beetroot and mint salad

This was last night's tea.
Steak, potatoes, and veges.
The vegetables were golden zucchini and eggplant from the garden char grilled.
VCH even declared that the eggplant was yummy!
Fresh asparagus also char grilled- not from the garden but in season and cheap at the moment.
Nothing can beat fresh asparagus - yum!!
It would have to be one of our favourite vegetables but you can only eat it for such a short period of time.

The other vegetable was beetroot also from the garden.
I didn't have time to cook it so I made up this super quick salad that we all agreed was just so yummy.
I have written it down here for you to try.


Beetroot and mint salad

Ingredients:
2 beetroot
white balsamic vinegar
2 heaped tablespoons sour cream
Mint

1. Peel and grate the beetroot leaving the stalk on it- to stop it bleeding too much.
2. Put this in a bowl with a splash of white balsamic vinegar
3. Mix in sour cream and roughly chopped mint

It is just so delicious.

peru

Last week we studied Peru.

Our meal was a dish from Peru called Tacu Tacu which is traditionally a working man's lunch dish made from leftovers and originated with African Slaves.


It consisted on a rice and bean patty, a thin sheet of steak, Fried Plantain (I used bananas - as per recipe) and a fried egg on top.
The rice and bean patty was too hot even though I had used half the amount of chilli.
The fried bananas were good.
VCH thought the dish was a bit dry- I would probably agree with him.

We also had a frozen lime drink- very refreshing in this hot weather.
I would definitely make this again.

Dessert was a caramel meringue parfait.
The caramel was made by boiling a tin of condensed milk for a couple of hours. (it tasted exactly the same as caramel top'n'fill) and the meringue was made by boiling port and sugar together and then adding to whipped egg whites.
You put the caramel into parfait glasses and then pipe the meringue on top, chill.
Sprinkle with cinnamon just before serving.
These were extremely rich.

There was heaps of meringue mixture left over so I piped it onto a tray (I am not one for piping much) and cooked it as for cooking meringues and we ate them at the same time as the dessert.
I think the kids liked them best of all.
I also found a nice salad recipe with corn in it but I didn't think we would be able to fit it in, but I would like to make it some other time.
It is interesting trying different things from other countries.
Some are hits and others not but I am glad that the children are always keen to try new things.

in my kitchen- pantry

My kitchen is very special to me, I waited a long time for it and when we did our extension two years ago I finally had the chance to build my dream kitchen and I love it!

It is beautiful, functional and I love to cook in it!

We have a large walk in pantry with bench space.
VCH fitted it out for me using the timber bench from our old kitchen, restaining it to match the bench in the main kitchen.
VCH and I designed it and he built the shelves out of white melamine.

It has space for my cookbooks, electrical appliances- the ones we use everyday we keep on the bench.

We keep the first aid kit and medical stuff in here.
It has space for a month's worth of groceries for my family of 8 as well as some of the larger Tupperware and casserole dishes
.
The pantry has sliding doors to hide away the mess when visitors come but other than that we hardly use them.

Last year I picked up a design book in a tile showroom and happened to flip open to a pantry that could have been mine- it was almost exactly the same (except it had been "styled" for the photo with matching everything), I couldn't believe it!

eating our national emblem

Some people from other countries may think it strange to eat your national emblem but here in Australia the aboriginals have been doing it for thousands of years.
The early settlers often did too.
As we have become more refined we have moved away from it.
But now it is coming back into fashion.
They have found that kangaroo meat is actually very good for you, and people are starting to eat it more.
VCH and I have tried it a couple of times at restaurants usually as an entree, but I have never cooked it myself, until the other day that is.
Whilst shopping for ingredients for our meal from Brazil I saw some in the meat section of the supermarket.
They had them as garlic and herb mini roasts so I thought we would give it a burl.
Here is the result.

Most people enjoyed it, they particularly liked the red wine jus I made to go with it and we had roasted veges with a breadcrumb topping - very nice and some lovely fresh broccoli straight from the garden. - yummy!

don't cry for me argentina

My children are so sick of hearing me sing the lines to that classic song every time we talk about Argentina.

But they now know the meaning behind it.

Here is what we cooked.

Pastel de papas.
Which is basically cooked mince sandwiched between mashed potato.


And a salad- their salad only had lettuce and tomato but I had to add some cucumbers from the garden and a nice dressing with parsley and mint from the garden.

Everyone really liked this and have requested it again.

Then yesterday morning we had Churros for morning tea.

You boil water, salt and butter and then add the flour and cook.
Then you roll the dough into shapes and deep fry in hot oil and sprinkle with icing sugar.
In Argentina they serve it with dulce de leche which is basically a tin of condensed milk boiled until it caramelises.
I didn't bother with this but got a tin of caramel fill out of the pantry and heated it until it was smooth.
Dip your Churros into the caramel and enjoy.

meal from brazil

For our meal from Brazil we had Brazilian donuts for morning tea.

For the night time meal we did a Brazilian BBQ with chicken skewers marinated in garlic and lime juice and then topped with yoghurt and Parmesan cheese before grilling. Yummy!
We also had kebabs with lamb, pork chorizo sausage and mushrooms, I used a Portuguese marinade, because a lot of their recipes are Portuguese based, it was very spicy. this was served with Brazilian rice, and a salsa made with capsicums, tomatoes, and onion.
We made Swiss lemonade (which is made with limes) and for dessert we made Brigadeiro, a little sweet made with condensed milk and cocoa.

I have become out of practice at taking photos of meals and forgot to take some of the main, so I only have photos to show you the donuts and the sweets.
We are off to Argentina next- stay tuned.

V slicer

This is my V slicer.
Well technically it is VCH's not mine, I bought it for him for Christmas.
He had wanted one for so long - like they used to have when he was a kid.
We bought one on e-bay but it didn't work good enough for him.
But when our new kitchen shop opened just before Christmas they had them, so I bought him one for Christmas.
It is great, he loves it, I love it, the kids love it.
It is so easy to slice onions, tomatoes, carrots- anything you want thin and uniformly sliced.
It is quick and easy to use with very little washing up.