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Happy new year 2009

Well I hope you all had a good year in 2008  and if not that the year ahead is going to be even better.

Life holds so many new things for me in the year ahead. Im hoping to be a bit more on to it when it comes to posting stuff on here, so keep coming back regularly and check it out.

Went over to some freinds house last night and I cooked  a 3 course low fat dinner silly blonde thing that I am forgot to take pictures of the entire meal  but let me create a word picture for you. You can check out the recipes in the recipe section here.

we started off with a vegetable and dip platter

which had yellow capsicum, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms which i marinated in fresh lime juice and black pepper,courgettes, pita bread crunchy bits,  with a cottage cheese and sundried tomato dip and a pea and basil dip .

The Main course was skinless chicken which was stuffed with a little of the cottage cheese dip and slices of sundried tomato, that was then seasoned with black pepper,balsamic glaze, smoked paprika, and a very small drizzle of olive oil and then bbqed  ,I served this with bbqed corn cobs seasoned with black pepper and a small drizzle of olive oil again. A salad of tomato, red onions , cucumber tossed in a light balsamic dressing  and minature baked potatoes stuffed with baked beans, wholegrain mustard and potato were served on the side.
For Dessert I made a low fat chocolate cake ( I got the recipe from Taste magazine  see the links page)

It was a recipe from the latest issue and it had cherries in it, I switched the cherries for fresh raspberries,fresh blueberries and fresh strawberries , and added a little vanilla to it, it was incredible and with only 5gms of fat per slice, I served this with low fat custard, and low fat greek yoghurt and decorated the top with fresh berries.

My freinds just loved it , we are all doing low fat stuff so I wanted to show how we can make a meal from start to finish using  all low fat products and producing great food that if you didnt know it was low fat you couldnt tell

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Meat in the kitchen ….. Steak anybody?

Over the last few weeks we have been working with all kinds of wonderful meat products , once again revisiting old favourites and discovering new things

Thank goodness Im an Omnivore the amount of meat things we have cooked recently would give  a vegetarian a heart attack  :o) sorry vegetarians  :o)

we have done all kinds of things from a steak bearnaise  to a lamb rack and lots of things inbetween

our steak Bearnaise was served with lyonaise potatoes, green beans, bearnaise sauce and garnished with deep fried shallots  ooohhh my word they have to be one of the best smelling things in the world when they are cooking (the shallots that is)steak bearnaise

A roasted Pousson stuffed with a barley risotto and Chasseur Sauce , we deboned the pousson  which I hadnt done in a very long time. ohh my goodness ,  that barley risotto is the nicest flavour and such a great  side dish

roasted poussincut roasted poussin

I wanted to show you how good the stuffing  of the barley risotto looked.

Beef Bourgignone is a very classical dish  and is one of those foods/smells  that  just fill the kitchen with warm smells/feelings of coming home and having love and comfort surround  you.

beef bourgignone

The Beef bourgignone was served on a fondant potato and  with crispy parsnip shavings

Just another one of these comfort wrap around your heart foods is Lamb Shanks slow braised in a rich red wine gravy with vegetables.  You can tell its winter when you look forward to these wonderful comfort foods to take the chill out of your bones and just let the smells of love wrap themselves around you.

We served this gorgous little baby with Duchess potatoes, which is mashed potatoes mixed with egg yolk and melted butter,   with the actual shank we served it   with a pear william  which was a duchess potato shaped in to a pear and then crumbed and deep fried , oh my word , talk about  delicious. We had a play as well and made a few other shapes  just for fun ,  a croquette, a bernie (round ball) which I dipped in almonds and  also an apple which I dipped in to sesame seeds and used  almonds for the stem in both the pear and the apple. We could choose what to crust it with. My tutor was most impressed and I was thinking these would be great items on a buffet or banquet table

lamb shanksduchess potatoes

and for the ultimate  in being decadent in taste how about a herb crusted lamb rack with roasted pumpkin and hot german potato salad with a marsala jus lie

rack of lamb

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General Stuff

brrr a cold snap has wafted in over the last few days

so tonight Matthew its going to be a turn on the oven and heat up the house dinner.

I felt like having chicken but doing something different for dinner tonight , so I had a chicken thigh and drumstick and seasoned it with salt and lemon pepper, sat it on a small bed of curly parsley and added lime juice and fresh pizza thyme and baked it in the oven , at 180 degrees then 20 mins before it was cooked added brown button mushrooms and some whole tomatoes and roasted them off and rounded it off with fresh bread and butter.

I felt like being a bit decadent and have made a vanillary rice pudding with sultanas for later . a rich milky warming comfort dish mmmm yum

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General Stuff

Im in love with the Food Network

I have just had Sky tv put in and just loving food tv

It has been inspiring me to do different things with food at home instead of the same old same old

Last Night I made a Fregola salad with carrot, cucumber, tomato and a little soaked dried apricots tossed in a passionfruit and black pepper dressing with Chicken breasts stuffed with blue brie and soaked dried apricots and coated in panko and lightly pan fried . mmmm delicious, will post a pic of it tomoorow

Tonight I made a very easy but tasty dish of beef sausage saute with cherry tomatoes, green beans and this amazing little tastebud tempter that i have just discovered…. Smoked red baby onions , ohhhh my word it takes something ordinary and gives it a nice little flavour boost , i had this with a slice of ciabatta bread