Queen Victoria Market - day and night

Bana-nna-nna-nna-s
Two dollar kilos a dollar
Hett two!
Dollar bag! Dollar bag!
Dollar bag the banana
(Kay Cardell, Cries of the Victoria Market)

If I had to pick a favourite market, it would probably be the Queen Victoria Market. It is on the corner of Elizabeth and Victoria Streets at the edge of Melbourne’s Central Business District, and about 10 minutes walk from work. It is a market that I have been going to since I was a kid, that we shopped at when I lived in share houses and where I still shop when I get the opportunity. I thought I would tell you about the market during the day and during the summer night markets which have opened in the last few years.

The market was built in 1878 over part of Melbourne’s 1837-1854 cemetery. When the market expanded in the 1920s there were vigourous protests at the desecration of pioneer graves. In the 1970s the plans to demolish the market in the name of progress were passionately opposed. Today Melbourne has a thriving central colourful market with a huge indoor deli section and sheds full of fresh fruit and vegetables, sheds of cheap clothes and gifts, and the smelly meat and fish market that I always avoid.

By day, the deli, fruit and vegetable stalls open on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturdays. If you enter from Elizabeth Street you will first come through the indoor deli section full of counters of cheeses, olives, dips, breads, cakes, nuts etc. There are usually little tables of cheese tasting which helps you confront the endless cheese displays. I can recommend the watsonia cheddar and I have a soft spot for the colac cheese that we used to buy from the factory when I was a child. In the deli I often buy dense chewy loaves of sourdough and sometimes dips and falafels. One stalls sells divine olives stuffed with pesto. A great place to prepare for a picnic.

If you are hungry there is the falafel shop, some greasy takeaways and – if you eat meat – the best bratwurst sausage I ever had before I went vegetarian. You can get all sorts of cakes – as a student, friends of mine would come here just for the poppyseed scrolls. I recommend the bee-sting cake, especially if you have someone to share it with. There are tables and chairs outside the bratwurst shop where you can eat or be further tempted by the wonderful cheese and asparagus filled croissants of Le Croissants Les Halles. It is a lively place to sit and eat. If you can find a seat it is worth putting up with the buskers of questionable talent.

Colourful rows of all manner of fruit and vegetables assault your senses as you exit the deli towards Peel Street. On a hot day, the air is fragant with the smell of ripening fruit and vegetables. It is so different from the supermarket. Instead of asking questions of a spotty boy who is only concerned about pocket money for his itunes, you can discuss vegetables with people who care. If you gasp at the prices you can compare with other stalls to either find something cheaper or realize that it is a reasonable price. If you don’t like the size of the zucchinis or the state of the apples or what you want isn’t there, you move on to another stall. But when you get overwhelmed by the abundance of good food, it is good to have some favourite stalls to return to.

Walking about the fruit and vegetable sheds gives a good idea of what is suddenly trendy (kiwiberries), what is in season (fresh figs, mangos) and what is still only occasionally available because it is still considered exotic or odd (pomegranates, persimmons, dragonfruit, white carrots). Occasionally curiosity is a curse - as the prickly pears proved when I picked them up to inspect! And if you can’t decide there is the friendly rivalry between the stallholders who cry out for your custom – 'cheap as chips', 'very sweet cherries', 'dollar strawberries'.

A must-visit at the market is the hot jam donut van. I have been queuing since I was a child. We would get a big bag to share among the family. They have to be eaten hot as you stroll around the market. The crispy golden donuts are covered in sugar and have a soft yeasty interior and a surprise filling of hot jam that would dribble over your clothes and burn your tongue. I once went with friends who chose to go to the churros van instead which I found hard to understand. I still find the jam donuts hard to resist, even when the queues snake away from the van. These are the best jam donuts in the world.

The shop by the market I probably use the most, is Min Phat Asian Supermarket on Therry Street. It has every sort of noodle, flour, rice, dumpling, spice, sauce, dried legume I could need. In fact, it is full of lots of things I don’t need but I dream of cooking.

The market by day can be busy, especially on a Saturday morning. Shoppers and their trolleys crowd the aisles and are liable to stop suddenly when their attention is attracted by a pile of rosy apples, perfectly arranged green beans or glossy eggplants. But I can’t help joining the rabble, filling bags with produce, exchanging pleasantries with friendly stallholders, tasting cheeses and leaving with far more than I ever intended to buy.

By night, the Vic Market is a different place. I have been there on a ghost tour and it does have a spooky abandoned feel. But recently, some bright spark started a night market on Wednesdays. A few shed which are usually filled with general merchandise have food stalls down the side offering dinner, and the large space is filled with plastic tables and chairs and handcraft stalls.

This Wednesday was the last night market of summer and I managed to get along with E and my family. We were lucky to find a table because it was so busy. When I got my food, it took me forever to make my way through the crowd back to our table. My mum loves to share food and so I managed to eat my way through a selection of excellent dishes, without having to queue at every stall. Of course, I didn’t fancy my brother-in-law Steve’s crocodile burger, nor Andy and Erica’s sausages.

I didn’t get the proper names of a lot of dishes due to the crazy pace of the place. We started with some Ethiopian curries and a flat spongy bread. The curries were quite mild dahls – very mushy and comforting. Next was the vegie curry man’s Monsoon Wedding platter of vegie curry, rice, roti and two pakodas. This was very spicy but tasty. I liked watching them making the pakodas which were fried wedges of vegetables. Then I got two sweetcorn hotcakes (gluten-free) with tomato salsa, minted yoghurt sauce and guacamole. Delicious. Then came the sweets. We had to share some of the ubiquitous Dutch poffertjes (which Fran hadn’t tried but fell in love with).

Finally my dad and Andy went to the honey dumpling stall to get dumplings with chocolate sauce. Three bowls between the 8 of us was more than enough by this stage. They were golden fried balls with melted milk chocolate sauce over them. Absolutely delicious but we all decided we would prefer the jam donuts. (So you see my love of the jam donuts really is genetic!)

Once we were satiated by the food we wandered around the stalls. There were handbags, jewellery, clothes, African handcrafts, laughing witches to hang from the ceiling, dresses of vintage silk, bowls made of recycled magazines, tarot card readings, and fairy wings. Quiet different to the daytime wares. The atmosphere is festive with everyone relaxing as the night darkens and the stalls are lit up. Beers are carried about and people dance to the live music. We arrived home with a stash of baklava and fudge.

I am sending this post to A Scientist in the Kitchen for her event To Market To Market, which asks bloggers to share information about the markets where they love to shop for food.

Queen Victoria Market
Corner Elizabeth and Victoria Streets, Melbourne
Open Tues, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun
Check website for opening times
Tel: (03) 9320 5822
Web: http://www.qvm.com.au/

If music be the food...

When I was young, it was a treat for my dad to sing us songs at bedtime. One song went ‘My little girl, pink and white as peaches and cream.’ At school we had lots of song about food – I’m a Green Pea, On Top of Spaghetti, Mrs Murphy’s Chowder, Fish and Chips and Vinegar, Peanut Butter (sticks to the top of your mouth). We even did the actions to Oranges and Lemons – chippety chop, chippety chop, the last man’s head head head…off! Then on the television, Cookie Monster sang C is for Cookie. And the most popular song for primary school talent quests was the Village People's Milkshake.

So when Ellie Says Opa invited bloggers to write about food that relates to music, I thought it would there would be oodles of songs, albums and band names that related to food. But I was surprised at how few there were and I started to make a list in hope of inspiration. I asked E if I should check every one of our CDs and he said no. Probably wise, given at last count there were over 800. But both of us have spent time checking over CDs for my brainstorm. Finally, he asked when was this going to stop.

Tonight I haven’t time to write up a food post so I thought I would have a bit of fun and post the list of the bands and song titles related to food. Quite a lot are in our CD collection but not all. I have had a quick look on the web and found a bit of help from the Guardian’s Top 10 Songs about Food and a useful discussion thread on edible song titles. Given all our CDs and the resources on the web, this is not a huge list. (I did omit a lot of drinking titles and stick to titles with food in them rather than Food Glorious Food and Eat It.)

I then looked for album covers with food on them. Again, it was slim pickings. The Velvet Underground's banana is a classic. I unfortunately don’t have copies of Pulp’s Freshly Squeezed, Belle and Sebastian’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress or The Rolling Stones’ Let it Bleed. All these have foodie covers, so I chose an esoteric album with a foodie title instead (below) with a pretty cover.

But I am aghast at so little food in music. It doesn’t seem right to someone like me who eats most meals with something on the stereo (check out About Me Part 1 if you want to know more about my On the Stereo that I put at the bottom of most recipe posts). I think we need more food in music. But for now, hope you enjoy the list. Let me know what you think I missed out. And stay tuned for my entry to Ellie Says Opa’s Eat to the Beat event.

Bands:
Breast Secreting Cake
Cake
Cream
Egg
Fiona Apple
Hot Chocolate
Icecream Hands
The Jam
Lambchop
The Lemonheads
The Marmalade
Meatloaf
My Friend the Chocolate Cake
Pearl Jam
The Plums
Smashing Pumpkins
Sodastream
Sugarcubes
Tangerine Dream
Wild Pumpkins at Midnight


Songs:
American Pie – Don McLean
Blueberry Hill – Fats Domino
Bread and Roses – Victorian Trade Union Choir
A Can of Lemonade and a Pastie – Rob Clarkson
Candy Girl – Babybird
The Candyman – Gene Wilder
Cheeseburger – Gang of Four
Chocolate Cake – Crowded House
Chocolate City - Parliament
Chocolate Girl – Deacon Blue
Cinnamon Girl – Neil Young and Crazy Horse
Clementine Jam – The Grateful Dead
Cornflake Girl – Tori Amos
Corn Riggs - Magnet
Cream Puff War – The Grateful Dead
Crunchy Granola Suite – Neil Diamond
Eli’s Pork Chop – Little Sonny
Fish, Chips and Sweat - Funkadelic
Flute Salad – Gong
The Good Ship Lollypop – Shirley Temple
Halva – Cluster
Hamburger Lady – Throbbing Gristle
Honey Honey – ABBA
How to Make Gravy – Paul Kelly
Icecream for Crow – Captain Beefheart
Icecream Man – Van Halen
Judge Fudge – Happy Mondays
Mama Düül and her Sauerkraut Band Start Up – Amon Düül
Mashed Potato – the Wiggles
Milk and Honey – Sandy Denny
New Potato Caboose – The Grateful Dead
Pass the Peas – the JBs
Peaches – Stranglers
Peaches on Regalia – Frank Zappa
Pineapple Head – Crowded House
Pour Some Sugar on Me – Def Leppard
Pretty Hot Corn Girl – The Drunk, the Monk and the Spunk
Raspberry Beret - Prince
Roast Fish and Cornbread – Lee Perry
She Cooks Me Cabbage – Captain Jack Dupreee
Soup - Can
Savoy Truffle – The Beatles
She Don’t Like Jelly – Flaming Lips
Strawberry Fields Forever – The Beatles
Sugar Sugar – The Archies
Tangerine – Led Zeppelin
Too Many Sandwiches – Stereophonics
Why Don’t You Eat Carrots? - Faust

And finally, my favourite band Pulp has a great song for the end of the meal. It begins: ‘I am not Jesus, but I have the same initials, I am the man who stays at home and does the dishes.’ Or if you are our cat Zinc you just obstruct serious blogging at the end of the meal!

On the Stereo:
Jazz for Dining – Various Artists

Nigel’s leek and potato soup

Last week I made a velvety soup from Nigella. This week is Nigel’s turn. I found a leek and potato soup in The Kitchen Diaries that he describes as 'a velvety soup for a clear cold day'. It is not winter but it is cool weather for summer. The soup attracted me because it is a way of using up parmesan rinds. I have been trying to use more fresh parmesan lately – it does make a difference – and have managed to accumulate 2 rinds of parmesan. Now I had read about using it in soup but once I have the rinds I couldn’t find these recipes until Nigel’s presented itself.

I also have had an attempt at making my own vegetable stock. I had such success with my ginger broth last week that I was willing have a go at cooking and discarding vegetables. I mean, imagine how many vegetables are discarded to make up my tin of stock powder – they do use vegetables for that, don’t they?

On Sunday night I felt like a domestic goddess making casserole, muesli and stock! The stock was much less painless that some of my other encounters with stock. I once threw out a pot of stock my mum had made in the mistaken belief that it was dirty water soaking in the pot. She wasn’t happy. I was even less happy the time many years ago when I tried to make chicken stock and had a carcass with the neck flopping about to remind me I was handling a corpse. I was almost sick. Thankfully, I became vegetarian soon after and so never was tempted to repeat the experience. But I will be happy to make vegetable stock again, particularly if I need to use up vegetables like I did this weekend.

The soup was not quite as velvety as Nigella’s but it was very good. The leek and potato soups that I have had in the past have been very pale coloured and heavy with milk and cream. The recipe appealed because it didn’t have any added dairy apart from the parmesan rinds. It was more substantial and the colour of split pea soup, but tasty. E liked it so much he sang about it accompanied by his ukulele. He told me it was quite different to his mother’s soup which was watery with chunks of potatoes and leeks in it. I’ve never been a big fan of watery leek and potato soup. I liked that my soup was smooth without being too heavy.

The parmesan rinds amazed me how they went all soft and gooey. Nigel says to just scrape off the gooey cheese which sounds domestic goddess til you are faced with boiling hot cheese rinds. But once they cooled a little I found I could nibble more cheese off. I reckon this is the closest I have come to gnawing meat off a bone since I went vegetarian. So I was most pleased to have that experience without having some animal’s leg in my mouth (perish the thought)!

