Left over potatoes 1

We had some cooked spuds left over from dinner so the next night i chopped them to cubes put them in a medium temp pan with olive oil. While they were gently frying i sprinkled chicken stock over , just enough for flavour . Simple but tasty. Served with a nice piece of steak and salad.

BBQ Brisket

With Xmas coming and having a new BBQ we have been trying all sorts of meats to see what we might cook for Xmas dinner. Yesterday we did a piece of Brisket. This is what we did.



Friday about 2pm the meat went into a marinade of beer, orange juice, garlic powder and Worcestershire sauce and covered over night. We turned it every couple of hours to make sure it was well soaked.



Saturday 11.30am, I heated up our hooded BBQ to 250F. While it was heating, the meat was drained, towelled down and put on a rack that was in a roasting dish (the one I use for smoking chicken). A good salt and pepper on both sides then on to the BBQ. I put it in the middle, indirect heat method, and the cooking began. We tried to keep the temperature around 225 to 250F.



Every hour I basted the meat with some left over marinade and at hour 4 (3.30pm) we took the meat out and wrapped in two layers of aluminium foil and left if until 6.30pm. 7 hours cooking sounds a lot, but man it was good.



Our guests turned up just as we took it our of the BBQ and the smell was amazing. On the bench I put 2 tea towels over it and let it rest for close to an hour and after a few drinks I took the meat out to crave. It was still hot and sooooooo tender, some had more than one helping and again there were those "um num num' noises.



We just had salad and potatoes with it, then apple pie with coffee ice cream for pudding. After stuffing ourselves with all that, bed was the nice place to beach ourselves.



Tip for next time: I think I might cover it after 1 to 2 hours just to keep even more moisture in the meat and maybe use a darker beer over it all. But over all it was success!

Vege's and Chicken Bake

Some days food just seems like to much hard work but this one i did in next to no time while i was making home brew ginger beer.

We had half a chicken breast left over(uncooked) from the night before and thought it wasn't enough for two so we cut it into 1cm cubes. We then cut up 3 small potatoes, some cauliflower, brocoli, carrot. Cooking the potato and carrot in water for 5 min then we put the other vege on top to steam a little. When they were not quite cooked we took the of the heat. Now the whole lot got put into a shallow oven dish and covered with a cheese suace made with garlic powder and edam cheese. Sliced tomatoes on top then grated cheese and a small dusting of paprika. Bake at 160 to 180c until the cheese bubbles a bit.

You can put any vege into it you like and even leave out the meat. One dish wonders are great , now you thinking pots for veges cheese sauce to make but its worth it food should be yummy. And you dont need to spend a fortune like the tv chefs to have good yummy's.

Cheese Sauce

My darling woman thing (she calls me her man thing so its ok to call her that) showed me how to make a cheese sauce about 5 years ago. Well as im allways looking to improve anything i do i tried the following with great success and now i do most of the cheese sauces when needed(shes a good teacher thankyou honey).

1-When the butter is melting add 1 to 2 tbls of chicken stock and mix until disolved the go with flour and milk , cheese as usual.

2-Instead of chicken stock try onion powder.

3-1 of my best is butter then onion powder with smoked paprika then flour milk then cheese poured over pasta with griddled chicken breast.

Now im now chef just someone who wants to learn more about good food so any new ideas greatly accepted.

Intro

Im no chef but i love food and preparing it. It gives me pleasure when people i cook for do that yum yum thing after the fisrt few mouthfulls.