Weekend Cooking: The Actually Delicious Slow Cooker Cookbook by Poppy O'Toole

Last month, the Lambs Ears Cook Book Club chose Poppy Cooks: The Actually Delicious One Pot Cookbook by Poppy O'Toole as it's March selection. I tried to get that one from the library but they didn't have it, so instead I borrowed Poppy Cooks: The Actually Delicious One Pot Cookbook instead. 

We haven't had much luck with British chef  Poppy O'Toole. I love watching her, and I like her voice and attitude. The intros to her recipes are always a lot of fun, but the two cook books I have tried from her before were interesting, but there wasn't much that I wanted to cook from them. 

Poppy is a Michelin trained chef who gained popularity on the socials during the pandemic when she started sharing all the different things you can do with a potato. It turns out that there is a lot and so the first book I looked at was her potato one, and then I borrowed her air fryer cook book because we are still looking for better ways to use the air fryer. 

If it hadn't of been for the cook book club, I wouldn't have even looked at this book, and I would have missed out, because there are quite a few things we have made from this book and they are all good. So much so, I am contemplating buying this book so we can keep cooking from it!

The book is set up in a pretty standard format with chapters covering Soups, Chicken, Beef, Lamb, Pork, Turkey, Veggies and Desserts. As you would expect from a cook whose passion is potatoes, there is a whole chapter on potatoes in this book as well. 

We have a combo slow and pressure cooker all in one, and we tend to use the pressure cooker function more than the slow cooker. With the weather becoming cooler, it was a good time to try some of these hearty slow cooked meals.

So far we have tried Beef Bourgignon, Marry Me Chicken, Chicken and Chorizo Orzo and Tomato and Paneer Curry which is the recipe I am sharing today. All of them have been good, with nice flavour which sometimes can go a bit missing when you are cooking things in the slow cooker. 

There are so many recipes that I would like to try though which is why I might need to purchase this book. Some I want to try include 

Soups: Spicy Gochujan Noodle Curry, Laksa, Ramen, French Onion Soup, Hearty Whole Chicken Soup

Chicken: Coq au Vin, Teriyaki Chicken, Honey Garlic Chicken Thighs, Fajita Chicken, Chicken Korma and more 

Beef: Beef Rendang, Stroganoff and more

Pork: Char Siu Pork, Overnight Apple and Cider Pork Bap

Veggie: Potato and Aubergine Curry, Breakfast Home Style Potatos

For the record, we also tried a recipe called Chicken and Orange Tray Bake which comes from the One Pot book and is available on her website. It was delicious too.

Today I am sharing the recipe from the Tomato and Paneer Curry which was really good. Before I went to India last month, paneer isn't something that I would normally have gravitated to. While I was there we ate quite a few curry dishes which featured paneer so now I am looking forward to experimenting with it more.

Tomato and Paneer Curry 

1 red onion, thinly sliced 
4 fat garlic cloves, grated or crushed 
2 red peppers, deseeded and cut into 2cm slices 
thumb-sized piece of ginger, grated, or peeled and julienned or finely chopped
 1–2 green chillies, thinly sliced (or 1–2 teaspoons chilli flakes) 
450g paneer, cut into 2–2.5cm dice 
25g butter, cubed 
1 x 600g jar of passata 
1 tablespoon tomato purée 
1 teaspoon caster sugar 
1 teaspoon garam masala 
1 teaspoon cumin seeds 
1 teaspoon salt, plus extra to season 
150ml single cream 
1 lime, juiced 
150–200g spinach 
small handful of coriander, stalks finely chopped, leaves roughly chopped 

1. Add the onion, garlic, peppers, ginger, chillies, paneer, butter, passata, tomato purée, sugar, garam masala, cumin seeds, teaspoon of salt and lots of black pepper to the bowl of your slow cooker. Cook on high for 4 hours, until the veg are completely tender and the paneer is pleasantly soft, but hasn’t completely fallen apart. 

2. Stir in the cream, lime juice, spinach and coriander stalks, until the spinach has wilted. Taste to check the seasoning and adjust as needed. 

3. Divide the curry between four bowls and scatter over the coriander leaves. 

Weekly meals

Saturday - Swedish Meatballs
Sunday - Marry Me Chicken (new)
Monday - Pork chops with mash and broccoli
Tuesday - Spaghetti Bolognaise
Wednesday - Away
Thursday - Away
Friday - Away

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Weekend Cooking/Cook the Books: The Language of Food by Annabel Abbs

 

When I saw that this book was the selection for February/March for Cook the Books, I wasn't 100% sure if I would read it or not as it would be a reread for me and I don't generally do rereads. However, FOMO is real and so I did end up reading it again, and I am glad I did.

