I saw this on Swair’s blog and thought I’d do it to pass some time waiting for dinner to cook, so here is my outcome

Rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker (choosing 4×3 columns)

1. What is your first name? Michelle
2. What is your favorite food? Steak
3. What high school did you go to? Kuwait English School
4. What is your favorite color? Blue
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Henry Cavill
6. Favorite drink? Diet Coke
7. Dream vacation? Maldives
8. Favorite dessert? Chocolate Fondant
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Computer Geek
10. What do you love most in life? My friends
11. One Word to describe you? A Nutcase
12. Your flickr name? Michelle

If you wanna do this tag, do it… it’s pretty fun!

Damn, it feels like my blog has suddenly turned into a cooking blog since I moved in with my grandfather. The funny thing is, I hate cooking when I’m on my own, I normally eat junk food but I love cooking for other people and my grandfather is my test dummy hehe

Last night I used some left over rice to finish off this dish, I ended up cooking way too much rice with the Chinese food the other day, so rather than throwing it out, I re-used it and the good thing was it still tasted fresh when I re-heated it in the microwave (look here for how to cook rice, if you need too). This recipe is really simple to make and takes in total, 20 minutes to do

Ingredients:
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped finely
1 can canned chopped tomatoes
5 mushrooms, chopped
4 garlic cloves, cut into fourths
Lemon Juice, Salt and Pepper to season
Handful of fresh basil leaves, chopped
3 chicken breasts
Rice or Spagetti

Method:
1. Take your chicken breasts and flatten them a little. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and some lemon juice and wrap in foil (loosely not tight) and cook in the oven at 200ºc for approx 20 minutes.

2. While the chicken is cooking, you can prepare and cook the sauce by heating some oil in a large pan in medium heat. Add chopped onions and mushrooms then cook gently for 5 minutes until they are soft and slightly golden. Next, add the tomatoes and garlic and bring it to boil. Simmer (turn down heat) for let it bubble away for 15-20 minutes. Season with a little salt, pepper and sprinkle basil throughout and stir.

3. Once the chicken is cooked, put straight on a plate with some rice (or spagetti) and spoon over some of the yummy tomato sauce and eat I used a little plastic cup to make the rice look all funky of the plate!

Tonight my aunt stayed for dinner, we had left over steak from last nights dinner (I tried a new sauce which I’ll blog next week) and I had some chicken in the fridge. So I decided to make two different chinese dishes; Beef in an Oyster Sauce and Sweet & Sour Chicken with boiled rice. It turned out yummy, my favourite was the beef This will be a long post so beware

Stir-Fried Vegetables
Grab any vegetables you like, I used onions, mushrooms, green pepper, mange-tout and fry with a little oil, salt and pepper until soft. Set aside for use in the two upcoming dishes

Soft Fluffy White Boiled Rice
Heat a large pan of water which has been seasoned with a little salt and bring to the boil. Add in rice (I used 2 cups today) and make sure the water level is approx 1 inch more than the rice level, stir once and then put lid on the pan and turn down the heat and let it simmer away for 15 or until water has evaporated. To check if the rice is ready, get a knife and make little holes in the pan to get to the bottom of the pan, when you take the knife out, if it is sticky and watery then the rice is not ready and should take a few more minutes. Becareful not to stir the rice or else it will become all sticky and yuck! Take off the heat and let it sit for a few minutes before making sure all water has gone from the pan and plate up with the dishes featured below (or any other for that matter!).

Beef in Oyster Sauce
Ingredients:

500g sirlon steak cut into pieces
3 cloves garlic – thinly sliced
1/4 ginger – thinly sliced
1 tbsp sake or soy sauce
5 tbsp oyster sauce
pepper
vegetable oil

Marinate:

1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp corn starch
2 tbsp water
2 tsp vegetable oil
A pinch of pepper and sugar

Method:

1. Mix all the marinate ingredients together in a bowl and add the steak for 30 minutes in order to soak.
2. Heat the oil in a wok (or deep frying pan), saute garlic and ginger until slightly brown.
3. Add the marinated steak along with the leftover marinate juices and cook until cooked (approx 8 minutes)
4. Add oyster sauce, sake or soy sauce, 1/2 of the ready prepared vegetables & season and stir all together for a further 2-3 minutes, then serve.

