kaukau chips

Take a meduim sized taro (kaukau) and chop it into meduim batons. War gloves, or the taro will make your hands itch like made.

Take one can of bully beef, or corned beef, (I used Ox and Palm) and smoosh it together with 2 eggs, some corn flour, some  chopped shallots until it form a slurry. Add the batons of taro and mix gently.

Deep fry tablespoons of the mix in vegetable oil until the taro batons are crispy and the batter is cooked through.

Sprinkle with salt and serve on a plaintain leaf.

PG is heading to BrisVegas for a few days, so hopefully the next few posts will be about mainlining icecream, pho and mushrooms.

Stand by.

Char Sui Pork

You make sacrifices to live up here. You mostly live behind 9ft steel fences and razor wire, and not all the tropical frangipanis in the world can hide that fact. It's dangerous to go into town on Thursday, as it's payday and the local troublemakers are out and about.

You ALWAYS lock your car door before leaving the compound.

It's a fact that your house WILL be burgled during your tenure up here. You buy some sort of food when you see them, because you're never sure when you'll see them again.

BUT.. the upside is that everything you buy from the market is organic and local. There are no pesticides up here that are affordable for the locals. And tropical fruits and veg are so unbelievably cheap. I get mud crabs and lobster tails delivered to my door, if I choose. A local, organic pineapple costs about 20c AUD.

And if you shop right, all your meat and eggs are local and organic as well.

Sure, you can buy Zenag or Table Birds chickens, but you can also go to the market and get one slaughtered and plucked for you, right there on the spot.

And not that they slaughter pork on the spot, but depending where you get it from, it's local and effectively free-range.

I say "effectively" because there is really no concept of free-range or organic  up here. It's all just food.

So I get my pork from a farm in the Ramu Valley, where it is left to forage on whatever the jungle can provide.

I can also get cus cus meat and smoked fruit bat, but I am working up to that!

So, to dinner.

While pre-fab sauces, rubs and marinades are becoming more regular in supermarkets, it's just as easy to grab the raw ingredients.

Believe it or not, Char Sui style cooking is popular all over the Pacific Rim,a nd not just indigenous to China. Hawaii has it's own version, as does Malaysia (where you can get vegetarian chari sui, apparently)

Recipe varied from wiki cookbooks version.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg pork shoulder, skin on
• 2 tbsp. dark soy sauce
• 2 tbsp. light soy sauce
• 2 tbsp. oyster sauce
• 2 tbsp. Shaoxing rice wine
• 2 tbsp. clear honey
• 4 tbsp. hoisin sauce
• ½ tsp. five spice
• red food colouring (I omitted this, as it's unavailable up here)

1. Pierce the pork all over thoroughly with a fork. This makes the pork more tender and allows the marinade to penetrate the meat to give flavour all the way through.
2. Mix all other ingredients together.
3. Place pork  in a tray and cover with marinade. Ensure strips are covered completely in marinade.
4. Cover tightly with cling film and place in the refrigerator for several hours. Overnight or for 24 hours is preferable.
5. Preheat the oven to 160°C and  place the pork on a rack over  a pan in the bottom to catch drippings. Line this pan with aluminium foil to make cleaning easier
6. Roast for 20 minutes,  Baste to build up a good layer of marinade on the outside of the meat. The pork should turn a golden-red colour as it cooks. After 20 mins, turn and baste againm giving the pork a further 20 mins at this temp.
7. Increase heat to 220°C for a further 20 mins (total cooking time, 60 mins)
8. If crackle hasn't crisped up, give it a few minute under the grill, to achieve that authentic charred look and flavour.  

1. Heat leftover marinade until it becomes thick and glossy, to use as a dipping sauce.
2. Cut pork into .5cmslices and serve on white rice with sauce/marinade. 

Kaiyfa Halik?

For a man that doesn't officially actually have a job yet, Furry is getting around!! He's off to Kuwait later this week to check out the state of the company's plants there. Then back to Dubai, and possibly off to Qatar to do the same!

In the meantime, he..we..are now members of the Coolibah Club, the Australian expat club in Riyadh... And guess who's going to his first black-tie function at the Embassy for Melbourne Cup?


Good thing I told him to pack a suit, although, apparently, designer clothing is insanely cheap over there, and he could pick up an Armani or Hugo Boss suit for less than $500.

Hmmmmm.. Furry in Armani?

Hawt!

Although, until he starts drawing a wage, he'll just have to get the maid to air out his good old Aussie David Jones microfibre one! (Yes, I just casually said "maid". He also has a "driver".. more on that next post.)

So, with Furry as done and dusted as he can be during this hideous long and drawn out process of him actually becoming officially employed, I am adjusting to single life once again.

And I have to admit, I LOVE it.I get ALL the bed real estate to myself, I can have yoghurt for dinner, I am not serenaded by Furry "humming me a love song with his nose" overnight, and I can do what I want, when I want.

I am taking Arabic lessons (emphasis on food terms and shopping skills), and...as always.. shopping and cooking seasonally.

The Spring weather is a bit fickle at the moment, so we're going from the heater on overnight, to the cooler on by the time we get home. It's playing havoc with my menus! But recently, World's Best Son and I bought up big on broad beans.

Now, broadbeans are a much maligned veggie. Most people my age remember them as vile, bitter, grey nasty lumps of pap.

Which they most certainly are if not cooked properly. When prepared correctly, they are delicious sweet nuggets of legume-y goodness.

pg and Lima Bean's Asparagus and Broadbean Bruschetta.

Buy good bread. We chose a pasta dura from our local bakery and we cut it into doorstop wodges. While Lima Bean toasted these and rubbed them with some freshly cut garlic, I podded the broadbeans and snapped the asparagus.