I have a potted history with this book, which is also published under the title Miss Eliza's English Kitchen. Originally I tried to read it on an Easter road trip back in 2022. I struggled to keep interested so I put it down, only picking it up again 6 months later. I had to start reading the book again, and this time I thought it was quite good! However, I think it is a book that grows on you because when I started it again for this post, I struggled to be able to put it down. It's a book that seems to get better each time you read it!

The Language of Food tells the story of Eliza Acton and her assistant Ann Kirby as they developed what is credited as the first cookbook targeted at domestic cooks. She was also the first person to include a precise list of ingredients as part of the recipe, although she had it at the bottom rather than at the top.

It is a shame that Eliza Acton is not more well known, as her story is interesting and she has left a  lasting legacy. Interestingly, she started as a poet but when her poems were rejected she was tasked with writing a cook book. At the time, she couldn't cook at all. However, when her family fortunes are decimated, she and her mother find themselves running a boarding house for respectable people in the town of Tonbridge. Eliza is determined that she can do better than the cookbooks that were available at the time, and so she starts to teach herself to cook and write the recipes, testing the recipes for preciseness and taste.

Ann's story is also interesting, albeit almost opposite to Eliza. She came from a very poor background with a father with a penchant for drinking and a mother who is demented. Her local priest finds her a place with the Actons. She soon shows that she not only is a hard worker but she has a good sense of taste and cooking skill. Soon Eliza is talking about her book as "our book" with Ann, which suggests a closeness but both of them are keeping very big secrets from each other.

When I read a book for Cook the Books, I am always on the look out for what it is that I am going to cook so I take note of all of the mentions of food. I am glad I didn't keep a list for this book because there are SO many mentions of food the list would have been more than a page long. However, as soon as I got to a particular section, I knew that I at least had a direction, partially due to the fact that I have recently visited India.

At one point in the book, Eliza has a suitor named Mr Arnott who is a spice merchant, which seems an ideal match for her. Mr Arnott loves curry, and there is a mention at one point of egg curry, and that was my decision made.

Last year, I wrote about a cook book called Everything is Indian. I previously shared a recipe for delicious Curried Sausage Rolls, but one of the other recipes we have tried from the book was an Egg Curry, and so today, that is the recipe that I am going to share today.

The next selection for Cook the Book is called The Call of the Camino by Suzanne Redfearn. I see some Spanish food in my future!

This book counts for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host here and Foodies Read hosted at Based on a True Story.

Rating 4.5/5

Egg Curry (Anda Tarkari) - Justin Narayan

6 eggs, at room temperature
1/4 to 1/3 cup (60-80ml) light olive oil
1 large brown onion, thinly sliced
15-20 fresh curry leaves
2 bird's eye chillies, halved lengthways
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1/8 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon chilli powder
1 large ripe tomato, roughly diced or 1/2 x 400g (14oz) can diced tomatoes

Pour some iced water into a bowl. Bring a saucepan of water to a gentle boil, then add the eggs. Boil for 6 minutes, then immediately transfer them to the iced water. Once cool enough to handle, peel the eggs.

Line a plate with paper towel. Heat the oil in the frying pan over medium heat. Fry the boiled eggs until golden brown al over, about 1-2 minutes. Drain the eggs on the paper-towel lined plate.

In the same pan, add the onion, curry leaves, fresh chilli and whole spices and cook until the onion is golden brown, about 3-4 minutes. Add the powdered spices and a pinch of salt and mix. Add the garlic and tomato and cook until the tomato has completely broken down, about 5-6 minutes. Return the eggs to the pan and simmer for 2-5 minutes so all the ingredients get to know each other. 

Taste and adjust with salt. Garnish with coriander and serve with roti and rice. 

Tip: If you don't have fresh tomato, use half a can of tomato and you'll get the same result. Use the whole tin if you want it to be saucier. 

Weekly meals

Saturday - 
Sunday - Chicken and Chorizo Orzo
Monday - Bacon, mushrooms and zucchini pasta
Tuesday - Eggs on Toast
Wednesday - Beef and Broccoli Noodles
Thursday - Egg curry
Friday -

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Weekend Cooking: Japanese Chicken Curry

I am currently doing a casual January in Japan on my blog, so I thought I should at least try to cook something Japanese for Weekend Cooking. We have been talking about trying to do Japanese chicken curry for a while so this seemed like the perfect chance.

