Dinner: Spatchcocked Poussin

I think I washed my hands more than 17 times tonight, as I was paranoid that I would get some disease from the chicken because Mum told me that you have to use a different chopping board to chop everything else and its best to wash your hands after touching chicken.
I have some great news, three lots of it actually. 
1. Mum bought me a apron and a oven mitt from 'the Chefs Toolbox' to join my collection of sauté pans and spatulas.
2. I found it! The official Julie Powell Blog!!! I was so excited, I found out she also has another blog on the same website as mine about her everyday life! I will put the links down the bottom if you want to have a look.
3. Uhhh... You know when your writing a list of things down and you forget the last one... yeah that just happened, oh well I'll probably remember it later :)


Spatchcocked Poussin, or as we had to call it 'Spatchcocked Chicken' we decided to get chicken because it was bigger. The recipe was pretty simple actually...wash your hands one billion times, coat the chicken in spices, fry some bread (yum) and roast pine nuts (second times the charm)! 
Once it was cooked place the chicken on a bed of greens and enjoy! As I am not much of a chicken fan the meal wasn't that appetising to me, my parents liked it but it was a bit of an average meal apart from the bread!! Mum and I have come to the conclusion (no offence intended Nigella) that Nigella's sauces aren't quite to our taste buds, the greasy bitter taste isn't the most satisfying treat of a night, so I have put two and two together and I'm not going to make many of her sauces anymore, and if I do I'll add my own flair to it.

I've decided to make movies every ten or so recipes depending on the extremeness of the recipe, I'm having a break for a few days to get back into the school vibe, but coming up is Spaghetti with Marmite Aussie style and something I have been looking forward to for a while Coffee and Walnut Layer Cake.


As Nigella would say "I don't believe in low-fat cooking".
Here is her Julie /Julia Blog: http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/08/25.html
Here is her other blog: http://juliepowell.blogspot.com/

Dessert: Pear Pandowdy

Tonight I also made Pear Pandowdy, which looked really difficult as I had to make my own pastry and I had every right to be nervous this recipe had so many weird instructions that I'm not used to, for example: 
...add the very cold cubed butter and, using a teaspoon, drop in the little lumps of cold shortening then slowly mix to cut the fat into the flour... 
Uhhh... shortening? cutting it into the fat? what?
Copha (Vegetable Shortening) is this weird clear-ish butter like thing that is really hard and crumbles and feels like candle wax, that contains hardened coconut oil and soya bean lecithin...whatever that is?
Once I had made the dough (which was extremely sticky) I got to the fun part of rolling out the dough and using my hands, but the dough was a lot weaker than expected, everything turned out fine none the less. 
So I put the pandowdy in the oven expecting it to come out golden brown and crispy... it came out the same colour as it went in...okay maybe it was a tad darker but still... Oh well it tasted nice so thats the main thing :)

Coming up we have Spatchcocked Poussin... this should be interesting...

Dinner: Risotto Bolognese

My Dad's favourite, Risotto!
Yes I agree it sounds quite strange Bolognese with rice in it? Odd.
But after a lucky break with the full fat milk we so happened to have in the fridge (our family only drinks skim milk) I was willing to give it a try. Everything was going well until I noticed the celery still stilling out, i walked over to the pan that was sizzling away and didn't recall adding the celery to the mushed up vegetables, so I blended up the celery with the diced tomatoes and continued on my merry way. Once I put the meat sauce into the oven, mum called out "Have you finished with the tomato paste?"... :S So I quickly ran over to the oven opened the door and stirred in the paste.
When I took the meat out I started adding the stock and the rice, but I was really worried thatI had put to much stock in... but mum gave me a helpful tip.
Mum's Helpful Tips:
"The rice will soak up all the stock and it should look something like little maggots"
Thanks? Thats...uh...helpful.


