Suburban Lush

One Pot Chicken With Tomatoes and Olives

In an attempt to combat weight gained trhough bordom snacking I've started out on a healthy eating mission. If it's just me eating I eat lots of simple vegetarian meals and fruit. The real trick is dinner - coming up with a meal that is good for me and still enjoyable for John after a long day at work. I don't believe in eating separate meals either, so I've had to put my thinking cap on to find diet-friendly meals with flavour and substance although I'm very lucky that John enjoys most veges.

Today I was inspired by a recipe for fish with tomatoes and olives. Our local shop didn't have any white fish, so I picked up a couple of chicken breasts and made this meal. It certainly fit the bill and I'm keen to try it again with fish. I'm sure you could chop and change the veges used (capsicums would be great).

One Pot Chicken With Tomatoes and Olives (makes 2 generous portions)

• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 bacon rasher with fat removed, chopped
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 150 grams mushrooms, chopped (I used baby button mushrooms and simply halved them)
• 5 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• 1 large courgette
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 tsp dried chili flakes
• Chopped fresh parsley and lemon wedges to serve

Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed oven proof dish. Add bacon, onion and mushrooms and cook on the stove until browned, stirring occasionally. Remove from pan. Sear chicken breasts on both sides. Add back in the bacon, onion and mushrooms. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer. While this is happening, pre-heat the oven to 180c. Once hot, place a lid on the pan and transfer to the oven. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 40 minutes.

We had our spooned over wild rice and with a side salad. And don't forget to garnish with the parsley and a good squeeze of lemon.

(Sorry for the bad pick - I snapped it with my phone as I was too hungry to go upstairs and get the proper camera).

4 Steps To Happiness

1. Google cookie recipes.

2. Go to the store and pick up necessary ingredients.

3. Follow recipe.

4. Share oven-warm cookies and a pot of tea with a friend/boyfriend.

 

Ginger Cookies (makes approx 20 cookies)

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup salted butter, melted
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 3 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground allspice
• 1 3/4 cups plain flour
• White sugar for rolling the cookies

Preheat the oven to 190.

In a bowl, combine the brown sugar and melted butter (we don't have a microwave so I just mixed everything up in the saucepan I melted the butter in) and stir until thoroughly combined and smooth. Add the molasses and stir to mix well. Do the same with the egg. Next, add the baking soda, spices and 1 cup of the flour and mix until no flour can be seen in the mixture.  Add the remaining flour and stir until incorporated.

Pour white sugar onto a plate or bowl. Form the dough into balls about 2 centimeters in diameter. Flatten slightly. Dip each ball in the sugar, coating the top, then place on a greased baking sheet sugar-coated side up. Bake for 12 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on tray for 2 minutes. Using a wide spatula, transfer to a wire rack. Best served within a few hours of baking. Recipe liberally adapted from here.

Monday Morning Roundup

Food, walking and laziness. It's been hectic over here!

Over a week ago I cooked dinner for John and completed the second of 4 installments of the Weekly Food Challenge. But I have finally found my camera cord, so this time you get pics, as well! I'd gone to the markets and picked up some lovely plump and juicy steaks. So, what to accompany them. Well, I went for a simple rocket salad, and The Pioneer Woman's caprese salad. Simple and elegant, this salad goes with anything. Ripe market tomatoes, creamy mozzarella (the good kind - don't skimp on this!), aromatic basil leaves, and the simplest of dressing. As well as being dead easy to assemble, it also looks amazing. Check it out:

Caprese salad (makes 2 generous side portions)

• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 12 oz fresh mozzarella
• fresh basil leaves
• balsamic reduction
• olive oil
• sale & pepper to taste

Slice the tomatoes and mozzarella. Layer artistically in a nice dish. Tuck in basil leaves. Drizzle over the olive oil and balsamic reduction. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

If you are lucky (and lazy) it is usually possible to buy balsamic reduction pre-made. But if not, it is easy peasy to make. Simply place balsamic vinegar in a pot and bring to a boil over medium-low heat. Cook for 10 to 20 minutes, or until balsamic has reduced to a thick glaze. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Balsamic reduction is one of those awesome things to have around, so go ahead and make a whole heap - it keeps for quite some time in the fridge. I drizzle mine over salads and pizzas, or to marinade meat.

Next up was desert. Strawberries are luscious and plump at the moment, so I figured I'd give this strawberry cake a go. Sometimes dishes take my fancy despite the fact that I haven't read the description through. This was one of those dishes. And it was delicious, according to John. I wasn't quite such a fan, mostly because I had failed to read that "those strawberries turn into puddles of jam". Which is all well and good if you like jam, but I don't. Or, well, more specifically I like jam only when it comes served with clotted cream and scones. But if you like jam, as John does, then this cake is for you. I didn't fiddle with the recipe at all, so go on over to Smitten Kitchen and check it out.

