Tonight’s dinner recipe is taken from Periplus Mini Cookbooks ‘Fast Pasta’ edition. However, the ‘how-to’ bit follows Nigella’s tips in one of her cooking videos. Not only is this fast, but it’s also very yummy. (more…)
One other thing I bought at the supermarket yesterday was a bottle of pasta sauce with meat flavour. Instead of settling with just the flavour of the meat, I added about 250 grams of minced meat with half bottle of the pasta sauce.
I know you must be thinking, bolognaise sauce is an easy enough sauce to make so why should I settle with a ready made one? I agree, the home made sauce will always beat any prepared bolognaise sauce, but being on my own at the moment, I didn’t really have the motivation to cook from scratch, for something that only myself will enjoy. That probably sounds weird to you, but for me, the enjoyment of cooking not only comes from the cooking itself but also from the fact that someone else is enjoying and loving the food.
Anyway, back to the ready made sauce from Ragu, it needed a wee bit more salt, and next time I would add on real tomatoes to give it a fresher taste. But other than that, I think this is good enough for a quickie single meal. Would definitely use it again sometime.
I spotted this recipe in one of my recipe booklets, titled ‘Fast Pasta’. As it fits into my weekday dinner ‘quick’ category I decided to try this out, particularly since we have some chicken livers we have not yet used up.
To ensure that the chicken livers would not smell or taste too iron-ish, I called my mom to ask what she usually marinates it in. She prescribed a little bit of Worcestershire sauce, or as she calls it kecap Inggris (literally, English soya sauce). So I marinated the livers in Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Meanwhile, I cooked one large onion (cut in rings) in butter, and when it was soft, I added 2 tsp grated orange rind and bay leaves and stirred it further for a few minutes. Once the livers changed colour, I removed them onto a plate and stirred in half a cup of red wine, 2 tbsp of cream and 2 tbsp of tomato paste, and let it simmer until it thickened. Then I returned the livers to the pan to warm them again and seasoned with salt and pepper.
When I tasted it, I wasn’t really satisfied with it (I kept comparing it to the delicious chicken liver that my mother makes), so I added a little bit of sweet soya sauce. It did taste a little better, at least decent enough to eat. I served it with spaghetti – my choice of pasta. Unfortunately neither my hubby nor I were excited about it. So we put Sam into some use 
Certainly this is not one recipe that I would try again.
Tonight, the menu is pasta (my choice is spaghetti) with tuna and capers sauce. It’s very easy, it took me only 20 minutes to cook it altogether. Chopped onions and garlic is fried for a few minutes until tender and fragrant, then tuna chunks is mixed in (I used tuna chunks in oil – make sure you drain it properly otherwise you will end up with a very greasy dish), together with cream (I used light cream), lemon juice, capers and parsley. The time it took for me to prepare the sauce was the exact time it took for me to cook the pasta. It fits into my weekday menu criteria: quick, easy and delicious. And I have three satisfied customer: my hubby, my visiting friend (yes people are now flying all the way from Yogyakarta to have a taste of my cooking!) and my little birthday pup, Sam. 
Today my hubby was struck by the ‘cooking’ lightning, and decided to bake bread. I, on the other hand, was due to cook chicken meatballs in tomato sauce, according to the one week menu.
First, the bread. My hubby found a basic white bread recipe which he followed. It’s the basic all purpose flour, yeast, milk and butter. This recipe also called for three teaspoons of honey. The dough is kneaded for a while, left to stand and raise for 45 minutes, kneaded again, divided into two baking forms, and left to raise again for another hour. My hubby read somewhere that instead of egg yolks, you can also use cold coffee (as in the drink, not the ground beans) to brush the surface of the bread to give it a nice colour. That’s exactly what he did, before he sprinkled some poppy seeds on the top. Right after it has cooled a bit, we dug right in, and were very happy with the result. Of course, nothing really beats the taste of freshly made bread.
As for me, I started my cooking process a few minutes after the bread was finished – or shall I say, after I have finished tasting a piece of the newly baked bread. The chicken meatballs (yes meatballs again, and yes I can see the ‘chicken’ tag grow bigger and bigger in the cloud) also contains fresh chopped thyme as well as breadcrumbs. The 
meatballs are fried first until golden brown, and then set aside. The sauce is made of chopped onions, stir fried in butter until soft, combined with crushed tomatoes, chicken stock, some balsamic vinegar and Italian seasoning mix. I added some tomato sauce which gives a little sweet taste to balance out the sour taste from the tomato and balsamic vinegar. After the sauce has thickened slightly, the meatballs are returned to the pot and left to simmer for some minutes. I served it with spaghetti (second favourite carbohydrate source) and sprinkles of parmesan cheese. The result left my sole customer happy – and customer satisfaction is the most important thing in my line of business! 
