Too many Onion Soup

So I bought 2kg of sliced onion for a Rotoract BBQ, being election day it was mostly a flop. So I still have a loaf of stale bread and a kilo of sliced onions nearly a week later. Ten has caught onto the current soup craze, and I remember a suprisingly good onion soup I had in Nepal. I ate a lot of bizare things over there. Thus we will have a Dynamic Soup Battle!!

The premise is that both Ben and Ten cook a soup to consume after Gym and then Josh + whoever else may want to come along muse decide which soup is better and which is best. I'm quietly confident I will lose.

Step 1
50g of butter
2 table spoons of Virgin's Olive oil
Heated in a pan

Step 2
Start playing Mount & blade, soon I will have helpes Anoikis the Axe conquour all colanria

Step 3
Set pot to lowest heat
Add all onion to pot (strike that only room got half a kilogram in my saucepan)
Find some shalots and miscelanious onion type plants from herb carden and thinly slice
Add extra variety to pot
Add 2 tablespoons of raw sugar to help carimalisation process
Add some garlic and salt to taste

Step 4
Engage crockpotBoil a kettlefull of water
Add 2L worth of beef stock

Step 5
Over the next hour conquor castles and stir the pot, till all the onion is floppy.
Step 6
insert the silky smoth onions from the saucepan into the crock pot
Add another kettle of water to ensure all onions are covered.
Leave sit on low for ~4h for soup to brew

Step 7
Gym,
Make garlic bread

Step 8
make barlic tost
I'm using somewhat ols bread in a george forman grill
Both sides of bread buttered
Top side of bread additionally spread with minced garlic and sprinkelled with chese.
Cooked in grill

Step nine
Consume and judge.

Purposefully Hot

I need contrast in my life. Everything is supposed to be relative, but how hot does spicy get?

This is a diced beef curried stew pasta...
Auzzie thingy.

Cut ~8 cloves of garlic with the back of a knife.
Insert into pot
drizzle over the garlic some olive oil. Preferably from a virgins olives.

Open VLC, begin rock and roll. Hawaii Five O by Book him Danno is selected.

Shake that groove thing into a glass.
Groove consists of 1 teaspoon each of:
Ground Ginger
Cardamon, ground
Garam (Masala)
Turmeric, in powder form
Nutmeg, as a dried paste
Flakes of Chillies, so small they may have been made in a mortar and pestle.

Paprika, smoked nor ground.
Keen as mustard
Cajun, also nor ground.

Now the garlic should be changing colour

Toss the spices from the glass into the pot with the boiling oil and coloured garlic.

Stir thoughtfully enjoy the aromas and Enya.

500g of diced cow meat should be placed on top of the aromatic mix. Stir the meat until all its sides are seared and covered in flavor.


Add to this then a jar of pasta sauce with red wine. You could add you own wine, but I don't like to drink alone.Make certain there is enough fluid to cover the meat by adding water.

set to medium heat and stir through.

Add to this a bunch of veggies if required. All meals should have veggies.

Then moving on.


I made pasta as per the instructions on the pasta pack, this was the side dish, or the under dish as it were.

Seems the meal went down a treat, although company always makes food taste better.

Spineless Curry

Spiceless curry for those who don't like their curry spicy. I could call it "My First Curry" I suppose.

1 onion diced
4 cloves of garlic diced
Add to a pot and cook until supple.

Add 500g of diced beef to the pot and cook until it starts to seal

Add spices, a teaspoon or two each of:
Ginger
Cardamon
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Garam Masala

Side note: If you don't know anybody with gluten intolerance, put all these spices in a Tupperware container with the meat and a tablespoon of flour and shake vigorously to coat the meat. This way all the spice stays on the meat.

Mix the spices through the meat for a bit. once it all looks even and is getting cooked..

Add tomatoes, preferable without skin, the skin gets stuck in your teeth and is hot.
I'm adding 800g of diced tomatoes from a tin + some from the garden.

Add also one cup of dessicated coconut. It complements the cardamon nicely and takes the edge off the acidity of the tomatoes.

Make sure this is all a little wet and soupy so that you can get all the burnt bits off the bottom of the saucepan.

Wait for 30min or so for the meat to stew. If its looking really soupy remove the lid.
Use this time to prepare the rice if you are having that as a side.
Then clean up everything else while the rice and curry is cooking.


I've lost my camera so there are no pictures this time :( my phone camera is really dodgee.

Pinapple casserole

Never done a casserole before and I have a pineapple to use, so here goes.

Preheat oven to 200C

500g diced Cow meat
1/2 cup plain flour
Coriander
Keens Mustard, the name is so cool
Cajun
Ginger

All mixed together.

