Salad of greens with mango chutney dressing

This in one of my all time favourite  salads! What greens you use are almost irrelevant. I have used coz, iceberg, rocket, english spinach, mache. Whatever you have to hand and is in season. If I'm using a head of lettuce like coz or iceberg, I prefer to quarter it and quarter again, like and orange, and lay the segments in a bowl to serve so that its easy to get both tender heart and outer leaves to a serve. I also vary the cheese used, but its always a soft, creamy style; goat curd, feta. Sometimes I layer the lettuce segments with avocado and top with a heap of fresh chopped herbs from the garden, whatever is available.
Ingredients:
garden greens
roasted slivered almonds or whole roasted, chopped.
cheese - feta, goat curd.
Dressing:
1 -2 tabs Mango Chutney (I always use Sharwoods Green label)
2-3 tabs good red wine or other dark grape vinegar
3 tabs olive oil

Mix dressing ingredients well in a shaker. Place greens in bowl, top with other ingredients. Pour over salad. Gently agitate dressing in.
Eat.
Enjoy.

extra special sourdough pancakes

I love sourdough anything and these pancakes were no exception. Slightly tangy and ohh so light and full of nutty goodness and like all good pancakes, they have story. The sourdough starter I used has a lovely history.

Its come all the way from a bakery in Anchorage, Alaska, shipped over dried from a friend to a friend, who then travelled from Tassie to Melbourne with it in a little bottle to handover at our girly weekend. It's over 100 years old. Hows that for a pancake with provenance? The starter has been fed and divided and this mix uses the starter excess that would normally be tossed away.

As always, I didnt really measure anything, just dumped some local organic flour in with about a cup of starter, some milk, an egg and a sprinkle of sugar and mixed until it seemed like good pancake batter consistency. I ignored the weevil that fell on the counter top, telling myself a) it was the only one and b) if it wasnt..i eat worse things like a big chunk of dead cow and dead chicken and stuff like that.

I decided that a pancake with such lineage and extra protein needed a special light something to go with it so I cooked up some handy freezer stored organic, 'handplucked by moi' blackberries and redcurrants in a pan with a little sugar to make a 'Chez Pan coulis' (I just made that up for sure!)
Verdict: EXTRA good.

Zucchini . Day 3

Love in a dish. This was heavenly, if not crazy! I decided to cook a French meal when i got hone from work last night?! Sauteed diced potatoes (with no duck fat, boo!), sauteed beef, baked ricotta and this! I have finally found a way to get B2 to love zucchini! This zucchini loathing vego will gobble the green stuff up if its grated. Makes all the difference and I have to say, I know what she means.
This zucchini posting is turning in to a little bit of my own year of french cooking ala Julie & Julia. This is Julias' Courgettes au Gratin recipe from Volume 2. Its really really good. I could have eaten the whole dish on my own. Seriously, having too many zucchinis may not be enough.

Zucchini
1 1/2 pounds zucchini
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon shallot, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil or butter

Velouté Sauce
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cups liquid (zucchini juices plus milk)
Salt
freshly ground white pepper
pinch nutmeg.

Cooking Directions
Zucchini

Grate the zucchini and toss in a colander with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt.

Let steep 20 minutes. By handfuls, twist in the corner of a towel to extract juices.

Saute; 1 tablespoon minced shallot briefly in a large frying pan with 2 tablespoons olive oil or butter, then add the zucchini and toss over high heat for two minutes or so, just until tender. 4. Save the squeezed-out zucchini juices.

Sauce

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan, blend in the flour with a wooden spoon, and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until butter and flour foam together for 2 minutes without turning more than a buttery yellow color. Remove from heat, and when bubbling stops, vigorously whisk in all the hot milk and zucchini juice at once. Bring to a boil whisking. Simmer, stirring for two minutes season to taste.

Fold the zucchini into the sauce, spread in a buttered baking dish, and sprinkle over 1/4 cup grated Swiss cheese.