In a strange coincidence, the episode of the Mighty Boosh that we watched after tea had a very silly song with lyrics claiming ‘cheese is a kind of meat’. Well it is only to be expected from a show where you play on a pipe to summon the locksmith, get rescued from the jungle by mod wolves on scooters and the zoo is saved by grated cheese. (Hope I haven’t spoilt it for anyone.) Just shows what a difference cheese can make to anyone’s life.

I haven’t raved much about potatoes in the post but this is a great potato recipe. So I am sending this soup to DK at Culinary Bazaar where Yet Another Potato Fe(a)st is being held to celebrate the International Year of the Potato.

Nigel’s Leek and Potato Soup
(from the Kitchen Diaries)
Serves 4-6

3 good sized leeks
40g butter (or thereabouts)
3 decent sized potatoes
1.5 litres of light stock or water (see stock recipe below)
2 parmesan rinds
Handful parsley
1 tsp of salt and pepper mix (or season to taste)
Extra grated parmesan cheese

Wash and cut leeks into chunks. I wash them by cutting them in half lengthwise. Melt butter in a large stockpot. Tip leeks into stockpot, cover and cook gently for 10-20 minutes, until softened. Cut potato into chunks and add to stockpot. Cover and cook with leeks for 5 minutes.

Add stock or water, seasoning and parmesan rinds. Simmer 30-40 minutes. Remove parmesan rinds, scraping the gooey bits of cheese back into the soup (I had to hold it on a chopping board with a fork to scrape at the hot cheese rinds with a spoon. Maybe a knife would have been better for scraping.)

Add parsley and blend til smooth. Check seasoning – Nigel says you might need to be generous with seasoning but I wasn’t overly. Serve hot with a spoonful of cheese in each bowl and a good grinding of pepper.

Light Vegetable Stock
makes about 1.5 litres

1 onion
2 stalks celery
4 small carrots
½ leek
3 large garlic cloves
3 sprigs parsley
3 springs thyme
3 bay leaves
10 peppercorns
1.5 litre water

Place everything into a big stockpot. Bring to the boil and simmer 1 hour. Strain and discard vegetables. Keep stock in fridge for a week or freezer for a couple of months.

On the stereo:
Gather in the mushrooms: the British acid folk underground 1968-1974 – Various Artists

WBB Microwave Muesli

When I lived in a student household many years ago, we went through a phase of making our own muesli. We started following the recipe religiously and then began to throw in whatever we pleased. What made it hard was that we started to use a sweetner (malt extract?) that was very hard when cool and then got runny when warmed. It was not very sweet and probably came from the university food co-op. But it was so hard to work with that it took the joy out of cooking.

I have eaten muesli many times since then – when trying to eat well and lose weight, when not well and unable to eat much else for breakfast, and when trying to find a replacement for our beloved Alpen which is not available in Australia (unless you buy it at ridiculously inflated export prices from a British shop).

I have been seeing muesli on blogs lately and decided to dig out the recipe we made as students. We must have eaten quite a bit of it because I had upsized all the quantities in pen beside the ingredients list. Then I remembered why we loved it. When I moved into that household they didn’t have a microwave and I did. So it was a bit of novelty to be microwaving anything. Now I like the idea of muesli you can make without having the oven on, especially in summer.

But I also remembered why we started experimenting. It is a good recipe but like most muesli recipes, it can accommodate any whim or abundance. Of course I checked out some bloggers’ recipes for some inspiration. Wendy used flaxseeds and lots of sweet spices, Monika used flaked coconut and agave nectar (and she told me no when I wondered if I could used olive oil), Ricki used sunflower seeds and tahini. Tahini? To bind it and help form clusters. Maybe this replaces the oil? Sounds interesting but I gave the tahini a miss as I am not interested in clusters. In fact my recipe instructs me to break up clusters, which I am happy to do (although I feel a bit like a stern school teacher breaking up the fun!)

So the next question was: why did all my fellow bloggers call it granola. Were the clusters typical of granola rather than muesli? Over to see if Wikipedia can tell me if granola is the same this as muesli. According to Wiki, muesli is untoasted (‘dry’) or soaked (‘fresh’). Now, as someone who doesn’t like porridge, the idea of soaking oats is anathema to me, no matter how trendy it might be. Whereas, they say, granola is baked til crunchy. But I have always called that toasted muesli. Maybe it is because the name is no longer trademarked except in Australia.

As usual, Wiki answers one question and then I find all other interesting facts. Granola was revived in the 1960s and associated with the hippie movement. It even made an appearance at the Woodstock Music Festival. It is even slang to refer to hippies. Is this why Neil Diamond called his song Crunchy Granola Suite! Apparently conservatives in the USA occasionally called the left-leaning, granola to indicate they are mostly ‘fruit, nuts and flakes’.

I will still call mine muesli as I always have. I like it with stewed fruit, fruit juice or yoghurt, but never milk. This muesli is so good I am finding myself just snacking on a small dry bowl of it. It is crispy, crunchy, not too sweet and has explosions of tart fruit. One of my delights is using dragonfruit which is purple and seedy. You’ll find out where I got it soon. I also managed to use up some green dyed coconut that has sat in my pantry too long. Who would have believed I could get purple and green into muesli! Any grains, nuts, seeds and dried fruit can be used, so long as the quantities are roughly adhered to.

I am sending this to Suganya from Tasty Palettes who is hosting this month’s Weekend Breakfast Blogging. The theme is healthy eats and there will be an interesting round-up if her idly and sambar is any indication – check out the beautiful photos of the idly plates.

Microwave Muesli
(adapted from Alison Holst)

½ cup agave nectar
¼ cup oil (not olive)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
3 cups rolled oats
½ cup coconut, shredded or dessicated
½ cup wheatgerm
⅛ cup flaxseed
⅛ cup sesame seeds
¼ cup sunflower seeds
½ cup chopped nuts (I used toasted hazelnuts)
½ cup dragon fruit, chopped (or figs)
½ cup apricots, chopped
½ cup sultanas

Put agave, oil, cinnamon, vanilla and salt in a small microwave proof bowl. Place in the microwave for about 2 minutes on High or until starting to bubble. Meantime combine oats, wheatgerm, coconut, and seeds in a shallow microwave dish (I thought we always used a mixing bowl). I didn’t include the nuts because they were already toasted but if not toasted they should be added at this point. When liquid is heated pour into oat mixture and mix.

Place oat mixture in microwave on High for 4 minutes. Stir well. Now microwave for 1 minute at a time and stir after each minute for about 4-10 minutes (I did 5 minutes) until golden brown. Stir in nuts and fruit. Cool. Break up if necessary. Stir in an airtight container when cold.

On the Stereo:
A warm and yeasty corner: Appendix out

HoTM #12 Prune and Bean Casserole

This month Heart of the Matter is being hosted by Michelle of The Accidental Scientist and she has asked us to cook a heart-healthy stew or casserole. Michelle kindly gives some information on the difference between a soup and stew which is very useful to me, given that I often make ‘soups’ that E tells me a spoon could stand up in. She says stews have larger pieces than soup, thicker liquid and more likely to be eaten as a main course. Sounds like my soups!

But I wanted to make a stew or casserole that was different to my usual chunky soups. Unfortunately, it is not really the season in Melbourne to want thick warming stews. I love cassoulet which has gently cooked in the oven or Scotch barley stew in winter but not in summer, even if the weather is mercifully below average temperatures. But mostly I think of meat when I think of casseroles and stews. My mum used to make lots of them when I was a child. Vegetarian meals don’t need the tenderizing that meat needs and I only have one recipe that requires 10 hours of slow cooking (I must dig it out one of these days!).

The recipe I chose is one that I put in my notebooks over 15 years ago in pre-vegetarian days. This spicy prune and bean casserole fascinated me in the days when I was less and less interested in curry chicken, beef stews and sausage casseroles. It still appeals to me as being a little different. I hope it will appeal to Michelle for its health benefits - both prunes and beans contain high levels of fibre and iron.

This casserole is dark and mysterious, sweet and spicy, rich and intense. By itself it is a bit overwhelming. But served with brown rice and some vegetables it is wonderful. I made a salad of pumpkin and sugar snap peas with a tahini salad dressing from Kathryn at Lime and Lycopene (1 tbsp tahini, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 2 tsp tamari, 2 tsp mustard). The salty bitter taste of the dressing worked well with the sweetness of the salad. But next time I hope the vegetables in the fridge that need to be used are more appropriate – like pumpkin and broccoli. Nevertheless, it is nice to revisit this casserole and to feel pleased to have taken down this recipe so many years ago.

Spicy Prune and Bean Casserole
Serves 4

1 tbsp oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp finely chopped chilli or chilli paste
½ tsp cumin
125g button mushrooms, roughly sliced
440g tin of kidney beans, drained
100g pitted prunes, halved
2 tsp tomato paste
440g tin tomatoes, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste (I used ½ tsp salt and pepper mixture)
⅓ cup water

Heat oil in a medium size saucepan and fry onions over low heat about 5 minutes or until soft. Add garlic, chilli and cumin and fry an additional 1-2 minutes, stirring frequently. Add mushrooms and stir another 1 minute. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Bring to the boil. Cover and cook over low heat for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Check seasoning (it gets sweetened as the prunes cook). Serve with wholemeal rice and bread and vegetables.

On the Stereo:
Strange Folk: 19 strange and beautiful tracks celebrating four decades of Twisted Folk – Various Artists

PPN #52 Gyoza and Salad

Last year Lucy of Nourish Me made gyoza which she described as ‘soft and pillowy on top; crunchy and golden on the bottom. And scented with that lime? Pretty sexy stuff.’ This was a recipe crying out to be made. This was a recipe that was hard to resist with wanton wrappers in the house. This recipe was delicious.

I love wantons. But I don’t usually have them when eating out because they are mostly filled with meat. So I am delighted to find how easy it is make them at home. First a superb soup and now gorgeous gzoyas. A far cry from my previous experience of making steamed dumplings with wrappers that were sticky and ripped easily.

Lucy had a neat trick of frying her gzoyas on one side and then steaming them. My gzoyas surprised me with the speed in which they fried and I only managed to flip them and fry them on the other side. Which tasted fine, albeit apparently not traditional. They were not completed fried and retained a texture which was crispy and soft.

The filling was soft with tofu and mushrooms, and fragrant with kaffir lime leaves and ginger. I gave it a good burl in the food processor, having learnt from Cindy that it was wise not to cut corners with this recipe.

Both Cindy and Lucy served these little lovelies with dipping sauce. I didn’t get organized enough to make a dipping sauce but did manage a Thai-style salad. (I think I was inspired by my Vina Bar noodle dish last week.) Now some of you might think dipping sauce is easier than a salad. But I had to have some veggies. I would like to try the dipping sauce some time and these are good enough to make again (and again and again). I think they would make a lovely starter as they were quite light.

Curious about gyoza, I did a quick bit of research on the web. Also known as Japanese potstickers, they are popular in Japan and came from China in about the 17th Century or the 1940s depending on which website you read! There are gyoza moulds to easily give them the traditional shape (unlike mine), gyoza museums and gyoza restaurants. The most common filling seems to be pork. But I have now discovered other vegetarian recipes (at about.com and myrecipes) to try out and realised they should be moon-shaped and fastened with pleats. So maybe next time I will get the shape right and have a Japanese salad to accompany them. I’m learning.

I have checked out a few other bloggers who have made gyoza. Another Outspoken Female at Confessions of a Food Nazi has made cauliflower gyoza. Susan at Fat Free Vegan has made them with a sweet fruit filling. I also found a recipe from ABC Darwin for roasted pumpkin and blue cheese gyoza – so I am pleased to see my memory of eating these at Mindl Beach Markets in Darwin is not just a flight of fantasy. And Ellie of Kitchen Wench gives helpful visual instructions on how to prepare dumplings.

I am sending this recipe to Ruth at Once Upon a Feast for Presto Pasta Nights. I particularly wanted to send something this week because for the past year Ruth has been putting up a round up of pasta posts sent to her from across the blogosphere every week. Congratulations on PPN’s first birthday!

Gyoza with mushrooms and lime leaves
(from Nourish Me)
makes 20 (if you do them like me – 12 if you are Lucy)

Filling:
- 75g of fresh mushrooms (Swiss brown [cremini] or shiitake)
- 75g of tofu, drained and blotted with kitchen paper
- 2 Kaffir lime leaves, spines discarded and leaves finely shredded
- 1 small red chilli, deseeded and chopped (I used half)
- 1 x 2cm (1 inch) of ginger, peeled and grated
- 2 spring onions, white and tender greens, chopped
- 1 tablespoon of tamari
- 1 teaspoon of toasted sesame oil

To assemble:
- 12 wonton or gow gee wrappers (preferably round but I used 20 square ones)
- 1-2 tablespoons light olive oil
- ½ cup of water

Dipping Sauce:
- Juice of 1 lime
- 1 tablespoon of tamari
- 1 tablespoon of water
- 2 teaspoons of fish sauce (nam pla - optional)
- 1 tablespoon of sesame seeds, toasted

Roughly chop the mushrooms (Lucy said to de-stalk but I didn’t). Place filling ingredients in a food processor and blend to a smooth paste.

Place wanton wrapper on flat surface (or in your hand) and place a generous teaspoon of the stuffing in the centre and spread a little but leave at least 1cm on the edges. Have a small glass or bowl of water beside you as you work. Dip your finger in the water and run it over the edges of the wrapper. Fold wrapper in half and pinch the edges together so there are no airbubbles in the dumpling. Flatten dumpling a little (I found this helpful for frying them). Repeat with remaining wrappers until all the filling is done. If you have leftovers they can be frozen at this stage.

Heat the oil in a heavy-based frying pan. When hot, add your gyozas in one layer. Fry over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes, or until golden underneath. They fry quickly so don’t get distracted. I flipped them and fried the other side for another 2-3 minutes but traditionally they are steamed after frying one side.

