Time To Get Fishy

In our quest to get healthy in general, and specifically for our wedding, Mr Mel and I are using Dr John Tickell's book 'The Great Australian Diet' as a guide.

In the book Dr John recommends we should all take a leaf out of the Japanese culture and eat more fish. For Mr Mel that's no worries, he is a keen fisherman and loves fish, he'd eat it every night if he could. Whereas I'm a bit more of a problem child!

I do like fish, well some fish!  I grew up in a coastal town on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, crayfish weren't a delicacy, they were something our dad & uncles caught every couple of weeks, we caught yabbies in the dam, and our uncle would bring home a gummy shark every few months.  All of those I love, and as you can probably tell from the list, they're quite mild tasty sea creatures.

The fishy taste is what gets me, I know it will sound childish, but to me some fish smell like Kittie Cat!  Tins of Tuna make me gag. (see childish!).

Over the years I've expanded my repertoire so to speak, I'll now eat:

• Shark - preferably gummy, my fave fish to eat
• Barramundi
• Prawns
• Yabbies
• Crayfish/Lobster
• Swordfish

The problem now is Dr John recommends steering away from the predator fish ie shark, barra, as they can carry more toxins.

On Sunday while we were in Sydney for a family do we went to a fish market and bought prawns, barra, swordfish and salmon. (I'm determined to find a way to like salmon, it's so pretty!)

Last night we had our first fishy dish, a mild one to start with.

Kylie Kwong's Simple Fish Soup

Ingredients

• 1 bunch Bok choy
• 6 cups Chinese fish stock (we used 3 cups fish, 3 cups vegie to not fish me out!)
• 1 tablespoon Ginger julienne
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 400 g firm white-fleshed Fish Fillets cut on the diagonal into 1cm slices
• 75 g fresh oyster mushrooms stems discarded and caps halved
• 1 teaspoon Sesame Oil
• 1½ cups fresh bean sprouts
• ¼ cup coriander sprig
• 2 tablespoons finley sliced spring onions scallions

Method

1. Remove core from bok choy, cut crossways into 4, then wash thoroughly and drain.
2. Bring stock to the boil in a large heavy-based pot.
3. Add ginger, soy sauce and sugar and stir to combine.
4. Reduce heat, add fish and simmer gently for 1 minute.
5. Add mushrooms and simmer for 30 seconds.
6. Toss in bok choy and simmer for a further minute or until fish is just cooked through.
7. Stir in sesame oil and remove pot from stove.
8. Serve in bowls garnished with bean sprouts, coriander and spring onions.

Am pleased to report it was delicious, we added some noodles, and next time will add some chilli flakes for a bit of kick, but as my first fish dish of our new eating plan/lifestyle, it was a winner!
Would also be nice with poached chicken, but I won't tell Mr Mel that!

Thanks Kylie! (photo source)

I'll try to remember to take photos of our next fishy recipe attempts!

Till next time,

Great Australian Diet - Week 2

We're onto week 2 of our 91 day 'Great Australian Diet', and the good news is we're losing weight, the bad news is the soup we have to eat each cleansing day (weekly) is morphing into mouthfuls of razorblades.

First the good news:

Week 2
Mr Mel -4.2kg
Mel -3.1kg

Now the bad news, the kind of yummy soup we made for our first 2 cleansing days in week 1 (post here) has become almost unpalatable to us, yes we're being a bit woosy, but yesterday we both had it from lunch, I received a email from Mr Mel saying he couldn't face it for dinner, I was in the middle of my lunch and was thinking the same.

So for dinner, we froze the soup, and had fruit platter and shared a banana smoothie, not the letter of the GAD law, but pretty close.

It's working!

We're going to keep up with the weekly cleansing day, but just can't stomach the soup, we'll use the frozen leftovers for non cleansing meals, when we can add some meat/flavour to it!

All in all a good week, Mr Mel is walking for about an hour a day (including 1/2 hour on the treadmill while playing golf on the Wii!), I'm at Curves 6 mornings a week, loving it, and loving the company of the Curvey ladies :)

Till next time,

Great Australian Diet - Week 1

Mr Mel and I have been on the 'Great Australian Diet' for a week now, and happy to report we both have lost weight:

Week 1
Mr Mel -2.2kg
Me -1.8kg

The fist week happened to coincide with me having to travel to Victoria for my cousins engagement party, and Mr Mel heading for a boys day at the Golden Slipper in Sydney, both had a high probability of being blowouts diet wise.

