Friday, 29th Dec 2006

Ladies, how cool it was to finally meet so many of you.




Thank you to the hard working committee who put the evening together, the gifts, the constant updates, to Ness for the informative talk, and to E for having all of us in her lovely home.

Till the next one.

Tuesday, 26th Dec 2006

Lamb Shanks - first attempt.

Ingredients

4 frozen lamb shanks (from BMC)

Onions - cut into quarters

Carrots - cut into thick rings

Whole shallots
Whole cloves of garlic

A lot of herbs (parsley, thyme, rosemary, mixed, lamb, etc & bay leaves)

A lot of blackpepper

Tin of chopped tomatoes

Half a bottle of red wine

Salt

Flour

Method

1. Trim and clean lamb shanks. Season with s & p and pat flour on surface.

2. In separate pan, lightly brown shallots and garlic - put aside.

3. Lightly brown carrots and put aside.

4. Brown shanks in a large hot pan till edges are golden brown and flour looks crunchy on surface. This creates a hellofamess in the kitchen so those of you with an outside kitchen, use it!

5. Dust herbs and black pepper liberally all over shanks. Continue frying till aroma of herbs & lamb reach every corner of the house. Add onions and browned shallots/garlic. Fry till onions have caramelised, with charred edges.

6. Throw in half a bottle of red wine all in one go - let it come to the boil and reduce slightly.

7. Add tomatoes and browned carrots.

9. Stir and reduce heat till it is barely simmering. Turn shanks every 15/20 minutes or just leave them alone and let them stew. (applies to grumpy men and kids too).

11. After 2.5 hours, turn heat off. Lamb should be soft & tender, and falling off the bone, and should have taken on the flavourings of the herbs & wine. Gravy should be thick and dark and oh so tasty, all the tomatoes would have melted and the garlic and onions soft and ploppy. J & M popped in briefly and I gave them some to try. I've collected 2 stamps of approval.

I've stuck the lot into the fridge to let the flavours develop and serve tomorrow. Wm and all will be back from HK with a bag of edamame for me! I'll also make turkey soup with the carcass from my xmas dinner. And I know Mum would have packed a box of fresh HK vegs.

I heart cooking.

You can of course use stock instead of wine.

Tuesday, 26th Dec 2006

Hazel's breakfast.

Cold slices of turkey, pepper sauce, peas & bacon and potatoes.

Thursday, 14th Dec 2006

More pics from my Xmas dinner.

They like. They like.

Hazel's place setting. We always have crackers, hats, eye masks, place cards, choc coins and candy canes.

Mark's friend L whom we managed to coax into playing some beautiful pieces.

A 'seasoned' smoker who wanted to be photographed with her bling.

Irish coffee. I taught my clever nephew Dom how to make this. He learnt it easily, from how to pour boiling water into a glass without cracking it, right down to whipping the cream to the right consistency and dropping and floating it on top of the glass. Well done - Dom. I used double measures of Dewar's 12 year old whisky (sacrilege I hear some of you scream but it does make a difference). He in turn taught S, who made her second glass with double coffee and single whisky. S, darling, that's 3 measures of whisky on top of the red - hehe.

Irish coffee, empty wine glasses, cigarettes, chocs, etc, etc.

Reason why I slave hours and hours in the kitchen. Cheers everyone - till 2007.

Lastly, she like, she like.

Monday, 25th Dec 2006

Made a trip to Seria to spend the day with the children's grents. I brought roast beef, roast potatoes and peas with bacon. Picked up the turkey before we made the long (well short to some) trip down. The car was loaded down with food, the enormous turkey, assorted gravies, my food, children's extra clothes and games.

Here's a pic of my roast beef when it came out of the oven. SS had some small cuts which I spotted on Sunday and this little cut provided enough meat for all 7 of us.

And here's my no fail recipe of herb crusted slow roast beef.

Add breadcrumbs, some flour, grainy mustard, powder mustard, parsley, mixed herbs, chopped garlic, salt and a lot of black pepper, and olive oil into a bowl. Roughly mix together. Rub black pepper all over the beef. Then pat the breadcrumb mixture all over the meat - use disposable gloves as it can be quite a messy job.

Cut some onions into wedges, secure the meat on top of the onions, cover loosely with foil, plonk into hot oven. Make sure meat is at room temperature. Highish heat (umm, mark 8??) for 20 minutes, lower to mark 5/6 for next hour or so). Test with metal skewer. If juices run clear, its medium well, if light pink, it's medium, if red, you better stick it back in for a bit longer. I like my beef rare so this is the result. Don't forget to let the beef rest for at least half an hour and an hour if you can wait that long before slicing into thin slices. If you look closely, you can see some of the crispy breadcrumb mixture clinging to the fat...

Serve with hot English mustard and a hefty glass of cabernet. aahh...

