beans & barley

Come get your slop!

2011-05-07T16:04:00.004+10:00

I'm always going on about frugal cooking and making stuff from scratch etc. Sometimes, though, I just look in the fridge and cupboard and go 'Why don't we have any FOOD?' - you know, stuff that is ready to eat, then and there.

And then I go away grumpily and a few minutes later come back, look in the fridge and cupboard again, and come to the same conclusion. And then sulk.

It happened today. It's not like there wasn't anything to eat. We'd just been to the market. We'd stocked up on vegetables and lentils and rice and tofu. I swear though, at that moment, there was nothing to eat.

Finally I just told myself to get over it and started chopping up some garlic and onion, and putting together the beginnings of a lentil stew. With potato. And cumin. And some brussel sprouts from last week.

Of course, like all lentil stew, it came out looking like brown slop. It was a brown slop. But it was food, and it was relatively tasty. And it wasn't that hard to make, I guess. I have just started to wonder why I don't make my life a bit easier and start buying things that are slightly more convenient. Chickpeas in cans. Pasta sauces in jars. That kind of stuff. When you look in the fridge and all you see is a large cauliflower looking back at you, it's not that inspiring. Especially when you are REALLY HUNGRY. And tired. Or bored.

I shouldn't be angry at the slop. The slop is how my boyfriend and I saved up for a deposit on a house. The slop is how we will actually manage to pay for the house (I hope!). But gee, slop can be boring sometimes. Sticking to your own rules can be hard!

Anyway, I'm going to go make a loaf of bread and hang the washing out now.

Sunday Morning Breakfast

2011-02-27T10:36:00.006+11:00

My sister and I both woke up this morning with the same idea: Bake up a batch of fresh muesli (granola style), stew the rhubarb we bought at the farmer's market yesterday, bake a loaf of bread and immediately put on a plunger of coffee.

Teamwork!

We made the muesli by pouring into a bowl about 4 cups of oats, stirring in a quarter cup of juice, a few tablespoons of vegetable oil and a few heaped teaspoons of honey, and then baking it in the oven (spread out for 25 minutes at 170 degrees, then stirring in a generous sprinkling of linseeds, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds and then bake for another 25 minutes.

So! Muesli, yoghurt and stewed rhubarb! Very yummy but it won't last long around here.

broccoli polenta

2011-02-20T20:13:00.002+11:00

I made a broccoli polenta recipe from Veganomicon tonight and it was really, really delicious. I was flicking through the book hoping something would pop out at me, and then, 'pop!' - this stuck out.

It involved cooking up a pot of polenta, stirring through a head of finely chopped broccoli, smearing it out onto a baking tray and refridgerating it for an hour, and then slicing it into squares and pan frying it. The bits of broccoli on the edges went really crispy and crunchy, and it was all round yum.

For the sauce, I cooked up a whole load of home grown tomatoes and zucchini, some garlic & onion, salt, pepper, vinegar, chilli flakes, thyme and a little of bit of honey. I cooked it for about an hour until it was reduced and syrupy, and then used poured it on top of the polenta to serve.

Everyone in the house was really excited by it, I guess because it's totally different from the tofu-green vegetables-rice stuff that I usually make. And it was good!

gardening

2010-12-31T09:50:00.007+11:00

Lately my interest in gardening has surpassed my interest in cooking. It's not that I don't enjoy cooking what I grow, it's just that gardening is a whole new area of investigation for me with so so many things to learn. I feel like I'm in gardening primary school: my attempts are wonky and haphazard, but the enthusiasm is there.

So far there has been a successful (but short lived) crop of broadbeans, a successful but small crop of beetroot, coriander that bolted after a week, second-attempt basil, a few handfuls of peas, a few handfuls of beans and some deformed carrots. In the more prolific pile there is cucumber which is yielding about 3 fully grown cucumbers a day (I have no idea what to do with this much cucumber), zucchini plants which are growing rapidly and have given a few zucchinis a week so far (many more to come I think), six heads of broccoli of which the first was consumed last night (although about half an hour was spent picking slugs off it first) and 21 tomato plants which are threatening to take over the world (the tomatoes are still small and green but in a month I think we will have boxes upon boxes of them).

Every morning after wrenching myself out of bed I stumble onto the back deck and water the seedlings. Then I put my gumboots on and wander around the garden whilst rubbing sleep out of my eyes. I prod and poke all the bushes to see if anything has happened over night. By the time I've finished my garden observation rounds, I'm pretty much awake.

Gardening is a rather addictive hobby, especially when you start to get the rewards. I can't stop thinking about it!

Using the Fridge

2010-10-31T18:32:00.006+11:00

My sister has been staying with us for the six weeks. Since she's been here I've been a lot more organised in planning meals. The best method I've found for doing this is using our old, slightly dodgy refridgerator as a whiteboard for figuring out what to use each ingredient we bought from the market for. This makes sure we don't go hungry (or have to run to the supermarket) during the week and also makes sure nothing we buy goes to waste. Shortly after getting back from the market and stocking up on vegies etc, we plan out what we'll use them for. Andrew usually cooks one or two days a week and my sister one day (for now!). Staples we usually buy to complement the vegetables are plain flour, oil, spices, grains (there's a good grain shop at the market - we go there for chickpeas, lentils, black beans, barley, slivered almonds, cashews), a can of tomatoes, tofu, rice noodles, milk and occasionally cheese. We buy a different spice every week and we've now built up a cupboard full of pretty much every spice you could need to make a delicious dish out of a couple of vegetables. By doing this we've been able to keep our grocery budget to roughly $20 - 25 a week each (so around $75 for the three of us).

We also use the fridge to record our shopping list and everyone can add to it. We all know how to make bread now so if one of us mixes together some dough, another one can come along and see that it's ready to go into the oven and take care of it. It's a collaborative process. We usually have a loaf ready or one on the way. We buy a kilo of flour for 95c so one loaf is worth about 40c and lasts us a few days. Bread baking - a skill for life!

Unfortunately not many fascinating, shareable recipes come out of this process, but we do eat a lot of fresh vegetables and it's so cheap. Someone at work recently made a snarky comment to me about boring ladies who plan their meals in advance and how dull their lives must be - I just laughed to myself. I don't feel bored at all - we are all happy and nourished!

Fruit Wine Update

2010-08-16T10:19:00.003+10:00

A few months ago I made some pomegranate wine as part of an introduction to winemaking short course.

I left it to settle for a month whilst I was in New York, and drank it when I got back.

It was...well, it was a first attempt. I didn't really enjoy it that much, Andrew did, but it was better than cask wine.

The glass on the left is less cloudy than the one on the right as it had been filtered more carefully, and the glass on the right was poured closer to the end of a bottle.

If I ever have a glut of fruit to dispose of, I'll make fruit wine again. Otherwise...it can wait.

Standard Dinners

2010-08-07T21:02:00.002+10:00

I have a list of standard dinners I make on weeknights. Most of the time I like cooking dishes that require very little thinking. The meal above appears about once a week - rice made in a rice cooker (with an egg and some soy sauce stirred in once it's cooked), some steamed or stir fried green vegetables (broccoli, zucchini, bok choi and asparagus are on high rotation) and some marinated sliced tofu rolled in some seasoned flour and then pan fried. It's a rather delicious combination and something I can happily make even after 5 minutes of staring grumpily at the fridge with the door open and no motivation to do anything.

Here's a list of other dishes that come under my category of 'standard dinners'.

Barley salad - accompanied with some roasted mushrooms
Beetroot & lentil salad
Noodle salad
Noodle stirfry with tin of mock duck and assorted vegetables
Sweet potato dumplings and sweet potato noodles
Crunchy roast potatoes with some panfried fish* and steamed green vegetables
Potato and dill salad
Thai green curry with tofu, zucchini and eggplant
Brown rice salad with tahini sauce, toasted almonds and some steamed greens
Black bean soup with capsicum and corn
Lentil bolognaise
Oven-full of mixed roasted vegetables and some homemade satay sauce
Laksa
Green vegetable & barley soup
(* rare. I think I've bought fish once in the last 6 months - and it was that basa fillet frozen crap that costs about 10 dollars a kilo).

We're not vegetarian but we barely ever buy meat - maybe once a month. It's not good value for money and it makes a mess.

It's funny how your 'standard dinners' change over time. Six years ago I always made this chicken and egg on rice dish (Japanese style), mushroom pizza, broth with soba noodles, and pasta with tomato, tuna, zucchini and carrot sauce. For some reason I'd never dream of making any of theses things now.

Have you got any 'standard dinners' you'd like to share with me? I'd love to hear about them!

Cafe Gitane, Nolita, New York

2010-07-12T08:27:00.004+10:00

The waitresses wear matching cute green dresses as uniforms, there's a mix of Moroccan/French inspired dishes and some from elsewhere such as the tuna ceviche with cabbage, coriander, rice noodles, toasted sesame and jalapenos pictured above, and they offer great coffee and lovely organic teas (they come with sugar syrup for sweetening!) - but at Cafe Gitane you come for the atmosphere. So far, my favourite place to eat in New York.

Cafe Gitane
242 Mott Street
New York, New York

MOMA lunch, New York

2010-06-19T08:38:00.005+10:00

I can't really complain. I'm in New York for a month studying all the museums and galleries - what a hard life! However, a month without cooking is a long month indeed. Especially since there are some amazing supermarkets here offering a cook's paradise of ingredients. Sigh. I'm staying in a college room and I have to eat every meal for the month either out at a restaurant or cafe or in the college cafeteria. I don't like having so little control over what I eat!

Below is the lunch I had yesterday in the cafe of the Museum of Modern Art - beetroot with goat cheese, calamari with black chickpeas, and braised artichokes with steamed spinach.

Lunch today was sandwiches from Pret a Manger eaten in sunny and lively Bryant Park - what a treat! Bryant Park is at the rear of the New York Public Library at at 12.30pm was absolutely flooded with local New Yorkers with their packed lunches or sandwiches from nearby shops (Pret a Manger was a madhouse!). The atmosphere was perfect - hundreds of moveable seats and tables encourage everyone to make the most of the sunny park rather than eat at their desks.

(Bryant Park, 2 hours before the insane rush)

In general, food here is very affordable, perhaps slightly cheaper than Melbourne. I'm fast developing an addiction to garlic bagels at breakfast time. But for $1.60, can you really go wrong?!

Vegan Raspberry Muffins

2010-06-07T14:23:00.009+10:00

My god. I've finally finished uni for the semester! I can't even explain what a relief it is. Here is a little recipe I made today for you all. It's a vegan muffin recipe. I used half wholemeal flour and added some lucuma powder to make myself feel better about eating a million of them. It's my first time using banana as an egg substitute and it worked really well. Banana is also super good for you, so that's just an added bonus. I should be making some more bread in the next few days, once I get my hands on some more fresh yeast. The only place I've found it is at the Queen Vic markets which is all the way in the city.

1 cup plain flour
1 cup wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons lucuma powder
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 medium banana
1/2 vegetable oil
3/4 cup non-dairy milk
2 cups raspberries (thawed, if frozen)
Almonds

Firstly, put your oven on to 350F (180C). Grease some muffin trays (I used mini muffin trays, ended up filling about four!)
Sift the flours, lucuma powder, brown sugar and baking powder together in a large bowl.
In another bowl, mash up the banana really well. Add the oil and milk to this and stir together.
Add the wet mixture to the dry and mix together.
Fold the raspberries through.
Fill the muffin tins to about 3/4 full. Place an almond on the top of each muffin.
Place in the oven and cook for about 20 mins. The time may vary depending on the size of your muffins. To test if done, poke a center muffin with a skewer or knife. It's don't if it comes out clean.
Take them out of the oven and let rest for a few minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack. Don't wait till they're cool though, eat them hot!

Garden: Before and After

2010-05-23T16:02:00.009+10:00

We are turning our overgrown, messy backyard into a series of vegie patches. Here are some photos from today.

We've been hacking at a mysterious lump (it seems to have been created by many years of grass clippings dumped on top of each other) trying to get all the weeds out of it. Then we plan to grow pumpkins and zucchinis on the lump, come spring.

Broad beans are growing quickly and I've got some seedlings coming up in seedling trays.

I'm planning to turn the old driveway into garden beds.

We plan to get some fruit trees too - in pots in case we ever can't renew our lease, so we can bring them with us to wherever we go next!

I'll put more photos up in a few months - hopefully by then there'll be quite a transformation!

Rhubarb Crumble

2010-05-23T09:46:00.011+10:00

My sister has been trying to get me to go to the Abbotsford Farmers' Market for about three years now. Or more, I'm not entirely sure. The whole purpose of the exercise (or at least how she sold it to me) was to check out the 'boys in hats and scarves'. Well, alluring as those wool-clad boys might have been, I just couldn't bring myself to get up before about 11am on a Saturday, and after showering, breakfast eating, transportation etc there is no way I could possibly make it to the market by 1pm, when it closes.

My sister went frequently though, and although singing its praises (and recounting sightings of 'boys with hats and scarves' - hello sister, I love you) I still never bothered to get around to it. Until a couple of weeks ago. My obsession with vegetables is getting increasingly all-pervasive and I jumped at the idea of riding our bikes along to Yarra to check out some organic or direct-from-farmer vegies and other produce. We only managed to get there by closing time, 1pm, but there was still plenty of stuff around. I'm not on the hunt for a boy-with-hat-and-scarf anymore, but even so it looked like most of the guys there were less 'pick-up-girls-in-dresses-on-bicycles' stage and more 'strap-a-baby-to-my-chest-and-pick-up-some-organic-milk' stage.