Bring a pot of water to a rapid boil and throw in the asparagus. after 1 minute, throw in the broadbeans. Let them cook for a further 1 minute or until the asparagus is vivid green.

Drain and refresh in cold water.

Drain again.

Pick up each individual broadbean and squeeze it. Out should pop the most brilliant emerald green nugget. Discard the grey skin... this is the source of all your childhood angst. THIS is the offending wrapper that has assigned broadbeans along with Brussels sprouts as the 2 most maligned veggies in history.

Fry up some bacon/pancetta/prosciutto, combine with beans, asparagus, maybe some shaved leek and some crumbled fetta. Drench the whole shebang in some fresh lemon juice, a goodly slurp of olive oil some freshly ground salt and a generous grind of fresh black pepper. Mix all together, top bread with said mix and scoff.

And the next day, add some freshly cooked and peeled prawns to it and you gots an amazing seafood dish for some lovely organic bucatelli! (I reheated it over a low heat with a small knob of unsalted butter)

And, because Lima Bean is possibly the funniest, smartest young man in the world, the conversation over said scoffage was all about Dan Savage and inscrutability, so I offer you:

Did you know that my left nipple is really the vestigial nose tip of my malabsorbed twin?

Hey, you TOTALLY just read that on the Internet so it MUST be true!!

**snigger**

So, if you think that random "information" and "facts" gleaned from the "Interwebs" are permissible as "facts" or indeed, "evidence", I gots me some cyber "real estate" you might be interested in.

You might also want to look up the definition of "poetic licence" and "satire" and "semi-fictitious"

Have fun, kiddies!!

Chicken Kabsa

For various reasons that may become apparent later this week, I am on a middle Eastern cooking kick at the moment.

Perhaps it's a reaction to my recent American Odyssey, who knows but I am exploring food beyond the usual baba ghanoush, falafels and borghul. I am attempting to cook for my family for a whole week without using bacon or any pork products. Unfortunately, World's Best Son, the Lima Bean has also developed my hideous reaction to pork and pork products, and we're trying to cut down on our reliance of bacon and its fatty goodness.

Enter, Kabsa.

Wiki says:

Kabsa (Arabic: كبسة‎) is a family of rice dishes that are served mostly in Saudi Arabia — where it is commonly regarded as a national dish — and the other Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Kabsa, though, is believed to be indigenous to Yemen. In places like Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait the dish is popularly known as Majboos (Arabic: مجبوس‎) or Machboos (Arabic: مكبوس‎), but is served mostly in the same way.

These dishes are mainly made from a mixture of spices, rice (usually long-grain basmati), meat and vegetables. There are many kinds of Kabsa and each kind has a uniqueness about it. Pre-mixed Kabsa spices are now available under several brand names. These reduce preparation time but may have a flavour distinct from traditional Kabsa. The spices used in Kabsa are largely responsible for its taste; these are generally black pepper, cloves, cardamom, saffron, cinnamon, black lime, bay leaves and nutmeg. The main ingredient that accompanies the spices is the meat, such as chicken, goat, lamb, camel, or sometimes beef, fish, and shrimp. In chicken machboos, a whole chicken is used. The spices, rice and meat may be augmented with almonds, pine nuts, onions and raisins. The dish can be garnished with hashu (Arabic: حشو‎) and served hot with dakkous (Arabic: دقوس‎) — home-made tomato sauce.

Meat for Kabsa can be cooked in various ways. A popular way of preparing meat is called Mandi. This is an ancient technique, whereby meat is barbecued in a deep hole in the ground that is covered while the meat cooks. Another way of preparing and serving meat for Kabsa is Mathbi, where seasoned meat is grilled on flat stones that are placed on top of burning embers. A third technique, Madghoot, involves cooking the meat in a Pressure cooker.

Alas, I don't have access to Mandi cooking holes, so I followed the recipe (see below) and when I removed the chicken from the sauce, before I added the rice, I threw it in a blazingly hot oven for about 10 mins to crisp it up. I omitted the raisins, added a splash of rose water and used slivered almonds.

Good tucker!

Chicken Kabsa

Chicken kabsa is one of the most popular dishes in Saudi Arabia. It is considered a staple.

• 1 2/12 - 3 pound chicken, cut into eight pieces
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 medium onions, sliced
• 1 (12 ounce) can tomato puree
• 2 medium tomatoes, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 medium carrots, grated
• Grated rind of one orange
• 4 cloves
• 4 cardamom pods
• 3 sticks cinnamon
• Sale and pepper to taste
• 1 pound long grain rice
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds

METHOD

Sautee onion in oil until it begins to brown. Add chicken pieces, tomato puree, chopped tomatoes and garlic and stir for about five minutes over low heat. Stir in three cups hot water, grated carrot, orange rind, spices, salt and pepper to taste. Cook over medium heat, covered, about 20-25 minutes, until chicken is done.

Remove chicken. Set aside to keep warm. Stir rice into the liquid inthe pan, and cook, covered over low heat for about 35 - 40 minutes, or until liquid is absorbed.

Put rice on a serving platter with chicken pieces arranged around the circumfrence. Toss raisins and almonds over all.

Serves: 6

recipe from www.inmamaskitchen.com

The Twig and Two Berrries Deli

A twig and two berries is usually a cute euphemism for a gentleman's "wedding tackle".. which in itself if ALSO a cute euph, but given that certain people of delicate sensibilities (like my Mum) read this blog, I am reluctant to state the obvious.

Which makes it an odd choice of name for a wonderful little deli in the heart of chi-chi pooh-pooh Laburnum.

