What to eat Wednesdays - Parmesan chicken with Italian tomato sauce

Thanks to Andie Davies for sending me this beautiful recipe for Parmesan chicken with Italian tomato sauce.

Parmesan chicken ingredients

• 1/4c milk
• 1T Dijon mustard
• 1/2c fine dry breadcrumbs
• 2T Parmesan cheese, finely grated
• 1/2t Italian seasoning
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Grind of pepper
• 6 boned chicken breast halves

Instructions
Preheat oven to 180°C. Whisk the milk and mustard. Combine breadcrumbs, Parmesan, Italian seasoning, garlic and pepper in a bowl.

Dip chicken in milk mixture and coat in breadcrumb mixture. Bake at 180°C for 30 minutes, or until cooked through.

While cooking, prepare Italian tomato sauce.

Italian tomato sauce ingredients

• 1t olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 420g tin diced tomatoes
• 2t chopped fresh basil
• 2t chopped fresh oregano
• 1t chopped fresh parsley
• 1/4t sugar
• 1/4t salt
• 1/2c milk
• 2t flour
• 1T cheese, grated

Instructions
Heat oil in a saucepan. Add garlic and cook on a medium heat until softened. Add tomatoes, basil, oregano, parsley, sugar and salt and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Combine milk and flour in a separate bowl. Gradually add milk to tomato mixture and cook, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes. Stir in cheese.

Layer chicken with Italian tomato sauce on couscous or quinoa. Serves 6.

What's been cooking - 27 June 2010

I've just had a computer-free weekend for a change. We stayed at my mother-in-law's house and had a family celebration for my husband's birthday. We also had a special dedication service for L at my mother-in-law's church. It was a lovely time away, but I've come home and realised I'm behind in my blogging. Eek! Sorry everyone!

Here's our menu from last week.

Sunday (Pork)
Pork and peanut stirfry on rice.

Monday (Lamb)
Lamb leg roast for Monday group bible study.

Tuesday (Chicken)
Andie's parmesan chicken with Italian tomato sauce on couscous. (Delicious! Thanks for sending me the recipe Andie. I'll post it to Craving Fresh on Wednesday.)

Wednesday (Beef)
Beef, tomato, pumpkin, zucchini and ricotta lasagne.

Thursday (Beef)
Leftover lasagne

Friday (Chicken)
Chicken drumsticks, roast vegetables and salad.

Saturday (Pork and lamb)
Paul's birthday choice: Pork and lamb ribs, mashed potato, steamed vegetables and salad. Icecream cake for dessert - decorated by our nieces and nephew.

How to make toxin-free dishwashing powder

As I've said before, I like to use cleaning products that are free of dangerous toxins and chemicals. Up until recently I've been buying Eco-Store cleaning products because I know they are safe to use. Unfortunately, with a new tight grocery budget, it's a lot more difficult to pay for expensive natural cleaners.

For this reason I have been investigating how to make my own simple cleaners. I've already given you the recipe for an all-purpose spray cleaner I make, and now want to share the recipe for a homemade dishwashing powder I've started using.

Ingredients

• 1c borax
• 1c baking soda (AKA bicarbonate of soda)
• 1/4c citric acid.

Sift ingredients together, stir to thoroughly combine and transfer into an airtight container. I'm storing mine in an old Eco-Store dishwashing powder container, as it's convenient to pour from.

Use approximately 2T of powder per wash and accompany with white vinegar as a rinse aid. 

I've only tried this mixture a few times but it seems to do a good job. I generally rinse everything before sticking it in the dishwasher and this helps prevent baked-on nastiness, so I don't know how good it would be if you didn't rinse first.

We also have a packet of Powerballs in our cupboard that I haven't used since making this new mixture, but I'm sure will make an appearance again when we're needing extra grunt. I'm hoping to wean our family off using Powerballs though.

Note: I found all the ingredients to make this dishwashing powder at Bin Inn, where I was able to buy them in bulk. 

Chinese chicken and cabbage with crispy noodles - recipe

Paul and I absolutely love this recipe for Chinese chicken and cabbage with crispy noodles from Sophie Gray's 100+ Tasty $10 Meals. Such simple ingredients, with such a stunning result.

