Weekend Delight!

april 27, 08 sunday
I never thought I'd be excited about cooking. Not too long ago, the kitchen was the last place I want to be in. These days, it's a different story altogether!

Best friend Liza told me about Potato Gratin, which I thought was easy enough to do. The only thing that kept me from making it sooner was the fact it was potato+cream+cheese= 1 million calories= a lot of kilos=many hours at the gym. You get my drift.

But this weekend, I thought of giving it a go. After all, husband J is all game to try whatever I cook, so I picked up a couple of bags of Russet Potatoes (which I found out later was a wee bit too much), 1 litre carton of whipping cream (too much as well-should've bought 2 small sized cartons instead) and a bag of shredded cheddar cheese (J's favourite). So here we go.

Sliced the potatoes, arranged them in a tray. Salt and pepper. Pour a bit of whipping cream. Topped with shredded cheddar cheese. Repeat. Ah....easy enough. I got 2 layers and I had a bit more slices of potatoes left so I decided to keep those for tomorrow's dinner.

Bake, bake, bake. 40 minutes. The kitchen smells wonderful. The top layer browning nicely. Cool! Another success story in the kitchen! And this is how it turned out:

Dig in! Half way through chowing down this extremely rich dish, husband J pointed out this would make a great side dish with steaks. I agreed. But that didn't stop us from stuffing ourselves silly! We couldn't finish the entire tray, so we thought...hmmmm...steak dinner tomorrow...

Sunday. Another day to experiment in the kitchen. Thawed out the steaks I bought at Tesco this week. Plucked a couple of fresh Thai Rosemary nicely growing in our garden, chopped garlic, cut carrots, tomato and big yellow onions.

Marinated veggies with herbs, salt, pepper and olive oil. Marinated steaks with garlic,herbs, salt, pepper and a bit of soy sauce.

Pre-heated oven. Stick veggies in the oven for 40 minutes or so at 220 degrees. Fry steaks. Put left over potato gratin in oven for 5 minutes.

Taa daa!

Dinner is ready!

I used up the extra sliced potatoes from yesterday, sprinkle salt, pepper, parsley and paprika and roasted with the vegetables.Instant meat gravy, courtesy of McCormick's!!

The entire house was smelling of rosemary! It was beautiful! And dinner was a hit! Steaks were just right. The carrots were awesome and the onions were sweet. And of course, the left over potato gratin.

It's crazy! I actually know how to cook! And I'm loving it!

Who would've thought!