I bought some lovely saffron pine mushrooms, fresh and crunchy broccoli and a bunch of the wonderful, wonderful 'Di's Rhubarb'. Those who know this rhubarb will remember that it comes with a very strict warning that you are to cook it with NO WATER and RAW SUGAR ONLY. Seriously. You disobey Di at your own risk. She'll ask you about the next time you buy it (as she did yesterday, when I went to the market a second time) and I doubt she'd let you off easily if you lied to her about it. NO WATER.

I'm not sure what horrible fate would befall you if you did add water, but Di's Rhubarb Crumble recipe is so good I wouldn't bother giving it a go. Just follow the recipe and you will have the most delicious, comforting winter dessert ever. Best to use Di's Rhubarb from the Farmers' market though, I can't vouch for other rhubarb but the rhubarb I saw at the supermarket yesterday was a limp, shrivelled, sorry sight.

Di's Rhubarb Crumble

400g rhubarb, topped and tailed and cut into 2cm pieces
350g apples, peeled and chopped
125g raw sugar (Di suggests 250g but it's just way too much)

175g plain flour
100g sugar
125g butter, chopped
100g gingernut biscuits
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger powder

Place rhubarb, apples and raw sugar in a pot. Cook slowly, stirring occasionally until all fruit has fallen apart and become syrupy. NO WATER, ALRIGHT?

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, butter, gingernut biscuits, cinnamon, ginger. Either combine in food processor or do what I did and bash the biscuits to crumbs using a the pestle from a mortar and pestle. Scrunch mixture with fingers until butter is combined and you have buttery crumbs.

Pour fruit mix into baking dish, cover with crumble mix and bake at 180 degrees C for roughly 40 minutes, or until bubbly and golden.

Yumbo. Serves about 6 people.

Other market finds which have been turned into delicious, bursting-with-freshness dishes:

- Lightly steamed broccoli with homemade aioli

- Tomatoes sliced and served in alternating layers with creamy fior di latte cheese

- Pan fried black beans and kale

- Caramelised roasted butternut pumpkin

- Tiny kipfler potatoes as a salad with mayonnaise and loads of dill

The next Abbotsford Farmers' Market is on Saturday, 12th of June at the Collingwood Children's Farm, St. Heliers St Abbotsford. See you there! Does anyone know of any other wonderful Farmers' Markets in Melbourne?

Fruit Wine

2010-05-16T16:57:00.003+10:00

I have started a short course in winemaking at Epping Tafe (NMIT) - 6 weeks on Wednesday nights. It's really interesting and great to refresh my mind with some chemistry! We were all given the task of making some wine from fruit juice at home, to then be taken into the lab and test and look for faults etc. I decided to use pomegranate juice (I did so as it has a similar sugar level to grape juice - sugar level is important in wine making!) and started it yesterday.

It started bubbling away overnight. I am being very overprotective of it, fussing over it trying to keep it warm! Camila - are you interested in knitting it a little coat?!

Depending on how this goes I might start making my own fruit wines regularly. There really is nothing to it so far. Fruit juice, wine making yeast, and a flagon.

In other news, the Farmers Market at the Collingwood Children's Farm and at the Abbotsford Convent is just about the best thing ever. Get there and get some of Di's rhubarb!

Lovely Bread!

2010-05-14T14:39:00.008+10:00

Yay! My second attempt at bread baking turned out quite nicely. I managed to find some fresh yeast at the Queen Vic Market. It was surprisingly cheap, just under $2 for 200grams, when the recipe only calls for 8g! I'm not going to post the recipe because I'm going to be posting a lot from the same book. I'll do a post about the book later, as it's really really really good. I'm excited about learning all the ins and outs of bread baking. When Uni semester finishes in a few weeks I'll have more free time to practice. I need to start using proper baking flour though, I think I saw some at the market when I was there so I might need to take another trip over.

Poffertjes

2010-05-05T16:38:00.003+10:00

As it was Dutch orange day on Sunday I thought it might be a good opportunity to make poffertjes. I have been in love with these little pancakes since I was young. I eat them at every festival I go to, at every opportunity. I bought one of the special pans to cook them in a few years ago. It came with a pre-made mixture to use and that's as far as I went in my cooking of them. When the mixture ran out I put the pan at the back of the cupboard for a rainy day. That day has come! and will come again! These tasted exactly like the ones from the stalls. This recipe is a combination of a few and isn't really exact so feel free to play around. I'm trying to make a vegan version that is just as good and will post it as soon as it appears to me.

I'd also like to tell everyone that I've started a personal blog. It'd be cool if you could go over and have a look! LINK!

Poffertjes!

2 2/3 cups plan flour
1 1/4 cup milk
One packet of dried yeast (the packets I use are 7g)
2 teaspoons of sugar
1 beaten egg
a pinch of salt
15g melted butter

Heat the milk till it is lukewarm. Stir in the sugar and the yeast. Let it sit for ten minutes or so. If it's getting frothy, you're onto a good thing.
Put the flour in a large bowl and add a pinch of salt. Pour the yeast/milk mixture in and stir. When combined, add the egg and butter (beaten egg, melted butter.)
Stir till it looks sort of ok.
Cover the bowl with a tea towel. It's best to use a clean one, but don't worry too much. Like, don't go to the trouble of washing anything. Put the covered bowl in front of a heater or in the sun depending on climate. Leave for one hour, probably wise to turn it half way if it's in front of a heater.
After an hour it should have at least doubled in size. Yay! Stir it again to get the air out.
Put the poffertjes pan on the heat and give it a bit of a grease. Using a teaspoon, half fill the holes. When bubbles are coming though, flip them over. When both sides are brown, take them out and put them on a plate. I used some skewers that came with the pan the turn them, it worked pretty well. Oh, and the first batch didn't cook very well (as usual) and tasted really yeasty. Don't let that deter you! The rest will be magic!
Put some knobs of butter on top and cover in icing sugar.
Eat as many as will fit in your stomach.
Tip: they reheat really well in the microwave!

Happy poffertjing!

Pikelets!

2010-04-23T12:58:00.002+10:00

I sometimes get random pikelet cravings. The problem with pikelet cravings is that they are so easy and quick to make that it's hard not the give in. This is just a basic little recipe that produces a nice, consistent batter. I overcooked these a little because I was scared they weren't cooking all the way through, so they ended up being a little tough, don't make the same mistake!

Cinnamon Pikelets

Mix 1cup self raising flour with 2 tablespoons of caster sugar. Make a well in the centre.
In another bowl, add 2/3cup milk to 1 beaten egg. Pour this into the well. Using a wooden spoon, gradually beat in the flour. Add some cinnamon to the mix, however much you like, maybe about 2 teaspoons?
Brush frying pan with a little butter.
When hot, place spoonfuls of mixture in frying pan. When bubbles appear on the surface, turn with a spatular. Allow to brown on other side and cook through.
Brush frying pan with butter between batches.
Lift onto cake cooler covered with a clean cloth to keep them soft.
Serve with butter, jam, and/or whipped cream.

Basic Bread

2010-04-08T22:18:00.006+10:00

Although Anna is most definitely the bread baker of the two of us (what with her fancy ratios and all), I've decided that it's a skill I must learn. I've dabbled with bread making before but it's mainly been sweet rolls and pizza dough. I've been spurred along this journey by this book from this lovely lady, and it's where this recipe comes from. It's about homesteading and the importance of learning country skills. Each chapter is about a different skill, such as growing vegetables, cook, sewing, keeping animals etc, with each chapter combining an amusing anecdote from the author and ideas for how you can incorporate these skills into your life. I raced through this book from start to finish in a day and now I desperately need some angora rabbits and a banjo!
My first attempt at bread wasn't that bad. It was just a basic white sandwich bread. I ate most of it slathered in butter, but it wasn't the nicest when toasted. I think I should look into using live yeast. After this attempt I went out and purchased a large, intensive bread making book full of recipes, tips and troubleshooting. I'll be sure to keep you all informed as to my progress, and please let me know how this recipe goes for you if you try it!

2 cups warm water
1 packet dry yeast
1 teaspoon honey
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
5-6 cups unbleached white flour
butter

In a large bowl, combine the water and yeast. Once the yeast has dissolved, add the honey. Leave it for about 10 minutes until it starts frothing.
Mix in the vegetable oil, salt and 2 cups of flour to the yeast. Mix this with a wooden spoon for about five minutes. Keep adding flour until you have a ball of dough that will stay together without being too sticky.
Place on a floured surface and kneed until you can poke it and it bounces back. This will take a while.
Grease a clean bowl with the butter and put the dough in the bowl. Cover with a damp cloth and leave for one and a half hours.
Punch down the dough and kneed a little more. When it's back to how it looked before, rip it in half, shape into loaves and place in greased bread pans. Cover these with a damp cloth and leave for another hour.
Brush some melted butter over the loaves and place in a 375F oven. Bake for about 30 minutes (mine took a little longer.) When they are brownish on top and a bit hard it's time to take them out. Let them sit for a bit before transferring them to a cooling rack. Cover in butter and eat!

Plum Tea Cake

2010-04-06T20:19:00.004+10:00

I baked this cake to celebrate / commemorate / commiserate the end of the Easter holidays. 3 days off from work = 5 day weekend! It was a slow, relaxed weekend with large stretches of time spent tirelessly digging garden beds in a backyard overrun with weeds.

This morning I decided to wander aimlessly around Preston looking for food tidbits. I ended up with all sorts of vegies, grains, some green curry paste and dried oyster mushrooms. I finished the trip with a quick circuit of Aldi to hunt for bargains. I mean, you don't go to Aldi for anything specific - unless of course you were stopping by to quickly pick up a mountain bike or a watering can. They had a kilo of plums for 2 dollars, so I grabbed those, as well as some 69c sliced beetroot, a 99c bag of spinach and some unsalted butter. I forgot to pick up a plastic bag at the start of the queue (not being Aldi initiated) so ended up having to cram all the things I bought into my handbag quickly whilst being glared at by the people queueing behind me. Argh.

Anyway, the plums. I made a cake using Michael Ruhlman's pound cake ratio, but browned the butter first and used soft brown sugar. I tossed some white choc chips in at the end because we had them in the cupboard. I layered the surface with the cut plums and sprinkled them with brown sugar so they would caramelise in the oven. Sticky plum syrup pooled in the crevices where the stone of the fruits once were. The plums were not anywhere near as delicious as the plums I used to make plumble, but they were half the price. And why is it a tea cake? Well, Andrew called it a tea cake and when I asked him why he said 'I don't know, because it's brown.' Indeed it was brown, a deep, rich brown.

Plum Tea Cake

8 plums, halved and stoned
150g flour
150g soft brown sugar
3 eggs
150g butter
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/4 cup white choc chips (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat an oven to 170 degrees C.

Melt butter in a small pan. Keep cooking it until it turns a golden brown colour, not too dark. Turn off heat and leave to cool for a few minutes. Beat the soft brown sugar into the butter in a mixing bowl, until a smooth mixture is achieved. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Stir in baking powder, flour and salt. Stir through choc chips (if using). Butter a square cake tin and line with baking paper (I layered some long strips of baking paper under the main sheet to over-hang the tin, to ease the cake out after baking - see photo). Spoon cake batter into tin, sit the 16 plum halves on top in a 4 by 4 arrangement. Sprinkle with dark brown sugar and bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 mins - keep checking when it gets close to an hour to see when the centre has cooked through. Leave to cool for 15 mins, then carefully lift out of cake tin using the strips of baking paper.

Serves 8.

I am never making a roast chicken again.

2010-04-02T16:13:00.004+11:00

Sure, it tasted pretty good, but it took hours, dirtied every dish I own with a film of grease and ended up tasting ... like chicken. By the time it was ready the kitchen was a disaster, and I was too tired to enjoy eating it.

The roasted onions, garlic, beetroot, sweet potato and potato and the steamed grean beans were much more interesting.

The leftovers today for lunch, however, were rather tasty - livened up with a bit of whole-egg mayonaisse and Maille dijon mustard.

mushroom tangle, barley greens & plumble

2010-04-02T11:56:00.007+11:00

I recently discovered that the Preston Market is open on Friday nights 'til 8pm. This means that if I get out of work on time and don't dally about, I can make it to the market by around 6pm, pick up some fresh vegetables and tidbits for the weekend, and not have to deal with the soul-testing, all-encompassing throng of market-goers that descend on the place on a Saturday morning. It also means that I can make a delicious meal to celebrate Friday evening with pretty much any ingredient I've been distracted by dreaming about all day at work that day. Last Friday, I had been daydreaming about mushrooms. (Really - who daydreams about mushrooms? Is that a common occurence? I assume other people daydream about things like pina coladas on tropical islands and adventurous holidays to far off places and meeting cool people at hot parties and what not. But I'm sitting there in the office thinking about shiitakes. Strange or not? Let me know.)

Anyway, at the market I got a bunch of spinach, 3/4 kilo of dark red plums, enoki mushrooms, black fungus mushrooms (dried, from the Asian grocery store), field mushrooms, another Asian mushroom I don't know the name of (pictured below, right, next to the enokis - can you tell me the name if you know it) and some dried shiitakes.

