Chili on Garlic Toast with Melted Cheese and Cream Fraiche

Chili on Garlic Toast with Melted Cheese and Cream Fraiche











Another reuse of leftovers recipe, this one looks like a white trash meal, but tasted divine. The chili had stewed away nicely in the fridge and had developed a real depth of flavour that it missed the first time. Whacking it on garlic toast and smothering it with cream fraiche and melted cheese meant it was a hit with the 3 year old as well. I noticed that my wife also polished her plate.

Ingredients

• Chili (reheated from the other night)
• Garlic toast
• Cream fraiche
• Grated cheddar cheese.

Garlic toast

• Sourdough bread (from flinders bread)
• Garlic
• Butter
• Parsley

Method
Stick some unpeeled garlic in some foil and whack in the oven until it's soft and squishy. Squeeze the garlic out of the skins and mix with some soft butter and minutely chopped parsley (think wet green powder, we want the taste not the texture). Slice bread thickly and smear with garlic goo. Then whack in the oven to crisp up. Whip chili out of fridge container and whack on the stove and stir whilst it heats. When it's hot spoon on top of garlic toast and then top with cream fraiche and grated cheddar, then stick under the grill to melt.

Cost of ingredients: $8 (excluding chili)
Time to prepare: 20 minutes
Number of serves: 3
Recipe inspiration: None.

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.

Beef and Bean Chili

Beef and Bean Chili













I've never cooked a chili before and have read many many mouthwatering accounts of how tasty they can be. I thought I had been a little restrained on the amount of cayenne pepper used, however the three year old demanded more sour cream before he'd eat his and he has a pretty high spicy threshold, so I guess I missed the mark. Oh well live and learn. I cleaned my plate and so did my wife.

Ingredients

• Beef mince
• Pork mince
• Red kidney beans
• Cannalini beans
• Diced tomatoes, canned
• Celery
• Onion
• Cayenne pepper
• Paprika
• Salt
• Olive oil
• Sour cream
• Cheddar cheese
• Garlic bread (purchased)
  

Method:
Soften onion, celery in big ass pan with some olive oil, when soft brown meat in there and drain off any excess fat and remind self to mince your own meat again. Just as the meat starts to go brown, chuck in the spices. When it's all the way brown chuck in the beans and tomatoes and simmer for an hour or so. Season at the end to taste. Serve on a hot piece of garlic bread, covered with grated cheese and a dollop of sour cream. Try to remember to photograph before you start eating and fail.

Time to prepare: 2 hours
Number of serves: 8
Cost of ingredients: $32
Recipe inspiration: Many many accounts of tasty chili

Quesadillas

Quesadillas with sour cream and guacamole











These look a lot like white trash food, but tasted divine. Cooking them at the table in the sandwich maker ensured that the 3 year old bought in too. A quick peek at wikipedia for quesadilla makes me think that perhaps these should be called sincronizada instead but what the heck.


Ingredients

• Wheat tortillas
• Cheese
• Coriander
• Spanish onion
  
• Tiny tomatoes
• Guacamole
• Sour cream
• Lime juice
• Frijoles

Guacamole

• Avocado
• Lime juice
• Chilli
• Tiny tomatoes
• Onion

Frijoles

• Pinto beans
• Chilli
• Stock
• Bay leaves

Method
Frijoles
Boil pinto beans in stock with bay leaves until they are soft, then blend the lot until it has the consistency of soggy cardboard.

Guacamole
Blend everything until mostly liquid.

Mix cheese, coriander, shredded onion, diced tiny tomatoes and a little lime juice and whack in a bowl. Smear some frijole on a tortilla and sling in the sandwich maker. Cover with a large handful of the cheese mix and another tortilla. Close the sandwich maker and wait until you here the sizzle of the cheese oozing out.

Time to prepare: 20 minutes
Cost of ingredients: $18
Number of serves: 3
Recipe inspiration: Something I saw on the Fresh tv show.

Fajitas ad naseum

Chicken Fajitas.



No need to comment allthough I haven't actually done a method before for these so behold the wonder that is the meal which is the bane of my belly.


Method

Toss chicken strips in spice rub and leave for as long as you can.
Slice onions into wedges and capsicum into thin slices. Chuck in a hot pan with a little oil and sprinkle over some of the spice rub. Leave it alone to char. When you can smell the carmelisation toss the vegs around a bit and carmelise on another side. Repeat until the veg is nice and charred. Remove from pan and chuck in a bowl. Toss in chicken strips in batches and again leave 'em alone to char. Toss in bowl with veg as you go. Return the lot to the pan and squeeze over the juice of several limes.

Guacamole (well my version).
Mash with fork, avocado, corriander, chilli. Squeeze in some lime juice.

Spice rub.
Dry roast, then pound in a mortar and pestle.

Tortillas (when you can be bothered making them, rather than buying them)
Mix masa with water until the consistency is kinda like cardboard that has been left in the rain for a couple of minutes. I then use two cast iron skillets to squeeze the masa out into tortillas. Cook 'em in a dry pan until they blister just a little bit then flip and repeat.