In fact, cabbage has become my new go-to vegetable over winter (since zucchini is out). It's cheap, keeps well in the fridge and one cabbage will cover a number of meals. Often if a recipe calls for bean sprouts, I now substitute shredded cabbage, for the very reason it lasts better in the fridge than bean sprouts.

Ingredients

• 1/2T sesame oil, plus an extra dash for frying
• 2T dark soy sauce
• 1/2T grated ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1T Chinese rice wine (available from Asian supermarkets)
• 1T sugar
• 1 boneless chicken breast, skin removed and thinly sliced
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• 1/2 cabbage (or other greens), finely sliced
• 1T water
• handful of chopped fresh coriander
• cooked rice for 4 to serve
• packet of crispy noodles

Method
1. Combine the sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, rice wine and sugar in a non-metallic bowl.

2. Add the chicken and coat well in the marinade. Leave to marinate for 15 minutes or longer, covered in the refrigerator.

3. Heat the extra dash of sesame oil in a wok or heavy frying pan. Cook the chicken in batches until sealed (you'll notice the colour change).

4. Toss in the spring onions and cabbage and any additional marinade, and return all the chicken to the pan. Add the water and cook, stirring often, until the meat is cooked and the vegetables are crisp tender.

5. Add a handful of chopped coriander. Serve over rice and top with crispy noodles.

Fresh reviews - Anyone can Cook

I'm already a huge fan of Annabel Langbein's and own a number of her recipe books, so I was intrigued to see whether I would get any value out of her recent endeavour, Anyone can Cook. I'm pleased to say that I have.

What I liked about it


Anyone can cook from this book. Annabel has taken the time to explain everything she's included, from boiling potatoes to choosing and storing avocados.

Recipe crossovers. Annabel has given a series of basic 'building block' recipes that can be used in several meals. For example, if you make up a batch of her Simple Thai sauce, you can then use it to flavour her recipes for Pad Thai, Spicy glazed chicken, Hamburgers, Thai-style pork sticks, Coconut chilli mussel bowl, One-pot green chicken curry, and so on. One batch of Simple Thai sauce lasts in the fridge for several weeks and will cover a number of meals. What a great way to simplify meal preparation!

Presentation. One recipe per page, a photo of every recipe (bonus points for that!), and a side-bar key that shows how long each recipe will take to prepare and cook.

Range of recipes. A good selection of recipes that will appeal to all cooks and eaters.

Simple sides. If you've ever wanted to know how to cook perfect broccoli or wilted spinach, this is the section for you.

Menu planning. At the back Annabel has laid out a number of meal plans based on recipes within the book. This section includes ideas for mains, sides and desserts that will go well together; a shopping list; as well as guides for what you can prepare ahead of time, on the day and at the last minute.

Sweet endings section. Even though Annabel has also recently published Anyone can Bake, she hasn't neglected a sweet section in this cookbook. This allows you to create a whole meal plan from the one book.

Quote from Anyone can Cook. 'Home cooking does not require a lot of money or any fancy equipment, it's not tricky to do and everyone will love you for your efforts. It's all about nourishing ourselves and those around us and having some fun along the way.' I just love that. Annabel uses simple explanations that make it easy to follow her recipes. I credit her with teaching me to cook, which is amazing considering we've never met.

What I didn't like about it

A couple of the recipes I tried I will modify in future to better suit our taste-buds.

Other than that, I can't think of anything wrong with it. It's a well-thought out, well-executed recipe book.

Where you can find it

You'll get the best deal for this book on Annabel's website, although it's also available at good New Zealand bookstores if you want to check it out first.

Disclosure: Annabel Langbein provided me with a copy of Anyone can Cook for review purposes. I was not compensated in any other way. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

What's been cooking - 20 June 2010

Sunday (Fish)
Pan-fried gurnurd with salad and garlic bread.

Monday (Beef)
Rich, dark beef stew (from Alison Holst's 100 great ways to use slow cookers & crockpots).

Tuesday (Chicken)
Asian chicken and cabbage stir-fry with crispy noodles.

Wednesday (Beef)
I ate at my sister's, where she served me meatloaf, roast pumpkin and kumara, and coleslaw.