What resulted was a sumptuous, buttery tangle of fungus, which I served with a barley risotto strewn with a whole bunch of spinach. The mushrooms were indescribably richly flavoured, overwhelmingly umami, meaty and moreish. The barley served as a filling and subtle sidedish to balance out the richness of the mushrooms.

Mushroom tangle

As many different types of mushrooms as you like, chopped, soaked if dried, I used:

1 handful of dried shiitakes, soaked in boiling water for 15 mins
1 handful of black fungus, soaked in boiling water for 15 mins and chopped finely
1 large field mushroom, sliced
1 packet of enokis, base chopped off and separated into strings
a bunch of another Asian mushroom (name pending!), separated

50g butter
2 tablespoons soy sauce
white pepper

Prepare all mushrooms for frying. Add half the butter to the pan and melt on high heat. Add in mushrooms, one variety at a time, stirring well. Fry, stirring often, for about 10 minutes until mushrooms are cooked through and wilted. Stir through soy sauce and other half of butter, turn off heat. Sprinkle with white pepper. Serve with barley greens. Serves 2-4, depending on love of mushrooms.

Barley greens

1 bunch spinach, washed, separated into leaves
1 cup barley
2 cloves sliced garlic
black pepper
1 vegetable stock cube
Boiling water
1 teaspoon oil

Soak the barley in boiling water half an hour in advance. Have a kettle of boiled water nearby. Heat the oil in a large pot (one that has a lid) and stir in the barley. Add the garlic, crushed stock cube and some black pepper and stir. Add hot water, one cup at time, stirring well whilst it soaks into the barley and evaporates (similar to making a risotto). Once the barley is almost soft, stir in the spinach and a little extra water and turn off the heat. Put the lid on the pot and leave for 5 minutes whilst the spinach steams in the heat of the barley. Take lid off and stir well. Serves 2 - 4.

Plumble

As dessert had been requested for the evening, I made an easy crumble with the plums - simply core and slice the plums into quarters (I used about 5 plums / 750 g), put them in a baking dish and stir in a couple of tablespoons of soft brown sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon. In a pan, melt around 40 grams of butter, cook until brown. Stir in a cup of oats. Spoon oat and butter mixture over plums and then cook in a 200 degree C oven for around half an hour (or until plums are saucy and soft and oats are brown).

Serves 4. Andrew gave this the wonderful name, Plumble. I was too busy devouring the sticky, unctuous red sauce that the plums had exuded at the time to notice. Apparently he said it about 5 times before I looked up and giggled about it. Welcome, Plumble! I will be making you again.

If I ever wonder...

2010-03-22T21:07:00.004+11:00

...why I'm obsessive about cooking, why I always over-cater, or why I always cook more dishes than necessary, I just have to look to my father. Describing his cooking skills as 'survival only' (pffft!), he whips up breakfasts involving fluffy banana pancakes, crispy bacon with maple syrup and rum-spiked fruit salad, and cooks his own farewell dinners consisting of homemade green pesto toasts; lentil, prawn and chorizo stew; salmon croquettes, tamarind-oyster sauce chicken wings, Texan-style pork ribs, grilled home-grown eggplant, rice and green salad.

Hey, Dad, I'll miss you when you go to Texas! Please bring back ridiculously decadent recipes involving bacon.

Caramelised Red Onion and Feta Quiche

2010-03-21T14:40:00.006+11:00

I found this in my drafts folder and thought, 'Hey! I never posted that!'.

This quiche was awesomely delicious but it never set properly (poor cream to egg ratio, I believe). The red onions were sliced thinly and cooked on a low heat for a very, very (painstakingly) long time until caramelised, and mixed with beaten eggs, chopped feta, chopped parsley, salt and pepper.

I think I need to make this again!

Friday Night Pasta

2010-03-21T13:59:00.004+11:00

Once I had tidied up my office on Friday afternoon, flicked off the powerswitches to my computer and printer and turned off the lights, I couldn't help but secretly jump up and down a few times. I was experiencing a mild case of Friday evening euphoria. I giggled to myself as I locked my office door and got the lift down to the ground floor. I could almost hear music that wasn't there! Next stop - King and Godfrey on Lygon Street to buy a bottle of Pinot Noir and something delicious to turn in to dinner. I pretty much skipped there!

I ended up with a 2008 Underground Pinot Noir from the Mornington Peninsula (a delicious bargain at $15), two delicate, milky balls of buffalo mozzarella, four slices of local Italian-style prosciutto, and some De Cecco Orecchiette (little ears!) pasta.

With this I invented a very delicious, simple and indulgent version of carbonara. I have no idea whether it resembles anything traditional. I don't care. It was perfect.

Friday Carbonara - Serves 2

250 g Orecchiette pasta
100 - 150g prosciutto, cut into small strips
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup thin cream
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoons salt
olive oil and salt for pasta water
2 small buffalo mozzarella balls
Extra pepper to serve

In a mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, cream, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 2 teaspoons cracked pepper.
Meanwhile, boil pasta in a large pot (use one that has a fitted lid, for later) of salted water (be generous with the salt!) and a glug of olive oil. In a small pan, heat a dash of olive oil and pan fry the prosciutto until crispy. Set aside. When pasta is ready, drain and immediately return to pot. Stir through egg mixture, fit lid onto pot, wrap pot tightly with tea towel (to further keep heat in) and shake gently. Leave for 3 or 4 minutes, shaking pot occasionally. Whilst waiting, cut buffalo mozzarella into thin slices. After 4 minutes, stir through prosciutto. Dish up onto places and then arrange mozzarella slices of the top. Sprinkle with extra pepper.

Serve with delicious wine and some extra jumping around with Friday excitement.

Film Shoot Catering

2010-03-20T09:28:00.007+11:00

On a recent Sunday, my house became inhabited by a film crew making a video clip for the semi-hiatused folk-pop-rock sweethearts Duckdive.

(The film crew takes over the living room!)

Let me make it clear to you from the get-go. I have no film making desire. I do not understand how films are made to any degree of clarity, and if anyone attempts to explain I usually wave them off and say 'I don't want the magic ruined!'. So, When it was suggested that Duckdive's first video clip be made at my house, it was not a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the workings of a film crew that got me excited. It was the possibility of cooking for these people!

I decided to work to the incredibly low budget of $20 - not including kitchen staples I already had such as flour, oil etc. Whilst the cool cats set up their equipment, turned my bedroom into a film set, blacked out windows and viewed and re-viewed takes in quiet determination, I was in the kitchen making the snacks.

I learned many things about films over those two days (whether I wanted to or not!). That they take an incredibly long time to make, and you have to be incredibly patient. That there is a lot of waiting around, filling in time until it's your turn to do your little bit of magic. And that groups of people, no matter how big or small, humble or important, can always be placated with food.

Golden cinnamon cookies

Chilli, olive, bacon and herb muffins

Chorizo, chickpea and vegetable soup

Sourdough sesame rolls (based on this recipe, minus the dutch oven and cut into eight pieces)

By far the most popular were the cinnamon cookies, which were munched enthusiastically over the two days of filming. But it all went down well. So there you go - if you aren't feeling particularly creative at the moment, but want to conjure up the feeling of being involved in dynamic, creative things, I'd suggest hosting a film crew at your house and cooking for them. All the vicarious excitement with only a smidgeon of the effort!

Crazy Corn Quinoa!!

2010-03-17T22:02:00.002+11:00

This is one of those throw together meals that actually worked. I've been feeling quite ill recently, which hasn't been helped by my diet which has consisted mainly of macaroni cheese and pie. This is super duper healthy and fast and fun and yummy. I don't really have a recipe for it, so I'll just sort of lay out the facts and you can follow them how you like.

So, I began by cooking the quinoa. Actually I lie, it's not quinoa. It's actually this neat grain mix I found at the health food store. It's a mix of different types of quinoa and amaranth. I've been using it a lot lately. I find it to be much tastier than the grains on their own.

Anyway, next I chopped up some green beans, a head of broccoli, half a red bell pepper, and two cobs of corn, into small pieces. I put these in a pan with some cumin, turmeric, chili and a little oil. While this as cooking, I toasted some pine nuts. When everything was nice I added the pine nuts and a hell of a lot of sesame seeds to the vegies and let everything mingle for a while. Just before I was ready to eat, I stirred through the grain mix and ta da, dinner is done!

You can use almost any veggies for this. I just happened to love corn and have a lot of it in the fridge. The corn and the pine nuts worked really well together though. xx

Choc Chip Cookies

2010-03-08T13:24:00.004+11:00

This week my swing dancing class is having "Cake Break". What this essentially means is that after having our normal class, we all sit around and eat baked goods. This special event has mainly been created because our teacher, Steph, enjoys created excuses to bake. This sits very well with me and has given me the push I needed to get back into the kitchen. I wasn't really sure what to bake. I needed something that was pretty quick to make (as I have a ton of school work to catch up on), easy to transport and easy to share. The transport issue was extremely important due to the fact that it's been hailing like crazy the last few days. I eventually decided on the always perfect chocolate chip cookie. Practically everyone in the world likes them and they're pretty hard to stuff up.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cup sugar (I just use whatever is in the cupboard, dark brown sugar with some white sugar is nice)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 whole egg + 1 yolk
2 packets of chocolate chips (I used one packet of Cadbury milk chocolate and one packet of Nestle white chocolate)

Preheat the oven to 325F. Line baking trays with paper.

Mix flour, bicarb soda and salt in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar.

Add the vanilla and eggs to the wet mixture and mix well.

Add the dry ingredients and stir till just mixed.

Stir in the chips till it looks about right.

Place spoonfuls of the mixture onto the baking trays. I usually squish them down a little with a fork, but I don't actually think this does much because of all the chips! Cook them for about fifteen minutes. I have to watch mine because my oven is screwed and doesn't heat evenly. For instance, this time I took out the bottom tray at 15 minutes and the top tray didn't come out till 30 minutes! Whatever tickles your fancy.

Take them out and EAT! They're not the prettiest things, but who has time to look when they're stuffing as many as they can in their mouth. yum yum x

Back to Blog

2010-02-20T08:58:00.005+11:00

I was out to dinner recently and saw a friend who asked 'When are you going to write another blog post?'. This question took me off guard for several reasons - one, because I didn't know that he read this blog, two, because I realised how long it had be since I wrote a blog post, and three, because I became unexpectedly excited about the prospect of writing something.

I have been doing a lot of cooking lately, but with a new house (hence a new kitchen) and soon (possibly) a new job, there has just been too much going on to contemplate getting out a camera and writing it down. The kitchen is a major development for me - from no kitchen last year, to quite a spacious one this year! Spacious, but not particularly new. It has quite the black and white and multiple layers of flooring thing going on. However, it has gas cooktops, so it wins my vote.

In response to Michael Ruhlman's question, 'Why do you cook?'

- I cook because it's like everyday alchemy. Life can be so routine, but cooking is your daily chance to make something fabulous out of something plain. It's an escape from boredom, if you are willing to make it so.

- I cook because I like to nurture those around me. It's a way of showing love.

- I cook because I love flavours.

- I cook because because it is tactile, and my daily work is not. There is so much pleasure in kneading dough or chopping vegetables, after sitting still all day.

- I cook because I like to know what I am eating.

My new house is not far from the Preston markets, so we have been filling our fridge with vegetables once a week. Daily meals have consisted of finding something to do with those vegetables we already have.

I enjoy looking at a pile of vegetables and thinking of something to make out of them. Like this salad of green beans, white beans, tomatoes, chickpeas and boiled egg, topped with a sauce made of blended garlic, tuna, mayonnaise and lemon.

[Please note the cleanskin wine and the makeshift table consisting of some milk crates and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles poster board. It's still tough times! ]

Lately, I've had no desire at all to eat out. Apart from not being able to afford it (with the exception of a few very cheap excursions to the fabulous local Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants, Pho Hung and Noodle King), I've just really been relishing my new house and the peace and quiet of sitting on the back deck, staring dreamily into the large expanse of lawn.

Happy cooking!

Road Trip!

2009-12-16T10:22:00.006+11:00

Last Wednesday I went on a super fun road trip with my friend Fiona. We had luckily chosen the only day of the week which was not pouring down with rain. The previous day I had bought some gumboots for the lovely price of $21, but they were not needed because the day was so nice. I won't leave you hanging for much longer trying to guess where I went. I spent the day engaged in the favourite sport of the under 12 set - berry picking! The farm we sent to was called Chappies and it's in Silvan, just past Monbulk.
Throughout the day I managed to pick 2.5 kilos of blackberries and 5 (that's right, 5!) kilos of cherries. It was immense fun running around, eating our weight in berries and fighting off the old Spanish ladies for the best fruit. By the end of it all I had blue teeth and had probably ingested my fair share of spiders and other berry dwelling insects but it was all worth it. I had all these grand plans of cakes, cobblers, crumbles, pies, muffins and tarts, but to be quite honest with you I actually ate most of the fruit fresh. I did manage to leave a bit of fruit to cook with, most of which turned into jam. The recipe I am sharing with you today is for cherry jam. I had never actually tasted cherry jam before, which on reflection seems odd because as a child I was pretty much addicted to cherries. This jam is really delicious. And while it's essentially 50% sugar, just close your eyes and think of summer.

Cherry Jam

1kg cherries
1kg sugar (plain white works best)
juice of 2 lemons
250g liquid pectin (or powdered equivalent)

Ok guys, this starts out hard but gets easier. The first step is to pit all the cherries. I would HIGHLY suggest investing in a cherry pitter. I got mine from cuisine world in Melbourne but most kitchenware shops should have them and they cost around $20. So, wash your cherries, take off their stalks and pit them.

