Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in ghotilicious' LiveJournal:

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Friday, May 25th, 2012
5:38 pm	Food according to toddlers On wednesday, I made cauliflower cheese. Judith nibbled hers and then said 'I want a clean one please'. On thursday, I made sausages. I misheard something she said, and gave her two sausages instead of one. She said 'I want one sausage, you gave me two sausage' pause for thought 'you give me one no sausage'. Today, Judith cooked. We haven't eaten it yet, but it smells good and I have every confidence it will be delicious. Cashew curry with pineapple rice Soak 200g cashews overnight (start with boiling water to cover) Whisk 1tsp red curry paste[*] with 1 can coconut milk. Fry an onion (get your sous chef to do that if you're little). Tear up an assortment of veg, and mix all the ingredients together. Bake in the oven at 200degC or about 30 minutes. Pineapple rice - she measured the rice, she chopped some pineapple (with her kitchen scissors) and we added juice and water until there was twice as much liquid as rice by volume. I'm going to make rhubarb and mango smoothies to drink with it, too. [*] I use bought at the moment, but when this is up, we'll probably make it up in advance. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 17th, 2012
9:32 pm	Thai-inspired baked risotto Inspired by I Can Cook's baked risotto, today Judith and I made our own Thai-themed version. It was good. Tear up one bag of bak choi, one pepper (we used green), and 125g mushrooms. Add two chopped spring onions and a bag of cooked prawns. Put them all in a lidded oven proof dish with four cups of short grain rice. Whisk one teaspoon of Thai red curry paste into a tin of coconut milk, and pour over. Bake with the lid on at 200degC for thirty minutes. You could of course use different veg and different meat/fish or nothing (maybe add tofu or extra mushrooms?) instead of the prawns. (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 31st, 2012
1:47 pm	Bacon Judith and I recently took up Country Skill's Big Bacon Challenge. I'd been intrigued by the idea ever since she first talked about making bacon, and this was all the encouragement I needed. I sent the husband off to buy pork, where he encountered an enthusiastic butcher, and away we went. This was the first time I've used my kitchen scales to weigh food (Colin and Benedict do weighing, I use them for yarn), so that was a thing. I weighed the first lot quite carefully, but I get the impression that bacon is quite forgiving and I could get away with experimenting with ratios. Also that it's going to be quite easy to eyeball the cure once I get used to making bacon. This is my bacon on the second day of curing: It looks quite shiny because of the bad lighting in my kitchen, but it was starting to turn brown and look more like bacon and less like pork. Every day there was some change, Judith spent a couple of minutes on the rub and I supervised. Apart from the measuring, Judith did all the work, and by day two she knew what to do. Here is the bacon the last day before resting: by this point it's so like bacon that it is annoying to have to wait for it to rest, but I can well believe that it's much better for allowing a day for the flavours to permeate and the edges to get less salty. We got two lots of sandwiches for the four of us and lardons for a further meal for the four of us out of our 600g pork joint. C and I loved it, B prefers shop bacon, and J just wanted to start making it again. It was salty (but not too salty), sweet and very bacony. The lardons were even saltier and sweeter because they came from the outside parts where the rub had actually been applied. So, in summary: utterly delicious, and a three year old can make it. Next up: halal 'bacon' made in the same way but with halal mutton instead of pork. (Comment on this)
Saturday, March 24th, 2012
8:23 pm	Judith cooks I asked Judith what we should have for dinner and she said "I cook!" So I panicked a little and came up with a meal she could mostly do herself. That's turkey nuggets and couscous. The couscous, I prepared the veg and stock, and she just mixed it all together. The nuggets were loosely based on this recipe: 1 cup breadcrumbs 1/2 cup seeds (we used pine nuts and fennel, but anything will do) 1/3 pack philadelphia or similar 1lb diced turkey Mash your cream cheese. Mix the breadcrumbs and seeds. Rub a piece of turkey in the cream cheese then the breadcrumb mix. Bake at 180deg C for 25-30 minutes or until the turkey is cooked and the coating starts to brown. (Comment on this)
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
10:43 am	Last night's dinner Last night I made Apple sauce chicken with courgette rice. (Fry an onion and a couple of courgettes in butter, add two cups of short grain rice, when rice is translucent add a pint of chicken stock. Vegetable or my usual standby tamarind would work as well, but as we were eating it with chicken I used chicken stock.) The chicken was really nice, and I bet it would be good in a bento with a green salad... or as a baked potato topping maybe. (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 8th, 2012
