The Hasty Gastronome

Polenta crusted calamari

2012-02-12T20:43:00.000+11:00

Sunday's have somehow become seafood day. The combination of a very-full time work week plus some study on top typically means that the only food purchasing available to me during the week is either Coles or Woolworths (which I detest, both ideologically and practically as their fresh food is rubbish). So weekends is the only time I can get to a decent green grocer, butcher and fishmonger. And since I don't like freezing seafood I often mind myself cooking it on a Sunday night. Last week it was salmon steak with brussel sprouts and quinoa salad (don't even get me started. I'll post the sprouts sometime, I promise. They were killer.)

But this week it's calamari. Did you know that calamari is one of the most sustainable types of seafood you can eat? Seriously, check this out. And what better way to eat it than super crispy with my two favourite flavours: Salt and Pepper. It takes 10 mins from start to finish and is almost completely healthy if you overlook the frying bit, and eat it with salad.

Ingredients:

Fresh, local calamari rings
1 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
1 cup polenta
Lots and lot of salt and pepper
Oil for frying

Rinse the calamari and shake off the excess water. Prepare your flour, and polenta on plates for coating and your milk in a bowl for dipping. Add salt and pepper to the polenta mix, as much as you'd like. I prefer to use LOTS. In fact, I have a ready made mix of cracked black pepper, szechuan pepper crushed in the mortar and pestle, and sea salt for just such occasions.

So get your calamari ready as follows: Flour. Milk. Polenta. Flour. Milk. Polenta. Just like that, until you've coated them all. Then heat about an inch of your oil in a pan.

Once it's hot, fry your rings for a minute or two, but no longer! If you over cook them, they become tough and chewy and you don't want that. Drain them on a paper towel.

While the calamari are frying, whip up a quick green salad. Mine had cos lettuce, cucumber, and two kinds of tomatoes.

Place the calamari on top of the salad and squeeze lemon juice over the lot. Done.

Sweet Mango Sticky Rice

2012-01-28T11:22:00.000+11:00

The return to work has happened and the new year's for healthy work snacks has also taken place. And my brother recently bragged to me about having made what sounds like a pretty amazingly delicious savoury sticky rice, which got me thinking.

And THEN I discovered the local Asian grocers has a steady stock of frozen banana leaves. This sealed the deal. Although I was not interested in savoury sticky rice as a work snack. I was interested in sweet and fruity sticky rice for the 4pm slump. And since it's Summer here in Melbourne and mangoes are in season, there was really no need to consider any other fruits, what with mangoes being king of the fruits.

So this sticky rice is remarkably easy. You need to start it a day in advance, but apart from that it's a breeze. I now have a stash of single serve parcels in my freezer that I'm chomping through at my leisure. And because it's sticky rice, you can microwave it to defrost and warm, and it only gets stickier and more delicious.

Ingredients:

2 cups medium grain rice
2 cups coconut milk
2/3 cup palm sugar
1 mango
chia seeds
banana leaves

One day ahead of time, soak the rice in cold water and leave overnight.

The following day, drain the water off the rice and place in a large pot. Add the coconut milk and sugar and bring to a medium heat. Stir the rice over the heat so it doesn't stick and burn, while it absorbs the coconut milk, as though you are making a sweet, sticky risotto. Once it is thick and very risotto like, turn off the heat and leave to cool.

At this point the rice won't be cooked through yet, but that's ok. We're not done yet!

While the rice cools, slice the mango into long thin strips.

Prepare your banana leaves (which are enormous) by cutting them into roughly A4 sized pieces, trimming any manky edges and washing them.

Then prepare you sticky rice parcels.

First lay your banana leaf down. Then place a sprinkling of chia seeds in a 5cm line down the centre.

Place a spoon of the rice over the chia seeds, followed by a sliver of mango, then another spoon of rice.

Then fold the banana leaf over the rice, pressing it together firmly, fold the sides in and roll over until sealed.

Repeat this for all your parcels, then place them in steaming baskets and steam over water for 40 minutes.

Yum yum yum yum yum.

Chocolate, ricotta and blueberry cake with chocolate-yoghurt icing

2012-01-22T19:14:00.000+11:00

I was in Brisbane last week when my boss arrived home from his overseas trip and emailed my office to say there were fancy chocolates in the kitchen for whoever wanted them. I wanted them! But I was in stupid Brisbane. So I email-bribed my workmates with the promise of baking, and lo, they saved me some chocolates. So today I am making good and baking a cake for Monday afternoon.

Because it is my cake and my decision, the cake had to involve chocolate. But I didn't want it to be too sweet, nor too dense. So I looked up cakes with fruit. I was hoping to find something involving peaches, but then I stumbled upon a recipe involving blueberries and ricotta and my decision was made. However, the original said to dust with icing sugar, and I knew I could do better than that. So I added a ganache-like icing made with yoghurt for some extra tang.

Ingredients:

2 cups SR flour
1 cup castor sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
250g ricotta
100g butter
1 cup hot water
2 punnets blueberries

Chocolate yoghurt icing

1 cup dark cooking chocolate pieces
1/4 cup greek yoghurt

Grease a 22cm cake tin and heat the oven to 160. Sift your flour, sugar and cocoa into a large bowl. Melt the butter (I do this in the microwave, being careful not to have it explode) and add with the water and ricotta to the dry ingredients. Stir thoroughly until all ingredients are mixed through, especially the ricotta. Then fold in one cup of the blueberries, reserving the rest for decorating the finished cake.

Place in the oven for an hour, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean (if your oven isn't fan forced you may want to cook it for an extra 15 to 20 minutes). Once cooked, cool in the pan for 5 minutes then on a rack.

Prepare the icing by melting the chocolate and stirring through the yoghurt. Smooth over the cake while pliable and glossy, then place in the fridge to set.

Top with the remaining blueberries to serve.

Very impressive for such an easy cake.

Tortes de Acietes

2012-01-09T18:11:00.001+11:00

My (super talented/gorgeous) friend Leanne put me onto the most glorious Spanish olive oil biscuits a few years ago. Called Tortes de Acietes (cakes of oil!) they are made in a factory in a town in southern Spain according to the same recipe first used by a lady named Ines Rosales over 100 years ago. In Melbourne, you can buy them at Casa Iberica, the Spanish grocers on Johnston St in Fitzroy for the cost of $8 for 6 biscuits.

The thing to know about these biscuits is: they are so so simple. Their incredibleness lies in the way they ABSOLUTELY NAIL the key elements of their simplicity.

Texture - they have this snap when you bite into them. Flaky, crunchy, light yet with substance. The snap is very important indeed.
Just a hint of sweetness - They are extremely plain but dusted with sugar so that you get a hint of sweetness that isn't in anyway overpowering. So you can eat heaps.
Fennel seed - I may have mentioned elsewhere on this blog my devotion to fennel and fennel-related things, with their subtle, aromotic aniseed.
They are JUST BRILLIANT with a cup of tea.

Today being my last day of holidays, I decided I need some to get me through my re-insertion to working life. So I rode my bike to Casa Iberica. But when I got there the man said they didn't have any deliveries over the holidays. Needless to say, I was totes devo.

So I decided to attempt them. This was no easy task, as there are few recipes around on the internets, and the original Ines Rosales recipe is fiercely guarded by those Spanish pixies who continue to work her magic. After scouring various other bloggers' attempts, I found one I liked the look of and tweaked it very slightly. And it more or less worked! Oh, fabrous day! I have texted Leanne. There shall be cups of tea aplenty.

Ingredients:

2 cups strong baking flour
3 tablespoons caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
100 ml extra virgin olive oil (plus extra for brushing on the tortes)
100ml orange juice (pulp free or strained through a sieve)
orange rind
fennel seeds
raw sugar

Heat the oil over a low heat with the orange rind. This will allow the orange oil to infuse in the oil. Once the rind starts to brown remove it immediately, and turn off the heat. Crush a teaspoon of the fennel seeds in a mortar and pestle and add to the cooling oil. Once cool, add the orange juice to the mix.

While the oil is heating, sieve the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Then add the wet mixture and mix into a dough. Form into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and leave for 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 225 degrees C. On a lightly floured surface, take a small ball of the dough (about a walnut size) and press down. Then, using a floured rolling pin, roll out until extremely thin (a millimetre or less). Brush liberally with olive oil, sprinkle thoroughly with raw sugar and add a few fennel seeds. Then place on a tray lined with baking paper and put in the oven.

These only need to bake for five or six minutes before they will start to brown at the edges and burning is around the corner, so stay vigilant! I discovered that the time to roll out three more tortes was the amount of time needed to bake one round.

Leave them to cool - this is when they will harden into that wonderful, cracking, snapping morsel you have been dreaming of all day. Then eat them, one after the other, incessantly, because of how delicious they are and how greedy you are and it's the last day of holidays and you don't care what anyone thinks of you! You're free! FREE TO EAT TORTES!

Chocolate-dipped cherries

2011-12-12T19:30:00.000+11:00

What do you do when your Mum is a highly successful consultant and receives hampers filled with cherries as Christmas presents, and then gives you heaps of cherries and then you get home and your boyfriend says he doesn't really eat cherries?

You dip them in chocolate and serve them to guests, that's what!

Calling this a recipe feels like a cop-out, but sometimes it's all too easy to forget how good dipping fruit in chocolate can be. Let this be your reminder.

Ingredients:

dark chocolate
cherries

Melt the chocolate in the microwave, in 20 second batches. When it's about two thirds melted, remove it and stir until it completely melts (this will prevent burning and keep the chocolate lovely and glossy.

Line a plate with foil. Dip your cherries and place on the plate. Then put them in the fridge.

Pull them out to impress guests during the festive season. And have a few yourself every now and then, just to continue the spirit of the things, and make a contribution.

Potato, tomato and onion pie

2011-12-11T19:16:00.001+11:00

How do you define a pie? Because frankly, this dish is very possibly not one. But look, shut up okay, it's full of potato and what more do you want? So it's kind of a casserole, layered like a lasagne, but in a pie dish, and crunchy on top. It's classic peasant/student fare, and given the December Austerity Measures this should free up enough coin to subsidise the high quality cooking chocolate I need for all my Christmassy treats and not at all for gnawing on after dinner.

Ingredients:

2 potatoes
3 tomatoes
1 onion
1 teaspoon wholeseed mustard
slice of butter
olive oil
salt and pepper

Brush a pie dish with olive oil and turn the oven on to 180 C. Melt the butter with the mustard and add salt and pepper. Then finely slice everything.

Line the pie dish first with a layer of potatoes, then onion, then tomato. Add half the mustardy butter mixture. Repeat.

Top with potato and brush the top with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt if you know what's good for you.

Cover with foil and put in the oven. After 30 minutes remove the foil and turn the oven up to 190. Remove after another 30 minutes.

Consume.

Lemongrass and Ginger Beef Salad

2011-11-22T22:00:00.000+11:00

I happen to have a little insight into one of my Christmas presents this year. It involves Vietnamese street food and recipes and is a book. Yup. And just knowing this got me all excited about Vietnamese food. Also, I had a craving for fresh salady things. So I did a little squirreling around the internet and mashed a few different things I'd seen together to make this wonderful, fresh and very spicy salad. The spicy lemongrass and ginger paste softens the beef to it's super tender, and the pickled carrots... well they'll be featuring a lot in my tummy from now on, that's for sure.

