Royal debacle

In the Garden:

The ongoing intermittent rain and sunshine has seen excellent growth in the garden – Broad beans, brocolli and shallots growing particularly well – with broadbean shoots over 15cm tall.

Following a suggestion from Gardening Australia on the ABC,  6:30pm Saturday night, I popped some 5cm roots of spring onions in the ground and they are already shooting new growth, with in a few days of planting - should have new spring onions to use in no time...

In the kitchen:

I'm preparing a royal wedding mini feast:

But before getting to that, I'll introduce myself using my royal title:

Lady Maria Tiger of Richardson, please to meet you...

(Royal title: Lord/Lady {A grandparent's first name} [First pet's name] of (First street you lived in))

In honour of the thousands of strawberries to be consumed in London, in concert no doubt with litres of champagne, we are having a strawberry and basil salad, served with mini hotdogs (the latter requested by the 5yo).  This excellent menu is surely glamourous enough to reflect this sophisticated event.

http://desertculinary.blogspot.com/2005/05/strawberry-basil-salad-with-balsamic.html

For the salad, the onion, lettuce and basil come from the front garden:

Lettuce is growing well too – if you don’t have much space, I’d recommend buying lettuce seedlings, you can get 6 various plants in a punnet for~$5 from most nurseries and they’ll grow in containers – and unless you want to feed an army, you won’t need to buy lettuce leaves again for sometime…

Food revelation of the week was pearl couscous - much larger than normal couscous, and far more delicious, on sale at Coles in 250g packages, near the pasta, I used the this recipe for a quick weeknight meal: http://figjamandlimecordial.com/2011/02/02/moghrabieh-2/

I used the 250g of couscous, plus 2 cans of chickpeas, plus spinach and would use a red capsicum next time too for colour - I highly recommend trying this, you won't be disappointed.

***

I had a few WTF moments this week, when people said things along the lines of:

'What am I going to do with these Easter eggs?'

'Eat them, !@#$%' was my immediate but silent response. They went on to explain some eggs given to them were of dubious quality - I suggested using them in chocolate chip cookies, but they were being thrown out.

I don't think Easter eggs are the best idea, given small qualities of chocolate all individually wrapped, creating a lot of waste in itself, but them to dispose of them in full speaks of being even more wasteful again...

Today, I visited my parents where we had afternoon tea, of chickpea brownies, made with low quality Easter egg chocolate, with lots of tiny eggs painstakingly pealed by my dad.  

http://frontgardenvegiepatch.blogspot.com/2011/02/seeds-of-change.html

The brownies turned out beautifully and were a great use of the chocolate that may otherwise have gone to waste.  (There were also Anzac biscuits in honour of 25 April.)  Bravo mum, meeting the culinary challenge of Easter egg chocolate usage with aplomb and making an excellent afternoon tea.

Happy Easter

In the kitchen - for Easter, we made sugar cookies and iced them, with a cookie recipe and icing technique as taught by http://sweetopia.net/.

The only changes made were that:

• For our royal icing I used 2 egg whites mixed with ~400g of icing sugar to get the appropriate consistency - This would change though on the size of the eggs you use, so it is worth reading her blog on the 10 second consistency check for icing to get it right...  When I needed to make the icing more runny, I just added some water.
• For piping the icing, I use oven bags with a tiny cut made in the corner to squeeze the icing out - cheaper and easier to find at the shops than traditional icing bags.

The sugar cookie recipe is super super sweet, even by my sweet tooth standards - next year I'll convert back to making gingerbread cookies, but will ice them this way again...  Happy Easter!

Winning

This week, we went on holiday... I'd wanted our 5yo son to see some of 'Australia' and so, we set out to take in the Great Alpine Road and some of the Lakes Coast - A 'family adventure' that I'd highly recommend.

On the road - 

Despite incessant rain, we managed to have fun, singing in the rain along the Bright railway walking track and visiting various delicious cafes and bakeries in our travels.   We all enjoyed a few local museums - the Bright Museum is situated in the old railway station, with various displays of historical clothes, toys, town history and gold rush made in a series of train carriages and trucks.  For a train crazy 5yo, it was heaven and we spent ages playing at travelling through time, visiting an old Chinese temple and the Police Cells, a turn of the century laundry, kitchen and drawing room.  The Omeo museum had a log cabin gaol which was apparently in use until 1981 - breezy in winter I'd expect.

