I like butter. Do not misunderstand me. Toast, pastry, crumbles, pancakes. YES.
But I am a Mediterranean girl at heart. I live with/for olive oil.
At the moment one of the people I live with cooks everything with butter. The assumption seems to be that if it tastes good, it is therefore evil, bingeworthy and made with butter. I caramelised some onions for a barbeque - for which I made those salads in the last post - and butterer was impressed and asked how I did it: just with butter?
NAY!!!! Go the evoo!
Onions, potatoes, pumpkin, rosemary, roast garlic, leeks, chicken, oogggggmmm ogm uhgrnm. (this is a throatier --> more realistic version of om nom nom)
What got me started on this today was my appreciation of salad dressing with decent vinegar and good oil. (Which happens to be imported from Italy. This I would not buy, but said butter-lover does not seem to have food miles or food ethics of any kind, really, on the radar. Coles tinned tomatoes from Italy, mineral water and olive oil from Italy, it pains me on my moral highchair. But Italian balsamic-olive oil blend tastes better than the nail-polish remover Coles white wine vinegar!) And sourdough dipped in evoo, like they give you complimentary at Tutto Bene.
So, darling reader, you sexy thing (did you love the Doctor calling the Tardis lady Sexy or what!!???), this is what I plan to cook tonight.
Chicken thighs (found in fridge, highly ethically dubious, but I want to use them before they have a chance to be extremely old, cooked and left on the stove for 24 hours, and fed to us with butter) WITH
chestnuts, olive oil, potatoes, rosemary and garlic (whole cloves) chucked in the oven and roasted. Salt and pepper, bien sur. May have to cover at some point to keep moist.
And leafy green salad. Possibly with some warmed bread on the side to mop up any juices.
Get some free-range (organic, I dare you) chicken and do the same. Tomorrow if not today.
PS. Do I use too many brackets in my blogwriting? What do you think?
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
last of the summer barbeques.. well autumn really.
farewell summer?
Avocadoes are getting more expensive. And tomatoes are going out of season.
And as Clotilde says, the world doesn't really need another hommus recipe. But it's the internet. So you're getting one.
chickpeas! - dried. half a 375g bag (or 190g). soak for a while, all day or night.
bay leaf
onion, cut in half
COOK THE CHICKPEAS IN WATER WITH THE BAY LEAF AND ONION. tastes so much better than canned chickpeas.
then after a bjillion years (or a couple of hours) put the chickpeas in a food processor with a little bit of the cooking water. if you are like me, and you decide to cook chickpeas at 11pm, and then finish it in the morning, even better (the seasonings need adjusting when it's cooled) - just refrigerate the chickpeas and their water. together. in the pot you cooked them in. no need to dirty another pot.
so chickpeas and a few tablespoons of cooking water in the food processor WITH:
3+ cloves of garlic
cumin, ground - 1-2 tsp
couple of tablespoons tahini
juice of lemon - 1 lemon's worth, depending on size
salt (~1 tsp)
olive oil - you know, some. 1 - 3 tbsp? and drizzle some on top when you serve the hommus in a nice dish, because it deserves it. you can sprinkle some paprika on too if you want.
This is quite similar to Clotilde's recipe, but I stole it from Matthew Evans in the Good Weekend 'anyone can cook...' section before it became 'the weekend cook' and then ceased to exist, which was a shame because it was a real highlight. he wrote the nicest little blurbs. Then I made the recipe a few times, lost the recipe, and kept making it. So it's a bit more approximate than the original. Sometimes if you put the salt and the oil and the lemon juice and tahini all on top of each other it turns BLUE, which is insane. but that goes away.
You'll need to taste and adjust the seasonings when it's cooled. Most importantly, enjoy, and don't forget it's in the fridge, especially if you are the resident dip obsessee in your house and everyone else just doesn't think of eating it.
Nom, as they say these days.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
great minds...
Woo!!
Deb from Smitten Kitchen made an asparagus salad a lot like my zucchini salad, in principle and appearance, I think. Check it out.
I've got some stuff to come on a few salads, and hoummous, or hummus, or hommous, or hvmmvs. Isn't it weird how other languages have such a variety of spellings? and yet in English .. well, there's also a variety, but we tend to want to spell it the way we learned at school. It will always be colour, for me, and favourite, and don't try telling me the U is unnecessary. That's how I write down my national identity. And English is a mish mash of languages so its rules are stuffed anyway.
HOMMOUS.
Deb from Smitten Kitchen made an asparagus salad a lot like my zucchini salad, in principle and appearance, I think. Check it out.
