Stuffed Salmon and Asparagus

Yet another salmon and asparagus recipe! It’s just such a great flavour combination, and you can cook asparagus so many ways, it’s such an easy vegetable to add to your dinner. This recipe also has mushrooms, spinach and feta cheese.

Update, and a Pasta Disasta!

I have a couple of new posts coming soon, but they’re just not quite ready for the world yet, but to give you a hint of what’s coming:

Salmon Cous Cous Parcels

I try to make sure we eat fish at least once a week, but as I didn’t really eat much fish growing up, I can’t make it up as I go along like I can with chicken or mice. So to try and keep some variety in our dinners, I often go searching for recipes with fish – particularly Salmon, a. because I love it, and b. because I know how to cook it/how to tell if it’s cooked/how cooked I like it.

This recipe is based on one I found on BBC Good Food – which is a fantastic website for simple new recipes. I tried it a couple of months ago, and didn’t love it, but I’ve been thinking about it on a off ever since, and decided to give it another crack. The BBC Good Food version – which you can find here – is, at its most basic, cous cous, sundried tomatoes, spring onions and salmon. Now, I love salmon and cous cous, but I’m not a massive fan of too much spring onion, and I don’t really like tomatoes. This time, using the premise and technique of the first recipe, I built my own flavour pallet: Asparagus, Courgette and Feta!

First, chop the courgette, asparagus and feta in bite size pieces – however small or large that is for you. Make up the cous cous as per the packet’s instructions – I swear every packet of cous cous I’ve had has had very different instructions. If the cous cous isn’t already in a pan (different instructions!) put it in one and stir in the lemon juice. Throw in the vege and cook a little – make sure the cous cous doesn’t get too dry – it can get a little crunchy (which I like, but some people don’t). After a couple of minutes, take the pan off the heat and add the feta cheese. Mmmmm, feta. Cut two fairly large pieces of baking paper – remember they’ll have to close around a parcel full of food! Transfer the cous cous mixture to the middle of the baking paper, top with skin-side up salmon and bake for 20-25 minutes at 180 Celsius.

I like to serve in the parcels – mostly because cous cous tends to go everywhere if you try to move it!

Enjoy!

Hokey Pokey Biscuits

Hokey Pokey Biscuits – which are a kind of caramel flavoured biscuit – are a New Zealand classic recipe, and a family favourite. In fact, there were many years when I didn’t know what they were actually called, because they were just known in my family as ‘James’ Favourite Biscuits’. The original recipe is from the Edmunds Family Cookbook, which is a New Zealand staple – I’m not actually sure if you could call it a cookbook, or if it in fact has any actual lunch/dinner food in it, we’ve always just used the baking and dessert recipes. Having said that, we’ve never used any other baking cookbook, and I would guess 90% of New Zealand homes in the last 100 years have owned one. Likely covered in flour and cocoa.

My Favourite – Paella!

Paella is my absolute favourite dinner to cook. It’s also R’s favourite dinner to eat, which works out nicely!

Gingernut Biscuits

These are by far and beyond my favourite holiday baked treat. And I’m finally (for 3 more months) in a country where you can enjoy these in the right cultural and physical season, yay! There’s something just not quite right about gingernuts at Christmas… on the beach.

I’ve been tweaking my gingernut recipe on and off for years now. This recipe doesn’t use molasses (which are had to put your hands on in NZ or the UK) and the dough is only cooled in the fridge for 30minutes – or, just enough time to finish getting ready for the week to come! (Or watching X-Files, whatever floats your boat)

Weekly Meal Planning

R and I do a weekly shop on Sunday mornings, and try to get the majority of the week’s food then – partly because planning meals for the week in advance is cheaper, partly because I like getting home from work and knowing what I have to cook and that all the ingredients are there. It’s just so much easier than going to the supermarket on the way home, having to decide what we’re going to eat, not knowing what we have at home, dealing with the after work crowds etc. Plus, it means we can plan to try new things, and we can manage the cooking fairly.

Tagliatelle and the Perfect Work Skirt

I sat down at lunch today to finish a travel diary for next week – I have about 6 half written for the next couple of months, but none of them are actually finished – but got distracted by my successfully domestic weekend!