Nursery Spaghetti

Here is what you do.

Cook a packet of spaghetti til it's al dente (I say that to make this seem fancier and more foodie than it is, truth be told, but DO cook your spaghetti nicely)

Then you need

One warmed tin of condensed tomato soup (don't add water! must NOT be salt reduced! if you like a lot of sauce, get the biggest can of soup)

One block of Kraft cheddar cheese, grated (this is the one that is NOT kept in the fridge at the supermarket)

You cook the spaghetti, as we said.

You use the warm non diluted soup as the pasta sauce.

You put a LOT of cheese on top.

You eat it up.

Shame. Shame. Shame. Yum.

Pip's Mexican Style Chicken

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This is really easy to make.  I get the chillis I need from Casa Iberica.

1 kilo of chicken thigh fillets, no skin, fat trimmed

To Make The Marinade

2 dried guajillo chillis : seeds removed and snipped into pieces with scissors

1/2 chipotle chilli (I use the chipotle which are tinned in adobo sauce.... and I add a teaspoon of the sauce)

1 tablespoon of ground sweet paprika

1/2 tablespoon of ground cumin

1/2 tablespoon of dried oregano

1 tomato, chopped roughly

1 red onion, chopped roughly

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

juice of one lemon

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 tsp of salt

1 tsp white pepper

Put all these ingredients in a food processor and pulse until it's a nice red paste.  You can use a mortar and pestle for this if you like, but I shake all the crockery out of the cabinets if I do.  Don't do that, will you?!  Scoop it all out into a bowl and throw your chicken in for at least 2 or 3 hours to marinate!  

To cook the chicken, heat a slosh of olive oil in a nice, big heavy based pan.  Plonk the chicken in and arrange it neatly  in one layer.  Pop a lid on and simmer over a medium low heat for 20 minutes.  You can turn up the heat at the end if you want a bit more colour on your chicken.  Cut the chicken into pieces while it's still in the pan and toss in the pan juices. 

You can season it with black pepper, coriander and a squeeze of lime to serve!

We have this in tortillas, usually, with lots of fresh salsa, guacamole and crunchy greens!

It's good with spiced rice and corn on the cob too!

Pip's Teriyaki Chicken : uber good

Pip's Uber Famous Teriyaki Chicken

Serves 6

Ingredients

1kg skinless chicken breast fillets (free range if you can!) cut into rough 1" pieces

1/2 cup of potato starch (from Asian grocers and some supermarkets)

1/2 cup of oil (I just used canola oil)

Sauce :: Mix Together

1/4 cup of good quality soy sauce (like Kikkoman)

1/4 cup of mirin

1/4 cup of sake

1/4 cup of raw sugar

1/4 cup of water

2 teaspoons of sesame oil

To serve::

Short grain rice or sushi rice

Chilli sauce if you are into it

Chopped spring onions and any other chopped raw vegies you like 

(I like to use cherry tomatoes and I steam some broccoli to the right side of crunchy to have with it too!)

Let's Make It...

Tip the potato starch into a plastic bag and then dump the chopped up chicken in there.  Twist the bag a few times to seal it and then shake it all up to coat the chicken well.  We want the starch all over every piece.

Heat your oil in a large frying pan or wok over a medium high heat.  Fry the coated chicken in two batches, just until it's sealed and colouring a tiny bit.  We don't need to cook it right through yet.  Drain the sealed chicken on kitchen towel.  Now, tip out the oil leaving just a teensy bit in the pan.  There will be bits of fried stuff stuck to the pan too.  That is just fine.  Leave that in there.

Put the pan with teensy bit of oil and leftover fried bits back on to a medium heat.  Add all of your chicken to the pan.  It will be a bit crowded.  Stir your sauce mixture to distribute the sugar a bit, then tip it over the chicken and toss well.  It will bubble up and start to look pretty impressive and delicious.

Put a lid on for a minute or two to help cook the chicken through properly, shaking the pan every now and then to prevent things burning. Then take the lid off and toss the chicken for another minute or two, until it's lovely and glazed and caramelizing a bit. (If you don't have a lid, just cook for four minutes without the lid, tossing well to keep things cooking evenly.)  That's all you do!

