Jamaican Curried Lamb with Rice & Peas

I've been jonesing for some Jamaican food lately and since the closest Jamaican spot to us is a good hour away with traffic (and there's always traffic, even on a Sunday), I decided to look up some recipes online. My usual recipe site (allrecipes.com) didn't have much in the way of highly rated Jamaican recipes so I looked elsewhere. I finally chose this Jamaican curried Chicken recipe but decided to substitute lamb (and beef!) for the chicken (I didn't realize until after I'd finished cooking that there was a curried goat recipe on the same site. Dummy.



(source)

The video on the recipe page was very helpful as there were additional tips in the video which were not in the written instructions.

I couldn't wait the two hours the recipe calls for to marinate the meat, after a half hour i grabbed the meat from the fridge and got to cooking! Next time I will absolutely marinate the meat for the full length of time as I think that will make for a much tastier dish. I also omitted the potatoes and used carrots instead. I got the peeled baby carrots from the grocery store and cut those in half. I used 5 tablespoons of curry because other recipes I found did not use as much curry as this recipe called for, and I though 5 may be too much. Turns out the curry was not overwhelming at all and to be honest, I think adding that final tbsp would only have made this dish even better.

I served the curried lamb (and beef) with brown rice mixed with canned black-eyed peas.

Yum yum yum! It had the same consistency as the curried lamb/goat I get from Jamaican restaurants. It was pretty tasty but I think it would have been loads better if I'd followed the recipe to the T. Next time, I won't change a thing

Great recipe. It definitely satisfied my craving for Jamaican food. Hubby really liked it and that's no small feat.

Gourmet Mushroom risotto and Baked Salmon

For the longest time I've been dreaming of making risotto. I'm not sure why I've held back from cooking it as I love eating it in restaurants. Maybe I always thought it would be pretty difficult to make, I'm not sure.

Well, today, I finally picked a recipe I found online and actually cooked up some yummy risotto. My go-to website for all things recipes is allrecipes.com. it's a fantastic site with user reviews and 'top twenty' recipes in different categories so you have the option of selecting only recipes that multiple people have tried and rated highly.

I made the Gourmet Mushroom risotto and it was pretty tasty. The recipe has a five-star rating after 656 reviews, that's pretty awesome for a recipe especially on a site like allrecipes.com with seasoned cooks who sometimes give harsh reviews. Now I must say that I didn't follow the recipe completely. The final step calls for adding Parmesan cheese and butter but I decided not to add these in an attempt at reducing both the calorie and fat content. As yummy as the risotto turned out, it must be majorly yummier with Parmesan cheese added. But...oh well.

I also made Salmon marinated in soy sauce and seasoned with lemon pepper to go with the risotto.

Nice lunch.

Baby Shower goodies

Yesterday, I hosted a baby shower in my home for a good friend of mine. I thought I'd post some pictures of food I made for the event.

So I did try the tissue paper carnations a few days ago. While I chose colors in which carnations most likely do not naturally occur, they matched the colors of the baby shower for which I created them. Here's a pic.





Definitely not perfect, but I liked them anyways. Great tutorial here.

I also made these fruit skewers which not only looked awesome, but tasted the same as well. They were all gone by the end of the shower. I loved the way they looked. Gorgeous!





I've had lots of forgettable fruit punches before but the fruit punch I made yesterday was certainly unforgettable. It was the biggest hit of the baby shower. Folks kept asking for the recipe and for more punch when it was finished. Good till the last drop. I gave it 5 stars!




(recipe)


Here are some more pics of the food I made for the baby shower. Egg rolls, Scotch eggs, and meatballs.













All pictures were taken by me.

Goodies

Hope to try these this weekend

this and this

via this blog