Pizza party!! ... with a tomato, basil and boccocini salad

So, The Boy has committed me to writing a post about pizza only I've just discovered that I've already blogged about our pizza making and repeating that would just be boring.

Here's the link to where I talk about our ingredients that top our pizza. This time though, we bought our pizza bases because we didn't have time to make our own pizza dough. We'll probably do that again when we make pizza next.

I also didn't have any pizza sauce made up, so we just bought a jar of pasta sauce and used that instead. Usually, I make my own pizza sauce, which consists of:

• 1 can diced Italian tomatoes
• 1 small tub of tomato paste
• Italian herbs (use as much or as little as you like!)
• Salt and pepper

I heat that in a pan and then blitz it with a hand blender until it's smooth and then let it cool. Usually that makes enough for about 4 serves of pizza. I put them into small baggies and freeze what I do not use. It defrosts just fine and once defrosted, I just add it straight onto the top of the pizza.

We had The Best Bud and his wife over to dinner so it was a little more that pizza that was served.

We started off with some garlic bread and a tomato, basil and Bocconcini salad.

The garlic bread was easy because we bought it, though I think next time I will make my own. The brand that we usually get was not available, so we tried the regular Coles brand (Coles seems to be replacing all the brands with their own brand and sometimes not for the better). The Coles brand garlic bread was disappointing. It was bland and did not have enough garlic or really any other flavor. Both The Boy and I were disappointed in it, but The Best Bud thought that it was ok. We had thought that we would keep any that was unfinished as leftovers to go with lunch the next day, but decided to toss the remaining pieces since it wasn't very good.

We love a good tomato, basil and Bocconcini salad and it's the easiest thing to make. We made enough this time to serve 4 people and here's what I did:

Ingredients:

• 3 vine ripened tomatoes (they taste better), cut into 7mm slices
• 1 tub of Bocconcini standard sizes cheese balls, sliced into 7mm slices
• Basil leaves
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Place the sliced tomatoes on a serving platter
• Place one basil leaf on each slice of tomato
• Place the sliced Bocconcini cheese on top of the basil leave
• Grind some salt and pepper over the top
• Drizzle olive oil over the top
• Serve and enjoy

It was a pretty leisurely evening, so we had the garlic bread and tomato, basil and Bocconcini salad first. After that we made up the pizza and popped it into the oven for 12 minutes at 180 degrees C to cook and melt the cheese. When that was ready, we had a few slices of pizza but decided not to eat the second pizza that we made so that there was room for an Affogato for dessert.

We ended up with a whole pizza leftover that we've put into the fridge. The Boy will probably have some for lunch over the next few days and will likely take a few slices to work as well.

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The makings of our beef stroganoff dinner

We're having beef stroganoff for dinner tonight. Just prepping the food for cooking.

Me: Is beef stroganoff one of your favorites?

Boy: No, it's decent, why?

Me: Was just wondering.

Boy: I'll get some more wine and then it will be one of my favorites.

The Boy is planning (of course) a blog post on what wine goes best with beef stroganoff.

It's beef but it's also rich and creamy, so what do you think would be a good wine for beef stroganoff?

Head over to The Boy's blog to read more about the wine he pairs with my food and also for the post on what wine to have with beef stroganoff. (I'll post the link once it's been written!)

Hope everyone's having a great weekend.

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Best breakfast ever!! ... chorizo with potato hash and eggs

The Beloved Boy recently had a breakfast out which he really enjoyed. He's been raving about it since having it and been excited to try it out at home.

I'm so proud of him for this because not only did he discover a delicious meal, but he was also discerning enough to be able to come home and describe to me what he ate so that we could re-create the dish. After that, he proceeded to cook the whole meal himself for breakfast for us this morning with only a few tips and a little guidance from me.

You need to try this!! I promise you, you will not be disappointed.

Here's the RECIPE for what to do: - this recipe is enough to serve 2 people a very hearty breakfast.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium sized potatoes cut into small cubes
• 1 spicy chorizo sausage thinly sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic minced
• 1/2 Spanish onion diced
• 4 eggs
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Heat up some olive oil in a pan and cook the chorizo until slightly browned and crispy, remove from pan
• In the same pan, put in potatoes and start to cook it, stirring frequently so you don't burn either side, this will take about 20 minutes, so be patient
• About 3/4 way through cooking the potatoes, season with salt and pepper, cook a little while longer
• Add garlic and onions and continue to cook until the potatoes are ready
• Then add the chorizo back into the pan and turn down the heat to the lowest setting on the stove to keep it warm
• In a fresh pan, add some olive oil and cook the eggs - you can either do them sunny side up or over easy, whatever your preference is - season to taste
• As the eggs are cooking, spoon the potato and chorizo mix onto plates
• Once the eggs are done, quickly top off the potato and chorizo mix with the eggs
• Serve and eat while still hot

This is a delicious meal. I was totally blown away by the mix of flavors, the earthiness of the potatoes, spice of the chorizo and the flavor of the onion and garlic, all mixed in. The eggs added a lovely softer texture through the dish, especially with the runny yolk coating all the other ingredients.

