Well, last Sunday's cooking wasn't entirely a waste of time at least. The turkey and orange pot came out very well. The turkey wings were quite fatty though so when it was cooked, I fished them out of the pot and stripped the meat from the bones and just put that back into the pot. There was a surprising amount of meat actually and I divided it up into four generous portions. Three went straight into the freezer and one is in the fridge to be used up this week. I didn't bother with the final step of topping it with bread yet, that can wait for when it's being heated up. I'm not a big fan of soggy bread you see.
Unfortunately, the other dish was not as successful. This is partly due to the fact that I think the method of cooking really was more suited to chicken breast than the tougher turkey legs. Certainly what I reheated yesterday, where the turkey was a bit more submerged in the sauce while heating up, was less tough and stringy than the day before. The legs were also very fatty so for storing for the leftovers I put the stuffed legs in one container and the sauce into another. That meant that yesterday I could just remove the layer of fat on top of the sauce and get rid of it and just enjoy the wonderfully gelatinous sauce that was left over. This dish also wouldn't lend itself well to freezing so I'm just going to have to eat it all this week. The third portion is heating up as I type. In the end I was actually too lazy to cook either rice or pasta and I just had it with a couple of slices of bread, always nice for soaking up the last bits of sauce. My big thumbs down for this recipe however, comes from the fact that it just didn't go together well. The meat stuffed with creamcheese and kale is okay and the tomato and olive sauce is lovely. But the two, in my opinion, just don't complement each other at all. I felt like I was eating two separate meals on one plate. So, a bit of a fail for my substitutions and my cooking but also a bit of a fail for the recipe.
Next up from that book will be a spicy lentil and carrot soup - I'm looking forward to that.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Sunday night chit-chat
I missed this last week but as in previous weeks I'm posting on my Sunday evening. Given the time difference between here and Canada, where the host of Sunday Night Chit-Chat is based, I will have posted before the lead post goes up there so I will come back later or tomorrow to edit this post with a proper link-up and the bonus question.
What are you...
Reading
Still working my way through the Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith but interspersing it with the more light-hearted but eminently interesting and thoroughly enjoyable 1,227 QI Facts to Blow your Socks off compiled by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin (did you know, for example, that the 10,000 trillion ants in the world weigh about the same as all the human beings? Or that when we blush, our stomach lining goes red, too?)
Watching
Listening to
Baking/Cooking
Garlicky turkey cushions and rustic turkey and orange pot
Happy you accomplished this week
Looking forward to next week
Thankful for today
Being able to read.
BONUS QUESTION: What chore around the house do you dread doing the most?
I don't really dread any chores but I think I do dislike dusting the most. The benefit to that, though, is that I realised a few years ago that having lots of little knick-knacks around (which I was somewhat prone to doing) meant more dusting. So my desire to make the dusting as easy as possible to do led to quite a bit of decluttering and, more importantly, to a complete change in how I looked at all those cute little bits and pieces. Now I just ask myself if I'm prepared to have to dust it on a regular basis and usually decide it's not, saving myself money at the same time as not gathering any more stuff.
Thanks as always to Carla at Half-Dozen Daily for hosting Sunday Night Chit-Chat. If you'd like to join in head on over there and link up.
 |
| This disaster area (the table in my sitting room) must be tackled next week - I want this space back! |
What are you...
Reading
Still working my way through the Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith but interspersing it with the more light-hearted but eminently interesting and thoroughly enjoyable 1,227 QI Facts to Blow your Socks off compiled by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin (did you know, for example, that the 10,000 trillion ants in the world weigh about the same as all the human beings? Or that when we blush, our stomach lining goes red, too?)
Watching
An episode of the Mentalist (Simon Baker really is impossibly handsome) and then the rest of the documentary The Light Bulb Conspiracy
The traffic outside and the bubbling of the casserole on the stovetop that I should have gone and checked at least fifteen minutes ago
Garlicky turkey cushions and rustic turkey and orange pot
Happy you accomplished this week
The washing up
Looking forward to next week
Finally getting better (fingers crossed) and being able to go back to choir on Wednesday
Being able to read.
BONUS QUESTION: What chore around the house do you dread doing the most?
I don't really dread any chores but I think I do dislike dusting the most. The benefit to that, though, is that I realised a few years ago that having lots of little knick-knacks around (which I was somewhat prone to doing) meant more dusting. So my desire to make the dusting as easy as possible to do led to quite a bit of decluttering and, more importantly, to a complete change in how I looked at all those cute little bits and pieces. Now I just ask myself if I'm prepared to have to dust it on a regular basis and usually decide it's not, saving myself money at the same time as not gathering any more stuff.