If you are a traditionalist and more used to fying than me then you should add water to the frypan when gyoza are fried gold on one side. Be very careful and stand back because it will bubble and spit. Cover pan, reduce heat and steam about 3 minutes. If there’s any water left at the end, take off the lid and let it evaporate. They will be soft and translucent when ready.

To make the dipping sauce, mix everything together in a small serving bowl.

Serve hot gyoza with dipping sauce.

Thai-Style Vegetable Salad with Noodles
(adapted from the Moosewood Cookbook)
Serves 2

- 25g rice vermicelli noodles (or cooked potato)
- small bunch of asparagus, finely chopped
- handful of bean sprouts
- 2 carrots, grated
- handful of snow peas, trimmed and thinly sliced diagonally
- ½ green capsicum, finely sliced
- 1 spring onion, finely sliced
- handful of baby spinach, finely sliced
- chopped mint, basil and coriander (I only used mint)

*The ingredients in this salad can be altered easily to suit what you have available and what you love. Other optional salad ingredients that I didn’t use include: crisp lettuce, cabbage, cucumber, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, tofu, mung bean sprouts, and potato chips!
*I tried using more noodles and it wasn't as good!

Dressing (serves 4 but keeps in the fridge):
3 tbsp unmolested crunchy peanut butter
½ cup boiling water
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp agave nectar (or honey)
1 tsp soy sauce (or to taste)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
½ red pepper finely chopped (or to taste)
1 tsp lime juice (½ a lime)

To make dressing, place all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk vigourously. Cook vermicelli noodles. (I put mine in a bowl of boiling water gave them 1-2 minutes in the microwave and then let them sit about 5 minutes til soft and drained them.) Place all salad ingredients in a large shallow bowl. Mollie suggests placing them artistically and drizzling the dressing on top. I just tossed the salad with the dressing. Garnish with herbs and lime wedges if desired.

On the stereo
Songs for the young at heart: Various Artists

FF #3 Dip and muffins from the pantry

Eating out Loud is holding an event called Food Fight and this month the theme is Pantry Raid. Allen has asked bloggers to take a photo of our pantry and then share a recipe made with key ingredients from the pantry.

So I was making a lentil pate the other night that drew from my pantry. I thought that it would go with some chickpea muffins that I was making. Well the pate and the muffins did not go together (although E loved the muffins with leftover Lentil and Chestnut Soup). Then I finally looked at my photo of the pantry this morning and thought, what a mess!

So there I was writing a meme about me in my last post and trying to avoid sharing too many fashion disasters and bad habits, and then my pantry reveals all. You can run but you can’t hide! Well Ricki is not the only one who isn’t fussy about clear desks and frequently washed floors! We often have to clear space on the table to find room to eat dinner. I even have to clear cookbooks on the chair so our cat can sit on the chair beside me as I blog sometimes. (Although today she has been sitting on a Nigella cookbook from the library which has found its way to the chair – do you think they would mind?)

So you can see that my pantry is not uniform rows of neatly labelled jars but it is well used. When we bought our place18 months ago it seemed a luxury to have a pantry. My mum has always had a walk-in pantry (perfect hiding place for the nieces) but I have lived in a series of inadequate kitchens without pantries (and in one house we had to keep the fridge in the bathroom). Yet I still don’t have enough space. I could blame my recent interest in gluten free foods, which has expanded my world of grains and flours, or I could blame blogging which makes me try things I might otherwise not bother with. But it is really just my nature to accumulate and hoard clutter. I hate to throw out but I just don’t see that it is priority to order all the bits and pieces which land in my lap. I’d prefer to spend the time cooking or blogging.

In Darwin last week, a taxi driver told us about what he would put aside to survive in the event of a cyclone. I like to think of our kitchen as a cooking survival kit. It feels that things in the fridge are perishables that might get smelly or wilt if left too long. I know it is a mistaken belief, but I love to think that pantry goods could last forever. No pressure to use them immediately (eg a packet of pasta and a jar of pasta sauce will always be there waiting for the night you can’t face cooking.)

Despite the mess, I mostly have a place for everything. I have shelves for flours, sugars and grains, tins, spices, bottles (and one for the recyling). E’s staples are Walkers shortbread, crisps and chocolate. He makes impulse purchases like Cheerios -for the Golden Compass freebie - and plain-wrap pot noodles. I tend to regularly buy tinned tomatoes, tinned legumes, nuts, dried fruit and vitawheat biscuits. My impulse purchases are more gourmet than E - a jar of fennel seeds or a tin of pureed chestnuts. Then there are the puy lentils that I bought last year and have intended to use in pate for months and months. Like I said, the beauty of the pantry is that most things in it will wait.

So I finally made the lentil and walnut pate from Post Punk Kitchen which I originally saw on Urban Vegan. It had appealed to me for it’s simplicity and for having ingredients that I had available. I put the lentils on to cook while I made dinner and finally got around to blending everything at 11.15pm. I was finished by 11.30. Perfect for a night when I get caught up blogging.

The pate was quite nice, although not the pate of my dreams. I never was a big fan of pate when I ate meat but I still like the idea that I can find a nice vegetarian version without boiled eggs. I have another recipe I probably prefer which has tofu, green beans and walnuts. But this one seems more straightforward. So now I have almost 3 cups of pate and wondering what to do with it. I went to the Slow Food City Marketplace this afternoon and talked to the woman with the meat pates who suggested roasting pumpkin, covering it in pate and wrapping it in pastry and then baking it again. Sounds great! More simple was buying toasting up some Irrewarra seeded sourdough and spreading it with pate and nectarine chutney (from the Slow Food market).

I made some muffins to serve with soup, but had hoped they would be a good accompaniment to the pate. These were the sort of muffins that didn’t need butter and were almost quiche-like because they had quite a bit of vegetable in them. They also used chickpea flour rather than wheat flour which gave quite a distinctive taste. We enjoyed these and I have added the recipe because they are a useful gluten free alternative. If you make them, you should expect lots of flavour (without any vegetables standing out) but do not expect that they will taste like a wheat muffin. And don’t make my mistake of expecting they will be good with pate.

Lentil Walnut Pate
(From Post Punk Kitchen)

1 cup French "puy" lentils
1 cup whole walnuts
2 small cloves garlic, finely chopped or crushed
1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 Tablespoon lime juice (or lemon juice)
½-1 sea salt (or to taste)

- Place lentils in a saucepan with at least 2 cups boiling water. Cook at a rapid boil for 10 minutes and then cover and gently simmer for 30 minutes or til soft. Drain.
- Place walnuts in the blender to finely grind. Then add remaining ingredients and blend well. Check seasoning.

Tip: try taking to lunch in a little tub with some bread and vegetables for dipping.

Chickpea Muffins
(from Diana Linfoot’s More Muffin Magic)
Makes 10-12

½ cup pumpkin puree (approx 150g mashed)
2 eggs
½ cup cheddar cheese, grated
3 spring onions, finely sliced
½ cup finely chopped spinach or cooked green peas (optional)
½ to 1 tsp curry powder (optional, I used ¼ tsp tumeric)
1 tsp sugar
Salt and pepper
1½ cup chickpea flour
3 tsp baking powder

Place all ingredients except flour and baking powder in a medium mixing bowl. Stir well. Add flour and baking powder and stir til just combined (it makes quite a stiff batter). Spoon into greased muffin tray (or into a muffin tray lined with paper cups). Bake in 200 C oven for 25-30 minutes.

On the stereo:
The Wickerman original soundtrack: Various Artists

About Me Me Me Me

There seems to have been a lot of tagging going on lately. I have been tagged by Lisa Rene from Little Bits for 5 facts about myself, and I was tagged by Katie from Apple and Spice for a longer meme. I decided to ditch the 5 favourite toys (because I was struck dumb by the tyranny of choice) at the end of this meme in favour of Ricki’s 5 things about memory which took my fancy because memory fascinates me too.

Finally I received a award from Holler for having an Excellent blog which is not a tag but rates a mention for her kind words. I intend to return to this at a later date when I would like to write about some excellent blogs that have inspired me but for now I’d just like to thank Holler.

Five Facts about Me
- As a child, I had a duck called Lisa
- I sang Brahms requiem with a choir in London
- I was a volunteer tour guide at St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh (sort of pictured in the distance)
- My siblings and I created a shopping centre in our cubbyhut when I was little
- Our car is 20 years old this year and is called Snowflake after a pegacorn

What was I doing 10 years ago?
I was living in London and working at beeb.com website at BBC Television Centre. This website was the precursor to the bbc.co.uk website and had been established the previous year. I was told that every staff member was temporary or seconded so if it didn’t work then the BBC wouldn’t lose money. The office buzzed with excitement at the new venture and it was a great time to be there. I loved the encouragement to surf the web and share ideas with staff. Wonder if this attitude persists at bbc.com.uk!

What was I doing 1 year ago?
We went to Thailand last February for the wedding of my brother Andy to Erica. Seems 10 years ago. It was a fantastic holiday. The wedding on the beach was very romantic and Phucket was gorgeous. We visited a temple, rode an elephant, and snorkeled at the Phi Phi Islands (pictured - and that is not me in the photo!). Felt much more adventurous than my average holiday. Andy and Erica organized us a wonderful hotel with a pool where I could swim laps in the morning and drink cocktails in the evening.

Five snacks I enjoy:
- Seasonal fruit – a few weeks ago it was cherries, at the moment it is grapes, and soon it will be apples
- Chocolate chip cookies – or anything with chocolate
- Corn on the cob
- Vitawheat biscuits with promite and cheese
- Leftovers on toast – particularly risotto, dahl or mashed potato

Five things I would do if I were a millionaire:
- Buy a Scottish island
- Run a retreat for writers, artists, cookery classes, and family and friends
- Set up a publishing company
- Own a pet giraffe
- Donate donate donate

Five bad habits:
- Scribbling recipes from books in bookshops without buying the books
- Falling asleep on the couch when watching dvds with E
- Not reading recipes properly when I am cooking
- Buying more cookbooks than my bookshelves can handle
- Blogging late at night

Five things I like doing:
- Sitting in our garden with E and Zinc
- Swimming laps at the local pool
- Riding my bike
- Going to a movie alone in the middle of the day
- Sharing food at picnics

Five things I wish to never wear again:
- White veil – my first holy communion – probably looked ok when I was 8 years old but I don’t think I need to revisit
- Stretch denim jeans – it was forgiveable in the 1980s because I was too young to know better but never again over these hips!
- High waisted trousers – I do not have the figure or the height for this kind of fashion
- White dress with puffy sleeves and a hooped skirt – blushing debutante with romantic visions!
- Paisley bowtie – trying to be different at university balls

Five things about memory:
-In high school I memorised epic Australian poem The Man From Snowy River by Banjo Patterson and recited it to the class in return for a box of Roses chocolates. It just shows that I will do anything for chocolate.
- In my student days, my friend Kathleen and I loved going to see Rob Clarkson perform. While walking down the street at night during a holiday to Perth (Western Australia) we were able to remember and sing all the lyrics to the six songs from his EP called Beautiful Girls and Beautiful Boys.
- A friend of mine once visited me in a share house and when introduced to my housemate he said 'I don't believe we have met'. She replied, 'That's what you said last time we met'. The odd thing is that he still takes great delight in remembering a story of how he forgot. Isn't it odd what we remember and what we forget?
-I memorised the lyrics of lots of great folk and revolutionary songs when I was in the Victorian Trade Union Choir many years ago. One of my favourite songs was Bread and Roses. I don’t remember them any more.
- I remember meeting E – at an interview for a share house in Edinburgh. I mention this because last week I heard that couples who remember meeting are more likely to stay together. But who does this research and does it really mean anything?

I will not tag anyone but will welcome hearing from anyone who feels inspired to take up the baton of any or all of the three tags I have incorporated in my answers.

Vina Bar: one of Lygon Street’s best

This week E and I had dinner at the Vina Bar. It is a small unpretentious Vietnamese restaurant in Lygon Street in Carlton near my workplace and Cinema Nova, one of the best independent cinemas this side of the river.

Lygon Street is traditionally a street of Italian eateries and some days I just don’t feel like pizza and pasta and I glaze over at all the meaty offerings. Being inner city and close the University of Melbourne means that the street has many interesting shops and cafes and bookstores (even if one megabookstore opened in an aggressive marketing move). It also means it was one of the first café strips in Melbourne that I discovered (no prizes for guessing where I studied).

The Lygon Street that I discovered over a decade ago was quite different. Readings bookstore was a poky warren of shelves further up the street than where it is today. Some fool had decided to open a MacDonalds which never lasted (and this should be a warning to aggressive megabookstores). There was no Cinema Nova but the now defunct Carlton Movie House showed an excellent selection of older movies – A Clockwork Orange and Betty Blue seemed to screen regularly. There was a great continental cake shop near the corner of Grattan Street where I had a tantrum as a teenager when I got a chocolate éclair with custard rather than cream – I was an unsophisticated kid from the country. Brunettis was about a third of the size and always crowded. Thresherman's was a lot smaller too. And one of the first places I ate was at Genevieves was on Faraday Street (close enough to be considered Lygon Street) which is now closed. I feel old as I recall all the changes. Sigh!

But lots of places are still about and remind me of the old days – Jimmy Watsons, Trotters, Papa Ginos, The University Café, King & Godfreys, Ti Amo, and the greasy takeaway on the corner of Elgin Street (but I am not sure if it is still called Twins). I have known Lygon Street long enough to fall in love with it, fall out of love and then rediscover it. Is it any surprise that one of my favourite places to eat in Melbourne is in Lygon Street, albeit one of the ‘newcomers’!

