inner pickle

masterchef challenge

Revelations: 

# If I wanted my life back once Masterchef finishes this weekend, I probably shouldn't have started watching Mad Men. Given I've got the whole first series. And given I'm a bit inclined to put my feet up once the kids are in bed and not do anything (i.e. watch TV) in the evenings right now. 

# Turns out I can cook Malaysian food. Not usually my forte. But on Sunday night my darling pal Nessie set me a masterchef challenge: I showed up at her place and she presented the ingredients I had to cook the entree with. They were kaffir lime leaves, coconut milk, red chillis, chicken, lemongrass, mushrooms, a whole fresh coconut and fish sauce. I was cooking for four adults (we made pasta for the kids) and Ness had a vision of what she wanted after tasting a white soup served in a wine glass with crushed dried lime leaves around the rim in a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur last month. 

# If you scarf down the soup you will have no soup to take a photo of. I really wish I'd taken a photo. But it worked out so well I'll make it again and blog it. Promise. 

# I brought the ingredients Ness had to make up a main meal with: organic beef, 00 flour, pumpkin, sage, garlic, ricotta. Here's what she made:

Pumpkin and ricotta ravioli with butter and sage sauce and roast beef and a herb and mayonnaise salad. SO good. Photo by Adam (thanks babe.) 

# My pantry (and fridge for that matter) is a masterchef challenge waiting to happen. Bottles of this, jars of that, puy lentils anyone? What's something you have in your fridge/pantry that you're looking for inspiration to know what to do with? Got five languishing zucchini you need  recipe for? Marinated figs? Throw it open to the comments! Come on, hit me! 

xxx

little black book

I have a little black book.

No, it's not a lascivious list of old flames. (More's the pity really.)

It's a dinner party book. One I started years ago, after I made my very good friends Jodie and Andrew (fabulous foodies) cheesecake for the third dinner party in a row and someone mentioned it and I realised I had no idea I'd made it for them before. A few times. Oops. So I started making a few notes. Date. Who. What we ate. 

The first entry is Friday 3 January 2003. Our place, Manly. Present were Jenny Walmsley, Rachel Walmsley, Julian Lyden, Naomi Weir (my sister) and Ad and I. This is before Jen became my mother in law, before Rach's partner Craig appeared, and there's a note at the bottom of the page that says it's Julian's last night in Australia after three weeks here over Christmas. I think he and Nomie must've been dating and this was before she moved to Singapore with him. (Now married with two divine children who have made special appearances here when they're in town.) It says Jen was staying with us on a break from cleaning out her Mum's house in Tumut.

So it says a lot really. 

It says I made garlic and lightly melted cheddar on toasted turkish bread to start, followed by chilled cucumber soup with garlic prawns. Main was chicken with mushrooms in cream and fresh herb sauce with roasted beetroot and dessert was vanilla icecream with River Cafe Chocolate Nemesis cake. And in small writing: (cake in sauce form!!! not set!!!) 

Oh yes. I remember this one. My crappy oven of the time blew out half way through baking. It looked set. I released the spring-form tin and the cake made a spectacular slow-moving waterfall over the side of the bench onto my shoes. Naomi, not being paralyzed by horror at the couverture hitting the floor, managed to grab a clean plate and intercept the chocolate waterfall - enough to salvage some kick arse sauce for the icecream. 

Lots and lots of good things in this little book. 

There are loose-leaf degustation menus:

Goodness, yes. The elaborate dinners I'd do for fun. Scrawled on the inside cover is a list of Adam's favourite foods. 

Then there's this one:

Adam's birthday dinner, six years ago, with a note about 'no fish' for one guest which unfortunately was imparted to me right before I served up snapper pie, and 'no oranges' right before I served up passionfruit flummery for dessert with orange juice in it. WINNER.

There's lists of medieval dinners and family dinner parties and people's favourite foods and notes about a dish here or there I wouldn't do again. 