Next put the cherries in a pot with 150ml of water. It is best to use a wide pot as it is easier to stir when the mixture starts to froth up. Cover the pot and let it simmer for around fifteen minutes or until the fruit is tender. Essentially you are just stewing the fruit at this stage.

Once the fruit is soft, turn off the heat and add the lemon juice and sugar. Stir the mixture until the sugar has dissolved completely. This may take some time. It's easiest to detect sugar granules if you taste a little of the juice.

Sugar all dissolved? put the pot back on the heat and bring to boil for two minutes. You should probably stir it a bit while this is happening as well. Light coloured froth will come to the top. I think, technically, you're meant to scrape this off and discard, but I just left mine in there and it all worked out fine, so it's up to you (word of mouth tells me that if you freeze this froth it makes a really nice sorbet!)

Take the pot off the heat and add the pectin, stirring well. If you're using powered pectin then just follow the directions on the packet, you may need to add it at a different point in the process.

Put it back on the heat and and let boil for around ten minutes or until it is at setting point. To test this, put some plates in the freezer to cool. Take a little jam and place on a plate. let cool for a minutes then push the jam around with your finger. If the jam wrinkles then you're all set!

Pour into sterilised jars and seal.

*A note on sterilisation: If you're going to make jam then you need to learn how to properly sterilise jars. There are heaps of instructions online and in books to help you learn to do this. Basically it involves heating the jars to a very hot temperature.

*A note on sealing jars: I used plastic covers to seal my jars. The brand I used is called FowlersVacola Kleer View. To use, wet one side of the plastic and place, wet side up, on top of the jar. place an elastic band (provided) over the cover. As the jam cools the cover will tighten.

Happy jam making adventures! xxx

ricotta, hazelnut and broad bean salad

2009-12-13T19:38:00.007+11:00

How I love broad beans! Their subtle flavour, spring-fresh texture, bouncy greenness... I've been using broad beans in every way possible in the past few months. They are very cheap at the moment - I've been getting them for $2.50 a kilo - but they will not be around for much longer. They are also not as fantastic as at the beginning of spring, but I will continue to buy them until they disappear. They command so much attention - first you have to pod them, and then painstakingly take each one out of its skin. You can feel a little sucked in after buying a whole kilo of them, shelling them carefully, and then ending up with a little green puddle of beans which hardly covers the bottom of a bowl. The best way, I've found, of overcoming the repetitious nature of shelling broad beans is to take them away from the kitchen and do it with a friend whilst sitting on the couch.

This salad is a broad bean vehicle - creamy ricotta and crunchy hazelnuts coat quickly blanched broad beans and asparagus (another love!), which is tossed with rocket, and then a dressing made with honey and apple cider vinegar.

ricotta, hazelnut and broad bean salad

1 kilo unpodded broadbeans
1 bunch asparagus (or green beans), rinsed
100 grams fresh ricotta
handful of hazelnuts
2 handfuls rocket, rinsed
2 tablespoons honey
4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
Salt and pepper, to taste

Dry toast the hazelnuts in a pan until slightly brown. Remove from pan and allow to cool. Chop or crush roughly.

Pod and peel the broad beans and trim asparagus into 5cm pieces. Blanch both vegetables for 1 1/2 minutes in a pot of boiling water. Drain immediately.

Place rocket, asparagus and broad beans in a salad bowl. Add ricotta and toasted hazelnuts and gently stir.

In a small frypan, heat apple cider vinegar until it starts to simmer. Add the honey and stir until dissolved. Remove from heat. Drizzle the vinegar and honey dressing over the vegetables and stir gently.

Sprinkle salad with a pinch or two of salt and plenty of cracked black pepper.

Serves 2 - 3

I served the salad with some pan fried chicken marinated in chilli and apple cider vinegar, but the salad stole the show.

Wabi Sabi and the idyll of inner-city living

2009-12-06T17:03:00.001+11:00

Originally written March 21, 2008.

I've spent my Good Friday writing an essay about Japanese ceramics. Amongst all the talk of clay, there is one theme that repeatedly comes up: Wabi. Wabi is a Japanese word, a concept. It means such things as the beauty of poverty, the feeling of being alone in a crowd, poetic nostalgia for emptiness, seclusion, the approach of death, the love of simplicity. It goes on. It is apparently impossible to comprehend Wabi properly unless you are Japanese, or have at least lived in Japan for a long time. It's often coupled with the word 'Sabi', which means rustic, or the patina of age, the appearance of being worn down by time. What I find interesting about these ideas is that we have no English equivalent - these feelings are completely incongruous to our daily life. Whilst I spent many hours rubbing my bare feet over the worn down bluestone in the hallway when I lived in Fitzroy, trying to get a sense of the lives that had walked across it in its 140 years of existence, I didn't have a word for that feeling. To others, it was just me being vague, distant. To me, that stone held some sort of phenomena, it had seen so much. It was smooth in the middle, and had formed itself into a valley shape.

Today was cold and quiet, autumnal and conducive of reading and studying. My family gathered together and ate, we picked on each other and laughed and made each other angry. We hugged a lot. The door to my room fell off when I got up. My Dad spent the day digging in the garden and found an old spoon drain, possibly a hundred years old. My Mum found a photographic slide - we looked at it and thought it was me. It was only on close inspection that we found that it was in fact her, the clue being her brother sitting in the distance beside her. They were young teenagers. We looked so similar - even our expressions are the same. Spending the day together I thought would leave me with an exuberant feeling - rather I feel slightly lonely and still, like someone is pouring cold water through my blood.

Riding my bike to work, whole families are getting around together. Bicycles built for two, tricycles, kids getting to school on roller-skates. I go by bike track, it's leafy, everyone gives way to everyone else. People smile at each other. At work, everyone laughs and chats and gets things done. Boring tasks like filing are ameliorated by cups of fragrant tea and encouraging words by benevolent managers. Books are read at lunch time, someone shares some left over cookies.

At home, something delicious is cooked, the house smells of onion. We chat, discuss the news. We are anti-racist, anti-war, pro-love, pro-academia. We talk about our latest efforts. We are peaceful - talkative, but reserved. There are always books, talk of books. If we have problems, we believe a book might solve it. We look at each other with the respect that only knowing someone too well can bring, to be able to predict their jokes and put up with their terrible puns. Friends come and there is more laughter.

There must be some name for this feeling - that you are living in some sort of idyll, a beautiful but temporary state. You know that everything around you is falling apart; there is economics and greed, war, racism, boredom, exploitation, starvation, ennui. To be quietly peaceful is to be ignorant. You are patriotic in loving your surroundings, but commit treason in hating your government.

If I could find a word to express all this, it would be my own Wabi Sabi. The feeling of being completely happy and completely sad at the same time.

the discovery of salted caramel

2009-12-06T12:11:00.005+11:00

You know how trends pop up gradually - you hear about them here and there, not paying complete attention, but the term enters your conciousness. Then one day it reaches critical mass - you've heard about this 'thing' - ingredient, bar, item of clothing, song, whatever, just one too many times to not investigate what's so darn hot about it. Obviously I am not an early adopter.

Recently the concept of 'salted caramel' came into my sphere of recognition. I'd heard about it on plenty of Melbourne Gastronome's fabulous degustation adventures (surely a sign of an 'It' ingredient) and pondered it quietly to myself. I'd heard countless other chefs and food bloggers gush about it, whether as a flavour for the equally fashionable macarons, or an icecream recipe, or some molecular gastronomical desert involving foams and highly calibrated temperature control equipment.

Caramel. With salt in it. Such a simple thing, but I constantly daydreamed of what those two flavours would taste like, mingling with each other. I couldn't figure out how to get some of this salted caramel for myself - I'd never seen it on a restaurant menu, not in the low-end restaurants I frequent. I considered making it myself but didn't know where to start. Should I make caramels, ie the sweets? Or something with caramel sauce in it? And why did caramel sauce recipes always seem to come with danger warnings? Off putting to say the least! Each caramel sauce recipe I read had some associated flesh-searing story that alluded to caramel being for hard-core trained chefs, not flavour-curious apartment dwellers with no kitchens (ie me).

One day whilst walking home my dear Andrew was eating a Magnum Ego - that decadent icecream with a layer of caramel sauce in the middle. I asked him to let me look at the wrapper rather than throwing it out, and I analysed the ingredients. There it was. Hidden amongst the vegetable gums and numbered sugars - SALT. And I thought - yeah, salt goes where caramel goes. They follow each other around. Caramel so sweet, salt so... salty, why wouldn't such different things taste just inexplicably wonderful together? I had imagined the flavour so much by now that I didn't even really think I needed to try it anymore.

Until I came across a recipe for salted caramel cupcakes. They contained dark beer, and they looked amazingly over the top. But I couldn't make them. I was smack bang in the middle of exams. At work at the time, I covertly copied down all the ingredients I would need, and kept the list in my bag. Every so often I would look at the list and pique my excitement for life-post-essay - the cupcakes were my light at the end of the tunnel.

Final deadlines for uni came and went and I bought everything I needed for the cupcakes, including corn syrup ( ?! - it's an American recipe). I excitedly made the caramel sauce to top the cupcakes with, wearing rubber gloves whilst pouring cream into hot bubbling sugar as the recipes all recommended. Nothing dangerous happened. No flesh searing. I stirred in the half-teaspoon of sea salt flakes into the brown sugary goo and hoped for the best.

Once the sauce cooled, I had a teaspoon full as a taste test. It was caramel alright. Not caramel I'd tasted before, but richer, fuller-flavoured and more rounded. It was addictive. I now knew what all the fuss was about. Caramel needed salt! It was just too plain sugary without it. I went through quite a few spoons of it before I forced myself to stop. I needed some caramel left for the cupcakes!

I felt satisfied in my discovery, which was exciting but certainly not unique. I came to salted caramel the way I do to so many things - by endless pondering followed by gradual action. Welcome, salted caramel! I will be making it again.

Salt is a wonderful thing, if used sparingly and in the right place. Which brings me to another story, for another day - the endless search for sulphurous pink salt...

Super Healthy Muffins

2009-11-30T21:21:00.006+11:00

Ok, so I've been trying to be more healthy. Unfortunately this does not mix well with my addiction to baking. I created this recipe in the hope that it would counter a particular problem that has been occurring recently. The shop I work in is next door to a Brumby's and all day we have the smell of apple scrolls wafting through the back door. I have to admit that I have succumbed more than once to this devil in disguise. However, these muffins have become my savior; they are incredibly filling, remarkably delicious and most of the ingredients actually hold significant health benefits. Now if I can only kick that family sized block of Cadbury caramel chocolate a day habit and I'll be bikini-body ready in no time...

Super Healthy Muffins - Vegan Friendly

1 1/2 cups Wholewheat flour
1/4 cup Oatbran
1/4 cup Lucuma powder
1/2 tsp salt (make it iodised, people!)
1 tsp Baking soda
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 cup Oat Milk (or whatever you wish to use)
1 tbsp Apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup Agave syrup
1 cup Stewed apple
3/4 cup Dried berry mix (I used cranberries, blueberries and goji berries)

Firstly you need to preheat the oven to 375°F. I have a super old oven that is in Fahrenheit and doesn't close properly; google tells me that this is around 190°C.
Next, chuck all of your dry ingredients (except for the dried fruit) into a bowl and mix well. You can sift it together if you're into that sort of thing. Then add everything else and stir until it just comes together. Oil some muffin tins and spoon the batter in. I sprinkled a little raw sugar on the top cause I had some in the cupboard but I don't think it's really necessary. Stick them in the oven and leave them there for around 20 minutes. Take them out when a skewer/knife comes out clean and you're done!

Something to Goat About @ Provenance, Smith Street

2009-10-12T22:14:00.002+11:00

I don’t really like to make rules for myself. This is generally because I know I will just break them, but it’s also partly because I like to be flexible and go with the flow. Rules such as ‘I will get up at 7am everyday so I have time to make and eat breakfast’ or ‘I’m never again going to go out with someone who plays a musical instrument’ sound all good in theory, but there’s always a what if. I could never be a vegetarian because I hate the idea of saying no to anything. If someone says, ‘Do you want to come over to my house to try my family’s traditional roast buffalo dish?’ the last thing I would want to say is ‘I don’t eat meat, sorry’. The first thing I want to say is, ‘Thank you so much for inviting me! What time and where?’ I admire vegetarians, but I just cannot cut out that many food experiences. I. Want. To. Try. Everything! But I digress. The point is I’m no good at setting myself and following rules.

The ‘Seasonal Pleasures’ degustation series at Provenance, however, is all about rules. Setting themselves the challenge of creating a full extended meal revolving on one ingredient, the degustation at Provenance on Saturday and Sunday night was focused on goat. Six courses of goat related goodness. It seems that they did not allow themselves one transgression of the rule – every course did indeed contain goat (never fear, the dessert was based on goat milk, not goat meat).

After attending the last ‘Seasonal Pleasures’ degustation a couple of months ago – (How Mushroom is Too Mushroom?) I could not miss this one. The food was lovely last time and my only qualms were with the service which was a bit flippant. As soon as I sat down for Goat night however, it became clear to me that this night would be an improvement on the last (which was pretty darn good).