Bake in upper-third level of a 400 degree F. oven until bubbling and browned, about 20 minutes

I hand squeezed the zucchini and it may not have been enough. I was trying to cut corners and not use a towel ( why Im not sure??) but consequently, it was quite a runny gratin but bloody good. This one gets an A+++

Chocolate and zucchini cake

For a change from the savoury use of zucchini, here's how i used up two a few days ago. Hide a few in some cake for a really moist eating experience! B1 & B2 were disappointed that they couldnt taste the zucchini (go figure)so if you like your cakes with veg then add some more. It was rich. It looks a little like the whoopie cakes from my university days, but dont let that put you off!

So if you have an extra zucchini or two hanging around (don’t we all?), this is a wonderfully subversive use for it!

INGREDIENTS

100g ounces good-quality organic, fair-trade dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup GE free canola oil
1 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose unbleached organic flour
1/4 cup unsweetened fair-trade cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup organic butter, softened
3/4 cup organic sugar, or less, according to taste
2 eggs
1 teaspoon fair-trade organic pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup organic buttermilk
1 1/2 cups grated organic zucchini or squash

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9-inch cake pan and dust with some unsweetened cocoa powder.

2. Melt the chocolate along with the oil in a double boiler or in a saucepan over low heat, taking care not to scorch.

3. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium mixing bowl.

4. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture and buttermilk, beating until combined, then fold in the chocolate and oil mixture, and the zucchini.

5. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan for about 10 minutes on a wire rack, then invert it on the rack, remove the pan, and cool completely.

We ate it served plain, but i think some whipped cream and berries with it would be bewdiful!.

Thats 4 zucchini in 2 days! only what, 12 weeks of the season to go?

Smoosh pasta

This is one of my most favourite, yet super simple pasta sauces and it uses up quite a few of those veges that can languish in the fridge. The key ingredients are garlic, eggplant (aubergine) and ZUCCHINI! The thing with this pasta is its transformation from some pretty basic ingredients into a really deep, flavoursome smoosh that coats the pasta. Proportions are up to you and what's left in the fridge or ripening in the garden.

SmoosH pasta (serves 4)

1 eggplant(aubergine)
2 zucchini
1 large carrot
4 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil ( a fair slug)

I added a leek to last nights sauce coz I had one that needed using. This dish is also particularly good with bacon added early but we cant do that here with the vego kids.

Finely dice all veg and cook for about 40 min on a low/med heat in olive oil until vege have lost most of their structure and are smooshing into each other. I actually mashed this with a potato masher last night so that B2 - the zucchini and eggplant hating vego (?!) couldnt pick anything out but she loves the overall flavour!

Serve with pasta and top with parmesan, black pepper and herb.

maîtriser l'art de la cuisine française

Not to be behind the 8-ball or anything, but I finally got around to making a French meal in this post Julie & Julia world. I really love French food and the meal I cooked last night was so simple, used minimal pans (just 3!!!) which I always thinks adds to the excellence of a meal, and so bloody tasty that I wondered why i dont cook French food more often, then I remember just how much butter I really used. About a normal 2 weeks worth. Maybe its a telling sign, the last hoorah on my butter love, maybe Im about to give it up? Nah, prolly not. But this meal was glorious.

If you've never used Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child et.al, then you're probably wondering what all the fuss was about, but the book(s) really is(are) a revelation. She makes the art of French cookery easy and essentially understable; it's more like a conversation and a step-by-step guide through a recipe. The text guides you what to do with the dish if you want to cook it ahead. They leave nothing to chance in your own distorted thinking. If you need it spelt out, this book is for you (and me).

Im usually in the cooking camp of chuck in whatever you've got, improvise and adapt to suit. And it usually works. But last night I decided to follow the recipes to a T ( yes , I basted that damn chicken every 5 minutes, yes I added butter and oil to the basting tray, yes I rubbed salt on the bird in the last 30 and then the last 15). I reckon it made all the difference. The poulet roti was the best I'd ever produced. Dont tell anyone but I added the three lonely swiss browns mushrooms in the fridge to the baking tray along with the requisite onion and carrot and minced spring onion(thats the big brown blob you can see on the chicken).

Then there was the accompanying carrottes glacees (next time I'd put in just a fraction of the sugar - it was a stretch for me to add sugar to a vegetable I must say) and as for boiling fresh carrot in beef stock and butter...yum! The gratin dauphinois; superb, but as I was using up the weekly stocks I used regular tasty cheese, not the swiss style as called for, and I reckon the difference would have been phenomenal. Next time.