Serve on top of a few spoonfuls of rice.  Top with spring onions and the raw vegies.  I always put a big dollop of chilli sauce atop mine.  

Serve with green tea and marvel at the amazing texture of the chicken!  SO so so so yummy.  Try it. You will be amazed. Honest.

Lazy Risotto A La Oven

Lazy Risotto A La Oven

2 regular size tins of diced tomatoes (or chopped up tinned whole tomatoes)

1 carrot, peeled and grated

2 cups of arborio rice

3 cups of stock or water

1 tablespoon of capers (not rinsed)

1 tablespoon of sweet paprika

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 red onion, sliced

1 tablespoon of pesto if you have it

1 tablespoon of red or white wine vinegar

1/2 cup of mozarella cheese, chopped roughly or grated

1/4 cup of other cheese : parmesan or cheddar : again chopped or grated

Fresh herbs : a half a handful of whatever you have on hand (or a teaspoon of dried herbs like basil or an Italian mix)

Fry the onion, carrot and garlic in a good glug of olive oil until soft and aromatic.  Add the tinned tomatoes, paprika, pesto, herbs, vinegar.  Cook for ten minutes, stirring often.  Season with salt and lots of pepper. (I like white pepper, but black pepper is good too)

While that's cooking, slug some olive oil into an oven proof dish/pot with a lid.  I use a cast iron one.  Heat the oil over a medium heat and throw in the rice.  Saute the rice for a minute or so, stirring all the while.  Then tip in the stock.  Excellent.  Next tip in the tomato sauce you just made.  Perfect.  Mix it all up and finally throw in the cheese.  (You can also throw in some chilli and some lemon juice/nutmeg at this point)

Cook in a medium oven for 30 minutes with a lid on. Ta-dah!  Add more salt or pepper as needed and serve with a dollop of chili or more pesto if you like!

(Based on a recipe I found via The Vine)

Pumpkin and Miso Curry

via

Pip's Potato Curry

serves six

Ingredients

2kg of potatoes (no need to peel, just cut into 1 inch-ish chunks!)

2 onions, peeled and sliced

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and diced

1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and diced

2 tablespoons of curry powder (I use this one)

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

1 cup of frozen peas

sea salt and freshly ground pepper

To Serve : fresh coriander or mint and some lemon wedges

To Make It

First boil the chopped potatoes until just tender.

While they are boiling, and in a very large fry pan, fry the onion in a tablespoon of good quality oil over a medium heat.  You want the onions to cook for five or ten minutes, until they are soft and golden. Yum.

Then, add the ginger and fry for a minute.  Next add the garlic and cooked potatoes to the onions and toss well.  Let them fry together for 2 or 3 minutes, so they can get to know each other.  

Next sprinkle the curry powder over the top of the whole lot and add 1/2 cup of water and the soy sauce.

Carefully toss and combine, frying for 2 or 3 minutes.

Add the peas and gently mix them through, cooking for another minute or so.

Season with salt and pepper and serve garnished with some fresh mint or coriander and lemon wedges.

The end!

Simple Mexican Potatoes

1 kg of unpeeled roughly chopped potatoes

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon of sweet paprika

1 teaspoon of dried oregano

juice of one lemon

optional : 1 tsp of chipotle powder

Toss all these ingredients together and make sure the potatoes are well coated in the oil and herbs and spices (and lemon juice!)  Tumble onto a heavy based tray and bake in a HOT oven for 35 minutes (until nice and golden and tender and crunchy!) Season with salt and pepper.

Serve with salsa or mayo or yoghurt if you would like that!