Sweet & Sour Chicken
Marinate Ingredients:

500g boneless chicken breast sliced into chunks
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp corn starch
1 tbsp cold water

Sauce Ingredients:

4 tbsp vinegar
4 tbsp ketchup
1 tbsp sugar
5 tbsp cold water
5 tbsp pineapple juice
3 tsp corn starch
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vegetable oil

Method:

1. Mix all of the marinate ingredients together in a bowl and let the chicken sit it in for approx 30 minutes
2. Mix all of the sauce ingredients together in a bowl and set aside.
3. Add a little vegetable oil in a wok (or deep frying pan) and put on high heat until you hear the oil cracking. Add in the chicken stirring for approx 4 minutes until golden brown. Remove the chicken from the wok and set aside remembering to drain excess oil away from the wok or else the dish will be too oily.
4. With your now oil drained wok, add a little vegetable oil (yes it doesn’t make sense but it’s fresh oil rather than used oil! Add in the rest of the previous prepared vegetables, sweet & sour sauce and stir until it because very hot, this will take 2-3 minutes.
6. Put the chicken back in the wok with the sauce and stir for a few minutes then serve.

& that’s basically it… the preparation takes the longest but munching into the hot yummy food at the end is great! Since I’ve moved in with my grandfather, I’m cooking much much more so these posts will continue for the near future so I hope you don’t get too bored & I would like some of you to try them out and lemme know how they worked!

This was the dish I was busy cooking when I sliced part of my finger off, it still hurts like a bitch but eating yummy food made it feel worth it, yes I’m weird like that! My aunt bought a Roasting joint of Scottish Topside Angus Beef the other day so I decided to cook it today and this is what I came up with. The recipe and cooking times are based on the weight of the beef I had. Increase/Decrease cooking time depending on weight. If you are stuck, email (comment) and I’ll give you the times based on the weight

Ingredients:
1. 1Kg Roasting Joint of Beef
2. Olive oil
3. Dried Mixed Herbs
4. Salt and pepper
5. Water
6. Beef Stock Cube
7. Corn Starch
8. Potatoes
9. Milk and Butter

Roast Beef:
1. Preheat the oven to 200°c

2. With a knife, make around 6-8 incisions, this will allow the juices to flow around the joint and also for heat to get inside

3. Take a tablespoon of olive oil and dried mixed herbs and rub into the joint along with sprinkles of salt and pepper

4. Get a baking tray with alumninum foil and place the joint in it and cover. Place into the middle rack of the oven

5. Cook for 50 minutes and then take out of the oven and prick the joint with a sharp knife to see what the juice colours are. If it is red it is rare (and probably still raw), you are looking for a clear juice to come out in the end. By now, juices will be at the bottom of the baking tray, so take a spoon and put some of the juices all over the joint and put in the oven for an additional 15 minutes

6. Take out of the oven and let to sit for 10 minutes before carving. This will allow the meat to set and make it easier to cut up.

Herb Gravy:
With the juices left over in the baking tray from the roasting joint, put into a meduim sized pan and put on the heat. Add some water and beef stock (use a cube that has been mixed in water). Dissolve a tablespoon of corn starch in some water and add to the pan. Stir quickly as the gravy thickens up to avoid any lumps (which taste yuck!). Add a tablespoon of dried mixed herbs (and some thyme if you have it) along with salt and pepper to taste. If you feel the gravy is too thick for your liking, keep adding water slowly and mix until you get a consistancy you like.

Mashed Potato:
1. Peel the amount of potatoes you want depending on how many people will eat. I peeled 6 potatoes, along with my finger *cries* and then chopped each potato either into halves or quaters depending on the size of it.

