Home-made: Sunday Brunch!

Sunday brunch! Smoked cheese sausages, soft scrambled eggs with chard and baby spinach, avocado and cherry tomatoes, Peck's yummy spinach, sundried tomato and ham foccacia and a fruit bowl comprising minneola oranges, grapes, pluots and raspberries! Stuffed to the gills...

Home-made: Beef Teriyaki Donburi

Friday Donburi Dinner! Homemade Beef Teriyaki with peppers, celery and mushrooms on brown rice. Nothing like having our own kitchen at last!

Home-made: Vegetable Fusili with Baked Salmon

Wholemeal fusilli with various vegetables, topped with freshly grated parmesan and baked salmon!

Home-made: Asparagus friend quinoa

The hubby cooked this: Quinoa fried "rice" with mushrooms, asparagus, peas, capsicum and corn. But she made the perfect egg sunny side-up.

Home-made: Seafood in butter + Veggie stir-fried and egg

 

Squid, shrimp and cthulhu in butter and parsley, Chinese stirfry of broccoli, kale, pumpkin, purple cabbage and carrots, on Japanese brown rice and a sunny-side up.

Home-made: Slow cooked beef & kale stew

Combined effort bento lunch that we prepped over the weekend: Slow-cooked beef, kale and sweet potato stew! Tastes even better after sitting in the fridge overnight, especially when accompanied by a crusty baguette to sop up the yummy gravy...
She prepped the ingredients and chupalang recipe, the husband did all the cooking! One word: DELISH! And healthy too!

Home-made: Hamburg Steak + stir-fried veggies

Cooked for the Missus: Hamburg steak, stir fried vegetables and brown rice. Yup, you read that right - I cooked it. All by myself, with only a little help from the Missus. Thanks for the recipe, for cutting most of the veg up, for the direction for all 3 dishes, for hand-holding during the actual cooking process, and for taking over when the veg need more professional stir-fry management. Other than that, I hope you enjoyed the meal I cooked all by myself! Lol...
(Just wanted to say that there was beetroot in the patty, which is why the cooked patty still looks pink beneath the charred exterior).

Home-made: Italian Pasta & Bean Soup

It's been a while since I last posted about the Missus' fantastic healthy cooking. She's been nursing a broken finger for the past few weeks. However, after being inspired by an Italian bean soup recipe recently, she decided she was fine enough to get cooking again, and this is her version of Italian Pasta and Bean Soup. Just one bowl is enough for your entire day's vegetable and fibre requirement!
Pasta e ceci maxed out with spinach, celery, carrots, onions, lentils and tomatoes!

Home-made: Baked mini Portobello + fusili casserole

For starters, baked mini portobello mushrooms stuffed with ham and cheddar. For his main course, wholemeal fusili casserole, filled with spinach, beef mince, ricotta, peppers and marinara sauce, topped with tomato slices and basil! Accompanied by some steamed baby carrots and cherry tomatoes. And of course the baked basil salmon.

Home-made: Funky Sandwiches

 For lunch bento this week, we have egg whites (with a couple yolks) scrambled with minced chicken, baby chard and plenty of black pepper, nestled in wholegrain Ozery thins.
I thought this concoction was super tasty! 9/10!

Sandwich 2 comprises smoked salmon and mashed avocado on gigantic foccacia buns. Both sammies are accompanied by homemade quick pickles in honey balsamic, on top on beds of mizuna and baby sweet pea sprouts.
Avocado and salmon is a safe bet that I can eat without complaint anytime, everytime!

Home-made: Baked salmon, prawns and vegetables with soba

Kaypoh dog is kaypoh. ;)

Bento last week was baked salmon, prawns (shelled so meticulously too!), and grilled assorted vegetables on a bed of organic wheat-free soba. Healthy and delicious.

Home-made: Recent Sandwiches

Parma ham and cheese sandwich, from stuff easily found in your local Cold Storage. Simple things that come together to make a delightful taste indulgence!

Just had this really tasty avocado smoked salmon sandwich. Salmon and avocado makes for a deliciously creamy combination. Yum!

Home-made: Pasta soup

Kaypoh dog is optional, but amusing!

This week, we have wholemeal fusilli in some pretty concentrated homemade chicken bone broth, accompanied by zucchini, carrots, peas, spinach, shredded chicken and hardboiled eggs (not pictured).

Making your own broth/stock is a good way to get a tasty, yet low-fat and low-sodium base for your dishes. I usually save bags of meat bones and carcasses from roast chickens in the freezer, along with asparagus stubs and random veggie bits etc for broth!

