Menu Plan Monday - April 29

Oops! It's Tuesday already. Never mind. This week was always going to be odd. It's now officially cold in Canberra - my hands were stinging on the way home from work yesterday. So we are properly into the winter warming food:
Chicken burritos
Pan fried fish with veggies
Baked jerusalem artichokes with chicken
Tuna casserole
Clean-out-the-fridge leftovers

Have a great week!

Mushroom Miso Soup

Is miso an acquired taste? I remember not liking it the first time I had it - I think I was twelve. But these days it's something I really look forward to if we get Japanese. I made this miso soup for a friend last week, and she didn't like it. She'd never had miso before, and it just didn't appeal. Both Ryan and I enjoyed it, and we managed to finish the lot.
I first saw the recipe on cuisine.com.au, but I couldn't find any enoki mushrooms, and didn't want to use bok choi. So I made it with swiss brown and bean sprouts instead. It was a good, quick beginning to our meal.Mushroom Miso Soup
3 sachets of instant shiro miso soup (why did the packet have 3 sachets, I wonder?)
2 big handfuls of mung bean sprouts, rinsed and drained
100g swiss brown mushrooms, thinly sliced
2 spring onions, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp soy sauce
Arrange all the veggies between three small soup bowls. Add the packet miso. Top each bowl with a cup of boiling water, and allow to sit for two minutes. Season with soy sauce.
Serves 3.

Share a recipe with me!

Ryan and I are going on a VERY BIG TRIP. We will be away for 6 whole weeks, and I'm worried that my blog will wither and die without me here to feed it all the time. A clever blogger would have stockpiled lots of great food pictures, with awesome recipes, to fill it up while I'm away. But I'm not that clever...
So here's your chance to get your name up in lights, or at least score some linky love for your blog. Send me a recipe, with or without pictures, at kazari dot recipe at gmail dot com
Send it before May 1.
Include a link to your blog (or another site you like).
Sometime during May or June it will appear on this blog.
If you don't have a blog, you can still play(Mum?), and instead of linking I will say nice things about you.
Hopefully, with your help, my blog will not be totally anaemic by the time we return. I'm going to post about our travels, especially about food shopping in strange counties, but I don't think we'll be doing much cooking.
Thanks in advance!
k

Menuplan Monday - April 21

Today was never going to be a good day. I left work with a security pass that wouldn't let me into the building, a lunchbox with no lunch, and a contract in a language can't understand. So of course, when I got home, I went to blog for an event that finished yesterday.
Bah Humbug.
I shall save my mushroom miso recipe for another day.
Anyway, I somehow managed to cook dinner without any further drama. I hope your week has started well, and your dinner is yummy. Here's what we're having this week:
Fish Pie
Veggie Stirfry
Baked eggs and veggies
Kangaroo steaks and veggies
Pumpkin soup
Happy Monday!
(or not)

A taste of yellow: Oven-Baked Frittata

A taste of yellow is a food blog event to publicise LiveStrong Day and Lance Armstrong's Foundation. Last year there were 149 entries, including mine. This year I've been inspired by the eggs we've been getting from the farmers market - they've got the most yellow yolks I've ever seen.
It's a simple mid-week dinner for us, one we were lucky to share with a friend this week. I hope you like it.
Oven Baked Frittata with bacon and vegetables
2 rashers of middle bacon, chopped fine
1 brown onion, thinly sliced
150g button mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/2 green capsicum, thinly sliced
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1 tomato, thinly sliced
8 eggs, whisked
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup finely grated cheese (any sort will do, the stronger the flavour the better.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease and line a 4cm deep slab pan. Heat a small frying pan and saute the bacon and vegetables (except the tomato) until the vegetables are tender. Spread the vegetable mix on the bottom of the pan. Whisk the eggs with the milk and cheese, and season with salt and pepper. Pour over the vegetable mix. Arrange the tomato slices on top, and push down gently to make sure everything is submerged.
Bake for 25 - 30 minutes, or until the egg is set. Let it sit for another 20 minutes before serving.

Menu Plan Monday - April 14

The leaves have turned. This morning our street is a dusty, dull red, with shocks of yellow and orange. I can't decide if autumn has taken it's time this year, or it just seems later because of Easter was so early. Anyway, we are starting to pull out the comfort food recipes...
Beef stew
Oven-baked frittata
Meatballs and couscous
Prawn Stirfry
Fish Pie

Happy Monday!

Spicy Mixed Dhal

Over at Limes and Lycopene, Kathryn's been discussing the benefits of having dhal in your freezer. I can completely relate to that. Our dhal recipe goes in the slow cooker, and we make it a lot. I haven't posted it before, because it's a bit more complicated than most of my other recipes. It came out of the manual that came with our slow cooker, and it's never failed yet. We make a double batch probably once a month, not least because Ryan loves taking it to work for lunch. We eat it with rice, or on flat bread, or serve with another curry. It reheats really well.
Spicy Mixed Dhal
1/2 Cup yellow split peas
1/2 Cup red lentils
1/2 Cup brown lentils
2 Cups vegetable stock
20g ghee
3 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
1 large onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbs fresh ginger, grated
1 tsp ground cumin
3 tsp ground coriander seeds
1 tsp ground turmeric
2 small red chillies, chopped
400g canned tomatoes, chopped
1 cup tomato puree
1 tsp cracked black pepper
1/3 cup cream
2 Tbs fresh coriander, finely chopped
1. Place peas and lentils and stock in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for an hour, or until just tender.
2. Melt ghee in a BIG pan. Cook mustard seeds until they start to pop, then add onions, garlic and ginger. Cook until onion is starting to brown.
3. Stir in spices. Add tomatoes, puree and pepper, and cook until heated through.4. Pour tomato mixture over lentils in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for around 3 hours (the book says 4-5, but it never takes that long).
5. Half an hour before required, stir in cream. Replace cover and continue cooking. Serve topped with coriander.

Menu Plan Monday - April 7

This week is going to be crazy-busy. Ryan is celebrating some great work news, we are having a curry night, and I did a lead-climbing course tonight. So food is going to be of utmost importance:

Tonight: Spuds with chili con carne (from the freezer)
Tuesday: Chops and veggies
Wednesday: Curry night!
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Hamburgers

Happy Monday!