I sliced the whole turkey and we had 2 plates of dark and white meat. It was so-so. I can quite understand why a lot of people do not like turkey as it's not an easy bird to handle, dry papery slices of meat is an image conjured up by some. But done correctly, turkey can be tender & juicy and so flavourful.

I made some peppersauce to go with the beef.

It's quite easy too - just loosen all the bits and pieces from the roasting pan with some water and pour into a saucepan. Don't forget the by now caramelised onions and the loose breadcrumbs on the pan. Boil to concentrate flavours. Add more coarsley ground black pepper. Add more parsley & mixed herbs. Add cream and stir till smooth, thick and glossy. You can always cheat with a teaspoon of Bisto to thicken and to add more flavour to the sauce.

Make more than you need as the sauce get to used on pastas (add some fresh white button mushrooms) or pour any meat (works great with roast chicken too). Hazel loves it on her peas.

This is petit pois in a bacon breadcrumb mixture. Fry bacon pieces till crispy. Drain on kitchen paper. In bacon oil (don't scream), add chopped onions, fry till translucent, add bit salt & pepper, breadcrumbs, olive oil and some butter. Add bacon pieces, and fry till breadcrumbs are crunchy and crispy. Boil peas briefly, drain well and toss bacon mixture into peas. Serve.

Roast potatoes.

The greens.

Overall table shot. From top (l - r) - chestnut stuffing, hot mustard, roast beef, roast turkey, cranberry jelly, peas, greens, mushroom sauce, thyme glace, cranberry sauce, potatoes in the centre. Pepper sauce still being heated up in the microwave.

Friday, 22nd Dec 2006

Things in my freezer:

1. 1 turkey carcass with lots of meat attached - waiting to be turned into a lovely soup

2. 1 whole turkey 5.9 kg (another turkey dinner soon)

3. 4 lamb shanks (casserole - red wine? mushrooms? whole pan-fried shallots? herbs? peppercorns?) - serve with mashed potatoes? potato rosti?....

and a tray of lovely scallops with roe on the half shell.

Thursday, 14th Dec 2006

The children's table (Sil, Dom, H & Hazel) - spot the vegetarians' plates.

Making the stuffing.

Balls of golden brown stuffing (sage, onion and apple, with bacon, breadcrumbs and sausagemeat and extra seasoning).

Making the gravy - chicken carcasses, turkey neck & giblets, carrot, onion and celery, bay leaf and peppercorns.

Making the luxury cheese sauce (flour, butter, milk, cream, powder and grainy mustard, parsley, mixed herbs, salt & pepper and a whole camerbert) - smooth, gloosy, thick & rich and not a single lump in sight. (Note: the huge thing you see here is the camerbert left to slowly melt into the sauce).

I put more cheese and breadcrumbs on the top before it went into the oven.

More to come.....

Thursday, 14th Dec 2006

Long overdue Christmas dinner post coming soon....

Saturday, 16th Dec 2006

Day 2 & 3

Kayak - the children took to it like pros.

Lovely chocs and assorted Christmassy goodies.

Mark & L having a pretending to have a business discussion in the swankiest hotel in Brunei.

Roast beef.

Mid-afternoon snack. More chips with wedges. Surfing and sand activities sure builds up a good appetite.

Over the past 3 days, the children ate hefty breakfasts (pancakes, omelettes, pastries, muffins, sausages, etc, huge beef burgers, snacked on cold steak sandwiches and drank gallons of juice & water). They were a tired and happy bunch when we checked out at the end of our 3 day swim, bowl, kayak, eat, built, surf, frisbee, adventure. How lucky we are to have such a magnificent hotel on our doorstep, literally a minute away for some and 15 mins for us.

Here's Hazel posing with the Happy Feet group behind her.

Friday, 15th December 2006

Day 1

We had a lovely weekend stay at the Empire. Quick shot with the lovely decor before we hit the beach.



View from my deck chair, watching Mark & his friend L surf on their boogie boards.



Mark's Vans and some chips - a light afternoon snack for the children before dinner. I really like the way the staff serve ice water with lemon slices and oranges as soon as you sit down anywhere by the pool or beach. It's a simple but welcoming touch.



Dinner that evening - it was a Malay buffet and the children were not used to spicy food in such abundance so Mark & Hazel had fish and chips and L had lasagna.



My plate - I've taken just a little of not everything from the buffet, and look at the overcrowded 'greedy girl' plate... :P A bit of chicken kurma, one grilled prawn, a piece of beef rendang, another prawn, a sweet potato fritter, half an egg belado and bit of rice and finally a broken crab claw with pepper sauce.



The oxtail soup was delicious - the meat was falling off the bone and still meaty tasting, but not mushy. Lovely lovely.. Only wish was it could have been hotter (in temperature). Oily but tasty.


I'm trying to meet my daily quota of vegetables. Vinaigrette and 1000 island sauce on the side.