Spring vegetable soup (in autumn)

There have been a few rather cold and rainy days this March. A little different to the searing heat of February and to last March's heat wave. I am sitting in the dark cold of a Saturday night (maybe I need a life?), with hail outside and me very worried about the vegie garden!

A couple of weeks ago, I made a soup with many of the ingredients from my garden. It is based on a Bill Granger recipe, though I have changed it to suit my garden!

I should also point out that the success of this soup -apart from home grown vegies, is home made chicken stock. Whenever I roast a chook (usually a barossa chook) I use the carcass to make a stock and then freeze it to use in soups, risottos etc. Play around with quantities to suit.

Spring Vegie Soup

serves 4 i guess. we freeze leftovers for later.

big handful of barley (about 150-200g) boiled in water for around 30 minutes until tender, rinsed and drained

2 zucchini diced

1 carrots sliced

1-2 onions diced

cup of peas

1L chicken stock (or vegie stock)

tin of cannelini beans or other similar beans

2 red potatoes diced (i dont peel but you can)

2 garlic cloves, sliced

1 bunch silver beet

bunch of green/ purple or rattle snake beans

salt, pepper and basil, lemon thyme or parsley to top soup

Parmesan cheese to serve

Fry onion in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Add potato, zucchini, garlic, silver beet, and cook for 5 minutes until the silver beet has wilted. Add the stock plus 1L water, and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the rinsed barley, beans, cannelini beans and peas and simmer for another 10 minutes. Season and serve with herbs and Parmesan.

Good for cold wintry nights at any time of the year.

Stuffin’ Time

It is that time of the year when the vegie plot has been yielding its treasures and making it difficult to keep up with cooking things as I pick them. A couple of weekends ago, I decided to celebrate the fact that my white zucchini plant had finally fruited by stuffing them, as well as a few other things I could get my hands on! Now this did take me a while but it was a pleasant way to spend the day and it definitely tasted good!

I wanted to do the Arabic traditional vine leaves and stuffed zucchini (warrah and koosa siami) but did not have enough vine leaves. My mother suggested on the phone from Sydney that I could use silver beet instead if I had any. Had any? I have 5 plants in the backyard! I had never eaten these silver beet rolls before but they were really lovely – difficult to say if it is better or not to the vine leaves…

I originally posted on the way to make vineleaves the Arabic way here . I basically used the same rice mix, but this time threw in some currents and pine nuts. I think these were a really nice addition, adding something sweet to the already sweet silver beet.

These photos show the rolling up process for the silver beet. They need to be blanched briefly in boiling water to make it easier to roll. One thing to note is that the stems need to be cut away or else it makes it very difficult to roll. Large silver beet can be cut into two (or three). Place the silver beet rolls tightly into a pot as shown in the last photo. Make a sauce out of tomato paste, water, lemon and oil and pour over the top. Cook on a low heat on the stove. The silver beet rolls don’t take as long as the vine leaves – I think 30 minutes was probably enough.

And don’t throw away those stems! Cut them up rather small, throw them into some boiling water, cook until tender. Then toss them with a sauce made from tahina, lemon and garlic. This makes a really nice side salad to the stuffed goodies.

I also stuffed some white zucchinis from the garden...

This photo shows the hollowed out zucchini. The hollowing out tool can be purchased from Arabic grocery stores (such as in Coburg) or I guess you can try using a knife, though I think it would be very difficult to not cut the shell. I dont believe that the normal dark green zucce variety can be substituted in this dish, as it does not have the nice thick sweet skin.

And don’t throw out the inside of the zucces! I sauté it slowly with onion and garlic for a long time until it breaks down and then add lemon, salt and pepper and cumin and coriander. This is delicious hot or cold, served as a dip with extra olive oil or as brushcetta topping. Really really good!

I also stuffed these – alas not from the garden but how cute is that pumpkin! I roasted these rather than cooked on the stove and added the rice mixture already cooked (for the silver beet and zucces the rice was added uncooked).

This is a close up of the cooked zucchini and long eggplants. So good!!!

This yoghurt dip is essential with stuffed goodies. Yoghurt, salt, garlic, cucumber and mint (all from the garden!).

