My Yummy Asparagus Pastry

Oops .. I said I'd post this ages ago ...

This was so easy.

I just got out a piece of puff pastry, laid it out on a cookie sheet lined with baking paper.
To the top, I added :
Chopped Spring Onions
Chopped Garlic Shoots
Chopped Asparagus
Pine Nuts
Kalamata Olives
Feta Cheese

I think I drizzled with olive oil.

Baked in oven til pastry was cooked.

Easy.

Yummy.

Rory said it was even better for leftovers the next day.

Orzo Veg Salad

I got the original recipe for this from
"Moosewood Restaurants Low Fat Favorites"
... a cookbook I'd love to own.

I've modified the recipe and am posting that modified recipe here.
(if you want the original ... get the book !)

1 package of Orzo pasta (called Rissoni in Australia)
1 tble sesame oil
1 cup chopped red bell peppers (red capsicum)
3 spring onions, thinly sliced
grape or cherry tomatoes
mushrooms

Cook the orzo, til al dente. Drain. Rince with cold water. Toss with sesame oil and set aside. (I've just realized I didn't do that !! -- oops)

Chop all the veggies and add to the salad.

Top with this dressing :

3 tablespoons rice vinegar
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon Chinese chili paste (I used Korean chili paste as I didn't have Chinese)
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger root (I used the stuff out of a jar)
2 garlic cloves, pressed or minced (again, I used the stuff out of a jar)
salt and ground pepper to taste

Serve hot or cold. Delicious both ways !!!

Pollo Wrap

You may have figured out by now that we like to put leftovers in flour tortillas and toast them in our sandwich press !!

The Pollo Guisado con Papas leftovers were perfect for this ! Uh, yeah, we're not afraid of carbs around here. Probably shouldn't eat as many as we do but we're not going to talk about that right now !

If you find yourself with leftovers of this amazingly delicious dish and want to try it a different way, get out your sandwich press, fill a flour tortilla with the leftovers ... yep, even the rice. Wrap 'em. Toast 'em. Eat 'em !!

You could even add a bit of cheese ... like Rory and the kids did !

What's for Lunch ?

My kids like a bit of Spaghetti with their Parmesan Cheese for lunch ...

Soy Yaki Udon

Yaki means 'fried' in Japanese.
Udon noodle is thick noodle with flour.

- Olive oil ( Cooking oil )
- Soy sauce 2 big spoon
- Sugar 2 small spoon
- Minced Ginger 1/2 small spoon
- Garlic (optional)
-2 packs of Udon Noodle

At Woolworth, I buy one packet of 100g Udon Noodle with only 1 Australian Dollar.

I'm not sure that Udon Noodle can be easily found in the States.

'Soy Yaki Udon' is affordable and easy to cook.

All you need to do is throwing soy sauce,sugar,ginger and olive oil and Udon on a fly pan.

Bonnie Makes The Pollo

Has anyone besides me made this yet ?

IT IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD !

... and easy to make.

Try it.

You'll like it !

Pollo Guisado con Papas

Menu Plan Monday - Bonnie - Edition 31

Monday:
Sushi

Tuesday:
Falafals & McClaine Potato Salad

And that, my friends, is as far as I got this week.
Not a good week for menu planning !!

But next week ... next week, I've got a surprise for you.

But you'll have to come back next week ...
because I can't share it before then !!

Pop over to I'm An Organizing Junkie for more menu planning ideas.

Menu Plan Monday - Bonnie - Edition 30

Monday:
Eggs on Toast

Tuesday:
Pollo Guisado Con Papas

Wednesday:
Sushi

Thursday:
Falafals & McClaine Potato Salad

Friday:
Pizza

Saturday:
To friend's place for dinner

Sunday:
Chinese Orzo and Veg Salad

** Pop over to I'm An Organizing Junkie for more menu planning ideas ...

Menu Plan Monday

This is my first time planning for the week, much less posting it, so thanks for not mentioning the fact that it's now Wednesday.