The idea of what to cook was actually inspired by a new cafe near work. When I go there for lunch, they generally have a few different options, but they always include chicken katsu, Japanese chicken curry, and chicken parma (which is chicken schnitzel with a tomato sauce, ham and melted cheese on top) as a minimum. The interesting thing...they all use the same chicken with breadcrumbs as the base.  

So what's the difference between chicken katsu and chicken schnitzel. There are two main things. First, is the type of breadcumbs  - katsu has panko breadcrumbs whereas a schnitzel tends to have normal breadcrumbs. The second is that katsu also tends to be deep fried whereas schnitzel is shallow fried.

We ended up using a variety of recipes, from the instruction on the back of the Japanese curry cubes to this video at Recipetin Eats Japan to show us how to butterfly the chicken thighs. This is when you slice the thicker ends of the thigh and fold them out so there is a more even thickness before dipping them in flour, eggs and panko breadcrumbs and frying them.

I do have a recipe in one of my cookbooks to make your own curry cubes, and we might still do that at some point, but for this recipe we just went with the store bought variety.

This is not a precise recipe, as you can adapt it to your own tastes and, as I mentioned before, it is a bit of a mix of various different ideas.

What I will say is that this was delicious. The katsu was really crunchy. We will definitely be putting this into our regular rotation, although if my husband has his way we will just use store bought schnitzels for convenience reasons.

Japanese Chicken Curry

Chicken thighs, butterflied

Eggs, whisked

Flour

Panko breadcrumbs

3 Potatoes

2 Carrots

2 Onions

Japanese curry cubes (for example Golden Curry or Vermont brands)

Rice for serving

For the curry sauce, cook the onions until they are tender but not browned. Add the cubed carrots and potatoes along with sufficient water. When the potatoes are cooked add the curry cubes and cook according to the instructions.

Cook the rice

While the curry is cooking, take the thighs and dip them in the flour so that they are well covered, then dredge through the egg mix, followed by the panko breadcrumbs.

Deep fry for 3 minutes on each side, until the katsu are golden brown and cooked through. 

Slice across the narrowest part of the chicken and place on top of the rice and then add the curry sauce.

Weekly meals

Saturday - Out for dinner
Sunday - Japanese Chicken Curry
Monday - Chicken kebabs, baked potatoes, coleslaw
Tuesday - Pork chops, chips and gravy
Wednesday - Spaghetti Bolognaise
Thursday - 
Friday - Away for the weekend

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Weekend Cooking: Everything is Indian by Justin Nararyan

When Justin Narayan's Everything is Indian was announced as the May selection for the Lambs Ear Cook Book Club, I was curious about the book without being convinced that it was one that I needed to buy so I borrowed it from the library. Before the book was even due back at the library, I had already purchased it and had it delivered as I know that we are going to be cooking out of this book in the future!

Justin Narayan was the winner of Masterchef Australia in 2021. He was born and bred in Australia and has a Fijian Indian background and this mixed background is reflected in the ideas and flavours in this book. In the introduction, Narayan ponders on the importance of food in creating connections with other people

When you first look at a recipe or think about cooking, I don't want you to think about how to make it tasty. I want you to think about how to make someone happy. Think about who you are cooking for rather than what you're cooking. Whose that person is they are more important than what you cook. Food is just a way to connect with them and make them feel something That is is how my mum and my parti (grandma) cooked.

He also talks about growing up in Australia

The recipes in this book are about me, my culture and where I come from. Food is how I relate to the world and these recipes are how I've related to the people around me. It starts with the Fijian-Indian recipes I grew up with (traditional and easy versions you can make in around 30 minutes), then it goes into all the dishes I've learned to cook growing up in Australia. It's a melting pot of cultures here - when it comes to food, I think Australia is one of the best places in the world - and that mix of cultures is part of me. It's part of who I am and its inspired me.

The three main recipes sections of the book are titled 

The Family House

Love, Entertainment, Hunger, Pressure: Everything That Made Me a Cook

I Grew Up Very Confused: Maybe We're Not That Different

In The Family House we see a lot of the Fijian Indian recipes so there are a lot curries, but also recipes for roti bread, lolo bread and other dishes. Interestingly, for the Masterchef fans,  Justin has shared two chicken curry recipes related to his appearances on the show. One is what he is calling The OG Chicken Curry and was the dish that he first shared with the judges on the show as his signature dish. The second curry is called The "Chicken Curry" That Got Me a Masterchef Apron. Why the "chicken curry ". Because it is served as a juicy piece of chicken breast with a chicken skin crackling, a curry sauce and cauliflower puree. It's not your normal looking curry.