Ingredients (serves 4):

500g beef sliced into strips
half an iceberg lettuce
1 Lebanese cucumber
1 carrot
1 bunch each mint, coriander, basil
1 stalk lemongrass (white part only)
1 walnut sized knob of ginger
2 birds eye chilies
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons fish sauce
Juice of half a lemon
1 shallot
Fried rice noodles

Take the spices and smash them up in a mortar and pestle. Add the fish sauce and lemon juice and continue to grind them until they form a thick paste.

Then place your beef strips in a bowl and smear the paste over them, massaging it in with your hands. Place the beef back in the fridge and marinate in the spices for at least an hour.

Next, prepare the pickled carrots. Finely slice the carrots. Then mix together the vinegar, sugar and salt, and cover the carrots with the liquid. Also place in the fridge for 45 minute to an hour (the pickled carrots will keep for up to several weeks).

Prepare the fried shallots. Finely slice them and sizzle them in about 1cm vegetable oil in the bottom of your wok. Watch them closely, as they will take a while, and then turn from pinkish to brown to black within moments. Be ready to remove them as soon as they start to darken. Drain on a board.

About 50 minutes later, take the lettuce and finely shred about half. Julienne the cucumber, and finely chop the herbs.

Prepare the wok with a fine sheen of sesame oil, and fry the beef until browned.

Finally, arrange the lettuce, cucumber, herbs and carrots in your bowl. Add a serve of the beef. Lastly, sprinkle some of the noodles and fried shallots on top.

It's healthy, insanely tasty, and has the most wonderful mix of flavours. If you have a sensitive stomach maybe go easy on the chili. I didn't do this. I have no regrets.

Double chocolate biscuits with crunchy pepita tops

2011-11-20T19:58:00.002+11:00

In a bid to be economical, we are attempting to not buy lunch at all this week, and to cook all the fresh food in the house before doing something reckless like going out for laksa. So, for purely financial reasons I felt compelled to bake us a supply of biscuits to provide sweet sweet sustenance throughout the work week.

But because it's Sunday and I'm feeling pretty lazy, I decided I couldn't be arsed with recipes. And I figured, biscuits, how hard can they be, right? So I made some. Just like that. I didn't really know what I was doing so I didn't bother with any measurements that weren't bleedingly obvious. And they've turned out to be pretty darn alright. I am feeling mighty chuffed right this moment.

Ingredients:

125g, or half a stick, unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
vanilla essence
1 egg
1 1/2 cups plain flour
nutmeg
2 tablespoons cocoa
50g couverture chocolate
pepitas (aka little green seeds)

Make them the way you'd make any biscuits. Heat the oven to 160 degrees (or 170 if your oven isn't fan-forced). Cream the butter and sugar. Add the vanilla and egg and continue to beat. Add the flour, nutmeg and cocoa and beat.

Take the square of chocolate and hack it into shards. If it's good quality chocolate it will shatter nicely. Stir it into the biscuit dough.

Line two trays with baking paper. Scoop the dough into walnut sized balls and press the tops slightly with your fingers. Then press them gently into the pepitas and place them on the trays.

Bake for 15 minutes. While baking, paint your nails. Cool them on a rack. Poke them with your finger. Check they're not poisoned. Check again, you'd really hate to be poisoning people accidentally.

Then sit down properly like a civilised lady and have two more with a cup of rooibos chai.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Pea Pesto and Prosciutto

2011-11-19T11:05:00.000+11:00

Last weekend my darling friend Jess had an afternoon tea for her birthday. Jess is a fantastic baker and cook, and she prepared some awesome treats for us. But perhaps my favourite were the savoury tarts smeared high with a home-made pea and cashew nut pesto, topped with cucumber and mint.

I had peas! Frozen ones, actually. Then I started fantasising about what I'd do with a pea pesto, and I quickly determined that it should be eaten with a sweet potato gnocchi. When I got home from work the other night, not only did I already have sweet and regular potatoes at home, but I realised I also had some prosciutto and lots of fresh herbs in the fridge. It should also be noted that having actually managed to leave the office by 5:30 - an almost unheard of phenomenon - I was all psyched for home-made gnocchi!

If you haven't made gnocchi before I urge you to do it. It's as easy as making scones, as fun as playing with Play-Doh, and as delicious as eating freshly home-made gnocchi. I find all sweet potato is a bit too sweet, so I used a mix of potatoes: one russet, one desiree and one large sweet.

Ingredients:

two regular potatoes
one sweet potato
nutmeg
approx 2 1/2 cups plain flour
2 cups peas
fresh mint, oregano, thyme or any other herbs
1 cup pine nuts and cashews
1 lemon
olive oil
garlic
8 slices prosciutto

To make the gnocchi, boil the potatoes until soft enough to mash. Then mash them good! You want them to be as creamy as possible with no lumps. No lumps at all, I tells ya! I was fretting that I was on the path to lumpy gnocchi when I remembered my bar-mix - or wizzy stick as I sometimes think of it. This turned my still lumpy mash into a creamy potato gloop. Add a little nutmeg at this point, you won't be sorry.

Then flour your bench with about a cup of flour, and tip your cream potato mixture into it. Get as much flour as possible on your hands because the potato will be as sticky as get out. Gently fold the flour into the potato dough, adding more flour as you need it, until it has a modicum of stuctural integrity. You want the gnocchi to be as tender as possible, so it's important not to overwork it.

Roll the gnocchi out into hilarious sausages if your mind is in the gutter, as mine was as I was cooking, and then slice your little dumplings off the end. Again, keeping everything well dusted with flour, that the gnocchi might touch. At this point you could put them in the fridge until cooking them, or freeze them for another occasion if you want. Or EAT THEM RIGHT NOW.

While the potatoes are boiling, set up another pot of boiling water and cook your peas. Then add most of the peas (reserving about 1/2 a cups worth) to your mixer, with the nuts, herbs, lemon juice, two cloves of garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. If you don't have a cooked-cheese-loathing boyfriend, I'd add some parmesan or pecorino at this point as well. As for me, I abstained out of love. Stupid, no-cheese love.

Anyway, pulse the pesto mix together until it forms a slightly chunky dip consistency (which, incidentally, is how I plan to eat the remainder ie with corn chips). That's it. Pea pesto.

To prepare the gnocchi, bring water to the boil in a wide pot and drop in the gnocchi, ensuring to space them so they form one layer. They'll drop to the floor of the pot; when they float to the surface (1 to 2 minutes) they are ready! Remove with a slotted spoon and place them on a plate to drain. You can serve them like this, but I like to add to the 'toothiness' of them by lightly pan frying them, like any good dumpling.

So once all the gnocchi is boiled, slice the prosciutto into little bits and fry in a small amount of oil. The prosciutto will leech all it's delicious porky fat into the pan as well. Remove the prosciutto when it starts to crispin, reserving all the fat in the pan. Then add your gnocchi to the pan and lightly sautee in the prosciutto fat. You have just created one of the most delicious things ever. But it gets better.

Remove the gnocchi and add the pea pesto and a splash of water and heat through. Add the extra peas and put the gnocchi back in, and mix through. Finally add the prosciutto.

Cooked-cheese-loathing man declared it one of the best meals I'd ever made him, because it had both complementary colours and flavours. We wolfed it in front of SBS's Thursday night food show line-up, and felt grateful we hadn't sat through those shows and all their delectable treats with anything less delicious for ourselves. Then I took the leftovers to work for office-time food bragging. It happens.

Black Forest Cake

2011-11-13T14:44:00.002+11:00

Remember about a year ago when I said I was going to post a Black Forest Cake and then I didn't do it? I ended up making that cake between midnight and 2am for a function the next day and was so rushed I didn't take photos or anything. I know. I'm kinda flakey sometimes. Sorry.

But then it was Mum's birthday yesterday and my brother (very accurately) posited that she would want a Black Forest Cake. I had already volunteered to make the birthday cake, so I got a second chance! I used a different recipe this time, taking one from the BBC website. And wow! Wowowowow. The thing that made this cake amazing was, in my opinion, the quality of the actual cake. And the thing that made the cake so amazingly dense and chocolatey was the calibre of the cocoa - proper Dutch cocoa. I am not usually a massive bowl licker, but this cake mix was so delicious that I scraped it clean with my finger and then my tongue.

So that is my advice to you. Make this cake with the best cocoa you can find. Clean your finger and flex your tongue. You won't be sorry.

Ingredients - for the cake:

340 g unsalted butter
340 g castor sugar
240g self raising flour
100g cocoa
6 eggs

For the filling and icing:

1 tub cream
1 large jar morello cherries in syrup
Big splash of Kirsch
100 g dark cooking chocolate

Heat the oven to 170 degrees, and grease and line a 20cm cake tin. Using the right size tin is important, as you want the cake to have enough height to be able to slice it into layers later on.

With beaters, cream the butter and sugar, then add the eggs one at a time. Sift the flour and cocoa and using a metal spoon, fold into the mixture.

Scoop into the cake tin. This mixture is so moussey and thick it will sit in the tin, so take a spatula or knife and spread it evenly into a cakey shape. THEN LICK EVERYTHING THE COCOA HAS TOUCHED.

Place in the oven. The original recipe said bake for 35 or 40 minutes, but at 40 minutes my cake was still super wobbly. I ended up cooking it for just over an hour, and moved the rack to a higher position after about 50 minutes. Next time, I'll set the timer for 50 minutes and check it every five minutes until it's perfect. Remove from the oven and cool in the tin for five minutes. Then continue to cool on a cake rack for another five to 10 minutes.

While the cake is baking prepare the ganache icing. Pour half the cream into a saucepan and scald until almost boiling. Then put the chocolate in the cream and take off the heat, stirring continuously until mixed through. Then put in the fridge to cool.

Next pour out about 3/4 cup of syrup off the cherries into a saucepan and add a generous splash of Kirsch. I didn't want my cake to taste too boozy so I cooked off a little of the Kirsh for a few minutes. Then put this aside to cool too.

Once the cake is cooled on the rack, slice into thirds. Then spoon the cherry syrup mixture evenly over the three cake slices. Then allow the syrup to sink in while you prepare the remaining cream by whipping it with a tablespoon of icing sugar and a few drops of vanilla essence.

Now for the assembly! Spread half the cream over the base of the cake. Then take half the cherries, squeeze out any excess juice and spread them over the cream. Then place the next layer of cake on and repeat the layering. Once you've placed the top on the cake, press down gently on the whole cake with your hands to firmly set it all together.

Take the chocolate mix from the fridge and stir it up with a knife, then spread this over the cake too. Finally, grate some remaining cooking chocolate over the ganache, and place the cake in the fridge for the icing to set.

Mum will approve.

Sausage, lentil and silverbeet stew

2011-11-06T12:34:00.000+11:00

I have discovered the most delicious pork and fennel sausages at my local butcher. I now buy them every couple of weeks and have been exploring new ways of cooking them. In a bid to lower the stodge quotient involved in sausagy meals (due to the large quantity of mash, roast potatoes so on that often go along) I decided to make a hearty stew with vegetables, and some of the lovely green lentils I have a stockpile of at the moment.

