Food for thought

So it's been a pretty up and down weekend. I spent Friday night with an end of week headache trying to drown out the sound of my neighbours.

Saturday I awoke to a sad message from my lovely friend pulling out of my bridal party for any number of heartbreaking reasons. This kind of devastated me and filled my brain up for most of the day so stuff just kind of happened around me. At night I got a sad phone call from another friend.

The end of the weekend now and, on reflection of the last term, really I think I've focused so much on the crappy little things and not enough on the good big things. And while I know this will be tricky for me, I'd really like to start doing the opposite.

Something to chew on for a while anyway.

Prawn Salad

I hate prawns. Really, I do. And this has been a constant problem throughout my life. My family LOVE prawns. Every Christmas they gather around a big bowl of prawns and begin the beheading, devaining and undressing before devouring. I don't get involved in this, consuming perhaps two at most just to keep everyone happy.

Mr B loves prawns. When we first got together

I'm sure he told me he didn't like them but he denies ever saying this! So tonight, for him, I made a prawn salad.

Now, the salad I had intended to make and the one I actually made were vastly different, mostly because I didn't have much of the stuff I needed to make the original one so this is the one I made

Prawns

10 prawns

1/3 cup flour

1 egg

1/3 cup bread crumbs

Salad

lettuce leaves

avocado

grated carrot

grated cucumber

tomato

drop of mayo

Dressing

1/3 cup chicken stock

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 teaspoons ginger

sprinkle of chilli

honey

Make sure your prawns are ready to go. Mr B did this for me coz they are icky to touch. Then you need to butterfly them.

I'd never done this before and found it quite time consuming. I watched a few YouTube clips on it - it seems that the "chef" way to do it is butterfly them down the front. I did this but found it tricky, so half way through I started just doing it down their spine and this was a gajillion times easier and thus, quicker. The only thing to be careful of is to not cut the whole way through them but you really have to be clumsy to do this! Go ahead and crumb them (flour, egg, breadcrumbs) and place to the side.

Combine all the dressing ingredients and pop on the stove, not for long just long enough for it to mingle. Then take it off the heat and pop into the fridge. Make your salad and begin to cook the prawns.

Put some oil in a frypan, enough to shallow fry. Place one small prawn in as the prawn to let you know when the oil is ready. When it is - add all the other prawns, they cook really quick so keep an eye on them. When done - take out of the oil and place on paper towel and dry.

Take the dressing out of the fridge, pour over the salad and place the prawns on top. Top the whole thing off with a dollop of mayo.

Fiddle-de-de-potatoes

On the weekend we had a St Paddy's Day celebration. This was my idea because

1. green is my favourite colour

2. potatoes are delicious

3. we do nothing most of the time so it's nice to see people

We had an amazing spread: green mashed potatoes, roast beef, spinach and cheese dip, barra & chicken bake and stuffed potatoes, bright green ice-cream, creme brulee, cupcakes of various green-ness and lemon meringue pie. I made three of my own dishes - all first timers. It was a very delicious night!

Here are mine

Steak & Guinness Pie

I was a little worried about this one for two reasons - we have no Guinness in town and

I had never made it before. Fortunately a friend picked up some Guinness for our celebrations and it worked out SOOO well!

1 kilogram of rump steak

1 large onion

4 cloves of garlic

200ml Guinness

1 cup of beef stock

1/3 cup plain flour

2 sheets of puff pastry

1 egg yolk

Thaw the puff pastry sheets as you do everything else and remember to turn the oven on to about 180 degrees. Dice the steak up into chunks and pop in into a moderate

frypan.

As the meat browns slice up the onion and crush the garlic gloves. Pop them in a large saucepan and let saute.

At this point your meat is probably looking really juicy. Spoon the meat into the saucepan with the onion and garlic. Put the meat juices to the side for the moment. Pour the Guinness and beef stock in with the onion and meat. Let this simmer for a while, as it reduces add in the meat juices. Finally, add the flour and mix through, this should make the sauce thicken quite a lot so do it slowly so you get saucy thickness that you like.

Take meat off the heat and prepare your pastry. Using your pie dish (I used 20cm) cut a circle out of the pastry. This provides the top of your pie. Place the uncut sheet of pastry in the the pan ensuring you push it into the sides of the pan snuggly. Tip the meat on top of the pastry and cover with round sheet. Press the sides together nice and tight. Brush the top of the pie with the egg yolk (coat again after first 15min). Cook in oven for about 30min.

Bailey's Cheesecakes

I copied this one from Taste

250 grams of cream cheese

4 tablespoons of brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tablespoons of Bailey's

pre-mix biscuit bases

I cheat with the biscuit bases coz it gives perfect consistency every time. So make the biscuit base then using a measuring measure out about 20grams of the mixture and place into cupcake pan. The reason I measure it, is to that every base is the same quantity so they look even. Takes time but looks better in the end.