11:11 pm	Prawn and spinach pasta sauce As a result of wanting to defrost the freezer, I had some prawns and spinach that needed using up. I don't normally like spinach, but I liked this, so I thought it was worth writing up. Sweat a chopped onion and two finely chopped cloves of garlic. Add about 50g chopped mushrooms. Add 6 or 7 cubes of frozen spinach or a bunch of finely chopped fresh spinach. Add about half a pint of milk, and bring to the boil. Add a bunch of roughly chopped green beans, and simmer. A squeeze of lazy parsley (or some fresh parsley, finely chopped), a splash of mirin and a pinch of sugar, stir well. When the pasta (or whatever you're serving it with) is nearly ready, throw a packet of cooked prawns in. Stir well and make sure it's all piping hot. Of course, you could omit the mirin or use sake or sherry. I usually have cooking mirin and sake, and often no sherry. Also, throwing random extra veg in rarely hurts. Serve with pasta or whatever you feel like... I think it would be good on baked potatoes. (Comment on this)
Friday, November 11th, 2011
6:09 pm	Breakfast I do have a couple more cookbooks to work from for cookbook project, but I was just reading the WIkipedia page on breakfast and wondering how good an idea it would be to make a breakfast that fits every description. Like cookbook project but 'wikipedia breakfast project'. What do you think? (Comment on this)
Friday, September 9th, 2011
4:00 pm	Cookbook project Another American Girl cookbook, this time Felicity's cookbook. Felicity's book is set in 1774. ( Colonial dinner, as eaten in the colonies ) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 10th, 2011
6:42 pm	Aubergine chicken Tonight's dinner was well received and I was duly asked to write it down before I forgot. ghee 1 onion 1 aubergine some diced chicken (about as much by volume as the aubergine) a handful of green beans 1 pomegranate 1 shrimp stock cube 1 avocado Melt the ghee and fry the onion (chopped) and aubergines (cubed). Add the chicken and brown. Add the pomegranate seeds and juice and the roughly chopped beans. Add about a pint of water and the stock cube, keep stirring. Just before serving add the avocado, and make sure it's all mushed up and absorbed into the sauce. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, April 8th, 2011
4:28 pm	Lunch yesterday I made noodle salad, and as I was making it, Judith came and asked me for an egg, so I poached eggs and had them on top. I wanted to remember as it was so well received (and tasty). Fry mushroom, courgette and onion in ghee, prepare noodles (thin rice noodles in this case). Add the veg and frying ghee to the noodles, and stir. Add chopped salad ('oriental leaf' bag mix in this case), stir. A splash of date vinegar and mirin, stirred again, served with poached eggs on top (for J & me, Colin had grated cheese) I think I did it that way round, rather than dressing first then leaves. The other thing I made recently which everyone loved was honey&mustard chicken (as I tweeted the recipe): Brown chunks of chicken, make roux flour/butter/mustard, add milk slowly, add thyme, spinach, honey, splash wine. Cook until thickened. #yum (Spinach was an lump of frozen spinach. That's quite handy, frozen spinach comes in lumps about the size of two icecubes, and you can just throw one or two in to whatever for extra flavour/colour/vitamins. Great in curries/pasta sauces) (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 17th, 2011
3:42 pm	Cookbook project New cookbook! Well, not that new, but I haven't used it a lot before. Barbecues by Hamlyn. I made Spicy Asian pork chops, pumpkin wedges with coconut pesto and baked potatoes. For pudding, we had Summer fruits on toast. The chops were delicious, but a bit of a mishmash. Spicy was right - lots of flavour, not much heat - but Asia is big, and it was difficult to see what they were going for. Having said that, the flavours were great so I probably would use this marinade again. The pumpkin wedges were also great, and sprinkling with spices and baking may well become a standard cooking method for me, but the coconut pest was a bit blah. Together they made great soup next day, though. The pudding.. .well, I didn't like it. Too sour and the textures were off. The toast is cinnamon toast, which I love, but with the soft fruits it didn't work for me. Colin and Judith, who both enjoy sour tastes, really liked this though and I have been requested to make it again. In another sort of cookbook project, B's book of things he's made and liked is growing slowly. It currently features: tomato soup, bolognese sauce, ratatouille, steak and kidney stew, patatas bravas, Persian carrots with apricots, baked chocolate mousse, fruit crumble, plum tart, scones and our family speciality, Aunty Theressa's tea loaf. There's also a recipe of karaspita which he's made with Jon but which I don't have, that's been meaning to go in the book for ages. Any other ideas welcome, but he is quite picky, so don't be offended if they don't make it. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 14th, 2010