Ingredients:

6 pork and fennel sausages
3/4 cup green or puy lentils
1 bunch silverbeet
2 tins crushed tomatoes
3 cups of vegetable stock
1 brown onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves
1 quill of cinnamon
olive oil
Fresh crusty bread, or garlic bread, for serving

Heat the oven to about 170. Chop the onions and garlic and saute in the oil, in a heavy, oven proof dish. Shred the silverbeet, removing the large stalky bits. Add the lentils and beet to the pot and stir through the oil and onions.

Add the two tins of tomatoes and the stock, cinnamon and bay leaves, then the sausages. Bring to a simmer, cover and put the entire dish in the oven for anywhere between 40 minutes and an hour, until the lentils are cooked. When it's done take the sausages out and chop them, then return them to the stew, juices and all. Serve with the crusty bread, or garlic bread.

One pot wonders for the win, as they say on the internets.

Lemochocricot Slice (or Lemon, Apricot and Chocolate slice)

2011-11-02T17:14:00.000+11:00

After being stranded in Perth (Perth! The most isolated and over-priced city in the world!) due to the Qantas ignominy this weekend, Leith came home last night. I wanted to make him his favourite treat as a welcome home gesture, and this meant making lemon slice. But then the part of me that likes to overdo things, and over-commit, and fix what isn't broken, decided that regular lemon slice was too easy.

I decided to take a regular lemon slice and gussy it up with dried apricots and chocolate. It still has that essential lemon slice quality, but with extra bits! The apricots add a slightly fuller flavour, and the dark chocolate adds crackle and - dare I say it - offsets the sweetness of the slice. Yep, that's the kind of slice we're making; one that needs chocolate to provide contrast to sweetness.

Leith has dubbed in Lemochocricot Slice, and so it shall be named.

Ingredients:

1 packet plain biscuits (like Arnotts Marie or Milk Coffee)
1 tin sweetened condensed milk
2 lemons
1.5 cups desiccated coconut
1 cup dried apricots
250g dark chocolate
2.5 cups icing sugar

Blend the biscuits in a food processor for just a few seconds until it's a mix of finer crumbs and some slightly larger chunks. Finely chop your apricots, and grate the rind of one lemon. Place your biscuit pieces, 1 cup of coconut and apricots in a large mixing bowl.

On a very low heat, mix the juice of one lemon and the condensed milk and lemon rind. The mixture will curdle slightly, but that's ok. Keep stirring to ensure it doesn't burn. Once mixed through, add to the dry mixture and stir thoroughly.

Press the mixture in a lined, low and wide dish, and press down firmly with your wooden spoon to compact it in an even layer at the height you want your slice to be. Melt your chocolate. I do this in the microwave, checking at 10 second intervals, and completing it by stirring once it's about two thirds melted to prevent any burning. Pour the chocolate over the slice and spread it evenly across. Then place the slice in the fridge for at least an hour.

Finally, prepare the icing with the juice of your second lemon and your icing sugar. Spread this over the slice, and dust with coconut. Return to the fridge to set. Then serve in small squares. Even with the chocolate it's still pretty sweet.

Pavlova roll with an almond crust and strawberry cream

2011-10-29T17:07:00.001+11:00

I've failed to post once in this month of October. I have also failed to cook more than the most perfunctory food to cram in my gob. I've been having another of those work and study frenzies you see.

But now I'm going to make it up to you with this amazing, decadent, easy-peasy Pavlova roll. My Mum has always made this for dinner parties and when I was little I thought it was super fancy (and who am I kidding, I still do!). The recipe for the Pav has come from my Nanna and it is a fail-safe, perfect-every-time kind of a number.

Then there is the deliciousness factor. The Pavlova is fluffy and moist, the crust is light and crunchy and the berry cream filling is fresh and luscious. All together it's utterly divine. I don't know why Pavlova tastes better in a roll. It just does.

Ingredients:

6 egg whites
225g castor sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon cornflour
cream
table spoon of icing sugar
strawberries
1 cup flaked almonds

Heat the oven to 180 degrees and turn it down to about 160 when you put the pavlova in. Line a wide, shallow baking dish - like a swiss roll tin - with baking paper.

Beat the egg whites with the salt until soft peaks form, and add the sugar, beating until stiff and dissolved. With a large spoon, gently fold in the vanilla, vinegar and cornflour*. Pour into your tray and smooth out the surface so that it's more or less even. Then scatter the flaked almonds over the top.

Put in the oven for about 30 minutes (check regularly to see the top doesn't burn). Remove immediately and turn onto a clean tea towel. Roll up in the tea towel and leave it to cool. Ideally it will roll around itself like a Swiss roll, but my Pav was so successful and fluffy that the most I could manage was a tiny amount of overlap.

When you're ready to serve it, whip your cream with an extra spoon of icing sugar and a drop of vanilla. Slice your strawberries very fine. Unroll the Pavlova (it may crack a little - this is okay as you can patch it up when we roll it again) and line with the strawberries, then the cream. Roll back up gently and place on a serving tray with extra strawberries. Voila!

When serving, cut it into inch-wide slices. This is one of those dishes that is astoundingly easy but never fails to impress. And I've never met anyone who didn't love it! Pavlova: it's better in a roll.

*To make a regular round Pavlova, spread the mixture into a circle and make the edges a little higher, on a lined tray. Bake for 30 minutes but leave to cool in the oven before removing it.

Grilled peaches with honeyed marscapone and pistachios

2011-09-27T21:57:00.001+10:00

What do you take to a friend's house for dessert when sugar and wheat are off the menu? My thinking on this score starts with fruit. It's not yet Summery enough for fruit salad in my humble opinion, and given that I didn't want to add sugar I thought that whatever fruit I used needed to have its own natural sugars caramelised, to really get the most out of them. Then I was at (the Brunswick fresh food mainstay) La Manna on Saturday, and they had their first boxes of peaches. So grilled peaches it was!

Twenty minutes from start to finish, highly affordable, delicious and about as healthy as desserts can get. People who thought they didn't like peaches, will discover they do like peaches after all!*

Ingredients:

Peaches, halved
250g marscapone
1/4 cup orange blossom water
1/4 cup warm water
Honey
Vanilla essence
Cinnamon
Pistachios

Place your halved peaches cut side up in a baking dish. Mix the orange blossom and warm water, and a teaspoon of honey, and sprinkle over the peaches, allowing them to sit in the liquid. Place under a hot grill for 10 minutes, until the the peaches are soft and beginning to char.

Place the marscapone, two tablespoons of honey, two drops of vanilla essence and a shake of cinnamon in a bowl and whisk until thick and fluffy.

Serve the peaches with a little of the syrup and juices, with a dollop of the marscapone and chopped pistachios. Beautiful!

*This really happened!

Jaffa Cake

2011-09-25T18:21:00.000+10:00

I magnanimously volunteered to bake for our weekly Work-In-Progress meeting, because I was desperate for an excuse to make this cake, and Leith has (very wisely) asked that I don't bake enormous things just for the two of us, as we'll only eat them and head further down the road to Roly-Poly Town (let's just assume I'm paraphrasing).

But my oh my, this cake! I love Jaffa. It's one of my all-time favourite flavours that is one half chocolate. You know what I'm saying, right? Choc mint is wonderful, mocha is devine, choc strawberry is good but nothing to write home about, choc ginger is massively under-rated, and jaffa or choc orange? It's the bomb! So in hunting around for a jaffa cake recipe, I discovered a slightly different interpretation of a Jaffa Cake over here (where many good recipes reside, incidentally), and decided that this was the one!

It's basically a super moist orange syrup cake, with a delectable chocolatey glaze. My workmates approved.

Ingredients (Cake):

6 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
Juice and rind of one orange
185g butter

Syrup:

Juice of 3 oranges
2 tablespoons brandy
2 tablespoons caster sugar

Delicious chocolatey glaze:

200g dark chocolate
1/2 cup sour cream
splash of strong black coffee

Heat the oven to 160 degrees (fan forced, or 180 regular). Grease a 23cm round cake tin and line the bottom. Beat the sugar into the egg yolks until pale and fluffy. Add the sifted dry ingredients, and the orange juice, melted butter and rind and fold into the mixture with a wooden spoon. In a clean, dry bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, and fold these into the mixture. Then pour into your tin and bake for 50 minutes.

Prepare the syrup by stirring ingredients together in a small jug for about 30 seconds or until the sugar is dissolved. When the cake is ready, allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes and on a wire rack for another couple of minutes. Then carefully place the cake back in the tin, and spoon the syrup over the top. Leave to cool completely.

When the cake is completely cool, prepare the glaze by melting the chocolate (this can be done over water on the stove, or in the microwave, as long as you check it every 15 seconds or so to ensure it doesn't burn), and mix in the coffee and sour cream. Smear this over the whole cake and put the cake in the fridge - the glaze will set to a semi-firm consistency.

Then take into your meeting and scoff it right down. Your colleagues on the phone line in Sydney will hear the scrape of forks on plates and know, deep in their hearts, that the Melbourne office is totally winning at meetings.

Chili con Carne

2011-09-19T20:43:00.000+10:00

Saturday I had a meat craving. Bad. I also had chipotle peppers in sauce, turtle beans, corn chips and a whole afternoon at home. So I made Chili con Carne. I'd never made it before so I looked up a bunch of online recipes and deduced that if I made it just like bolognese only kinda Mexican and spicy, then everything would work out for the best. This turned out to be pretty sound logic. I wolfed a plate and a half, fed as much again to two hungry men, and have half a pot full for lunches tomorrow. I plan to be the envy of the office (vegetarians excluded)!

Ingredients:

800g lean minced beef
two tins crushed tomatoes
4 chipotle chilis in sauce
1 large onion
2 garlic cloves
bay leaves
cinnamon quill
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup turtle beans
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 large tablespoon anchio chili powder (mild chili)
coriander
splash of tequila
rice, grated cheese and corn chips to serve

Finely chop the garlic and onions and sautee until golden in a decent amount of oil. Add the meat and brown thoroughly.

Add the two tins of chopped tomatoes and all your chilis and spices* and stir through. Then add your beans and do the same. I also added about a shot of tequila, just because. Cover and simmer for as long as you have - for me this was about 4 hours. I checked on it periodically and added a cup of water to prevent it drying, then simmered it down finally until it was good and thick. The colour will bleed from the black beans and turn the whole thing into a lovely dark stew.

20 minutes before serving, prepare your rice and grate your cheese. Immediately before serving add the finely chopped coriander, and then serve over rice with the cheese and smashed up corn chips on top. By this time the house will have smelled of Chili for hours and you may find yourself hoovering it into your face three times faster than your friends. This is okay.

*Anchio powder is a wonderful thing. It tastes hugely of chili, without the heat. So by adding enormous quantities to dishes they taste wonderfully of chili, but you can still control how hot they actually are by adding additional hot chili or cayenne pepper to your tastes. I highly recommend it!

