Day 169 - Thai Waterfall beef salad

After days of heavy eating and drinking, I desperately needed a dinner that didnt make me feel like a boat anchor!

Morry googled this recipe. It was a perfect blend of crispiness with the rocket, crunchy little tomato and bean sprouts. The beef was BBQd beautifully and it was served with a typical thai dressing, light and fresh.

My tip is to give this a go!

Day 168 - Marc & Johns

Dinner was fabulous but I had a champagne in one hand and a canape in the other, so predictably no photos!

Marc and John made arancini balls, little ricotta muffins (may absolute favourite) and spicy meatballs as an entree, and then Bouffe Bouginon for main, served with duckfat? potatoes and a steamed green salad steamed to total perfection.

Decadent dessert.

I ate the lot.

The wines were simply excellent. I cant tell you what they were but it was a smorgasboard of excellence!

Day 167 - The quiz night

no photos. Which is a very good thing really.

Day 166 - Kafe Kefi

We had dinner with John and Anna at Kafe Kefi. OMG

The food was possible the best quality food I have had in a restuarant in memory. The only down side was that the portion sizes were too big. Yep, you read it right, too BIG!!!

The white bait was brilliant. Big puffy yummy wait bait. And the char grilled squid was succulent. the salad was rocket - enough said!

More entree dishes, we had chicken wings - im not sure where they source the chickens from! The dip selections was nice but the pita it came with was outstanding. I couldnt stop eating it!

We inteded to cancel the mains as we had eaten too much, but they came anyway. One seafood, the other meat. They are intended for one apparently. But thats just not possible. Everyone leaves with a doggy bag or two.

Day 165 - Quiche Lorraine for the boys, chinese 5spice chicken for us

Donna Hay, chinese five spice chicken. The chicken was great, but the broccolini was a bit tough.

Salad for lunch - couscous, almonds, brocolli, snowpeas, red onion, field mushrooms, currents and lemon zest. The perfect lunch!

Quiche Lorraine for the boys

Day 165 - Sandwich bread

I am actually posting this recipe becuase I have finally found a great recipe for sandwich bread. I have tried a few different ones but the bread always seems a bit solid which is all fine and well for ciabatta loaf, but not really ideal for the boys school lunches.


But I have cracked it - its in the flour. Dont use baking flour, just use normal flour and it comes out light. I used a combo of 200g wholemeal & 300g white for this one, but I would change it depending on the sandwich filling. Rye flour would be good with an oily fish, like hot smoked salmon! 

Ingredients

500g flour - a combo of white/wholemeal/rye
7g yeast
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon honey

Method

1. Tip the flour, yeast and salt into a large bowl and mix together with your hands. Stir 300ml hand-hot water with the oil and honey, then stir into the dry ingredients to make a soft dough.
2. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 mins, until the dough no longer feels sticky, sprinkling with a little more flour if you need it.
3. Oil the loaf tin and put the dough in the tin, pressing it in evenly. Put in a large plastic food bag and leave to rise for 1 hr, until the dough has risen to fill the tin and it no longer springs back when you press it with your finger.
4. Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Make several slashes across the top of the loaf with a sharp knife, then bake for 30-35 mins until the loaf is risen and golden. Tip it out onto a cooling rack and tap the base of the bread to check it is cooked. It should sound hollow. Leave to cool.

Day 164 - ah har, me hearties

Soup, oh yummy, hearty soup! And I made some ciabatta bread. The Ciabatta recipe comes from the common sense baking guide that I bought a while ago, it is a bit of a tricky recipe, as it takes a day to make in about 3 different steps, but it was really lovely fresh out of the oven with soup and lashings of butter (I have banned polyunsaturated fats in this house in favour of saturated fats as I think they are healthier, so its real butter for us!)

The soup was really tasty and very filling. Perfect for a cold night!

Recipe

In a good lug of olive oil, saute 1 chopped onion, 1 crushed garlic clove, 2 chopped carrots, 2 chopped sticks of celery and 4 rashers of bacon. saute until everything is a bit soft. Add  a cup of red lentils and a litre of chicken stock and cook for about 15 minutes.

Cook lots, its very tasty!