Leap Day - 29th!

Welcome back for another week! Last night we had the most fabulous winter-time feast - Smoky Haddock Corn Chowder, Spiced Tiger Prawns, Rainbow Salad and Raspberry & Elderflower Slushie! To say that it was delicious would probably be the understatement of the year - it is one of those meals where you finish what is on your plate and then start scouring the table for what you can pile up on next. It is warming, flavoursome, has great texture and you're left wanting to go back for seconds, thirds....

I have been looking forward to making this chowder for a really long time, probably since the day I actually got the cookbook and had a flip through the recipes. This is one of the meals I took one look at and just thought "yep. That's a good'un". And it turns out I was right! The chowder is pretty simple to put together, you sort of just throw everything into a pot, cover it with stock and let it bubble away for a while! The potato thickens it up a bit, the smoky flavours of the fish and the bacon permeate the sauce (sooooo delicious) and the corn adds a bit of texture. I can recommend this one for anyone suffering through a cold winter night (like we so often are at the moment!) who is a bit tired of the usual soups and meat-three-veg meals. Dead easy, super yummy and warms you right up! Not the prettiest thing to look at, I will admit. But when you taste it, you won't care! Thumbs up Mr Oliver!

It is recommended that you serve the chowder with Matzo crackers. Being the good Aussie girls that we are, Dear Housemate and I subbed out Matzo crackers (which we couldn't find anyway) and subbed in Sao biscuits. We may also have had a Sao with Vegemite while everything was cooking... Anywho! Onto the salad - another super easy portion of the meal! It really is as simple as prepping your vegies (peel, cut into chunks, etc) and dropping them into the food processor to get grated/chopped up. The beetroot bled out its colour all over the other vegies so we ended up with a really cool pink and purple salad - not what you expect to see on your table but yummy nonetheless! But the real star of the salad is the dressing. I commented to Dear Housemate that getting the 30 Minute Meal cookbook was worth it for the salad dressing recipes alone - they are always divine, and this one is no exception. A sharp vinegary dressing with hint of tarragon, chilli and red wine vinegar, made creamy with a touch of natural yoghurt - so fresh and yummy!

The spiced prawns were fabulous and really require very little instruction or explaining. After my tradition of thanking the prawns for their self-sacrifice and contribution to our meal - I just can't bear to see their little faces when I'm sending them to the pot - throw them into a hot pan with some butter and oil, toss in some pepper and spices and then let them bake under the grill for a few minutes. Then tear off their heads and enjoy! Deadly simple, super delicious.

The slushie was awesome. There's really no other way to say it. I made it without the soda water and with a bit more ice - that made three standard glasses worth, which we then mixed with a bit of Grey Goose vodka and had ourselves a little cocktail party! With the soda water, I'd say you could get at least three more glasses out of it. Its fresh, sweet and yummy, and I know it will be making a reappearance when summertime rolls around and we're having barbecues and eating outdoors, catching the evening breeze.

So there it is! Next week is going to be terrific, and out of everything we're making I can't wait to try dessert!! On the menu is Fish Tray Bake, Jersey Royals, Salsa Verde, Simple Spinach Salad and Cheat's Bannoffee Pie!!


Until next time - Bon Appetit!

28 Days Later

Back for another week! Before I get into it I just wanted to thank you for your patience with me, I haven’t been getting the posts up quite as quickly as I would like to in recent weeks (a lot of reasons for that, but I won’t get into it). So I just wanted to say thanks! And I’m glad you’re still stopping by.

This week I whipped up a summer treat (despite it being a deathly cold mid-winter outside!). We devoured Smoked Salmon, Potato Salad, Beets & Cottage Cheese, Rye Bread and Homemade Butter! For a meal that required very, very little actually cooking time I considered it to be quite a heavy and filling feast – lots of carbs and protein in there! It was really quite yummy, but perhaps better suited to a summer’s lunch than a winter’s dinner.

No trip to the fish market was necessary this week – in fact, everything I used I got from the supermarket. One-stop-shop! It really was so easy to put together, I found myself wandering around a little towards dinner time just looking for things I could do. I am used to planning a bit in advance and making sure I’ve got enough clean dishes and a stock drinks fridge, plenty of time for preparation and a little leftover should anything go wrong – but I didn’t need it this week! The only thing that requires cooking or heating in any way is the potatoes, and bless them, they basically took care of themselves! Just boil, drain and season, it was that simple.

I am not the biggest fan of smoked salmon but I was excited to give it a go anyway. I know the texture gets to a lot of people, and the “hmm…is that cooked?” sort of feel it has to it, but I think if you pair it with the right stuff it goes down okay. I found myself piling it on top of the rye bread with a smearing of homemade butter and some horseradish cream – I recommend eating this way if you’re a beginner, it helps to tone down the texture and introduce the flavour without being too confronting.

