Hedgehogs and Spiders for Easter...

This post is rather late as Easter was last weekend, however, better late than never as they always say. This Easter, the kids really got involved in the cooking - or at least the selection of what to cook!!

After going vegetarian for Lent, somthing that I was very impressed with the kids for doing as I didn't really observe the Vegetarian bit, they were really keen on a Meat Fest! They 'dictated' to their maternal grandmother what they wanted as well as to The Lovely Wife. Amma - what the kids call maternal Grandma although by right Amma means mother and the correct word should be Ammama (Mothers mother) - made some Mutton Chops for them while The Lovely Wife did her famous BBQ Chicken Wings.

My two children have also been avidly following MasterChef and Junior Master Chef (Aust) and have suddenly started looking at some kids cookbooks that we've bought them. In one particular book, two recipes caught there fancy. One was for a Hedgehog cake while the other was for Spider Meatballs.

"Can we make this for Easter?" They both piped up.
"Sure" Mommy and Daddy replied, "As long as you HELP and not make us do all the work."



And help they did!

Rather than follow the recipe in the book, I made my usual meatballs. I made them a bit larger and flatter though to shape them like the body of a spider. For the legs, we sliced capsicums thinly and stuck them into the meatballs. The eyes were capers stuck on to dollops of mayonnaise.



For the hedgehog cake, I used my usual chocolate cake recipe as well and just shaped it into an ovalish kind of shape. For the 'prickles' I used a fork to shape the icing and then used Chocolate "Rocky Brand" sticks for the spikes. For the eyes and nose, I made a quick fondant with a dash of water mixed into icing sugar and then popped an M&M on to it. The mouth was made with nibbed almonds. There was a little cake batter left over and we made a 'baby' hedgehog using my rabbit pans.

BBQ Chicken Recipe (same as BBQ Ribs)
Chocolate Cake recipe
Meatball Recipe

The kids had a blast making the cake and the meatballs and they did more than help. They actively participated in the making of the cake where both sifted the flour, held the mixer to beat the sugar and butter and of course in decorating the cake. Same with the spiders where they helped to shape the meatballs and of course had a lot of fun sticking the 'legs' into the spiders!


I have to admit, I'm still a little afraid of the kids using the kitchen appliances but I'm glad that they have taken a real interest in cooking. They loved the fact that they had bragging rights over the cake and spiders and they enjoyed eating their own creations too!



Happy Belated Easter everyone!

Spanish Meatballs - New Year's Tapas

In my previous post, I spoke about how we started off the New Year with a Tapas meal for a few good friends. I promised that recipes would be provided soon and to start it off, this is the recipe for my Spanish Meatballs

The inspiration for this comes from a local Tapas restaurant that serves great meatballs in a tomato based sauce. I like my meatballs meaty and without that floury or artificial bite. For me, the bite from meatballs has to come from pure meat!




I used my tried and tested meatball recipe except that I added in a little chilli. For the sauce, I made a Tomato based sauce flavoured with a lot of Thai Basil. This is what I did.

Ingredients
For the Meatballs
500g Minced Beef
1 green chilli - chopped
1 onion - chopped
2 cloves garlic - chopped
2 Tbsp Tomato Sauce

For the Sauce
2 cloves garlic - chopped
1 Onion - chopped
4 bay leaves
1 Can Stewed Tomatoes
50g Fresh Thai Basil

Method
First, make the meatballs:
Mix all the ingredients together and leave to marinate for about 30 minutes. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Roll the mixture into small tight balls and place on a baking pan.
Bake for about 20 mins or until the meatballs are able to hold their shape.
While the meatballs are baking, start with the sauce.

Sautee the garlic and onion together with the bay leave till fragrant. Add in the can of stewed tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Remove the Basil leaves from stalks and chop the large leaves roughly. Add the leaves into the sauce and allow to simmer.

Once meatballs are cooked, add the meatballs togehter with the drippings into the sauce. Allow to simmer and for the sauce to infuse into the meatballs for about 20 minutes.

Serve with bread.

The meatballs were lovely and firm and the sauce tasted just great eaten with bread. The Lovely Wife was quite surprised by how well it turned out as she had her doubts while I was making it. I keep wondering, after all these years together and all these blog posts, why she keeps doubting me. But I guess that is a wife's perogative! The kids enjoyed it too and I have to say that it really made quite a delicious Tapas. It kept well and was a great snack the next day too!

