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Thai Fish Patties with hot chilli sauce and salad.
It's that time again!
It's time for my next recipe from The Cooking Game (see previous post about my cooking game). Thanks to two numbers my son chose for me I prepared myself to cook Thai Fish Patties for dinner tonight.
Because I am also watching our food budget I made a couple of substitutions where the recipe had a different flavour. But that is the beauty of creating in your own kitchen.
Remove the skin and bones from 250g of white fish fillets and put in a food processor with a cup of cooked rice, 1/2 cup of green beans, a sliced stalk of lemon grass, 2 crushed garlic cloves, a chopped red chilli, one chopped coriander plant including the roots, 2 teaspoons fish sauce and one beaten egg.
Process until smooth but don't overmix. Shape heaped tablespoonfuls of mixture into patties then fry a few at a time in 1cm of oil until golden brown on both sides.
Drain on absorbent paper and serve with pickled cucumber salad. I served it with a simple salad.
(Ref:Easy Thai Cooking, The Custom Book Company, )
I substituted the lemon grass with shallots and skipped the coriander plant. The taste probably wasn't as zingy, but it was eaten with gusto by my family which is more than I can say for the last dish (see post on Potato, Apple and Rocket soup).
My next pair of numbers I got from my husband's t-shirt so should be an interesting recipe.
soft top beer
Knowledge is a powerful tool. Sometimes it can even save lives.
It must be healthy then
And if we're going to talk about health food back then...
For healthy meals eat...lard?
That's right folks our parents/grand parents knew better. I think I like being dumb.
The Amazing Cucumber!
Hold the presses!!
Folks, apparently we have seriously underestimated the humble cucumber.
No longer is it the simple bedfellow of simple salads and soggy sandwiches. The cucumber could almost be listed as the eighth wonder of the world when you take into account the many uses it is good for.
Here is the list of them that was published in The New York Times as part of their "Spotlight on the Home" series .
1. Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.
2. Feeling tired in the afternoon, put down the caffeinated soda and pick up a cucumber. Cucumbers are a good source of B Vitamins and Carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours.
3. Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower? Try rubbing a cucumber slice along the mirror, it will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance.
4. Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds? Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long. The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area.
5. Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or to the pool? Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem area for a few minutes, the phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing the visibility of cellulite. Works great on wrinkles too!!!
6. Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache? Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed and wake up refreshed and headache free. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients the body lost, keeping everything in equilibrium, avoiding both a hangover and headache!!
7. Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge? Cucumbers have been used for centuries and often used by European trappers, traders and explorers for quick meals to thwart off starvation.
8. Have an important meeting or job interview and you realize that you don't have enough time to polish your shoes? Rub a freshly cut cucumber over the shoe, its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.
9. Out of WD 40 and need to fix a squeaky hinge? Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone!
10. Stressed out and don't have time for massage, facial or visit to the spa? Cut up an entire cucumber and place it in a boiling pot of water, the chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber will react with the boiling water and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown to reduce stress in new mothers and college students during final exams.
11. Just finished a business lunch and realize you don't have gum or mints? Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath, the phytochemcials will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.
12. Looking for a 'green' way to clean your faucets, sinks or stainless steel? Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean, not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back the shine, but it won't leave streaks and won't harm you fingers or fingernails while you clean.
13. Using a pen and made a mistake? Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!!
The Sandwich Shak is up for sale
When I first started this blog it was to share the day to day trials and tribulations of running a cafe/takeaway.
So many quirky customers, so many food stories to share to the world
[ Click here to read more ]
Yummy flavoursome vegetables
I had been so used to buying my prepackaged meat and fruit and vegetables from the supermarket, that the flavour seemed irrelevant. I had sacrificed that for price and convenience.
My first lesson on the difference between the organic, dare I say, older style of flavour to today's mass-produced chemically grown version, was when instead of buying frozen fish fillets at the shop, we had a friend catch a fish for us
[ Click here to read more ]
Potato, Apple and Rocket Soup
Having written about my cooking game in the previous post, it got me thinking that I should give it another go. So my next few posts may have some unusual recipes in them...or not. That's the beauty of the game.
Anyway after picking two random numbers (the time on the digital clock) I landed on Potato, Apple and Rocket (Arugula for our US friends) Soup from my 'Whats Cooking Potatoes' recipe book
[ Click here to read more ]
In preparation of the laundry chute
We've been in the house for over three months now and I am relieved to say that the laundry chute isfinally in.
After numerous trips down to the laundry with a heavily laden basket of dirty clothes, the chute is a very welcome addition to the house. One problem the builder noted was that there was a pipe and a joist in the way, so the hole would not be that big
[ Click here to read more ]
My bookshelf groaning with cookbooks
I am just finishing the book Julie & Julia written by Julie Powell, that has recenlty been made into a movie starring Meryl Streep out at the cinema.
I gotta say, I so get Julie Powell. I get that she thought up the project. I get that she took a year to finish it. I get her love/hate relationship with cooking
[ Click here to read more ]
citrus fruit is a good source of Vitamin C to stop scurvy
Did you know that vitamins were first called 'accessory food factors' and were considered to be essential to health. That's once they were discovered.
Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins was an English biochemist who did a lot of studies in carbohydrate metabolism and muscular activity and it was he who concluded that vitamins and essential amino acids were an important part of a healthy diet
[ Click here to read more ]
The storm building up coming up from Grafton
I heard a frog this morning, which in itself is not big news. However, I was told somewhere that when you hear frogs, it usually means rain.
Sure enough, later in the day Mark happened to look out the window in the early afternoon to see a huge build up of clouds from the south. Like all good internet savvy wives I straight away jumped on the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology website for the uninitiated) to check out the radar
[ Click here to read more ]
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Comment by Samantha Elley
on 1930s ads - if only they had known.
Food Journo
The Sandwich Shak
Vintage Foodie
Little House among the Canefields
Sam