When you find yourself in a far away place, with an outside temperature approximating that of the underworld (only more humid), you gotta have a focus in life.

I have a few options, given that uni started again last week and I have only 2 (of 48) units to go before I finish the longest Master's degree known to man, but you know.... I don't really feel like reading up about health economics right now, so I've chosen hobbies over studies.

Specifically, baking.

My By the Book challenge has stalled. I don't want to say failed, but there hasn't been a great deal of cooking going on simply because I don't have any pots or pans, and my KitchenAid is not going to arrive until September. I had thought that the KitchenAid (and the pots and pans) was floating towards me on the Indian Ocean, but it is, in fact, on a dock in Perth, patiently awaiting a ship heading towards the UAE.

September. September. Come September I will have all the things.  I will have my sewing machine again, so that I can put it in the bookshelf, look at it, and think about all the things that I might make one day. I will have the miniature kiln that I never got around to using. I might use it to make a miniature dish. Ohhhh and we'll have all our camping gear, so that we can imagine driving out into the dunes (in the car that we might buy at some point in the future) and setting up a glamorous camp in the desert, complete with a turkish rugs and an ottoman. I don't think we will need the goretex overpants.

I do have this awesome af measuring jug, purchased from an antique store in Arles that sold mainly loose stoppers from long-gone spirit decanters and spoons. Lots of spoons. Anyway, it has dry measurements for all different things around it, so next time I need to measure 200gm of semoule, cacao or riz I'm all set.

I do have a couple of cookbooks with me and a lot of free time though, so I had a crack at pizza dough the other day.

A few thoughts: it is very difficult to find yeast in the supermarket when you don't know where to look, and I think I will wait until I have my KitchenAid before trying again. Too much effort kneading when you know that a dough hook could do it for you.

I haven't yet made a dough that turned out right. It's always too bland, or the texture is wrong, or in this case, the taste was too yeasty.  After some googling, I think that my choice to rise the dough out on the balcony was perhaps a contributor. The airconditioning is set to arctic, and so I thought it would be too cold for the dough to rise. Instead, I made a little cover from clingwrap, pegged on the bowl, and put the dough in a shady spot outside. But this may have been too hot, causing the yeast to go crazy. After spending some time out there myself, I fully understand.


Also, when the instructions say that you can tightly wrap the dough after the first rising and put it in the fridge to use later, do not believe them. It will keep rising, even though it is in the fridge, and then the dough will start to extrude itself all through the fridge door. Just put it in a baggie, and give it room to grow.

Like something from Ghostbusters. The clingfilm was no match for the power of the yeasts.

And speaking of room to grow, look at my little container garden, off to a good start. It's amazing what you can do with empty water bottles, a leatherman, and more spare time than you ever had before. Ever in your life.

The version with a drip-down irrigation system failed almost instantly, but the self-watering ones seem to be doing ok.


So many hobbies right now.

❤

It's become clear to me that the Australian hospitality industry is woefully backward in two specific areas:

1. Free wifi
2. Pet friendliness

Regarding the former, in this age of cable-to-premises and unlimited downloads, it boggles my mind that crappy hotel chains want to charge $10 per 500mb, or offer 'free wifi' that is actually capped at 100mb or 30 minutes, whichever you hit first. If Emirates can sell you 1GB for one dollar, in the air, in an aeroplane, over the ocean, then how can our hotel industry possibly justify these charges? I just can't even.

Regarding the latter, I have only this to say: MORE PUPPEHS!!



Hotels in Europe may not have in-room fridges*, but they allow you to bring your dog! And pets are allowed on public transport, too. It's just so much more civilised.

*a serious drawback in Sweden, when you have obtained a number of bottles of delicious beer from Systemet, but find yourself unable to keep it cold. You have only two options: go to a pub and pay approximately 300 Australian dollars for a pint, or drink all the beer. What to do... what to do?

So, if you cannot bring your own best friend along for the holiday? Obviously you can bring your significant other, and although he may be furry, it's not going to fill the four-legged void. Your only option is to choose your accommodation based on its resident companion animals.





Sorry.... where was I...

