Romantic Meal at Home

Dinner was a three course meal. It was time for some quality time with T so we ate by candle light with some nice mood music. Romantic.

Entree was a simple Bruschetta was tomato, onion, garlic, basil and fetta.

The main was a McCain Tandoori Chicken pizza. I bought it because it was on special for $3, bargain! It was nice too.

I also made Paprika Potato with Wilted Spinach, Chickpeas and Chorizo. T bought some chorizo and I thought this was the perfect way to use some of it.

I made a broccoli gratin. It wasn't very pretty but it was healthy and very tasty.

Dessert was a few chocolate coated strawberries.

We both had a lovely time and enjoyed the meal.

Food Diary II

I decided to keep another food diary yesterday. I knew I would be eating everything at home and I thought it might be interesting to compare to Tuesday's photographic proof of my food intake.

Breakfast is pretty similar every day; bircher with fruit and All Bran.

A few nuts were my mid morning snack, as well as a piece of toast with some honeycomb spread on top (yep, real honeycomb!).

Lunch was a nice salad. It was made up of lettuce, capsicum, cucumber, tomato, egg, salmon and avocado.

I made a new batch of muesli bars and ate quite a lot while I was preparing them, about this much:

Dinner was a simple three course meal.
I started with a piece of brushetta.

This was my main meal; a piece of pizza, some chorizo & chickpea salad (minus the chorizo) and broccoli gratin.

For dessert I had one chocolate coated strawberry and some dried fruit.

Supper was 4 teaspoons of bircher. I love the stuff and often have a few bites before bed.

Golden Curry

I've been meaning to make this dish for quite a while and finally last night I got my act together. I had seen the S&B Golden Curry product on my favourite food blog, thefoodpornographer.com. The instructions were simple and the results were impressive.

All I did was chop up a chicken breast, 1 onion, 1 potato, half a sweet potato and a zucchini. Then after cooking the chicken and onion, removed the chicken from the pan. I cooked the vegies in water until tender, as per packet instructions. I then returned the chicken to the pan, added a little bit more water and the broken up blocks of Golden Curry. I simply stirred it for a few minutes then it was done.

It was very nice, T really liked the taste he had. I will serve it with rice and he can have it for his dinner tonight while I am out. Tomorrow he can take the leftovers to work for lunch.
While the curry had a great outcome for minimal effort, I'm not sure I will buy it again. It has a very high fat content!

Food Diary

Today I was at home with very little to do so I decided to keep a photographic food diary; I photographed everything I ate.
I didn't take photos of what I drank, but I sipped on water, juice, tea and a hot milk with a little flavouring just before bed.

Here it all is (the pictures aren't very pretty but this is what the food looked like):

Breakfast was a bowl of bircher muesli with two fruits and All Bran.

My mid-morning snack was an apple that I cut into 12 pieces and a small piece of muesli bar.

 

Before lunch I also ate a few salted nuts.

 

Lunch was baked beans with cheese and egg on toast.

My afternoon snack was some hommus and vegie sticks and one of the over cooked Oaty Tahini Cookies.

I made Golden Curry for T's lunch tomorrow. While I was cooking it I had to do a few taste tests and ate about as much as in this small bowl.

Dinner was chicken burgers. I had one in bread, rather than a bun and half a roll that T didn't eat.

I mixed up a new batch of bircher muesli for the next few days and ate a spoonfull.

I knew it would look like a lot of food when presented like this but it is an honest representation of my food intake for today.

Oaty Tahini Cookies

I now have plenty of tahini in the cupboard after buying a jar to use for the hommus recipe. The brand of tahini (Mayver Tahini) I bought actually provides a free recipe book online so I went searching for something else to cook containing this new and interesting ingredient. I came across a cookie recipe that looked straight forward so I did a little baking.
The recipe was for Oaty Tahini Cookies. The book link can be found on the Mayvers website and contains about 20 recipes.

Unfortunately I didn't have as much coconut in the cupboard as I thought so I had to substitute most of that for more flour and oats. By choice I also used less sugar. I wasn't watching the clock closely so the biscuits came out a little darker that they should have (oops!). They tasted ok, but if I had have followed the recipe exactly I'm sure they would have been very nice. They really are just ANZAC biscuits with the addition of tahini.

