Home Food: Beef Wellington

Daddy asked: "What do you want for dinner"

Kat (thinking to herself): "What's the most ridiculous, unlikely thing ever... I know!"

Kat (out loud): "Beef Wellington"

Daddy: "Sounds great! Let's go shopping!"

Kat: "opgkpdokfmjgednvb jknb fd..." <-- that's what a dropped jaw sounds like.

So we did. From this we learned 5 things:

1. That Kat is not quite as imaginative as she thinks when it comes to thinking up ridiculous meals...
2. That Daddies have greater power to suprise than Kia cars.
3. That Kia car advertisements are apparently effective.
4. That Kat watches TV sometimes (when at home...)
5. aaand... We learned what a dropped jaw sounds like!

Beef Wellington aka something else... is basically beef sirloin, slathered in pate, shrouded in mushrooms and wrapped in pastry... It can be prepared individually, or in one, great, honking slab like this:

Beef Wellington looking all posh like with not one, not two, but THREE bow ties!

In short, this is NOT the kind of meal any student will EVER make in their own flat... unless something really, really important (like feeding the Royal Family) or a bucket load of money showed up... BUT it's an AMAZING dish, and should definitely be made at some point in everyone's life, especially when one's parents are funding the meal!

This: 

              is what BW looks like on the inside... It's not a brilliant photo, but the centre is beautifully rare! If however, rare is not your thing (tsk, tsk) then the outside parts may well be more to your liking.

I served this for our Easter meal... So I set the table fancy-ily, I'm gonna show it off now!

Setting tables is my current "thing" this ones all pinks, and whites and browns b/c  Easter is a springy thing in the Northern Hemisphere, so all our Easter decorations are spring, rather than autumn based...

Because I'd never made anything like this before, I followed Nigella's recipe nearly to the letter... Things to note though, are:

• I used my Daddy's homemade pate
• I made my own crepes - the crepes are used to soak up any juices from the fillet and, theoretically, stop the pastry from going soggy.
• Make sure your duxelles are really, really dry - or again, you'll have to deal with soggy pastry!
• Mummy and I went to the butcher's so that we could stipulate exactly how much beef we wanted, and it was cheaper than the supermarket anyway!
• I used store bought pastry - b/c I didn't feel like rolling out me own... :|
• Next time I'd maybe cook it on a rack - b/c despite my best efforts the  base of the pastry was still a bit soggy, but Daddy said that was just meat juices from slicing the beef...?
• I served this with roasted potatoes and steamed spinach!

And that's it! :) It's really not that difficult to make - just the beef makes it somewhat expensive. And it's a truly impressive, delicious result that will knock people's socks off for only a little effort!

Winter Comforts: Chilli Con Sausage

I have a slight crush on Nigella Lawson because she is awesome, and pretty, and she makes almost as much mess when she cooks as I do when I cook. Almost.

So this warming, winter recipe for Chilli Con Sausage is adapted for Nigella's recipe for Cornbread Topped Chilli Con Carne only smallified, cheaified and without the mince... :)

Warmth and happiness in a bowl.

The sauce, though is basically the same, and it's very tasty! The addition of cocoa truly does add a rounded, earthy touch...

I made this back when I was cooking for seven, so the method of making a few sausages go far enough is a little involved, but besides that it's a fairly easy, throw-together-and-walk-away meal!

Taste & Create 2: Curried, Roasted Chickpeas

I'm Tasting & Creating twice this month!

My second entry is TL&LoG'sHB's Curried, Roasted Chickpeas:



Cruchy, protein-rich Study Noms

 They're so yummy that you'll eat most of 'em straight off the roasting pan and then have to pour what little are left into a shot glass so that it looks like you actually made a decent quantity...

And, LOOK! Books! And study notes! I am a real student who actually studies! Proof!

You believe me now, right?  I made these to be my study snacks while I prepare for my upcoming Behaviour Analysis exam... much better than the traditional chocolate and junk food route! :)

Click on for the recipe:

Indo-Greek Honey Pie

Now, late last year my family and I went to India... Now that the whole trip is just memories. photographs and some pretty awesome souvieners the whole experience seems a little surreal...

Anywho - while I was there it was my Birthday - and I wanted to have a dessert day with all my favourite things... Which, in hindsight is not the greatest idea when you're in a country with amazing local cuisine, but that  you're totally unfamiliar with and doesn't cater too well to adapting western recipes... Hey, hindsight is 20/20...

As testimony to that, I have previously mentioned the Red Velvet Frisbee... We won't go there... On the plus side, I also got out of my dessert day Birthday the amazing Rose Falooda which  is basically one of the yummiest drinks ever and was introduced to me by our host/hostess Geoff and Joanna - Hi! Geoff and Joanna!!! :) Thank-you for having me! Right. Now. Back to point.

