Little Miss Jasmine - Day 3

Good afternoon all, once again. 

I blog to you today from my “tree top café” in the backyard of my mothers house/my house, on quite a windy Canberra day. Of course, I am joined by my little girl, sweet-pea, who is hiding underneath the chair, away from the wind.

sorry for horrible quality. I'll put a better one up when i can.

Yesterday  I started off my day with a lovely visit to miss viki for a hair tutorial on retro hair. Had such a lovely time learning the tricks of the trade of hot rollers and teasing my hair. So I spent the day in my lovely victory roll hairstyle :)

That afternoon I went on a well needed grocery run so I could cook another yummy meal for dinner. 

Last night meal was a yummy little meal titled “baked macaroni oriental style”, but has been re-named by myself and my beloved as “fluffy lasagne”. :)

Reason being because when my boyfriend tasted it his first words were “it tastes like lasagne, but fluffy”. Great description from a great man.

Onto the cooking!

Ingredients 

(once again this is a half recipe of the original)

150g of spiral pasta (or macaroni)

250g of beef mince

2 onions

Tbs of parsley, chopped

5tbs of butter

375ml of milk

3 heaped tsp of flour

2tbs of parmesan cheese grated (or more if you lurve cheese)

3 eggs

140g of tomato paste (yes its sauce in this picture, then I realised it had to be paste :P)

½ tsp. of grated nutmeg

Salt and pepper to taste

Meat sauce

Chop onion finely and brown in 2 tbs of butter (BUTTER! YEAH!)

 

When onion is golden brown, add the beef and brown it as well

When nice and brown, add tomato paste, parsley, salt and pepper, ¼ of nutmeg and ¼ a cup of water. 

Simmer for a few minutes until sauce is quite thick, then take it off the heat and let it cool slightly. 

Beat 1 egg and the whites of the other two (saving the yolks for the sauce) and mix with the meat. 

While all of this is going on, cook your pasta and strain it well. 

(I was lazy and cooked mine in the microwave J) Mix 1tbs of butter with the pasta. TIP: undercooked pasta is okay, because its going to go back into the oven for a while. 

White sauce

Melt 2tb of butter in a saucepan. 

Remove the pan from the heat and add the flour, stirring to form a paste.

Return the pan to the heat and cook the flour slightly, making sure it doesn’t turn golden brown. Stir constantly.

Add the milk gradually to the butter and flour paste and stir in well until you get a nice texture. 

Remove from the heat and cool for 2 minutes, stirring the sauce. 

funky pattern!

Add the beaten egg yolks and add to the sauce. Add the cheese and remaining nutmeg and mix well.

Put the macaroni in a greased baking dish.

Add the meat sauce on top.

Add the white sauce on top of that.

Place in the oven on 220*c for 15 minutes or until golden brown. 

Cut up, serve and enjoy!

 

Of course while I was cooking I had my lovely man and puppy “supervising” me in the kitchen (in other words playing with eachother). But he was a good man, he was only banned from the kitchen once this time. But you can see why I needed a drink.

The great thing about this meal is that even though I only made a half recipe, i still had left overs!

Apologies for not posting the other day. Had quite a busy little day out and only got home at 9 pm :s I did have a little cooking attempt though. A lovely little cake called “chocolate intrigue”. Because of the time of night, I forgot to get my camera and just cooked the cake. I was also a lazy girl and decided to do it in the microwave using baby bunt microwave pans my grandmother gave to me years ago. 

photo taken this morning, when i finally managed to get them out of their cases

Next time, I think I’ll do it in the oven. I will have to do this cake again, in a proper blog, but even though it doesn’t look that amazing like this, it tastes amazing! Chocolate mint and vanilla. Yummers :) Needless to say with a bit of cream this shall go down a treat :)

Another day, another happy tummy :)  

- Little Miss Jasmine