Culinary weekend

Culinary actually may be a bit farfetched to describe my weekend but it sure did involve a lot of cooking and baking in prepartion for the week ahead.

Most weekends you'll find me in the kitchen baking snacks and meals either for the freezer or in preparation for the week ahead.

Lately ive been using the weekend to get a bit of a head start on meals for during the week. Husby has been working at least 2 nights a week so having dinner already prepared or at least some of the prep work done beforehand, makes those nights a little less stressful especially when Little Man has had less than the desired amount of sleep in child care.

When writing up our meal plan for the fortnight, i take those nights into consideration and try and plan meals that can either be frozen or are just quick and easy to prepare on the night.

This week I included a Thai pumpkin soup and a slow cooked chilli beef. Both of which are easy to prepare and can be frozen. 

I also whipped up some snacky things, mainly for Little Man but can be enjoyed by all of us - bacon,cheese and mushroom pinwheels and sultana and oat cookies.

I had a little helper for those.He mostly just liked eating the raw mix!

Last night I finished off making us pizzas. I usually buy the base which is bad but I haven't had much luck making it from scratch!
They were delicious. Pizzas are good for using up those leftover items in the fridge. We had some leftover cooked chicken, prosciutto and bacon. Bang that on with some 'pizza loving veges' and you have a sunday night pizza sesh!

Oh and cant forget the ice cream I made for dessert. Simple Vanilla this time.

The only negative that comes with cooking so much in one day...is all the DISHES! For the sake of keeping it real, here was a quick pic after I'd finished most of them. Nope, no dishwasher here! 

So now that some of the hard work is taken out, I can relax a couple of nights this week, even on the dishes!!

Three Things Thursday

I had a thought on the way home from work the other day (It's where I do some of my best thinking!) of a new blog post topic called  Three Things on Thursday where I can capture the three things from the past week Im loving!

So to start off we have:

Master A's cool new shoes!

Im not a big name brand person but my friend works at Nike and could give me a good discount, plus I figure his little feet could probably do with decent support. Not to mention they're oh so spunky!

DJ Flumes new album

I watched JJJ One Night Stand on the weekend and he was pretty good. Nice chilled out beats!
I already had his album but it sounds so much better after you've seen them 'live'.

 Tandoori chicken I made from scratch

I found Tandoori paste to always be quite expensive to buy in the shops so I googled one day and decided to make my own.
Its really easy, I make it up the day before so its already to cook when I get home from work.

If you're interested, the recipe is:
1/2 tsp Paprika
1/4 cup lemon juice
5cm piece of ginger
2x gloves garlic, crushed
1x tbspn salt
1x tspn chilli paste
1x tbspn garam Marsala
3x tspn cumin
3x tspn chilli powder
1x tbspn greek yoghurt
2x tbspn oil

Mix it all together.
Again, I don't measure exactly the ingredients but just go by eyesight. Which means each time it tastes a little different. I dont remember it usually being so hot so perhaps if you don't like very spicy food, leave out the paste and/or powder. I also added more yoghurt.
This was enough for 2x large chicken breasts.

So those of my 3 favs of the week!
Let me know if you are 'loving something sick' lately!

Kiwi muffins and a muesli slice

So as part of my weekend to do list, I wanted to make some healthy (ish) treats for our family for the week ahead. Kiwi fruit was out on special so I decided to whip up some Kiwi muffins. I also made one of our favourites-Muesli Slice. I make this instead of buying muesli bars (which are overpriced and can be full of sugar!)

The Muesli slice is a Donna Hay recipe so I'm thinking I cant repeat it here?? However it is found in her 2012 KIDS issue.
Basically its rolled oats, plain flour, any combo of dried fruits (I used apricots, figs and sultanas) and brown sugar (although i left this out). Combine this with melted butter and honey and bake in the oven until golden. Its so versatile because you can add as much or as little dried fruit as you like.
You could probably grate some apple or pear into it as well.

The Kiwi muffins are simple too:

5 Kiwifruit
1 cup SR flour sifted
3/4 cup wholemeal SR flour sifted
1/4 cup caster sugar (i left this out and they still tasted fine)
1 tspn baking powder
3/4 cup milk
75g melted butter
1 egg, lightly beaten,

Preheat oven to 200C.
Cut 3 kiwifruit into four slices each. Coarsely chop the remaining two. Combine dry ingredients. Make a well in the centre and add combined wet ingredients and kiwifruit. Stir gently until combined.
Spoon into muffin trays lined with cases or baking paper. Then add a slice of kiwifruit on top.
Bake for 20mins or until cooked and golden.

Mmmm delicious!

I thought this would make the perfect snack for Master A since he loooves muffins. But he turned his nose up at it!
Oh well, all the more for me and Husby.

Healthy dessert

We all love a scrumptious dessert but what about one that is delicious as well as healthy?! Oh and did I mention very simple?!

Enter the Berry Clafoutis! What is a Clafoutis you ask? Well, actually, I didnt know. But Google told me its a 'french baked cherry dessert with a battered flan top'. So, there ya go!

Anyway, I thought i'd share the recipe with you all.

BERRY CLAFOUTIS

500g frozen berries ( i used raspberries)
4 x eggs
250g thick natural yoghurt or ricotta
1/4 cup honey
150g almond meal
1tsp vanilla
zest of 1 orange

Preheat oven 180C. Arrange berries in the bottom of a flan dish (I just used a casserole dish).

Combine eggs, yoghurt, honey, almond meal, vanilla and zest using a whisk or processor until smooth.

Poor mixture over berries and bake for 30-40mins until golden.

Serve with cream or yoghurt. (Oops sorry about the quality of this pic. It was tastier than it looks here but the only photo I had of the finished product!)

Enjoy!

Mel xx