THE TWIG & TWO BERRIES, 5 SALISBURY AVE BLACKBURN, 9877 4991

Super child, The Lima Bean has been waxing lyrical about this place as his "go-to" when he was a student at Box Hill High.

Unlike some mothers, I never had to worry about my kids roaming the streets, getting into mischief. I was more worried that they'd spend all their money on random organic cheese and bring it home for me to cook with.

So it was only recently, after 6 years of having The Lima Bean rave about this place, that I managed to get there.

They stock an awesome array of cheeses, smallgoods, pastas, passattas, Simply Tomato products, Lush deserts, Doodles creek yumminess and more.

They also stock Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

Ben and Jerry's is an American brand that I am only familiar with via online forums. As well as this place, SOLE Mama's, FB, Twitter and Chow, I run an online support network for women. It's a small community of some 300 souls, it's locked and closed and as secure as an Internet site can get. It's here that we plot and plan and scheme and support and nurture and air our dirty laundry.

And talk about food.

And I must confess that it's actually the only place I've ever heard of Ben and Jerry's. But that's probabaly due more to the fact that I don't watch commercial television than somehow missing out on having my finger on the ice-cream zeitgeist button.

I have heard of Cherry Garcia and I get the cultural reference, but I didn't know the brand!!

So I had actually heard of B&J's Cookie Dough icecream.

And yeah, I thought it sounded disgusting.

But when Lima and I were at the twig and two berries, there is was... in the freezer...

I've had women at The Tavern RAVE about this.. offer to pay my air fare to the US JUST to taste it.... offer to somehow send me punnets of it.

Babes I am SO glad you didn't. Because it tastes like crap.

Just like it sounds, think lumps of uncooked chocolate chip biscuit dough mixed with vanilla ice cream.

It's disgusting.

I profusely apologize to Lunchy and Kamper and Fun Mom and all my American sisters who've raved about this to me over the past eight years, but I just didn't get it.

However, I DID get the Woodside Saltbush chevre. Oh yes, I did...

Kris Lloyd at Woodside Cheese Wrights, is probably best known for pioneering a range of seasonal cheeses, with innovative packaging and presentation, that takes advantage of seasonal variations in milk supply. Woodside Cheese Wrights has won numerous cheese awards throughout Australia, including the Grand Dairy Award, and has won the South Australian Premiers Food Award in 2002 , 2004, 2005 and 2006. In 2008 Woodside Cheese Wrights was awarded 1 gold and 2 silver medals at the renowned World Cheese Awards held in Dublin - Woodside was the only Australian cheese maker to receive a gold medal in these awards.

The milk is set using a traditional long set method overnight. The following day the curd is ladled into cheesecloth bags . We allow the curd to drain for several hours this process is very gentle as the curd has a delicate structure. This product is pure with only a small amount of salt being added. Once salted a further draining process occurs for a period of ten days.

Our Chevre has a mild, flavour with almost a lemony tang, this comes from the acid in the cheese.

This product is particularly favoured by chef around Australia, it is perfect on its own and makes an ideal partner to both sweet and savoury dishes. Chevre can be used in tarts, both sweet and savoury, terrines and wherever a crumbling Goats cheese is called for.

We decided to team up this cheese with some Tassie smoked salmon and some home made pasta.

Cook the pasta until al dente, drain and return to the pot, crumble the chevre and let the heat of the pasta melt it a little. Tear the salmon into wee bits and add, again, letting the inherent warmth of the pasta heat it through without cooking it.

Serve with a couple of finely minced capers and some sea salt.

Summer's fading

Summer's on its way out here in the Southern Hemi. It's not's cool yet, but Autumn is on the horizon.

One of the loveliest things about eating seasonally is the cycle of foods. How just as you are grieving the last of the summer stone fruits, you are also getting excited about the lovely Autumn pears. The BBQ pan and the salad bowls slowly make way for tart dishes and slow cookers.

There are a couple of things that set off, in my mind, that Summer is ending. My birthday (being the last day of Summer) and also my Pesto Frenzy.

It seems that about mid way throught Feb, I suddenly realise that basil will soon be out of my reach, and I get all thingy about it. I buy up scadulous quantities of it (because it steadfastly refuses to grow for me, no matter where I've lived. I have a basil black thumb). I make up an enormous batch of pesto and freeze it, or jar it, to get me through the long, lonely days until it reappears magically filling the air with its peppery tang, somewhere around October next year.

Frozen and jarred pesto is lovely, but there is really nothing like the fresh original.

As per most really REALLY good things, it's simple, easy and takes no time.

Take as much basil as you can get your hands on, whack it in a container that you can get a stick blender into. Add a whole shitload of garlic ( I used 8 bunches of basil and 8 big cloves of garlic). Also add a handful of roasted pine nuts or (as I did here) roasted cashews and about 1/2 a cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Blend the whole lot with the stick blender until pureed, adding a goodly amount of excellent quality olive oil ( I use Narbali olive oil). Don't scrimp. You will be suprised at how much oil you will need.

Whazz the whole lot up, until it has the thickness of beaten cream, season to taste and plate up. Add some crushed cashews/pinenuts and drizzle some more oil over the top. Most excellent on really REALLY good pasta (Don't bother wasting it on crap pasta. Spend the money on some good stuff, so you can showcase the pesto). It's also orsum stuffed under the skin of an organic chook and baked.. whack a nice organic orange in the cavity. Spread it on crusty pasta dura and top with sliced tomatoes and baby bocs.

It's best freshly made, just like this. It will keep in the freezer, or in a jar in the 'fridge for about 3 months. But that first, luscious spoonful, mixed through warm pasta is my idea of end-of-Summer heaven.

Left over lurve.

