Pizza 3

This is fast becoming a fave. I make it as often as I feel I can justify.

Zinger Burger, Zinger, Zinger Burger

*Blush* Honesty's the best policy, right? I felt like I deserved it.

Pizza 2

My sister and her kids came for dinner tonight. Pizza night!

Pizza Base - for 2 pizza's (I think this is from my mum's JOY of Cooking cookbook, with some of my own modifications)

3 1/2 cups of flour

1/2 cup semolina (or just use 4 cups flour, I do all the time)

1 Tbsp of yeast in

1 1/3 cup of warm water

2 Tbsp oil

1 tsp salt

1. Add yeast and oil to water and stir briefly. Leave for 10 mins or until foamy.

2. Mix all ingredients.

3. Knead.

4. Optional: Rising time. The dough can stretch to make two, cookie tray sized pizzas even if it doesn't have time to rise.

5. Roll out on a greased tray, turn up edges and add toppings.

6. Bake at 200 degrees Celcius for 15 (no rising time) -25 (risen to twice the size) minutes or until done.

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Pretty simple and easy! Can anyone tell me how to insert a degrees symbol on here?

Tortilla Pizza 2

This has got to be the fastest meal start to finish.

Pizza

I don't normally make pizza because I'm always lacking in toppings I thought. Then I asked a friend what she was putting on her pizza and she said she just does tomato and cheese. And for her tomato she just whizzes up a can of tomatoes*. How simple is that? It's so liberating to know that I can do something that simple, because if she can, I can. So I tried it tonight, and it was good! I whizzed up a 400g can of tomatoes with a bit of salt, pepper and oregano in the blender, topped with chopped ham and grated cheese. I really could've gone without the ham though. Yum! And the kids liked it too! We had some cooked carrots on the side as well to ease the mother guilt.

So one can did two full tray sized pizzas nicely, but probably could do three.

*My friend said she also uses canned tomato soup or even plain old tomato sauce/ketchup when she's really going it easy.

Calzone

I don't know the technicalities of calzone, but this was pretty nice. It was nice to have something different. I used my Nice Buns recipe and rolled it out and filled it, next time I'll use a heavier dough maybe? Don't know.

Quote from Nat: "There's definitely room for improvement, but it's good". Which is pretty much spot on.

Room for improvement:

- Find a way to make sure all the dough on the bottom is cooked

- Make the sauce more tomatoey

- See if we can get more filling to bread ratio, even though I think it was pretty perfect, Nat would like more filling.

- Some sort of glaze on the bread would be nice

- Do it all much, much faster

Nat's steak and mushrooms

Nat made delicious steak tonight with sauteed mushrooms and shallots, fresh/parbaked sour dour and rice as sides. We ate it like an open sandwich, topping the bread with the mushrooms/shallots, then the steak and then mustard. It was really good! Nat sure is good at cooking his steak, I'll tell ya. (With brocolli and carrots also not pictured)

Burritos 6

I felt like burritos this morning. I got mince out of the freezer. We had taco sauce which was unusual for us. And avocado. This was going to be great. When I came to making it I cooked up the mince, then realised I didn't have anything else that we normally stuff burritos with other than the taco sauce and avocado. SO a little different tonight, I added plenty of corn to the mince mixture, and chopped up some capsicum (really small so that the kids would eat it) and that was us! Sour cream, mince with corn, cheese, capsicum, avocado, taco sauce.

Steak and chips 2

We actually had KFC for dinner tonight. But it's pretty much impossible to make that look good, and I'm quite embarrassed about it actually (even though it was real tasty). Here's steak that Nat made sometime last week served with roast cherry tomatoes, chips, brocolli and bread.

Delicious!

Birthday Dinner!

This is the table before half the food was out. I was more taking pictures of the cakes. But yes. This is what we had for dinner tonight.

Party food. It was great.

Tortilla Pizza

It's hot here today (hot for Wellington anyway) and we hardly feel like doing anything. Solution? Tortilla Pizza. They're not as filling as regular pizza, for obvious reasons, but they're just as delicious. Lucky the heat also makes us less hungry.

Using tortilla's as our bases, I topped our pizza with a half/half mix of tomato paste and sauce (to save on paste and to sweeten it), grated cheese (we buy Edam), sliced Kransky sausage (is there anything these sausages can't do?) and fresh basil leaves (if using again I think I'll add after cooking rather than before. The heat from the pizza would wilt the leaves rather than the grill in the oven shrivelling them). Be careful not to overload your little tortilla base. They're nowhere near as sturdy as a pizza base.

Simple, quick, easy, delicious. Perfect.

Breakfast

Quick and easy again, breakfast for dinner. We had scrambled eggs, toast, kransky sausages (frankfurters for the kids. Save the good stuff for people who care), peas and corn.

Burritos 5

Topped with sour cream, mince mixture (onion, mince, cumin, worcestershire sauce, beef stock, salt, pepper, baked beans, corn), cheese, salad, grated carrot, chopped tomato, more cheese. Delicious!

Chili 3

It's meant to be summer. And yet I'm dressing my children like this:

So I made chili for dinner tonight. Much like the recipe I've already posted but with some alterations.

- We had no garlic. It was still delicious.