I've got some stuff to come on a few salads, and hoummous, or hummus, or hommous, or hvmmvs. Isn't it weird how other languages have such a variety of spellings? and yet in English .. well, there's also a variety, but we tend to want to spell it the way we learned at school. It will always be colour, for me, and favourite, and don't try telling me the U is unnecessary. That's how I write down my national identity. And English is a mish mash of languages so its rules are stuffed anyway.
HOMMOUS.
Monday, April 11, 2011
something to share
I don't know if you'd remember Consuming Passions. It was on tv years ago, in five-minute snippets, like Pingu, at 5:55 pm or some such time between half-hour shows. Ian Parmenter is the charmingest, daggiest man, with the coolest hair. At least he was then. I don't know what he's doing now.
A few years ago at home I discovered that we had a Consuming Passions cookbook. It has become one of my favourites, and nobody else has ever used it that I can tell. From it I have made homemade herb/ricotta ravioli with sage butter (DELICIOUS!!) and, a few times, a pear and almond flan, among other things. There isn't much in it that I don't want to make.
Check out the website. It's sort of devoid of pictures, and a bit out of date, but the recipes are great. He knows his stuff. And be sure to read the section 'About Consuming Passions'. :)
A few years ago at home I discovered that we had a Consuming Passions cookbook. It has become one of my favourites, and nobody else has ever used it that I can tell. From it I have made homemade herb/ricotta ravioli with sage butter (DELICIOUS!!) and, a few times, a pear and almond flan, among other things. There isn't much in it that I don't want to make.
Check out the website. It's sort of devoid of pictures, and a bit out of date, but the recipes are great. He knows his stuff. And be sure to read the section 'About Consuming Passions'. :)
Sunday, April 3, 2011
spontaneous late summer salad
It's really autumn. I know that.
But it was one of these mornings, you see, when we had a conversation about breakfast that for me just went the wrong way. I am pro-breakfast. Gets your brain working, starts your metabolism whirring, turns on the engine, so to speak.
My friend who does not eat breakfast, because she thinks it will make her fat because she doesn't do any exercise (to which I say two things: 1, eating something - something small, an apple, a carrot, even! - will get you to start burning fat, and 2, just do some exercise, silly) likes to cook breakfast for other people. This weekend it was buttermilk pancakes. They were DELICIOUS. but feeling very obstinately pro-breaky, and also wanting to be use things up from the fridge to make space, and not knowing what to have with my pancake - I like to have fruit or yoghurt as opposed to lone syrup - I dolloped on the buttery, sugary remains of the other night's crumble. In light of the "breakfast will make you fat" conversation I rebelliously polished off not only my sugariness but also my other breakfasting friend's pancake (she was full).
While my body didn't seem to mind, that delicious breakfast weighed heavily on the brain (and perhaps later the love handles). I am a girl. Sometimes I feel guilty about food. Leave me alone.
Meanwhile, it was lunchtime. I read the clock wrongly and thought it was 2pm. There was no lettuce in the fridge. But after a heavy breakfast I wanted a light lunch.
Zucchini salad: amazing!
You could bulk it up a little bit with a poached egg on top.
Serves 1 as a light lunch (or a nice side/entrée for 2-4)
1 zucchini, shaved with vegie peeler
shaved parmesan/romano/grana panado
small handful nuts of your choice - I used a mix of unsalted roasted hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds and pistachios
bit of fresh herb of some kind - I used parsley coz it was there
salt, pepper
dressing - makes or breaks the salad.
I just used the dressing in the fridge, as my non-breakfasty pro-cooking friend always makes some excellent dressing. This is what seems to be in the current one. This salad would be good with any decent dressing you like.
garlic clove, chopped
seedy mustard
salt
pepper
red wine vinegar
olive oil
dill?
But it was one of these mornings, you see, when we had a conversation about breakfast that for me just went the wrong way. I am pro-breakfast. Gets your brain working, starts your metabolism whirring, turns on the engine, so to speak.
My friend who does not eat breakfast, because she thinks it will make her fat because she doesn't do any exercise (to which I say two things: 1, eating something - something small, an apple, a carrot, even! - will get you to start burning fat, and 2, just do some exercise, silly) likes to cook breakfast for other people. This weekend it was buttermilk pancakes. They were DELICIOUS. but feeling very obstinately pro-breaky, and also wanting to be use things up from the fridge to make space, and not knowing what to have with my pancake - I like to have fruit or yoghurt as opposed to lone syrup - I dolloped on the buttery, sugary remains of the other night's crumble. In light of the "breakfast will make you fat" conversation I rebelliously polished off not only my sugariness but also my other breakfasting friend's pancake (she was full).
While my body didn't seem to mind, that delicious breakfast weighed heavily on the brain (and perhaps later the love handles). I am a girl. Sometimes I feel guilty about food. Leave me alone.