Dad's Birthday Nibbles

Yesterday we had a family get together for my Dad's birthday. I was responsible for organising the nibbles and pre-dinner snacks. I took along the cashews and some strawberries (for dessert) from last night as well as a store bought dip, chips and crackers. But I also prepared:

• Hommus dip with carrot and celery sticks 
• Spinach and Ricotta dip in a bread bowl
• Kabana toothpicks; kabana, cheese and cherry tomatoes

My aunty had given me a very large bag of chickpeas recently and I know Dad is a fan of hommus so made a big batch of dip as a treat for him. I also serve up some hommus and vegie sticks for a snack.

The bread bowl dip is something i've enjoyed many times before but never made myself. It was super easy and so moreish. This was definitely the family's favourite.

Kabana toothpick are just fun.

The cashews, store bought dip and strawberries were also served up.

Two of the recipes were from taste.com.au. I actually stuck to the proper recipe for both of these! No wonder they turned out nice.

Spinach and Ricotta Dip

• 500g frozen spinach, thawed
• 300g fresh ricotta
• 300g carton sour cream
• 1/3 cup chopped chives
• 30g packet spring vegetable dried soup
• 1 round cob bread loaf

1. Squeeze and discard all liquid from thawed spinach. Place into a large bowl. Add ricotta and sour cream. Stir until well combined and smooth. Add chives and dried soup. Season with freshly ground black pepper. Mix until well combined.
2. Using a serrated knife, slice a 3 to 4cm-thick slice off top of loaf. Set aside. Remove soft white bread from centre of loaf to form a bread 'bowl'. Spoon spinach and ricotta mixture into loaf. Replace bread lid. Serve immediately.
   
   

   Classic Hommus

   • 1 cup dried chickpeas
   • 2 tablespoons tahini
   • 1/4 cup lemon juice
   • 1 garlic clove, crushed
   • 1/4 cup olive oil
   • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
   • Paprika and extra-virgin olive oil, to serve

   
   

   1. Place chickpeas in a bowl. Cover with cold water. Cover with plastic wrap. Stand overnight.
   2. Drain chickpeas. Place in a saucepan. Cover with cold water. Cover. Bring to the boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low. Simmer, uncovered, for 20 to 25 minutes or until tender. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup liquid.
   3. Process chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, oil, salt and reserved liquid until almost smooth.
   4. Spoon into a bowl. Sprinkle with paprika. Drizzle with oil. Serve.

   
   

Friends for Dinner

I've watched enough competition cooking shows to know that the best way to entertain is to stick with something you've cooked before and keep things simple, but tasty. Stress in the kitchen does not make for a fun evening! So when we had friends over for dinner last night I stuck to this philosophy.
I didn't need to impress anyone, just make a nice meal that filed tummies and brought smiles to people's faces. I decided to cook some tried and tested winners and a few simple new things. The meal plan looked like this:
Nibbles-Cashews with Caramel Chilli and Wedges with sour cream and sweet chilli sauce.
Entree-Pumpkin soup served with garlic bread
Main-Nicoise Risoni Salad with barbequed salmon or chicken and a Green salad
Dessert- Chocolate dipped strawberries and a dessert brought along by N, one of our guests.

I did a lot of preparation before our friends arrived, so that I could enjoy their company and have a cleanish kitchen.

It turns out the youngest of our guests is allergic to cashews, so they were quickly removed from the table when it was time for some snacks.

The wedges went down well, however after an hour of cooking in a hot oven, I was disappointed to see they weren't crunchy on the outside. Oh well.

For the soup I used butternut pumpkin instead of a stronger flavoured variety and added a little more red curry paste than I should have but thankfully the adults enjoyed the soup and accompanying grilled french stick with garlic butter.

The weather wouldn't permit us to use the barbeque last night so I steamed/baked the salmon and chicken on a low heat in the oven. I was worried that I would over cook the meat but for a change it was perfectly done. Unfortunately I didn't add quite enough dressing to the Nicoise Risoni Salad and it could have done with a little more seasoning. But it wasn't too bad. This dish was something different for T who couldn't  work out if he liked it or not. I totally forgot about the green salad but it didn't seem to matter.

With salmon

With chicken

N cooked up some deliciously scones for dessert. She loves cooking desserts and her passion comes across in every mouth full. We served the scones with jam and cream. I also added a few choc dipped strawberries to the plate.

Everyone was full and (hopefully) satisfied by the end of the night. But more important than food was the desire for everyone to have a good time and enjoyable conversation, both of which were achieved. Success!