Smooth

I bought this blender. It was on sale at Myer, I had a gift card and it has essentially the same specs as a Vitamix or Blendtec. It has a large jug standard and the smoothies I have made with it have an excellent consistency, it does 'choke' a bit when you're using larger chunks of frozen fruit like pineapple. When this happens you need to add more liquid and use the baton to push the fruit into the blades; there might be some other way around this - but I haven't worked it out yet.

I typically use one type of frozen fruit or ice in my smoothies and use the 'ice crush' or 'smoothie' pre-sets on the blender depending on ratio of frozen and unfrozen ingredients. All recipes make around 1 Litre.

A green one

1/2 cup of water

1/2 cups coconut water

50 g almonds

2 cups of spinach

1 1/2 cups pineapple

1 banana

Use frozen banana or pineapple, add extra water or coconut water to get the consistency you like.

An 'all year' fruit one

2 cups of pineapple

1 1/2 bananas

Juice of three oranges

Add 1 cup of ice if non of the fruit is frozen or 1/2 cup water if using some frozen fruit.

A summer fruit one

2 peaches

1 cup of blueberries

1 cups seedless green grapes

1 cup of ice

May leftovers

Other recipes from the internet that I used this month:

*In the spirit of trying new things, I made a bitter gourd curry (kayippakka vartharacha curry). Despite its name, I was a bit surprised by the intense bitterness, it's definitely not one for the unadventurous. 

*A Mark Bittman Spanish influenced chickpea and chorizo dish. I made it mid-week and had no fresh spinach, so I grilled some large chunks of tomato and chucked them in before the whole dish is covered in breadcrumbs and grilled. It was really quite good.

*When Aldi had cheap bundt pans I bought one and made this orange bundt twice; it's a great cake for a crowd.

April Leftovers

April was filled with visitors, books, birds and perfect autumn weather. We also ate very well.

For my recollection, internet recipes we enjoyed were
*This sweet potato and chipotle soup, topped with sour cream and a handful of crushed corn chips.
*Pasta with broccoli and ricotta,  which although simple, is worth remembering.

Spanish BBQ

Spanish BBQ, just prior to covering the patatas bravas in luscious sauce

BBQ season has taken us to Asia and the Americas, this week it's off to Spain. I got all my recipes for the meal from Cooking in Spain by Janet Mendel.

The meat portion of the meal was chuletón a la vasca or beef chops Basque style. The beef is marinated in lemon juice and oil, then grilled over charcoal, while grilling the meat is sprinkled with chopped garlic and parsley. It's served with grilled green peppers.

I also made Catalan speciality calçotada de valls (grilled spring onions) and tapas favourite patas bravas, roasting the potatoes in the BBQ makes this dish a bit less fatty than the regular deep fried preparation. So good.

Patatas Bravas
Serves 4
Adapted from Cooking in Spain by Janet Mendel

800 g waxy potatoes
4 tbsp olive oil
90 ml tomato sauce
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 clove of garlic, crushed
2 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne

Parboil the potatoes. Drain and cut into 3 cm tubes, coat in oil. Place the potatoes in foil tray and bake in a covered BBQ for 40 minutes or until crispy and golden. Drain, salt and serve with the following sauce.

To make the sauce mix the tomato sauce, mayonnaise, garlic, vinegar, paprika, cumin and enough cayenne to make the sauce picante - spicy hot.

Cabbage and Potato Curry

Clockwise, rice, sour chickpeas (khatte chhole), papadum, cabbage and potato curry

I made this Pakistani curry for the first time last May, I remember choosing it because it used up staple vegetables. I really enjoyed it when we ate it then but I didn't make any notes and the recipe was a bit vague in places.

The version below is quite hot, you could easily use the same spice mix and increase the vegetables to make a more mild curry that feeds more people, just maintain the 2:2:1 ratio of cabbage, potatoes and tomatoes.

Bund Gobi Aur Aaloo
Serves 4-6
Adapted from Asian Spicy Recipes

400 g wedge of cabbage
400 g potatoes
200 g tomatoes
2 tbsp oil
1 medium onion
3 cm piece ginger
1 tsp chilli powder
1\2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp coriander seed, ground
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garam masala
2 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
2 green chillies, chopped

Remove any tough cabbage leaves, shred the leaves and discard the tough core. Peel and cut the potatoes into a 1.5 cm dice. Roughly dice the tomatoes. Set the vegetables aside.

Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Peel and dice the onion, peel crush and chop the garlic. Add the onion and garlic to the hot oil and sauté until soft or about 5 minutes. Add the chilli powder, turmeric, coriander, and salt and cook for a further 3 minutes stirring frequently, add a little water if the mixture sticks.

Add the diced tomatoes to the pan and fry the mixture until the tomatoes are reduced to a pulp and the oil begins to separate from the mix. Add the cabbage and potatoes and stir to cover them with the aromatic tomato mixture. Reduce the heat and cover the pan, allow to cook for about 20-30 minutes or until the potatoes are soft and the curry looks quite dry

Add garam masala, fresh coriander and green chillies and serve.

December Leftovers

Roasted sweet potato salad

Cooking in December was unpredictable, these are the recipes I made from the internet:

*I made Spanish-style grilled fish using whole whiting. It was good, but not notably Spanish.

*To accompany our Jamaican barbecue we had a roasted sweet potato salad based loosely on this recipe from Mark Bittman. I roasted the sweet potato on the barbecue sprinkled with some chilli flakes and raw sugar, once cooked I left them to cool. I added a can of drained and washed kidney beans, some diced red onion, young rocket and some finely sliced radish. The salad was dressed with olive oil, lemon juice and seasoned with salt and black pepper. It was really tasty and made a great accompaniment to the jerk chicken.

*The glaze for the Christmas ham and the rub for the South Carolina barbecue. Both of these were very successful.

Eggplant Curry

I've made this eggplant curry a few times and each time I am rewarded for persisting with the frustrating unordered list of ingredients. The recipe comes from a book from a historic Indian restaurant that was located in the Canberra in the 1980s called Shalimar, the owner and author of the book gallantly refused to moderate the intensity of his food - a sentiment I agree with entirely. The curry delicious and  well-suited for those who can't handle heat as it's not very spicy.

Brinjal and Tomato Curry
Serves 4 or more with other dishes
Adapted from A Heritage of Indian Cooking by Joseph Cotta

1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 large onions, finely chopped
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cumin, ground
2 green chillies, chopped
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 tsp ginger, grated
4 large tomatoes, diced
1/2 kg eggplant, diced
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the onions until golden brown. Add the spcies, chillies, garlic and ginger and fry until aromatic. Mix in the tomatoes and allow them to begin to break down, stirring frequently,  until the oil rises to the top. Add the eggplant and stir well, add the lemon juice. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat to low and cover, allow to simmer for 20 minutes or until the eggplant is cooked through, then season with salt as required and serve.

September Leftovers

Two weeks in the US means I had two cooking free weeks during September. I did manage to cook these internet recipes over the rest of the month:

*This recipe from the New York Times served as starting point for a brunch. I sautéed my beet greens in unsalted butter in which I had let a shallot soften, in a second pan I browned some diced bacon, then mixed the two and served it on rye toast with eggs over easy.

*Soft pretzels, delicious, I blogged about them earlier.

*I made these apple and cinnamon hotcakes for another brunch, I used a tasty but not especially juicy mix of pink lady and sundowner apples, the apples could have used a bit more sugar and water to make more of a syrup. I left the batter to rest and the cast iron pan to warm up for 15 minutes while I went and got ice cream, which meant perfect non-stick hotcakes.

*Rice pudding for Oktoberfest, I think 150 grams of rice to 1 Litre milk is the magic ratio for rice pudding.

Chilli While They Last

Further trimming my cooking magazine collection, I set upon the Gourmet Travellers from 2005. Gourmet Traveller is a beautiful magazine (with a very average website) but I have rarely cooked from my issues. When I spied a Masterclass focussed on Mexico I decided to make the lima bean and chicken chilli verde for Sunday dinner and leftovers. As luck would have it I was able to buy a cheap kilo of anaheim chiles at the trash and treasure market at the Jamison Center on Sunday; now the frosts have started it's probably the last of the local peppers for the season.

This chilli tastes light and is deliciously spicy, perfect for an autumn eve, it's good served with sour cream, lots of fresh coriander and parsley, and steamed rice or some warm flour tortillas.

