Well it's been a while since I have found any motivation or time to sit and update my blog and although I still feel very unmotivated and tired, I thought it best to write about my last few meals before my memory completely fails me!
The next meal on my list was the Fish Tray-Bake with Jersey Royals (fancy name for boiled potatoes), Salsa Verde (much like a pesto), Simple Spinach Salad (spinach in a bowl with a standard dressing) and Cheat's Banoffee Pie (Banana Cream Caramel Pie). Maybe I come from a simple background, but geepers, what fancy names for some stock standard dishes!!
Anyho...I pre-made the desert to save time. Luckily I made this dish before the price of bananas went bananas..litterly. I was lucky enough to pay $4.99 a kilo at the time and considering the price is now $12.99 my bank balance is still in the black. I also purchased a mix of green prawns shell off, a few whole prawns and two pieces of salmon.
I followed the recipe and the meal was tasty however the whole prawns were drying out as I was unable to obtain whole green prawns and the double cooking made them dry and tough. I'm going to have to try harder next time to get raw ingredients from a fish shop rather than rely on my local Foodland fish department if I am to be serious about these dishes. It's funny, Jamie is always saying that you can get the ingredients at your local supermarket. I have heard the supermarkets in Britain are fantastic which is surprising as it seems many Brit's don't seem to know how to cook!! My local supermarket is pretty fantastic (Pasadena Foodland) but I still struggle to obtain many of the ingredients that I need for these "easy" recipes.
After finishing the meal, I was excited about the banana pie. Unfortunately I was disappointed as the pie tasted rather bland and unsweet - not at all what I was expecting. The cream had no sugar which Jamie said wasn't needed due to the sweetness of the caramel. Maybe I didn't cook the caramel enough, but it certainly wasn't very sweet at all. I think I would make the dish again, but with more sugar in the base and in the cream. Don't get me wrong, I don't like sickly sweet and I hate mud cakes for this reason, but us Aussie's like a sweet Banana Caramel Pie!! Maybe that's why he calls it a Banoffee Pie!!
Oh..I forgot to mention the other components of this dish! That's because there was nothing exciting to mention and I'm already falling asleep writing about this boring meal.
Next dish...Another Fish Dish...Hooray! (detecting any sarcasm yet?) Sea Bass & Crispy Pancetta with Sweet Potato Mash, Asian Greens, 1-Minute Berry Ice Cream and Sparkling Lemon Ginger Drink.
Firstly...what is Sea Bass and do we even have it in Australia or is it something they only have in Europe? I asked the Fish Monger at Foodland and he had "no idea"! Terrific...really need to find I good fish shop! I ended up buying Whiting as this was the only fish on offer that was around 180g each with the "skin on" which was important apparently. Again my purse took a hit with the cost of the ingredients but hey..I'm sure it will be worth it....surely!
I presented the meal "on the board" as Jamie always does and for the two of us it was just cumbersome to work with and I should have just plated it up like I normally do. However, I will say that the Sweet Potato Mash was out of this world. Wow, there was a party going on in my mouth and I couldn't get enough. Our 18 month old son loved it too and this was due to the Mango Chutney that was mixed through it. Total YUM and what an awesome way to serve this normally boring vegetable.
The fish was bordering on dry and very nearly spoilt. Yes the skin was crispy, but who cares when the taste of the fish is on the brink of ruined! What is so great about crispy skin anyway...totally not worth spoiling a nice piece of fish, that's for sure.
The other nice part of this dish was the desert of Berry Icecream. What a wonderful way of making healthy icecream and so quick and easy. A packet of frozen berries, a little lime juice and a tub of yoghurt. Blitz and freeze. Awesome...if only summer wasn't over already!!
As for the Lemon Ginger Drink!!! Jamie, I love you, but what were you thinking?? Did you have a little too much wine the night you invented this drink or maybe it was a hangover cure?? It was totally awful. I even added an extra can of lemonade to sweeten it up and it still tasted terrible. In all, a mix of good and bad for this meal!
Oh..nearly forgot..I Googled Sea Bass (probably should have done this BEFORE going out to buy the fish). It's another name for "many fish species of various families including, Barramundi, Black Sea Bass, European Sea Bass, Giant Sea Bass, Potato Cod, Suzuki and White Sea Bass. See, who said my Blog wasn't educational although I am not much wiser for the effort!!
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