This is a guest post from my Hubby following requests for his fried rice recipe. He goes by the name “Redbeard” at his blog Pages of Ponderings, which is rarely, if ever, updated .

Reading Kin’s “Monday Menu Plan” today I noticed she’s dobbed me in for fried rice (again).

I also note she’s talking about me typing up the recipe for said fried rice…..

Well, I have just one thing to say about that idea…..

SOD THAT!

She’s seen how fast I type, I’d be here all flipping month!

It took me less than a minute to find the recipe on Taste.com.au here saves me a whole lot of work….

A couple of comments though. My favourite fried rice came from a Chinese takeaway in Maroochydore, First Ave, down opposite KFC. If they’re still there go and get the Special Fried Rice, it used to be an absolute winner. Of course, it’s been somewhere between five and ten years since I ate there (Kin, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m sure you will…. It would be around six years, so you’re spot on the money) so it’s probably totally different now but it’s worth the try.

Anywho, Terry (yeah that was his name, Chinese as they come though) would put chicken, BBQ pork, prawns and maybe beef (not sure on that one) into his special fried rice and it was just spectacular. I’ve never tried it in this recipe but I reckon it would be equally good, just keep the overall meat quantity the same with whatever you use.

You’ll also see the recipe on the web page quotes this as being enough to keep the hungry hordes happy. Well it sure is, we’ve got a fairly large electric fry pan in which I do this recipe and it’s almost too much. If your fry pan or wok is not real big seriously think about cooking this in two halves. The four serves would be a fair pig-out for big people.

The peanut oil is just for cooking so if you have a problem with peanuts, replace them with a good vege oil, something with a high smoke point cos you want a lot of heat when cooking this.

The basil leaves certainly do add something so they are worth the extra expense to get fresh but dried is almost as good, use a good tablespoon in place. Fried shallots also add something special, they come in a screw top jar from the Asian section in both Woolies and Coles (just in case you were wondering).

Add the beaten egg to the rice and get it mixing. The egg coats the rice and makes it break up.

Before I found this recipe my fried rice was always gluggy and bland. Go for all the extra flavour in this one, we love it, I hope you will too.

Cheers

Redbeard

With the final sprint to uni exams coming up over the next few weeks, menu planning is going from “creative and using new recipes” to “old favourites and simplicity”. While they don’t have to be mutually exclusive, I just don’t have the time to spend hours pouring through recipe books, magazines and websites looking for new and exciting things to cook.

So, after a brief poke in the freezer, and a quick hunt in the cupboard, here’s what’s on the menu this week:

Monday - Asian Chicken Drumsticks, rice and broccoli

Tuesday - Cottage Pie

Wednesday - Haystacks

Thursday - Lamb chops, pasta and green beans

Friday - Homemade pizza

Saturday - Corned Beef in the slow cooker

Sunday - Toasted sandwiches

Before I rush back to my study, I wanted to talk a little about my Asian Chicken Drumsticks recipe. It’s very simple, and the marinade can be used in heaps of different ways.

Asian Chicken Sauce

2 tbsp barbecue sauce
juice of 1 lemon (I use approx 2 tbsp lemon juice)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp honey
2 shallots - sliced
1 tsp grated ginger (or jar/tube)
1 clove crushed garlic (approx 1 tsp of a jar/tube)

Mix ingredients and use as a marinade.
The best part about this recipe is that it is so versatile. I can make up a huge batch and add to diced chciken or pieces before I freeze them, which makes them doubly delishious when cooked. If I use it on diced chicken, I can then use those pieces in a stir fry, as a casserole (with another batch of sauce in the oven) on skewers for a barbecue. The pieces can go in the oven or on the barbecue and all the preparation is done. The kids love the drumsticks in their lunchbox’s as well, so I always make sure to do a few extra .

Head on over and visit Laura at I’m an Organizing Junkie for more menu plans

Wow, here we are again. Firstly I had a recipe request from last week for Honey Chilli Chicken Stir Fry. It was so easy and yummy! We ate it with coleslaw which helped balance the chilli. Rice would work well also.

Honey Chilli Chicken Stiry Fry

From the Australian Women’s Weekly Basic Cookbook, p61)

1 tbsp peanut oil
1kg chicken tenderloins, sliced thinly
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger (I used those fresh spice packets - I got the thai one which used 2/3 in the packet)
3 red thai chillies, seeded, chopped finely (again the spice packet - much easier and less mess)
1 large red capsicum, slice dthickly
1 tsp cornflour
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup honey
4 green onions, chopped finely

1.  Heat half of the oil in wok or large frying pan; stir fry chicken, ginger and chilli in batches, until chicken is browned.
2. Heatremaining oil in wok; stir fry capsicum until just tender.
3. Blend cornflour in small jug with sauce; stir in ujuice and honey. Return chicken mixture to wok with honey mixture cook, stiring, until mixture boils and thickens. Sprinkle with onion just before serving.

Was just delish! Highly recommend that one.

