Steak and 3 veg

Tonight I had a scotch fillet stuffed with porcini mushrooms.

Served with smashed rosemary chats and edamame and a jus made from the porcini soaking liquid and some Tahbilk GSM we picked up over the Easter long weekend a few months ago.

A quick note on edamame, I foolishly thought last night that if the whole pods were quickly stir-fried they would be crunchy and edible. No, the pods were still gross and I had to pick the edamame out of the stirfry and squeeze the beans out. VERY messy! So just prepare them normally and don't attempt to eat the pods!

I can't be bothered cooking tonight

Here are some things I have eaten over the last few weeks which have not involved much culinary skill on my behalf...

Chicken and cashews and steamed rice from my wonderful local Vietnamese. Fresh, cheap and BYO, all things that make me happy in a restuarant. It is also very close to my work and does lunch, the soups are delicious.

Oozy, slightly whiffy brie, perfectly riper, but this photo shows it in clingwrap. Had this with some ciabatta and wine. It is really important NOT to buy Aussie camembert/brie as they have been pasteurised and do not ripen properly with the same kind of bacteria. This is why all supermarket soft white-moulds are hard and have an expiry date of about a year! Get thee to a good deli and ask for an unpasteurised version. You won't go back!

Sour dough roll with ham, emmenthal and Paul Newman aioli.

Trident Thai Chicken soup which I have mentioned before with shredded chicken breast, shallots and mushrooms added. The best packet soup ever.

2 minute noodles. Undomestic Goddess style. Use indomie brand noodles, they can be found in the Asian section, the flavour is amazing. You will want to throw away those packets of maggi chicken flavoured noodles with the fluorescent yellow flavouring immediately if not sooner!! I made the noodles then stir fried with onion, chicken, prawns, capsicum and edamame. The indomie Mi Goreng and Mi Goreng Satay flavours are both widely available and really nice. They are still pretty unhealthy though, but not as bad as fast food, so I take some comfort in that! Of course cooking rice noodles is reqlly quick as well, but the flavour of the indomie is nice and it means you don't have to use any other sauces.

If anyone is reading this please add in the comments section any quick, yummy meals that you whip up when you don't want to do something fancy schmancy!

Identity-crisis Cassoulet

I would usually call this dish a tuscan bean stew but having read "Sausage in a Basket" by Martin Lampen (see previous post) and his scathing critiscm of things "Mediterranean-Style" i.e. drowned in a tomato based sauce with some capsicum and olives thrown in . Also, he quite correctly points out the mediterranean is a huge area with widely varied cultures! As a homage to this I am renaming my dish Identity Crisis Cassoulet: Cassoulet=French, chorizo=Spanish/Portugese, Cannellini beans=Italian, and with chunks of bacon, tomato and onion.

I served it on some soft polenta and downed some wine with it. YUM!

Rhubarb and Apple Crumble

Crumble Bum: someone who has grown tubby from eating desserts. See Undomestic Goddess and Mr Undomestic Goddess for examples.

Tonight I made crumble. My lovely and talented sister mentioned rhubarb earlier this afternoon and when I was at the markets I saw a lovely bunch on special.
I microwaved the chopped rhubarb, chopped apple and finely sliced crystallised ginger with some sugar for 4 minutes until starting to go soft, but not a complete mush. I love ginger in crumble, it is particularly good with fresh nectarine, but alas no stone fruit for a few months!
I them made the crumble with butter, coffee sugar (larger crystals=more crunch) and plain flour in the food processor until it looks like rough breadcrumbs and then mixed in some almonds and shredded coconut NOT the dessicated mummified stuff! Throw the fruit and crumble mixture into ramekins and bake at about 180 until brown. You could serve with cream, ice cream or custard but I didn't have any cream or ice cream in the house (and didn't think lemon flavoured italia gelati would be quite as nice) and couldn't be bothered making custard just for me. I love the fact that it is a dessert where I don't have to measure anything; I am not very good at following recipes, it just seems like hard work. But I do have a major weakness for buying cookbooks especially ones with lots of pictures! Thats all, I'm going to have my crumble with a cup of twinings Darjeeling.

Sunday Arts with Undomestic Godess

I have been to the movies the last three weekends in a row and have seen:

My year without sex: an aussie movie, thought it would be a comedy based on the trailers I had seen. The main character had a brain aneurysm in the first 10 minutes. And had the same first name as me. The family in the movie were strugglesville and the couples marriage was disintegrating...umm a couple of funny moments, but in all quite depressing!