  

We left Bright in heavy rain, and drove along the Great Alpine Road to Hotham, through Harrietville.  It was disconcerting to see how much of these little towns were for sale, most of Beechworth, a lot of Bright and  Harrietville seemed to be on the market.  As we drove up the winding roads, clouds settled over the road and wind blew mist in and out of our vision.  The mountain was snow covered, sleeting, bitter and slippery.  The desent on the other side was less severe, with the snow clearing quickly and the roads less windy.  We broke the drive in Omeo which was great.  The bakery had excellent pasties, with buttery, melt in your mouth pastry and rich hot chocolate.  The local museum was again a source of fun and we also visited the cuckoo clock shop - the 5yo had never seen one, so seeing lots chime the hour was big thrill.

To make the drive pass more easily, we listened to a talking book from the library 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire', excitingly read by Stephen Fry.  The Bright Op shop had an excellent window display of Harry Potter, complete with Harry, Ron, Hermoine dollies, a handmade Hogwarts express and a house elf Dolby, made from stocking and stuffing..  The talking book was 18 discs long, and I was very glad as we listened to this for the full trip that I had chosen this ahead of Bumageddon by Andy Griffiths.  Not sure I could have stood that.  I was not sure how much effect the book had on the 5yo until just now, when I walked into the kitchen and he jumped out holding a stick, yelling 'STUPIFY!!!'  I was suitably rendered stupid.

At one point during the drive, clouds gathered and the skies darkened, and I noticed a signpost indicating that we were passing through 'Hell's Point', quickly followed by 'Evil Stream'.  I stopped looking at signposts when we drove passed the confrontingly named 'Red Knob'.

In the kitchen this week:

Baby food central - with poached fruit, soups and veggie custards at the fore.

Prior to the holiday I went into holiday mode and I'd cooked only once and rolled out the same meal in various guises as follows:

Kangaroo Mousakka

1kg kangaroo mince

800g tinned tomatoes

Onion

Olive Oil

Garlic to taste

Stock

Balsamic Vinegar

400g tub ricotta

400g grated cheese

2 large eggplants, slice thickly.

Similar to a lasagne, the onion and garlic is cooked in oil, then the mince browned, the tomatoes and stock added to cover and then cooked for ~20 minutes, then balsamic vinegar for taste.

Then take a lasagne dish, place a layer of mince along the base, then eggplant, then dollop ricotta and other cheese, then the mince again, etc until all the ingredients are used....

We ate this as standard mousakka the first night.  

Portions were also put in the freezer for lazy nights.

The second night I blitzed up the mousakka with the hand mixer and used it as a pasta sauce, served with wholemeal pasta - with eggplant hidden in the mixture going unnoticed by the 5yos highly tuned veggie detector. This also doubled as baby food.

It is in the freezer, ready to return as a pizza topping...

In the garden - 

We returned home to find seedlings emerging, with broadbeans, spinach and shallots putting on the best showing so far.

On a happy note, in the kitchen this week also saw manic dancing after I found out that I'd won a hand crafted Easter egg from my favourite chocolatier Willie from Willie's World of Chocolate, as seen on the ABC - the Cacao Kangaroo Stroganoff being a winning entry for his savoury meal competition.  I like to think this means that my cooking is now of international standard.

Experimental

In our front yard this week, we finally were able to finish building the 4 new beds that replaced 2 larger, cumbersome ones.  When I say 'we', I mean Gnomeo, who did most of the work - many kisses for him.

The beds were planted out with broadbeans, peas, spinach, lettuce, carrot, parsnip, shallots, onions.  Beetroot, broccoli, leek and radishes are already well on their way...  Hurrah.

With the demolition of the old beds, we got a few potatoes and pumpkins from the huge vines that had grown.  After harvesting pumpkins, Gnomeo took a mower on the mulching setting to the vines, to chop them up for the compost, but was horrified to find that he had grated up a few largish pumpkins he hadn't seen earlier.  We called this 'The Grate Pumpkin Massacre' and will never speak of it again.

In the kitchen this week, I have been experimenting.

Most of my ideas were borne out of a challenge on Facebook from Willie's Cacao company to come up with a meal idea using Cacao...

My first thoughts sprang to a snack that I have been hankering after - Popped quinoa and chocolate sticks as seen on http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2006/03/chocolate_quinoa.php.  Imagine the flavour possibities as super foods unite!

My attempts to pop quinoa, in the manner of cooking pop corn resulted in:

• The popcorn maker smelling a bit burny, 
• Two burnt saucepans and an evil smell through the house,  
• A single popped grain of quinoa..

