Off sick ... so an oldie but goodie, making risotto

It would appear that there is a stomach virus floating around and I have caught it. I've been nauseous and unwell for the entire weekend. In fact, aside from a few commitments, I spent most of the weekend in bed. My weekend which was supposed to be a fun weekend in The House with The Boy turned out to be me mostly tired and horizontal. Not much fun at all.

Today is Monday and I'm home from work because I woke up feeling miserable and dragged myself off to the doctor. Unfortunately, there was nothing the doctor could prescribe for me to make me feel better which was a bummer. I want drugs to make me feel better!!!

There has not been much cooking as a result and no planning of meals either. There are a few reasons for that, one because we were away and I was unwell, plus The Boy is away most of this week interstate for work.

I'm going to make a chicken and mushroom risotto for dinner tonight in the Thermomix, just because it's easy and it's yummy. I'm really not up to anything fancy or trying anything new.

There wasn't any Sunday night cooking of any note either. On Saturday, we had intended dinner to be our usual "The House" dinner which consists of hot dogs made with beef sausages and corn on the cob. However, after a rather late lunch, we weren't terribly hungry, The Boy had an apple and I had nothing cos I was laid up in bed feeling ill. Saturday night's dinner was brought forward to last night and between that and me not feeling well, last night's dinner was not terribly exciting.

Funny thing about the hot dogs though, The Boy claimed that the dinner last night did not taste as good in The Apartment as it does in The House. Odd, isn't it? The only thing that is really different is that instead of cooking the sausages on a BBQ grill, we cook the sausages in a pan. I guess the flavor is different cooked that way? Not entirely certain, but that could be the case.

Anyhow, I'll stop rambling now, which is mostly what I've been doing for this entire post, but I didn't want to just not post anything this week.

Other posts that I'm planning:

• Prawn and gorgonzola risotto
• Spinach, fetta and mushroom quiche
• Raspberry fool (this is a dessert)

See you all when I'm feeling better!


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Planning meals and cooking for the week

As you may know, I've started working full time again, which leaves me a lot less times for dinner parties and spending a lot of time cooking during the week.

If we want to eat economically and eat food that we cook ourselves, I can't be "spur of the moment" anymore. I need to plan ahead and think about what we want to cook and what we want to eat.

It's not all about just the cooking though, it's also about what our plans are for the week and whether or not we will be around.

For example, last week, we spent most of the week at home in the evenings. Often The Boy would have business related dinners at least one night a week, but last week, he didn't, so we had to plan a couple more meals at home.

What we do now is on a Sunday, we think about what we want to cook and eat at home and what days we will be doing that. Then we work out a shopping list and shop according to that. The benefit of that is that we get exactly what we need and our ingredients are always fresh.

So, for the last week, I decided that Sunday dinner would be beef stroganoff. Beef stroganoff is a larger meal since there is always leftovers (we also think about what leftovers are available to eat during the week too).

With that in mind, this is what the menu for the week ended up looking like:

• Sunday - beef stroganoff
• Monday - nothing since we were out for bible study
• Tuesday - beef stroganoff leftovers
• Wednesday - prawn and gorgonzola risotto with a side salad (we were supposed to have a friend over to dinner but he had to cancel at the last minute, I cooked the risotto anyway)
• Thursday - the risotto leftovers since it had prawns it would not keep more than a day or two
• Friday - beef nachos
• Saturday - chicken parcels (I buy those from my butcher and just pop them into the oven to cook when I want to eat them) with a side salad

I'm not so structured that I write it all out but we do discuss it and I have a list in my head.

This week is a short week for us and not as much eating at home since The Boy has a business dinner out and we're heading up to The House on Thursday night, so our menu for the week is much simpler:

• Sunday - lasagne
• Monday - nothing since we have bible study
• Tuesday - nothing since The Boy is out for a business dinner. I know I still need to eat but I'll just be lazy and grab something simple out of the fridge or out of a tin (I don't mind doing that occasionally)
• Wednesday - we will probably have whatever is left of the lasagne
• Thursday - we head up to The House right after work so we will stop on the way, probably at our favorite Thai restaurant for a quick meal
• Friday and Saturday - we will play it by ear because we will be at The House which will probably mean BBQ hot dogs one night cos The Boy loves it and possibly a night out at one of the restaurants we like.I think The Boy mentioned catching up with some friends for dinner one night in passing so that might be what we're doing one of the nights that we are up there.
  

And then, of course, it's Sunday again and we start the planning process all over again.

I guess the point that I'm trying to make here is that it's a lot easier to cook during the week when you're working full time if you plan your meals for the week in advance. You also don't need to plan to cook every night because there will be leftovers some nights and other nights there might be something on which means you won't be home to eat. Think the week through, and you will find that like me, cooking during the week will become easier.