Sunshine Cleaning: For a movie about 2 sisters who clean up crime scenes, suicides and deceased estates this was actually quite good, helped by the great actors in it; Emily Blunt, Amy Adams and the hilarious as always Alan Arkin.... love him! Good movie!

Samson and Delilah: another aussie film and also ridiculously depressing. Film started off with Samson sniffing glue and entire film revolved around scenes of petrol and glue sniffing and Aboriginal people bashing eachother. Horrible. I spent the whole movie squirming in my seat. Depressing not only for the content but the fact that the film has had so much publicity (It won the Camera D'Or for best first feature film at Cannes earlier this year) and people in other countries may think a) this is representative of Aboriginal culture in Australia and b) people in Australia don't care. It was confronting without being thought provoking and I wish I hadn't seen it!

On a lighter note, everyone reading this needs to go out and buy this:

I am not really a big mayo fan (apart from kewpie on my sushi) but this is to die for. Tastes like fresh made restuarant aioli. Also as it is Paul Newman, I figure it fits in with the movie theme??

Bought some books on the weekend too:

This is a classic reference. It is a bit of a hard plough as I am used to having pretty pictures but it is a great book detailing french cooking styles, equipment as well as many recipes. I now know why so many chefs cite Elizabeth David as one of the most influential chefs/cooks of the modern era.

This book is hilarious, witty and with biting satire. A great read. I particularly liked his description of the avocado with its reptilian skin and the stone which he pictures whenever "ovum" is mentioned. Also a boyhood crush on the woman on the packet of quality street chocolates, the decline of tinned soup and the horror of horrors: the gastropub....

Today I made some semi-dried tomatos to have with my salads for lunch during the week. Just quartered some romas sprinkled with olive oil and sea salt and put in oven at 80 deg for 5 hours.

They were pretty yummy, next time I will make a bigger batch then puree to make a really rich tomato sauce.

Thats all, I have crumble in the oven, will post later tonight!

Same old same old..

I haven't posted for a while because I have been a bit slack and cooking really boring things and having stuff like eggs on toast and tinned salmon and salad for dinner But on wednesday night I cooked a pork cutlet with white wine sauce and gremolata on mashed potato and baby spinach. It was my version of an amazing meal that is on the menu and my favourite local restuarant. It was really nice, but the pork was a little dry; I don't usually cook pork very often; I think it is the whole thing of pork being similar to human flesh or something, but of course ham, bacon, pancetta etc is exempt from this!


My local coles only had curly parsley not flat leaf so it looked a bit daggy and the flavour of the gremolata was not quite as good. I remember as a very small child in the late 80's picking parsely for Mum for her cooking and always wanting to pick the curly stuff as that was what was used in restaurants on everything at the time. Mum always wanted flat leaf because the flavour was so much better; she was way ahead of her time, you would be hard pressed to find curly parsley in anything but the tackiest of eating establishments these days! (Also if not chopped finely enough it is like a hairball in your throat!)

Tonight I had moroccon lamb sausages on mashed potato and spinach (again) and with a brown onion and porcini sauce. I bought some lovely dried porcinis from my local health food store and have been looking for ways to use them.

I added the mushrooms and the soaking liquid to the sauce and it was yummy. I was also impressed as the 50g jar I bought was only around $12 and the flavour and smell of them are very nice. As a side note, lamb is also something I only cook rarely; I think it is the smell of it cooking that I don't like, so lamb roasts are out but I don't mind shanks, cutlets or using lamb mince in moussaka for instance.

On an unrealted note; watching Master Chef tonight (I love it, I'm totally addicted) one of the contestants got booted off because she thought the farro in a minestrone was barley. I actually had to google farro, and I think I have a pretty good knowledge of obscure grains, eg quinoa, amaranth, millett I can recognise and have cooked with. I really want to buy the book "1001 foods to try before you die" but it is quite expensive for something that it not a reference cookbook. I visit it whenever I am in a bookshop! I do like poring through my "Maggies Harvest" which is my favourite cookbook for inspiration in using new and unusual ingredients. I will have to do a bit of an I love Maggie post and go into raptures about her books, she is fab!

Thats all, will try and post soon!

