Lick the Plate Clean

To learn one must have a level of “teachability”.
It is difficult when one has a strong creative bent that can not really be fleshed out within constraints of the assignment.

This week one of the major players in RLC struggled with creativity, teachability and flexibility. The mother of the major player tried to communicate a way ahead with the menu idea of ‘broth and noodles’ with the suggestion of using chicken wings to be the flavour base. Not appreciated…
Many publicly viewed negotiations ensued and in the end, the other major player ran with RLC of the day–using chicken wings as his menu base.
Spicy chicken wings with (a sweet compromise to please other child)  thick noodles ($2).
The 1kg of wings ($4.60) were doused with sweet chilli sauce, mirin, lime juice and coriander–all pantry and fridge staples and all of $1.50 at most.
They were sticky, sweet, spicy, juicy and devoured by all players.
And one major player wanted more.
And he realized there were things to learn and to be teachable.
And his mother realized that learning can also come by being allowed to  be creative and maybe make mistakes, and not herself get in a flap about it.

The thing about curious boys who pick up and look at things on my desk is that they get ideas.

And what a good one this was when Tom picked up a Welsh cook book I gained in my travels.
Random Lunch Challenge this week was almost too simple to warrant it’s deliciousness–Leek Pasty (or a variation thereof). The ingredients were simply gathered.

On learning the very important step of washing leeks well to rid them of the hidden soil and grit, the finely sliced leek was fried in a wee bit of olive oil until just soft. It was left to cool, then spread onto a sheet of puff pastry, topped with slices of bacon and a drizzle of beaten egg.

The layers were repeated and last layer of puff pastry was given a little egg wash some slits cut in then placed in a hot oven for 15 or so minutes.

With some shrubbery ( read salad leaves) this Welsh pasty fed 4 of us a comfortable lunch for the total of $5.
Read more of my cook books, boys.
As the recipe says “Simple and good.”

One boy had a hankering for steamed pork buns and had persistently mentioned this, wanting to make them after he saw a half packet of bun flour in the pantry.. I suggested they be the RLC of the week and being slightly directive, pointed him in the direction of  Jamie Oliver’s recently aired recipe.
Pantry staples of self raising flour and milk and  just happening to have some left over chilli pork mince in the freezer made it an easy peasy process.

Quality controller and I went out for a latte whilst boys team worked their way to two steam baskets full of piping hot, tasty, stuffed balls of fluffy dough. Delicious with ketchup manis, sesame oil and chilli sauce and cost a mere $4 for 14 buns. Yummy fun.

So what does one do with 1/2 a sujk sausage left over from a shakshuka inspired dinner?

“Wo, what  in the world is suj whatever sausage and shakesugar whatever” I hear you thinking….

Sujuk, also “sucuk” and soudjouk is a dry, spicy sausage  eaten from the Balkans to the Middle East and Central Asia.

Shakshouka  (also shakshuka) is a dish of egg poached in a sauce of  tomatoes, chilli peppers, and onions, often spiced with cumin. It is believed to have a Tunisian origin. We added sujuk to ours.

So, we had some sujuk in the fridge which we used as the base for our RLC,
Pretty easy choice- sujuk pizza.

Two long Turkish breads, sujuk and some crumbled feta, a few olives left over from a Nicoise salad …
Hmmm. Needs something a bit paste like…
Boy on a mission found a delicious antipasto aioli and we used this like a pizza tomato sauce on the bread then topped it with sliced sujuk, olives, feta, and drizzled with a bit of olive oil and Dijon mustard dressing. Grilled in oven to produce ( x 2) :