Erm's Photo Diary

OMG Erm, twilight zone monent here! I have an acorn squash in the oven as I type and I'm planning on having plantain and rice for lunch tomorrow, only its a Cuban recipe :D
Your meals look fabulous, as usual!

Ooh oooooh what's your Cuban recipe? I've got two plantain left still and I'm just making my recipe list for next week before I finalise my Tesco order. Cuban rice & plantain sounds a bit fab!

Tonight is onion squash curry! :)
 
Food looking FAB!!!

I do believe that is a Queen squash and very nice they are too

Ahhhh that rings a bell! Here's the outside:

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Is that the one? Id deffo buy one of those again! :)
 
Gosh I'm so confused by these squash varieties, I got a couple of queen squashes from Waitrose the other day and they were orange! Same shape as what you have there Erm but a dusty orangey colour lol!

Here's a link to the Cuban rice, it's Julesm's recipe called arroz a la Cubana and it's basically a spicy tomato stew with roasted plantains and a fried egg on top. http://goodgobble.blogspot.com/2011/08/arroz-la-cubana.html
 
Haha its mindboggling Honey
I brought mine in Waitrose too the Onion one i brought was smaller and orange but my queen one was deffo green lol
 
Gosh I'm so confused by these squash varieties, I got a couple of queen squashes from Waitrose the other day and they were orange! Same shape as what you have there Erm but a dusty orangey colour lol!

Here's a link to the Cuban rice, it's Julesm's recipe called arroz a la Cubana and it's basically a spicy tomato stew with roasted plantains and a fried egg on top. Arroz a la Cubana

I can't fathom it, theres squillions of them! Theyre taking over the woooooorld!!!! :eek: :D The only other name I remember was Carnival squash but it doesnt look like one of them. tbh I dont think even Waitrose know, the woman at the checkout asked me what it was, I had to just point to a picture on the screen that looked, er, the same as it and just said "Squash". :confused: I also got two orange ones but they have a sticker on saying onion squash. Cos they didnt have any pumpkins. Yes in October, no pumpkins... :rolleyes:
 
That curry looks amazing! Can you share your recipe? I love lemon and vinegar :). I don't like coconut so would just have plain or Jasmine rice. Fancy a curry now (and have chicken in the fridge!).
 
That curry looks amazing! Can you share your recipe? I love lemon and vinegar :). I don't like coconut so would just have plain or Jasmine rice. Fancy a curry now (and have chicken in the fridge!).

I adapted the recipe from here but used chicken breast instead of pieces and made roughly a third as it was just for the 2 of us.

Chicken Yassa

Serves 2

For the Marinade:
- 2 bay leaves
- Fresh thyme sprigs or 2 tsp dried thyme
- 1 rounded tbsp wholegrain mustard 2 syns
- 1 tbsp grated ginger
- 1 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1⁄2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil 2 syns
- Juice of a large lemon
- 60ml cider vinegar
- 6 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 small scotch bonnet, deseeded and chopped
- 1 tbsp soy sauce

For the rest of the curry:
- About 450g chicken breast (keep them whole to start with)
- 1/2 a lemon and some coarse sea salt
- 3 onions, sliced
- 120ml chicken stock
- Zest of half a lemon
- salt & pepper to taste
- Chopped coriander to garnish

Directions:
- Combine all marinade ingredients and set aside
- Rinse chicken and pat dry
- Squeeze the lemon over the chicken breast and rub it all over. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and rub down (I used about a tsp of Maldon)
- Mix the chicken in the marinade. Add the onions and mix to coat well
- Leave in the fridge to marinate for at least 4h, preferably overnight

- When ready to cook, remove the chicken from marinade and set aside
- Next, remove the onions from the marinade and set aside. Reserve the marinade
- Brown the chicken over a medium-high heat, then set aside
- Add the onions to the pan and cook until soft and caramelized
- Add the marinade, chicken stock, chicken and onions, bring to the boil then reduce heat to lowest setting, cover and leave to cook for an hour (You could do this in 20min, it just being chicken pieces, but leaving it for an hour did make it absolutely *melt* in your mouth)
- During the last 5 min of cooking, remove the lid and increase the heat to reduce the sauce a little
- Remove bay leaves and thyme stems, stir in lemon zest
- Plate up, garnish with coriander and serve

Like I said, most people might find it too vinegary/citrussy so you might want to reduce the amount of vinegar/lemon but it sounds like you're like me - I love the stuff! :)
 
