Home Made Dumplings/Wontons

Today I made my first ever lot of home made dumplings/wontons!! I made pork ones with ginger, soy, spring onion (home grown), egg, sesame oil and a bit of chilli - so yummy! I really need to think and work more on folding them a bit better, but for a first time go I thought they were ok.

I also made some guacamole today - so much yum going on!

Freshly cooked

For the freezer

Broad beans and Dip

Tonight I picked my first lot of broad beans from The Patch and I decided to make some dip from them. Last year when my friend Wayne gave me a whole shopping bag full of broad beans I made some dip and it was AWESOME so dip was the first thing to make again.

As I was picking them I shared some with my chooks too, one of my chooks, Polly, was eating them out of my hand :D
I also ate some little ones fresh from the pod - oh wow so yummy!!

First harvest - there are going to be sooooooo many more to come

De-podded (is that a word?) and then boiled for two minutes, I then peeled the majority of them again, only the bigger ones ones though as it is time consuming and just not needed for the smaller ones.

I then added the broad beans, home grown spring onion, some garlic cloves, spring onion, lemon juice, sour cream and salt n pepper into my food processor and whooshed it all up to make this, broad bean dip! Sooo yummy!!

Beef Bourguignon TdF Inspired

Today is my Sunday Cookup day and in light of the fact that Cadel Evans has just won this years Tour de France, the first Australian to ever win it (!!!!!!), I decided to cook Beef Bourguignon in my French Le Chasseur pot and boy did it taste GOOD!!

Start with a heap of ingredients

Brown the diced blade (about 1.5kg's) in batches and put aside. In the pan cook up a diced onion, garlic and about 200grams of bacon until the onion is soft.
Once that's cooked put the beef back into the pot with the bacon and onion with 2-3 sliced carrots, a big dollop of tomato paste and pour in a combination of enough beef stock and red wine to cover in liquid (I used about 500mls red wine and 750mls of beef stock). Add in a bouquet garni - I used thyme, oregano and bay leaves

Cover and cook at a simmer for about 90 minutes. After this time add in about 15 small onions, peeled, and about 500g of button mushrooms.

Cook with the lid off for a further 90minutes or so or until the thickness of it is at a consistency that you are happy with - I like the gravy to be really thick and rich - YUM!!!

Serve up the portions for lunches for the week and then enjoy a bowl full for dinner

Well done Cadel! You have done Australia proud and I am beyond excited about it!

Creamy Tomato Chicken and Veg

Now that I'm back in the land of employment it's time for my Sunday Cookups to start happening again.
This morning I was watching some cooking clips on Youtube and got inspired to make a Creamy Tomato chicken and veg dish

So I started off with a heap of ingredients - mushrooms, onion, garlic, chilli, red peppers, cherry tomatoes, chicken fillets, cream cheese and home made pasata

I then browned the chicken on the stove top and then put them into a baking dish. I then put all the vegies into the pan and cooked them for a while in some oil and butter, once they were cooked they went ontop of the chicken. I then put the pasata into the pan with a block of cream cheese with some chicken stock paste. I melted down the cream cheese and then this got poured over the top of the ingredients already in the baking dish. The dish was then topped with grated cheese

And then after baking it for about 20 minutes you get this

It really doesn't look that great when plated up but here it is and it was YUMMY!!!!!

I also got the rest of my pumpkin soup I made last week into containers to put into the freezer

Pumpkin Soup + Chicken Stock

Following on from my post the other day where I cooked a roast chook - I used the bones to create a chicken stock and I then used that in making pumpkin soup today.

To make the stock I bought about 750g of chicken wings, browned them off in some butter in my stock pot and then added the left over chicken carcass from the roast along with a couple of halved brown onions, 3 sticks of celery, 2 carrots, some fresh herbs (oregano, thyme and bay leaves), salt and pepper - cover with hot water from the kettle and leave it on a very gentle simmer for 4-5 hours.

Strain the stock, I put a tea towel in my colander when doing this as it stops the fine bits from the stock going through and you end up with a bowl of freshly made stock

The stock then needs to go into the fridge overnight so that the fat will go to the top and you can then skim it off. The stock under the fat layer will be jelly like - that's normal for home made stock and it will go to liquid again once heated.

All up I ended up with 1.5litres of stock but the amount you end up with really depends on how long you simmer it for and how strong you want it.

The pumpkin soup is just as easy to make. I bought a pumpkin (~2kg's I think it was) from a road side stall last week for soup, so I cut that up with 2 potatoes

And while cutting that up I cooked one brown onion and one leek with some garlic cloves in butter

Put everything into the pot along with some ground cumin and ground corriander and cook for about an hour or until mushy. Whizz it all up with either a hand held wizzy blender or a food processor (my preference) and then pt it back into the pot and mix in as much cream as you want and ta-dah!

All up I've made about 4 litres of soup.

Lemon, Butter & Herb Home Roasted Chook n Veg

Tonight I decided to cook a roast chook - I love home roasted chook, the ones from the shops don't even compare. Sure only the herbs were home grown but I am going to include cooking here too as I love sharing pics of the things I cook.

First off, start with one of these:

Melt some butter, finely chop up some fresh herbs from your own garden, in this case I used thyme and oregano, juice of about one lemon and combine it all with some salt in a bowl.
Quarter a lemon and put two in the cavity of the chook with some garlic and also some of the herbs, tie the legs together and then smother the whole chook in the butter and herb mixture.

Bake for a while, the time really depends on the size of the chook. Baste it a few times and turn the vegies and you end up with this

Rest the chook under some foil and then put the vegies back into a cranked up oven to get crispy

Once you've eaten and carved up the entire bird, grab all the bones and bits n pieces that you wont eat and put them in a bag to be used to make chicken stock - don't waste anything!