Salt & Butter - Hello Old Friends

If you have never heard of the Pioneer Woman you are missing out. Her recipes are literally to die for (I mean that and you'll see why when I list the ingredients!). Hubby had left chicken thighs for dinner and I remembered I'd put aside a chicken soup recipe from her website. I checked out how long I needed (1.5 hours) and decided that would be our dinner. I am so glad that I did, even Hubby begged for the leftovers (usually he bypasses all leftovers for a roll with tuna!). So without further ado here is my dinner in pictures (with recipe at the end).

Cast of Characters

OMG How many stock cubes!!!???

Chopping up the veggies while the chicken is cooking away

OMG How much butter???!!!

Finally healthy veggies (but wait how much butter is hidden in there...)

Chicken and veggies

The end result - YUMMO

Ingredients
1 pack chicken thighs
1 packet of Pearl CousCous
6 chicken stock cubes
1.5 cups chicken stock
8 cups water
1/3 large onion - chopped
1 large green capsicum - chopped
5 celery stalks - chopped
6 tbsp butter
4tbsp flour

Method
1. Put chicken in large saucepan and cover with water and liquid stock. Add stock cubes and bring to boil. Reduce to medium heat and cook for 20 minutes (or until chicken is cooked through).
2. Take the chicken out and leave them to cool (then cut/shread into bite size pieces)
3. Chop the vegetables.
4. Melt 4 tbsp of butter in a pan and then add the flour. Stir with a wooden spoon until thickened and then add to broth. Stir the heck out of that thing and just keep going so you don't wind up with lumpy yucky flour stuff throughout.
5. Add couscous to liquid and stir. Meanwhile clean the pan and melt 3tbsp butter then add your veggies. Stir it all together and then add the chicken. Cook the chicken and veggies for 2 minutes and then add to broth.
6. Make sure the couscous is cooked (at least 8 minutes) and then serve it up in big bowls.

I guarantee this is worth all the butter and stock! My Hubby who doesn't like capsicum gobbled it up and we both had seconds! 

Decaf

I always thought not drinking alcohol would be the start of are you pregnant questions. Instead today when I asked if I could have a decaf cap my sister immediately stated I was pregnant. We're in the waiting to find out stage at the moment and I didn't really want to let my Mum and sister know that but it came out anyway! It was really nice at the Farmer's Market yesterday though because the first time in EVER, Mum was actually excited about the possibility of me being pregnant. Finally it isn't all about are we making a huge mistake (because Hubby might not have a job lined up). Now she's excited to be a grandma and it's just taken a huge weight off my shoulders because I wanted to share the happy and not just keep it between me and Hubby.

So back to work tomorrow and an early start :( It'll be a bit hard seeing as I slept in until 10am this morning, but that's what not going to bed until 1240am does to me obviously. I finally finished cleaning the house, the floors still need to be done but everything else is cleaned literally top-to-toe. We haven't done the balcony or outdoor courtyard/garden but I think we might leave the garden until Mum aka the landlord comes around.

I'm exhausted after the massive cleaning project but at least only 4 days left until Saturday! I can't wait I plan on just relaxing completely (with some gardening) and hopefully getting to the movies.

The newly cleaned kitchen

PS: Monday Yummy = incorrect Nando's order. I didn't want leftovers and just felt like a bit of a splurge. I'm going to start doing some dinner planning and I think I'll start that next weekend!

Monday Yummies

So I'm trying to make a conscious effort to eat better. (Excluding the fact that I made extremely sugar-ey Coconut Ice Cakes). This lead to a last minute sort of stir-fry dish with lots of yummy veggies. I actually felt like a proper cook for the first time - I prepared all my vegetables and had them laid out on my bright red chopping board. Scraping them into the fry pan I got that little thrill knowing that whilst I might not be a 'chef' in the making I'm going to make a damn good Housewife ;)

So without further ado let me introduce you to my dish, please ignore the cheat part where I used bottled plum sauce (I told you I wasn't a chef!).

Plum & Ginger Chicken with CousCous

Ingredients

• Chicken breasts (enough for 2 people)
• 1 tablespoon peanut oil
• 3/4 bottle of plum sauce
• GENEROUS dashes of soy sauce
• 2 squirts of ginger out of one of those tubes (again with the cheating...please forgive me)
• 2 small carrots sliced kinda thin
• Big handful of snow peas
• Big handful of bean sprouts
• Big handful of frozen peas
• Pearl Cous Cous 
• 2 cups vegetable stock (& maybe a bit extra, see step 4)

Method

1. Slice up the chicken and stick it in a bowl. Then cover it with the plum sauce and 2 teaspoons of soy sauce. Mix and put in the fridge covered for as long as you can wait.
2. When you're ready to start cooking prepare all your vegetables and put them to the side. Boil the vegetable stock.
3. Stock boiling? Then throw in a packet of couscous (sans packet if you're anything like my Hubby and follow instructions to the letter!). At the same time add peanut oil to your pan and throw in the chicken.
4. The couscous should take 10 minutes and you need to make it simmer. I kept it going for longer and added some extra veggie stock at the very end to cook it through a bit more. 
5. Meanwhile stir the chicken and once its started to sizzle away add your vegetables (turn the heat down to medium, or whatever you feel comfortable with). Add extra soy sauce & the ginger. Cover the pan stirring every once in awhile give it a nice big ol' stir.
6. Stir the couscous, stir the chicken and veggies. Have a look over it all and when it's done plate it up.