However happy to say we were pretty good, Mr Mel more so than I (oops).  I only get together with my parents, sister & Aunt a few times a year, and my cousins a few times every 5 years or so, so it was always going to be celebratory, which in our family means eating & drinking!

Have to admit I did enjoy the nibbles of cheese & biccies very much, and the slice of pre-party pizza, ok slice & a half!  But I did restrain myself, moreso than usual!

Mr Mel also had a not too bad weekend, Chinese for dinner was his only blowout, along with a couple of beers at the races.

So all in all, what could've been a weekend to set our diets back to where we'd started, turned out to be not too bad dietwise, and great weekends overall.

Lifestyle's a better description but diet will do!

Today we're back into it, fruit for breakfast, fruit & salad sandwich for lunch, tonight we're cooking an Asian Noodle Soup. We poached 4 chicken breasts last week to use on sandwiches, and have 2 left, so they're going in the soup.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups chicken stock
• ¼ Chinese cabbage finely sliced
• 1 small Red chilli finely sliced optional
• 2 tablespoons Coriander chopped
• 1 bunch Bok choy shredded
• 1 tablespoon reduced-salt Soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon Fish sauce
• 125 g Hokkien egg noodles cooked
• 1 cup skinless Chicken cooked and shredded
• 1 cup Bean Sprouts
• 1 spring onion sliced

Method:

- Combine stock and cabbage in a large pot and bring to the boil.

- Simmer over gentle heat for 5 minutes or until tender.
- Add chilli, coriander, bok choy, ginger and sauces.
- Divide hot noodles and chicken between 4 deep serving bowls.
- Ladle soup mixture over noodles, add bean sprouts and garnish with spring onion.

Hopefully I'll remember to take a pic of the end result before we devour it!

So after a week we've lost a couple of kgs, but the main thing is the mindset, we're both enjoying exercising more (me @ Curves, Mr Mel walking twice daily), and we've got our heads in that all important 'we can do it' space that can be a struggle to get to and maintain.

Our looming deadline is of course helping with our motivation, but the overall feeling of not being so lethargic and heavy feeling, even after a week of moving more and eating better & less, is great motivation.

Till next time,

Chocolate Pasta - interesting!

We had Mr Mel's sister, her hubby & 2 girls up for the weekend, and as usual, all visitors regardless of how many times we've had them up, want to go to either Petersons Champagne House or the Hunter Valley Chocolate Shop, which by either divine intervention, or by the work of the devil, are housed side by side in Pokolbin.

We first went into Petersons but it was bulging at the seams, and the 2 little ones weren't enjoying the crowd, so we went next door the Chocolate Shop.

Mr Mel and I have been there probably 50 times, so we know just about all their stock inside out, however on this visit I spied a product I'd either not seen or not noticed before - Chocolate Pasta!

No not chocolate in pasta shapes, but pasta with coca mixed into it, the ingredients listed are wheat, cocoa, sugar and water (from memory).

Chocolate Pasta, made by The Professors Tasty Technology.

It was easy to cook, 1 litre of water bought to the boil, add a tablespoon of sugar, add pasta, boil for 5-7 minutes.  After 5 mins it was still quite tough, so I let it go until 8, probably 9 minutes.  No rinsing, just draining. Then scooped into bowls, and topped with vanilla icecream.

The taste wasn't overly chocolatey, more pasta with a hint of cocoa, similar to a chocolate sticky rice taste (yummo with mango, but I digress!).  The texture was still a bit tough, even with more than the listed time of cooking. Mr Mel, his sister and her hubby agreed, not something they could eat alot of, and seeings I had split the 250g bag between the 4 of us, it was probably a tall ask from the get go!

So while it was an interesting concept and something I'm glad we tried, I probably wouldn't buy it again, I might try another brand, but not in a big hurry!

Till next time,

40 Clove Chicken - delish

Mr Mel & I love to cook together on weekends, we cook well together, and have had some delicious dishes and some near disaster dishes.

