Using up ingredients…

At the moment I’m trying to use up all the stuff in my cuboards and see what I can make with the variety of ingredients I have. Many that are coming to out of date time so need to be used up.

This is my most recent thing I’ve attempted – Its not quite what the receipe said but I didn’t have everything it said so I substituted ingredients to see what would happen:

Flaxseed Fruity Desert or Breakfast

Ingredients

8 x tbsp Flaxseed with Goji Berroes Mixture
1 cup of Water
1 cup of Milk
Half a cup of Sultanas
1 tbsp Honey
Juice of an Orange
1 banana
1 apple

Method
Heat the milk to boil, and turn down to simmer.
Add the Flaxseed mixture and keep stiring to stop it going lumpy (apparently)
When mixed nicely, Add the sultanas and a grated apple and keep mixing.
After a minute or so, add the Honey & juice and stir
Mix in and allow to cool

I found I could eat it two ways.

1. Hot as a kind of breakfast meal with some yogurt on the top.
2. As a desert I added double cream on the top after pouring the mixture into stumpy glasses.

How it turned out

I added the banana chopped over the top of both variations

Apparently its quite healthy for you, but the taste was something strange to start with, but overall quite nice but not something I’d go out and buy the ingredients for.

Spicy BBQ Shreaded Pork

When I’ve been out I’ve always enjoyed shreaded pork from takeaway places and wondered how to make it myself. I thought it was difficult and expensive but turns out I was wrong. I read up online on several sites how to make some and made my own version using the same baseline of how its put together using ingredients I enjoy for seasoning.

It turned out a lot better than I expected it too, and it was great for a saturday. The weather is getting nicer, spring seems to have arrived and to have something that I didn’t really need to do much with and make great sandwidges with, all I can say is its turned out well and now I can make something more.

The cost for the whole receipe came to around £7.50

Ingredients

* Pork Shoulder / Pork Roast
* 2 onions, sliced and deviced
* 1 onion, chopped (Optional)
* Juice of 2 limes
* 1 green bell pepper
* 1 Jar BBQ Sauce
* 1 tablespoon of olive oil (Optional)

Seasoning Mix Ingredients (cost around £1)

Season Mix blitzed
Seasoning Mix Blitzed

* 3 chillis de-seeded & finely chopped
* Around a 2cm cubed piece of ginger finely chopped
* 3 cloves of garlic
* A few Black Pepper corns
* A little Salt

Create the seasoning:

Method 1:

Chop ingredients and mix in a bowl

Method 2:

Place in food processor and let that blitz the ingredients together. This is the way I did it.

How to make the dish

I have used a slow cooker to create this dish, but its also possible to use an oven and slow cook using a low heat however I found a slow cooker was more economic and simple enough to use. My instructions are for what I use, you may need to look elsewhere for heat settings for an oven.

1. Prepare the seasoning mix
2. Place 1 sliced onion at bottom of pot
3. Place pork on top of onions
4. Cover pork with seasoning mix
5. Top with remaining onion, and add chopped peppers
6. Drizzle with lime juice
7. Cover with pan lid
8. Cook on a high heat for 6 hours
9. Remove meat & veg
10. Discard juices
11. Shread pork using two forks to pull it apart
12. Return pork to the pan
13. Pour and mix in BBQ sauce
14. Cover with lid and heat on low for 1 hour or more
15. Fry chopped onions in a little oil to how you like them (Optional)
16. Serve

Works well in bread buns.

The shreading of the pork, pulling it apart took quite a while to do but it did pull away so easily. The meat turned out to just work so well in this dish, and was almost falling apart when I took it out of the pan in stage 9… but overall it worked well. Not sure when I’ll manage to eat it all but glad others are coming over to join in. Hope they enjoy it as much as I am.

An Added Heat Twist…?

I’ve thought that if I was to add to the seasoning mix a naga jolokia chilli blitz into this, it would make for a Hot shot version but thats not for people in general. The heat of those things are an aquired taste. Most people do not taste anything more after the heat has hit them and we don’t want to waste the lovely flavours. I didn’t add much heat to this one and it is delicious and one to share in a party I’d think.

