Guinea Pig Meals!
Since last October, when we got more settled in to our new home and kitchen, every Monday was like an exciting quest to try out new recipes for the week, not only for my family, but also for our Alpha group of 12 to 20 people on Friday nights, our bible study group of ladies on Tuesday mornings, and for our steady stream of visitors to Macau!
With the close proximity to Hong Kong, we have had many more visitors come visit us. It’s been so lovely as we’ve re-connected to many friends we have not seen for years! Also good that I normally have something in the kitchen refrigerating, brewing or cooking, or it could be just in my head, waiting for the perfect guinea pigs to come try, and getting totally carried away along the way… My best time to cook is when I am not rushed, I have music or a sermon on and an added bonus of someone to help with washing up! : )
Talk about getting carried away, it's kind of messy how my kitchen ends up. Usually, there are a few batches of the same foods with slightly different ingredients to seek and tweak the perfect concoction of the moment. But then trying to remember the ingredients list, that did get a bit confusing, now I’ve learnt to jot things down with the respective recipes and pots along the way! The purpose of trying out new recipes is to explore with healthier ingredients and adapt, switch and change in new whole foods. To be bold and explore foods I haven’t tried, and always coming up with quirkier and less conventional twists to new dishes.
Recently we have consciously made an effort to reduce our meat intake, largely because of how much more aware I am of how animals are being produced these days, the awful chemicals and GMOs put in some of them, and therefore the lack of ethical good quality meat available, and also because our bodies really do not need that much meat! A good portion would be around the size of our palm. However, I do understand everyone is different, so as I always say, you need to trial and see what works best for you. I know Chris still likes his little bit of meat here and there, and every now and again he likes a good piece of grass-fed rib eye, I think his happy genes gets filled up pretty quickly when this happens. At least two to three times in the week we go vegetarian or vegan with some incredibly tasty dishes, which has pleasantly surprised both Chris and Lauren. I will share recipes later. For some dishes, I just pop a minimal amount in, to let him know there’s meat. I think it’s all in the head you know, as the dish tastes perfectly fine without the animal. I know, I know, slowly does it…and we are making good progress!
For one of our gatherings, I did a pizza theme. So prior to that night I made a conventional crust for our family meal, as it has been aeons since we’ve made one and I almost forgot just how good home-made pizzas taste. The great thing was I saw Lauren’s eyes light up, chuckling joyfully in her heart with the news of pizza and pasta for dinner. This is clearly a favourite of hers. So we had a basic pizza, with home-made crust and tomato paste, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and some amazing prosciutto topped with fresh basil leaves. For the pasta, we had spinach tagliatelle with mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and goat’s cheese. Lauren had such a hearty appetite that I gave a note to self to try some healthier crusts so we can have it more often.
And that’s what I did for one of our Alpha group gatherings. Many in the group were quite health conscious and love to eat healthier home-cooked meals, so that was another reason to go for healthier crusts and combinations. We did a beetroot dough (it looked amazingly vibrant), a quinoa one as a gluten-free version (this one has to be rolled out very thin for it to taste crispy), and the conventional crust for the traditionalists we were trying to convert! We made three pizza pastes: pesto, pumpkin and tomato. Had tomatoes, beets, caramelized onions, basil, Parma ham, olives, asparagus, zucchini, feta and mozzarella cheeses as toppings.
People had thirds and fourths, so we will be doing them again. My only thing is that I might invest in a pizza stone, so the crust can be just a tad crispier.
Recipes coming soon.