A couple of weeks ago we cooked a Roast Duck, after visiting the Nulkaba Hatchery. On that same trip we purchased a free range chicken. And yesterday we decided we'd cook roast chook for dinner, so I went googling.

I recalled watching a Jamie Oliver show where he cooked a 40 garlic clove chicken, so I searched for it, and one of the links that came up was to a blog I visit daily, Not Quite Nigella, Lorraine from NQN has a brilliant blog, it's so obvious she's doing something she loves, and has found her calling, her niche so to speak.  I find Lorraine and her blog inspiring, and love trying her recipes.

So we got set to cook NQN's Roast Chicken with 40 Garlic Cloves, Mr Mel was a bit dubious at first, thinking 40 cloves would kill the taste of the chicken, but once he saw the photos on the NQN website, he was converted, he is a sucker for cripsy skin chicken.

We don't have an oven proof dish with a lid, so we used a baking tray with foil on top, and cooked the potato, pumpkin & sweet potato separately. We added thyme to the rosemary to pop inside the bird, as our thyme is growing madly, and needs to be used up.

Our oven is very dodgy, we have plans to replace it, but that's another story..... In any case the 1.5hrs cooking time, that I'm sure works perfectly in 'normal' ovens, meant 2.5hrs in our dodgerama oven. Even with adding an extra hour, the chicken was tender and moist, with a lovely subtle garlicy sweet yet earthy flavour.

We poured the juices from the pan into a frypan, reduced them, then added some gravy powder, and squeezed a few of the cloves, mixing them through the gravy. We served some of the roasted garlic cloves with dinner (3 each), and popped them out of their skins, they we scrumptious.  We've put the rest (around 25) into the freezer to use in future meals.

The end result was delicious, thanks Lorraine :)

Recipe - from NQN site with a few of my own tweaks

1 free range chook
1 lemon, halved
1 sprig of rosemary
3 sprigs of thyme
40 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
1 tsp oil
1 cup white wine - we used chardonnay
1 cup chicken stock
salt & pepper

1 - Preheat oven to 180c. In frypan heat oil, brown breast side of chicken until lightly golden. Lift out with tongs. Stuff chicken with lemon, rosemary, thymem and about 8 garlic cloves. Tie up the legs, our cavity was still quite open with legs tied, so we stuck toothpicks through the bum of the chicken into the lemon, to hold it down. Place chicken in baking dish, add wine & stock and remainder of garlic cloves. Cover tray with foil. Bake for 1 hour.

2 - After an hour remove the foil, brush the chicken with a light coating of oil, salt & pepper. Bake for another 30 mins, or until golden & cooked, our oven is terrible, took another hour and a bit, most would take 30 mins.

3 - Remove chicken from tray, pour the liquid and any 'bits' into a frypan, reduce slightly to remove some of the liquid, mix through some gravy powder, squeeze a couple of garlic cloves, and stir well. Reduce again until consistency you want.

4 - Serve with roast vegies, gravy, and a few extra cloves per person.

Till next time,

Our 1st Goat Curry

Mr Mel & I headed to the Newcastle Farmers Market on Sunday, our first time there, it's a great market, good variety of stalls, but not that big you're sick of it half-way round.

While wandering through one of the sheds we saw a stand for Booma Boers (goats) we had a chat with the owner, very down to earth guy, explained to us what the different cuts of goat are best for, and how he cooks it. So we thought why not we'll give it a go.

We took home 2 forequarter chops of goat, and hit Google for some recipes, there are heaps online, majority have a curry slant, so we thought we'd go curry, and found a recipe at http://allrecipes.com.au/recipe/10361/katch22-s-kid-khorma.aspx that sounded nice and looked like an easy convert to the slow cooker.

Happy to report that the curry was delicious, alot stronger flavour than lamb (stall man said it was due to lower fat content, because they're more active than sheep and eat a wider variety of plants).  The meat fell off the bone, and was melt in your mouth.

We added a bit more chilli than in the recipe as it didn't have a real kick when we tasted it early on, next time we'll probably add more of all of the spices to give it a bit more of a punch, but the base flavour was nice.

So goat is going into rotation in our house.