The first course was a tasting plate of goat meat charcuterie – oh, how I love charcuterie! The plate consisted of handmade goat sausage (one regular meat, one offal), goat parfait (a little like terrine or pate), marinated goat riblet, ‘biltong’ (kind of like a goat jerky) and a goat cheese combined with sun dried tomato, accompanied by olives and toasted almonds and bread toasts. It was served with a Mountain Goat beer – which I’m sure was chosen more for its name than its suitability as an accompaniment, but beer in general suited this dish fine. I enjoyed everything on the plate thoroughly but the regular sausage was my favourite. Boldly flavoured and incredibly tasty.

Before I could finish my beer the next course was being served up – onion tart tatin topped with confit goat with a béarnaise sauce. This was served with a very light Rose wine. The onion was deliciously caramelised, the goat rich and the béarnaise a good addition, if not making the whole dish a little too buttery.

The next dish was announced as a ‘palate cleanser’ though – presumably to make up for the rich butteryness of the previous one. Three goat raviolis in a white wine broth garnished with goat floss and red cabbage and served with a NZ Pinot Gris. One major improvement on the last degustation is the variety of wines this time around. For the mushroom degustation all the wines were from the same winery, which was a bit limiting and made you wonder whether the night had been sponsored by that winery. At an event of ambition such as this, you would assume that the wines had been chosen due to their close affinity to the dishes being served, not because they had been donated. Much of the chatter by the waiters to diners at the goat degustation seemed to be about how such and such a winery had heard about the goat night and ‘wanted to get involved’. I wondered whether this meant the wine had been donated. I have no real problem with this but it does make a difference to me whether the wine has been chosen for taste reasons or for convenience, and I think this should be declared somewhere.

The final savoury dish was a goat loin roulade with liver, wrapped in prosciutto and served on asparagus. I loved the crispness of the prosciutto and the tenderness of the goat meat. This was well matched with a Victorian Shiraz.

The dessert was a goat milk pannacotta with a berry compote. Here is where the rules seemed to fail a little. Although using goat milk for the dessert satisfies the idea of having a meal entirely devoted to goat, it probably would have been a better dish if dairy milk was used. The pannacotta was nicely flavoured but a bit too solid and not particularly delicate. The compote, however, was very tasty.

Finally (and with little room for me to fit it in) was a platter of Milawa goat cheeses – camembert, blue and cheddar, served with toasts and quince paste. Whilst very lovely cheeses, I again wondered if they’d all come from the same cheese maker for in-kind sponsorship reasons, rather than the merits of each of those cheeses. Perhaps I am too cynical. Doubts about the origins of the cheese did not do anything to deter me from appreciating it, however, and I managed to get it all in despite already being quite full. The camembert in particular was wonderful - creamy and oozy.

At $75 per head, the ‘Seasonal Pleasures’ at Collingwood’s Provenance represent very good value. The only improvement I can suggest is for a more pragmatic approach in the menu that preferences taste over self-imposed ingredient rules and matches wines more carefully to the dishes. The commitment to quality at Provenance is very clear and they are obviously quite excited by these degustation nights. I left very satisfied and slightly bulging.

Laksa

2009-09-23T19:18:00.003+10:00

Why is it that some of the yummiest dinners I cook happen when I have just about run out of money?

It has been a rather expensive week - booked a hotel in Hobart for a trip in a couple of weeks (yay!), paid a deposit for a study trip to New York next year (double yay!) and went and saw a whole lot of films that were crying out to me to be watched (yay, yay, yay and yay). Tomorrow is pay day and I had $7.15 left tonight when trying to decide on dinner ingredients. I parked my bike at an oriental supermarket just off Sydney Road that I just discovered and went in to see what I could rustle up.

I bought, for a grand total of $6.05:
1 small tin of coconut milk
1 packet laksa paste
1 tin enoki mushrooms
1 large packet of tempeh

Laksa it was to be! I remembered also that I had some vegetables sitting in the fridge (a sweet potato, an eggplant, and a single buk choy) that desperately needed to be eaten before they sprouted body parts and ate me instead.

I used dramatically less coconut milk than was suggested on the laksa paste packet, making a very light, delicious soup that was aided by the addition of a bit of soy sauce, a dash of fish sauce, and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Method I made up as I went along:

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a pot. Add 2 tablespoons of laksa paste, frying until fragrant. Pour in small tin of coconut milk. Add a few cups of hot water until you have the desired quantity of soup liquid. Add diced sweet potato and eggplant. Boil until tender. Add chopped bok choy, tempeh and enoki mushrooms. Heat through until soft. Add fish sauce, soy sauce and lemon juice to taste. Stir through boiled noodles (or boil them in the soup, and add a little extra water for them to soak up).

It was fabulous! And cheap! And there are leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Yay!

Thai (ish) Noodle Salad

2009-09-21T20:15:00.004+10:00

Hey! It's getting warmer, and warm weather = noodle salad time.

This is a basic noodle salad guide, but put in there whatever floats your boat. Bean shoots, tofu, chicken, cucumber, shredded carrot, lime, mushrooms, zucchini etc...all make good noodle salad additions.

I follow a loosely Thai theme for the dressing. Andrew was watching me make this and he said 'Sugar! Why are you putting sugar in the salad?' - it's to balance the flavours. Lemon or lime for sour, fish sauce or soy sauce for salty, sugar for sweet, sesame oil for nutty and chilli paste for hot. You can't taste the sugar when everything is mixed together, the flavours are just more balanced and complex.

Thai(ish) Noodle Salad
Serves 2 hungry people, or more people, if those people are good at sharing

Noodles (enough for 2) - I suggest somen, soba, rice vermicelli, sweet potato noodles or thin rice noodles
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons fish sauce or soy sauce
juice of one lemon or lime
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
1 teaspoon chilli paste
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon ginger, finely chopped
1 bunch coriander, finely chopped
3 tablespoons crushed peanuts
Vegetables - I used a bunch of bok choy, shiitake mushrooms and a tomato I had hanging around
Protein element - I added a tin of tuna (that ol' standard), but consider strips of tofu fried in a bit of soy and sesame oil, or chicken done a similar way

In a large bowl mix together sesame oil, sauces, lemon juice, sesame seeds, chilli paste, ginger and sugar.
Boil the noodles as per the packet, drain and rinse under cold water. Prepare your vegetables to the state where they are good to be eaten - for example, just cut up cucumber into strips, but other vegies such as bok choy or zucchini can do with a little steaming or boiling. You know what I mean.
Stir the prepared vegies, coriander and noodles into the bowl with the dressing in it. Stir through the tin of tuna or some chicken or tofu. Another idea is to cook a fillet of fish quickly in a bit of soy sauce and then separate it into flakes, and then stir it through.
Have a taste of a noodle and see if the dressing is working for you. Add a bit more of whatever it needs.
Serve it up and then sprinkle generously with crushed peanuts or sesame seeds.

Summery goodness! Oh, please ignore the torrential rain in the background whilst I write this, my meals might be getting a bit ahead of the seasons...

Coffee Review - The East Brunswick Project

2009-09-14T09:25:00.004+10:00

I have always intended to do some reviews on this blog but I have one major problem - I cannot fathom getting out my camera to take a photo of the food in front of me at a restaurant. How attention grabbing! How awkward!

Reviews without photos aren't pretty enough for my liking though, so I wasn't sure what to do. However, I simply had to write about The East Brunswick Project (EBP).

The East Brunswick Project
438 Lygon Street, East Brunswick
Tuesday - Sunday, 8am - 4pm

I haven't written much lately because this semester has been really busy and my cooking has sort of dwindled to vitawheats and spaghetti with fridge-bits thrown on it. One sustaining element of my diet however, has been the glorious coffee at EBP, up the northern end of Lygon Street, just around the corner from my house.

I am a picky coffee drinker. If I don't know that the coffee will be good, I will often order tea. I can't handle burnt, badly frothed, poorly-made in any way coffee. I'd prefer to stay at home in that case and make it in plunger. But the coffee they brew at the EBP is always mindblowingly good: smooth, creamy milk, nutty coffee beans that I think give it a slight biscuity taste, just the right strength.

The latte I usually order comes on a delightful handmade ceramic dish, in various colours, so it is worth staying in to drink rather than getting takeaway. Everyone who works there is warm and friendly and they've started to give me that knowing 'Oh hello, coffee addict!' look when I walk in.

To get all technical: I know that the EBP roasts their own beans, has lotsa special equipment, and do all that coffee nerdy stuff that makes them very important (but is a bit beyond me). It smells great in there. The coffee is $3, making it cheaper than most places now, especially those that specialise in coffee. My only criticism of the place, if you can call it one, is that they don't sell any meals. They do offer some sweet or savoury muffins and friands, and they are lovely. It's probably a good thing that they don't have meals or I might spend my entire life (and all my money) there.

It's Monday today. They are not open on Mondays. Sigh...

(Oh and about the photo. There is no photo, but you know what coffee looks like. It's what it tastes like that matters. Please go and give it a try!)

As of 16/09 - There is now a photo. I managed to sneak one in without drawing attention to myself! Doesn't that coffee just look perfect?

Cornucopia

2009-08-29T13:46:00.002+10:00

This is $23.75 worth of fresh produce from Russel's Fruit and Vegetables on Sydney Road, Brunswick - (or slightly less, some had to be left out of the photo because it wouldn't fit).

Please show this to anyone who says they are too poor to eat healthily.

Over and out - off to make a green vege soup!

Vegan, Sugar Free, Wheat Free Cookies

2009-08-26T12:10:00.005+10:00

I'm not vegan, nor do I not eat sugar or wheat. But I my lovely friend Gemma is vegan and does not eat sugar, and it was her birthday on the weekend. I often bake something for a friend for their birthday, and thought that Gemma wouldn't get things cooked for her very often, so she might enjoy these.

I found this recipe on 101 cookbooks, which is a great resource for vegetarian and vegan recipe ideas.

Oil makes a good substitute for butter in vegan baking, and fruits make a good substitute for sugar. This recipe relies on mashed banana for both its binding qualities and its sweetness. I spoke to Gemma before I baked these and she gave me permission to add honey (she's not too strict a vegan), which I think really helped. I scoured the supermarket for some vegan sugar free chocolate - and they actually had some! This made the cookies really yummy but I suppose isn't strictly necessary - use normal chocolate if your diet allows.

Banana, coconut and choc cookies
Based on the recipe 'Nikki's Healthy Cookies' from 101Cookbooks.com

3 bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup oil (I used olive, but a lighter, sweeter oil might be better?)
2 cups rolled oats
2/3 cup almond meal
1/3 cup finely shredded coconut
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
100 grams chocolate, finely chopped (vegan and sugar free available at safeway if you need it!)
2 large tablespoons honey (optional)

Preheat oven to 190 degrees c. Mash bananas in large bowl. Add vanilla and oil and mix in. Pour into bowl measured out oats, coconut, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, almond meal and chocolate. Mix thoroughly. Stir through honey if using.

Line a baking tray with baking paper and make cookie balls about 1 tablespoon in size. These cookies don't really rise so don't worry about how close you make them to each other. I had to do 3 batches, because I have a small oven. But fit as many as you can on the tray at once.

Bake in the oven for 15-25 minutes, or until golden brown and starting to harden. The cookies are still quite moist when they come out of the oven but harden a little when cool. They do not become completely hard but retain quite a lot of moisture.

They turned out gently sweetened, filling and quite moreish - not what I'd expect from something so healthy!

Makes about 32 cookies depending on size.

More photos from the Feast - Dessert

2009-08-15T17:54:00.009+10:00

Got some extra photos from another attendee of the Feast, which was rather a long time ago now! The previous photos were lacking serious attention to the wonderful desserts, so I thought I'd put a few of these ones up.

Camila: How are we going to cut these cakes in seventeen pieces? Is that even possible?
Anna: We'll just cut it into sixteen pieces and let everyone fight it out...

Green Bean, Zucchini and Tuna Dinner Salad

2009-08-15T17:36:00.003+10:00

Because I usually work all day and have uni in the evenings, dinner is something that often happens at about 9pm or later, and is quite rushed and often eaten whilst writing emails etc. However that doesn't stop me thinking about it. At about 6pm (usually during the middle of a class where everyone is in an in-depth discussion about some art exhibition and why they thought it was crap, and I've stopped paying attention) I start evening-dreaming about my dinner. Making little inventories in my head of the ingredients I have at home, then building a meal idea out of them.

This yummy dinner came about beause I remembered I had green beans and zucchini and potatoes to use up. I usually have stash of tins of tuna and eggs in the fridge. The dressing for the salad involved a bit of lemon, olive oil, ground cumin and salt and pepper, and the oozy yolk of the soft boiled egg that sits on top gradually getting mixed in as you eat it.

Green Bean, Zucchini and Tuna Dinner Salad
Serves 1

Handful of green beans, topped and tailed
Half a zucchini, sliced into strips
1 potato, chopped into 2cm cubes
1 egg
Tin of tuna (in oil, preferably, Sirena or Sol Mare is good, Woolworths Select is awful, and probably dolphiny)
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Salt & pepper
Tablespoon of sesame seeds
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Boil a pot of water and drop in cubed potato. Meanwhile, in a mixing boil, mix a tablespoon of olive oil, a tablespoon of lemon juice, a pinch each of salt and pepper, the sesame seeds and the cumin. When potato is soft, use a slotted spoon to drain it and place in the mixing bowl. Put the beans and zucchini and the egg (unshelled) in the still boiling water. Boil for 4 minutes. Drain the vegetables from the water and remove the egg. Add veges to mixing bowl. Add tuna to mixing bowl and stir together well, trying not to break up the soft potato too much. When the egg is cool enough to handle, peel carefully. Serve salad onto a plate and then top with the egg. When eating, break the egg open and let it drizzle over the salad.