Thursday (Vegetarian)
Chargrilled capsicum and chickpea hamburgers on homemade buns.

Dessert - Lemon poppyseed cake (from Annabel Langbein's Anyone can Bake)

Friday (Chicken)
Pad Thai (from Annabel Langbein's Anyone can Cook)

Saturday (Beef)
Rump steak (from Anyone can cook), roast kumara, pumpkin, potatoes and yams, Sweet cabbage salad.

How to make hot chocolate

Paul and I love drinking hot chocolate in the evening, but it can get pretty pricey so I've started making my own basic mix.

Ingredients

• 2c icing sugar
• 1c cocoa
• 2c milk powder
• 1/4t salt

Instructions
Sift icing sugar and cocoa into a bowl. Stir in milk powder and salt.

Mix well until evenly combined and pour into an airtight container. (We re-use our old Cadbury drinking chocolate containers. This mixture fills 1.5 containers.)

Use 1-2t per drink.

Peanut snap crackle recipe

I know when you review a cookbook you're meant to try lots of different recipes from it. But what happens when you find one that's so good, you just have to make it again? That's what has happened with Annabel Langbein's Peanut Crunch recipe from Anyone can Bake.

This recipe is so yummy. I made it for the second time the other night for our Monday night group bible study. One of the girls ate three pieces, even though she told me she doesn't usually like peanuts.

As well as being yummy, this recipe is the baker's friend because you have to ice and cut it while still hot. No desperate waiting around for things to cool before you get to try a bit. (I hate waiting for baking!) Once sliced you do put it in the fridge to set, but I think it's totally legitimate to eat a piece still warm and crumbly.

Note:  I've re-named this recipe Peanut snap crackle because there's a crackly pop element to it that 'crunch' just doesn't encapsulate. I've also tweaked the recipe ever so slightly, according to what has worked best for me.

Base ingredients

• 140g butter
• 1T golden syrup
• 1c Rice Bubbles
• 1c plain flour
• 1/2c sugar
• 1/4t salt
• 1c roasted peanuts, roughly chopped

Chocolate icing ingredients

• 2c icing sugar
• 2T cocoa
• 1T butter
• 5T boiling water

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 170C. Line a 30cm x 24cm baking tin with baking paper.

2. Melt butter and golden syrup in a pot.

3. Add other ingredients and combine.

4. Press into tin and bake 15 minutes until golden.

5. Ice while hot with chocolate icing. To make it, sift icing sugar and cocoa into a bowl.

6. Add butter and boiling water. Stir until smooth.

7. Dip a butter knife in a cup of boiling water and use hot knife to spread icing over base.

8. Cut slice with a hot knife after icing and place in a fridge to cool before storing in an airtight container. It will keep for about 1 week.

Makes around 24 squares.

My inspiration Mondays - Kris and Louise

My brother Kris and his wife Louise are inspirations to me because they have made God and family their top priorities in life.

In a time when the average family consists of 2.5 children, Kris and Louise are about to welcome their sixth. And they manage to support this family with Kris just working four days a week. He has dedicated the other working day to studying theology and interning at their church, so that one day he can be a minister full-time.

I've picked up a few Frugal Tips from Kris and Louise over the years. They are:

• Buy and sell on Trade Me. If you don't need something anymore, sell it. If you want something you can't get in New Zealand, ship double the quantity in from overseas and sell the extras on Trade Me to cover your costs.
• Use cloth diapers. Louise buys some and sews some too. She has also made up newborn cloth diaper kits that she rents out to new mothers. 
• Garden. Despite renting, Kris and Louise have turned much of their property into vegetable gardens to bring fresh and spray-free produce into their diets.

• Cook from scratch. Louise bakes a batch of bread or cinnamon rolls each day and cooks the vast majority of their dinners with fresh ingredients (not packet mixes).

• Bike to work/Walk to school. Kris and Louise only have one car so they have deliberately rented a house that is walking distance to the kids' school. When Louise is not heavily pregnant, she's able to walk the kids to school and back. This saves on petrol and brings fresh air and exercise into their day. Kris cycles to work so that Louise can have the car if she needs it.

