Baked Aubergine with Cheese and Basil

My husband could not poop. We tried a fybogel, we tried fluids, but alas, pooping did not happen. I googled  anti-constipation foods and read that aubergine (egg-plant) and broccoli are good at getting things moving. Armed with this information, I browsed BBC Good Food with my husbands bowels on my mind.

The result was this recipe, for baked aubergine with tomato, mozzarella & Parmesan. Everyone really liked it. My son was explicit that this is easily the most delicious meal that I've made under the guise of healthy family meals. He was torn between being excited to eat it all immediately and keen to keep leftovers for his lunch the next day. My husband agreed and they both had second helpings, and it made enough that we had plenty left over for lunches as well.

baked aubergine

The important thing to note is that there was an entire ball of mozzarella, the majority of a pack of Parmesan and an entire bottle of olive oil in this meal. The likelihood is that it is not going help us get into our swimming costumes with pride this summer. It is, however, vegetarian and full of fresh ingredients, so presumably, we're not going to have rickets.

baked aubergine served with broccoli

p.s.
my husband pooped about 5 minutes before the meal hit the table, so I can't speak to the digestive properties of this meal.

Soupa scoopa and mighty soups

I made soups. My son has a new thermos for taking hot lunch to school. We can really cram anything in there but it will all get combined by the end of the day so soup makes more sense. I've been trying out some new homemade recipes. We eat the soup for dinner and the boy takes the leftovers to school in his thermos the next day.

1. Chicken and Leek Soup

I mostly followed this recipe but I don't have a crock-pot so I just made it on the stove top. It was kinda tart to I stirred in some half and half when it was on the table and that eased it up a bit. It was very nice but it's one of those soups where every mouthful is exactly the same as the last. I served it with a salad with my favorite omega mix of nuts and berries on the top and some light balsamic dressing. Salad is so delicious but my family aren't so keen.

2. Vegetable and Chorizo Soup

This one was made from this recipe but I couldn't get all the ingredients at my usual supermarket so I made a few substitutions. First, I couldn't get vegetable stock so I used chicken stock. Second, they were out of leeks so I used a normal onion instead. I made double the quantity of soup so that it would last longer but decided that I should use half chorizo and half a less fatty meat so it was half chorizo and half chicken. My son and I both thought that this one was great but my husband preferred the potato and leek soup. There were so many veggies in here that I didn't make a salad, just served with bread.

Tangy turkey sausage casserole

I fried an onion, six Italian spiced turkey sausages and a punnet of mushrooms together in a large pan (all sliced). When the sausage was cooked, I added half a teaspoon of paprika, half a cup of apple cider vinegar and a quarter of a cup of Worcestershire sauce. I let this simmer together for about 15 mins.

As it simmered, it all went the same unappealing shade of browny-grey. I started to worry that my  spontaneous combination of ingredients would be too tart  As I was struggling to come up with a dinner rescue strategy, I let my son taste the juice and he really liked the flavor  I decided to give it a try and served it with sweet potato mash and green beans. The kid licked the plate clean and is taking leftovers to school tomorrow. I love it when my son enjoys my cooking. :)

My husband is out so I can't comment on what he thought of it, but i'll update later.

Update: Husband approved

Thai Steamed Cod with Lemongrass

In naming this blog, I acknowledged that fish are healthy, but none of the recipes described in this blog use fish. Well, there was a fish pie, but it was loaded with potatoes and cheese, so is not the solution to my family dietary dilemma.  I've used shrimp a lot, because shrimp are delicious, and they come from the sea. Sadly, however, they are not even closely related to fish and contain a lot of cholesterol. 

It's not that I dislike fish. I used to cook with fish quite often. I would poach it in milk and serve it with parsley sauce and buttery mashed potatoes.  My husband thinks parsley sauce is bland so he doesn't eat it. I wrote a whole blog about that already, it turns out that adding shallots doesn't help, it hinders.  My problem is that I don't know what to do with white fish to make it exciting enough so that my husband will really enjoy it while still keeping it healthy. I'm sure he'd love cod, if it was breaded,  fried and served with cheese.

Today I cooked with cod. I steamed it with soy sauce,  lemon juice,  rice vinegar, bok choy, garlic, ginger and lemongrass  I have never cooked with lemongrass before. It tastes a lot like lemons, but looks a lot like grass, so that was exciting. I made lemon juice by chopping two lemons in half and squeezing the living shit out of it, which was also fun. I didn't measure anything but combined the ingredients hap hazardly into an aluminium parcel, wrapped it up and put it in the steamer for about 15-20 mins until the fish was cooked.

The meal is based on several Thai-style fish recipes that were similar. Typically, they said to use a red chili but there was none in the supermarket today. Just in case it was crucial, I got some red pepper sauce for the table. The recipes recommended serving this kind of dish with jasmine rice. I'm not that into rice so I put a few steamed dumplings on the side instead. Dumplings are delicious. I made green beans because I am as white as the rice that white famously sticks to.

This is the result

Thai Steamed Cod with Lemongrass

My husband liked it a lot. He says it's one of the best things I've made and he had second and third helpings. My son was not so sure, he thought it was nice but not amazing.  I'm more of my son's persuasion. It might have tasted too much of citrus for me. My husband's history with frozen margaritas tells me that he's okay with tart citrus acid flavors. I don;t like lime margaritas, I like mango ones because they're less sour. 