Leith's Totally Authentic Baked Doughnuts (with special guest doughnut makers Nina and Noah)

2011-09-17T15:20:00.000+10:00

I have a boyfriend who can whip up a batch of home-made doughnuts in under 20 minutes. I'm a pretty lucky lady. I'd asked him to guest-blog the doughnuts a while back, and he agreed! Then I was pipped this week by Joy the Baker who produced some pretty smashing looking specimens. But I have to complete this post all the same, because last Sunday Leith made doughnuts with extra help from mini-chef extroadinaires Noah and Nina. This was the best after lunch activity possible, and has produced a gamut of way-too-adorable-for-words photos as well.

They also have a proper glaze that sets. I was beguiled by how Leith made this the first time I saw him do it. Finally, this is a vegan recipe, and while I'm all for vegan baked goods I must admit I find some way too heavy on the oil. These doughnuts however are 100% perfect. Kids love doughnuts and grown-ups love them too, so everyone's a winner.

Ingredients - Dry mix:

1 cup SR flour
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch of cinnamon

Wet mix:

1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cornflour with a dash of water
4 tablespoons nutalex

Glaze:

1/2 cup caster sugar
large tablespoon of cocoa
1 tablespoon soy milk

Heat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease your pan.

Mix all your dry ingredients in a bowl.

Put all your wet ingredients in a saucepan on the stove on a medium heat, and stir until the nutalex is completely melted and mixed in.

Add the wet mix to the dry mix and stir vigorously. Nina conducted several very important taste tests for quality control throughout this phase. She approved!

Pour into your super excellent doughnut shaped pan! Then bake for 20 minutes.

The waiting can be excruciting.

Remove from the oven and cool the doughnuts on a wire rack. While they are cooling, put your glaze ingredients in a small low pan on the stove and mix over a low heat. Pour this into a small wide bowl. Prepare your hundreds and thousands in your chosen colours in two similar bowls.

Then dip a doughnut in the glaze, then into the hundreds and thousands. Voila! Doughnuts for all, and three for Noah! (Noah's mum said two. Noah's mum was probably right on this one).

Sometimes doughnuts will inspire a doughnut dance. This is totally normal and to be encouraged.

And that is how Leith, Noah and Nina made awesome doughnuts, which I helped them eat.

Roast lamb with garlic and rosemary and duck fat winter vegetables

2011-09-11T18:03:00.000+10:00

Kinda feel like I'm winning at Sunday. By 11:30 am I had been to the shops, cleaned the bathroom, mopped the floors and had a roast in the oven. We had our friends Amy and Marty and their two adorable children Noah and Nina around for lunch, and we needed something low maintenance enough to allow us to turn the disastrous filth we'd been living in into a presentable apartment. Somehow, we did it. But this is the magic of a roast. Once it's in the oven, you can walk away.

I'd never roasted lamb before, so I referred to my very old edition of the Woman's Weekly Complete Cookbook, or as Leith calls it, my book of women's tricks, and it informed me that I should roast lamb on a rack over a tray (to allow the fat to run off - don't worry, you'll use it later!) in a moderate oven for 25 minutes for every 500 g of meat. So that's what I did...

Ingredients:

shoulder of lamb (mine was 1.2kg)
olive oil
garlic
fresh rosemary
salt and pepper
potatoes
assorted Winter vegetables (beetroot, carrot and onion in this case)
duck fat (can be found at bourgie produce stores and butchers)
peas
fresh mint

90 mins before you want to eat: I always start a roast with the potatoes. They are non-negotiable in any roast dinner, and need longer in the oven than any of the other bits, and really blast them on a high temperature to get them going. So set your oven to 200 degrees and peel and chop the potatoes and put them in a bowl. Put about one large teaspoon of the duck fat in a ramiken and microwave it for 30 seconds or until completely liquid and translucent. Then pour this over the potatoes and add a generous amount of salt and pepper, and toss them until evenly coated. Put in your oven tray, scatter a generous amount of fresh rosemary over them and put the tray into the oven.

Next, prepare your shoulder of lamb. Take a large clove of garlic and cut some chunky slices from it. Then make deep incisions into the meat with a sharp knife and jam that garlic down in there. Make a rub using good olive oil, lots of sea salt, roughly chopped fresh rosemary and chopped garlic. Using your hands, smear this all over the lamb, getting into all the crevices. Pour any remaining oil and stuff the last bits of rosemary into the incisions with the garlic. Set up an oven tray over a baking dish, so that the lamb doesn't sit in its own fatty juices and crispens up.

75 mins before you want to eat: Turn the oven down to about 180 and put the lamb in on the higher rack, moving the potatoes down to a lower one. With a 1.2kg piece of lamb it will need to be in there about 1 hour and 15 mins.

Now prepare your vegetables by peeling and roughly hewing them. Add a few whole cloves of garlic in their skin. Put them in the same bowl you used for the potatoes and follow the same process. Then add them to the tray your potatoes are in.

Now walk away for an hour and maybe clean the floor.

15 mins before you want to eat: Put your peas in a pot of boiling water. Finely chop a bunch of fresh mint leaves. When the peas are done, drain the water and mix the mint through them in a serving bowl, with a knob of butter on top that can melt into them.

When the meat has been in the oven the requisite amount of time, take it out and slice right into the middle to check it's sufficiently cooked. If you err at all to under or overdone, err towards under, as it will continue to cook a few minutes longer even once it's out of the oven. Place it on a plate and cover it in foil to help retain the heat.

Now take the tray that has caught the lamb fat and put it over a hot plate. Add about two cups of boiling water and several spoonfuls of Gravox or powdered stock (I cheat, I love Gravox, it makes excellent gravy - lord knows what's in it but in this case I'm prepared not to think about it). Bring it to the boil and stir it down until it starts to thicken to the degree you want. After a few minutes, pick up the plate the meat is resting on and pour all the blood/juice that has drained from the lamb in this time into the gravy as well. Keep stirring at a boil another minute or two.

Then take your vegies from the oven and serve! I have one enormous platter I like to serve roasts on, and a matching bowl that is the perfect size for peas. And the best bit of all this roasting? Lamby leftovers to make killer sandwiches for work tomorrow. Brilliant.

Caramel Sago (aka Sago Pudding)

2011-09-05T22:45:00.001+10:00

I am sitting on the couch eating a bowl of sweet, sticky bubbly gloop. It's the gloop my mother used to make when I was little and we were poor. But it was still dessert, and dessert was rare, and I have a deep nostalgic love for this gloop. Sitting in the office after 6pm tonight, it hit me: All I wanted was caramel sago.

Now, those of you with American or British sensibilities may think of it as sago pudding. Those with Asiatic tendencies may lean towards gula melaka, or the more ubiquitous bubble tea (which I am still too scared to try what with the wacky flavours). But my honest Mum turned tapioca into Caramel Sago, and Caramel Sago is what I'm eating today.

It needs milk, and sago or tapioca, and brown sugar. And stirring. Lots and lots of stirring. And then there's the eating. Lots and lots of eating.

Ingredients:

2 cups milk (I use soy because that's all we ever have in the house)
1/3 cup sago
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 cinnamon quill
2 cardamon pods

Put everything in a small saucepan. Bring the milk to the boil, then reduce to a very low heat and simmer. Stir constantly, making sure the spoon is in contact with the bottom of the pan to prevent sticking and burning. Keep stirring until the whole thing arrives at your desired gloopiness, and the sago is more or less transparent (it's ok if there's still some white bits in the middle).

When you can't stir it any more and you just have to eat it, take out the cinnamon and cardamon and suck all the tasty goo off them. Then serve your caramel sago and slurp away greedily. Maybe your boyfriend doesn't like it? That's ok, he can have the last of the hedgehog and you can have more! Caramel Sago: it's win/win.

Tomato and basil soup

2011-08-31T21:15:00.004+10:00

Some foods are so ubiquitous in their processed form that it's all too easy to get away with not making them. Tomato soup is just such a food. But if you always opt for the comforting tin you're missing out, because homemade tomato soup is so quick it takes about the same time, and is wonderfully delicious. It's still insanely cheap if you're down your last pennies, and has a tangy robustness that a tin just can't give you. And since today is the last day of Winter, it is absolutely the day for soup!

Ingredients:

tomatoes
powdered stock
basil leaves
shallot
garlic clove
cracked pepper

Chop up your garlic and shallot. Don't be too precious about it, you're going to blend the crap out of them in a bit. Put the kettle on to boil. Fry the garlic and shallot in a bit of olive oil on a medium heat. Quarter your tomatoes and throw them in and fry for a minute or two, stirring them so they don't burn. Add three cups of boiling water and a three teaspoons of stock powder, and six or seven basil leaves. Cover and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Take your barmix blender and whizz the soup until it's all smooth. That's it. You just made tomato soup and the News hasn't even got to the weather yet.

Fish tacos with black bean, corn and zucchini salsa

2011-08-28T15:03:00.000+10:00

I hankered after fish tacos for about a week before I got around to making them. I ended up having them on a Friday night when Leanne was coming round for dinner. Apart from being a goal-kicking dinner at the best of times (healthy, tasty, colourful and you eat it with your hands!), this was a great option for a weeknight (when I rarely get home before 7pm) as I was able to prepare much of it in advance, and the rest was a breeze to whip up in about 20 minutes.

Of course making fish tacos required also preparing the full gamut of taco accompaniment so for me this meant:

Taco shells
Fish
Spicy capsicum and tomato sauce for the fish
Black bean, corn and zucchini salsa
Chipotle sour cream
Guacamole

Honestly, all these things were so remarkably easy to put together and they complemented each other a treat. Here's the blow by blow.

Ingredients - Fish Tacos:

Small soft corn tortilla shells
White fish fillets (I used rockling)

Spicy Capsicum and Tomato Sauce:

2 large red capsicums
3 large red tomatoes
Garlic
Verjuice
Coriander
1 lime
Chilli powder

Black Bean, Corn and Zucchini salsa:

1/2 cup black beans
Small tin of corn kernals
1 large or 2 small zucchini
1/2 spanish onion
Coriander
Olive oil
Lime juice
Salt

Chipotle Sour Cream:

Sour cream
Chipotles in sauce

Guacamole:

2 ripe avocadoes
1 tomato
1/4 spanish onion
lemon juice
garlic
splash of olive oil

To prepare in advance

If you're using dried beans, prepare these ahead of time. Whether soaking or cooking them, the danger is losing a lot of the nutrients of the beans in the excess water. So to combat this I came up with a plan to cook them by absorption. First I soaked them in about a cup of cold water for about 30 minutes. Then I put them over a high heat and brought them to a simmer, in the same water they'd soaked in. I left the on a low heat about 40 minutes (until they were soft but not mushy), and checked them regularly - at least every ten minutes - adding a quarter cup of water when they were looking dry and in danger of burning - until they were ready and all the water has been absorbed. They sucked all their goodness back up into themselves! Winning!

At the same time I prepared the sauce by seeding the capsicums and putting them in a pot with the tomatoes and two garlic cloves on a medium heat, with about a quarter cup of verjuice. I wanted a thick sauce so I decided to not add any water - the tomatoes produce a lot of liquid when cooked. I added a decent spoonfull of chilli powder and simmer them on a low heat, stirring occassionally, until they were all squishy.

