Bournemouth Echo blog "Jenny's Week" : The stir-fry that isn't a stir-fry, until it is!

The following blog entry can be seen in situ here. 

The stir-fry that isn't a stir-fry, until it is!

All of which is because my son is vehemently anti stir fries.  Mind you, he appears to be becoming anti anything remotely sweet and sour too, which is a great shame.

Being a just-on-the-verge-of-teenage lad, he’s developing a nice line in vegetable avoidance.  He’s decided he doesn’t like casseroles (which have vegetables in the mix), or the said stir fries (which have vegetables cooked with the meat, that are ~horrors~ still crunchy) and will visibly blanche when faced with a salad.

He much prefers non-vegetable meals like chilli con carne, or spaghetti Bolognese.  Which is a shame, really, as his Mum is as vehemently pro-vegetables as he is vehemently agin them.

However, we persevere.  I figure that if I keep on serving up the right portions of vegetables, he’ll get used to seeing them on his plate and teenage hunger might win over teenage pickiness.  I do try to avoid things that I know he just can’t countenance, like mushrooms, cooked tomatoes or aubergine, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t appear in certain recipes.  Take, for instance, the absolutely gorgeous Greek Lamb & Orzo Bake that we had for dinner last night.

The recipe involves lamb mince cooked with onion, garlic & aubergine, then with stock, tinned tomatoes and mint.  You then mix in some cooked orzo (which is rice-shaped tiny pasta, for those who were wondering) and put the mixture into a dish to bake, topped off with an egg/greek yoghurt mixture that sets and creates a lovely tangy topping.

There are two things in this recipe that son doesn’t like – aubergines and tomatoes.  Neither is avoidable, as they’re both fundamental ingredients.  However, the tomatoes will cook down and become part of the general saucy melange, whereas the aubergine will stay in chunks.  So, when I was adding it to the baking dish, I just chased most of the aubergine away into the other three quarters of the dish.  I served it with baby sweetcorn and sugar snap peas, and the lot disappeared.  Job done.

I reckon that one of my jobs as a parent, is to broaden my son’s horizons on as many different subjects as possible.  Hence, I refuse to be cowed by his likes and dislikes where food is concerned and I also refuse to cater just for him, while his Dad and I eat something else.  Case in point is son’s new friend, who was in the house when lunchtime struck.  Hubby offered him a sandwich, and he asked for chocolate spread.  Now, although I have nothing against chocolate spread and indeed we have some in the house which is brought out at breakfast time and stays with breakfast time, a lunchtime sandwich for boys consists of something savoury, accompanied by cucumber and tomato and maybe a packet of crisps.  So we went through all the choices : cheese (no), marmite (no), fish paste (no), ham?  We suspect he just accepted ham out of a desperate desire to please rather than anything else, as his sandwich came back with two bites taken out of it, no cucumber eaten, or tomato – and even the crisps came back “because they’re beef”.

I just couldn’t imagine my son doing the same thing to someone else.  Plus, the thought that this little lad (who was the size of a whippet – and is it any wonder?) would only eat chocolate spread in a sandwich, left me feeling really quite sad.

When hubby mentioned how glad he was that our son wasn’t like that, I just had to say that it’s because we’ve trained him that way.

So, to get back to the stir-fry that isn’t, until it is, this refers to a Pork & Pepper stir fry that we had one day last week.

I knew that if I wrote “Pork & Pepper stir-fry” up on the menu list for the week, I’d set up a resistance in our son’s mind.  That resistance would manifest in a large case of the “I don’t like <insert name of foodstuff>”.  So, I called it just “Pork steaks & pepper”.  All was calm.  Right up until he came into the kitchen and spotted the Fish Sauce, Soy Sauce, sesame seeds and sliced red & yellow peppers.  “Oh”, he said.  “It’s a Chinese something then?” sounding really disappointed.

“Marginally”, was my reply, hedging my bets.

The end result was that he ate the pork, about a third of the peppers and all of the jasmine rice.  He did declare that he “didn’t like the sweet and sour flavour, because of the vinegar”.  I just couldn’t resist informing him that there was no vinegar involved in this one – just soy sauce, fish sauce, lime juice and honey.

I wouldn’t say it was a win:win situation, but hey – he got fed and hubby and I think the recipe has got to be one of the nicest stir fry recipes we’ve tried in a very long time.

