Something fishy

Yesterday's roast butternut turned out so well that I decided to try more roast vegetable dishes. I also wanted to try my hand at fish seeing as I have already made chicken and meat (yes I know it was only one time each but I get bored easily!)

Today's menu: Baked fish and roast sweet potato

I love Woolworths. If I could marry Woolworths I would

The Complete South African Cookbook gave a very simple recipe. Essentially the recipe is: 1) season, 2) bake. South Africa - 3, Greece - 1. This cooking story is actually so easy, why did it take me this long to get into it??

First the fish: I greased the baking tin (although I'm fairly certain I don't need to because it is Le Creuset *snob face*, but I'm not taking any chances), then I drizzled some olive oil over the fish and topped it with salt & pepper and some origanum.

Hey look at that, I remembered the garlic! Dammit I'm getting good at this cooking story!

Then I covered it in foil. The rule for foil and all shiny stuff (like carbon paper) is hou die blink kant bo.

Then I put it in the oven at 200 degrees for 20 mins, flipped the fish, added more of the seasoning and left it for another 20 mins. I took the foil off and put the fish back in the oven for 10 mins on each side. Voila one hour later, baked fish! Super simple and really yummy. Yay me!

Let's go back to when I first put the fish in the oven. That's when I started with the sweet potatoes.

Am I the only one obsessed with what a pretty colour they are?

I decided not the grease the pan (such a daredevil I know!) Then I stared at the sweet potatoes. I didn't know what to do with them.

My recipe books are very limited when it comes to sweet potato options. Magdaleen's recipe included mace. Mace? The stuff you scare a potential attacker with? *googles* oh, okay mace is kinda like nutmeg, but not, you can substitute nutmeg to your recipe instead of mace but if you do it will change the flavour, eeeerrrrr. I'm confused. And I'm getting bored. I'm gonna wing this one (living on the edge here people!)...... I drizzled olive oil over them, aaaaand done! I say drizzle because that's what the recipe books say, in real life it's me trying to carefully and evenly pour the olive oil but it just lands up pouring out way too fast and not looking drizzly at all. I assume I will get better at this with practice.

That was it. No other seasoning at all. I figured sweet potatoes taste good no matter how they are made. I put them into the oven at 180 degrees, uncovered. At 4o mins they started smelling really good but were still a bit hard. At 60 mins they were perfection on  a plate!

And look, I got much better at not poking hundreds of holes into them!

After the fish and sweet potatoes were done I switched the ovens off and left them inside (we have two ovens, one on top of the other, awesome because I can cook both dishes at the same time and not spend my entire day in the kitchen). When I dished up about 20 minutes later the sweet potato skins had started getting a bit crispy, I thought they were perfection before, but NOW they really were perfection!

This meal was done in an hour and the preparation time was a few minutes. Adding this to the regular menu for sure!

Sucker for punishment - more bread!

Yes I might seem a bit bread obsessed, but I swear if it doesn't work out this time I will hang up my baking gloves. What seemed like a simple task is turning out to be a huge pain in my big fat greek bum.

Okay, here goes, one last try at making bread...here's another big fat 'but'....this time I am going to make my own recipe *waits for the gasps of horror*, technically it's not my recipe, it's the parts of the previous two recipes that I think worked. Who said there were rules when it comes to cooking?? Look at me crossing the line and hop scotching on it!

Recipe 1:
          - good parts: bread was a nice colour and nice size (nice? nice? Mrs Brown down the road is nice)
          - bad part: omg the overpowering taste of bicarbonate of soda and ensuing stomach ache!

Recipe 2:
          - good parts: bread tasted good
          - bad parts: shortest bread ever!! very hard crust, pale in colour

Recipe 1 + Recipe 2 - all the yucky parts = my recipe!

First to go was the bicarbonate of soda from recipe 1, I replaced it with yeast from recipe 2.
I added 100g of cake flour from recipe 1, I decided I didn't need the extra 20g as I was still using 600g of wholewheat flour from recipe 2.
I replaced the water from recipe 2 with the milk from recipe1.

I kept the yoghurt from recipe 1

I added a splash of oil from recipe 1

Because I'm a girl I can multitask and decided to toast the seeds at the same time  as I was warming the milk mixture

Feeling like such a pro!

 Side note about the seeds: the poppy seeds keep falling to the bottom, you need to keep shaking the pan to get an even distribution of the seeds

Can't see the poppy seeds right?

There they are, sneaky buggers!

I was so distracted by the disappearing poppy seeds that I didn't realise I had put the tub of yoghurt right onto the hot stove! DOH! Damn but melted plastic is really smokey! So much for multitasking...

Once the milk was mixed into the seed and flour mixture I decided to be brave and add 100ml of water. Both the recipes imply that the dough is fairly soft, but my results have been clumps of sticky dough. So I added the water.....

...and was pleased with the result

I used one bread tin and the dough filled it nicely. No more dwarf loaves!

I left it to rise for an hour, with no interfering Greek mother in sight!

I know I've said this before (twice) but it looks like this is working!

