All posts tagged: dinner

Delicious Vietnam: Eating In The Old Quarter, Hanoi

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Before our epic SE Asia holiday, I had read a few  blogs to inspire my appetite. One of the best was A Food Lover’s Journey by Ahn in Melbourne. Mouthwatering and easily relatable, Ahn is a Vietnamese expat and reading her blog is enough to make anyone crave Vietnamese food. The monthly Delicious Vietnam blogging event conspired by A Food Lover’s Journey and Ravenous Couple was never something I thought I would participate in. When I saw their reminder this month, I realised that it was just about time I wrote about Vietnamese food and our time in Hanoi. Vietnamese food in Auckland There is a lack of Vietnamese restaurants in Auckland, but one of my favourites is Hansan Vietnamese Restaurant. One of those places with cheap, fresh and delicious food, but severely no frills service, my review can be found here. The other Vietnamese place worth mentioning in Auckland is Banh Mi. Who do great filled rolls and all the classic Vietnamese dishes as well. Anticipation “”Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best — ” …

Lamb and Pinot Noir Meatballs

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I still had a little pinot noir leftover from the other day when we all needed a BFGOW after work. So I got half a kilo of lamb mince in a bowl, added a good glug glug of the wine, some chopped garlic, chopped basil, salt, pepper, some breadcrumbs, no, more breadcrumbs, no, still more breadcrumbs and rolled up 60 little meatballs and baked them for about 15 minutes in a hot 200°C oven. Then I made this light sauce to go with it. If it wasn’t a school night, I might have cooked this sauce for longer, but I’d already laboured over the meatballs and hey, a light sauce is good too. Chop up 2 red capsicums, 2 sticks of celery, 1 onion and brown in a hot pan with a little oil. Add 2 cups of water and boil for 20 minutes. Drain most of the water out. Work some voodoo magic with a stick blender and then put it back on the heat and add salt or bouillon as you wish. Serve with …

Mystery fruit

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Someone at work dumped a bag of citrus in the lunch room so I popped a couple into my handbag to experiment with later. Still not sure what these are, they have thick yellow skin, orange flesh and no pips. They are more sweet than sour with no bitterness. It didn’t really matter what they were, I squeezed one and marinated half a kilo of chicken wings with the juice and little soy sauce and chili sauce. Popped them in a super hot oven for about half an hour and…Bam! Mystery fruit chicken wings. I admit, I maybe have gone a little overboard with the vegetables. That or we need larger plates!

Vegetarian superfoods dinner

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A 2 course vegetarian meal with superfood. Quinoa (keen-wah) is a South American seed and “The Incas, who held the crop to be sacred, referred to quinoa as chisaya mama or mother of all grains”. You eat this, you can carry llamas and build civilisations at high altitudes*. Broccoli is awesome too. I’m pretty sure that if you eat broccoli you can move small hills and clear forests with your bare hands*. Quinoa salad with balsamic mushrooms and red onion. Brocolli soup served with buttered toast (not pictured). * Disclaimer. I’ve never actually done these things, but I have a vivid imagination.

Coffee Italiano Cook Off

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I was invited to a dinner at my friend Linh’s flat. I thought it was just going to be your average potluck dinner. She did mention themes and prizes but I’ve never been to a cook off before. I might have upped my game if I had realised it was competitive. The 2 categories were Italian for mains and Coffee for dessert and there was a prize for the winner of each category. There was a crown for each winner and a crown (but no prize) for the best failure. Everyone had to try every dish and vote for their favourite in each category. I roasted portabello and button mushrooms with red wine, balsamic vinegar and garlic. It was well received but didn’t win. That’s ok. The 3 other entries were lasagna, risotto and pizza. All very Italian. The lasagna with it’s whole portabellos, eggplant, blue cheese and mince was the winner on the day. It was delicious. Maybe I’m starting to warm to blue cheese after all. As an ingredient mind you, not as …

Crispy stuffed skin

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I felt like eating stuffing, but didn’t feel like roasting a whole chicken on evening, so I dreamed up this instead. I made a stuffing mixture using breadcrumbs, salt & pepper, fresh sage from the garden, oil and garlic. Using my fingers, I loosened the skin of 2 chicken legs and pushed a layer of stuffing into the space between the skin and meat. I replaced the skin and brushed the chicken skin with a bit of oil, salt and peppered generously and baked in a hot oven 200°C for 30 minutes. Turned down the oven to 170°C and baked for another 30 minutes. The result is crispy skin chicken with stuffing soaking up lots of the chicken juices. Reserve the cooking liquid to mash with kumara or potatoes. Roast chicken flavoured mash. Yum!!!

EasyPeasy SpagBol

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Spaghetti Bolognese is one of those easy crowd pleasers. Cheap, tasty, filling. I often cook a big batch even if it’s the two of us because it reheats wonderfully for lunches the next day. You can also make the first part in advance and refrigerate, then pop it into the oven prior to serving. I find herbs lose their potency the more you cook them, so in this dish, I add them near the end. EasyPeasy SpagBol Enough for 2 for dinner and some lunch the next day. Ingredients Half a kilo of beef mince Half a pack of dried pasta 1 tin of diced tomotoes 1 onion, diced 1 cup of grated cheese 10 mushrooms, sliced 4 cloves garlic, sliced Salt and pepper A handful of fresh herbs like sage, rosemary, oregano or thyme, chopped Preparation Preheat oven to 180°C. Add onion and mince to a frying pan. Cook until brown and then add garlic and mushrooms. When these are also cooked through, add the tin of tomatoes and stir through. Season well. Cook pasta …

Chicken dinner roundup

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Chicken. It can be versatile. It can be boring. I often cook chicken at home, but hardly every order chicken when I dine out. Here is a selection of home cooked chicken dinners from the last few months. Ginger roast chicken drums, mustard potato and ginger coleslaw. Easy, yummy noms. Can you tell I like purple food? Breaded chicken stuffed with camembert, tomatoes and lettuce from the garden, onion garlic rice. Spicy chicken with black beans and baked tortilla chips. Hearty fare! Sour cream would have made this OMG but all we had was cheese. Chicken breast stuffed with fresh mango, spices, onion and garlic. Mushrooms cooked in leftover mango stuffing. Shackin up with buttery brussels sprouts, broccoli and mash. Chicken salad with baked cheesey cauli for dinner. In New Zealand, chicken salad doesn’t have anything to do with sandwiches or mayonnaise. I’m loving this Mexican spice mix I got from Taste and Gregg’s cooking demo a few weeks ago. Great for adding some kick to meats but mild enough not to overpower the natural …

Flounder baked in foil

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This plate of food cost about $4 in groceries. Thanks to all this talk of flounder (you know who you are) I’ve been craving flounder hard out. I’ve never cooked whole fish in my life, only fillets so I decided that flounder was a good place to start. I had to serve these in the foil because our plates were too small for the fish without the foil. What does it mean when you need bigger plates? Baked Flounder Ingredients 1 Flounder per person (gutted and scaled*) 1 clove of garlic A smear of chilli sauce or half a red chilli Splash of soy sauce 1 tablespoon of oil Salt Black Pepper 2 Kaffir lime leaves Ginger – cut into 5 matchstick size pieces A lime  Preparation Preheat oven to 200°C. Wash the flounder and slice a large X on both sides of the fish with a sharp knife. Tear off a piece of foil large enough to fit the fish on and to wrap up. Lay this on a large shallow roasting dish. Lay …