Then I threw in a big handful of coriander (stalks and all) and added the zest and juice of 1 lime and a pinch of salt, and whizzed them all up with my bar-mix blender until a smooth paste was formed. Pop the sauce in a bowl in the fridge until you want to zap it in the microwave and use it. This made so much sauce we also used some to make nachos and then a spicy pasta a few days later.

Prepare 20 minutes before eating

Take your fish fillets from the fridge and cut them into thin, boneless strips. Massage some olive oil into the skin, sprinkle with a little salt and cracked pepper and leave to rest for 10 minutes.

Take your cooked black beans from the fridge and put them in a large bowl. Chop your zucchini and spanish onion into tiny pieces and add them to the bowl with the drained corn kernals. Squeeze over the juice of one lime and a large handful of chopped coriander, olive oil and add a generous pinch of salt. Toss. That's it. (This also made so much salsa we had the rest on nachos with the sauce the next day and it was craptastically delicious).

Make your guacamole by mashing up your avocadoes with smashed garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. Finely dice the tomato and quarter of spanish onion and mix these through with a pinch of salt. Da Na!

Make your chipotle sour cream by taking one big saucy chipotle from your tin (which you can find in Melbourne at Casa Iberica in Fitzroy) and chopping it into rough chunks and stirring it through a small tub of sour cream until it looks all marbled and pretty. This will blow the minds of your fellow diners, and your own, and for good reason.

Now it's time to get your taco bits together. Heat a griddle pan on a high flame. While it warms, zap your tortillas in the microwave and then place them in the oven on a low heat to stay warm. Grill your fish on a high heat about 5 minutes each side, if the pieces are small. Because you've rubbed them with oil there's no need to add further oil to the pan.

Heat up your bowl of sauce in the microwave and serve everything! Taco shells can be wrapped in a pretty tea towel or cloth to keep their warmth. Assembling the tacos gets messy pretty quickly but is also awesome fun. Add tobasco or extra chilli if so inclined. You can eat heaps and because they're not fatty or greasy you will still feel amazing afterwards.

Chocolate mud cupcakes with coffee frosting

2011-08-14T17:48:00.001+10:00

My Dad turns 60 tomorrow. It's not an insignificant birthday, and requires some not-insignificant treats. Now my Dad likes his treats rich, and he really likes coffee flavoured things (like custard and cream, for example). So I scouted around for a few different recipes and concocted these for his birthday get-together tonight. And dear me if they aren't phenomenally scrumptious! (I had to taste-test one... quality control and all that).

Ingredients:

250g butter
200g dark cooking chocolate
1 cup hot water
2 teaspoons instant coffee
1/2 cup Kahlua (or liqueur of your choice)
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/3 cup plain flour
1/2 cup self raising flour
2 tablespoons cocoa

Frosting

250g butter
2-3 cups icing sugar
two tablespoons strong coffee
vanilla essence

Heat the oven to 160 degrees. Put the water, coffee, Kahlua, butter and chocolate in a saucepan on a low to medium heat for a few minutes, stirring constantly, until the butter is melted. Turn off the heat and add the sugar, stirring fast until it's dissolved. Insert your finger into the mixture and suck the gloop off. At this point you can reflect that you've created the most delectable gloop ever. If you're not sure, repeat the finger licking procedure a few more times.

Leave the mixture to cool for five minutes, and while it cools, sift the flours and cocoa. Shake the dry ingredients into the wet mix in thirds and whisk thoroughly. Then add the two eggs and whisk these in as well.

Pour into your patty pans and bake for 20 minutes. Then leave to cool on a rack.

Prepare the frosting by putting the room temperature butter, vanilla essence and the hot coffee with a half cup of icing sugar. Cream the ingredients and add the remaining icing sugar half a cup at a time. Fill a piping bag with the frosting and decorate your cooled cakes.

Decorate them with chocolate coated coffee beans, and prepare to be your Dad's favourite (if only) daughter.

Roast pumpkin and mushroom risotto

2011-08-07T20:37:00.000+10:00

My gorgeous gentleman friend is out of town. He is a man of many charms, however one point of contention between us is PUMPKIN and another is MELTED CHEESY BUTTERY THINGS, both of which he doesn't like. I know, right? I must really love him. Obviously, in his absence I am indulging in both of the above in the best Wintry form I can think of: risotto.

Obviously risotto is one of those meals that, once you've nailed the baseline, you can take in whatever direction you want. However one technique I have learnt (from the aforementioned absent pumpkin-hating gentleman) is that of preparing your star ingredients and adding them right at the end, so that they don't go soggy or mushy. We've made gorgeous risottos with chilli powder dusted roast cauliflower, but tonight is all about the pumpkin and the cheese, with mushrooms as well because a) I have them and b) who doesn't love mushrooms. My man insists that risotto must be firmly yet tranquilly stirred pretty much the entire time it's on the stove. My own rule of thumb when making risotto is to use leek rather than onion - it's a gentler, greener and a subtler flavour - and to use butter and cheese as much as possible whenever he isn't around.

Ingredients:

1/4 Queensland blue pumpkin (or whatever alternative form of pumpkin you can lay your hands on - just let it be known that Queensland Blues are hands-down the best)
1 bag of white-capped mushrooms, roughly chopped
dried porcini mushrooms
1 leek
2 large cloves garlic
2 cups aborio rice
1/4 cup white wine
5 cups vegetable stock
50 grated mozzarella
50-100g grated parmesan
cracked pepper and salt
olive oil and butter

So start by heating your oven to about 190 C and chopping up your pumpkin into bite-sized chunks. Toss it in oil, salt and pepper and put it in the oven. Next roughly chop your mushrooms, and finely chop your leek and garlic and put the 1.25 litres of water on to boil in the kettle to prepare your stock, if you're using the powdered variety.

After about 10-15 minutes add the mushrooms to the baking pan (the mushrooms will dry out much faster than the pumpkin so it's good to give the pumpking a head start). Heat a large non-stick low and wide pan to a medium heat. Once the pan is warm add a pour of oil and a small knob of butter. Yes, that's right, oil AND butter. That's how I roll when sir is away. Sautee the garlic and leek until soft then add the rice and toss through until evenly coated in the oils.

Add the wine and some cracked pepper and stir with requisite tranquility until largely evaporated, and then do likewise with a splash of the stock (about 1/7th). Pour some of the wine for yourself. Drink throughout. Chop your dried porcinis and scatter them through the rice. You don't need to pre-soak them, they're going to soak up all your stock and wine. Continue to add the stock in small batches, mixing it evenly through the rice. The pan should be hot enough that the liquid simmers within 20 seconds if you stop stirring. After your third or fourth batch of water (about 25 mins) turn the oven down to about 150 to keep your pumpkin and mushrooms warm but not burning. When not stirring, grate your cheeses.

You'll need to taste test regularly (awesome) to see how the rice is progressing. The interstitial liquid will start to get thicker but should never get gluggy. When you reckon the whole lot is about 99% done, add the mushrooms and pumpkin and fold into the risotto gently, so as not to break up the pumpkin too greatly. Finally, evenly sprinkle both your cheeses over the top and fold these in as well.

If you're not sure which cheeses to use, go with your guts. The parmasen is awesome with the mushrooms, and the mozzarella adds a springy, stringiness that I really love, but a creamy fetta or goats cheese would also work well with this combo.

Breakfast pizza with pico di gallo

2011-07-30T14:23:00.000+10:00

Holy crap you guys. This pizza is in the oven right now and I'm so excited about eating it that I thought I'd start blogging about it while I waited.... I can't help but feel that weekend breakfasts have just about reached their zenith!

Pizza dough (for two small-medium pizzas):

2 cups strong or wholewheat flour
1 cup semolina
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup olive oil
teaspoon each of yeast, sugar and salt

Toppings:

8 eggs
6 rashers bacon
parmesan cheese
mozzerella cheese

Pico di Gallo

1 firm red tomato
1 small spanish onion
coriander
mint
1lime
1 small red chilli

Turn the oven up as high as it will go. Then mix the warm water, yeast, sugar and salt in a jug, cover and leave for five minutes so that foamy bubbles form on the top. In another bowl, put the flour and semolina and make a well in the middle. I found this Atta flour, a wholemeal flour used for Indian flatbreads, and decided to try it out for pizza. Mix the yeasty water in and tip the whole lot out onto a floured bench and knead for about 3 minutes or until the dough starts to get stretchy. Put in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, and leave in a warm place (such as on top of the oven) for about 30 minutes. This will give you time to prepare all your toppings.

Cut the rind off your bacon and chop into chunky strips. Fry in a non-stick pan, there's no need to add oil, until crispy.

Make the pico di gallo by finely chopping the tomato, chilli, onion, coriander and mint and mix them in a bowl. Squeeze the juice of the lime over the top. You can add a pinch of salt if you like. The more finely you chop the ingredients, the more delicious the pico di gallo is. I don't understand that science of this, but trust me, it is true. So sharpen your knife and use a firm tomato!

Finally, grate your cheeses.

By this time, the dough should have doubled in size. Punch it down, tear it in half, and press or roll it out into the size of your base. It will puff up so make it as thin as you can. Then dress your pizza! I started by scattering the cheeses, then the bacon, and finally cracking four eggs on top. Put the whole lot in the oven for 8 minutes or until the whites of the eggs are cooked.

When the pizza is cooked, scatter the pico di gallo over the top and serve with Tabasco sauce. Then hop aboard the breakfast pizza train, destination: Nomtown. Because it's pizza you can eat it in front of the telly. We chose to catch up on episodes of The Daily Show. It might just have been one of the more perfect Saturday mornings.

Hedgehog slice

2011-07-26T22:57:00.000+10:00

More chocolately treats for me and my workmates and this blog. Um, hands up if you're menstruating.

Meanwhile, this little puppy needs no introduction. It's hedgehog slice bitches! Being my turn to bake for my workmates at our weekly WIP, and with Leith waxing lyrical around the house about hedgehog there was really no question. But then I started considering various recipes online and fell into a deep 'to condensed milk or not to condensed milk' quandary. So I called Mum, she referred to her high school recipe book, and we ascertained that hedgehog as we know it does not have condensed milk. Bummer. I mean, I LOVE condensed milk so I bought some anyway and will make something with it or just drink it from the tin sometime soon. But here is how I made some of the best hedgehog ever*!

Ingredients:

2 packets (500g) Marie biscuits (or other plain biscuits)
1/2 cup cocoa
1 cup sugar
1 cup hazlenut meal
200g chocolate (mixture milk and dark)
200g butter
2 large tablespoons golden syrup
vanilla essence
2 eggs

Icing:

200g chocolate
50g butter

Line a large rectangular dish with baking paper. Put the chocolate, butter, golden syrup and vanilla in a saucepan on a low heat until melted, and stir for about 5 minutes until thick and shiny. Turn off the heat and leave to cool while you prepare the dry ingredients.

