Tacos, and Macaroni & Cheese

Its stocktake time at hubby's work, and I can't be bothered to cook a full-on dinner for myself and the kids, so tonight, I'm falling back on an old favourite.

When my husband and I were living in our apartment in California, we didn't always eat the healthiest food. We had a very low income, I couldn't cook anywhere near as well as I can now (partly a confidence issue, partly a complete and utter lack of experience), he worked late, and I was pregnant and therefor having severe problems with what I could actually keep down. Subsequently, a substance called "Hamburger Helper" became a regular in our menus. (For non-Americans, 'hamburger' is the same as mince/ground beef. "Hamburger Helper" is like mac&cheese, with meat. You brown your meat, then do whatever the box says.)

Here in Australia, this doesn't exist - hence the previous explanation. For a long time, nothing similar appeared in our diets. Until hubby had a taco craving. He comes from California. It was bound to happen eventually. So we bought a taco kit, made our tacos, and had a thoroughly enjoyable dinner. We also had so much leftover meat we didn't know what to do with it all. Remembering our prior love of Hamburger Helper, hubby came up with a great idea. Taco Mac. It won't be to everyone's taste, but we love it here, and it's a cheap, easy way to use up leftover taco meat.

We've come a long way since the days of taco-kits and Kraft mac&cheese, however. We now usually buy tortillas instead of using hard taco shells, I make our taco seasoning, and my husband has recently come to appreciate home-made macaroni and cheese - since I discovered how to make it with MILK instead of water, cutting down on 'the grainy factor' that he disliked so much.


TACOs*

In a large jar, combine:

• 10tsp paprika
• 9tsp cumin
• 5tsp onion flakes
• 5tsp garlic powder NOT GARLIC SALT FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!!!!
• 4tsp coriander
• 4tsp salt
• 4tsp sugar

Mix well.

Brown your meat in a frypan.
Once browned, for every 500g (1 pound) meat, add about 1Tbsp taco seasoning, and 1/2 cup water, mix till well combined, and simmer to reduce. TASTE IT. You may need to add more, you may decide to use less next time.
Make your tacos, using whatever you like. We use soft tortillas, cheese, salsa and lettuce. My mum adds avocado, hubby adds chili sauce.



MACARONI & CHEESE

milk
butter
macaroni
salt
pepper
cheese

In an appropriately sized saucepan, mix your macaroni, milk, butter, salt & pepper.
How much, you ask? Thats tricky. This is the recipe I found: 2 1/2 cups pasta, 3 cups milk, pinch salt, med-high heat, stir continuously, add cheese when cooked.
DIDN'T WORK. Others have had brilliant results, my milk evaporated away and my pasta was still hard.
So heres what I did:

• 2 cups pasta, 2 1/2 cups milk, knob of butter - about 1tbsp - and a little salt&pepper in a 3L pot.
• LOW-MED heat.
• STIR CONTINUOUSLY.
• Add more milk when it's evaporated down quite a bit and your pasta is still hard as a rock.
• Keep stirring.
• Add MORE milk.
• KEEP STIRRING!!!!!!!!!!!
• Finally, CHEESE!!

What I recommend (serves 2 adults, 5yr old boy and 1yr old girl, with plenty left over. I need to work out better proportions for the 4 of us):

2 cups pasta, 3 cups milk, Tbsp butter, salt & pepper in a pot.
Med-low heat .
STIR CONTINUOUSLY for 10-15 minutes, adding more milk if needed.
When the pasta is cooked and the milk is thickened, add 1cup shredded cheese, stirring til combined and melted.
Taste, add more salt/pepper/cheese as needed.



TACO MAC

Make your mac&cheese.
Once the cheese is melted, add 1-2cups taco meat (depending on what you have available and how meaty you prefer it), stirring over low heat til well combined and heated through.




*We don't like spicy. This recipe is an absolute spicy FAIL, if you like spicy, add chili by all means!

Steak Marinade

• Measurements are mostly guesses
• Adjust to taste
• Good for steaks to eat as steak, and also for meat to go into a stir-fry or fried rice

For 4 steaks:

200ml soy sauce
50-100ml HP sauce
a good slosh of sesame oil
1 clove garlic, minced (1tsp minced-garlic-in-a-jar if you're lazy like me)
1 Tbsp brown sugar

Mix well, pour over raw steaks in a container/sealed bag, and refigerate at least 30min. Cook steaks as desired, basting with leftover liquid if you want (works well for BBQing, not so easy in a pan).

