Easiest risotto ever (in answer to a meme)

Prue tagged me for a recipe meme she was tagged for by Nicole.

The idea is you take at least one ingredient the same as the tagger's recipe and put up a new recipe on your blog.

Rules:
Choose one ingredient from my recipe and post a recipe using this ingredient on your blog, linking back to the previous blogs that have posted a recipe.
- Then tag four new people, and we will see how it grows.
- To keep it exciting please post within a week of receiving the tag

Prue did a moroccan chicken casserole
Nicole did a creamy chicken casserole.
Ally ( the origin) did an apple and pumpkin risotto

I'm going with the oil or garlic or stock (take your pick).

I've chosen a baked risotto, as someone who loves risotto but really can't always be bothered standing there stirring. This is easy and yummy comfort food.

Baked lemon & basil risotto. Serves 4 by itself or 6 with meat.

2 tbs olive oil or the spray if watching fat
2 leeks sliced
grated rind of one lemon.
2 crushed garlic cloves
2 cups arborio rice
6 cups of vegetable or chicken stock (This is the trick - by adding more liquid - a 3 to 1 rather than 2 to 1 ratio, you can put it in the oven and leave - give it a go with other risottos)
at least 1/2 cup torn basil, or more to taste
at least 1/4 cup grated parmesan or more to taste
salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Preheat oven to 200 C
Heat oil in frypan over medium heat. Add leek, garlic and rind and fry til soft
Put in casserole dish and add rice and stock and stir. Cover and bake 40 mins at least, or until at texture you desire.
Remove and stir in basil and parmesan and season to taste. Sit a couple of minutes to thicken and then serve.

Options:
Instead of parmesan, use a slice of brie on top.
Can add chicken in if precooked.
Can serve with veal/pork/fish/salad.
Put some white wine in instead of some of the stock.

Adapted from a Donna Hay recipe.

I tag Kristen, Cecily, Mim and Andrew - only if you want to. And Cecily and Andrew cause wanted to see the difference between what the husband puts and what the wife puts!!!

Baking not blogging

I've been baking a little recently (not blogging so much had an internet problem). The latest things made have been a bready gingerbread (yes, I owe the recipe to some of you, haven't typed it up yet), a lemon yogurt cake, and today for my mum in law for mother's day dinner,a pear and maple syrup crumble. Let me share that with you because it is really free and easy and strict measuring really isn't important - I made it tonight by chucking in handfuls of things pretty much at whim. Serves 4.

fruit filling:
4 pears roughly chopped, leave skin on. Put in baking dish, chuck in brown sugar, maple syrup and raisins to taste. I could forgo the raisins, but Bhaer likes them.

topping:
almond meal, rolled oats, brown sugar, maple syrup and softened butter. Make enough to cover top, and mix ingredients to taste. I personally love a brown sugar heavy top.

oven: preheat 180C. put in well about 30-40 mins, but look just check it, top must be browned and pears soft.

Very adaptable to what you have at hand. Also very calorific - but hey! It was mother's day!

No photo. Is in my tum.

mincing around

I've been having some adventures with mince this weekend (kinda ironic I'm blogging this so soon after veggie post), cooking some new kid friendly, veggie full, easy and cheap mince meals. The food mags seem to have responded to the recession with mince meals, so I adapted a couple of them.

First up Saturday night was homemade sausage rolls (I made mine with veggie mince, but everyone elses' with veal mince). The difference with this homemade variety was lots of added veggies - grated carrot and zucchini, chopped onion, garlic and shallots, lemon zest and also some low fat cheese. Sparky ate it all up, Scout not so keen - I think I might use the zest more sparingly next time as I think that was his issue. Still ate a good amount. Tomato sauce had by all.

Tonight, we had savoury mince, an old favourite from childhood (I had something else this time, but will have to try a veggie version I think, after tasting the sauce for this one). Bhaer had never had savoury mince!!!! Bhaer and Sparky loved it, and Scout went pretty well. Lots of finely chopped veggies and onions thrown in, with lean beef mince, and a sauce made from soy sauce, flour, beef stock, and a french onion soup packet. I served it up on toast- Sparky had his first go of using a knife and fork properly. Scout was given the toast as finger food and the mince as spoon food. He enjoyed that! And Bhaer was so enamoured of his first taste of good ol savoury mince, he went back for seconds.

Thriftiness in cooking

I'm feeling very 1950s as I write this! Trying to save money at the supermarket has been going well (which is helpful at the moment!).

Here are some more cooking ideas that have been working for me:

1. Reduce the amount of meat meals you have. People often eat a lot more meat than necessary, and it tends to be the most expensive element of a meal. They say (the infamous they...) you don't need meat every meal.

2. Try tofu. No, I'm serious. For those who haven't cooked it, it can be offputting I know, but you need to use the right kind - I find firm tofu (or nigari) is the easiest to cook. It soaks up sauces well, so it's great in stir fries and laksa. It is cheap, and a very good source of protein. Also can be cut into thin strips, fried and then soaked in soy sauce - quite yummy.

3. Try tinned fish. I've been substituting tinned salmon in salmon recipes.

My greatest budget triumph was tonight's meal - last week I found 1kg of carrots on sale for 99c so I bought them on spec. Tonight I cooked 500g of them into soup for 2 of us - just add stock, half an onion (which was hanging round in the crisper about to go off), one garlic clove, bay leaves, parsley and season. We had it with sourdough bread that had been on special. Not entirely sure what that ended up being per serve, but I'm guessing under 1.50 each. The leftover bread is in the freezer to make croutons later this week.

