How to make Pad Thai

Hello friends, long time no hear, I'm sorry I have been away for so long.

We are doing great although it is winter again in Wellington, this weekend, we decided to experiment with Thai ingredients, by making a "Pad Thai." Although not authentic, my version was speedy and delicious. You will see in the video that I left out the soy sauce, as I mistakenly forgot to include this item on my shopping list earlier this morning, that feeling that I missed something was nagging at the back of my brain earlier, which I was aware of at the time but left behind in the depths of lost memory, in other words, life after 30.  Nevertheless, I think I did a good job. Enjoy this video:


By the way, I promised a budget for this dish, so you may replicate this at home. Here it is:

500g of tiger prawns ($23.99/kg) - $11.99
1 white onion - $1.99
4 cloves garlic - $0.99
1 Pak choy - $2.99
2 packets of 200g Chef's World Pad Thai noodles, 99% fat free - $2.30
1 green chilli - $1.99

Pantry items:
vegetable oil - 30ml
Salt - 1 tpsp
Raw sugar - 1/2 tpsp
1 lemon
1 size 6 free range egg

Total cost for 2 people: $22.25 or $11.13 each!

Making a baked potato

Sorry its been a while since I've blogged - actually its been three years!

I still love food and to quote the Terminator Genesis, living "straight line, never look[ing]" back style, true to form, here is todays recipe, Baking a Potato

I have a lot of plans for this blog including starting a youtube channel. So watch this space. In the meantime, enjoy this video

That Life Saving Liquor (How to Make Coffee)

It’s winter again and noticed this blog hasn’t had many recent posts, we’ve been busy of late, settling into yet another city, Auckland city, having come home from Melbourne, Alex and I have taken our time to find suitable work and finally, it seems we are clear for take-off.

A is at another company and I am working for a small boutique in one of Auckland’s more fashionable suburbs. As always, budgeting has been a challenge but we always take time out to go café-hopping. I was watching a video of another you-tuber who made her own chicken-dumpling soup for her family and kids. She mentioned something which stuck – teach your kids to cook and it will nurture a lifetime love of food and this helps them to look after themselves later in life. I think I my case, this has been absolutely true.   Inspiring me to deliver words of wisdom in this next exciting post:

We’ve all enjoyed it, it’s what keeps us going and let’s be honest, got me through most of my uni-essays and personal challenges, it is the amazing…….Coffee! Why coffee you ask. Triumphs and tribulations aside, coffee has remained a dear and loyal friend through the years. Many don't know how long it takes to prepare this humble life saver.

..grown in tropical regions of the world with hot climates, high rainfall and good drainage. The green beans is one of the two seeds from the cherry of the coffee tree. A coffee tree takes four to five years to mature, after which it can produce enough cherries to yield one kilogram of roasted coffee each year. There are two main species of coffee tree: Coffea Arabica and Coffea Canephoris, commonly called robusta….[from Godfrey, J. Cafe L’affare (eds.).2010, ‘How to Make Really Good Coffee.’ Random House; Auckland.

The coffee then goes through an arduous process of picking (by hand), processing (involving soaking to remove the husk), sorting and grading and finally roasting. This is done by a gas-fired rotating drum tumbling the green beans constantly throughout the roast cycle. Lighter roasts have a lighter fruit flavour while darker have an alluring bitter, smoky and burnt characteristic…(Godfrey et al)

Encouraged, we purchased our own industrial home coffee-machine, complete with tamp, milk frother and pressure gauge.  See below:

Home Coffee Machine

Like anything, home-‘barista-ring,’ started a mega -challenge. Mainly due to the urban snobbishness of Welly youth proclaiming you have to have some “2 years experience” making coffee to call yourself a professional.

Boiled right down, all it is is this:

1)   Get yourself a grinder (about 40 bux from your homeware store) and grind up your beans.  

2)  Grind about 8-10 tablespoons of coffee and place in tamp pictured above on the bottom-left. Push down with the cap of a juice bottle about the same girth as the tamp circumference.  Push as heavy as twice your elbow’s weight that’s 25-30lbs of pressure (People’s Coffee (2013). Peoples Coffee Barista Book; New Zealand. p42). When ready, slot into the “group head of the coffee machine,” seen above.

3)  Now get your latte glass, and press one shot delivering 30ml of “extraction.” A good extraction should be like a heavily-reduced gravy sauce, if any thinner, you haven’t applied enough pressure. Go back to step 2.

