Chicken Diane

Ingredients:

• Free range chicken
• Red rascal potatoes
• Green beans
• Red onion (or eschallots I guess)
• Parsley
• Garlic
• Lemon juice
• Chicken stock
• Brandy
• Cream
• Butter
  
• Balsamic vinegar
• Dijon mustard
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil

Method:

1. Peel and dice potatoes.
2. Spread on baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil and season.
3. Stick in preheated 180 degree oven.
4. Dice onion as small as possible.
5. Break down chicken (save frame to make stock)
6. Chuck about 30g of butter in a pan along with 30ml or so of Olive oil and brown the chicken all over.
7. Put on a baking sheet and put in the oven.
8. Soften onions and garlic in same pan.
9. Add cream, brandy,mustard, balsamic, stock to pan and reduce about half.
10. Having begun to read The French Laundry cookbook, I now strain sauces (when I remember).
    

11. Blanch the beans, boil the corn. Add the lemon juice and parsley just before plating.

Time to cook: 35 minutes
Cost per serve: $9
Inspiration: Feb 2008 issue of delicious magazine.

Ramen vs Soup Noodles

Ingredients

• Good stock, I used vegetable.
• Oyster sauce
• Keecap manis
• Sesame oil
• Soy sauce
• Finely sliced chicken breast
• Soba noodles
• Lop cheong
• Pak choy
• Baby sweetcorn
• Pork and chive dumplings (store bought)
• Spring onions (not pictured but home grown)
  

Method

1. Heat stock
2. Dump in rest of ingredients
3. Add a little oyster sauce and keecap manis, stir
4. Plonk in bowls, float a little sesame oil on top of hot liquid
5. Garnish with spring onion

Time to prepare: 20 minutes
Cost per serve: $10
Recipe inspiration: Nothing conscious.

Steak Dianne, tarragon potatoes and corn

Ingredients:

• Fillet steak
• Corn
• Kipfler potatoes (home grown)
• Tarragon
• Parsley
• Brandy
• Dijon mustard
• Worcestershire sauce
• Butter
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
  

Method

1. Preheat oven to around 200 C
2. Slice the potatoes into even thickness rounds
3. Melt the butter in a pan and splash in some olive oil to help prevent it from burning.
4. Chuck in finely sliced tarragon
5. Layer potatoes in the pan (careful it spits if the spuds are still wet)
6. Oil and season the steak and sear it well on both sides.
7. Take steak out of pan and steak in oven until done the amount you want.
8. While the steak is finishing cooking, nuke the heck out of the corn
9. Reheat the steak pan (don't clean it) and when hot again
10. Deglaze with around 1/2 cup of brandy (careful it will catch fire)
11. When the fire goes out pour in 1/3 cup of Worcestershire sauce.
12. Stir then put in a table spoon of dijon, if it thickens too much add a little beef stock.
13. Melt in about 50g of unsalted butter whilst stirring
14. And finally season to taste and chop finely and chuck in the parsley.
15. Remove corn from nukebox, steak from oven, drain spuds on paper towel and plate up thusly.
    

Time to cook: 20 minutes
Cost per serve: $8
Recipe inspiration: The fresh tv show from yesterday.

Chorizo and potato stewed in verjuice.

Ingredients

• Corn
• Sliced beans (frozen)
• Thyme
• Tarragon
• Coriander
• Onion (grated)
• Chorizo (sliced)
  
• Potatoes (new, sliced)
• Vegetable stock (store bought, but good quality)
• Olive oil
• Butter
  
• Salt
  

Method

1. Sweat onion in olive oil and butter, with a few sprigs of tarragon and thyme
2. Fry chorizo in oily mess until soft
3. Throw in potatoes and deglaze pan with verjuice, then add a splash more (maybe 1/2 cup total)
4. Almost cover potatoes with vege stock and stew until the sauce reduces to a nice consistency, the potatoes are soft and your mouth is watering.
   
5. When just about done pick out the thyme and tarragon and add the chopped coriander.
6. Serve with steamed corn and beans

Time to cook: About 20 minutes
Cost of per serve: $5.50
Inspiration: Last weekends good weekend.