Actually the point of this post was to talk about porridge, but I got a little side tracked. The reason I got side tracked is that I got to thinking about baked porridge because someone at work sent me a recipe, and then I was reminded of the wonderful B&B we stayed at in Swansea, TAS - Meredith Mews, and their amazing baked porridge. That in turn led me to dogs, because of the 2 very sweet west highland terriers that lived at the B&B, Dougal and Lulu.

Watching the kitchen, because it's where the bacon happens.

I've mentioned this porridge before, because it was really so delicious, but I never actually got around to making it. Partly because I am lazy, and partly because I was worried that whatever I did it just wouldn't be as good as I remembered.

So this weekend I had a crack at it.



I'll be honest: it was not as good as I remembered, but that was probably due to a shortage of milk, and also because the porridge at Swansea has a vast range of accoutrements to go with it.... apple sauce, raspberry compote. It was heaven. That's not to say that this morning's attempt was bad in any way, just that I think there are heights I'm yet to reach.

I used this recipe and accidentally left it in the oven for too long because I was watching episode 3 of War and Peace. The costumes are spectacular FYI (even if they're horribly inaccurate).

Still, if you've never eaten baked porridge, now is the time to start.


You've never tried the Swansea version anyway, so you won't know what you're missing.

❤

Well that big hunk of smoked salmon in the fridge didn’t end up going anywhere. I felt leery about it after reading that you should only keep it in the fridge for a few days after opening…and this pack had been there since before Easter. I should probably throw it out, now that I think of it.

But I’d set my mind on quiche. Some kind of eggie delicious pie. To be honest, I’d set my mind on bacon. Also, I’m currently experiencing a renaissance of food: I am eating (or planning to eat, since I haven't cooked since last Sunday...) all of the things that Rob would never eat. Foods such as cous cous (‘tastes like sand’/’it’s too small’), haloumi (‘strange cheese’), couscous with haloumi, dumplings from Din Tai Fung (‘meh’), apple pie (‘has fruit in it’), food containing sultanas (‘has fruit in it’’), and that glorious creature, risotto (‘it’s just *scrunches face* …’). I’m not sure exactly what the problem with quiche is, but like frittata and spinach pie, its place was also firmly in the Do Not Eat pile. He's just not a flan.


I'm lagging behind here in the challenge I've set myself. Firstly, in a shitty apartment, late home from work, by myself, I'm feeling too maudlin to cook. And, I’m still faced with the same problem as last week, which is that all of my cookbooks are in a box in the living room. I’ve narrowed it down to the exact box, but they’re right at the bottom and after some blind digging, followed by frenzied contents unpacking, I’d only managed to retrieve the Women’s Weekly Retro Cookbook. It was my goal, because I was sure that there would be a recipe for quiche Lorraine in the retro cookbook, but to my horror there was only ‘baby rocket quiche’. What kind of establishment do they think I’m running here??

Let's just take a moment to reflect on this egg cup...

So I defaulted back to the Commonsense Cookery Book – I’ve still no idea what ‘pastry mix’ is, only that a 300g packet is required for their recipe. I thought maybe it was the actual pastry, which you put on the bottom of the pan, or perhaps something you mix with butter to transform into pastry, and yet the instructions tell you to mix it in with the egg and the cheese and the milk. I substituted it for cream. You rarely go wrong with cream.

Just an FYI here: rocket, pear and balsamic glaze is the best salad going. And it looks so fancy.

By the Book - Week 15 

(well, technically this is last week's, but the sun had set by the time I'd finished cooking and so the photos were awful)

Quiche Lorraine (adapted from the Commonsense Cookery Book's Quick Quiche)

Ingredients
3 eggs
120ml milk
30ml cream
1 onion, diced
200g bacon, diced
150g grated tasty cheese
2 tbps chopped parsley

Some pastry, I used frozen that was so old it had lost its puff (which actually worked out well), but I don't know your life.

Method


Preheat oven to 200 degrees c.

Grease a dish and put pastry in it, then put it in the oven. I was impatient and tried to do this before it had fully defrosted... Don't do that. Frozen pastry does not conform to rounded edges.

Fry bacon over medium heat until it gets deliciously brown and the fat starts to render out, then add the onion and let it sauté until it's translucent. Take it off the heat.

In a largish bowl, whisk the eggs, milk and cream together, then stir in the cheese and parsley.

Add the bacon/onion to the egg mix, and pour this into the now semi-baked pastry shell.

