Chicken Divan

Chicken Divan

Instructions:

·         Simmer chicken until cooked through

·         For each 9x13 pan:

o   Cut up 1.5lbs of cooked chicken, place in pan  (Note: it takes more than 1.5lbs raw chicken to make 1.5lbs cooked!  We learned this the hard way!!)

o   Add frozen broccoli

o   Mix together 2 cans cream of chicken soup, 2 teaspoons curry powder, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, and one cup mayo – pour over chicken and broccoli

o   Mix together 1.5 cups shredded cheese and ½ cup bread crumbs – sprinkle on top of pan.

·         Wrap pan securely with plastic wrap and top with foil.

Instructions for Cooking:

Thaw casserole.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. 

Asian Dinner

I'm not sure this fits into the catagory of necessity being the mother of invention...but invent tonight I did - and it was a grand success! I have this little quirk that I have a hard time eating something I have recently thrown up...its been YEARS since I've eaten alphabet soup. But I digress. Tonight's menu plan was just a little too close to my Thanksgiving Eve puke-fest prior to emergency gall bladder surgery...ANYWAY. I invented the following...and boy was it yummy!!


Asian Broccoli/Cauliflower
Bag of frozen broccoli and cauliflower. Cook per package directions. Sprinkle on a little bit of soy sauce and a small dab of butter. Melt the butter and serve.

Asian Roasted Carrots
Preheat oven to 375. Peel enough carrots for your family. Cut into short, thin sticks. Line cookie sheet with tin foil and spray with olive oil cooking spray (regular would probably work fine too). Lay carrot sticks out in one layer...I tried to not have them touch so they would cook quicker. Spray the top of the carrots lightly with the cooking spray and then drip a tiny line of sesame oil over the carrots. Sprinkle top of carrots with sesame seeds then mix the carrots up a bit and lay them flat again. Bake the carrots until they are soft enough for you. I baked mine approximately 20 minutes, shaking the pan after the first 10 minutes. Serve.

Asian Grilled Fish
Place fish (I used swai) on a double layer of tin foil. (one piece of piece per foil packet) Mix a small amount of sesame oil and peanut oil and spread over the top of the fish. Flip fish over so oil gets on the tin foil. Flip fish back over so bottom of the fish gets a coating of the oil. Slightly fold up the edges of the foil layers so that the next bit of sauce doesn't spill onto your counter. Mix a bit of (the amounts are dependant on how many pieces of fish you have) rice vinegar and soy sauce together. Spread enough on the fish to thoroughly coat. Flip fish and coat the other side. Sprinkle top of fish with sesame seeds. Fold two sides over the fish and then fold the remaining two sides to create a packet. Grill on high for approximately 10 minutes. Open the packet(s) and put the whole thing in the oven on broil. Broil for a few minutes until the sesame seeds have toasted a bit. Serve. The fish basically steamed in the packets on the grill, so the fish was very moist and yummy.

the mini-me ~ a bella russia original

last night we did pizza night with friends

it is tradition with these friends that you make your signature pizza on your first visit

so, last night ... it was Bel's first visit ... and she pulled off a ripper

THE MINI-ME

she calls it

You will need ...

Pizza dough
Tomato based pizza sauce
Kalamata olives, diced
Red onion, slivered
Feta cheese, finely diced
Broccoli, finely diced
Sun dried tomatoes, finely diced
Fresh parsley
Mozarella

Yogurt or sour cream
Garlic, crushed
Fresh chives, chopped

Here's how you make it ...

Mix yogurt (or sour cream) with garlic and chives to taste. Set aside.

From Bel ... and I quote "The key with the mini-me is the spacing and finely chopped-ness. It is a vegetarian dish from the backstreets of Florence. The recipe has been passed down through families over centuries and was initially dated back to some time near AD250."

Everything after her first sentence may or may not be fictional ....

Using your favorite pizza dough, spread it with a tomato based pizza sauce, evenly space all ingredients (as you will see demonstrated in the photo below). Top with a light sprinkling of mozzarella. Cook in pizza oven, BBQ or oven .... you decide.

Top with garlic chive yogurt ...

spankikopita meatballs with tsatsiki dressing

Rory and I made an interesting discovery last night. When you have a gas stove and you run out of gas, you can't cook on your stove anymore til you get more gas. We discovered this half way through making dinner !! We were making this. So ... Rory took the half cooked chicken out to the BBQ and finished cooking it. I cooked the Israeli cous cous in the microwave. Thank goodness I'd already finished cooking up the lemon.capers.almonds in butter. They're the best bit !!

The new gas bottle doesn't come until THURSDAY ! Good thing tonight's meal was one for the oven and tomorrow's can be done on the BBQ !!

