This is my son's plate, he added more Parmesan than was necessary but he's a growing lad.
It's okay to eat fish (iotef) is a blog about one woman's struggle against the fact that vegetables aren't as delicious as cheese.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Pasta with kale, chickpeas and parmesan
I wanted something light and fresh after all the dense meat pies and gravy based Christmas meals. It took me ages to find something I wanted to make which has the triple threat: delicious, healthy, inexpensive. I finally found this recipe for 'Tagliatelle with cavolo nero, chickpeas and pecorino' but I swapped out the cavolo nero for kale and the pecorino for Parmesan. It seems like I can never find good vegetarian food without cheese. Is it possible to make appetizing meals without either cheese or meat? I know that some vegan food is amazing, but I'm determined to make (as much as possible) everything in-house and I cannot make cashew cheese in house. Anyhow, this was very well liked. Instead of tagliatelle I made homemade butter noodles, which have a very nice texture, if too much butter.
This is my son's plate, he added more Parmesan than was necessary but he's a growing lad.
This is my son's plate, he added more Parmesan than was necessary but he's a growing lad.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Oven-baked Ratatouille & Sausages
I made this thing without doing much research or thinking. I just googled "quick healthy family meals" and this recipe came up. It looked too easy to be very tasty, but I decided to go for it as I was tired, and liked the idea of something I could shove in the oven. I wasn't planning to add it to the blog, but everyone seemed to like it so much that I feel like it deserves a place in here.
It says it serves four, but from the ingredients on the list I didn't think it was going to feed the four people in my house. There are two burly blokes, and a 13 year old boy in my family! So I decided to increase all the ingredients. It meant that I needed to roast the vegetables in two trays and everything took a little longer. My adapted recipe involved 8 Cajun style sausages with pork, rice and kidneys, two red peppers, two onions, four courgettes (3 green, 1 yellow), 4 cloves of garlic, 800g of canned tomatoes, and salt, pepper and thyme to season. I generally followed the recipe, but before adding the tomatoes I drained the leftover olive oil from the baking tray. I let the stew cook for 30mins, instead of 20mins, because there was so much more of it to cook.
Everyone really liked it and encouraged me to make it again in future. I took these pictures after we had started eating, and when I decided that this recipe was a keeper
It says it serves four, but from the ingredients on the list I didn't think it was going to feed the four people in my house. There are two burly blokes, and a 13 year old boy in my family! So I decided to increase all the ingredients. It meant that I needed to roast the vegetables in two trays and everything took a little longer. My adapted recipe involved 8 Cajun style sausages with pork, rice and kidneys, two red peppers, two onions, four courgettes (3 green, 1 yellow), 4 cloves of garlic, 800g of canned tomatoes, and salt, pepper and thyme to season. I generally followed the recipe, but before adding the tomatoes I drained the leftover olive oil from the baking tray. I let the stew cook for 30mins, instead of 20mins, because there was so much more of it to cook.
Everyone really liked it and encouraged me to make it again in future. I took these pictures after we had started eating, and when I decided that this recipe was a keeper
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Turkey and Swede Pie with Sour Cream Crust
ALERT! THIS IS NOT A HEALTHY MEAL!
To make the pie crust, simply combine 200g of unsalted butter with 250g of plain flour and then add a spoon or two (125ml) of sour cream. This dough is weird. It stays very tacky, so you need to keep it between layers of clingfilm (plastic wrap) at all tI'll imes. I call it the burn victim of doughs. On the up side, it keeps the kitchen clean, as you don't have to keep dusting with flour to roll it forforforfor t out. Split the dough into two halves, and shape each one into a flat disk, then put them in the fridge for 20 mins. After twenty minutes, take them out of the fridge, they'll be more solid than before. Let them warm up a a minute so that they're workable before doing anything else. Roll them out until they're about 3mm thick, while keeping them between the plastic wrap at all times. If the dough touches anything else it will stick to it. Put one of them into the bottom of your pie dish, keeping the top layer of cling film in place, roll out the other so that it's ready to go on the top, but keep it in the cling film, and put both back in the fridge for another 20 mins.
The filling simply involved things I had in my house. I had a pound of ground turkey meat, so I pan fried that in a little olive oil until it was cooked and then put it to one side. I boiled a swede (rutabaga/waxed turnip) in water. While that was boiling, I pan fried an onion until it went soft, then added three cloves of garlic. We had some leftover vegetables from the last night's enchiladas, so I put in the mushrooms and grated carrot from that (about 2 carrots worth) and lots of black pepper and thyme. Once the swede was almost cooked, I put two chicken stock cubes in the swede water, and brought it to the boil. I melted a little butter in a large pan and added a large spoonful of flour so it became a thick paste. Then I poured the swede, including the stock water into the flour paste to make a gravy, and then added the onion/vegetable mixture and the turkey and let the whole lot simmer until the gravy thickened. When done, you're supposed to let the pie filling cool before combining with the dough. I'm not sure how necessary that is, but all the recipes I read seemed to be in agreement on this.
