new spring salad

In contrast to yesterdays stodgy (but very delicious)  food post, here's something a little fresher. An early spring, late winter salad. I couldn't resist taking a picture as it was just too beautiful. I didn't really design this salad, it was just what I had in the fridge and the garden, so it really constructed itself. Its a kale, swiss chard and baby beet leaf salad with pomegranate, orange segments and chive, served with a light balsamic, orange and garlic glaze and garnished with violets. A trick i learnt from Kale for Sale: hand rub the raw kale with salt to bruise the leaves, it tenderises the kale , making it sweeter and softer to consume it raw. It really works.

silky soft

Not quite the title you'd expect for a cabbage and sausage stew post, right? I have a wee small addiction to this right now. Its the perfect seasonal meal. Cabbage, fennel and some kale if you like it, all cooked down to a silky smooth, sweet redux . Perfect, delicious comfort food. We're still needing it here in the cold 'NO, IT DOESN'T FEEL LIKE SPRING YET'! Adelaide Hills. So good that I ate the leftovers for breakfast and lunch. I'm not sure exactly what makes this dish so good. The thick sweet and salty stock? The smooth hit of cabbage and pancetta or the just perfect fennel and pork and chilli combo? Dunno- but it's certainly on my repertoire radar right now. Lucky we have a local that stocks chilli, fennel and pork biodynamic snags! My homemade chicken stock is working a treat here. I'm  making at least one big batch a week to cope with all the excess bits.

Verzada ( Italian cabbage and sausage stew)
Serves 4
1/2 cabbage - roughly chopped
2 onions - sliced
1 fennel bulb - sliced
5 Italian pork, fennel and chilli sausages - sliced diagonally
pancetta - roughly chopped ( I used 5 slices)

1/2 cup white wine

2 cups chicken stock

salt n pepper
olive oil for frying
good quality red wine vinegar

greens if you like- roughly chopped
small pasta if desired ( I used  acini di pepe 'peppercorns')

Add onion, sausage, pancetta and fennel to heated oil and cook until onions and fennel turn and meat is slightly caramelised. Add cabbage and stir until coated with oil. Add wine. Stir through to remove bits from bottom of pan. Add stock and some water if you like a more soupy style. Cook until cabbage is translucent and liquid has reduced a little, around 40 minutes. Add pasta and greens now if using. Season. Continue on low /med heat until pasta is cooked. Serve hot with a good splash of vinegar on top. Crusty bread to mop. A chilled white to cut ( i omitted this at breakfast , and lunch...)

Try and resist just one serving. If I ever need one, this may be my requested last meal.

loving earth on toast

I don't buy many processed foods and if I do its certainly not on a regular occasion. Canned/bottled/wrapped goods tends to be 'unmake-able' sauces/condiments like mushroom sauce/oyster sauce (the organic stuff! not the chemical goop from China) , canned coconut milk and tomatoes and beans, cellophane/glass noodles and sometimes tofu. Processed breakfast food is something not found here at Chez Pan. Its bulk muesli or porridge for cereal, smoothies or fruit salad. Alternatively a lazy breakfast is sourdough toast with local honey, fresh pressed cashew or peanut butter, local or home-made jam/marmalade, weekends can be tomato and basil or eggs with my home made chorizo sausage. The only processed spread we buy is Promite (like Vegemite but not as salty); full of sugar and salt and un-guaranteed GE free, but an addiction which goes with my butter. I keep meaning to buy some Aussie Mite ( made here in the Adelaide Hills!) but I suspect its made for the Vegemite lovers, and I loathe Vegemite so I haven't got around to buying a jar as no-one else here likes it either.

So I got sucked in by the packaging of the raw chocolate coconut butter! Earthy and wholesome. I was in the mood for splurging and I had a houseful of kids sleeping over and wanted to try a kid friendly but 'not all the way from Canada' alternative to maple syrup. It's a bit like eating a chocolate crackle with your toast - disconcerting but not too awful. Raw cocoa, fairly traded, single origin, sweetened with agave and certified organic. Its a product of Oz (Vic) but probably not Australian sourced raw ingredients. Fat content 4.0/100g and sugar 2.0/100g so pretty reasonable. Buying fruit and veg and nuts and cheese is as exciting as our weekly shop tends to be, this added a moment of sweetness.

