Baked beans are one of my comfort foods, always have been, always will be. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to try out Maggie Beer’s version that appeared i one of the first episodes of The Cook and the Chef. Probably because I don’t tend to cook dried beans or pulses and I keep forgetting to pick up some speck. Luckily, one day visiting The Deli in Erskineville to get some ricotta to stuff some zucchini flowers and make some cannelloni I saw they had speck and I picked up some of that too.

Boston Baked Beans - Serves 2-4
250 grams of cannellini beans
1 teaspoon of mustard powder
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons of maple syrup
1 tin of tomatoes
150 grams of pork speck
1 onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves
1 bay leaf, torn
Salt and pepper

Heat oven to 180ºC. Soak the beans overnight. In a large saucepan, fry the onion, speck, cloves and bay leaf until the onions are transparent. Add everything else except the beans and simmer for 10 minutes to reduce the liquid a little.

Drain the beans and add. Put a lid on the saucepan and bake for three hours, stirring occasionally. Serve.

Tags:Beans, Tomato, Recipe, Bacon, Baked, Maggie Beer

Okay, this is the last zucchini recipe for a while, I promise. I’m out of zucchinis. I’m glad I made them though, it’s not a vegetable I usually cook with which is why the last few were all meant to be for this month’s Cook Sister! Waiter There’s Something In My... event, “for the love of gourd”.

Frankly, even though the other dishes tasted good they all looked pretty average in the pictures so with the one final zucchini I had left I dug around and found, via The Kitchn, a Martha Stewart recipe for zucchini ribbon pickles. I hadn’t made these things for years! Perfect. I scaled down the recipe quite drastically since I only had one zucchini left but here’s my take on it, scaled back up for you.

UPDATE: Jeanne has posted the roundup of this month’s theme. Thanks again Jeanne. I love Joanna from The Passionate Cook’s Courgette and Thyme Croustades with Parmesan Cream. Yummo.

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Tags:Pickles, Zucchini, Recipe, Mustard

I think I should get the lighting director for my housewarming to flood one of the tables with black light so that the parsley hummus has that appetizing radioactive glow, it’s almost day-glow as it is. Not that that in this case is really a bad thing, it says something about the freshness of the parsley, I suppose. With the addition of the tahini it blows the store bought hummus out of the water.

Parsley Hummus

Parsley Hummus - Makes 2 cups
1 clove of garlic
½ cup of parsley leaves, packed
1 tin of chickpeas
¼ cup of sour cream
3 tablespoons of tahini (ground sesame seeds)
2 tablespoons of sesame seed oil
1½ teaspoons of lemon zest
1½ teaspoons of ground cumin
1½ teaspoons of sea salt
¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper (I subbed tabasco)

Put everything in a food processor, blend until smooth.

Tags:Chicpeas, Parsley, Hummus, Housewarming, Dip

Isn’t it always the way, you’ve got a day off work but all you do is more work than you’d do at work?

0900 Breakfast with Puppet
1100 Orthopantograph (full mouth dental x-ray)
1200 Optometrists Appointment
1400 Meeting with new employer
1530 Pick up remaining belongings from existing employer
1600 Pick up washing from laundromat
1700 Hardware store - new light bulbs
1730 Clean kitchen
1900 Cook dinner
2000 Clean kitchen again
2030 Blog about dinner

So with that schedule, I wanted something quick and easy for dinner and with left over crispy skinned duck in the fridge and a packet of wild rice in the cupboard a jazzed up fried rice was great choice. Simple and easy and best of all, using those little bits of stuff you’ve got laying around.

Fried Wild Rice with Crispy Duck

Fried Wild Rice with Crispy Duck - Serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side
2 eggs
2 cups of wild rice
2 cups of cooked duck, shredded
4 rashers of bacon, diced
½ cup frozen stir-fry veg (or peas, carrots, corn etc diced)
1 cinnamon stick (optional)
1 star anise (optional)

Whisk the eggs together and fry in a wok, swirling around to create a thin omelette. Turn the omelette out and dice.
Cook the rice and leave to cool.
Fry the spices, duck and bacon until the bacon is crispy, add the vegetables and fry until almost cooked and add the rice. Fry until the rice is loose and not clumping any more, add the egg and heat through. Serve.