Put the sugar, cocoa and meal in a very large mixing bowl. Take your biscuits and a large heavy rolling pin - it's time to get smashy smashy! You want some crumbs and some larger pieces of biscuit, so smash away until you're happy. Mix through with the other dry ingredients.

Add the eggs to the wet chocolate and mix thoroughly. Then add the whole lot to the dry mix and stir through until evenly combined. Push the whole lot into the paper-lined dish and smoosh down hard with the spoon so it sets firm. Put in the fridge to chill.

After about an hour, melt the remaining chocolate with the butter for the icing, dollop onto the slice and smear over until evenly covered. Then refridgerate overnight or at least for an hour. When ready to serve, cut into squares with a super sharp knife. Your workmates will love you.

*I made double, because hedgehog is very very good and it's imperative you don't run out. Imperative.

Chocolate and beetroot bundt cake, OR How to win the affections of a 5 year old

2011-07-24T22:39:00.000+10:00

I had dinner tonight at my dad's and step-mum's house and was pretty excited because Myra was going to be there - Myra being a serious contender for cutest five-year-old ever. I hadn't seen her for months, and indeed hadn't seen Dad and Anne for a while, and also I had study to do today so I decided I would bake a chocolate cake to take. And then Tristan informed me that Myra doesn't like chocolate cake and I was all "WHA...?!". But she does like pink cakes. And I knew I had to put beetroot in my cake and trick the the five-year-old into like my cake and liking me because of food.

Here was her verdict, in picture form.

So with no further ado:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of self-raising flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1 large beetroot
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup of vegetable oil
1/4 cup yoghurt
1/4 cup hot water
2 eggs
vanilla essence

Icing:

Icing sugar
beetroot juice
cardamom
twirl to decorate

Preheat the oven to 180 C and grease your bundt tin. Peel and grate the beetroot. Take a big handful of the beetroot and squeeze the juice into a small ramiken and put it aside for later.

Put the cocoa and hot water in a large bowl and mix together. Add the two eggs and stir through, the add the beetroot and mix.

In a large jug mix the milk, oil, vanilla and yoghurt.

Fold the milk mixture and flour into the chocolate mixture in equal parts. Then pour into the tin and bake for 55 mins.

Take the cake out of the oven to cool and prepare the icing by adding your beetroot juice you put aside earlier to four heaped tablespoons of icing sugar and a sprinkle of cardamom. When the cake is cooled, pour over.

Finally, take the Twirl that you found in the car that is all smashed up, and smash it up further then pour the chocolatey crumbs over the cake. Ta da! One pink(ish) chocolate cake.

Myra has declared "She LOVES beetroot."

Spicy eggplant salad with chickpeas and sunflower seeds

2011-07-11T18:40:00.001+10:00

I had an eggplant in my fridge all week. I've been quietly fretting over it, because between you and me, I'm never quite sure how to cook eggplant. I fear mushy eggplant, soggy eggplant and bitter eggplant. But I decided to nut up, use the food in the house rather than go outside/buy some more, and so I made this salad. I have to confess that roasting the chickpeas was directly inspired by my lovely friend Jess who cooked me the most incredible meal the other night, including roast chickpeas in paprika. This salad gets big fat ticks of approval for flavour, crunch, health, ease and use of oven for an extended period on a cold night.

Ingredients:

1 eggplant
1 tin chickpeas
sunflower seeds
garlic cloves (1 per person)
tomatoes of some variety (I had fancy heirloom cherry ones!)
baby spinach (or green leaves of your preference)
leftover fetta you found in the fridge or any other white cheese of your preference
juice of half a lemon
olive oil
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons cumin
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
salt to taste

Set the oven to 180 C. Prepare the eggplant by cutting into three fat slices, sprinkling with salt and covering with paper towels. Then walk away. Come back in 30 mins or so and wipe off all the salt and liquid that has oozed out of them. Rinse the chickpeas and pick out any discoloured ones.

Then cut the eggplant into chunky cubes and throw in a bowl with the chickpeas. Add the spices and toss through until evenly coated. Place in a roasting pan withe garlic (skin on) and roast for about 40 mins until crunchy on the outside. Five minutes before they're done, add a big handful of the sunflower seeds to the roasting pan to brown.

Prepare the rest of the salad by placing the spinach leaves on a plate with the tomatoes cut into small wedges. Scatter the cheese around the plates too. Squeeze the lemon juice over and drizzle a tiny bit more oil.

Then take out your roast vegetables and seeds and scatter them over everything. Make sure each serve gets a piece of garlic. When you eat the salad, smoosh the garlic out of its skin and smoosh it around over everything. And, consume!

Spicy carrot and beetroot salad

2011-06-27T23:35:00.001+10:00

This started as a simple carrot salad I learnt from a Greg and Lucy Malouf cook book - grated carrots and delicious spice. But these days I almost always add beetroot, and maybe some seeds. And then this morning I went bonkas and threw in pomegranate, walnuts and chevre and the things went to a whole new level. Tangy and juicy and hot hot pink. I got a spray of pomegranate down my white t-shirt that made me look like I murdered an exotic fruit, and in many ways, I did.

Ingredients:

2 carrots
1 beetroot
1/2 a pomegranate
big handful of walnuts
big handful of sunflower seeds

Dressing:

really good olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
splash of orange blossom water
teaspoon cumin
teaspoon of cinnamon
half a teaspoon chilli powder
teaspoon of honey

Grate the carrot and beetroot and put in a large mixing bowl. This is the most time consuming part. You're already 80% there. Oh man I love an easy salad. Scoop the seeds from half the pomegranate. If this is the first time you've done this it will be slightly baffling and little hard white bits will stick to the seeds (at least, this was my experience the first time I used one). The key is to abandon all utensils and muck in with your hands - the little juicy seeds will come away from the fruit easily.

Toast your walnuts and seeds by placing them in a thin layer in a dry frying pan, and tossing on a medium heat for about 2 minutes until they start to brown and the seeds start to pop. Then add these to your salad.

Now mix the dressing, by taking all the dressing ingredients and stirring them vigorously in a little ramiken, like so.

Toss the dressing through, and finally, place your creamy chevre (that's fancy for soft white goats cheese) on top.

Mussels Provencale

2011-06-21T19:01:00.000+10:00

BRAG ALERT: So this one time I was in the South of France, and I pretty much ate mussels and drank rose from carafes every day, during a balmy evening on a beach most likely. It was basically devine. That was 11 years ago. And now have this wonderful local seafood shop, and they always have these fresh bags of mussels. Every time I go there I think about buying some, and then go, "not today...". Until, this weekend, I finally bought some and set about trying to recreate the whole experience.

Now technically I have my seasons all wrong. See here in Melbourne it's currently freezing and windy and raining sideways and all in all roast chicken or spicy tagine or maybe even self-saucing pudding for dinner kind of weather. But we had mussels provencale, and let me tell you, they work in all seasons. I added some unconventional vegetabley ingredients, to up the nutritional and stodge content a bit, and you could do likewise with whatever is in the fridge (fennel would work well as would onion, shallots, leek, zucchini or capsicum). But as long as you have the basics - garlic, chilli, tomatoes, wine - you can't really go wrong.

Ingredients:

Mussels
1 tin crushed tomatoes
white wine
olive oil
2 or 3 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 hot red chilli, finely chopped
2 squash
1/2 cup puy lentils
salt and pepper
fresh crusty bread and butter to serve

First you have to prepare the mussels. I had never cooked them before so wasn't sure I was doing it right. By since my dish turned out ok I'm guessing this process is acceptable: Rinse under cold water a few times, then trim off the beards and scrub the shells with a scourer to get any grit off. These mussels had lots of beards.

Then soak the whole lot in a bowl of cold water about 10 minutes. Change the water and soak again for another 20 mins or so, this time adding some salt and flour to the water. I was told this would help remove sand and grit from the mussels. Not sure of the science but the mussels were grit free, so it's probably a good idea.

While your mussels are soaking, fry up your garlic and chilli in some olive oil. Once softened and fragrant, add the tin of tomatoes and a cup of white wine (use a good quality wine, you'll drink the rest later). Grate or finely chop your squash (or vegetables of choice) and add to the mix along with your lentils and bring the whole thing to the boil. At this point I also added about half a cup of water as I knew the lentils would absorb a lot of liquid. If not using lentils, probably skip this part. Cover and simmer the whole lot for about 30 minutes or until the lentils are cooked, and top up with wine or water if it's getting too thick.

Finely chop a couple of big handfuls of parsley and add one handful to the pot. Then rinse your mussels one last time and add them as well. Cover and simmer for about 5 minutes or until the mussels have opened. Then add the remaining parsley.

Discard any that don't open, then serve with the fresh bread and butter for mopping up the broth, and your crisp white wine. We stuffed ourselves on these little puppies last night and still didn't get through the whole lot. Oh boy!

Zucchini salad

2011-06-18T19:25:00.000+10:00

Fresh, green, tangy zucchinis. I have long loved zucchinis, but never before has it occurred to me to eat them raw. I suspect that there's a whole world of cooked vegetables that I should be eating raw. I have already converted to raw beetroot. And then Jamie fucken Oliver. I hate the idea of sprooking Jamie Oliver recipes, but there's no denying that some of them are good. I saw this one being made on tv and knew that I would make it soon. So I did. It takes five minutes from start to finish, it's healthy and it packs punch. Need to know more?

Ingredients:

zucchinis
1 lemon
good quality olive oil
fresh mint
red chilli
salt and pepper

Finely chop the mint and chilli. Grate the zest from the lemon. Sprinkle all three over the dish you will serve the salad in. Squeeze over the lemon juice and drizzle the olive oil. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and cracked pepper.

Then using a vegetable peeler, peel the flesh from the zucchinis in ribbons over the top, avoiding the seeded middles. Then smoosh the whole lot around until the zucchini is evenly coated in all the delicious little tasty bits. Serve it with fish or seafood or chicken or pie or just eat it up with a fork and a glass of white wine!

Meatballs in sugo... in sandwiches!

2011-05-28T15:04:00.000+10:00

I show you how to make-a tha meat-a-balls! Seriously though, gratuitous ethnic stereotyping aside, MEATBALLS! I made them, and they are stupendously good. Tasty, delicate, with an almost creamy texture but still plenty of oomph. They have shot right to the top of my winter stodge must haves. I was a little nervous, never having made them before. And I recklessly decided I didn't approve of any of the recipes I looked up for them and made them up on the fly. I thought it would be hard and super fiddly, but it was remarkably straightfoward. And they are excellent. Also, there's just shitloads of them so I now have a trusty stockpile.

Making meatballs also required some important deliberations. How big to make them? (I went with slightly bigger than a golf ball). What mince to use? Should I put cheese in them? What kind of cheese? Well I wanted fluffy moist meatballs and my guts told me that this meant ricotta. Sometimes my guts are so on the money. Serve them on spaghetti or in a crusty white bread roll? I let Leith make that call: he chose rolls, and having just eaten one, I can say with some authority that he was right to do so. Also did I mention there's shitloads? So spaghetti and meatballs later this week for us!

