trying to remember what we cook so we can get ideas later

monday
squid, carrot onion stir fry, steam brocc with a sauce we made up= garlic fried in sesame and olive oil, with other seasonings

tuesday
cold rice noodles, veggies, peanuts, cold chopped pork, a sauce made from lime juice and what i thought was sweet chilliw sauce, but we also put other sauces on the table , would have used basil, mint etc if we had it, and more veggies

ummthis was from years ago how did it get here

u

Pasta salad chicken meatballs

Beans, pasta, roast pumpkin and chicken balls i made from mince

salsa

salads in hot season

Due to the heat and all the ppl coming and going, mid April I find it hard to cook and eat. This year I had salad ingredients in the fridge. It was all ready to go, quick to make a yummy healthy cool meal with amost no washing up, and the toddler could eat it before I added the nuts and dressing. I bought all salad veg i really like, including ones that are harder to find/have to get at the supermarket, plus walnuts and chic peas, and wholemeal pasta. Aso had some fresh herbs chopped up and various things for dressings including sesame oil, oive oil vin, lime juice, other dried herbs, pepper etc salt etc etc, so it turned out to be a bit different each time but always with vitamins and protein.

Pumpkin and chopstick veg with sunflower seeds and bal vin honey dressing. Pasta. Chickpeas

Pasta, egg, pumpkin, red caps., cucumber, olives, pesto (the sunflower recipe elsewhere on this blog)

Eclectic lunch of leftovers was yummy- breadmaker bread, hummus (made with sesame seeds for the first time, i've been using sesame oil), khmer salad (lots of herbs, cold noodle and some pork) chicken i fried in breadcrumbs with mayo.

this blog has how to make cottage cheese and pesto with stuff that i could actually get hold of, although i still need to go to the supermarket to get it their ingredients are easier/ cheaper than other options- eg pesto made with sunflower seeds and one type of cheese

pork pasta salad

So the "chicken" i got out of the freezer for my pasta salad turned out to be pork, so I changed dressings- I made one inspired by this dipping sauce that goes with thai meatballs. I say" inspired" meaning i made it but missing some of the ingreidients i didn't have on hand.

1 teaspoon chopped fresh coriander
3 spring onions, chopped fine
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 garlic clove, chopped fine
1 mild chili, deseeded and finely chopped (optional)
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon honey

Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/delicious-thai-style-meatballs-202089?oc=linkback

Trying out some different food on my day home alone. Nice to have the kitchen to myself.

Chicken with paprika and lime, tastes better grilled than fried. Have boiled some potatos to try frying them with cumin and curry powder, have some saw herb to sprinkle. Mashed hardboiled eggs with mayo and d mustard and some chives.

Banana flower - the way L makes it

First we pounded garlic, sugar, salt and peanuts.
We sliced/grated the banana flower into a bowl of water, and washed the fresh herbs (basil, mint, a bitter one with a long leaf that we eat with roast chicken, and the one some call Vietnames herb).

After picking leaves off the herbs stalks we put them in a bowl with the drained banana flower and added the pounded stuff. Also chopped up boiled pork- including the skin and fat.

After mixing it up we added some lime juice.

I think after that all we did was mix and check the taste to see if we needed to add more salt or sugar.

She said you can also make it with cabbage, also other salad veggies like capsicum, carrot and cucumber. KS said if you make it with cucumber its too watery.

Papaya salad

These photos go with the previous post.

Papaya Salad

In English fellowship groups I run we have been doing food words. So now its time to use those words in a real situation. Last week with the girls at Bible school we made papaya salad, and next week we'll be doing it at church.

As I was asking around I found people had lots of different ideas about the right way to make it. Here is one/some of those versions

First into the mortar you put garlic, chili, salt, sugar, shrimp paste and pound for ages. I'm not really sure of the order, but you also put in herbs, such as basil and saw herb, and any other ones the market sellers sell you when you tell them you are going to make this snack. Also dracoon (morning glory?) and beans, and some say cucumbers and salty crab. Also grated papaya and peanuts. Pound all this up together and then you've got a Khmer snack!

The type of papaya used for this is white and not sweet. If I make it for myself I leave out the chili and shrimp paste.
Oh, and i forgot lime juice is important too.
I might come back and fix this up later, after we do it at church.

Cambodian rice noodle salad

Well, that's what I call it anyway, in Khmer its something like "ynoum". We made it last weekend.

We used chicken, which I'd boiled and ripped up (I've also had it with pork, and this weekend we had it at a wedding with beef that was soaked in lime juice rather than cooked) ,
soaked rice noodles (actually they are made of mung beans, not sure why I call them rice noodles, in khmer mee soo-ah),(in the fancy version of this they fried the noodles)
raw veggies such as cucumber and carrot chopped finely, (capsicum,tomato etc)
herbs such as basil and saw herb (tastes like coriander, looks like a saw),
crushed peanuts to sprinkle over at the end,
a sauce (neither of us know how to make it, i think we should ask Soeun's mum before we try again, but its mainly water and sugar, with crushed garlic, some girls told me to use lime juice, some said vinegar)

It's really yummy!