Scalloped Potatoes

4 medium Potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

1 small Onion, finely sliced

1 cup grated Cheese

Salt & Pepper

1 cup Milk

1 Parsnip, peeled and thinly sliced (optional)

1 Carrot, peeled and thinly sliced (optional)

 

Place a layer of potatoes in a medium sized casserole dish.  Sprinkle with some onion, cheese, salt and pepper.  Cover with a layer of parsnip and carrot.  Repeat until all ingredients are used up, ending with a cheese layer.  Pour over milk.  Bake covered at 180ºC for 40-50 minutes or until potatoes (and carrots & parsnip) are tender.  Remove cover after 30 minutes.

 

It took much longer than 50 minutes to bake…  about 1½ hours or more!  Then again, I just realised that “remove cover after 30 minutes” is probably referring to when it’s been in the oven for 30 minutes rather than 30 minutes after it comes out of the oven.  I shall try that next time.  Once it was finally done, it was really yummy, except the parsnip wasn’t quite done.  Might boil the parsnip for a few minutes before putting it in next time.

Apricot Chicken

6 Chicken pieces

Oil for frying

425 g can of Apricot halves

½ teaspoon grated Lemon or Lime rind

2 tablespoons Lemon or Lime juice

½ teaspoon ground Ginger

2 tablespoons Cornflour

1 tablespoon spiced Vinegar

½ teaspoon Sugar

1 chopped up Carrot (optional)

½ – 1 chopped up Capsicum (optional)

salt & pepper

 

Purée apricots and juice in a food processor or blender (if you dont have one, try squeezing them through a sieve, into the pot, or mash them up while they’re cooking).  Put Purée in a saucepan.  Add lemon rind, juice, ginger and cornflour.  Mix well.  Add veges.  Gently heat, stirring constantly until mixture boils and thickens.  Stir in vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper to taste.

At the same time: remove skin and fat from chicken pieces.  Heat oil in a frying pan and cook chicken for 10 minutes each side (depending on how big the chicken pieces are) or until juices run clear when tested.  Drain on absorbent paper.  Pour apricot sauce over chicken.

The veges were my idea, and the carrot wasn’t quite done by the time the rest of the sauce and chicken was, so it was a cruncy sauce.

Fried Rice

1½ cups long grain Rice

2 Eggs

1 teaspoon Soy Sauce

3 tablespoons Oil

6 rashers rindless Bacon, chopped

1 clove Garlic, crushed

2 teaspoons grated root Ginger

6 Spring Onions, chopped

1 tablespoon Soy Sauce

 

Place rice in a sieve.  Wash under cold running water to remove starch.  Cook in boiling water for 12 minutes until tender.  Tip into a sieve and rinse under cold running water to cool.  Drain thoroughly.  Spread rice out on trays and leave to dry for at least 1 hour.

Lightly beat eggs and first measure of soy sauce.  Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a wok or heavy based frying pan.  Pour in half the egg mixture and cook until golden on both sides.  Repeat with remaining egg.  Cut egg into 1-cm-wide strips.  Set aside.

Heat another tablespoon of oil and cook bacon until crisp.  Remove from wok.  Add remaining oil to wok.  Cook garlic, ginger and spring onions over a low heat for 1 minute.  Add rice and stir-fry for 5 minutes.  Return strips of egg and bacon to wok.  Stir-fry to heat through.  Add second measure of soy sauce.  Stir to mix in.

 

I found there was too much rice in this, and in a normal size cast iron frying pan, it was nearly overflowing with rice.  Seemed a little bland to me…