I would have made a zucchini dish but the glut I was expecting, well, it wasn't . Damn bees arent doing their job and the five i thought would be ready to go had started to shrivel, so not enough for dinner. Im going to have to go out and hand pollinate again this morning. However, for all you suffering a courgette glut, in the coming week/s Im going to do a series on zucchini ala cuisine française, coz they look sublime. courgettes farcies aux amandes (stuffed with almonds and cheese) , timbale de courgettes (molded custard of zucchin with onions and cheese)...I think I may be on the butter for a few weeks yet, there's a duck in the freezer...

tortillas

We have been living through another heatwave and facing catastrophic fires conditions; Code Red for 3/4 of the state yesterday. Just crazy; my brother is snowed-in in London and friends on holiday in Hamburg have been experiencing record snow and lows!
Too hot to cook? Bring on the burrito. The only cooking required is a few minutes on a hot pan per tortilla and some pan cooked meat if you want it.

Perfect vego food. Raw and healthy. Its B2s favourite dinner. Grated carrot and cheese, strips of red capsucum, cucumber, diced tomatoes and lettuce. Easy garden fare. Topped off with yoghurt guacamole spruced up with loads of chopped coriander, spring onions and chilli and if you like, some free range spicy chicken pieces.

If you're using store bought tortilla breads, then you have to give these a go. The day i tried my own tortilla bread i was a convert to the extra half hour investment. You won't believe the difference; flaky but feather soft and much more filling than store bought breads.I gave up the store bought breads for a few reasons mainly due to the plastic packaging and the distance traveled to get here and then there's the preservatives and basically, lack of quality product. Hmmm, tortilla for breakfast sounds goooood.

Tortilla:
3 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
11/2 tsp baking powder
7 tablespoons oil
1 cup hot water.

Mix for 3 min.
Rest for 10 min
Dry fry on a very hot skillet turning four times

Makes 8

new year brunch

'brunch' (its the burbs!) is possibly my most favourite time for having people around for a meal. I'm well rested (usually) therefore relatively stress free and ready for what the day brings. Surprising then that i don't do it very often!? New Years brings a flurry of activity and today we had a lovely meal with friends who were all en route home to far away places and wouldn't be seen again for quite some time. we ate, chatted, sunned ourselves, and the bean showed everyone around his favourite place: the vege garden (always something edible to be gleaned at a visit)

Brunch for 12 required 2 hours of prep (pretty good in my book). On the menu was local wood-fired sourdough toast with Gnomes scrambled eggs ala Maggie Beer (secret ingredients of orange zest, local cream and local BD butter and strictly! stirred only with a wooden spoon) local BD bacon, oven baked to extra crispiness ( never ever do bacon in a pan if you like quick and crispy bacon), pan fried mushrooms with garlic, crispy wholemeal waffles with maple and homemade baked ricotta with a tomato balsamic glaze.
Thanks to the wonders of modern online social networking sites, I unearthed a friend with a this recipe which Id made 10 years ago and loved but the ex took all the good cookbooks and this recipe was in one of them. I put the call out and viola, recipe sourced. Its a ripper.

Individual Herbed Lemon Ricotta

500g Ricotta
Dressing:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic – crushed
Zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
½ cup olive oil
150g semi dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
4 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

Crusty bread to serve

Lightly grease and line four ½ cup ramekins with plastic wrap.
Divide the ricotta between the moulds and press down firmly
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours
Preheat oven to 220°C.
Unmould ricottas onto a tray lined with baking paper and bake for 20 minutes or until golden
To make the dressing – combine all the ingredients in a bowl.
Place each baked ricotta into a shallow bowl and pour a little of the dressing over each one.
Serve immediately with crusty fresh bread.