Now, I’ve just got to work out how to try to get some of the lovely watercress salads past him.

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The latest menu plan & a fit of pique

First of all, I shall admit something that probably nobody noticed - but I feel I should tell you anyway.  Which is that I deleted the blog on Sunday evening, in a fit of frustration and bad temper.  I had been trying, all flipping day, to post the Pork & Rhubarb recipe but with little success.  When, finally, I got everything together in the right place and had it written, photograph installed and ready to post - the computer threw a wobbly and wouldn't post it (or so it seemed - unknown to me, it had posted anyway).  It seemed as though I had spent the last two days trying to a) be a mum, b) be a wife (albeit not a great one, as poor hubby has to do almost everything thanks to my disability), c) write the damned post and d) time was running out, as I should (by then) have been in the kitchen making steak & kidney pie.

So, after a lot of shouty noises, swearing and general stomping about, I decided that the best thing was to delete the flipping blog and get that source of frustration out of my life.

Kerpow!  With one fell click of a switch, there it was gone.  Strangely, I didn't feel any lighter.

I missed not being able to go into Google Analytics to see who'd been by, what they'd been looking at, whether the results were up in comparison, or down.  I missed having the hope that someone would have commented (which is by far the best part of the whole blogging experience, and I wish more of you would!).  I missed the mad scramble for the camera as dinner is served.

Although, I did enjoy the freedom that not having the blog gave me.  Not having to remember to take a photograph of each meal.  Not having the next blog post forming itself at the back of my head.  Not feeling pressured to think of or find some interesting recipes that would blog well.  I actually managed to spend some time reading my book (and very good it was too - "Wolf of the Plains", by Conn Iggulden.  All about the early days of Genghis Khan).

It was in this period of time that I had to put together the week's menu plan and convert it to a shopping list.  I didn't spend any time scouring the internet for inspiration, nor did I waste much time looking through my lever arch folders full of categorised recipes (yes, I'm THAT anal - I have one folder for "tried & tested" and one folder for "untried & ideas").  I just got on and wrote down things that sounded nice, fitted with what we had already or were things that we'd liked in the past and were worth doing again, interspersed with old favourites.

So you won't find any curried lark's tongue, or fricassee of lamb niblets going on this week.  I think this is a good thing, as I suspect I had been being driven by the blog rather too much - and instead, I needed to get back to the driving seat and take a firmer control.

Obviously, I re-instated the blog the following day, having calmed down and talked it over with hubby.  Thank goodness for Blogger's "cooling down period" approach to blog deletion, eh?

So here I am again, suitably contrite (although as I say, I doubt any of you noticed it was gone!) with a new and improved approach to finding time to write the blog and every intention of never deleting it again.  Honest.

Now then, let's have a look at what I decided to cook for dinners this week.

Unfortunately, we missed the steak & kidney pie - but I write briefly about it in my latest blog post for the Bournemouth Echo - which should follow this blog, so look out for it if you're interested.

Tuesday brought a return visit from an old friend from last summer.  Spicy chicken with mango salad & naan bread was what it should have been, however having received a brick-hard mango with the shopping delivery on Tuesday, it rapidly became just spicy chicken with plain old salad instead.

We've acquired a nice non-stick frying pan since last summer, so I decided against cooking the chicken in the oven (as I'd done before) and opted for the pan frying version.  That way created a gorgeous crunchy spicy crust on the chicken which was really satisfying to eat.  The chicken is a lot more controllable where cooking time is concerned when you're breathing down upon it, watching its every move, too.

I'm really not sure what the naan bread is supposed to bring to the dish, other than a fabulous accompaniment to the sour cream & lime mixture that goes so well with the chicken and salad.  It was a bit out there on its own, without any friends other than the sour cream & lime and seemed a bit surplus to requirements.  I think I'd have far rather had some sweet potato wedges or some such.  Much more appropriate.  So, that's my recommendation, which I've included in the recipe - which I'll blog next time.

Wednesday (tonight, as I write this) we've got good old Impossible Quiche.  Except, with this one, it'll be made with some of the leftovers from last night's salad, such as red onion and red pepper.  With lovely back bacon, how could it go wrong?  I'll definitely be doing some potato wedges to accompany it - probably with a sprinkling of Cajun spice or maybe even ras-el-hanout.