Recently I wrote about my version of pulled pork. Having no idea how or what it was, I kinda made it up as I went along. And it was pretty delicious. But then again, what is not to love about pork, slow cooked in vinegar, onions, tomatoes and spices.

But we had a lots.. and AWFUL lot left over.

Tammi suggested that we use the leftovers for pulled pork nachos.

So we did.


HOLY MOTHER OF PORK PRODUCTS, BATMAN!!

It was so gooooood. A few days in the fridge had allowed the pork to achieve a deep sweetness, which went perfectly with the tomatoes and creaminess of the avocado. The textural melange of the pulled pork, the cruch of the corn chips and lettuce and again, the creamy silkiness of the avocado pretty much provided the perfect mouth feel.

Nachos are one of those things that I pretty much avoid unless I am stumped for a vegetarian option for guests. I had truly never thought to use left overs in them, relying (on the odd occasion that I gave in to the pleadings of the Step-Beasts and "made" them) on mince, tomato paste, red kidney beans and something made by El Paso,





Now, they are possibly going to become my staple "turn leftovers into something other than "risotto" dish".

At the risk of bring up the whole "authentic" debate, I am thinking left over chicken Mahkani, garlic corn chips and raita "nachos". Maybe souvlaki lamb, tzatziki and lemon/oregano "nachos".

Traditions #2

Traditions are funny things. And nothing makes me laugh more than traditions in food. It's one thing to have a traditional Xmas lunch, or Granny's pie for your birthday, but there are those within the food community that make much of 'traditional" food.

Another term they use is "authentic"

And the one dish that gets the "authentic"-sists going like no other is Carbonara.

Sites like Chowhound and e-gullet abound with vitriolic posts devoted to the inclusion (or not) of peas, cream, onions, bacon, speck, pancetta, parmesan and any variation of that combination of ingredients.

The origins of the might Carb are lost in antiquity, but the name is derived from the Italian word for charcoal. Some believe that the dish was first made as a hearty meal for Italian charcoal workers, or that the inclusion of a liberal sprinkling of black pepper before serving looks like coal dust, thus the name. This theory gave rise to the term "coal miner's spaghetti," which is used to refer to spaghetti alla carbonara in parts of the United States. Others say that it was originally made over charcoal grills, or that it was made with squid ink, giving it the color of carbon. It has even been suggested that it was created by, or as a tribute to, the Carbonari ("charcoalmen"), a secret society prominent in the unification of Italy. The dish is not present in Ada Boni's 1927 classic "La Cucina Romana", and is unrecorded before the Second World War. It was first recorded after the war as a Roman dish, when many Italians were eating eggs and bacon supplied by troops from the United States.

For me, the dish is simply about the eggs and the bacon. I will admit to some cream, some time. But recently I was given a dozen freshly laid free range eggs from my ex SIL's happy and pampered hens. I thought about a quiche (given that I am dying to try a new recipe for sour cream short crust pastry), but the siren song of barely emulsified egg was too hard to resist.

That and I freakin' HATE blind baking quiche cases.

So, sweat some white onion in butter, add the bacon/lardons/speck/prosciutto **insert pig meat of choice** and fry gently until crisp. Set aside.

Boil some pasta (I "traditionally" use spaghetti/bucattini). when done, drain, reserving 1/2 a ladle of pasta water.

Bung back in the pot and add 4 eggs and the proscuitto/pancetta or guancia, (if you are lucky enough to be able to get some) and the pasta water.

Let the steam of the pasta gently set the eggs. Don't return to heat, or you'll get scrambled eggs.

Serve with one extra perfect egg yolk, some sea salt, a goodly grind of fresh black pepper and parmigina reggiano.

Heaven in its simplicity.

Frugal Foods # 1

My first Frugal post was a bit of a disaster. I was going to wax lyrical about how to prepare fresh yabbies.

Except Furry didn't catch any.

So, for this weeks frugal post, I made sure that we actually DID have something in the pantry. And this is the key to this weeks post.

Don't buy anything if you can avoid it. Without doubt, I bet you a pound to a bent penny, you've got the makings of at least one meal tucked away in your fridge/pantry/cupboard. The statistics show that we throw away at least one bag of every seven bags of groceries we buy.

That's appalling, in my opinion. So, rather than spend money we just don't have, here's what I whipped up this weekend. It's a variation on a recipe that Mater Beige used to cook on Good Friday, and I believe it originated in one of those ubiquitous Woman's Weekly Recipe books of the 70's/80's.

I had:

1/2 stick of unsalted butter. Melted in in a frypan and added about 10 button mushrooms, sliced. They were starting to dry out, so they had to be used, and I fried them off in the butter until golden. Next I added about 1 heaped teaspoon of tomato "pesto", which is basically some sundried tomatoes, in the oil they are preserved in, whizzed up to a pulp with the stick blender. I opened a can of tuna in springwater, and deglazed the pan with some of the liquid. Then whacked in the tuna and heated through. I had a small tub of sour cream in the 'fridge, so that got whacked in as well.

Cook a whole packet of spirals/shells/elbows and when done, add the sauce and combine. top with some freshly cracked black pepper and some torn Italian parsely from the garden.

I guestimate the ingredients cost me less than $10, and we got 5 serves out of it.

The point is, that if you like this recipe, go out and buy the ingredients, it still qualifies as frugal food. But I'd LOVE to hear what you guys can make, sourcing all the ingredients only from what you've got on hand!

I'm eyeing off the 1/2 packet of Black pepper Savoy's and thinking savory tart shell.

Keema Korma?