Bake until a knife comes out clean from the centre - mine took about 40 minutes because the dish was quite deep, but for a shallower pie 30 minutes should do it. You might need to cover with foil for some of the time to stop the pastry from burning...it depends how artfully you were able to drape it in the dish and how much of the edge is exposed.



And then you just eat it. Try not to eat it all and remember that quiche is notorious for burning the tongue.

Yesterday I lay on the mattress on the floor (at my behest, the bed itself is gone, waiting downstairs in the car space in the vain hope that it will be stolen, one less thing to worry about), looking at the ugliest lamp shade in existence, wallowing in self pity. I could go the whole day, I thought, without talking to anyone.
I had a terrible dream that I awoke to find things in the apartment had been moved, but I was unable to tell if I had moved them in some kind of superhuman sleepwalking episode, or if someone else had moved things in the night, whilst I slept. You know, just the kind of dream you’d like to have when you are alone and the boxes of poorly packed belongings cast strange and unfamiliar shadows in the dark.



When the day first started I planned to go to the supermarket and buy such necessities as coffee beans and face wash. I would walk up the road to Chemist Warehouse to get some steps in (and to leave the house and perhaps talk to another human, or even better, a puppy outside a store), and then come home and cook something using the eggs and large packet of rapidly ageing smoked salmon in the fridge.

As I have issues with foods of texture, unadulterated smoked salmon is rarely something I will eat by choice, so a quiche was where I was heading. I’ll cook one from a book, I said to myself. I’ll cook up all that salmon, and I’ll have lunches for the week. But then... the cookbooks are all in one of those boxes. Which box? We shall never know.

The Commonsense Cookery Book (currently in the kitchen cupboard) recipe for quiche included something called “pastry mix” which was to be added to the egg mixture. I’ve never heard of “pastry mix” and I don’t know where it fits in with baked eggs.

And so I gave up on that idea and decided to make a cake instead using a box of vanilla cake mix I found in the cupboard. To make it more interesting, I added a grated carrot, a packet of walnuts, and one cubic tonne of nutmeg and cinnamon.


Folks, just some advice here… you can’t turn a vanilla cake into a carrot cake just by adding carrots and nuts. Also, the Betty Crocker vanilla frosting is Not Nice. It tastes vaguely of plastic and disappointment.

I mean, I of course ate quite lot of the cake for my dinner since I never made it to the supermarket, and took the rest to work where it was quickly demolished, but it wasn't my best work.

This is a couple of weeks old now, but when I originally wrote it  I was stuck in Armidale due to a QantasLink Dash8-300 with a faulty door seal and the terrible functionality of Blogger on iPad. Why is it so bad google? WHY??

And now, even though I've been to Armidale and Tamworth infrequently in the past couple of years, I spent this weekend up in the tablelands too, as we pack up and start to dump stuff at our parents' houses. Consequently there wasn't much time for cooking, but luckily I had this one from week 4 tucked up my sleeve.

___________________
I was in Armidale for a day longer than anticipated but my mother shares my cookbook-hoarding tendencies and owns duplicate copies of many of the pristine books that grace my shelf. Also, the sunsets were quite amazing while I was there, so it wasn't exactly a trial.

From Apex Lookout, on North Hill

And Gentles Road, Kelly's Plains. We drove out of town special, because of this sky.

The Women's Weekly Retro Cookbook (I'm sensing a theme here.... does my subconscious direct me toward WW Cookbooks?) was actually a gift from said mother, and she must have liked it so much that she bought one for herself, too.

I love looking at the pictures because the book is so beautifully styled, and it's escapism at its 1950's best. Really, who hasn't dreamed about making a salmon-shaped mousse whilst wearing a nipped-at-the-waist? And what even is melba toast?

I've never made gnocchi before, and aside from the tedium of trying to mash potato and sweet potato through a 20-year old plastic serve the size of a teacup (Jenny, get some better kitchen accessories), I was surprised by how easy it was.

The WW Retro recipe calls for you to separate the dough into four balls, shape those balls into logs and then divide each into 24 pieces. Then, each of the pieces is supposed to be rolled into a 'gnocchi shape', ie. Dimpled on one side and grooved with a fork on the other. All 92 of them. Hah, no. Mine were block shaped, with slightly rounded corners.