Photo c/o BBC Good Food

Thursday is one to look forward to.  Thyme & mustard gammon with mashed potato, peas and carrots is a not only delicious but easy to make, too.  Can't argue with that!

As for Friday's dinner, well, here follows a bit of child psychology.  You see, son & heir hates stir-fries, for the simple reason that the dreaded vegetables are mixed in with the lovely meat to the extent that if he attempts to pick one from the other, he gets told off.  So, as and when he asks, it's a Pork with red peppers dish and not a Pork & Peppers stir fry.  I just know he's going to really like this meal, as the vegetables are represented by both red and yellow peppers and the pork will be the steaks from our local butcher, which he really likes.  So, it's best not to colour his opinion early on, by calling it a stir-fry.  Better to let him find out it was stir fried, on the day.  *wink*

As hubby is now working, Saturday has become our "top up shop" day.  So because I will only cook fish that is as fresh as I can get it, fish is only available on a Tuesday or a Saturday for us.  As a consequence, Saturday shall be Kedgeree day.  Is there much nicer than a lovely little mountain of smoked fish, curry spices and rice, all held together with lovely butter and topped off with crumbled egg yolk?  Naughty, but oh, so nice!

Sunday sees the return of an old friend, in that I thought I'd have a second go at the Lamb & Orzo bake.  This surprised me, last time, as to its depth of flavour and general niceness and seemed perfect for a "getting away from a roast" Sunday.

Which leaves the poor old packet of prawns that I'd bought for the prawn curry that we should have had on Monday (see Bournemouth Echo post as to why we didn't).  I'd bought everything required for a prawn curry - so, prawn curry it is!  Just a week late!

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Greek Lamb & Orzo Bake - what a triumph!

I just couldn't wait to tell you all about tonight's dinner.  It was such a success!

It was one of those dishes that starts smelling wonderful and continues to get better and better the more of its ingredients you add.  Just so with this Bake.

Now I'd seen Orzo in various recipes on t'internet and got curious about what it was.  So that led me to discovering that it was a particular type of pasta-like carbohydrate, shaped like tiny grains of rice.  Curious!  As is my wont, I'd "tucked it behind my ear for later" and kept an eye out for it in the shops, along with dozens of other things.  It just so happened that while I was browsing the World Foods aisle in our local supermarket, amongst all the other noodles and tiny pastas, there it was - Orzo!  Now I knew where I could get it, all I had to do was find a recipe that looked delicious enough to warrant its use.

So along came "Greek Lamb & Orzo Bake".  I found the recipe in a general type of cookbook that I borrowed from the Library.  I had taken two or three recipes from it, but on the whole it was a book that I wouldn't bother taking out again.  However, I am so glad I found it in the first place, or I would never have discovered how well this collection of ingredients could shape up!

I was amused, when cooking the Orzo, to discover how slippery they can be!  The first time I tasted some (to work out whether they were soft enough to be included in the casserole) I took four or five of them into my mouth and bit down - only to have two of the little devils shoot out from between my lips and disappear into the farthest reaches of the kitchen!  They're like tiny torpedoes.

The mince mixture, as you combine each ingredient, tastes rather gorgeous right up until you include the chopped mint - whereupon it is just lifted somewhere up into the stratosphere.  Now we all know that mint and lamb are a match made in heaven - but my goodness, doesn't this recipe just demonstrate this!

Son was, initially, a teeny bit challenged by the Aubergine pieces.  Right up until I told him that they were just sponges full of the tasty gravy.  That encouraged him to stop picking them out and eat them instead.  Hubby loved the whole thing and, like me, wondered about including a little Feta cheese in the yoghurt/egg mixture.  Son was appalled by that idea, saying it would render the mix too sour.  He may have a point there - but I think it's rather worth trying!

 Edited to say that I included the Greek Lamb & Orzo dish on the menu list again, in April 2011.


This time, I used two eggs in the yoghurt/egg mixture which covered rather better - and I left it in the oven to brown a little more.


You'll see how lovely it looked when it came out of the oven from the picture here.


I can confirm that it was no less tasty, with lots of "mmmnn's" and much eye-rolling of appreciation as the first forkfulls went in.
 

As you can see, this time I served it with  baby corn and sugar snap peas, which were lovely.

