays - lovely and moist. It has a cup of strong coffee (not as a nephew discovered, a cup of strong coffee granules, but an actual cup of coffee made strong) in it - so I got Pete to make that as I don't like coffee or really know how to use the coffee machine.

The recipe is as follows:-

Chocolate Mud Cake

2 eggs - lightly beaten
1 cup strong coffee
1/2 cup oil (I use canola)
1 cup milk with 1 tsp vinegar added - it curdles it.
1 tsp vanilla essence

Sift dry ingredients into larger bowl
1 3/4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
salt

Add wet ingredients to dry and beat until smooth. This is a very runny mixture. Line a round tin and bake at 180 degrees for approx 1 hr, depending on your oven, I check after 45 mins.

Once cooled, cut the cake in half - spread with jam and cream, or frosting and put other half on top. Frost and decorate however you like.

I made two of these cakes, (we ended up only using one cake as they were quite large) as we decided to make it into a cake with a surprise in the middle and cut a circular hole in the middle of two of the layers, leaving one layer intact. Once three of the layers were frosted together, we filled the hole with M & M's, which then spill out (theoretically) when the cake is cut into.  With the circular piece cut out of the middle, we made Annika a little cake of her own, even with a little hole in the middle, stuffed with M & M's.

The cake was a hit with Miss Annika and we adults weren't too disappointed either. We had Pete's birthday dinner a day early as he and I are off to Cirque du Soleil, Avatar at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on his actual birthday and we are both really looking forward to it.

2 comments Baking, Birthday party, Cooking, family

New Gas Stove and Hobs

Out with the old

Much excitement at home yesterday. While I was at work a new gas stove and hobs is being installed. Pete took the electric ones out ready for the Gas Fitter/Plumber man to arrive. It's really handy Pete is an electrician as it means he can do any electrical work required at the same time.

I became converted to gas cooking when we rented for over two years and the house had an old gas oven/hobs combined stove. At first I was scared of using the oven, frightened it would blow up when I tried to light it, but I soon came to love it. The efficiency, the speed at which things boiled on the hobs, and the ease of controlling the heat when making chutney or sauce. We are having to use bottled gas, as there is no piped gas where we live. A gas bottle last us about 18 months, so it is also a cheap way to cook.

In with the new. 

I've been waiting 4 months for these to firstly arrive in the country and then to be installed. I'm looking forward to getting some mango chutney made in the next couple of weeks and then some tomato sauce.

Pete christened the hobs last night, cooking us chicken stirfry, which, I might add, was delicious.

1 comment Cooking, leisure

Meals at work

My work was quite quiet yesterday, so I took the opportunity to do some cooking for the clients. I work in Adult Mental Health in a house, where clients come to after being in hospital for 4 weeks, while we try and find them long term, sustainable housing. Tuesday we had a very large donation of bread - 2/3's of which we redistributed to others in need.

So I made an old fashioned bread pudding with some of the buns. I've made this a few times with spare bread and the residents love it. Sometimes I use raisin bread. I always spread the bread or buns with jam before cutting up into smaller pieces, even the fruit toast. It adds a lovely burst of sweet fruitiness to the pudding. I prefer a 'berry' jam, but will use whatever is in the cupboard. Today I added cut up apple as well, as there is a bowl of them that are not getting eaten. I stewed the rest of them. I have learnt, the hard way, that it pays to grease the baking dish you are using before putting the bread, beaten eggs, cinnamon and milk into it. I like to let the pudding stand for an hour before cooking, that way the bread absorbs lots of the milk and it just seems to make it much moister (is that a word?). The smell while it is cooking draws the residents from their rooms, even from upstairs.




Then I made a stew for their tea. They are meant to cook their own dinner, but I felt like cooking yesterday. I had ordered some stewing steak in our last grocery order for this purpose. I mix up a little flour and herbs, tossing the cut up steak in this mix, before browning it in the fry pan. This adds so much more flavour to the stew. In this stew, I put a good cup of my homemade Napoli Sauce and homemade vegetable stock, carrots, peas and onion, along with some HP Sauce and tomato paste. To thicken it up and make it a complete meal, I added two small handfuls of brown rice. I put it on to cook about 3.30, giving it an hour and a half in a slower oven than normal.

I got lots of compliments on the flavour of both the pudding and casserole, so I take that to mean it all tasted good. I really enjoy cooking when it is so appreciated.

2 comments Casserole, Cooking, Pudding