soup of leftovers

Tonight we had soup made from left over leftovers - the remains of the chicken and tomato casserole we had on Tuesday night, which included, as I'm sure you remember the remains of the tomato, bean and potato dish we had on Saturday night.

ingredients

oil
1 stick of celery, sliced
1 clove of garlic, smashed and sliced
corn from 1 cob of corn
5 spring onions, sliced
leftover chicken and tomato casserole: take the meat off the chicken maryland and chop, chop the potatoes into smaller pieces

method

Heat a heavy bottomed saucepan over a medium heat. Add some oil. Add the sliced celery and stir about. Add the garlic and stir again. Add the chopped potatoes and the corn. Add the tomato sauce and some boiling water. Add the spring onions. Bring it all to a simmer and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the chicken, simmer about 3 minutes. Add some more boiling water if it's looking to thick.

Pour into heated bowls and serve with crusty bread.

mushroom risotto

mushroom risotto
pressed salad - cabbage, celery, carrot and spring onion

ingredients

butter
oil
1 x onion, chopped
8 mushrooms, sliced (approx 8 medium sized cultivated mushrooms)
3/4 cup of risotto rice - that'd be arborio rice
pepper
2 cups of hot stock - I used half of a Massel's 'beef style' stock cube in boiling water
sliced spring onion, white and green
extra butter
Parmesan cheese

method

Put a heavy frypan onto heat. I use a cast iron pan and a medium-hot heat. Put in a little oil, and a knob of butter. When the butter has melted and is foaming add the onion. Stir and cook, maybe turn the heat down a little. I usually cook the onion until it's just going transparent and soft, but today I let it stick a little and go brown. It was good. When the onion is partially cooked add the rice and stir around to coat it with the butter and oil. Add the sliced mushrooms, again stir and let cook for about 2 minutes. Grind on some pepper. Add some of the hot stock, stir. Let the rice and stock cook together stirring occasionally. As the rice soaks up the liquid add more. Eventually the rice will have pretty much taken up all the liquid. Taste the rice to see if it's cooked. If it's not add a little more stock, or hot water. Stir and keep cooking. Right at the end turn off the heat, add the spring onions, a little more butter cut into very small bits, and stir through. Add the grated Parmesan and stir through again.

Serve on hot plates or shallow bowls. This is enough for two people.

making it up

I was going to show Tim how to make Poulet Bonne Femme for dinner tonight, but on my way home I realised that we've only got one potato left in the cupboard. And PBF needs at least two potatoes, if not three.

So, I had a think about what we've got in the fridge and remembered that we've got a large container of leftover tomato, green bean, and potato stew left over from Saturday night ... I'll run a chicken and tomato casserole by Tim when he gets home and see what he thinks.

I'll write up a recipe as he might find that helpful.

ingredients

olive oil
sprigs of thyme and oregano
1 x bay leaf
chicken pieces - we've got 3 x chicken marylands
salt & pepper
1 x onion cut in half and sliced
left over tomato paste, about a tablespoonful
red wine, about a small wine glassful
left over tomato, bean and potato stew
olives, halved and pitted

method

heat the olive oil in a heavy pot
put in the herbs and let sizzle for a minute
put in the chicken, grind over some pepper, and sprinkle on a little salt and brown
remove the chicken to a side plate
put in the onion and cook until softening and beginning to turn golden
stir in the tomato paste
add the chicken back into the pot
pour on the wine and stir around
add in the tomato component of the stew bring to a simmer and let cook for approx 20 minutes
towards the end of the cooking add in the bean and potato component of the stew
right at the end add the olives

serve with braised silver beet (again!)

lamb & spinach curry

lamb & spinach curry
silver beet
carrot salad
rice with onions
lime pickle
mango pickle

What sounds like an elaborate dinner was actually very easy to prepare as I had a container of curry in the freezer. "Here's one I made earlier!"

black bean chili with sweet potato

black bean chili with sweet potato
skillet corn bread
garlicky greens

I made all of this out of The Real Food Daily Cookbook (with just a few adjustments).

leatherjackets savoro-style

Tim cooked from Andy Harris' Modern Greek.

