5 posts tagged “food”
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Maybe it's the years of my life that I spent being as un-feminine as possible that's pushing me down this path. I just browsed through a cooking site instead of doing my TMAs, and saw this post for sourdough bread. I know I just cooked an semi-epic (by my standards) meal, but part of me is thinking... Sourdough bread. I wonder what it tastes like. But oh my god - this bread is so beautiful, I'll bake it just to look at it...
Besides, the thought of baking bread gives me a warm homey sort of glow inside. I think it comes from too much literary conventions of being nurturing and motherly, where memories of mothers are usually associated with the smell of baked bread. Oddly enough, my memories of my mom are associated with cigarettes and the tendency to make highly inappropriate comments (a trait I unfortunately inherited from her).
Ah well. Time to attempt my Sourdough Journey in the footsteps of my favourite online chef of Foodwishes.com. Hopefully this documentation results in pretty bread, and not a bag of splooge-coloured garbage.
Brightside has asked me today, "Do you turn into a housewife on weekends?" And I hate to admit it, but I do. Well, my mother cooks for us all week, I could at least take over on the weekend so she can rest. However, she still insists on joining in whether with manpower, eyepower or mouthpower. She's a great help though, at least she liked today's dish. Another oven creation based on two recipes I found online and mashed together. It's a really simple dish despite the long list of ingredients. Now I know why lazy housewives in the USmake meatloaf so often.
Ingredients
8 rashers of bacon, cut crosswise
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 large yellow onion, diced
1kg ground chuck beef
0.2kg ground pork
1 diced red bell pepper
1/2 tsp dried tarragon
1/2 tsp dried Masterfoods Tuscan seasoning
1 tsp black pepper
2 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup ketchup
3/4 cup full cream milk
2 beaten eggs
1 cup plain breadcrumb
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2pkt Masterfoods Finishing Sauce (Honey Mustard) mixed with 2 tbsp honey
200g cedar cheese
1tbsp cornflour
1) Coat the bacon with brown sugar, brown in a pan with butter until sides of
the bacon turn slightly brown. Reserve. Fry the onion until translucent and
allow to cool.
3) Preheat oven to 162degrees Celcius. In a buttered baking tin, shape the meat into a tight loaf. Lightly glaze with finishing sauce and arrange bacon over the top layer. Place oven and heat until internal temperature is 71degrees Celcius, glazing once after 45 minutes. Top with cedar cheese and cook for another 10 minutes, or until cheese is lightly browned.
4) Remove from pan and reserve the meatloaf, tenting and allowing it to cool. Save the pan and the drippings for gravy. Place the pan on a stove. Add butter, stir in some corn flour and mix all the pan drippings and meat pieces. Allow to toast for 5 minutes. Add the remaining finishing sauce and stir, bringing to a boil. Allow the sauce to reduce or add water until desired thickness is achieved. Remove from heat.
5) Slice meatloaf and serve with sauce and mashed potatoes.
I am craving for Mee Kia (thin noodles in a spicy sauce with pork and fishballsand little bits of absolutely sinful deep fried pork fat). I am craving for the one from a particular stall.
My mother cooked pork and chicken Devil Curry, which I have loved probably since infancy. I know not which to eat... This is too difficult a quandry when you've woken up after 6 hours of sleep, dreaming of killing Hobbes and Reaver after a day of the opium that is Fable II.
Oh well...
Eat Both. ^_^
...with LOTS of help. Whenever Mary Ann said that, her sister and I just kind of quietly glanced at eachother knowingly. Mary Ann - a highly intelligent girl with a big heart and social skills so good she should be a politician or celebrity. However, for all her glowing repertoire, she needs help with some of the basic things in life. Like cooking.
I commit social suicide fairly often, but my mother did train me in the little things in life. My mother was a firm believer in child labour and would thus summon me to her sanctum - the sacred kitchen - to perform the preparation of the sacrificial offerings - peeling taters, onions, cutting beef, etcetera. I guess because of this, I prepare food pretty fast. I can cook, but cannot bake to save my life. I can put a decent curry and vegetable side on the table, but how the hell do you fold an egg into dough? I feel like the fairy Flora who was trying to make Aurora a birthday cake in Sleeping Beauty. Literally - Fold it in.
Mary Ann loves to bake and can do it quite well, but cooking a meal seems to perplex her. She was, nonetheless, going to cook us all a meal, so I decided to help out. She was learning as she went from me and her sister, since both of us had a bit more experience in the kitchen when it came to cooking. Her sister even taught me a few things, since I'd never prepared sweet beans before. I whipped up a beef casserole and butter steamed vegetables in the time it took Mary Ann to make Champ mash potatoes. Admittedly, she was helping us out alot. But I am proud of her for the effort she made. The potatoes were awesome. She seemed impressed by my 'speed' in the kitchen, but I attribute it all to my mother and the servitude she put me through as a child.
Mary Ann's God Save The Queen dinner was a success, and now we're thinking of making these cook-over's monthly. Next one lined up - TexMex! Tacos and Chilli Con Carne Pita wraps! Mmmm~