The end look of it:

Shreaded Pork in a BBQ Sauce: The End Result
Shreaded Pork in a BBQ Sauce: The End Result

Enjoy, I have and will again!

Christmas is Coming

Christmas is coming and just like last year I have friends coming to stay with me. This year however I don’t need to cook christmas dinner as been invited to parents. There is going to be at least 9 of us which is going to be great.

I do love having friends around. I think it is a great bonus in life, to share, encourage, and just chill out… often with lots of games.

I am really looking forward to Christmas – 2 long weekends with friends, family and enjoyment.

Creatures of the house

How many of us have found food we thought we had we have no more and not because we ate it… but something else had.

I’ve been sorting through my cuboards, clearing out old stuff. I found I had products in there that we dated early 2003 which is odd considering I moved in here in late 2005 so that was nice to discover.

I cleared the shelves and it all seemed good and then got to the bottom shelf where things were not so good anymore… Where a lot of my herbs, and Teas are kept and a lot of snack products like rivita, and other dried breads and crackers….

Seems the should have been kept in glass as something had eaten its way through and into every box, and packet be it cardboard or plastic… all with contents spread over the bottom shelves now…

It took me a while to clear, and I didn’t find anything that was eating its way but its one way to clear a cuboard – shame as now have to go get new stuff… Nevermind, glad its sorted and didn’t happen with company – that would be uncomfortable.

I don’t like to think what other creatures are around the house… I just accept there are things, and the less I know the better… then I don’t over think it.

“Ignorance is bliss, until you understand why!”

Dreamland – Fun yet dangerous with the occasional kickback (pt2/2)

View Part 1 of the dream

The street theater – There was circus like acts going on, people up high on wierd bikes or stilts in bright costumes. There was something everywhere most of the time unless you went out into the fields that just seemed to go on forever. You chose the weather by thinking it and it happened – be it Rain, glorious sunshine, or snow.

We went out in the snow and built snow people, it was snow and we just seemed to have the warm clothes to wear, there was clothes racks all over and you just grabbed what you wanted. It wasn’t cold but just right and it was so easy to make things… everything we wanted just seemed to be lying around. There was snow ball fights getting us all drenched and covered and wandered over to a pond that was frozen over – we went ice skating, and chilled out just having fun.

I recall thinking, “is this all a dream?” and tried to float but couldn’t. Usually if I work out its a dream I can float or fly and continue. The rain was lovely at night, such a relaxing sound it bouncing off the glass windows.

There was play parks big enough for adults with huge slides, and swings that you could get really high on – not recommended to jump from althou we did and recall it hurting but just for a couple of seconds before going back and playing some more. There was climbing frames, and a few zip lines over water and this wierd spongy foam that seemed to take quite an impact and not hurt when you hit it.

Food was awesome, there seemed to be a place for everything – I recall a place that served just loads of different crisps and a dance floor for salsa – it was great. You could watch or join in. I could seem to remember all the moves from classes in my real life inside the dream and actually be able to do them and enjoy it. The food was eat as much or little as you want.

There was trampolines about the size of 4 normal club sized ones put together – you could get really high and catapult yourself all over or mix with friends and play amazing games of seat attack catapulting one another into the air.

It didn’t feel like you were in danger unless you went down the bank through the shopping centre, everywhere else seemed safe and the people around us were happy too. Only at one point when we were heading down past the centre did we need to stop the group and re-direct them – they were heading towards the unpleasent place but they couldn’t seem to feel it – a strange sense I seemed to have.

Days seemed to pass into weeks yet I was only asleep a few hours, I awoke feeling refreshed but suprised I was at home. I have no idea how I got there, or how I returned but look forward to going there again like so many of my past dreams – they somehow reconnect and its like a continuation.

• Coming Soon: Dreams Blog

Dreamland – Fun yet dangerous with the occasional kickback (pt1/2)

There was what seemed to be a town, like a giant themepark – everywhere there was something to do: be it a show or event somewhere, a ride to go on, a stall to play at or a place to eat at aswell as street theater all around me.

