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Hello my dear readers!!! I do hope you’re hearty and well 🙂

The Boy and I would like to introduce to you something new in our adventures.

We would like to show you how and what we eat on a normal daily basis.

Not the usual recipes we share and replicate, or the reviews we write about as we dine out at fine establishments.

We want to share with you our real cooking adventures (and *cough* misadventures) that so often happen in our kitchen.

Obviously we do not eat spectacularly every day. Quite often, after a long day at work either one of us (usually him) would open up the fridge and stare at its contents.

We would then proceed by bringing out items that may or may not go together, and create a smorgasbord of dishes or one-pot-meals that utilise what ever leftover ingredients we might have in the fridge or pantry.

A lot of the times, we go with instinct (which is where the fun and excitement of creating a completely fail dish happens), and a lot of the other times, we create magic in our kitchen.

As such, these Kitchen Files will be a general assumption of what we did and what it tasted like, but there will be no exact recipes as we won’t be able to replicate the exact tastes.

Baked Fish with Mediterranean Spices & Chives.

So, first confession to make. We buy a lot of our groceries from our local Safeway and Woolworths. The meats and vegetables are actually pretty decent in quality in the area we live in, so we do happily indulge in easy access grocery shopping. We’re not too fussed if our food comes from the markets or from grocery land. It’s easy and frankly a faster dash than a walk through the markets. Don’t get me wrong, I love markets, it’s just that I don’t often have the luxury of spending time at the market, unless it’s the weekend.

With the Basa fish fillet we bought, we decided to simply rub some Mediterranean Spices (complimentary of Maha Restaurant) onto the fish, sprinkle some dried chives flakes and bake it in an oven dish (covered with aluminium foil) for about 20-25 minutes. For the last 5 minutes or so, we removed the foil.

The resulting effect was a very soft fish still moist on the inside. It was a nice delicate balance. We had this with rice.

Fish Cooked Two Ways (Left: Pan Fried Fish with Asparagus, Baby Corn, Prawn Oil & Cassava Chips; Right: Deep Fried Crumbed Fish, Baby Corn, Prawn Oil).

Inspired after watching the episode of Junior Masterchef when they had to make prawn oil for the Prawn Tortellini, the Boy got it in his head that he would need to replicate this recipe.

It went along the lines of, “If that little boy can do it, so can I!”

Which was great for me. We always keep a stash of raw prawn shells (usually heads and tails) in the freezer should we need to make stock or in this case, prawn oil.

Cassava chips were made from thinly sliced frozen cassava (purchased from Asian groceries) and frying them. They tend to split easily.

The resulting mix in this was a successful seafood platter, full of flavour from the prawn oil.

The crumbed fish was the winner between the two, but I could be bias as I love fried food.

Mega Fish Fillet with “The Lot” (Brocolli, Baby Corn, Tomato, Red Onions, Cream, Chives, Jamon, Herbs).

You aren’t the only ones thinking this as you read the ingredients used for this baked fish.

Looking back, I can’t help but exclaim either, “OMG what were we (or the Boy) thinking?!!”

It seemed to me that it was one of those weeks where we had a leftover surplus from a dinner/lunch party in entertaining our friends and ended up with an eclectic mix of random ingredients.

So, as not to waste anything (I really hate the thought of throwing out good food), I think the thought processes from that day went along something like this…

“Hmm, we really have a lot of ingredients”

“Yeah, but nothing seems to match”

“Bet Heston never let that stop him. Pfft… too many different ingredients? FTW!”

“Are you thinking, what I’m thinking? Oh yeah, Let’s just do it. Everything from the fridge!”

We had to use a large roasting pan to fit the whole fillet.

I know, I know. It should have been pretty obvious. The resulting effect was disastrous! The fish tasted “interesting”, it wasn’t so much the fish, but I think the jamon flavour had absorb into the cream and fish, giving it a delicate waft of unpleasantness.

As I said, we weren’t really thinking about the taste, but rather that we needed to use everything in the fridge.

So here you have it folks.

Not everything we touch turns to gold. However, we have heaps of fun and giggles as we experiment in our kitchen.

What has been your most notable kitchen adventure? Success or disaster, I would love to hear about it 🙂