To make such fancy tomatoes, put a bunch in a roasting pan, drizzled with olive oil, then cook for a little while at 180.

By the Book - Week Four

Kumara Gnocchi with Rocket & Basil Pesto

Ingredients2 medium kumara ~800g, unpeeled (that's sweet potato)
4 potatoes ~480g, unpeeled (the recipe calls for desiree, but I used some other creamy white variety)
1 cup (150g) plain flour
1 egg yolk

For the pesto
2 tbs olive oil
2 tbs finely grated parmesan (or pecorino, because it is delicious)
1 clove garlic, quartered
50g baby rocket leaves
1 cup firmly packed basil leaves

Method
Boil, steam or microwave kumara and potatoes until tender. When cool enough pull of the skin, chop, and moosh through a sieve.
Stir flour and egg yolk into potato mixture and knead gently to form a soft dough.
Roll out on a floured surface and divide into four portions. Roll each portion into a 40cm log, and cut each log into 24 pieces.
Roll each piece into a ball; roll balls, one at a time, along the inside of a floured fork, pressing gently on top side with index finger to form a 'gnocchi shape'. Question your life choices.
Place gnocchi in a single layer on a floured tray and refrigerate for an hour.

To cook gnocchi: cook in batches, uncovered, in a large saucepan of boiling water until they float to the surface like tiny little dead bodies. Remove with a slotted spoon.

For the pesto: blend everything together. We were unable to find much basil, so had to improvise with a bit of mint, a lot of rocket, and some cashews.  Also, there was no blender, so I had to use a mortar and pestle. But she had a slotted spoon. I wonder sometimes.

We're currently trying to reduce the amount of junk, and number of superfluous items filling our unit. We've started selling things on gumtree (who knew that people actually still use Nintendo wii....?), precious items are being weeded and culled, and what remains after this ruthless treatment is carefully wrapped and placed in a box. 

This past week I have become enamoured with the idea of being the kind of person who bakes their own bread, rolls their own pasta, and knows how to make cheese.

I mean, I can bake bread and roll pasta, given the time and an oven that has a thermostat rather than two burning hot embers seemingly powered by nuclear fission, but cheese... that's a new one.

I was going to do a class, but I ran out of time (and they're really expensive in Sydney for what is a glorified lesson in stirring milk), and also, I know how to use the internet. Soft cheeses are apparently much more beginner-friendly because they don't require rennet, or other exotic equipment. I don't have the patience just now for inoculation, and rinsing, and mysterious processes involving weighted boxes and rind. And I don't have any rennet.

Ricotta. I decided to start with ricotta.



And because I don't own an instant-read thermometer (I've always wanted one, but never quite got around to it, and now it seems silly to buy more stuff right before moving overseas), and also because we went for a swim today and my energy levels were low, I decided to make it in the microwave. I found this recipe on Serious Eats, so it is a legit way of doing it!

These tomatoes were in the fancy tomato section at Woolworths, and looked pleasingly irregular in shape. I think they are breeding them now to look like heirloom tomatoes, when in fact, they are still supermarket tomatoes, but they did taste quite delicious anyway.

It's very simple. You put two cups of milk in a large microwave-safe bowl/jug, 2 tablespoons of vinegar or lemon juice (I used apple cider vinegar), and a pinch of salt. Then you microwave it for 2-4 minutes, until the curds have formed and the whey has separated out. Then use a slotted spoon to scoop the curds out, into a waiting cheesecloth-lined strainer. Or in my case, use a spoon (because who actually owns a slotted spoon?) to get the curds into the waiting Chux dishcloth (it was brand new, ok).

I may have panicked and over-stirred at minute 3, resulting in slightly rubbery curds, but as a first attempt I was quite pleased with myself. It was a little tangy even though I rinsed the curds; next time  I might jhoozh it around a little more.

Apparently though, this is actually not ricotta because it's made from whole milk, not whey. I'm no purist though.

But what to do with it? And what to cook, By the Book, on a rapidly fading Sunday afternoon?

Does this even count as cooking? I mean, it's from a book, and it was tasty, so there's that...

