Honey and Ginger Stir Fry

Ever since I started to have more time available to cook as it doesn’t take us an hour plus to get home anymore I have really enjoyed trying new recipes and trying little tweaks to perfect them. This also means that I have really gone off eating the ready made sauces that we used to end up eating because cooking from scratch was not appealing after our journey home. I can really taste the sugars and salt that are put into the sauces and they just don’t taste the same to me.

A recipe I always enjoy is my Honey and Ginger Stir Fry. To begin with the recipe didn’t include ginger so it was more honey and sesame and it was nice but adding the ginger, has in my opinion, really improved this dish! I also use half of the sauce to cook the chicken and then the other half over the vegetables and noodles when they are just about cooked.

The recipe I use is as follows and is best served with noodles I find:

1/2 cup of Honey
4 tablespoons Soy Sauce
2 tablespoons Oyster Sauce
3 teaspoons Sesame Oil
1 large chicken breast diced
1 teaspoon ginger paste
Mixed stir fry veg adjust depending on number of people (I use frozen stir veg and they work well in this)
Large handful of Cashew Nuts
Packet of noodles

I then mix the honey, soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil in a bowl with one cup (measuring cup) of cold water. Heat some olive oil in a pan and when it is hot add the ginger paste and the chicken which is cooked until it becomes golden brown.

Once the chicken is browned pour in half of the sauce and cook for 2 to 3 minutes before adding the stir fry vegetables which I cook for about 5 minutes (following the packet instructions for the vegetables).

Once the vegetables are starting to cook throw in the cashew nuts and add the remainder of the sauce to cook everything together. When the sauce is heated add in enough noodles for the number of people you are feeding and cook them through until heated and then serve!

Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Soup

Since having some leftover pumpkin at Christmas that I ended up throwing away I have wanted to try and make pumpkin soup. I bought some pumpkin about a week ago and then picked up some sweet potato when we went shopping last and decided I would have a go at making the soup in my slow cooker.

I googled lots of different recipe ideas and decided to try the following recipe which I kind of made up from lots of different recipes but which worked really really well!

Recipe:
Half a butternut pumpkin
One large sweet potato
One onion
2x stock pots
3x cups boiling water
Salt and pepper to taste

Method
Peal and Chop the pumpkin, sweet potato and onion and line the bottom of the slow cooker. Mix the stock pots in a jug with 3 cups of boiling water and add salt and pepper to taste.

I then cooked the ingredients of the high heat setting for 4 hours before mashing the ingredients up and leaving it to cool overnight.

When your getting ready to serve it put the liquid through the blender and back into the slow cooker along with the cream and heat it on the hight heat setting for an hour until fully reheated and then serve.

I really enjoyed my experimental recipe and the Aussie and our friend who came to dinner like it too I think! Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the finished result but this is it mid cooking!

Home Comforts

I’ve been in Darwin for just over a year now and until 2 weeks ago the fact that we often wouldn’t get home until 6.30/7pm evening and that I only had a BBQ to cook with meant I was a lazy cook trying to cook the easiest and quickest things possible with little experimentation.

I’m actually far too excited about the fact we have a cooker with an oven AND a grill. We also bought a slow cooker which meant I can try to recreate the delicious stews my mum makes as well as casseroles and the like.

Reading this blog post on the Smitten by Britain blog today really got me thinking about the foods I miss from the UK and the dishes I’ve cooked that remind me of home and my mums amazing cooking.

Every winter at home in the UK means stew season and on the weekends I’d often wake to the smell of my mums beef stew being cooked ready for re-heating at lunchtime or for dinner. This stew tastes fantastic the first time it’s cooked but is even better when re-heated especially with dumplings!

I made a Darwin version although called it a casserole as seems strange to call it stew and to be eating stew when it’s about 25 degrees.

Here’s what it looked like :

To make the stew I basically placed the following ingredients in the slow cooker, cooked it on the fast cook setting for 4 hours and then cooked it for a further hour just before serving. The only thing I will change next time will be to add some corn flour to thicken the stock:

Stewing beef
Carrots
Onion
Swede
Turnip
Parsnip
Celery
1 litre beef stock
Worcester sauce
Pepper
Mixed herbs

I also had a craving for my mums cottage pie today and came up with this which we enjoyed a lot

The ingredients were:

Minced beef
One onion
Two carrots sliced
Handful of mushrooms
Handful of frozen peas
Vegetable stock (I used a stock pot and added about a cup and a half of boiling water)

For the topping
8 potatoes
Butter to mix
Drop of milk
Grated cheese

To make the cottage pie I boiled the potatoes and carrots and started them at the same time but only boiled the carrots for about 10 minutes. Next I cooked the minced beef until it was brown, added the onions and mushrooms until cooked then added the stock, Worcester sauce, water along with the carrots and peas and simmered this until the stock reduced.

Once cooked I spooned it into an oven dish and mashed the potatoes with butter and pepper adding a drop of milk at the end. Once mashed I spooned it on top of the mince mixture and spread some grated cheese on top before placing the oven dish into the pre heated grill for about 10 minutes before serving.

