Friday October 19, 2012

Dinner for 5

Pork and Noodle Balls with Sweet Chilli Sauce
Thai Apple Salad
Chinese Broccoli with Shitake Mushrooms
Shrimp with Chilli and Basil
Steamed Rice
Thai Banana Fritters

Dinner for the five of us tonight.  The pork and noodle balls were a little fiddly to make but oh so tasty with sweet chilli dipping sauce.   I will be making them again.

 The Thai Apple Salad is a favourite of mine.  Although there are no apples in traditional Thai Food I really enjoy these flavour combinations. 

Shrimp with Chilli and Basil, Chinese Broccoli and Shitake Mushrooms along with Steamed Rice rounded out the meal.

 

Finally Banana Fritters for dessert.  Anything deep fried is pretty yummy and these were no exception. Dusted with a little icing sugar.

Source: All but the Pork Balls come from Simply Thai Cooking (third addition) by Wandee Young and Byron Ayanoglu

Friday October 12, 2012

Dinner for 5

Beef Sausages with Grilled Onions

One of our favorite things about Australia, we lived there for 6 years, was the all beef sausages (snags) cooked on a BBQ with grilled onions.  Always served on a slice of white bread.  Unfortunately back in Canada, most sausages are pork and served on a bun.  Now don't get me wrong I love a good pork sausage but I longed for the beef ones.  One day I was discussing this with one of the owners of Thatcher Farms at my local Farmers Market and they said they could make me up a batch of beef sausages.  Today I picked them up. Now the best thing to serve them on is Australian style white bread.  Turns out I can find that too, at Cobs Fresh Bread a bakery here in Canada that is part of Bakers Delight in Australia.  This excited me to no end.  I always loved their bread and now I could get my husband to pick it up on the way home from work (unfortunately there isn't a franchise in my city yet).  Today's dinner was not fancy or difficult to prepare but is sure brought our family back to our days in Australia.

It was a happy dinner in my house tonight.

Friday October 6, 2012

Dinner for 12

Japanese Illusion

Oysters with Wasabi Granita & Pickled Ginger

Sushi - Teriyaki Chicken, Carrot and Cucmber Rolls

Hearty Miso Soup with Spinach

Teriyaki Salmon Fillets

Chicken & Vegetable Yakitori

Japanese Beef Rolls

Japanese Rice

Green Beans with Miso Dressing

Asian Hot and Sour Slaw

Toffee Apple Roll with Sesame Ice-cream

It is Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.  A time when my husbands family all gets together in one location to celebrate.  Last year we hosted the group of 68 at our home.  As I had already been doing Friday night dinners at the time, just not blogging about them yet, I invited anyone who wished to come to join us for dinner.  It was a huge hit with those that attended.  This year some people had to travel by our city to attend Thanksgiving so I put the word out that anyone who wanted to could stop in for dinner on their way.  We had 8 takers and including my husband, myself and our two oldest children we had a total of 12 seated around our table,  plus 2 little snackers that came in and out of the dinning room.

Some of these dishes I have made before and some were new to my repertoire.  I really liked the Teriyaki Salmon Fillets.  They were super easy to prepare and very tasty.  They will become a regular meal in our house I am sure.  Unfortunately in all the chaos of seeing people you don't get to see very often I totally forgot to take pictures of the food.  It was fantastic though.  There is nothing I am more thankful for than my wonderful family and I am always happy to share food with them.

Sources: Hearty Miso Soup and the Asian Hot and Sour Slaw were from Nina Simonds book Simply Asian Meals
All the other recipes were from Taste (an Australian cooking magazine website)