The Vina Bar is a small place with wooden tables and chairs. It has tables and chairs on the pavement which often I prefer to the poky inside tables. Eating outside in Lygon Street is great for people watching. The street buzzes on a balmy summer night. The outdoor tables fill with gossiping hungry groups helping themselves to large wedges of pizza. Couples stroll along with gelati in hand. Waiters stand at cafe doorways. The weather was hot and humid this week when we got to the Vina Bar so we sought the cool air-conditioned indoors.

The place has its quirks. They only take cash payments and they don’t sell alcohol (but I think they do BYO). To go to the toilet you have to walk through the kitchen which is reassuringly neat and clean.

The menu has a good offering of vegetarian food: rice paper rolls, spring rolls, noodles, curries, Vietnamese pancakes. Unfortunately the noodle soups don’t have a vegetarian stock. I have been there regularly enough (both with work colleagues and with E) that I have tried all the dishes that interest me and now, like putting on a comfortable old pair of slippers, I just go straight for my favourite meal.

I love the rice vermicelli with spring rolls. It is a large bowl filled with noodles, tofu and vegetables, with some chopped up crunchy deep fried spring rolls, and garnished with crushed peanuts and rice powder. On the side is a small bowl of dipping sauce – more soy sauce than chilli – I usually tip some over the noodles. The vermicelli mixture always feels nourishing with the spring rolls being a bit of a treat. It never ceases to satisfy me.

Update August 2009 - Sadly the Vina Bar had closed - I will miss it terribly.

Vina Bar
253 Lygon Street
Carlton
tel: 03 9347 2510

Crabapple Cupcakes: cute as a button

I have discovered the Crabapple Cupcake Bakery at the Prahran Market. They make divine cupcakes to drool over. In fact you can even buy the book if you want to try your hand at baking such lavish creations. But if, like me, you dislike making icing and don’t have piping equipment then you can purchase them ready-made. Oh joy!

The market is full of wonderful fresh fruit, deli counters, organic stalls, gourmet potatoes, pomegranate juices and the nut shop. But I am irresistibly drawn to these gorgeous cupcakes. The shop is worth viewing even if you aren’t tempted like me. It seems odd in a big austere wharehouse to come across a dainty pastel coloured shop but that is what you will find – pale pink walls, elegant white metal tables and chairs, displays of cake stands and plates and a glass display cabinet of every sort of cupcake you could ever imagine.

I can’t resist a chocolate cupcake and would recommend the raspberry mudcake which I bought on my last visit. But just a few days ago I was there and got just plain mudcake which was luscious – soft and rich with a gooey chocolate frosting. I bought E a rose petal one because he prefers plain buttercake. It was cute as a button with a little pink icing rose on top, but he asked if it had perfume in it (actually he said it tasted like the inside of a tart’s handbag!) and it was very sweet. I suspect it might have had rosewater in it. He still was very happy with me when I gave him a cute pink iced cupcake.

What a find! Luckily it is over the other side of town from me so I can’t go running there too often. I will still dream of creating such sugary fantasies myself but until then I know where to find cupcake heaven.

Update 8/7/2008 - I keep hearing rumours that Crapapple Cupcake Bakery is now closed. It seems to be true. Many comments I have seen are negative but I am sad they have closed even if I rarely visited because it is over the other side of town from me. Check out the comments at Syrup and Tang for more info.

Update 28/12/2008 - I was at Prahran Market yesterday and surprised and pleased to see the bakery open again (its name has changed slightly to something like Crabapple Cupcake Bakery and Supplies). When I expressed surprise they were open again, I was told they had only closed for renovations.

Crabapple Cupcake Bakery
Shop 6, Prahran Market
163 Commercial Road,
South Yarra, VIC, 3141

ph: (03) 9827 8116
fax: (03) 9827 8117
web: http://www.crabapplecupcakebakery.com.au/

WCC # 25 Velvet Soup from Nigellaland

For the Weekend Cookbook Challenge (a blog event created by Sara of I like to cook, and hosted this month by Ani of Foodie Chickie) Ani has asked us to cook something from Nigella Lawson’s cookbooks. As a fan of Nigella, I was only too happy to rise to this challenge.

Nigella, the first lady of British cooking, Mrs Beeton for the noughties, the thinking person's cook, seductive, posh, eloquent, playfully ironic, enthusiastic, bossy, curvy, gorgeous and unashamedly carnivorous. I love her style but cringe a little at her love of meat. I love the passion she exudes on her television shows. Her writing is every bit as sensuous and entertaining as her shows (especially when you can visualise her tossing her hair or dipping her finger in a sauce after watching her in action).

When How to Eat came out, I bought a copy once I found it half-price. I read the book from cover to cover with much pleasure. Her eloquent prose has the friendly and relaxed feel of sitting around the kitchen table. I learnt from her as much I have from friends and family. Her writing is such a delight to read.

So when I looked through How to Eat, while thinking about what to cook for the WCC, I was shocked to find that I hadn’t cooked from it at all (aside from the odd piece of inspiration). It is not that there aren’t dishes that tempt me but most of the meals have meat at the centre and vegetables at the side. The other problem I found was that it isn’t a book that is easy to flick through to find recipes, particularly when so many are meat. There are times that I wish all the vegetarian recipes were clumped together in omnivore cookbooks so I don’t need to wade through all the meat recipes which are of no interest to me.

The other Nigella book that I own is, of course, the legendary How to be a Domestic Goddess. Unlike How to Eat, I haven’t read it from cover to cover but I often flick through the book and drool over the recipes. I have made quite a few recipes (store cupboard chocolate orange cake, dense chocolate loaf cake, millionaire shortbread, Norwegian mountain loaf, potato bread, pizza) and there are many others I drool over in hope. The photos are gorgeous and glorious. I find the sections much easier to navigate in this book. What's not to love about a cookbook with such a wonderful section devoted to chocolate!

I have also spent some time browsing Nigella cookbooks in shops and libraries. A few months ago I borrowed Nigella Bites from the library and was not very impressed at all. Too much meat and not much I really wanted to cook. But this week, in the interests of research, I borrowed Forever Summer from the library and have found lots to tempt me. In fact it is one of those loans that I don't really want to return.

As I have said above, I really like Nigella’s attitude. Her generosity in Forever Summer makes me fall in love with her all over again. I always love a cookbook writer who encourages readers to fiddle with recipes. But I was impressed with her discussion of sharing recipes: ‘cooking isn’t about suspicious guarding of closely kept secrets but is a matter of sharing, passing on, the almost gossipy dissemination of habits and practices; recipes that are considered high level security documents are not recipes that survive.’

Nigella also appreciates her history. She often dips into her grandmothers’ recipes and draws on many culinary traditions. She is committed to ensuring continuity in food traditions but presents them with common sense and an empathy for the busy modern women. I am reassured when she says that stock powder is fine and it is not necessary to make my own stock. She wants us to enjoy the feeling of being domestic goddesses of the past without feeling overburdened by household chores. I think this is why she is so successful.

So to be asked to cook a Nigella recipe is a pleasure. Making a decision about which one is a dilemma. I have been very attracted to cooking a recipe from Forever Summer or Domestic Goddess because there are so many I want to make. But I felt that the nature of this challenge is to take out cookbooks I might not otherwise make. So I decided it was time to cook from How to Eat.

I chose a simple lentil and chestnut soup. I have been interested in cooking with chestnuts but like Nigella peeling chestnuts gives me a nervous breakdown (once was enough for me to never do it again). If only cooked chestnuts were easier to buy. I have finally found a few places that sell them, so I was keen to find a chestnut recipe that made it worthwhile paying $12 for a tin (I have found them cheaper since then I am glad to say). Chestnuts seem as British as Nigella so it seemed a fitting recipe.

The tinned chestnuts were odd looking but they added a depth of taste and a sweetness to the soup. Nigella suggested serving the soup with cold leftovers. I served it with a salad (fresh corn, cherry tomatoes, baby spinach, basil and raspberry vinegar) because I felt it was too rich to eat alone. E would have been quite content to eat it with toast. The soup took very little energy and I simmered it about half the time that she suggested in her recipe. The comforting puree was as velvety as promised. I like to think it was the colour of a teddy bear but E says it was the colour of mud. But it tasted good enough to see why Nigella hankered after the recipe after tasting it in a restaurant.

Lentil and Chestnut Soup
(adapted from Nigella’s How to Eat)
Serves 4-6

1 onion
½ leek
1 carrot
1 stick of celery
1 garlic clove
1 tbsp oil/butter
225g red lentils
1½ litres of vegetable stock
225 g cooked chestnuts (I used a drained 400g tin of whole chestnuts)
Parsley and cream to serve (optional)

Roughly chop vegetables and stir over medium heat for 6-8 minutes in a large saucepan. You will know when they are done because they will have softened and be giving out a wonderful aroma. Add lentils and stir. Stir in the stock (or water and stock powder). Bring to boil and simmer about 15-20 minutes. Add chestnuts and simmer a further 15-20 minutes. Blend until smooth. Add water if you want it thinner. If desired, serve with a dollop of cream and some finely chopped parsley.

On the Stereo:
Here til here is there: an introduction to: the Incredible String Band

Wanton Dumplings in Ginger Broth

After a week in Darwin, I was so happy to be back in my kitchen last night. I needed temple food. This is a Nigella term that I like. She talks about the approach to satisfy our vanity rather than health needs in How to Eat. But it is also about counteracting a bout of eating out in places that are mean-fisted with their vegetables. I think temple food would be my version of detox if I was more into self-discipline or self-denial.

I had been craving a bowl of miso soup full of vegetables and tofu but I also wanted to make a special soup for Lisa and Holler’s new blog event, No Croutons Required. They challenge bloggers to make a vegetarian soup that the most carnivorous diner would drool over. And I’ve been wanting to make more recipes from Denis Cotter’s Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me…

I have been meaning to make broth-based soup for a while now. I have admired other bloggers making broth soups like Lucy’s Zucchini in Broth with Cornmeal and Cheese Dumplings and Vegetarian Chicken Passover Soup, Culinary Bazaar’s Vegetarian Vietnamese Pho Soup and Andrea’s Vegetarian Stock that she uses in French Onion Soup. These soups all depend on a well-flavoured broth.

The soup I fancied is one Denis called ‘Sprouting Broccoli and Oyster Mushrooms in Ginger Broth with Pumpkin and Macadamia Dumplings’. What a mouthful! Fortunately I tweaked it to suit my tastes so I can simplify the name without guilt. I find oyster mushrooms too flaccid and I am suspicious of anything named after seafood, so I substituted swiss browns. I did away with the coriander and the macadamias and to add some carrot for some colour. I also used less oil and less soy sauce.

I couldn’t claim this soup would convert meat-and-potato carnivores but the adventurous will be thrilled. E was not so keen on it because he doesn't like watery soups. I loved it. The broth was wonderfully spicy thanks to my wee ginger man (check out the photos – E wanted to try and sell him on E-Bay because he was so adorable). The sweetness of the pumpkin in the dumplings was just right in the salty spicy broth. And I had plenty of vegetables. I loved the crisp green broccolini but E thought it underdone.

This was the soup I needed. It treated my body like a temple and fed my soul.

Update 1 March 2008:
There were 71 soups submitted to Lisa and Holler's No Croutons Required event. Amazingly, they had a vote on the best soup and I was the winner. Well the credit really goes to Denis Cotter because it is his recipe, but I still consider it an honour to be singled out among such wonderful soups. Please go to the impressive round-up to see all the other tempting soups sent to Lisa for the event.

Wanton Dumplings in Ginger Broth
(adapted from Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me…)
Serves 2 very hungry people or 4 as starter or light meal

Broth:
- 1.75 litres water
- 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
- 2 celery sticks, chopped
- 1 carrot, chopped
- 4 garlic cloves
- 85g fresh ginger, sliced
- 1 fresh chilli, sliced
- 1 handful fresh parsley
- 1 bay leaf
- 75ml soy sauce

Dumplings:
- 100g pumpkin flesh diced
- 1-2 tbsp chopped macadamias (or other nuts - I used walnuts)
- Finely grated zest of ½ lemon (I used less)
- ½ tsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp chopped basil (or 2 tsp chopped coriander)
- 8-12 wanton wrappers (approx)

Vegetables to serve:
- 350g (2 small bunches) broccolini or sprouting broccoli, roughly sliced
- 100g swiss brown mushrooms, roughly sliced
- 1 medium carrot, cut into matchsticks
- 1-2 spring onions, roughly sliced

Begin by preparing the broth: Place all ingredients except soy sauce into a large stockpot. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Add soy sauce and sit for another 20 minutes. Strain.

While the stock is simmering, make the dumplings: Steam or microwave pumpkin. Mash and add nuts, lemon zest, lemon juice, and basil. Stir to combine. To make the first dumpling, place wanton wrapper on clean flat surface. Place a teaspoon of the pumpkin mixture in the middle. Have a small dish of water beside you and use your fingers (or a brush) to moisten the edges. Bring two opposite corners up together and then bring the remaining two corners up so the four corners meet together like a pyramid – press the edges together to eliminate any air from the dumpling parcel. (Tip: it is easiest to handle if your fingers are dry). Repeat with remaining wrappers til all the mixture has been used up. (But these dumplings don't last well overnight so try to only make what you need.)

To prepare the vegetables, Denis suggests frying them in a little oil. I chose to steam the broccolini and carrots in the microwave til just done. I poured a ladle full of broth into a large saucepan and ‘stirfried’ the spring onions and mushrooms for a few minutes til starting to wilt. Then I added the broccolini and carrots.

While you are preparing the vegetables, gently heat broth and place the dumplings in the broth for about 2 minutes (they don’t take long at all, even when mine had dried out a little).

To serve the soup, place the vegetables in the bottom of a bowl. Spoon the dumplings on top of the vegetables. Ladle the broth into the bowl.

