Saturday 27 February 2010

Zzzzzz!

No recipes today. Today, I am so exhausted that my legs feel like jelly and everything about me is droopy. I'm barely typing here, I've actually got my eyes shut - so it's a jolly good thing I paid attention to the lovely teachers at school who taught me how to touch type. That was certainly a skill worth having - it paid my way through university and it means that even now, I can rest my eyes while blathering merrily away. Please forgive the slight more mad than usual rubbish - I AM tired.

SOMEHOW I need to cook the chicken sitting on my kitchen counter top. I need to turn it into a delicious feast with roast potatoes. Somehow, I have already managed to whip up pancakes for lunch, so hopefully I'll manage this too. It'll be good to have a proper dinner. I've been too tired to cook properly so I think a good feed will help.

That or my umpteenth cuppa tea.

Oh dear..got the sproglet in another room and I hear tearing sounds..must dash!

Thursday 25 February 2010

More recipes

Ok, ok, I'm cheating a bit because I've dug out some recipes I posted on a (cloth nappy) forum I frequent. But as they are my recipes and I'd like to keep them all somewhere central as well as share them with a wider audience (currently 1, I believe!)..here are two more I've adapted/created.

Now, despite my very sciencey background (I have a degree in Pathology), it is against my religion to follow instructions. Thus, cooking is very much an art (for me) rather than a science. I love cooking books, don't get me wrong. I love recipes. But I will leave out anything I don't like/don't have/don't feel like adding and throw in things I want to put in. My other half, on the other hand, will follow recipes to the letter (although if he sees mushrooms on the ingredients list, there is no force on earth that will make him put them in). Anyway, so yes..cooking is quite experimental for me. But if we didn't do that sort of thing then we wouldn't have new stuff.

I also don't hold to the notion that people who are sciencey cannot also be arty. I was first introduced to this idea during my first week at University when, as I was decorating my door with my collages and drawings, my flatmate told me that this should not be! Obviously the previous 18 years of my life - spent happily drawing/painting/sculpting etc AND enjoying Science and Maths - had all been a big mistake.

Yes, so..random tangent. I do that, you know. Well, if you know me, you will know. Perhaps this blog should have been called "Musings of the Barking.." Too late now.

So, without further ado, not one, but TWO recipes for you. One will come as no surprise to you - it features nooooooodles. But the other is rather..fishy.

Kway Teow (or fried ho fun if you don't speak Cantonese - I don't)

1 packet of ho fun (the packs are about 454g or 1lb of dried noodles)
2 eggs
whatever veg/meat you'd like to add
soya sauce
some oil
bean sprouts

soak, drain and fry the noodles with some soya sauce (as with the Chub Bwee Chow Hor).
put the noodles on a plate/dish
fry your beaten eggs and either slice or just rougly chop with your spatula. Plop on the noodles.
fry the ingredients, slowest to cook first - sprinkle some soya sauce on top
once the slow things are done, put the noodles and egg in, mix it up quickly, then serve up and eat.




Smokin' hot Salmon

1 piece of salmon (per person)
1 stick of celery
1 handful of beansprouts
1/2 a red chilli (more if you can take it - I can't *gasp pant*), deseeded
sprinkle of bonito fish stock powder (or you can use chicken stock if you need to)
few tablespoons of water
some seseme oil

Heat up the seseme oil
Fry the salmon quickly, about 2 mins on each side. Set aside
Fry the celery, then add the beansprouts
Sprinkle with a bit of the fish powder (or add your chicken stock here)
Add the water and the salmon back in. Sprinkle with finely chopped chilli.
Put the lid on, turn the heat off and leave it for 5 mins.

Serve on a bed of rice, with miso soup on the side. Mmmm

Wednesday 24 February 2010

Spud Art



If you're a parent as I am, you'll be familiar with the constant battle that is entertaining your child. My daughter is now 2 and a half and it's more of a "challenge" than ever. I like to try new things with her - and I'm sure that 80% of it falls into the category of "I didn't do that in MY day".

Anyway, so I've heard of making potato prints, so I dutifully got out the bag of sprouting spuds and started carving a circle. And a square. Then I looked at the "bits" drawer and spotted some biscuit cutters (smallish ones) I had. Big potatoes plus smallish biscuit cutters = quick and easy fun shapes to print with!

So we had the basic circle and square..and have since branched into a Piglet, some flowers, stars, and all sorts really. And it takes a fraction of the time! You still need a knife to trim away the outside bits once you've pressed the cutter into the potato..but it's great!

The trouble is, by the time I've done them, set out the paints on a tray, some paper on the floor and some paintbrushes, all Sofia wants to do is paint her own feet! Nevermind - when she's ready, I'll be armed with my potato prints..

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Let them eat VEG!




This is one of those recipes I made up when I needed a substantial lunch while also needing to use up a load of veggies - not to mention fill my little one with something nutritious.