I didn't bother making them individual nor turning onto baking paper, nor wrapping in plastic stuff, nor serving IMMEDIATELY, I just baked a whole-lotta ricotta in a round pyrex dish and periodically poured out excess liquid, for a lovely big wheel, slopped tomato dressing on top and on side. I used freshly oven baked/dried tomatoes instead of semi-dried ones and per usual didn't really measure anything! just tossed stuff in a bowl. Hence the rather large olive oil pool...

very, very adult chocolate tart

This was B1s request for birthday cake. It followed a very favourite baked chicken, proscuitto and mozarella dish that i know from memory but can no longer locate since my move-in with the Bloke and I lost my Foods of the World Time Series cookbooks. If anyone has the Italian small companion recipe book I'd love you forever if you could tell me what this dish is called. Its floured, flattenned chicken breasts, gently sealed and browned, then topped with proscuitto and mozarella and baked in stock until it looks just perfect. Its moist and delicious and when we have it (birthday dinners) I always serve it with hasselback potatoes and beans/brocollini.
So the choc tart was the only thing I remembered to photograph, well that and the risotto balls I made for the vegos amongst us but...another post...

Its Jamie Olivers Chocolate Tart, best served with some berries. Its like a good red.

4 large eggs .
3 tbsps sour cream .
1 sweet tart crust ( I used Careme sweet vanilla bean pastry)
8 tbsps cocoa powder .
250 g 70% cocoa dark chocolate .
140 g unsalted butter .
syrup .
200 g caster sugar .
3 tbsps golden syrup .
1 pinch salt .

Directions

Step #1 Pre-heat oven to 150*C.
Step #2 Blind bake the pastry shell for about 10 mins or until it is almost cooked & golden.
Step #3 In a bowl add butter, chocolate, salt & cocoa powder.
Step #4 Put bowl over a saucepan with simmering water & heat until melted & golssy.
Step #5 While above is melting, mix together eggs & castor sugar until smooth.
Step #6 Add sour cream & golden syrup to the eggs & mix again till yoiu get a smooth mixture.
Step #7 Add the melted chocolate mixture to the eggs & mix well until mixd.
Step #8 Pour this batter into the prepared pastry shell & bake for 40 mins at 150*C.
Step #9 Cool.

*p.s. Hasselback potato hint: use a chopstick to brace the knife from cutting all the way through.

Addendum; according to some, this chicken dish is apparently better than sex

Scallion pancakes

Finally, a food post! A two ingredient lunch. Scallions + flour; way too easy peasy. Well water and some oil too, but hey, minimal!
A half used bunch of scallions had been languishing in the frdge for a week. Scallion gulit had become a problem. Thankfully the light bulb went on. Problem solved. Family Styles scallion panckaes. They also have a good series of pics if you cant understand my instructions. My hands were so flour coated I only took a few pics of the process.
These pancakes are quick, tasty , crispy, flaky and best of all easy and low fat. We scoffed them for lunch, even the bean loved them (sans spicy sauce).

makes 4 frypan size pancakes

:: 2 cups plain flour
:: 1 cup boiling water
:: 1/2 cup of chopped scallions
:: sesame oil

mix flour and water with spoon (its hot) and then knead with hands into a smooth, soft ball. Divide into 4 balls.

Roll a ball of dough into a thin flat circle to fit your frypan. Drizzle sesame oil to taste over surface then scatter 1/4 of the scallions over complete surface. Then take an edge and roll the circle into a 'cigar' shape. Make a coil from the 'cigar' and then roll the coil back into a thin flat circle. Fry in a sesame oiled pan , turning until cooked. Nest time I will use more oil and cook for less time. Im too used to dry frying tortilla and indian bread.

Sauce
:: soy sauce
:: smashed clove/s of garlic
:: chopped scallions
:: chilli flakes/sauce
:: sugar
:: rice wine vinegar

Mix together vinegar and sugar to dissolve the sugar. Add other ingredients to taste.

Serve with the pancakes! (the leftover sauce I used to season the okonomiyaki we had for dinner)

I squeezed these in for lunch around finishing the dill pickles (after fermentation comes canning!) and limoncello bottling before I braved the 'Monster Mall' with three kids in tow. It was actually much less traumatic than usual. Either we've all grown up or the planets were aligned. No tantrums, no tears, just endless searching for the 'perfect' summer apparrel. I thought I handled myself well not to mention the picture perfect small-child-handed-down-from-heaven who happily sat in his wheel chair watching all that an afternoon at 'Fountain Lakes' offerred his innocent self without complaint. He was pretty enamoured with all the sparkly christmas baubly bits. Four hours of shopping centre tramping took its toll on both my feet and my 'stumulus tolerance' level, driving me to fall into a deeply soothing alcoholic beverage after the unpacking, re-feeding, fashion parading and bathing frenzy subsided. Ive now fallen into a second snifter of limoncello. Good thing I made somewhere near six litres of the stuff! Might get me through till Christmas...