4)   Now let’s froth the milk. Full fat milk produces the best results but if you are watching your figure, trim milk requires a slightly longer process of texturing. You can adjust this later. Fill up the texturing jug shown above half way. Place the coffee machine nozzle just below the surface of the steam wand, turn the dial to release the steam. As the milk warms and grows, the nozzle should be kept at the top of the milk to continue to “stretch the milk.” (Remember from highschool chemistry, molecules of milk expanding but keeping its elasticity like polystyrene or dough). Once the side of the texturing jug feels too hot to touch, i.e. you can’t keep your finger on it for longer than a second, the milk is done. Turn off the dial immediately ….[from Godfrey, J. 2010, ‘How to Make Really Good Coffee.’ Auckland; Random House.p20.

1)   Swirl the milk in the texturing jug for 4 seconds, then remove with a desert spoon, the top layer of foam. Pour onto your 30ml extraction.

Here are NZ’s most popular coffees:

Ristretto - 70ml demitasse cup (the tiny cup), 30ml extraction

Short Black – 70 ml demitasse cup, 50ml dbl shot

Macchiato - 70 ml demitasse cup, 50ml dbl shot, a splash of textured milk by spoon on top

Latte -  220 ml glass, 40ml shot, 180ml lightly textured hot milk

Long Black – 150ml cup, 90ml hot water, 50ml dbl shot, extraction poured on top of water    undisturbed

Flat White – 150ml cup, 40ml dbl shot, 110ml lightly textured milk

Cappuccino – 190ml cup, 30ml dbl shot, 170ml textured hot milk            (ibid, p25-39)

Lastly, see some photos of a visit to Wellington Embassy Theatre, where we enjoy a good read, our favourite brew and for me it seems a lie down, see you next time and hope your coffees turn out great! Bon-appetite! 

Salmon, Capsicum, and Red Onion Skewers

This one is easy and quick to knock up in under 10 minutes. Chop up the ingredients listed below into small chunks and place onto the skewers. If you are using wooden skewers it pays to wet them first. This way they will not catch on fire once you put them on a barbecue or in the oven. Once you've made the skewers, pour a little olive oil onto each one and season with salt and pepper. 

Start up your barbecue or oven, which ever you like and place the skewers you've made in there for about 5 - 10 minutes. Job done. Next time I will add fresh prawns, which I reckon will take it over the edge. 

Ingredients & Equipment:
Capsicum (Any color)
Fresh Salmon Fillet
Red Onion
Salt
Cracked Black Pepper
Olive oil
Skewers

Growing Vegetables Update

Our veggies are growing stronger each day. The tomato plant has transformed into a monster and is threatening to overgrow inside our flat. The beans will need replanting soon and something to grip to. The green capsicum has only been planted a couple a months ago and already fruitful.

Beans

When will they go red?

We've become that 'tomato' flat

And the capsicum

Mackerel Fish Black in Bean Sauce

This one followed a mornings dallying around the vegetable markets whereby a local fish longer recommended mackerel to us, us being one half asian and one half eastern european we had never tasted this oily wonder, but we decided to give it a go. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out to be a preferred flavour the below recipe is a bit funky

Ingredients:
1 whole fresh mackerel fish - gutted and descaled 
3 whole lemons - sliced
10 garlic cloves - sliced
1 whole onion - sliced
5cm of ginger - sliced
Olive oil
Cracked Black pepper
200g black bean sauce (Can be sourced in Asian supermarkets)
Lettuce leaves
Spring onion - diced

Method:

Place the fish onto a foil laid into a baking tray. Cut slits in the fish on both side. Place the lemon, garlic, onion, and ginger slices inside the belly of the fish, and into each of the cut slits on both sides. Now coat the fish in some cracked black pepper and olive oil on both sides. Next coat the fish in black bean sauce inside the belly and on both sides until all of the sauce is used up. 

Place the fish into your oven set at 180degC. Cover the backing tray with foil and leave to bake for about 20 to 30 minutes. 

Serve on some lettuce leaves and garnish with spring onion. This is a fantastic dish that you can eat with your eyes. Be careful if you thinking of adding salt as the black bean sauce is already very salty, hence why I've left it out of the ingredients list. Also don't be stingy with the lemon as this is a very fishy. Unless you like it extremely fishy I would use heaps and heaps of lemon.

Honey and Soy Sauce Marinated Chicken with Spinach Salad

Honey and Soy Sauce Marinated Chicken

Ingredients:
500g free range chicken thighs
5 tbs Dark soy sauce
8 garlic cloves - roughly diced
1/5 onion - roughly diced
3 tbs of honey
1/2 tsp. cracked black pepper

Method:

Place the chicken into a tray. Rub all of the remainder ingredients onto the chicken. Cover and leave in the fridge to marinate for at least 12 hours. The longer you leave the better it'll taste!