Pictured above is my third dessert, and second successful one of the day. I first made this Greek Honey Pie, or melopita last year for a pot luck dinner with my family in my flat - It. Is. AMAZING! I want for it to become my "signature pie"! The recipe, of course, comes from about.com! Naturally, I wanted to make my "signature" pie for my Brthday dessert... Enter: Problem. Ricotta, in India (or at least in Goa) is expensive. Enter: Daddy. Who suggested that I use the Indian cheese paneer, which is readily available, cheap and of a similarish texture...GENIUS! (Hi! Daddy!!!)

This pie is amazing whether you make it with ricotta, paneer or cottage cheese (the student's ricotta)... I haven't really changed the original recipe much, so I'm only going to link y'all to it - because credit where credit's due, and all that - also I think the original blogger gets points every time someone goes to her page, and that's important too.

But I did make two other changes besides the cheese swap. And those are/were to halve the amount of sugar and to use all alcohol in the pastry instead of water as I do...

Aaand that's it!

Yummy! Try it. You know you want to.

Taste & Create: The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybuch's Broccoli Dal

Phew! What a mouthful!

Well, after this morning's vegan-less panic... I thought to myself... "Mmm... breakfast time!" so I went looking through Shelby Mae's vegan recipes for something I could submit to Taste & Create this month!

I was avoiding all tofu recipes because a) un-fermented soy freaks the bejeebers out of me and b) because of a) I don't have any tofu lurking in my fridge...

But! Only a few recipes down I found this...

Delicious, healthy breakfast? I think so!

Broccoli Dal! OM NOM NOM NOM!!!

I'm going to brutally force y'all to click on the link to get the full recipe - because I don't want you to miss out on the blogging magic that is The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch!

But let me tell you - this is a delicious recipe!

I did make a few changes - mainly to scale down the recipe so that it'd feed only one. I quartered it.

• Also I didn't have any mustard seed, so I used prepared mustard instead.
• I may have accidentally trebled the original recipe's calling for turmeric... But it was still delicious!
• I don't have any almond milk, so I made my own by soaking LSA in 1/4 cup water!
• And I cooked it with a teeny-weeny red chilli rather than sprinkling cayenne over the top.

Also - add salt! This dish tastes good before salt and AMAZING afterwards!

Y'all should definitely make this sometime, for breakfast, lunch or dinner!

PANIC! And true - cupboard scraping Student Food...

Hello Everybody!

Hello Shelby Mae!

Shelby Mae is my Taste & Create buddy for this month... She has a real awesome blog which she's written so that her children and future grand-children can have memories of her. Which, is basically the BEST reason to blog EVER!

And I was flicking through her blog... She have this really useful thing down the side where you can pick out key words... Thus Kat was drawn to cupcakes... And about halfway down this page, Shelby Mae talks about how she is doing her best to be vegan "Good on her!" I thought "I could never do that!" and then... "Wait! Do I have any vegan recipes on my blog?!" *looks at blog* "Hmmm... No, not reeeally..." and then "I don't even have any particularly healthy recipes on my blog. Wow!" *looks through photos on hard-drive* "No... no... no... Oh dear..."

So instead I decided to post these peanut butter cookies. Which are yummy, but contain eggs...

Peanut butter cookies. And no, Mummy, that photo was totally NOT taken on my bed... I would never eat in bed and I definitely make my bed every day... *grins a totally beLIEvable grin*

Now, before I post these... I want to alert y'all to the vegan/able and sort of healthy-ish recipes currently residing on study food:

Vegan:

Home Made Potato Fries
Muesli (provided you don't use honey...)
Fruit Salad Dressing

Annnd. Um. That's it.

Vegan-able:

Potato and Leek Soup - just leave out the cream/milk/cheese and use vegetable instead of chicken stock!

At the very least healthy! ish...

Cottage Cheese Loaf
Cottage Cheese Cupcakes
Pancakes
Spanokopita
Lemony, Fishy Rice
aaand:
Breakfast Muffins

That's it. The rest is not very good for you but very, very yummy - I promise! :)

Thanks to Shelby Mae for opening my eyes to the demographic (is that the right word?) my blog is completely missing! I'm really enjoying reading your blog! I look forward to seeing what you pick from mine...

And without further ado... the recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies

REAL Student Food: Leek and Potato Soup

Heeey...

So. I have this HUGE, important lab report due in in a couple of days, which I should TOTALLY be doing right now. And I'm gonna. Just as soon as I finish this post. I promise. I'm a good student. I promise.

Aaanywho.

It's winter here in NZ right now, and good ol' Wellywood sure turned on the waterworks today... And do you know what is totally awesome on a wet, windy, winter's day in Wellington (or anywhere?!)

Do you?

WOUP!!! (more commonly known as "soup", when used by people not making a pathetic attempt at alliteration)



Potato and Leek soup, with sage. And homemade bread roll. Mine was the little one and the heart was for my Gorgeous Boy... (you may pretend to gag now...)

 This stuff is AMAZING! All it took was 30 minutes and a nearly empty fridge with a leek in it...

Read on, Mac Duff!