As is this salad! Fatoush – basically tomato, cucumber, spring onions, parsley, mint, radish, toasted pita bread and a dressing of oil, lemon, sumac and garlic. We positively reeked after this meal from all the raw garlic but it was worth it!

And my final dinner plate (minus the pumpkin and capsicum – do you think I may have cooked too many things?).

Wow, that was a long post. But if you find yourselves with a glut of any of these vegies – give this a go, you will not be disappointed!

Note: All these vegies were stuffed ‘siami’ which means without meat. There is a meat version, which I personally do not like as much, but if anyone is interested I can post my mothers recipe.

Kangaroo Recipes part 2; stir fries

Happy New Year to all! Hope the break was restful, not too stressful, and full of fabulous food… and unlike me eaten in moderation ;)

I finally have a chance to finish off my posts about kangaroo. Over the break we were fed many other types of meat and different functions and I struggled to eat them as they seemed so much heavier than roo. I was nice to come home and have a simple BBQ of marinated roo and salads made from vegies from the garden. More to come on our lovely garden and the vegetables it had waiting for us after 10 days away.

The following pictures are of stir fries I have made several months ago so I won’t endeavour to put up exact recipes. To be honest it would be guessing anyway, as I never follow recipes for my stir fries anyway. As long as the basic principles are followed, tender tasty roo should be the result. I have used both the fillet and the steak that are available from supermarkets in Australia, and while the fillet is marginally better, there is not a noticeable difference.

I found Kylie Kwong’s ‘Simple Chinese cooking’ to be a great resource for simple stir fries and techniques and now use it as a guide only. The basics need to be there – good seasoned wok, peanut oil, metal spatula, very short cooking times and never overcrowding the wok. I also find marinading the meat, particularly for roo which is very lean, to be important.

This dish was a black bean based roo dish. I used Lee Kum Kee Black bean and garlic sauce, which I used to marinade the meat in (mixed with soy and sesame oil). Any vegies you like can be used, cook the meat first for about 1.5 minutes, in batches until seared but tender. Remove meat, then fry vegetables, again in batches and not for long. Return all ingredients to the wok and pour over a sauce made with black bean, soy and sugar. This dish is repeated often in our house as it is so quick and tasty.


This extreme close up is of my take on sweet and sour kangaroo. The sweet was in the form of fresh pineapple and the sour from the sauce based on lemon, malt vinegar, sugar, garlic, ginger and fresh tomatoes. Coriander is a good final addition, and again, marinade the meat in either the sweet and sour sauce or just some soy/ vinegar/ water/ cornflour mix. The meat I sliced very thinly across the grain. I found the meat broke up a little in this dish, I may have over marinaded the meat, but Nathan liked the texture of the shredded tender meat.


This was Sichuan salt and pepper roo, served with steamed Asian veg, rice and pickled radish from the yard. This was an absolute winner. I used the recipe for Sichuan beef from Kylie Kwong and served the Sichuan pepper and salt separately so everyone could put as much as they liked. The meat was super tender and as it had been stir fried on its own, really quick.


The pickled radish was pickled in salt and sugar for 40 minutes, the liquid drained and then tamari and sesame oil sprinkled over the top. I have done this with daikon too and I absolutely love it.

If you would like more specific recipes for the sauces, leave a comment but the idea is to make the sauces to taste with whatever you have on hand. I just love the versatility of Kangaroo; so far I haven’t made a bad dish with it.

And no I do not work for a Kangaroo meat company ;)

Kangaroo Recipes: Part 1

I have been quite tardy with the posts. Life seems to get in the way sometimes doesn't it? My apologies to my small readership ;)

I have been meaning to do a series of posts on my experimentations with kangaroo. Up until recently, my cooking with this native meat of ours was limited to the BBQ and spaghetti bolognaise and lasagne (which I have blogged, see recipe index). All fine recipes and a good substitute for other meats. Lately though we have been trying to think more about hip and up to the minute topics such as food miles, and sustainability. We could never be vegetarians but we are not the typical Aussie type who needs meat in every meal. I am happy with some sort of animal product once or twice a week. If my body needs more it lets me know through cravings.

