Monday 18 May 2009

crispy prawns are only crispy briefly

those prawns on Friday were yummy, but Godpapa complained that the ones we left for him to try were not really crispy anymore. It's such an easy recipe I could easily make it in seconds again, it's originally a Nigella Express recipe with calamari! Just mix 4 tbs semolina with 2 tbs cornflour and 1tsp salt and 1 tsp paprika, in a plastic food bag, and put prawns/calamari/chicken chunks etc in and shake to coat.
I fried them in batches in a karahi, uses less oil than a pan or even a wok, or fryer raw prawns will take a minute, cooked prawns very few seconds, just enough to crisp up.

Meantime I boiled noodles and rinsed with cold water then added them to a wok full of the stir fry pack I cheatedly got in the Big Bad T---- shop. Added rice wine vinegar, soya sauce and a drizzle of sesame oil. Served the prawns separately to keep them crisp.

Saturday afternoon I was really chuffed to be able to use my beloved electric hand mixer to whizz together a banana bread and put it in the oven in the 10 minutes it took Godpapa to get Littl'un ready for her nap. It made the house smell heavenly and she had a good chunk for her post-nap snack. Later we did go to the Crepe Cafe, http://www.thecrepecafe.co.uk/index.html?_ret_=return, it was fab, filling and yum. Staff were excellent and the kids loved watching it all being made fresh in front of us! Daddy and Big'un met us there after their cultural weekend, and it was nice to be all together again.

Sunday morning I was really rather show-off super mummy. I put the lamb and stuff in the slowcooker, had some time over, so whipped up some mini banana muffins (the muffins were mini, not the bananas) to take to share at the Confirmation class after Mass. I forgot the brand new mini muffins can be quite hard to give up their paper cases, and the ones done in the silicon cases were much nicer, I'm thinking I'll get a couple more boxes of the silicon ones and use them to line the muffin tin instead of paper ones. More washing up I guess, but worth it not to waste half the muffin!

I had a bad headache so Godfather No1 made the cous cous and I intercommed him at the wrong moment, so there weren't enough raisins in the couscous, but the finely chopped courgettes were accepted and the pine nuts added a lovely crunchy texture which Littl'un especially adored.

Today I made the left-over baguette bake. Basically I saved the dry hard baguette ends from a couple of lunches, and tried to smash them to small bits and spread them in a baking dish. Then I made a very basic tomato sauce with some finely chopped hidden veg (courgette & carrots in this case) tin of tomatoes, some of a bottle of passata, couple of capsful of red wine vinegar, then poured over the bread and left to soak.
Finally slice and scatter a ball of basics mozzarella, and some nice bouncy spring onions.
Bake til hot, sizzly and bubbly. I served up a grated kohlrabi remolade, basically mixed together a tablespoon of mayo with a couple of teaspoons of mustard and a capful of redwine vinegar, salt and pepper. Mix the grated kohl rabi in well, and enjoy. I love Kohlrabi. This is a nice salad with a change for coleslaw lovers...

Only downside was it was a tad protein low, and early evening, so I got hungry before writing this blog, and Mum-in-law had sent a loaf of seeded homemade breadmaker brownish rye-ish bread home with Big'un, and so I had to have a slice of that just now... Its another vote in the direction of breadmaker buying, if I hadn't just had to spend housekeeping money on new clothes for sudden growth spurt Big'un! *Sigh* start saving up again...

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