It felt like forever until the rice was done but then I filled up three heaping bowls and dad is going to take the rest into work tomorrow, for all of his staff to try tomorrow :)

Dinner: Spicy Sausage Patties

I am unaware of the real name of this dish as I am way to lazy to run downstairs and find the book so this is what I shall be calling them.
Now after having a bit of a disaster with the potatoes with them being way to spicy, I decided to reduce the amount of heat in this dish by only using half of each chilli... call me a chicken all you want but it was a smart idea :)
So getting to the fun part of using my hands to mix the mixture and then role them into little balls and place them on the pan.


Tip: 
Dont make the patties to thick or it will literally take them YEARS to cook! Make them thin but still juicy :)

I was expecting these patties to be pretty average but MAN WAS I WRONG!
Mum, dad and I all sat down wrapped up the first pattie and 10 minutes later the bowl was empty, they where amazing and would be great as a pre-dinner snack! YUM! I'll be making them again.
I recomend wrapping them up in lettuce leaves, but you can also wrap them up in pitta bread/ flat bread and with a bit of lime for a fresh blast!

From the 22/04/11 to the 25/04/11 we will be down at our family friends house 'the Coopers' so I wont be cooking for awhile but when I get back I will be getting straight into things again by cooking Risotto Bolognese and Pear Pandowdy, stay tuned.


Happy Easter :) 

Dessert: Churros

Or as I like to call it Calamari Churros and Chunky Chocolate, lets just say I wont be making these again considering the mess I made and the fact I could have been killed myself with all of that oil splattering everywhere!!
The chocolate didn't melt, it just burnt and the mixture was really runny so the churros looked like calamari and I made a massive mess... sorry mum.
But even though the chocolate was chunky and the calamari...opps churros had turned into oddly shapped oil balls it tasted alright, but I tasted kind of dirty afterwards or unhealthy.

Dinner: Quick Caesar Salad

The Quick Caesar Salad also known as the Salad containing Chicken, Lettuce and Corn Chips! A crunchy and tasty simple salad with a horrible and bitter salad dressing, which luckily we didn't pour over the salad, we had a taste test and... tipped it down the sink. All in all the salad was actually pretty good but it didn't take much skill to cook a bit of chicken and chuck it together with corn chips and lettuce leaves.
Bit of a failed salad...

Dinner: Indian Roast Potatoes

They look great, they smell great but they taste SPICY! Mum and I had to wash these SPICY potatoes down with a glass of water between bites. Dad has a lovely SPICY surprise awaiting his arrival home... This recipe has the following SPICES: Hot Ground Chillies, Black Mustard Seeds, Fennel Seeds, Cumin Seeds, Nigella Seeds and Tumeric!!! 

Tip:

Next time, put a little less of all the SPICES to suit your taste buds. TRUST ME!

Dinner: Minestrone

It's amazing how much half cabbage can actually produce nearly a whole pot full, and you would think this soup would turn out to be a yellow smelly peice of yuck, but it turned out really nice mum and I had two bowls each, my dad didn't have any because he doesn't like "lumpy soup"... weird.
This soup is really nice on a cold rainy night, it warms the tummy and is really healthy considering the amount of green vegetables it contains.

Dessert: Choc-Chip Cookies

Tonight I made Cookies as well and I decided to make a movie for it, I have been trying to upload it but it doesn't seem to be working... oh well I'll keep trying.

Here are a few photo's of the final cookies, mum and I decided that we would give them away as I have many other sweet dishes coming up and I don't want to get to fat now :S


Tip: 
To make cookies all the same size get a small cup like thing and dip it in cold water, fill to the top and then place on baking paper and shape to your choice and repeat.
Here is the link for my awesome movie I made hope it works if so enjoy and if not lets just say they where amazing cookies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zf9erQZWNU

Dinner: Shoulder of Lamb

More like shoulder of bone!

