Dull Pictures and Disproportionate Excitement about an Organisational Tool

I love cooking and I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. I love organising my kitchen so that I can find things easily, save time and reduce waste. I know the pictures are not very pretty. But this is important!

The average Australian household throws out around $600 of food each year (more info on this study). This is bad for your bank account and bad for the environment.Planning meals and shopping in advance is a great way to reduce food waste. Dinner leftovers for lunch also make an easy way to save money and reduce waste.

I was in a stationary supply shop (staying calm in the presence of so many colourful pens and filing systems...) when I came across A4 sheets of white magnet that can be put through your printer like regular paper.
I made a table in Microsoft word with thick lines and filled in the table with a Monday to Sunday strip, the names of everyone in my family, who, what, and the meals we cook regularly. I printed this onto the magnet and then cut out along the lines of the table.

 
Now I have the magnets on my fridge, I plan the meals every weekend then do the shopping accordingly. If anyone wants to know what's for dinner - the answer is right there. No more getting to the fridge on Thursday to find half a carrot, Parmesan cheese and milk.

 
If I can't think of a meal for a particular night, there is no need to go rifling through recipe books, all our tried and true favourites are right there on the fridge to inspire me. I also added a few blank magnets to fill in with pen later and a series of mix and match magnets such as "wrap" "pasta" "curry" "vegetarian" "Lamb" "Vietnamese" "Mexican" from which I can make things up if I want to cook something for which I don't have a magnet. I could put them together to make "vegetarian curry" "Vietnamese lamb pasta" "lamb wrap" "lamb curry" etc.
To make planning easier I organise the meals on the fridge under the name of the person who usually cooks that meal.

I've been using this system for months now and its still wonderful.

Napoli Sauce to Make your Nonna Proud

I love making my own pasta and have recently been experimenting with sauces and pesto. I had made some ravioli and as I'm quite health conscious, I don't much like burned butter sauces. I wanted a sauce I could use that would be light enough to really emphasise the flavors in the ravioli (spiced butternut pumpkin*, basil and ricotta). A friend had given me a recipe for a basic Napoli sauce, which I tweaked a little and its really good. What I love about Italian food is making the most of simple flavors, it's not fancy or very complex, you just never knew tomatoes could taste so good!

Recipe:

• 4 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 red capsicum* roasted, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon of tomato paste
• 4 tins of whole tomatoes (crushed with juice)
• 2 vegetable stock cubes
• 1 tbsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 2 tsp dried basil
• pepper to taste

 

Char the skin of the capsicum* over a gas jet or under a grill. When the skin looks black, allow to cool a bit and then peel off the skin. Chop capsicum finely.

Sauté onion in oil on moderate heat until the onion becomes soft and golden, add capsicum and cook for a few minutes more. Add garlic and turn heat up to high for 1-2 minutes.

Return to moderate heat and add tomato paste and cook for one minute

Add crushed tomatoes, herbs, stock cubes and pepper, simmer for approximately 45 minuts, stirring occasionally.

Cool sauce and store for 4-5 days or freeze for long term storage

Serves 8

 

* Butternut Pumpkin is also known as Butternut Squash 

*Red Capsicum is also known as Red Pepper

 

Surprising Sushi Success

I made sushi for the first time last night and was really surprised at how easy it was, and quicker than I expected. It took a little under an hour to make enough for 6 people.

I didn't have a recipe or instructions, so I watched a few youtube tutorials to get an idea of method. The most useful ones were: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K729GqTf2pk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-uFYSB0tR4

I wasn't confident enough to try raw fish, so I made vegetarian sushi. I made some with avocado and sesame seeds, some with carrot, cucumber and avocado (which would have been better with a little pickled daikon) and my favourite, I made tamago (Japanese omelette).  

I watched a few tutorials on how to make tamago and found these to be the most useful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHxGPAajucc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z52CNYOWZRU&feature=related

I managed ok with a circular non-stick fry pan. My tamago was not quite as neat and flawless as in these tutorials, but once you cut it up and roll it into sushi, you'd never know the difference. 

I found different recipes for tamago, some really salty others really sweet, and after one terribly salty failure, succeeded with the following recipe: 3 eggs, 1 tbsp Mirin, 1/2 tsp soy and 150ml water. 

I will definately be making this again, and keeping the leftovers for lunch at university.