It may look as though it has the possibility of being a little dry, but in fact the tomato sauce is just hiding under there.  We didn't require anything more than a little butter on the vegetables, to make a perfect meal.

GREEK LAMB & ORZO BAKE (serves 5)

Ingredients :

500g lean minced lamb

1 onion finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, crushed

1 aubergine, cut into 1cm chunks

200ml lamb or vegetable stock

400g tin chopped tomatoes

15g fresh mint, chopped

300g orzo

300g natural low-fat yoghurt

1 large egg

salt & pepper

half a tsp sugar

Method :

Brown the lamb in a large non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and remove the fat once it has rendered.

Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until the onion is soft.  Then add the garlic and cook for another 2-3 minutes.

Then add the aubergine pieces and cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes or until the aubergine is tender.

Stir in the stock, tomatoes and the mint.  Season -including a little sugar if the tomatoes need it - and bring to the boil.  Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes or until the lamb is tender.

Preheat the oven to 180deg C/gas 4.

Meanwhile, cook the orzo according to manufacturers’ instructions, until al dente.  Drain.

Beat together the yoghurt and egg in a small bowl.

Stir the drained pasta into the lamb mixture, then spoon into a large lasagne dish.  Spoon the yoghurt mixture over the top and bake for 20-25 minutes until piping hot.

Serve with green beans & baby corn, or for summer dining, a green bean salad with a fresh lemony dressing.

A week of two halves.

Our Back Garden - 7.30am 2 Dec 10

That's what this week is proving to be, for varying reasons that I won't bother going into here.  Between one thing and another, we have only shopped for the first three days of the week and are planning on doing the shopping for the rest of the week on Friday.  Snow permitting!

So, after last week's menu culminating in the singularly disgusting effort which was supposed to be Lemon & Chilli Chicken Noodles, but which turned out to be Yuk-in-a-bowl (see illustration), I'm not holding out much hope.  Some Twitter pals have asked what the problem was with the Chicken Noodles and all I can put it down to is that the stir-fried vegetables, in retrospect, should have been removed from the pan prior to cooking down the sauce.

Unappetising, innit?

What happened was that the sauce took a lot longer than I was expecting to thicken, and over-cooked the vegetables.  Also, the balance of sour/sweet between the lemon and honey weren't balanced.  The lemon was too lemony and the honey too sweet.  All in all, it was pretty disgusting and we won't be attempting it again.

Tuesday should have been Bacon & Leek Pasta.  However, I had a sudden attack of "meh!" and could hardly be bothered to pick up the telephone and ring for a curry.  So hubby did.  LOL  I consulted the Twitterverse first and asked for recommendations in our area.  Quite categorically, the vote was 7:1 for the Himachol on the Ashley Road, Poole.  We couldn't ignore such a vote of confidence, and ordered our favourites on the reckoning that if a Restaurant can turn out your favourite dish well, then getting adventurous next time around would be a potentially rewarding experience.  They had a lot to live up to, as every takeaway we've had since being in Poole (and it's not many!) has always been measured against our nirvana of Takeaways, the Golden Curry in Chatham.

Curry c/o The Himachol : recommended!

I ordered a Lamb Tikka Masala, son had a chicken version and hubby had a Chicken Dansak.  We ordered a mushroom rice, a plain pilau rice, a saag bhajee (fried spinach & onion) and a Peshwari naan (flat bread, filled with almonds & fruit).   The lamb used in the Tikka Masala was tough and quite a workout for the jaws, but tasty in that it had been marinated - which is always a good sign.  The sauce wasn't quite up to the standard of the Golden Curry, in that it lacked a smidgen of the depth of flavour together with the creaminess, but it was by far and away the best we've had in this area and a very good effort.  The chicken version was slightly sweeter and the chicken was again marinated and soft to the bite.  I was pleased to find that the two Tikka Masala dishes had a definite difference in flavour.  It would have been so easy for the Chef to have just given the different marinated meat the same sauce.  Hubby's Chicken Dansak was quite excitingly spiced, with the type of heat that made your nose run!  I think I'd have had problems eating it all, if I'd have had the Dansak.  The rices were absolutely fine, with the mushroom rice tasting delicately of cloves.  The naan was big and fluffy - just the job.  However, the true star (for me) of the entire show was the Saag Bhajee.  I'd have happily had two of those and forgotten about any ideas of having curry.  There was just something attractively salty involved with it, together with the fried onion and subtle spicing within the spinach itself.  My one complaint was that there just wasn't enough for all three of us in the one dish!