Note: I had a little broth leftover because I had to water down the strong tasting broth. The soup doesn't keep so well overnight but I will see if the leftover broth can be used up in another soup.

On the Stereo:
What we did on our holidays: an introduction to…: Fairport Convention

Darwin Days

We arrived home from Darwin last night and I am glad to be able to cook again in my own kitchen. It is good to get away for a break. I was there for business meetings but managed some leisure as well with E. Highlights were swimming in the hotel pool beneath palm trees at night, feeding the fish at Aquascene, and browsing at Parap Market.

But it is the wet season which means the weather is hot, humid and wet. The frequent heavy monsoonal downpours made the outdoors a little less welcoming and the rain was very noisy during our planning meeting. I had the odd experience of a faceless face-to-face meeting when the hotel where the meeting was held had a power cut which plunged us into darkness. It was also a great historic day to be there on Wednesday when our Prime Minister Rudd formally apologised to the Stolen Generations (Indigenous people who were taken from their families in a bid to assimilate them into European families and destroy the Aboriginal culture).

Working in an organisation with an office in Darwin means that I have been visiting this tropical city regularly over the past few years. It is a place where the steak reigns supreme and a decent vegetarian meal can be hard to find. I have experienced the good (Cornucopia Café at the Museum, Mindl Beach Markets, Thailicious, PeeWees, The Wharf), the bad (‘vegetarian soup with chicken wantons’ at Casuarina Plaza, overpriced hotel breakfasts, Darwin Hospital café) and the ugly (plastic palm trees, homophobic taxi drivers with mental health problems, my hair going frizzy in the humidity). So here is a list of some of the good places we have been during this visit (with apologies that lighting and weather were not always conducive to photos).

Moorish Café (37 Knuckey Street, tel: 08 8981 0010)
I went here last year and it was so quiet. Last week it was buzzing with groups chatting over some fine tapas. We had basil bread with dukkah and oil, beetroot tsatsiki with warm pitta bread, haloumi and salsa on toast, patatas bravas, pumpkin with pinenuts, fetta and a pomegranate dressing (and E had some meat dishes he enjoyed). All were delicious and I could have eaten more of every dish. However, at the end, we were satisfied with our meal.

The service was good, given that it was a busy night. We weren’t without a dish for long, but I would have liked our dishes all served together rather than in dribs and drabs. I also liked the ambience of coloured lights, candles and small earthenware bowls. But I decided not to hang around for chocolate cake, even though I remember it fondly from my last visit.

Banyan Tree Café (69 Mitchell Street, tel: 08 8981 8577)
I discovered the Banyan Tree some years ago when trying to avoid overpriced hotel breakfasts. I appreciate that the hotel breakfast buffet is a matter of convenience, especially when rushing to business meetings. But as a vegetarian who just wants beans on toast, I get annoyed at paying one-price-fits-all for all the eggs, bacon, sausages etc that I will never eat. Even worse, on this trip, was when I asked for beans on toast to be delivered to my room (while I watched Rudd's apology) and got toast on a saucer, beans in a bowl and only a knife to eat these with. Is it any wonder I prefer an honest no-nonsense greasy spoon cafe!

The Banyan Tree is not fancy but it is friendly. It is a greasy spoon café that does good basic food for a reasonable price. Beans on toast will set you back $5.50. E could get a fry-up for under $10. The tables are covered in checked blue and white table cloths and decorated with vases of flowers. If you are lucky, you might find a copy of the Northern Territory News to read with their intriguing headlines (Naked Biffo, Thief Lord Mayor to Face Jail, Body found in Freezer).

Mitchelli’s Pizza Café (11 Mitchell Street, tel 08 8941 7500)
The Mitchelli’s Pizza Café claims to be the best pizza in Darwin. I am always a little wary of such self-aggrandisements, but I think there might be some truth to it. E had a yen to have pizza for dinner in Darwin and it took some searching.

The first night we went to another Italian place and said we didn’t have much time before going to see a film. We were told that pasta was faster than pizza. I have eaten their pizza before but would never have pasta there again. My pesto sauce was yellow and creamy - more reminiscent of bodily fluids than the green sauce I love. Even worse, was that it was served in a foil takeaway container with a plastic fork. I had never realised before how hard it is to swirl spaghetti on a plastic fork. (Happily, the film of the Kite Runner was very good so the evening wasn’t wasted altogether). After the spaghetti nightmare, I couldn’t face returning to this café for pizza.

We went to another pizza place a couple of nights later, only to be sat between the toilets and an annoyingly loud table. The menu wasn’t at all inspiring and we left without ordering.

So we found ourselves at Mitchelli’s which I had initially dismissed due to its lack of ambience – plastic chairs and tables lit by fluorescent lights. We were pleasantly surprised by the food. The vegetarian pizza was not the usual combination of tomato sauce, capsicum, mushrooms and olives. It was much better – sundried tomato, artichoke, onion, mushroom, broccoli, snowpeas, capsicum and fetta. This is the sort of ambitious combination that can be done badly but Mitchelli’s did it perfectly. I was delighted to have a delicious pizza piled with well cooked vegetables.

Speakers Corner Cafe (Ground Floor, Parliament House, 15 Esplanade, 08 8981 4833)
I remember Speakers Corner Café fondly from a visit to the Northern Territory a few years ago that included a three day trip through Kakadu National Park. It was so hot and humid that it was a relief to return to Darwin and sit at the outside tables and chairs looking out over green lawns, terracotta pots of flowers and the harbour, and enjoying the cool air of the sea breeze.

This week, we walked along the Esplanade to Parliament House, where the café is based. It was a rare period of brilliant sunshine and I looked forward to sitting on th Speaker Corner terrace with a drink. But as we got closer, we could see grey clouds gathering over the sea. By the time we arrived at Parliament House, the palm trees outside were being battered by the wind and there was rain in the air (as you can see in my photo). We purchased our drinks and sat outside under the verandah watching the torrential downpour until the rain sought us out and drove us indoors.

I can't remember if I have eaten at Speakers Corner and cannot vouch for how vegetarian-friendly it is but I think they make up decent salad sandwiches. But it is a pleasant place to have a drink if the weather is kind. Even if you don’t want a drink, it is worthwhile having a look inside Parliament House to look at the beautiful Indigenous paintings that make up the Meeting Place Mural, read the historic displays and visit the library. Parliament House is one of my favourite buildings in Darwin. It was built in 1992 and has a stark white beauty. I love civic buildings that are proudly modern rather than apologetic reproductions of historic buildings.

Garam Masala (Darwin Central Hotel, 21 Knuckey St, tel: 08 8944 9120)
We went to Garam Masala on a recommendation. I fancied an Indian dinner and it seemed an interesting place to eat. The first night it was booked out, so we booked and returned the next night. The service and the ambience were very good. The menu is interesting, if a little overpriced.

I naively ordered beetroot poriyal with channa dahl, chillis and curry leaves. I enjoyed the texture of grated beetroot studded with the occasional channa dahl. But my first mouthful left me gasping at the spiciness. E tasted it and said it was twice as spicy as his chicken curry. I had to pick through the grated beetroot and curry leaves to take out all the chillis – by the end of my meal there was quite a pile. I know that there are people who enjoy this much chilli but not me. Even with rice, roti and drowned in raita, it was far too hot for me. I would probably go back but only if I felt assertive enough to discuss the spiciness with the staff.

Parap Market (Parap Village Shopping Precinct off Parap Road, tel: 0438 882 373 or 08 8942 0805)
One of the best places to eat in Darwin is at the markets. We went to Parap Markets which are held on Saturday mornings (but I can also recommend the Nightcliff Markets on Sunday mornings and Mindl Beach Markets on Thursday nights in the dry season). There is a fine array of stalls selling crafts, soaps, hammocks, clothes, jewellery and artwork. The atmosphere is friendly and relaxed. And the food is fantastic.

Much of the food is of the South East Asian cuisine. Many stalls have bain maries filled with spring rolls, dim sims, fried rice, rice balls, fried tofu, sticky rice cakes. Tubs of noodles and bean sprouts are piled high waiting for orders for laksa soup. You can get fresh green paw paw salad made in front of you. Even the fruit is different to what I might expect at a Melbourne market. Stall holders sell fresh local tropical fruit - bananas, mango, pawpaw, dragonfruit (pictured) and rambutans.

We were there for breakfast which is too early for deep fried foods, so we headed to the crepe stall where I had a magnificent wholemeal crepe filled with cheese, salsa and avocado. Watching the crepes being made is wonderful entertainment. We also managed to buy some souvenirs – incense, clothes and presents. But the find of the market was the heavenly raspberry, boysenberry, cherry and apple juice. When E tasted mine, he suggested we share another one but it was too good for him to offer much to me!

Honorary mentions go to Bamar Café (Cavenagh Street) and Simply Foods (Smith Street Mall) for their lovely – and much needed – salads.

Lastly, I particularly dislike airplane and airport food. My all time low was a slab of plain tofu sandwiched between bread and butter on an Ansett domestic flight many years ago. Last year, Qantas went into competition for the worst airplane food ever by handing out bars of rice bubbles in a sweet goo as a vegetarian and gluten free snack. It felt insulting to be offered these overly processed and sweet snacks.

I was pleased on the flight to Darwin this week that the food seemed to have improved. We had roasted chickpeas for a light snack and then I was pleasantly surprised to be given delicious small gluten free cakes made from quinoa flour, bananas and raspberries. Maybe there is hope! Now if only they could offer some decent vegetarian food in the airports…

Potato Scones for Brunch

Before I lived in Edinburgh I had never heard of potato scones. Once I left Edinburgh I couldn’t find them in Melbourne for love or money. The Scots love their fried breakfasts and potato scones were often present in a fry-up when we ate out. But they were also easy to buy in any corner store and heat at home.

E’s parents would often make him a fry up when we stayed at their place in Peebles. I remember his dad frying these scones in lots of butter for E to have with bacon and eggs. As I don’t eat bacon or eggs, I would have fried potato scones with promite (yes, I kept a stash of promite at his parents to ward off my homesickness!) I tried them in the toaster once and almost killed the toaster off in the process.

Now I apologise to anyone who was confused after my discussion about the different meanings of ‘scone’ and ‘biscuit’ in different countries. But Scotland now will have you scunnered with another type of ‘scone’. This one is really just mashed potato mixed with flour, flattened and fried. The Irish also have a version of this but I can’t remember what they call it. It may be farl but I would have to check with my siblings who have spent time living in Dublin.

Terminology aside, I absolutely love these potato scones. They make fry-ups meaningful and delicious. I was delighted when we moved from Edinburgh to Melbourne to discover how easy they are to make at home. Needless to say, they always cheer up E too. So every now and again I make us some potato scones and some fried vegetables, and E gets a fried egg.

A fry-up with potato scones was brunch this morning. As well as the scones, I served fried red onion and tomato with some basil, spinach and kidney beans thrown in at the last moment, and leftover roast potato from the previous night reheated in a frypan. A four frypan brunch is a bit of a juggling act for me. The fourth frypan was for E’s egg and he has to watch it because I dislike egg too much to have ever perfected that art.

I was overly generous with the veggies because I was using up as much as I could before we go away for the week. We are off to Darwin tomorrow so it will be pretty quiet on this blog over the next week. It is the wet season so it will be humid and rainy and uncomfortable – just in case anyone is jealous of the heat up north. I much prefer the mild Melbourne heat we have enjoyed lately. It was very relaxing eating brunch in the sunny backyard this morning. Home comforts always seem more pleasant when you are about to leave.

Potato Scones
(From Rampant Scotland)
Serves 2-4

½lb (225g or 2 fist sized) potatoes
2½oz (65g or ½ cup) plain flour - approximately
25-50g butter, chopped
½ tsp salt
Extra butter for frying

Cut potatoes into large chunks and boil. (I don’t peel them but this is a personal preference.) Mash potatoes with butter and salt. Add flour and mix with a spoon til it comes together (it shouldn’t be too dry so the actual amount of flour needed depends on the type of potato you use). Then I just use my hands to mould/knead it into a ball.

Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Press with your hands or use a rolling pin to roll out to a ¼ inch thickness. Dust both sides with a little flour. Shape into a 6 inch circle and cut into quarters (if too thick you can cut the circle from the dough and make additional scones with leftovers).

Heat frying pan over medium high heat and grease with a little butter. Fry scones for a few minutes either side til golden brown on each side. Best hot but also taste good cold and they can be reheated on a frying pan.

On the stereo:
Little Earthquakes: Tori Amos

A pleasing platter

Simplicity is elegance. It is all you need. But I have so many recipes and ideas, not to mention vegetables in my fridge to be used up, that I sometimes go a little further. So it was last night that we had a meal of many dishes, many flavours and lots of good food. The spread was:

Roast Potatoes with rosemary and garlic
Rumi Carrots with Dukkah and Tahini
Spinach and strawberry salad with pomegranate vinaigrette
Cherry salsa
Yeastfree rye and caraway bread
Pea, mint and bean dip
Smoky sweet potato and bean dip

Overall it was delicious but overwhelming. I think the roast potatoes, carrots and salad would have been enough for a good meal. I never intended it to be such a spread but I had the dips from last week and I have been wanting to make the bread since I stumbled over the recipe recently and then I bought cherries that made me realise cherry season is really at its end. And so the menu expanded.

The yeastfree rye and caraway bread is a recipe that I wrote in my recipe notebook over 10 years ago. It makes me wonder about my younger self – did I really believe one days I would have all those ingredients in my pantry or did I just think it looked interesting enough to write down for some future time when I might be inspired enough to buy them. I guess it is easier these days to buy what I fancy than in my student household days when we bought communal pantry goods from the household kitty.

