Butternut Squash Risotto

Tonight I cooked a butternut squash risotto, being a bit new to the world of risotto making I followed a Jamie Oliver recipe for the basic recipe.  Since I had a bit of left over gyoza filling from yesterday I used this to make a stock.  I roasted my squash and added it to the rice before I added the stock and I have to say the results were quite good, it gave quite a sweet delicate flavour.  Dom awarded me a 9.8 although I think she was being generous as my rice was a little undercooked and she marked me down due to a lack of things in it.

Vietnamese Noodle Soup

Yesterday I made a noodle soup, this was an attempt to recreate a meal that I had in Birmingham at cafe soya.  It was a very special dish due to the fact it was very cheap but incredibly tasty.  The original dish had ramen noodles in a very delicate  broth with some crispy vegetarian dumplings.  To recreate this I made a vegetable stock and added some miso with sea kelp paste to it and finally some chili flakes, I then cooked the noodles in the broth.  Instead of the dumplings I made vegetable gyoza.  The overall result was rather good although I think potentially I should have cooked the noodles for longer.  The vegetable gyoza in them selves were quite good but didn't work as well as the original dumplings and Dom thought they were a bit greasy.  Overall marks: 8.5.

Japanese Day

Yesterday was international Japanese day, well it was in our house anyway. After the success of my sushi  making class last weekend I decided to give it a whirl on my own so I set about making sushi, pumpkin korokee and also steamed some dumplings for good measure.  In total I made 5 different types of sushi, smoked salmon maki, cucumber maki, pepper maki, cucumber,salmon & pepper futomaki and some California rolls.  All the sushi turned out rather well apart from my inconsistencies in sizes, which is definately a work on for next time.  The pumpkin korokee turned out well, even though it was actually butternut squash korokee but the Katsu sauce a la Yo Sushi recipe was shocking.  Next time I'm suspicious of a recipe that combines tomato ketchup and HP sauce I will take note and realise that it will taste like tomato ketchup and brown sauce and will not magically reinvent itself as something delicious.  The dumplings were also very nice but they were a bit cheaty due to being ready made from the oriental supermarket.  Overall I would give my dinner 9.0 out of 10.  Today its Vietnam day and noodle soup with Gyoza shall be on the cards.

Welcome to my blog

I'm making this blog to keep a log of everything I eat and cook.  Every time I eat a new meal I will take a picture of it and post to my blog.  I will only do this for new meals unless a meal changes drastically in quality good or bad.  I will mainly be concentrating on evening meals but there may be the odd breakfast and lunch thrown in for good measure.  The meals that are posted on here will be anything cooked by myself, my partner Dom or eaten out.  I will not be posting about meals cooked by friends or family for fear of offense!  The aim is that eventually I will have a record of all the great meals I have had which will be happy memories!