Dish of the Day

Good morning!! How are you all today? Just wanted to stop by and tell you about the rather tasty snapper I made for dinner last night! Snapper with zucchini and tomatoes and orzo, to give it its full title.

As I mentioned yesterday, i haven't really cooked fish before - especially without Hubby at my back to monitor my progress! But he was upstairs slaying dragons or something so I was left to my own devices, armed only with Nadine's earlier advice to poke one bit of fish to see if it was ready then give Hubby the intact portion (cheers, hon!!)

It became clear towards the end of cooking time that I hadn't fully prepared for this recipe so I was somewhat running around at the last minute, but I was fairly pleased with the end result.

The fish was a little overdone, but that was down to my panic cooking and then having to spend a wee bit longer keeping warm in the oven than it should. The pine nuts in the orzo were a little under-toasted, but that's because i'm an idiot and didn't notice until two minutes before serving that they needed toasted! I thought it might have been a little lacking in flavour, but that's probably because I used dried herbs instead of fresh and may not have used enough.

Even so, Hubby proclaimed it to be delicious and of restaurant quality!! Yeah, right!! I think he may have been a little generous with his praise, but i'll take what I can get - thanks Hubby!! Definitely one to transfer into my recipe notebook! Thanks again to Cooking Light for their inspiration! For anyone who cares, here are the recipes - snapper with zucchini & tomato with parsley orzo

In other news, my parcel from pinupgirlclothing.com arrived and I was very disappointed to find the dress of joy I had ordered was too small *sob* Now trying to decide if it is something I will fit into once my latest goal is reached or if I should send it back for a bigger size. FYI, here is the dress in question ... pinupgirlclothing.com

There will be no kitchen adventures tonight as it is Wednesday, therefore eating out night. I'll let you know if we have anything noteworthy. Today's challenges shall be limited to getting my ass to the gym (third time lucky this week?) and clearing up the paperwork shitstorm that appears to have accumulated in the corner - fun times!!

Laters .... x

Sausage-tastic!

As promised yesterday, last night I had another go at making sausage risotto, and I am pleased to report that it was (mostly) a success!! Hurrah!!

My first attempt had been a bit of a disaster and I wasn't too sure why. Hubby and I both agreed that the flavour was fantastic but the texture was mega stodgy. For some reason I ended up having to use a hell of a lot more liquid than the recipe called for and I had to cook it a lot longer too. It was all rather disappointing, but I knew it was something I wanted to try again.

I had decided that perhaps my stock wasn't hot enough when I was adding it last time (the recipe calls for it to be simmering but not boiling and I think I may have been a little cautious) so I decided to focus on that this time. 

A risotto is quite a tedious thing to make as it requires constant stirring for about half an hour or so, and I was glad of my newly developed biceps from my recent adventures at the gym!

I got to the end of my stock about 5 minutes before the end of the half hour so I ended up putting about another half cup in, but still a lot less than last time!! Also, the rice wasn't quite done so I gave it another 5 minutes before serving, but again this was way less than last time.

End result? Not bloody bad! I jumped the gun a bit taking the rice off as some of it was still a wee bit underdone, but it was edible! It was also a bit on the salty side as we had used a normal stock cube plus one of Hubby's homemade chicken stock cubes, and my extra half cup of liquid was also stock (I'm fairly sure last time I just used extra water) But these are both things that can be easily fixed for next time!

If you are interested at all here is the recipe I used, once again from my beloved Cooking Light magazine! sausage & spinach risotto I halved the recipe so it would just serve two, but I still used two sausages as no-one should ever have to share a sausage! I also threw in a handful of peas because everything tastes better with peas! :-)

I really enjoyed getting back in to the kitchen and cooking something fun, and cant wait to try some more new stuff! Tonight I'm going to cook snapper for the first time so I'm a little nervous - I'm not very good with fish and usually leave it for the Hubby to cook, but I suppose id better learn at some point! I'll let you know how that goes ......

Well, now I'm off to hover by the window waiting for the FedEx man to deliver my fabulous new dress from pinupgirlclothing.com - my new favourite website - and if he doesn't arrive too late I may even get to the gym, as my fabulous new dress will need a fabulous flatter stomach to do it justice!! (or maybe some Spanx instead ........)

Laters ....!! x