Tuesday Snapshot- Edamame?

See that thrilling bowl of culinary geniusness? That was my dinner tonight. Yep. A large bowl of soy beans also known as Edamame. Nice. Well, not really. I ate my beans begrudgingly.

Want to know why? Because my house smells like a fart. Yep. It really does and it's not even slightly funny.

It all started with me thinking that because tonight is our second evening on our new healthy eating plan, that I should go to a little bit of trouble with dinner. So I decided to cook this here. Only I was roasting the whole chicken not the Maryland pieces and I substituted the potatoes for grilled capsicum. I was feeling particularly wholesome and stepfordy when I bought a fancy organic, corn fed chicken from the overpriced fancypants meat shop this afternoon.

I lost my cooking mojo when I became a mum. I used to really enjoy cooking but these days it is a chore so I even surprised myself when I was looking forward to making a nice dinner tonight. I was almost smug as I thought about my fabulous stepfordness. Until I got home.

I opened up the packet that the chicken came in and almost immediately I was overcome with a very very bad smell that would make Rotorua seem like a bottle of SJP's perfume. Tinker, my helpful assistant said "fluffy?" (this is what we call a fart) and I said no, no fluffies. "Melly poo?" No, no smelly poos either my darling. That is the smell of $30 wasted and the real death of my cooking mojo. So we wrapped the chicken into two of her nappy bags to contain the scent and we threw it out.

Not long after that my husband called to say he wouldn't be home for hours and had eaten dinner at work. So that is how I came to settle for a bowl of edamame. I was so exhausted after Tinker's bedtime tantrums and so cross about the chicken that I went for the beans. hmmf.

So that is the first of my Tuesday Snapshot posts. I will take a random photo every Tuesday and post it here to show you something remotely interesting about my day. I can't guarantee it will get any more interesting than a bowl of beans but I'll try my best.

What's for Dinner Wednesday? Pasta Piazza

Ok so this week's recipe is a lie. Only because it isn't really what we are having at our house (we are having the rib recipe I did last Wednesday) but it is a real recipe and this week it is brought to you by Oracle one of my regular readers. Thanks Oracle!

Now she has slightly broken the rules by making something with more ingredients that I normally use on a Wednesday and she admits it uses a fair few dishes. But I figure if her husband loves it this much, then he will do the dishes and that kinda makes up for it, right?

Ok here is Oracle's recipe below and if you have a quick and easy recipe for a Wednesday please shoot me an email!

Pasta piazza (pasta square)

500gms of pasta
1kg of minced meat
2 jars of mushroom and red wine Bolognese sauce
Oregano
Basil
Garlic
2 onions
30 Gms butter
125mls Milk
1 table spoon of cornflour
2 cups of grated cheese

Method
Pre heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius

Pasta
Boil water with a pinch of salt and a dash of olive oil
Cook pasta until Al dente

Meat
In a hot frying pan break up meat and add onions, Basil, oregano and garlic
Drain fat and brown meat.
Add two jars of sauce and let simmer for 15 minutes.

White Sauce
In a small sauce pan melt 30 Gms of butter take off heat
Mix in one tablespoon of corn flour to make paste.
Add milk leave to bubble then stir until it resembles a white sauce consistency.

Pour the pasta into a large rectangle casserole dish
Then layer meat over the pasta
Then layer white sauce over the meat
Finally top with 2 cups of cheese

Pop in the oven for 20 minutes on 180 degrees Celsius
Cheese should be golden brown.

Serves 6-8 served with a green salad or winter vegetables.


Oracle also says This is great for winter and my husband loves it a lot of people say it is lasagne with pasta but it is not layered like lasagne and
It is much yummier. It doesn’t take long but it does use a lot of dishes.

What's for Dinner Wednesday?

I was thinking tonight that we could have a weekly post with quick and easy dinner ideas.

Would anyone be interested? I'll post one each Wednesday. It has to be something easy, quick and reasonably healthy. I often find myself feeling slightly Iron Chefish when I have no idea what to cook for dinner and no time to nip out and get ingredients so I need to make do with what I find at home.

Tonight I had some fresh corn fed chicken breast fillets and not much else. For a change, I had a shot of brilliance and remembered an easy weeknight meal recipe I read at the doctor's surgery on the weekend. I have been known in the past to do a cheeky rip and steal of a good magazine page but with a bouncy toddler to entertain, thieving pages just wasn't possible. Fortunately it was a basic recipe so I managed to store it in my mind. I amended it and tried it this evening,

BBQ Balsamic Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Steamed Veges

2 Chicken Breast Fillets
1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar
1/4 cup Olive Oil
2 tablespoons Soft Brown Sugar

Mashed Potatoes- I keep riced potatoes in my freezer and when I need them I just add them to some boiling milk with a spoonful of butter. You have perfect mash.

A potato ricer is a great tool to have, you really should get one if you haven't already! To use the ricer you boil the potatoes with the skin on. When cooked you peel and put through the ricer. This is the only way to make good mash, I've seen people boiling peeled potatoes and I don't like it. You fill your potato with water and it doesn't taste so good.

Anyway the frozen riced poato freezes perfectly and I always try to keep a little stockpile for nights like tonight when the little one went to bed late and I wasn't in the mood for cooking much.

Steamed veges- whatever you've got in the fridge/vege patch or freezer.

I had some broad beans in the freezer tonight so I shelled them and gave them a quick steaming and I had a couple of carrots that I cut into little Julienne strips and steamed quickly. Simple!

Now for the chicken you cut it horizontally so you have 4 steak-like pieces. You add the oil, balsamic vinegar and sugar to a bowl mix and add the chicken. Let it sit there while you prepare your veges and set the table.

Throw the chicken on the BBQ about 5 mins per side and serve with the mash and steamed veges.

Healthy, low fat and quick and easy. Everyone has a bottle of olive oil, balsamic vinegar at home and brown sugar of course. Chicken breasts are easy to freeze so you should have them on hand as well.

So there you go, it was really good and really quick. If you have a recipe you wouldn't mind sharing please email me and I will post it next Wednesday. If you have a photo that would be fabulous. I only thought of the picture after we had eaten so it was too late, sorry!