Birthday dinner

So my husband, who has been missing steak since I became vegetarian, managed to convince me to make him a steak dinner for his birthday. Once I agreed, he couldn't decide how he wanted it. In the end I made it in ALL his favorite ways, crumbed, with mushroom sauce, grilled with garlic and beef stroganoff. I figured I might as well do the fancy thing and make courses out of it (Masterchef here I come!). In case you were wondering, I had a veggie version of the stroganoff for my dinner.
I will post recipes later, but I just wanted to show some of the pictures.

This was the first course. Grilled steak with garlic and chilli, served with roast potatoes.

The second course. Crumbed steak with rocket and tomato. This one made me drool.

The third course. Steak with mushrooms and a soy sauce and garlic reduction. I served it with chive mashed potatoes. Isn't it pretty?

Then the final course, and I had my dinner along with this.

Just some side notes.. I like about 15 mins between courses, I'm sure there's a rule about this but I don't know what it is. I had 30 mins between courses 2 and 3, just because it felt right, it was like an announcement that you're midway through your meal. I have had plenty of dinner parties but none with "courses" so it took a lot more planning than I am used to. I had a big sheet of paper listing all the courses and everything that went with them. By the end of it, I had cooked two and a half hours and I was pooped.

Update: chicken nuggets

So here's the update on my chicken nuggets. We coated them with oil and stuck them in the oven. I have my hubby's guarantee that they were yummy, plus the fact he finished all 80 of them in a week!

This is how they look.

Yum yum. Better than store bought. In the words of the pioneer woman: Make this today!!

Chicken nuggets

Yep. You guessed it, I have been sitting on these photos for a while. I have no cooked picture of the nuggets because the husband hasn't made any to eat yet. When he does, I will post it. They're currently sitting in our freezer.
Homemade chicken nuggets are good because of 3 things:
1. they're cheaper to make
2. you know what bits of meat are going in
3. you can make them as spicy as you want (or with any other flavourings)

You need: chicken breasts (I always buy free range so we had a happy chicken), flour, milk, breadcrumbs and seasonings. I used a pack of 2 chicken breasts and I got almost 85 nuggets. You can use the same recipe for schnitzel.

Marinade your chicken with whatever seasoning you want. I used red chilli powder and salt.I had to bash my chicken breasts a little. I put cling film over them and used a pestle.

And then you cut it up (sorry for starting a sentence with "and").

When that is all done, season the flour and breadcrumbs with salt and pepper (ar anything else). Then put the milk, flour and breadcrumbs in different bowls like so...

 

Now the fun begins! Dip the chicken in the flour.

Then the milk.

 Then the breadcrumbs.

I dip it back in milk then breadcrumbs again. This can make a tremedous mess, make sure you have a "wet hand" and a "dry hand". Use the wet hand to dip in milk, and the dry for the flour and breadcrumbs.

I put them on wax paper in layers and froze them.

Fried fish (and steak)

Well if anybody was expecting meat recipes, prepare to be dissapointed. I am now pescatarian (I only eat fish as animal protein). The husband, however, is having some trouble adjusting to this and on odd occassion manages to talk me into making him some steak. There aren't very many photos, it only occurred to me halfway thru to take photos (oops!).

You need: Flour, milk, salt, pepper (or other seasonings). I used salt and pepper for the steak but lemon pepper for the fish.
You put the flour in a dish, the milk in a separate dish and you're good to go!

Season the fish/steak (I used tenderised or cube steak) and roll it in flour, then dip in milk and back in flour. The fish looks like this.

You need to let it sit for about half an hour. And then, because I was feeling naughty, I fried the steak in.... BUTTER!

Let each side brown for 5 mins then turn it over. For the fish, I cooked it about 2 mins per side. Then turn it over.

 Yummy for hubby! I served mine with savoury rice, roast potatoes and sauteed green beans. This was the hubby's plate.

And this was mine.

We were eating in bed (excuse the blanky) because it was FREEZING.
Make this sometime, both were so good (so I hear!).

Crepes Suzette

Yay so I am finally gonna post step-by-step photos for each recipe. My husband and I have moved to a bigger flat and now I can actually take pictures in the kitchen. This is one of my favorite breakfast recipes, and so totally easy.

You need: 1 cup of flour, 2 large eggs, 1 cup of milk, a few oranges (juiced), a cup sugar and a stick of butter.

 First, mix the flour and a quarter cup of sugar.

 Then add in the milk.

 Whisk and whisk till it's smooth and there are no lumps.

 Add the eggs.

 Then whisk some more! I used 3 eggs because they were small.

M

 Whisk till smooth, the batter will be quite runny.

Now to make the saucy goodness. Melt the butter in a pot with the rest of the sugar.

Add the orange juice and some water (not shown oops). You will only need about half a cup of water or so, depending on how orangey your oranges are. You're basically making orange sugar syrup.

Let this boil and reduce. You want syrup, not very thick but let this boil while you make the crepes.
Add 1 ladle of batter and swirl it around (my husband forgot to take photos, sorry).

 

Let it cook for about 2 mins on each side. You should turn it over when it looks like this:

I usually fold them in 4 and arrange on a platter then pour the sauce over. (Again, sorry this isn't shown, I'll get better at this!!)

And then....

You eat it!!!

It's smooth and sweet and perfect. I didn't add much sugar to the crepes because the sauce is so sweet, but feel free to change the amount of sugar.

Cauliflower Soup

Well, life got in the way of my food blogging (really need to start taking pictures!).. The reason I am back here is coz my cousin asked me for some recipes... I will start with this one....more to follow.

You need:
2 small heads of cauliflower
2 Tbs of sour cream
4 cups chicken stock
salt
pepper
3 Tbs white flour
1/2 cup milk (any fat content, just not skim milk)
1/2 a medium onion, finely diced
few Tbs vegetable oil

How to do it
1. Grate the cauliflower, discarding the tough centre. Use a food processor if you have one. There can be some small chunks.
2. In a large pot, fry the onions in the oil till golden brown.
3. Add the milk then the flour, keeping the heat low. Stir this well. Add more milk if needed.
4. Add the chicken stock and cauliflower.
5. Simmer on low heat till the cauliflower is cooked.
6. Add the sour cream and salt and pepper to taste.
7. Serve hot. Tastes better the next day.

This recipe can be frozen.

Roast beef

Roast beef....can taste like a piece of shoe if not done done properly. I honestly have to say, on this subjects of roasts, that it MUST be soaked in marinade for at least half an hour, and cooked in some too! A tasteless good quality piece of meat is a tragedy! I would put up my recipe for roast beef....but then I'd have to kill you.

But here's the original recipe (for topside/silverside roast):

You need:
1 Tbs honey
half cup of dry red wine
Generous glug of Worcestershire sauce
Generous glug of balsamic vinegar
Rosemary/Thyme/any fresh herb
1 tsp crushed garlic
crushed chilli (optional)

How to do it:
1. Rub herbs, garlic and chilli onto meat.
2. Combine wet ingedients and allow meat to sit for at least half an hour, turning twice.
3. If using a roasting bag (my preferred method); put some/all marinade in with the beef.
4. Reducing the cooking liquid once beef is done makes a great sauce!