Nailed It!

I love food. I eat it every day. But the cooking of the food? That's dangerous territory when I'm in charge.

Because I can't cook.  And I'm not exaggerating. I have set fire to the oven, the stove, even the microwave.

It mostly comes down to a reeeeally low attention span when it comes to hanging about in a kitchen while things heat up.


The NAILED IT half of this picture was my first attempt to fry an egg...two years ago. I sent this picture to my husband and he, of course, showed everyone and NOBODY believed it was real!

The thought of standing over the stove watching stuff simmer, or change colour and consistency, stirring stuff, incessantly, checking to see if it needs salt...
*My muse chimes in* "What's that? Oh, that's right!  I have that book to read! Or email to check! Or something that needs doing! I'm off!"

Over time I've discovered one thing that that keeps me from setting things on fire.

Reading WHILE I cook.

Here's me 'cooking' tomato soup...from a tin. And reading while stirring.  No fire!  

And here's me cooking an omelette. And, again, reading.  Notice, once more, the lack of flames.

The muse is distracted, I don't burn down the house. Win win!

Thankfully this is what it looks like when my husband cooks.

That would be curry laksa. A super fresh summery pasta.  And something else cookey and delicious.  I know, right?  The guy is a total keeper!

I say that without him I'd live on cheese on toast and coffee and I do not kid.  He's the kind of person who thinks "I feel like *insert fancy dinner idea here*" and then goes ahead and figures out how to make it.  No recipe.  Just using whatever ingredients he has on hand.  I look in a fridge full of food and only see the chocolate.

If you're a foodie, check out the Instagram pages of Love Cats Clare Connelly and Amy Andrews as they're full of rich, nutritious, mouth-watering, elegant home cooking.  And did you see Bron's post about her trip through Rome? Yum!

If you prefer pics of coffee with funny pictures found in the milky swirls, I'm your girl :). (See last month's post for proof :))

How about you - are you more of a cooker or an eater?

Inspiration stir-fry

 I have to submit my thesis in…well, sometime in the next six to eight weeks. What I’m discovering is that everything else (and I mean everything) is basically being ignored. Exercise? What’s that! Housework? Don’t ask. And the pantry has an alarming array of processed food designed to do nothing more than keep the hunger pangs at bay…or to provide me with loaded-calorie comfort.

Mind you, I'm discovering that there are only so many meals of baked beans on toast or toasted cheese sandwiches a body can take. And we’re not going to mention the potato chips, Twisties, the family blocks of Cadburys or the retro party mixes that have become a mainstay of my diet.

While the knowledge isn’t new, it’s dawning on me with a renewed vengeance that exercise keeps both body and brain healthy, as does nutritious food. If I need to pull an all-nighter (dear God, let’s hope I don’t), I’m going to need more than flour, butter and sugar to keep me going.

So what I need are some super quick and easy stir-fry sauce recipes. I’ve decided that packets of fresh, pre-cut veggies are about to become my new best-friend, because who has the time to cut anything up when there’s a thesis hanging over one’s head?!#

I need to pull a healthy meal together in no time flat.

So, I thought some of you kind souls out there might share your favourite easy stir-fry sauce recipe. And then we’d have a list of easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy, go-to sauce recipes for when life gets too hard or too busy. What do you say?

And in the interests of kicking us off, here’s one of my faves: in a large frypan add a teensy bit of olive oil and when it’s hot add two teaspoons each of minced garlic, ginger and chilli, and one teaspoon of curry powder. Mix it together and cook until fragrant. Add vegetables and cook until done to your liking (and then add cooked beef, chicken or prawns…and noodles if you want). Mix together 1/2 cup of water, one teaspoon of cornflour and two tablespoons of soy sauce, and add to the pan. Stir until mixture boils and thickens.

Other people's recipes – Kandy Shepherd

Do you have his/hers/theirs recipes in your house? I love cooking, it’s a hobby as much as a household necessity. My husband is a good cook. He says that’s only because he can read a recipe but it’s more than that. When I was in my day job, often working long hours, he did more cooking than I did. Husband tends to specialise in stir-fries and omelettes. He never, ever bakes—wouldn’t dare, he says. I love baking probably best of all!

I like baking and trying new recipes! This decadent treat is German Chocolate Cake from the Joy of Baking website

My daughter, the dietitian-in-training, enjoys cooking too. Her specialities tend to be very healthy and often vegetarian. She surprises us with the deliciousness of dishes I would never have thought of cooking. Her salads are supreme. And she keeps us healthy with fresh vegetable juices.