We eventually want to have a small farm and become as self-sufficient as we can be, raising goats for cheese was part of the plan, but now raising them for meat is part of the equation, yay!

Have you ever tried goat?

Till next time,

Poor Little Duckie

DP & I have driven past the sign pointing to Nulkaba Hatchery many times, saying we should check it out, well on Saturday we did.

It's a small farm, raising free-range chickens & ducks, when we drove in there were 2 big white dogs sleeping under a tree, apparently 'guarding' the stock.

As we turned the corner there would have been thousands of ducks sitting on the grass, under trees, wandering around on the grass. Near a barn there were hundreds of baby chickens, wandering through dust, and swimming in puddles. 

We pulled up, there was 1 other car there (they were buying chickens & related stuff to set up a pen at home), and went into a little room come shop. There was a wall of free range chicken, duck & quail eggs. Another wall of honey & jams (I had to resist the passionfruit jam). A feezer of frozen chickens, ducks & quails, and a fridge of the same.

We selected a duck & a chicken from the fridge, and a dozen free range eggs, totalling $31, which we thought was pretty good value.

We were hoping for duck breasts but went with the whole bird, as the hatchery is still waiting on Council approval to build a processing factory to sell breasts etc.

The owner of the hatchery gave us instructions on cooking the duck (our first), in an oven bag, slow and not too hot, because they're free-range they don't have as much fat as intensively farmed ones, therefore can't be cooked to hard.

We went shopping for fresh veg to cook with the duck and were set.

Now I don't know how much blame we can lay on our dodgy as hell oven (which we're replacing soon), our our cooking skills, but we cooked it at 180c for an hour in the bag, then out of the bag for another 30 mins.  The skin was kind of crispy in spots, but the meat (when we could find it!) was quite overcooked we thought.

It still tasted nice, but it was hard work to get much meat off the bird, we made a terrible mess of the poor little duckie.

The experience has probably scared us off cooking a whole duck again for a while, but we're keen to try cooking breasts on their own, we will not allow duck to be our nemesis :)

Till next time,

Lamb Shoulder (slow cooked).........delicious

My parents (Qld) and sister (VIC) arrived yesterday, for a weeks visit.  So Mr Mel & I thought we'd cook up a bit of a storm for a welcome dinner, especially since my darling mother still seems to think I'm cooking challenged!

We wanted something we could sort early, as we had to run around doing last minute cleanup/organising before they arrived mid arvo, and didn't want to be slaving in the kitchen after they arrived.

We went with a lamb shoulder & 3 shanks, in the slow cooker.

We had tried a couple of recipes, and while we love them (lemon & garlic one is delish), my parents, especially my dad, are country folk, so we wanted something hearty and not too fancy.

The recipe ended up being:

1 lamb shoulder, 3 lamb shanks (battled for a good 10 mins to remove the shank attached to the shoulder!)
6 carrots, peeled & chopped into 1cm chunks
4 stalks celery, chopped into 4cm chunks
2 onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed/minced
5 tablespoons passata
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
5 bay leaves
5 peppercorns, whole
about 3 litres of vegetable stock (enough to cover everything)

We put the carrots & celery in the slow cooker, on high.
Then sealed the shoulder & shanks for a few minutes, seasoning them with salt & pepper. 
Put the lamb ontop of the carrots & celery.
In same fry pan as lamb, sweated the onions and garlic till onion translucent.
Add the onion and garlic to slow cooker.
Then added the passata, worcestershire sauce, bay leaves, peppercorns, and covered with vegie stock.
Cooked on High for 4 hours, then Low for 3 hours.
We had to use a slotted spoon to lift the meat out, it was literally falling off the bone.

I made a gravy with gravox, water, and a few tablespoons of the stock from the slow cooker.

We served with mashed potatoes, beans (with honey stirred through once cooked & drained), and the carrots & celery from the slow cooker.

Dinner was a huge success, Mum was raving, and Dad who is a hard judge, was very happy, and everyone left a clean plate, with a few finger slide marks in the remnants of the gravy.

The bonus is we've all got a lamb roll for lunch :)

Unfortunately no photos, but will be cooking it again, will try for photos then!