Oh, I also wanted to share with your a couple of other meals we’ve had this week.

Sushi

Salmon Steaks with Tarragon Sauce

Doesn’t that all look delish? Now on to this weeks:

Monday - Penne with Tomato Salsa & Tuna

Tuesday - Lamb Rissoles with Potato Crush & Rosemary Gravy

Wednesday - Pork Chops with Cranberry Sauce

Thursday - Salmon Patties

Friday - Apricot Chicken

Saturday - Spaghetti Bolognaise

Sunday - Corned Beef

Wow, that  certainly looks yummy! As always, head over to I’m an Organizing Junkie and see what is on everyone’s menu’s this week

Welcome back to a slightly more organised Menu Plan Monday here at Kin’s Home. Assignments are over for a few weeks, so things are starting to get back to normal. Although having not cooked for a few weeks I’m a little inspired.

Monday - BBQ at the club. I’m catering with a salad and dessert. Probably coleslaw and double chocolate brownies

Tuesday - Honey Chilli Chicken Stir Fry

Wednesday - Pork Chop Casserole (in the slow cooker -yum!

Thursday - Chicken Stroganoff

Friday - Mexican Pizza

Saturday - Salmon Steaks with Tarragon Sauce

Sunday - Tomato Macaroni Cheese

This week I thought I’d share the recipe for Mexican Pizza. It’s a real favourite in our house and useful if you have leftover Taco mixture.

Mexcian Pizza

from the Australian Women’s Weekly After-Work Cookbook

1 tbsp vegetable oil
500g minced beef
35g packet of taco seasoning
1 3/4 cups (430ml) your choice of salsa
2 prepared pizza bases (or make your own)
2 cups pizza cheese (we can get a pizza grated cheese mix. I mix chedder and mozzarella with a bit of parmesan)
1/3 cup sour cream

1. Preheat oven to very hot. Heat oil in a large frying pan; cookb eef, stirring until browned. Add taco seasoning and 1 1/2 cups of the salsa; bring to a boil.
2. Place pizza bases on pizza trays,spread with beef mixture; sprinkle with cheese. Bake, ucovered, in very hot oven, for about 20 minutes or until pizza’s are browned and bases are crisp.
3. Serve the pizza’s topped with dollops of sour cream and remaining salsa.

Thanks for stopping by. You can head over to I’m an Organizing Junkie to check out what is on everyone else’s menu’s this week.

I posted this recipe here, but I just thought I would post it again. We finally got around to having it last night and it was gorgeous. Hubby even said he was going to make a note of the recipe for when he opens his restaraunt (he does like to cook….). Simple, delicious, and really cheap if you can catch your own fish (we’re still working on that part though). My comments are in italics.

Creamy Fish Dish

Boneless, skinless fish fillets (fresh Australian mackeral, barramundi, tuna, salmon, or coral trout)
600ml cream
½ cup tasty cheese, grated
½ small onion or 1 spring onion, finely chopped (we used a normal onion, but think a spring onion would be better)
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste (we used a pizza sauce cause it’s what we had and the flavour was very delicate)
any of the above ingredients are optional and others may be added to taste   

1. Make sauce by combining all ingredients in saucepan over medium heat until cheese is melted.
2. Place fish fillets into baking dish (one that can go directly onto the table works well). Spoon the sauce onto the fillets.
3. Bake in a pre-heated hot oven for 10-15 minutes (for thick fillets), or under the griller (for thin fillets) until cooked and top is browned. You can also reduce the sauce in a frypan on a medium to hot heat on top of the stove. Turn heat down to medium and then cook the fillets in the sauce.
4. Serve with a garden salad or rice and green beans. (We think rice would be good to soak up the sauce, and green benas add some colour to the plate) 

Wow, the last few weeks have been a blur. I’m so glad I’ve had meals in the freezer, and stocked up on packet mixes when they were on special.

This week is so far looking quite interesting:

Monday - Spaghetti Bolognaise

Tuesday - Beef Ravioli with creamy mushroom sauce

Wednesday - Chicken Curry with pasta

Thursday - Sausage Casserole

Friday - Creamy Fish

Saturday - Haystacks

Sunday - Leftovers

I couldn’t decide what recipe to share with you this week, so I’m going to do two. The haystacks recipe is adopted from Jen’s on the Frugal Aussies yahoo group, and the Creamy Fish Curry is one someone emailed to me years ago. Source unknown

Haystacks

1 tin diced tomatos
1 tin baked beans
1 tin kidney beans (drained well)
1 pkt corn chips (home brand is great for this)
1 cup grated cheese
1 jar salsa (optional)
1/2 avocado (optional)
sour cream to serve (optional)

Bung the diced tomato’s, baked beans and kidney beans in a saucepan. Cook on medium/high until heated through, then mash to form a sauce. You can add salsa at this stage, but my kids don’t like it, so we use it as a topping. Preheat oven to about 150. Layer the chips on a plate/bowl and top with tomato/bean sauce. Add cheese and place in oven until cheese melts (about 5 minutes tops). Serve with salsa, mashed avocado and sour cream if desired.

