Month: June 2010

Macaroni Cheese

Macaroni cheese
So cheesy, so good.

Mrs Woog asked me what you cook a Chef for their birthday dinner. For the Chef in this house the answer to that is very simple: any pasta in a cream based sauce and preferably involving as many forms of dairy as possible and pecan pie.

I KNOW. No having to debone quails or slow roast anything or use pig guts or scour the city for bizarre produce essential for the dish. Make the man macaroni cheese and I almost get out of wifely bedroom duties. Sweet.

This recipe involved no bechamel and a shitload of cheese. Shut up, that is so the technical term for when there is half a kilo of cheese in one recipe that isn’t cheese fondue.

Naturally, this recipe gets doubled in this house (it is made very rarely, the only people who truly enjoy it being Chef and Oscar) even though it is not a winner for some. But for Chef, it forms pretty much all of his diet for the following few days and it cuts me some slack in getting my bits out and shakin’ them all about.

Macaroni Cheese
The start
Cheese for macaroni cheese
The motherload
Macaroni cheese ready for the oven
Ready for the oven
macaroni cheese, half way through baking
We're half way there
Macaroni Cheese done
two four six ate...

Macaroni Cheese
via Smitten Kitchen

  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 1 cup cottage cheese (not low fat)
  • 2 cups milk (not skim)
  • 1 teaspoon dry mustard
  • Pinch cayenne
  • Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 500g (1pd) sharp or extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated
  • 250g (1/2 pd) elbow pasta, uncooked.
  1. Heat oven to 180C
  2. Use one tablespoon butter to grease a baking dish
  3. In a blender, purée cottage cheese, milk, mustard, cayenne, nutmeg and salt and pepper together.
  4. Reserve 1/4 cup grated cheese for topping.
  5. In a large bowl, combine remaining grated cheese, milk mixture and uncooked pasta.
  6. Pour into prepared pan, cover tightly with foil and bake 30 minutes.
  7. Uncover pan, stir gently, sprinkle with reserved cheese and dot with remaining tablespoon butter.
  8. Bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes more, until browned.
  9. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

Tonight I added about 4 spring onions to the blender and boy, did it add a beautiful subtle flavour to cut through the richness. Sometimes I use a variety of cheeses just to mix it up.

 

Onward!

468 months

It’s Chef’s birthday today.
It’s also his first day at his new job.

What a day!

Next month is our TWENTY YEAR anniversary.TWENTY!*

I saw my shrink yesterday and filled him in on the last two months, having missed last month’s regular appointment due to being at hospital with Oscar. He’s less a shrink and more a sounding board for me at the moment as my mental well being is ticking along quite nicely. It was pretty funny watching his face when I relayed the events of Chef. Anyway, he was as impressed with my coping and positivity as I have been. Dudes, the passage of time and getting older does have its merits.

In other news I can’t stop crocheting. It’s a compulsion. The children were totally neglected last night and not in bed until 9pm because I was attempting a granny square and it was working! I was even using a bigger hook to see what the effect would be. Experimentation! 

Onward!

* Cue jokes about some people getting less time for murder etc.

Slow roasted lamb with rosemary, lemon and anchovies

I have a penchant for slow roasted lamb and my seven hour lamb recipe is the most popular page on this whole blog. I know! I was sure those posts about depression, anxiety, giving birth and breast feeding would hit the high hit market and bring me the big bucks. Now I just feel cheap and used.

crickets

So, lamb. This was inspired by Chocolate and Zucchini’s slow roasted lamb shoulder. I have kept the quantities pretty vague as it depends on the size of your leg and it really is pretty flexible – add more rosemary if you like it, more garlic if it’s your thing, go without the garlic if you feel like it. I will say though, don’t, just don’t omit the anchovies. I know I know, lots of people ‘hate the anchovy’ but in this you certainly don’t taste anything remotely like it but it adds a complex saltiness that is incredibly moreish. So look, just relax and go with it. It is an absolute sensation.

Slow roasted lamb with rosemary, lemon and anchovies

  • 1-2 large sprigs of rosemary
  • rind from 1-2 lemons (peeled thinly using a vegetable peeler)
  • 10 anchovy fillets
  • 3-4 garlic cloves
  • 2 teaspoons whole mustard seeds (I’ve used wholegrain mustard before and it works a treat)
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • A good splash of balsamic vinegar
  • An equally good splash of olive oil
  • 2-2.5kg leg of lamb or lamb shoulder
  • white wine
  • stock
  • 2 onions
  • 2 large carrots
  • 1 stick celery
  1. Put everything except the lamb (obviously) in a mortar and pestle and pound the absolute crap out of it.
  2. No really, you want it all reduced to a paste so don’t use one of those pissy little useless ones.
  3. OK, use a blender if you must but you get a much nicer texture if you put a bit of elbow grease into it.
  4. Rub the paste all over the lamb and let it marinade for as long as you can
  5. Preheat the oven to 220C and bring the lamb to room temperature
  6. In a baking dish place the roughly cut up onions, carrots and celery and then put the lamb on top of it
  7. Pour a couple of glasses of wine and stock into the base of the baking dish
  8. Roast at 220C for 30 minutes
  9. Turn the meat and turn the temperature down to 120C (or a smidge higher if your oven isn’t fan-forced)
  10. Cook for 2.5hours, turning the meat every half hour or so
  11. If your baking dish starts to dry out then add some more stock (mine does this as it’s a hot fast oven and I always forget to turn it down low enough due to pathetic obsessive tendencies of thinking it won’t cook in time)
  12. If it’s browning too quickly cover with some foil
  13. Once it’s cooked remove from pan, cover and set aside.
  14. Tip everything in the pan into a sieve and using the back of a large spoon or ladle push all those beautiful juices through, discard the pulp, return to the stove and add a little more stock if it needs thinning out.
It doesn’t get much better than that.

Granny stripe quilt – the start

Look! I’m crocheting!

The Griswalds have nothing on us

Leaving the house with four children all in a state of dress suitable for the weather is the equivalent to giving birth in a cupboard. Excruciating and basically impossible. But every now and this irrefutable truth falls out of our head and we attempt to leave the house. As a unit.

Yesterday was one such example. 
There’s about six of these shots. This is the one where I either a) least resemble Jabba the Hutt, b) am least likely to send the paparazzi into a frenzy that I am pregnant or c) Felix was pulling the least stupid face, d) we’re all sort of looking in the direction of the camera or e) all of the above.
Again, one of about 12 shots, all involving Grandmama trying to make Felix stand up straight, not pull funny faces or put bunny ears behind his brothers. This caper scared off some French tourists and a very refined English couple with well behaved, nicely dressed and obedient children.
My children operate on the principle that why look at scenery when there are rocks to climb and poses to strike. 
They are all opportunists to steal the limelight from a sibling.
I rest my case.
This location is right on our doorstep. It is spectacular and breathtaking. My children wouldn’t know. At this stage they were pushing Oscar up a hill, turning him around and letting him go. I understand the Tactical Response Unit are still looking for a body at the base of this cliff after reports from other people in the vicinity about hearing horrifying blood-curdling screams.
 I love rock stratas. Felix was wondering – aloud – how many people had killed themselves off this cliff. A moment when I was grateful the nearby elderly Chinese tourist throng had limited English. 
Compulsory shot of Australian native flora. 
ROCK!
Onward!