It seems crazy that we are still farming beef and lamb, which may work in the European countries, but in this tougher land of ours, makes little sense in terms of farming practise in Australia, esepcially in the drought. These ruminant animals with their hooves rip up our topsoil and their four stomachs leads to copius methane production. They require large amounts of water, directly and indirectly through feed. With a figure of 25% of our emissions being due to our four legged friends, at home we really started to feel that this type of meat should be a luxury or once in a while thing, rather than a weekly part of our shopping list.

Kangaroo, on the other hand is a relatively soft-imprint-on-the-land meat. Being mammals they do not produce methane, and are very light on the ground. Moreover, it is very hard to farm kangaroo, but much of our inland pastures are full of these transient creatures (which anyone driving at dusk in country victoria quickly finds out). The method of killing kangaroos, is considered humane - shooting (though is killing any creature ever 'humane'). There are estimated millions of roos in inland Victoria and NSW, and the farming requirements are pretty much nil, apart from needing liscenced shooters to kill them.

Apart from these 'lofty' reasons for eating roo, the mince is supercheap ($6-7 a kilo) and the fillets and steaks are comparitive to other meats. And importantly, they taste great, are low in fat, keep well in the fridge and are high in iron.

Having said all this, my mother would never touch it, considering it a 'dirty' meat and I think this perception is quite prevalent in Australia, probably due to years of kanga mince being sold as pet food. My understanding is that all kanga meat for human consumption is triple checked and export grade (which domestically sold cattle meat is not).

On to the recipes. The easiest way to eat kangaroo is to BBQ it! It is a lean meat though, so should be coated or marinaded in oil and whatever other flavours you like so that is doesnt burn. This is the mariande I most often use, but any other spcies or herbs may be used.

BBQ marinade

Olive oil

garlic

native or other pepperberries, crushed

lemon myrtle

parsley

Mix ingredients and coat kangaroo fillets for at least an hour. Bring to room temperature before grilling. Cook for 3-4 minutes per side, depending on the thickness, rest for 5 minutes, season, and enjoy. Do not overcook, this really does need to be medium at the most. Lemon is also very good in the marinade.

The picture below shows a meal I made for myself one night. I made a quick mushroom sauce with the steak and instead of potato mash i made cauliflower and parmesan mash, which was beautiful.

Shepherds pie and variations

Kangaroo mince goes absolutely beautifully in shepherds pie. I use this recipe with modifications. One is that I obviously use kangaroo mince, the other that i had a spoonfull of vegemite and of curry powder to the mince. The shots below show two different accompanying salads. One was a grated carrot salad which is a staple in this house, and the other was a salad that involved some cherry truss tomatoes, roasted.

I have also experimented with topping with a pumpkin/ potato mix mash and this is just lovely. There needs to be at least one potato in the mash or else it is too runny, but this can always be fixed by adding breadcrumbs.
I have also made a kangaroo stew. I used home-made chicken stock and seared the kanga before adding it to the mix. The stew doesnt need to be cooked for too long with the meat, but after 40 minutes, I found the meat was still tender (which can be a worry when cooking kangaroo due to its lean-ness) . I wont include a recipe as most people have a stew recipe they use.

Arabic Mousakka

I didnt know what else to call this dish. It resembles a Mousakka, but contains no bechamel or cheese, and is served with rice.

2 eggplants, sliced

onion

1kg mince

tomato paste

salt, pepper, mixed spices

pinenuts

2 potatoes sliced

2 tomatoes sliced

parsley

Firstly, grill or fry the eggplant slices

Brown the mince with onions and garlic and spices (mixed spices are good) until cooked and add parsley and pinenuts.

Lightly grease a baking dish. Arrange potato slices in one layer at bottom of dish. Top with one layer of eggplant slices. Place cooked mince on top of each eggplant slice and then top with another eggplant slice (like a sandwich). Top eggplant with tomato slices. Dilute a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste into enough water to just cover the dish contents. I also added a tin of tomatoes to the top, but this is not really necessary. Bake in oven for 30-40 minutes or until bubbling and fragrant

Serve with rice and salad

I have also been using Kangaroo fillet in Chinese style cooking, which tastes great! The quick stir-frying technique works really well for kangaroo and I have tried many different variations and haven't been dissapointed yet! More recipes to come in part 2... enjoy

A rainy day of baking...