- I doubled the measures for the spices.

- I added a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce.

- I used an extra can of chili beans, hot, salsa flavoured.

- I added 1/2 a can of water.

- I added a good 1 1/2-2 cups of frozen corn.

- It simmered away for a good half hour.

- We added chili flakes at the table to increase the heat. Since we were serving it to our kiddilicks it wasn't very hot in the pot. But a couple shakes of chili flakes increased it to the perfect amount of heat. Enough to heat up your mouth and get your nose running by the time you finish the bowl, but not so much you can't taste your food or get through two bites in a row.

It's nice with sour cream and bread, or tonight we had the last of my most recent batch of delicious home made bread rolls or as the recipe calls them:

Nice Buns

1 1/4 cups warm water

3 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp yeast (dry, granules)

1 Tbsp cooking oil

3 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Dissolve sugar in water. Have the water at a temperature so that it is still luke warm after the sugar has dissolved. Sprinkle yeast over the mixture, add oil and stir briefly.

Leave mixture to stand for 5 minutes or until it has become foamy. This works best if left in a warm place.

Add the rest of the ingredients. Knead for a bit. When smooth (takes 5-10 minutes of kneading) you can leave the dough to rise for 30 mins (recommended) or you can bake it straight away.

Divide mixture into 10-12 buns. Cook in hot oven at 180 degrees Celcius for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

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In my personal preparation, after I have divided the mixture into buns, I pull the dough from top to bottom, squeezing all the air bubbles out underneath and form it into a rectangle shape. Then I slice it lengthways down the middle, not all the way through, with a sharp knife, then press it back together and place on the tray. The buns turn out round or sometimes square, and with a line down the middle that makes it easy to break in half. These are the business.

There you go Nicole!

Spaghetti and Meatballs 2

I made Rachael Ray's meatballs again tonight. It's a winner recipe (stay away from the sauce though). Served with our tomato and basil sauce through spaghetti, also over mashed potato which was nice too.

Also delicious home made dinner rolls. Yum. I can't stay away from these.

Tuna Melts

I sat at the park today for 40 minutes trying to come up with something for dinner that required zero effort from me. My brainstorm:

- Order in Hell Pizza. I have a free delivery voucher.

I don't really like their pizzas and they're too expensive.

- Stop by the fish and chip/chinese/pizza place on the way home.

I didn't bring my wallet. Guts.

- Midnight spaghetti.

Too much effort. Don't feel like pasta.

- Cheese toasties.

Maybe. But Theo had a sandwich for lunch.

- Open grilled cheese like mini pizzas.

Doable. I have ham and tomato and cheese.

- Tuna melts... Tuna melts!

Every now and again I remember tuna melts and that they actually taste good. Then I forget them for another 6 months.

Burritos 4

Tonight I mixed the mince and beans together (which I don't normally do) and snuck in some peas and corn. The kids didn't mind them! Yay for more veges in their tummies! If you want to do it I would recommend the corn, it belongs in there flavourwise, but the peas really don't. It doesn't make it gross or anything but you can tell it's an extra.

Spring broth and Terakihi

We ate at Nat's parents place tonight. My father-in-law made a delicious spring broth today that we had to start. It's a broth made with a whole chicken and then a mountain of fresh baby spring vegetables: peas, radish, fennel, celery, carrots, potatoes and probably more. It's delicious.

Then we had fresh terakihi fillets lightly floured, with homemade fried chips and a wholemeal sour dough, parbaked that you finish at home.

A delicious, light, spring meal!

(Sorry no photo)

Happy Thanksgiving!

We were invited to a big Thanksgiving dinner tonight. There was of course a massive spread.

I took veges and dip...

... and Butterscotch blondies, which are meant to be gooey on top, it's like a custard (just so you don't send a message across the festivities from your husband telling me their not cooked at all).

We arrived late, so the we missed the original buffet and first attack. But there was food for hours. What I can remember, with some help from the photos...

Corn chips and guacamole, ratatouille, stuffing, 3 or more green salads, bean salad, bread rolls, my veges and dip, broccoli salad with bacon, ginger carrots, turkey, gravy, pumpkin bread, seasoned mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows (there was more I know it, but I didn't try everything so can't remember it all)

6-8 pumpkin pies, bittersweet pecan pie (SO GOOD), my Butterscotch Blondies, chocolate cream pie, pineapple pie, apple pie, chocolate mouse, CREAM overload, sweet pumpkin loaf, cookies, and once again I'm sure I'm missing something.

It was so great! I loved how the food just kept coming as the guests did, and there was something for everyone to take home too. I love Thanksgiving!

Mexican Spiced Mince

Not very glamourous tonight. I cooked Mexican Spiced Mince and served it with rice, corn, celery (on Theo's request, and then he didn't even eat it) and a cheesy tortilla (like an open quesadilla because I was short on tortillas).

What's that? Why yes! That is leftover Mexican Spiced Tomato Soup rehashed on a plate. It tasted dang good too. I would suggest it - onion, garlic, beef mince, Mexican Spiced Tomato Soup, water, extra mexican seasoning (which is included with the soup recipe), reduced down to a nice saucy mince for whatever you might need it for. The corn went really well with it too. And the cheesy tortilla. Yum!