Kitchen Kapers Week 9

Monday

Soup night as I have on-line lectures to attend to - Pea and ham soup with crunchy garlic croutons and ricotta.

Tuesday

A fairly quick to prepare dinner of Roasted tomato mascarpone and rocket penne. It takes about 30 minutes to roast the tomatoes with garlic, rosemary. olive oil and seasonings, but once this is done it just a matter of tossing the tomatoes through the pasta with some rocket, and mascarpone cheese.

Wednesday

Swimming commenced this week, with Jazz's squad finishing at 7:30pm, so it was a slow-cooked meal of Beef Bourguignon with steamed greens and mashed potato.

Thursday

Satay Beef Lettuce Cups - a bit messy - like eating tacos!

Friday

Before starting my studies I made some little apple and date cakes. I bought a packet of dates to make the pear and date cake the previous week, and I knew if I just put them in the cupboard, it would be quite likely they would eventually be thrown out. I found this recipe in an older magazine I had. Finished them off with some lemon cream cheese icing.

Friday Night was Pizza Night and Family Movie Night, so we got the same pizzas we had the previous week - Hawaiian and Pulled Pork and Pear.

Saturday

Realising that I was yet to make the fancy-pants dinner for February (from my list of 2014 goals), I decided to do it a day late on 1st of March, rather then not at all. I had to do some quick thinking as I didn't really feel like going and getting any ingredients from the shop (it was cold and rainy). So using what I had in the fridge, freezer and cupboard I managed to whip up a fairly quick and easy to prepare three course dinner.

For entrée I made crumbed Haloumi with Rocket and Blood Plum vinegar. The rocket I had leftover from the pasta dish I made this week. The Blood Plum vinegar was the one that Eliza made me buy at the winery on my birthday. I had some frozen bread in the freezer for making the fresh breadcrumbs for covering the Haloumi (which I almost always have in the fridge on account that it lasts of ages and the family love it - so we buy in bulk from Costco when we are there).

For Main I made Vitello Tonnato with Pesto Potatoes and Honeyed Carrots. Vitello Tonnato is a sliced veal fillet with a sauce which is made from aioli, tuna, anchovies and lemon juice. I happened to have a couple of Veal fillets in the freezer waiting to be used, so I pulled one out.

Dessert (which didn't quite set in time, but we still had it anyway) was Vanilla and mascarpone panna cotta with berry and cointreau coulis. This dessert used the leftover mascarpone from the pasta dish earlier in the week.

Sunday

To finish the week off we had Sausage Carbonara for dinner - we don't normally have two pasta dishes in a week! I'm normally not a big sausage eater, but this was very tasty, although a bit tedious squeezing the sausage out of their casings to make the little sausage meatballs to go in this recipe.

Well - that's it for another week.
Di :-)

PS Normally I would also post my February Project Life layouts now, but my photo printer died and I am now a week behind, so haven't completed the last layout and the cover page as yet. Dave has ordered me an Epson PictureMate to replace my HP Photosmart 470, as it was the only compact photo printer we could find. Looking forward to receiving it in the mail hopefully this week!