Lima Bean and Chicken Chilli Verde
Adapted from a recipe by Kathleen Gandy in Gourmet Traveller January 2005
Serves 6

250 g dried lima beans, soaked overnight
500 g fresh anaheim chillies
1 kg skinless chicken thighs cut into 2 cm cubes
Plain flour for dusting the chicken pieces
4 tbsp extra light olive oil
2 jalapeño chillies
1 large brown onion
3 cloves of garlic
400g tin of tomatoes
2 sprigs each of oregano and thyme
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 dried bay leaf
1 1/2 cups of chicken stock

Place the soaked lima beans in a large pot of fresh water and bring to the boil, cook for 30 minutes or until the beans are soft; drain and set aside.

Remove the stalks from the anaheim chillies, then place them under a grill on high. When the skin has blistered on one side, rotate the chillies. When they are charred all-over remove them from the grill and wrap them in cling wrap. While the chillies sweat, seed and dice the jalapeño chillies and dice the onions and garlic. Open the cling wrap parcel of chillies and slide the charred skin off the chilli, you can also remove some of the seeds; roughly chop the skinless chillies.

Toss the diced chicken with seasoned flour to coat. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large (28 cm) pot over a medium heat, then add a third of the chicken and cook for 3-4 minutes or until browned, then remove and set aside. Repeat twice with the remainder of the chicken.

Add the remaining oil to the pan, then add the chillies, onion and garlic and cook over a low-medium heat for 5-6 minutes or until softened. Crush and add tomatoes, herb and stock and increase the heat to bring the mixture to the boil. Return the chicken to the pan and add the drained lima beans. Decrease the heat to low and cook with the lid on for 20 minutes, season with salt and pepper and cook for a further 20 minutes with the lid off to allow the sauce to thicken.

Sorrel

My unofficial new years resolution for 2009 was to try new foods. This week's find was a bunch of just-picked of sorrel from the local Sunday markets. I used it in a simple breakfast, I removed the stalks and cut the leaved into ribbons and folded though an omelette until the leaved were just wilted. I served the omelette over a small pile of home fries. The tartness of the leaves really complemented the eggs and fried potatoes beautifully.

I will buy it again. Or I might try and forage for some as this vegetable is a common weed in most of eastern Australia. This video shows how to identify it in the wild.



Inspiration for our next meeting:
*Salmon with Sorrel Sauce
*Sorrel Tart

For the Zucchini Sceptic

I couldn't resist a big bag of late-summer zucchini from the market this morning. With a weekly lunch box gap to fill, I went back to my feed reader for inspiration. I've further modified a recipe for zucchini loaf that started in this months delicious magazine and made it to me via the Canberra Cook. I further reduced the sugar as she suggested, used a walnut and canola oil mixture and added some drak chocolate and it came out with moorish loaf with a hint of sweetness that even swayed the zucchini sceptic in the house.

Zucchini Loaf
Serves 10-12
Adapted from the Canberra Cook and delicious magazine March 2009

400 g self-raising flour
200 ml vegetable/nut oil
1 heaped tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
115 g white sugar
115 g brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract
500 g zucchini, grated
90 g walnuts
40 g dark chocolate, chopped


Preheat oven to 150°C; line a large bread tin (mine is 29 x 10 x 13 cm) with baking paper.

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients except the flour and oil. Add the oil and mix well, then fold in the flour gently.

Pour into the loaf tin, and bake for 90 minutes, or until a testing skewer comes out clean. Cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then turn out onto a rack.

One From Nigel and One From Gordon

Foccacia topped with a paste of sun- dried tomaotes, garlic and oregano; Persian-style Onion Soup and Rocket salad

It's a cool evening, a storm has just passed over leaving the ground barely damp. I'm finishing off last weeks vegetables, cooking a pot of potatoes to make home fries for breakfast tomorrow and a big pot of lamb bones, carrots and aromatics are simmering into lovely stock for a soup next week. Dinner tonight is foccacia, a rocket salad and a bowl of warmly spiced onion soup from Gordon Ramsay recipe. The Accountant bought a Ramsay cookbook last year, the only recipes that interested me were the soups, I've got to say that he does make a fine soup.