Haiku Friday

hauled from the cellar;
summer pomme. Frozen berries
found. Crumble and cream.

Sweet potato bake with nut crumble (easy to vegan)

This looks just like a piece of salmon with a herb parmesan crust! But it much more sustainable than wild Salmon and its got no antibiotics. As posted in a comment and recommended by Kerrie from Life at Number 14 a Sweet potato bake with a nut and parmesan crumble topping. Its a mainly loca organic Sweet Potato Bake with a parmesan nut crumble topping (can you find a loca sweet potato in SA???) Sigh. I love sweet potato and we eat it sparsely. We had it with some happy, healthy diced and sauteed lemon and chilli chicken breast(the only way B2 will eat chicken-in small pieces with no trace of fat) and sauteed kale with garlic and tamari(what else?), B2 held off on the chook.

1½kg Sweet Potatoes (Peeled And Sliced Into 5 Cm Rounds)
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
sprigs Thyme
1 Clove Garlic (Crushed For Roasting)
2 Leeks (Washed, Cut Length Ways & Thinly Sliced)
4 Cloves Garlic (Finely Sliced)
1 dob Butter (use olive oil if vegan)
2 tablespoons Double Cream (omit if wanting vegan)

Crumble Topping

2 thick Pieces Of Day Old Italian Bread
1 Dessert Spoon Cold Butter (olive oil if vegan)
1 Dessert Spoon Roughly Chopped Italian Parsley
½ cup Macadamias (I used pine nuts)
2 tablespoons Grated Parmesan (omit if vegan)

Coat sweet potatoes in oil, garlic thyme salt and pepper & roast in 180deg oven on non stick tray until soft. Put into bowl & roughly mash.

Sauté leek & garlic in butter and fold into mashed potatoes with double cream & place in 20cm by 20cm ceramic baking dish.

Place all crumble ingredients into a food processor and blend until chunky crumble consistency and crumble over top of potatoes.
Bake in 180deg oven until golden, about ½ hr and serve

Thank you Kerrie, it was rich but delicious. It could easily be a very tasty vegan dish, in fact this may be why i found it very rich as we hardly ever use dairy like this) We will definitely have this again, probably without the cream.

raspberries

they are in.
20 canes, hopefully enough to provide us with a bit more than just garden grazing quantities. We will have to wait and see...

amazing

is your 11 year old calling her teacher on a Sunday night to finalise the plate up details of her class loca vore cooking competition tomorrow.

Amazing too was that we had all the loca ingredients for a two course meal on a Sunday night nearly a week after 'the shop'. (B2 isnt known for her excellent organisation).

I barely looked at my teachers at her age...

poo bar [and another diva cup] update

Well, I really wasnt happy with using the Lush poo bar. It was a great introduction to removing the plastic bottle backlog that was our shower experience and getting us all in the habit of using a poo without the squirty factor. But, despite it being package free, it still had the water unfriendly phosphates, sulfates and chemical surfactants and it was drying out the locks a little. Changing to a poo bar was so much less painful than I thought it would be. I really had imagined B1; the very teen, really going to hyperbole town on the awfulness of not using her favourite hair product. But, not so. She's even told me a regular soap does a pretty good job! who woulda thunk it? ( it is olive oil soap but its the principle thats counting here) So, months later we're still happily using a bar, but have switched to a Sugar Shack olive oil, locally made bar in recycled cardboard. I could make my own i know, and i do get inspired to do these things, but time...

*warning* diva cup details about to follow.