It's our new obsession, Keema curries. After Furry's heart attack, he bought himself a Women's Weekly low fat cook book, and we've been wanting to try this Keema recipe for a while. And, as is our want, we took the basic WW recipe, ran it past our mates at Chowhound, Goggled for a few other variations and then made OUR version of it. The original recipe called for lamb stock, none of which I had on hand, and a quick search revealed that lamb stock is not readily available in shops. I was totally unaware that Keema is a style of curry. It's basically minced meat, some spices and vegetables, peas being pretty standard in a Keema. So effectively you can have a Keema Korma, a Keema Vindaloo, a Keema Karma, if you so chose! We had some excellent quality beef mince, courtesy of our local butcher, and some fresh peas from the Farmer's market, some chats from Toolangi and a hankering for something a bit diferent. Keema or Kheema is a Pakistani curry, and the "Keema" refers to the fact that the meat is minced. So, you could have a goat keema, a beef keema.. a chicken or a pork keema.

4 tblsp oil

2 large onions, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp grated, fresh ginger
2 potatoes, cut into 1 cm cubes
1/4 cup (60ml) water
750gms minced beef or lamb or pork
1/4 tsp each : ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground cardamom, ground turmeric

2 tblsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 cup shelled peas
1 tomato, chopped

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Saute onions until golden brown. Add garlic and ginger, saute for 2 minutes.

Add potatoes and water. Simmer, covered, for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally

Add minced meat, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, turmeric, coriander, chilli powder and cumin. Stir over heat until water has evaporated.

Add peas and cook until curry is dry, stirring constantly.

Add chopped tomato just before serving.

Garnish with fresh coriander and fried shallots and serve over rice.

(pssst... left overs make great fillings for the toasted sanga maker, the next day!)

Neo-Classical Batch food.

Regular readers will have heard me allude to Furry's style of cooking BPG (before purple goddess) and APG (afte... oh, FFS, you work it out). His BPG was characterised by "Batch food", meaning anything that could be whipped up whilst hungover, on shore leave, with a random hook up passed out on your couch. It usually involves a can of Stagg beans and a microwave. At its best, batch food can be hearty, uncomplicated and stick-to-yer ribs.

At worst, it ends up leaving you nostalgically longing for the out-of-stomach experience of Bali Belly

Furry's batch (short for "Bachelor") repertoire consists of wraps, rolls, deep-fried things, deep fried things with cheese and bacon.

LOTS of bacon.

He also has his APG repertoire. which has been oft chronicled here.

But it's his neo-batch food I was craving this weekend.

We've done 4 months off the fags. The weight gain has stabilised. We've been exercising a little more and eating a whole lot better. Out alcohol consumption is waaaaaay down, and we're finally feeling the benefits of giving up the coffin nails.

So this Sat night, I had a hankering for nachos. And Furry has combined the best of his BPG and APG skills to make a mean nachos. It is part of his repertoire I like to call is Neo Classical Batch food.

It's batch food that's been pg-ised. Once upon a time, it would have been Doritos, Ole El Paso salsa and Chris' "avocado" dip, but these days he uses organic corn chips (he once did it with the blue corn disks and that was AWESOME!!), makes his own carne mix (mince, red kidney beans, chopped tomatoes, Tabasco, garlic, ginger, onion slow stewed for hours), his own salsa (this time, tiny wee baby tomatoes, halved, with Vietnamese mint and lime juice) and his own guac (avo, sour cream and lime juice)

So a lazy Sat night, down at Chez Fur, with my gorgeous hubbie, some comforting batch food, and a beer.

But here's the thing. Like all wild beasts that have been tamed, his veneer of civility is thin, and lurking beneath that Eastern Suburbs, MCG tie-wearing facade, is the same Furry who fished with det cord, spent 16 years in the wilderness of the Western Suburbs, can fart on command and who once streaked (stroked?) drunk down the front straight at the Turrumburry race meet.

How do I know this?



Dinner was served using a paint scraper.

Butter Chicken

It's that time of year again... the two weeks when Furry and I have most of the kids for our annual holiday at the beach. This year we have all 5 visiting sporadically and a few extra hangers on, given that they girls are now old enough to have "boyfriends".

I have been thwarting all of Furry's attempts to buy a pickled penis. He wants to display one prominently.. on a wall.. or the mantelpiece... and nonchalantly refer to it as "What was left over after the last boy broke my daughter's heart"

What this all means is that I have no idea who and what will be available for dinner.

And the weather here in Melbourne is crap. Seriously. Crap. It's the middle of Summer and we've barely seen a day over 23C, and it's as overcast as all get out.

So we've been eating a lot of curries and stir fries. Things that can get frozen, or eaten then next day for lunch, if any of the kids get a better offer..... or can be eeked out with rice, if assorted, random friends-of-friends drop in.

In Melbourne, I have an extensive range of herbs and spices. I can whip up almost anything from a Makhani to a Vindaloo, from scratch.

At Dromana, not so much. We're only there a couple of day's a fortnight and we usually eat out, or light the pizza oven, if we're having friends, so my range of herbs and spices is pretty limited by what can be garnered at the Dromana IGA.. which is to say, not much.

For so many, being on holidays means eating out or "dumbing down" your food. Who's going to buy a block of belachan or a bottle of fish sauce just for one night's dinner? So people often resort to either a) the bare basics of mince and a bottled pasta sauce, or b) buying flavour sachet mixes to tart things up. And even food obsessives like myself sometimes would rather spend our holidays reading a dodgy novel than hand grinding curry spices.

Enter the Saucy Spice Company. I have written about them before, when I found them up at Merimbula, and while my hatred of pre-fab foods is legendary, these guys, and their products are VASTLY different from a Maggi cook-in-the-pot mix.