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.

Tagliatelle With Pesto, Beans, Potatoes and Sausage

Taglietelle With Pesto, Beans, Potatoes and Sausage












Bit of a comedown from last nights dinner, but tasty all the same and wonder upon wonder the three year old cleared his plate without the normal pleading, cajoling and threatening. The wife also cleared the plate and proclaimed can you please give me smaller serves in the future, I clear the plate cos it's tasty not cos I want to eat it all.

Ingredients:

• Tagliatelle
• Pesto
• Green beans
• Potatoes
• Sausage
  
• Parmesan cheese
• Olive oil
• Salt

Fry sausage, blanch beans, boil spuds (I used the pinenut pan for the sausage well actually I used the sausage pan for the pine nuts, and the pasta pot for the spuds and beans). Stuff in pan with a little oil and then add cooked pasta. Stir through pesto. Season, taste smile.

Tagliatelle

• '00' flour
• Eggs
• Salt

I still haven't figured out portion control yet, how much does a person eat in fresh pasta. I've been whittling it down from 200g to 150 to 100g and it still seems I have leftovers. That aside making pasta is a dodle. 100g flour to 1 large egg to 1 pinch of salt dumped in the kitchen aid with the dough hook and left on slow until it forms a smooth shiny mass. Run that through the pasta rolling machine thingy and you are done.

Pesto

• Basil
• Garlic
• Pine nuts
• Parmesan cheese
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil

Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan and then apply more machinery, bung all ingredients in food processor and blitz adding enough oil at end to make 'wet enough'

Cost of ingredients: $30 ( I stupidly bought a kg of pine nuts which jacked the price as I include the cost of the pine nuts that hit the floor when I tried to pour them into my pinenut jar.)
Time to prepare: 45 minutes
Number of serves: 4
Recipe inspiration: Tagliatelle genovese in one of Jamie Oliver's cookbooks

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.

Bangers and mash

Bangers, mash and steamed vegetables




Sorry, I completely forgot to take a photo which is probably just as well as I made the bangers and they weren't the prettiest things you have ever seen. Anyone that tells you it's tough to make sausages is lying, it's a snap, all you need is the right skin (I bought my from the butcher, he told me not to ask what they were made from), no soaking, stretching or hassle required. Simply mince up the sausage ingredients and squirt them into the skins. Much yum. Didn't have any butter tonight for the mash and it _really_ shows.

Ingredients

• Lamb sausages
• Mashed potato
• Carrot
• Sugar snap peas
• Baby corn

Lamb sausages

• Lamb shoulder
• Lamb fat
• Sausage skins (no idea what they were)
  
• Rosemary
• Salt
• Pepper

Mashed Potato

• Pontiac potatoes
• Salt
• Milk
• Nutmeg

Time to prepare: 60 minutes
Cost of ingredients: $25
Number of serves: 10 (cooked 4)
Recipe inspiration: Those over priced "gourmet" sausages (70% meat! Hah!) in the supermarket meat locker.

Fajitas again

Same bat channel, same bat tortillas, same bat result.







I think I'll try wrapping up other food in tortillas and see if the three year old will come at that. Failing that I'm headed back to the bad old days of different dinners for the kids and grownups.


Refer to the previous posts for more information.

Lamb Racks with Steam Vegetables

Lamb rack with steamed vegetables.












Meals are mostly back to normal after a steady diet of white toast and floppy white protein masquerading as chicken. The rack of lamb was great and a very very simple recipe. Although I did have to bribe/threaten/cajole the three year old into eating it. But he did like chewing on the ribs. It even got the thumbs up from the mother out law.

Ingredients

• Lamb racks
• Garlic
• Dijon mustard
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil
• Corn
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Beans
• Butter

Time to prepare: 20 minutes
Cost of ingredients: $30
Number of serves: 4
Recipe inspiration: The 18/5/2007 episode of Better Homes and Gardens on tv.

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

Lasagne with Spinach Salad and Poached Pear with Shiraz Sauce and Marscapone

Lasagne with Spinach Salad
Poached pear with Shiraz sauce and Marscapone


























I had the urge to make a lasagne today, it turned out pretty good. The three year declared, "The prosciutto (he pronounced it prosuita) makes it even yummier". So I must have done something right. The contrast of the luscious mince sauce and the salty, stringy texture of the prosciutto was great. The spinach salad with a standard lemon/olive oil dressing was tasty too, even if my wife insisted on using a prepared dressing instead. That aside, I'm firmly a convert to salting my salads now, it makes a noticable difference to the taste. I also made a desert for a change, and a very tasty one at that. Although the three year old, wouldn't have a bar of it.