Spicy Pork Patties and 'The Look'

I have to admit that both The Lovely Wife and I both love cookbooks. I'm more partial toward dessert cookbooks while The Lovely Wife likes them any which way. I did put on a sour face and a scowl however, when she insisted on buying this particular book - an Indian Cookbook. I looked at her and gave her The (well perfected) Look. It's the kind of look where I kind of either frown or raise my eyebrows. My face takes on a really dumbfounded cum haughty expression and if you look hard enough, you can see steam coming out of my fairly large nostrils. If you cant picture it, just think of it as a "you really, seriously, must be joking" kind of look.
I mean seriously, why on earth would either of us need an Indian cookbook? I think we both cook Indian food bloody well!

Despite being on the receiving end of 'The Look', The Lovely Wife still bought the book and later that night I thumbed through it and hummed and hawed that there was nothing really special in there that neither of us couldn't do. The Lovely Wife tried to defend herself and said that it was a nice book nonetheless and there WERE some nice recipes in there and it didn't matter if we could already make some or even all of the dishes. There was nothing wrong in getting a fresh take on recipes. In a final attempt at justifying her purchase, she said that at the very least the book had some nice pictures and maybe I could learn a thing or two about taking nice food shots... okay, not said in such a vicious manner but that was kind of the point. I'll remind her of that the next time I get my hands on a Playboy Magazine...



Anyway, one day she decided to follow one of the recipes from the book and made these Spicy Pork Patties. I tell you, they were delicious! They were so delicious that The Lovely Wife decided to make them again when we hosted Naomi for lunch back in August last year. Everyone thought they were delicious too!

The recipe comes from 30-minute Indian by Suni Vijayakar, a book The Lovely Wife found at one of our local bookstores (either MPH or Borders, can't quite remember). This is the recipe

450g minced pork
3 tsps hot curry paste (she used a mix of curry powder and chilli powder instead)
3 Tbs fresh bradcrumbs
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 Tbs lime juice
2 Tbs finely chopped coriander leaves
1 red chilli, finely chopped
2 tsp brown sugar
salt and pepper

Method
Put the pork, curry paste, breadcrumbs, onion, lime juice, coriander, chilli and sugar in a large bowl and, using your hands, mix until thoroughly blended. Season with salt and pepper. cover and chill for 30mins or until ready to cook

Divide the mixture into 12 portions and shape each one into a flat, round patty.

Heat the oil in a large nonstick fryingpan and cook the patties over a medium heat for 3-4 minuts on each side or until cooked through.


These patties make excellent appetisers and are great with drinks too! The Lovely Wife usually bakes these instead of frying them and they are equally delicious that way.

So maybe it's not such a bad idea having an Indian cookbook in our collection after all....

A contribution to the BloggerAid Cookbook

Most of you would have heard of BloggerAid - Bloggers Uniting to Aid in the Alleviation of Hunger. If you haven't heard of them, then read this post.

BloggerAid has recently launched a huge project and in the words of the founders

Ivy of Kopiaste, Giz of Equal Opportunity Kitchen and Val of More Than Burnt Toast unveiled our ambitious project for our Social Network Bloggeraid to launch our cookbook. Food is our medium and taking a role in alleviating world famine is our mission. Our wish is that you will share our excitement and help make a difference to our world by joining us on this journey.

Yes! BloggerAid is publishing a Cookbook!! Now I've always wanted to publish my own cookbook but the last time I spoke to someone about it, I was told I needed to be famous. And famous I certainly am not. But I digress. For more information on the cookbook and how you can help, please visit this BloggerAid post.

This is my little contribution to the cookbook and it involves Chocolate, Honey, Yoghurt and lots of other stuff. If you are thinking dessert, you're way off target!

My contribution for this cookbook is my own original take on ...


Kofta Curry


If you're hoping to find the recipe here, then I'm sorry I have to disappoint. You either have to wait till the cookbook is out or pay me lots and lots of money. Enough money that we could just forego the cookbook and donate the whole lot to BloggerAid! I think waiting for the cookbook is a better idea. Provided of course that my contribution is good enough...



The Lovely Wife and the kids gave this dish their thumbs up so I can only hope that it will be enjoyed by everyone else as much as my family did. I'm just pleased that I was able to contribute in my own small way to BloggerAid!

Spicy Pasta with Meatballs - More Christmas Meals

As I mentioned in my Vol-au-Vent post, my parents and parents-in-law came over for Christmas Eve dinner at our home. The menu for that night was simple yet tasty. In addition to the Vol-au-vents, I made this pasta dish and instead of the obligatory salad, we had buttered steamed vegetables. The pasta was more as a backup plan because I wasn't sure how the Vol-au-vents would turn or how they would be received. I also wanted to make something that I was sure the kids would enjoy. Pasta is always a favourite with them and they so love my meatballs too!



To make it slightly different, I used a combination of mutton mince and beef mince rather than my usual beef meatballs recipe. I also made them smaller so that they would 'mingle' nicely with the pasta. The spicy pasta was my normal Spicy Aglio Olio - the one with lots of Chilli Flakes. I like how two favourite dishes can combine to make yet another favourite!