2:31 pm	Cookbook project: Hairy Bikers I recently bought the book from the Hairy Bikers' Mums Know Best series. A patronising title, but the recipes were great...I'd already made some from the website (like the haggis samosas). Anyway, you know what that means... cookbook project! I made Mince with dumplings and buttermilk pie ( Read more... ) (Comment on this)
Monday, July 12th, 2010
11:42 pm	Great little ideas (.com) I got this one off the telly, so it might not be exactly as the website says (I mute the adverts): spread pickle on chicken, grate some cheese on top, pop in oven (200degC) for 30 minutes, Bob's your uncle. I liked it, Colin liked it, Benedict liked it (more unusual) and Judith didn't touch it,but she didn't eat anything. I quite like the idea of greatlittleideas.com - little tips and tricks to use cupboard basics differently, easily. I haven't explored it much, though. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 11th, 2010
10:27 am	Cookbook project:Sweden I know I said I was finished, but then I bought more cookbooks (and also I forgot I had another American Girl dinner to make. This week was the Ikea cookbook. We had salmon with a herb crust with veg followed by Scanian apple pie and custard. The salmon was nice, and everyone ate it. Very easy too; just mix breadcrumbs with herbs (it said dill, but Benedict doesn't like dill so I used thyme) and press into the salmon, then fry, crust side down first. The recipe includes fried beetroot, which turned out to be the same texture as pickled beetroot, which I don't like. Beetroot's never going to be our favourite veg, but this is not the way to cook it for us. Also,it said serve with boiled potatoes, but I did carrots as well, in case we didn't like the beetroot. Oh, and there's a mustard sauce, which was v tasty and I will make again. Stock, mustard, chopped anchovies (which I didn't have so I used fish sauce) an cornflour to thicken. Would work with pork or chicken, too. Apple pie wasn't pie, more like a brown betty, but was tasty. Custard likewise was a bit uncustard; beat egg yolks with sugar, add cream, then add whisked egg whites. I forgot to get cream, so used condensed milk instead of the cream and sugar. (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010
10:48 am	Cookbookproject breakfast. This is from the wonderful book, Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer by Jane Brocket, which recreates dishes from children's stories. Not really dinners, so much as elevenses, high tea, afterenoon tea, snacks, suppers... and breakfasts. So today I cooked a breakfast. WE had 'wake up and smell the bacon' breakfast, inspired by Charlotte's Web, which is just bacon and hash browns. I've not made hash browns as such before, and need some practice to get them quite right. As recommended in the book, we had them with Mate Susan's scrambled eggs (just like any other scrambled egg, except no added anything except salt/pepper, and I left out the salt). It's a gorgeous book, and I highly recommend it. (Comment on this)
Monday, June 28th, 2010
8:58 pm	Tapas There's only one more book left on my shelves for Cookbook project, plus my random collections. I'm sure I have more boooks, they just haven't made it onto the shelves yet. Yesterday's book was 'Las mejores 100 tapas' by Esperanza Luca de Tena, a book Colin bought me for my birthday last year, in Madrid airport. He wanted to buy the English version, but I said I'd prefer the Spanish, and I think that was the right choice, although it does lead to some interesting translation issues. I made Escalibada, Judith's choice, a sort of roast vegetable platter, in whch I think I mistranslated berenjenas. I used courgette, but a closer look indicates that it probably meant aubergine, which J would have liked better. Patatas a la brava, one of my favourite Spanish dishes. This is a great recipe, you just deep fry the potatoes, then pour over a sauce made of a tin of tomatoes and some tabasco sauce. I just forgot that Colin likes Worcester sauce, not tabasco, in his tomato juice and therefore we didn't have tabasco. So they were slightly cowardly potatoes. Still good, and Benedict liked them better less hot, even if it's not authentic. Gambas a la Gabardina, simple deep fried prawns but with the addition of bay to the water you cook the prawns in. As my bay tree is flourishing like evil, and the taste was great, I'll be doing that to prawns again. Migas con jamon y chorizo. This is the specialty of Extremadura, the region we visited, it's fried breadcrumbs. I failed to notice I was meant to soak the breadcrumbs and then dry them out, so it looked a bit rubbish (would have looked nicer with red or yellow peppers as well, especially as I used green in the escalibada, but never mind). Both children really liked this (except B picked out the chorizo as too spicy) so I'll make it again, properly next time. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 17th, 2010