Ingredients

Lasagna

• Mince Sauce
• Mozzarella
• Lasagna sheets
• Prosciutto

Mince Sauce

• Veal mince (supermarket, so I doubt it was veal)
• Pork mince
• Onions
• Garlic
• Tomatoes, tinned
• Tomato paste
• Carrot
• Salt
• Pepper
  

Lasagna sheets

• 'oo' strength flour
• Egg
  

Spinach Salad

• Spinach
• Cucumber
• Tomatoes
• Capsicum
• Lemon juice
• Olive oil
• Salt

Poached pears

• Beurre Bosc pears
• Shiraz
  
• Caster sugar
• Star Anise
• Shiraz sauce
• Marscapone

Shiraz sauce was just the poaching liquor reduced to syrup consistency.

Time to prepare: About 2 hours
Cost of ingredients: About $40
Number of serves: 8 (lasagna) 3 (pears)
Recipe inspiration: The lasagna needs no inspiration, the pears originally came from an issue of gourmet traveller.

Chorizo, Chicken and Cannelini Beans in Tomato Broth

Chorizo, Chicken and Cannelini Beans in Tomato Broth












This was a fantastic, tasty quick meal and for once in my life I almost got portion control right to boot (no huge ass plastic tub full of leftovers in the fridge; just a small one this time). I think some crusty bread would have finished this off nicely, but that would have broken the one starch rule.

Ingredients

• Chorizo
• Chicken tenderloins
• Cannelini beans
• Tomatoes, tinned
• White wine
• Salt
• Coriander
• Pepper
• Olive Oil

Time to prepare: 15 minutes
Cost of ingredients: $23
Number of serves: 2.5
Recipe inspiration: Nothing in particular, but it was all mine.

Fajitas again

Fajitas

No need to say more really is there? This is what you get when the 3 year old is given free range to choose what he would like for dinner. To be fair he eats very well when he gets his way, in fact he ate more than his generously fleshed father.

Beef StirFry with Oyster Sauce, Veg and Noodles

Beef Stir Fry with Oyster Sauce, Veg and Noodles












I used to stirfry all the time, I stopped, dunno why. They are quicky tasty and cheap. Eaten with gusto by the wife, less so by the 3 year old and I was more than satisfied.

Ingredients:

• Beef fillet
• Noodles, hokkien
• Oyster sauce (bottled)
• Spring onions
• Snow peas
• Celery
• Baby corn
  
• Bean sprouts
• Coriander
• Salt
• Cashews

Time to prepare: 15 minutes
Cost of ingredients: approx $20
Number of serves: 5
Recipe inspiration: Particularly uninspired, but I guess the million and one serves of noodles I've consumed to date.

Chicken, Apple, Potato and Cashew Curry with Rice

Chicken, Apple, Potato and Cashew Curry with Rice












Not nearly enough ommph to this one, was almost insipid. I'm still very partial to the combination of curry with the sweet apple and the tender chicken. The three year old turned it into finger food with the help of some Naan so he scoffed the lot (the offer of an icecream if he finished probably didn't hurt either).


Ingredients:

• Chicken thighs
• Golden delicious apples
• Potato
• Coriander
• Cashews
  
• Curry paste
• Coconut cream
  
• Chicken stock
• Salt
• Pepper
  

Curry paste:

• Onion
• Shredded coconut
• Tomato paste
• Sugar
• Curry powder
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Tumeric
• Garam masala
• Cashews
• Almonds

Naan:

• No idea it was store bought.
  

Time to prepare: 40 minutes
Cost of ingredients: $15
Number of serves: 5
Recipe inspiration: Nothing in particular

Risoni with Chorizo and Eggplant

Risoni with Chorizo and Eggplant, with Rocket and Parmesan Garnish












This turned out very tasty, however I discovered that my three year old hasn't really learned to chew properly and the pieces of eggplant with skin triggered his gag reflex with spectacular results.

Ingredients

• Risoni
• Chorizo
• Eggplant
• Onion
• Diced tomato, canned
• Chicken stock
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Rocket
• Parmesan

Time to prepare: About 30 minutes
Cost of ingredients: About $15
Number of serves: 6
Recipe inspiration: Subliminally probably the Donna Hay chorizo special in the paper's sunday magazine, but I didn't reference them when creating.

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

Citrus Lamb Cutlets with Polenta and Mini Veg Salad

Citrus Lamb Cutlets with Polenta and Mini Veg Salad













I'd never made polenta before so I thought I'd give it a go, I really shouldn't have bothered. It wasn't worth the effort, I might have to visit an Italian restaurant to see if The Real Thing(tm) is any better. The lamb was extremely tender and had a nice zang to it, the salad was just like an ordinary salad except cuter.

Ingredients:

• Lamb cutlets
• Citrus marinade
• Salt
• Parmesan polenta
• Mini veg salad

Citrus Marinade

• Lime zest
• Lemon zest
• Orange zest
• Lemon juice
• Lime juice
• Olive oil
• Salt

Parmesan Polenta

• Polenta
• Chicken stock
• Salt
• Butter
• Water
• Parmesan cheese

Mini Veg Salad

• Baby cucumbers
• Red cherry tomatoes
• Yellow cherry tomatoes
• Roast capsicum

Time to prepare: About 45 minutes
Cost of ingredients: $40
Number of serves: 3
Recipe inspiration: A recipe magazine I found in the supermarket