Cooking Crusade

I love using leftover food to make new recipes. It’s so rare that I’m actually able to do it. How many recipes can you think of that say something like ‘oh just use some leftover chicken’ or etc. to use in a new recipe. Most of the time, my leftovers are flavored with clashing ingredients, so they’re completely unusable to make into anything else except to be eaten in its original form. So when I actually get a chance to use leftovers in a new recipe, I give them ‘bonus points’. Yessir. Those bonus points are hard to earn.

This is so basic and easy that it’s barely worth a post, but because I love them so much, I thought I’d share them. I guess you could call them tomato & cheese melts.

Ingredients: Serves 1: Prep time: 5 minutes, Cook time: 5 minutes
Leftover tomato pasta sauce
About half a handful of grated cheese
1 wholemeal english muffin, split

Method: Preheat oven to about 180 degrees C. Line a baking tray with baking paper or foil. Place split English muffins on tray and heap with about 2 (or however many you want, or can fit on top of) tablespoons of pasta sauce and top with cheese. Place in oven and bake until muffins are crisp and cheese is golden and bubbly.

Give this one a try ! Delicious

Love and hugs,
xox

Christine

The boyf and I found Burwood Oriental Rice Box on eatability when we were looking for a nice place for dinner that wasn’t too far from Croydon. BORB got about a 7.4 rating, so we decided to give it a go.

I loved their cute napkins, it was a really nice touch.

The atmosphere and decorations were really pretty and well put together. The night that we were there, the restaurant was completely empty except for us (and a couple of takeaway orders), so it’s a really lovely place for a romantic night out.

Fruity duck curry on the left: $14.30 (Roasted duck, Chinese style, cooked twice with Thai curry paste, flavored with pineapple, cherry tomatoes, grape, cucumber and vegetables) and a Chicken Cashew Nut stir fry on the right: $11.00 (Chicken tossed with roasted cashew nuts seasoned with chilli jam and shallots). I’m a huge sucker for Thai chicken or duck cashew nut stir fries. It’s something about the chilli jam… Which I’ve never ever been able to replicate or buy, even though I’ve checked at every single Asian store I’ve been to, seriously. Finding chilli jam is a huge thing for me!

The duck curry was pretty good, I loved the addition of lychees (for the win). The chicken cashew nut wasn’t exactly something to write home about. It wasn’t bad, but I’m quite picky about a good cashew nut stir fry (mostly because I order it at every Thai place I eat at!).

The real winner of the night was the dessert. We ordered durian ice-cream with banana sticky rice. The durian ice-cream was … AMAZING. The owner told us that all their ice-creams were made on the premises. It was so rich and creamy with such an intense flavour of durian… I savored every mouthful. Definitely worthwhile going here, just for the ice-cream, but only if you’re a fan of durian! I find that not everyone is as big of a fan of it as I am =P.. It’s probably an acquired taste.

So as an overall rating out of 5, I’d probably give BORB a 2.8/5

You can check out the eatability link for the Burwood Oriental Rice Box here and the link for their homepage is here.

Ah meatballs. So easy. The thing I love the most about meatballs is how easy it is to freeze them. You can just microwave them later and BAM. Instant meatballs. It’s like a video game cheat code. Since I’m disappearing to Japan for five weeks, I went to my boyfriend’s place, armed with 2 kilos of beef mince and made …80. Meatballs. And promptly froze them, so he could eat something that did not come straight from a can whilst I was gone. The thing I love about meatballs is that you can experiment with them. Really, the most basic ingredients for beef meatballs consist of beef mince, egg and seasoning. But you can add so many more delicious ingredients into them to jazz them up.

I like to throw in diced onion (diced quite fine, because you really don’t want large chunks of onion in your meatballs), minced garlic and/or ginger, a cup of breadcrumbs, a couple of tablespoons (T’s) of Worcestershire sauce, herbs, chopped parsley, lemon pepper, couple T’s of curry powder, some T’s of soy sauce, sweet chilli, tomato or BBQ sauce, some brown sugar… Really, the possibilities are endless.

Anyway, here’s a recipe I threw together for some sweet chilli meatballs.

Ingredients: Makes about 40 meatballs.
1 kilo beef or lamb mince
2 eggs
seasoning
1 large onion, chopped finely

Optional ingredients: 2 T’s of the following: brown sugar, soy sauce, sweet chilli, curry powder (etc. – see other ingredients listed above.)
You can mix and match or just put in any of these together – they all taste pretty good, even if you put all of them in.

Method:
In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients until fully combined.
To freeze meatballs: Shape about two tablespoons of mince mixture into rounded balls. Place on lined baking tray and repeat until baking tray is full. Bake in a hot oven for about 20 minutes or until cooked through and browned well. You could serve these straight away as appetisers or as a side dish for dinner. If you intend to freeze them, cool meatballs and then place in bags or containers (I use ziplock sandwich bags). Make sure there is as little air remaining in bags as possible. Seal, then place in fridge. Lasts for up to three months.

If you are making sweet chilli meatballs, begin by browning meatballs in oil or butter in a skillet, cover with sweet chilli sauce (about half a cup or so) and simmer, until meatballs are completely cooked through. Serve.

You can also make sweet chilli meatballs easily from the frozen version. Simply place frozen meatballs in a lined baking dish, drizzle with sweet chilli sauce and place in a hot oven. Serve when sauce is bubbling and meatballs are warmed through. Delicious!

Enjoy

love, from the land that is cloudy, with a chance of meatballs!

xoxo

Christine