Shepherd's Pie

This is a family standard for cold whether, and is so enjoyed that we brave the oven-heat and eat it in summer too.

In reality, I suppose this version is "Cottage Pie" since we use beef mince instead of lamb, but whatever. IS TASTY.

YOU NEED:

• mince meat
• herbs
  
• vegies
• onion
• stock cubes
• water
• mashed potato
• cheese
• flour
• oil
• large, greased, ovendish
  

START:

The best place to start is with your mashed potatoes. They'll boil while you're cooking everything else, so get chopping. MAKE MORE THAN YOU THINK YOU WILL NEED. I'm serious. For Shepherd's Pie I usually use 7-8 good sized potatoes (quite a bit more than I use as a side dish), and theres barely enough. MAKE LOTS.

You could also turn your oven on to about 230 celcius, and grease your oven dish - it makes cleaning at the end a little easier.

Chop your onion as small as you want. I don't like onion so I cut it as small as I can be bothered. Brown it in some oil, then add your mince - we use about 1kg (2lb), and it makes 2 meals for our family of 3 (bub desnt count yet). If you want, you can add a sprinkle of mixed herbs as well. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

While your meat is browning, start making your stock. You want it double strength, which is why we're using stock cubes instead of ready-made. Take 2 cubes of OXO (or wahtever you use) and crumble them into ONE portion of boiling water - usually about 1cup. MIX WELL.

Once your meat is browned, add your stock, and about 1 tablespoon of flour, sprinkled over. Mix it up. If its too liquidy, add a little more flour. Too dry, add more water. Once its as you like it, dump it into your dish, and spread it out evenly.

Add some vegies. We use a frozen bag of peas corn and carrots - about 1cup, mixed through the meat.why yes, that is a patch over on one side with no vegies. I can't stand cooked carrot, and peas make me want to be sick. Want to make something of it?

Now, time to add your mash. Start at the edges. Mush the mash up against the walls of the pan, making a sort of seal. Spread it thickly, and gently, or you'll just end up pushing at around and bringing the meat with it. If it starts to come up, add more. Once you've done the outside, work inwards. You'll be surprised at how much it takes. This is why I said to MAKE LOTS.

Sprinkle some cheese on top, using whatever you have handy - I usually use a combination of mozarella, tasty, and parmesan, but like I said, use whatever. Then whack it in your oven for about 20-25 minutes, or until the cheese has browned.

SERVE!!! We eat it as is, but you could add naything you wanted I suppose.

Go! EAT!!

You, Too, Can Make Your Own Everlasting Know-It-All

I discovered recently that Gosling quite likes yoghurt. Critter and hubby both like flavoured yoghurt, but since Gosling is only 9 months old, I decided that plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain was probably the way to go with her. So I bought a tub of Greek yoghurt, and fed it to her. Success. She preferred it with a little sugar, but would eat it without - with the addition of a startled "THATS SOUR!" face.

I remembered that my mother used to make yoghurt when I was growing up, in fact I'm not sure I remember her ever buying the stuff - she always just used milk to make some - so I asked her about it, and she told me that the yoghurt maker was actually still in the cupboards, and I should have a go. So I did.

Its surprisingly easy. Heat milk, cool it down, plop in some yoghurt to start it off, keep warm for 4 hours, whack it in the fridge. Really, the 'keep warm' part is the most difficult, which is where the yoghurt maker comes in handy. It also has a thermometer, making it easy to tell when to stop heating/cooling the milk.



MAKE SOME YOGHURT!!!

You need:

• a saucepan, big enough to hold all your milk, with a reasonable amount of space at the top - ie don't fill it too full.
• a stovetop
• preferably a thermometer - probably a candy thermometer
  
• 1L milk (or however much you want to make) - fullcream please. I dont know if light will work, use at your own risk.
• 1Tbsp natural yoghurt (aussie Tbsp - thats 4tsp. If you are making a different quantity, use 1tsp per cup of milk.)
• a jar - big enough to fit 1L milk - with a lid (or several smaller ones, or one smaller one, depending on how much you've made, but you need lids.)
• probably a funnel
• somewhere to keep your milk warm
• a fridge

Stick your saucepan on your stove, med-medhigh heat, and pour in a litre of milk (thats about 4 cups, or 2 pints for those not familiar with litres).

