Cooking POWER!

I bought myself a christmas present today. A heavy stainless steel fry pan. I keep killing those teflon ones. I do have a great cast iron pan, but there are a little bit of a hassle to clean and season each time (but absolutely the best thing to cook with)

I watched this video over at Houseboat Eats about the water test in a stainless steel pan to determine correct cooking temperature and why an under heated pan will "grab" at your meat. I was convinced to test my mettle with this pan.

Lucky for me Briscoes had a 60% off stainless steel cookware sale today. Destined to buy this pan I was!

Heroin Wings - Delicious Internet Chicken!

I'm a big fan of trying recipes I found on the Internet. I'm a daredevil like that.

Tonight I'm trying heroin wings.

4 lb chicken wings (I'm using chicken nibbles)
1/2 cup butter
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tbsp dried parsley (I'm not using this, blech!)
1 tbsp dried oregano
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly-ground black pepper
(I'm adding garlic powder baby!)

Roll your chicken bits in melted butter then roll in the combined cheese and spices. Bake at 180C for an hour or less depending on the sizes of your chicken pieces. My little nibbles are quite small so maybe only 45mins for those. Anyway use your common sense.


Here's what mine look like before I baked them. As you can see they are all unevenly coated. I'm not sure if it was because I was drinking or I'm just uncoordinated either way I'm sure no one will be complaining when they're cooked!

1 Minute Flaxmeal (ground linseed) Muffin - Microwave power!

This tasty flaxseed muffin is so quick to make and is perfect for breakfast of afternoon tea!
I've stared eating linseed aka flax as a better way to get omega 3. I have been taking fish oil tablets, but I occasionally get reflux from them (ew fishy burps!) and apart from bad breath there is a concern about mecury in fish, so I'm trying a plant based alternative. This healthy treat is gluten free and full of fibre.
Anyway heres my favourite way to eat flaxseed.

1/4 Cup ground flaxseed (I use the Healtheries brand which you can buy at most supermarkets now)
1 tsp of butter (be generous! go for an extra half teaspoon)
1/2 tsp of Baking powder
1 teaspoon of splenda (or crush a splenda tablet for no fillers! or real sugar if you don't artifical stuff)
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 egg


I combine all the dry ingredients in a coffee cup while the butter is melting.
I whisk the egg into the melted butter and then add to the dry ingredients. MIX WELL! You definitely don't want any dry spots. Microwave on high for 1 minute or slightly longer depending on your microwave.

My muffins just slide right out when up ended onto a plate, I then cut in half and eat with cream cheese and a cup of coffee. Delicious!

I be grillin! Don't be hatin'

I'm always blogging about dinner. But I love cooking, and look! I eats my vegetables! I'm not just all about the meat. Although I did have lamb with this meal (Lamb back strap, cheap tender, lean. Rub with garlic, morrocan spice, smash some really ripe cherry yellow tomatoes on it. Grill, eat.) My lettuces are not growing as fast as I would like, so tonights salad was all herbs and bits and pieces from my garden, it tasted very country. Thyme is still my favourite herb. It smells so goooood. Fennel is a surprise, just a wee bit in the salad = good. Mint and mint flowers. Marigold flowers, nastursums, oregano, chives, radishes, matoes all good stuff!

Summer Dinners - Wish you were here?

Chicken, marinated overnight in honey, ginger and a wee bit of lemon juice. I may have over cooked it a wee bit getting a little more caramelising than necessary, but still very tasty. I will look back on this picture in winter (when I am eating my turnip stew) and remember the bright fresh tastes of summer. I'm sure all my London friends suffering the cold drippy weather are blue with envy.

Picked up a kilo of cherries today for $5. Got to love the Asian grocer, tucked away in an odd corner of the north shore, full of weird and wonderful things. And lots of mushrooms!

First week back at work is over and done, always a bit of a shocker. So much purchasing to catch up on. Spending your tax dollars is always fun. I spent about $5000 on antibodies for diagnosing different types of cancers. That buys me about 5 x 1ml lots of concentrated antibody. Its expensive stuff.

An abundance of cucumbers

I have many many apple cucumbers to get through over the next couple of weeks, apart for the usual chop and throw in salad method of eating cucumber I thought I would try something different.
Thick cut slices of fresh just picked oh so crisp cucumber, sprinkled with fresh herbs from my garden and topped with a light mustard mayonnaise. Yummy.

uh oh - Holiday Indulgences!

Oooooops. I may have accidentally imbibed too much beer and consumed too much crap over the holidays. I prefer not to cook when I'm on holiday and Zed prefers not to cook. So we ate out, a lot.
Now its come back to bite me on my rather large arse.

So its back to home cooked meals and one alcohol free month, barring any social functions of course. No more drinking beers in the garden at 11am just because its hot, and I planted a cucumber. Even though I think it a mighty fine reason to open a cold one.


So here is my first home cooked meal in a long time. A lovely piece of lamb, rubbed with Moroccan spice mix, and cooked in a hot fry pan for two minutes each side.

Then rested.

Sliced and laid upon a salad, a salad with MANGO! Mu hu ha ha haaaaa.

Mini Sushi and molded rice balls (Onigiri)

Here's my first go at making sushi, I made mini rolls with a bit of ginger/soy flavoured tuna(Trident Tuna Asian Delights Range, very very good for when you are sick of boring tuna. I really the teriaki flavoured one) in the middle and Some molded rice balls flavoured with shrimp Furikake (Flavoured sprinkles to jazz up rice.) I used a bit too much rice in the sushi, and yeah I could have made the tuna look better by taking more care in the placement, but it was YUM!

The Onigiri was also delish. In fact it was 10% tastier due to being heart shaped. I think I will use more furikake next time cause that's damn tasty too!

The rice molds are super easy to use and are only $3.50. I got a set that makes three different shapes, but I didn't want to completely overload on rice for lunch so I only made two. The Japanese store in Wairau (set of asian shops behind the Burger King) sells a whole range of them, very affordable and very fun.

I have been hugely inspired to create Bento Style lunches for myself and so today and tomorrow I'll be trying out the techniques so I can have some Cute lunches next week. Of course it require such Japanese type things such as patience, dexterity and skills to create a really great Bento. So I'll just have to settle for kinda good.

Morrocan spiced chicken - My dinner let me show you it.

I cook dinner. Quite often actually. Some nights I've been known to cook it twice. Just to prove it here is some morrocan spiced chicken with red onions beans and apricots. I served it with fluffy cous cous made with vege stock for actual flavor. I quite like cous cous, I am a recent convert, for some reason it was only ever served cold when I was a kid, but served hot it has a delicious melty yummness that I can't quite describe.

A recent tip I got off the internet for cooking small chunks of chicken is to dust them in cornflour first. So in this instance I coated the chicken in morrocan spice (thanks masterfoods!) and let sit for an hour in the fridge. Then just before frying I tossed through a couple spoonfuls of cornflour.
It keeps the chicken bit real moist!! The cornflour seal keeps all that goody good chickeny moisture in, and the dryness out. Awesome.