Home-made: Tuna Avocado Mixed Salad with wrap

We have tuna avocado mixed salad with wholemeal wrap today. Something 'simple' that doesn't require cooking due to the logistics available to us this weekend. Crunchy and tasty!

Home-made: Braised Chicken & Vegetable Stew

 

Braised chicken and vegetable stew in dashi stock; "happy call" new potatoes and baked satsuma imo and kabocha.
A tasty stew of everything good =D And that chicken breast was so tender and juicy! Happy Call ftw!

Home-made: Spinach "Quiche"

Glad to report that the "quiche" recipe worked and tastes decent! "Crust" is made of mountain rye low carb wraps (2 layers per cup/tray) - a packet of 8 thin wraps yielded 12 cuppies and 1 mid-sized quiche.
Two types of filling, both stirred into a mixture of whole eggs, egg whites and skim milk. First "quiche" is filled with 300gm frozen spinach, chopped lean ham and a bit of cheese. Second version has a huge bunch of chopped chives, tricolour peppers and ham. Both are accompanied by plain baked baby potatoes, pumpkin, peppers and plenty of asparagus!

So moreish, I couldn't stop stuffing my mouth..

Home-made: Oven-baked vegetable salad bento

Healthy food prep despite the busy weekend. Thanks Mky for the love!
 
This week, we have oven-baked pumpkin, beet-root, organic baby carrots, potatoes and romanesco broccoli. All this was put together like a salad and topped with sliced avocado. 
The main is roast chicken from Cold Storage. As you can observe, we cheated on the protein. 

Pre-baking stage.

Bento lunch for lunch on Tues or Weds.

Home-made: Gigantic Burgers (2 types)

Bento Lunch Prep Done! Dky asked for hamburgers this week, so that's what he got!

Burger one is topped with egg and ketchup, burger two with bacon and BBQ sauce. The homemade beef patties comprise a half pound of lean beef mince EACH, as well as chopped up kale, carrots and onions. Thanks to the addition of some crisp, sweet vegetables, the burger patties are super juicy and moreish! Burgers sit on some rather nice foccacia buns from Swissbake and are accompanied by either a kale and bacon salad in sesame sauce, or a fresh mesclun salad with radishes, sweet corn nibblets and vinaigrette.

These half-pound cheeseburgers are MASSIVE! Even Roxy, the dog,  was stunned by the sheer size of it (and then she recovered instantly and demanded to jump on the burger bandwagon)...
— eating Cheese burgers

Home made Bento: Baked Halibut & Grilled Chicken Breast

 

Baked halibut

 Bento Lunch Prep Done!
Two styles this week. First off we have baked halibut in herb crust, stirfried veggies and a sunny side up, accompanied by baked baby sweet potato wedges.
Version two is couscous (made up with the last of my post-Christmas turkey bone broth) topped with grilled chicken breast and assorted vegetables (choysum, carrots, tomatoes, onions).

Grilled Chicken with cous cous

Chef's tips on baking fish:
Rub a bit of butter on the shiny side of your foil and plop the fish skin side down (I do skin side up for salmon to get crispy skin). I usually bake at 220 degrees Celsius for around 15 mins and give it a poke in the middle, if it flakes it's done. I find it's okay to slightly under-cook fish since it continues to cook after coming out of the oven.

Note: I don't usually thaw my fish fully before baking since I generally use dry rubs on it (eg Lawry's salt-free steak herb mix). If you use fully thawed fish, perhaps just 10 mins for a thin fillet would do? Try baking with frozen halibut, it's pretty cheap and fairly forgiving as it is a slightly fatty fish (yummy texture and rather neutral flavour that absorbs seasonings well. Try it with pesto and scatter with toasted pine nuts and torn basil leaves)!

Home-made Bento: Pork Collar and Cabbage with Sweet Potato Chips

This week we have broiled pork collar marinated in apple juice, dijon mustard and balsamic vinegar, accompanied by cabbage done two ways (red with carrots, bacon and onion in a balsamic reduction; green braised with granny smith and Reuben apples and homemade stock).
On the side, some oven roasted beetroot, white and sweet potato "chips".

Home-made Bento: Green Lentil Stew & Spaghetti Primevera with Pumpkin-pesto Sauce

 

Bento Lunch Prep for the week done! Two types this week.
Had a massive craving for lentils so first up is green lentils stewed with linguica sausage, peppers and lots of onions, accompanied by a variety of grilled vegetables (broccoli, zucchini, fine beans and pumpkin) and buttered red potatoes! Second type of bento comprises spaghetti primevera with pumpkin-pesto sauce (pumpkin makes the sauce creamy without need for dairy), topped with a Mediterranean sausage.