The weather this weekend was crazy. On Saturday, we had rain, hail, winds, intermixed with bursts of sunshine. The wood heater has been going flat out all weekend. The 15000L water tank we plumbed into half the roof a week ago is now half full. The vegie patch is happy (and a little battered).

After looking forward to spring so much this year, I rather enjoyed this weekend back in winter. I nested a little, baking, and making soup, and filling the house with warmth. I ran out to the garden to pick some salad greens and radishes between downpours, but mostly took an easy weekend. I also fed some king parrots that used our deck as shelter from the rain…

So food wise, first up I decided to bake a loaf of bread in the neglected bread maker. We prefer to make bread using our own hands but it does take a lot of time. This sunflower and burghul wholemeal bread recipe came with the bread maker, and was easy and reasonably good for a bread maker bread. It was a bit heavy though, maybe my yeast was a bit old and maybe my flour was too (have gone and bought fresh everything now)

Nathan then decided to make Anzac biscuits. We used Belinda Jefferies recipe from ‘Mix and Bake’, and the results were fabulous. Anzac biscuits are so easy to make, and were perfect for this rainy weekend (and for morning teas during the week if Nath doesn’t eat them all)

Back to the bread maker, I decided to make pizza for dinner. Using the recipe from the instruction manual, two thin based pizzas were made with absolutely no effort. The base is not as good as the base I prepared by hand using Maggie Beers recipe for the pissalidiere but it was reasonable.

For toppings I decided to try one of our favourites – potato and rosemary. I also dropped some garlic on it and drizzled a fair bit of olive oil and salt, and a little parmasen. It was pretty good, but would have been better if the base was better.

The other pizza was a tomato based pizza with pancetta, mushrooms, olives, sundried tomatoes, artichoke and mozzarella/ parmesan to finish. This was pretty good and not too heavy which was nice.
I served these with a fennel and anchovy salad.

Much too much baking for one day, and I am all carb-ed up now, but it was just what we felt like! Hopefully the next two weeks will fill our tank up so we can set the drip irrigation going for the vegies. So far we are just harvesting the quick green leafy vegies and radishes but the longer growing plants are looking good (apart from some pest problems).

Kefta Bil Tahini

This is comfort food for me that reminds me of my childhood. It could probably be compared to ‘rissoles and mash’ if it had to be but it tastes much much better!

This translates to Kefta with tahinin; kefta being a mince meat ball (also known as kofta in other cultures)

It is a very simple dish, the only tricky part being making the tahini sauce, but if you follow the instructions, it should be fine. Serve with steamed basmati rice and a salad.

Sorry i dont have a photo fo the served product - we were all too hungry to wait for a photo!

Kefta bil tahini (serves 4)

Kefta

500 grams mince meat (lamb or beef)
1 onion, diced
1 tomato, finely diced
Bunch of parsley, diced
1 egg
Breadcrumbs
Cumin, coriander, mixed spice
Splash of Tomato sauce
Mixed spices, salt and pepper to taste

Tahini sauce

2-3 tablespoons of tahini
Juice of 1-2 lemons, to taste
Water
Salt, pepper
3 Potatoes, sliced 1cm thick
1 onion, sliced thinly

For the kefta, mix all ingredients with your hands, adding enough breadcrumbs to make the mixture hold shape. Refrigerate the mixture for 30 minutes to give it more hold. When ready to grill, preheat grill to 180C and roll the mixture into balls (about 2 tablespoons worth per ball). Flatten slightly and grill on both sides until cooked.

For the tahini sauce, put the tahini in a small bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of water and beat into the tahini well, until it stops being lumpy and forms a smooth paste. Add another table spoon of water and do the same thing. If you skip this step, when you add the rest of the water, the tahini will coagulate and form a lumpy mess. Add the lemon juice, mix well and then add about 1L of water, stirring well to for a nice sauce.

Arrange the potato slices on the bottom of an oven proof dish (such as a lasagne dish). Top with sliced onion and cooked kefta. Pour sauce over and make sure it covers most of the kefta. if it doesnt, add more water.

Put into an oven at 180C for about 30 minutes (covered with foil), or until the liquid is bubbling and it smells good.