And then there was dessert... I wont post about the dessert as it wasn't anything extraordinary. I had made stacks and stacks of Chocolate Cake to take to my parents house on Christmas Day for our 'Open House' and I saved a little for dessert that night.

Quite a lovely spread if you ask me!

Sorry you have to troll to my other posts to find the recipes that make up this dish but rather than offering excuses...well, I was in a bit of a rush to get this post out and I'm just kinda lazy!

I've also entered this to Presto Pasta Nights which is being hosted this time by my lovely friend Ivy at Kopiaste

Meatballs again - this time with sauce. I'm not letting Ikea beat me you see!

I've been away on work for a while and havent been able to update my blog. I could have posted on auto-scheduling but I was just plain lazy. Anyway.

I know that I mentioned previously that my son likes the meatballs at Ikea. I also know that I mentioned that he prefers just the meatballs without the sauce or lingonberry jam that Ikea serves. You must realise though that he said this about a year ago and I guess that times change and tastes change too.

Now he says that he also likes the meatballs with sauce -just like how they serve it at Ikea. Ditto said my daugther.

My son explained that "Daddy's meatballs are nice but the one's from Ikea are quite nice too."

My daughter went on to say, "I like the... that kind of sauce... you know at Ikea... they have that light brown kind of creamy sauce."

Can you see the the smoke coming out of my ears? Like in the cartoons? And can you hear the sound of the train blowing its horn as the smoke came out of my ears??!!

I couldn't very well let my children grow up thinking that Ikea's meatballs are better than mine. No way! I had to try to make this blasted sauce that they seemed to like so much. I admit, I tried making a brown sauce once by cooking a roux till it became brown - but no, it wasnt well received.

This time, I reckoned on making a sauce out of the drippings. You see, I bake my meatballs before taking them out and giving them a quick 'toast' in a hot pan. Baking the meatballs yields a lot of drippings and this would be precisely what would give the sauce a lovely flavour.

I reduced the drippings over high heat for a while and then added in a tbsp of flour to make a roux. Then I added in some milk and cooked it till it thickened up slightly, added in some Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper and I had a lovely sauce that I reckoned would put the Ikea sauce to shame!

The kids had to give their seal of approval though and I waited with almost bated breath as they dipped their meatballs into the sauce and then ate them. My son declared the meatballs and sauce BETTER than Ikea while my daughter gave me a 10 out of 10 for both - she's into scoring my meals nowadays! They both liked the sauce so much that they added it together with the Mushroom and Spinach Pasta I had cooked.



I'm always happy when my Children enjoy a good homecooked meal but this time I got an extra bit of satisfaction knowing that I had beaten Ikea at their own meatballs!!!

Meatballs ala Dharm - Not Swedish Meatballs!

My son loves meatballs. Specifically, he likes the Swedish Meatballs served at Ikea. However, he's not too fond of the sauce, the lingonberry jelly nor the
potatoes. He just wants his meatballs.

I've often made meatballs in Bolognese sauce to go with a Spaghetti Bolognese and have also made meatballs in a spicy tomato based sauce. I've also made meatloaf but
to my son's rather advanced palate, sometimes he just wants plain old meatballs.

Who am I to refuse? I also had to prove that my meatballs were just as good, if not better, than those blasted Ikea Swedish Meatballs didn't I?? After all, meatballs don't have to come from Sweden!!

And so I seasoned the meat, I left it to marinate a while and then I pinched and rolled lovely little meatballs. I placed them on a tray and baked them so that they held their shape and then I lightly fried them with very, very little oil and a little tomato sauce - just to give the meatballs a little extra bite and crunch.

This is the recipe:

500g Minced Beef
1 large Onion - finely chopped
3 cloves garlic - finely chopped
2 tbsp Tomato Sauce
Salt
Black Pepper

Method
Mix all the ingredients together and leave to marinate for about 30 minutes. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Roll the mixture into tight balls and place on baking tray.
Bake for about 30 mins or till lightly browned. Pour the juices together with the meatballs into a pan and stir fry the balls until nicely browned.





That's it. Very easy, very quick and really quite, quite delicious. Both my son and daughter enjoyed the meatballs immensely.

Just to make sure, the next day as we were on the way out, I decided to 'test' out the success of my meatballs.

Me:"Mike, would you like to go to Ikea?"
Michael: "Errm. No thanks Daddy."
Me: "We can have lunch there if you like....you can have their Meatballs"
Michael: "No need Daddy! You're meatballs are much nicer!"

Personally, I thought they were a lot nicer too - not to mention cheaper!!