Breakfast: Eggs Benedict

Made Eggs Benedict as a surprise for my boyfriend~ practised making poached eggs before attempting this. I wanted to buy english muffins but all of them were going to expire in a few days =( as inspired by our bed n breakfast in Weeroona.

used:
eggs
toasted bread
spinach
shaved ham
Gravox Hollandaise sauce

Lunch/Dinner: Banh Xeo

My boyfriend finally made Banh Xeo~~ either translated as "Vietnamese pancake" or "Vietnamese Sizzling Crepes".

Apparently the 'Banh' part means 'cake' and the 'xeo' is just the sound it makes when you cook it.

The batter is pretty much rice flour and turmuric powder mixed in with water and coconut milk and spring onion. and the filling is usually pork, shrimps, bean sprouts and mung bean. But for dinner we had leftover minced beef that we didn't want to waste so we experimented what it was like with beef.

And we used the leftover batter for lunch the next day and used minced pork (1. it was cheap and 2. Apparently I'm not allowed a cleaver to chop up pork belly because I cut myself recently)Used:
The Banh xeo batter packet. (picture above)
water (instructions on the packet)
400mL coconut milk
spring onions

mix them all up and set aside to prepare the filling

Filling:
Pork Belly (minced pork also works. if you don't have pork, use beef)
shrimps
bean sprouts
mung bean (soak overnight and boil for a few minutes until they split)

cook the pork and the shrimps and set them aside.

Pour 1/3 cup of the batter onto a frypan on Medium heat (so it doesn't spitter and spatter on you so much) and quicky turn the frypan around so the batter can spread into a thin crepe.

Add the mince, shrimps, bean spouts and mung bean on one side of the pancake. then cover the frypan with a lid.

Let the pancake cook for a few minutes until the edges turn golden brown. Fold the pancake in half and serve
The pancake is even tasty to eat by itself!

Dinner: Spaghetti Bolognase

Used:
Dolmio bolognase sauce
minced beef
tomatoes
mushrooms
garlic
Spaghetti
Parmesan cheese

Dinner: Bun Rieu

Remember that pork broth I made? Well this is one of the noodle dishes I used it for. I never made Bun Rieu or any vietnamese dish so I did a bit of research. Having being raised in a family where they like to experiment with their ingredients and replace some, I wanted to make sure that I want to make it authentic as possible.

I used the recipe from The Ravenous Couple but I halved the quantity as it was only for 2 people. The butcher gave me an odd look when I requested 60g of pork mince. He gave me 90g. oh well more meat. Unfortunately Coles didn't have the tofu I wanted and the asian grocery stores were closed, But it would've been tastier with tofu in the dish.

Used:
Meatball
90g pork mince
1/2c crab meat
1 teaspoon Shrimp Paste in soya bean oil
2 eggs
10g sugar
2.5g pepper
1 teaspoon shallot
2 teaspoon fish sauce

Soup
pork broth
2 tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
fish sauce to season
Fried Tofu

Vermicelli noodles- cooked and set aside

Garnish
Fried shallots
bean sprouts
spring onion

Bring the soup to the boil and turn the heat down to simmer. scoop out the meatball mixture and slowly allow it to cook in the spoon. Turning up the heat will make the meatball to break into tiny pieces..

when the crab mixture is cooked, you can then add the tomatoes and tomato paste to give the broth a pretty orange/red colour. You would add tofu in this step too.

Once the soup is done, you can scoop it out and serve it with the vermicelli noodles and top it up with garnishes.

For the first attempt, it was nice. Tho I had better.... Too much of the meatball mixture tho.... But I love the shrimp paste meatball soup aroma hovering around in the kitchen still.

DInner: "taco/leftover" pizza

had so much leftovers from making tacos that I had this crazy idea to use the leftover as pizza toppings. Imagine the meat with the taco seasoning with tomatoes and cheese like every other taco drizzled in salsa sauce. We also added mushrooms in there just for fun.

Pantry: Pork Broth

A new tag "pantry" is inspired by a masterchef who basically prepares his stocks every Sunday and stores them in the freezer so he can use them whenever he wants at his convenience during his busy life.

And because some vietnamese dishes take hours to prepare, I thought of making the broth, which can be used to make different noodle dishes. Also inspired by a new food blog I added "The Ravenous Couple". Do have a look if you love vietnamese food like I do~ I want to make recipes they make.

Unfortunately the butchers has less than the intended amount I wanted (2kg) but I settled with 1.5kg of pork soup bones. The Ravenous Couple used spareribs but pork bones are cheaper (also I found out I can save money on dog food food by feeding these to the dogs). Anyway I managed to keep to the pork/water ratio and only managed to make about 6 cups of stock. Which is odd cos I put in 9 cups.

Well I simmered it for 1.5 hours and I had to skim a lot of fat and oil, which took some "liquid gold" with it and they must have evaporated while I was skimming.

What noodles recipes am I gonna make with this? You'll find out soon.

Dinner: Lasagna

before it goes in the oven

Made Lasagna last night.

used:
Dolmio LASAGNE - Bechamel sauce
Dolmio LASAGNE - Thick Tomato
mince beef
lots of cheese
Latino fresh lasagna sheets

there was a photo of the cross section but the stupid uploader keeps automatically flipping it that I dunno how to switch it back.

Followed the instructions on the jar. It was pretty fun to make and it was tasty too. the wait was long tho... 45 mins.

made about 6 slices. So it's leftovers for the next day. No need to cook.