Tag: cooking

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My son the chef.

For a little while now, Aaron has been wanting to cook with me.

Last week he decided that he wanted to do all the cooking without me.

So, with a little guidance in recipes and how to execute them, Aaron cooked dinner for us every night last week.

Here is what he has made so far.

  • Mashed potatoes (that he then added onto left over mince to make a cottage pie)
  • Hot dogs with fried onions
  • Chicken breasts in soy and sweet chili sauce
  • Couscous
  • Burgers
  • Spaghetti Bolognese

Tonight he is going to make mac and cheese.

There have only been a few #KitchenKlutz incidents, a scraped knuckle while peeling potatoes and burned finger tips from a hot pot handle. But that’s to be expected, he takes after his mother after all.

Photo by Paul

I’m ordering some kids cookbooks for him so he can continue to learn and explore the kitchen.

If you have any easy, kid friendly recipes you love, please feel free to share them.

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Healthy homemade burgers

The last two days I have been home sick with Aaron. He’s ok, just another bout of viral-thing-itus. But, being home meant plenty of time to cook.

Over two days, we made homemade pizza, homemade chicken burgers and we made another batch of pasta sauce.

Here is the recipe for the chicken burgers. They were so good we ate all (8!) of them in one sitting!

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Breaded Chicken Burgers
Prep Time
15 mins
Cook Time
20 mins
Total Time
35 mins
 
Quick and easy to make breaded chicken burgers
Course: Main Course
Servings: 8
Author: Gina
Ingredients
  • 500 g chicken mince
  • Half onion minced or grated
  • A few cloves of garlic minced
  • Half cup breadcrumbs/panko
  • Salt, pepper, sweet chili flakes to taste
  • 1 egg
  • More breadcrumbs/panko for covering the patties
Instructions
  1. Mix all ingredients well.
  2. Take handfuls of the mixture and shape into balls then flatten to desired thickness (my kids did this part and had a blast).
  3. Set the patties aside and heat some oil in medium heat pan.
  4. Dip each side of the pattie into the crumbs before placing in the hot oil.
  5. Fry for 5-10 min each side (depends on thickness of patties).
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Scottish oatcakes of yumminess!

As you know, Paul is diabetic, and I am always trying to find yummy sugar free food to bake or cook for him.

Paul tends to eat a bowl of oats with fresh fruit in the mornings but its getting boring. I work with a lot of UK products and last week, Scottish oatcakes kept popping up. So I googled and found a variety of recipes and yesterday I tried out a simple Scottish oatcake recipe.

These biscuits can be used in place of bread. Spread some butter, honey, jam or cheese on top or just have them plain right out the oven!

Scottish Oatcakes
Yields 16
A quick to make, yummy biscuit. Can be served with butter, cheese, jam or as is.
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Prep Time
5 min
Cook Time
20 min
Total Time
25 min
Prep Time
5 min
Cook Time
20 min
Total Time
25 min
Ingredients
  1. 250g oats, whizzed in the blender until they become a flour consistency
  2. 25g butter, melted (I used margarine so they are dairy free, you could also use oil)
  3. 1/2 teaspoon bicarb of soda
  4. pinch of salt
  5. 150ml hot (not boiling) water
Instructions
  1. Preheat your oven to 180C.
  2. Set aside a bit of the oatmeal flour for later.
  3. Mix all the ingredients together until you have a rough dough ball.
  4. If its too sticky add some more oats, if its too dry add a dash of water.
  5. Dust your surface with the oatmeal flour you set aside earlier.
  6. Roll out the dough about 2-3mm thick.
  7. Take a clean glass and cut out rounds.
  8. You can re-roll the scraps until there is nothing left.
  9. Place rounds on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes.
Notes
  1. These were delicious fresh out the oven with a bit of butter.
  2. If you are not using them right away you can warm them up in the oven for a few minutes before serving although they are just as delicious cold.
  3. Store them in an airtight container.
Adapted from Penny's Recipes
Adapted from Penny's Recipes
A Bit of This A Bit of That https://gnatj.com/
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Whisky: The water of life (and dinner)

I often use wine when I cook. I dont only drink it, I use it in the dishes too.

