i did a mexican night a few weeks ago when we had quests over. i finally found a white sauce like the kind we get at the local mexican place. it's super easy and delicious. good with plain old corn chips
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mexican-White-Sauce/Detail.aspx
i also did some spanish rice to go in the burritos. i used 1 cup of rice with 2 cups of water, this was more than enough for 4 adults

1 cup of rice
2 cups of water
1 green bell pepper diced up
1 small onion diced up
cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, tomato paste, black pepper
i put everything in a sauce pan with a little oil except the water and tomato paste
i saute the stuff until the veg starts to soften up. then i add the water and the tomato paste. bring to boil and then turn down to low, simmer off the water like cooking regular rice.

raw sauce. i am intruged by this recipe. someone posted it up on the bored housewife forum the other day. i think i will make this weekend
raw sauce (tomatoes, green peppers, squash, onions, basil and sea salt, all blended into a chunky sauce) with a sprinkle of feta.)
i have all of those things. you serve it over pasta i guess.
today i am making ratatouille. i'll do jon a chicken breast(marinated in balsamic salad dressing, wrapped in foil and baked in the oven)
the ham hash brown quiche the other night was a big hit.

i made this today
ham hash brown quiche
recipe mod: i made my own hash browns since this is england and the frozen hash browns here just aren't right. plus there are none in my freezer and i wasn't going all the way to the store when i have a load of potatoes already. so i got 3 medium sized potatoes, peeled them and grated them with my cheese grater. easy. i browned them up in my stainless steel frying pan. i also used red peppers instead of green and skipped the mushrooms- we're all out. i think that's it, i pretty much followed the recipe. oh i left out salt. i figured the ham was salty enough. husband should be home shortly to eat it. i have no clue what i am having for dinner. i think maybe french fries and curry sauce.

there's a lot of food in my fridge. my fridge is unhappy. things are not being eaten. i had a big container of plums on my counter for like 2 weeks, no one was eating them. i cut them up and made plum sauce. i'll put that in the freezer and thaw as needed. it mixes nicely with yogurt. i am also making a batch of strawberry sauce.
how do you make fruit sauce? a refresher for those who are new
fruit sauce: plum
cut your plums in half, remove the stone, cut the halves into smaller chunks. place fruit chunks in a sauce pan with a little bit of water. turn the burner on medium, bring the pan to a boil. reduce the heat to low. cook long enough that all the fruit is soft. remove from heat and let cool. blend with your stickblender. stir into plain yogurt and eat. you can also make all fruit popsicles.
fruit sauce: strawberries
wash and hull your strawberries. put in a sauce pan with a little water. turn the heat on to medium, bring to a boil and then reduce the heat. let cool, blend with the stick blender. super easy, just like the plum sauce.

ok, i know updates have been sparse lately. i've got lots of different things going on but mostly i'm just lazy. it's way more fun to eat the food than take pictures of it and write about it. i have been cooking up some awesome stuff lately though.

indian night

we're having guests over and it's my husband's birthday. for his special meal he requested indian food. i don't cook much indian so i dug around on the internet for some recipes.
indian style ice cream
if you've never had kulfi you are missing out. it's super rich and damn tasty. best of all it's stupidly simple to make. i poured mine into popsicle moulds. when it was time to serve the ice cream i plunged the moulds into boiling water for a few second and then used a fork to fish the ice cream out.
mods i made to the original recipe- skipped the nuts and used whole cardamom pods instead of powder. you can skip the pods too, they don't really add much.
pilau rice
the husband really likes pilau rice so i dug up a recipe and made him some. mods to the recipe: i used 1 cup of rice to 2 cups of water and 1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon because i couldn't be bothered to buy sticks. i didn't bother crushing the cumin seeds and i used 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme. tasted great.
samosas stupidly easy to make just very labor intensive. lots of rolling and folding and stuffing. i made these up the night before, deep fried them and kept them in the fridge. when it was time to eat i put them on a baking tray in the oven for 10min. mods to the recipe: i used frozen mixed veg instead of lamb. i cooked some onion and finely diced potato in a pan for about 10min, add 2 cups frozen mixed veg and followed the rest of the recipe. these turned out awesome.
i also did a couple dips for the apps.

