5. Kapama - A Greek Lamb Dish

I found this recipe many years ago on the back of a tin or packet of something, I can't remember now, but it was 1974 and had "Kapama, a Greek lamb dish" and the following recipe.

325° (160°C) oven, cooking time 1 hour 15 mins

Ingredients

4 lamb chops
2 Tbsp oil
1 onion chopped
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup chopped celery
4 whole cloves
1 ts cinnamon
1 cup chopped tomatoes
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup stock or water
1/2 ts sugar
salt and pepper
1lb (500 g) potatoes sliced 1/2" thick
oil for frying

Method

1. Brown chops and place in casserole
2. Saute onion, garlic and celery. Add cloves, cinnamon, tomatoes, tomato paste, water, sugar and salt/pepper.
3. Pour over chops, cover and bake 45 mins.
4. Brown and fry potatoes, place around meat. Cook a further 20 - 30 minutes.
5. Remove cloves and serve with tossed salad.

Serves 4

Note: I usually serve this with green beans, fresh, not frozen. You can substitute a 400g tin of diced tomatoes for fresh (tomatoes)

Today's quote: Mary had a little lamb:
                                Her father shot it dead,
                                Now it goes to school with her
                                Between two bits of bread.

4. What's REALLY in a McDonald's Chicken McNugget?

While mucking around on the net today, I saw the headline "What's REALLY in a McDonald's Chicken McNugget?", and being the curious soul that I am, just had to read it. I rather wish I hadn't now, at least I rather wish I hadn't seen those photos - oh yuk! one of them looked like tuna paste except it wasn't, it was supposed to be chicken. Thank Le bon Dieu, I am not an aficionado of Maccas.

I read how McDonald's Canada aired a commercial to clarify that the brand does not use "pink goop", a rumour that has been going around since a picture of a mystery pink substance first started circulating on the web.

"We don't know what it is or where it came from, but it has nothing to do with our chicken McNuggets", said supply chain manager Nicoletta Stefou.

Pink goo or pink slime also sometimes refers to "lean finely textured beef" - an unappetising and controversial concoction of inedible meat trimmings including cartilage and connective tissue. It is then doused with ammonium hydroxide to kill E. coli and other nasties.

The McDonald's video shows the process from chicken to nugget in full (and excruciating) detail, outlining how the meat is made from ground chicken breast, breading (staple food made from flour), chicken skin, tempura and "some seasonings".

I'm watching the video and suddenly there's this pink stuff in the chicken muck - what? Pink goop in McDonald's chicken nuggets which they have denied? Here's a screenshot of the pink gunk -

The breast is then blended with “seasonings” and chicken skin - Really? It looks effen disgusting...

Those nuggets look so fake.... they just bear no resemblance to real chicken.

Then mixed up "chicken" is battered and covered ...

That looks soo disgusting. I feel sick from just looking at it. Thank goodness I don't eat McDonalds chicken nuggets. Source

Today's quote: Nutritionally speaking, fast food is equivalent to pornography.

3. Pork, Tomato and Potato Bake

Ingredients
4 pork chops
6 large potatoes peeled and thickly sliced
6 large tomatoes sliced thickly
2 cloves garlic chopped
Rosemary (6 sprigs fresh or 1 Tblspn dried)
Olive oil
Salt and black pepper

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C
2. Brown chops in a little oil until browned.
3. Cook potatoes in boiling salted water until soft (about 8 minutes)
4. Drizzle olive oil over base of dish and layer potatoes and tomatoes adding salt and pepper between layers. Add garlic and half the rosemary.
5. Drizzle oil over top and bake in oven 15 minutes
6. Place pork chops over vegetables, add seasoning and remaining rosemary and cook a further 30-45 minutes or until potatoes and chops are tender.

Serves 2. To serve four use 8 chops. This can be served by itself with a tossed salad, but if you serve with mixed green vegetables such as beans and broccoli, it will go further.

2. Fast Food Items You Should Never Eat Order According to Employees

McDonalds’ Fish Fillet

If you’re concerned with the freshness of your meal then listen to what this McDonald's employee of 20 years has to say. “Don’t order fish fillets or grilled chicken unless it is just after the breakfast/lunch switch-over. They don’t sell a lot outside of the lunch rush, so you might get a patty that’s near the end of its cycle.”



McDonald’s’ Shakes/Smoothies

An old McDonalds’ employee voices his concern for the cleanliness of the smoothie machine. “The machine gets cleaned once a week and every time it was pulled apart there would be black slime/mould backed up inside the spout.” Be sure to stay well away from these frozen treats next time you visit a McDonald's.


McDonald's chicken nuggets, unless you order them fresh

"If you order, especially chicken nuggets, just ask for them fresh. Otherwise they've been just sitting in their container in the heat. They have a timer, but 9/10 times when that timer goes off, people just reset the timer instead of making new ones. This could go on until all the nuggets are sold."
I can attest to this because Saturday night I was baby-sitting and took Master 10 and Master 11 to the local Maccas. We ordered the Family Favourites Dinner Box™

and the chicken nuggets looked nothing like the ones in the picture - mine were hard as rock, tough as anything and the chicken did not taste of chicken, actually it had no taste at all. Those nuggets had either been cooked to within an inch of their life and/or left for several hours waiting for some dummy to order some. Sigh..............


Anything that comes out of McDonald's McCafé machine

If you want the full visual, check out the tale spun with great detail by Reddit user Enviromenth. For the TLDR version: "All McCafe beverages run through a horrifically dirty machine; we're talking 5+ inches of uncleaned, liquid bulls--t making up its inside parts, and the smoothies have glass cleaner in them."



Certain Subway sandwiches
There were plenty of Subway employees warning people that most seafood sandwiches and the egg salad sandwich are just imitation meat and/or bagged products with an unethical amount of mayo mixed in, but this quote is the kicker: "Worked at Subway 2010-12. Only thing I have to say is that tuna and seafood packages used to have a label on it that said that it didn't contain dolphin or turtles in the meat, then that label suddenly disappeared in 2012."

Today's quote: "We all eat, and it would be a sad waste of opportunity to eat badly" ~ Anna Thomas.


Source: Equinoxley and Eonline

1. Food Quotes

Hello and welcome to my food blog, although why I should be starting a food blog I have no idea and no earthly good reason I can think of to start one, considering all the other food blogs hanging around out there in the blogoshpere which are surely so much better than mine. And, I am equally sure, are written by people who are oh so much better in the kitchen than I. And can cook better than I too. Perhaps it might not be just food... hmmm, dunno, well we'll have to wait and see. As the bishop said to the barmaid.............

For my first post on this poor excuse of a blog, I thought I'd start with a touch of humour.

There are numerous quotes about food, some wise, some witty, this one comes from Bill Bryson ~

“And I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites and any number of other useful objects, and who have a noble history extending back 3,000 years haven’t yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is no way to capture food?”

筷子
Today's quote: You don't need a silver fork to eat good food ~ Paul Prudhomme