Last week's meals

Pollo in Pottachio (link to recipe)
I've made this before and we all enjoy it. I use stock or fruit juice in place of the wine. I served it on pasta.

Slow cooker beef stew served with pasta or rice.

Jacket potatoes with cheese and baked beans.

Homemade pizza with ham and pineapple on.

Chinese style sticky pork served with rice and stir-fried vegetables.

Low fat oven chips with oven fish.

Toasted sandwiches with cheese and baked beans or ham and cheese.

Poppy seed chicken (link to recipe) served with rice.

Some recent meals

Swedish meatballs (link to recipe)
(A new-to-us recipe which I will make again.)
The first night I served them with oven chips and steamed carrots, corn and green beans. The next night I had the leftover meatballs and sauce over pasta (delicious!) while the rest of the family had chips from the fish-and-chip shop and battered (fried) snapper that Grant had caught.

Chicken Divan (link to recipe)
I adore this and would eat it at least once a week. I add a teaspoon or so of curry powder to the sauce and it just makes it. Serve over rice.

We've been eating a lot of roasted butternut, potatoes and beetroot - I sometimes throw some onion in there too. So delicious and easy and I just add some chicken breasts or minute steaks to make up a full meal.

Some of this week's meals

Pork chops with roasted diced potatoes, steamed carrots and broccoli, and gravy.

Skinny Chicken Enchiladas (link to recipe)
(A new-to-us recipe which I will make again.)
I only had 10 inch tortillas so I used 4. I found this recipe serves 4 if the enchiladas are all you have. They were delicious! However, the kids didn't think so and acted as if I was poisoning them.

Stuffed pepper soup (link to recipe) out of the freezer as I wasn't in the mood to cook after a day at work.

Bobotie served with rice and steamed carrots and broccoli.

Pam's Lamb stir-fry (frozen product). It was okay, probably won't re-purchase.

Some of this week's meals

Slow cooked BBQ beef (link to recipe)
(A new-to-us recipe which I will make again.)
We had this on rolls with not much else - bit of a rushed meal. It was good but the sauce is quite strong - I'll use fewer ingredients next time and add some water.

Cheesy taco pasta (link to recipe)
(A new-to-us recipe which I will make again.)
Delicious. It is a small-ish portion, don't know if it would truly feed 6 as the recipe states. We got 4 generous portions out of it - in future I'd probably split it into 5.

Pasta with Italian chicken sausage, peppers and escarole (link to recipe)
(A new-to-us recipe which I will make again.)
I tweaked it a little: left out the red pepper flakes, added a can of chopped tomatoes to the sausage mixture, and left out the escarole.

Cheeseburger casserole (link to recipe)
(A new-to-us recipe which I will make again.)
I didn't have turkey mince so I used 350g steak mince and the rest turkey sausage meat. I also didn't have low fat evaporated milk or the cheese product - I used grated cheese and low fat sour cream. Everyone except Noah enjoyed this. I found the recipe served 4, not 6 (the portions would have been too small) but maybe that was because I was so hungry by the time it was ready.

BBQ

BBQ with teriyaki marinated pork loin chops (they were so tender!), jacket potatoes and salad with my new favourite salad dressing - half a tablespoon each of malt vinegar and oil, a tablespoon of pesto and a tablespoon of mayonnaise, all mixed together.

Vegetable soup

Vegetable soup and easy cheese scones (which only I liked, but whatever).

Easy cheese scones
2 cups self-raising flour
2 cups grated cheese
1¼ cups milk

Mix the flour and cheese together then stir in the milk until all blended. This will make a wet dough. Use two spoons to scoop lumps of the dough onto a greased baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 200°C.

(Optional: add herbs, spices, garlic, etc to the dough if you want to.)

Cheeseburger Pasta

Click here for the recipe.

Macaroni Moosh

We all like Macaroni Moosh - click here for recipe.

Sausage stuffing skillet

I made this recipe with half the stuffing and it still tasted too "stuffingy". We had it with oven rolls.

Mexican casserole

1 pound lean ground beef [I used lamb]
1 tin beans, drained [I used flageolet]
1 bag tortilla chips, crushed
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 small onion, chopped
2 cups grated cheese
1 package taco seasoning [I made my own]
1 tin cream of chicken soup
½ cup water

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. In a large frying pan or pot, brown meat and drain off fat. Stir in beans, tomatoes, onion, taco seasoning, soup and water. Simmer over medium-low heat until everything is well combined and heated through.

Grease a lasagne dish. Put down a layer of crushed tortilla chips, followed by a layer of the meat/bean mixture, then half of the cheese. Repeat layers. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until bubbly and golden.

Let sit for 5-10 minutes before serving. Top with sour cream and salsa if you like (we didn't).

We all really enjoyed this and I'll definitely be making it again!

Chicken lasagne

half a cooked chicken, shredded, OR two large chicken breasts, chopped and cooked
lasagna noodles
½ cup sour cream
¼ cup ricotta cheese or cream cheese
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
¼ cup parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon minced garlic
Italian herbs

Boil the noodles according to package instructions; make sure to add a little oil to the pan to prevent noodles from sticking together. Rinse in cold water and set aside.

Mix the cream soup, sour cream, ricotta, garlic, parmesan cheese and herbs together until well combined.

Layer in a greased baking dish: lasagne noodles (spread a little sauce in the pan before adding them), then seal the noodles in with half of the sauce followed by half of the chicken and half of the cheese. Repeat the layers. On the top sprinkle the remaining cheese.

Bake in a 180 degree oven for 20-30 minutes or until cheese is melted and the lasagne is hot through.