Monday-Burritos at a friend's (with this awesome guacamole...)
Tuesday- Thai chicken soup
Wednesday- we eat at church, it'll be a surprise
Thursday- Chicken fried steak (a girl from church is coming to our house and teaching us how.)
Friday- Steak with olives (I'm excited about this new recipe. If it's good, I'll post it.)
Saturday- Cabbage Chicken Salad (with leftover steak instead of chicken)
Sunday- Green enchiladas at another friends.

It's a big week for eating with other people. Should be fun.

Kitchen Poetry Day 3

Dukkah for dinner ! Love it.

My challenge for myself for tomorrow is to get a kitchen photo that doesn't involve food !!

What's for Lunch ?

Jono and Alia love it when I put sushi in their lunches.

I usually just make them kappamaki ... cucumber rolls.

Kitchen Poetry Day 2

I snapped this while unloading and putting away my groceries ...

No, my eggs weren't open. I opened them for the sake of the photo ... :)

Pop over to Simple Sparrow for more Kitchen Poetry.

Fish sauce - Jeogal

Bonnie made a lovely Kimchi with Authentic Korean Fish sauces.

there are lots of fish sauces.

Jeotgal or jeot is a salted fermented food in Korean cuisine. It is made with various seafood, such as shrimp, oysters, shellfish, fish, fish eggs, and fish intestines.
Jeotgal is mainly used as a condiment in pickling kimchi and as a dipping sauce for pig's feet (jokbal) and blood/noodle sausage (sundae). Sometimes jeotgal, commonly saeujeot, is added to Korean style stews (jjigae) and soups (guk and tang), for flavor instead of using salt or soy sauce (ganjang).
The types of jeotgal vary depending on main ingredients, regions, and family and personal preferences. In past times, due to the limited transportation, regions near seas had more types of jeot compared to the inland areas.

- from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeotgal

My Egg dish from the other post is cooked with a shrimp saurce.

A (shortened) Menu Plan

Pam and I took a little field trip to the asian grocery store downtown and to the new low-price organic grocery store called Sprouts. Both stores were really fun! We had to stop ourselves from buying absolutely everything in sight :P

Sunday - Sushi Bowls
I found a nice sized chuck of delicious yellowfin tuna at Sprouts for $2.88!

Monday - Pasta Puttanesca
A tube of anchovy paste JUMPED into my cart at the Pacific Mercantile and all of a sudden I had to make this amazing pasta dish!

Tuesday - Chicken Vindaloo
Also making the leap into my cart was a packet of vindaloo seasoning. It just begged to be slathered all over my costco chicken. And wouldn't ya know, a box of palak paneer was on sale at Sprouts!

The rest of the week I won't be home for dinner. Fortunately my shortened menu makes up for it with sheer yuminess!

Spaghetti Aliolio

An easy, throw together, four ingredient (if you count the Parmesan cheese) meal !!

You will need garlic, Olive Oil, some form of pasta ... I like vermicelli.

Slice the garlic. We like lots.

Cook the pasta.

Fry the garlic in the Olive Oil.

Drain the pasta.

Mix in the garlic and Olive Oil.

Top with Parmesan cheese, if desired.

Serve with a glass of wine.

Bread and salad go nice with it but then it's not as quick and easy !

Menu Plan Monday

AHHH! Tis the soup season. We are finally getting Fall weather and there is something mysterious in the air that makes me want to make lots of SOUP!
Monday - Honey Pork Chops With baked potatoes and greens
Tuesday -Spinach Orzo Chicken soup
Wednesday - Spaghetti
Thursday - Fireside Beef Stew - I'll take a picture and post the recipe this week
Friday - TGIF's Black Bean SoupSaturday -
Saturday - Rory's Carbonara
Sunday - Leftovers

Kitchen Poetry

Toni over at Simple Sparrow, a blog I only discovered today through a new blog I've been reading called Such Things, is doing the coolest thing for the next week ! I'm going to participate. Maybe not every day but I'm sure going to try ! Here's an excerpt of what Toni said. Ok, ok (!) it's more than a excerpt, it's almost her whole post but to paraphrase it would not be near as eloquent ...

I'm going to start halfway through a thought, just because I can !