Then layer in a casserole dish in the following order:
Meat
1 large onion thinly sliced
1 tins worth Pineapple slices
1 tin of tomato (soup/diced/puree)
Generous amount of Worcestershire sauce
two layers of thinly sliced potato

Bung into the oven with the lid on for 50min.
Remove lid and let cook for another 25 min. The top potato should be crispy.

All in all that is a peculiar mix of flavors.

Irish Coffee

For instant coffee:
    Place into mug the appropriate amount of coffee.
    Add sugar to taste.
    Add enough mild to cover the coffee, microwave for 30sec if you wish.
    Boiler water in kettle
    Add water to mug.
With a peculator or similar apparatus, follow their instructions for a long black.
Otherwise:
    Place an amount of water into a small saucepan proportional to the number of mugs you are making.
    Set the temperature high.
    Place the proportional amount of coffee into the pot, preferably ground coffee.
    When reaching a rolling boil remove from heat. If you have the time when simmering set to low heat.
    Decant coffee through a sieve/colander into your mug. With some practice the sieve is not required.
Then
Add a nip / finger of whisky to your mug. Irishness is not a prerequisite.
Add a sniff of nutmeg
Add a scoop of ice-cream, full fat.
Add on top of that a half teaspoon of cinnamon, ground.

Be wary of whiskers when drinking, they will collect ice-cream.
Also do not inhale sharply lest you remove all the cinnamon from the ice-cream.
Teaspoons are not required as the coffee will be self stirring. The ice-cream is less dense so it will float but as it melts it will, being colder, flow to the bottom of your mug. This displaces the hot coffee and sets up a convection current as the hot fluid tries to float past the ice cream.
With a boiling point of 78C the alcohol will not evaporate particularly quickly as I wouldn’t drink coffee if it was above 60C, so this can be considered an alcoholic beverage. Much better than a JägerBomb, that being another coffee alcohol drink made from a nip of Jägermeister in a can of Mother.

Bachelor Spag Bog

Been making this for years and only just realized that I have no set recipe. I defiantly at least need some photos as it is one of my staple meals for tea.
Start off with an onion. Top and tail it then dice it up.
Toss into saucepan with no oil on medium heat.
Cloves of garlic cut into disks with the back of the knife so they get a bit crushed, thrown onto onions. Add to taste 2-7.

 When the onion starts to brown, add your mince.
Preferably beef, ~125g for 2 people. More mince means leftovers.
Burn the mince a little for flavor if you like.
Add in a jar of pre made pretend to be pasta sauce. (Real sauce takes ~4hours to make and is wasted on a dish like this)
Stir
Add vegetable matter in the following order: Chunky frozen; Frozen or Chunky; Small and not frozen.
The volume of vegetable matter should slightly exceed the volume of mince.

 

When there are no frozen bits of vegetable, add pasta.
Stringy pasta is ill advised.
Shells and tubes restrict/accelerate the thermal flow of the saucepan making it more likely to burn on the bottom. They also contain hot sauce when you byte them.
Spirals and bowties are the ones I prefer.
By volume I add around the same amount of pasta as there are vegetables. Or fill up the saucepan.
Place the lid and reduce the heat.
As the pasta expands it fills the saucepan and becomes harder to stir. But if you don’t stir it it burns on the bottom and is hard to clean.

Serve when the pasta is done al-dente. Remove from heat. The pasta will continue cooking for a while due to residual heat.
Served with Perriperri/Tobasco sauce and topped with frozen grated cheese.

At the end you should have only used a cutting board one sharp knife one stirring implement and one saucepan.
I usually eat this in a bowl with a fork. When I have had my fill I’d place the rest in portion sized containers and place them into the freezer.

Salmon Pasta

Boil a handful of pasta, preferably spirals in a small pot.
When done el dente, tip out all the water. They will cook some more while mixing.
Return to the stove and turn the heat to minimum
Add 2 spoonful’s each of olive, capers, sundried tomatoes. Or whatever seems best.
Also add in a drained tin of salmon. Then stir through
When mixed turn of the heat and add some Parmesan cheese, stirring again.
My saucepan is small enough that I can eat this meal directly out of it.

Leaving the heat on whilst stirring, helps dry off the preservatives from the fish and veggies. This is supposed to be a dry dish, not a sloppy one. The good thing about it is that it is easy to make enough for only one person and all the ingredients can be left in the cupboard until opened, but then need to be refrigerated after use. If I haven’t finished off the olives and things in a week or so then everything goes into spag bog.