There's this:

Not Dad's 60th but his 65th (I must've been drinking the cooking wine when I wrote that note.) A friend of ours did the wine matching. That was a good dinner. A degustation for 11, my book says. 

Anyway, it's fun to flick through it. 

And it means I won't accidentally cook you the same thing twice, unless there's a note to remind me you'll do all the washing up for one more piece of flourless chocolate cake. 

xxx

Vegetarian Pad Thai recipe

I was out for lunch with my workmates this week - my farewell lunch, thanks fellas! - and one of the guys was saying that he just couldn't imagine facing dinner every night with no meat. 

Actually, I know what he means. Previously when vegetarian friends have come for dinner I've racked my brains for meals that are not simply meat-less. And when I initially thought about a meat-free month, I really struggled with coming up with a whole month of diverse vegetarian food.

Now though, I can honestly say meat doesn't even cross my mind. Once you change the way you eat (and think) there are of course endless options for excellent dinners. And lunches. Etc. I guess it's like me thinking of feeding a vegan for a week: how on earth would I completely omit all dairy and eggs? Although I'm sure that once you've eaten vegan for a month it probably comes as second nature. 

Anyone for delicious from-scratch Pad Thai?

Vegetarian Pad Thai

INGREDIENTS:

250g noodles

1 tblsp tamarind paste

½ cup warm water

1-2 tsp chilli sauce

¼ cup lemon juice

2 tblsp brown sugar

1½ tbsp natural peanut butter (I used this one)

½ tsp ground ginger

2 pinches salt

1 cup peas, cooked

1 cup chopped firm tofu

1 shallot, chopped

1 cup bean sprouts, washed

fresh coriander to garnish

METHOD:

Dissolve the tamarind paste in the warm water in a small saucepan then add all other ingredients. Simmer on low for 10 mins. This one is really all about taste - if you think it's too tart add some more sugar, or reduce sugar if too sweet for you. The peanut butter rounds it out and you can up the chilli perhaps if the kids aren't eating it. Once sauce has simmered well, throw in the tofu and shallot. 

Cook your noodles and drain. Pour the sauce over the noodles and place in your bowls. Top with the cooked peas and finish with the bean sprouts. Garnish with coriander. 

Did the kids eat it? Well, no. They both ate a whole bowlful of plain noodles and a little bowl of cooked peas. Whatever. Adam and I loved it. 

xxx
 

Meat-free May

I wasn't actually planning on writing a post about Meat-Free May because when it first appeared as a to-do idea on my "new things" list (over there in the left hand column under the books) I had quite a lot of feedback about how totally daft it was to do when pregnant. 

While I appreciated the genuine motivation behind this discouragement, it did make me a tad more inclined to jump right in. It also made me wonder just how much meat people around me were eating and made me think about the system. How all that meat is grown. Fed. Slaughtered. Packaged.  

(Also, as we only ate meat a couple of times a week anyway I didn't feel it was much of a stretch for the rest of the family to cope with, and the deal was that the kids and Adam of course weren't banned from meat, I just wasn't going to cook it.)

I did this for a few reasons. First: the whole idea of eating meat has turned my stomach this whole pregnancy. I know Adam is kinda hoping my aversion is entirely pregnancy-related (and therefore back to bacon and eggs and a lovely roast dinner in about seven weeks time.) He's also been around long enough to know that I have floated in and out of vegetarianism since I was fifteen years old and that I've had a problem with pork ever since I read Charlotte's Web when I was little. I've also never been able to come at veal. So he's not holding his breath.

Second: I suspect, although I am no expert, that rearing animals for (red) meat is not particularly environmentally efficient. 

Third: Did buying organic free-range chicken mean we were eating happy chooks? I wasn't convinced. Other 'organic' meat was also all about what the animals were fed, not about how they lived (or died for that matter.)