Thanks as always to Carla at Half-Dozen Daily for hosting Sunday Night Chit-Chat. If you'd like to join in head on over there and link up.
Sunday turkey cooking
It started badly when the first batch of kale that I put on to wilt a bit burned. That'd be because I forgot to add a drop of water and I was sorely tempted to just give up then and there. Still, since I'd bought all that meat I had to persevere. So, trying to ignore the smell of burnt cabbage (I bet I'm popular with the neighbours today), I put on a second batch, glad that the Germans love kale so much they sell it in very large portions. I still have a small amount left, which I am going to attempt kale crisps with but with the smell of the burnt stuff still lingering in my memory, I've decided to leave that until tomorrow.
I'm trying out two recipes from the Ultimate Recipes Low-Fat cookbook I mentioned yesterday. One calls for part-boned chicken breasts and the other for chicken drumsticks. Since I was a bit late to the market yesterday there wasn't much in the way of these choice cuts left. Deciding to be frugal and make do with what was already there rather than just buying expensive fillets or getting them to chop up a few more chickens, I went instead for turkey - wings and legs (the lower part of the leg, which I suppose is a drumstick, isn't it?). When I got to the veg farmers at the market all the chard (which I had planned on since there's no spinach available yet) was already gone so I got the kale instead. Instead of ricotta, which is only available in the supermarket, I got cream cheese, which is available from a local farmer at the market. And I could get it with garlic and chives already in it, which was good as I only had one small bunch of fresh garlic left and needed some for both recipes. I was absolutely sure that I had wholemeal flour, as well as fennel seeds and bay leaves in the cupboard but it turns out I was wrong. So I used ordinary white flour, left out the bay leaf and used dill and celery seeds instead of fennel. I did check the internet for suggestions of good spices to use instead of fennel but overall I have to admit I am happy to have reached a stage where I'm not too nervous to substitute for what I can get rather than paying large amounts of money for lesser quality produce that has been flown in from far away.
What I do like about this particular book is that each recipe is on one page only and as well as a photograph of the finished dish, they include far more useful smaller photos of some of the steps. There is also a nutrition guide given for each dish, if that's the kind of thing that floats your boat. I made quite a few changes to accommodate what I had available to me so here's my version of garlicky chicken cushions.
Garlicky turkey cushions (adapted from Ultimate Recipes Low-Fat)
4 turkey legs
2 large handfuls kale, cooked in a small amount of water (covered) for about 30 minutes, then drained/water pressed out in sieve - final amount just over 250ml/2 cups which I allowed to cool for a few minutes and then mixed well with
1 small tub cream cheese with garlic and chives
1 onion, chopped
1 x 500ml jar tomatoes
100ml vegetable stock
About half a small jar of sliced green olives
Salt and pepper, olive oil
For the sauce I friend the onion in olive oil in my large oven-proof sauteuse and then stock, tomatoes, olives and small amount of salt and pepper added to that. While that was coming to the boil I pulled the skin of each turkey leg away on one side and stuffed in about a quarter of the kale and cream cheese mix. I secured the skin back down with some cocktail sticks. Then I placed the turkey legs on top of the sauce and put the pan in the oven, uncovered, at 200c. The serving suggestion is for with pasta but I think this would go well with rice. I still have twenty minutes or so to decide.
Rustic turkey and orange pot (adapted from Ultimate Recipes Low-Fat)
2 turkey wings, cut into two pieces
1 tbsp flour and 1 tbsp olive oil
3 smallish red onions
1 small bunch fresh garlic
1.5 teaspoon mix of dill and celery seeds
Salt and pepper
Grated rind and juice of one large orange
1 x 500ml jar of tomatoes
1 x can of cannellini beans, drained
I dipped the turkey pieces in the flour and then fried them briefly in the olive oil, then added then to a deep pot (my good casserole dish is still in a friends' house - I brought it there before my holidays for a potluck dinner and was lazy enough to leave it there for them to wash in their dishwasher and had forgotten about it until I needed it. Typical). Added the onions and garlic to the pan with a touch more olive oil and fried gently for a few minutes. Just for fun I also added the spices to the pan to toast for a few seconds before adding all of that to the pot with the turkey, the tomatoes, orange and beans. That's just cooking on the stovetop now rather than in the oven since I can't fit two things in the oven at once. It's supposed to be finished off by topping with cubes of bread tossed in olive oil but I think I will leave that until tomorrow.