BBQ Chicken Satay Sticks, BBQ corn and Mini-Veg Salad

BBQ Chicken Satay Sticks, BBQ corn and Mini-Veg Salad



Sorry, no photo's today the camera had pooped out. The meal was tasty though and the meat on a stick thing got the three year old eating. He even ate the salad if we stuck it on the stuck too. Wife ate so much she said she felt ill, which has to be a good sign.

Ingredients

• Chicken tenderloins
• Peanuts
• Coconut milk
• Curry powder
• Salt
• Olive oil
• Corn
• Mini tomatoes
  
• Mini cucumbers
• Mini broccoli
  
• Balsamic vinegar

Method
Heat BBQ enough to keep you warm in the chill night air and make enough smoke to chase away the mossies, then whack the corn on it. Stick chicken on sticks, mix salt, curry power, crushed peanuts, coconut milk in a bowl and coat the chicken sticks. Whack them too on the bbq and turn frequently and baste with the satay sauce. Chop the veg and slather with a salted 1:3 mix of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Time to prepare: 45 minutes
Number of serves: 4
Cost of ingredients: $28
Recipe inspiration: very little.

Steak with steamed veg

Porterhouse with steamed peas and corn



Nothing special here and no photo, this meal was simply body maintenance food. As an aside there's a reason that Aldi's meat is cheaper, anything that needs to be packed in a special gas is suspect in my book.



Ingredients

• Porterhouse steak
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil
• Peas'n'corn frozen mix.

Method

Let the steak come to room temperature (or least lose the fridge chill) then salt, pepper and oil it. Stick it on a hot as you can get it griddle pan and turn it just once. Use your thumb to figure out how cooked it is, don't be tempted to cut into it. Let it rest under some loose foil for 5 minutes. Whack on warmed plate. Veg was stuck in a bowl and microwaved.

Time to prepare: 15 minutes
Number of serves: 3
Cost of ingredients: $12.80
Recipe inspiration: Distinct lack of it.

Risotto with Corn, Mushrooms and Chicken Sausages with baby veg salad

Corn, Mushroom and Chicken Sausage Risotto, with a baby veg salad











Sorry about the lack of posting, the family has been ill again. You didn't miss much, cheese and tomato on toast and miscellaneous deep-fried frozen things (fish fillets, fingers, chips) and steamed veg were as exciting as it got. Today we had risotto and in an effort to get the 3 year old to eat without help I snuck some rice around his sausages. It turned out a little salty, which is a change from my normal insipid, oh well live and learn.

Ingredients:

• Arborio rice
• Chicken stock
• White wine
  
• Swiss brown mushrooms
• Corn
• Coriander
• Chicken sausages
• Onion
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Parmesan cheese
• Baby vegetable salad
  

Fairly standard risotto method, heat the stock to a simmer. Fry the mushrooms in a hot pan with butter and then add the snags to the pan and fry until nicely cooked and crispy. Then Chuck some onion and oil in the pan on low heat and sweat until translucent. Then toss in the rice and swirl about until the rice just begins to catch and lets off a nice smell. Then dump in some white white and stir until it's gone. Gradually add the stock whilst stirring until the rice is basically done. When it's done add the corn, coriander, mushrooms, cheese and season.

Baby veg salad is simple chop vegies, toss with a little olive oil, lemon and salt.

Time to prepare: About 45 minutes
Cost of ingredients: About $30
Number of serves: 6
Recipe inspiration: none

Steak with Bernaise Sauce, Fried New Potatoes and Corn

Steak with bernaise sauce, fried new potatoes and corn.











Going to start a new trend tonight, I'll include a brief method along with the list of ingredients for the meal. This one was very tasty although the bernaise was thicker than I would have liked. The steak was so tasty that I even got my wife (who's a "I've have it on the shoeleather side of well done kinda gal) to eat it medium rare.


Ingredients:

• Steak
• Bernaise sauce
• New potatoes
• Corn
• Salt
  
• Pepper
• Canola oil

Season then oil and say 4 minutes each side on the grill to make a pretty (and tasty) pattern.
Potatoes are soaked in brine for a while and then thrown straight into another pan and left to go crunchy on one side. Then shake the pan and crunch up the other side.
Corn simply steam.