Elderflower fizz

This is the easiest 'fizz' Ive ever made. Its the fizz that Hugh serves up a River Cottage HQ. Watching his wine making efforts we have often shouted at the screen..'that's not wine' that's beer' but its so much less time consuming than a complex wine, so Im giving it a shot. A solo Gnome dropped some fragrant, voluptuous elderflowers at our house this week, intended initially for elderflower fritters, but the weather..ohhh the weather! a record heat wave in spring is not conducive to fritters, so by Friday the flowers were really stressing me out; brought all this way and still sitting in the fridge, wilting a little, looking a tad less glorious and no end to the heat in sight. Whadddaya do?...make wine.

4 litres of hot water and 700g of dissolved sugar later, the elderflowers (about 13 heads) were bathing in a demi-john (a clean bucket will do) alongside the rind and juice of four lemons and 2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar (the recipe called for white wine vinegar but we had none) and a 2 litre top-up of cold water. Too easy. This will sit for a few days, covered with muslin, then the yeast checked, (if not fermenting by then, a tablespoon of regular bakers yeast will be added) and eitherway, left to sit again for a few more before being strained and bottled up in swing top bottles. Easy huh? If you've got some elderflowers to hand give it a try, just be prepared for the potential explosions! Ive read that storing the fizz under a heavy cloth works a treat.

sweet beetroot pillows

or marshmallows! Made for the bonfire burning at The Mad Gnomes. I'm not really a sweet loving person, my buds tending toward the savoury and if it is sweet, then i like it not very. So marshmallows, being, well pure sugar with some egg white, aren't really my cup of tea. I mostly made them for the kids, to show them the difference between mass produced stuff you get from the shops and home made (not that I'd ever tried a home made marshmallow before, but I just went ahead, used experience, and assumed!) Funny thing was, there were no kids at home to a) help and watch and b) to try the damn things! but I like doing stuff I haven't done before so it was in interesting experience, learning the nature of hot sugar syrup and egg white and whipping. The recipe is courtesy of River Cottages' Mr. Whittingstall.

Marshmallows
Ingredients:

• 1-2 tbsp icing sugar
• 1-2 tbsp cornflour
• A little vegetable oil for oiling the tin and knife
• 1 small, raw, peeled beetroot
• 25g gelatine powder (about 2 sachets, but check the packet)
• 500g granulated sugar
• 2 egg whites

Method:

1. Sift the icing sugar and cornflour together into a small bowl.
2. Rub a shallow cake tin of about 20x20cm with a few drops of vegetable oil and shake a little of the icing sugar mixture around the tin to coat the base and sides.
3. Grate the beetroot into a small bowl and pour over 125ml of nearly boiling water and leave to infuse for 30 seconds. Strain the pink, nearly boiling water into a bowl and sprinkle the gelatine on top. Stir until all of the gelatine has dissolved.
4. Put the sugar into a medium-sized saucepan with 250ml of water. Warm over a low heat, stirring until all of the sugar has dissolved, then place a sugar thermometer in the pan and raise the heat, allowing the mixture to boil fiercely without stirring until the thermometer reads 122C. Remove from the heat and pour the beetroot/gelatine mixture into the hot sugar syrup, stirring until everything is well blended.


5. Pour the egg whites into the large bowl of a mixer and beat until stiff. With the mixer going at a low speed, slowly pour in the sugar mixture in a steady, gentle trickle. After you’ve added all of the syrup, leave the machine to carry on beating until the mixture turns really thick and bulky but is still pourable – when you lift up the beater, it should leave a ribbon trail of the mixture on the surface which takes a few seconds to sink back down into the mix.
6. Pour the marshmallow into the prepared tin. Leave to set in a cool place (do not refrigerate) for an hour or two.
7. Dust a chopping board with the rest of the cornflour and icing sugar mixture. Coat a knife with a little oil. Carefully ease the marshmallow out of the tin onto the board, helping it out where necessary with the knife.