(PS - How daggy are my dinner plates? They came with the unit I live in. I really should get some sans pastel coloured flowers...)

Sick Day Cake

2009-08-07T22:28:00.003+10:00

So uni has officially started again and with the stress has also come sickness. After a week of feeling not so good, I have also lost pretty much all my motivation. I decided to take a day off to get away from it all. I spent it watching Scrubs, knitting and making/devouring this cake. The recipe comes from "Cookery the Australian Way."

Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/2 cup caster sugar
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1 1/3 cups self-raising flour
- 1 - 2 apples
- cinnamon sugar = 2 tsp caster sugar/1 tsp cinnamon

Method:
- Set oven to 190C.
- Cream butter and sugar.
- Mix in egg.
- Add flour and milk alternately, one third at a time.
- Place in a 20cm lined and greased cake pan.
- Cut apple into slices and place on top of cake. Sprinkle cinnamon/sugar over the top.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Recipes from the Feast - Thai Green Curry

2009-08-07T20:00:00.002+10:00

This is one recipe that I've made a few times in the vain hope that it will be as good as my Dad's version without success. Sure it's delicious, everyone loves it etc. But if you'd tasted my Dad's Thai Green Curry you'd think mine was pretty boring. Everyone raves about his - and get this - we use the same recipe! I think he has secrets about it that he won't let on... Nevertheless, this curry is still seriously good.

When I cooked this for the feast I omitted any ingredients that were not vegetarian, and it was still lovely. To make this vegetarian/vegan just omit the shrimp paste from the curry paste and the fish sauce from the curry (replace with soy sauce). Camila loved it and said there were 'four layers of flavour', so I can't be too far off. Maybe it's just years of practice, eh Dad?

I never watched any Masterchef but these popculture things filter through somehow. I found out that when they made curries on that show they used BOTTLED CURRY PASTE. This strikes me as pretty lazy for chefs who were competing on their culinary merits! Do try making your own curry paste! It's not hard, and it's very worth it. Bottled curry paste. Pfft. Just another marketing opportunity?

Anyway, here's the recipe.

Thai Green Curry
(adapted from Charmaine Solomon's The Complete Asian Cookbook)

Green Curry Paste

4 large fresh green chillies (I used 2)
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 small brown onion, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 tablespoons chopped coriander - including root(I used more. I can't help it. I'm in love with coriander)
2 teaspoons chopped lemon rind
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cummin
1 teaspoon serai powder (? what's this? didn't use it - optional)
1 teaspoon laos powder (? didn't use this either, but Charmaine says it is optional)
2 teaspoons dried shrimp paste (kapi) - from asian groceries, omit for vege version
1 tablespoon oil

Remove chilli stems and slice open. Remove seeds if you want a milder curry, leave in for something mindblowing. Roughly chop chillis and put in mortar and pestle (or blender) with all other ingredients. Bash/smash/puree till paste-like. Note: Bashing ingredients with a mortar and pestle until paste-like is a great way to release tensions. Swear and yell and get it all out. How relaxing! You may need to add a little extra oil to bring it together. You can keep this paste in an airtight container until you are ready to use it. Keeps well in fridge for a few weeks.

Green Curry

1 kg chicken pieces, or vegetables for a vegie curry (I used zucchini and eggplant, but sweet potato, potato and bok choy are great too)
2 tins coconut milk (not 'lite')
3 tablespoons of your delicious home made curry paste
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons fish sauce / (or soy sauce for vegie version)
As many or as little green chillis as you can handle (optional)
Big handful finely chopped coriander

Open tins of coconut and spoon off a cupful of the creamiest bit at the top. Heat this cupful of cream in a large heavy saucepan, stirring constantly until it comes to the boil. Lower heat and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the cream thickens and oil bubbles around it. By this time it should be reduced to a quarter of the original amount. Add the curry paste and fry the rich oily cream for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. The curry paste will smell cooked and the oil will seperate from it when it is ready. When this happens add your ingredients, whether that be chicken pieces or lots of vegies and perhaps some tofu. Fry in paste until browned and partially cooked. Add the remaining coconut milk, lime juice, salt and fish sauce (or soy) and stir while the coconut milk comes to the boil. Turn the heat to low and simmer uncovered until the ingredients are well cooked, and the gravy rich and oily. Stir in the chopped coriander and chillis (again, chilli optional!), simmer 5 minutes longer.

Serve with rice and a garnish of coriander. Serves around 6 people.

Yum yum yum....

Cooking Without A Kitchen

2009-08-05T14:11:00.004+10:00

I've been meaning to write about this for a little while now, but since it's not actually a recipe, I was holding off. But I think it's an interesting topic. I mentioned in our blog description that Beans and Barley is about being able to cook delicious, cheap, healthy meals even in a messy sharehouse kitchen. I used to live in a messy sharehouse. Now I live in a very small unit - without a kitchen! A lot of units these days only have kitchenettes and I wanted to show you that it is possible to cook well with these types of facilities - you do not need to resort to take away.

I have, in place of a kitchen, a bench equipped with a cooktop/oven unit thing (2 electric burners, a small electric oven), a mortar and pestle (invaluable!), a toasted sandwich maker, a hand blender, and a jug full of utensils. I have a small fridge, but no freezer (no packaged frozen meals for me!). On top of the fridge is a toaster and a kettle. I keep all my crockery, cooking stuff (pots, pans etc) and shelf foods in IKEA storage racks. The bathroom sink very large and stainless steel, to double as a kitchen sink, and is equipped for washing up dishes etc.

In this small space, I've made bread, meals for friends, curries from scratch and lots of other things that usually take a bit of space and effort. If I ever think it is tricky, I remind myself of my Nana impressing my Grandpa during their courtship in post-war London and making him a five course meal on one burner during food rationing (note to self: was Grandpa exaggerating?). My parents, who are currently living in a one bedroom unit in Rovigo, Italy, have only a small kitchenette to make do with. However, that has not stopped their inclination to throw dinner parties, garnering them the reputation amongst their co-workers as having 'The best restaurant in Rovigo'! I've found that you don't need a beautiful, well equipped kitchen with an island bench to get into cooking. You just need (a bit of) patience and (lots of) enthusiasm.

Here are some tips for small cooking spaces I have come up with:

* A mortar and pestle makes less mess and takes up less room than getting out and setting up a blender. It's also easier to clean. Flavours are richer if you bash instead of cut the ingredients as well.

* A dishwasher is a great way to keep the kitchen from getting cluttered up whilst you are cooking, because the dirty dishes are hidden. If you don't have one, which you probably don't in a small kitchen, get a plastic tub from IKEA and find a niche for it (ie under the bench). If you put all your dirty dishes in it whilst you are cooking, it keeps the benches free. Then just carry the tub to the sink when you are ready to wash up.

* The fewer items of cooking equipment you own, the less washing up. You may need to rewash them more frequently than you like, but you will be thankful when the final wash up never takes more than 5 minutes.

* Toasted sandwich makers can double as an extra cooking plate, if the others are full.

* Don't waste space (and money) on ridiculous single-function implements. Eg. - Apple corers look fun at the shop but they aren't really that useful (usually cutting an apple into pieces will suffice) and you have to store them somewhere.

* If you have decorative cooking utensils (eg a tagine dish), consider storing them elsewhere in the house as items to look at, freeing up more kitchen space. They may collect more dust this way so make sure to rinse them before you use them again!

If you are reading this and have any good 'small kitchen tips', I would love to hear them. Happy cooking!

Recipes from the Feast - White Bean Mash

2009-08-05T11:27:00.003+10:00

I will not hide it: this recipe I invented was an attempt to replicate the white beans at A Minor Place on Albion Street, Brunswick. I don't know how close I came but they were delicious anyway!

White Bean Mash

2 cups dried white beans (cannellini or great northern beans), soaked overnight and drained
4 cloves good garlic
1 -2 vege stock cubes (I used the massel ones, they are pretty good)
Pepper
1 onion
Olive oil

Finely chop the onion and garlic. Fry in olive oil, slowly, in big pot until translucent and fragrant. Add white beans and fry a little, until coated in oil. Fill the pot with about 4 cups of boiling water (approx). Add stock cubes, a few grindings of pepper, and a good glug of olive oil, and boil slowly until the beans become soft and squishy and the water is almost gone. If you require more water, boil some and add gradually. You are looking to get a consistency of sloppy mashed potato. Taste and add seasoning to your liking.

Would be lovely served as a side dish with a breakfast cookup.

Recipes from the Feast - Lentil and Beetroot Salad

2009-08-05T10:52:00.005+10:00

I am finally trying to get around to putting up some of the recipes from the vegetarian feast.
The task seemed to daunting to get around to all at once, but I do want to share some of them!

I'm going to start with the Lentil and Beetroot Salad, because I think it's a must try for everyone.

Lentil, Beetroot and Feta Salad

1 tin baby beetroot
1 cup french du puy lentils
handful or two of flat leafed parsley
handful or two of coriander
couple of bay leaves
125 grams (approx) of danish feta
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander seed
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove crushed garlic
salt, pepper (a pinch or so of each)
1 teaspoon mustard (dijon or grainy - and I always forget to put this in for some reason!)

Boil the lentils in a pot of water with the bay leaves in it until tender. Meanwhile, mix together the oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, garlic, cumin, coriander seed and mustard in a mixing or salad bowl. Drain lentils, toss into dressing. Cut feta into cubes and toss into lentils. Chop the herbs finely and stir them into the salad. Cut each baby beetroot into quarters and add to salad. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

Note: French Du Puy lentils are the only ones to use here. Other lentils turn to mush! The French lentils (a dark green/black colour) hold their shape and have a lovely flavour to them. Perfect for salads.

Note 2: In the dish in the photo, I used 1 1/2 fresh beetroot, boiled til soft in salted water. This is optional, but I have found the tinned beetroot is much less messy, and just as cheap. But if you are a no-can kinda person (like I was the day I made the vege feast!), then this works just as well. Boil the beetroots without cutting them (as this keeps their colour in). Leave them to cool, then peel and chop.

Vegetarian Feast

2009-07-15T14:11:00.016+10:00

Pretty much since Camila and I met we've been talking about the idea of having a massive cook-up. Over summer we tried out a few recipes together and talked about it some more, putting little wisps of ideas out there to each other. Last weekend it finally happened and BOY did we cook. We both started cooking the day before, pre-baking breads, tart shells, cakes and whipping up things like curry pastes and dips. We wrote lists of dishes and compared them and decided to pretty much make everything. On the day we got together and cooked for about 7 hours straight.

Camila is a vegetarian but I am not. I don't cook a huge amount of meat and find vegetarian cooking to be more of a creative challenge so we decided to go the whole vege-feast idea and stick to a no-meat theme. We had 17 people all up and everyone was full to bursting point.

It was a wonderful day of cooking for Camila and I, and we had plenty of time to chat and catch up, and finally, when all was cooked, to drink a whole lot of wine...

In the end, we served:
(and I may leave things out by accident...Camila please edit this if you see something missing!)

green curry with zucchini and eggplant

tagine (chickpea, pumpkin and olive)

white bean and garlic mash

five spice crispy fried okra

potato parmesan gratin

chilli cauliflower

pepita pesto lentils

haloumi barley salad

beetroot feta salad

asparagas tart

crunchy hazelnut green beans

garlic mayonnaise with crudites

sweet potato dumplings and dipping sauce

sweet potato bread

beetroot bread

chilli cheese cornbread

white bean and capsicum dip

hummous

sumac pita crisps

cheese biscuits

almond biscotti

hazelnut cake with chocolate ganache

strawberry and lemon cream tart

apple crumble with whipped cream

All home made from scratch! Lots of pre-planning and preparation were required. What follows are some photos of the food (not comprehensive, some things are missing!) and the people enjoying it. We've decided to make it a yearly event (it was too tiring to do more often that that!).

(The queue for dessert)

Olive Tart

2009-07-06T12:08:00.004+10:00

This recipe originally came from a book aptly titled ‘Tarts’ by Gourmet Traveller. I have used the same recipe for the base, however I have changed the filling recipe quite a bit. The original recipe calls for chicory, which was unavailable at my local IGA supermarket, so I substituted for silverbeet. I’ve also swapped out the eggs and crème fraiche for plain old flour and water, as I was cooking this for my mother who is vegan. As well as this, I used far less silverbeet and onion than the recipe called for, which seemed to be the perfect amount. Despite all the modifications it turned out to be a wonderful and easy to make dinner.

Olive Tart
2 cups plain flour
2/3 cup olive oil
1 bunch of silverbeet
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
fresh thyme
110g riviera olives (I used kalamata it worked just as well), halved and pitted

Dough
Place flour and 1tsp sea salt in a bowl, add 100ml of the olive oil combined with 150ml lukewarm water and stir until mixture forms a sticky dough. Turn out onto a well-floured surface and knead for 2-3 minutes or until smooth and no longer sticky, then wrap in plastic wrap and leave for 30 minutes.

Filling
- Coarsely chop the silverbeet (we’re looking for around 4 cups, loosely packed.)
- Heat remaining olive oil in a frying pan, add onion and a pinch of sugar and cook, stirring occasionally, over low heat for 20 minutes or until very soft. Add silverbeet, garlic and about 1tsp of thyme leaves and cook, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl.
-To this bowl add some water and flour. Stir through the silverbeet mixture. You don’t need much. Then season to taste with sea salt and ground black pepper.

