I only eat Plinkton bentos bro! Eva made a bento out of that animated Kiwi whale. That. Is. Awesome.
Category: Cooking
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Cake Balls
Hey Sis: “Cake Balls on a Roll in Texas.” I like the photo of the ones with sprinkles on top. I’m also amused that it sounds like the backlash has already started in the US, and the damn things haven’t even made it to Sydney yet!
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Baking awesomeness
This one’s for my sister: tutorial for décor sides. This is a technique where instead of writing words on a cake in icing, you actually BAKE the words INTO the cake itself. Pretty neat.
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Veggies for Victory
“The Obamas’ vegie patch…is alarming conservatives.” See? That’s why I want to keep my veggie patch, despite the Snook’s protests. (To be fair, my total yield this year was next to nothing.) Still, I feel trying to grow my own food is at least a little bit subversive and political. In related news, we’ve started up the weekly veggie box again after a bit of a break. They’ve moved pickup to Saturday mornings at the Farmer’s Market at the Chippo Peace Park, which works out fantastic for us. It gives us a bit more time to work out what we’re doing with it, and a chance to go to the shops to get any necessary ingredients. Plus the new organiser, Daria, lets us pick out just what we want! Today we got LOADS, well worth the $25 we spent! (Pumpkin, zucchini, beetroot, leeks, capsicum, beans, potatoes, onion, and fennel.) We’ve already had beetroot risotto, and a chocolate and beetroot cake is cooling in the kitchen as we speak…
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Uninterested Cat Bento
Uninterested Cat Bento. Ha! Nice one, Eva. Now you just need to create a bento of a 7 pound cat leaping on a sleeping person’s stomach and you’ve basically documented half my life.
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Lamb and Barley Stew
The Snook and I watched the “Barley” episode of Good Eats last weekend, and I became obsessed with his lamb and barley stew. I picked up the ingredients Monday night (one lamb shoulder, one bag pearl barley, three carrots). I soon realized I had a problem. The original recipe actually calls for barley grits. Well, neither Coles nor Harris Farm had that. Snookums did some research and found this recipe, where someone in the same dilemma decided to make her own. We decided to follow her advice. (You can’t just substitute plain pearl barley, as it takes a lot longer to cook.)
Thursday night Snookums roasted the barley in a pan on low heat for an hour, stirring occasionally. Then he whizzed it up in our spice grinder (an old coffee grinder) to chop it up a bit. Meanwhile, I went to town on the lamb shoulder with a big sharp knife. We browned the lamb in seasoned flour, then combined the carrot, lamb, barley, and chicken stock. It then cooked for about 35 minutes. I was worried that with so few ingredients, it might be bland. I WAS SO WRONG. It was all nutty, roasty, lamby goodness. I couldn’t get enough of it. It’s so warming and filling. This is the perfect recipe for winter. I highly, highly recommend it, especially if you can find the barley grits pre-made. But I’d say it’s still worth the extra work even if you can’t…
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Split Pea and Ham Frustration
Inspired by Eileen’s site this week, I bought a ham hock and a bag of split peas last night to make crock pot split pea and ham soup today. I put it in this morning and the whole house has been filled with the most wonderful smells. A few hours I ago I was researching remedies for cold sores, when I discovered that you should avoid foods high in arginine while having an outbreak. What has loads of arginine? PEAS. So I had scrambled eggs on toast for dinner while Snookums partook of my beautiful soup. At least I know that it freezes well, and it’ll still taste good in a few days when I’m all healed up. Still, MEGA FRUSTRATION.
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Inner City Guild Meeting
Today was my first meeting as Convenor of the Knitting Guild’s Inner City Group, and it was also our first meeting at our new location in Customs House Library. I was stressing out a little bit beforehand, but I shouldn’t have worried. It was one of our best meetings ever. Everyone was in such a good mood! We had 31 people in attendance (plus Rae’s adorable baby Zara), and several of those were brand new members. Our new meeting format worked well, and folks seemed to appreciate our aim of finishing off the business quickly so we could just knit and chat.
Of course, the best part was that Fiona made me special cupcakes for my birthday! And then she made the whole group sing to me. It was very sweet. Thanks, Fee! Kate also brought a cake, and I made a Spanish tortilla. (I used these two sites for tortilla recipe guidance. Flipping that thing on my own was, like, the scariest culinary feat I’ve ever attempted. It came out really good though!) Thanks to everybody who came to the meeting, and to my fellow officers Rosemary and Geraldine for all their help. I’m looking forward to next month!
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Anthony Bourdain’s Guide to Food Television
Anthony Bourdain’s Guide to Food Television. That is just brilliant. I like that he gives props to Martha Stewart and Alton Brown, and that he basically admits Gordon Ramsay is selling out by becoming a total caricature of himself.
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Ratatouille
No, I don’t mean the Pixar movie (which I still haven’t seen). I mean the real stuff. Eileen asked for “easy and tasty” recipes, and this is my contribution. You can eat it as a side dish on its own, put it on pasta as a sauce, or even just spoon it over bread. (It tastes even better the next day!) There’s not much to the prep other than chopping, and it freezes pretty well. Also, we had a surplus of eggplants, zucchinis, and tomatoes from our last two veggie boxes so it was a good way to clear the backlog.
Recipe: This is from the Better Homes & Gardens: New Cook Book, which I absolutely love. I have yet to think of a dish that isn’t in here.
1/2 cup finely chopped onion (1 medium)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil or cooking oil
2 cups cubed, peeled eggplant
1 small zucchini or yellow summer squash, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices (1 cup)
1 cup peeled, chopped tomatoes or one 7-1/2-ounce can tomatoes, cut up
1/2 cup chopped green sweet pepper
2 tablespoons dry white wine or water
1-1/2 teaspoons snipped fresh basil or 1/2 teaspoon dried basil, crushedI had enough to do a double recipe, so the quantity you’re seeing here is way more than what the recipe will make. Also, note that even though my pan gets quite full at times, the veggies do “cook down” quite a bit.
Step 1: Onions and Garlic
Chuck your onions and garlic in the olive oil and cook til the onion is tender. You can make this in a frypan/skillet, but I knew I was going to have a lot so I went with a saucepan.
Step 2: Everything else
Seriously, it’s that simple. Here I’ve chopped up the eggplant…
…and then I add it to the pot. Note: I’ve turned the temp down to medium-low at this point.
Tomatoes: I had fresh ones, but I’ve used canned before too and it’s fine. And no, I didn’t peel them. That’s just insanity.
Tomatoes are now in the mix.
Zucchini is all chopped up…
…and added to the pot.
Normally I just use dried basil, but our plants are still going nuts so I used the fresh. I chopped it up and added it to the pot.
Okay, so at this point you chuck everything else in the pan too: wine, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. (Note: Rodd doesn’t like green pepper/capsicum, so I left it out.) Bring to boiling. Reduce heat; simmer, covered, 20 minutes or till tender. Uncover; cook 5 to 10 minutes or until thickened, stirring occasionally.
And that’s it!
Like I said, you can now put this over pasta for a delicious sauce, or just serve it as a side dish on its own. Put the leftovers in a container in the fridge and it’ll be even more fantastic the next day. Seriously, cold ratatouille on chewy sourdough? BLISS.