Many of my chicken dishes use wine, especially when baking the chicken.

A while back I purchased a bottle of Golan Heights Distillery Whisky. Its the first Israeli whisky and I think its pretty decent.

whisky

So I got to thinking, if I can cook with wine why not whisky?

A quick google search showed quite a few whisky chicken recipes so I mashed a few recipes together according to the ingredients I had on hand and O. M. G! I wish the internet allowed you to smell images. This was one of the best roast chickens I have ever made!

Whisky Roasted Chicken
A dark roast chicken, perfect with rice and roast sweet potato
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Prep Time
10 min
Cook Time
1 hr 30 min
Total Time
1 hr 35 min
Prep Time
10 min
Cook Time
1 hr 30 min
Total Time
1 hr 35 min
Ingredients
  1. 1 large whole chicken
  2. 3 tablespoons whisky
  3. 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  4. 2 tablespoons silan (date syrup), you can use honey too.
  5. 1 teaspoon salt
  6. 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
  7. 1 teaspoon basil
  8. 1 teaspoon oregano
  9. 1 teaspoon rosemary
  10. 2 cloves garlic, peeled and mashed/diced finely
Instructions
  1. Preheat your oven to 180C.
  2. In a bowl mix the whisky, lemon juice, silan, salt, pepper, herbs and garlic.
  3. You can give them a whizz with a hand blender but I just stirred them with a fork.
  4. Place chicken, breast side up, in a roasting dish.
  5. Using your hands, scoop up some of the sauce and rub all over the chicken.
  6. You can rub some of the sauce under the skin too.
  7. Keep rubbing in the sauce until the chicken is covered.
  8. If there is any sauce left, pour it over the chicken, it will mix with the chicken fat as it roasts and makes a delicious gravy.
  9. Roast, uncovered, for at least 1 hour per kg of chicken.
  10. Remove from the oven and let it sit for 5 minutes before carving.
Notes
  1. Serve with rice or couscous to mop up the gravy.
A Bit of This A Bit of That https://gnatj.com/
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#CookAlong with @Foodiction and @LifeologySA

Last night Wendi and I headed out to Foodiction in Bryanston to attend their very first #CookAlong.

We were kindly invited by Lifeology SA along with a bunch of other celebs, bloggers and foodies.

The evening entailed preparing a 3 course meal and from prep to cooking to eating it was a blast.

Chef Barry was fantastic, leading us through making the mouthwatering meal.

Chef

Im going to be making all the dishes we made over the next week or so and will blog them here.  I only hope they come out as well as they did last night.  Note: I made the fondant for dessert tonight but totally forgot to take pictures so I guess I will just have to make it again so I can blog it.  Its a yummy hard job but someone has to do it 😉

We made Salmon in Citrus Broth for starters, Chicken and Mushroom Risotto for the main course and a to die for Chocolate Fondant for dessert.  Needless to say I rolled home and slept on my back last night 😉

Foodiction is an awesome venue, catering (haha) to private functions tailor made to suit you as well as to group lessons and even kids cooking classes!  (I cannot wait to take Aaron for some lessons).

We had an amazing time and I certainly learnt a lot.  Also I managed not to chop off any fingers or stab anyone around me.  Bonus 😉

So, without further ado, here are some of the amazing photos taken by Pat Sloane (you can see the full FB gallery here).

Segmenting citrus for the citrus broth 

 

Olwagens

Jess

The gang!

Thank you to Jodene and Greg from Lifeology SA for inviting us to a fantastic evening of fun, food and laughter!

Contact Foodiction here.

Contact Lifeology SA here.

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Welcome

More and more I find myself experimenting with baking and cooking and then sharing the successes on my blog.

So much so that I decided to create a separate space for those successes.

I will be adding all my current posts here and I will try take as many pictures of the process and finished products too, something I have been a bit slack with.

Im also going to be having guest contributers so if you want to add a recipe please leave a comment and I will be in touch.

Happy cooking!