Simple Fun

My girls got this trampoline at the tip, so it was free fun as well.

Melinda Schneider Does Doris Day

Japanese Pancakes, Tonkatsu Sauce & Our Fortnightly Menu

Tuesday 10th ~ Chicken, Corn & Risoni Soup (uses silverbeet)
Wednesday ~ Bacon & Cheese Burgers (uses stuffing mix)
Thursday ~ Easy Chicken Chow Mein (uses Singapore styled noodles I have already, still cleaning out that pantry and chicken mince)
Friday ~ Greek Lentil Soup (uses left over dill)
Saturday ~ Vegetarian Pancakes (for left over cabbage)
Sunday ~ Corn Quesadillas with Bean Salad (hopefully I will get the tortillas this time)
Monday ~ Japanese Pancakes (a new recipe includes bacon & potato)
Tuesday ~ Polenta with White Bean Salad
Wednesday ~ Japanese Pancakes (another new recipe with BBQ chicken & canned prawns)
Thursday ~ Sausage & Egg Muffin Burgers
Friday ~ Zucchini & Bacon Slice with Chips
Saturday ~ Zucchini Burgers
Sunday ~ Savoury Mince & Potato Wedges
Monday ~ Spicy Beef Noodle Stir Fry (uses rice stick noodles which we have)

My son offered to go to the Hub while he was practising taking the bus to uni. He is buying me some Kewpie mayonnaise and hopefully will be able to find some Tonkatsu sauce which we haven't tried. But unfortunately the shop was closed. We usually use Worcestershire sauce for our Japanese Pancakes which we love. We love the pancakes and the sauce lol. Tonkatsu is a Japanese Worcestershire sauce. We tried something like HP Sauce once and it was very nice, which makes sense as Tonkatsu seems fruity as well. Here is a place to buy it online. Buying one or two or three items online like that has worked well for me in the past. I found two new recipes for the pancakes, which I will add to my post on them here. Here is the basic idea behind Japanese Pancakes.

My son was making a family recipe of zucchini slice and has left over bacon which he bought English muffins for. Hence the recipe for muffin burgers. He only wants bacon and eggs, but I thought I would try this for a meal.

Swap recipe: Stir fried Beef & Vegetable Chow Mein (uses Singapore styled noodles and mince, in case we can't get the chicken)

Success from last week: Beef & Vegetable Bolognaise still rich like normal bolognaise

Bacon & Avocado Burgers, we did this on the fly, I think to use up the avocado. One of the best Turkish bread burgers we have made, I love them!

Frekkah

This health food was mentioned in the August edition of the Australia Woman's Weekly along with quinoa in an article on fibre, which I forgot to show my husband last night as it relates to cholesterol amongst other things. I have had quinoa twice. I thought I'd do this post as the actual spelling is Freekeh. I found this Australian video about it.

Laura's Crocheted Winter Bonnet

LI think at one stage I wanted to make one.

Budget Menu

Tuesday ~ Egg, Tomato & Spinach Pizzas
Wednesday ~ Mexican Pinto Bean cakes
Thursday ~ Taco Salad
Friday ~ Mee Goreng
Saturday ~ Spicy Pumpkin & Lentil Tagine
Sunday ~ Pumpkin, Barley & Miso Soup with Fried Wakame
Monday ~ Crab & Corn Omelette
Tuesday ~ Zucchini & Corn Pancakes with Roasted Tomatoes & Dill Cream
Wednesday ~ Vegetable Pancakes
Thursday ~ Corn, Bacon & Zucchini Soup
Friday ~ Corn Chowder with Garlic Croutons
Saturday ~ Bacon, Tomato and Rocket Spaghetti
Sunday ~ Tuna & Mixed Bean Salad with Lemon Dressing (heart friendly)
Monday ~ Beef & Vegetable Bolognaise (heart friendly)

I found this quote for one of the recipes: "...When vegetarian food is good, you don’t miss meat. This miso soup fits the bill; here it’s been “beefed up” with some hearty pearl barley and pumpkin."

Successes from last week:

Middle Eastern Chickpea & Vegetable Salad with is also heart friendly which I think was an accident. I loved all of it, the ingredients work well together so nothing seems hard or whatever.

Fragrant Egg Curry has excellent left-over potential as a spread on toast

Four Bean Chilli with Tortilla Crisps this was a swap recipe

I got a free booklet from Santitarium in the mail. I was very happy the meals are online as well. I saw a lovely recipe that contains sumac, spicy pumpkin & lentil tagine.

Miso Paste Recipe

Vegie Patties

425g tin chickpeas
5 carrots, grated, lightly steamed
2 cups brown rice, cooked until soft
3 tablespoon tahini
2 teaspoons miso paste
2 spring onions, chopped
4 sheets nori seaweed, chopped
1/2 cup chopped parsley

Whiz chickpeas in a food processor until broken up. Stir in carrot, rice, tahini and miso. Knead well. Mix in spring onion nori and parsley. Form into balls and flatten slightly. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat and cook patties until golden both sides. Makes 12.

From House & Garden AU Feb 2008. This is a recipe we have used many times.

Miso Pastes

I am totally learning as I go along with miso soups and miso pastes.