Meanwhile, it was lunchtime. I read the clock wrongly and thought it was 2pm. There was no lettuce in the fridge. But after a heavy breakfast I wanted a light lunch.
Zucchini salad: amazing!
You could bulk it up a little bit with a poached egg on top.
Serves 1 as a light lunch (or a nice side/entrée for 2-4)
1 zucchini, shaved with vegie peeler
shaved parmesan/romano/grana panado
small handful nuts of your choice - I used a mix of unsalted roasted hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds and pistachios
bit of fresh herb of some kind - I used parsley coz it was there
salt, pepper
dressing - makes or breaks the salad.
I just used the dressing in the fridge, as my non-breakfasty pro-cooking friend always makes some excellent dressing. This is what seems to be in the current one. This salad would be good with any decent dressing you like.
garlic clove, chopped
seedy mustard
salt
pepper
red wine vinegar
olive oil
dill?
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Brisbane places
Ha! Cleaning out the computer, look what I found. It's old news, but might be relevant.
I realised this morning that I’ve done very little reviewing since arriving in Brisbane early this year. So, here are some of the places I’ve enjoyed hanging out or feel the need to talk about in Brisbane.
BarMerlo UQ.
Those auspicious blue signs of coolness ground the SSH with the wonderful smell of coffee combining with the slightly odd scent of tech-hub in the library foyer. I have been slightly obsessed with the place since coming to the University of Queensland. The coffee is consistent, the food good. None of it especially cheap, but the beef sandwich is excellent ($7) which I treat myself to occasionally. But I think I have at last had enough of this place. I still like it, but the coffee doesn’t seem quite so amazing anymore (it used to seem DELICIOUS). Maybe it’s just me… I want a new hangout. Apparently the business school has good coffee, and I’ve had recommendations for Genie’s coffee as well. Anyone?
Punjabi Palace
Overpriced and overrated. I can’t really tell you my opinion of the food, because after everything I’d heard my expectations were unrealistically high. But the décor of the place is pretty sweet. Pity it’s so far from uni! Still, I’ll go back eventually with different expectations.
Curry Connection
A loveable, local and quiet Indian place. If you order the right thing, it’s a highly enjoyable experience. Don’t get the entrees – they’re nothing special, but I do recommend the lamb Subzi – Kashmiri spices. It’s perfect if you go there and get one curry between two, with a naan/roti, maybe some raita and rice. Of course, the more people, the more curries you can have! This was just the right amount for us to leave without feeling like we were going to explode.
My Heart Garden
The local vegetarian/vegan eatery. Almost always empty, I don’t know how they’re still open, but I’m glad they are. The coffee is nice and the staff are friendly, always happy to see you. I wasn’t blown away by the Not Sausage Roll, but their Saturday morning breakfasts are AMAZING. Especially the buckwheat pancakes. And you can just tell that everything is made with love.
I realised this morning that I’ve done very little reviewing since arriving in Brisbane early this year. So, here are some of the places I’ve enjoyed hanging out or feel the need to talk about in Brisbane.
BarMerlo UQ.
Those auspicious blue signs of coolness ground the SSH with the wonderful smell of coffee combining with the slightly odd scent of tech-hub in the library foyer. I have been slightly obsessed with the place since coming to the University of Queensland. The coffee is consistent, the food good. None of it especially cheap, but the beef sandwich is excellent ($7) which I treat myself to occasionally. But I think I have at last had enough of this place. I still like it, but the coffee doesn’t seem quite so amazing anymore (it used to seem DELICIOUS). Maybe it’s just me… I want a new hangout. Apparently the business school has good coffee, and I’ve had recommendations for Genie’s coffee as well. Anyone?
Punjabi Palace
Overpriced and overrated. I can’t really tell you my opinion of the food, because after everything I’d heard my expectations were unrealistically high. But the décor of the place is pretty sweet. Pity it’s so far from uni! Still, I’ll go back eventually with different expectations.
Curry Connection
A loveable, local and quiet Indian place. If you order the right thing, it’s a highly enjoyable experience. Don’t get the entrees – they’re nothing special, but I do recommend the lamb Subzi – Kashmiri spices. It’s perfect if you go there and get one curry between two, with a naan/roti, maybe some raita and rice. Of course, the more people, the more curries you can have! This was just the right amount for us to leave without feeling like we were going to explode.
My Heart Garden
The local vegetarian/vegan eatery. Almost always empty, I don’t know how they’re still open, but I’m glad they are. The coffee is nice and the staff are friendly, always happy to see you. I wasn’t blown away by the Not Sausage Roll, but their Saturday morning breakfasts are AMAZING. Especially the buckwheat pancakes. And you can just tell that everything is made with love.
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