I have been using the Diva Cup now since my period returned after the bean was born; so six months or so. I had a few issues along the way that nearly made me stop using it, but i persevered and all problems seems to have resolved. I was getting rather 'internally achy' and i think i just needed to find a better 'fit' or else it was just 'that' month, coz i havent had that weird ache since. It really was quite uncomfortable in there! The issue some people have had with the tiny holes in the side being difficult to clean, i resolved easily by holding each 'hole' under running water while similtaneously squeesing either side to open the hole. No need to use a needle to clean it; it just rinses right out very easily this way. The most challenging issues around using the diva cup is when your only have access to work or public toilets. i usually avoid it if possible due to a) the bloody (no pun intended) noise *schlerrrrrrrrrrrrrrp POP* ...could be my technique; too much speed? will have to work on that as its most socially disconcerting and b) rinsing. I usually just tip, wipe it and keep on going!
Haven't died yet..

Duxelle and Extract

i didnt want to put you off by telling you in the post title that its another mushroom post. This is what happens when you're into seasonal and local and you blog and you have a short mushroom season and a spot which is prolific. Sorry. Now you know, read on or exit at your leisure...

I should make this post four on my 'what to do with a glut of seasonal produce' posts!

You cant eat as much fresh mushroom as you can pick ( tell me- im not a huge mushroom fan but put me in a forest with thousands and I'll come home with kilos). So we have eaten them in sauce on pasta, fried on toast, stuffed and baked them, we have frozen some fresh and frozen some whole and dried heaps. What else?...we've still got kilos left (and we're planning on another picking this weekend??)


Enter Antonio Carluccios recipes for Mushroom Extract and Wild Mushroom Duxelle (dook-SEHL). A duxelle is a mixture made from minced or roughly chopped wild mushroom sauteed in butter with shallot, garlic, fresh bread crumb, and herbs. I think the duxelle looks particularly beautiful when made with these red pine mushrooms (saffron milk caps) as the colour contrast with the herb looks incredible. I hope they defrost just like this!


It is excellent to freeze and is used as an addition to soups, stuffings, sauces and to fill tarts and to top pasta. Did i say it freezes well? I cooked up about 4 pan loads of duxelle for the freezer, packed into small containers and we did eat a bit along the way...


The extract was simple. Cover chopped mushrooms with water. Bring to boil. Reduce to a simmer and add bay leaves, pepper corns, dried porcini, a splash of soy/sherry and cook for 40 min. Strain and squeeze solids, return liquid to pan and and reduce further until liquid is 1/2 to 3/4 in volume. Viola. Bottle. This will keep in the fridge for a while ( how long? im not sure) and can be frozen. I will use this for soups, sauces, stuffed mushroom, anything where i would add stock, actually Im chucking it around the kitchen a fair bit, anywhere i can. It can also be used as a condiment .



That might be my bloomin' lot.
* unless someone can tell me what else to do with a mushroom to preserve it other than pickling them!

apple, blackberry and frangipane tart

Taking a good pic of a half eaten pie at night time without lighting is tricky and i couldnt guarantee there'd be any left when the light was better in the morning. This tart was good. I mean really good. I love it when i can cook like this. 95% local ingredients (sugar definitely not from here). Blackberries picked that day on our walk and apples from our trees, home ground raw whole local almonds, and all else local biodynamic or organic fare. Its loca love in a tart.


Frangipane is one of those wonderful things in life, like basil and tomato or hazelnut and chocolate. I first discovered it big time in croissants aux amandes. If you havent tried one, they're heaven in a heart attack. Full of artery clogging butter but soo delish and a great way to use up old, stale going cheap croisssants. Stuff them with frangipaine and bake and serve with coffee on a weekend when the kids are away and you've got the paper and a sunny spot...I digress.

So, to hand were apples and blackberries. The blackberries were probably the last of the season, so many dried on the canes and wasps hovering closely ( so close i did get a jab in the palm when i grabbed a fat purple berry and its passenger, but not enough to swell) and apples, well we're still picking...bucketfulls. Im going to bottle most this weekend and am thinking maybe a cider??? But for now, with those two , its gotta be desert, right? I had both almonds and walnuts in the pantry but i figured a traditional almond frangipaine was the way to go.