QUOTE .... got me thinking about the kitchen, about food, about how preparing nourishing and appealing meals shows so much love for your family. About how much the kitchen is the hub and heart of a home. Good smells, conversation, laughing, messes, cleaning-up. Little hands reaching to help, big hands stealing a taste, coming together to enjoy the fruit of your labor. It all takes place in the kitchen. So much of life happens in the kitchen.

Starting Monday the 3rd through Sunday the 9th I will be posting a photo a day of moments in my kitchen--and I would love for you to join me! The photos don't need to be only of food, oh no. Favorite dishes, pretty corners, rays of sunshine, little ones playing (for a time, Noah always brought his toys into the kitchen) If it's happening in the kitchen, it fits. I would really love to see photos that are not so much set up, but captured randomly as you go about your day. Just carry on as normal, but snap a few pics in the process. Think of it as kitchen journalism.

If you would like to join in, leave a link to your blog or flickr page here in the comments. Then we can all share in the kitchen poetry you've captured. Spread the word too! END QUOTE

Here's my first photo ...

PS ... I won't be posting a menu plan this week. I haven't planned a menu. Not really. I really want to eat up what's in the pantry / fridge / freezer this week so we'll see what comes of that !!

Beer Battered Fish

This was yummy. I found the recipe here ... you should go check it out.
I love the way she presented the meal !

Kevins Beer Battered Fish (she copied directly from here ... and I am copying directly from her)

Ingredients:
1 bottle beer- I used a light lager
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 large egg (lightly beaten)
1 pound cod fillets (or halibut, or haddock, etc., cut into serving sized pieces)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup flour
oil for frying

Directions:
1. Mix the beer, flour, baking powder, salt and egg into a batter in a bowl.
2. Season the fish with salt and pepper.
3. Dredge the fish in the flour and shake off any excess.
4. Dip the fish into the batter.
5. Fry the fish in preheated 375F oil until cooked, about 4-5 minutes.

Grace's breakfast

Today I would like to invite you my breakfast table.
In Korea, meal is same word as 'rice'.

Actually, there are two different words to call rice: 'Bob' is cooked rice ,which is steamed rice.
Another is 'Ssal', which is uncooked as a grain.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner can be called 'Bob'.

Of course, Jun and Grace normally have 'Bob' three times a day with 'Bob' in Korea.
Since we live in Australia, at least one meal we try to have as we used to eat in Korea.

Saturday Breaky - I did four side dishes and Korean Miso soup.
Side dishes - Steamed Egg with fish sauce.
Fried Tofu
Steamed Broccoli with chilly sour sauce.
Nori(Seaweed, there are at least 10 different seaweeds, Korean and Japanese eat)


Side dishes are important. A bowl of rice always goes with savory dishes.
Odd number is preferable so 3,5,7,9 side dishes are served in traditional serving.

Soup helps digesting a bowl of rice.
Children easily put their rice in the soup eat with spoon.

I did mushroom , potato, Chilly Miso soup.
I will post it later how to cook.

Scrumptious Soft Pretzels

I found this recipe HERE.

I should have listened to her and tripled the recipe !! These were sooooooo good !

CUT and PASTED from the link above :

Soft Pretzels

INGREDIENTS:
1 tsp active dry yeast
Pinch of sugar
1/3 cup warm water
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp canola oil

3 tbsp baking soda
1 cup hot water (as hot as your tap can get)
Sea salt


DIRECTIONS:
Dissolve yeast into water with a pinch of sugar, let stand 10 minutes, until the mixture is creamy colored. Mix the yeast mixture with flour, sugar, salt and canola oil, and knead until combined (a few minutes, not even 5). Let the dough rise in a greased bowl until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. When the dough has risen, pinch off a handful and roll it out into a long strand. Set aside. Repeat with the rest of the dough, about 6 times. Once all the strands are rolled out, pick up the first one and stretch it out again (the gluten will have relaxed and it should stretch further now). Twist it into a pretzel shape and place it on a baking sheet lined with silipat or cooking spray. Repeat with the rest of the strands.

Dissolve baking soda into hot water and stir until dissolved. Quickly dip each rolled pretzel into the mixture and place it back on the baking sheet. Sprinkle all the pretzels with sea salt, to your preference. Bake for about 8 minutes, until pretzels have browned.

Makes six medium-sized pretzels.