I think Kris and Louise are doing a great job with what they've been given. And they make really gorgeous kids!

What's been cooking - 13 June 2010

I'm trying to work my way through Annabel Langbein's latest cookbooks, Anyone can Bake and Anyone can Cook. Unfortunately my oven won't cooperate. If you saw Friday's video of Paul and I making lime coconut pie - yes, that is how we're getting into our oven at the moment.

I've rung a repairman and he's coming out on Monday afternoon to fix our oven door, so fingers crossed I'll be able to start making more of the delicious looking recipes in Anyone can Bake soon.

Here's what we ate this week:

Sunday: (Beef) Teryaki beef stirfry.

Monday: (Chicken) McDonalds (again!) on our way back from Whangapoua. This time I had the chicken wrap.

Tuesday: (Beef) Lasagne

Wednesday: (Pork) Wild pork roast with roast vegetables and salad. (We have had a family friend staying the past three weeks and he got the pig on a hunting trip. Thanks Sam!)

Lime and coconut pie for dessert.

Thursday: (Pork) Pork and noodle salad (using leftover roast pork). Recipe from Anyone can Cook.

Friday: (Chicken) Takeaways - cashew chicken

Saturday: (Chicken) Pad Thai (from Anyone can Cook). This was our favourite recipe of the week and a great way to use more of the simple Thai sauce from last week's spicy chicken.

What's been cooking at your house this week?

Guest Post - BadgerFox Bakes Pie!

Paul here, Emma's husband.  Emma asked me to do a guest post explaining a little video I put together the other night.  It's a "How to Cook Lime in the Coconut Pie" video, made for the entertainment of the players of MiniMonos.  MiniMonos is the company that I work for, making an online virtual world for kids. Anyway, lots of the kids who play create fan sites, tweet, make fan art and do all sorts of cool things, and somehow in our communication with them, certain themes evolve.  Two of those themes are a song called "Coconut" by Harry Nillson and pie.  The song I'd never heard before, but is quiet catchy and repeats the lyrics "You put the lime in the coconut" an awful lot.  The pie they talk about refers to sweet American pies (as most of the kids who play are American) not good old Kiwi meat pies.

In MiniMonos I'm known as BadgerFox, a sneaky monkey who makes fun bits and pieces in the virtual world, like raining bananas and talking trees.  A few nights ago, while working on putting a super secret piece of pie into the virtual world (man I love my job) I stumbled on a recipe for Lime in the Coconut Pie.  Now I really don't bake, but the excitement of cooking something crazy and relevant got to me and the video below explains what ensued:


"Put the Lime in the Coconut" Pie from Badger Fox on Vimeo.
And yes... the pie was delicious.

What to eat Wednesdays - Roasted vegetable and couscous salad with curried dressing

This colourful roasted vegetable and couscous salad from Sophie Gray's Stunning Food from Small Change is delicious with roast meat or served on its own for an all-in-one vegetarian dinner.

It's also a great way to use up leftover roast vegetables, with the curried dressing changing things up so you don't feel like you're eating the same dinner two nights in a row.

Base ingredients

• Variety of vegetables for roasting, eg. potato, kumara, pumpkin, courgette, parsnip, yams, carrots, cauliflower, red onions, capsicum - whatever is in season. (I had never roasted cauliflower before making this, and it was surprisingly good.)
• Splash of olive oil
• 1c cooked couscous
• 1/4c almonds, chopped (optional)
• 200g feta, cubed

Preheat oven to 220°C. Peel or scrub vegetables and cut into wedges or small chunks. Place all the vegetables in a plastic bag and add a splash of olive oil. Swirl vegetables around until they are well mixed, then place them in a single layer in a roasting pan. Bake, turning occasionally, for about 45 minutes or until they appear golden and cooked.

In the last 10 minutes of roasting time, cook couscous according to packet instructions and prepare curried dressing.

Curried dressing

• 1-2t curry powder (to taste)
• 1/4c oil
• 2t vinegar
• 1/2t sugar
• 1 clove garlic, crushed

Shake dressing ingredients together in a jar.

Mix couscous, almonds and feta with roasted vegetables and then stir dressing through.