Pip's Mee Rebus : Speedy Style

Pip's Mee Rebus

serves 4

Ingredients

A slosh of oil

1 sweet potato, peeled and thinly sliced

1 onion, finely diced

1 clove of garlic, finely diced

1 tablespoon of curry powder : I use this one

a slosh  of soy

1 tsp of white pepper

1 cup or so of coconut milk

1 cup of chicken stock (or vegetable stock)

1 packet of noodles : around 250g  (the fresh, thickish yellow ones) : soaked in boiling water for a few minutes

1 handful of sliced fried tofu

1 handful of baby spinach

1 handful of bean shoots

Garnish 

Fried shallots (from a packet!)

Lemon

Coriander

Optional :: sliced fish cake, sliced cooked chicken, sliced cooked potatoes

Slosh the oil into a large fry pan or wok.  When it's nice and hot, add the onions and stir fry for a minute or so.  Next add the garlic and sweet potato.  Toss well and lower the heat (to very low).  Put a lid on the pan (or some foil!) and let it simmer for 15 minutes until the sweet potato is soft. Remove the lid and mash the potato in the pan with the onions and garlic.  Add the curry powder and the soy and white pepper. Add the stock and mix and mash until you have a puree.  Now add the coconut milk and mix well. Then toss in the tofu and any of the optional ingredients.  Cook for a minute and then add the noodles.  Toss well.  Finally add the spinach and bean shoots and toss again.

Spoon into bowls and garnish with coriander, fried shallots and a squeeze of lemon.  You can add some chili too, if you like it spicy!

Simple Spanish-ish Beef

Simple Spanish-ish Beef

1 kilo of diced beef/steak

2 tins of diced tomatoes

2 onions, sliced

2 red peppers, sliced

1 tablespoon of sweet paprika

juice of one small lemon and some rind if you can be bothered

1/2 tablespoon of dried oregano (or a bit more of fresh oregano!)

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 good slosh of red wine vinegar

1 good slosh of olive oil

Slosh the oil into a heavy based pan and heat it up.  Now throw in the onions.  Cook them over a medium heat, stirring now and then, until softened and a bit golden.  Now throw in the peppers and cook until softened.  Next throw in the garlic.  Cook for 30 seconds, stirring all the while. Now add your tomatoes, beef, paprika, oregano, lemon and vinegar.  Season well with salt and pepper.  Cook for a couple of hours over a low heat, or until the meat is tender.

I made roast potatoes as a side ::

Peel a kilo or so of potatoes (more if your family are greedy!)  Cook the peeled spuds in boiling water for ten minutes.  Drain and allow to dry in the colander.  Put a healthy slosh of oil in an oven tray.  Throw in your potatoes and toss them well.  Cook for an hour or so in a hot oven, turning frequently.  When nearly done, mix a tablespoon of extra oil, with 1/2 tablespoon of sweet paprika, some sea salt and black pepper and a clove of very well crushed garlic.  Throw this over the potatoes and toss them well.  Put the potatoes back in the oven and cook for another 5 minutes. Yum.

Serve with international condiments like aioli and chipotle in adobo sauce. Yum.  And a crunchy salad too. Yes.

Tessa Kiros Tomato Lasagna

My version of Tessa Kiros' Tomato Lasagna

Tomato Sauce

1.25 kg of tinned diced tomatoes

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

a good slosh of olive oil

one cup of warm water of stock

bunch of fresh basil or a teaspoon full of dried Italian herbs

8 sheets of instant lasagna (the dried one) : I used one family sized packet : about 350g

250g Parmesan

Bechamel Sauce

1 litre of warmed milk

3/4 cup of plain flour

120g of butter

nutmeg

Make the Tomato Sauce First

Heat the oil and gently fry the garlic till it's fragrant (not browned!) Throw in the tomatoes. Cook for 15 minutes, and then add 1 cup of water (or you could use stock!) Season with salt and pepper and then simmer it on a low heat while you make the Bechamel sauce. (You are meant to puree it, but I didn't, because I am lazy and I don't like too many dishes!)

Make the Bechamel Sauce Next

First warm your milk. Then in a separate large-ish pot melt the butter. Once the butter is melted, add the flour and whisk like crazy to make a smooth butter and flour paste. Continue to stir the floury butter over the heat for a few minutes to cook the floury taste away. Now start whisking in the warm milk a slosh at a time. Don't stop whisking! Your Bechamel will end up nice and thick and smooth. Good work. It needs to be thick so that it layers nicely.