Half of these dishes will go into the freezer for future use and the rest will be eaten as leftovers this week. Well, that's the plan anyway. Best of all for now is that I've been a good little chef and cleaned as I went along so that the only washing up to do this evening will be the two pots and the dishes I use to eat from. Having managed to get all of the washing-up done yesterday and put away first thing this morning, it would have killed me to be looking at more stuff waiting to be washed this evening.
I'm trying out two recipes from the Ultimate Recipes Low-Fat cookbook I mentioned yesterday. One calls for part-boned chicken breasts and the other for chicken drumsticks. Since I was a bit late to the market yesterday there wasn't much in the way of these choice cuts left. Deciding to be frugal and make do with what was already there rather than just buying expensive fillets or getting them to chop up a few more chickens, I went instead for turkey - wings and legs (the lower part of the leg, which I suppose is a drumstick, isn't it?). When I got to the veg farmers at the market all the chard (which I had planned on since there's no spinach available yet) was already gone so I got the kale instead. Instead of ricotta, which is only available in the supermarket, I got cream cheese, which is available from a local farmer at the market. And I could get it with garlic and chives already in it, which was good as I only had one small bunch of fresh garlic left and needed some for both recipes. I was absolutely sure that I had wholemeal flour, as well as fennel seeds and bay leaves in the cupboard but it turns out I was wrong. So I used ordinary white flour, left out the bay leaf and used dill and celery seeds instead of fennel. I did check the internet for suggestions of good spices to use instead of fennel but overall I have to admit I am happy to have reached a stage where I'm not too nervous to substitute for what I can get rather than paying large amounts of money for lesser quality produce that has been flown in from far away.
Garlicky turkey cushions (adapted from Ultimate Recipes Low-Fat)
4 turkey legs
2 large handfuls kale, cooked in a small amount of water (covered) for about 30 minutes, then drained/water pressed out in sieve - final amount just over 250ml/2 cups which I allowed to cool for a few minutes and then mixed well with
1 small tub cream cheese with garlic and chives
1 onion, chopped
1 x 500ml jar tomatoes
100ml vegetable stock
About half a small jar of sliced green olives
Salt and pepper, olive oil
For the sauce I friend the onion in olive oil in my large oven-proof sauteuse and then stock, tomatoes, olives and small amount of salt and pepper added to that. While that was coming to the boil I pulled the skin of each turkey leg away on one side and stuffed in about a quarter of the kale and cream cheese mix. I secured the skin back down with some cocktail sticks. Then I placed the turkey legs on top of the sauce and put the pan in the oven, uncovered, at 200c. The serving suggestion is for with pasta but I think this would go well with rice. I still have twenty minutes or so to decide.
Rustic turkey and orange pot (adapted from Ultimate Recipes Low-Fat)
2 turkey wings, cut into two pieces
1 tbsp flour and 1 tbsp olive oil
3 smallish red onions
1 small bunch fresh garlic
1.5 teaspoon mix of dill and celery seeds
Salt and pepper
Grated rind and juice of one large orange
1 x 500ml jar of tomatoes
1 x can of cannellini beans, drained
I dipped the turkey pieces in the flour and then fried them briefly in the olive oil, then added then to a deep pot (my good casserole dish is still in a friends' house - I brought it there before my holidays for a potluck dinner and was lazy enough to leave it there for them to wash in their dishwasher and had forgotten about it until I needed it. Typical). Added the onions and garlic to the pan with a touch more olive oil and fried gently for a few minutes. Just for fun I also added the spices to the pan to toast for a few seconds before adding all of that to the pot with the turkey, the tomatoes, orange and beans. That's just cooking on the stovetop now rather than in the oven since I can't fit two things in the oven at once. It's supposed to be finished off by topping with cubes of bread tossed in olive oil but I think I will leave that until tomorrow.
Half of these dishes will go into the freezer for future use and the rest will be eaten as leftovers this week. Well, that's the plan anyway. Best of all for now is that I've been a good little chef and cleaned as I went along so that the only washing up to do this evening will be the two pots and the dishes I use to eat from. Having managed to get all of the washing-up done yesterday and put away first thing this morning, it would have killed me to be looking at more stuff waiting to be washed this evening.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Saturday spending
I made it up and out to the market this morning but that might be as far as my energy takes me today. I think I'll go and have a nap shortly and maybe that'll leave me able to get some things done this evening. I'm really not sure how I'm going to make it through a full day of work on Monday. We'll have to see.
