For Todd

Peanut butter noodles

This recipe was taught to me by Neil when we were still at university. It was the favorite of me and my roommate, and is the simplest meal I've ever made.

Ingredients:

• noodles (we usually use egg noodles or spaghetti)
• bell peppers/capsicums, sliced
  
• onion (spring onions are best or use slices of red onion or shallot)
• chicken, cubed (optional)
• cashews or other nut, chopped coarsely (optional)
  

for the sauce:

• peanut butter (use cruchy for added texture)
  
• rice or white wine vinegar
• sesame oil
• honey
• soy sauce

Method:
This is the tricky part to describe. Cook the noodles as per the instructions on the packet and stir fry the bell peppers, onions, nuts and chicken as you like. For the peanut sauce mix about a table spoon of peanut butter, honey and vinegar with 1 to 2 teaspoons sesame oil and soy sauce. The sauce is not an exact science and should be tasted to determine if more of any ingredient is needed. Add the sauce, noodles and stir fry together then eat. It's even better cold after a night or day of marinating together. To be fancy save some slices of spring onion for sprinkling on top as a garnish before serving.

Enjoy!

Turkey casserole (also known as hot dish)

This is my favorite way to use up turkey leftovers (and that includes turkey sandwiches). It's a hot dish (this is what we call casseroles in North Dakota and Minnesota) that my Mom has always made. Last year was the first year Neil and I cooked a turkey and I asked my mom for this recipe... I'm pretty sure this hot dish was the whole reason I wanted to cook a turkey in the first place. Thanks Mom.

Turkey (or chicken or ham) and macaroni casserole

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni (about 5 ounces)

• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (4 ounces)

• 1 1/2 cups cut up cooked turkey (can substitute eaqual amount of ham or turkey if desired)

• 1 can (4 ounces) mushroom stems & pieces, drained (or I use a a couple handfuls of fresh cut into slices)

• 1/4 cup chopped pimento (optional, and I've never eaten it with pimento)

• 1 can (10 1/2 ounces) condensed cream of chicken soup (My mom usually substitutes mushroom soup)

• 1 cup milk

• 1/2 tsp salt (My mom and I usually omit this because canned soup has enough salt in our opinions)

• 1/2 tsp curry powder

Instructions:
Heat oven to 350 F/175 C. Mix all the ingredients in an ungreased 1 1/2 quart casserole dish. Cover tightly and bake for 1 hour.

All the ingredients are usually in my cupboard (except the turkey) but last year I didn't have curry powder so I substituted a sachet of curry seasoning from a packet of ramen noodles which worked perfectly. One other tip is that I usually halve the recipe because Neil isn't fond of pasta or casseroles, which works just fine but takes nearly just as long to cook (about 45 to 50 minutes).

Enjoy!

Cauliflower

So I have a new way to enjoy eating cauliflower -- roasted. I found it on Brownie Points. It's such a simple recipe: a little oil, a little salt and cauliflower. I've never enjoyed eating cooked cauliflower because of the mushy texture and metallic taste. My favorite way to eat cauliflower is marinated in a vegetable salad. Lots of raw vegetables (tomatoes, olives, cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, onions), Italian salad dressing (a herby vinaigrette), and time. Marinated vegetables are best eaten in the summer though, with burgers and chips at the lake. But roasted cauliflower is just what I need since cauliflower is in season now when it's getting colder each day.

Hurray for new ways to eat vegetables! My hunt continues for a way to enjoy eating squash -- now that would be an amazing recipe.

Pizza! Pizza!

This is such an easy pizza dough recipe that I thought some people might actually want to know about it. It was developed (based on existing techniques and recipes) by Neil.

The recipe:

Group A

150g of strong bread flour
1tsp of sugar
2tsps of yeast
250g of warm water (hand hot)

Group B
30g of oil
1tsp of salt
250g of strong bread flour

Mix ingredients of Group A together in a large bowl then set aside (someplace kinda warm and not drafty is good) to double in size. Then add ingredients of Group B, knead about 10 minutes (we rarely ever knead for more than 3 minutes if making pizza dough) and set aside to rise again. Use for pizza crust, bread, rolls, even donuts.

On Monday night we used it, with some slight alterations*, to make this...... and a small deep dish pizza that was so tasty we couldn't wait to dive in before I took a photo. We also used our latest tomato harvest to make the tomato sauce and tomato slices. Maybe someday we'll be able to make a pizza entirely from ingredients in our garden. Lets see, we'll need a wheat field, a mushroom forest, a cow or buffalo, a sugar cane field, onions, tomatoes and herbs. 3 out of 7 already!

* These alterations were due to a lack of plain bread flour and my herb fixation. I had enough strong plain bread flour to start the dough, but not enough when adding group B. So I used strong soft grain bread flour which gave a really nice nutty flavour and a bit of crunch. I also added some fresh chopped rosemary to the dough which made it smell fantastic!