Butter Chicken is a staple in our house. It's quick and easy and everyone in our house likes it. And when you consider we've got 5 kids.. that in itself is a rarity.

My normal recipe is a cinch when you've got a well-stocked pantry. But here's when The Saucy Spice mixes come into their own. They are all pre-mixed and weighed, in a convenient sealed sachet. I took a bout of about 10 of them away to Chez Fur, which means we can have dishes as varied as Butter Chicken to Seafood Laksa without buying 37 different sachets of herbs. SS co don't add any nasty anti-clumping agents, or fillers, so what you are getting is the real McCoy. For their Butter chicken mix, you even get a separate sachet of fenugreek leaves!!!

The end result is as complex and rich as a Mahkani cooked "from scratch". I used yoghurt instead of cream, as I am currently competing for the "Fatest middle aged woman in Australia" title, having put on nearly 9kgs since giving up the fags.

I am too scared to go to the beach in togs this year, in case someone mistakenly calls Green Peace, or wants to wrap me in hessian and tries to keep my blowhole clear. I am reduced to furtively sneaking around the back yard in my sarong and bra, pretending to garden, in the hope of tanning, all the while listening for cries of "Mein EYES!!! Mein EYES!!!" from over the neighbours' fence. And while it's not trendy to tan, I am working on the premise that black is a slimming colour, so the darker my thighs are, the smaller they will look.

But I digress.... Get yourself online and grab a few of the Saucy Spice Company's fetching little sachets, support a wonderful Aussie business and dispel the myth that being on holiday means you have to dumb your food down, or rely on nasty Maggi cheesey potato bake sachets. And while ANY flavour sachet will never match fresh herbs, the Saucy Spice guys come pretty bloody close. 'Cause on my holidays, sometimes it IS all about convenience.

Rosemary Cashews.

I first made these late last year, for a Ex Moose get-together with friends. I don't usually make a new recipe... sight un-tasted, if you will, for friends, but this was so quick and easy, I couldn't resist it.

It proved and enormous hit.. but here's the thing.

I don't like them.

The flavour profile just isn't my thang, but every other person I've served them to pretty much swoons over them.

I am pretty sure I got the recipe off Chowhound, when all the Yanks were posting Thanksgiving recipes, but it is originally an Ina Garten a.k.a Barefoot Contessa recipe, inspired by the bar nuts served at Union Square Cafe in New York City .

Her original recipe is here.

Here's what I did:

650g unsalted roasted cashews.
2 tablespoons fresh finely minced rosemary
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper or sweet paprika
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon rock salt
1 tablespoon melted unsalted butter.

Whack the cashews in a serving dish. Whizz all the dry ingredients in a blender/pulser/stick blender for about 10 seconds to roughly combine.

Pour over nuts.

Melt butter in microwave and pour over nuts. Stir to combine.

I make mine the day before I need them, and refrigerate. A quick couple of minutes in the microwave to warm them and voile.. world's easiest and (for everyone but me) yummiest snack.

Roasted beetroot, garlic and cumin dip.

The last of the root vegetables are slowly fading out of season, so I thought it might be a good time to really showcase the last of these Winter wonders. This weekend past, I had to opportunity of catching up with the very delightful Gottie and Bluenose from SOLE Mama's. Bluey has a bit of a rep for coming up with these outstanding cocktail mixes, known to all as Magic Potions, and this time was no different. We were met at the door with a glass of bubbly tinted with a mix of raspberries, Cointreau or Grand Marnier and lemon juice. If I ever work out how to get the damn pics of my new phone, I'll post them.

I was asked to bring some dips, so I went with a couple of classics (Hommus and Tzatiki... home made the sloooooow way) and something a bit out-of-the-ordinary, Roasted Beetroot dip. This dip is a zillion times easier, tastier and more vibrant than anything you're likely to get at the shops, and the end result is a deep earthy, almost musky flavour that reminds me of the smell of the air after a Summer thunderstorm . Don't bother trying it with anything other than fresh, whole beetroots.

pg's Roasted Beetroot, Garlic and Cumin dip.

pan roast a one and a half teaspoons of cumin seeds in a non-stick pan for 30-45 seconds, or until fragrant. Set aside to cool.

Cut the top and bottom off a fresh beetroot. Discard. Chop beet into quarters and place on baking tray. Bake at 180-200C for 30 mins.

At the 30 min mark, take a whole head of garlic, slice about 1/2cm off the top, exposing all the individual cloves. Bung on the oven tray with the beetroot and roast a further 15-20 mins until beet is tender.

Let the beet cool slightly and then peel. Use rubber gloves to handle the beet, or you'll look like you've been axe murdering pigs.

Whack the peeled beets and 1 teaspoon of roasted cumin seeds in a blender, or use a stick blender. Squeeze the roasted cloves of garlic in and pulse until combined.

When cool, add a tub of sour cream and stir through.

Serve, garnished with remaining cumin seeds and lavosh.

Noodle-y goodness

It's weird, the weather in Melbourne, at this time of year. Last Friday started out with torrential thunderstorms... poor Stella Bella Bottom Smeller and Mrs Peaches did their best jelly-dog routine. There's nothing like being woken by a clap of thunder AND a quivering dog's snout in your ear, both within milliseconds of each other, to REALLY start the day with a smile.

By the end of the day, we'd cycled through having the heater running, to nearly passing out with humidity, all the way across the spectrum into having the cooler on.

I mean, just what do you cook in weather like that??

I opted for noodles. Quick, easy... not too much time at the stove, easy to eat.. not to heavy in the stomach. Perfect on all counts.