Make sure all of the surfaces of the marshmallow are entirely dusted with the icing sugar mixture. Cut the marshmallows into squares, oiling and dusting the knife as needed. Store in an airtight tin lined with baking parchment.


Sticky, uber-soft, fluffy, rubbery buggers they are. No way they'd stay on a stick for toasting. More like a quick pick up and toss in the mouth before you either squash it completely or it drips through your fingers. They are incredibly,FANTASTICALLY ...flubbery ! They taste like, umm, sugar with a touch of earth.

*B2's verdict upon return: they taste like weeds! S'mores here we come!

wise woman deodorant

Just like angry chickens, only...different.
Im an alpha male woman. I can pong when the going gets tough. its not nice. I used to hate 'natural' deodorants; no aluminium, tea tree, crystal, rock, organic yaddah yaddah yaddah. None of them worked like the nasty ones did. So i used the nasty ones. Until about a year ago when i saw angry chickens post on her home made pong purger and her declaration that she too was an alpha male kinda woman, who also ponged. Sister! "If it works for her maybe it will work for me too?". So I started making my own and its brilliant. No pong. No sweat. B2 declares it the best ever, I didnt even suggest she use it, she just started and declared in a kinda surprised way that it really works. It does. Its so simple and i get to put to good use the lovely little huon pine box my step dad made for me when i was a teenager from mill scraps collected on holiday in Tasmania(lid missing in pic). I just run the deodorant down to its last scrapings and then whip up a new batch. It takes, oh, about one minute.

Angry's recipe
3 tablespoons shea butter
2 tablespoons cocoa butter
3 tablespoons bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoons cornflour
essential oil, I used Jurliques' Wise Woman blend
2 vitamin E oil caplets, squeezed ( i dont do this)

Put ingredients together in a glass pot/jug/bowl, except the essential oil, and zap in a microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minute or melt in a double boiler. Add essential oil. Stir until mixed and lumps removed. Pot up into container. Thats it. The longest part will probably be sourcing the butters.I sourced some organic, fair trade shea butter and cocoa butter from RAW Organique, an organic online store based in Melbourne.

The deodorant sets firm into a moist chalky texture and its used by pinching up a small piece and rolling it around under your pit until its all worked in. Give it a shot. No plastic. No fuss. No smell!

more feckin' food

I could post about about the glorious day in the sun yesterday, playing with the bean in his sandpit for the first time, involved in the moment, watching the bean have endless fun redistributing sand everywhere but in the pit; underneath the deck now lies half the contents. We watched the Bloke finish the last bit of the studio floor too, finally (but hey, Im not building the damn thing so technically I cant really bitch about the timing)but its not very riveting for others and i didnt take any pics. It was great to be outside again in good weather. Winter's a bitch and its hailing now.
Last nights Weekend Carnivore Finale was Baked Wild Bunny with Pancetta and Olives.
I had a mildly hard time portioning the thing. Not used to bunny physiology so had to do a lot of 'intuitive' knife work (You Tube helped) ahhh, technology in the kitchen. The front legs freaked me a bit, rotating free like flippers; no joint, just a shoulder blade. Little thing looked a bit sad all splayed out on the board; I just had to do a little bit of mindbending dissasociating. I took a rather 'interesting pic of the bunny before i worked out how to make a skinned rabbit look less terrifying. Portioned, I olive oiled it all up and covered with thyme, rosemary, garlic, salt and two small fresh (from the freezer) chopped chilli, some fresh picked whole baby purple dragon carrots and then layered on some more meat! some local, biodynamic naturally cured pancetta. .
I bunged that in the oven for 20 minutes, then removed and added a cup of white wine and a good handfull of black olives and and baked again until cooked. Served this up with a homegrown trio of baked King Edwards (my new favourite potato) with rocksalt, balsamic glazed bulls blood beets and sauteed kale with Mad Gnome garlic. I left the kale in the pan too long and crisped it up quite a bit, shattering between the teeth type crispy. Got me thinking that on purpose deep fried kale could be worthwhile or tempura kale. Anyone tried this?
Meanwhile i put the rib carcass of the bunny in a pot with some of my freezer collection of celery tops, coriander roots etc and herbs. I just keep adding to this collection whenever i have 'stock bits' but am not making stock. I recommend keeping a freezer bag of 'stock bits' as it makes spontaneous stock making not only a breeze but possible.
We gnawed our way through this finger licking feast with the rest of the wine. Never having eaten rabbit before outside a pie, i was impressed with the flavour. We will definitely be adding bunny to the list. This dish was full of flavour but a litle on the dry side. Rabbit cacciatore or Essex Fried Rabbit Jamie Oliver style, next.