Ingredients:

300g pork mince
250g lean beef mince
2 cloves garlic
wedge of ricotta (about 200g)
1 egg
fresh basil (lots)
fresh continental parsley (quite a bit)
3 crusty white bread rolls (or two rolls and 1/2 cup breadcrumbs if you have them)
reggiano parmesan
rocket
lemon
salt and pepper
1 litre tomato sugo

To start with, if you don't already have breadcrumbs you can make some like I did, so heat the oven to about 180C and put one of the chopped up rolls in there to dry it out. Then start preparing your ingredients for your meatbally mush. Grate about 1/3 cup of parmesan (I didn't want to use too much as I knew I would be adding ricotta as well). Then smash up the garlic in a mortar and pestle. I deliberately smashed it instead of finely chopping it as I wanted all the juices to come out and mix right through the mince. Then finely chop the basil and parsley.

Put everything for the meatball mixture in a bowl (except the bread which was still in the oven): the two types of mince, the herbs, garlic, egg and salt and pepper, and mixed it thoroughly with your hands. By the time this is done the bread is probably ready to crumb so take it from the oven (but leave the oven on) and put the pieces in a plastic bag. Then - and this is super fun - smash the bread to smithereens and steamroll them with a nice heavy rolling pin. I decided that there were still some slightly too large pieces and wanted only fine ones in the meatballs, so I sieved the whole lot into my mixture. Then mix through the bread crumbs and the ricotta, taking care not to work the mixture too much.

Now it is time to form the meatballs! I deliberated for some time over how big they should be, until I settled on what seemed an appropriate size. I was also delighted to see how many I had - this recipe produced 30 meatballs. I decided to cook just over half, and to freeze one dozen uncooked meatballs for another frosty Winters' eve. Lay the meatballs out on a tray and pop them in the oven for about eight minutes. I really added this step because I was scared they'd immediately disintegrate in the sauce I was using, but I also wanted them to do most of their cooking in the sauce, not baking to a crisp in the oven. After eight minutes they were only just starting to brown on the outside, and I decided this was about right.

While the meatballs are in the oven, heat up your tomato sauce. I used the last of the tomato sugo I made at the end of Summer - two small containers, one with added herbs and one with added chilli. The chilli in particular was a good addition to the meatballs. Defrost/heat the sauce in a heavy pot until it is simmering. Then once the meatballs come out of the oven, very gently place them one at a time into the pot, making sure they are all submerged in the sauce.

From this point you can simmer them as long as you want (but at least 20 mins to cook the meatballs all the way through) I simmered them for close to an hour, to reduce the sauce to a really thick consistency. About 10 minutes before serving them, start preparing all your other bits. First of all, heat the oven - even if you're using fresh bread rolls, five minutes of warming them in the oven can just tip them over the edge. Peel some long strips of parmesan. And dress your rocket with a little olive oil, lemon juice and cracked pepper.

Finally it is time to construct the sandwiches! Start by placing three or four meatballs on the base of the roll. You might want to break each meatball in half and really spread them out over the roll. Then ladle over the tomato sauce, as much as the sandwich can take! Add as much cheese as you fancy, and top with rocket. Ta da! Home-made meatball sandwiches on a cold Winter's night. You're welcome.

Kale chips

2011-05-23T23:46:00.001+10:00

Have I ever mentioned, a few thousand times or more, about how I love chips? All chips. Hot chips. Cold chips. Crinkle cut chips. French fries. Chips with gravy. Chips with cheese. Chips with vinegar. BUT NEVER CHIPS WITH SAUCE. Sauce on chips is gross.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, chips. So in a quest to eat delicious, crisp, salty snacky things, but cram some nutrients in them as well, I made kale chips. Baked them in fact (see how virtuous I am?). Kale, Tuscan Cabbage or Cavollero as it is also known, is one of those vegetables that seems to get a good wrap - have you noticed this? Healthy types seem to bang on about it a lot. But then it very yummy. It also has much less moisture than most green leafy vegetables, thus making it an excellent chipping candidate. So I made some. And get this... they were as good as potato chips!! I know, right?

So anyway, here's how.

Ingredients:

1 bunch of kale
two teaspoons turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cracked pepper
Lemon oil

Set the oven to about 200 C. Cut the kale leaves from the stalks, and into appropriately chip-sized pieces. Mix your spices. Then, using a pastry brush, lightly brush the lemon oil over both sides of the kale, and sprinkle the spices over. Toss, and lay them out in a baking tray.

Pop them in the oven for about 10-15 minutes. Check them periodically as the crinkly edges will tend to burn if the oven's too hot.

Once done they will go all crackly. Serve them with some smashed up pappadams for a delicious snacky treat. You and your gentleman companion will polish them off in no time, I assure you.

Cauliflower and Chickpea Curry

2011-05-23T21:16:00.001+10:00

It's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry about that. For the last month or more I've been positively engulfed in a never-ceasing onslaught of frenzied work (for which they pay me all the money). But I've been getting home late and eating a lot of poached eggs on toast, and neglecting everything else - like this blog. As if that weren't enough, I then decided to go on an extreme detox, to counter how run-down the work frenzy was making me. So I went 10 days without alcohol, caffeine, dairy, sugar, salt, fried food, wheat and yeast. Yowza. In case you were wondering, it was hard at first, and then not hard, and by the end I felt amazing.

But if Sunday's dinner of sausage rolls and hot chips has taught us anything, it's that the detox is over and there is delicious food to be made. Like this curry.

Ingredients:

Cauliflower (half a head)
400g chickpeas
fresh spinach
1 brown onion
1 long green chilli
2 cloves of garlic
2 large tablespoons of curry powder
200ml coconut milk
1 tin crushed tomatoes
garam masala
juice of half a lemon
salt & pepper to taste

Finely chop your onion, garlic,chilli and curry powder and fry in a small amount of oil until fragrant. Add the chopped cauliflower florets and rinsed chickpeas and toss through the spicy oil.

After frying the vegetables for a minute or two add the diced tomatoes and coconut milk. At this point I thought it looked a bit too think and added about a cup of water as well. Bring to the boil, then simmer for about 15 mins.

Once the cauliflower is softening and the sauce is thick, add the spinach leaves, some salt and pepper to taste, about a teaspoon of garam masala, and the juice of one lemon. Stir through until the spinach is wilted, for another minute or two. Then serve with rice, quinoa, pappadams or flat bread.

Oven roasted vegetable chips

2011-04-17T20:51:00.003+10:00

Did you think this was going to be one of those posts that was all virtuous and healthful, about the combination of comfort food chippery and rustic goodness of vegetables. Well, don't get too excited, because the key to these vegetable chips is duck fat. Sorry vegetarians. But duck fat makes the BEST roast vegetables ever. And while it is, undeniably, fat from a duck, you only use a smidgen so your arteries can stay mostly clear.

Ingredients:

Sebago potato
Parsnip
Purple carrot (or any other root vegetables of your choice)
Duck fat
Salt and pepper to season

Set your oven to about 200 C. Scrub your vegetables. I don't bother peeling them, the skins are yummy and fibrous - why waste them? This dish also introduced me to the delights of purple carrots. At first it looked like the hoary old man of the vegetable kingdom, but then I chopped it open and couldn't help but marvel at its beauty!

So, chop your vegetables into chip sized pieces, and put them all in a bowl. Then put a teaspoon sized scoop of your duck fat in a ramiken, and zap it in the microwave for about 20 seconds. It will turn into a clear liquid. Pour the duck fat over the vegetables and season with lots of salt and pepper (or you know, less, if you regulate these things). Toss in the bowl until they are evenly coated.

Then scatter your vegetables into a pre-heated tray and place in the oven. After 30 minutes, turn the vegetables, and return to the oven for another 20 mins or until crispy all over. And that's it. Consume!

Tri-salad Sunday

2011-04-04T23:35:00.001+10:00

Ah the change of seasons. Time for finishing the scarf I started knitting over a month ago. Time to buy some new 100 denier tights. Time to consider growing my hair long, again. Time to buy new batteries for my bike lights for the dark evenings.

It's also time to get my first dastardly head cold of the season. Time to go to bed early. Time to take fruit, and eat vitamins. Time to up my vegetable intake massively. Hence Tri-salad Sunday. A way to capitalise on some time at home in the midst of my manic massive work and study load, to stockpile some high veg, low(ish) carbs, tasty meals to last the majority of the week.

One Sunday. One blog post. Three salads. Let's do this thing.

1. Green lentil salad
2. Pearl couscous, beetroot and sweet potato salad
3. Roast mushrooms

Okay, that last one isn't really a salad, but it's vegetables, and it's yummy, so just go with it, okay?

Green lentil salad

Ingredients:

1.5 cups green lentils (Puy if you can get 'em)
Bay leaves
1 tomato, diced
half a green capsicum, diced
half a red capsicum, diced
half a small red onion, finely sliced
goats fetta
1 cup walnuts
bunch of fresh parsley, finely chopped
dressing - grape must, macadamia oil and raspberry balsamic

Heat the oven to 180 degrees C. Dry roast the walnuts for 8-10 minutes. Rinse the lentils under cold water then add to a pot. Pour over 4.5 cups of boiling water (you can use stock if you prefer). Add the bay leaves and simmer for 20 minutes. To check if they're ready, taste to make sure the texture is right. I wanted my lentils to be firm but chewy, and not tough. Once cooked, drain the remaining water and again, run cold water over the lentils to cool them.

Finely chop your tomato, capsicum, onion and parsley. Add the walnuts, vegetables, parsley and fetta to the lentils and toss through. Make up your dressing and pour over.

Pearl couscous, beetroot and sweet potato salad

Ingredients:

1 packet of pearl couscous
2 cups stock
1 sweet potato, diced
3 small beetroots or 2 medium beetroots, diced
olive oil
lemon juice
1.5 cups rocket
salt and pepper

Peel and dice the beetroot and sweet potato. Toss in oil and roast in a 180 C oven for up to 50 minutes, or until browning and crunchy.

While the vegetables roast, place the couscous in a saucepan with a dash of oil, and heat through, coating the couscous. Add two cups of boiling stock, cover and simmer for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pan. Then cool and seperate with a fork.

Rinse the rocket and pat dry on a tea towel. Then add the rocket and roast vegetables to the couscous, and toss. Add a splash of olive oil, juice of one lemon, salt and pepper, and mix through.

Roast mushrooms

Ingredients:

white button and large portabello mushrooms, roughly chopped
olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
fresh parsley
knob of butter

Place the mushrooms in a pan and drizzle olive oil over them, then toss. Sprinkle salt and pepper over them if you fancy extra seasoning. Add the garlic cloves to the pan and roast in the oven (180 C) for about 20 minutes, checking to make sure the mushrooms do not dehydrate fully.

Remove the garlic and squeeze out the roasted insides. Add to a bowl with the knob of butter and microwave for 20 seconds, or until the butter is melted. Add the mushrooms to the bowl with the finely chopped fresh parsley, and toss.

Serve all three with freshly baked dinner rolls and lemon infused olive oil. Oh yum.

NB This will make huge quantities of salad, if you make all three at once. Eat them all week and show your head cold who's boss!