When you're ready to bake, get the ingredients out of the fridge, remove plastic wrap, and combine. I covered the dough with an egg wash (one egg yolk, and a little milk) for colour but the dough was still tacky (perhaps I didn't let the filling cool enough). My top layer of dough also teared a little over the filling, so I didn't get the egg wash over evenly, and it looked a bit of a mess. I tried to score it with a knife to make it beautiful, but this did not make it beautiful. Bake at 400C for about 30-40 minutes, until cooked.
The result was a crisp, crunchy, crumbly pie crust with a thick chunky soup as filling. Perfect winter food. The crust tasted more like a cookie than a pie crust. It didn't really want to hold it's shape, so it ended up more like a crumble than a pie, but that was not problem. Meat crumbles should be more prominent in family cooking. Everyone enjoyed it, even my son, who typically does not enjoy swede. My husband and my son both had seconds. When I asked if I should throw out the last piece or save it for later, I was mocked, they did not want me to throw out any pie. If ever I am snowed in my house with limited ingredients and some left over sour cream, then I would absolutely make this again. I'd also make this for guests. It cannot, however, be an everyday meal. It is not healthy. we each ate half a stick of butter just from the pie crust.I served it with green beans and carrots.
To make the pie crust, simply combine 200g of unsalted butter with 250g of plain flour and then add a spoon or two (125ml) of sour cream. This dough is weird. It stays very tacky, so you need to keep it between layers of clingfilm (plastic wrap) at all tI'll imes. I call it the burn victim of doughs. On the up side, it keeps the kitchen clean, as you don't have to keep dusting with flour to roll it forforforfor t out. Split the dough into two halves, and shape each one into a flat disk, then put them in the fridge for 20 mins. After twenty minutes, take them out of the fridge, they'll be more solid than before. Let them warm up a a minute so that they're workable before doing anything else. Roll them out until they're about 3mm thick, while keeping them between the plastic wrap at all times. If the dough touches anything else it will stick to it. Put one of them into the bottom of your pie dish, keeping the top layer of cling film in place, roll out the other so that it's ready to go on the top, but keep it in the cling film, and put both back in the fridge for another 20 mins.
The filling simply involved things I had in my house. I had a pound of ground turkey meat, so I pan fried that in a little olive oil until it was cooked and then put it to one side. I boiled a swede (rutabaga/waxed turnip) in water. While that was boiling, I pan fried an onion until it went soft, then added three cloves of garlic. We had some leftover vegetables from the last night's enchiladas, so I put in the mushrooms and grated carrot from that (about 2 carrots worth) and lots of black pepper and thyme. Once the swede was almost cooked, I put two chicken stock cubes in the swede water, and brought it to the boil. I melted a little butter in a large pan and added a large spoonful of flour so it became a thick paste. Then I poured the swede, including the stock water into the flour paste to make a gravy, and then added the onion/vegetable mixture and the turkey and let the whole lot simmer until the gravy thickened. When done, you're supposed to let the pie filling cool before combining with the dough. I'm not sure how necessary that is, but all the recipes I read seemed to be in agreement on this.
When you're ready to bake, get the ingredients out of the fridge, remove plastic wrap, and combine. I covered the dough with an egg wash (one egg yolk, and a little milk) for colour but the dough was still tacky (perhaps I didn't let the filling cool enough). My top layer of dough also teared a little over the filling, so I didn't get the egg wash over evenly, and it looked a bit of a mess. I tried to score it with a knife to make it beautiful, but this did not make it beautiful. Bake at 400C for about 30-40 minutes, until cooked.
The result was a crisp, crunchy, crumbly pie crust with a thick chunky soup as filling. Perfect winter food. The crust tasted more like a cookie than a pie crust. It didn't really want to hold it's shape, so it ended up more like a crumble than a pie, but that was not problem. Meat crumbles should be more prominent in family cooking. Everyone enjoyed it, even my son, who typically does not enjoy swede. My husband and my son both had seconds. When I asked if I should throw out the last piece or save it for later, I was mocked, they did not want me to throw out any pie. If ever I am snowed in my house with limited ingredients and some left over sour cream, then I would absolutely make this again. I'd also make this for guests. It cannot, however, be an everyday meal. It is not healthy. we each ate half a stick of butter just from the pie crust.I served it with green beans and carrots.
Pies update:
- I made a beef in beer pie from this recipe which was delicious.
- I tried to make the above pie again with chicken instead of turkey and it wasn't so good. I think chicken is a bad pie meat because it's just not hearty enough. Pies need more oomph.