No photo today but I bought a lot, with plans for very nice dishes from a cookbook that I took down from the bookshelf with the express purpose of getting rid of it. I haven't opened it in probably ten years, it's one of the first cookbooks I ever bought and although I did go through it at the time, marking each recipe I wanted to try, I think I only used it a couple of times. If I recall correctly, it was a special offer from the Book People, whose representative used to come around to our company and leave samples that could be ordered every month. I don't think any month went by when I didn't order something. I have no willpower. At any rate, I finally decided that before getting rid of it, I would see if I could use my Low-Fat Ultimate Recipes book at least three times in the next month. I started flicking through it and immediately realised that my tastes and entire life has changed so much since I got this book, that there are now far, far more recipes that appeal to me than there were even before. So I bought the fixings for two chicken dinners and one soup and will try to spend an hour or two in the kitchen tomorrow.
Price list for today's shopping
Putenfarm Peter Ritte (at market)
Turkey wings x 2 - 1.007kg - 3.42 (3.40/kg)
Turkey legs x 4 - 1.863kg - 6.52 (3.50/kg)
Straetmans (at market)
Refund of deposit on milk bottle - 1.50
Butter 288g - 2.74 (9.50/kg)
Cream cheese 174g - 2.77 (15.90/kg)
Mittlealter Bauernkaese (hard cheese, similar to gouda) 204g - 2.43 (11.90/kg)
Etzold (at market)
Carrots (ronicalla or similar, forgot to check how it's spelt) 1.044kg - 2.30 (2.20/kg)
Leeks x 4 - 780g - 2.96 (3.80/kg)
Red onions x 3 - 225g - 0.63 (2.80/kg)
Eggs x 6 medium - 1.98
Thees (at market)
Kale (already de-stemmed), 1 x 500g bag - 3.80 (with stems still in it was 3.80/kg)
Chilies, 4 x small, dried - 1.30
Flassrath (at market)
Boskoop apples 2.5kg - 4.00
Apple juice 1lt - 1.00 (didn't have to pay deposit 'cos they know I always bring them back)
Other (at market)
Lardons 108g - 1.09 (10.10/kg)
Reformhaus
Green olives with stones 310g jar - 2.99 (9.65/kg)
Green olives stoned and sliced 180g jar - 3.50 (18.40/kg)
el martin (fairtrade shop)
Birthday cards x 2 - 5.00
Cardamon pods 30g - 2.80
Dark chocolate 100g - 2.00
Behmer (bakery)
Spelt/joghurt bread - half a loaf (250g) - 1.55
Mayersche (bookshop)
Das Urgeschmack Dessertbuch - 21.90 (paid for from giftcard my boss gave me) - this is a book with recipes for some paleo desserts. I follow this guy on youtube and some of these recipes looked very interesting so I decided to go ahead and get the book. Decisions made when you have a giftcard are very different than those made when you have to hand over cold hard cash!
No photo today but I bought a lot, with plans for very nice dishes from a cookbook that I took down from the bookshelf with the express purpose of getting rid of it. I haven't opened it in probably ten years, it's one of the first cookbooks I ever bought and although I did go through it at the time, marking each recipe I wanted to try, I think I only used it a couple of times. If I recall correctly, it was a special offer from the Book People, whose representative used to come around to our company and leave samples that could be ordered every month. I don't think any month went by when I didn't order something. I have no willpower. At any rate, I finally decided that before getting rid of it, I would see if I could use my Low-Fat Ultimate Recipes book at least three times in the next month. I started flicking through it and immediately realised that my tastes and entire life has changed so much since I got this book, that there are now far, far more recipes that appeal to me than there were even before. So I bought the fixings for two chicken dinners and one soup and will try to spend an hour or two in the kitchen tomorrow.
Price list for today's shopping
Putenfarm Peter Ritte (at market)
Turkey wings x 2 - 1.007kg - 3.42 (3.40/kg)
Turkey legs x 4 - 1.863kg - 6.52 (3.50/kg)
Straetmans (at market)
Refund of deposit on milk bottle - 1.50
Butter 288g - 2.74 (9.50/kg)
Cream cheese 174g - 2.77 (15.90/kg)
Mittlealter Bauernkaese (hard cheese, similar to gouda) 204g - 2.43 (11.90/kg)
Etzold (at market)
Carrots (ronicalla or similar, forgot to check how it's spelt) 1.044kg - 2.30 (2.20/kg)
Leeks x 4 - 780g - 2.96 (3.80/kg)
Red onions x 3 - 225g - 0.63 (2.80/kg)
Eggs x 6 medium - 1.98
Thees (at market)
Kale (already de-stemmed), 1 x 500g bag - 3.80 (with stems still in it was 3.80/kg)
Chilies, 4 x small, dried - 1.30
Flassrath (at market)
Boskoop apples 2.5kg - 4.00
Apple juice 1lt - 1.00 (didn't have to pay deposit 'cos they know I always bring them back)
Other (at market)
Lardons 108g - 1.09 (10.10/kg)
Reformhaus
Green olives with stones 310g jar - 2.99 (9.65/kg)
Green olives stoned and sliced 180g jar - 3.50 (18.40/kg)
el martin (fairtrade shop)
Birthday cards x 2 - 5.00
Cardamon pods 30g - 2.80
Dark chocolate 100g - 2.00
Behmer (bakery)
Spelt/joghurt bread - half a loaf (250g) - 1.55
Mayersche (bookshop)
Das Urgeschmack Dessertbuch - 21.90 (paid for from giftcard my boss gave me) - this is a book with recipes for some paleo desserts. I follow this guy on youtube and some of these recipes looked very interesting so I decided to go ahead and get the book. Decisions made when you have a giftcard are very different than those made when you have to hand over cold hard cash!