A very simple but yummy dinner!

Monday Yummies

We are failing tonight but oh well. Hubby forgot to put chicken out until the last minute so off to Nandos we go. We tried to score Thai from the restaurant we had our rehearsal dinner at but no luck and most places aren't open Mondays BOO!!!

So instead burger and chips I am going to be a fatty boombah before I know it :(

I'm trying to get rid of all the sugar/sweets we have in the house to kind of force us to be healthy and after having a cider tonight I think that's it for alcohol other than the occasional glass. They always seem to give me headaches and it just isn't worth it.

Hopefully healthy eating will come easy once the tempations are removed...now just to get back into doing the regular 50 minute+ walks along the dog beach!

Monday Yummies

I'm going to cheat a bit here and just put a link to the amazing roast pork that I made.

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/92/roast+pork+with+apple

I made a few adjustments at step 3 I removed the roast after 10minutes and then left the potatoes, apples and onions in there for a bit longer. I also didn't use spring onions I just used a small brown onion - which completely burnt but was so good. I kept that in there whilst making the gravy and Mum loved it.

It was the first time I made a true Sunday Roast - the apples and burnt to a crisp onions provided a nice twist. I'm so glad I didn't cheat with the gravy (aka buy a pack of ready-made) and made it from scratch with the recipe. It was so yummy! I couldn't get over how amazing the meal was that I'd made, I was really impressed with myself and so was Hubby and Mum. I'm slowly becoming a good cook and I can't wait until the day I can replace good with great!

PS: Yes I realise I've been cheating a bit with none of this really being made on Monday but oh well

Monday Yummies

Mish Mash Frittata

So I ripped this off taste.com.au but their's was just a boring ham and corn frittata and I wanted mine to be more awesome. PS: I am cheating because I made this Saturday for our date night at the movies. PPS: Unstoppable is awesome!

Ingredients

• 100g chopped sandwhich ham
• 1 can of corn (drained)
• Half a handful of kalamata olives (sliced) - they were whole from the deli section 
• Handful of chopped sundried tomatoes
• Little over 1/2 cup grated cheese
• 7 eggs
• 1/3 cup milk + a couple of extra splashes
• Generous dash of lemon pepper

Method

• Preheat the oven to 200C
• Mix all ingredients together (except the last 3) and spread evenly over a greased non-stick pan [I deviated here they said to grease it & line with baking paper but because our BP is crap I chose to exclude it].
• Whisk the eggs & milk and towards the end had the lemon pepper
• Pour the egg mixture evenly over the other ingredients and then pop the pan in the oven for 25-30mins.
• Keep an eye on it and then remove from oven and leave to cool.
• You can serve it straight away but because we used ours for a picnic I put it in the fridge. It came out of the pan really easily even without the paper!

Voila...

Monday Yummies

So back to it! I'll try and make this a weekly thing because I do love cooking.

Today, even though it's way too hot & humid, I'm making a beef stroganoff pot roast with my wonderful slow cooker.

I've adapted it from a recipe I found on allrecipes.com. By another Jessica so hopefully that will stand me in good stead.

Ingredients

• 2 cans cream of mushroom soup
• 1/2 can water
• Generous dash of paprika
• Pack of french onion soup
• 1tsp minced garlic
• 1tbsp worctershire sauce
• 1 chopped onion
• Generous dash of pepper
• Splash of Nando's peri peri hot sauce (cheaper than tabasco but not as hot which is a bummer)
• Beef blade roast (not the best cut of meat but it's slow cooker worthy)
• 1 beef stock cube
• 1/2 cup philly cream
• Half a small tub of sour cream

I pretty much dumped everything in and then added the meat. I'll add the philly cream and sour cream just before serving. Not sure yet whether I'll serve it with rice, pasta or mashed potato I'll just wait and see what we feel like tonight.

I will take a photo and let you all know how it turns out ;)

UPDATE

Ok so this doesn't look appealing but it was SO yummy. I added peas at the very end because I wanted to be somewhat healthy. We had it with rice and it soaked up the sauce really well.

Monday Yummies

Well I didn't really cook. The Hubby put a turkey roll in the slow cooker (on high whoops!) and then we just had pumpkin, potatoes and peas. Go the pees :p When Hubby uncut the string holding it together the whole thing fell apart but it was very very yummy and the sauce that he put on it (just the leaked out bits haha) was AWESOME!

