Tuesday, June 29, 2010

fish pie fish pie fish pie

i made fish pie for dinner - recipe from this weeks coles magazine.

Samuel loved it and ate nearly 1 whole serve (thats an adult serve!). We loved it and there is just enough for HHML to take dinner to work tonight. The secret to winning a toddlers heart? Probably the cauliflower boiled in milk and then pureed till creamy which made up the base of the pie. It was divine......

Sadly I took no photos but am sure this recipe will be repeated soon....photos and recipe to follow then.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

hhm♥ dinner with his high school mates

okay so maybe i am a little bit crazy but when jonathan mentioned maybe having his friends over for dinner I jumped at the chance to cook for it. babysitter was organised and my saturday was planned - exercise, family time, coffee and cooking.

my menu aim ? food that is great for a chilly june evening and that would fill 7 men up.

so i decide :

spiced cauliflower soup with yoghurt and oven roasted turkish bread
lasagna with fresh chilli pasta and bechamel sauce, served with green salad and roast pumpkin
apple pie with vanilla icecream

it was so much fun to cook but there was alot to do and i didn't take any photos! maybe next time.

spiced cauliflower soup with yoghurt

this soup, i made last up. it was still warm when everyone arrived. served with a side dish of natural yoghurt and some freshly baked oiled turkish bread (i would have smothered with garlic cloves prior to baking however i ran out!).

lasagna with fresh chilli pasta and bechamel sauce, served with green salad and roast pumpkin
this is a variation of my mums beef lasagna.

the lasagna i started first. i made the beef layer first. made fresh pasta dough with chilli flakes (this needs to be rested in the fridge prior to rolling into sheets of fresh, lovely, oozy pasta). made a pot of lovely bechamel sauce with fresh nutmeg and put it all together. my top layer? a fine layer of parmesan cheese (i recommend getting a microplane zester!!) and some fresh mozerella from an italian market at stock rd markets (galati + sons).

apple pie with vanilla icecream
this recipe is available here (http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/5008/apple+pie)

i have made this apple pie twice now and this recipe is wonderful! i think the key is after you have made the pie, put it in the fridge. this helps solidify the apple mixture and then it won't leak into the pastry crust. the other key is to drain the liquids from the apples when they are cooling down. else it will also make the pastry soggy.

did i mention that i made two of everything (two lasagnas, two apple pies) ?

Saturday, June 26, 2010

why the name? gastronomy @ home

after numerous updates to my facebook status on what was being created, cooked and baked in our kitchen at home i decided to create a blog.

so my blog - gastronomy @ home, will show you all what i am cooking @ home, my inspiration behind the meal and what it is being created for. this of course will change.

i'll show you where we go to eat,what i've read and learnt, who i have met, who i have cooked for, what i have created. hopefully all these things will inspire you to be a little chef in your kitchen. recipes may be included of course!

simple philosophy - why cook as a chore, when you can create bake and enjoy?

simply stated by wikipedia

gastronomy is the study of the relationship between culture and food. it is often thought erroneously that the term gastronomy refers exclusively to the art of cooking, but this is only a small part of this discipline; it cannot always be said that a cook is also a gourmet. gastronomy studies various cultural components with food as its central axis.