Food and Recipes: July 2014 Archives

This was a very simple thing to do for a midweek meal.  And there were yellow split peas that had been in the pantry for ages and I wanted to use them up.

So a couple of packs of bacon bones, a diced onion, a couple of bay leaves, some yellow split peas and some pepper.

Chuck it all in the slow cooker and cover with water.  Slow cook on low all day.

Whoops, bit of air exposure after a day of the split peas absorbing the water.

Pull all the bones out (*carefully* so as not to lost bits of vertebra in the soup), let them cool slightly, then pull off all the meat.

Chuck it all back in and stir til thick.

I thought the soup needed a little something extra, so made up these parmesan croutons.  Just some chopped bread sprayed with a little oil, some grated parmesan on top, and bake at 180C for 10 minutes.

Yum!

They worked well together and the sweetie went back for seconds of everything :)

I swear Marc and Jo are such a bad influence on me.  This morning Marc was telling me about what he was planning to cook for breakfast, which made me start drooling.

So I got ready and raided the fridge to see what I could do.

Let's see what we can do with all this ..

Bacon, eggs, potatoes, cheese, tomatoes, more cheese, milk, butter, more cheese and thyme.

How about we fry up some tomatoes in butter (I used a tad too much butter, oh well)

Now how about we scramble some eggs with some grated cheddar cheese, ricotta cheese (that's been in the fridge for ages and really needed finishing) and milk.  I won't tell the sweetie about the ricotta in there yet until he's tasted it.

And since thyme worked so well last week, and I'm *still* getting through it, have some thyme as well

Now for the potatoes.  I'm thinking cheesy hash browns.  Because the world is better with lots of cheese.

What's that over the back you ask?  Well it's a pickling gadget Stu bought online from Japan but has never actually used.  I want to try and squeeze some water out of the potatoes with it.

It sort of works, but doesn't go down far enough

So I'd better finish it off with paper towel (and then add a couple of handfuls of pre-grated cheese)

Right.  So everything is ready.  Let's start cooking!

Bacon on a medium heat, turning regularly until crisp.  Tomatoes on very low heat to warm them up while everything else cooks.  Cheesy scrambled eggs on a medium heat, stirring occasionally, cheese and potato on a highish heat.  I probably added slightly too much cheese.  Nahhh never ;)

And finally everything is ready!

Serve up and convince the sweetie to get out of bed before it all gets cold :)

I had a craving for slow cooked lamb shanks last weekend, so bought some when we went shopping.

This is a bit of a hack of Stu's original recipe.  Well actually I really have no idea what his original recipe is, but it involves tomato and worcecesestershire sauce.

So this is what I used for this one.

Lamb shanks, half a pack of bacon (leftover from the breakfast raclette), a few potatoes, an onion, half a head of garlic, a couple of parsnips (cause they needed using up), tin of diced tomato, a goodly slurp of worcestershire sauce, tomato paste and chicken stock (left over from the coq au vin that needed using up)

Chopped potato, parsnip, onion, garlic

Bacon!

Chuck everything into the pot

And cover with the wet stuff

Come back six hours later.

Of course I always forget to document the end.  But this is how it was served - meat pulled apart for sharing among three, brown rice, peas and corn, and mushrooms cooked in butter.

The Stus went back for seconds, so must have been ok :)

My favourite dish at Pulp Kitchen is the Breakfast Raclette, which consists of "bacon, potato, spinach and bechamel sauce with melted raclette cheese".

While talking to Marc and Jo online this morning I got inspired to make my own version.  It needs refining somewhat, because I really had no idea what I was doing.  The sauce was plenty cheesy, but since I didn't have any raclette and since I don't know what I'm doing, it was nothing like the sauce at Pulp Kitchen.  And I also undercooked the potatoes somewhat.

So I'll just have to keep trying til I get it right.. right? :)

Butter, flour and milk for a bechamel sauce.  Mozarella and paremesan cheese.  Some potatos, bacon and a chili cheese kransky for the sweetie

Get the potatoes onto boil first.  Wondering if thinly slicing them then baking them in cream like I do with my potato bake would work better?

Starting the bechamel sauce

Prepping the bacon and kransky

Cooking up the bacon and kransky

Bechamel sauce ready for cheese

I grated a pile of mozarella and a pile of parmesan but didn't end up using quite all of the mozarella

Everything puttering along

Once the cheese has all melted it should flow smoothly.

I cut up the potatoes and tried to brown them a little, but I should have taken the kransky and bacon out first.

All mixed up.  Doesn't look like much.

Just piled on top it looks a little neater.  The fresh thyme worked quite nicely too (still going through the box of it I got a month or so ago)

Very yummy, but *very* filling!

It being freezing at the moment, I'm not feeling much like salads with dinner.  Also, with the craziness of work I wanted comfort food for dinner.  Read, lots of cheese!

This is a recipe I got out of a "Four Ingredient" cookbook.  It has five ingredients.  Although technically the paprika is optional.

So this two bunches of asparagus, juice of one very old lemon that's been in the fridge for month, some melted butter, a pile of grated parmesan cheese, and paprika

Coat the asparagus in butter and lemon juice

Chuck on all the cheese and sprinkle a little paprika on top

Bake for 15-20 minutes

Yum!  Have made this a few times now.

I also did a tomato bake that night - tomato, oil, herbs, mozarella cheese. Love that recipe too.

And did I mention I wanted comfort food that night?

I grated some extra parmesan cheese and baked it for a few minutes at the end with everything else.