Till next time,

Masterchef - Claire's Masterstock Chicken

Mr Mel & I are avid Masterchef fans, never miss an episode, and have tried several of the recipes from the show, incl Mushroom Risotto, Julie's Cheesy Lasagne, Pumpkin Risotto, Gary's Pork Ribs with BBQ Sauce.  On the weekend we decided to attempt Claire's Fried Masterstock Chicken with Chilli Caramel & Orange Salt.

Let's just say there is a reason why there are no other photos on this story.............................!!

I put together the shopping list, most things we either had or were easily sourced at stupormarket, except for the Sake.  Who would've known that none of the pubs in this small town (there's 7) would stock Sake!!  I tried all the pubs, BW&S, Coles Liquor, Woollies Liquor, and then finally found a very dusty bottle at IGA liquor.

Once I get everything home, we started getting organised, pulled out our biggest saucepan, and realised that it probably wasn't going to be big enough for all the liquid (600ml soy, 1/2 bottle sake, 4.5L water, oops!

So Mr Mel and I are standing there with the soy, sake, spices and 2L of water in our saucepan, thinking what are we going to do. Then I think how big is the slow cooker? Mr Mel gets it, and it's a 6L one, woohoo we think.

Reading the recipe it says bring the liquid to the boil, so we put the slow cooker on high, after an hour it's not even bubbling, so I ladle the liquid into 2 saucepans and bring it to the boil there, then pour it back into the slow cooker.

The recipe says keep it on a simmer, the slow cooker struggled to simmer all that liquid, but we put in the chook and gave it a little longer than the recipe.

We got the oil ready to fry the chicken, cut the chook in half, reading the recipe it doesn't say how long to fry it for, or what side to start on, just till golden brown, not overly helpful if never done it before.

So we put one half in skin down, one skin up, after 5 minutes of frying & basting (and my tshirt ruined from splattering oil), they're both going golden, we give them an extra minute, then take them out.

Mr Mel starts chopping up the first half, goes to chop the leg off and there's blood & pinkness!!  So back in the oil they go, another 5 minutes, they're very very golden, but no blood, thankfully!

We whipped up the caramel, salt (smelt lovely), bok choy & broccolini and after starting at 6pm, aiming for a 7pm dinner, we sat down to dinner at 9.30pm.  But luckily the wait was worth it, the chicken was delish, the caramel so sticky and yummy, and the salt very different, but moreish.

So I guess the moral to the story is, don't just check ingredients when cooking something new, check utensils also!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:)

Till next time,

PS am thinking of contacting Masterchef re their recipes, not the first time the instructions have been quite vague and confusing, they asked for 1/2 bottle of sake, how big a bottle are they talking? Ours was 720ml but you can get bigger and smaller. And the instructions on frying the chicken were a bit vague, and made the process a bit scary having not done it before.

Easy As Pumpkin Soup

Since meeting Mr Mel back in 2005, I have had to listen to his constant running down of the majestic pumpkin. Until he ran into my Easy As Pumpkin Soup......

My favourite is the Kent, probably because I grew up on it, our meals as kids were meat (generally chops), with potato, pumpkin & peas. Because both of my parents worked, I was the vegie prepper, and I loved it, I still love chopping/prepping food for cooking.  I would battle with the biggest knife we had (yes not the safest thing to do as a 10 year old on her own with younger sister), and would carve pieces from the whole Kent pumpkin. 

Kent Pumpkin, aka Jap Pumpkin

On Sunday morning we were up and at it doing some household chores, I was washing clothes, Mr Mel washing cars, Mr Mel called out what do you wanna do for dinner. I couldn't be bothered getting dressed more than I was, to go out, so searched through the kitchen. Sitting in the fridge was 1/2 a Kent pumpkin, and in the freezer some left over home made sweet potato chips, and some sourdough rolls from a few weeks back.  So I thought pumpkin soup, this was at around 11am, by 12pm we were sitting down having a delicious lunch, sooooo easy.