Assemble it All

Grease a lasagna suitable dish or just slosh some oil and and coat the dish well with it using a pastry brush or your fingers. My dish was around 20cm x 30cm and quite deep. Slosh a layer of Bechamel sauce in first and spread it over the base. Put two sheets of dried lasagna atop the Bechamel. Now layer tomato sauce, then Bechamel, then Parmesan, then lasagna. Do that two times. Then add a final layer of lasagna and top with Bechamel, more Parmesan and dot with any leftover tomato sauce.

Cook in a 360F/180C degree oven for 30 minutes until golden and cheesy.

Eat it all up!

Serves 6

30 Soupy Recipes

Salt N Peppa Shakers via here

Last night we put an extra blanket on the bed.  And we had the heater on at the breakfast table.  You know what that means?  It's time for soup! I really love soup!  Soup with crusty bread, soup with crackers, soup with toasted sandwiches, soup, soup, SOUP!  Here are 30 extra great soup recipes for you to peruse.  Let me know if you make anything... I think I am going to do Sophie Grigson's soup tonight!

1. Chicken and Rice Soup via Martha //// here
2. Baked Potato Soup via Smitten Kitchen //// here
3. Happiness Soup via Nigella //// here
4. Spicy Parsnip Soup via Jamie Oliver //// here
5. Feel Good Chicken Broth via Jamie Oliver //// here
6. Cream of Cauliflower Soup via Pip! //// here
7. Stefano De Pieri's Minestrone via Pip! //// here
8. Chickpea and Celery Soup via Gourmet Traveller //// here
9. Corn, Bacon and Potato Soup via Pip! //// here
10. Lovely Mushroom Soup via Pip! //// here
11. Creamy Tomato Soup via The Splendid Table //// here
12. Vintage Vogue Soup Paysanne via Pip! //// here
13. Chicken Noodle Soup via Gourmet Traveller //// here
14. Kylie Kwong's Sweetcorn and Crab Soup via Lifestyle //// here
15. Madame E Saint-Ange's Pumpkin Soup via Recipes For Two //// here
16. Tyler Florence's Roasted Tomato Soup via Lifestyle //// here
17. Broccoli Soup via Chocolate and Zucchini //// here
18. French Onion Soup via Girl Cook In Paris //// here
19. Pumpkin, Barley and Miso Soup via Gourmet Traveller //// here
20. Coconut Red Lentil Soup via 101 Cookbooks //// here
21. Julia Child's Leek and Potato Soup via Food Network //// here
22. Simple Carrot Soup via Stone Soup Blog //// here
23. Sophie Grigson's Vegetable Soup via BBC Food //// here
24. Nigel Slater's Bubble and Squeak Soup via BBC Food //// here
25. Rachel Allen's Chicken and Udon Soup via Lifestyle //// here
26. Simple Tom Yum Soup via ABC Sydney //// here
27. Pea and Ham Soup via Gourmet Traveller //// here
28. Bill Granger's White Bean and Chorizo Soup via Lifestyle //// here
29. Rice Noodle Soup with Beef and Fresh Herbs via The Splendid Table //// here
30. Julia Child's Leek and Pepper Soup via Smell My Kitchen //// here

Pip's Kimchi Salad

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My Kimchi Salad

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Basic Ingredients
One tub of Kimchi from your local Asian grocer (I buy the Chinese Cabbage style one!)
One packet of ramen or soba noodles
2 diced cucumbers
1 diced avocado
1/2 tub of cherry tomatoes, halved
1 handful of diced beancurd
(you can also add some blanched peas, green beans, snow pea sprouts... whatever YOU love!)


Dressing
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1/2 tablespoon of sesame oil
1/2 tablespoon of mirin
1/2 tablespoon of nice vinegar (white wine, red wine or sherry are all good!)