Assembly
- Put some baking paper onto a pizza/regular oven tray. Press the dough out to a 30cm round. Fold the edge of the pastry in about 1cm to form a raised border.
- Pour the silverbeet mixture onto the tart base. Cover with olives and some thyme sprigs.
- Bake at 230°C for around 25 minutes.

Sweet Potato Bread (again)

2009-07-03T22:23:00.003+10:00

The quest for the perfect sweet potato bread goes on. This time I used the ratio, 5:3, for bread dough - 375grams of flour and 225 ml of water. But instead of going the soda bread option, I went for yeast, and did all that proving and kneading and waiting. It's cooling right now... Can't wait to slice it open and see how it went!

Delicious dinner with barley salad

2009-07-03T22:05:00.004+10:00

I am living in my own unit now and have enjoyed having my friends around to have a look, and giving them a bit of a feed whislt they are here! The meal above is one I made for my friend Robbie last week. It was delicious. Marinated oyster sauce chicken (if you know me, you will know that I call this 'special chicken' - for a reason. It's special), barley and feta salad, and some giant roasted mushrooms and roasted asparagas. Yum!

I will go into the details of each part of the meal separately. This kind of food is very mix-and-match.

Barley salad

1 cup barley grain
200 grams danish feta (or other feta, but i love the creamy danish one, which is usually the cheapest too)
parsley
olive oil
lemon juice
cumin seed
slivered almonds

Boil the barley in a pot of water until soft. Drain. In a mixing bowl, combine a big glug of olive oil, a few big squeezings of lemon juice, some ground cumin, and a handful of chopped parsley. Add cooked barley and mix well. Chop feta into small cubes and mix in. In a frypan, dry fry the almonds until they turn brown. Stir into salad. A wonderful side dish, can be bulked out further with the addition of some steamed sweet potato and zucchini. Serves 4 as a side dish.

Roasted mushrooms and asparagas

Bunch of asparagas
One giant mushroom per person
pesto
small amount grated cheese

Roast the mushrooms in a hot oven (around 200) until they start to water. Add asparagas to baking tray. Bake for a further 10 minutes. Take out of oven, top mushrooms with a little bit of pesto and cheese. Return to the oven for a further 15 minutes or so.

Special Chicken

4 chicken thigh pieces
3 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoons sesame oil
plateful of flour
oil for frying

Chop chicken into bite sized pieces. Put in a bowl with oyster sauce and sesame oil and mix well. Leave aside for 30 mins or so. This time can be skipped in a hurry, but it is good for developing the flavour. Dredge each chicken piece in flour and then shallow fry until brown and cooked through. This dish is incredibly moreish! (So, hint, make a bit more than you think you'll need). Serves 2-3-4 depending on greed and restraint.

Easy and delicious garlic and tomato pasta.

2009-06-25T14:22:00.002+10:00

I have recently been enjoying the perks of being unemployed during the uni break. These perks include such things as spending a straight five hours knitting, wearing pyjamas to approximately three pm and cooking indulgent lunches. This is one of those lunches. It’s a recipe that I’ve been making for a few years now. The best thing about it is that it doesn’t entail any onion chopping (who wants to cry at lunch time anyway?) It’s also super quick and cheap to make. There is no real set in stone recipe here, I tend to just chuck everything together. Nothing horrible should go wrong, however make sure to taste test it every now and then to check that you’re on the right track.

Garlic and Tomato Pasta.
Ingredients:
- pasta
- a few garlic cloves (2)
- a can of tomatoes
- tomato paste
- salt, pepper, basil
- parmesan cheese

1. Get some water on the boil and cook your pasta. Doesn’t really matter what sort. I usually use plain old spaghetti but today I used farfalle (bows) and it turned out great. My favourite brand of dried pasta is Barilla with the blue packaging.

2. Put a pan on the heat with enough oil to just cover the bottom. When this is hot chuck in some crushed garlic cloves. I used two fairly large ones but it all depends on how much you like garlic. Turn the heat down a bit so that the garlic doesn’t burn.

3. Quickly, quickly, while the garlic is heating up, open a can of tomatoes. I use whole tomatoes and spend this time cutting them up and getting rid of the hard end pieces. However, if you were feeling particularly lazy I guess you could used a can of crushed.

4. When the garlic has been on for a while (before it turns brown!) add a few spoonfuls of tomato paste (around 1 tablespoon, I used two soup spoons.) Stir this around a bit and then add the whole can of tomatoes, including sauce.

5. Add some salt and pepper to taste. I also add some dried basil and maybe oregano. If using fresh herbs, add them at the end when the pasta is done.

6. Let the sauce simmer for a while, stirring occasionally. I just let it sit on the stove top until the pasta is done.

7. When the pasta is cooked, drain it, add a few drops of oil to it and stir it into the sauce in the pan.

8. Cover and let sit until you can’t stand it any more (a few minutes will do.) To fill the time, grate some yummy parmesan cheese.

9. Put the pasta into bowls, sprinkle on cheese, and you’ve done it, stud!

Quick Roasted Vegetables

2009-06-17T09:29:00.004+10:00

Finding cheap food that is also healthy and delicious when you have to come home from work and then do some uni work and then clean up and then and then and then...etc.. is not easy. But I reckon it's not impossible.

I try not to spend more than $5 on a home cooked meal for myself. But for much less you end up in plain noodle territory, which is cheap but not particularly nutritious. Last night's meal, however, came in at around $5 and was very satisfying. I cut up and roasted a whole heap of assorted (some new and some hanging-around-in-the-fridge) vegetables, seasoned with salt, olive oil, pepper, and freshly ground cumin.

Quick Roasted Vegetables

Assorted veges - I used zucchini, fennel, eggplant, garlic cloves & capsicum (but I also roast a lot of sweet potato, onion, and pre-cooked chickpeas)
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Cumin seed
Something to go with it - I had a piece of cheap fish (Basa fillet).

Preheat oven to 220 degrees C.
Grease a baking tray and chop veges into bite sized pieces. Scatter on tray, sprinkle over freshly ground salt, pepper, and cumin seed to taste (you can use whichever spices you like. I love cumin). Dab with a bit of olive oil.

Put in oven around 20-30 mins or until done to your liking.

Serving suggestions: with a piece of fish, cooked with some oil and lemon, or another type of meat, or some sort of vegetarian substitute, or maybe some mashed potato...yum!

Mayonnaise

2009-06-03T19:32:00.004+10:00

I haven't said anything in this blog about Michael Ruhlman yet, so now is the time. I was first introduced to his books with Charcuterie, a book my Dad bought and had made a few terrines and prosciuttos from. I like Ruhlman's approach to food - good ingredients, knowing the basics of how they work, and then making stunning but simple things out of them, with that 'i've made this from scratch and it's shit hot, eh?' effect.

I've subscribed to his blog, and I love his recipes and photos. Mostly the photos, they truly are food porn. The photo of his sliced duck prosciutto... I stared at it for a good 10 minutes. Then I went and did something else, and then I came back and stared at it some more.

I bought Ruhlman's latest book, Ratio, and have gobbled up each of its lovingly-written pages. Ruhlman really loves food and cooking, and that visceral feeling of getting your hands in it, that you never get from buying pre-made dishes.

Ratio is a fantastic book, and it's not one of those glossy, flip through and gaze and the beautiful images cookbooks full of gratingly arrogant photos of the chef, the chef and his blonde-haired children frolicking on the beach, the chef and his wife mid-embrace, presumably overtaken with passion after devouring one of his mind-blowing creations, the chef and his butcher friend blah blah blah kind of cookbooks. Sorry to digress, but I have to get you to understand what kind of annoying cookbook this is not.

Ratio is a text. Ratio must be read, not just looked at. It reduces the most simple recipe forms, for example bread, pasta, pancake, stock, mayonnaise, to simple, remember-able ratios that form the basis of cookery. And once you know those ratios, you can use them to make so many things. It's a simple concept but takes a bit of dedication and patience to get your head around. But it instantly wins people over. I was reading it on the tram and a young junkie couple (I know they were junkies because they were talking about how they had just had a good hit and couldn't remember what they'd done for the past 5 hours) asked me what I was reading. I explained it to them, and they were hooked on the idea. 'It's great that you are so into cooking' they said. When they got off the tram they bid me farewell and hoped I cooked some good dishes from my new book. Everyone I've told about it has been intrigued.

But does it work? Well yes, it does! I made another sweet potato Irish soda bread the other day, but this time without a recipe, just using the bread ratio instead. 5:3 / flour:liquid. I used 5 parts wholemeal flour to 3 parts buttermilk, a tablespoon of baking powder, and a mashed sweet potato. Mixed up into a dough and then into the oven for a hour and you have a bread-without-thinking bread. Wonderful.

Tonight I tried the mayonnaise, in preparation for dinner. I will serve it with a bit of salmon fillet and some steamed vegetables.

The ratio for mayonnaise is 20 parts oil to 1 part water (plus yolk).

Apparently, the water is the most important factor in the mayonnaise not breaking, not the yolk! I did not know that.

Mayonnaise
(From Ratio by Michael Ruhlman)

1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon water
2 teaspoons lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1 cup vegetable oil (I used light olive oil)

Whisk together all ingredients except oil in large bowl.

Add a little oil to the mix, whisk well, and then keep whisking and adding the oil bit by bit.

The mayonnaise is finished when all the oil is incorporated and it is a thick, viscous glob.

Using this method, I didn't think it came even close to breaking. Easy as!

(If it does break, Ruhlman recommends starting with a clean bowl with a teaspoon of water in it, and whisking the broken mayonnaise into it bit by bit, until it comes together again.)

I added a bit of cracked pepper and 1 clove of crushed garlic.

A wonderful thing about Ruhlman's writing is that he de-bunks ideas of things you think are much easier to get from the supermarket. This mayonnaise does not taste a thing like supermarket mayonnaise, it is something else. But it's not difficult either. It just requires a more hands-on approach to feeding yourself. And I think, if you've got your finger on the pulse of everything you put into you, you are much more likely to be healthy and content.

Sweet Potato Dumplings

2009-06-03T18:57:00.009+10:00

A few weeks ago, I had dinner at Otsumami - a Japanese restaurant in High Street, Northcote - with my boyfriend Andrew. We enjoyed everything there immensely - the buttery wild mushroom stirfry, the squid and ginger salad, the crispy kaarage chicken. But nothing blew us away as much as the sweet potato gyoza - little pan fried dumplings stuffed with the most silky, delicately flavoured sweet potato mash. They were beyond enjoyable, and beyond memorable - they were magical! We are planning to return just for them.

I attempted to recreate them myself. This time, whilst I was cooking, Andrew acted as my personal kitchen paparazzi, flashing away whilst I busyed myself mashing, wrapping and panfrying.

Sweet potato dumplings are somehow, more than just dumpling wrapper and sweet potato. They are smooth and tasty and light and crunchy - they are the gestalt of dumplings, much more than their humble ingredients would indicate.

We served these with some boiled korean sweet potato noodles (Yes yes, I know, we'll turn into a sweet potato in a minute) because we happened to have them in the cupboard. The noodles were tossed with a bit of chilli, soy sauce and sesame oil and sprinkled with sesame seeds before serving.

Sweet Potato Dumplings

1 packet wonton/dumpling wrappers
1 very large sweet potato, or equivalent smaller ones
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon chopped ginger
1 tablespoon soy sauce or fish sauce

Peel the sweet potato and chop into chunks. Boil in salted water until soft, then drain.

Mash the sweet potato with the ginger, garlic and soy/fish sauce. Mash until squashed, and then continue mashing with a fork until very smooth. You can attempt pushing it through a sieve for the finest texture possible - I began doing this and gave up as it was an incredibly slow process. But just make sure the mixture is smooth, and there are no chunks.

Place the dumpling wrappers on a smooth surface and paint the edges with some water to help the sticking process.

Fill each dumpling wrapper with a tablespoon of sweet potato mash and then fold over and press to form dumpling shapes (this takes practice but is very fun).

Once you have used up all your sweet potato mash, you can pan fry, steam or boil your dumplings. I chose to panfry them, in an attempt to replicate the delicious crispy texture of Otsumami's gyoza.

That's all there is to it really! These were delicious, but we will be returning to Otsumami soon because I'm sure there is magic in their little parcels of good.

Serves 2-4 depending on hunger and greediness. I ate way too many.

Cinnamon Scrolls and Port Melbourne

2009-05-25T14:08:00.003+10:00

With just under two weeks left till I have to submit my folio, I’ve been working in my studio everyday for the past week. I have also created an extremely unrealistic schedule that will hopefully help me to get everything done in time. All this work and stress has unfortunately given me a horrid cold. I’ve been drinking massive amounts of water and taking vitamin c three times a day. My fellow studio mates and I have been having long talks about ways to stay healthy, and about how much we’re stressing out. Copious bottles of wine and cups of tea have also been drunk. After spending my whole weekend in the studio, today I woke up at 10.30 and couldn’t face the trip into the city, so I’m being lazy and staying home. I’m hoping to get some work done, but I know it’s unlikely.

