But it worked the first time!!!!!

My first attempt at hake turned out really well so I decided to make it again. It was so good the last time that I decided to use two boxes instead of one.

Erm, I need a bigger pan. There was no way to arrange the fish without it being tightly packed and overlapping. Yup, adding a bigger pan to my Le Creuset shopping list. I covered the fish with mixed herbs (the bottle kind, still lazy), drizzled with olive oil, piled on garlic, and poured on lemon juice.

This is the same as the real stuff, right? It IS from woolies

The pan doesn't fit and now the damn foil doesn't fit. One measly piece left. Add foil to the shopping list.

Doesn't fit this way...

....doesn't fit that way...

...let's go halvies...

Air vents all around, not so sure about this!

I preheated the oven to 200 degrees (or was it 180?) and put the fish in for 30 minutes. Time to flip the fish and season again.

What the flip??

What is all that gooey stuff?? The fish is practically floating in it! It's that damn fake lemon juice isn't it?? Or the foil scrap?? I took the excuse for foil off and put the fish back in for another half an hour, it helped a bit but there was still a lot of goo.

So I threw it out and grilled the fish. In the end the fish was good....

...but it did take nearly an hour and a half.

15? FIFTEEN?? biggest lie ever!

 Gem squash is easy to cook, right? Boil water, add some salt, poke gem squash on either side, add to water, and 20 minutes later you're done. Gem squash is easy to cook!

Yes this is a 100% woolies meal!

I need to learn sizes. When to use which pot or pan for what amount of food. So few gem squashes in such a big pot. Dammit I need to stop getting distracted with hypotheticalness! I forgot to poke holes!! 15 minutes in and I am trying to jab a fork through bobbing gem squash. They are rock hard, there is no way they will be done in 5 minutes. More cooking lies!

I don't remember exactly how long I left them in for because I was distracted by trying to sort out the fish goo, but I'm sure at least another 30 minutes.

Sweet potatoes are a safe choice, they worked the last time and they worked this time. Phew!

I managed to pull it all together and dinner was served.

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!