On the weekend I attended a short Japanese cooking course that covered some of the basics including making sushi (the main reason I wanted to attend), tempura cooking and how to cook perfect rice. Finally I think I may have conquered the art of sushi rolling – something that has alluded me in the past.
Luckily I got to take home all the sushi I’d made (and hadn’t eaten) for the family to try. For a bit of fun, we decided we’d set up our own Sushi Train (just like the restaurants of the same name) to serve the sushi. On our recent visit to the Ekka, my son Stewart got a show bag with several different train sets in it. The ‘steamie’ is our favourite (because it actually blows real steam) and has a couple of flat beds – perfect for serving sushi. So we set the track up, put some cling wrap on the flat beds, and lunch was served. Here’s a short video to show you our very own Sushi Train…
Of course I’m now getting endless requests for sushi so we can setup the train again….
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On my last run to the markets I was lucky to find a wonderful bounty of sweet potatoes (the orange variety). Fabulous, big fat tubers of yumminess! Sometimes they can be a bit old and withered and in readiness to reproduce with little bits starting to grow out of them, but these were absolutely beautiful.
As a result we’ve been trying a few different recipes. One of my friends who shared the bounty has had great success simply baking them whole in the oven, and then serving with mix and match toppings. The family loves it because they get to customise their dinner and as a result eat it all up. It’s a bit like baked potatoes with different toppings – a great idea we’ll be trying soon.
One of the recipes I’ve tried is this Curried Sweet Potato Soup. It comes from a cookbook my Dad lent me (yes the cookbook fetish runs in the family) and came with high recommendations. It was delicious and simple to make, so if you are fortunate to have some sweet potatoes on…
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Recently there was a local, tasty event called Regional Flavours which showcased a lot of wine and producers from the South East Queensland Area. While there were lots of wines, preserves, cheeses and other tasty morsels to sample, one of the most popular places was the Gourmet Stage. It featured a great line up including Ben O’Donoghue (TV Chef and co-owner of South Bank Surf Club) and MasterChef Series 2 contestants, Sharnee and Skye.
Below is a clip from Ben discussing some home economics. He makes the point that we throw away an incredible amount of food on a weekly basis, and if we took the time to add it all up, it could be as much as 20% of our food budget. For many families that’s a lot of money that simply gets thrown away. It’s also a lot of food, particularly when you add it up on a local and national scale.
One way around this food waste is to better utilise all parts of any fresh ingredients we use. A classic case is making chicken stock from a leftover roast…
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At this time of the year we are fortunate to have a glut of avocados available. Having said that, the trouble is they all tend to ripen at once so there is a need to consume a lot of them very quickly.
Apart from guacamole and other avocado dips, I love avocado spread thickly on hot toast, drizzled with lemon juice and sprinkled with black pepper. This would do me for breakfast, lunch and dinner most days. We also use avocado on sandwiches instead of butter or margarine.
Another recipe that I use when there are plenty of avocadoes around is this simple Pasta with Avocado. It is quick and easy to make and always a huge hit with the whole family – although I must admit we are ‘avocadoholics’.
Last time I served it with fresh homemade pasta and it was divine. Hope you like it too.
Pasta with Avocado
Ingredients
375g pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 large avocadoes
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons cream
½ cup parmesan cheese,… (Read the rest of this article at the following article source link for the full story)
I found this one in a cookbook of mine, and I really liked the appeal of it. It looked a little bit fancier than just roasting up a bird, so I thought I’d give it a try. As always, I tweaked up the recipe a little bit, based on my experience long ago of making tomato soup from scratch.
This one’s a two-step process. You first cook the bird and the veggies in the dutch oven with the liquid, and let the tomatoes dissolve.
Then, you carve the bird and puree the liquid with a little thickener to make the sauce. Serve it up, together.
And, then, the next day, I had enough leftover chicken bits and sauce to make a delicious thick soup. It really was a versatile meal.