While the bread was rising I started preparing the butternut. Of course I am too scared to cut the butternut with my history of self mutilation so I roped my uncle in to cut it for me

It seems this problem with not being able to use knives like an adult is genetic -_-

Google is your friend..... http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/roastedbutternutsqua_89911

Who woulda thunk! Long live BBC! That recipe is shorter than my bread! 4 simple instructions,  that is exactly what I did:

And they turned out exactly as promised! Except it took an hour and a half to get them like that, not 45 - 50 mins, all recipe books lie. I might have gone a bit overboard with the poking and checking, whoops.

Erm sorry about the multiple stab wounds!

While the butternut was roasting I prepped the lamb chops. I was going to follow The Complete South African Cookbook's recipe but step 4 needs you to turn to page 175 and start making a whole complicated sauce then come back to page 124 to finish the recipe. No. I won't. Culinaria Greece wasn't much help either. So I winged it (winged? wung? *shrug*)

Drizzled with olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, sprinkled some dried Rosemary, then a generous splash of lemon juice

While we're at it let's throw some dry white wine over them (Magdaleen's idea)

Hello Patra! See you in August

Oh for fucks sake! THE GARLIC! Forgot it, again. What is wrong with me?? Just tear up my Greek passport, I am not worthy

Magdaleen said to cover them and bake them at 180 degrees for 40 minutes, turning once. I turned them at 20 minutes and again at 40 minutes, then I uncovered them and gave them another 10 minutes on each side. They looked good but I grilled them for a minute or two just to give them that lovely golden brown colour

To recap and deconfuse: Prep bread dough, leave it to rise. While bread dough is rising, prep butternut. Butternut goes in the oven, prep lamb chops. I put the bread and lamb chops into the oven at the same time while the butternut was in the bottom oven (is it frowned upon to mix different dishes in the same oven? oh well, rookie mistake, OR pro tip!)

Once the lamb chops were done I took the bread out of the tin and popped it in the oven with the butternut for 10 minutes, just in case.

Haaaaallelujah!

Lo and behold, bread that looks AND tastes good!

The Great Bread Struggle is finally over. Quite proud of myself for modifying the recipes and getting it to work! Yay me

Now that I can cook, onto baking!

Having successfully cooked a roast chicken and potatoes I feel confident enough to move onto the next step, baking! Freshly baked bread is surely the hallmark of being a great baker, if you can bake bread you can do anything! In my mind, baking bread involves hours of waiting for dough to rise, muscle-building kneading and general slaving away. Turns out it's not that difficult. Correction, the recipe led me to believe it wasn't that difficult. Mrs Magdaleen's recipe simply requires you to mix the ingredients and bake, that's it, no kneading, no waiting, quick and easy. Culinaria Greece requires some waiting and kneading, so even though their recipe was visually more appealing I opted for the easy route. South Africa - 1, Greece - 1.

Pretty, yes. Easy, no

In BOTH recipe books the bread recipe is on page 308 *cue creepy music and conspiracy theories*

Ingredients: Check!

Radio Romeos (Geia sou Giannena!) on full blast, live from Greece, via audio streaming on the tablet. God I love technology!

Let's make bread!

The first step is mixing all the dry ingredients together:

OMG! That totally looks like a heart!! Happy accident! I am Instragramming that right now!

I heart Instagram. And I heart hearts <3 <3 <3

Now comes the part where Magdaleen lied. The recipe says stir well, this assumes that the spoon isn't standing upright in very unstirrable dough!!

I resorted to a kind of kneading, it was more like squishing the dry ingredients left over into the clump of dough. I was tempted to add milk but I figured what do I know.

The next step/lie is to pour the mixture into a bread tin:

*unimpressed face* I should have added more milk.

Well let's pop these babies in the oven and see what happens!

Magdaleen (the compulsive liar) says: "Note: This bread does not rise very much, and has a moist consistency"

LIAR!!! After ten minutes the bread was almost flowing out of the tin. If this carries on while it's cooking for the next hour we are going to have words Maggy!

After an hour I took the loaves out but they were still doughy inside and were an icky white colour. I put them back in the oven, a couple of times. After an hour and almost 40 minutes I was over it! The bread looked the right colour....

......but was still a bit doughy on the inside.... well tough titties we're eating it like that now! Cheese will fix this

Emmental AND Gouda because who can choose?

Yes, I have been told that I cut doorstops instead of slices of bread. And don't even start on the cheese slices! I once sliced my thumb open while cutting mozzarella and went for surgery to fix it, general anaesthetic!!! I had cut a nerve and the surgeon told me in no uncertain terms that if I ever wanted to pick things up without them falling out my hand I had to go for surgery, eek. WARNING: BLOOD AND GORE PICS COMING UP, PARENTAL GUIDANCE IS ADVISED!!!

And another time, I took a chunk out of my arm while trying to curl a ribbon with kitchen scissors.

 

 A frikken ribbon.

I WARNED YOU!!!! Stop being such a girl, it's just a bit of blood.

See, my avoidance of the kitchen thus far is totally justified!

So how was the bread? (How can you even think of food after all that blood and gore??). Well, the bread looked good, but man was it nasty tasting! I doubled the recipe, so not sure if that means I should have halved the bicarbonate of soda? All you could taste was bicarbonate of soda!! I did eat two slices though just to show myself a little bit of support and encouragement. I spent the rest of the day on the couch reading a book, nursing a headache and trying to find clothes that didn't feel so damn hot on my skin...oh fuck.....NOBODY EAT THE BREAD!!