Saturday 15th - Green

Breakfast: Coffee & Toast 1 HEXA, 1 HEXB, 2 syns
Lunch: Jalapeno hummus with carrots, big bowl of salad 2 syns for dressing
Tea: Pumpkin, spinach & black bean dopiaza ( 0.5 syns for tomato puree) with Baked ricotta-stuffed tandoori potatoes ( <1 HEXA for ricotta, 1 HEXB for cashews and olive oil) and tomato, cucumber & coriander salad
Snacks: Nectarine, apple, wine (about 35-40 syns)


I thought I'd have a go at these ricotta stuffed potatoes that I found here. They were nice, and interesting but a right faff.

Had to hollow out the potatoes:

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Then make two different mixes, one for the ricotta stuffing and one for the tandoori coating, stuff the potatoes:

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And coat with the other mix:

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Baked:

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And sliced up:

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They were nice but it took *ages*, I was cooking for over 2 1/2h for this and the curry :( Not really worth all that effort - BUT the tandoori mix was SOOOOO yummmmm it would be WAY better as a dip than baked away on a boring old potato! I just licked my finger as I was tidying up and thought OOOOHHMMM so licked the bowl out pronto!!! :drool: I can just imagine this as a dip with crispy wedges ommmmm!!! :drool:

Then there was the pumpkin, spinach & black bean dopiaza. (I substituted onion squash for pumpkin). Also nice, not mind-blowing but pretty easy and very healthy so Id deffo do it again:

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Roasted some crispy onions to go on top:

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So they made it extra yum:

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Finished article:

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Very nice but not worth 2 1/2 h :(
 
It all looks lovely Erm
Shame it was a lot of faffing around though i'm going to make the tandoori paste though as i'm sure you could use it on a lot of things

Ps I seem to have my hands on a rather large Mooli and apart from using them in a salad have you cooked with one ?
 
Ha ha! No not yet, I've only bought them a couple of times, only used them in salads or as crudites for hummus and snacking on and stuff so far. Im sure they'd go in pretty much anything though, they're just like a white carrot really. Let me know what you get up to with it! :D Mmm Im off to stick some on my Tesco order now... :)
 
Did you like the onion squash after? I have made a rogan josh with beef and onion squash (ohh.. bit of poetry LOL) Haven't eaten it yet and just wondering what its like? I have only used it as a potato sub for wedges and baked pot so far!
 
Did you like the onion squash after? I have made a rogan josh with beef and onion squash (ohh.. bit of poetry LOL) Haven't eaten it yet and just wondering what its like? I have only used it as a potato sub for wedges and baked pot so far!

I had it in the curry so couldn't really tell much what it would taste like on its own, just had a similar texture to all the other squash, the spices hid any onion-squash-taste really. I've still got another left though, probably gonna have it this week. Then got to go raid Waitrose or somewhere for a winter's supply :D
 
Thanks for the curry recipe. I will definitely try that. I didn't have any wholegrain mustard so made a different curry this time. I missed curry so much when I moved here that I went on a course to learn how to cook it! I can make butter chicken to die for but it's probably about 30 syns a serving and I have tried to SW it and it just doesn't work. I also have a SW friendly recipe. The one I cooked yesterday. Can't wait to eat it tonight. Let me know if you want the recipe. We definitely seem to like the same foods.
 
By the way, it seems that the farmer splits his squashes in to two sections. One lot on a huge wagon type thing which are edible and one lot on a small wagon which are for autumn displays only (they are in to that sort of thing here) and not edible. My husband chose the two small ones the other day from the small wagon hence the poisonous taste!!! It's not really his fault as there is no sign anywhere. We did actually eat the other one - tasted alright. So the mystery is over! We won't make that mistake again.
 
Thanks for the curry recipe. I will definitely try that. I didn't have any wholegrain mustard so made a different curry this time. I missed curry so much when I moved here that I went on a course to learn how to cook it! I can make butter chicken to die for but it's probably about 30 syns a serving and I have tried to SW it and it just doesn't work. I also have a SW friendly recipe. The one I cooked yesterday. Can't wait to eat it tonight. Let me know if you want the recipe. We definitely seem to like the same foods.

Ooooh yes please, always up for new curries! :) Send your recipes my way!

The Yassa recipe actually asked for Dijion mustard but I didn't have any in so used wholegrain and it was still very yum.