You might wonder what else have I been up to, other than cooking and eating. First off, I am currently jobless, my temping position having ended. This isn't a terrible thing, as the job was pretty dire. So I've had a week off, which has meant catching up with friends and family. No complaints there.

I've been out hiking as well. Because we are insane, my hiking group decided to do a challenge. It was in two parts. The first part started at midnight and took in 3 peaks before breakfast. I don't know much about the second part because I was too lazy to do it. Friday night saw a group of us congregating in Donard Park, where we had a BBQ before driving around to Bloody Bridge carpark where we donned backpacks, head torches and glowsticks before starting up Bloody Bridge river and over Slieve Donard. Then down Slieve Donard and over Slieve Commedagh, Corrag and Bernagh as the sun came up. The plan was to see the sunrise at the top of Bernagh, but we were a little late and it was foggy. Still, we carried on down to Meelmore where our support crew and cooks extraordinaire had set up shop and were cooking up a storm - blueberry muffins, bacon and sausage baps, tea, coffee, and fruit for the health-conscious (I did not have any fruit, and I maintain that there were plenty of healthy blueberries in the muffins). Most of us had previously decided that the overnight walk was enough for us, but a handful carried on to complete the second half of the challenge.

French Onion Soup + Gooseberry Crumble

You may be wondering what happened on Sunday night, and why you haven't heard about the result of my Weekly Food Challenge. Then again you may not, as regular readers know that I have a habit of not fulfilling promises made here. The truth is, I made a delicious meal with two new dishes, and I took photos. I even had left-overs and they were delicious too. But I'm currently house-sitting, and have misplaced my cable for downloading the photos to my laptop and I was waiting to see if I could find it so that I could show you pretty pictures of food but so far I have not. However, this morning I was thinking about what to make this weekend, and figured I should probably share last weekend's results, even if there are no photos as yet.

So . . . . first up was French Onion Soup served with a green salad. I've been wanting to make French Onion soup for years, but John isn't a fan so I've always put it off. But now, with a house to myself, I figured it was time to give it a go.

I used a combination of ChristopherCina's recipe, and this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Because the recipe is simple, with very few ingredients, I decided that it would pay to use good-quality ingredients. I picked up a bottle of decent sherry (although honestly I wouldn't know if it was decent sherry or not, but it wasn't the cheapest bottle on the shelf), quality beef stock (no veal stock in Belfast!), fresh thyme and onions from the organic grocer at the markets, and some aged gruyere, again from the markets. I spent ages caramelising my onions and the house smelt heavenly. Once the soup was done I sliced a french loaf, floated slices on top of a large bowl of soup, mounded on the grated cheese and popped it under the grill until it was bubbly and golden. Perfect!

Next, desert. The house that I am looking after has a lovely garden, overflowing with raspberries, red and black currants, and gooseberries. While the raspberries are eaten straight off the bush while I'm standing in the sunshine, I figured I'd better find a recipe for the currants and gooseberries before the laden branches broke. So, to Google I went. And found this Gooseberry Crumble. I love crumble. Apple crumble. Rhubarb Crumble. Any sort of crumble at all. So I figured gooseberry crumble would be just the ticket. I picked a bowl of the gooseberries, and then couldn't resist throwing in a few handfuls of the red currants. In to the house I went to top and tail the gooseberries, and whip them up into a delicious desert. The crumble was excellent and extremely tart - the perfect antidote to the richness of the French Onion soup. It would no doubt be fantastic with whipped cream or (better yet!) vanilla ice cream, but I am still trying to behave myself a little bit so I refrained. Don't be as disciplined as me.

French Onion Soup (serves 4)

• 2 ltrs good quality beef stock
• 3 yellow onions, sliced
• 1tbs olive oil
• 1 cup sherry
• 2 tbs fresh thyme leaves
• freshly ground black pepper
• french bread
• gruyere cheese (about 1/4 cup grated per serving)

Place the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan and heat on medium high heat. Once melted, add the onions. Caramelise the onions, stirring them about every 5 minutes, making sure each slice gets some time at the bottom of the pan. When all the onions are a lovely milk chocolate brown you are done (this takes about 30 to 40 minutes - patience is a virtue). Poor in the sherry and deglase the pan. Simmer until the sherry is reduced by half. Add the stock and thyme leaves and simmer for around 45 minutes.

Thickly slice the french bread and pre-heat the grill. Spoon a generous portion of soup into an oven proof bowl. Float the bread on top. Cover with grated gruyere cheese. Place under the grill until the cheese becomes bubbly and golden brown. Swoon with the delicious smell. Pour yourself a glass of wine. Enjoy.

