[my kitchen almost rules]

Well it tasted liked it ruled, but it was almost a disaster... My culinary vision...Ground Beef Roulade infused with spinach cream cheese served with corn on the cob, peas, maple syrup carrots and garnished with potato rosti.

I experienced first hand only a glimpse of the pressure, so sorry, I ain't gonna nominate for any of those cooking shows full stop - and I only had four meals to make, not a dozen - and only one course!!

There was a bit of everything that seems to happen on My Kitchen Rules for me tonight, well, except for me resorting to tears, but then again, my meal was still edible and not a complete failure.

Firstly, I got that glimmer of cooking nirvana where everything goes to plan - the spinach cream cheese with minced garlic, tarragon and basil blended beautifully with the stick mixer (and had a lovely flavour), and then my ground beef mix with fresh breadcrumbs, onion, zucchini, an egg and a dash of the previous herbs came together nicely in the food processor and then rolled out into a nice rectangle without sticking to the rolling pin.

And then my perfect service came crashing down into a flaming heap, literally! Talk about dramas on top of dramas!!! My mince wasn't rolling around the cream cheese tightly enough (I reckon it needed time to refrigerate out flat first), and then when I finally got it to roll, the filling spewed out the ends and on the final join, which was totally NOT what I had in mind. I rolled it using cling film like I'd seen on Masterchef and set it aside in the fridge to firm up. It turned out I really needed to allow another hour for this roll to chill and firm up, but as I wanted the kids to eat before 8.30pm I thought I'd better get onto cooking it after only a measly 10 minutes (in the freezer!)

My next drama was that I didn't have a frypan (or hotplate) big enough to a accommodate my entire 'roll', so I had to straddle a stainless baking dish across two hotplates to fry it off on the outside before putting it in the oven. While holding the baking dish with an oven mitt and attempting to flip/roll the meat over, it flopped onto the other side splashing oil at the back of the stove and onto one of the hotplates...which then caught fire! A quick smother with a tea towel and the cooking could continue. ...and then the top of the roll split open...arghhhh! I carefully drained the excess oil from the baking tray and then disguised the split on the top with some strategically sprinkled mozarella cheese and then put it in the oven.

Fortunately my roll of meat 'set' so I could cut a large slice for each plate, and thankfully the veggies weren't an issue, as they steamed perfectly in the microwave.

I did have one major technique that was a big success though - my potato rosti. After peeling the spuds I used the potato peeler to make 'shavings' and then splashed some vinegar on top and gave it a good mix up. Just like lemon juice, the acidity of the vinegar ensured the potato didn't turn brown before I got to fry it off in 'clumps' of golden crunchiness.

I guess this meal was just fancy meatloaf with veggies and crispy chips, but hubby and I thought it tasted fabulous. The kids weren't entirely convinced though, oh well, sometimes you've just gotta give it a go. Don't know if I'll bother with such fussiness again, as plated up it didn't look all that spectacular; but I'm mostly glad there wasn't a film crew following me around! Here's to experiments in the kitchen!! ;)