Cross Country Update and a couple more food challenges

Well, Kyla went to the Auckland Champs for cross country, back at Woodhill Sands. This time though, the course was shorter at 2.5km instead of 3.5km that the Kaipara and Norwest races were. It was a very fast race, and Kyla did amazingly well, finishing 19th out of 127 in her race! We are hugely impressed by her ability and stamina!

Food Challenges - Week 27 & 28

The challenge for week 27 was to use rice - either a variety we hadn't used before, or in a way we hadn't tried before. I had some cooked rice in the freezer, and found a recipe in the Australian Women's Weekly Rice Cookbook, that used the rice and rice flour in a kind of pancake. This was then placed over an ovenproof dish, and baked until crisp.
In these rice pancake bowls, we had a vege stirfry topped with pork fillet marinated in soy, honey, garlic and ginger. It was very tasty, and everyone enjoyed it. Score 3.5/5.

Week 28's challenge was to use Browned Butter.
I have never tried to use browned butter before, but saw Raymond Blanc cooking fish in browned butter, and then using the remaining butter in the pan to make a light sauce. So, that is what I tried to replicate.
I bought Gurnard, and cooked it in the browned butter, then removed it to make the sauce. I finely chopped shallots, and then added lemon juice, parsley and a little water to make the sauce. Salt and Pepper and the sauce was ready. We had the fish with homemade oven chips and a pea puree - basically fish, chips and mushy peas!
I would give this a score of 4.5/5
It was really tasty, and didn't taste overly rich considering the fish was cooked in butter and the sauce had butter too. The browning of the butter definitely gives it a very nice taste.

Next weeks challenge has been posted by "Cantabcook" who lives in Christchurch. She has decided that "One pot/pan meal" is the challenge - particularly relevant to a lot of people down there at the moment who are trying to minimise dishes!