This was a great home cooked meal and I’m looking forward to trying some when I get home in just 23 DAYS!!!!

Salmon and Mushroom Pancakes

I realised on the way to work today that it is Shrove Tuesday which is the day before Ash Wednesday and signifies the start of lent. It is also known in some Countries including the UK and Australia as Pancake Day.

Pancakes are associated with the day preceding Lent because they were a way to use up rich foods such as eggs, milk, and sugar, before the fasting season of the 40 days of Lent.

I normally have sweet pancakes with things like sugar and lemon or maple syrup on Shrove Tuesday which are really delicious but decided to try some savoury pancakes today so we could have them for dinner and if we fancied it afterwards, to have some sweet pancakes.

I found the recipe that is the basis of this meal here and tweaked it a bit to fit my favourite ingredients and what we had in the fridge.

The Ingredients for the Mushroom and Salmon

Ingredients
A couple of handfuls of mushrooms diced
A couple of handfuls of green capsicum and red capsicum diced
A small onion diced
200g salmon
A small jar of hollandaise sauce
A tablespoon of dill chopped

Method
I chopped up the mushrooms, capsicum and onion in to small pieces and set them aside whilst i copped up the dill. i mixed the dill and hollandaise sauce in a bowl and set that aside as well. I then chopped up the salmon in to small pieces.

Cooking Vegetables

I was lazy and used a pre mixed pancake mix where you just added water. The pancakes came out nicely but were a touch on the sweet side so I would recommend making up the pancakes yourself.

Pancake Cooking

I then began heating up the frying pan to cook the pancakes, pouring in small amounts so that I ended up with 2 pancakes per person. At the same time I turned on the oven part of the BBQ to heat it up to 200 degrees C.

I cooked up the six pancakes setting them aside before beginning the salmon mixture.

Adding in the Salmon

Firstly I cooked the onion, capsicum and mushrooms so that they were still a bit crunchy and added in the salmon by gently folding it in to the vegetables so that it didn’t break up to much.

I cooked the salmon and vegetables together for a couple of minutes before pouring in the hollandaise and dill which was cooked until hot.

With the Hollandaise

I set out the pancakes in oven trays and spooned in the mixture in to each pancake. I tried to fold the pancakes up but couldn’t get them to stay in shape even with cocktail sticks so put both trays in to the BBQ, closed the lid and cooked them for about 7 minutes until the pancakes were a bit crunchy.

Ready for the Oven

To finish of the dish I made up a light salad and served it with a pre-bought pasta salad we might have to have some sweet pancakes another day!

The Finished Product

Outback Cooking Experimentations – Chicken Burritos

Today’s dinner choice was a bit unplanned but I picked up a burritos kit yesterday which came with the chicken seasoning, some salsa and the wraps so thought I would give it a go tonight. I loved how it all came together and looked so thought I would share my recipe/plan/attempt not to give everyone food poisoning.

Mid way through preparing the dinner I thought that maybe this was a bit adventurous for a Sunday night but it was also quite fun to make with all the different elements and then putting them together in the wrap to see how it tasted together. I was also worried that there wouldn’t be enough food so of course catered for 3 people for about 3 nights worth of food instead of just tonight.

Vegetables Cooking away

I also kind of followed the recipe that was on the burritos kit but also kind of went of and did my own thing.

Main Ingredients
2 Chicken breasts
1/2 red bell pepper (capsicum)
1 green bell pepper (capsicum)
1/2 red onion
About 10 small button mushrooms
1 tin of sweetcorn

Burritos Kit Ingredients
8 wraps
Chicken seasoning
Salsa

Finishing Ingredients
Sour Cream
Grated cheese
Cooked rice with peas
Lettuce leaves or similar with small tomatoes.

The Chicken cooked in the marinade/seasoning

I began by chopping up in to fairly large pieces the onion, mushrooms and red and green pepper’s and added them to a bowl with a tin of sweetcorn which had been drained.

I then chopped up two medium size chicken breasts and marinated them with the seasoning powder that came with the burrito kit in a bowl for about 10 – 15 minutes.

I was going to just cook these bits up but worried about insufficient food and put a handful of rice in to a saucepan which I boiled for about 10 minutes. Just as I took it off the pan I mixed in some frozen peas (I was also worried the rice on its own would be bland).

Rice all finished

Once the rice was finished and left to stand (one gas burner cooking at its best!) I cooked the marinated chicken in a pan which I removed and left in a heat proof dish and then cooked the chopped vegetables for a few minutes so that they were still crunchy.

The cooked veggies

The meal was completed by adding some salad, salsa, sour cream and grated cheese added to taste to the wraps before rolling them up and tucking in.

All the extras you could need

It was pretty delicious for a meal out of a box! I sometimes surprise myself with my cooking as my Mum cooks such amazing food and you never enjoy the food you’ve cooked as much as when someone else cooks it. I learnt a lot from my Mum and I experiment a bit now to see where I end. The poor Aussie has had some not so nice concoctions over the last six months (burnt stir fry last week as an example when I was distracted) but always says its nice, even when I know its not!

About to be wrapped up