Where did you move from/to Shrinki? I couldnt live without my curries! :eek: :( You can do courses on how to cook curry?!?! Wow how/where is that? Was it expensive? Oooh Id love to do something like that! I usually just raid online recipes and try to pre-guess if theyre just going to be totally random cr@ppe or not :sigh:
 
By the way, it seems that the farmer splits his squashes in to two sections. One lot on a huge wagon type thing which are edible and one lot on a small wagon which are for autumn displays only (they are in to that sort of thing here) and not edible. My husband chose the two small ones the other day from the small wagon hence the poisonous taste!!! It's not really his fault as there is no sign anywhere. We did actually eat the other one - tasted alright. So the mystery is over! We won't make that mistake again.

Oh my, display squash! :eek: Yow, you'd not think you could get away with that any more, you have to have signs saying its risky to even breathe these days! Ah well glad you found the reason, so we can scoff squash to our heart's content again :D
 
Sunday 16th - Red

Breakfast: Coffee & Toast 1 HEXA, 1 HEXB, 2 syns
Lunch: Leftover dopiaza, 1HEXB for beans; big bowl of salad. Was about to put salad cream on when it dawned on me my piccalilli was ready! So slathered it in that instead! And I *mean* slathered... :eek:
Tea: Feta-stuffed chicken in Parma Ham with celeriac chips & veg. 1 HEXA for Feta, 1.5 syns for Parma ham. The Tesco one - the whole packet is only 3 syns! :eek: Wahoo! Thanks Kingleds!
Snacks: Nectarine, apple.

Sooooo piccalilli - it was nice, tasted pretty much the same as when I made it but without the spices being hard any more- but it was a bit dry and I was surprised how crunchy it was. Just used to shop-bought I s'pose. Crunchy is OK though, but yeah a bit dry. And obviously slathering it all over your salad aint the usual purpose... :rolleyes: it would be better with some cheese on a nice bit of crispbread or summat. But yummy all the same :)

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Soooo, had that with some leftover dopiaza:

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Then it was meant to be kebab for tea but I didn't have time so just stuffed a chicken. Can party on Parma ham now it's only 0.5 syns a slice! :drool:

Bf's quote of the day was when I asked him if his tea was OK. He sort of went "mmm... uhhhhh...". When I tried to probe a bit further I gleaned that the chicken "tasted a bit off". So I said "you do know it was stuffed with garlic & cheese, right?" And saw the penny slowwwwwly drop as he went "Ohhhhhhhhhh!!!", his face relaxing a little. :rolleyes: Seriously, how can you mistake 50g of Feta and crushed garlic for "off" chicken? Apart from the fact it LOOKS ENTIRELY DIFFERENT to chicken and tastes of er, GARLIC and CHEESE. I dunno what Salmonella tastes like but I bet it's not garlic. :8855:


Some well-dodgy chicken innit:

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Also *mega-portion* as had to use up some forgotten-about sprouts as Tesco is coming today. Ommmm they were so goooooood, all buttery and nutty... :drool: Thing is, I have a habit of eating the veg first to make sure I get me nutrients and fill me up before the calorie-laden stuff, but the chicken was sooooo delish (or "off" :rolleyes: ) I couldn't leave any, even though I was stuffed to the gills... :eek:

Making Veg & lentil soup with sumac today! :)
 
I love the look of your dinner. How do you get your celeriac chips so "shiny". I tried your method of cooking them but for some reason Im just not getting the same results!!
Not sure how chick peas are counted on SW but I found this recipe on RosemaryConleytv -
1 can chick peas
tspn garam masala
tspn soft brown sugar
cayenne pepper
raisins x 2tspns

Preheat oven to 200C.
Drain the can of chickpeas well and place on non stick baking tray.
Mix together the garam masala and sugar and sprinkle over the chickpeas. Bake in the oven for 20 mins.
Dust with cayenne pepper and add the raisins.
I think these would be lovely for a cinema snack or just a snack!!
(On my plan chickpeas are free hence my delight at the thought!!).
Have a great day.
 
Erm said:
1.5 syns for Parma ham. The Tesco one - the whole packet is only 3 syns

Wow you are a positive wealth of information Erm, I adore Parma ham

hahaha @ boyfriend and the dodgy chicken

skips off happy having parma ham and olives for supper !!!!!! yeah baby !!!
 
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