sweet chili sauce
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white sugar
1 red chili
1 green chili

add the water and sugar to a sauce pan, stir and heat on medium. let the mixture boil away, it will gradually reduce and thicken. when the mixture coats a spoon and has the consistency of cough syrup, take off the heat to cool. deseed the peppers and thinly slice. add slices to the sauce just after you remove it from the heat.
ok notes about this sauce. it can be dangerous to make. boiling hot sugar water will burn the crap out of you if it gets on your skin. chili peppers are hot, use gloves or pay the price. make sure you wash your hands very well after touching them or you will be sorry. if you screw up and over cook the sauce like i did, don't worry. i let the sauce sit on the counter over night and it separated out. the chilies and some clear liquid floated to the top while the granulated sugar sunk to the bottom. i just poured off the chilies and liquid and it tasted fine.

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cucumber raita
1 cup of yogurt(i used greek)
1/2 small onion- as finely diced as you can
about 1.5 inches of cucumber finely diced like the onion
salt, pepper, mint, cumin, chili powder, lime juice
(i do all my seasoning my taste and sight.) mix the onion, cucumber with the yogurt. add the rest of the stuff until it tastes nice. start off with like  a tablespoon of mint and 1/4 teaspoon of the cumin and chili powder
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raita is good with samosas or as a veggie dip

stuffed chicken breast

ok, pretty easy stuff. i took a chicken breast and butterflied it. that's when you slice it in half but don't cut all the way through. the chicken breast looks like a book. i happened to have some left over sausage stuffing in the fridge so i piled that up on one side and then closed it up. i used a tooth pick to make sure the breast staid shut. i put a little oil, salt and pepper on the breast before i put it in a hot frying pan. i cooked the breast for a few minutes on each side just to get some color before putting it on a tray and sticking it in the oven for 15min to finish cooking. i cut it into slices before i served it to make sure the chicken was cooked.
the orange stuff in the middle is a mixture of sweet potato and regular white potato cooked up and mashed(butter, milk, salt/papper.)

spinach roll. i didn't take a picture of this dish, i just freaken inhailed it. soooo damn good. this thing is totally half assed. basically i needed to use up the spinach and couldn't be bothered to concentrate so i threw this together. you get two servings

1/4 bag of spinach cleaned(washed and i remove the stems)whatever you have leftover in the fridge looking sad and wilted
handful of feta cheese
phyllo dough( i use the premade stuff from the grocery store.)
sea salt, black pepper, garlic powder, basil, garlic paste
chopped onion, chopped bell pepper
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saute the onions, garlic paste and bell pepper for about 10 min. add the spinach. spinach cooks quick
the phyllo dough comes rolled up, there are like 15 sheets. i unrolled the dough counted 5 sheets and then cut the 5 sheets in half. i rolled up the dough i wasn't using and stuck it in the freezer. so i had a square of dough 5 sheets thick. i brushed some oil on a baking tray and laid the dough down. in the center for the dough i placed my spinach mixture. i sprinkled some garlic powder and basil over top along with some sea salt and black pepper. i crumbled a bunch of feta on last. now for the tricky part. basically i rolled this thing up like a barrito. i folded up the top and bottom then i rolled it from left to right. with the roll coming to rest on the seam. since the tray was brushed with oil this got on the dough, saving me the trouble of having to brush it again before baking. i put this thing in the oven at 200degrees C and baked until the top got crispy and brown. 1/2hr or so? i wasn't paying attention.
note be careful with the sea salt. you just need a tiny bit if any. the feta is salty on it's own. i don't use salt much in my cooking so this was almost too salty for me.