Cooking Challenge update 18.03.12

Sorry I've been a bit lame about keeping this updated lately. Tom and I have been working in earnest on learning and practising wedding songs for our friend's Jemma and Steve's wedding in April so I've not had much chance to sit down and write, but also Tom's needed to use the laptop to check out guitar music etc. Looks like I might have to dust off my old laptop if I'm going to keep on top of everything I want to be writing about!!

Lack of updates aside, quite a few recipes have been completed and crossed off the Cooking Challenge list since my last cooking update on 22nd Feb.

I managed to kill two birds with one cauliflower so to speak as I made both the Macaroni Cauliflower Cheese Bake and Cauliflower Cheese Soup with one cauliflower in one week (both from Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food).
I'm afraid I've had too many sleeps since I made those so won't really be able to write down the recipes from memory, but they were both very tasty, albeit not very healthy. Not good for the pre-wedding  weight-loss plan. If I make them again any time soon, I promise I will make a note of what I did so I can write it up properly at a later date!

The cauliflower cheese soup was actually really delicious and surprisingly filling for a soup, so I'll definitely be trying that one again, although maybe after the wedding now as I'm at my target weight now so want to maintain it. It did 3 servings on the night I made it and then I think I took it to work three days in a row and I think Tom had some another night in the week, so it really did last a fair while.

The only thing with cheesy recipes like this is that the longer you keep them simmering on the stove, the more the fat separates and starts to float on the surface. It doesn't make a difference to the taste but it just doesn't look very nice. If you don't think you could cope having so much cauliflower in one week, then you could always portion out the soup into freezer bags and just defrost as and when you fancied it. [NB: I've not tried this yet so don't know how well it would thaw but you never know until you try :)]







The Macaroni Cauliflower Cheese Bake was also really nice so I hope I'll get a chance to make that one again sometime soon after Steve and Jem's wedding!


Other than that, I've also had a go at Jamie's Vanilla Cheesecake, which Tom's Mum has made quite a few times before - it's actually quite a citrus-y cheesecake thanks to the citrus zest so I think vanilla is a bit of a deceptive description. I love citrus flavours though so made me happy! I made it for the first birthday party of my friend's baby Ffion (I can't believe she's one already!) and everyone said it was nice, but you know I have high standards, so I'm always going to be self-critical. Whilst I was making it I felt that it was quite easy, but as I hadn't tried it before I wasn't really sure whether I was deluding myself or not! The one thing I wasn't 100% sure about was whether I was toasting the rolled oats too long or not - the recipe says to toast them in a frying pan until they turn a darker colour, but mine took absolutely ages to change colour and when they did they started smelling quite strongly, which made me worry that they were just burning slightly.

Yummy, but a bit too crumbly...

 The end product turned out ok but not as nice as the one's Tom's Mum has made in the past - the base was a bit crumbly when we cut it - but the topping was really tasty in fairness. Tom's Mum did suggest not bothering toasting the oats and she also suggested putting the cream cheese mixture through a sieve to get rid of any lumps before adding the whipped cream. I might try it that way if I make it again (so many other recipes to get through first though!!

One of the other recipes I've tried lately is Jamie's Chicken Chow Mein. I've not made much (if any!) Chinese-style food from scratch so this was quite a new experience to me. The main comment I have about it is that it really should be made and served pretty much straight away as otherwise it can dry out a bit and everything starts to stick together. Jamie's tip of reserving some of the water you cook the noodles in was definitely useful for loosening up the chow mein, but then you have to keep tasting to make sure you're not diluting the flavour too much. I had to keep adding soy sauce and lime juice every now and then to make sure it kept its flavour.
The other thing I would have done differently is sliced or chopped up the water chestnuts a bit before adding them to the wok - the ones I bought were quite huge, and although I have memories of loving water chestnuts when we had takeaways as a child, eating them whole felt a bit odd. It must be something to do with the texture, as I can't think of any other way to describe why it was a bit strange!

And finally I also made some Breakfast Burritos from Ravinder Bhogal's Cook in Boots (I think last weekend). One of my friends has recently bought a couple of chickens for eggs so we've had quite a lot of fresh eggs lately, and since we always have tortilla wraps in the house it seemed like a perfect excuse to try out this recipe. I added in some sliced mushrooms when I was frying the chorizo just cos I love them (maybe also because I needed to use them up!). I'll post a proper write up of the recipe if I can soon. This post has already gotten a bit long without actually providing much useful content I'm afraid! I'll try to rectify that soon!

That's all for the Cooking Challenge update so far, although I have been cooking other things besides!

The current totals are as follows!

Recipes completed: 15        Remaining: 57     Weeks remaining: 41

Next challenge is Goan Sausage Burgers (which means I get to use the burger making kit again! Yippee!) with chunky masala chips and pineapple salsa! Pork mince is defrosting as we speak so hopefully I can update on how that goes sooner rather than later!

Bye for now!
xx