Garnish
a handful of fried shallots (the kind you buy in a packet!)
a sprinkling of chopped peanuts if you like
a lemon or a lime squeezed over the top
Optional :: Coriander

How To:
Cook the noodles in a big pot of boiling water as per the instructions on the packet. Be careful not to over cook them. That would be yuck. No one likes mooshy noodles. Test them often until they are done. Now, cool the noodles under cold running water and drain them thoroughly.

Mix all the other ingredients together in a BIG BOWL. You can just slosh it all together and mix it up nicely with a pair of tongs or a spoon.Try not to mush it to much if you have added the avocado, or better still, put it on last. Add the cold, drained noodles and toss well again. If you are hands on, use your hands, but keep your chili fingers away from your face etc!

Plate it up and garnish with the shallots, peanuts and lemon or lime! You can add fresh herbs, too, if you like. Coriander would be lovely!

:: Crockpot Concussion Beef

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Crockpot Concussion Beef 

(to have in tortillas or tacos)

based on this recipe

500g of gravy beef

1 tin of tomatoes, juice and all

1 jar of nice quality salsa

1 cup of chicken stock

1 diced onion

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

a tablespoon of cumin
a teaspoon of paprika : smoked or not

a teaspoon of dried mixed herbs

1 teaspoon of brown sugar

a slosh of sherry vinegar or other nice vinegar

Lots of ground black pepper (or lovely white pepper!)

Some salt

Some olive oil

NB : I add chilli to my own, because my kids are not super spicy, but you can add chilli when you cook it if you like... and some beans would be nice too!

Mix all these things together, drizzle with some olive oil and put in a heavy based pan in a low oven for 4 hours.

Or in a slow cooker for 6 hours on high : if you use a slow cooker you will need to remove the meat and reduce the sauce down at the end.

Pull the beef apart with two forks and serve in tortillas with some of its sauce and lots of avocado, tomato, lettuce, jalapenos and extra salsa!  Cheese is nice for some people too, so add cheese if you like!

Cauliflower Soup

Here is what we had for lunch today. I like to go to the market on Saturdays before dawn and shop for the whole week as the sun comes up. Then I like to have a big breakfast at home. Maybe bagels, maybe a fry up, maybe a breakfast pizza.... and lots of cups of tea and coffee.  Then I mess about and do a few jobs.  Then I put some soup on.  This week it's Cream of Cauliflower soup.  We had it with a sprinkle of paprika and some Garlic and Cheese bread thrown in for good measure.  Probably that is uncouth.  But I like to throw bread into my soup. I do.  Do  you?  Or am I freaking you out?

xx Pip

Messy Recipe from last time : Minestrone Con Bruschetta

Minestrone

This very delicious recipe is taken from Stefano de Pieri's 'Modern Italian Food'.  Ari had two bowls and commented that it was 'So good and vegetables don't taste like anything, do they?'  Do not ask me why it is called Minestrone con Bruschetta. I do not know. (But if YOU do then DO tell us.)

Also, as an aside, Stefano says to cook little pasta shapes or beans separately and add them in at the end for best results, if you like those in there. In my experience this sounds good as it will keep your soup from being too cloudy and starchy. Enjoy soup. Soup is ace.

xx Pip

Fish and Chips

Fabulous Fish Dishes
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Fish and Chips


So, last night I was out at a Trade Show and the boys took the reins with the old Yellow Box. They decided on Fish and Chips, shopped, cooked and even took some stylish photos to prove it!   Apparently the Fish and Chips were delicious and the batter was lovely and light and crispy. They made the Tartare Sauce and thought that was good too.  My people are big fans of the golden delight that is Fish and Chips and much prefer the home-made version to the shop bought.

How about you? Do you make your own? Do you buy it in?  Are you a fan?  Potato Cakes? Tartare Sauce? Chiko Rolls?  What's your fancy?!

xx Pip

Chicken Pie

Great Ways With Chicken and Duck
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Chicken Pie

I will tell you straight up that we LOVED this recipe.  It was delicious.  We ate it all, as you can see, and Max especially liked it.  You can also see that there is a pond of butter left in the dish.  It has 60g of butter in it. Yikes.  I reckon you could easily use half that amount and still get a great result.