I had a packet of rice sticks left over from last night's Yakatori Beef Salad, and a random bag of cooked and peeled prawns, so here's what I did.:

400g lean chicken mince
400g cooked and peeled prawns
2 green onions, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2cm piece fresh ginger (10g), grated
¼ teaspoon five-spice powder (or a mix of ground Szechuan pepper and star anise)
1 tablespoon Hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh coriander
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped fresh Thai basil
1 tablespoon sesame oil


Heat the sesame oil till smoking, add the onions, garlic and ginger. Cook until softened, Add the mince and spices, and cook off until the mince is cooked thru. Add yourHoisin and fish sauces, and the prawns . Cook for 2 mins or until the prawns are heated through and add your herbs.

Cook rice sticks as per the instructions (takes about 4 mins). Drain thoroughly and add to pan. Toss a few times to combine, adding a slurp of soy if it starts to stick. (This is not a slurpy noodle dish, the end result should be quite dry)


Plate up and top with crushed peanuts or sesame seeds, and some spring onion greenery.

Yakatori Beef Salad.

I was always under the impression that Yakatori (Yakitori)Chicken was a misnomer. Either the Yaka (i) or the Tori bit meaning "chicken", and the other bit "sauce". So Yakatori chicken would be like saying "Hamburger burger".

I always thought tori meant gateway, so what would I know. A quick Google search doesn't throw much light on the subject, either.

So I've refrained from calling this marinade Yakatori, and usually refer to it as my Japanese sake marinade, but it is, as you will see, the classic Yakatori. It works equally well with chicken, pork or beef, and with Summer almost here, it is an easy and classic staple to have, for those up-and-coming Summer barbies. Here's my take on it.

Get some serious steaks. Spend some money. These New York Cut Sirloins were from Kerrie Road Butcher, 6 Kerrie Rd, Glen Waverley, VIC 3150, (03) 9802 0857, my oft-touted local butcher, who sources his beasts from Cardinia. They were $26 for 2, but well worth the price.


You want a good fat marbling for this dish, and you want the steaks thick. The end result should be thick strips of beef, Malliard-ed to within an inch of their lives, and yet red and moist in the centre.

You're not going to get that with a minute steak, so suck it up, sell something on eBay, and buy the best steaks you can afford.

My original idea was to serve these on a sizzle platter (I know, how very 70's fondue of me!) with mirin rice and some spring onion curls, but the best laid plans and all of that. Furry decided to invite another couple down to Chez Fur for dinner. So I had to make my 2 steaks eek out for 4 people.

Voila, enter, pg's Yakatori steak salad!!


Yakatori marinade:

1/2 cup Japanese soy sauce
1/2 cup sake
1/2 cup mirin
3 tablespoons raw sugar
3/4 inch knob of ginger, cut into 3 bits
3 cloves organic garlic, smashed.

(Note: Furry nearly went mental at the per kg price of organic garlic... $42.95 per kg. One luscious little head, however, only came to $2.00!)

Combine all ingredients int a small, heavy-based saucepan and boil, stirring constantly until sugar is dissolved, Reduce heat and simmer uncovered until the sauce is thick and syrupy. Remove from heat, fish out the ginger and garlic bits and allow to cool.

**Cheats note: if you want to use a thickening agent on your sauce, use arrowroot, not cornflour.

Once cooled, pour 3/4's of the marinade over your steak/chicken/pork and leave for at least 1 hour. You can set aside some marinade as a dipping sauce, for later, if you wish.

I marinated the steaks overnight BTW.

Bring a large saucepan of water to a roiling boil and chuck in one packet of rice noodles. This was just what I happened to have at hand. You could just as easily use hokkien, glass, cellophane or mung bean noodles. Cook according to instructions. Drain well and refresh under cold running water. return to the pan, and add the reserved marinade, some chopped spring onions and some sesame seeds.

Heat a fry pan until blazing and fry or BBQ the steaks for 4 mins per side, turning only once. Set aside and allow to rest for 10 mins before slicing into strips.

While the steak rests, make up a salad of whatever the hell you have in the fridge.

To plate, add a handful of noodles, tip with a handful of mixed lettuce, some halved baby tomatoes, some julienned cukes and artfully arrange the warm beef strips over the top. Sprinkle with a few more sesame seeds and scoff.

Apart from the marinading, you can have this dish all ready to go in about 15 mins!!

A cold snap...

We're nearly at the end of Winter, but an unseasonable cold snap here in Melbourne, has had me reaching for some old faves, and this Sunday past, after a jaunt to Gippsland, I felt like some old fashioned bangers and tatties.

Of course, while packing for said jaunt, I forgot the camera, but what we came home with was a Jindi brie full wheel for $21!!

The stuff they sell at Slaveway for $41,639.72 a gm, was a whole $21 a FULL ROUND!

In Rosedale, I picked up Maffra Red Cheese with Dargo walnuts, Maffra extra tasty with lemon myrtle and some local olive oil and some local white wine vinegar. Furry talked me out of the Tetsuya's truffle salt at $36 for 50g.



Into my $500 post (called so because Furry found it while we were cleaning out a friend's father's house, after he was placed in a Nursing Home, and we found $500 secreted away in it!), I put my sliced Thorpdale potatoes,some yellow capsicums from this weeks Aussie Farmer's delivery, some grated Maffra tasty, some red onions from the Yarragon Farmer's Market, mixed with sour cream, some milk and 4 eggs. I covered the top with dots of butter and some Burramine Blue, the cheese that won the DIAA Victorian Dairy Product Silver medal this year, that I picked aup at the Jells Park Farmer's market.