Down one road it felt very dark, it went into a shopping centre with all grey closed shutters and down a hill. At the top of the hill there was an open market stall with veg, and fruit and a girl behind the counter serving and looking oddly towards me when I started to head down the hill. I felt uncomfortable and it was as thou you were diving into an unknown danger – I headed back up and into the central area – the whole atmostphere felt better and happier again.

There was a lot of shows on, for almost anything imagined I recall but don’t remember what they were – just remember that everything seemed covered in some way or uncovered in many ways. You had the choice to be an audience member or actually get up and have a go at anything. It was fun, scary, entertaining and rewarding.

There were loads of people around me, they seemed familure but at the same time unknown to me. I made friends with a few of them and we wandered around the place together.

There was an area to design your own rollercoaster and then ride it with friends, so many high sudden turns that surely were unsafe and unlikely to ever happen in the real world. It was something you designed and said you’d like and then come back and ride – kind of like waiting for a picture to be developed.

Time – it wasn’t just a few hours, it was more like around a few weeks or so had passed with the time there – even recall going to sleep and getting up and right back into the action. We often crashed out in different places after a nights entertainment.

One afternoon there was an attack… some people were running around and we originally thought it was a scene from a theater piece to find out suddenly it wasn’t as the people came towards us. They were covered with blood, cuts all over and dragging others down with them.

We ran but some people came after us with knives and we ran fast and got split up. We went up & down steps, over fences/walls and through a maze of buildings.. we looked back they seemed to be gone we kept on going and returned to the centre again to meet up again.

Continues Tommorrow

• Coming Soon: Dreams Blog

Vegi Soup of sorts

With the stock from yesterdays Chicken thing I’ve made some soup – Enough for a few portions.

Ingredients:

4 x Carrotts
1 x Parsnip
1 x Sweede
2 x Potatoes
2 x Leaks
1 x Chopped Chilli

Boiled everything in the stock from yesterdays Chicken thing and a little extra hot water for about an hour. Smushed (cut, mixed and mulched) the ingredients into an orange pulp. Lowered the heat and stired for about 5 minutes.

Served and packaged some for later. I made some thing similar to this at christmas time but just used Hot water instead of stock as there was a vegitarian eating with us.

Yum

Tasty suculent chicken thing

I made a nice chicken thing today… No idea why I made it that way… fancied something and kinda just made it up – its quite yummy.

I got one large onion and chopped into 8ths and put in bottom of dish, added some vegi stock, garlic, leak and peppers and stirred.

Added 3 breast of chicken – sprinkled fresh chillis on top and stired in. Then added a foil tray, a little oil and some peppers, leak & Onions.

Covered the lot and let cook on gas mark 4 for an hour. Emptied the oil from the foil tray into chicken mix and returned to heat for 15 minutes.

The chicken has turned out firm and nice with kinda roasted peppers next to it 🙂 The liquid I strained and stored to make the base of a soup this week.

Tastes good.

My ingredients:

1 x leak
1 x Large Onion chopped into eighths
2 x peppers chopped in to chunks
1 x Vegi Stock cube, 1x Chicken stock cube
1 to 2 pints of hot water
4 x Garlic Cloves
2 x Chilli Peppers deseeded finally chopped

How many meals a day should you have?

I can remember when younger that you should have 3 to 4 meals a day to be “healthy” – Breakfast, lunch, dinner and possable supper… I like to be closer to 5 meals a day.

Since re-starting the 5 to 6 small meals a day aproach. I feel a lot more energetic and seem to metabolise more food. Tends to be more a spread out way of doing it but works well.

I try to always have breakfast (around 8am), Morning snack – Fruit usually (around 11am), lunch between 1 and 2pm, mid afternoon snack round 4, dinner around 6 to 7pm and snacks if out again.

I’ve realised that it sounds like a lot but instead of big portions I’m having lots of little ones. I think it gives the body time to metabolise what it needs at the time.

My overall view is its not the best idea for 3 to 4 big meals but to spread it out into smaller meals. seems to work for me.