recipe

Christmas left me with a whole lot of tomatoes in the fridge. Half a container of small red cocktail tomatoes, most of a container of mixed red and yellow cocktail tomatoes, and a whole unopened bag of Roma plum tomatoes.

And with Tanya and the kids off to Knysna for a week, I figured I would make tomato bredie (Tanya hates mutton, Jessica’s a vegetarian, but Tamsyn might have liked it, except I put a whole lot of chili in).

Found an Ina Paarman recipe online, used a whole lot less mutton, and three whole green chillies from a packet that I stuck in the freezer a couple of years ago.

Used this nifty Christmas present to reduce the sauce. Ain’t it cute?

*burp*

We invited Tanya’s folks over for supper on Saturday. I had to do some tech support for a friend in Somerset West, then went back via Bellville to get an O ring from the hardware store and a bunch of supplies from the Fruit & Veg.

Found a rather large (it was still the smallest on the shelf) hunk of marinated pork loin roast. Which I had to cut in half to get it to fit my black pot.

I also went via the Constantia Aroma (for bubbly) and Pick & Pay, where I found a large bunch of beetroot for R5.99.

Tangent : As a kid, I didn’t understand why my mother liked asparagus from tins or beetroot from jars. Then I met fresh asparagus and beetroot, which both really rawk. I suspect my mother was searching for that taste, the canned stuff being a weak shadow.

So I cooked the beetroot according to the first recipe I googled. Topped and tailed them, rubbed the skin off, sliced and stuck them in the fridge. (First time I used the electric domino, works well).

Back to the roast. I followed a recipezaar recipe I’d used before, except that with the pork being pre-marinaded, I skipped step 3. I also made mustard-roasted potatoes, which were excellent. Persuaded Tanya to steam some veggies, and skipped making the braised sauerkraut (in hindsight, probably a mistake). But nobody noticed, because the pork was excellent. And then some.

I wanted to make gravy from the juice in the pot, but it was very fatty, so we skipped that in favour of the ready-made stuff. And I must say, the Denny brand gravy is excellent.

So, on to the reverse risotto. After the juice cooled down, I removed most of the fat (and threw it away, I should have kept it, but right now space is an issue — I need to get a chest freezer organised). Heated the pot up, and fried rice in the oil, added wine — you know, classic risotto recipe. Except then I added water only, figuring that all the tasty bits were in the pot already.

And they were. My oh my, this is good rice.

Jessica (the 13 year old) had a friend over, and they wanted to bake. Chocolate cake. So I found a recipe and let them loose in the kitchen.

I had to intervene to explain that 350 degrees was Fahrenheit and our oven works in Celsius/Centigrade, and I had to explain that “baking soda” is probably what we call “bicarb”, but for the rest all went well and nobody got poisoned.

If you found something this colour in the Amazon rain forest, you would do well to avoid it…

We had a black south easter blowing — lots of rain, from the south, which showed up at least three leaks that were not there with the prevailing rain from the north we’ve been having all winter. Soup weather.

Normally I would make snert, but I needed a quick recipe, and it also needed to be vegetarian.

Google turned up http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/vegetarian-split-pea-soup-recipe.html

I added a turnip, and (vegetarian) bacon bits. And of course Worcester sauce.

The “add salt” hint works well. I put in at least four times the salt I normally would. Wow.

I picked Alex’s Chicken Marsala as a candidate for supper last night.

Followed the recipe until I started looking for my bottle of Marsala — the one I’m sure I had, but couldn’t find. Either Tanya drank it while I wasn’t looking (or I helped her drink it and can’t remember, which is entirely likely) or I misremember (also entirely likely).

Substituted dry sherry and a bit of port.

With mash (three potatoes, one turnip), brussels and broccoli, it was great.

Some day I’ll make it again, with marsala.

Continue reading…

So I’m spending an hour or two each evening at the house. Which means that I don’t have time to cook, much. But we’ve already done pizzas and fish&chips this week, and Tanya had to go collect the kids’ reports, so… I decided to slap something simple together.

We had most of a roast chicken in the fridge (supper-in-a-hurry from earlier in the week) as well as mushrooms and red peppers so we decided to do a risotto (something I make often).

So I sliced some meat off the chicken and fried that in my black pot. Also cut op one small turnip that was lurking in the back of the fridge, added that. Took the chicken out, fried the mushrooms. Took that out (the turnip was also done by now) and started frying the onions.

This is where one would add the rice and then start slowly adding the stock, but I figured that all of this was going to take too long, so I stuck the rice in a separate pot, added some turmeric (some? Eish, Idunno, prolly about a level teaspoon, I didn’t measure. How much rice? Didn’t measure either, 3/4 of a cup I’d guess).

Added the red peppers to the pot, stirred a bit, deglazed the pot with some Petit Chenin, and put everything I’d taken out earlier back in. Added some water and a bit of chicken stock powder (won’t do that again, next time I’ll put the rice on sooner). Added some frozen peas.

When the rice was done, drained it, stuck it in the pot, stir, serve. My only complaint? Not enough chili. Figures, since I didn’t put any in.

It even looks nicer than Barbara’s Hillbilly Fried Rice. But she writes better than I can. And I bet her Hillbilly Fried Rice is divine.