Pastry - your choice. I used a cream based short crust, blind baked for 10-15 minutes after resting the lined case in the fridge for 10 min. This prevents it shrinking in the oven and its insides spilling out.

Apples - i used about 5 apples and simmered them in water for about 10 minutes to soften.

Blackberries - probably used about 1 cup fresh; frozen would be fine. Actually any other fruit or berry combo is fine. Use whatever you have to hand. This works well with anything; quince, plum, pear...

Frangipane
125g/4 oz butter
125g/4 oz sugar.
2 eggs -lightly beaten
150-200g almond meal
vanilla extract- 1 tsp or seeds from 1 pod
Cream together butter and sugar and then add the eggs slowly to combine. Add almond meal and vanilla and mix thoroughly and pour into cooled pastry case. Top frangipane mixture with fruit. Bake 25 minutes in 180 oven. Serve with cream or ice cream.

Its a good thing we had friends over to help out with consumption. You definitely dont want to be eating this type of food too often. Tonights desert; chilled whole apples. Penance.

another 5 minute bread convert

I havent done a food post for a while (or a gardening post for that matter)...not too much going on in the garden of late; the is corn maturing, the tomatoes are teasing me with their 'not quite readyness', the beetroot is finishing up and im letting a few go for seeds, the last cabbages are standing, the basil prolific, the beans are going for second flush as are the lemons, some oranges and mandarins are edible and we're harvesting a huge bowl of apples daily; the drying rack and Vacola are about to get a workout. Im focussed on getting the beds ready for the next round of planting and their second season. This was the first growing season for these new patches, and it exposed what needs doing differently; better attention to irrgation to compensate the slight slope and which parts lose moisture quickest.

Back to the food post. After hearing so much about this book, i bit the bullet a few weeks back and ordered it, as the breadmaker has gone back to school. Most weekends she's got just no time for breadmaking. So bread can get a bit hit and miss around here now, but I still havent resorted to anything wrapped in plastic-its been months now. So i whipped up the inaugural batch of dough this morning. Like the title says, its ready in five. Its quite incredible. After the initial investment of about 10 minutes of actual work (2 hour minimum of cumulative time, most of it waiting), its ready to go.

The idea is to get the bulk batch ready and just pull it out of the fridge, chop off what you need, shape it up and bake it. Dead easy. That pretty much sums it up, and the texture and flavour... Wow! *who needs a bread oven* she says tearing out her hair. Look at those chewy holes! The book promises your loaves will emerge from baking with that lovely artisan crust and even my shitty oven, which leaks heat, managed it. Yippeee! Cant wait to try the rye and wholewheat. White bread is nice every so often, but when i crave bread, its the heavy stuff. Sorry kids.
Next dilemma after they came out of the oven was to find a something other than cheese to top it off ... a look in the fridge declared itself. Beetroot dip. I used up leftover cooked beets, a spoonful or two of cashew butter, a hunk of parmasaen, a clove of garlic, some olive oil and juice from a lemon. Magic.

So while the oven was still hot from baking, despite the leaks, and as we had friends coming over, i made an apple streusel cake for afternoon tea, which used all of about 8 apples (double the recipes suggestion) and a baby leek and feta galette for dinner (im thinkng galette is just a posh term for a long thin quiche?) - looks like muck in the pic, tasted great. Im very ready to stop and sit with a cold glass of wine.

Does anyone have any feedback or have done anything interesting with this basic Boule recipe?

i *heart* pastry

ok, so i know i should* make my own and sometimes i do when dinner isnt a last minute decision or i have decided to boycot dinner making, just because i'm in a belligerent mood. I get that somedays. when i've been out digging or building and come in at the end of the day to find no one else had given it a passing thought either. expectations of me...gender issues rise up...i get cranky. Now, they'd all be happy with pasta and cheese and pepper and a carrot or cucumber on the side. Having taste buds that demand adventure is a curse sometimes. So i relent; stomp around the kitchen a bit, pull things out, grease, chop, organise. one of the kids fetches the herbs and salad and the other helps to chop and usually i'll 'send' the bloke down to the cellar with instructions to not come back until he's found something suitable; just to continue the gender sterotyping. then im happy.