2. Boil water with a sprinkle of salt and once brought to the boil, add the potatoes and boil for 20 minutes or under soft and tender.

3. Once boiled, drain the water and add a knob of butter, a little milk, salt and pepper and mash the potatoes together with one of those masher things (no clue what its called). The potatoes will be nice, creamy and fluffy by this point.

That’s basically everything. It turned out yummy and there are tons of leftovers for tomorrow! I was going to serve some other vegetables but my finger was hurting too much so I just stuck with the potatoes lol and then a scoop of ice cream and peaches to cheer myself up

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Tonight I decided I was craving steak and we didn’t have any sauce for it in my grandfather’s house, so I decided to create my own with some ingredients I found in the fridge, the result was amazing so here is the recipe

Mushroom Sauce:
Chop up mushrooms, onions and cherry tomatoes, add olive oil into a frying pan and fry until soft. Add some salt, ground pepper and ground mixed herbs and stir. Next, add some lemon juice and white grape juice. When some of the liquid evaporates, stir in some single cream and stir for a few minutes. Take off the heat and put ontop of your meat. I used steak but you could use this on chicken… it tastes amazing!

Steak:
Put into a frying pan with olive oil, season the steaks on both sides with salt, pepper and dried mixed herbs for taste. Fry on one side for 3-4 minutes, turn over for an additional 2 minutes for a medium steak… slightly longer is you like it well done.

Side Salad in a Parmigiano-Reggiano and Herb Sauce:
Fresh Salad, I used watercress, spinach and rocket leaves (but could use any lettuce variety), cucumbers, cherry tomatoes. The dressing was made using 1 cup mayonnaise, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/2 teaspoon onion powder, 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper, 1/2 teaspoon of dried herbs, 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese and Salt & Pepper which was all mixed together then drizzled on the salad.

Finished Product:
It was yummy, I wish I had more

Dessert:
This is my grandfather’s favourite ice cream ever and I’ve been eating it since I was a little kid. It’s ultra creamy and great quality! I put 2 scoops into a bowl along with chopped strawberries which were spinkled with some sugar to make sweeter.

& there you go, that is all currently in my tummy and I wish there was more

This afternoon, I decided to chill out in my grandfather’s garden to read a magazine and get some fresh air while trying to snap some pictures of chewy the doggy, which proved a little unsuccessful :angry: It was a nice day, pretty sunny but a little windy so I ended up coming back inside to watch some TV before cooking dinner for my grandfather. I’ll leave you now with some snaps

After our picnic at the Grand Canal in Versailles, I dragged my parents into the château to view all the royal apartments, art gallery and vast gardens amongst other attractions. It is such a beautiful place, the building is amazing, some of the décor is rather gawdy but I guess it was hot back in the 1600′s! I saw Marie Antionette’s bedroom and the feathers she used to dance with, the king’s bedroom, the dauphin’s (heir to the throne) room, the hall of mirrors, tons of paintings from the 1600′s onwards especially ones of Jeanne d’Arc (that’s Joan of Arc in English) and Marie Antionette. If you’re ever in Paris, make sure you go visit this place and pack a little picnic I’ll leave you all now with a massive amount of pictures, I just couldn’t cut them down any longer lol

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On Thursday, it was a local holiday therefore since baba was off work, we decided to head to Versailles and have a picnic by the bank of the Grand Canal before dragging my parents around the château. It was so busy, full of families, friends and tourists all sitting having picnics, dipping their feet in the canal as well as cyclists and those who hired rowing boats up and down the canal. We made our own little sandwiches, baguettes of course, and sat munching and taking photos of my surroundings, as well as my dad snoring & me lying on my dad’s legs

All in all, we spent nearly 7 hours in Versailles and I loved the place. Will post more about the château tomorrow as I have over 100 pictures that I need to choose from lol. I’ll leave you now with some picnic photos