I had an opportunity when I went to my hometown to the chiropractor this Thursday to buy some miso. That is where I got my last packet. It is so easy, even opened it keeps, well I think it does. We had shiro miso before, which I remembered as rice. The shop didn't have a lot of misos so I bought a rice one. However, they are different.

The first one I had was shiro, my first packet ever, and it means sweet rice. The one I have now is kome, which is just rice miso. Shiro smells like Vegemite. And I would deny anyone to tell me that Aussies have been tricked lol. We live in South East Asia after all lol.

So hopefully I will use this packet in recipes and maybe try a different miso next time until I get the hang of this lol. The brand I got was spiral miso.

OK, I think it goes something like colour. Rice is white I think, then there are red ones. Help! The trick is that mine doesn't look very white lol.

I found some useful notes on the saltiness of miso here. There are pictures of the coloured misos here. But still I am unsure if my new miso replaces my old one.

I just found that Janella Purcell has a shop so you can find some of these lovely ingredients. It is here.

Red Lentil Recipe

On my menu this week is this recipe. My husband adapted it. It is really lovely.

Fragrant Egg Curry


Ingredients (serves 4)
• 1 Red onion, chopped
• 2 tbs grated fresh ginger
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 tbs light oil
• 2 tbs Ayam curry powder
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 10 dried curry leaves*
• 425g can diced tomatoes
• 8 hard-boiled eggs
• 1/2 cup red lentils
• 1 cup peas (frozen are fine)
• 1 tbs chopped fresh coriander
• 2 teas raw sugar
• Cooked rice, to serve

Method
1. Work on curry sauce first, keep going working with the sauce until
the eggs are put in curry, then add rice to boiling water. The eggs
could be started at the beginning of the cooking.

2. Place onion, ginger and garlic in a food processor and process to
form a paste, use a little oil to help with blending process.

3. Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan, add the paste and cook over
low heat for 2-3 minutes.

4. Add the spices and cook for 1 minute, stirring to release the flavours.

5. Add the tomatoes and 500ml (2 cups) water and bring to the boil.
Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 15 minutes.

6. Shell and halve the eggs and add to the pan with the lentils and
peas. Cook over low heat for 15 minutes or until lentils are soft.
Near the end of cooking if mixture is too thick add a small amount of
water (not too much), should be slightly thick paste. Stir in the
coriander.

7. Serve with cooked rice.

Pork Mince Recipe

Ginger Pork Stir-fry

Serves 4

1 1/2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 stalk lemongrass, outer leaves removed, base very finely chopped
3cm piece ginger, peeled, grated (we cheat with both of these and use a jar in the fridge)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
400g pork mince
150g snow peas, sliced in half diagonally
125g baby corn, sliced in half diagonally
120g button mushrooms, sliced
1 red capsicum, deseeded, sliced
450g packet hokkien noodles, separated
1/4 cup ketcap manis
1 tablespoon soy sauce
12 cup coriander leaves

Heat a wok over high heat until hot. Add 3 teaspoon oil, lemongrass, ginger, garlic and mince. Stir-fry for 3 to 4 minutes or until mince is bornwed. Transfer to a plate. Add remaining oil to wok. Add vegetables. Stir-fry for 4 to 5 minutes or until just tender. Add noodles. Stir-fry for 1 to 2 minutes. Add mince mixture, ketcap manis and soy. Stir-fry for 1 minute. Stir in coriander. Serve.

Chicken Mince Recipes

Photo Source

We haven't made much with chicken mince lately, and have our favourite recipe for chicken mince that I have posted on my main blog here, a long time ago lol (2008). I have been looking through my old foodie magazines, my husband put them in a box, just foodie magazines, and I look through one a day when the sun streams through my window during this record cold winter.

I found a page with various minces (ground meat) including another of my favourites, pork mince. The pork mince one hasn't been published on the Taste site so I will type it up, and try it when I got shopping normally again, maybe in a month or so.

Chicken Paella

Edited to say that on Wednesday night after I posted this, we had a BBQ chicken and tabouli mix as per my menu plan. However we didn't have olive oil (usually it is always there in the cupboard) to make up the tabouli. So I happened to find this recipe (was not related to this post or memory of finding it at all, because I didn't remember lol).

Anyway, the recipe is lovely. We usually make a paella from the McCormick's site. This was just as nice, and the saffron didn't bother us. I vaguely remember Gillian McKeith saying, perhaps on Ready Steady Cook, that basmati rice is easy to digest? Anyway, that is what I found, this paella is very soft and nice. We will be making it again, with double the paprika.

In case I have missed any other great chicken mince recipes I am doing a search. Previously when we first started using chicken mince, we made chicken balls and chicken lasagne. The other recipe is a pasta recipe, creamy. So to find something different and practical, more practical than the balls.

Easy Chicken Chow Mein

Something to go with packets of tabouli mix:

Moroccan Chicken Rissoles

Creamy Chicken & Spinach Bake features pumpkin and crushed potato chips

My reference point (though vague without the thought of actually eating it at this stage) is what would I like to cook if I had chicken mince

Chicken Tacos

Thai Chicken Broth

Chicken, Bacon & Spinach Spaghetti Bolognaise

Chicken, Fennel & Lemon Fettuccine

Fried Rice with Chicken features plum sauce

Chicken Nachos

Chicken Tacos

Chicken Chilli Con Carne