Bernaise sauce

• white wine
• tarragon vinegar
• tarragon, chopped
• shallots
• butter
• egg yolks
• lemon juice
• salt
• pepper

Boil wine, vinegar tarragon, shallots and pepper until almost all gone
In a bowl over boiling water whisk the egg yolks until starting to thicken, add the butter bit by bit ensuring its incorporated fully. Dump in herbs and lemon juice and whisk until suitably thick.

Time to prepare: About 30 minutes
Number of serves: 4
Cost of ingredients: $40
Recipe inspiration: Many bistro meals eaten over the years, well except for the corn.

Risotto with Pork Sausage, Corn and Coriander

Risotto with Pork Sausage, Corn and Coriander











Apologies for the delay in posting this, the family hasn't been well and I've been on baby/wife caring duties rather than blog posting. This was fairly tasty and again I think it was down to correct seasoning. Didn't have any trouble getting anyone to eat it.



Ingredients

• Arborio rice
• Chicken stock (purchased)
• Onion
• Garlic
• Butter
  
• White wine
• Pork sausage
• Corn
• Coriander
• Salt
• Pepper
• Reduced balsamic vinegar

Time to prepare: 25 minutes
Number of serves: 4
Cost of ingredients: approx $20
Recipe inspiration: none

Steak Chips and Veg

Porterhouse Steak, Home Made Chips Peas and Corn












I had a hankering for some real honest to goodness (well honest to badness if you take HDL into account) hand cut home fried chips. It was pure serendipity when I paid a visit to Nepean Bulk Meats and discovered they stock a large range of bulk supplies of King Island beef. I took home a 2kg piece of porterhouse for $30, tough to complain. It portioned up nicely into 9 2cm thick steaks. The chips I lusted after were not as good as they could have been, perhaps I blanched them for too long in the first cook? *shrug* but the steak more than made up for it. The veg were there to make me feel a little virtuous and the corn to be fair was extremely sweet, something to be said for picking and snap freezing in the peak of the season I guess.


Ingredients

• Porterhouse steak
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil
• Potatoes - golden delight if you care. Greengrocer swore you couldn't make a chip out them that wasn't crunchy. He lied.
• Canola oil
• Corn
• Peas

Time to prepare: About 25 minutes
Cost of ingredients: $18
Number of serves: 3
Recipe inspiration: I could lie and say bifteck et pomme frites in some fancy french restaurant, but really just my childhood where this (sans the KI beef) was standard fare

Risotto with Peas, Corn, Mushrooms, Sausage and Mint

Risotto with Peas, Corn, Mushrooms, Sausages and Mint.












Far too many ingredients, but very tasty anyway. Won points with the 3 year old as sausages are currently "my favourite food". Wife cleaned the plate and went back for more, which has to be a good sign.

• Arborio rice
• Chicken stock
• Peas
• Corn
• Swiss brown mushrooms
• Continental sausages, sans skins
• Mint
• Salt
• Butter
  
• Parmesan cheese

Time to cook: 25 minutes
Cost of ingredients: $15 ish
Number of serves: 3.5

Steak and Veg

Steak and Veg













Simple, quick and relatively yummy.

• Porterhouse steak
• Corn
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Carrots
  

Time to cook: About 15 minutes
Cost of ingredients: About $15
Number of serves: 3

Zucchini and Corn Fritters with Tzatziki, Smoked Chicken and Rocket

Zucchini and Corn Fritters with Tzatziki, Smoked Chicken and a Rocket Salad









This one was weird, individual elements weren't earth shattering, but when all bunged into your mouth at once transformed into something really tasty. Two tongues up from all who partook.


Fritters

• Zucchini
• Corn
• Potato
• Plain flour
• Egg
• Lemon Thyme
  
• Salt
• Pepper
• Canola Oil for shallow frying

Tzatziki

• Cucumbers
• Yoghurt
• Garlic
• Mint

Smoked Chicken

• Chicken
• Smoke (okay so I bought it prepackaged)

Rocket Salad

• Rocket
• Lemon Juice
• Lemon Thyme
• Parmesan
  
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive Oil

Preparation Time: 20 minutes