So being rather impartial to the mass produced pastry stuff on offer in the supermarkets, mainly due to a) big company b) crap ingredients c)a passion for local foods, when i accidently 'discovered' (it looked so inviting just sitting on the shelf) this local product made with local ingredients, i felt that i could quite happily give up pastry making forever and keep a few of these in the freezer for emergency quiche nights. I tell you, it seriously put my homemade wholemeal pastry to shame; best pastry ive ever tasted. hence the post.

Im thinking there must be tonnes of other local products which fall into the 'can use in an emergency' genre and i may have to do a bit more serious searching around in the local shops to see what else i can find. Mind you, at $7.00 a packet (no plastic, just paper), im thinking that it'll have to be a pretty good emergency.

Emergency Quiche
roll out dough and blind bake in case whilst simultaneously lightly roasting all vegetable bin floppies. Cool (well, leave for a bit) and toss in with some milk, grated cheese and eggs (i never measure or know how many eggs to use with what proportion of milk so its always variable, ranging between blanchemange with vegetable bits or a solid frittata, in a tasty pastry home) toss in salt n pepper, fresh herbs or leaves of whatever you've got. pour into pre baked pastry case. Bake.

*used in full knowledge of should being a perjorative term and that for better mental health, 'one'would be better off if 'one' were to substitute such a value laden term with could, a more forgiving word.

weekend loca

we had a busy weekend. A trip to a local school Strawberry Fair , the local monthly market , lots of friends visiting, swimming at my mums and gardening gardening gardening. I love visiting local fairs and markets. Besides the wonderful sense of community they provide, its a great chance to buy local produce and financially support the local economy. The Strawberry Fair, surprisingly named as i didnt actually see many strawberry goods, provided some bargain shopping
and i scored a great stash of second hand tops for the boy for ten dollars and sampled my lovely Spanish friend Anas' mega paella.

The monthly stirling market always makes for a nice hour or two,

as we can wander there on foot, and it provided some pantry fodder; local olive oil, brined kalamata olives, dried local organic fruits, some (more) pottery bowls (im so addicted to these that the potter and i are now on a first name basis ), and a tres sweet woollen fairy to take as a Christmas gift for my tres sweet SIL in California. It also provided the opportunity for some random fellow blogger run-ins. It was wonderful to see a new kitchen garden stall selling punnets of a wide variety of heirloom vegetables as it called to my past dreams.
a friend and i had a late teenage entrpreneurial flop with a gardening business, with the outrageously pompous name of Hortensis . We planted up and maintained kitchen gardens with heirloom crops for paying customers. I just like to think we were ahead of our time.

Im still processing the visits from friends. One couple are a mixed culture marriage; she's newly arrived from China and he is Greek Australian. They have problems and she wasnt afraid to show it. It was very confronting and it threw me to witness such hostility, disrespect and raw anger. I know she will want to talk to me about what is going on in her relationship and i will have to think carefully about the best way to respond. Its such a full on situation involving internet dreams on both sides. Old friends of Simons brought wine and cheese on Satuday night. I love them dearly; they are inspiring, loving , funny, clever and a dedicated 'still in love after 25 years' couple. I found however i am still dealing with my 'married to your deceased friends husband' and 'living in her house' issues. I have moments of self consciousness and flashes of 'is this weird for you' and im thrown back into insecurities. I thought i had dealt with most of these feelings but obviously i still need to do some more reflection and acceptance. Its a strange gig being married to a widow sometimes. Its gotten much easier but we had some very interesting moments earlier on; Its been quite a journey for us both. My favourite was when simon kindly offered to show me the funeral video to help me with my issues. Big night that one! He still cant quite believe he offerred.