Tomato Salsa

There is nothing as refreshing as freshly made salsa to accompany a meal. Salsa reminds of BBQ's, Mexico and Summer! It's getting so very hot in the desert and this just seemed to be the right thing to make.

Ingredients

3 medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped finely
1 small avocado, chipped finely
1 medium red onion diced finely
2 small red Thai chillies, chopping finely (or to taste)
2 tbs coarsely chopped fresh coriander
130g canned corn kernels, drained
1 tbs lemon juice

Combine all ingredients and serve immediately.

I served mine with a handful of freshly cooked peeled prawns for lunch. Unfortunately my prawns were a little overcooked but that is for another time and place to talk about! You can serve with tortilla chips for nibbles or as a great accompaniment with grilled meat or fish.

Salt and Pepper Squid

One of my favourite dishes is salt and pepper squid, when it done light and the batter is crispy! I usually order this when I order chinese food, but not many restaurants do it well and it certainly dosen’t travel well if you have ordered takeout/delivery!



I had a taste for it today, but wanted to try something quick and easy and fuss free (and I couldn’t find a recipe to follow for the “right”salt and pepper squid). So I made it up to see how it would go.



I sliced up half of a red chilli and some shallots (green onion). 3 small squid tubes split down the middle and then I scored the inside of the squid tube to make a criss cross pattern before cutting it into squares that were about 2cm2. In a bowl I placed all purpose flour, salt, ground white pepper and a good pinch of paprika, mixed it all up and placed the squid in the flour to coat.



Deepfried in vegetable oil for a few minutes and just before taking the squid out I threw in the sliced chilli and shallots until softened and starting to crisp.



Using a slotted spoon or a wire scoop, scoop out the squid, chilli and shallots and drain the squid on paper towel. I then sprinkled with sea salt and served with a wedge of lemon.



It was tasty, the squid was just cooked and still creamy, but not enough chilli and it wasn’t as crispy as I would have liked, perhaps I should have left it a minute longer. I also need to find a good batter to coat it to make it crispy. It wasn’t the local chinese restaurant version but it definitely hit the spot.

Prawn, Pesto and Cream Cheese Springrolls

I made pesto last week, which has been sitting in my fridge not being used. I am not really a pesto person but wanted to learn to make it. So I decided to throw it in some creamcheese and defrosted some prawns, chopped them up and mixed it all together. I put 2 tbs of the mixture into each large spring roll wrapper and fryed them off for lunch today. They were quite tasty but this is something I might experiment more with, with different flavours and herbs. Ideas could be endless!

Welcome to my food blog!

Welcome to my new blog. Where my adventures in food, cooking and everything related can be put down in writing! I have decided to start this blog in my endeavour to feed my passion, learn more about cooking, different cooking techniques, my obsession with cookbooks and basically indulging my passion in the culinary world. My passion has gotten stronger as the years have gone by, travelling and living around the world has added to that passion.

I have a habit of taking photos of food that I cook and taste when dining out. It drives some of my friends nuts, but that is one of the reasons they love me so much.

This blog will be a work in progress and hopefully can set it up the way I want it to.

I hope you can learn along with me, enjoy the recipes that I cook, my photos and all my insights and discovering from my travels around the world.

There is lots to learn and lots to discover. The world is big and I am still searching!