The Kiwi Mental Kitchen

What a roller coaster life has been over the last few months. My health got progressively worse for a while then and my household went into coping mode. Dinners became simple and sometimes even straight from a "gasp" packet but we did what was needed to get through the day to day. It has been nearly a month since they finally got my medications right again and I'm still working my way though destressing from it all. As such, I still have limited amounts of energy for cooking but I am starting to make the basic things more interesting again. In some ways, I'm turning into my mother when it comes to cooking. I now understand why she served us mixed frozen vegetables so often growing up. They are quick, easy and rather cheap, though I must admit they are nicer boiled than microwaved. Much cheaper than buying fresh veg and not getting around to cooking it, which was a common occurrence in the coping mode we have been in. I never really liked them growing up and to be h

So in my 1-month update, I commented that my meds were being put up. One of the side effects of this is sedation, it is meant to get better as time goes on but because we uped the dose again before the sedation wore off I have had nearly 2 months now struggling not to sleep my days away. Over this time I have been doing a lot better at cooking for us most nights but I have fallen back into old habits about what we are eating. So it's time for me to go back to the 10 rules . I have sat down tonight and written up a meal plan for the rest of the month as I was finding it too easy to forget to do the weekly plan and then muddle on through, but when I do this I tend to forget about the greater variety and increasing seafood. I have also decided to theme the nights of the week to make it a bit easier to plan so I have made a vegetarian night so that we eat more plants, a seafood night for similar reasons, a slow cooker night for when I'm out in the afternoon, a new dish night so t

I've had the stevia syrup sitting in my fridge waiting for me to get around to juicing some lemons. Tonight I finally got around to it. The recipe I'm using for this lemon cordial is 3:2:1 lemon juice to sugar to water. I've kept that ratio for the lemon juice and the water and added the stevia by taste. And I believe the sweetness of the syrup will fluctuate a bit. The stevia syrup is brown and makes the concentrated look a little brown but once you dilute it to drink the colour change is not noticeable. This should hopefully be a good replacement to the lemon and barley cordial we often have. Lemon Cordial sweetened with home made Stevia syrup 1 Cup Lemon Juice approx 30ml Stevia syrup 1/3C of Water

So I've finally found a recipe that works in my kitchen. I finally decided to ask a friend who lived in the states for a while if she had one. The recipe I got had quite a lot of sugar in it so I took a gamble and made it without and it was brilliant. Tonight is my Second time making it and I tried baking it in a spring cake tin to see if that made it easier to get out but it stuck even more so here is a photo of the first one. Cornbread! Serves 4 1 1/4 C Flour 3/4 C Cornmeal (also sold as polenta in NZ) 2 tsp Baking powder 1/2 tsp Salt 1 C Milk 1/4 C Vegetable oil Grease loaf tin or other appropriate tin Preheat oven to 200 deg. C Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl Pour into tin  Bake  for 20-30 min (depending on thickness) or until a wooden skewer comes out clean Best served warm with chocolate chili. Today I didn't have any Capsicum so I finely grated 2 yams(little ones) and 2 carrots into the chili mixture.

Another quick dinner I throw together and leave to cook. This one is a household favourite, though I don't cook it often. I don't generally measure this one so these are approximate quantities. 4 Ingredient Meatloaf Serves 4 250-500g mince 500g sausage meat 1 C of breadcrumbs 1/3 -1/2 C of BBQ sauce (you can use tomato but we prefer BBQ) Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl Place in loaf tin Bake at 180 deg. C for at least 60 min Drain off excess liquid before turning out onto a chopping board for slicing Like I said easy. I generally serve with mashed potatoes and steamed veg

Tonight was a dinner that had to be able to be reheated and still taste good because hubby had a long day at work. I was impressed with how well it came out. I always trim my chops before I cook them, just makes them less greasy all up. My meds are still making me sleepy at the moment so dishes I can put on and leave alone while they cook is really good for me at the moment. Savoury Mutton Chops Serves 3-4 6 mutton chops 1 onion 2 Tbsp each, brown sugar, flour, tomato sauce, vinegar 1/2 tsp each, curry powder, ginger powder and mustard powder 1 1/2 cup of water (or enough to cover the chops) Preheat oven to 150 deg. C Place the mutton chops in a casserole dish Chop the onion and add to the dish Mix all other ingredients into the first 1/2 cup of water and pour over chops Top up the water to just cover the chops Bake with the lid on for at least 1 1/5 hours I served mine with mashed kumara and steamed carrots.

Sorry, there's been so little content from me lately my mental health hasn't been the best so there have been some med. changes and with med. changes come side effects. This has meant I haven't been spending quite enough time in the kitchen and that for the last we while I've slipped back into old habits but today I'm doing a bit better so today we are eating a bit better! My husband has been a great support through this time but he works 12-14 hour days with a one hour commute each way so he's definitely not up to cooking if I'm struggling. Also as a warning the total cook time on this pie is over 4 hours so make sure to start your prep early enough. Chicken and Pumpkin Pie Serves 3-4 500g pumpkin, peeled and cut into 1cm chunks 1 apple, peeled and sliced oil for frying 1kg boneless pork shoulder 50g butter (or ¼ cup oil) 1 large onion, chopped 6 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped or 6tsp of the precrushed 1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme le

We call this one Pseudo Satay because it's full of cheat ingredients and yet still manages to taste like a decent Satay. This is a once in a while meal for us and It was a nice change to have in on rice noodles. I'm still working out ways to add in vegetables without ruining the basic feel of the meal. Pseudo Satay Serves 4 3 Chicken breasts or thighs  3-5 Tbsp Sweet chilli sauce 2 heaped Tbsp Peanut butter 1 Can of coconut cream or coconut milk Dice the chicken In a large fry pan fry the chicken until cooked Add Chilli sauce and Peanut butter and mix well Add coconut cream and stir until it takes on the colour of the peanut butter simmer for 10 min Serve over rice or egg noodles Nice, easy and surprisingly good. If you like you satay hot use the hot version of the chilli sauce or add a little chilli powder. If you really like it nutty you can add some chopped peanuts as well, and they make a great garnish.

I was meant to put together a casserole last night but I didn't really think about dinner until far too late for mutton with needs to be in a slow cooker for a while to be tender. So I went searching for a recipe in my collection of books that I could put together in a reasonable amount of time with the ingredients I had on hand. I found a recipe for bean burger patties and realised I could make a quick soda bread as buns to make our own burgers with an extra trip to the shops. The original recipe used dried beans and would have taken too long so I worked with canned beans. Black Bean Burgers makes 6 reasonable patties 2 cans of black beans drained and rinsed 1 large or 2 small onions oil to fry 2 tsp oregano 2 tsp marjoram 1 tsp chilli 1 tsp beef stock 2 eggs 2-4 Tbsp breadcrumbs Mash the beans in a large bowl or pot (I find it easier to mash against a large flat bottom) Add onion, herbs and spices and mix well Beat in the eggs Mix through breadcrumbs Sha