Gooseberry and Red Currant Crumble (I haven't put any measurements here, because crumble is one of those dishes where amounts don't really matter, and you can make enough for 1, or enough for 8, and adjust the amount of topping to your personal preference - personally I usually go for lots of fruit, little topping, but I have friends who prefer the opposite.)

• Gooseberries, topped and tailed
• Red currants (I used a ratio of approx 1:8 of red currants and gooseberries)
• Squeeze of lemon juice
• Plain flour
• Rolled oats
• Butter
• Sugar

Preheat the oven to 200C. Spread the fruit evenly in the baking dish and sprinkle with sugar and lemon juice. Place in the warm oven. In a separate bowl, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the oats and sugar and stirr. Spoon this mixture onto the top of the now slightly softened fruit mixture. Sprinkle with a little more sugar. Place in the oven, uncovered, and bake for around 50 minutes until the berries are soft and the topping is golden. Serve on its own, or with vanilla ice cream or cream.

And there you have a perfect Sunday night dinner.

Weekly Food Challenge

I haven't been writing about food much here recently. It isn't that I haven't been cooking, but more that I haven't been cooking anything interesting. Following a spate of 'leaving NZ' dinners and drinks with friends and family, 'joyous return to NI' drinks and dinners with family and friends, and recovering from a year's worth of Guinness withdrawal, I have recently had to embark on a healthy eating plan. Which means that dinners these days have mostly consisted of salads and stir-frys and there has been very little baking going on in my kitchen.

The food blogs I read keep on putting up delicious recipes, and I keep putting them in a folder for 'later'. John sighs as I put yet another low fat meal on the dinner table. And after a month of veges, my taste-buds are begging for something new. Thus the Weekly Food Challenge. For the next 4 weeks I aim to make a nice Sunday dinner using at least 2 new recipes, be they starters, side dishes, main courses or deserts. Bonus points if I try out a new drink as well! Furthermore, I will write about these meals here, giving you the recipes and letting you know whether I liked the dishes or not. While I will aim for these dinners to be on a Sunday, if for some reason I cannot make a Sunday dinner I will make the meal on some other day of the week, and if I am having people over mid-week I will allow myself to make a Challenge meal then instead of on Sunday. This is my challenge, so I get to set rules to suit me!

So now for your help. Do you have any recipes for me to try? Want to play along at home and let me know how your meals work out? Or do you live in Belfast and are you free for Sunday dinner - good food needs good company!

Restaurant Review - Rocket & Relish

I was not in the best of moods last night. My job is boring and frustrating, and I'd just had an email from a friend cancelling an evening out later in the week that I'd really been looking forward to. So I was grumpy. And instead of sitting at home all night with a grumpy girlfriend, John suggested we go out for dinner. I leapt the idea, throwing my diet aside as John mentioned Rocket & Relish - the burger bar we'd been meaning to try for so long.

I don't know why we waited as long as we did, but I can tell you that Rocket & Relish on the Lisburn Road will be one of our regular haunts from now on. I had the Goat's Cheese and Jalapeno beef burger, stacked high with generous portions of creamy goat's cheese, aioli, rocket, fresh and sun-blushed tomatoes, and just the right amount of jalapeno mayo to give the whole thing a slight tingle (perfect for me but if John had been eating the burger he would have preferred a more overwhelming spiciness). And sweet potato fries. Oh man. Those who know me well will know that one of the foods I miss so much from NZ are kumera fries. Kumera is a South Pacific variety of sweet potato. And while these sweet potato fries were no kumera fries, they came close enough to make me happy. John had a Bacon & Blue beef burger - maple cured bacon, creamy blue cheese dressing, aioli, rocket and tomato - with a side of fries, and was kind enough to let me have a bite. Excellent!

The portions were huge and John only just managed to finish his meal. There was no way I could finish mine. The establishment itself is bright and modern. It isn't licenced and caters mostly for take-away. There are a few tables inside and out, but even if you are sitting in your meal is brought to you wrapped in waxed paper - no cutlery, but who needs a knife and fork to eat a burger and fries anyway? A delicious and casual dinner for two and a perfect way to banish grumpiness!

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

It has been so long since my last update that I can't even remember when it was (yes, I could check the archives, but I'm lazy) and I'm sorry about that - I've missed you! But now it is 2011, and in just a few weeks I leave the sunny shores of New Zealand for the rainy shores of Northern Ireland. I'm looking forward to it.

The last few weeks have been family-filled, with 9 days spent in Brisbane with my parents and my sister Wombat's family. The day before I arrived, and just prior to Christmas, they welcomed a little girl into the world, the lovely, darling Nipper. The first new-born baby I have ever seen, and certainly the first baby I have ever held. I was nervous the first few times (so small!! so delicate!!!) but soon got comfortable enough to take her off Wombat's hands at every opportunity.