Milk on the stove

Heat your milk - 85-90 celcius (185-195 farenheit). If you have a thermometer handy, that will make things a lot easier. If you don't, DO NOT LET THE MILK BOIL. It should take about 20-30 minutes, or more, to heat up, depending on how hot your stove is. A skin will form on the top of the milk. There will be bubbles - on the top of the milk, a bit like froth. Not rolling bubbles like boiling. I REPEAT, DO NOT LET IT BOIL.

Once your milk is well heated, take it off the stove, and turn your stove off. I always forget that part. Let the milk cool down, to about 40ish celcius (105 farenheit). Again, easier if you have a thermometer. If you don't, it took my milk about 30 minutes to cool down. 40 is a little higher than bodyheat, so it will feel warm, but it shouldn't be HOT. DO NOT LET IT GET COLD. You need some heat for the yoghurt to work.

Now comes the yoghurt bit. Add about 1Tbsp NATURAL yoghurt (no flavours, colours, gelatin, fruit, sugar, what-have-you) to your milk, and give it a good stir. It might not dissolve completely, thats ok. As long as its not just sitting there in one big blob.

NATURAL yoghurt. No other stuff!

Dont worry too much about the Tbsp being level, or a measuring spoon. Or you can, if you want.

Pour your yoghurted milk into your jar(s). This is easier with a funnel (unless your saucepan has a pouring point, in which case you should send it to me for examination, but don't expect to get it back, because, uh, things get lost in the post. Yes.. thats it... lost in the post). Then put the lid on the jar(s) LOOSELY. What exactly does loosely mean? I'm not sure. There wasn't a definition. What's worked for me is to have it tight enough that the jar doesnt fall off if I pick it up by the lid, but loose enough that it still rattles around if I jiggle it up and down, and it still turns easily.

Now you have to keep your soon-to-be-yoghurt warm for quite a while. I have a flask made exactly the right size to fit the jar, so thats easy. You probably don't, or you wouldn't need these instructions. Things you can try:

• Maybe you have an eski (insulated box, generally used for keeping food/drinks cold), or styrofoam box (with a lid). Put your soon-to-be-yoghurt in the middle of the box, fill some more jars/bottles/whatever with hot water, and place them around the s-t-b-y, near but not touching. You could even wrap a teatowl around the s-t-b-y to make sure it doesn't come in contact. Lid the box. Put it somewhere it won't be disturbed. Check it every now and then to make sure everything is still warm, and refill the hot water jars as they cool
  
• Some poeple have had success with a VERY LOW HEAT oven. You want to keep it warm, not cook it
  
• You could try making your own insulation with batting and.. I don't know.
• Search Google to see what's worked for other people.

Insulating flask! Yay!

Leave the s-t-b-y alone for at least 4 hours (unless you have to refill hot jars to keep it warm, of course) and then check it, to see if it's yoghurt yet. If it isn't, put it back how it was and leave it alone for a bit longer. (My first batch took a good 5 hours, and was still very runny - apparently the first batch, started with BOUGHT yoghurt, usually takes longer to work. I believe it, my second batch - started from MADE yoghurt - was almost as thick as bought stuff in 4 hours.)

Looks set...

..but its a bit runny still.

Once it is set you can put it in the fridge, but remember: the longer you leave it, the tarter/sourer it will get. If you like it mild, fridge it as soon as it's set. If you like it tart, leave it in the heat for longer.

Your yoghurt can be easily modified with flavours (my son likes it with strawberry milk powder stirred through, or a little bit of sugar. Mum uses honey), and will be good for about a week. Just make sure you keep some to start the next batch.

Easy Chicken Parmigiana

We don't eat much fancy stuff here. We have a few dishes that we like, and we just have them all the time. But the other day I felt like something different, and since we had chicken out, we had a look for chicken recipes.

Hubby got Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food cookbook for Christmas, and theres a recipe in there for "Crispy Chicken" that hubby decided looked good, so we settled on that. Then I had a hankering for cheese, so we decided to modify it a little to get Chicken Parmigiana.

It was delicious. It will now be one of our semi-regular dishes. (Only semi, because Critter is allergic to chicken and eggs, so we tend to have chicken only when we have leftovers that he really loves, like Shepherd's Pie, or sausages.)