I haven't given up trying to make this, but I won't try again for a little while... Down but not defeated.

After experiencing the lovely flavours in Willie's mushroom risotto, my second thoughts went to

Cacao Stroganoff...  

500g kangaroo fillet (or beef, lamb)

500g mushrooms, thinly sliced

1 large onion

2 tablespoons olive oil

150mls sour cream

Pinch paprika

2 tablespoons grated cacao.

Stock

1/2 cup red wine

Fry up onion in oil
Then brown meat
Add mushrooms, then add wine and stock and cover and cook for 1 hr (more or less time allowing)
Before serving, add paprika, cacao and sour cream and stir through.
Serve with rice....

The red wine and cacao made a great combination - shavings of cacao over the top of the dish helped with the aroma as the dish came to the table, with cacao shavings melting into the sauce as we took the first bite...

I used kangaroo in the above recipe, because my husband won't eat other meat - and contrary to common  thought, it can be stewed, becoming tender over the longer cooking time, though you could get a better result with beef or lamb stewed over a similar timeframe.

It was delicious, though as I'm getting used to the idea of adding cacao to savoury food, I'm pretty sure it could add something to a lot of different dishes.

***
Regarding my tea party idea - we haven't started reading Alice in Wonderland yet, but I have some ideas in the works for an Easter tea party brunch...  For our reading, we will re-name Alice as Alan, if only to repeatedly mimic the clip below - 'Alan! Alan!!! Alan!!!!!!!!!!!!'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV6I1_o6vrY&feature=player_embedded

Down the rabbit hole?

This weekend, we are hopefully finishing off the last two beds of our new 4 bed veggie patch and then planting out the winter veggies..
Our favourites are BROADBEANS (eating raw and smashed with salt and ricotta on sourdough bread)
and SPINACH.


We have spinach already growing - and to avoid an attack from grubs as happened over summer, we have opted to encase the spinach in a mini hothouse/snail protector as shown below...

It is a 2 lt drink bottle, cut so we just have the cylindrical part, pushed into the ground.  It works well, with the plant thriving through some less than ideal weather and it remains untouched by grubby fingers or sluggy mouths. Nearby broccoli have been viciously attacked, so I need to extend my zones of protection.


ie I need more 2litre soft drink bottles.  We could all start drinking more coke (eeeiik) or could have a party and feed the visitors coke.


Which leads me neatly to my next thought.... Another party.


Like lots of people, I'm often inspired to cook as shown on tele cooking shows.  Last week, we had a three course cacao dinner party inspired by the tv show 'Willie's Chocolate Revolution.'  Afterwards I was exhausted, and have had made minimal efforts in cooking this week, resulting in fairly bland, boring dinners, with no new cooking ideas whatsoever.  (Though there is a particularly nice smelling kangaroo bolognese on the stove right now).


Until last night -  I was watching Heston's Feasts.  Until now, I've avoided the show because I didn't think that cooking food that was made to look like other food (which I incorrectly thought was Heston's whole aim) was particularly clever.  But I was pleasantly surprised as I watched him (and his staff of hundreds) prepare a Mad Hatter Tea Party, complete with special glassware, drink me potions, turtle soup and an amazing edible garden.


The closest I've ever gotten to being inspired to cook from a children's book was considering having a 'Very Hungry Caterpillar' Party for a toddler complete with 1 slice of watermelon, 1 ice cream cone, 1 slice of slice of swiss cheese, 1 slice of salami...  The Mad Hatters Tea Party was such a clever idea and beautifully executed, but what he chose from the book wasn't reflected in my memories of it- I liked the 'eat me' cookie and the caterpillar on the mushroom.  Which lead me to think that for my next trick, I might like to do a Mad Hatter's Tea Party as well, focusing on the bits that resonated with me as a child, which clearly won't be nearly as spiffy and sophisticated as Heston's but should be nice all the same... 


Let me know what you think?  Would you be interested in reading about my variation on this theme?  For my friends - you know who you are - Is anyone interested in being a white rabbit?


If there is interest, I'll get planning:


Step 1: Reread Alice in Wonderland.
I'll read this with my son, though he generally is not a huge fan of books featuring girls.  If he voices any protest, I'll rename Alice as Allan and we'll begin.


If there is no interest in this party, I'll throw myself down a rabbit hole and see what happens...