These meatballs are yum. I loved them. I served them with tsatsiki, rice and roasted garlic brocolli. I need to stop. I'm making myself hungry again !

I found this amazing recipe here.

Here's how I did mine ...

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely dinced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 box frozen chopped spinach, defrosted
500g ground chicken
1 tbsp hoyts BBQ and grill greek giro sprinkle (i tried to find this online to show you but came up empty ...i'm sure any sort of greek seasoning will do ...)

Preheat oven to 400F/200C degrees.

Defrost the spinach in the microwave, squeeze out excess water. Place in a large mixing bowl with the rest of the ingredients and mix really well.

Roll into about 18 (1 1/2 inch) meatballs and place on a cookie sheet. Bake for about 12 minutes, turn over and bake for another 10-14 minutes or until the meatballs are golden brown and cooked all the way through.

Roasted Broccoli and Cauliflower

I've posted this recipe before but only using the cauliflower.
While I was in the States, we decided to try it using broccoli as well.
It was nice, although Rory didn't really like the broccoli.

Anyway ... this is super easy and tastes soooo good.
I didn't even measure.
Just pick apart a cauliflower and broccoli - into florets.
Slice up a bunch of garlic to whatever size you like it.
Put the veggies and garlic in a baggie with some olive oil.
Shake.
(I don't actually use the baggie ... I just put them in the baking dish and sprinkle the oil on top.)
But whatever floats your boat.
Bake in hot oven (220C) about 25 minutes.
Stir half way though.
Top with Parmesan cheese and parsley.
Put under broiler 'til cheese browns. (about 3 minutes)
That's it.
Delicious, I'm telling you !
You've gotta try it !!

PS ... Sometimes I don't use the Parmesan cheese ... it's delicious that way too.

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.

Broccoli Salad

Ingredients:

1 Medium bunch of raw broccoli

1/2 cup Mayo

1 Tlbs red wine vinegar

1 Tbls sugar

1/4 cup raisins or craisins

1/2 cup slivered almonds or pine nuts

1/4 cup bacon bits

Cut the raw broccoli off the stem into bite size pieces. Toss the first five ingredients into a bowl and mix well. Let chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve, then add the almonds and bacon bits. Note: the longer it chills in the refrigerator the better! We love this recipe, yummy!

Janelle

Chicken and More ..

Macadamia Chicken
Broccoli with Garlic and Chilli
Lemon Roasted Onion and Carrots

.............................

Macadamia Chicken.

I got this recipe from a lady named Megan who participated in one of those email recipe exchanges.

• 600g - 1kg chicken breast fillets - sliced.
• 1 cup crushed macadamia nuts
• 3 cups of fresh breadcrumbs (Just chuck bread into the food processor and process til it looks like breadcumbs ... I used whole grain bread)
• 250 g of shredded parmesan cheese (I just used the stuff I always keep in the fridge ...)
• 2 tablespoons wholegrain mustard
• 2 tablespoons of fresh parsley
• 120 g melted butter ( I used olive oil instead of butter )

1. Grease baking dish (I used baking paper instead )
2. Place sliced chicken pieces evenly across bottom of dish.
3. Combine all other ingredients and spread evenly across all the chicken.
4. Bake in moderate oven (180C) for 30-45 min.
5. Cut into squares and serve with salad. (is really nice with cranberry sauce or mango puree)

I didn't serve with salad ... or the sauces.

I served with the following :

Lemon Roasted Onions and Carrots (from:The Great Vegetarian Cookbook)

• 2 large brown onions
• 2 medium lemons
• 5 small carrots
• 4 unpeeled cloves of garlic ( I, of course, used many more than 4 ! )
• 6 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Cut onions and lemons into eight wedges
2. Combine onion, lemon, carrot, garlic and rosemary in baking dish. Drizzle with oil, stir gently.
3. Bake, uncovered, in moderate oven about 1 hour or until tender.
4. Increase overn temperature to hot, bake vegetables about 10 minutes or until browned. ( I skipped this last step as I didn't think it was necessary ... )

AND THIS :

Broccoli with garlic and chilli (from: Super Food Ideas magazine April 2007 edition)

• 800g broccoli, cut into small florets
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced ( uh, yeah ... more than that )
• 1/2 teaspoon dried chilli flakes

1. Bring large saucepan of water to the boil. Cook brocolli 3 minutes or til bright green. Drain.
2. Meanwhile, heat iol in a large, deep fying pan or wok over low heat. Add garlic and chilli. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until aromatic. Increase heat to medium. Add broccoli. Toss until well coated.
3. Season with Salt and Pepper. Serve