Dishy Dishes

For most of this summer, when we haven't been eating out on restaurant patios, weekend cooking has been all about taking advantage of the fact that we can now have balcony BBQs. BBQs, in my home at least, are a guy thing and my limited role in the cooking process is to supply beer as necessary and arrange a variety of raw veggies and dip on a share plate. If I want to cook on summer weekends my best option, particularly considering the time the cg drags himself out of bed, is brunch, which is fine by me because I love the idea of brunch. Brunch just sounds so much more glamorous than breakfast or lunch. I have this idea of making sunday brunch a tradition; one in which my loving husband does the cooking (to give me a break from the stove). I see newspapers and eggs, glasses of juice and pots of tea with matching cups, and sometimes I even see a couple of curly haired kids (well behaved ones of course). The problem is that as much as I like the idea of this being a tradition, I have a hard time letting him into the kitchen. Just as there are endless volumes of books to read, there are an endless number of recipes to cook and when you consider the fact that until yesterday I'd never even made an omlette before you can appreciate that I have some concerns about time running out before I've made all of them. This weekend, in addition to the omlettes, of which I will say little except that they were great despite the fact that the first one had serious visual issues, I also made Apple and Cinnamon Pancakes. I don't really have a sweet tooth but a couple of these with a hefty drizzle of syrup on them borders on heavenly. In fact I wish I hadn't messed up the first few so I would have had a bunch left over to freeze and toast later i.e. right now.

The only thing I need to say about this recipe is that I didn't have the buttermilk so I substituted it with a cup of skimmed milk and a tablespoon of lemon juice (you simply add them together and leave for 10 minutes). Everything else I had in my fridge or cupboards and if I have them then you definitely have them too.

Apple and Cinnamon Pancakes

Ingredients

1 teasp baking soda
2 cups flour
2 teasp baking powder
2-3 tbsp brown sugar
1 teasp salt
1 teasp ground cinnamon
2 large eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
1 large apple, peeled, cored and grated

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, mix together the baking soda, flour, baking powder, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon.
2. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, sour cream and melted butter; add to the flour mixture and stir until the flour is moistened.
3. Stir in the grated apple.
4. Drop a scant 1/4 cup of batter onto a hot lightly greased griddle.
   Cook, turning once until golden brown.

The one and only problem I have with brunch is that it's so much more calorific than a "bowl-of-cheerios-breakfast". I think I can live with that though.

Before I start, I feel compelled to remind people that I really am a novice in the kitchen. I’m not being in any way modest about my cooking skills or my knowledge of preparing foods. You’ll understand why I’m saying this when you see what today’s recipe is, if you can even call it a recipe.

Until I moved to North America I had never heard of a potluck party. Now I know that it’s a gathering of people divided into 2 groups: those who spent time and effort preparing a favourite dish for all to share and those who stopped off at a grocery store on the way to the venue and picked up a french loaf and some cheese or some chips and dips. As a kitchen novice I’m a little scared by the whole potluck concept. I feel bad if I don’t make something myself to take with me and I feel bad if I do take something because maybe people won’t like it. It’s so much easier in England. The host provides the food and you just turn up at the door with booze. Anyway, last night there was a Strata BBQ and, along with your burgers, steaks or, in our case, spicy lamb sausages (which I most definitely didn’t make myself), it was suggested that you bring a dish to share. I decided to take a salad and for some reason I decided that salad should be Greek. I’ve never made a greek salad before but how hard could it be. I guess that depends on whether your brain has shut down for the evening or not. I started by chopping the cucumber. Easy peasy - except it didn’t look quite right in the salad bowl. It took a few seconds to realize that I was supposed to peel it before I chopped it. I probably don’t need to point out that it’s a lot easy to peel a cucumber before you chop it. By the time I’d done, I was throwing more away than I was keeping; in fact I had to move the whole thing into a smaller salad bowl. After that it was a breeze. I had a bit of a dilemma over feta etiquette: should it be diced or crumbled? I went for crumbled and I was right. I also wondered if my choice of forgoing the $3 bottle of greek dressing in favour of a $5 jar of greek herbs which I needed to mix with a bunch of other things was the right choice to make but in the end I decided that home-made should really mean home-made plus there wasn’t much I could do about it at that point anyway! The only other issue I had while making this salad was that I ate more of the feta stuffed green olives than actually made it to the bowl. All in all it was a pretty good salad and you don't have to take my word for it; mine wasn't the only greek salad at the BBQ but my bowl was bigger and emptier by the end of the night.

So, here you go:

Greek Salad
Potluck size

Ingredients:

1 cucumber, peeled and chopped into chunks
10 cherry tomatoes (or baby tomatoes as I like to call them), halved
1 red pepper, chopped
Feta cheese (as much as you can handle)
Olives (I used green feta stuffed ones but take your pick)
2 handfuls of red onion, chopped
1 tbsp basalmic vinegar
1 tbsp mixed greek herbs
1 teasp olive oil

Instructions:

1. Put everything except the vinegar, herbs and oil in a salad bowl.
2. Mix the vinegar, herbs and oil in another bowl and add to the salad just before use.

