More tasty things

Last weekend I decided that I had not been making anything very interesting for a while, mainly due to working too late to stop at the market on my way home and not being organised enough to plan my meals during the weekend. So I decided to spoil myself a little and buy a lobster. I figured that the total cost would still only be equivalent to going to a restaurant and having a nice steak, so once I thought of it that way it seemed a pretty reasonably priced meal. So I went for yet another trip to Granville island to get the necessary ingredients.


While at the island I decided to take a few photos so you all can see what this market I keep talking about is like. I thought it would be more arty or something if I took them in black and white. The market was very busy, being Saturday afternoon, so it was difficult to get any good shots without getting people mad at me so these are the best I could do.


Now back to the lobster. I have a few different recipes for lobster in my cookbooks, but decided that the picture of the angry lobster looked better than the other ones and the recipe looked tasty too. Basically you cut the lobster in to pieces and coat in a seasoned flour mixture then pan fry then in some chili infused oil. Then you add cherry tomatoes and basil with a spot of butter at the end. Very simple and oh so tasty. It was rather messy to eat though.


On Wednesday evening I went back to school for the first time in 7 years. This time however it was a very different kind of school than I had been to before, it was a cooking school. Vanya (cousin Ryan's wife) had a voucher for this cooking school at a local cooking shop and asked if I would like to come along. The class we went to was a new French cooking class where you get to participate in the cooking too. There were 5 different recipes that we were taught, with each group getting to prepare one of them. The recipes were all very tasty, starting with a smoked salmon soup followed by a chicken breast with Madeira sauce that was accompanied by a Swiss chard gratin. Then there was lamb medallions with cilantro sauce. And for dessert we had a rather unusual sounding basil ice cream. Vanya and I were given the task of preparing the Swiss chard gratin, which was probably the least interesting of the dishes but tasted quite good. For those of you unacquainted with the North American names for vegetables, Swiss chard is what we would call silver beet in New Zealand. The basil ice cream was the big surprise of the evening, it was actually a remarkably nice dessert and one that I will be sure to attempt to make at home some time.


I didn't have my camera the cooking school so have no photos to show, however I had a shot at making a variation on the lamb dish last night. I didn't fancy spending large amounts of money on lamb fillets so I used a lamb leg steak instead. It worked pretty well but didn't look quite as good on the plate. Also I felt the sauce needed a bit more to it so added some chopped up prunes just before serving. It all tasted amazing