Fourth: My late grandfather took me aside when I was about twenty (and at that point vegetarian) and instructed me to start eating meat again as the world was a difficult enough place to get along in without making myself more difficult with the terribly unsociable trait of vegetarianism stitched to me too. I can still remember my feeling of shock and disappointment and thinking I'm glad he doesn't know anything else about the rest of my life. I didn't really want him to disapprove of me but I also considered becoming a vegan on the spot. All food decisions are social. All of them. Even just a month's worth.

Last night's dinner:

 Poached asparagus, potatoes, eggplant, capsicum, coriander, marinated tofu, goat's cheese, sesame seeds, olive oil. Gosh it was yummy. In fact, the leftovers were even better for lunch today. 

I think sometimes we get in the habit of particular food. I know I did when thinking about food for the kids. Pretty protein/meat based. 

What I have now is a big list of vegetarian meal ideas and I go and look at it when I'm about to do the grocery shopping to inspire me to think a bit broader. 

I'll post it, if you'd find it useful? 

The growing list of May dinners is about to become a page on the top navigation bar and I'll just keep 'What's for dinner tonight' on the right so it doesn't get too unwieldy.

I hope that some of the stuff we're eating inspires you to drop out meat a couple of nights too if you haven't already. 

I also cannot recommend Johnathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals highly enough. He's a fantastic writer and very even-handed with this. I think it's brilliant. 

I know there will be be eye rolling and disagreement with this post, but that's what comments are for! Tell me what you think. (Then let me make you my vegetarian moussaka and tell me you still missed the meat! Never!)

xxx

Ten Minute Bean Nachos!

In our house I'm still hearing the 'kids food' and 'grown up food' differentiation as much I discourage it. 

So every second night I serve up validated 'kids food' (for heavens sake) to minimise the argument. 

Is this, alongside spaghetti bolognaise and homemade pizza, possibly the ultimate 'kids food'?

 SUPER quick bean nachos.

Here's what I think is in it (forgive me, I am quite vague this week. Blame six-months-pregnant brain.)

1 onion finely chopped

splodge of olive oil

pinch salt

1 x 400g tin red kidney beans (soaking & cooking them fresh or in fact hand harvesting your own from your biodynamic garden would be better of course, but today we are interested in speed.)

1 x 800g tin tomatoes (please see above)

1 x 400g tin baked beans

Handful of fresh herbs if you have them, or dried is good too (I used oregano)

grated cheddar cheese

corn chips

sliced avocado

sour cream on top

chilli sauce on top of that

METHOD:
Saute the onion in the oil and salt:

 

Rinse your kidney beans:

 

Hurl them into the pan. Add the tomatoes, the baked beans, the herbs. You could add sweet corn or chick peas, that'd be yummy. 

Cook for about 10 mins, or longer if you have the time and don't have hungry kids climbing your legs. The baked beans give a nice depth of flavour, cooking for a bit longer improves it. 10 mins will do though!

While it's cooking, grate some cheese...

  

The kids just had corn chips with beans and cheddar on top.

Adam and I melted the cheese onto the corn chips for ours, added the beans then sliced avocado, sour cream and chilli sauce.

Quick. Relatively kid-friendly. Beanie. Good. 

xxx 

lasagne: not pretty but damn yummy

So really, who makes lasagne on a work night? 

I do. 

Here's the quickest, tastiest, perhaps not low-fattest lasagne ever. Promise. Please try it. Then send me a photo of how-not-pretty-but-delicious yours is too.

MEAT SAUCE

1 brown onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

500g lean beef mince 

1 800g tin chopped tomatoes

1 small tin (equiv 1 tablesp) tomato paste

2 teaspoons mixed dried herbs (no fresh herbs in the fridge today)

salt and pepper

METHOD

Cook the onion and garlic in the oil for a couple of minutes. Sprinkle the onion with salt to release the onion juices and stop it browning. 

Add the meat and cook till browned.

Throw in the tomatoes, the tom paste and the herbs. Cook for another 10 mins on low heat (longer if you have the time).

To make the "Béchamel", mix 1 carton sour cream and 1 cup grated cheese together. 