Now I'm thinking I need to have a breakfast party with some friends over so that I can make this dish. It's enough of a meal to serve it on it's own. We didn't have toast, but with friends over, we might add some buttered toast as well. Hmmmm .... who to invite???

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Shepherd's pie for dinner tonight

This is not a terribly exciting post but certainly a delicious one if you follow the recipe. It's one of the dishes that The Boy enjoys a great deal and something that I've decided to cook on a Sunday night so that we have some leftovers for the week ahead. Working full time has meant that I do not cook as often during the week and it leads to more simple meals and leftovers. That said, The Boy really likes leftover Shepherd's Pie. He says the flavors work in a lot better and it tastes much better a few days later.

Here's my recipe for Shepherd's Pie. I've done it before and I've already blogged about it.

I hope you guys have had a wonderful weekend and have a great week ahead.

ps. I'm trying to get into a regular routine of posting at least once a week, twice if I have anything interesting to share. I hope I am able to keep it up. Do forgive me if I don't.

pps. Sorry about the slightly fuzzy photo. My hand seemed to have been shaking while I was taking the picture and it's the only one I have of tonight's ingredients.


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Moroccan vegetable soup

I had written this a while ago and it seems like an opportune time to post this right now since it's Winter here and it's a great time for soup. I hope you enjoy this.

I love soup and lately, I've been doing a lot of soups for starters when I do my dinner parties because it's easy to make, I can make it ahead and they are delicious, plus if I serve a small amount, not too filling.

The good thing about soups is they can also make a meal in itself, if that's what you want out of it and most of the soups that I make tend to be the thick and creamy sort (without the cream since I'm lactose intolerant) and very filling if consumed in significant quantities.

This soup I made for a dinner party some time back. I think it was one where I had the boys over for dinner and the menu looked something like this:

Starter - Moroccan vegetable soup.

Main - Roasted pork belly (another favorite), sautéed garlic vegetables and truffle mashed potatoes.

Dessert - White chocolate cake with homemade ice cream. I made the ice cream, one of the boys brought the dessert. I've yet to get into baking and to be honest, it's not something that I'm excited about doing. It's too exact a science for me.

I think I've talked about all the main dishes before and even got some recipes put together for them from previous posts, so today it's all about the soup.

Here's the RECIPE for the Moroccan vegetable soup:

Ingredients (serves 4):

• 1 tablespoon olive oil or sunflower oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 onion chopped
• 225g carrots, chopped (about 3 medium carrots)
• 225g parsnips, chopped
• 225g pumpkin, chopped
• 4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
• Lemon juice, to taste
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Ingredients for the garnish:

• 1 ½ teaspoon olive oil
• ½ clove garlic, finely chopped
• 3 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley and coriander, mixed
• Good pinch of paprika

Instructions:

• Heat the oil and butter in a large pan and fry the onion for about 3 minutes until softened, stirring occasionally. Add the carrots and parsnips, stir well, cover and cook over a gentle heat for a further 5 minutes
• Cut the pumpkin into chunks, discarding the skin and pith, and stir into pan. Cover and cook for a further 5 minutes, then add the stock and seasoning and slowly bring to boil. Cover and simmer for 35 – 40 minutes until vegetables are tender
• Allow the soup to cool slightly and then pour in to a food processor or blender and puree until smooth, adding a little extra water if the soup seems too thick. Pour back into a clean pan and reheat gently
• To make garnish, heat the oil in a small pan, fry the garlic and herbs for 1 – 2 minutes. Add the paprika and stir well
• Adjust the seasoning of the soup and stir in lemon juice to taste. Pour into bowls and spoon a little of the prepared garnish on top, which would then be swirled carefully into the soup

This recipe only makes 4 (or so it said) and I was making soup for 6, so I increased the amount of ingredients by an extra 50% or so. The amounts are not exact, since I'm pretty relaxed about these things, so long as it eventually tastes good and I am really bad at math.

Here's what I did different (besides increasing quantities):

• I'm never exact with olive oil, I just use a bunch which is whatever looks about right in the pot / pan, depending on what I'm cooking and if it's not enough, I add more
• I did not buy enough parsnips (back to the bad at math thing) so I was on the original numbers of parsnips for the recipe
• I had a ton of pumpkin and decided to use it all up, so had a bit more pumpkin
• Fortunately for me, the carrots did end up going in with the correct quantity
• I used chicken stock because I think chicken stock gives the soup a better depth of flavor. I almost always do this, by the way, so if you ever see me making soup, chicken stock is a given
• I put some lemon juice in but after two tablespoons of lemon juice and it still not tasting very lemony, I decided that was enough. There was probably enough in it to give it a boost in flavor without dominating. I still wanted the vegetable flavors to come through
• I did not add pepper to the soup because I wanted to keep the sweetness of the vegetables and didn't want the heat from the pepper coming through
• For the garnish, I used quite a bit more garlic than the recipe said but again that's just me 'cos I like garlic
• I also not only mixed paprika into the garnish mix but I also sprinkled some extra on to the soup to give it some contrasting colors - the orange of the soup, the red of the paprika and the green from the garnish - made it very pretty!