Creamy Fish Dish

Boneless, skinless fish fillets (fresh Australian mackeral, barramundi, tuna, salmon, or coral trout)
600ml cream
½ cup tasty cheese, grated
½ small onion or 1 spring onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
any of the above ingredients are optional and others may be added to taste  Make sauce by combining all ingredients in saucepan over medium heat until cheese is melted.
Place fish fillets into baking dish (one that can go directly onto the table works well). Spoon the sauce onto the fillets.
Bake in a pre-heated hot oven for 10-15 minutes (for thick fillets), or under the griller (for thin fillets) until cooked and top is browned. You can also reduce the sauce in a frypan on a medium to hot heat on top of the stove. Turn heat down to medium and then cook the fillets in the sauce.
Serve with a garden salad or rice and green beans.As always, head on over to I’m an Organising Junkie to see what everyone else is eating this week!

I’m back into my 4 week menu plan this week. Last week worked well and I am working on building a weeks menu plan of pantry meals that I can keep on hand. If you have any great pantry meals I’d love to hear them! But on to this week:

Monday: Tomato Macaroni Cheese

Tuesay: Creamy Chicken Curry

Wednesday: Bacon and Eggs

Thursday: Sweet & Sour Beef

Friday: Cottage Pie

Saturday: Pad Thai

Sunday: Garlic Prawns

The recipe I’m sharing this week is an old family favourite from when I was a girl. My mother, and then my father, were not the most creative of cooks, but this was a classic in our house. It originally comes from the NMAA (Nursing Mother’s) cookbook, my version is from 1975, but I have made some adjustments as time goes on.

Tomato Macaroni Cheese

250g macaroni
4 rashes bacon, chopped
30g butter
1 onion, diced
2 tbsp flour
1 can tomato soup
1/2 cup of milk
250g grated cheese

1. Cook macaroni according to packet directions and drain well
2. Fry bacon until crisp, and remove from pan
3. Add butter and saute onion
4. Add flour, then soup and milk, stirring until the mixture boils and thickens
5. Add 3/4 of the cheese and stir until it melts.
6. Stir through macaroni and pour into an ovenproof dish and back at about 180 for 20mins.

The original recipe calls for salt at almost every stage of cooking, which I ignore, and find the end result still very salty. Hubby is not keen on plain Macaroni Cheese, but the Tomato soup adds a lovely flavour to a fairly cheap, kid friendly recipe.

To read what everyone else is eating this week, head on over to I’m an Organizing Junkie.

Highly disorganised today, so I didn’t have anything prepared. BUT I checked the calendar and worked out we’re out two nights this week. I went back over our last two weeks menu plans to check , and we have the makings of 5 meals already in the house. Awesome!

Tuna Pasta Bake

Lasagne

Sausage Casserole

Fried Rice

Scrambled Eggs

Head over to Laura’s site to see what everyone else is eating this week

Welcome back to Menu Plan Monday. I’ve been on hiatus due to my wonderful Mother-in-law who’s been cooking for us.

The plan for this week is:

Monday - Lasagne

Tuesday - Grilled Fish & salad

Wednesday - Apricot Chicken with mashed potato and steamed vegetables

Thursday  - Sausage Casserole

Friday - Mini Hot Dogs

Saturday - Fried Rice

Sunday  - Scrambled Eggs

For lunches this week we have: leftover lasagne, apricot chicken, sausage casserole and fried rice. Also potato & kumera salad, cold meat and salad sandwiches and tuna and sweetcorn sandwiches.

This week I’ll share my lasagne recipe. It’s really quite simple - mostly because I use the same base as for my Spaghetti Bolognaise. So as we had spaghetti bolognaise for dinner last week, I made a double batch of sauce so the hard part of the lasagne is already in the freezer.

As for the “white sauce”:

Mix together 500g Cottage Cheese (or 250g Cottage Cheese and 250g Ricotta Cheese), 1/2 cup gratecd parmesan cheese and a cup of grated mozarella cheese (or half/have mozarella and tasty) and one egg.

Layer spaghetti bolognaise sauce, white sauce and pre-made lasagne sheets in a lasagne tray. Top with extra cheese and bake at approx 180 for 30mins.

 To check out what everyone else is eating, head on over to Laura’s site for more Menu Plan Monday participants.

Reading Jo’s post earlier reminded me of this recipe I’ve been meaning to try. It looks so easy that even I should be able to manage it without stuffing it up.

It comes from the 4 Ingredients cookbook which is full of simple recipe’s I want to try as soon as I get my own kitchen again.

Simplest Potato Bake Ever

• 6 Potatoes
• 300ml tub of cream
• 1 pkt French Onion Soup

Slice potatoes into 1cm thick slices, place into a baking dish, combine cream and soup, pour over potatoes and bake in oven at 180C for 30 minutes.

See? How could you stuff that up? I don’t think I could at all.