That's so simple I'm almost embarassed that I'm posting it but, honestly, if I needed instructions (I checked with my friend Jen) then some other novice might need them too. If I hadn't pulled my back at the party, resulting in chest pains that led to the doctors office today, I would have said last night was a total success.

To be honest, I don't usually make desserts. Desserts just lead to bigger pants and no one needs that. However, there are days like today (more problems with the renovations), when alcohol isn't really an option and stress relief is only going to be found in the form of mini-fruit cobblers. These are pretty damn good and so quick and easy to make that have to wonder why anyone would bother to make the less quick and easy variety. They are also fat free but don't go crazy, that doesn't mean they are particularly low in calories (saying that, the CG and I ate the whole batch within about 10 minutes of them coming out of the oven).

I have to admit that this wasn't the recipe I intended on posting today. In addition to the mini fruit cobblers I also made soy glazed salmon which had an extremely minimal ingredient list and was totally yummy but it definitely needs a few more trial runs to get the recipe instructions right (I'm also hoping to avoid burnt fingers next time!) The funny thing is the recipe is from a mens magazine. It's supposed to be a simple dish that you can make "for your woman". Maybe that was my problem. Maybe the CG should have made it and I should have just eaten it. Anyway, it was good enough to try again and I'll post it at a later date. So back to the fruit cobblers:

Mini Fruit Cobblers
Makes about 12 small/medium mini-cobblers

Ingredients:

1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup skimmed milk
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt1 cup of fruit (I used frozen blueberries but you can use fresh or even tinned)

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees
2. Combine all ingrediants, except the fruit, in a mixing bowl
3. Pour a tablespoon of the mixture into each hole of a muffin tray and add some fruit to the top.
4. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes (The crust will come up over the fruit and cover it).
   

This recipe is so simple that monkey's can make it. I haven't actually tested this theory so please don't hold me to it but i'll be so bold as to say that if your monkey can't make it you probably have a really dumb monkey. I should also add that, unless you have the kind of husband who is happy to stand at the sink for 3 hours cleaning muffin tins, it helps to spray the muffin tray with cooking spray or (as my mother used to do when she baked) put a bit of margarine on a piece of kitchen paper and wipe it around the muffin holes.

I've always thought that it would be great to start a recipe journal so that people like me, i.e. those who don't want to spend forever in the kitchen but love eating meals that look and taste good (and are relatively healthy), have access to yummy recipes with short ingredient lists and simple cooking instructions, that can be whipped up quickly after work, for a leisurely brunch or even for dinner parties. I'm sure there are many blogs and diaries out there that serve this purpose, I just haven't come across any.

I didn't really start cooking until about 5 years ago when I entered my 30's (unless you count cheese on toast or beans on toast or any other toast-based dish, as cooking). This means that most dishes I make are new to me. I have no idea what they are going to turn out like until they are on the table and my husband and I are sampling them. I find a lot of my recipes on-line but I am the kind of person who just has to fiddle with them and, by adding a few ingredients, substituting or even taking a few ingredients away, make them quicker, easier and hopefully better. I should probably also mention that I'm not a big fan of using kitchen scales because it's too much hassle cleaning them. I prefer to use measuring cups or something a little more vague like "handfuls" so that I am free to add more or less of what I like or what I happen to have in my fridge or cupboards at the time.

Today's recipe is Spinach and Feta Pasta. I can't remember where i got this recipe from (I will try and link to the original website if there is one and I remember it) but I made it on Monday night and I loved it. There is a chance that I only loved it because we are in the middle of renovations at home and Monday was the first night I was able to cook in my own kitchen for 2 weeks (it was a long 2 weeks...who knew that eating out every day would get so annoying?) but my husband (who I will from now on refer to as the CG) gave it a 9 out of 10 (and then an 8 because I said 9 was too high and left no room for improvement, and then panicked and refused to give any grade at all in case he offended my cooking skills). The original recipe didn't include the chicken but I wanted to use up some left over pieces from a cooked chicken we had bought to make fajita wraps and it really made the dish into a meal to add them.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the recipe:

Spinach and Feta Penne for 2

Ingredients:

1 and a bit cups of penne pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil
Handful of red onion, chopped
1 garlic clove , minced
Handful of baby tomatoes, halved
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 handfuls of fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 large handfuls of spinach leaves
Feta cheese, crumbled
Half a cooked chicken, small slices or shredded
Salt, pepper, herbs to taste

Instructions:

1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook pasta in boiling water until al dente; drain.
2. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat; add onion and garlic, and cook until golden brown.
3. Mix in tomatoes, mushrooms, and spinach. Season with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and balsamic vinegar.
4. Cook 2 minutes more, until tomatoes are heated through and spinach is wilted.
5. Reduce heat to medium, stir in pasta and feta cheese and chicken, and cook until heated through.

It's quick, simple and yummy. If you do make it, let me know what you think.

# posted by Sarah @ 6:18 PM 0 comments