The soup tasted lovely. There was a hint of spice from the garnish that added a delightful flavor to it.

Are you a seasonal soup person or can you have soup year round? Is soup something that is warm and comforting for the winter time or is it something that you will eat whenever you are looking for something that's tasty and simple?



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Chicken and mushroom risotto ... in the Thermomix

Tonight we are having a favorite in our home - chicken and mushroom risotto.

I've taken to cooking my risottos in the Thermomix because it's just so dang easy and also because I've been able to perfect it over the last many months and now it tastes just amazing. However, if you don't have a Thermomix, my regular risotto cooking recipe is here.

Chicken and mushroom risotto is a standard in our home whenever we feel like risotto, or rather, whenever I feel like risotto. The Boy never complains about risotto because he loves it.

This is actually a variation of the recipe for a Prawn and Gorgonzola risotto which I will post another time, when I make it again. It's really very delicious too.

Here's the standard RECIPE that I normally use, which is what I do 9 times out of 10. Just ignore the fact that tonight I decided to do it a little differently.

Ingredients:

• ½ onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 40g Olive oil
• 300g Arborio rice
• 80g white wine
• 4 tsp chicken stock
• 1 litre of hot water
• 3 pieces of chicken thigh - cut into very small pieces
• 6 to 8 button or brown mushrooms, sliced
• 1 cup of Parmesan cheese - shredded

Instructions:

• Chop onion and garlic together Speed 6, 3 – 5 seconds, scrape sides
• Add olive oil and sauté at 100 degrees for 2 minutes, at Reverse speed 1
• Add Arborio rice and wine wine, sauté for 2 minutes at Reverse speed 1, 100 degrees
• Add chicken pieces, stock and hot water, set time to 12 minutes, Reverse speed 1, 100 degrees
• After 12 minutes, add mushrooms, cook at 100 degrees for 4 minutes, Reverse speed 1
• Once that is done, remove from Thermomix into a large serving dish - I use a Corning Ware container with lid
• Mix in 3/4 cup of Parmesan cheese and let it sit for 2 minutes
• Add salt and pepper to season to taste
  
• Serve into plates or bowls and sprinkle a bit more Parmesan cheese before eating
• Enjoy!

I decided to be a little adventurous tonight and instead of just regular olive oil, I went with truffle oil. I'm not sure how that will turn out because (1) I've never tried with truffle oil though I think it will be good and (2) my truffle oil is a trifle (ha ha) old and is not as flavorful as I would like it to be.

I also OD'd a bit on the onion because I forgot the recipe was only ½ an onion and I thought it was 1 onion, and I already had ½ an onion that was cut up in the fridge. So, yours truly ended up with 1 ½ onions in the risotto. Oh yeah, we also love garlic, so I used like 6 or 8 cloves of garlic, but that's normal. I always use a lot of garlic in my cooking. It keeps those winter colds away. :-)

I'd just like to point out that unlike most other cooking that I do, I actually follow the recipe for the risotto quite closely and seldom vary it.

Anyway, tonight's risotto was delicious. The Boy thinks it is probably the best risotto I've made. The truffle flavor was very subtle but according to The Boy is really added to the overall taste of the dish. I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. I even had seconds, which for those who know me, will know that's very unusual.

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Hot doggedy dog!!!

 

There hasn't been much going on in the cooking front since we've had a 3 day long weekend for the Queen's birthday but for us an added 1 day to make it a 4 day weekend as we took an extra day off work.

We're up in The House and enjoying some quiet and fresh country air. Absolutely delightful.

The Boy was very excited about being up and making hot dogs for dinner, so he decided to cook.

There's really nothing much to rave about here, we threw a bunch of sausages on the little electric barbie that we have since it's freezing cold and just much too cold to fire up the big barbie for 3 sausages and one onion.

He very expertly cooked up the 3 sausages (Coles brand - beef with herb and garlic, which incidentally are even better than the gourmet sausages we get from the butcher - go figure!) and one sliced onion. We got a little fancy with the onion and threw some maple syrup on it to caramelize it a bit. That maple syrup was a very good idea, boy were those onions good!!

On top of that, there was some corn on the cob which I did in the microwave. Yes, I know, it's cheating but it's fast and it works well. I learned it from The Mother In Law. Absolutely brilliant. 4 minutes per corn. We had 4 and I went for 12 minutes cos I thought 16 minutes would have overdone it. The corn turned out perfect and stayed hot / warm throughout the meal.

So, all in all a very simple meal but delicious and really, just what we needed and wanted for a chilly winter night.

Of course, the only down side to it was The Boy forgot to turn on the exhaust fan and we got a living room full of smoke and BBQ sausage smell. We fixed that in the morning with opening doors and windows and burning a few candles.

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