Serve on rice

yummmmmm

Why the Italians invented pasta machines...

They only cost around 30 dollars. So why didn't I get one?

Oh no, I really want to make pasta from scratch. What was I thinking?

After having a lovely pea and parmasen ravioli at Ladro a few months back, I couldnt get it out of my mind. I had to make it for myself! And luckily, the recipe was online at the Gourmet Traveller website!

Apparently there are ravioli cutters too. All this would have made my life much easier. It was actually a rather easy recipe, apart from the actual rolling of the dough and filling the ravioli. My problem lies in the fact that i dont have a very good rolling pin, and i couldnt roll it thin enough. Also, I ate too much of the filling while I was making it and so made myself sick of it before dinner even arrived. Sigh

Having said all that, after serving it with a butter and sage sauce, my husband had nothing but praise for it. I couldnt enjoy it. I think there is still a bag of it in the freezer.

You win some, you lose some.

Pissaladière

I was first introduced to Pissaladiere by a French friend who brought some to a picnic. I was hooked! What is there not to like in a pizza which is covered in slow cooked onions, anchovies and olives? (I may have eaten much more than my fair share that day!) While travelling in France we came across it in the bakeries in Nice, and dragged ourselves away from their baguettes long enough to purchase a few in our travels.

So, I decided one Saturday that I had to make some myself. I didnt have a set recipe (which is what i do all the time), i knew the topping was basically slowly cooked onion with some thyme, salt and pepper and then topped with the anchovies and olives. For the base i used a recipe from Maggie Beers massive cook book for flat bread. The base can also be a shortcrust style pastry, depending on your mood. As I begun though I noticed I only had spelt flour so it became a spelt based pizza. This was not a problem in itself though it was a bit more difficult to knead and I had to call in the master kneader (Nathan) to finish it off for me.

And the result? Fantastic! The spelt probably made the base heavier but this wasnt a problem at all, with it being crispy and chewy and a perfect base for the onions. i had too much dough and not enough onions so one pizza ended up with an olive oil, garlic and rosemary topping which we ate straight out of the oven with more oil drizzled over it. mmmm

Simple Meals – Sticky chicken wings

I love a simple meal. This is a super easy recipe I got from Bill Granger’s Holiday. I imagine it would be a great family pleaser -at least I know I would have liked it as a kid. I probably won’t be making it too often due to my new diet (weddings, holidays and winters are not good for my waist line). I did change quantities etc so will give a very general outline of the recipe I used – it is quite robust. If you can, marinade it the night before so you can just pop it into the oven, but I didn’t marinade it and it still worked out well.

Chicken wings (4 per person)
Soy sauce
Sugar
Mirin (Japanese wine)
Ginger - grated
Sesame seeds

Combine soy sauce, sugar, ginger and mirin until sugar dissolves. Marinade the wings for as long as you like. When ready to cook, lift the wings out of the marinade and place in a deep roasting dish and roast for 40 minutes at 200C, turning once.

Meanwhile, reduce the marinade by about half on the stove.

After 40 minutes, pour the reduced marinade over the wings. Bake for another 20 minutes. Sprinkle sesame seeds and bake for another 5 minutes. The wings will get quite dark and sticky.

Serve with soba noodles (dressed with soy and mirin) and some steamed green veg.

On another topic, I had stewed broad beans for the first time this year last week. Spring really IS here! At last! I am already wheeling out the barbie and the salads...

Aglio Olio

Not the Beastie Boys EP. Aglio = garlic Olio = oil

We had been meaning to make this pasta dish since we got back from Italy. For some reason, we kept putting it off until one night we had an empty fridge apart from a sad looking bunch of parsley. And OMG, we are such fools for not doing this earlier.

It doesn’t get ANY simpler than this. And it tastes great. I thought it would be really fatty as the ‘sauce’ is basically olive oil, but I don’t think we actually used copious amounts of this. I made a salad to go with it to make it feel like a more complete meal, and bread is a must to wipe up the bowl.

Aglio Olio (serves 2)

Olive oil
Half a pack of good quality dried spaghetti
6 or more cloves of garlic, sliced thinly ( i thik we used more)
Chilli flakes
Salt, pepper
Finely chopped parsley
Good quality parmesan to serve

Fry the garlic in oil on a low to medium heat, covered and stirring occasionally. It takes about 15 minutes to get golden, caramel-ly garlic (be careful not to overcook).


