We felt fancy (and I bought steaks from Costco) so we had ourselves a nice steak dinner. First time making steaks in a while and I really enjoyed the process. Proper Mise en Place before I started, got the cast iron pan to the right temperature , timed everything well and as the steaks rested I made a mushroom pan sauce that was pretty good. Served the steaks with steamed green beans and leftover lemon potatoes.

Greek Lemon Potatoes

Last night I finally tried making Greek lemon potatoes with lots of helpful input from some culinary folks at work. They came out pretty good, though not quite as lemony as I would like them to be. Baking time was also a lot longer than expected, maybe because I didn’t have enough liquid in there at the beginning.

Ingredients

• 2 or 3 pounds of potatoes, cut into thick wedges
• 2 or 3 cups of chicken stock
• half a cup of olive oil
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• plenty of oregano
• lemon juice - I eyeballed that one, maybe half a cup?
• salt and pepper, to taste
• a few bay leaves

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400° F
2. Toss potatoes with oil, garlic, oregano, lemon juice, salt, pepper
3. Place potatoes in baking dish, fill up with stock, add bay leaves, cover with aluminum foil, place in oven
4. After 30 minutes take foil of and cook another 30 to 60 minutes or until tender
5. Broil for 2 or 3 minutes to get some color

Changes for next time

• parcook potatoes half way
• add whole lemon slices into the liquid
• braise at lower temperature for longer, maybe 350° F for 2 hours
• add rosemary and thyme sprigs

Roasted Seabass and Asparagus

Made roasted asparagus and roasted seabass to go with the potatoes. Roasted seabass as per this previous post.

Needed a veggie dish last night and I had chickpeas and cauliflower at hand, so I tried myself at an Indian curry. I didn’t really have a recipe, just applied some basics I’ve learned about Indian food. The whole dish came out with a wonderful aroma and was very flavorful, I will definitely try to make this again. We ate it garnished with chopped cilantro over white rice, with some leftover lemon salmon and Avocado. I know, I know, not your classic Indian dish, but it was very tasty.

Normally I’d buy my coffee beans from Merchants of Green Coffee (I just realized they don’t even have a website) but unfortunately they are inaccessible to me right now. Thanks, Covid. So out of necessity I grabbed a bag of Avida Colombian Beans from Costco. Made a cup yesterday with my Aeropress using the inverted method. 12 g of coffee, 93° C water, steeped for ~60 seconds. The aroma is nice. But the coffee has a slightly bitter note to it and I’ve been thinking that I read something about a coffee map or quadrant a while ago. This morning I finally remembered: the Coffee Compass! How could I not remember, it’s an alliteration too! With this I’ll try to make a better cup. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to drink bitter coffee 1kg worth of beans…

I’ve written a new theme for the blog that’s a little nicer than the previous one. I hope you like it. More stuff is coming soon, but despite the current quarantine I only have limited time available to work on this.

In the meantime enjoy a photo of some pancakes I made a few days ago.

Our go-to vegetable side dish: sauteed spinach with garlic. Takes just a few minutes of prep time and cooks in less than 5.

You’ll need minced garlic (however much you like), spinach leaves, oil, salt. Heat up pan with oil, add garlic when hot and sauté for like a minute, add spinach, and cook until all wilted. Season with salt, add a little bit of olive oil.

I got a recommendation for this chocolate chip cookie recipe titled how to make perfect chocolate chip cookies. I made them today and while they were not perfect, they were still pretty good.

It’s Mango season! Our local asian supermarket has these boxes of absolutely delicious Ataulfo mangoes for $12. This happens every year and every year I’m surprised by how good these are. No better way to get your daily fix of Vitamin C than this!

Bell peppers stuffed with ground beef, carrot, onion, bell pepper, rice, and celery in tomato sauce. And, because everybody likes it, covered with cheese. This time with extra cheese. I don’t really have a recipe for this so every time it’s slightly different. This time it came out very nice, so I’m gonna note it down here:

Another recipe from my Mum. Thin corn pancakes stuffed with zucchini, leeks, carrot, and onion, and covered with cheese. I’ll get the recipe up soon, just have to rework my templates to support more complex recipes.