Foccacia
Serves at least 6
Adapted from Nigel Salter via Blake at the Paupered Chef

450g bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp fast-acting yeast
400ml warm water
cornmeal
3 tbsp olive oil

Put the flour and salt and yeast into a large bowl, mix well then pour in the water to make a sticky dough. Mix well with a wooden spoon then knead in the bowl using a silicone pastry scraper to fold the mixture and make a smooth dough, this takes about 5 minutes. Alternatively use a stand mixer. Foccacia is a particularly wet dough and you don't want to be adding a lot of flour to make it possible to knead by hand. Once the dough has been kneaded, cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp clean tea towel and leave it until it has doubled in size, which may take up to 1 hour.

Prepare a baking tin (30 x 20 cm rectangle; 30 cm diameter circle) by coating with olive oil and applying a thin layer of cornmeal. Preheat the oven to 220°C.

Remove the dough from its bowl, then push it into the baking tin. Trying to cover the base of the tin. Cover with plastic wrap then let the dough rise for another 30 minutes.

Create a seasoning mixture from garlic, fresh herbs, salt, with olives, sun-dried tomatoes or caramelised onions. You will need about 3 tablespoons of a seasoning mix to cover the loaf of focaccia. When the dough has risen for the second time push several holes deep into the dough with your index finger, then spread the seasoning mixture over the dough.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until the top is golden. Drizzle with the remaining olive oil and let the loaf rest for 5 minutes, then remove from the tin and serve while warm.

Persian-style Onion Soup
Serves 4
Adapted from Healthy Appetite by Gordon Ramsay

3 tbsp olive oil
800 g onions, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
2 tsp fresh mint or 1/2 tsp dried
2 tbsp plain flour
1 L vegetable or chicken stock
1 cinnamon stick
Juice of 1 lemon or some preserved lemon
1 tsp raw sugar
A few flat-leaf parsley sprigs, chopped

Place a heavy-based pan over a medium heat. Add the olive oil, the onions and 1/2 tsp salt. Cover and sweat for 12-15 min until the onions are soft, lifting the lid and stirring occasionally. Remove the lid and increase the heat slightly. Add the spices and mint, then stir in the flour. Cook, stirring frequently, for 3-4 min.

Gradually pour in the stock, whisking as you do so to prevent any lumps forming. When it has all been added, drop in the cinnamon stick and simmer over a low heat, for 30-40 min.

Stir in the lemon juice and sugar, if using preserved lemon dice the peel of half a lemon and add to the soup with the sugar, then taste and adjust the seasoning. Discard the cinnamon stick and serve with parsley.

Lebanese BBQ

An impromptu BBQ for Archivists, partners and me on a long weekend. Forequarter lamb was on special so I decided to get the BBQ out and try some more Lebanese recipes from New Flavours of the Lebanese Table by Nada Saleh. The menu for dinner:

Hummous
Pumpkin Dip, latkin m'tabal bi-thini
Thyme Flat bread, mankoushi bi-zaatar
Tabbouleh
Cheats BBQ Shawarma and Spiced Roast Potatoes


Pumpkin Dip
Adapted from New Flavours of the Lebanese Table by Nada Saleh

650 g peeled de-seeded pumpkin
1 garlic clove
3 tbsp tahini
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp walnut oil
Salt to taste
Crushed walnuts and parsley to serve

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Cut the pumpkin into 2.5 cm wide chunks and place on a greased baking tray. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until soft and beginning to caramelise. Remove from the oven when done and allow it to cool.

Place the cooked pumpkin, garlic, tahini, lemon juice and walnut oil in a food processor and blend until smooth. Taste and add salt, then move the dip to a covered bowl. When you're ready to serve chop some parsley with some walnuts and sprinkle over the surface.

Cheats BBQ Shawarma and Spiced Roast Potatoes
Serves 8

1.6 kg lamb diced 1.5-2 cm
1 tsp whole allspice
1 tsp whole black pepper
1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp whole fenugreek
1 tsp whole nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp Spanish paprika
2 tsp salt
Canola oil

1.5 kg chat potatoes
3 tsp rock salt
Canola oil

Soak 18 bamboo skewers for 30 minutes to prevent them burning on the BBQ. Peel and par-boil the potatoes. Prepare the BBQ for cooking with indirect heat then light it.