Cacao? Ca- NOW!!!!

Somewhere in the deep dark annals of a facebook server, a messenger conversation is recorded:
P: What are you doing for your birthday?
J: Nothing.  All my friends have babies and I can't think of anything baby-friendly to do.
P: Really?  I could do a dinner for you if you like.  Totally baby friendly.
J: Don't worry, I'll try to think of something.
P: I'd like to do it, if you'd like...
Somewhere in the deep, dark annals of my mind, an idea started to form. 


J and I are fans of a show on the ABC - Willie's Chocolate Revolution, featuring an Englishman's frenzied pursuit of chocolate production perfection.  Willie bounces around the world, visiting his cacao bean farm, producers, and building his own factory, all the time maintaining a manic pace and an incredible enthusiasm for his product - Willie's world-class cacao and chocolate.
Possibly the oddest thing about Willie is the way his pronounces Cacao - 
I've heard it said Ca-K-O, but Willie rhymes it with KAPOW! and says it with the same inflection as Batman, mid-battle with an evil villain.  KA-BANG, POW, PUNCH, CACAO!  Willie says that his cacao can be grated onto food to provide a new dimension of flavour and that there are many health benefits, including improved mood and energy levels and he has written a few gorgeous looking cookbooks...
Anyhow, we had talked about Willie and whether his chocolate and cacao could live up to the hype created.  So for J's birthday dinner, I decided to cook a three course cacao extravaganza to fully investigate Willie's Cacao and meal ideas.  And so our CACAO odyssey began.


Step 1: GET CACAO
I wrote to Willie's company to find who stocked the product local to Melbourne.  It was already too late to order it on line:
They responded promptly - Jones the Grocer at Chadstone.
Chadstone is a long way from me, but close to J who had gone there the day before and looked at the cacao area and not found Willie's product.

DISASTER 

Were we thwarted at the first step?

Yes - for about a week, things looked hopeless.
I considered using someone else's product but then pretty much lost interest in the whole idea.

THEN...

I stumbled upon Cacao Nation in Sydney Road, Brunswick.
I wondered into the shop, and perused the shelves, seeing cacao nibs, emergency chocolate supplies and then a light shone down from heaven and I found the holy grail - a whole shelf of Willie's products.  I may have cheered out loud, attracting the attention of the owner who enthused over Willie's product.  Cacao and a chocolate block in hand, I skipped home to look for recipe ideas.


Step 2: MENU PLANNING
I wrote on Willie's facebook wall:
P: Hello! I want to do a 3 course dinner featuring your cacao for a good friend who loves your show - what menu would you guys suggest?
Willie's Cacao Ooh, how about the Porchini mushroom risotto, then wild duck with chocolate & orange sauce, finished by the classic chocolate & espresso mousse?
Post your photos here too!
I don't have the Chocolate Bible book, but these recipes were available on line.  After looking through otherwise Willie recipes available on line, I swapped the mousse for the cloud forest chocolate cake - because it was a birthday party and thus a cake is required...
Starters: Porchini Mushroom Risotto
http://www.ocado.com/webshop/recipe/willie-s-chocolate-factory-porcini-and-chocolate-risotto/2523

• Using standard button mushrooms instead of dried

Mains: Duck with chocolate and orange sauce 
http://www.travelerslunchbox.com/journal/2005/6/2/new-world-kitchen-a-piece-of-meat.html

• J was tasked with getting a duck from China town (I couldn't face cooking up duck with fat splattering everywhere) and I made the sauce
• Served with green beans

Dessert:

http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/tv-show-recipes/willies-wonky-chocolate-factory-recipes

Come to think of it - this was also a gluten-free dinner party...


Step 3: THE BIG DAY
On the big day - Cooking started early, with the plan to reheat savoury dishes when guests arrived:
1. CAKE - I mixed up the cake per the instructions and placed it in the oven in a lined tin.

THEN $H!!!!!!T
DISASTER STRUCK AGAIN.