The 7 of us (Wombat, her husband Skippy, Munchkin, Nipper, my parents and I) celebrated Christmas, Aussie style. No, we didn't head to the beach (the weather wasn't great) but we had a lovely Christmas tree

and the most amazing Christmas dinner (courtesy of Skippy) while sitting by the pool, diving in whenever we got too hot.

It was divine.

Our days in Brisbane were spent relaxing with family, drinking beer, wine and champagne, and generally hanging out. One afternoon, leaving the kids with their grandparents, Wombat, Skippy and I headed out to see the latest Harry Potter film. When it wasn't raining there were walks on the beach, and Skippy even took my Dad, Munchkin and I out on the boat for a bit of water-skiing early one morning. 

Then it was back to New Zealand for New Years. I had no real plans for New Years Eve, but the afternoon was sunny and a couple of my friends were keen to join me pool-side at my parents place. We sat by the pool, swam and drank champagne.

We had dinner and martinis.

And we rang in the new year, in pool, with a glass of bubbles in hand.

I hope you all had as wonderful a Christmas and New Years as I did, and thanks for sticking around for the few and far between posts of 2010. Here's to more active blogging in 2011!

xoxoxoxoxo SL

Birthdays, Brisbane and Babies

"I just spent 5 lovely days staying with my sister and her family (I'll tell you all about it and put up some photos later in the week) " Hahahahah! I hope you don't expect me to stick to my promises! If so, get used to disappointment.

Anyway, I did have a lovely time staying with Skippy:

Wombat:

and Munchkin:

We did . . . not much. Lovely relaxed family stuff. It was Wombat's birthday on the Monday, so on the Sunday we had a bunch of her friends over for a birthday brunch. I made cinnamon buns and they were awesome:

On the Monday Skippy headed to work, Munchkin to daycare, and Wombat and I went for a girls' day out. Shopping. In Brisbane. It was fun, although it was also a bit of a tour of Brizzy's public bathrooms because someone was busy pressing on someone else's bladder

(don't worry, I wasn't involved in any of those actions).

We had icecream cake that night. This photo doesn't even begin to show how thrilled Munchkin was about it.

He'd split the beans the day before, unable to contain his excitement and announcing "Mommy, it's your birthday downstairs . . . and it's chocolate!"

Other than that it was laid-back picnics on the beach,

trips to the playground,

and baking bread

in the new

bread machine

I can't wait to go back in December!

 

A Taste of Childhood

Being a perpetual migrant means I'm always missing something from places where I no longer live. Friends, family, weather and food. And for me, it is almost always seems to be junk food that I miss. Toffee Pops, kumera fries, aioli and Bluebird salt and vinegar chips from New Zealand; the Churros from the Christmas markets in Belfast; and, the longest list of all, the North American junkfood of my childhood: Cinamon Toast Crunch, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Kraft Dinner, cinamon buns, proper marshmallows, slurpees, doughnuts, and anything from Dairy Queen (although I'm particulary partial to Skor Blizzards, onion rings and Peanut Buster Parfait) to name a few.

While it would appear from the above list that I grew up on a diet of junkfood that's not the case. These were the things which were the biggest treats when I was growing up, and still remain treats, if only for the sake of nostalgia. I have the distinct feeling that if I came upon a few of these things for the first time as an adult I would think they were disgusting. Kraft Dinner, slurpees and Peanut Buster Parfait all fall into this category.

My Dad just got back from a trip to Canada, and managed to squeeze a few treats into his suitcase for me. Just the sight of them makes me a very happy girl!

Restaurant Roundup

One of the items on my list was to try 3 new restaurants. Now, this may seem like a no-brainer, but when writing up the list I realised that I was only back at home for a year, and knew that I was likely just to re-visit my old haunts and favourite restaurants. And I have done that, quite a bit, but as of last Tuesday I had officially checked out 3 new restaurants in town.

The first was Vespa, which I wrote about here. Then, last weekend, I checked out The Woodbox with some family friends. The Woodbox is a lovely restaurant just out of town. We ordered a selection of tapas, then mains (I had locally farmed duck leg braised in master stock w pickled shitake mushrooms, fennel puree medjool dates & fig vincotto - divine) and then finished with a selection deserts to share. It was a lovely meal, and beautifully presented.

Then, on Tuesday night, my Mom and I headed out for dinner and a movie. We went to Chim Choo Ree, a small and slightly alternative restaurant on the main street. Knowing we'd have popcorn at the movies (neither of us can ever resisit it) we ordered entrees: pumpkin & goats curd ravioli with sage butter for me, and Manuka smoked eel with canadian scallops and apple & radish salad for Mom, and a side of fries to share. We couldn't resist desert, and shared the hubarb & rose jelly with meringue, custard and sour cream ice cream. I'd go here again. Tonight if I could. The food was divine, and the atmosphere European. Definitely a new favourite.