It was certainly really fun and easy to make, and healthy too. My husband and son both ate it, and so at least one meal this week was home cooked, low fat, and tasty. :) 

Quiche Pastiche

This quiche is a pastiche because I copied Julia.

Husband no like quiche. I make quiche, him  like good. quiche delicious but take long time to make. Quiche currently expanding in belly.

Here quiche crust recipe

Here quiche mix recipe. Very simples.

I first saute small onion, in pan with little butter.  Add 2 celery sticks, until start get soft, then whole punnet of mushrooms sliced, then two cloves of garlic, then 1/2 pound of cocktail shrimp, peeled. Let shimps go pink. Add lots of spinach. Let spinach reduce to not obnoxious volume. This make large amount of ingredients for pie dish, quiche really full.

Add egg mix and oven it for few mins so egg mix not so liquid.

Then add mozz cheese,  leftover mushroom slices and tomato for topping. and cilantro. cheese is drink. i not use so much cheese really.

Quiche nice but belly painfully full. Quiche expand in body make feel unsure.

Here is picture of quiche.

night night

Moroccan Spiced Chicken with Green Beans and Portalbella Mushrooms

Christmas is over. I'm blogging on my new phone just for the sheer novelty of it. I can blog and walk at the time.

Here's Morrocan Chicken, made from this recipe It wasnt that good. Kinda tasted like " curry flavor" which is annoying as shit, considering everything that went in this was fresh.
Ho hum.

Chicky-Chicky Parm-Parm

In the last post, I introduced a drinking game for the imaginary reader. The game includes the rule "drink every time I use cheese". Given the title of this post, you're going to need to have a beverage handy for this one.

I also made the rule that you should drink every time I make an excuse as to why my meal was less than healthy, so brace yourself, here's the bit where I run through my excuses. First, it's cold. It was 21°C yesterday, and suddenly it's below freezing and there's ice and snow. No-one wants to eat quinoa and shrimp in the cold, that's hot weather food. Second, my husband is having a bit of a bad time. His newly-purchased used-car won't start, and he's not able to fix it right now. He's waiting on a check from his employer, the check was supposed to be here on Saturday (it's Monday). He's a bit fed up. When someone is fed up, and it's cold, and they are a hairy man with a beard, and you like to take care of them and show them that everything's going to be alright by providing a home-cooked loving meal and kissing them on the head, what are you supposed to make!? Cabbage soup? I mean, soup's a good shout to be fair, and cabbage is a wintery vegetable, but we've been making a lot of soup lately (more excuses). Anyway, I tried to think of something that contained solids, and that my husband might be excited to eat.

I found this recipe on BBC food, for a dish based around chicken, bacon, pasta, double-cream, cheese and fresh basil. It looked delicious, but pretty unhealthy - with 10 fluid ounces of double cream! The version that I made had no double cream (which is 50 calories per tablespoon), instead it had 8 fluid ounces of sour cream (a comparatively reasonable 30 calories per tablespoon) and some chicken stock. The recipe asked for chicken thigh, but I used skinless chicken breast. I used Parmesan cheese instead of cheddar because it's has a stronger flavour so you don't need to use as much, and I'd guess it contains fewer calories. I did, however, keep the bacon. Bacon's delicious. When I use red meat, you take a nice big drink.

So, yeah, I browned the chicken and the bacon in a little butter (only because of I'd run out of olive oil, but you, dear imaginary reader, must drink, and then drink again for my poor excuse). I added a chicken bouillon cube and a lot of garlic (possibly 5 cloves). I then stirred in the sour cream and let it warm up again. Then I thew the cheese and the torn basil onto the pan. You should imagine this is slow mo. I threw that Parmesan into that pan a bit like how potently seductive secretaries are thrust onto a desk by their employer in a frenzy of lust and passion, sending staplers and paper clips flying. I'm pretty sure I sexually assaulted the Parmesan, the filthy bitch had been giving me the eye, and I couldn't help myself. Unlike a sexy administrator, the sauce was pretty runny. I could add flour in future to make it thicker but it really didn't matter, it was quite titillating just as it was. I poured the sauce over some fat wholewheat pasta (like penne, but bigger and really wide), and served with additional sexy blonde Parmesan and coarse cracked black pepper.

It was delicious. :)

Chicky-chicky parm-parm!

If you are disappointed in my meal, for it's use of bacon, cheese, butter and poor sexual references- fear not! It gets better! I made a very nutritious side salad. I chopped up two romaine lettuce hearts, added mixed nuts, pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries (which are my favourite!). I added a few cheesy croutons to try to persuade my son that the salad was a friend. These croutons were not delicious, and did not fool my son one iota. I also picked up a super yummy 'light' balsamic vinaigrette. The salad was sooo yum!  I get more excited about a good salad than anyone I know! Sadly, when you add nuts and vinaigrette (even when it says light on the packaging), the salad gets high in calories pretty quickly, but it's just so delicious and healthy too, I do not feel bad about that. If the Parmesan and basil was a sexual encounter, the salad was a walk in a national park, just as thrilling, but no one's getting divorced.

This is the salad as I put it on the table, covered in nuts, croutons and dried cranberries.

This is my side salad, with the yummy dressing. 

The whole thing was delicious. The house smells delicious. I'm sat here with my handsome and a cup of tea, a piece of chocolate and a full belly. The Christmas tree is up, you've had a few drinks, I'm writing to imaginary people, and we're all quite concerned about money. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!