Friday, January 25, 2013
Spending recap
Here's what I've spent from last Saturday to today. Having been at home sick all week keeps costs down in one way but on the other hands pushes costs up since cooking was just not something I've been able to get interested in. So there have been a few frozen pizzas and lots of junk food again this week as well as lots and lots of toast. I plan to go to the market in the morning though and cook properly, two or three different dishes so that I have leftovers for the rest of the week as well.
0.00 transport
22.32 food necessities
23.52 food luxuries
0.00 food out/take-away
0.00 toiletries
0.00 gifts
0.00 clothes
0.00 house/garden
13.99 medical (1 x cough bottle, 1 x prescription charge for allergy dose - I'm doing a hypersensitisation for my hayfever this year and this is the first (double) dose)
13.30 other (1 x scratchcard, 1 x cooking magazine, 1 x game of Boggle)
Total: 73.13
I even managed to have 4 no-spend days. It would have been 5 but on one of the days I didn't go out I decided to check ebay to see if there were any games of Boggle on offer and there happened to be one, an English version no less, on sale with the auction ending in less than thirty minutes. So after a quick check to see how much it costs new I placed a bid and got it. Even with the postage costs added in, it still cost less than it would new and it's in really good condition. The box is a bit worn looking but the game looks like it has hardly ever been played. I'm looking forward to trying to improve my Boggle skills now.
0.00 transport
22.32 food necessities
23.52 food luxuries
0.00 food out/take-away
0.00 toiletries
0.00 gifts
0.00 clothes
0.00 house/garden
13.99 medical (1 x cough bottle, 1 x prescription charge for allergy dose - I'm doing a hypersensitisation for my hayfever this year and this is the first (double) dose)
13.30 other (1 x scratchcard, 1 x cooking magazine, 1 x game of Boggle)
Total: 73.13
I even managed to have 4 no-spend days. It would have been 5 but on one of the days I didn't go out I decided to check ebay to see if there were any games of Boggle on offer and there happened to be one, an English version no less, on sale with the auction ending in less than thirty minutes. So after a quick check to see how much it costs new I placed a bid and got it. Even with the postage costs added in, it still cost less than it would new and it's in really good condition. The box is a bit worn looking but the game looks like it has hardly ever been played. I'm looking forward to trying to improve my Boggle skills now.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Spending recap
Here's the breakdown of what I've spent from last Saturday to yesterday:
17.00 transport
71.51 food necessities (Full shop last Saturday and two mini-trips to the supermarket with some stocking up of the freezer)
58.41 food luxuries (Dinner out on Saturday, takeaway dinner yesterday and far too much junk food)
7.64 lunch out (1 x pizza on Tuesday, 1 x kebab on Tuesday evening)
2.25 toiletries (Cider vinegar for hair)
0.00 gifts
0.00 clothes
2.36 house/garden (4 x bottles of vinegar)
10.42 medical (Nose salve. The doctor's visit and antibiotics I got were fully covered by health insurance - they've changed some of the rules this year so no more quarterly admin charge or, apparently, prescription charges)
6.00 other (Overdue fines at library)
Total: 175.59
17.00 transport
71.51 food necessities (Full shop last Saturday and two mini-trips to the supermarket with some stocking up of the freezer)
58.41 food luxuries (Dinner out on Saturday, takeaway dinner yesterday and far too much junk food)
7.64 lunch out (1 x pizza on Tuesday, 1 x kebab on Tuesday evening)
2.25 toiletries (Cider vinegar for hair)
0.00 gifts
0.00 clothes
2.36 house/garden (4 x bottles of vinegar)
10.42 medical (Nose salve. The doctor's visit and antibiotics I got were fully covered by health insurance - they've changed some of the rules this year so no more quarterly admin charge or, apparently, prescription charges)
6.00 other (Overdue fines at library)
Total: 175.59
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)