Place the cream cheese in a mixing bowl and whisk until creamy. Add in the sugar and whisk some more before adding in the eggs. Whisk one last time to combine then fold in the Bailey's. You should now have a creamy, light latte colour mixture. Tip the mixture into a measuring jug and pour evenly between the cup cake bases.

Place in a 180 degree oven for about 15minutes. Set aside to cool and finish setting then place in the fridge.

Individual Potato Bakes

Potatoes

Cream

Garlic

Chives

Parmesan Cheese

Slice potatoes and place into cupcake tray. Combine cream, garlic, chives and cheese. Pour mixture over potatoes. Top with extra parmesan cheese. Cook in a 180 degree oven for about an hour until brown on top.

Eazy Pizzah

We had big plans today. We decided it was time to show our car who's boss, blow out the cobwebs. We topped it up with fresh fuel. Had a destination in mind. Water bottle, sunscreen.

Got about 3 kilometres out of town and realised the car wouldn't get past 80.Probably a gear box issue we have decided. Considering we already have a new battery, coil, spark plugs, fuel filter that really only leaves the gear box. Which is expensive. In other news, earlier today, we may have purchased a new car. Pipeline.

So - the end result - we returned home 15 minutes later, somewhat disheartened. Mr B. returned to the bedroom to sleep off nightshift so I got to work on lunch. Feeling less than creative and like some delicious carbs I wanted pizza but couldn't be bothered with the whole dough situation that I'm never very good at anyway.

So Eazy Pizzah it was. Get a slice of puff or short crust pastry. As it defrosts cut up some olives and ham, tear up some spinach and grate some cheese. Spread some tomato paste over the pastry, sprinkle with the toppings, crumble over some fetta because it's epic. Put it in a 180 oven for about 30 minutes. Crispy, tasty, eazy!

wanting...

I want ricotta. Where I live the shop doesn't stock it. This is annoying.

My closest major chain supermarket is 7 hours drive away. This is also annoying. Mostly because my car will barely start at the moment...which is annoying for a whole bunch of other reasons. We can't even get soft cheese - consider the mechanical services.

So many delicious things I can't make right now that I really want to.

Gooey Apple Crumble

So, in keeping with the "healthy lifestyle choices" I have been trying to search for desserts that aren't so full of tasty, delicious calories and fat. I've been making a lot of high fibre things lately - bran muffins, fig loaf....recipes coming once I get them right.

With "healthy" in mind I've been stocking up on fruit and vegetables and had some apples and pears that just didn't get eaten - there's only so much fruit I can eat each day! They were beginning to turn slightly mushy which I HATE! I love fruit but overripe fruit, even slightly, puts me off straight away.

Instead of throw away my squishy fruit I decided it was time for a (maybe slightly healthy?) dessert. It has fruit in it!

Gooey Apple Crumble

Apples

3 or 4 apples (I also had a pear so I chucked that in too!)

55 grams of butter

2/3 cup of brown sugar

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

1 1/2 teaspoons of rum

You can peel the fruit if you want, last time I made this with pears I peeled the skin and it was ok. I left the skin on this time and I think it just adds something to the texture. Plus all the best bits of fruit are in the skin. Cut the fruit into small chunks and discard the cores.

Now, this is important, use a big saucepan. As fruit cooks it oozes out all of its aromatic, delectable, flowing juices. If you use a small saucepan it becomes aromatic, delectable OVERflowing juices which are annoying to unstick from, well...everywhere. Put your butter and brown sugar in the big saucepan on a medium heat, stir slowly as they melt together.

Add the fruit, lemon juice and rum to the butter mixture in the saucepan. The fruit will ooze out it's juices so let the whole mixture sit and simmer. This can take anywhere between 15 and 40 minutes depending on how much fruit you have ALSO it depends on how juicy you personally like things. I like my fruity desserts to have a bit of juice because I think it makes it nice when it's all mixed together with buttery pastry and cream but some people prefer desserts like this more dry...up to you. Just watch it and mix it until it is gooey enough for you.

Crumble

1 cup of plain flour

2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup of rolled oats

chopped nuts (probably walnuts but I used peanuts, I seem to be having some weird reaction to walnuts at the moment!)

100 grams softened butter

Meanwhile, while your fruit is stewing into caramelised goodness, turn the oven on to 180 degrees and combine all the dry ingredients. Add the butter and it's time to get a little messy. Use your fingertips to crumble the butter and dry mix together. Eventually it will look like large breadcrumbs.

When your fruit is ready (gooey, sticky and juicy to your liking) pour the fruit in to a pan or, if you want to try something cute, use ramequins so you have individual portions....this also helps to avoid immediate overconsumption! (If you choose the ramequins make them about 1/2 to 3/4 full of fruit so they don't overflow in the oven and ruin your crumble.)

Spoon the crumble mixture over the top, how thick you make it is up to you. If your fruit is nice and juicy make it thicker to soak up all the tasty juices. Put it all in the oven for about 20minutes until the crumble starts to turn golden and crisp on top.

Let the apple crumble cool before eating...if you can wait that long. Serve with cream or ice cream or both. It is gooey, appletastic goodness.