- I must remember to make this pork and apple cider pie before the weather gets warmer
- This also looks excellent.
- I made a pie using leftover Pecan Lodge brisket. I made two pans hot. I caramelized a huge onion in one, and I sauteed a pack of baby Bella onions in the other and combined them. I sliced up the brisket and put it in with the veggies to get hot. I made beef stock (two cubes ~300ml water) and poured it on top. I poured in a 400ml bottle of St Arnold Ale. I became worried. I added an emulsion of butter and flour to thicken the sauce and a few spoonfuls of BBQ sauce (also from Pecan Lodge) to taste. I baked it in shortcrust pastry. People liked it.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
The Underwhelming Chicken Behemoth vs. Quinoa and Kale Pilaf
We've not been very good recently. We take on far too many calories in beer and chips. It's too easy to think that the next meal is going a good one, it usually isn't. We need more quick fixes and go-to healthy solutions. We need to not call the amazing Italian place and have them fetch us sausage rolls and meatball subs quickly and for a reasonable price. The ihop isn't even nice, what are we doing there? Gah.
After a few days of poor behavior, I decided to try another iotef meal. I read a few recipes that combined chicken breast with sun-dried tomatoes and goats cheese - because that sounds amazing. I've never cooked with sun dried tomatoes before, so I was excited to try. I finally settled on this one, although the task of stuffing the breasts seems to me like way more effort than it's worth. I copied the recipe exactly, which is novel for me. except I guess I didn't do a great job of combining the cornflour with boiling water, my gravy wasn't very thick. The meal smelled great but honestly this was a bit of an anti-climax. All the ingredients were delicious, (fresh basil, goats cheese, sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, shallots) so it should have been delicious, but it was just kind of boring. I think I could have made a more exciting meal if I would have just made fresh pasta and threw these ingredients on top. One reason for the lack of flavor might have been that the chicken breasts that we had were just obnoxiously large. The ratio was about 95% chicken to 5% stuffing. This may have also meant that the inside of the chicken didn't get hot enough for long enough to get all the flavors mixing together. For whatever reason, it just wasn't that exciting to me, although my son and husband seemed to like it just fine.
I couldn't decide what to serve this with, the internet seemed to suggest rice or potatoes, but I felt like it wanted something green. I eventually landed on this quinoa and kale recipe. It was so nice, it was really fresh and sweet and lemony. I toasted the pine nuts under the broiler and used regular kale instead of lacinato kale. I used twice and many spring onions (scallions) and fewer shallots. This thing was just meant to be playing second fiddle to the chicken, but to my mind, it was clearly the winner on the plate. I'm much more likely to make this again than the chicken thing.
Update - Janauary 2013: I've made the quinoa and kale thing many times. I've made it for my mother-in law, I make it at every BBQ event as a healthy side dish, I put it next to quiche. Everyone likes it and I've passed it along to a lot of people. I'm never making the stuffed chicken again, but the quinoa and kale is a keeper.
After a few days of poor behavior, I decided to try another iotef meal. I read a few recipes that combined chicken breast with sun-dried tomatoes and goats cheese - because that sounds amazing. I've never cooked with sun dried tomatoes before, so I was excited to try. I finally settled on this one, although the task of stuffing the breasts seems to me like way more effort than it's worth. I copied the recipe exactly, which is novel for me. except I guess I didn't do a great job of combining the cornflour with boiling water, my gravy wasn't very thick. The meal smelled great but honestly this was a bit of an anti-climax. All the ingredients were delicious, (fresh basil, goats cheese, sun dried tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, shallots) so it should have been delicious, but it was just kind of boring. I think I could have made a more exciting meal if I would have just made fresh pasta and threw these ingredients on top. One reason for the lack of flavor might have been that the chicken breasts that we had were just obnoxiously large. The ratio was about 95% chicken to 5% stuffing. This may have also meant that the inside of the chicken didn't get hot enough for long enough to get all the flavors mixing together. For whatever reason, it just wasn't that exciting to me, although my son and husband seemed to like it just fine.
Update - Janauary 2013: I've made the quinoa and kale thing many times. I've made it for my mother-in law, I make it at every BBQ event as a healthy side dish, I put it next to quiche. Everyone likes it and I've passed it along to a lot of people. I'm never making the stuffed chicken again, but the quinoa and kale is a keeper.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Spicy Chicken Salad with Homemade Strawberry Dressing
This salad was based on the one our German friend Annique made when she came to Texas. We used chopped romaine lettuce, one grated carrot, one red apple, chopped cheery tomatoes, one red bell pepper and some fresh mozzarella. We served it with a homemade strawberry dressing and spicy chicken, both of which my son made. My son is delightful by anyone's standards, he's especially delightful for a thirteen year old.