Had a bit of a trying day at work yesterday, so today a lovely customer brought myself and a co-worker in a little posy of lavender in from her garden. She has an amazing garden as these show; she has lavender in bloom and it is winter in Canberra!!! All the lavender in my garden went crunchy back in november! She also wrapped it in cellophane with a ribbon: it made my day. Thanks, and thanks to all the customers and people who work nearby for your support yesterday and today!





Tonight for dinner I made frenched lamb cutlets with caramelised red onion, asparagus and snow peas.

Sounds a lot more complicated than it was, it really took no time at all. After the gym this evening I put the onions on to cook on a REALLY low heat while I had a shower and had some wine. Then I slapped on the lamb cutlets, they look about 5 or 10 minutes and toasted the pine nuts in the microwave and then microwaved the asparagus. My cooking mantra is pretty much "use microwave whenever possible" and I do for steaming all my vegies, melting stuff, polenta, scrambled eggs; how did people cook before microwaves??? Also I take a perverse pleasure in using the microwave as my partner is frightened of it. He thinks that by using it I could start some kind of nuclear meltdown. He is also frightened of electrical sockets and thinks that if the switch is on and nothing is plugged in electricity is floating into the air. No amount of my explaining how a circuit works will change my mind. He is also not good around lighbulbs, fuse boxes and the gas burners on our cooktop. (And is no good at taking photos) This makes life difficult as I am also not a terribly practical person... He is very good at opening bottles of wine and packets of chocolate though, which makes up for a lot!

Here is a slighly blurry closeup of the lamb.

It was quite good except for the asparagus which was a little woody and a bit tasteless. It is my own fault for buying out of season asparagus from china or cuba or mexico or somewhere. God is punishing me for my food miles!

I will have leftovers for lunch tomorrow with some cherry tomatoes. (I am super-organised tonight)

Thats all, I'm falling asleep...zzzzzzz

Tea Time Part II

Here are someof the non-black teas that I like.



This green tea with jasmine has large leaves and a gorgeous flavour, much nicer than the commercial dilmah/twinings/lipton green tea varieties.



I usually just put half a teaspoon straight into cup or sometimes use a teapot.



This is tea for when I want to feel smug and virtuous that my hot beverage is SO much healthier than anyone else's hot beverage. It tastes quite good too and is nice cold.

I also have their decaf version of this one.

Some twinings herbal teas, they are nice hot or cold. Both the lemon twist and Rasberry and peach are rosehip and hibiscus with the fruit added as well.

I have to be in the mood for the peppermint, I always feel like I am drinking diluted mouthwash a little...

This nerada tea is actually quite good. The nerada black teas are absolute rubbish but this has a nice flavour and is quite strong.

Once again, good hot or cold.

This is my favourite when I feel sick or have a sore throat.

It is instant ginger tea. I buy it from my asian grocer. Not too sweet or too "hot" from the ginger.

And last but not least, here is some lemongrass tea that I get from the healthfood store. It is reshreshing and mild and I have this during the day if I don't want anything caffeinated but still want a hot drink.

It takes a little longer to steep than other teas, I usually leave it for up to 10 mins.

Well thats it, if anyone wants to send me some samples of teas to try I am more than willing to help!!

Slow cooker pot roast

I googled some recipes and how-tos for pot roast and I thought I'd give it a crack.

Turned out quite well....Here's what I did. I only used a small piece of beef 700g so if you are making it with a larger piece of beef double the amounts of other stuff!

Browned roast beef on all sides in a frying pan in a little olive oil. (Didn't flour it or anything)
Put beef aside and added some roughly chopped vegies to the pan ( 1 red onion, 1 stick celery, 1 carrot, a few cloves of garlic to taste I used 5 or 6) and cook until a little brown and starting to soften.

I then deglazed the pan with some WHITE wine (for a milder flavour)

Put vegies in bottom of slow cooker and beef on top and then added half a packet of french onion soup mix, half a massel beef stock cube and 2 cups of boiling water and stuck the slow cooker on high. (which is still low) The liquid won't cover the beef completely, it doesn't matter.

I cooked it for 5 hours turning every hour or so.

When it was starting to fall apart at the edges I took out the meat and used a stick blender to blend the vegies in the liquid and then cooked with the lid off for half an hour or so until thickened. The gravy was really yummy and quite healthy too as it had no thickener in it, just vegies, stock, wine and soup mix.

The meat was very tender and delicious but not as visually appealing as a normally cooked roast as I prefer the look of medium-rare roast beef. I will definitely cook this again though as it was easy, yummy and an easy clean up.