Using a mortar and pestle crush the allspice, black pepper, cloves and fenugreek then grate nutmeg into the mortar, add the ground ginger, cinnamon then mix; this mix is known as Sabea Bharat in Lebanon. Place the lamb in a bowl, then mix though the spice mix, paprika and salt. Tread the meat onto the bamboo skewers leaving space at either end for easy turning, this amount of meat should make at least 18 skewers. Drizzle some oil over the meat to prevent sticking to the grill and leave the meat to marinate.

Quarter the cooked potatoes the spread them out in foil trays. Crush the rock salt in the mortar and pestle, mixing the leftover spice mix with the salt. Sprinkle the spiced salt over the potatoes and toss with the oil. Cook with the lid on and vents open until the potatoes are crispy.

Once the potatoes have been cooking for 30 minutes, close the lid vent on the BBQ and add the meat. Cook the skewers for 25-30 minutes.

Lunchbox Muffins

My criteria for a good lunchbox muffin are (1) the muffins aren't too sweet, (2) they contain a good portion of fibre, (3) they include ingredients that I normally have in the pantry. Muffins made with vegetables and wholegrains meet all my requirements, I've modified this carrot and coconut recipe to my preferences and I have a pumpkin one that I'm still working on for next time. I use my Benriner to finely shred the carrot for this recipe, the resulting grated carrot is consistently whispy and is easily distributed though the muffins.

Carrot and Coconut Muffins
Make 12 muffins
Adapted from Comfort: Real Simple Food by Michele Cranston, Mikkel Vang, and Christine Rudolph

280 g wholemeal plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
150g sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
200 ml vegetable oil (canola, sunflower, grapeseed)
200 g grated carrot
100 g shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease or place paper muffin cups into a 12-hole muffin tray.

Put the flour, baking powder, sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl and mix. Add the eggs, zest and lemon juice and oil and stir until smooth. Then mix in the carrot and coconut through.

Spoon mixture into muffin tray and Bake for 25-30 minutes, until muffins have risen and are golden brown. Allow to sit for 5 minutes after removing from the oven before turning the muffins out onto a cooling rack. Pack the muffins into a storage container when they are completely cold.

Indian Summer

Tonight we threw together a summery Indian vegan meal for our visiting Auditor. I picked all the dishes from Indian Cookery by Madhur Jaffery, I've had this book for a few years and have appreciated most of the recipes that I've cooked from it; her recipes can be a bit generous with the oil and salt, but these quantities can be easily adjusted to taste. One food blogger is reviewing his experience with all the recipes in the book here. As a general Indian cooking text I think that Indian Cookery is notable for the variety of vegetable and pulse dishes and other accompaniment recipes it contains; here we've made a light, invigorating vegan Indian meal with minimum effort that's perfect for a mid-summer evening. The dishes prepared were:

Aromatic yellow rice, peelay chaaval
Flat bread, chapati
Red split lentils with cumin seeds, masoor dal
'Dry okra', sookhi bhindi
Beetroot with onions, shorvedar chukander
Tomato, onion and green coriander relish, cachumber

It's the first time I've cooked okra and I was surprised how much I liked it. This easy dry preparation allows you to fully appreciate the texture and flavour of this pod. Besides okra, amchoor is probably the only exotic ingredient in this recipe - amchoor is a seasoning of powdered dried green mangoes. It adds a sour note to Indian food, a small amount of lemon or lime juice could be used as a substitute. If you make this dish as a part of a larger meal make it last, since the texture of the okra is best straight out of the pan, I suspect that keeping this dish warm or reheating it would turn the okra to mush.

Madhur Jaffery's Dry Okra
Serves 4 as a side
Adapted from Indian Cookery by Madhur Jaffery

450 g fresh okra
4 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp cumin seed
200 g onions, peeled and cut into a large dice
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp amchoor powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Wash the okra, then wipe it dry with towel. Cut the stem and tips from the pods, then cut crosswise into 1 cm pieces.

Heat the oil in a large cast iron frypan (at least 28 cm) and set over a medium-high heat. When the pan is hot add the whole cumin seed and let them sizzle for 10 seconds. Put the onions and okra in the pan and spread the mixture evenly, ideally into a single layer. Fry the onion and okra mix for 10 minutes stirring occasionally, both the onions and okra should be browning at this point.

Turn the temperature to medium and cook for a further 5 minutes, stir gently to avoid mashing the okra. Add the salt, ground cumin and coriander, amchoor and cayenne and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Serve hot.