The spicy chicken was adapted from the same recipe we'd used to make the spicy mackerel earlier in the week, but we swapped out the butter for olive oil and marinated the chicken for about 30 minutes before cooking. We made the pan very hot and did not add any additional oil apart from what was in the marinade. It was cooked in about 5 minutes until the chicken were golden. It came out a little too spicy for my son but my husband and I both liked it.
The salad dressing was simple and delightful. It's made with one part balsamic vinegar, two parts strawberry jam and one part olive oil.
The spicy chicken was adapted from the same recipe we'd used to make the spicy mackerel earlier in the week, but we swapped out the butter for olive oil and marinated the chicken for about 30 minutes before cooking. We made the pan very hot and did not add any additional oil apart from what was in the marinade. It was cooked in about 5 minutes until the chicken were golden. It came out a little too spicy for my son but my husband and I both liked it.
The salad dressing was simple and delightful. It's made with one part balsamic vinegar, two parts strawberry jam and one part olive oil.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Spiced Mackerel with Horseradish Potatoes
I fell of the gym-wagon. I was training for a half-marathon. I had a spreadsheet in which I logged how far I had run and how long it took me. I went from being awful at running, only lasting a few meters until I hit the proverbial wall, to being able to run a few miles with some composure. I took it pretty seriously, buying special running clothes and shoes and joining running forums. Alas, one day my knees hurt and I missed training. Then about two/three weeks passed and I had not gone back to the gym. I was way behind on my schedule and, although I was always certain that I would start again tomorrow, it didn't happen. The jig was up.
This whole time, my adorable friend Sarah kept innocently asking "how's the running going?" and I would often reply "urghhh! gawd! I'll do it tomorrow!" in the style of a petulant teenager. Yesterday, Sarah said "this is why I don't set big goals, just set little goals and be glad when I achieve them". Those words rung in my head and I decided to go to the gym, not to run 5 miles, my goal was simply to put my gym clothes on, go to the gym, and maybe touch the equipment. This plan worked. I went to the gym, I ran about 1 mile and it didn't feel all that bad, I wasn't sweating like hell and wishing I was dead. I felt good that I had broken the cycle. There was, however, a new reason to feel bad. For the first time ever, my belly actually jiggled when I ran. {thunderbolt}
There's a good chance that I am simply pre-menstrual and this belly weight will go in a week, but still, this was a disturbing threshold to cross. I came home and had a bath but the belly loomed large in the water. This morning, I weighed myself on the fancy scales at my office. I am heavier today than I have ever been. Unless I'm about to do a 6lb poo, action is needed. Iotef was invented to encourage healthy family meals, mostly for the sake of my husband and son. Right now, I need iotef more than ever.
For dinner, I made fish, but I put butter on it and ate it with white potatoes so I might as well just buy a moomoo.
This is the recipe that I followed. It was pretty freaking delicious, and really very quick and easy. The horseradish was a little too much for my son, he added extra sour cream to his plate to calm it down. My husband enjoyed it, he tends to like strong flavors. I think it was healthy in terms of the balanced meal but not low fat enough. I am not supposed to cook with butter. Even just a little butter and then putting it under the broiler is not okay. How many calories are even in horseradish? I bet it's tons.
This whole time, my adorable friend Sarah kept innocently asking "how's the running going?" and I would often reply "urghhh! gawd! I'll do it tomorrow!" in the style of a petulant teenager. Yesterday, Sarah said "this is why I don't set big goals, just set little goals and be glad when I achieve them". Those words rung in my head and I decided to go to the gym, not to run 5 miles, my goal was simply to put my gym clothes on, go to the gym, and maybe touch the equipment. This plan worked. I went to the gym, I ran about 1 mile and it didn't feel all that bad, I wasn't sweating like hell and wishing I was dead. I felt good that I had broken the cycle. There was, however, a new reason to feel bad. For the first time ever, my belly actually jiggled when I ran. {thunderbolt}
There's a good chance that I am simply pre-menstrual and this belly weight will go in a week, but still, this was a disturbing threshold to cross. I came home and had a bath but the belly loomed large in the water. This morning, I weighed myself on the fancy scales at my office. I am heavier today than I have ever been. Unless I'm about to do a 6lb poo, action is needed. Iotef was invented to encourage healthy family meals, mostly for the sake of my husband and son. Right now, I need iotef more than ever.
For dinner, I made fish, but I put butter on it and ate it with white potatoes so I might as well just buy a moomoo.
This is the recipe that I followed. It was pretty freaking delicious, and really very quick and easy. The horseradish was a little too much for my son, he added extra sour cream to his plate to calm it down. My husband enjoyed it, he tends to like strong flavors. I think it was healthy in terms of the balanced meal but not low fat enough. I am not supposed to cook with butter. Even just a little butter and then putting it under the broiler is not okay. How many calories are even in horseradish? I bet it's tons.
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