2:52 pm	Cookbook project: Vegetarian/British Vegetarian: Whenever I get something interesting in my veg box, or just want to do something a bit different, I pull out Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian Cookbook. So when I got sprouting chicpeas in my box, I knew that was the book for me. I decided to do it as a cookbook project and make the whole meal from there, but only one course. So I made Chickpea & BVutternut squash stew with cous cous. The cous cous wasn't special, but that's what she put it with. The stew was delicious, and moreover both children liked it - Benedict not so much, but Judith was very enthusiastic. A nice mix of flavours and textures, and it has a pour-on sauce made of harissa and the broth from the veg, which is a good idea that I have borrowed since (and meant that it could be hotter for J than B. B ate his with raita instead). I would highly recommend both the book and the recipe, will make again. Also, Judith now asks for 'ditdee'. British: Emily gave me the book Marguerite Patten's Century of British Cookin for a birthday a long time ago. It's a beautiful book. Each decade gets a chapter on the social and economic factors regarding food, and then a chapter of recipes (except the twenties which gets pre war/post war recipes). I decided that it made most sense to pick a decade, so I chose the 1960s. I made chicken maryland, quite the maddest food ever, followed by lemon cheesecake (because I'd never previously made a baked cheesecake). Children loved the chicken maryland, especially the rather thick corn fritters (much more heavily corn than any I've made before, I more often make tuna and sweetcorn I guess) and bananas as a main. Benedict didn't like the cheesecake, which to me resembled a sort of less intense lemon meringue pie. Adults liked it, but Judith was kind of meh. So we'll definitely have the chicken again, but not often, and the cheesecake maybe occasionalle. Honourable mention: Tomorrow is Benedict's 11th birthday. I am eagerly awaiting his Hogwarts acceptance letter, and in anticipation I made food from the Harry Potter books to take to xanna's house for tea on wednesday. In particular, I very much enjoyed this chicken and ham pie recipe so I'm posting it here that you might enjoy it also. I'm not normally overly keen on chicken pie, so that is high praise indeed :) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, March 13th, 2010
7:29 pm	La bonne cuisine Francaise This is a cheap hardback I bought in a service station in France, as part of my efforts to improve my French. Now my food French is, um, almost existent :) We had (excuse my accent(s)): Foie au vinaigre Fenouil braise Puree de pommes de terre followed by Pommes et poires a la cannelle I was very pleased with how well the meal worked as a meal - I wasn't sure about liver and fennel, but the tartness of the vinegar and the slight bitterness of the fennel worked very well. The potatoes were an afterthought as I suddenly realised I'd forgotten any starch, but I'm glad I didn't attempt anything more adventurous. I didn't mash Judith's potatoes, though. The liver was meant to be lamb, but we got pork - it was very tasty. I was worried the vinegar might be overpowering, but it wasn't, and both Colin and Judith were greatly appreciative. The special thing about the potatoes was the addition of muscavado sugar, which just added a touch of richness, very tasty. Pommes et poires a la cannelle - very tasty. The fruit was roasted with a solution of sugar and cinnamon, and then a sauce of mixed yoghurt, sour cream and more sugar poured over. Not too heavy, but a bit special - the only problem was that Judith ignored the fruit and just ate sauce. All in, a very nice meal, would eat again. Current Mood: full (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
10:47 pm	Cookbook project: British Isles This is the last of the third fifth of my cookbooks, but I'm not having a new book right now because my lovely husband bought me two new books while he was in America. I also only made one course, because I knew I didn't want to eat a two course meal - I'll make the other at another time, maybe tomorrow for cake and games. Anyway, the book is hte Dairy Cookbook, it's a milk marketing board cookbook. We had Lancashire foot with red cabbage and apple salad and endive, orange and walnut salad. The salads were cactually perfectly complemented - the red cabbage was slightly sour and the endives slight sweet, thanks to their resppective dressings (yoghurt for the cabbage and sour cream/orange juice) for the endives. The cabbage salad was also notable in the the cabbage was blanched, and then everything else added while the cabbage is still warm, meaning it all mixed nicely. 'Lancashire foot' is a sort of cheese pastry - just puff pastry with a filling of lancashire cheese, mushrooms and fried onions, then baked, I really liked this, but it would be nice with extra veg (mushrooms and peppers maybe). At some point I'll make 'Old English egg-nog pie' described as 'much more sophisticated than any egg-nog you'd dream of having for breakfast... strange dreams presumably broughgt about by too much cheese at bedtime. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
3:14 pm	Cookbook project It's been a while since I did cookbook project, but here are two at once for you. ( Molly's cookbook (category: rest of world) ) ( Wagamama cookbook by Hugo Arnold (category: Asia) ) (3 Comments |Comment on this)