Does this look like a succulent, tender, juicy piece of meat? Yes and No, the small amount of meat you can get off this tasted amazing and had a pleasant smell of olives and thyme but about 85% of it was bone so bit of a fail there.
I feel a tad bad because I made my parents wait 2 hours for this hunk of meat to cook and then once it was done there were about 10 slices of meat between us... dad ended up making toast.
The red liquid below is Rose Wine 500mL's of it! "That's alot of grog" as mum would say, all is good alcohol the cooked away :)

Dinner Party #1: Meatballs & Chocolate Cake

Tonight is the fist ever Lawson Dawson Dinner Party, I've decided to host a two course meal tonight for my close friends going away to China (Group 2)!
On the menu tonight is a generous helping of meatballs and a cake that could give you diabetes just looking at it.
This morning mum, mums friends Lisa and Georgina and myself had this new machine called the Thermomix shown to us, its pretty impressive. It's basically about 10+ kitchen appliances put into one perfectly sized machine. Anyway back to the Dinner Party, after I had cooked Devils Food Cake and left it out to cool, I noticed something that pt me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. A crack, a split, a imperfection to the amazing cake I was hoping to create, I could have been over reacting but to me and at that moment I was thinking the worst "I have to start again now", "but it took me forever", mum eventually calmed me and just told me to ice over it, I was still 
worried.


Tip:
For this cake the icing is quite runny so if it helps put the icing in the fridge for an hour then ice the cake so its thick with chocolaty goodness and then put back in the fridge.

It turned out fine and everyone arrived on time and we where in for a great meal, the meatballs went down well and I wish I had made more, but when that cake came out all I said was "let them eat cake" and eat cake they did, once my friends and I had finished our slices we went downstairs into the basement, I came up for a glass of water and the whole cake... GONE! i couldn't believe it! Greedy parents...

Clockwise Left to Right:

Angus, Luke, Bella, Keith, Virginia, Andrew (dad), Jo (mum).

The amazing masterpiece I created~

Dinner: Lemony Salmon with cherry tomato couscous

Once Jackson and Charlotte left I moved on to the Salmon and Couscous Salad. The amount of plates that where needed to create this dish was incredible it felt like I was constantly going back and forth from the plate cupboard.
There was a bowl for the couscous, the tomatoes, the lemon zest and the onion and over the other side of the room the fish were sitting in a bowl. I really wasn't looking forward to cleaning up afterwards and hope all these bowls were worth it.

There was some time towards the end of the recipe where you just had to wait for the fish to cook so mum and I took some funny photos of how we thought Nigella would take them, it got pretty crazy I ended up on the kitchen table posing with a lemon, but now I think about it we did create some look a likes.
Once the salmon was cooked and we sat down to eat and I took that first bite I new all those plates where worth it, the crispy skin and the refreshing couscous (which mum loved) it was amazing!

Dessert: Brownies

Sorry I haven't posted in a while I have been so busy cooking and saying good bye to my friends that are leaving for China on Monday.

Today my friends Charlotte and Jackson came over and made brownies with me. Now I seem to be childhood-dessert challenged because I can't cook those little sweet treats you used to eat when you where little like cookies and brownies if my life depended on it. So I did go into the task with a negative point of view. I was about to melt the chocolate when I noticed this sticker on the bottom of the pot that said "take care of me, wash me when I'm hot" I thought it was meant to be there so I dismissed it... big mistake. Just as we where about to put the brownie in the oven I pulled out what I thought to be a piece of chocolate but it was none other than the sticker.
I over cooked the brownies a little bit and the pan...thing I put them in wasn't the right size but all in all they looked alright and tasted fine... a bit chewy... but fine.

Dinner: Curly Pasta with feta, spinach and pine nuts

Tonight we had a early dinner of a very healthy pasta dish, it had in it this frozen spinach which was one of the oddest things I've seen in awhile and feta cheese as the two main ingredients other than pasta. When I was cooking the pine nuts I walked away from the pan and they started to burn, so I had to hand pick as many burnt ones out as I could... fun.


Other than that there isn't much to report with this dish but the end result was pretty good, mum and dad really liked it, dad is going to take the rest of it to work tomorrow so he obviously liked it... I think I know whats wrong with it... it doesn't have chocolate ;)
Tomorrow I'm going to start cooking for a dinner party I'm having on Friday for some of my friends that are going to China (Group 2) and there is going to be plenty of chocolate involved in that one.