I served this with corn and the sweetness went very well with the lasagne, which was delicious - I'll be making it again.

Mongolian beef

Recipe via Newly Woodwards (click for pictures).

2 teaspoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon ginger, minced
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
½ cup soy sauce
½ cup water
¾ cup dark brown sugar
vegetable oil, for frying (I used about ¼ cup)
1 lb beef steak
¼ cup cornstarch
3 large spring onions, sliced in 2" segments

Heat 2 tsp of vegetable oil in a medium saucepan on med heat, oil shouldn't get too hot. Add ginger and garlic to the pan. Almost right away add the soy sauce and water.

Dissolve the brown sugar in the sauce. Raise the heat to medium high and boil the sauce for 2-3 minutes or until thickens slightly. Remove from heat.

Slice the steak against the grain into 1/4" thick slices. You can get this cut if you tilt your knife 45 degrees as you slice.

Dip the steak pieces into the cornstarch, applying a thin dusting to both sides. (We threw the cornstarch into a large ziplock bag, added the beef and smooshed till it was all covered.) Let the beef sit for about 10 minutes so that the cornstarch sticks.

As the beef sits, heat up the oil in a wok or deep skillet. The oil should be hot, but not smoking.

Add the beef and sauté for 2 minutes or until the beef edges are just beginning to darken. Stir meat around so it cooks evenly. Remove the meat and rest it on paper towels. Pour the oil out of the wok.

Put the pan back over med heat and put the meat back in, let it simmer for about a minute.

Add the sauce, cook for another minute while stirring. Then add the spring onions. Cook for another minute. Serve over rice.

This was delicious and I'll make it again.

Poppy seed chicken

2 large skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 tin cream of chicken soup
about 70 Ritz crackers, crushed into coarse crumbs
125ml sour cream
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Chop the chicken breast into bite size pieces and sautee until cooked. Add soup, sour cream, half of the crackers and half of the poppy seeds. Mix and pour into an oven dish. Mix remaining Ritz crackers and poppy seeds together and sprinkle over chicken mixture. Drizzle melted butter over top. Bake 30 minutes at 180.

I served this with rice and steamed carrots, Brussels sprouts and broccoli.

For dessert we had Nutella brownies - so quick and easy. Just whisk together half a cup of Nutella with one egg, then mix in 5 tablespoons of plain flour. Turn into a dish and bake until just set.

Easy pasta bake with meatballs

Yay for daylight savings which means that there is still daylight at supper time so I can take photos!







250g pasta
200g soft cheese
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper
Italian herbs
¼ cup Parmesan or grated hard Italian cheese
1-2 cups grated cheese
350g jar tomato sauce
about 16 small meatballs (optional)

Cook the pasta in a pot of boiling, salted water and drain when the pasta still has some bite to it, maybe two minutes before the end of the cooking time. It is also going to cook in the oven, you do not want your pasta to be overcooked. Reserve a little cooking water.

Mix together the soft cheese, garlic, herbs, salt, pepper, Parmesan cheese and half of the jar of sauce. I used Weight Watchers roasted garlic sauce (so I left out the garlic in the recipe) but any basic tomato pasta sauce will do, or make your own.

Add the soft cheese mixture to the pot. Mix until it coats all of the pasta, adding a little of the pasta water to thin it out. Spread the pasta evenly into a 9×13 inch casserole dish.

Press meatballs into the pasta if using (I used thawed Ikea meatballs). I think it would be good with bite-sized pieces of cooked sausage.

Spread the rest of the tomato sauce on top. Sprinkle with the cheese. Bake at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Let the pan sit for about 10 minutes before you cut it.

Cheeseburger Pasta

500g lean beef or lamb mince
1 package taco seasoning (I made my own - see below)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
250g pasta

Put pasta on to cook. Brown and drain meat. Stir in taco seasoning and tomatoes. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat and cover pan. Simmer until pasta is ready.

Meanwhile, make the cheese sauce….

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
¾ cup milk
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Whisk in the flour and cook, whisking for a few minutes until fragrant and light brown in colour. Whisk in the milk and bring to a boil. Whisk until smooth and thickened. Remove from heat and stir in the shredded cheddar cheese until melted. Add the salt and pepper to the cheese sauce. Pour the cheese sauce over the mince mixture. Stir gently to combine and stir pasta into the sauce.

This dish is very good, the kids enjoyed it too. I made my own taco seasoning as I didn't have any in the house - here's the recipe, although I reduced the chilli powder by half and left out the cumin, which I hate.

Taco Seasoning (equivalent of 1 packet)
2 teaspoons mild or hot chilli powder (I used mild, and half the amount)
1½ teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoons onion powder (I didn't have any so I left this out)
½ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoons garlic powder
½ teaspoons ground cumin (I left this out)
½ teaspoons oregano

Toscano soup

5 potatoes, peeled, halved, and sliced in ¼” slices
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
450g sausage meat
600ml boiling water
3 chicken stock cubes
1½ cups frozen spinach
100ml cream
parmesan cheese

Stir the sausage meat on medium to medium high heat and break it up as it cooks. When the sausage is halfway done, add the potatoes, onion, and garlic.

Continue to cook until sausage is no longer pink, and the edges of the potatoes are translucent. Add the boiling water, stock cubes and frozen spinach. (The stock cubes might sound like a lot but the potatoes absorb the saltiness.) Reduce heat to low and cover with a lid. Simmer for 20-30 minutes. When potatoes are fork tender, remove from heat and stir the cream in (I just used tinned cream as I don't usually have cream in the house). Sprinkle with a little parmesan cheese and serve.

Grant really liked this soup.