Meanwhile bring a pot of water to the boil, salt well and cook spaghetti until al dente.
Drain the spaghetti and add to the pan and toss with oil and garlic. Add the chilli, salt and pepper and parsley. Serve with parmasen. Eat. Enjoy.

Action shot!

My winter of (fat) contentment

The installation of our slow combustion wood heater has had a few negative impacts.

The first is that it is now very hard to leave our house on the weekends. Example one. Lets check out Movida next door tonight. Actually lets eat something from the freezer and stay in front of the fire and watch Buffy DVD's. Example 2. it is raining and howling outside, should we a) go to the gym or b) curl up with a good book in front of the heater?

The other rather bad impact is that eating and sitting in front of the fire seem to go hand in hand. Why, I am not sure but it might help explain the sudden weight gain. Sigh. And now I can take that one step further and combine the heat from the fire with the actual cooking of food! Just like in the good old days (which were not actually my good old days, but you know what I mean).

After reading Neils post on jacket potatoes in his fire I was just itching to try it in my fire. Unfortunately it worked too well and I am now blaming him for my weight gain. Ok that is probably not fair and my husband is loving the whole potato in the fire thing so I really should be thanking him.

The winner so far has been serving the potatoes with a slow cooked chilli con carne. I made way too much of it and froze some batches so we have been pulling it out for easy dinners. So easy! And gives me more time to watch Buffy. I didn't say that. We have also popped some spuds into the fire to have with roast chook and just for snacks. All good!

The recipe below is rough and I probably added more stuff to it (as I usually do) but it is a hardy recipe, and using cheaper cuts of beef is the only way to go here as they tenderise with long cooking times and allow a richer flavour to develop.

Chilli Con Carne (makes a fair bit)

1kg chuck steak
diced onion

crushed garlic

diced carrot

diced celery

diced leek

ground cumin

ground corriander

cardomen pods, bashed lightly

bay leaf

cinnamon stick

chilli powder and fresh chilli (to taste)

tinned tomatoes

frozen corn

tin of red kidney beans

salt, pepper, etc

Basically, gently saute the onions, carrots and leaks in some oil, add the spices and fry for a few minutes until fragrant, season, add tomatoes and stock/ water. Bring to simmer and add chuck steak (not diced) and simmer gently for 2 hours or until tender. At this point, i remove the chuck steak and shred with 2 forks before returning the meat to the pot with some corn and kidney beans and simmering for 10 more minutes until cooked.

Serve over potatoes, in a burrito or over rice and with guacomole, sourcream and grated cheese. Eat in front of fire and follow up with chocolate. Or worse, a chocolate pudding.

For the potatos, we pierced them with a fork a few times, wrapped them in foil and put them at the front of the fire box (not in direct flame). After about 40 minutes we put them directly over the coals for 10 minutes so that the potatoes develop a nice jacket. And dont have the fire roaring as you dont want to incinerate the spuds.

I need to take a better photo of our fire but you can see the two big foil wrapped spuds in the left front corner there. mmmmm spudy goodness.

I am going skiing at thredbo next week and have been coming up with meals we can cook for 7 people (hungry after a day of skiing) that is easy and nourishing to cook. so far i have come up with spag bog (with kangaroo mince of course), a chicken stirfry, a veg curry, a dahl and some frozen soups for lunches. Any other ideas for good dinners that are simple and scaleable for many hungry people?

Winter Beetroot Salads

I am in love.

My love is sweet as can be, tasty, versatile and knows how to make me feel better when winter is getting me down.

My love does have one fault though...

Purple stains.

Not that that is so much of a problem. Unless you want to go out after dinner and have to explain to people why your hands have strange purple stains all over them.

I cannot believe that up until about 2 years ago, my only real exposure to beetroot had been of the canned variety. Not that the tinned beetroot doesnt still have its place on the salad sandwich, but I didn't know how much better it could be.

My beetroot education started off with roasting it along with other tubers for roast dinners. It then grew to beetroot curries (is there anything more dramatic than a very purple curry?). Then I discovered salads, and I havent looked back. Until I also discovered that the leaves of the beetroot were also edible and tasted great in salads.



