Post #153

hubby's mum gave us some beautiful beef steaks. i'm not sure what cut it is, but its got a great beefy flavour and despite overcooking it slightly *my bad :(* it was still v tender n delicious! now, this must be good beef!! hahaha. *whack on the head for overcooking again!!*

but i cooked some lovely veg and made a beee-u-tiful salsa verde *see i watch too much masterchef..* so hope i'm forgiven for overcooking the beef...


-Beef steak with kipfler potatoes, carrots, asparagus + parsley salsa verde-

the potatoes and carrots i simply boiled them with salt. after pan frying the steak with the asparagus, i whacked in the potatoes and carrots so that the veg could scrap off the oily steak juices, whilst the meat is resting - this picks up great flavours and cleans the pan for you at the same time!! ;p

with the salsa verde, i used parsley. and it was the most refreshing sauce you could get!

along with the steak, i also cooked a quick butter bean soup.


-Butter bean soup-

Post #130

started this post last friday but my computer was acting most uncooperatively :( it kept crashing on me and yesterday hubby finally fixed it and its back and running now!! :)

so what did we have for dinner last friday? plan b. the plan no. 2 i had for valentines day, which was postponed till last friday. AND its not for the reason to re-celebrate v's day that we're having plan b, just that we need to rid the stuff from the fridge/freezer... little sad...

so. what was plan a? plan a emerged v quickly but died even more quickly. it was hubbys grand plan to cook me a meal on v's day! as lovely as it sounds, he hasnt really thought about it till midnight before v's day, let alone buying any groceries. then plan a died almost completely when we figured that hubby needs to be on-call on v's day. and it was then that i secretly sneaked to the kitchen and took 2 pieces of steak out of the freezer to defrost.

in the end, plans remain as plans. i ended up finishing late at work and hubby finished even later, arriving home after midnight. at that time of the day, serving steaks would be gastronomically illegal and we resorted to a more approrpriate meal of instant noodles.

so much of my rambling... but its ok! we're not defeated just because we missed our nth chance to celebrate a special occasion!!

so what was in store for my plan b?

steak of course! and yes, its looking a bit lonely on the plate. let me explain.


-Pan fried steak with parsley mustard butter-

lonely steak was meant to have mashy friend underneath.. i was intending to try cauliflower cream as a lovely alternative to potato or pumpkin mash. and it was actually quite easy to do with a blender, only that i added too much liquid in, and yes... steak's friend has turned into a frothy soup and needed to be contained in a bowl or it would be running loose on a plate =.=


-Frothy cauliflower soup-

soup was beautifully sweet, frothy and creamy. so so simple to make, and would make an excellent starter. see that froth?! ^^



and of course we cant have a healthy meal without a salad! this time the hero is carrot!


-Carrot + orange salad with lime dressing + pine nuts-

v refreshing and crunchy salad. it just took a bit long to juilienne the carrots. along with the carrots were orange pieces, chopped parsley, mint and toasted pine nuts. i also added a small sprinkle of chilli flakes which gave it a nice kick.

and finally lonely steak has some friends on the plate.



ps. i'm still giving regular 'friendly' reminders to hubby that he still owe me a homemade dinner!! will see how that goes!

Post #126

lamb rack with crumb or without crumb - which ones better?!

a while back i tried roasting a lamb rack adding a slab of herbed bread crumb on top. combining rosemary, chopped parsley, orange zest, garlic, butter and breadcrumb with salt for the crumb, and slab it on the lamb after smearing a layer of dijon mustard.

like so:



only bad thing about roasting is that it takes time. works great when you're preparing a feast, so you can chuck the meat in the oven whilst cooking other dishes! *doesnt quite work well when you have the stoves on top of the oven (like our home) cos it gets super hot >.<*

roasted rack on a bed of onion, pumpkin + sweet potato dices, ready to be carved. look the crunchy crumb on top!!!



sliced and served with couscous :)


-Lamb rack with orange herbed crust, roasted veg + rocket couscous-

the crust added a layer of crunchiness in contrast. so crumb or no crumb? i think i like both. hehe.