Spring Beach Curry

Spring Beach Curry (Yellow)

250g diced beef sealed
1 large onion chopped and cooked with the meat.

add to pot
Half a Reed avocado
Quarter of a pineapple cut to bite sized bits
Cardamon
Turmeric
nutmeg
ginger
coriander
Cinnamon
Keen as mustard powder
Cup of Greek yoghurt
half cup of coconut

Mixed lots and stirred and try to homogenize it a little while is cooks for 15min or so. Conveniently that is as long as it takes to prepare rice as a side dish.

I like to serve my curry on top of a bed of rice. then I mix them together as I eat it. At the end of the meal I aim to have enough rice to clean all the curry juices off of the plate.

Jaipuri Sabzi

Jaipuri Sabzi

Cut to equivalent sized pieces
2 carrots
half a sweetpotato
(can add 1 cup peas, pumpkin or whatever else is in the fridge)

steam or boil. then set to the side.

make a dry curry masala mix
2-tbsp cinnamon,
4-pieces cloves
1/2 tsp- nutmeg
1 tsp-fennel
1-tbsp black pepper corns,
1-tbsp coriander seeds,
1-tbsp cumin seeds and poppy seeds

Warm that up in anothere sausepan with some oil. Once it is warm ans mixed add.
2-tbsp grated coconut,
1-cup chopped onion,
1-cup chopped tomato,
1-long piece ginger, Cilantro
5-6 pieces garlic.

Heat and mix. then add
2-tbsp chilli powder,
cup of yoghurt.
1-tbsp haldi (turmeric) powder,
1-tbsp sugar (optional),
2-tbsp oil,
1\2-lemon juice (optional), I used unsalted tomato paste.
Salt to taste,
Coriander leaves

Mix and set to a low heat

Make the rice in the pot that had the vegetables.

Pee Curry

Pee Curry

Dice an onion, cook until soft
Add 250g Diced Beef
Cook until sealed
As an alternative to oil use butter. As an alternative to butter use Avocado. But using Vegemite is a bad idea.

Dice:
A quarter of a pineapple
Half a Pumpkin

Add spices:
Cajun
Black Pepper
White Pepper
Paprika
Salt
Cumin
Ginger

When spices are mixed evenly over the meat and the onion is brown add the pineapple and Pumpkin.

Attempt to stirfy untill most of the moisture is gone.

Turns out that i should have pre cooked the pumpkin a bit, so today I will have to stew it in the curry. So..

Add 400g of tomato from a tin + 1 diced real tomato.
half a cup of coconut
Quarter a cup of sultanas
cup of yoghurt
cup of water to bulk it up, more tomato in a tin would have been better.

Tomato tuna spiral not baked

Tomato tuna spiral not baked

Colored spiral pasta cooked as per normal.
We also added gluten free koala pasta.
Drained and set to the side.

Sliced leek
Chopped Garlic 3 cloves
2 tablespoons of butter and oil warmed in a pan. Added the leek and garlic
Added 1 teaspoon of chilli powder

mixed until leeks wend soft and floppy.

add to that
400g tin of crushed tomato
1 small tin of tuna somwhat drained
1/2 cup of white wine
handful of chopped oregano from the garden.

slowly warm to a simmer

Mix the 2 together. I'm too lazy to put thing into a new container and bake it for 10 min. so I left it on the stove and grated some cheese into the mix and left it to sit on the lowest setting for ~15min.

pictures later

Chicken soup

Vegetable juice from boiling vegetables and keeping it in the freezer.

add more salt and turn the stove on.You shouldn't be able to burn this soup.
most of a cooked chook
as the iceblocks have melted use a potato masher to make the bits of chicken smaller.

mixed frozen vegetables, or whatever.
when the soup is warm add spices, ome packet of chicken soup and one packet ot 2min noodles.
heat to the boil. then turn on low and simmer until the vegetables are soft.

all in all that was pretty simple.

Ramen 5

I think this is about the fith attempt but I donot know what happened to my prior instructions.

Noodles:
225g of Chinese noodles (Philippine style)

1 cake of instant noodles
There are to be warmed in water so as to soften them. Then they are rinsed in cold water and set to the side.

Topping:
1 sugarloaf cabbage coursely chopped up
2 carrot cut into sticks.
capsicum
Frozen beans
This is  to be stir fryed.

Broth:
Ginger powder


sesame oil
Bonox
Salt
soy sauce
2 cloves garlic
 miso Paste
This needs to be whisked to remove all the lumps.
Heat but donot boil.