Whatever my motivation in writing the recipe, I am glad I did. It is pleasing to feel my pantry is bountiful enough to be able to produce such ingredients. The only one I didn’t have was kibbled rye. In indignation – do cookbook writers really think we can find all these obscure ingredients – I searched for it. After some fruitless searching through the organic area of the Vic Market and E’s unhelpful comments about kibble sounding like a British sitcom character, I consulted Rose Eliot and Sarah Brown who both had pictures and advice. Apparently kibbled rye is the same as cracked rye - and quite similar to bulgar wheat which is also cracked but is boiled and dried (according to Rose) or steamed and roasted (according to Sarah). So I headed to a health shop in Northland that I know has a good range of grains and they had cracked wheat which would have to do.

The bread is, as my notes indicate, a heavy dense bread. It didn’t rise much and had a chewy crust that made hard work of slicing. I am not sure how much difference the cracked wheat made and don’t know what to do with the rest of the kilogram of it that I brought, but stay tuned! The caraway gives a distinct flavour that I have only recently grown to enjoy. The bread was interesting and tasty. It went well with dips or promite but did not leave me wanting to eat a whole loaf in minutes in the way of my recent cheese, onion and potato bread.

I was immediately intrigued when I saw Cindy write about the spinach and strawberry salad with pomegranate vinaigrette. She had found the recipe on Batter Splattered where Molly had made it with almonds rather than haloumi cheese. But a chance comment from Cindy about haloumi and fruit in salads reminded me I had haloumi in the fridge which needed to be used up pronto.

I probably could have had a little more spinach and less strawberries and haloumi – and made a few changes to the recipe I wrote up to address this. But what drew me to the salad was the vinaigrette with pomegranate molasses. This was an amazing salad dressing – sweet and sharp and different from any dressing I have had before.

The cherry salsa was something I chanced upon a few weeks ago on the Victorian Cherry Growers site. I loved their slogan – you don’t need a reason, it’s cherry season. I have been eager to try this salsa and promised myself I would before the end of the cherry season. Yet the opportunity has not presented itself. Then I bought some cherries at the Vic Market on Friday and they were not great so I thought the season is ending and these would taste best in a salsa.

The salsa was intense and spicy. A fine way to showcase the sweet flavours and deep purple of cherries, and yet another reason to get out my cherry pitter. Unfortunately, I think the salsa was a little overwhelming for this meal – it needs a stronger dish to complement the robust flavours. I will be eating the leftovers with some chilli non carne from the freezer tonight which I think might be more suitable. I would also like to try it with nutroast or quesadillas.

Yeastfree Rye and Caraway Bread

1 cup (120g) rye flour
1½ cups (180g) brown rice flour
½ cup soy flour
1½ tsp baking powder
2 tbsp kibbled rye (or wheat)
1 tbsp caraway seeds
½ tsp salt
2 tsp oil
1½ cups water
1 tbsp molasses (optional)
1 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 tbsp sesame seeds

Lightly grease a loaf tin (recipe suggested 8 x 26cm, but I used my 13 x 22cm silicone loaf tin which didn’t even need greasing). Preheat oven to 200 C.

Place flours, baking powder, kibbled rye, caraway seeds and salt in a medium mixing bowl. In a separate small bowl use a small whisk or fork to mix oil, water and molasses. Pour liquid mixture into bowl of dry ingredients and mix to combine. It will be quite stiff.

Spread mixture into prepared loaf tin and smooth top with the back of a spoon. Sprinkle seeds over the top and use your fingers to lightly press into the mixture. Cover tin with foil. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Remove foil and bake a further 10 minutes or until browned. Stand 10 minutes and turn onto a wire rack to cool.

This recipe can be made a day ahead or frozen.

Spinach and Strawberry Salad with Pomegranate Vinaigrette
(adapted from Batter Splattered)
Serves 2-4

Dressing:
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses
½ tsp sesame oil
1 tsp olive oil
2 tsp cider vinegar
½ tsp agave syrup
pinch of red pepper flakes
pinch of salt

Salad:
2-3 handfuls spinach leaves, roughly chopped
¼ red onion, thinly-sliced
¼ cucumber in thin sticks
¼-½ punnet strawberries, sliced
50g haloumi (or shaved parmesan or roasted almonds)

To make dressing, whisk ingredients in a small bowl or shake to combine in a screwtop jar. If using haloumi cut into 5mm thick pieces and dry fry for about 1-2 minutes either side. Place haloumi (or parmesan or almonds) with other ingredients in a salad bowl. Pour dressing over vegetables and toss to coat.

Cherry Salsa
(From Victorian Cherry Growers)
Yield: 8 servings, give or take!

1 cup cherries (fresh or frozen); pitted and chopped
2 tbp fresh basil; chopped
2 tbp green pepper; finely chopped
1 tsp lemon or lime juice
1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp grated lemon or lime zest;
1/4 tsp Tabasco sauce
1/8 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl; refrigerate at least 1 hour.

On the stereo:
Adagio Chillout – various artists

Rumi Carrots with Dukkah and Tahini

I have been out of the habit of doing any so-called reviews lately but I did go to Rumi last week and have an amazing meal with my parents and E. We were as impressed as on our previous visit.

I forgot my camera and it was too crowded to have felt comfortable taking photos, but I was so impressed with one dish that I made an attempt to recreate it tonight. Do you know the scene where you sit in a restaurant oohing and aahing over a dish and ruminating on how they made it? That was my mum and me. We were pondering the simple but inspired dish of carrots with dukkah and tahini.

The carrots weren’t the only wonder of the night. In fact everything was just incredibly delicious – the food, the service, the elegant tableware. It could have been a little quieter but you can’t resent so many others enjoying a place when the food is so good. We had cheese cigars which were the small crisp batons that I had expected my recent attempt to be. There was also spiced roasted cauliflower with sultanas and pine nuts; pumpkin and spinach with crisp shards of pita bread; and pomegranate juice. For dessert we shared ice-cream that excited everyone but me, Persian fairy floss that looked like a pile of dust but tasted excellent, and a wonderful pastry dish with caramelised banana and some creamy sauce with pieces of halva. No wonder my dad was able to cope without his pancakes for Shrove Tuesday!

I’m sorry not to do Rumi justice with these brief notes, but it did inspire me to rethink roasting carrots. I roasted carrots recently and they were ok but a little tough. At Rumi the carrots were soft and melting as roast vegetables should be. So I decided I needed to revise my approach. Sometimes I parboil potatoes before roasting so I did this for the carrots tonight. What I did is barely a recipe but the carrots tasted good enough to blog!

Rumi Carrots with Dukkah and Tahini
Serves 2

Peel a couple of carrots and cut into batons. Boil for 2-3 minutes and drain. Toss in some olive oil and salt and pepper and roast for about 30-45 minutes til soft and starting to darken at the edges. Dust the roasted carrots with dukkah and drizzle with a light tahini sauce.

My sauce was 1 tbsp tahini, 2 tbsp yoghurt and a squeeze of lime juice but it was too thick and too much so next time I might just try a bit of tahini and lemon juice without the yoghurt. Nevertheless these carrots were much much better than my usual roast carrots.

On the Stereo:
Hergest Ridge: Mike Oldfield

GYO #7 Dipping into the garden

Our garden is small and humble – just a handful of pots in a sea of concrete. Our lemon tree is doing well but our lime tree thinks it lives in Michael Leunig’s Curly Flat. Most of our herbs are doing well, apart from the recalcitrant parsley.

I do use the herbs a little in my cooking – a bit of fresh thyme or chives in this, a bay leaf in that. But they are mostly subtle background notes. They don’t often feature in my cooking because I don’t like to use too much for fear of killing off my young plants altogether.

This week I had the pleasant problem of needing to use up some of the herbs. The mint has flourished (under the garden tap as recommended by my mum) to the extent that I was concerned it would either wilt or be eaten before I got to it. The rosemary is doing well and my mum has told me I need to trim it so it will be bushy. So here was my challenge – mint and rosemary.

In a doctors waiting room recently I saw a recipe for pea and bean dip in an old magazine but never got the details of the recipe. It was all the inspiration I needed. I recently made a pea pesto and was delighted by the taste and colour, so was keen to try peas in a dip again. Peas and mint are a classic combination so I thought I would try this. It worked wonderfully. The colour is a lovely green, the texture is chunky and the taste is fresh and light.

Once I had bought a tin of beans for my pea dip, I decided I only needed half of it, which mean I had leftover beans to use. A dip I have fancied lately is white bean and roasted garlic after my success with roasted garlic in a pea soup. I had also seen a rosemary and white bean dip some time ago that got my attention. But I had bought too many sweet potatoes for my Mexican croustade. The oven was already on for my moist bran muffins that I baked during the week, so I put the garlic and sweet potato in the oven to roast.

The initial version of this dip was a little sweet and bland. E helped with tasting. He recommended Tabasco because he thinks everything tastes better with a bit of Tabasco. I was so impressed with the addition of smoked paprika in my recent cheese, onion and potato bread, that I was keen to try it again. So I put in some chilli paste for E and smoked paprika for me. Now all the flavours melded so that the sum was greater than the individual parts. The end result was a dip that was smooth as velvet with deep smoky flavours and a little bite. I think I liked it better than the pea dip, although both are most pleasing.

I have been enjoying both dips on bread, toast, dry biscuits during the week. They are all the more satisfying for being my own creation and using herbs that I have nurtured in my own garden. I am glad to have used some of the herbs as we have had quite a bit of rain which means the plants will flourish and there will be even more to use.

I am sending these recipes to Andrea for her Grow Your Own event which celebrates cooking with homegrown products.

Pea, Bean and Mint Dip

1 cup frozen peas
½ x 400g tin of canellini beans (or other white beans)
1 handful mint
1 tbsp parmesan, grated
1 tsp lemon juice
Pinch salt
Good grind pepper

Put the peas in the microwave to thaw and heat a little. Drain and rinse the beans. Place all ingredients in food processor and blend to combine – it is fine if it is still just a little chunky. Check seasoning.

Smoky Sweet Potato and Bean Dip

2 small sweet potatoes (approx 200-250g)
½ bulb of garlic
½ x 400g tin of cannellini beans (or other white beans)
1 tsp rosemary, chopped
½ tsp chilli paste
¼ tsp smoked paprika
¼ tsp salt

Prick sweet potatoes with a fork and place in oven at 190 C for about an hour til soft and cooked through. Chop the tips off the garlic bulb and place on a square of foil. Spray with olive oil and bring up corners of foil to twist together to make a little foil bag. Place in oven for about 30 minutes or til garlic is soft. Drain and rinse beans.

Cool both sweet potato and garlic a little. Squeeze sweet potato out of its skin and squeeze garlic cloves out of skin. Place garlic and sweet potato in food processor with remaining ingredients til smooth. Check seasoning.

On the Stereo:
Travels in Constants vol 13: Appendix Out

A croustade to celebrate beans

“Beans are highly nutritious and satisfying, they can also be delicious if and when properly prepared, and they posses over all vegetables the great advantage of being just as good, if not better, when kept waiting, an advantage in the case of people whose disposition or occupation makes it difficult for them to be punctual at mealtime.”
Andre Simon, The Concise Encyclopedia of Gastronomy (1952)

It was National Bean Day on 6 January so The Well Seasoned Cook, Susan, decided to hold an event called My Legume Love Affair to celebrate all manner of beans and lentils.

I am all for celebrating beans. What would the life of a vegetarian be without beans? What would my childhood have been like without baked beans? What cuisine doesn’t have their iconic bean dishes: hummus, falafels, moles, dahl, and minestrone? The world would be a poorer place without beans.

So here is my chance to reflect on beans, on what they mean to me. Beans means brilliant advertising campaigns. Beans means a giant chasing Jack while yelling fe fi fo fum. Beans mean protein. Beans means dodgy digestive systems. Beans means cheap nutritious meals. Beans means gently simmering stews that do not demand punctuality. Beans means filling the cupboard with convenient tins even though I know I should be soaking and simmering (note to self: must buy more dried beans)!

Beans are ancient delights and treasures. They can be traced back 7000 BC. In Mexico, Aztec Kings would receive 5000 tons of beans in yearly tribute. Galen in 184 AD writes about women using bean meal to cleanse superficial blemishes from their faces. Columbus brought them back to Europe from the Americas. European herbalists named New World beans, kidney beans because they were believed to strengthen the kidney – a belief that, oddly enough, was based on the shape of the bean being like a kidney. I was further intrigued by Colin Spencer’s story of 1960s parties where kidney beans were soaked but not cooked, ending in illness. Were the hosts mortified or were they just too busy grooving to notice?

So there is lots to love about beans and legumes. But I find that beans often are lost in humble purees, stews and soups. For Susan’s event I wanted something to showcase beans in a way that I don’t usually cook them. Sarah Brown presented the perfect challenge: Mexican Croustade. I had it years ago when my housemate Yaz made it. But I only remember being impressed that he dared make such a splendid looking dish, rather than remembering the taste.

This is a recipe that has beckoned me every time I browse through her Vegetarian Cookbook. The deep red kidney beans and lime green avocado against the orange sweet potato are cheerful and verging on kitsch. It looks picture perfect like the pretty blonde with the cool sunglasses and the smooth talk in a teen movie. But it was a bit bland and the crust crumbled at the slightest poke of the fork. Unfortunately, like Little Miss Perfect, it is all style and no substance.

Well, maybe I am being a bit harsh. It wasn’t horrible. But it didn’t live up to its picturesque loveliness. The best thing was the texture. The juxtaposition of the smooth beans and vegetables with the crunchy roughage of the crust is interesting. E wasn’t so keen on the latter which he said was a bit too Jethro Tull for him (I am still trying to work this one out). But the flavours weren’t quite right. It might have been my fault. I managed to season the sweet potato well. I think the orange zest was the problem: it overwhelmed the other flavours and made it a bit sweet for my tastes. So I am not sure that I would use all or any of the zest in future but would add garlic and Tabasco, and maybe more seasoning. (And what self-respecting Mexican dish wouldn’t!)