By the Book - Week 10 - Women's Weekly Great Fast Recipes (again)

Tomato, zucchini, and cheese tarts

Method (this is so simple that a separate list of ingredients is unneccesary)
Cut a sheet of ready-rolled puff pastry into quarters. Place on lightly greased oven tray. Fold in edges to make a 1cm border (I failed at this miserably, somehow). Sprinkle grated parmesan over the pastry (or RICOTTA), top with sliced cherry tomatoes and baby zucchini. Sprinkle with a little more parmesan, and bake in a very hot oven (~220 degrees) until pastry is puffed and brown (10-12 minutes).



Easy, and now I have a mid-morning snack for work tomorrow.


And I used up some pastry that's been in the freezer for a Long Time, as part of my 'desperately trying to use up everything and rid myself of extraneous stuff' resolution.

What's a little bit a freezer burn between friends?
❤

I buy corn when I have run out of hay to feed my bunnies. It's so cheap and I feel that giving them corn allows them to exist temporarily in a Beatrix Potter-esque world with vegetables on demand, nibbled in the dusk, safe from Mr McGregor.  I like to let the bunnies imagine that they are real outdoor rabbits. That's why I don't even take the husks or the silk off the corn; it gives them a more authentic experience.


Apparently corn is bad for bunnies, but these two also once ate the mesh of an entire screen door, and have never had any issues with... actually, with anything they have ingested.

I haven't eaten corn off the cob for a long time. It was banned whilst I had braces, but after that I only really ever ate it at music festivals and the Easter Show, dripping in saturated fat and delish salt. Burned in my memory is the sound of my brother's girlfriend chanting, coooooooorn, coooooooooooooooorn, whilst we schlumped through ankle-deep mud and rain at Splendour in the Grass circa 2003. Of course, we used to go before it was cool. And we used to eat a lot of corn.

Anyway, whilst camping recently, we ate a salad of fresh corn, black beans, tomato, avocado, lime juice and coriander (similar to this recipe), and I was reminded that corn is very delicious and is suitable for more than consumption by rabbits or people fuelled by bad weather and alcohol. But what to do with it?

Luckily, for Christmas I was given a beautiful book that focuses on vegetables and what you can do with them when they're in season. Perfect for the people with an overly productive garden and not enough ideas.



It is so visually appealing, with lovely matte pages and woven place markers, and my favourite, an index organised by ingredient.

Mmmmn, delicious starchy vegetables.

The perfect cookbook - one that makes you feel inferior about both your cooking and your gardening skills!

By the Book - Week Nine - Phaidon, Vegetables from an Italian Garden

Pasta with sweetcorn, pancetta, and baby spinach

Ingredients
300g pasta (the recipe calls for 'ruote', wheels, but there were no wheels to be found)
2 tablespoons olive oil plus extra for drizzling
250g sweetcorn kernels
150g baby spinach
3 thin slices pancetta or bacon, diced
salt and pepper

Method
Cook the corn for 5-10 minutes or until tender (or in my case, microwave for 4 minutes).
Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente.
Drain and tip into a salad bowl, drizzle with a little oil, and stir in the sweet corn. Add the spinach leaves and set aside.
Heat oil in a small pan. Add pancetta/bacon and cook over high heat, stirring frequently, until browned and delicious.
Remove from heat and sprinkle pancetta/bacon over the pasta.

It sounds much more impressive as Ruote al mais, pancetta e spinaci novelli. But I won't tell anyone if you don't.

I had half a red onion in the fridge so added that to the bacon, and I skipped the step that called for 'refreshing' the pasta under cold running water because that seems very strange to me, but apparently it's what you do when making a pasta salad?   Of course, I topped it all off with parmesan because I am a glutton.


I thought this was pretty delicious, and very fast to make.


The girls weren't entirely convinced though.

❤

The excitement of this Tuesday's crepe cake left me without any desire for cooking. I ate takeaway for dinner on at least 3 nights. Possibly more, but it's all sort of blurred together in a sodium-filled haze.

But it's Sunday, and I told myself that I would cook dammit, and so, while this isn't from a book that I own, it's adapted from a recipe card currently on the kitchen counter and was a good way to use up a whole lot of bits and pieces that were approaching the danger zone. Halloumi is too delicious to waste (now that I understand how to cook it, and buy only the brand Pittas, which is not too salty), and a bunch of mint these days costs the approximate equivalent of a week's rent so I can't quite bring myself to feed all of it to the bunnies after using but a single sprig. Also, I am home alone, so it's the perfect opportunity to eat cous cous.