leatherjackets with rosemary and red wine vinegar
stewed green beans, potatoes and tomatoes

delicious!

pan fried chicken breast

pan fried chicken breast
brussel sprouts
carrots
potatoes

baked snapper

baked snapper
green salad
potato salad

L & A's lamb shanks

L & A invited us to dinner, we ate:

lamb shanks cooked with spices, chickpeas, carrot and potato

delicious!

training

I'm thinking about doing a Commercial Cooking course at TAFE next year. Partly because when I talk about opening a restaurant people say "have you worked in the industry?" and obviously cooking for a lot of paying customers on a regular basis is different to cooking for yourself on a regular basis. I'm interested in the difference, in what makes a good cafe or restaurant, and what makes good home cooking. I'm interested in what makes a good recipe and a good cookbook.

Right now I've started on the MIT OpenCourseWare course Expository Writing - Food for Thought: Writing and Reading about Food and Culture so I'll be including some of my writing for the course in this blog.

baked persian rice with chicken

L & A came over for dinner, we made:

leek and barley soup

baked persian rice with chicken
green salad

stewed quince

Peter's birthday lunch

Yesterday was my brother's birthday so we all met at Mum's for lunch - roast.

Mum and I made:

roast beef
yorkshire pudding
roast potatoes, pumpkin and sweet potato
broccoli
green beans
gravy

for dessert we had:

berry and apple crumble
custard
cream

Yummo!

poulet bonne femme

I've just checked Larousse and Paul Bocuse and really I should be calling this dish Poulet a la Bonne Femme. Bocuse calls the dish Chicken in a Casserole with Potatoes which is a pretty accurate description of the dish but not very romantic.

Poulet Bonne Femme
green beans
broccoli

Indian leftovers

Tonight we raided the fridge and ate leftovers.

dahl*
cabbage cooked with mustard seeds and chilli, (with beans and potato*)
rice and onion
carrot salad*
cucumber
yoghurt
Ashoka brand lime pickle

leftovers are a highly effective means of creating a quick and delicious dinner!

*from Sunday night's dinner

spinach pie

Tim's brother Nick and Tim's dad came for dinner. We ate -

pumpkin soup

spinach pie
green salad

poached pears with yoghurt and passionfruit

Very good.

spaghetti bolognese

Tim's dad came for dinner. We ate -

spaghetti bolognese
green salad

My bolognese sauce is lacking. I'll have to find a new, and improved recipe!

Indian dinner

Last night Matthew and Cade came over for dinner and we ate:

Bengali green beans and potatoes*
Bengal red lentils with spices*
Yogurt with mint and cucumber
Carrot and mustard seed salad
Rice
Pappadums

for dessert we ate little cakes from Caketown on King St, Newtown - yummo!

* from Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Vegetarian Cookery

Osvaldo Polletti

Last night we had dinner at Osvaldo Polletti in Leichhardt.

Silverbeet Tart
Sardines with Currants and Pinenuts
Arancini flavoured with Squid Ink

White Bean and Mussel Soup

Ossobuco

We drank a red wine from a vineyard called Donnafugata - basically because that's the name of the village in The Leopard.

Once again the food was delicious - I particularly enjoyed the Silverbeet Tart and the Soup.


about arancini at Wikipedia
and an array of Sicilian recipes elsewhere

eggs and haloumi

fried eggs and haloumi
green beans and tomato
rice with onion
radicchio and artichoke
olives

this was a beautiful to look at dish: the yellow orange egg yolk surrounded by rice, the dull green and red of cooked beans and tomato leaking yellow oil, the dull grey green artichokes against crimson radicchio, and black olives

wonderful

bangers and mash

Tim cooked tonight.

sausages
mashed potato
sweet corn on the cob and green beans

delicious!

chicken breast and brussel sprouts

sounds nice doesn't it!

fried chicken breast
sliced brussel sprouts cooked with smoked pork neck, seasoned with salt, pepper and a little red wine
potatoes in butter and oil

chickpeas and spinach

chickpeas and spinach
yoghurt with garlic and mint
rice with onion
cherry tomatoes and black olives

lamb shanks

lamb shanks with lemon and thyme
potatoes in butter and oil
broccoli