I think I'll be a cook when I grow up...

This is Sparky's latest ambition (we have had doctor, fireman, artist, super hero, teacher...).

He said this after we cooked dinner together today. We have baked before, and made simple dinners such as pizza and burgers together before, but this was the first time we chose a main meal together and cooked to a recipe. This was prompted by Sparky looking at my latest foodie mag (see above) and finding a Junior Cooks section and a recipe he wanted to try. The recipe, for the record, was a savoury version of a bread and butter pudding, and he ate his portion almost all up! Sorry, no pic, I didn't think of taking one until it was all eaten up.

I hadn't done this before as I thought he was too young, but now I am motivated to include him in cooking a lot more. Why?

1. He enjoyed it

2. What's more, I enjoyed sharing this with him.

3. He was motivated to eat what he made

4. He learnt cooking skills

5. Maybe he will cook for me sooner rather than later

6. Maybe he might cook for his own family when he grows up and my daughter in law will thank me.

7. Enjoyment of cooking is now not just linked to sweet things and treats.

super thriftiness

Lately, I've been more interested to save money at the supermarket (because it's hard to save it elsewhere at the moment like at the pump or the mortgage!!!).

Here is what I do:

1. go shopping after receiving the local supermarket's catalogue, so I know what is on sale when I plan my meals and the overall shop. My local is woolies - you can view their specials online if you don't have the catalogue.

2. I also take a look in my fridge and pantry at what I have that needs to be used up, and try to think of recipes based on that - in light of which I just found a website for USING LEFTOVERS - punch in 3 ingredients and find recipes to use them up. You could also use this by typing in ingredients on sale that week.

3. work out how many nights I need meals for - and sometimes I deliberately plan for one meal less as this allows for those nights where something came up, or forces you to use up leftovers in making a meal - I usually plan for 5 dinners a week - allowing for one takeaway (Fri night before I go to work - cheap like sushi) and one easy meal like soup/eggs/cheese on toast/leftovers (usually Sun night after big day and often eating out during day with people from church).

Is it just me?

Does anyone else do this? I have a little book I write favourite recipes in - one side adult, the other kid oriented. I write down my own little changes and tips when I copy recipes. I take this when I go away so that I can cook my own recipes. I lent it to my mother when I had my youngest so that she could cook food for my eldest from the recipes he was was used to eating. I lost it for a while (which was quite distressing!) but recently found it when I did a big clean up. But here's the morbid thing - I make sure my husband knows where it is in case I get run over by a bus. I reason that it's hard enough to lose your mum, without losing all your favourite reassuringly familiar food as well.

In other news (using the word in the broadest sense), Sparky just got his winter shoes, and at 3.5 years, he is now wearing (gasp!) size 11. By my reckoning, he will have the same size as me by around age 7. Which will be handy - stilettos go down a treat with the other boys in the playground LOL.

it's not like the good old days...

Due to small kids, I have eaten things that I hadn't eaten for a long time. Among these are biccies. Anyone else noticed that they don't make em like they used to?

Cases in point:
Gingernut biccies: these used to be so hard that a loose tooth would come out when you bit into them. Now they crumble at the least bite. You used to have to dip them into your glass of milk. How do kids get their loose teeth out now?
Tic Tocs, Hundreds and Thousands, Honey Jumbles: a thin skimpy layer of icing where once a thick sweet crust reigned. Oh, and Hundreds and thousands should be renamed Ones and Tens. Though maybe this is nutritionally better.

According to this site, which reviews biccies (oh yeah..........don't you just love the net) , the gingernut has different recipes in different states, with NSW the hardest - well not anymore in my opinion.

ON THE OTHER HAND: I still say there is nothing like an Arnotts biccie. My husband is a Kiwi, and he prefers the NZ verions of biccies. They do not measure up! (Ok nostalgia plays a big role here)

I feel I need to add here that my kids do eat fruit, vegetables, wholegrains and these biccies are part of a balanced diet ;)

easy peasy tasty hasty kid's cooking

Well I had an idea.... I've just been making some Sparky meals and freezing them today, and thought - why don't we share our easy peasy tasty hasty tried, tested and true kid's meals? oh they can be for the whole family too! and if you have some allergies or what have you you have to deal with, then please contribute one of your recipes so we know what to make when a kid with that allergy or so on comes round for tea.

So, from me - this is the help i'm running out of things to feed him and haven't been to the super market in a while and I've only got a spare 10 mins to cook for him...and can I keep costs down too??

2Min noodles gourmet
2 packs 2 min chicken noodles any brand - aldi if being cheap works well - of course if you want something more upmarket any noodles work.
some chopped vegies - can be frozen! or whatever is knocking round the fridge and needs eating up - one combo i use is peas, mushrooms and ham.
some meat - chopped up ham, or mince of any meat type works well.
some oil, oil spray or butter to grease the pan.

Then if you want a creamy sauce (this works nice with ham) 300ml or more of cream (don't worry, pouring or thickened seems to work well - I use leftover cream of any description).
If you want a chinese style sauce (goes well with pork mince), use soy sauce and any other ones similar hanging out in your fridge door (hoisin, maggi seasoning sauce go well).

Squash noodles while in packet - now they are easy to eat for littlies. prepare as per instructions,. meanwhile, brown meat in saucepan. add vegies, add your combo of sauces/cream to taste - simmer til vegies soft. Add flavour packets (or only part of them if want to reduce sodium intake) to noodles, then drain noodles, but reserve half liquid and add to pan with noodles. stir and warm together - then voila! some meals (number depending on appetite).