In the second section we find recipes such as roast chicken, pizza, pork belly as well as Victoria sponge, caramel slice and lots of different sauces

In the final section, we see how everything can come together to make the familiar new. For example, there is a Green Chicken Curry Tacos recipe and a Fried Fish Sando with Curry Tartare. A sando is a sandwich - Australians have a tendency to short words and/or add sounds to the end. In this case it was both. For those with a sweet tooth, there is an amazing looking recipe for Chai Creme Brulee, as well as Dessert Tacos and Tres Leches cake which can be made either with the traditional flavours or by giving it an Indian flavour twist. 

So far we have made 

Curry Roast chicken with marsala roast potato and raita

Prawn Curry

Curried Sausage rolls

We have actually made the roast potato a few times, and this has now become our go-to technique of how to make roast potatoes. We don't always do the spices but the technique is a winner.

Just some of the other recipes we intend to make include

Caramel slice

Fried Eggs with Roti

Egg Curry

Potato Curry


The Caramel Slice is an example of several recipes in the book where you can either use the more traditional recipe or use the with a twist variation.  In this case, the traditional caramel slice recipe of biscuit base, a caramel layer and then covered in chocolate is adapted by adding vanilla, cardamon and grated nutmeg into the caramel mixture. You then sprinkle roasted pistachios on top of the chocolate.

The book is super colourful and easy to use. It has a great table in the front where you can say I need to cook something, let's say cooking for a crowd, and then there are a list of the recipes that you might want to use which includes recipes for tacos, Portuguese chicken, curries, lamb shanks and more

When I was thinking about which recipes to share, it had to be the Curried Sausage Rolls which got a very big thumbs up in our house. One thing I would clarifiy is that in Australia, puff pastry comes in sheets that are around 20cm square, so the size of the rectangles will be about 10 x 20cm. Also, in the recipe the instruction is to bake until GBD which stands for Golden Brown and Delicious. 

I didn't put the seasoning on the ones I made in this picture, just in case you were wondering.

And now, I am craving Curried Sausage Rolls. Good job I have some mince in the fridge!

Curried Sausage Rolls


1 tablespoon light olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed or finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon Fiji masala powder or garam masala
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon chilli flakes
500 g (1 lb 2 oz) minced (ground) lamb (see tip)
½ cup (30 g) Japanese (panko) breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
2 puff pastry sheets, thawed if frozen
200 g (7 oz) tasty cheese, grated (optional)

Egg wash

2 tablespoons milk
1 egg


Seasoning

½ teaspoon chilli flakes
½ teaspoon flaky sea salt
½ teaspoon cumin seeds

To Serve

Your favourite sauce (there are no rules)




Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat, then add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion is lightly browned. Add all the powdered spices and chilli and cook for 30 seconds. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let it cool to room temperature. Add the lamb, breadcrumbs, salt and egg to the bowl and massage with your hands or a spatula until you have a smooth uniform mixture. Cut or shape four even rectangles from the puff pastry (if it's store-bought, just cut each sheet in half).

Spoon a quarter of the lamb mixture along one side of a pastry rectangle, about 1 cm (½ inch) from the edge.Scatter the cheese over the lamb mixture, if using. Roll up the pastry, starting from the lamb edge, to enclose the filling. Arrange so the seam (where the pastry edges overlap) sits underneath the sausage roll log. Repeat with the remaining pastry and lamb mixture. Preheat the oven to 180°C (360°F). Line a tray with baking paper.

Meanwhile, slice each log into six even pieces for party size or in half for a meal size, then place the sausage rolls on the prepared tray. Mix the egg wash ingredients in a small bowl until combined. Ina separate bowl, combine the seasoning ingredients. Brush each sausage roll with the egg wash, then sprinkle the seasoning over the top. Bake until the sausage rolls are GBD (see page 13), about 30–35 minutes. Serve with sauce.

Tips

You can swap out the lamb mince for any other kind of mince. If you want to make these in bulk and freeze them, place the tray in the freezer after rolling. Once frozen solid, transfer to a ziplock bag and store in the freezer for up to 2 months. When you’re ready, preheat the oven to 180°C (360°F), egg wash the frozen sausage rolls, season and bake from frozen for 35–40 minutes.