We then settled down for some more homegrown downsizing and foraging fun ala Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall style with a limoncello (almost that time of the year again folks). Lights went out at 1am. One whole series down and umm. endless more to go! Thanks Gnomes. Maybe this afternoon I will get around to fixing my header pic; its been bugging me for weeks but havent had the time nor inclination to fix it.

pan fried gnocchi with wild mushroom and sugar cured bacon

this is definitely a waist line buster. Those of you that know me or read this blog will know that when the girls go away with their dad I break out the flesh at meal times. I get molto carnivore to make up for the endless weeks of vegetarian meals. Dont get me wrong, i love vegetarian and vegan food but when you're deprived of something you really enjoy and and you have some great meat choices available, whatcha gonna do? Eat Meat.
So tonight i chose to use the Black Big sugar cured bacon we bought at Lucias in the Central Market. God i love that place. They cook the most luxe sauces and bake amazing deserts on portable stoves sitting on the countertops people! You jostle between simmering pots for payment space. its fabulous. Anyway, I'd come out of there with some handmade gnocchi (i know- but i didnt, OK. Besides, my gnocchi never tastes like theirs; so light and fluffy, and its just the two of us. A treat!), and some Black Pig products. Have you ever noticed just how many almost vegetarian recipes call for pancetta or a bit of speck? You just can't not do it. That fatty salty essence is, well, the essence! Peas and zucchini on pasta just isnt the same. Digressing, sorry. So gnocci, bacon and gosh, surprise! I just happen to have lots of wild mushroom duxelle in the freezer, frozen for a moment just like this one.

Just for the record before this year i had no idea what a duxelle was, its knowledge only borne of necessity. About 20 kgs of 'got a bit carried away by the fun of mushrooming' necessity and was forced to research and make some glorious long-life mushroom goods, tidy bags of duxelle being one of them.

So I decided on some crunch and chew to compliment the squishy sauce and decided the pan fried gnocchi was the way to go. Major tip of the day. Dont boil the gnocchi if you want to do it pan fried. It doesnt need it and it will end up very water logged and smushy if you do. Just fry them in a bit of butter. I fried thin strips of bacon in their own fat and then when they were browned and a bit crispy on the edges added the defrosted duxelle to the pan which with a couple of cloves of minced garlic even though the duxelle already had garlic. I warmed the musroom mix through and when the gnocchi were browned i salted them, served them and topped with the mushroom and bacon sauce and some creamed ricotta and pecorino. Sadly i was in such a hurry to eat this delight that we forgot to add any greens but upon finishing, we both noted that some freshness and real crunch in the form of rocket or spinach would have really helped and had i had any parsley currently producing, definitely some of that. All up, about an 8/10. Pretty tasty.

The pic above I just liked coz it shows my very aesthetic sensibilities: can you see the good use to which I have put that piece of art on the windowsill? That sculpture made with love from our uber cool Flaming Lotus Girl/ Burning Man niece is my extra plastic bag drying aide when the PuraTap is fully loaded up. Noice touch huh?

afternoon delight

Sunday afternoon visitors are a great treat for me, especially during the winter months. It means a compulsory but welcomed stint in the kitchen and a fire on early. Pretty close to heaven. The kids love it too; a sense of ease and timelessness, everyone leisurely enjoying their own pace and interests together downstairs in the warmth. The Mad Gnomes dropped in, kindly proffering the prize i won, The Silver Spoon, in their Gnome competition (decorated with a homegrown head of garlic!)
What a prize! Described as Italy's best selling cookbook for over fifty years and the bible of authentic Italian cooking, I was pretty stoked at winning such a tome! Befitting a delicious biscuit to serve with drinks dont you think?