I made this while Gemma and Ari were playing Monopoly the other night.  Then Gem headed off to dinner with a friend and we tucked in to this golden deliciousness.

What I like about this recipe is that you get to make a big pot of stock to use later.  You boil a whole chicken 'in the usual way' to make stock and then you pull the meat from the chicken and add it to your pie filling.  Be sure you add lots of pepper and salt as there is no seasoning mentioned in this recipe.  We put enough water into just cover the chicken : about 3 litres.  We added carrots and parsley and onion and garlic and celery to the stock pot too.

Also worth noting is that you might want to do the stock/chicken part ahead of time as it's not nice trying to pull a hot chicken apart.  So maybe prepare that earlier like I didn't. I burnt my fingers a titch. Not good.

I made pastry leaves for the top of my pie, I think my Nan did that and I like to do that too.  You could put chicken shapes or other cute shapes atop yours.  That would be nice.  Later you can use the stock to make something else great, like wonton soup or chicken and vegetable soup.

Do you like chicken pie? If you do this one is really yummy.  The best one I have ever made.  Did your Mum cook this?

xx Pip

Emmenthaler Schnitzel

Superb Recipes From Famous Restaurants
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Emmenthaler Schnitzel

Right. Max chose this recipe. To Max this looked like the King of Parmigianas.  I guess it does look like that, doesn't it?  This recipe is taken from my favourite section of the Yellow Box - 'Superb Recipes From Famous  Restaurants'.  There REALLY are recipes from famous restaurants in there... places like Beppi's, Fanny's, Two Faces, Doyle's and The Hilton.  This recipe is taken from The Chesa Restaurant at The Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong.  I wonder if it is still there... hang on... I will Google that.... Wait there.

Oh my gosh.  It is STILL there. You can go and take a peek here.  It is a Swiss Chalet style restaurant and I bet you they still serve Emmenthaler Schnitzel there. Wow.  How cool is that?!  If you are breezing through Hong Kong you might want to grab a fondue and schnitzel there, I think.  Or you could just make this at home like we did.

Things to note about this recipe:

Fun.  It is really fun to make the Spatzli.  We had to add an extra half a cup of water to the batter.  And we tried so very hard to push it through a colander as instructed, but it did not work.  In the end we inverted a wide mesh cake rack atop the boiling pot of water and tipped the dough through that.  Our Spatzli were really delicious.  Granted the numerous attempts to get the colander method to work resulted in a bit of swearing from Cam.  Well. A lot of swearing. He likes things to work.  That did not work and he got antsy.  But we kept adding water to loosen up the batter and changing methods and finally we got there.  And it was totally worth it. Our kitchen was covered in batter after the trial and error approach... but you won't have a batter covered kitchen if you make these, because we just told you an easier way, right?!

Feet.  Max did not like the cheese.  It is true.  He said it smelled like feet.  I loved it, however, as did Cam.  It smelled like Taleggio when it was melted and it was ridiculously rich and good.  If you have a cholesterol problem you might want to hold back a bit in terms of serving size, but DO have SOME.  This is totally delicious comfort food.  If I made this again, I would use mozzarella. I know... it's not what the dish is about, but the kids would LOVE that and then we'd all be happy.  Max did eat some though... and he HAD eaten half a pizza after school so he may have had cheese fatigue.

Crappy.  Our oven is quite crappy and it's hard to get things to brown in there.  You should make this in quite a shallow dish so that you can grill it if the cheese is not brown (like ours!)  I think a bit of golden cheese would be nice.

Butter.  Well.  Yes.  There is a LOT of butter in this. I think you could lose more than half the butter in the veal frying part, as well as half the butter in the mushroom sauce.

Tomato.  This looked like way too much creamy, buttery craziness to me.  I had a small serve and made a quick tomato sauce to have on the side to cut the crazy a bit.  You might like to do that too?