What's been cooking - 6 June 2010

Sorry everyone! This post is a couple of days overdue. We headed off to beautiful Whangapoua for the long weekend (Happy Birthday Queen E.) and I was too disorganised to have this post ready beforehand. In actual fact, I didn't even know it was going to be a long weekend until a couple of days before. That's what you get for being a stay-at-home mum. No excited workmates to remind you about public holidays.

Here's what we ate this week:

Sunday: (Beef) Paul made tacos for me and tortilla wraps for him as we had open packets of both that needed using.

Monday: (Beef) Corned beef, Jewish salad - to share at our Monday Bible study group. (Leftover corned beef was used in Paul's lunch sandwiches.)

Tuesday: (Chicken) Spicy glazed chicken (from Annabel Langbein's Anyone can Cook) with roast golden kumara, peas and broccoli. This recipe was a bit too spicy for me, but fortunately I had followed the recipe which said to leave the skin on the chicken, so was able to peel that off to reduce the burn. (Leftover chicken was used in Paul's lunch sandwiches.)

Wednesday: (Beef) Caramelised onion and red wine beef casserole (from The Best of Annabel Langbein) on mashed kumara and potato with steamed vegetables on the side. I had made caramelised onion tarts on the weekend and purposefully prepared double the onions so I could cook this dinner mid-week with half the prep time.

Thursday: (Fish) Frypan frittata (from Anyone can Cook) made with eggs, cheese, potato, smoked salmon and chargrilled capsicums. This was delicious! My husband was highly suspicious at first and put back half of what I had served him, but he grabbed that back as soon as he had tasted it and then was asking for more.

Apple and rhubarb crumble for dessert, made by our friends Heather and Sandy, who came over for dinner.


Friday: (Beef) Angus burgers from McDonalds (gasp!) in Thames as we travelled to Whangapoua.

Saturday: (Chicken) Roast free range chicken with roast beetroot, yams, kumara, pumpkin and potato, plus a side of steamed broccoli - all prepared by my lovely sister-in-law, Mandy.

How to make yoghurt

My mother-in-law taught me this handy tip for making yoghurt. You will need live cultures, milk and a warm spot for the cultures to multiply in the milk. Sounds technical, but actually you can get live cultures out of existing yoghurt. So either buy a small batch of plain, unsweetened yoghurt to get you started, or as you're getting to the end of an existing batch of yoghurt in your fridge, use that to start a new batch.

What you need:

• An Easi-Yo yoghurt maker
• 1/2c plain yoghurt with live cultures 
• 1 litre milk (you can make this up with milk powder and water if desired - 1 cup of milk powder is good, as it produces a nice thick yoghurt)
• Enough boiling water to fill the yoghurt maker

Method
Mix yoghurt and milk together in Easi-Yo container and shake to fully combine. Place container in Easi-Yo maker. Fill yoghurt maker with boiling water to fill-line. Seal and leave for 12-24 hours (the longer you leave it, the thicker it will be), then refrigerate yoghurt for an hour before using.

I tend to leave the yoghurt as is in the fridge so I have more options for how to use it, eg. unsweetened in curries, or mixed with home-made boysenberry sauce and frozen blueberries for a sweet and antioxidant-rich snack.

After a few times re-using the same yoghurt to get you started, you might notice it isn't as thick as you'd like. That's about the time to start with a new sachet of Easi-Yo yoghurt or a new small plain yoghurt.

Side note: If you're wondering why I keep talking about Easi-Yo yoghurt makers instead of just a generic brand, it's because I bought a Hansells yoghurt maker and found it didn't work very well, so ended up buying an Easi-Yo one as well, which cost slightly more but works beautifully. I don't want anyone else buying two yoghurt makers when one will do the trick.

How much money can you save?
Quite a bit by my calculations. I can buy a 2 litre bottle of milk for $2.99 from my local fruit and vegetable store. If I use half of that to make my yoghurt, the total cost is around $1.50, plus whatever I factor in for the original yoghurt I use to get started. A packet of Easi-Yo Greek yoghurt costs around $3.00 if I get it on special. So by making my own I save around $1.50 a batch. If I use milk powder instead of milk, the savings are even more.