Chicken Parmigiana

• boneless skinless chicken breast
• bread
• lemon
• butter
• salt & pepper
• parsley
• egg
  
• flour
• pizza sauce
• cheese
  

Turn your oven on as high as it will go. Grease a baking tray. Set aside.

Sprinkle 2tablespoons of flour on a plate. Beat an egg in a large bowl. Set aside.

Chicken breast - however many your family will eat. We tend to cook one breast each, but will leave some for lunch the next day if they're massive. Place in a bag/between cling film, and pound flattish with a frypan. A mallet would probably work too, but the frypan is more satisfying.

Breadcrumbs - per breast: 2 slices of bread, slightly toasted; 1/2 tablespoon butter; zest 1/4 lemon; salt, pepper, dried parsley to taste. Stick it in a food processor until the crumbs are nice and small. Taste. Adjust as needed. Tip onto a plate and spread out evenly-ish.

Crumbing the chicken - coat the chicken in the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs. Make sure it is well coated. Any excess will just fall off back onto the plate when you lift it, so don't be afraid to be generous.

Put the chicken on the baking tray and whack it in the oven for about 10-15 minutes, depending on how flat you pounded it. Once the time is up, pour some pizza sauce on the chicken. (We used a thick pizza sauce, but if yours is thin, add some tomato paste and extra herbs and mix it up - this is what we do with pizza and it works very well.) Top with cheese - mozzarella preferably, but if you hate it, use something else. We also added parmesan because we loooooooooooove parmesan.

Stick it back in the oven for a minute or two, until the cheese is melty and/or browned slightly, depending on the cheese you used and how you like it. Basically, you just don't want the sauce or cheese to still be cold.

Serve with side of your choice. In this case, raw carrots and Greek Potatoes.

Greek Potatoes

Recipe from a cypriot friend. Possibly the easiest recipe I know.

No picture because they just look like boiled potatoes.


WARNING: VERY TASTY. Do not be tempted to make extra to keep for later, because you'll just eat it all.


Greek Potatoes

• potatoes (small works best)
• olive oil
• salt
• lemon

Cut your potatoes into bite sized chunks. This is, for me, about 1/4 for smallish potatoes. Your mileage may vary. Place in a pot with some salt, and cover with water. Turn on your hot plate to high, and set your timer for 15 minutes. When it goes off, check your potatoes - poke them with a sharp knife. You want them cooked, but not soft enough for mash. You probably need to cook them for at least 5 more minutes, depending on how big you cut them.

Once they're cooked, drain them and then put them back in the pot, but NOT ON THE HOT PLATE. Turn it off. You're done with that.

Add enough olive oil to coat the potatoes, add salt and lemon to taste (you could also add some finely chopped herbs here for taste or looks value, but I dont bother), shake the pot a little till all the potatoes are well coated (which is why you don't want them mash worthy), and thats it. They're ready to serve.

nesting kicks in

hubby cutting home-made pizza, with the kidlet looking on in the background

baby-time is getting closer and closer. 2-6 weeks till i get to meet the sprog. and im nesting.

its kicking in in interesting ways. cleaning mostly, and the urge to paint... (which im not going to do because paint fumes make me feel ill even when im not pregnant.) but also the cooking. we had pizza for dinner tonight. i use a recipe found here, modified a little. (i love this recipe. its quick, its tasty, and it doesnt involve hours of rising time. mix and go!) i like my pizza thin, hubby likes his thick, but not as thick as one recipe of this, so i make one and a bit recipes and split it off-centre. also take a little bit off to make a mini-pizza for the kid, since he likes to have his own.

actually, critterbug is very helpful. he enjoys kneading dough, so i let him knead his own pizza, and he helps me roll them out. sometimes he even puts his own toppings on.

the nesting instinct kicked in while i was preparing the dough. once the dough is made, the pizza really doesnt take that long to make. chuck stuff on top, bake for 16 minutes. but MAKING the dough can take a while.

so i made extra. i baked it for about 7 minutes, till it juuuuuuuuuuust started to look cooked-ish, and when it had cooled down, i wrapped it in cling-film and stuck it in the freezer. next time we want pizza, all we have to do is take it out, add toppings, and bake. start with a cold oven so it thaws as it goes.

what im figuring however is NOT to use this next time. next time we have pizza ill make a double batch again, and freeze the extra again. it really doesnt take much extra time, and when we need something quick after the baby's born, tada!!

nesting instincts for the win.