We were all agreed that we'd be going back to the Himachol, the next time we're looking for a takeaway - or the next time I have an attack of "meh!".  *chuckle*

What a whopper!

It was back to the Menu list for Wednesday, when - just in time for the start of the snow - we had home-made Chicken & Vegetable Soup with home-made bread.  Hubby excelled himself with the bread, making an enormous wholemeal Cob Loaf that wouldn't have been out of place on any Artisan Baker's produce table.

Rather than having to buy some chicken breasts for the soup, I made it using drumsticks and thighs.  I browned the pieces before sweating off the onion and garlic, adding the glorious stock I'd made at the weekend and all the vegetables.  We had leek, celery, a turnip, potato, red lentils and parsnip, all of which combined in a wonderfully chickeny soup.  I think because I poached the chicken  bone in, removing the bones prior to serving and breaking up the chicken, it all added to the chicken flavour.  I do think that a chicken soup should taste of chicken!  Hubby and son were a bit challenged by the leg meat of the chicken, which if I do the same thing again, I'll chop a lot more finely.  I can also confirm that the soup tasted just as good the next day, when I ate the leftovers for lunch.

Thursday - or tonight, as I write this post - is a "boys night", when they are having Spicy Chicken portions with potato waffles and peas.  I'm having a Southern Fried Chicken rather than the spicy version, which always leaves me feeling a teensy bit nauseous.  It's an easy dinner to prepare, which will be nice considering we've been having a relaxing "nothing" kind of day, spent watching it snow!

Presuming the snow will either have gone, or the roads will be clear, tomorrow we'll head off for some more shopping with Alfie the Skoda singing Skoda War Songs as he forges his way through the snow.  It doesn't matter if we don't get to shop until Saturday, as we can just have the Bacon & Leek Pasta that we were due to have on Tuesday!

Orzo - rice shaped pasta

Friday is due to be Greek Lamb & Orzo Bake, served with green beans.  The recipe came from a book which I borrowed from the Library a while ago, so I've regrettably forgotten it's name.  However, the photograph looked like it would provide everything we enjoy in a meal, with the added bonus of being able to play with Orzo for the first time.  For those of you who are left scratching their heads and wondering what, or who, Orzo is - it's a pasta which is finely shaped into small rice-like pieces and which can be used in either rice or pasta dishes.  I spotted some in our local Asda the other day, having been keeping my eye open for it for some months now.

Now Saturday is going to be a terribly exciting day, as we're off to Tansy Austin's Pop-Up Restaurant in her living room.  For further details, see her blog here.  I'm really looking forward to this, as I love the idea of pop-up restaurants and it will be such fun to be at Tansy's inaugural one.  I have also never tried Enchiladas, or Mole, or Tamales - so it will be such a voyage of experience.  You all know how much we enjoy spicy food, so we've no worries about the degree of chilli that's being employed!  We'll hopefully be meeting up with Sam from the Bournemouth Echo there, too - which for me, just puts the icing on the cake.

[Shoot! I've just visited Tansy's blog to discover she's cancelling owing to the weather.  Darn!  Maybe that Bacon & Leek Pasta will get trotted out after all.]

Sunday and I'm planning a Bacon Pot Roast, with roast potatoes & parsnips together with carrot & swede mash and a green vegetable yet to be decided.  This week, I must try not to let the roast parsnips dehydrate to the state of small pointy biscuits!

I'm also going to have a go at a Honeycomb Mould for dessert.  Now this is something that harks back to my childhood, as I can remember my Mum making Honeycomb Mould quite regularly.  I discovered the recipe in a book and am curious to see whether I can turn out something that rings those bells from so long ago.

Finally, Monday brings hubby back to the kitchen when he's planning a Prawn & Wilted Little Gem Lettuce risotto.  This is a recipe all of his own, which sounds absolutely delicious.  Let's hope he doesn't lose faith in his recipe and we wind up having the Bacon & Leek!  I'm sure it would be very nice - but nothing like as nice as the Prawn recipe he's got in mind!

So there we have it - a busy, flexible-of-necessity week!