Perfect sunny day here. All ready for a long weekend. Catching up on some baking today. A quick easy go to for my faintly has always been the traditional Rock cake! Low in sugar and super delicious and the biggest criteria.. Fast! Find the Recipe here. My mum has been baking these for years and I kinda stole it from her! We are to the beach for some sand play and sunshine!
It was a great challenge to try a new recipe every day last week! I finished it off with a bang… Nutella Cheesecake!! Not the dinner inspiration I started out looking for but I saw it advertised on social media and wanted to try it for myself! I mean who doesn’t love Nutella. I personally could it eat it straight from the jar! I used the Nigella recipe. Find it here. Ridiculously easy to make and no baking requires so it was super fast! Mr 3 helped and was super excited to lick the Nutella spoon!
To summarise it was super easy and fast to make, but it needs berries and cream or something on top to break up the sweetness. It is super rich and sweet. Raspberries would be perfect.
The Challenge continues… read about it here! New recipe no 4 for the week was slightly clouded due to sick kids and no desire to go the shops. So it became a game of ‘what’s in the cupboard’? Still wanting to complete the challenge I found some beef steak in the freezer and went about investigating something new to cook. Enter good old Jamie Oliver and a few modifications and we have delicious Beef Ragu.
Find the original recipe here.
I had a few ingredients missing and added a few of my own.. So here’s my Recipe…
Easy Beef Ragu
1kg Beef Rump Steak chopped into small pieces (in thermie reverse sp 6 20 sec)
1 clove garlic
2 carrots
500 g of tomatoes chopped ( I had lots left from the inlaws!)
2 tblspn vegetable stock
500 ml water
2 cups of red wine
oregano
basil
bay leaf
Method
Blitz garlic and carrot Spd 5 for 10 sec. (or grate carrot and chop garlic finely)
In a large pot brown garlic and carrot. Add the beef and fry till brown.
Add stock, water, tomatoes and red wine and bring to the boil.
Add the herbs and let it all simmer until most of the liquid evaporates. (approx. 40 mins on low)
Serve with your favourite pasta.
Letting it simmer slowly until liquid evaporates makes the flavours stronger!
To sum up for the challenge, it was delicious and the red wine in it gave it a lovely winter feel. It takes longer than a bolognaise to make so its not ideal for a work night but it could be done. While its simmering away im sure there’s many other things to get done! Bath the kids while its cooking then eat!
*I lost my cooking mojo over the last few weeks. With 1st birthdays to organise (which I love doing) and then Easter, things went a little off skew in the dinner department. Yes the kids had baked beans one night and heaven forbid we did eat McDonalds! Guess what? They survived! But I needed to get my mojo back and with the return to work drawing closer and closer I need to increase my go to meals. So I set myself a challenge this week. A new recipe every day. Test it, try it, time it, blog it! I have to say I feel a bit like the girl in the movie Julia and Julia ( I think its called that) but I’m not cooking my way through the Julia Childs cookbook, that’s way too big a challenge for right now!
Recipe 1 Skinnmixers Pork Belly with Apple Sauce Recipe Here!
Having never cooked Pork Belly before I was a little apprehensive. It was super easy using the thermomix (yes it can be done without of course). I loved how easy it was, and it was superbly delicious! The boys discovered the joys of crispy crackling and devoured a plate full of veggies with the apple sauce. Winning! The only down fall was it took an hour and half all up to prepare and cook. Not one I’ll be putting on the weekly rotation but a fabulous one for a Sunday night roast!
Recipe no 2 was Homemade Chicken loaf.Recipe here!
This is perfect for sandwiches for the next few days and obviously has way less crap in it that store bought stuff. Master 5 gave it the big thumbs up and will have it for lunch tomorrow! Super fast and easy to prepare, cooking took about 30 mins then 2 hours in the fridge. Was quite surprised by this one.
And finally Recipe no 3 (yep 2 today!) is Malaysian Satay Chicken with rice noodle stir fry. Recipe for satay chicken here! Skinny mixers again!
I’ve had tremendous luck in the taste department this week but this one is a definite pre- prepare meal. No way I can marinate and thread meat on a stick while I have three starving beings around. The marinate was super yum and made the chicken really juicy. And let’s face it kids love anything on a stick! For the stir fry I pre boiled the rice noodles, stir fried some ginger, lemongrass and garlic and added any veggies I could find in the depths of the fridge. Stir fried it all up added 2 tablespoons of fish sauce, a pinch of Brown sugar and about 100 ml of coconut milk. It was pretty delicious if I do say so myself! So to sum up, if I had the meat already marinated and on sticks it could be a great quick meal full of nutrition, so long as I’m organised…😜
I I haven’t decided what to try tomorrow but I’ve got my mojo back! Stay tuned!!
The Working Mum 
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