Serve with roast vegies. I had roast dutch carrots, beetroot, potato and onion.

Enjoy

Monday, monday...

I love public holidays, an extra day to sleep in and potter around. This morning I got up relatively early and made some scrambled eggs. I make them in the microwave (so simple and easy) and add shallots and cheese and a splash of milk to the mix. I just use whatever cheese is floating around the fridge; today it was some mersey valley.


Yum! I get my eggs from "the egg lady" a lovely older woman who comes into my work and sells the eggs from her backyard chooks. They are the most amazing eggs ever, huge with bright orange yolks and they taste great. Much better even than free-range supermarket ones.


After breakfast I went shopping on the pretext of having my eyebrows shaped when I suddenly found myself in the Tea Centre. Oh my, how did that happen, I may now have to purchase some tea. And I did.

I bought a cute tea tin and a 50g packet each of the tea centre "Cream" and their "Tea Centre OP". I tried the Cream as soon as I got home.

Very, very nice. It tastes like a creme brulee, but not overpowering.

Over the weekend I bought three books, all of them food related , they were all a bargain though!

The Pleasures of English Food: a fun little paperback with articles on various English foods; e.g. apples (8 pages!), stargazey pie, yorkshire puddings, separate entries for high tea and afternoon tea, kipper etc.

This is kind of like Kitchen Confidential but an expose on food critics and their influence on how we eat and cook.

Started out quite good, haven't finished it yet.

A Year in Provence

I'm about halfway through, very entertaining.

Thats all! I bought some beef I will attempt to pot roast in my slowcooker, I am going to go and brown it and get it started. If it is nice I will put some pics up tonight. If not I will delete all mention of the pot roast from this post!!!

Tea Time Part I

I have just realised that I have far too many teas to just do one post so I will have to do a black tea then a green tea/herbal tea post.

Below are two fairly strong and hearty teas.


I have to be in the mood for lapsang souchong but I really love the smoky taste. Traditional afternoon is also strong so I usually have it in the morning to wake me up a bit!

The next three are a bit milder:

Prince of Wales is quite delicate and light coloured. I like this at night as it doesn't keep me awake.

Ceylon Orange Pekoe: I always thought this was orange flavoured but I realised a few months ago that it refers to the colour of the tea!

Irish Breakfast: I like this better than English breakfast as it is a bit gutsier!

Above are my Chai teas. I only have these occaisionally. I usually make this with half boiling water and let it steep for a couple of minutes then add half milk and sweeten with honey or raw sugar. I also like Arcadia brand instant chai powder and have chai lattes made from this once or twice a week from the cafe near my work. I don't have this at home though as it is a bit high in sugar and fat!

This one was a bit of a disapointment.

I bought it because it was on special and it was fair trade but it really doesn't have much flavour at all. Earl Grey isn't my favourite tea anyway....I use it sometimes in a tea pot and leave it to steep for a while.

And to enjoy with a cuppa...

I bought this muffin from a bakery at the Fyshwick Food Markets (Fyshwick is an industrial area in canberra known also for its abundance of sex shops and other adult entertainment venues). The bakery is called S&M Bakery. I don't know if the name is deliberate but the food is always great. It is a good old fashioned bakery with lamingtons, vanilla slice, pies, sausage rolls, sandwiches and on saturday some really nice looking muffins. This one had a rasberry and apple mix and the brown bits on top were cinnamon sugar.

Well thats all for tonight....

Sniffles...

I've had a bit of a cold this week, so I have had no sense of taste or smell and been too exhausted after work to cook. So monday, tuesday and wednesday my dinner was...


I added some shallots, mushrooms and chilli to the soup as well. Couldn't be bothered posting a pic. I will try to remember next time I have it. It really is quite good soup though and by far the best ever packet chicken noodle! Today I went the whole day without taking and cold and flu drugs woohoo!!! I celebrated mid afternoon by having a soy hot chocolate from the cafe next door to my work: delish! I am not lactose intolerant but I love the combination of the slightly nutty soy with chocolate. I was starting to feel human this evening and in need or some real food but still wanting to cook something relatively quick and easy.

This is my fried rice with bacon, chicken, prawns, onion, peas, shallots and omelette. My secret is to use sunrice instant rice stuff straight from the pack as it stays nice and separate and has a great texture. Also doesn't require any planning ahead to have cold rice in the fridge!!

Ok, getting a bit weary, time for some ginger tea and bed. Maybe I will do a tea post next...