It's a pasta sauce, but would work over potatoes too..or maybe a rice bake?

1 clove of garlic
1 onion
1 leek (smallish)
1 pepper (I used yellow, but I can't tell the difference in taste)
2 sticks of celery
2 tablespoons of tomato paste (I use the double concentrated one)
loadsa grated cheese
teensy weensy bit of stock cube (I used a bit of veggie and a bit of chicken)
glug of olive oil

How to:

Heat up olive oil in a saucepan.
Add chopped garlic and onions.
Enjoy the yummy smell.
Add chopped leek, pepper and celery, pop on the lid and allow to simmer for a bit. Do make sure you stir and don't let things burn!
Add the stock cube with a leeeeetle bit of boiling water.
Add the tomato paste.
Stir.
When you think it's done, whizz it with a stick blender if you have one (it's also ok non-whizzed, but tis easier for feeding children/men if it's pureed).
Stir in the cheese.

Pour over pasta/potatoes/whatever and enjoy.

Monday 22 February 2010

There's no fun like ho fun...noodles that is


One of my favourite foods is the humble noodle. They come in so many delicious forms - ho fun (rice noodle), mee hoon (vermicelli), chow mein (egg noodle), udon, ramen, soba - everyone is sure to find a noodle to please. My favourite is probably the ho fun noodle, that is, the white tape-like noodle made of rice. It's simply glorious either fried kway teow style or with an eggy sort of gravy. Of course, it can also be fried Pad Thai styleeeee, which is also scrumptious.

Stopit, now I'm drooling. I'm posting here, now, to put the recipes for Kway Teow and the gravy Ho fun (I've heard this alternatively called Wa Dan Ho Fun or Chub Bwee Chow Hor at restaurants I've been to - that spelling being my attempts at recreating the phonetics). I promised my friend Mellama that I would give her my recipes..so here we go. I've not found a recipe for the latter (which has been my ultimate noodle heaven for many years) on the web, but have experimented until I have developed something that ..well, that I like.

For future note, unless I state otherwise, all recipes posted here are either heavily adapted from other recipes or completely made up by me.



Chub Bwee Chow Hor
1/3 - 1/2 a packet of Rice Noodles (Ho Fun)
1/2 a stock cube (chicken or veggie are best - I use knorr)
some boiling water, about 250mL
soya sauce
1-2 tsp cornflour
oil for frying - something bland like sunflower is best
1 egg (optional - if you don't like 'em, don't add them)
some veggies (pak choi or bok choi would be ideal, otherwise I go for cabbage and carrots)
optional meat/s* (prawns are good)

1. If you've bought dried ho fun, you will need to soak these in boiling water for about 5 mins. Drain. If you're lucky enough to have fresh, you'll just need to rinse them in boiling water.

2. Heat the oil. Set your heat to max.

3. Once the oil is hot, plop your noodles in the pan. Splash some soya sauce all over them (not huge amounts, they should just go a faint brown). Fry them for 2-5 mins.

4. Put the noodles on a plate, then put the pan back on the heat. Put the ingredients which will take longest to cook (e.g. carrots or cabbage) in first, then add the chicken stock cube plus water (you could just mix up half a stock cube's worth beforehand, but I just throw things in and mix it about). Turn down the heat to medium. Cover if you have a lid, and leave it for 5 mins to soften. Add any other ingredients (other veg, quick cooking ingredients if you're adding them).

5. Mix up the cornflour with a little cool water. Stir.

6. Beat your egg (if you're adding it), then turn off the heat. Add the egg and stir your mixture and let the egg cook in the existing heat. Add a little splash of soya sauce.

7. Once the egg has just cooked through, pour your sauce mix over your noodles. Serve immediately.

Note, ho fun doesn't really reheat well, so eat up! The quantities here are for one greedy Sonata-sized portion (so maybe 1.5-2 normal people). People who know me will understand this.

Hello!

I've been meaning to set up a blog for ages and ages, and like many of my "projects", time has flown, we've all aged (bah!) and there has still been no blog. I suspect I'm too much the dreamer, chasing after my latest and greatest new idea - waiting for the time I might have a few spare minutes to implement it - but by the time I DO get the time (once in a blue moon), I've been through several even more exciting and wonderous new ideas. I need to work on that. Ideas are great, but there needs to be some follow up.

That might be why I have a big stash of wool for all my "I'll start it next week" knitting projects, fabric for those "will start soon" sewing projects and..well, I won't go on. It'll be too embarassing. I'm sure I'm not the only one though.

So yes. A blog. I plan on rambling randomly about my various ideas, recipes (because Food is one of the great loves of my life), activities for toddlers (because keeping a small one amused is a constant battle) and whatever else pops into my head.

Why the name? Because I believe that sanity is over-rated. I also believe that chocolate counts towards your five-a-day as chocolate comes from a fruit from a tree. So I'm not completely mad.