Inspiration for rainy days … and sunshiny ones too
My little man turned three this month. Amongst all the rainy days we were lucky enough to pick one that had a bit of sunshine for his party. We invited a few of his little friends over. I put out a suitcase full of dress-up clothes and turned on a bubble machine and they pretty much kept themselves entertained for a few hours.
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I wanted to share with you the recipe that my mum made us for dinner last night, it was as yummy as it looks…
What you need…
250g rice noodles
400g chicken thigh fillets, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp finely grated fresh ginger
2 red chillies, thinly sliced
2 Tbs palm sugar
2 Tbs soy sauce
1 Tbs fish sauce
¼ cup sweet chilli sauce
1 Tbs lime juice
3 shallots, finely sliced
1 cup bean sprouts
1 cup snow pea sprouts
¼ cup fresh coriander, chopped
How to make it…
Soak noodles in boiling water until soft, drain.
In a wok, stir-fry chicken, garlic, ginger and chilli in batches until browned. Return to wok, add sugar, sauces and lime juice, and stir until slightly thickened. Add noodles, shallots and sprouts and heat through.
Check seasoning and adjust with more fish sauce if necessary.
We’re on holiday in Brisbane visiting E and Baby D’s cousins, who happen to be more or less the same ages. Being on holiday calls for pancakes for breakfast and the big boys were thrilled when I made them these teddy bear ones. Yay for holidays!
I found the idea over at Mini Eco.
The other day I rushed into Woolies at around closing time to grab a few bits for dinner. In the fruit and vege section there were a couple of shopping bags loaded full of a medley of fresh produce, marked for sale at $3 each. Needless to say I was very excited! I grabbed two of the mystery bags and when I emptied them at home was delighted to see I scored a dozen or so limes, along with potatoes, raspberries, lychees, purple carrots and capsicums. There was nothing that I could see wrong with them, for some reason they didn’t make the quality cut.
So I was inspired to make lime tarts. E helped me to squeeze the juice, though it was a little tricky for him, he gave it a good go. We made the pastry which is always so worth doing for desserts like this. I couldn’t find a lime tart recipe that I felt comfortable with, so I used my lemon curd recipe that I have made a dozen times and substituted lemon juice with the lime juice.
There is a lovely Nonna who lives on our street who has the most enviable food garden. She has a tiny plot of land but she has used every inch of it to plant herbs, fruit trees and vegetables. Just a few of the delights of her garden are apricot, mulberry and fig trees, coriander, thyme, oregano, tomatoes, capsicums and cucumbers, and basil. As she put it with her melodic Italian accent, ‘plenty, plenty basil’ whilst gesticulating for us to come in and take handfuls. So we did!
What does one do with fresh basil… make pesto of course!
Recipe from good taste.
45g (1/4 cup) pine nuts
1 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves
2 small garlic cloves, halved
60g (3/4 cup) shredded parmesan
5 tbs olive oil
Preheat oven to 180°C. Spread the pine nuts over a baking tray. Bake in oven for 5 minutes or until toasted. Remove from oven and set aside for 10 minutes to cool. Place the pine nuts, basil, garlic and parmesan in the bowl of a food processor and process until finely chopped. With the motor running, gradually add the oil in a thin steady stream until well combined.
This is my fall to recipe when I am short of time (or just short of enthusiasm) to make dinner. It’s very easy, only three ingredients, but oh so tasty. It’s the haloumi. I have a love affair with cheese and this is just scrumptious, fried salty cheese, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. Mmmm Mmmm.
Haloumi.
Little tomatoes (cherry or baby roma).
Fresh green beans.
Salt.
Olive Oil.
Top and tail the beans, steam until done, so they still have a bite to them and are not too squishy. Grill holoumi (best done in a non-stick pan with no oil). Chop into little squares. Cut tomatoes in half, sprinkle with a little salt and drizzle with oil. Cook in preheated oven (around 180 degrees) for 15-20mins. (If you’re short on time don’t worry about the oven, just swirl them around in the hot pan after you’ve cooked the haloumi). Mix it all together and that’s it!
I had a berry dish a few weeks ago and I have been fantasising about it since. It is a heavenly berry salad with fresh raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries mixed with a little fresh passionfruit. Sometimes you don’t need to add anything to improve a dish when the ingredients are so delicious all on their own.
Just so you don’t think I am showing off. Here are the roast vegetables that we were supposed to have with our roast dinner. I just couldn’t salvage the ashen veggies in any way!
We are about a week into our advent calendar and we have managed to do most things so far. Today was a bit of a challenging one, making these adorable reindeer cookies. We didn’t manage to find choc covered pretzels anywhere, but these ones were fine. I was a little tired and impatient with the cookie baking today so I will attempt them again when less frazzled.
You may well be wondering how do I have time to make reindeer cookies? It’s because I am otherwise domestically inept, and neglect doing my cleaning, laundry, dishes and even feeding the children sometimes. I was scolding the little one for eating so much of the cookie dough when I realised it was way past lunchtime and the little guy was just hungry! So you see where my priorities are.
Today I made these mini strawberry cheesecakes, so festive and sweet. Looking all the more delictable in these pretty paper cups. The recipe is from Annie’s Eats. Easy as pie.
I’m not sure what came over me but I volunteered to organise our last MamaBake. It was a little exhausting figuring out what to cook and then shopping for enough ingredients for eleven families! Have you ever made enough cake mix for eleven cakes all at once? It was a little challenging but we did it and I enjoyed catching up with the local Mamas.
I decided for the main to do a lentil curry because it is really easy, here is the recipe;
splash of olive oil
1 decent sized onion
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin coconut milk
1 packet frozen spinach
2 cups red lentils
500ml Vegetable stock
curry powder or morrocan spice or anything similar you like to add flavour
Finely chop the onion and Sauté in a pan with a little olive oil. After a few minutes when the onion is soft add the spices and stir through. Then add all other ingredients. Simmer gently for at least two hours until the lentils are cooked through, keep adding stock if you need to.
It’s such an easy dish to make and tastes so yummy. You can have it with rice or couscous or roti bread.
I’d love to know what is the easiest yummy dish you make at home?
Something has gone awry with my baking mojo this week. I have had two quite disastrous episodes in the kitchen. Today I tried pancakes, something I make almost every week and don’t even have to think about, only today I burnt them, all of them, they looked like hard black hockey pucks (someone else’s description, not mine).
Earlier in the week I had my first unsuccessful attempt at jam drop cookies. I know what went wrong here, I didn’t exactly follow the recipe. Plus I didn’t have self raising flour at home so I attempted to make my own and I think I went amiss with the baking powder to flour ratio. I saw them over at this blog and they looked so yummy. In fact they were still very yummy although they didn’t have that cute-as-a-jam-drop-button look. So please don’t let my failure put you off, I think you should give them a go. If you do, let me know how they turn out for you!
Hopefully my mojo comes back soon.
