In the kitchen - Round-up 27 July - 2 August

I've actually not done a great deal of cooking this week, as Darren's been the one slaving away over a hot stove. On Friday 27th, I did bake some very tender lamb chops in the oven, in a kind of Greek inspired way:

2 onions, chopped

3 potatoes, chopped

1/2 red capsicum, chopped

6 mushrooms, halved

Cumin

Parsley

5 lamb chops

3 tomatoes, sliced

Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees. Place onions, potatoes, capsicum and mushroom in a casserole dish and sprinkle with parsley and cumin. Mix thoroughly. Place the lamb chops on top and then layer the sliced tomato. Add half a cup of water and then bake for 1 hour, covered. Remove the lid and bake for another hour uncovered. 

On Saturday 28th we had a lunch time party for my sister's birthday. I was making Thai-style sausage rolls from Taste.com.au for a 30th birthday party that night, so I made 84 total and kept some aside for my sister's party. In addition, I made "Best-ever" chocolate cake (from a recipe that I photocopied from someone at work a few years ago; the secret is jam in the cake mix) and Darren added chocolate ganache icing from some other recipe that escapes me. My sister turned up with two Red Rooster family meals, so there was excess food for the eight of us and plenty left over for dinner, lunch, other meals...

Ever since our 2010 trip to Brittany, Darren and I have had a thing for moules frites (mussles and chips). On Sunday 29th, Darren cooked moules marinieres (with added mushrooms) from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion: The complete book of ingredients and recipes for the Australian kitchen, with a side of chips. They were excellent. Miss 1 was having a daddy phase and would only eat mussels from Darren's plate (yay for me!).

Moules frites (minus the frites).

Monday 30th, more daeji bulgogi. All gone now. Sigh.

On Sunday night, as well as the moules frites, Darren cooked some Jamaican patties. Darren has somehow inherited some Jamaican cooking gene and can make patties and jerk just like my grandmother used to. My Jamaican cooking never tastes like what Grandma made. The patties recipe has come from some Jamaican cookbook that someone has...

500 g minced beef

2 stalks escallion

1 stalk thyme

1 medium onion

2 cups bread crumbs

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

butter

Heat meat with water to cover and separate the lumps. Add seasoning, finely chopped, and 1/2 teaspoon salt and sugar. Cook 30 min. Correct seasoning and add remaining salt. Add bread. Make sure there is enough gravy to be wet. Add butter. Cool. Heat oven to 180 degrees. Cut out pastry. Add mince, fold, crimp, brush with oil. Bake approx. 45 min.

We ate the patties for dinner on Tuesday 31st and for lunch the next day, with cucumber, tomato, green capsicum and carrot salad.

Darren continued his kitchen run on Wednesday 1st with herb crumbed beef schnitzel and mushroom sauce, based on the recipes from Taste.com.au. With potato mash and more of those Red Rooster peas, it was very yummy, but not terribly photogenic. Miss 1 ate a whole schnitzel!

Herb crumbed beef schnitzel with mushroom sauce.

Last night, Thursday 2nd, was vegetarian korma. I used some korma curry paste that I found in the fridge with left over butter-milk and onion, potato, sweet potato, carrot, broccoli, lentils and Red Rooster peas. There was basmati rice, poppadoms, mango chutney and hot lime pickle on the side.