I like to slow cook my bangers. I got these from my local butcher.. Beef and Burgundy snags, made on the premises, from Cardinia beef. I am blessed to have a cast-iron pan, that I have used religiously for the past 23 years, and it is perfectly seasoned. A quick spray with some Canola oil, and I whack the bangers in and set the gas ring to the lowest setting. Every so often I give the pan a shake, so the bangers don't stick and voila! about 35-40 min later, perfectly browned snags! Serve with the baked tattie dish, and a good hearty red, and all is right with the world, on a cold Sunday night!

Chicken Thingamy Whatsit

Yup. Yest another "recipe" that I'll never be able to create again. **sigh** We had some wonderful Toolangi Chats from our delivery last week, so I cut 'em up and gave them a goodly slurp of Nabali Olive Oil and sea salt and McCormick Middle Eastern Spice Mix. Let them sit for about 30 mins, Placed them cut side down in a non-stick pan and left them to brown.. about 30 mins on med low heat.

In the pan went some sliced chicken, some red capsicum, a handful of baby spinach (also from our AFD order) and then things got weird.

I had started off with a Middle Eastern flavour profile, but I had used the last of the home-made sugo, and didn't even have a bottle of the dodgy stuff on stand-by.

So here's kinda how my thinking went... Middle Eastern, Hmmm.. that's Morrocco, right? Which has a French Influence, yes?

So to the 'fridge, and in went some dijon mustard, the juice of a whole lemon, some creme fraiche!

Voila! More Funky Fusion Food from PG!

Char Kway Teoh.

Char Kway Teoh is a classic Singaporean Hawker dish. There are as many variations of this as there are noodles in a serve. I've seen ones with oysters rather than chicken. It's a dry noodle dish, you want to sauce only to coat and adhere to the ingredients, it's not a "saucey" dish, I particularly like the little bits of char that adhere to the noodles, when you cook them at this higher temp. We had some bits of red capsicum left over from the night before, so I added them as well.

I'd wax on more lyrically about it, except Blogger.. or maybe Mozilla is in a mood today, and I've lost and reclaimed this post three times now.

Best I hit "publish" before the Moofies strike again.

Char Kway Teoh.

500g kway teow (fresh flat rice noodles)
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
a handful of fresh bean sprouts
2 baby bok choys, cut into strips
1 Chinese sausages, thinly sliced
8 medium sized prawns, (fresh is best, pre-cooked if you have to)
1 onion cut into strips
1 chicken breast, steamed and cut into strips
2 eggs, beaten
2tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp sweet dark soya sauce (Kejap Manis)
1 tbsp sambal chilli paste (or Sambal Oelek)

Heat a large wok until very hot. Add a splash of cooking oil (I used peanut for this dish) and fry garlic until fragrant. Add kway teow, onions, chicken, prawns and fry, stirring constantly for about two minutes. Push the ingredients to the side of the wok, forming a well in the centre. Add the beaten egg, allowing it to set slightly before mixing it with the noodles. Add the Sambal Oelek, the bok choy, the fish sauce and sweet dark soya sauce and fry all ingredients together for another one to two minutes before adding the Chinese sausages and the bean sprouts. Toss to combine. Serve hot.

More evolution!

Our youngest has often been a "problem child" when it comes to food. When I met Furry he was 6, and frankly, had no interest in anything other than chicken nuggets and frozen pizza. If Furry and I were never going to be compatible in our relationship, our children's attitude to food was going to be the primary cause of any disaster.

We have always, from the very beginning, always talked about OUR kids. We went into therapy very early on, knowing we basically had one chance at "blending" our families. It's not the sort of thing that if you bugger it up, you can turn around and say "oops.. sorry about that, we'll try again next week"

So it's always been OUR kids, never YOURS or MINE.. except in the food department. My kids grew up with Kalamata olives as a treat for being good, with a food obsessive as a mother, with rarely a meal cooked from anything but fresh ingredients (which was more about me being a single mum at full time Uni, rather than any SOLE notions, BTW!). My kids were restaurant-savvy by 5.

Furry's kids had table manners that left MUCH to be desired, thought chicken came in little squares from a Black and Gold box, and refused to believe that Cos was lettuce "cos it doesn't look like it". Without a word of a lie, the first time I served a whole roast chicken, the food was first sniffed and then rejected, as it "didn't look like chicken".

Jump forward 6 years, and we'll bypass the tears and the tantrums and the threats (mostly thrown by me), to last weekend. When OUR youngest declared that he wanted Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls for lunch.

AND WANTED TO COOK THEM.

Firstly, we got out the rice paper, and prepared it to soak.


Then we steamed and sliced the chicken. Daddy did all the vegetable prep on the mandolin. As chuffed as I was that Master 12.5 wanted to cook, the thought of sending him home to his mother sans a couple of fingers, was more than I could bear.


Little 12.5 y/o fingers get ready to rock and rice paper roll!!



Furry father fingers give a hand

And voila! the finished product. Served with either sweet chilli dipping sauce or a light soy, rice vinegar and lime juice dipping sauce.

While Maccas and hot chips still feature heavily for Master 12.5 as his preferred fave food, I can now proudly say he has been to Yum Cha with me, has cooked pizza from scratch with me, asked for a chicken Makhani curry from me, has rejected Kraft Singles in favour of marinated Fetta, likes to order roti Channai at Nudel Bar and now has mastered his own "sig dish"

He still gets grossed out when I eat chicken's feet, but does like to tell his mates that he's REALLY seen his Evil Step-Mum eat them ("It's like, totally gross, dude. She hold's 'em in her chopsticks and waves them at me, shouting "It's the CRAW!!")

The tunnel has been VERY long, and VERY dark, but there definitely light ahead.

Oh, and as a side note, when his 16y/o sister said she didn't want any, I have to admit I felt quite vindicated when Master 12.5 looked crestfallen and said quietly "... but I made them myself......"