Dutch Oven Braised Chicken
12” deep dutch oven 10-12 coals below 12-14 coals above
Serves 8, 475 Calories per serving
1 whole chicken
Salt
cayenne
Black Pepper
4-5 stalks celery, chopped
4-5 large tomatoes, diced
2 bell peppers, diced
1-2 onions, diced
4-5 cloves garlic, coarsely minced, or sliced
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 cups…
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I just got an email from someone asking about buying a dutch oven to cook a turkey. There are a lot of options, and which you’ll end up using depends a lot on what you want to do, especially how big a turkey you want to cook.
<A HREF=”http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fmasblpo-20%2F8001%2F704c163d-35b8-46b7-a6ae-f9ec6af391fd&Operation=NoScript”>Amazon.com Widgets</A>My first thought is to get a deep 14” dutch oven. It’s surprising, but that can actually cook a pretty big bird, if that’s what you want to do. I have two 14” deep dutch ovens, from some minor name brand. My preference is to cook turkey hens in them (which are usually around 10-14 lbs). That gives you plenty of room around the bird for air circulation and some veggies, like potatoes, celery, carrots, onions, etc…
I have,… (Read the rest of this article at the following article source link for the full story)
Last Sunday, I tried the berried chicken again, and this time I tried it as I wrote it, not like I did it the first time!
Welllll…
Even at that I made a few changes. And would also suggest a few more changes… I can never leave well enough alone, right? It drives my poor wife crazy.
One of the changes was to add the potatoes. I had originally thought to put the chicken on my big steamer trivet in the dutch oven, so the juices would run down below. But then, I thought of adding a layer of potatoes on the bottom of the dutch oven, and setting the chicken on top of that. It was a great idea, as the potatoes absorbed much of the flavor from the spice rub and the chicken juices.
Another change I would recommend is to not use ALL of the spice rub when coating the chicken. It was too strong, especially in the salt and the black pepper. Mix it to those proportions, and then use about 2/3 of it.
I also used the minced mint idea in the berry sauce, as well as just a few good shakes… (Read the rest of this article at the following article source link for the full story)
Last Christmas my daughter received some great cooking cards as a gift, and ever since she trots them out on a regular basis and we pick a recipe to make together. Although she’s a bit of a savoury girl, the sweet cards always seem to come out first, probably because the pictures make the food look so good.
One of our favourites so far has been the ‘chocolate cookies’ card. There are a few variations that can be made and our most recent (and most popular) was what we dubbed ‘Reverse Chocolate Chip Cookies’. The reason they’re reversed is the chocolate chips are white instead of the usual milk chocolate, and the biscuit itself is chocolate rather than just a plain biscuit base.
Reverse Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes about 20 cookies
Ingredients
125g (4oz) unsalted butter, softened
90g (3oz) soft light brown sugar
90g (3oz) caster sugar
1 egg
125g (4oz) chocolate spread
2-3 drops vanilla extract
200g (7oz) plain flour
30g (1oz) cocoa powder
Pinch salt
½ tsp of…
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I did an experiment this weekend, one that worked really well. OK, actually I did two, but I’ll save the other one for another post.
One of the problems I’ve had with baking bread is religious. My church isn’t allowing me to bake bread.
Now, before that freaks anyone out, let me explain. It’s not so much my church as my church schedule. I can hear a collective sigh of relief. I love writing for shock value…
See, with church happening right in the middle of the day, it’s tricky to time the mixing, kneading, rising, shaping, proofing, and, finally, baking and eating in spots where I can still go to church in the middle of it all. It kinda became obvious when I went up to the hospital to visit Jodi and Jake this weekend. I wanted to make bread, and we were going to attend church up at the hospital. There was no way I was going to be able to mix up the bread and let it raise while I made the hour-long trip, attended a short church service, visited with my family,… (Read the rest of this article at the following article source link for the full story)
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