My recipe is:

• 1/2 peeled and chopped Kent pumpkin (about 3cm cubes)
• 1 sweet potato, peeled & chopped as per pumpkin
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 crushed garlic clove
• 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1 tablespoon ricebran or grapeseed oil
• 1 litre vegetable stock

- in a large saucepan, sweat onion, with garlic, mustard seeds & curry powder in grapeseed or rice bran oil, just till really starts to smell yummy, no colour

- add pumpkin, sweet potato & stock, bring to the boil, then reduce to simmer for 30 mins

- scoop out all the pumpkin & onion with a slotted spoon into food processor

- add a couple of ladels of left over stock from saucepan (tip out the rest, or freeze to use again later)

- blitz in processor till smooth

- pour processor mix back into saucepan

- on low heat, add 1/2 tub (I think it's about 125ml) cream, grate about a 2 teaspoons of nutmeg, add salt and pepper to taste, not too much cause add it in when serving too, mix it all together

- once all mixed and warmed through serve, with a crack of black pepper over the top, and a spoon full of sour cream if you like, we've had it with and without

- next day might need to add a bit of water/milk to thin it out, but not much, I like it thick, but depends on taste

I put my faith in the pumpkin and am pleased to report that my pumpkin soup has become a favourite of Mr Mel's, I've even got him eating pumpkin risotto, enjoying caramelised roast pumpkin, and sharing a pumpkin & goats cheese salad with me when we head out for dinner.

Conversion complete :-)

I've also made a lovely pumpkin soup grating then sweating the pumpkin, but this ones alot quicker.


Till next time,

Masterchef Mushroom Risotto - our attempt

Yes Mr Mel & I are Masterchef tragics, we watch it every night and cook things that catch our eyes. We've tried the pumpkin risotto from Season 1 (delish), and this season: Frangipane Tart (lovely but I'm proving to be pastry challenged), Pork Ribs (finger licking good).

Last weekend we tried our hands at one of the Master Class recipes, George's Risotto with Wild Mushrooms & Mushroom Powder, altho we didn't make the mushroom powder.

Here in our small country town the mushroom selection isn't huge, altho since Masterchef came along, have noticed alot more range in the fresh produce. The recipe asked for :

Slippery Jacks - we replaced with Swiss Brown
Pine Mushrooms - we replaced with big field mushies
Swiss Brown - we had, yay
Nameko - replaced with Buttons
Oyster - replaced with Shitake
Enoki - we had

We also made the mushie stock from scratch, we had to replace the Madeira (noone in town stocks it) with a liqueur Verdelho we had. The stock was really intense after it was reduced, very strong flavour, but I think it was worth the effort, plus I've never made stock before, so it was good to do it. We've frozen the left over to use with couscous/polenta.

We didn't have Carnaroli rice, so substituted with Arborio.

I really enjoy the process of risotto, it's good meditating time, just adding stock, agitating away for an hour or so.

The risotto was lovely and creamy, with a good gutsy flavour, the mushrooms for the most part were very tasty. Have to say the Enoki mushrooms were nothing special, if anything they were a negative in the dish, found their texture offputting, and their flavour wasn't anything to write home about.

Next time I'd definitely use less butter, G & G seem to love it, the mushies were swimming

Both Mr Mel & I agreed, we liked the pumpkin one better, we wouldn't rush back to cook this one again, but I liked the stock, so will probably make that again.

Oh and we had a go at making Scones too, the less said about that the better (think flat little round bread rolls!)

Till next time,

Mmmmm blackberries - update 6th July with photos

One of the blogs/sites I regularly visit is The Pioneer Woman, I long to one day have a property where we can raise kids and livestock, and I can spend alot more time on things I love, rather than working the 55+ hours a week I do at my job, where I end up squeezing in the things I love in the time left over.

Don't get me wrong I love my job (for the most part), but I do long for a simpler or should I say less job focussed life.

Anyway I digress, I was just looking at Ree's site, and on the right there is a lipsmacking photo of blackberry iceream being made.

Now while I admit to having quite a few weaknesses on the food front (remember I'm a tad over 'ideal' weight!!), I have an absolute obsession with blackberries.

I grew up in country Victoria, we had blackberry bushes on our lane, my sister and I would regularly come home from picking berries for mums jam with 1/2 a bucket and purple faces/tongues/hair (yes I was an albino child).

On the property Mr Mel and I will one day own, I will be planting some blackberry bushes, sure some call them pests/weeds, but I'll have none of it, they are delicious little bursts of goodness.