The in-laws semi invited themselves down to our humble little abode. I didn't realise until they were there that they hadn't been there in months and months. It's hard with them living 30 minutes away and with the Hubby's uni timetable.

His Mum mentioned family dinner starting up again when Hubby has finished uni...really not keen. I feel like dirt whenever I'm with his little sister and sister-in-law and I just want to avoid all that. No point having it forced upon me one night a week when I can avoid it! So hopefully that will all fall to pieces! Shame on me for saying that but sometimes you really have to look after yourself.

On another note my Mum got it out of us that we're planning on having a baby end of November next year (although I know it's impossible to be that close with planning!). She was slightly concerned with Andreas only just having finished uni but I want baby & Hubby time and we won't ever get that again with him at work.

Monday Yummies

Monday wasn't that interesting. I was going to finally try and make some pizza dough sadly, I didn't pay attention to the fact that I'd have to wait 1.5-2 hours for it to be done whoops!

Luckily we could improvise with lavash bread we had in the freezer (YAY!). I was chowing down something fierce. Shamefully I didn't make the pizza sauce what my pizzas had on them were:

• Feta
• Mozzarella
• Grape tomatoes
• Ham

It was pretty boring but damn did it taste GOOD!

The funny but kind of not funny part was when Hubby went to take his pizza out of the oven. He had a very MAN moment thinking he could just take it straight out of the boiling hot oven. Needless to say he burnt his poor finger and lost the whole top of his pizza into all the crevices of the oven. Guess who isn't cleaning the oven come rent inspection time!?

Monday Yummies

Technically it was leftovers but I did make it all from scratch!

I'm desperate to make pizza dough next!

Mexican Chicken Soup

Ingredients

• Chicken thighs (I think we had about 5 and cut in half)
• Chicken stock cube
• Water
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper+ (add a bit extra)
• Can of red kidney beans
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 tbsp cumin+ (add a bit extra)
• Diced tomatoes (use a can we didn't have one so I cut up heaps of tomatoes)
• 1 onion chopped

Method

• Place chicken and stock cube in small frypan and then cover with water. Bring to simmer over low heat. Cook for 10 minutes. Take the chicken out (let them cool and then shred the chicken). Reserve the liquid.
• Heat oil in the large saucepan. Add onion (cook for 5 minutes), add cumin and cayenne pepper stir for 30 seconds. Add the reserved liquid and diced tomatoes. Bring to boil.
• Add chicken & beans and bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer and stir occasionally for 10 minutes.

Corn Bread

Ingredients

• 150g self raising flour
• 175g polenta
• 1 can creamed corn
• Lots of cayenne pepper (I need to buy some chilli powder maybe that's hotter?!)
• 1 tbsp honey (makes it smell gorgeous but it's not sweet)
• 175ml buttermilk
• 50g melted butter
• Dash of salt
• Cheese - which I omitted because Hubby hates it but definitely would've made it better

Method

• Sift flour, polenta & salt in a bowl. Add corn, cayenne pepper, honey, buttermilk, butter (and cheese)
• Stir to combine. Transfer to a greased spring form pan (roughly 20cm).
• Bake for 30 minutes.

The corn bread was pretty ho hum (I even added lots more spice that what the recipe called for!) but was wicked for just tearing chunks off and throwing in the soup.

Monday Yummies

So tonight was yum!

Yesterday the Boy made a great sausage stroganoff (I really had to bite my tongue when he kept disappearing off in the middle of it all though!).

I made Creamy Caper Chicken a la Jess:

Ingredients

• Chicken thighs (about 5 small ones)
• Lemon, herb & garlic seasoning - used to season the chicken
• Cayenne Pepper - used to season the chicken
• 1 tsp minced garlic (naughty me I didn't use real garlic)
• 1.5tbsp seeded mustard
• 1 cup cream
• 1/2 cup white wine
• chicken stock cube
• 1/4 cup boiling water
• Butter (your choice) 
• 2 tbsp well drained capers
• Cherry tomatoes (optional - I probably wouldn't add these last time & would go for sundried tomato)

Method

1. Cut chicken thighs into pieces and cover a plate with the seasoning + cayenne pepper. Mix the seasoning and chicken together (at this point I added more seasoning + CP, you could probably just mix in a freezer bag!).
2. Melt butter in a large pan on high heat. When all melted add the chicken, brown it and turn down to mid-heat then cook until pretty much cooked through.
3. Remove chicken to a plate and cover.
4. Add wine to pan along with the minced garlic and mustard. Bring to boil and cover leave on mid-heat for about 5 minutes then add stock cube and boiling water.
5. Add cream, bring to boil and then turn down to low (cover) and let simmer.
6. Add chicken to sauce and heat chicken
7. Voila ready to serve!

We ate this with rice but you could easily eat it with pasta - rice was just good for soaking up the yummy yummy sauce! Also to get some veggies I probably would have added green beans.