The good news is that it looked almost as good as the photo in the cookbook (but it collapsed when I transferred it to the plate because my crust was a little too crumbly). One of my main concerns about making it was that I made sure the avocado was at the right stage of ripeness. My avocado was beautifully green and buttery. Even after the flan leftovers sat overnight in the fridge the green was still glorious and the colours made me happy. I must say, this is a good dish for bloggers to enjoy (ie look but don’t taste). But if you wish to make it, be wiser than me – go easy on the zest and taste the bean and avocado mixture as you cook.

I find this ironic that my splendidly picturesque bean dish didn’t taste as good as the dull looking buried-in-stew dishes I usually make with beans. A lesson about beans perhaps. That they often don’t look too pretty but they usually taste pretty good.

Mexican Croustade
(adapted from Sarah Brown’s Vegetarian Cookbook)
Serves 4

Crust:
½ cup (50g) fresh breadcrumbs (not dried)
⅓ cup (50g) wholemeal flour
½ cup (50g) wheatgerm
½ cup (50g) rolled oats
100g butter, melted

Filling:
75g kidney beans soaked and cooked or 300g tin kidney beans
275g sweet potatoes (one medium), peeled and diced
Salt and pepper
1 small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
½ tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 ripe avocado
Juice of one orange
1 tsp orange zest (or less or more to taste – Sarah suggests zest of one orange but this was too much for me)
Tabasco sauce to taste.

Preheat oven to 190 C.

To make crust, mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Check it will press together ok - I think I needed a bit more butter. Press into a greased (?) 18-20cm flan dish. (I used a 22cm springform cake tin which was fine.) Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile boil sweet potatoes for 15-20 minutes til tender. Drain and mash with plenty of seasoning.

Fry onion in oil over medium heat til soft (Sarah suggests 3-4 minutes but I took 10 minutes). Add garlic and spices and fry a couple of minutes. Add kidney beans and avocado. Stir over medium heat about 2-3 minutes. Add orange juice, zest and Tabasco sauce. Check seasoning. Cook another 5 minutes (the juice should have reduced but not quite evaporated).

Spread the sweet potato over the flan base. Spoon the kidney bean and avocado mixture over the sweet potato. Cover loosely with foil and bake for 10-15 minutes. Serve hot or warm.

On the stereo:
Songs from the Wood (subtitled: 'with kitchen prose, gutter rhymes and divers): Jethro Tull

Germy Bran Muffins

‘What sort of muffins have you made?’ asked E as he did the dishes following my baking.

‘Ummm… I put them all in the freezer except one and you are welcome to that one,’ I replied.

He congratulated me on some fine dissembling about my muffins and told me I would make a great interviewee on the John Faine morning radio show – I think he was alluding to politicians who refuse to answer any questions.

But there was a reason I didn’t like to answer. I made Wendy’s moist bran muffins but I had wheat germ I wanted to use up and used it instead of wheat bran. Does that mean I have to say I made moist germ muffins? It just doesn’t have the same ring to it! I would prefer to call them prune muffins but the prunes are really there because Wendy substituted prune puree for butter – inspired by Nigella Lawson! They don’t really taste like prunes but the prunes do seem to make them pleasingly moist.

I wondered what difference it would make to use wheat germ rather than wheat bran. I checked with Sarah Brown and Rose Elliot who both wrote that the wheat germ has most of the nutrients because it is the place where the wheat germinates, but the bran comes from the husk and is full of fibre. My muffins might not be so fibre-packed but apparently they are full of nutrients (unless these die in the baking process which is quite possible).

I had a few other deviations from Wendy’s recipe. The only tin of prunes I could find in the supermarket was sweetened (why why why?). I discovered this as I looked at the amount of sugar required by the recipe. Wendy must have used unsweetened prunes. I halved the sugar and it was still very sweet. I added molasses and forgot the salt. I also used mostly wholemeal flour which worked fine. I liked the caramelly taste that molasses imparts so will do that again. I might also just try pureeing dried prunes rather than the tinned ones next time.

But for now the muffins tasted lovely and sit in the freezer awaiting morning teas and afternoon teas when I need a treat of wholesome goodness. And the name? I am sticking to Wendy’s name because I can’t bear to call them Germ Muffins.

Moist Bran Muffins
(Adapted from A Wee Bit of Cooking)
Makes 30-36 mini-muffins

90g wheat bran or wheat germ (I think about ¾ a cup)
50ml plain yogurt
200ml milk
400g (or thereabouts) tin of prunes - drained, stoned and pureed
2 tblspn vegetable oil, plus extra to rub over muffin tin
1 egg, beaten
1 tblsp molasses (optional)
¼ cup packed (50g) brown sugar (optional)
1 tspn vanilla essence
½ cup wholemeal plain flour
¼ cup white plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
25g walnuts, chopped (or pecans)
25g sultanas

Mix wheat bran or wheat germ into milk and yoghurt in a small bowl so it soaks up the liquid. Set aside while preparing other ingredients.

In a medium mixing bowl use a whisk or fork to lightly beat the prunes, oil, eggs, molasses, sugar and vanilla essence until combined. Add bran or germ mixture and stir well. Add flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda, salt, nuts and sultanas. Stir until just combined.

Spoon mixture into a greased muffin tin (or ungreased silicone muffin tray). Bake in a 190 C pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes til golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and store in airtight container or freeze.

On the Stereo:
World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, vol III, Scotland – compiled and edited by Alan Lomax

Perfect Purple Potato Bread

"What I say is that, if a fellow really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow."
A. A. Milne (1882-1956)

It is the year of the potato and to celebrate Eating Leeds is holding an event where bloggers cook a potato dish and are encouraged to try a different variety of potato to their usual ones. So I turned to Yann Lovelock and Colin Spencer to find out more about potatoes.

The humble potato is known by many names (Lovelock dedicates two pages to its name): potato, earth apple, pomme de terre, spud, Murphy, tater, tatty, ground truffle, breadroot, prairie turnip, gruntbeer, kartoffel grond peer, krumpli, batatas, bilati aloo, Batavian tuber, foreign yam, Frank’s taro.

It has a fascinating history, originating in Peru where it broke up the soil to make the growing of maize possible. The Spanish explorers then ‘discovered’ potatoes and brought them back to Europe where for years they were shunned as poisonous, inedible and even immoral. In Scotland, Presbyterian ministers opposed eating potatoes because they were not mentioned in the bible. Walter Raleigh is credited with introducing them to Ireland. I am particularly inspired by the story of French military pharmacist, Parmentier who, in his campaign to popularise potatoes, served a dinner in which all courses were based around potatoes.

In Australian history taught in schools, the potato is probably most prominent in the story of the Irish potato famine of the 1840s because it sent migrants heading to our shores. But we are not taught that it saved so many from famine and war. Maybe we didn’t need to be told it was a vegetable of influence and benevolence. While appreciating Shila Hibben’s claim that ‘the potato, like man, was not meant to dwell alone’, none of us could imagine life without it.

The potato features heavily in the Australian diet. What small country town would be without its fish and chip shop (not the one where I grew up). My childhood was full of roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, boiled new potatoes, pomme noisettes, shepherd’s pie, baked potatoes, packets of chips (crisps), hot chips, potato cakes, rosti, and the occasional treat of a chip butty and I am sure there are many more I can’t remember. I think my mum even made boston bun with mashed potato in it. I remember when I started cooking, I made a chocolate mashed potato cake which horrified my brothers and sisters but delighted me.

My recipe books are full of fantastic potato recipes – you will find them on my blog in soups, salads, stews, burgers, roast dinners, festive food, soda bread, cookies, and there are many more to come. Last week I made a delicious potato recipe which I found on Ann and Jack’s blog, Redacted Recipes. I knew the Cheese, Onion and Potato Bread must be good because Jack came back to the recipe after 12 years without disappointment – he described it as ‘small loaf with a rugged exterior and a soft, savoury interior, and it should taste wonderful’. He was right!

I love vegetables in baking and unlike some cookbook authors, I don’t feel it needs to be a sneaky way of hiding vegetables and denying their existence. Rather, vegetables should be celebrated for making cakes and breads lighter, softer, moister and more full of taste.

When Eating Leeds suggested using a different potato, the obvious one for me to try was the delightful purple congo, which Colin Spencer describes as ‘dark violet and distinctly reminiscent of Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes’. I first noticed it last year at the Queen Vic Market. Then I saw Haalo making her wonderful purple gnocchi (and she kindly alerted me to the stall at Prahran Market that sells them). Happily, I found them close to work in the lovely little Lygon St fruit and veg shop in Carlton. (I could even weigh them on my new electronic scales I got for my birthday!)

I admit my excitement was all about colour rather than about different textures. I had visions of a purple loaf of bread. It wasn’t uniformly purple, but it pleased me immensely that the bread was flecked purple and green. What is really interesting about using purple potatoes is that you see them in the bread rather than having white on white.

This bread was one of the nicest quick breads I have ever made (apologies to Jack for a few changes). The potatoes were part of this – they added moisture and taste. But kudos must also go to the sweet softness of the spring onions, the smoked paprika, and the gruyere cheese. It was soft with a deep smoky cheesy taste. I mentioned to E that it almost tasted like bacon and he agreed that if I had told him it had bacon he would have believed it. I feel I finally have used my smoked paprika in a dish where it shines and blends perfectly with the other flavours.

I probably don’t even need to say it, but this recipe is a winner! It was delicious with roast veggies and Muhammara, and took much self-discipline to leave any for breakfast the next morning. But it was delicious at breakfast time with or without jam, eaten over the weekend newspaper (which was promptly delivered unlike last week).

Cheese, Onion and Potato Bread
(from Redacted Recipes)

1½ cups (6 oz s) self-raising flour
1 tsp salt
½ tsp smoked paprika (or cayenne pepper)
1 potato, grated (I used 2 purple congo – about 200g)
100g gruyere (or goats cheese or fetta or cheddar) cut into small cubes
5 spring onions, trimmed and finely sliced
1 heaped tsp fresh thyme
1 egg
2-4 tbsp milk (I used 4)
1 tsp grain mustard

Heat oven to 190 C.

Place flour, salt and smoked paprika into medium mixing bowl. Add grated potato, 2/3 of the cheese, onions and thyme. Mix thoroughly. Lightly beat the egg with 2 tbsp milk and the mustard, add it to the bowl and mix everything together thoroughly until you have a sticky shaggy dough. You may need to add a little extra milk if it is quite dry.

Transfer the dough onto a greased baking tray – use floured hands or just scrape it out with a spoon. Form into a rough round. Push the remaining cubes of cheese into the surface, evenly spaced, dust lightly with flour then bake for 40 - 45 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. NB my cheese had melted the bread onto the tray and I had to use an eggflip (spatula) to loosen it from the tray.

On the stereo:
The best of 1966-1970: Incredible String Band

Polenta and Tomato Comforts

Last night I dug out a recipe I have not made for years. I discovered it and made it frequently when I lived in Edinburgh. This was a time when life was stressful – I was just settling into a new town, our flat was cold and damp, and my job was demanding. So it was great to have a recipe to turn to that was easy and comforting. At the end of a busy day it was reassuring to sit at our little table, eat this warm mushy polenta with tomato sauce and remind ourselves how lucky we were to be able to eat out dinner with a fine view of Edinburgh Castle.

I am sending this to Meeta for her Monthly Mingle which this month is all about comfort. So I thought about what comfort food is – nostalgia, easy and simple are words that come to mind. The polenta mush is so soothing. It demands so little as it effortlessly slips down the throat. The tomato sauce is delicious in its simplicity. And melted cheese is the perfect indulgent topping on any comfort food. The ingredients are pantry staples and readily available at supermarkets. I used fresh basil rather than sundried tomato paste because for once I found the remains of a bunch of basil had not turned to soup in the fridge. I think in the past I just used plain tomato paste. I have also made it with common cheddar rather than gruyere and it works equally well. No fuss. No stress. Just an easy comforting meal.

Although the polenta with tomatoe sauce can be eaten alone, I prefer to serve it with some other vegetables. Again, I turned to what was available rather than rushing out to the shops. Peas are a great standby. I had the remains of a bag in the freezer and cooked them in the microwave like my mum does. I found a recipe for a delectable carrot salad which was serendipitous because I had carrots and spring onions in need of attention in my fridge. (The salad is also brilliant for lunch with cheese on toast.) I also like to just steam some broccoli to serve with the polenta. But when seeking comfort, just go for whatever is easiest!

Soft Polenta with Tomato Sauce
(adapted from 30 Minute Vegetarian by Joanne Farrow)
Serves 4

1½ cups (250g) instant polenta
1 litre water or vegetable stock
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp parmesan cheese (or more)
Chopped fresh herbs such as parsley, chives, basil etc (optional)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
400g can diced tomatoes
½ cup chopped basil (or 3 tbsp sundried tomato paste)
1 tsp raw sugar
80g gruyere cheese (or cheddar), grated
Seasoning

Bring water or stock to boil (if not using stock add 1 tsp salt) in a large saucepan. Add polenta in a steady stream, then garlic. Stir over low heat for 5 minutes until polenta is thick and pulpy. Add parmesan and herbs if using. Check seasoning. Spoon into a greased shallow oven-proof dish.

Heat oil in saucepan and fry onion over medium heat for 5-8 minutes until it is soft. Add tomatoes, basil or tomato paste, and sugar. Season. Pour over the polenta.

Sprinkle with cheese and bake at 200 C for 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and golden.