So far, in all the weeks that I've started this process, I have found that the most I've had to cook during the week has been 3 times and that's on the high side. Usually it's only once or twice during the week that I'm cooking. That's doable when you're working full time and you get home late and tired.

Do bear in mind though, that if you tend to work a little later like I do (I usually don't leave work till about 6:30pm) dinner might be a little late if you plan on cooking. We usually eat quite late. We would sit down to eat dinner usually anywhere between 8pm and 8:30pm. I don't spend the whole time that I'm home cooking till 8pm. I just start cooking a little later, often between 7pm and 7:30pm after a few errands and unwinding a little bit.

If you've read this far, I hope this helps you in some small way to plan your meals and plan your cooking week.

Happy cooking!!!

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Let's have a dinner party!! ...with crispy golden potatoes

Since I mostly cook for dinner parties and most of the heavy duty cooking that I do centers around the dinner parties that I have at home, I thought I'd talk a little bit about that.We have at least one a week or one a fortnight, and it's a whole heap of fun for me. I'm even known to be crazy enough to do two a week, if it takes my fancy. So far, people seem to be willing to come and eat. :-)

I recently had a dinner party that consisted of a starter of nachos, followed by a main of meatloaf with a red wine and mushroom gravy, crispy golden potatoes and Vichy vegetables (a variation of the classic French Vichy carrots, I just used a combination of frozen peas, carrots and corn). Fortunately, a friend was bringing dessert, so I did not have to worry about it.

The tricky part of this dinner was that not much of it could be prepared in advance, it was all cook and eat immediately. It was also my first attempt at a meatloaf, so I was rather nervous. I had to make sure that I had the dinner timed perfectly so that what was cooked ended up on the table piping hot. To that end, being the project manager that I am, I put together a little time line to help with the cooking prep and getting food to the table. I'm not saying do this for all dinners, but there are some dinners that need a bit more help thinking through the timing than others.

Here's what I ended up putting together:

• 4:00pm - make guacamole and refrigerate
• 5:00pm - set out ingredients for all dishes
• 5:30pm - assemble meatloaf
• 6:00pm - make gravy
• 6:30pm - put meatloaf into oven
• 6:30pm - peel potatoes and put in water to be ready for boiling
• 6:45pm - assemble nachos
• 7:00pm - serve nachos
• 7:00pm - start boiling potatoes and vegetables for Vichy dish
• 7:30pm - check meatloaf, take out of oven, heat up gravy
• 7:45pm - finish cooking potatoes and vegetables
• 7:50pm - serve dinner

This is the only time that I've made up such a detailed (and anal) plan for my dinners. The reason for it was mostly timing the potatoes and Vichy vegetables. I wanted to serve them hot from the stove rather than re-heated. It was certainly a great learning experience for me in terms of getting timing right. One thing that I did learn was to figure out how much of the dinner can be cooked in advance. That just makes life a whole lot easier when it comes to putting a meal on the table.

My favorite dish for the night was the crispy golden potatoes, which was a Jamie Oliver recipe, out of his 30 Minute Meals cookbook. By the way, that's an excellent cookbook, and if you're ever stuck for meal ideas, just pull one of those out of the book and make it. Fabulous!

Here's the RECIPE for the crispy golden potatoes:

Ingredients

• 500g red skinned potatoes
• 1 lemon
• 4 sprigs of fresh thyme or rosemary
• 1 bulb garlic

Instructions

• Wash the potatoes, leaving the skins on
• Shape into 2cm chunks and throw into a large frying pan
• Cover with boiling water, season with salt and cover with a lid
• Turn the heat right up and boil for 8 minutes or until just cooked
• Check the potatoes are cooked through, then drain and return to the same frying pan
• Leave on a high heat and drizzle over some olive oil
• Add a pinch of salt and pepper, speed in strips of lemon zest and add 4 sprigs of thyme or rosemary
• Halve the bulb of garlic widthways and squash each half with the back of a knife and add to the pan
• Toss everything together, then roughly squash down with a masher
• Toss every 3 minutes or so until golden and crisp

I had too many potatoes in the pot and it took too long for it to crisp (I made more than the recipe) so my potatoes turned out not as crispy all round as I wanted it to, but they tasted fabulous. My lessons learned from that was - fewer potatoes and more time over the heat. Instead of stirring regularly, it's actually a good idea to just let the potatoes sit for a few minutes (just like the recipe says, possibly more) on the heat before turning. I was just too used to stirring or tossing regularly to prevent burning and this was the opposite.



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