Weekly meals

Saturday - Away
Sunday - Tuscan Chicken Pasta Bake
Monday - Pizza
Tuesday - Nasi Goreng
Wednesday - Bacon, Vegetable and Risoni Soup
Thursday - Mexican Chicken and Rice
Friday - Takeaway

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Weekend Cooking: Bangers and Mash Pie

Some times for a Weekend Cooking post I will use this space to write about books, or flavours or whatever I bake. And then other times I use it just as a place that I save a recipe so that I can find it at a later date. Today is one of those days.

When I was growing up the go to meal in my house was sausages, mashed potato and peas. For variety, we might have had a pie, mashed potato and peas, or mutton chops with mashed potato and peas. You are likely getting the picture. There was a lot of mashed potato with peas.

My reaction to that is that I don't ever serve sausages with mashed potatoes and peas. I might have chicken sausages with mash, carrots, broccoli and gravy, or some other combination. Once, when my mum was here she cooked it for my son and was commenting on the fact that he "wolfed it down". My reaction was that is because it was exotic to him! Fortunately, I wasn't home that night!

Recently we have started making this which is really a version of curried sausages with mash on top instead of on the side, and so I am putting this recipe on the blog so that we can find it again at a later date. It's another recipe that we found in the freebie recipe magazine from the supermarket and it is also online here.

Bangers and mash pie


1 tbs cornflour

2 cups salt-reduced chicken stock

2 tbs curry powder

2 garlic cloves, crushed

600g beef sausages, cut on an angle into thirds

1 brown onion, thinly sliced

1 cup frozen peas

950g roasted garlic mash (we make our own mash)

1/2 cup shredded pizza cheese

Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C fan-forced. Place cornflour in a jug. Gradually add 1/4 cup stock, stirring until smooth. Add curry powder, garlic and remaining stock. Stir until combined.


Place sausage and onion in a 20 x 25cm (4cm deep) baking dish. Pour over stock mixture. Bake for 40 minutes or until sausage is golden. Scatter over peas.


Heat mash according to packet instructions. Dollop mash over sausage mixture and use back of a spoon to swirl. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake for a further 10 minutes or until cheese is golden. Season with pepper and serve.

Weekly Meals

Saturday - 

Sunday - Open Cannelloni with Pork Meatballs

Monday - Bean Taquito

Tuesday - Chorizo and Onion Chilli

Wednesday - Chicken Birria Tacos

Thursday - Hamburgers

Friday - Takeaway

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Weekend Cooking: P is for Pizza

One of the things I haven't generally been good at is using leftovers. I mean, we eat them, often for lunch but usually it is in the same format so I am in envy of people who can look at their leftovers and think up something different.

An exception to this is when we make up a big batch of butter chicken, which is a mild curry. Rather than just reheating it and cooking more rice, we tend to make butter chicken pizza. We use the sauce from the curry as the sauce on the pizza base is very tasty.

I think the first time I saw this recipe it was in a small pamphlet that featured everyday recipes from Masterchef contestants and I thought it sounded a bit odd, but curry pizzas are now definitely  I think the original recipe included things like curry leaves, but the reality is that we have dumbed our version of it down a bit. I therefore don't have an exact recipe. It's more like a guide!

We have also been known to buy prepared butter chicken from the supermarket for those nights when we just want something super quick and tasty.

We start with a pre-prepared pizza base and cover it with the curry sauce and chicken. We then add red onion, baby spinach and then cover it liberally with cheese and then cook for 15 to 20 minutes.

Do you have a favourite way to use up your leftovers?




This is also my post this week for my Alphabet 2020 post.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

Weekend Cooking: Beef and Vegetable Red Curry

Sometimes, despite your best laid plans, things just don't quite go right, and this was the case a couple of weeks ago when we had a plan to try a new recipe which was going to be a Beef and Vegetable Rendang Curry. However, when you realise that you have forgotten to add the rendang curry paste to the shopping list, and then you do an emergency dash to the shop around the corner but they don't have any, you have to improvise.

Now improvisation isn't really my strong point. I am a recipe follower, a weigher of ingredients, I am most definitely not someone who can look in the cupboard and voila....something magical appears. My husband is much better than I am though.

Once he got home from the unsuccessful emergency dash we decided that instead of using rendang and a couple of other ingredients we would use the rest of the red curry paste that we already here in the fridge.

So this recipe is inspired by the Beef and Vegetable Rendang Curry from the Symply Too Good to be True (book 7), and using the techniques in those books, particularly in relation to the use of evaporated milk and coconut essence instead of coconut milk to reduce the calories.