Fresh green juice courtesy of my daughter

The thing is, none of us in the family cooks what the others cook. The dish and the glory that goes with it belongs to the person who cooks it. We enjoy it all the more because of that.  And it feels strange if we veer away from that. It’s like a form of infidelity.

Yesterday, my husband was scheduled to cook. Suddenly there was a minor emergency with his work. This meant I had to cook his planned dinner. This had never been done before. But the ingredients had been purchased. Nothing else was planned. I had to tackle his specialty of Japanese Chicken With Brown Rice—more commonly known as Dad’s Japanese chicken and a real favourite. The recipe comes from a wonderful Weight Watchers cookbook, published in Australia. I can’t find the book at the moment or I’d give you the name of it! We work from a photocopy we made to save the cookbook from kitchen spills.

It’s a flavoursome dish made with chicken, baby eggplant (aubergine), baby (Dutch) carrots and ingredients like Tamari (Japanese soy sauce) and Mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine). Was I up for it? I went into the kitchen with some trepidation.

My attempt at Dad's Japanese chicken (those are not dead bananas in there but baby eggplant/aubergine!)

Cooking hubby’s favourite recipe was like wearing someone else’s clothes that didn’t quite fit. I did my best. However I couldn’t resist tinkering. I added some sesame oil to the peanut oil. Snuck in a fat clove of garlic. He hadn’t bought gai lan (aka Chinese broccoli) to serve with it. I used ordinary broccoli I had in the fridge. Fried the eggplant first as I think eggplant tastes better that way (thus using a bit more oil than the Weight Watchers allowance.) And didn’t have any green onions to garnish it with.

My husband graciously told me my version tasted better than his. I didn’t agree. It tasted good. Very good. But it wasn’t the same as when he made it. I like it so much better when it’s Dad’s dish. (And, okay, when I don’t have to cook it!)

I’ve found the recipe online, as well as being tasty, it’s also easy! Here it is: Weight Watchers Japanese Chicken with Brown Rice.

Do you have any family favourite dishes? Maybe one that is jealously guarded? A favourite that you like to make? I’d love to see your comments!

A new recipe...

When we road-tripped over Easter, my sister-in-law cooked up this seriously delicious chicken fettuccine dish that was seriously delicious (I was going to delete one set of those “seriously delicious”-es, but I figured the recipe was so good it bore repeating ;-) ). She didn’t use a recipe, just threw things together, and ever since we got home I’ve been trying to recreate it.

And I think I finally have it right! So I thought I’d share it. :-)



Chicken + Other Things with Fettuccine

* Brown 500g of diced chicken in a large frying pan in some olive oil. Remove with a slotted spoon and put to one side.
* At the same time, put some fettuccine on to boil
* Sauté a small diced green capsicum and a handful of button mushrooms quartered (or halved, depending on their size) in the frying pan along with two or three chopped up cloves of garlic. When the capsicum is soft, add 1/2 cup of white wine (pinot grigio works a treat) and a tablespoon or two of sliced black olives. Return the chicken to the pan and continue to gently cook. Add more wine if needed.
* When fettuccine is cooked, drain and stir in the grated zest and juice of one lemon (use less if you’re not so keen on lemon).
* Add the fettuccine to the chicken mixture, and stir well.
* Serve with some crusty bread and enjoy!

NOTE: the amounts are all subject to taste and preference. I've made it with far less chicken (but the packs at the supermarket are 500gms which I usually use for convenience...and that makes enough for two meals for me and Mr Douglas). A tablespoon of capers added was lovely. I'm sure some ginger would add a nice flavour to the dish too. So this is a fast and loose recipe, which can be adapted depending on what ingredients you have on hand. :-)

Sorry, I don't have a picture of the finished product...but here's a picture from our road trip!

And a picture of my sister's farm

And some sheep...because life is better with sheep. :-)

I expect part of this recipe's original magic was the garden-fresh veggies…and the fact that when one is road tripping, fast food becomes the order of the day. So when you're served something as fresh and tasty as this fettuccine dish, you appreciate it all the more.

But even using supermarket veggies and eating in our usual (generally) healthy way, we still love this dish.

So…what’s been your favourite new recipe so far this year? Do you have one you'd like to share? And tell me, are you tempted to give this one a whirl? :-)

Paper Girl

by Sharon Archer

 
I collect paper.  I’ve collected it for years.  An article here, an article there.  I have great mounds of it, box files of my old lecture notes, filing cabinets with suspension files groaning with interesting snippets of information.
  
But I'm turning over a new leaf - I’m Organising!   But this leaf turning is a slow process... and not easy.