The base of the tin must not have been fully attached and in the heat of the oven, the mix started to ooze everywhere.  ARGH - I pulled it out and piffed the remaining mix back into the mixing bowl, with cake mix also slopping onto the bench, floor and me. I got another, smaller tin ready, and put this into the oven, whilst trying to placate a crying baby who woke up mid rescue attempt.
2. EMAILED PROGRESS REPORT to J:
    Chocolate covered cake.  
    Chocolate covered kitchen.  
    Chocolate covered baby.  
    Situation Normal.
3. CHOCOLATE AND ORANGE SAUCE:
I hadn't read the recipe through before starting and had a minor heart attack at the +40 minute cooking time - but all went well - a strange sauce for a wild duck...
4. RISOTTO:
I considered adding wine to stock to add flavour but decided against it after smelling richness of grated cacao...  
***
In the interests of science, I consumed a lot of the cake batter splatter from around the kitchen and ended up experiencing first hand the energy giving effects of excessive cacao consumption.  With a young baby and broken sleep, I normally need (though don't often get) an afternoon siesta.  On the big day, I housecleaned faster than a locomotive, and lept through the school garden clean up in a single bound.
Step 4: CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME
The meal began after the arrival of the guest of honour J, who was delayed by her incredible boss at her really wonderful workplace. 

STARTERS: MUSHROOM RISOTTO

The risotto was served with parmesan shavings and cacao sprinkled over the top, partly for visual effect and partly because I'd forgotten to mix it through.
The smell as the cacao heated through was incredible and the taste sublime.
Very different to the Jamie Oliver type risotto I normally make - I recommend it highly.

MAINS: DUCK WITH AN ORANGE AND CHOCOLATE SAUCE

Duck and chocolate combined?  Wouldn't richness upon richness be too much?

No, it was again incredible and beyond words to describe.  If I'd stepped on the scales this morning, I could possibly have provided some scary numbers.  Serving this with lightly steamed green beans was a good idea - the freshness and crunch was a good juxtaposition to the delicious  ooze of the duck and sauce combined.

DESSERT: CHOCOLATE CLOUD CAKE

HEAVEN.   
I thought the batter was lovely, but it was nothing in comparison to the finished product.
It was a very dense, mud like cake, gluten-free, moist and not too sweet.  
I now pronounce this the BEST CAKE EVER.


Overall, the party decided that Willie has definitely created something amazing, though eating 3 courses of cacao based meals was very heavy going.  I considered handing in the towel after mains but was urged on by my fellow diners.  It is something we would only do on special occasions, with a limit to maybe twice a year.
I'd definitely recommend having a cacao dinner party - for us, it was memorable, hugely good fun and an introduction into a new and surprising flavour in cooking.  


Some left over cacao is sitting in my cupboard, calling to me:
Eat me in a plum and chocolate sauce over a roasted kangaroo fillet...
Hmmmmmmmmmm...  

Treasure Hunting

Only Sunday night, my husband and I discovered that we had booked ourselves up for the next few weekends, and when we had otherwise planned to make changes to our front garden veggie patch - turning 2 large beds into 4 smaller, more accessible ones.  Realising we only had the next day (Labour Day) to kick off the work, we took some bad measurements in the dark to confirm it would all fit and started work the following day.

The before shot - plus some models in shot

Patch as it currently is..

When dismantling the existing beds we found some treasures:

• Thousands of bugs and snails that we punted away – begone evil doers - our garden is a snail Sizzler no longer.  If I was my Nona I would have kept them, fed them bran, then starved them and fried them up in butter.  Some delicious irony but not quite to my sensibilities.
• An eggplant – I’d thought that the plant had been overwhelmed by pumpkin plants..
• Lots more tomatoes,
• Found that 3 strawberry plants had created more new plants (21) than strawberries (10)
• And most excitingly, from the compost there was a little avocado tree, about 20cm high – hurrah!!!

The change isn't finished as we left one half bed in place to keep growing pumpkins - but things are starting to take shape.

With the eggplant and tomato sauce made in recent weeks I made eggplant parmagiana - the best and easiest vegetarian dish I know:

• Place the thinly sliced eggplant across the bottom of a lasagne dish, cover with grated cheese and sauce, then add another layer of the same until you run out of ingredients.
• Cook at 200 degrees for half an hour- top should be browned, the dish sizzling and the smell should waft deliciously through the house... 

It is  big week in the kitchen - Irish stew is bubbling on the stove and soda bread is in the oven for tomorrow's St Patrick's day feast, and on Friday, we are having a cacao kapow dinner party in honour of a good friends birthday - should be fun...

***

On a purely selfish note, if you feel like wasting time on the internet - vote for me 'Gnomey' on the Yates website (for every day that I've blogged there) so that I get heaps of votes and win somethingarather from Yates - coming second at the moment...:

http://www.yates.com.au/vegie-challenge/autumn-2011/gardeners/Gnomey

I would be forever grateful!