I made this recipe a few weeks ago after a trip to Port Melbourne. My whole class was forced to visit this desolate place so that we could make some work from the experience. Now that everyone is stuck into the work, no one is enjoying it. Much like our trip which was blessed with freezing, overcast weather, punctuated with bouts of rain. I got practically no work done, spent most of my time in the dodgy café and froze my hands and ears off. I did enjoy travelling along the light rail tram route (in the case the 109, but the 96 also takes it), which makes the tram feel like a train (such simple pleasures). My friend and I ended up sneaking off 3 hours early. Once I got home I was in need of some warm, cinnamony goodness. I’d tried to make cinnamon scrolls before but they turned out very hard, almost biscuity in texture. These, however, are soft and delicate. Now that we’re heading into winter, these are perfect to warm you up after a long day outdoors.

I’ve had this recipe printed out in my “to cook” folder for a while, but when I searched for it online, I couldn’t find the original. I searched the text and found the exact same post on website, but with a different picture. I’m not quite sure what happened. Anyway, here’s a link to the recipe on the blog.

Craving Cinnamon Raisin Bagels

2009-05-18T19:55:00.002+10:00

My internet was shaped this week due to too many episodes of Australia’s Next Top Model watched on youtube. The Office season 5 just finished as well (amazing!) so that probably contributed to it too. However, my internet is back now and I’ve got a glut of posts to publish.

Ok, I ate pretty much all of these over two days and now that they’re gone, I’m still craving them. I had a craving for these on Saturday and had to go through the pain of their two-day preparation period before being able to consume them. They are incredibly delicious. I ate some of them for breakfast with apricot jam and Philly, but most of them were devoured toasted with lots of butter.

I found this recipe on the gorgeous Smitten Kitchen blog. Uni is heating up at the moment and I just don’t have the time to make these again, so tomorrow I think I’ll be off to Glick's around morning tea time to get my fix. I’ll give you guys a link to the recipe because it is super, ridiculously long. However, don’t be put off! It doesn’t really involve much work, just lots of little tasks and long resting periods. I started these on a Saturday afternoon and they were easily finished for Sunday breakfast. One warning, tip the excess semolina flour off the trays before baking – it burns easily! And remember, raisins = sultanas.

Cinnamon Raisin Bagels

Chorizo and Vegetable Soup - featuring our namesake beans and barley

2009-05-10T14:02:00.005+10:00

Last week's market shopping trip must have been one of the most successful ever. I didn't spend that much, came home with a heap, and have found a way to use every tid bit that I purchased. This soup certainly helped in the tid-bit using. It's based around a single chorizo sausage, which imparts a very large pot of soup with delicious smokey-rich flavour. Vegetarians: I'd suggest using a tablespoon of smokey paprika instead - but I'd have to say even then you a probably missing out here!

Chorizo and Vegetable Soup

(Hey Mum! Yes, this soup was inspired by your chorizo soups. )

1 chorizo sausage
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon peppercorns
1 teaspoon cumin seed
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
parsley
1 zucchini, diced
1 large potato, diced
1 can chopped tomato
1 eggplant, diced
handful of green beans, trimmed and sliced into 2cm pieces
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1/2 cup barley

Dice onion and chop chorizo sausage into 1cm pieces. Crush garlic together with the cumin and peppercorns in a mortar and pestle, or crush garlic in garlic crusher and mix with pre-ground cumin and pepper.

In a large pot, fry onion and garlic mix in a tablespoon of oil. When onion is transparent, add chorizo and fry until well browned.

Add chopped vegetables, parsley and a tin of chopped tomato to pot (fresh tomato is fine, but tins of tomato are actually cheaper!). Fry a little, and then add the stock, coriander powder and barley. Add smokey paprika if not using chorizo.

Simmer well, topping up with boiling water if it becomes too stew-like and not soupy enough.

Continue to boil until the vegetables and barley are soft.

Serve with some fresh bread (see previous posts!).

Almost as good as central heating. Almost.

Olive and Herb Bread / Thankyou Kevin!

2009-05-10T13:12:00.005+10:00

Bread ahoy! I know that all posts so far have been bread related, but you must understand the frugality behind it. Bread is cheap and delicious, and this is a 'recession'. Blah blah. Recession is boring, who cares! It seems now people talk about the recession and pander to it because it is fashionable, rather than it being an actual reality in their lives. What's this about cutting your budget? You either have a job, and therefore have money, or you don't. Does the recession just magically make your money disappear?

If it does, then perhaps you should bake some bread. Otherwise, bake bread because it's fun. PM Kevin gave a lot of us $900 and rather than going crazy I invested in a good pyrex bowl (see earlier posts for my gripes at not having one) and a (cheap) digital camera. The rest is for 'just in case'. Evidence:

Oh, the excitement. So I decided to bake a loaf of olive and herb bread. (Note: It was Friday night. This is what gets me excited these days. I don't actually remember the last time I had a weekend drink in a bar. Hah.)

Olive and Herb Bread

(adapted from the Women's Weekly Cookbook 'Muffins, Scones and Breads')

4 teaspoons (14g) dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/4 cups (310ml) warm milk
1 cup warm water
2 cups flour (I used wholemeal)
1/3 cup olive oil
3 1/2 cups plain flour, extra (I used wholemeal, again)
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped olives (I used marinated green ones)
handful chopped herbs of your choosing (I used fresh basil and parsley)

Mix yeast, sugar, milk and water in a large bowl (yay for large bowls!), whisk until yeast is all dissolved.

Whisk in sifted flour then cover bowl with a tea towel. Put in a warm place for about 30 mins or until it has grown to double its size.

Stir in oil, then extra flour and the salt. Knead dough for about 10 minutes. Clean the bowl you have been using and then grease it with a bit of oil. Put dough back in and cover again with tea towel. Stand in warm place for an hour or until doubled in size.

Knead in herbs and olives. I would suggest kneading in a couple of tablespoons of pesto here, if you have it laying around. I think it would really add to the flavour. I will be doing this next time!

Prehead oven to 200 degrees C. Roll dough out into an oval shape and then fold in half (it should look roughly like a loaf of bread now). Ease it onto a greased baking tray.

Cover again and leave for about half an hour (I left it on top of the stove to make use of the heat from the preheating oven). After it has re-risen, dust the loaf with a tablespoon or so of flour, and bake in the oven for 45 minutes.

Pizza for my Grandparents

2009-04-28T18:56:00.005+10:00

I’ve had my grandparents over from Tasmania for the past week, not only has this brought about a large amount of stress but also the need to cook food that they will eat (not overly spicy). This has proven to be especially tricky. I failed on the first night with vegetable pasties (how this was too exotic for them, I have no idea) and they were a little uncertain about stir-fry (too much sweet chilli?). By the third night, I was stuck, but the promise of a long Sunday at home with the heating on seemed to lend itself to homemade pizza making. With Anna making pizza as well this weekend, I thought that it was a good opportunity to compare techniques.

Unlike the lovely Anna, I am a little scared of fresh yeast and so stuck with the dry variety. I also found the dough was a little sticky, even with extra flour, and stuck to the bowl it was rising in. This didn’t seem to have any affect on the end result. For the toppings, I made one with cheese and olives (to cater for my obsessive addiction to them) and the other with spinach, capsicum and mushrooms. The grandparents seemed to enjoy the pizza (despite my grandmother thinking that the spinach was mint!) but it is really open to adaptation to suit your own tastes.

Pizza Dough
Makes 4 large pizzas

2 sachets yeast (I used Tandaco brand)
1 tsp salt
800g (5 cups) plain flour
olive oil
2 cups lukewarm water

Mix yeast and salt with flour.
Mix 2 Tbl olive oil with water. Mix into dry ingredients.

Knead until mixture is smooth and elastic (I found that 10-15 minutes should do it).
Grease bowl with olive oil. Transfer dough to bowl.
Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place (in front of a heater works a treat) until doubled in size (about 1 ½ hours.)

Knock back dough and fold it over gently a few times.
Allow to rise again, covered, for about 30-40 minutes.

Knock back dough. Divide into 4 and press onto 4 large greased pizza trays.
Allow dough to recover for 5 minutes.

Add toppings.
Cook at 200°C for about 15 minutes.

Sweet Potato Irish Soda Bread

2009-04-28T13:44:00.004+10:00

I absolutely love dense, heavy artisan-bakery style bread but it is much too expensive - half a loaf of a good sourdough at the market is $6.80! So I usually end up with a soft, squishy rye bread which looks enticingly healthy but is actually just fluff and air - much cheaper but infinitely inferior. Making my own bread didn't occur to me because it sounded too time consuming.

But! Soda bread doesn't take long at all, as it bypasses the yeast and waiting business. It also has a nice, dense texture reminiscent of scones or damper and can be varied in much the same way as yeast bread. I found a good recipe in an old Women's Weekly and added in some mashed sweet potato to liven it up a bit. I found a big sweet potato hiding in the back of the cupboard and wanted to use it before it went bad. That's my new thing - using EVERYTHING in the cupboard, finding a way to use up all sorts of bits and pieces in interesting ways.

This bread was very popular with my housemates and the various visitors we had in the few days it was around. It's very filling and very easy. Next time I think I'll make a version with sunflower seeds and perhaps some spices. I wanted to take a photo of it when it came out of the oven as it looked so perfect, but couldn't get any photographic device to work, and couldn't fathom leaving the house to get more batteries before I tried some!

Sweet Potato Irish Soda Bread

1 large sweet potato, boiled and mashed
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 2/3 cups wholemeal flour
2 1/2 cups white flour
buttermilk, approx 2 cups

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Mix all ingredients in large bowl until they come together as a dough - gradually adding buttermilk as you go. Add more buttermilk if needed, or more flour if it gets too sticky. (Again, I used a baking tray because I strangely do not have a large bowl!). Form dough into a 20cm round.

Grease a large flat baking tray. Sit dough on top, cut a cross shaped slit into the top, about 1cm deep. Brush dough with a bit of milk - it gives it a nice crust.

Bake in the oven for 50 mins - 1 hour.

All done!

Note to vegans: you could use soy milk instead of buttermilk. I'd probably use milk instead of buttermilk anyway because using buttermilk substantially ups the price of this baked product, as it costs around $2.50 for 500 ml. I think soy or cow milk would work just as well, and I will try it next time. One of the main ideas behind these baking adventures is economy!

Home made pizza on a Sunday

2009-04-28T11:20:00.010+10:00

Hello there. A short introduction - my name is Anna and I like art, writing, music and cooking and eating, but not necessarily in that order. Cooking is probably up the top for me, alongside eating.

The idea for this blog (co-authored with the lovely Camila) came about whilst doing weekly volunteer work at a gallery we shan't name. Camila and I met at the gallery and realised we had much more in common than a love of art - for example, gypsy music and recipes. We talked increasingly more about food and ingredients rather than what was going on around us in the warehouse-conversion contemporary art space we were located in a the time. The result being - we quit the gallery and spent our time together experimenting in the kitchen.

Anyway, the pizza: I was inspired by Michael Ruhlman's food blog last week (www.ruhlman.com) which practically implored readers to make their own pizza. The following recipe is loosely based on his, but importantly I used fresh yeast instead of dried, mainly because my parents did when I was younger, and I love the smell. (A side note: I bought a 50gram piece of fresh yeast from the Preston Market, which excited me intensely, when I was buying various cheeses and meats for the toppings of the pizza. When I was unpacking my market trolley, I picked it up, smelled it, and exclaimed, 'This smells like my childhood!', to which my crass but loveable housemate replied, 'Did you get a lot of thrush when you were younger?' Appalled, I remarked that pizza making was a big thing in my childhood home, and my Dad had also made his own beer, leaving the house with a yeasty smell. This short convo almost put me off my baking enthusiasm).

Home made pizza

4 cups flour
2 1/2 cups warm water, with 10 grams approx. of fresh yeast mixed in
1 teaspoon salt
dash olive oil

toppings of your choosing...

Mix the flour, yeasty water, olive oil and salt in a large bowl ( I used a baking dish, because I don't have a large bowl. If I had had a large bowl, things would have been a lot easier). Knead together to make a dough.

Scatter some flour on a bench surface, plonk dough on top, and knead for about 10 minutes. Put dough in a greased bowl and cover with a tea towel. Put in warm place (if you can find one in this weather!) Leave for at least 3 hours. I left it for about 5 hours, but it doesn't matter really.

About an hour before you want to eat, re-knead the dough (punch it first, apparently) for a little bit, then divide it into 2 balls. Roll out each ball to the size you want your pizza (I used round pizza trays, around 30cm wide). I don't have a rolling pin, so after scratching my head a bit deciding what to do, I found that a wine bottle works just as well!

Preheat oven to 230 degrees C. Press pizza dough onto greased pizza trays. I spread the first one (above) with a homemade pesto of basil, pinenuts, roast garlic and parmesan, then topped it with green olives, white anchovies, fetta and a sprinkle of mozzarella. This one was topped with wild rocket when it came out of the oven.

The next pizza had a smearing of tomato paste, roasted garlic, sliced fior di latte cheese and prosciutto. (I added the prosciutto at the last 5 mins of cooking time in the oven to prevent it becoming a burnt frizzle).

Put them in the oven for approx 2o mins, rotating the oven trays half way through.

Serve with wine! Feeds approximately 4 people.

Note: Please excuse the slightly poor quality of the photographs - I don't have a camera yet! These were taken on a camera phone and tidied up a bit on photoshop - Thanks Andrew :-) He's done a very good job with such a poor instrument...

I would encourage everyone to make their own pizza: it is delicious, cheap, and a very very satisfying. Experiment with toppings to your heart's content...