Yummy roasties

Curiosity and getting sucked into advertising results in a chef's cheat to yummy roasties:

Saturday morning breakfast for one

Saturday home lunch

A weekly grocery shopping in Superquinn resulted in the purchase (a bad 'I told ya' purchase) of a gimmick !

How to make instructions in the box

The idea of homemade will taste better than store bought didn't prove correct in this case. Wish I had bought the M&S one :( Don't know what it was but it just didn't taste....... nice !

Nachos with crappy guacky and yummy cheese dip

M&S tomato and (can't remember which cheese) puff pastry tart. Yum Yum

Beef green curry a la T

Ingredients

Having the green curry craving and the lack of money to be visiting Koh every week only results to one solution- learn how to make it yourself! Did cheat a little bit though- bought a ready made store bought spice kit :D

Hmmm, not sure if I would go for this again... ?/10 - I'll have to make my green curry paste from scratch, compare and then mark!

Usually for stir fries I use the beef stir fry strips that have become widely available in Tesco and Superquinn, but on this occasion I have gone for beef flank, and it was a great choice if I do say so myself. Sometimes the beef stir fry strips are tough when cooked, especially if it's not marinated for long enough, but with the flank didn't have that problem at all. It came out nice and 'soft', no chewiness at all. It deserves claps all around.

Marinated in the usual chinese marinade, soya, sugar, oil.....

Veg used in the curry

Bubbling away in the wok

And voila, Beef Green Curry.

The usual suspect was there looking up as always

 

Saturday Kitchen

I haven't had a day in ages where I spent it cooking a meal and a desert ! But yesterday was the day. Getting itchy fingers from watching Jaimie Oliver's 30 minute meals, something had to be done. The kitchen was busy with the making of Jam Frangypan Tarts and T's Southern Fried Chicken.. Yum Yum Yum. I marinated the chicken overnight in a buttermilk and seasoning, did it do anything for them? I don't know! But they did taste pretty damn good. Actually amazing if I'm allowed say so myself :) The skin was so tasty and crisp. Full of flavour. Waistline doesn't agree though. But then it never gets a say :P Go on the tastebuds.

So proud of my little tarts. They were a tad, ok a bit too sweet though. Next time think I'd add less sugar in the frangypan mix. But if you eat the tarts with whipped cream it kinda balances out, and if you scoop the mixture in the tart, scoop most of it out leaving a tiny bit, it's yum yum.
I made the pastry myself it's definitely a winner. A recipe that will be used again next time for sure. Have even been thinking of what I make it with next time, maybe some bakewell tarts?

Pre baking the tarts

Pre baked tart cases

Add in the jam and frangypan mixture into the tart cases and bake!

Out of the oven and just chilaxing

And voila- homemade jam & frangypan tarts served with cream

And for dinner- T's Southern Fried Chickennnnnnnnnnnnnn & Homemade Fries

Drumsticks with a chili coating (tried to make it spicy like the KFC in HK) and thighs without

Up close and personal

Dinner is served, chips were yummy, like chipper chips :)

My number one dog fan :)

New addition to the fridge

Mrs. Lemon Tea & Mrs. Lemon Ribena

BoBo = 2

Happy Birthday BoBo :)

Different take on chicken curry

Was getting a bit tired of the usual chicken curry, diced chicken pieces, potatoes and carrots in curry sauce so decided to change it around slightly, just a tiny bit. Instead of using chopped up chicken chunks I went for a deep fried corn fed chicken leg! . . . That's about all the change that went on, well I did leave out the potatoes and added broccoli into the sauce, and had chips on the side :)

Dinner at Koh

Me and Mr.C at Koh take 2. Our second time going to Koh and definitely won't be our last.We went for the early bird menu which = great value and very damn tasty.

For starters I had the aromatic duck- not very Thai but I had a craving for it when I saw it on the menu. It was an extra 2-3 euro onto the early bird price but Mr.C was happy enough for me to put it on the bill :) On the menu it said it came with plum sauce which I thought was a tad bit odd, but when it came it was actually the usual hoi sin sauce.

Can't go wrong with aromatic quack quack

Here's Mr.C's starter. Tom Yum Gong. Very spicy but very tasty

And for mains I opted for the very yum yum green thai beef curry. Gosh was it spicy ! So spicy but yet so good at the same time. Only slight problem, they used thai aubergines and not the usual long purple ones I'm used to. Didn't like them at all. They were much harder and my taste buds didn't think much of them. 

My favourite thai green curry :)

 

 

 

 

 

Mr.C's beef with chili and basil FOR THE BRAVE i.e. level 4 on chilies! I've no idea how he did it but he ate the whole thing. I tried it and boy was it spicy!

T's chinese roasts

My chinese cooking skills have stepped up a little notch, I've moved on from steaming and stir frys to making home made char siu :D Oh and crispy roast pork which was crispy crisp crisp :)

Here's the crispy roast pork. It took forever to cook, no wonder nobody cooks it at home really! Stupid butcher slashed the pork skin, but good thing it still turned out crispy. Didn't take a picture of the cut up plated pork due to I couldn't be arsed, I just wanted to eat it!

 N here's little Bo waiting patiently hoping something will fall on the floor :D

Yummy char siu, tasted velly velly good, if I do say so myself :D I will definitely be making these two again :)

Saturday night dinner

I hate doing both cooking and cleaning !! :( But since it was a Saturday and I had the whole day to, well do nothing, I guess it's ok that I do both without complaining :)
Favourite chicken has to be HK chicken. There's something about the flavour of the chicken in HK- it has 'a chicken taste'. I've found, well I only know of it due to my mum, the closest over here to it is corn fed chicken, and they were doing special offers for corn fed chicken in both Superquinn and Super Valu. Result= steamed chicken :)

One sauce for me, one sauce for Mr.C who doesn't like scallions!! So I made him a chili soy dip

Steamed chicken, topped with some chinese sausage:P (chinese sausage craving)

 

Broccoli with some chinese bamboo thing

Steamed salmon

Dah Bin Oh

One of my favourite meals of all time has got to be hot pot! There's just something about the thinly sliced beef, fish balls and chili soya dip, especially on a cold night washed down with a can of cold coke, beer in other people's cases! Yum Yum Yum. Also a favourite of Suki and BoBo's :) Oh how could I have forgotten the enoki Japanese mushrooms! Could seriously eat packets and packet of them non stop.

So we had beef, fish balls, crab sticks, tofu, salmon, scallops and of course enoki mushroooms.