Mu Shu Pork

Jo has decided we need to go on a health kick, loose a few pounds, cut out some of the God given good stuff, like butter and cream etc.

I really don't know why she feels she needs to do this as she is looking pretty damn gorgeous if you ask me, maybe it is just her way to get me to loose a few pounds, she'll loose hers dieting, then I loose mine chasing her about!!

Still I figure if I loose a few pounds, I might just catch her a bit more often and as we are off on holidays soon there should be plenty of opportunities ahead.

I have got a stack of healthy recipe books in my pantry, in fact I have most of the recipes in an excel spreadsheet so that when we are right into it all I need do is filter out 5 or 6 meals for the week and I have an instant shopping list and daily menu, that is sad!!

Anyway tonight I felt like something a little different, in as far as different can be when cooking what is basically a stir fry, so I Googled "healthy recipes" and one of the top items caught my eye, one because of the name of the dish and two because it was on Taste, a website I have come to like for really good simple recipes that taste fantastic, the dish is called Quick Mu Shu Pork.  Now I do not know what Mu Shu means, but I do understand quick, and this was hands down the quickest meal I have ever cooked.  After slicing the meat and then browning off and removing to a bowl to add the sauces to marinade, I started a 10 minute timer, which actually went off whilst we were eating our meal, that is quick!

The best thing though was the flavour and the absolute YUM YUM YUMMINESS of this little dish, pork has never tasted so good!  I used a pork fillet which I sliced about a quarter of an inch thick and on the diagonal, it was so juicy and the marinade really brought out the flavours.

Oh by the way, that is a Lime Soda, no vino for two weeks!!!

When I look now at the photo on the recipe compared to my photo's it looks a little different, but then I remind myself that I did not have any cabbage, something Jo was pleased about as it tends to give her gas!  Instead I have used an Asian vegetable called Choy Sum, I love this vegie for it is flavour, but more so for the beautiful yellow flowers, which look great when presenting the meal to Gorgeous Jo.

Well here is the link to this wonderful recipe, if you like quick, inexpensive and tasty food, you'd best be getting a copy of this one!

PS just quietly, it was just as well that I only cooked enough for two serves or i could have been in it a little deeper than usual.

Roast Chicken with Chorizo and Tomato

I wanted to cook this dish a few days ago, but when I told Jo what I was about to do she quickly said no way, as she did not like the idea of me firing the oven up on a 40C degree day.

By the look on her face she meant it and we opted for a BBQ that night instead.
I found a recipe on a fellow Perth bloggers pages and as he has similar tastes to my own, I was keen to try it out, however since my original yearning I had found a very similar recipe on the Gourmet Traveller site which included a video featuring Emma Knowles cooking the dish.  I opted to cook it in the way Emma had mainly due to the inclusion of a fresh herb and paprika marinade and the way she prepared the dish generally appealed to me.

The weather was somewhat cooler today, and as I did not have a lot of other options for dinner tonight anyway, I got the nod to prepare this extremely tasty dish and it was well worth the wait.  I love anything that includes roasted tomato and the berry tomatoes I used in this dish tonight were so full of flavour they almost stole the show.   There was one small bone of contention though as I mucked up in not having a loaf of crunchy bread on hand to soak up the delicious gravy!

If you'd like to try this dish have a look at these recipes,

Gourmet Traveller - Emma Knowles version or

Mangiere - Joe Camerilli's one pot version

Bowls, Beer and a BBQ

I have been organising a barefoot bowling function for the social club at work over the past few months, finally after much preparation the day came yesterday, whilst I was preparing the last few things for the BBQ the heavens opened up and I thought for sure everything was going to be ruined.  But after quickly sending out an email stating come rain, hail or shine we were going ahead, the sun reappeared and by the time people started rocking up a few hours later, it was a scorcher.

The event was held at the Yokine Bowling Club, and what a great venue for it, it was fantastic, as were the people at the club, ever so helpful and concerned for us to enjoy our function, the facilities here are second to none, the greens, BBQ area and bar were all first rate.

There were 36 people attending, the event included a game of lawn bowls, a BBQ and a few beers to quench our thirsts, and we were all very thirsty and with a couple of beers come a healthy appetite, so it was a good thing there was plenty to eat!

For the meat we had Scotch Fillet steaks, sausages and tandoori chicken, the fillet I picked up in bulk from Drovers in Joondalup and had to butcher it into steaks myself, something that is harder than it looks I was to find, but it worked out well and the meat was delicious. The chicken I prepared at home the night before and was served cold, this is the one thing I would do differently next time by cooking on the day instead. 

The BBQ’s at the club are fairly new, big 4 burners and stainless steel hotplates, fuelled with natural gas, took a bit to get them going, but found it a lot easier once the gas was switched on!  The huge cooking surface accommodated 100 snaggers in the one go, which made cooking a lot quicker, something I appreciated being such a hot day, as I did the huge fan one of the club members came out and turned on for me, as noisy as it was it was worth its weight in gold!

For the salads I prepared a Potato salad with Dijon mustard mayonnaise from a recipe I found on Taste, this was a great salad and one that had people coming back for seconds, I pretty much followed the recipe as it was, just adjusting the quantities to size it up for a big mob, using 2.5 kilos of chat potatoes.

I made a Nutty Brown Rice Salad from a recipe I found online from a channel nine production, it was very similar to a recipe Jo makes, just had a few more ingredients, again, whilst I followed the recipe I adjusted ingredients to 3 times the size, I love this salad it is so full of flavour and the toasted seeds used give a great crunch factor, it also looks great once served up.

Whilst I was preparing stuff in the kitchen, I showed Jo what I had for the garden salad platters and she felt I did not have quite enough, so I brought some extra leafy things to pad them out, ended up with four beautiful looking platters, of which 2 and a half were not touched, still better to have too much than not enough, and then we also did not expect the potato and rice salads to go off like they did!

To add a bit of variety I made a couple of small pickled tomato, onion and cucumber salads and opened a couple of cans of beetroot, along with the bread rolls the food table looked pretty amazing and it was great to see everyone loading their plates and sitting together to eat on a lovely hot evening! 

Once fed we were all out again on the bowling rinks, rolling up well into the night and the beer was so chillingly cold, the only way to have it on such a hot night was going down nicely too! To see all the photos from the night click this link.