Beef and Vegetable Red Curry

300g potatoes
Cooking spray
500g rump steak cut into bit-size pieces
1 tspn crushed garlic
1 onion, cut in quarters then sliced
2 cups small broccoli florets
1 cup red capsicum diced
1/2 cup water
20 snow peas
3 tbspn red curry paste
1 tbspn cornflour
1 tspn coconut essence
1 x 375 can evaporated light milk

Peel and chop potatoes into bite size pieces. Parboil in a little water in microwave for 5 minutes. Drain and leave to one side.

In a large non-stick frypan that has been coated with cooking spray, place dice rump and garlic into pan and toss together until meat has browned. Remove and leave to one side.

Re-coat pan with cooking spray then add onion, broccoli and capsicum with 1/4 cup water and cook 3 minutes. Add snow peas and potato with the extra 1/4 cup of water and cook 2-3 minutes or until vegetables are almost cooked.

Add curry paste and fold through the vegetables are almost cooked.

Add the meat back to pan.

Combine cornflour with coconut essence and evaporated milk, then add to pan, ,stirring continuously until just boiled. Do not overboil sauce, as the milk may separate. When boiled, take off heat and serve.


If you were going to be making the original rendang recipe you would add 3 tablespoons of rendang curry paste and then 2 tablespoons of kecap manis and 2 teaspoons of reduced salt soy sauce.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

Weekend Cooking: Pork and Pineapple Thai Red Curry

We are now at the end of summer now and we have had our first cool autumn day. Such an occasion tends to retrospectiveness about the summer just gone. Somewhat strangely, I found myself having a summer of pineapple. I like pineapple most of the time but recently we have had a lot.

Just the other weekend I decided to make an old favourite recipe (Thai Pork Burgers with a Pineapple Chilli Relish) and found myself trying to find a recipe to use the rest of the fresh pineapple up. There were plenty of options ranging from cakes to tarts and more but in the end we found this recipe for a pork curry with a pineapple twist.

The good thing about this recipe was that it was quick and tasty, which makes it ideal for a mid week meal.

Pork and Pineapple Thai Red Curry

1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
500g pork fillet, thickly sliced (see Notes)
2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
270ml can coconut milk
1 cup Massel salt reduced chicken style liquid stock
1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon palm sugar, grated
1/4 small fresh pineapple, peeled, cored, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon lime juice
1/4 cup fresh coriander leaves
1/4 cup fried shallots
Steamed jasmine rice, to serve



Heat a large wok over high heat. Add oil. Swirl to coat. Add onion. Stir-fry for 3 minutes or until softened. Add pork. Stir-fry for 3 minutes or until browned. Add curry paste. Cook for 1 minute or until fragrant.

 Add coconut milk and stock. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to medium. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 7 minutes or until sauce thickens and pork is cooked through. Add fish sauce, palm sugar and pineapple. Simmer for 2 minutes or until heated through. Stir in lime juice.

 Spoon curry into serving bowls. Top with coriander and shallots. Serve with rice

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

Weekend Cooking: Curried Sausages with Herbed Mash

I don't know why it is, but every time I say I am making this recipe the reaction I get from whoever I am talking to is I love curried sausages but I haven't had it for ages. And, to be fair, it was the same for me. I first made it and enjoyed it just over a year ago and then completely forgot about it. It was only after I spent some time going through all the magazines I had that I rediscovered the recipe and made it again Now, I want to share it here so that I can find it easily when I want to in future.


I have actually shared a couple of recipes from this particular issue (Pulled Pork Ragu and Green Chicken Curry Pie which is one of my regular dishes now). Just like with the pulled pork my son wasn't all that keen on the posh mash potato but it still tastes good with normal mash

Curried Sausages with Herbed Mash

2 tspns olive oil
1 brown onion, cut into thin wedges
375g packet of low fat beef sausages
2 tspn curry powder
1 tspn salt reduced chicken stock powder
250ml (1 cup) boiling water
1/2 x 400g can no-added salt tomato puree
200g carrots, halved lengthwise, diagonally sliced
8 brussel sprouts, trimmed, halved or quartered**


1kg low GI potatoes, chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled
130g (1/2 cup)low-fat Greek-style plain yoghurt
2 tbspn chopped chives
2 tbspn chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 tbspn chopped dill
Finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon


** I can't stand brussel sprouts so I generally use broccoli cut into florets



Preheat oven to 180C (fan-forced). Heat oil in a large heavy based stoveproof and ovenproof dish over a medium heat. Add onion and sausages to pan and cook, stirring often for 4-5 minutes or until sausages are browned. Add curry powder and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes

Add combined stock and water, tomato puree, carrot and brussel sprouts to pan. Cover and bring to a simmer. Add pan to oven and cook for 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender

Meanwhile, to make herbed mash, put potato and garlic in a large saucepan. Cover with plenty of cold water Cover and bring to the boil over a high heat. Reduce heat to medium and cook, partially covered, for 20 minutes or until potato and garlic are tender. Drain. Mash until almost smooth. Add yoghurt, herbs and lemon zest. Beat with a wooden spoon until well combined

Divide mash between serving plates. Add sausage mixture. Serve.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

Weekend Cooking: Green Curry Chicken Pie

In my last Weekend Cooking post, I talked about how I find looking through relevant magazines and cook books really helps in getting and keeping my head into the right place for weight loss. Each time I receive a new magazine I spend a long time reading through the recipes and the stories and then go through it again and again. Eventually I will actively choose recipes that I think I want to try. This is one that jumped out pretty quickly from the July/August issue, and just like last week's recipe it was one that I made twice within a few days because it was such a hit. Well, and also because I had all the ingredients on hand and only had to buy an onion to make dinner. In fact, when I had the discussion with the boy to determine what he might like to eat for this week, this was the only thing he asked for again which would make it three times in less than two weeks.

Confession time. Until a few weeks ago I had never made any kind of green curry from scratch. I recently made a recipe from the Symply Too Good to be True cookbooks which I might share another time but having made that I felt that I could try and make this version without too much difficulty. It is actually a pretty easy recipe although preparing the filling does take a little time. The other recipe is probably lower calories but I must confess that I have really enjoyed being able to have some pastry without feeling too guilty.

Green Curry Chicken Pie

1/2 tspn olive oil

1 brown onion, cut into thin wedges

1 tbspn green curry paste or gluten-free curry paste

2 tbspn wholemeal plain flour or gluten-free flour

2 tspn Massel Salt Reduced Chicken Style Stock Powder**

250ml (1 cup) boiling water

80ml (1/3 cup) Trident Light Coconut Milk

2 tbspn skim milk

250g skinless chicken breast fillet, cut into 2cm cubes

200g broccoli, cut into small florets

50g (2 cups) baby spinach

1 sheet 25% reduced-fat puff pastry or gluten-free puff pastry

50g egg, lightly whisked

40g (1 1/2 cups) mixed salad leaves, to serve

**I used the reduced salt chicken stock powder I had in the cupboard

Preheat oven to 210C (fan-forced). Line an oven tray with baking paper. Put a rectangular 750ml (3 cup) ovenproof dish on prepared tray.

Heat oil in a medium non-stick saucepan over a medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 7 minutes or until onion begins to soften.  Add curry paste and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Add flour and cook stirring, for 1 minute. Remove pan from heat and gradually whisk in combined stock powder and water until sauce is smooth. Add coconut milk and milk, and whisk to combine.

Return pan to stovetop and cook, stirring over a medium heat for 3-4 minutes or until the mixture thickens and comes to a simmer. Remove pan from heat, Add chicken, broccoli and spinach, and stir to combine. Spoon mixture into the prepared dish.

Lay pasty sheet on a clean surface. Cut 4 x 1 cm thick strips of pastry from the perimeter of the sheet. Brush rim of dish with a little egg and press pastry strips around the rim. Brush with egg. Top with remaining pastry, rolling out slightly, if needed, to fit. Trim edges. Brush with a little egg. Cut a few small slits in the top of the pastry. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until pastry is golden brown.

Serve pie with salad leave.

Serves 2

There is also a suggestion that you could make a fish pie by replacing the chicken with boneless fish fillets and the green curry past with red curry paste. The teenage boy would not be a huge fan but it might be something I might try in future.

I will say that the pie actually looks huge so it isn't like it isn't a generous serving for two.

The first time I made this I stuffed up the pastry so I had some leftovers. Just because I could I made a really quick free-form apple pie using fresh apple. By free-form I mean that thing was messy, messy, messy but it tasted good. This was a hit with the boy, and during the course of the week he made himself another couple of pies. I did laugh though because, when I made it, it was some apple and cinnamon shoved in the middle of some pastry with the uneven sized edges folded in. His pie was beautifully presented with plaited pastry and looked very professional.  Then the second time he made a pie this is what he presented. I would point out that this was all for him though!!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

Weekend Cooking: Butter Chicken

One of the things I have been trying really hard to do since I started on this weight loss journey is to try and find some recipes to use that somewhat approximate the food that we like to eat on a regular basis.