Serving:

Noodles in a bowl, add some topping, then enough broth to cover. The heat of the broth is supposed to finish cooking the noodles.
Also add
Sliced spring onions
sesame seeds
Garlic chives

Vegetable curry

 In large sause pan
A diced onion
garlic 6 cloves crushed
oil
Heat so the onion starts to change color


Add spices:
2tsp of Cajun and Garam Masala
1tsp of Keen Curry, Ground Ginger, Cardamon and Turmeric
1/2 cup of yogurt

Carrot chunks
Pumpkin chunks
2 cups of water
200g of tomato pesto

Wait 15 min while Stirring the pot
Soon the chunks should stop going THUD then they hit the wall of the sausepan.

add
1/2 an Eggplant worth of chunks chunks
Zuichini chunks
handfull of frozen beans for colour.
stir through for another 5 min
I forgot to make rice so let the pot stand off the heat with the lid on and home the vegetables are not too cooked. Serve with sliced lime.
Took me ~2hours to make and eat.

Ramen in Melbourne

 Wandering around Melb yesterdy I saw a nifty Ramen shop that looked simmilar to the one that Naruto frequents. But when it came lunchtime I couldnt find it. I found another one though. It turns out that all the ramen there used miso chicken soup, so the variety was in what went on top. I asked for spicy vegetables and told the girl that I had attempted to make ramen at home and failed miserably. She thew me when she asked if I would like a drink, so I said yes. after a little more confusion I ordered a Kirin Beer because I have not had it before. tasted like a normal beer, but the Japanese drink it.  So this is what I ended up with.

I Remember Choji telling Naruto how to try a new ramen out. so I tested the broth first. The orangy oil is nearly too spicy for me but yes that tasted like the miso soup I had made, the sesame seeds added to it though I I had not tried them.

Next I ate some on the noodles, there were two different sorts and they were a little crunchy still. Particularly the big ones. So last time I definitely overcooked my noodle. Also by the end of the meal all the noodles were cooked through by the heat of the broth.

I am quite pleased that I had a decent attempt at using the chopsticks, also found out that if you slurp the noodles juice flicks off them and makes a mess. Very bad when the juice also burns of chilly. So I chewed out the noodles instead.

The ingredients that I could taste/see and name were:
Ginger, couldn't see any though
sesame seeds (black white and yellow, some of the black ones sank the rest floated on broth)
Lettuce, bite sized pieces, must have been put in last and was uncooked.
Carrot cut in sticks 3mm thick, also somewhat crunchy
Spring onion, sliced into disks.
That was it, I should have ordered a meaty one so that I could get a half boiled egg in it. that looked nifty.
There were a few other veggies that I could not identify.

Indian Lamb & Spinnach Curry

1 Diced Onion
3 Mushed cloves of garlic
Some oil
Heated in pot until golden

Add 400g diced Beef (don't know what the Indians have against it.)
2 shakes of cardamon
4 shakes of cinnamon and Garam Masala
6 Shakes of Turmeric
Cook the meat somewhat.

1 Cup of yogurt stirred in
400g of chopped tomatoes from a tin stirred in
Some defrosted spinnich leaves stirred in (~200g)

Endeavor to cook some rice
When the rice is ready
2 shakes of coriander stirred through.

Serve by bunging some rice on a plate then some curry on the rice and eat with a fork.

Graham Swiss Beer Cake

125g butter
125g sugar
mix through
2 eggs
mix through
200g SR flour
2tps jam
bake for 15min

Rogan Josh

dice 2 small onions, place into crok pot
4 cloves of garlic, mushed
6 spoons of oil (the recipie is titled Hot oil)
1 kg if diced caserol meat
4 diced roma tomatos
1 small handull of sliced mushrooms, because they were in the fridge. (not normal)
1 cup of yogurt
½ cup of coconut (fine dessicated)
2 tsp cumin
4 tsp paprika
1 tsp corriander
2 tsp cinnimon (should be 2 sticks)
2 tsp cardamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Stir a little bit making certain that the bottom of the pot has fluis in it. Probably did not need the water

3 hours of cooking on high, served with rice.

Croissant

2 cups sugar
1/8 cup sugar
pinch of salt
mix together with stick
make divit in the center of the bowl and add 1 cup of milk (room temp)
disolve 1pkt of yeast into the milk.
Wait 10 min for yeast to properly disolve
Mix through with spatula to make certain nothing is stuck on the bowl.
When one sticky even lump place it onto gladwrap and cover in 2 layers. This is to stop the outside from drying out.

Irish Stew

The night before thow all ingredients into croc pot and leave in fridge with lid on.

1 sliced onion
1 potato peeled and sliced. this should dissapear on boiling, thickens the stew
2 potatoes, peeled and quartered.
½ teaspoon of worcestershire sause
4 carrots. Peeled and cut diagonally into 10mm slices.
Salt and pepper
3 tsp pearl barly
half of a ¼ cup or thickened cream. 30ml
¼ avacado (should be 2tsp vegetable oil or butter)
1kg diced beef

place on Low heat before work, when returned home make certain house has not burnt down and stirr crock pot.