This one is simple. Roast baby beets covered in foil for about 20 minutes or until soft. Peel off skin with fingers (I suggest gloves at this point). Cut in half, and add to the leaves of the beetroot if they were in good condition (or else use other salad leaves such as rocket). Add sliced red onion, raosted walnuts and goats cheese or fetta. The salty cheese works very well with the sweet beetroot. Dress with a vinegar/ oil combo. I love macadamia oil and red wine vinegar at the moment.


Apologies for this terrible photo. I would never have attempted grated raw beetroot if it was not for my food processor. Basically, grate beetroot (sans skin) and then add to a bowl with olive oil, red wine vinegar, and the rind of an orange. Sit for 20 minutes for the flavours to develop. I then add chopped parsley, any type of roasted nut, salt and pepper and often a cheese of some sort too, though it doesnt really need any of these additions. Goes great with roast chook or fish and well, anything actually.

I have been treating myself to organic beetroots lately - I figure I can get two uses out of them (leaves and bulb) so really it is worth it to get the best looking stuff I can, right?


SO what do you guys out there use beetroot for? I have not been brave enough to try the soup version yet.

What to do with a box of….

Part 1: Apples

I love buying things in bulk. Not only is it cheap, but it forces me to come up with new ways to use things. One Saturday we were driving around some of the local farms and came across one selling a box of granny smith apples for 5 bucks. My husband couldn’t resist and hey, it was a bargain! What I love is that these apples didn’t have that waxy coating that so much fruit has these days. It might make it look shinier and prettier in the supermarkets, but what the hell am I eating?

You can see the box in the background there with my fabulous apple corer in the foreground. Now, one may accuse me of having some unnecessary items in my kitchen, but I don’t think that my apple corer/ slicer is one of them. Yes I don’t use it all the time, but you try coring, peeling and slicing apples by hand, and then try a whole box, and you will understand why it is useful!

The original idea was to use it for juicing and as snacks in our lunchboxes, but we were not getting through them quick enough. So we had to use our imaginations a little…

So the first thing I tried was making an apple and pecan crumble cake. This recipe was taken from ‘Mix and Bake’ by Belinda Jefferies.

It was an olive oil based cake with pecans throughout the cake as well as on the crunchy topping. Nathan thought the crunch had a strange consistency but I didn’t mind it. The recipe did say to put it in a bundt tin which I didn’t have so I used a round tin. It needed a much longer baking time and I was still unsure if it could have done with a bit longer, but the olive oil keeps it very moist.
The next thing I made was apple and walnut muffins. These were based on Stephanie Alexander’s general recipe for muffins to which I added a grated apple, cinnamon and walnuts. The preparation takes about 10 minutes and then the baking 25 minutes. I love easy recipes like these!

Towards the end of the box, we still had a lot of apples left and they were starting to get a bit floury for eating. At this point some friends of ours loaned us the use of their dehydrator. Basically a load of trays with a heater and a fan, we loaded up the trays with cut apples (dipped in a lemon bath to stop discolouration) and then left them overnight. The resulting dried apples then went into a jar which was snacked on. They would have stayed good for a decent time in the pantry, but we got through them in under a week (I’m pointing the finger at Nathan here!). It did occur to me though that if I had children, these would be a great substitute for lollies as they are sweet, tasty and completely natural.


So that concludes part one of my series of ‘What to do with a box of…’. The next instalment will be carrots – some friends and I went halves on an organic box of carrots (20kg for 25 bucks) and we are still making our way through it…

I have my eye on the neighbours lemon tree which is so full the poor thing looks like it will collapse under the weight of all the lemons, and they don’t even use them!! They have just moved in and I haven’t introduced myself and am feeling a little reluctant to do so as they also just got a new dog which they don’t give enough attention too so it spends all day tied to the deck crying. I love dogs and don’t think people should get dogs if they don’t intend to give them the attention they need (and no we don’t have one for that reason).

But those lemons! I want to make preserved lemons, lemon curd, lemon tart, marmalade and of course use it for juicing. I have to find a box of lemons for 5 bucks somewhere… anyone?