The beetroot salad was too easy to warrant much of a description. The most drama that came about was when I was trying to decide what to substitute vac-packed cooked beetroot with – tinned beets, or fresh beets I would cook myself. (Gripping stuff, right?). I opted for the tinned stuff, given that it is meant to be served cold anyway and it came up really well! Again cottage cheese does present a bit of a texture issue for some (myself included), but it is yummy and refreshing all in one as a salad. And on par with the less-than-intersting beetroot adventures was the homemade butter – double cream meets beater, beater smashes cream, cream becomes butter. Like magic!

To be honest I found this week’s meal a bit bland. I wasn’t excited by the flavours or by the mixtures of dishes, there wasn’t that much cooking involved so it didn’t really feel like much of a challenge to my skills and it was dead easy to get all the ingredients, so… it was kind of an average week! I wish I had more flair and excitement to share with you but as far as challenge meals go, this one is hitting the bottom of my favourites list. I guess one of them had to eventually!

Thankfully we will be bringing back the excitement and showmanship next week with Smoky Haddock Corn Chowder, Spiced Tiger Prawns, Rainbow Salad and Raspberry & Elderflower Slushie! This one I have been looking forward to for quite some time – I have always wanted to make a chowder and now is my chance! (Plus I love to say the word ‘chowder’ in that ridiculous French accent made famous by The Simpsons….”schow-derrr”).

See you next week!

Bon Appetit!

The 27 Club - updated!

Welcome to the 27th meal of our challenge, Seriously Good Fish Tagine, Fennel & Lemon Salad and Couscous! I have to say, I am a pretty happy clam this week. After not being able to cook (or do anything really, for that matter) last week I was really excited to get back into the swing of things. This week's meal worked out perfectly and aside from being delicious, pretty and affordable, it was also one of the simplest and least messy dishes that have been concocted so far. I skipped over the tea this week, as no good quality fresh mint was available anywhere that I looked. It would have been fabulous with the meal but just wasn't going to work out. The whole dish has a sort of Middle Eastern feel to it, with the spices and styles of cooking. It is truly delicious. So here is just how it all happened...

First up, the shopping. I usually set aside a budget of about $50-$70 for challenge dinners, knowing that I'll need to buy all fresh vegies, meat/fish, spices and anything else I don't have in the cupboard. But this week was a real surprise! I had a lot of the spices already stored up from previous dinners, the fish ended up costing me about $25 all up and then I only needed a few basic bits of veg to get me through. All up it cost just under $50 to put on the whole meal, working out to about $12.50 a serve. $12.50 a serve for a filling and delicious seafood dinner! Worth every penny. The other great thing about shopping this week was that when I went to the fish market they actually had everything I needed, as I needed it. Skinned, pin-boned, de-bearded, scrubbed... it has probably been the easiest trip there so far. Often I find myself madly googling fish substitutions while I stand there, ankle-deep in ice and fish scales, trying to figure out what the Australian translation or substitution is. Not this time!

As I mentioned earlier, this is by far one of the simplest dishes that I've cooked in this challenge. Pretty much everything gets cooked in the container that you serve it in (tagine, roasting tray, serving dish, etc) so there's very little mess in terms of dishes! The tagine was dead easy to make, given that you basically throw all the ingredients into the pot, stir it for a few minutes and then pop the lid on and leave it be. It also looks super impressive when it is almost ready, with the contrast of the lovely red of the sauce and the rich dark shine of the mussels. Having never eaten mussels before I wasn't sure what to expect, but I can say that this dish has made me a fan! They look cool, they taste great and the cooking is so simple that they pretty much take care of themselves. I recommend this one!

The monkfish was beyond easy to make as well, it was just a matter of cutting the fillets down to size (the offcuts get thrown into the tagine to bubble away while the fillets are roasting), season with some spice, garlic and olive oil and then leave them in the oven for a few minutes. They come up beautifully, taste great and are perfectly complimented by a quick mixture of natural yoghurt, harissa and olive oil. Harissa is also something I had not had the pleasure of trying ever before, so I made sure to find a nice one. Thanks to my sister, who sourced some for me, I ended up with a really aromatic and tasty harissa paste. The heat of the paste mixed with the cooling yoghurt and added to the fish made for a really yummy dish.

The salad was ridiculously simple also, all it took was a whole lemon and some fennel thrown into a food processer, then topped with salt, pepper and olive oil. Seriously, thats all it is. (Unless of course you include the coriander, which I did not. You all know why). It is fresh, light and goes perfectly with the meal. I used to really loathe fennel, but I have to say I've really come to enjoy it (at least in this format). I think I'll be making it a lot more often when summer rolls around, it would be perfect with a bbq meal! And the couscous was so simple it barely deserves a mention. It was as easy as putting it in a serving dish, pouring water and olive oil over it, covering it for five minutes and then giving it a stir. Done!

And that is it! Next week we get the pleasure of taking on a more Eastern European-inspired meal when we put together Smoked Salmon, Beets & Cottage Cheese, Potato Salad, Rye Bread AND Homemade Butter! I can't wait for it, the images in the book make it look so tasty, and also it is the middle of winter here and sometimes there is nothing more satisfying than a hearty european meal!

Until then - Bon Appetit!