Carrots with Lime and Mint
(adapted from 30 Minute Vegetarian by Joanne Farrow)
Serves 4 as a side

4 medium carrots
4 spring onions
2 tbsp lime juice (or juice of 1 lime)
2 tsp castor sugar
½ tsp chilli paste
2 tbsp fresh mint, chopped
seasoning
(options suggested that I didn’t fancy – celery sticks and peanuts)

Peel the carrots (this is optional depending on how you feel about peeling). Use a vegetable peeler to peel long ribbons off each carrot. I found it easiest to lie the carrot on the chopping board and push the peeler along the carrot away from my body. I had a small core of carrot leftover from each carrot –a thrifty person might use it for stock. Cut spring onions into 2 inch (5 cm) lengths and shred lengthways. The recipe suggest placing vegetables in ice cold water for 15-20 minutes til they curl but I am not patient or organised enough. Mix remaining ingredients in a small bowl and add to vegetables. Toss to coat and serve.

On the stereo:
Maid of Constant Sorrows: Judy Collins

Muhammara by Moonlight

The Moonlight Cinema in the Royal Botanic Gardens (Gate D, Birdwood Avenue, South Yarra) has become a Melbourne institution. During the summer months, Melbournians can stroll along to the gardens after work laden with hampers and eskies, claim a piece of lawn with their rugs and beanbags, and enjoy a picnic followed by a movie under the stars. We were there last week, enjoying the atmosphere.

If you like to look in other people’s shopping trolleys at the supermarket and check out what the next table is eating in a restaurant, this is the place for you. I love preparing a yummy picnic and watching what others around us are eating. Many do the chip, crudités and dips. Finger food that doesn’t need cutlery and plates is ideal. Others bring takeaway stirfries, sushi, salads, corn on the cob. The pop of a champagne cork is heard and glasses clink somewhere. Pizza, ice-creams and coffee can be purchased from a van. Fizzy drinks or chocolate are given away free. It is hard to escape the feasting frenzy. We enjoyed a lovely spread of Muhammara, Hummus, crudités, dry biscuits, cheese, filo cigars, grubs, apricot slice, grapes.

Then as dusk falls, the trees are silhouetted against the city skyline. The skyscrapers and icons of the city are lit up in the distance – Government House, St Patrick’s Cathedral, the MCG. Dark bats swoop through the sky and cackle in the nearby trees. A screen unfurls and the film begins.

We saw Hunting and Gathering. An enjoyable film with many interesting foods featured - laughing cow cheese soup, buttery crepes and a hog’s head. It was in the film that I saw the most elegant picnic basket of the evening – a wicker hamper complete with Philibert’s family crest on the plates. That is what I call classy!

Now to the recipes. I made the Muhammara dip the night before. I had been dying to try it since I saw Cindy and Clotilde make it. The pomegranate molasses gave it depth of flavour. It was garlicky but a little sweet and I thought it could do with a bit more lemon juice (or seasoning?). E was impressed. It went well with cheesy biscuits or on roast vegetables.

The night before I bought some falafels for dinner in a local café, and as I waited I was attracted to a recipe for Apricot Slice as I browsed the magazines. My falafels cooked a bit too quickly. I only had the chance to memorise the ingredients but didn’t read on through the method before being interrupted by the falafels being ready. But it seemed interesting and portable so I decided to give it a try.

The Apricot Slice was good but not perfect. It had too much butter, unnecessary sugar and not enough apricots. But it was easy to make – no baking involved – and it was very morish. It seemed like a superior version of the ubiquitous lemon slice for someone like me who doesn’t like lemon or icing much and adores dried apricots. I hope sometime I will make this again and tweak the ingredients more but for now, it is a good slice that will last for at least a week and fill the spot!

Finally, I thought it might be useful to write a checklist because there is always something I forget. For us, the must-haves are rug, insect repellent, knife, tea towel for spills, plastic bag for rubbish, serviettes, plastic plates and cups, water, food, dessert, fruit. Did I forget anything? My mum would take a thermos, and if showers are forecast an umbrella might come in handy (yes, we have watched movies above a sea of umbrellas). We hired the beanbags for the first time which was a good decision. And the crudités definitely taste better out of a dalek lunchbox.

Muhammara
(adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini)
Makes 2 cups

- 1 kg red capsicums, about 4 medium-large ones
- 100g (1⅓ cups) walnuts, toasted
- 30g pecans, toasted
- 130g (1 cup) unsalted cashews, toasted
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp smoked paprika
- ¼ tsp chilli powder or chilli paste (or more to taste)
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 tsp walnut or olive oil
- 1 tbsp lemon juice (or more to taste)
- 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses (or balsamic vinegar)

Cut red pepper into quarters removing core and seeds. Roast or grill til skins blistered and blackening. Place in plastic bag to sweat for 10-15 minutes and when cool enough peel skins off with your hands. Or roast and peel in your favourite way.

Toast the nuts in a dry frypan – this is optional – I didn’t do it but might try and remember next time. Clotilde suggests putting all ingredients in food processor to blend til smooth. I blended the nuts and red pepper in batches and mixed it all up in a mixing bowl. Adjust seasonings and refridgerate.

Muhammara is best made a day ahead. If you are not going to use all of it, it can be frozen in a container til needed.

Apricot Condensed Milk Slice
(from The Australian Women’s Weekly)

250 (1½ cups) dried apricots
2 x 250g marie biscuits (or 1 pkt biscuits and 2 cups coconut)
250g butter, melted
¾ cup brown sugar (I didn’t use)
395ml tin of sweetened condensed milk
coconut for sprinkling

Place apricots in food processor to finely chop. Place Marie Biscuits in the food processor to mill to fine crumbs. Mix all ingredients together. Press into swiss roll tray (I lined mine with baking paper). Sprinkle with coconut. When cooled, cut into squares and store in the fridge.

On the stereo:
least complicated: indigo girls

A birthday cigar

In my family, a birthday is a day when you have a right to be happy. Growing up in a family of seven kids, it was a treat to be able to choose what to have for dinner. These days I usually choose what we eat each night but on my birthday I can indulge myself in something a little special. And only on my birthday can I eat cake in the sunny backyard following a rendition of happy birthday sung by my nieces and accompanied by E strumming along on his new ukulele.

Often a special meal focuses on a central dish like a nutloaf or a pie. This year I wanted something lighter and decided to spend a bit more energy on salads and less on their accompaniment. The meal required considerable preparation time and was not one that could be whipped up after work. But it was an enjoyable and leisurely day of food when I was only too happy to let my veggies roast in the oven while I relaxed in the backyard dipped into my new collection of food essays edited by Mark Kurlansky.

The first salad I chose was the Macedonian Salad from The Moosewood Cookbook. It features eggplant roasted and marinated in a garlicky herby lemony vinaigrette. When I worked making salads on kibbutz, we used to make an amazing salad of dark deep fried eggplants in just such a sharp vinaigrette and it was one of my favourite salads. But it requires some time to let the eggplant roast and then soak up the flavours.

I drizzled olive oil over the eggplant and put it in the oven to roast for 15 minutes as instructed. At the end of that time it still looked like pale rubbery pieces of sponge. I sprayed it with olive oil and returned it to the oven for another 20 minutes and it still looked the same. I put it back for another twenty minutes but by now my nieces had arrived and we had to inspect Zinckie cat’s sunburnt ears and one thing led to another. By the time I remembered the eggplant it had been in the oven well over an hour and had gone dark and wizened on the outside and meltingly soft inside. I then left it to marinate while I played with the wee girls.

The second dish is a beetroot and haloumi salad that Wendy made some months ago. I liked the simplicity of the lightly seasoned chunks of roasted beetroot with the salty nuggets of haloumi. It took me longer to cook the beetroot than Wendy which I suspect were because my beets were bigger than hers – and this is a situation where bigger is not necessarily better!

While thinking about what might accompany the salads, I came across a recipe for Moroccan filo cigars made by Ariela at Baking and Books . They appealed to me. It seemed easy, and the idea of a cigar on my birthday seemed fitting – makes me think of decadence and luxury, of the Victorian aristocrat in a smoking jacket, of the liberated woman writer in 1920s Paris, of the generous millionaire in the USA.

I don’t use pastry that often so it always makes me a little anxious but this wasn’t too difficult. Ariela gives a choice of two fillings –spinach cheese or potato cheese. It could be done with any filling, and in fact I made quite a few changes to suit what I had on hand (her recipe had choices of other cheeses such as fetta, ricotta, gruyere). I did hope they might be so crisp that I could have fun waving one around like you might a cigar but they were too long and bendy – would shorter ‘cigars’ be better, I wondered. (My answer was found when I reread the method and discovered I'd missed the bit about cutting the filo pastry in half!) Nevertheless, they tasted great and I will make them again – they were light enough not to dominate the meal, the leftovers froze easily and the also made great picnic food.

Happily, my cigars and salads got along famously. It was a pleasant evening, sharing good food and intelligent discussion with E in the backyard. If I had said to E that dinner would centre around eggplant, beetroot and spinach, he would have run a mile, but he was pleasantly surprised by the eggplant and tucked into dinner with delight, as did I. The only improvement would have been a good sauce for the cigars rather than supermarket tomato sauce but hope is in sight – my mum has just made her yearly batch of tomato sauce so a bottle or two will be coming my way soon.

Macedonian Eggplant Salad
(From the Moosewood Cookbook)
Serves 4 as a side

1 large eggplant (approx 7-9 inches long), cut into 1 inch cubes
Olive oil for roasting
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 medium clove garlic, crushed
½ tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup (packed) basil, roughly chopped
¼ cup (packed) parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
2 spring onions, finely chopped
½ medium red capsicum, finely chopped
½ medium green capsicum, finely chopped
1 tomato diced
Optional garnish – olives, yoghurt or fetta

Place eggplant in a roasting dish. Drizzle with a little olive oil and toss to coat. Roast til dark and soft in a 375 F oven. The time will depend on your oven – Mollie says 15 minutes but it took me over an hour. The success of this recipe depends on the eggplant being well cooked so don’t be afraid to leave it a little longer if you are unsure if it is done. At about 20 minute intervals I took tray out to spray eggplant with olive oil and toss.

Meanwhile combine olive oil, vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper, herbs and lemon juice in a medium sized salad bowl. When eggplant is cooked and still hot, place it in this bowl and toss with the marinade. Let it sit for at least 2 hours – this can be one several days ahead and kept in the fridge.

Add remaining vegetables. Toss and serve. Garnish if you wish. Mollie says to add vegetables within an hour or so of serving but I omitted the garnishes and found it kept very well overnight and made for excellent leftovers the next day.

Roasted Beetroot and Halloumi Salad
(From A Wee Bit of Cooking)
Serves 2 as a side

2 medium beetroot
Olive oil
Balsalmic vinegar
50g halloumi, sliced 1cm thick
Lemon juice
Handful of green leaves (I used rocket and baby spinach), roughly shredded
1 spring onions, chopped
Optional ingredients might be your choice of nuts (such as walnuts) and/or fresh herbs (such as parsley)

Boil the beetroot in their skins for 20 minutes. Cool a little (running some cold water over them helps but in our drought stricken country leaving them for a little while is more environmentally friendly!) Then use your hands rub the skin off (or I guess you could use a vegetable peeler but it never occurred to me at the time). Cut into chunks (of about an inch) and toss in olive oil and seasoning. Roast in 200oC oven 15 mins. Drizzle with balsalmic vinegar, toss gently and roast for 25 mins on top shelf and another 20 mins on lower shelf (I could have done with a bit more time but Wendy had a lot less time so this time is a guide only).

Toss green leaves and spring onions together in a large salad bowl. Add roasted beetroot. Heat a non-stick frypan over medium heat and spray with oil. Add the haloumi and fry for one minute either side until golden brown. Add to the bowl. Squeeze some lemon juice over the salad. Toss.

Sephardic Spinach Filo Cigars
(adapted from from: Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World by Gil Marks via Baking and Books)
Serves 3-4

375g frozen chopped spinach, thawed
½ tsp olive oil
2 spring onions, chopped
¼ cup parsley, finely chopped
½ cup (4 oz) good cheddar cheese, grated
1 tbsp parmesan, grated
100g cottage cheese
pinch of salt (optional)
generous grinding of black pepper
about 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
8 sheets filo pastry
Olive oil, olive oil spray or melted butter

To make the filling:
Squeeze as much moisture as possible from thawed spinach. Heat oil in a large frypan over medium heat. Cook spring onions in oil for about 1 minute. Add spinach and parsley and stir over medium heat til liquid evaporates – this doesn’t take too long. Add remaining ingredients. This can then be set aside in fridge earlier (or even the night before I think) until you are ready to fill the cigars

To make the cigars:
Preheat oven 200 degrees C. Grease a large baking sheet.

Lay the pile of sheets of filo pastry on the benchtop and cut in half lengthwise. Cover pile with a damp teatowel and take out on at a time to fill.

Grease or spray a baking tray. Place one piece of filo on a flat surface and lightly brush with olive oil or melted butter (or like me you could brush with a little olive oil and then spray all of it with olive oil spray – this was much quicker for me). Spoon filling in a narrow stripe about one inch out from the narrow end and leave a one inch border at the top and bottom of the stripe of filling. Fold the top and bottom inch over and then roll from the end with the filling to create the ‘cigar’. You can keep in the fridge up to a day before baking or freeze. (She says not to defrost before baking but I defrosted in the microwave because I was in a hurry the next night and they were lovely when they were baked!)

Unless you are keeping these for later, place on the baking tray as you prepare them. Brush or spray with oil. Bake for 20 minutes (or 30 minutes if baking frozen cigars) til crisp and brown. Serve warm or at room temperature.

On the stereo:
Follow the Music: a commemorative sampler of Elektra’s pre-rock era: Various Artists