So the point of this post? On the Pioneer Woman site I've just found a recipe I will be making this weekend:

Blackberry Cobbler - it just looks divine, sure it won't help me with my 'Can We Do It' weight loss, but bugger it, I'm making and enjoying it this weekend :)

Not sure if I can post pics from the PW site, so here's a gratuitous shot of some gorgeously scrumptious blackberries.

I shall be back with photos & review :)

Update 6th July - Well I made the blackberry cobbler, only problem there were no fresh blackberries so I remembered I had a couple of bags of blackberries in the freezer, only to find when I was ready to start cooking, they are mixed berries, oops!

The recipe was ultra easy, I think using the still frozen berries was a bit of a mistake, they didn't sit up high in the batter like in the recipe photos, and sort of mushed and sunk to the bottom while cooking, so my photos look nothing like Pioneer Womans!

I whipped up some cream (yes not great for my weight loss challenge I know), and it was delicious, had a lovely crunchy top due to the sprinkle of raw sugar, and the sponge was tasty, as you'll see from the photos it didn't 'plate up' very appetising, but looks were deceiving!

I have printed the recipe and it's made it to our 'folder of stuff we like'  :-)

The cobbler ready to go in the oven, note the clumps of frozen blue/black/rasp/berries, I think they were the main issue with the end result looking a bit odd, and being a tad messy to serve.

The cobbler fresh out of the oven, it should have had little blackberries poking through all over, but they sort of mushed into the middle and bottom, still tasted lovely!

I actually liked the end look, found it quite organic looking, like a landscape :) A closeup of the centre.

And served up for a special treat for DP & I, the cream took forever to whip, but was worth it!

Thanks Ree, your recipe was delish :)

Till next time,

Where has the Spelt gone??

Ever since I tasted a magnificent spelt & mushroom risotto, cooked by the delicious Manu Feildel (of L'Etoile, Masterchef, Boys Weekend, My Kitchen Rules), at the 2009 Sydney Good Food & Wine Show, I have been trying to get my hands on some spelt to cook Manu's recipe.

Any excuse to include a pic of Manu :) or as Mr Mel calls him 'that bleeping French bleeper'

I always have it in the back of my mind, and whenever we're at a new stupormarket, market, deli, etc I'll go on a quick Spelt search.

Well it's almost been 12 months and I've not got my hands on a single grain of Spelt.

I rang a couple of wholefood suppliers in Sydney, and have just been told there's an Australia wide shortage, as the crop was much smaller than expected, that they're not expecting stock until November!

I'm heading back to the 2010 Sydney Good Food & Wine Show in July and will have eyes peeled for supplies of Spelt.

If anyone knows of any stockists (that have stock), please please please let me know!

For anyone who doesn't know Spelt it's a ancient grain related to wheat but with more/different nutritional values. It fell out favour in the late 1800's as it wasn't as easy to grow/crop as wheat etc. But thankfully it's on the comeback, it's a lovely taste, slightly nutty. While it contains gluten it is suitable for some wheat sensitive people. In some parts of Europe it's called Farro. 

Ciao for now,

Let there be light! Our kitchen improvements

We bought our house in July last year, and have whinged about the terrible lighting in the kitchen ever since, it has a ceiling fan with a light attached, more of a bedroom fan & light, a very mellow light. If you're washing dishes after sundown you have to hold each piece up to the light to see if it's clean!  Very frustrating.

Mr Mel & I love to cook, we cook together almost every night, and have a cooking storm weekend every month, as you'll see from my previous post :-)

So last week we bit the bullet, went up to a lighting shop at Rutherford, and after much toing and froing we settled on a new silver ceiling fan with a bright light, looks more industrial than bedroomy, and a 4 spot light silver rod type thing (excellent description I know!)  We will put the rod over the sink, with 2 spot lights aiming directly down at the sink, and 2 aiming along the prep bench next to the sink.

The sparky is at home now with Mr Mel installing them, very exciting, can't wait to cook in good light!

Our kitchen also suffers from a lack of bench space, so we had an island bench made. It's 1200m long, by 900m wide, with a 30mm overhang so we can fit stools under it. It has 3 drawers (soft close yay), and a pull out double bin. It's on lockable rubber wheels so we can move it around.

