Tag Archives: dinner

The Cupboard was Bare – Not Really

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We arrived home early this morning after an overnight flight from Singapore.  I had pretty well cleared out the refrigerator before we left and shopping was the last thing on my mind this morning.  The house-sitters had bought fresh milk for us and GMan made a loaf of bread.

This afternoon I began to think about what we might have for dinner and I really was not in the right frame of mind to go grocery shopping shopping so I decided to make do with what we had on hand.  There were sausages in the freezer as well as some pre-cooked rice and diced raw onion.

I grilled the sausages and then sliced them up. Next, I fried the onion in the pan, added 1/4 teaspoon of chilli powder, sliced celery (from the garden) and a broccoli stalk which was also lurking in the freezer.  A can of tomatoes and 5 olives which was all that was left from a jar in the frig completed the sauce.  I added the thawed rice and sliced sausages and heated the mixture before putting it in a Pyrex dish.

2015-09-13 01I topped it with a mixture of grated cheddar and parmesan cheese mixed with flaxseed meal and ground pepitas and popped it under the grill for a few minutes.

2015-09-13 02Since we had not bought any fruit and vegetables today,  I served it with a generous helping of kale from the garden which I chopped and stir-fried with a sprinkle of chilli powder and squeeze of lime juice.

GMan and I ate one half of this tonight and the other half has been divided into 3 serves for my lunches this week.

Eating In – Baked Potatoes

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Baked potatoes are one of my favourite meals.  They are probably best wrapped in alfoil and cooked in the coals of an open fire but that is generally not practical so we compromise with what we have.  It is uneconomical to turn on a conventional oven to bake 2 potatoes and for many years I cooked them in the microwave.  While they are not strictly baked it made it reasonably quick and easy meal for a family.

In the last couple of years I read about cooking baked potatoes in the slow cooker.  According to the article, you simply wash and dry and potatoes, rub them with a little bit of oil and put them in the slowcooker on High for 4 hours.  It just seemed too easy but I decided to give it a go as I had nothing to lose – except maybe 2 potatoes.  When I took them out they were cooked to perfection and were even crispy-skinned on the bottom – just like the ones you can buy from the baked potato carts in the street!

Since then I have tweaked the recipe slightly and add a spicy coating.  Black pepper, herb salt, cumin and chilli (just a pinch of each) into a bowl and a teaspoon of flaxseed meal.  I use this because it is gluten-free and it has some nutritional value.  You could just use plain flour (either wheat or gluten-free) if you prefer.

005Rub the potatoes lightly with oil then roll in the spice mixture and place in the slow cooker.  No other oil or liquid is needed. 006I find that 4 hours is perfect for medium-sized potatoes but if you have larger ones you may want to extend the cooking time by another 30 minutes.

I serve these filled with refried beans and topped with a dollop of plain yoghurt and grated cheese.  Coleslaw is a favourite addition and usually some fried mushrooms.  Alternatively, you could fill with a bolognaise mixture or even tuna for variety.  Some salad on the side makes a complete meal.

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Just Another Day………..

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You may or may not have noticed the lack of ‘Sew My Stash Sunday’ post yesterday.  There was not much use posting as I had not done any sewing.

A busy week at work followed by gardening on Saturday and guests for lunch on Sunday put sewing firmly on the backburner this week.

Today was not quite ‘just another day at the office’ as it was my birthday and of course that was a great excuse to have cake for morning tea.

2015-04-20 01GMan happened to have the day off today so it was lovely to come home to dinner prepared and ready to be served.

I am feeling very loved thanks to all the messages, phone calls and cards from my family and friends.

Simple Food

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Simple really does come in all sorts of guises and one of them is food.  Here is what we had for dinner on Friday night.  It was the end of the working week, we were both exhausted and not keen on creating a huge meal so I pulled this together with what was in the refrigerator and pantry.  It took about 5 minutes, presented well and was nutritious and filling.

Dinner

The tomatoes, figs and pumpkin were from the garden.  The pumpkin had been roasted to use on pizza and I had some left over.  Cheese, capsicum and cucumber from the refrigerator and finished off with walnuts and dried apricots.

Do you make any truly simple meals?

This is just a quick post as I have been away for a couple of days with my job so no time for blogging.  I am working on a new post about my wardrobe.  It may be ready tomorrow night so look out for it coming soon.

Nachos Night

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As per my menu plan for the week , we had nachos for dinner last night.  Like everything I prepare on weekdays, it is quick and easy.

Nachos ingredients

Corn chips
Tinned tomatoes
Refried beans
Cheese

I make my own refried beans from the recipe here using dried kidney beans.  I freeze the mixture in 500g tubs for future use.

Last night I used tinned crushed tomatoes but you can use chopped fresh tomatoes or even a bit of diluted tomato paste.

Making nachos

Here is the first layer – corn chips, refried beans, tomato and then grated cheese.

Add layers until desired quantity is reached.

Nachos - ready for oven

This is 3 layers ready to go into the oven.  I use 2 small Pyrex casserole lids as I find the Pyrex easier to clean than a metal tray.  This used half a packet of corn chips and is a substantial meal for 2 adults.  I serve this with home-made guacamole and yoghurt on the side.

Total preparation and cooking time is about 20 minutes.

Time To Think

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Sometimes I have a precise menu plan for the week and other times I make it up as I go along.  Today I had not even taken anything out of the freezer so spent a little time while I was on the train this evening planning what to eat for dinner.  I decided on grilled sausages with vegetable patties and fried mushrooms.  Of course we have home-made tomato sauce with the sausages.  This was all prompted by knowing that there was some leftover sweet potato mash and some leftover cooked rice in the refrigerator.

Leftovers

I picked some bok choy from the garden.

Bok choy

I chopped and lightly stir-fried the bok choy before adding it to the mash/rice mixture.

Stir-frying

I added some herb salt, black pepper and 1/2 teaspoon of cumin to the mixture along with a small egg and some chickpea flour.  The mixture was very soft so it was a matter of placing dollops of it into the pan and frying both sides.  Finally, I fried some mushrooms and dinner was ready.

Dinner

A filling dinner and the verdict from The Duke was, “Yum”.  You can’t ask for much more than that.

How do you deal with leftovers?

Dinner Module

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I have previously mentioned the concept of having modules to contain items fore a particular purpose.  It helps to set limits so that you cannot begin to store more of a group of items than what will fit in the container.

Modules are also a useful concept to keep all of the things that will be used for a project in one place.  It is this theory that I applied this morning in my kitchen.

Before I left for work I began the preparation for dinner.  We will be having stuffed capsicums (red peppers) so the peppers are de-seeded and washed.  I also thawed some rice which I will use when I make one for The Duke and there is grated sweet potato for the stuffing of mine.  I have not finalised exactly what else I will use but there will definitely be mushrooms in the mix.

So, I grabbed a large plastic container (and lid), put all of the partly prepared ingredients in the tub and popped it in the fridge.  Now it is all ready to go when I get home so I can quickly finish the preparation.

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