Chocolate Wheaties

90gm butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup coconut
1/4 cup wheatgerm
3/4 cup wholemeal plain flour
1/4 white self-raising flour
90g dark chocolate

Cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, beat well. Add coconut and wheatgerm and flours. Roll teaspoonfulls into balls and squash with a fork. Bake in a moderate oven for 15-20 minuites. Dip in melted chocolate. Refridgerate to set on a wire rack. Eat.

life takes over your life

if you know what i mean...
i finally hauled myself off to the doctors this week to get a full blood test done. Thyroid malfunction at both extremes have plagued many women in my family so i wanted to get this and my iron count checked. I have been experiencing tiredness like never before. The 'is this what CFS feels like?' tiredness. The 'ohh i know ive just had 10 hours sleep but i could go a whole days extra' kind of tiredness. She actually laughed at me "yes i know i work, am finishing writing a thesis, have a one year old, two teenagers, am trying to set up a business, have a garden to manage, a household to help run and exercise three times a week, but i feel more tired then normal" . I have to say after telling her all that i felt pretty stupid! hmmm, maybe i no longer know what normal is?

Life seems to be running away from me, im happy, interested, enthusiastic, but i cant seem to squeeze enough hours out of the day to do what i want to do. i need spares, time vouchers please. So this weekend im purposefully spending my time slowing down, sorting out my life by cleaning and organising the study, removing dead printers,sorting the piles that need filing so i dont lose track of where im at. im feeling like another week of chaos may tip me over the edge "sorry, what company are you from? who are you? i ordered what?" I know myself well enough now that a good tidy up followed by the reward of a few long hours chopping and stirring fridge and pantry contents into something special is literally just what the doctor ordered. Now, i just have to decide on the something really tasty and special to cook? What do you like to indulge in preparing when you're in need of some one-on-one with a saucepan? Some ideas would be great.

tempe bacem - sweet fried tempeh

Tempe Bacem Sweet fried tempe

Bahan-bahan:ingredients:
300 gr tempe
2 salam leaves (indonesian bay leaf) can substitute european bay or curry leaf
1 sereh (lemongrass)
500 ml water or coconut water
oil

bumbu:
2 cm laos (galangal)
1/2 tsp ketumbar (coriander seed)
1 shallot
1 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp palmsugar
1 tsp grated coconut
2 red lomboks (chilli)
2 teaspoon ketchap mani(optional)

Cara membuat:preparation/method:
Cut the tempe into small slices and slice again into 2-3 cm long pieces. Pound or grind the ingredients for the bumbu into a fine paste. Heat in a wok the water and add the bumbu, the tempe, the salam and the sereh and let it simmer slowly until the fluids have evaporated. Heat in a wok the oil and the the tempe golden brown and serve.

As dinner was obviously served at night, i gave up taking food pics due to crap lighting and we never had any leftover for lunch to be photographed in daylight!
This is great with rice and a dry or wet meat or veg curry.

While on holiday we ate this nearly every night, its a little like a sweet savoury version of peanut brittle, but not so sweet of course, and actually not so brittle, so not really alot like peanut brittle at all!!!! but its the closest i could come at a comparison. i hate tempe usually but this, i really dug!
What i did find really interesting about Indonesian cooking is that although they use coriander seed alot in recipes they never, ever use the grown leaves like the Thais and Vietnamese do. I wonder why?

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.

from little things, big things grow

so i started with a manageable amount...
over time, they grew,
and grew,
and grew until finally i had so much bean sprout i was overwhelmed. I had removed them from their sprouting jars days ago as the roots had begun to weave around the insides and quite frankly they were freaking me out with their very apparent 'aliveness'. They had been happily sprouting in a huge bowl since then. The stupid thing is none of us like raw sprouts all that much, especially in winter. I sprouted these up for pad thai, thinking that the one cup or so of dried bean wouldn't make that much...pad thai made, sprouts used and heaps left over.

So last night i faced off with the sprouts, a do or die moment where it was either use the lot or ...or...hang onto them in indescision (and compost next week?). I managed to use 6 cups of fresh mung bean sprout for our dinner; I was dead impressed with myself.

Mung bean fritters,
served with sauteed kale and steamed new potatoes.
Brilliant.

Besan flour, brown mustard seed, egg, splash of stock , lemon juice and tumeric and the sprouts.
We ate the lot.