Then layer sauce/lasagne sheets/sour cream mix and repeat at least three times.

With any pasta, the best kind is usually 100% Durum Wheat Semolina. I found awesome lasagne sheets just at my local Franklins, all Durum Wheat Semolina, imported from Italy. Totally delicious pasta. Bargain!

That's it. Sprinkle a layer of grated cheese over the top because frankly there is not quite enough artery hardening components to this dinner. (But you don't make it that often, right?) Put in moderate oven for about 20 minutes. My kids are generally fussy, uncooperative eaters and Henry wolfed a whole serve and Tilly went back for seconds. Unprecedented.

Hope it's a hit at your place!

Like I said, not pretty. Delicious.

xxx

the fun police

Something my friend Estelle wrote in my comments on an earlier post today made me stop and think: am I a Food Nazi? 

Estelle was commenting on the effect of food colouring on the output of children (oh yes, in so many ways), and I was thinking about Henry's birthday in August.

We went to a children's birthday party recently that had lots of great kid-friendly food, mostly home made, but the little bit of sugar that was there was leapt upon and the kids predictably went a little bit crazy.

I had blithely promised myself that we'd have a sugar/additive free party when Henry's comes around. Will his friends ever come back, do you think? 

I should mention too, the chocolate slice (previous post) is of course not recommended for children! I've boxed the remainder of mine up to take to work (to send my workmates into a sugar coma) and Henry and Tilly got puny 1cm squares today as a highly negotiated reward for not tearing the doctors surgery apart after hanging out in the waiting room for about 50 minutes again. 

(Trip for Tilly this time. Ear infection. Lovely. Lets talk more about food.)

Anyway, I'm prepared to be unpopular.

The only way you'll get your kids to eat lots of fresh fruit and snack on quiche is to offer it to them, and not offer them too many alternatives. Of course they'll choose a pretzel over a carrot. I would too. 

It becomes harder when you're out though, right? I have been known to remove seaweed crackers from my children's hands on the way to their mouths (they're full of MSG.) Definite Food Nazi tendencies.

I reckon just offer them as much fantastic food as you can. This is my strategy anyway. If you teach them to love food that looks good, smells good, feels good, and tastes like real food, that's probably the best you can do.  

Here's one. Quiche. Lovely for lunch, delightful for dinner, awesome in a lunchbox.

First: pastry. I know the sheets of pastry you can buy are pretty good. But the pastry you make yourself is much much better.

One thing Nigella (as in, Lawson) does really well is pastry.

Here's her shortcrust which I made yesterday for the base. It sounds like a faff, and it obviously takes longer than defrosting a sheet of Pampas, but damn it tastes good.

Pastry (from How to Be A Domestic Goddess):

250g plain flour (she suggests Italian 00)

125g cold unsalted butter, cubed

2 egg yolks

2 tblsp iced weater

1 heaped tsp salt

1 tblsp caster sugar

Put flour and butter on a dish and put into freezer for 10 mins. Stir together yolks, water & salt in a cup and put cup into fridge. When time's up, tip the flour & butter into your food processor, add the sugar and pulse to combine. You want a soft crumbly mass. Bind with the yolks, water & salt and when it looks like on the verge of coming together tip the pastry out and wodge together with your hands. ('Wodge' is such a Nigella word. I'm sure she made it up.) Wrap in clingwrap and put in fridge to rest. 

I let it rest about 15 mins then rolled mine out, spread it over my quiche tin, and then blind baked it on 180 deg for about 15 mins.

For my quiche filling I used:

1 onion, finely chopped

250g rindless bacon finely chopped

10 free range eggs

3 tblsp cream

salt & pepper

big handful fresh chopped basil

Fry the onion in a little olive oil in a pan until translucent. Add the bacon and stir until cooked. 

In a bowl beat your eggs and the cream together well. Add the seasoning, the herbs and the onion and bacon. 

Pour into your blind baked pastry and cook for about 25 mins at 180 deg. 

Good stuff.

xxx