Persian Hazelnut and Cardamon Biscuits

2011-03-29T22:41:00.001+11:00

I am having a love affair with all things Middle Eastern and edible. Hence I made this these biscuits. I adapted this recipe from one given me by my charming colleague Julia, with additional inspiration from my Greg and Lucy Malouf cookbook Saraban.

They're extremely short, super nutty and have a lovely hint of spice. They're supposed to be crescent shaped, but mine ended up a bit smooshed. And I have been eating them, about six smooshed biscuits at a time!

Ingredients

240g Butter
1 1/4 cups Castor sugar
2 1/2 cups Plain flour
1 1/2 cup Hazlenut meal
Cardamon (about half a teaspoon)
rind of one orange

Heat the oven to 170 degrees (my recipe said 180, but my fan forced oven was too fast and the first tray of biscuits over-cooked, so I adjusted it down). Cream the butter until it's pale and smooth. Add the sugar and beat thoroughly until it's absorbed - up to five minutes. Add about half the flour and hazlenut meal, and the cardamon and finely grated rind, and beat through until too stiff for the beaters.

Tip the mixture onto the bench and add the remaining flour and meal. Work in with your hands. It will make a very short dough, and will remain all crumbly.

Pick up a walnut sized amount of dough and squeeze in your hand, until it forms a solid sort of log shape. Then turn the edges in to form a crescent. Place about 2 inches apart on a baking paper lined tray and cook for 15 minutes. Check during cooking to make sure the biscuits don't over cook - they shouldn't be brown when they're done, but remain lovely and pale.

Once cooled, dust with icing sugar, and serve with coffee or tea.

Tomato sugo

2011-03-02T23:28:00.000+11:00

Last weekend Leith and I did a good deed. We drove to Stawell to help out moving some furniture and boxes around, and then we were rewarded by Leith's mum in the traditional manner: with food. We visited a farmers' market on Sunday and got ourselves a box of saucing tomatoes! We also got a whole lot of fresh herbs from her garden. So on Monday night, I made sauce.

I didn't have a recipe, and I read a whole bunch online, each different to the last: leave the skins on vs blanche and peel them; add sugar, don't add sugar; add onion, don't add onion; puree, don't puree etc So I ended up deciding to just make my own sauce however the hell I wanted. In fact, I made three kinds, because I needed three pots to fit all the tomatoes.

Ingredients:

Tomatoes
garlic cloves (1 clove to approx every 500g of tomatoes)
a splash of oil
salt and pepper
tablespoon of caster sugar
a decent splash of water
a slug of olive oil

Optional extras:

finely chopped onion
basil, parsley, oregano, thyme, any other herbs you like
olives
anchovies
chilli
anything you want!

I made three kinds: one that was tomato with garlic and four herbs; one tomato, garlic, basil and chilli; and one tomato with garlic, basil, olives and anchovies. I didn't remove any skins because I couldn't be bothered, and also, it just seemed so wasteful.

Wash your tomatoes to remove any dirt. Chop them into quarters, taking care to remove any impurities. Put them in the largest pot you have, or three! Add about a centimeter of water to each pot, add a slug of olive oil and the smashed garlic. This will stop the tomatoes from burning on the base of the pots, but don't add too much as the tomatoes will leech water once they start cooking, and the sauce will be too runny. Put the pots on a medium to low heat, and cook covered for about 40 minutes. Stir occassionally, and let the tomatoes break down. Add a tablespoon of sugar or so to each pot and stir in.

Once the tomatoes have started to break down considerably, add a generous sprinkle of good quality salt and cracked pepper. Add your herbs and whatever else you are including (although I didn't add the olives until after I'd pureed). Continue to simmer for 15 mins or so until there is a reasonably balance of liquid and tomato chunks. Remove from the heat and pulse a few times with a bar mix until it has the consistency you want. I pureed mine so that it was mostly smooth, but included a few little lumps still. Two of my pots were just right, but put the third back on the heat for 10 mins to thicken a little more.

Pour into serving sized bottles and keep in the fridge or freezer, depending on when you think you might use them. This is what it looks like if you drop one of the containers - the largest one - of delicious tomato sugo.

Leith used one right away to make us pasta! He used some of the amazing things we came home with, including a giant golden zucchini and a homemade calabrese salami. Here's what he made:

Ingredients:

250g wholemeal pasta spirals
1 jar of tomato and herb sugo
golden zucchini
salami chunks
finely chopped onion
parmasen cheese to garnish
olive oil

Slice the zucchini into fat steaks, sprinkle them with salt and pepper and brush them with olive oil. Then cook them on a grill until they blacken and go all squishy. In the meantime, cook your pasta in just a little salted water.

Saute the onion in the olive oil until golden. Add the salami and fry until all the delicious porky juices start flowing. Add your sugo and simmer until heated through. Leith here demonstrates his technique of keeping the wooden spoon clear of the pan, so it doesn't absorb all the flavours. A worthy tip, if you believe in such things - I have to confess that I never do it!

Add the pasta and mix through, then finally, add the grilled zucchini and mix gently again. Garnish with the parmasen, and voila! Delicious pasta full of yumminess.

Plum jam

2011-02-14T20:56:00.000+11:00

So on Tuesday night my Mum rang me and asked if I was home, and not fifteen minutes later turned up with 3kgs of plums. She explained that she'd already turned at least that many into chutney, and by the way did I have any jars she could have. I explained that with the arrival of 3kgs of plums, I would be needing all my jars, and we reached an accord: I would take the plums, and give her nothing. Sometimes it's good to have daughter privelages.

Incidentally, it should be said that these plums were gorgeous. Juicy, silky and deep crimson.

Ingredients (shown for 1kg of plums - adapt for your quantities)

1kg blood plums
500 ml water
3 cups caster sugar
juice of one large lemon

Quarter the plums, remove the stones and put in your largest saucepan. Add the water and place on a high heat and bring to the boil. Then lower the heat, and simmer for an hour.

While the plums are stewing, sterilise your jars in very hot water and dry thoroughly.

Add the sugar and lemon juice to the plums and stir until all the sugar is dissolved. Bring to a fast boil, and cook uncovered for 20 - 40 minutes or until the jam is set. To test if it's set, put a bit of jam on a plate in the freezer for 2 minutes, then run your finger through it and make sure it's as jelly-like as you want it.

Ladle into your jars while the jam is still hot and seal the lids. They should suction themselves on as the jam cools. If you're the kind of person who is highly domesticated and possibly a goddess, then remove the labels of your jars and put little gingham caps on them. If, however, you are like me and ladling jam at 11pm when you have a 5am flight to Canberra the following morning because you are nothing if not a committed career woman/poor judge of time, just wipe the stickiness from the sides and go to bed.

Banana bread with cashew and chocolate chunks

2011-02-02T00:13:00.002+11:00

I live with a man who hates bananas. Loathes them. So when we got a bunch of bananas in our weekly fruit and vegie box, they sat on the bench and steadily, reliably went brown. I ignored them right up until the point that my man wanted to throw them out, at which point I declared resolutely: "I SHALL MAKE BANANA BREAD."

But the truth is, while I like banana bread, it doesn't really excite me. Cashew nuts and dark chocolate - they excite me. My path was clear...

Ingredients (adapted from taste.com):

1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup self-raising flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 over-ripe bananas
2 eggs
125g butter, melted and cooled
big handful of cashew nuts
100g or so of cooking chocolate

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Then line a loaf tin with baking paper.

Mix the flours, sugar and cinnamon. Whisk together the butter and eggs. Mash the banana.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the butter and egg mixture. Stir through, then add the mashed bananas and mix again.

Finely chop the cashes and roughly hew the chocolate. Then add these to the mix and stir through as well.

Tip the whole lot into your lined tin and bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Take to work - because it's not welcome at home - and feel virtuous and noble because you didn't waste three bananas, with only a modicum of effort.

Three onion and taleggio tart

2011-02-01T23:18:00.000+11:00

I love this tart. You don't have to be hugely into onions to love this tart. Like my friend Ange says: "If onions were cocoa, then this tart would be chocolate". Essentially, this tart is onions as good as they can get. And it has creamy, stinky taleggio cheese in it. Need I say more?

Ingredients:

Basic shortcrust pastry for the base

Two medium to large leeks, finely chopped (just the white stalks, not the green leafy bits)
One large spanish onion, finely chopped
Five or six spring onions, finely chopped
olive oil
One egg, beaten
about 200g of taleggio cheese, cut into smallish chunks
50g grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oven to 180 degrees. Take you're shortcrust pastry and tip it into your greased pie tin. Press it down with your fingers and palms to form a thin yet solid crust. Keep pushing from the middle out until it goes all the way to the edges. Then put the case in the oven for 10 minutes and remove while you prepare your tart ingredients.

Put a big ole slug of olive oil in a hot non-stick pan. Add the leeks and stir for about 5 minutes on a medium heat until softened. Then cover, and reduce the heat to low, and simmer for a further 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to ensure the leeks are not burning.

Once the leeks are softened to almost a mush, add the rest of the onions and stir vigorously, and continue to simmer for another 15 minutes. Then remove from the heat, add the egg, salt and pepper and mix through. Then add the taleggio and mix until evenly dispersed.

Fill your pastry case with the onion mixture and place in the oven for 20 minutes. Then remove the pie, and sprinkle the grated parmesan evenly over the surface, and return to the oven for a further 10-15 minutes. Remove, slice and serve!

Basic shortcrust pastry

2011-01-15T20:38:00.000+11:00

Shortcrust pastry is remarkably quick and easy to make, and when made properly, so much more delicious that bought. I have scoured numerous recipes to find one that I preferred. I wanted one that was simple - the fewer ingredients the better.

So this is the recipe I most use. It's the most basic of the basic, and can be modified to suit your needs pretty easily by adding sugar for a sweet pastry, and other elements such as cinnamon, ground ginger or parmesan cheese. But honestly, I tend to use it plain most often. With a mixer, it takes two minutes to throw together. The key is to make it ahead of time: two hours at minimum but preferably overnight, and it can be frozen for weeks.

There are innumerable handy tips that can improve the quality of your pastry, and I wont pretend to be an expert and cite them all here. Instead, I recommend checking this handy shortcrust pastry guide. The one critical tip I will impart is: use chilled ingredients, the colder the better. Using butter straight from the fridge is one of the reasons I use a mixer rather than rubbing it into the flour by hand, which would frankly be very tedious. It also minimises the amount of body heat I transfer to the dough, because you want to handle the dough as little as possible.

Ingredients:

225g plain flour
pinch of salt
125g unsalted butter
a few tablespoons of iced water*

Put the flour, salt and butter in your mixer. Mix briefly until the contents resemble fine breadcrumbs, then tip the whole lot out onto the bench. Form it into a ball, pushing it together so that it holds, and remembering to handle it as little as possible.

Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap and put in the fridge or freezer, depending on when you wish to use it.

When you're ready to use the pastry, roll out the ball into a disk or rectangle, and line your tin or dish with it. Prick the bottom all over with a fork, line with baking paper and add pie weights or dry rice or legumes and pre-bake in a hot oven (about 200 C) for about ten minutes. Then go ahead and make your pie or tart according to your recipe.

*NB I made a double dough today, some for now and some for later, which is reflected in the photos.