One of the better books I have found for this is a series called the Symply Too Good to be True series of cookbooks by Annette Sym. At the moment there are 7 books in the series and I think there are multiple recipes in each book that I might make in due course.

There are a number of things that I like about this series. One is that most of the recipes are relatively simple to make and not overly time consuming. I like that there are recipes for foods that you would eat quite regularly. For example, so far I have tried a low fat recipe for lasagne which the boy now prefers to the way that I used to make lasagne and healthy version of pizza. Another big hit in my house has been the low fat version of chicken parma. The boy either thought it was so good on Wednesday night he ate the equivalent of 2 and a half chicken breasts (I am not sure if he hadn't eaten all day and was therefore starving after basketball or if he is growing again or it was that good!!).

Another thing I like is that nearly every recipe has a comment from a dietitian as well a nutritional panel showing calories/kilojoules, sugar, sodium etc. The comments might vary from a factual comment to an opinion. For example, on the chicken parma, the dietitian said something along the lines of finally a parma that tastes just like you get from the pub. Now it was good, but to compare it to a pub parma is possibly taking things a bit far. Sometimes the comments are simply this may be low fat but there is very little nutritional value so maybe not if you are trying to lose weight or have diabetes. Of course that is usually on the baking and desserts section but there are some exceptions which I might end up trying eventually. For a lot of the recipes there are also the nutritional details for variations for the recipe. For example, in the recipe below the suggested variations include rump steak, pork steak or tofu.

The author has lost a lot of weight and kept it off over an extended period of time and in every book there are a couple of pages of testimonials which certainly help at times when the motivation is flagging a little bit. Annette Sym has created something of an empire with retreats, mentoring, website, videos and so much more!

There are a couple of things I don't necessarily like that much. Because there is an emphasis on simplicity and time savings there is a heavy reliance on items like crushed garlic and ginger in a jar, tomato soup and stock powder as examples. Whilst I don't have an objection to the ginger, I don't get the always using precrushed garlic - maybe I am a little bit of a cooking snob! There are also some odd food combinations at times but maybe these are every day foods for other people!

Tonight I am trying a new recipe from book 4 and that is Butter Chicken. If there is a particular curry that we eat on a regular basis then it would be Butter Chicken, a very mild curry. This may be a bit of an oxymoron though because whilst it is an approximation of butter chicken there isn't a single bit of butter in it at all! Luckily, there is chicken.

Having now had dinner, I think it is fair to say that this is another winner in this house. Whilst the sauce ends up being a bit gluggy (maybe I boiled it too long) it certainly tastes like a mild curry and because you are adding all your own spices there is no reason why you couldn't add a touch more chill or paprika or whichever. I did cook my onion, garlic and ginger before adding my chicken because that is how I always do it. I also mixed the cornflour with a small amount of the milk to make a paste and then added the rest of the milk. Other than that, I pretty much stuck to the recipe as it is written below and I served it with basmati rice and steamed broccoli.

Butter chicken

800g skinless chicken breasts
cooking spray
1 medium onion, diced
1 tspn crushed garlic in a jar (I'll be using 1-2 cloves garlic)
1 tspn crushed ginger in a jar
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn turmeric
1 tspn ground coriander
2 tspns paprika
1/2 tspn ground cumin
1/8 tspn chilli powder
2 tspn chicken stock powder
4 tbspn no added salt tomato paste
1 tbspn cornflour
1 x 375 ml can evaporated light milk

Cut chicken into bite sized pieces. Coat a large non-stick frypan with cooking spray, saute chicken, onion, garlic and ginger until chicken pieces are nearly cooked.

Add all the spices and stock powder. Combine with chicken for 1 minute.  Add tomato paste and fold through chicken.. Blend cornflour with milk then add to pan, stir continuously mixing well until boiled.

Serves 6

And down the bottom where people might not notice I will just put an update of where I am at. This week I passed a milestone which is 30kg (66lbs) lost from the heaviest weight I remember (which might not be the heaviest weight I was). I will try and get a full length photo to put up soon. It is getting harder to keep the motivation going in some ways but I am hoping that this is just a matter of pushing through to keep going. Still a long way to go but that is a pretty decent start.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.