So what prompted this latest round of Organising?

Well, I dropped my bulging folder of recipe snippets!   I'd been collecting them for a long, long... long time.  Gathering them up and then trying to find the one I'd been looking for in the first place, made me look at them - really look at them.  And I realised... it was time to cull!


From 1981, in February a collection of cakes and biscuits and in June two pages of marvellous mince recipes.  Thirty-one years ago when I liberated them from a New Idea magazine, I must have intended to try them.  But I haven't.

From 1983, in May a tear-out leaflet on prepare ahead dinner parties and in August a page on bread - I haven’t tried these either!

A wad of undated delicacies and then a leap forward to 1996 for Warming Winter Wonders and 1999 for a complete herbs special.  All untried.


I've taken stabs at disposing of some of these before but then hesitated at the last moment... after all, I might suddenly need this recipe or that one.  But that's where my new leaf comes in ... I am
actually disposing of these pages... after I've blogged about them today!

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they're all fabulous recipes but if I haven't got around to trying them out some time in the last ten to thirty years then the chances are, I'm not going to!

So now, they're gone into the recycling.  It’s just a tiny step... I have knitting patterns in another drawer... and gardening snippets somewhere else.  But this recipe clear-out is a good start, don’t you think?!

So what about you? 
Are you a hoarder?
Do you fight it or embrace it?
Do you have rules to keep it from turning into clutter? 
Any tips to share?

FIVE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT AUTUMN... and a favourite autumn recipe or two

by Michelle Douglas

Reading: Million-Dollar Amnesia Scandal by Rachel Bailey

Watching: Tomorrow When the War Began

Listening to: Crowded House

Making me smile: Autumn!

Autumn is my favourite season. Today, as I'm writing this, the sky is blue and the air is still and crisp. The screeching of the sulpher-crested cockatoos has just settled and fingers of light are filtering down through the trees.

Oh how I love it! And for some reason it all seems quintessentially autumnal.

Why do I love autumn? Let me count the ways:

1. It's not too hot and it's not too cold: you can wear jeans or skirts, long sleeves or short. And I really love it when the weather is not the main topic of conversation. You know what I mean, those conversation that start: "This is a record heat wave, you know?" or "Did you know this is the wettest summer in twenty-five years?" I like it when the weather is so perfect we don't notice it.

2. Walking: with the let up in the humidity - and I will confess that I am not a heat and humidity kind of gal - I love my afternoon ambles. I try to walk regularly year round, but autumn is the best. And a bonus is that by 4:30 the shadows are lengthening, which for some reason makes my chest expand in gratitude.

3. Public Holidays! Easter and Anzac Day both fall in autumn. While both are times of remembrance and gratitude, they are also traditionally occasions for spending time with loved ones, eating lots of chocolate and playing two-up. And not going to work. :) Also, Mother's Day falls in autumn and my mum, sister, niece and I have a traditional girls' weekend - we cook up a storm and hunker down in front of girly dvds. What's not to like about that?

4. Royal Gala Apples: I will be honest and say that I'm not a great apple lover. I really truly wish I loved apples as much as I love donuts, but that is simply not the case. Unless we're talking Royal Gala apples in autumn. YUM! They just taste like autumn. Here's one of my favourite ways of eating Royal Gala Apples:

Honey Baked Apples

Ingredients: 4 Royal Gala Apples; 1/4 cup honey; 1/2 cup dessicated coconut; 1/2 cup chopped dried apricots; grated rind of 1 lemon; 1/2 tsp cinnamon.

Method: Wash and dry apples. Score skin with fork. Remove core leaving base intact. Remove a little more apple to make the opening wider. Brush with honey and roll in 1/4 cup coconut. Combine remaining coconut, apricots, lemon rind and cinnamon. Spoon into the centre of each apple. Place in microwave dish and cook uncovered on high for 4-5 minutes. Halfway through cooking, press down the filling with a spoon and place more filling in the opening. Allow to stand for 3-5 minutes before serving. Enjoy! (with cream, ice cream or just on their own)

5. My slow cooker: autumn is the time to pull my slow cooker out of its summer retirement. And I always dust it off again with glee! Is there anything better than the smell of a casserole simmering, the scent drifting all the way through the house? I love a whole variety of casseroles, but in homage to the vegetarian LoveCats among us, here's one of my favourite vegetarian slow cooker recipes (and for those carnivores out there, I'm guessing you can already see how easy it would be to add whatever else your red-blooded heart desires).