Quick Tomato Sauce
One finely diced onion, one diced clove of garlic, one tin of good quality tomatoes, a pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar, a tablespoon of fresh herbs, a splash of white wine vinegar :: Fry the onion until soft in a slosh of olive oil, add the rest of the ingredients and mix and mash until a nice sauce is achieved.  Simmer for ten minutes and then serve.

So. All in all this dish was ace.  It would be more family friendly with the tweaks mentioned.  We will revise the recipe and cook this again in a heartbeat.  If it is still beating after all that butter.

xx Pip

PS :: Ari was ill, so he did not have this for dinner, in case you were wondering.

Tuna Casserole

Money Saving Meals
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Tuna Casserole

Hi!  Hi!  Okay.  Here's the thing.  Max hates tuna.  He loathes it, in fact.  He really loves anything else fishy, but tuna is a no-go.  On Friday Max stayed at Leon's house, which meant we could try this recipe out (again) without Max getting antsy or going hungry.

Let me just put it out there that I LOVE TUNA CASSEROLE.  I have not eaten it for years, but my Mum used to make it when we were kids and it was one of my very favourite meals.  She used to make a different one to this.  It had Cream of Celery Soup in it.  I wish I had THAT recipe. If you have it, can you send it to me?!

This AWW Yellow Box recipe was pretty delicious.  This really is comfort food.  I added HEAPS of lemon and pepper and salt at the end and piled it on to grainy toast. Yum.  Ari, who is a fan of rice, tuna and corn did not much like this.  Go figure.  I am not sure why.  I think it was the sort of non-cheesy-mornay-esque base that weirded him out.  He's not genetically programmed to like that kind of thing.  We live on very clean, simple flavours... creamy saucy things are not on our menu very often.  But he TRIED to eat this because he recognized the key ingredients were friends of his.  Cam liked it... not a lot... but a bit.

I think Tuna Casserole is the kind of thing you have to have nostalgic ties to, to like.  I like it.  I grew up with it.  Those that have not grown up with it were not huge fans. Do you like it?  

xx Pip

Meatloaf In BBQ Sauce

Best Beef Recipes
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Meatloaf With Barbecue Sauce

When I was about 15 I used to cook this for my family (along with Tuna Ring... good grief!) with great success.  Probably my Mum was just relieved someone else had got off their bottom and had a go at making dinner...?  That said, it seemed like a good idea to step back to 1985 and cook this dish for the family again.   It can be nice to revisit those old faves, don't you think?  (Although sometimes those old faves don't really translate into new faves.)   So cook this I did.  And...

...The verdict is that..... we liked it.  It was good!  You might like it too, if meatloaf is your thing.  There was a teensy problem with the sauce being a bit too vinegary and strong.  Ari was not much into the sauce, but apart from that he thought it was delish. Perhaps just a splash of vinegar might be better?

I confess we did change the recipe a tiny bit because I could not stomach the idea of eating sausage mince.  We substituted pork and veal mince for the sausage mince.  I know it's not strictly AWW, but I have to draw the line at some things and sausage mince is one of them. Yick-attack.  Here is the line... and the sausage mince is WAY over there... far, far away.

We served this with our standard big bowl of green peas, corn, fresh tomato sauce... and I made some mash too.  Yum.  Max commented that meatloaf is a great meal because you can have it the next day in sandwiches.  Max, I totally agree.  You are so right.  I think I like meatloaf in a sandwich with some chilli or chutney even more than I like meatloaf with peas and mashed potatoes.  Yep.

Do you fancy a meatloaf sandwich?  Do you like meatloaf? Do you hate it? Have you made this?  Do tell!

xx Pip

BTW : Did you watch the premiere of  'Offspring'?  I downloaded it today via iTunes and watched it this morning after my jam-seeking visit to the Windsor Deli.  I think it's going to be a really great series... I love a local production and most of this show is shot around the streets of Fitzroy... the first episode features Radio on Gertrude St and The Union Club Hotel and Cottage Industry... Cool! (Plus lots of other places like The Black Cat and Carlton Gardens...)