Breakfast: Blueberry and Cornmeal Muffins

Last night I was up coughing so hard my ribs started to cramp, in other words I'm really sick and it's a horrible feeling! I would take a runny nose over a cough any day!
But because I have so much dedication I decided to make Blueberry and Cornmeal Muffins :)
Okay, first problem cornmeal!?! It doesn't sell in Melbourne so my mother bought polenta which is the same thing but the grains are a tad bigger. Making the batter for the muffins was easy, it seamed runnier than the picture in Nigella's book but thats okay.


Tip:
When making muffins with any type of berries in them always put the berries in the mixture once it's in the tin or the berries will break and your muffins will turn purple, yes that is very cool but not very welcoming.

Apart from leaving a stain on my fingers the blueberry muffins turned out fine, not amazing just fine, like if the muffin man ran out of chocolate chip muffins and he only had these left I would still buy them but I would watch and envy the other kids who got a chocolatey treat.
Oh well I still have at least 100+ more recipes and chances are 95% are going to be A-MAZING!
Hopefully tonight I'll have a better sleep so I can cook like crazy tomorrow :)


12/04/11

Dessert: Chocolate Key Lime Pie

I thought Key Lime Pie would be a creamy, yucky, thick mess. I was wrong. It's a sweet and tangy, refreshing taste with a moist biscuit bottom.
As the first dessert of the project I couldn't have chosen a better tasting/ looking one, the 4 hour wait while the pie was setting was a killer but eventually I. had.my.pie!

In the circus, of course you have the clown act where they throw pies back and forth missing the flying messes by a fraction of a centimetre, if I was sitting in the audience and I watched one of those funnily dressed people pick up that beautiful chocolate key lime pie and in slow motion as if time was stopping I would lunge forward dodging dangerous lions and deadly tigers and I would jump in the path of the clown and tell him to hand over that amazing dessert he held in his hands or else.


I had only one major mistake... instead of keeping the lime zest and the condensed milk separated i mixed the together, but luckily my amazing mother bought two cans of condensed milk and i just washed my mistake down the drain :)

Looks kind of like mayo :S
Other than that everything went well...


Tip: 
Read the method, it's important next time I might not be as lucky to have to can's of condensed milk on my hands.


Tomorrow I'm going shopping again after I make some Blueberry Cornmeal Muffins for breakfast.
Four down alot more to go ;)


11/04/11

Lunch: Crisp Chicken Cutlets

My favourite sound in the whole world is when the thick chicken pieces covered in breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, celery salt, dried thyme and cayenne pepper (for extra spice) is placed into a pan covered in oil and all you can hear is that sizzling noise...yummm.
Today I was in the kitchen the whole day cooking Lunch and Dessert (next blog) and oh man those Chicken Cutlets where to die for! I'm not a big fan of chicken but I couldn't stop eating them, neither could my friends Luke, Gus and Bella who stopped in for some lunch.

Now, the first step in preparing the chicken to be marinated is to constantly bash the chicken until it's flat. Nigella suggested that you place glad-wrap/ cling-film (whatever you want to call it) on the bottom and top of the chicken and then bash away, it took me about
3-4 go's to lay the glad wrap down without it sticking to itself and once it looked perfect and neat i began bashing which then resulted in the glad-wrap breaking up into pieces. So I removed the glad-wrap and continued on my merry way.


After letting the chicken marinate for at least 3 hours while I made dessert, I turned on the frying pan and made heaven on a plate, the crunchy outside, the cooked to perfection inside, the spicy but not cry worthy after taste and the cheesy aroma made you just want to eat more and more, OMG it was so good!


Tip:
When flipping chicken DON'T USE TONGS! Use a spatular or the bread crumbs will fall of and you will just have chicken with no fun and exciting outside!
I was ment to save some for dad...opps... meh there's nothing I can do now :S


11/04/11