Chilli Bean and Vegetable Combo

Ingredients: 1/3 cup of olive oil; 400g baby egg plant, thickly sliced; 2 large onions, chopped; 6 garlic cloves, crushed; 2 large red capsicums, chopped; 1 x 750ml Italian-style tomato cooking sauce; 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper; 2 small red chillies, finely sliced; 400g zucchini, sliced; 300g kumera, peeled and cubed; 1 x 420g can of chick peas, drained and rinsed; 1 x 750g can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed; 1/2 cup of fresh parsley, chopped.

Method: Heat half the oil in a non-stick pan. Add eggplant in batches and cook over medium heat until golden brown. Remove from pan and place in the slow cooker bowl. Heat remaining oil in non-stick pan, add onion, garlic and capsicum and cook until the onion softens. Add tomatoes, cayenne and chillies. Cook for one minute. Place tomato mixture, zucchini, chick peas, kidney beans and parsley into the slow cooker bowl. Cover and cook on low for 5-6 hours or high for 2-3 hours. Serve with hot crusty bread rolls.

What's your favourite month? Do you like autumn too, or do you grieve for the summer sun? Most importantly of all, though, do you have a favourite autumn recipe to share?

Food in stories - do you find it stimulating?

Reading: “Story” by Robert McKee and a selection of glossy magazines
Listening to: Lionel Ritchie & Guy Sebastian, All Night Long 2011 release for the Chch Earthquake & QLD Flood relief (get it from iTunes)
Making me smile: The cutest little 8 month old we have staying with us for a couple of days!

Two great passions in my life are reading and food – although I must admit my cooking has sometimes been ruined by my reading! And I think you'd be hard pressed to find a book that doesn't reference food or eating at some point! From kids books on, food features - remember in all the Famous Fives how the kids ate something every other page – ginger beer, and sandwiches and lashings of whipped cream; Noddy had his jammy buns; Harry Potter and the others have fabulous feasts at Hogwarts. Food, or recipes, have been used to structure novels (like a ‘recipe at the start of each chapter’ style) and  favourite characters' food choices have spawned crazes for certain foods!

Image by Ambro. www.freedigitalphotos.net

And of course in romances so often we have the hero and heroine dining together – it’s a pretty popular thing to do on a date after all! And I confess to loving it when the hero cooks for the heroine (wish fulfillment anyone?!). It can be such a great way to show caring and the development of a relationship. And it can be a very sensual experience too – the sating of one kind of hunger while tempting another... Often authors even have recipes up on their websites for the dishes referred to in certain books – which can be so fabulous and fun.

But sometimes, I must admit to struggling with what the hero and heroine are actually eating. Now, it probably makes a difference in that I’ve been vegetarian for twenty years and am currently vegan  - so yes, detailed descriptions of lamb racks or lobster don’t really do it for me! And yes, it’s going to rule out a lot of recipes that other people would be melting over. So when I’m reading and hit scenes where I’m not so fussed on the menu, I mentally swap the dish for one of my own choosing...

When my first book came out, all my friends tried to tell me the heroine was actually, truly me because she liked all my favourite foods (in particular pineapple and raspberries). So, indignantly, (because that heroine was absolutely  not me) in my second book I made the heroine a total carnivore! Since then my characters have had lots of meals that might or mightn’t be meaty – like soup or pizza – and left it for the reader to put on their own topping  say – but one of my favourite things to have my characters indulge in is, of course, dessert. I figure most people enjoy pudding!  Then there's - ahem - breakfast, which to my mind is the best meal of the day! ;)

And then of course, there’s that other great passion that you can link in with food -  in the book I just sent in, my heroine decides to do some wicked things with her bottle of maple syrup...


In WALK ON THE WILD SIDE – out now in Australia/NZ and in April in the US, there’s a phase where Jack turns up at Kelsi’s door every night and cooks her dinner – using the excuse that his kitchen is undergoing repairs, but really, it’s because it’s the one way he can spend some time with her. She knows the inoperable kitchen thing is an excuse, but she believes he’s only cooking for her because he’s concerned for their unborn baby... intentions, motivations, subtext... are really so much more important than what’s actually on the table ;)

But, let’s talk about it anyway – does it bother you at all when you’re reading a book and the characters are eating something you don’t fancy? Do you like reading detailed descriptions of what they’re eating or do you not notice so much? Have you ever read about a meal in a book and wished you had the recipe - even gone to an author’s online home to find such a recipe? 
Is is possible for fun foodie scenes to stimulate your senses as much as some of those other scenes might?

Now, there aren't any recipes at my website yet sorry, but do head to my Facebook page  - occasionally I talk about the wicked things you can do with fruit leather ;)