It's a sort of bubble and squeak for modern life. Because ....halloumi!
I am on fire with the dad's jokes lately!

Not quite the book - week seven

Chickpea, tomato and halloumi squeaking salad (adapted from this recipe)
 

Ingredients
1 tin chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 tin diced tomatoes
Dried chilli flakes
Four medium tomatoes, quartered
Some cous cous (I used and Ainsley Harriot one because they are pre-seasoned and there was a packet also sitting on the counter top)
Small bunch of mint, finely chopped
A slab of halloumi, sliced
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar

Method

• Before you get hungry, put the tomatoes on a tray and drizzle with olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Put the tray in the over ~120 degrees. You don't need to pre-heat, just put them in and leave them until they've reduced in size (~1 hour). Roughly chop, then put the bits to the side once done (try not to pick and pick until all of the pieces are inexplicably eaten). 
• Place the halloumi slices under a hot grill, turning them once or twice until the surface is bubbly and browned. Put the halloumi to the side as well. 
• Over high heat, put the tin of tomatoes and the chilli flakes in a large frying pan and jiggle around until the liquid has started to reduce (I also put in a few teaspoons of sugar to take some of the acidity out of the tomatoes). Add the chickpeas and then let it bubble away until it reduces and thickens. 
• While that's happening, pour hot water over the cous cous in a large bowl and cover it loosely. 
• When the cous cous is nice and fluffy, add the roasted tomatoes and the mint. 
• Put a scoop of tomato/chickpea on the bottom, follow with a scoop of cous cous, and sprinkle the chopped halloumi on top.

It only takes about 30 minutes and there's enough for left-overs. It makes you win at life.

❤

Back to the Women's Weekly Great Fast Recipes, because it's hot here and I'm all tuckered out. And also there was a tub of yoghurt in the fridge slowly, sadly, approaching its best before date. Nothing like a little bit of lamb and yoghurt, although I remember when these would have been called "rissoles" or "fancy works burgers".



I was going to skip the beetroot and swap it out for tomato, but at the 11th hour I had a poke around in the cupboard and found a tin of beetroot that was in a similar state to that of the yoghurt.

I haven't eaten beetroot for a long time, except for in juices on those occasions when I make a short-lived declaration to eat fewer carbs and be a better person. I'm so glad I found that lonely can in the cupboard, because without it tonight's dinner would have fallen flat. The sweetness, and the acidity, brought it all together, cutting through the fattiness of the lamb mince (I don't think that Woolworths got the memo about reducing saturated fat intake, because you could have run a car off what was left in the pan when I was done cooking).

When I was little I adored tinned beetroot. I could eat a whole tin, plus juice, given the chance. One day I did just that, and the following day my parents received a somewhat frantic call from daycare, worried that I required urgent admission to hospital for suspected internal bleeding...oh, that bright, delicious, red juice...

By the Book - Week six - Women's Weekly Great Fast Recipes

Lamb patties with tzatziki and beetroot (click for the original, much better written, recipe)

Ingredients

Some time ago I bought a giant bag of polenta hoping that my previous experience with polenta (bland sludge, oddly gritty, not prepared by me) was simply an outlier.

Hoping it would be like mashed potato, a silky smooth vessel for butter, milk and leftover pan juices, I decided to have a crack at it.


The good parts

• Very easy.
• Rather tasty. I mixed everything in my kitchenaid, and could quite have quite happily just eaten the creamed butter, sugar and orange rind. 
• Very fast.  I chilled the dough before cutting, which helped with the shape a lot, but slowed things down a bit. Make sure you leave enough room on the trays though, because they spread like wildfire.

*The less good parts

• Yup. Polenta...it's a little gritty. Not bad. Just different.
• But, more importantly, I have long held suspicions about the thermostat in the oven, but am now convinced that it has gone nuclear. The first batch were well browned, with a few burnt, at 11 minutes. The second batch had burnt to a crisp by minute 7. Blackened, charred coals. And there were some strange chemical smells emanating from the element. Which made a few popping sounds.

I remember now though why I stopped baking. Maybe there is a raw slice recipe in one of my 270 cookbooks...

There's always next week.


❤