Our kitchen is currently an older style timber one, it's nice, but not really our style, so we spent a few months going through laminate and benchtop samples, we wanted to decide on our kitchen as a whole, so down the track when we renovate the rest of the kitchen, the island bench won't be out of place.

We settled on:

Benchtop - Caesarstone Almond Rocca, 30mm with a double pencil edge - http://www.kitkitchen.com/images/products/17122007235855caesarstone-almond-roca.jpg
Cabinets - Polytec Createc Cafe Cream Gloss - http://www.polytec.com.au/images/sambles/cafe_cream.jpg
Handles - Brushed steel
Floors - already done, they're a dark biscuit colour
Walls - already done, cream, with a dark biscuit surrounds

We got the island 2 weeks ago and have booked Hunter Valley Granite & Marble to install the benchtop this week.

So by the end of this week we will have lights, more benchtop & storage.  Very exciting!  Will post some pics once done, before & after kind of :-)

Cia for now,

The eventual rainy weekend menu

Well we headed out shopping early, and our planned menu, had a couple of couple of changes, due to what we saw at the butcher, and Mr Mel's 'feel' for the day!We ended up cooking :

Pumpkin soup - was delish, we bought a whole pumpkin, so did 2 batches, we had it for lunch today with some Morpeth sourdough, have a container in the freezer full, and giving our neighbour about 4-5 serves worth.  I do like a thick soup, so next time I might use a little less stock to see if that helps it thicken up a bit. It's a Campbells recipe from the Masterchef site, but we didn't use their stock, just made our own Vegeta stock.
The recipe is at http://www.masterchef.com.au/best-pumpkin-soup.htm

White Chocolate Panna Cotta - we'd never made a panna cotta before, it turned out well, but way too rich for us, due to not having rammekins (spelling?) we filled tea cups about 3/4 full, Mr Mel got through his, but I left just over 1/3rd. The recipe we used from the Taste.com.au website included a Rosewater Syrup, however living in a country town that isn't big on 'unusual' ingredients, we couldn't find any, so I made a syrup from a spare lemon & ginger teabag that was in the pantry.  The syrup was nice. Next time I think we'll try a plain vanilla Panna Cotta, to see if it was just the white choc being too rich.  Also had an issue not being able to locate gelatin leaf, so use powdered, and it seemed to work just as well.
The recipe is at http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/6911/white+chocolate+panna+cotta+with+rosewater+syrup

Pork Ribs with BBQ Sauce - After salivating through a Masterchef Masterclass where Gary cooked some ribs, we had to give them a go. Our butcher didn't have the specified 'Pork Spare Ribs', but recommended his other ribs, they were more 'Flintstoney' with a big curve to them instead of the neat flat ones Gary used. We didn't have time to marinate them for the suggested 3-4 hours or overnight, so ended up cooking them for about 2.5hrs instead of the recipes 1.5hrs!  Some of the ribs pulled out of the meat, and when cutting them to separate the knife went thru like butter, soooo tender.  After about 2 hrs, the sauce wasn't really thick and sticky, so I added about a table spoon of honey an another of flour, to add some more stickiness, and to help the sauce thicken up. We felt quite barbaric ripping into them with our hands, covered to the wrists in sticky sauce, but oh my they were magnifique!! They're definitely going on the party food list.
The recipe is at http://www.masterchef.com.au/braised-pork-spare-ribs.htm

Sambal Oelek - We are growing a chilli plant that just will not stop giving us chillies, it's ridiculous, we had a plastic bag in the freezer, plus some in the fridge, and some drying in the pantry. We haven't tried it yet, but it looks like the photo on the recipe, shall report back once tasted!
The recipe is at http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes/1034/traditional-spicy-sambal

Poached Eggs, Roast Potato, Capsicum, Chorizo, Coriander - We are cooking tonight for dinner, the recipe looks delish, and it's 5 things we love to eat, plus Mr Mel is an ace egg poacher :) Shall report back after dinner! The recipe is from a blog I follow Portugese Kitchen.
The recipe is at http://portuguesekitchen.blogspot.com/

Thanks to Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella & Portugese Kitchen for your comments :-)