After the marination is complete, bake the chicken in the oven at 180degC for 30 - 50 minutes. Make sure to check the juices run clear before eating it. Once you are satisfied that it is properly cooked, serve with some rice or mashed potatoes along with some crunchy salad. 

Spinach Salad

Ingredients:
4 cloves of fresh garlic - finely chopped
1/5 red onion - finely chopped
2 cups of spinach - soaked in boiled hot water for 5 minutes
1 cucumber - sliced thinly with a potato peeler
3 tbs olive oil
Salt & cracked black pepper to suit taste

Method:

Make sure you have a good potato peeler so that you can slice off nice cucumber strips. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a nice juicy piece of meat. Enjoy!

Pea and Tomato Salad

The fruits of our labour, S flew up to Auckland for work, so left me with the tomato harvest, they are delicious.

Ingredients:
Small tomatoes - as many as you like - quartered
Snap peas - as much as you like
Red onion - about 1/5 of a small onion - finely chopped
Olive oil - about 2 to 4 tbs
Salt & cracked black pepper to taste

Method:

First take out the peas out of their jackets and set aside. Don't discard the jackets. Dice each pea jacket into strips, make sure to remove the stringy edges as these don't taste very good though are bit rough to chew. 

Now in a large bowl mix together the red onion, peas, the peas jacket strips, the tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper. That's it! Have a taste and add some salt/cracked black pepper/olive oil to suit your taste if required. I can T=taste the hours of sunshine, warm and vibrant in my stomach.

Quick, and Easy Healthy Salmon Salad

I made up this recipe the other day as I was keen to eat something healthy, yet still delicious. Salmon is extremely good for you as it contains loads of vitamins and protein which help to reduce risk of heart disease and diabetes. This is super quick and easy to make, and you really just have to let the fresh ingredients speak for themselves.  

Ingredients:
Fresh salmon fillet - sliced in to chunks
Fresh lettuce leaves - torn
Bean sprouts - soaked in hot water for 2 minutes
Kalamata olives - sliced
Fresh bird's eye chili - sliced (you can leave the seeds in depending on how hot you want it)
Fresh spring onion - sliced
Olive oil - about 3 to 5 tbs.
Lemon Juice - about 1 - 2 tbs.
Salt & cracked black pepper to taste

Method:

You can use as much of the above major ingredients as you want, you simply can't go wrong here. Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl, let it sit for 10 - 20 minutes to let the dressing absorb all of the awesome flavors.

Serve along with toasted bread. Turkish bread works perfect. 

Salmon with Lemon Sauce, and Potato with Mint Salad

Ingredients: 
Salmon and Lemon sauce:
3 Tbsp of lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive oil or any other vegetable oil
200g to 300g Salmon fillets
1/4 cup chicken stock
1 cup full-fat cream
Salt & cracked black pepper to suit taste
parsley - added in the end for garnish 

Potato Salad with Mint:
Small potatoes
1 cup fresh mint leaves
Lemon juice 
Olive oil
Salt & cracked black pepper to suit taste


Method:

Salmon with the Lemon Sauce

Add cream, chicken stock, and lemon juice to a pot on high heat. Bring to boil and reduce the heat to low. Cover the pot with lid and simmer for 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to suit taste.

Coat the salmon fillets in olive oil, salt, and cracked black pepper. Bring a frying pan to high heat. Fry the salmon on each side for 5 minutes. Serve the salmon and pour the lemon sauce over, and garnish with parsley.

I find this is a great dish as it is generally pretty healthy (the only thing that's not the best for your here is the full-fat cream), and take's almost no time to prepare.

Potato Salad with Mint

We ordered this at a local City Gallery cafe and were surprised at how well the mint complemented the potatoes. Add all the ingredients listed above together in a bowl. You can vary the amount of each of the ingredients depending on how much salad you want to make. It's hard to go wrong here. Mix well and serve. Sue's mum came over shortly after this and just missed out. Oh well 

Great dish for a dinner party.

Growing Experiment Continued

Our growing bug has caught on, and we have expanded. We've managed to obtain more plants for hardly any expenditure. Some of them as you can see from the photos are getting a bit sun burnt.We also finally have our first tomatoes. The pea plants have sadly been starved of all the nutrients as the huge tomato plant has stolen the show. We have also planted several capsicum, and runner bean plants seeds. The runner beans should hav been sowed Nov-Dec but we still can expect a successful harvest in the coming months as the weather continues to improve.