Tags:Asian, Rice, Duck, Vegetables, Eggs

Saturday was Gay New Years in Sydney so I was having a bunch of friends over for a bbq and some other nibbles. The night itself was a lot of drunken fun watching the parade from my balcony and since it was for a special occasion I tried to theme the food to Balls, Meat and Tarts.

Hot Guy and the Dykes on Bikes



Marching Boys - Mardi Gras '08

For the balls, who else could I turn to except Jamie Oliver? I took his spiced doughnut recipe and to simplify things I made doughnut balls instead of the traditional shape. I was pretty happy the way they turned out, very light and puffed into almost perfect spheres when they fried. It took a little bit of time and effort but they were great. The dough was so soft and silky it was a pleasure to work with, particularly because I was worried that it'd even turn out. I don't usually have any milk in my house and I forgot to get some at the store so I took a gamble and watered down some plain yoghurt. It seemed to do the trick.

Doughnut Balls

As for the meat I stopped at Hudson Meats and picked up some moroccan lamb burgers, american bbq ribs and some honey soy chicken drummetts. I hope I didn't smoke out my neighbors too much. There were a few other people having bbq's so I don't think it really mattered.

Moroccan Lamb Burger

Then there was the tart, a very simple tomato and cheese tart using ready made puff pastry. It took all of 5 minutes prep time and 12 minutes to cook. Using two sheets of puff pastry, I used one as a base and cut thumb width strips from a second one and used those as an edge, two layers worked just about right. Once the sides were built up I grated in some mozzarella and parmesan, layered with sliced tomato and seasoned with salt, pepper and a bit of dried oregano. Popped in the oven for 12 minutes and it was done. I think it tasted better when it was cold and looked like it'd have held up well for a picnic.

Tomato and Mozarella Tart

Tags:Doughnuts, Mardi Gras, Frying, Tomato, Tart, BBQ, Baked, Puff Pastry

Tonight I made a BBQ Corn salad I found on Epicurious that was a side dish for a miso chicken. I wasn't keen on the idea of chicken tonight but the bbq salad sounded excellent and all of the reviews for it glowed, which is unusual for Epi. The recipe called for edamame but that's hard to come by around here so I just used frozen broad beans, next time I'll go to the trouble of pealing off the leathery outer skin as the tough texture jarred against the popping of the juicy corn, or just tracking down the edamame. Because I was only eating the salad for dinner I left out the mayo and I didn't miss it but if I was going to make it as a side I'd add it back in. Best of all, it was quick, simple and damn tasty.

Roasted Corn and Edamame Salad - Serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side
2 ears fresh corn, unhusked, or 1¼ cups cooked corn kernels
½ cup shelled edamame
¼ cup chopped red onion
¼ cup small-diced red bell pepper (capsicum)
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh cilantro (coriander)
1 tablespoon light mayonnaise
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1½ teaspoons finely chopped or grated ginger
⅛ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Soak fresh corn in cold water about 30 minutes.
Heat grill on high. Grill corn in husk, 10 to 15 minutes, turning once.
Let cool. Remove husks. Cut corn from cob into a bowl; combine with remaining ingredients.
Cover and chill in refrigerator until ready to serve.

via: Epicurious - Roasted Corn and Edamame Salad

Tags:Corn, Picnic, Salad, Barbeque, BBQ, Beans, Healthy

Another recipe from Nigella Express, her Crunchy Salad with Hot and Sour Dressing is damn nice and surprisingly filling as she points out in the introduction to it. It's a fairly substantial salad given the dense vegetables and the strong flavours from the Tom Yum paste. If you don't have any tom yum paste, try fish sause, lime, sugar, ginger and chili as a substitute. I added some dry cunchy noodles to mine since it was all I was having for dinner tonight and it added a nice texture but it's really not needed with the other blanched veggies.

I think I'll be adding this as a staple salad, it's super fast since you're really only just tossing things into a bowl and really nice, not too hot or sour. Heck, if you were pressed for time and wanted extra crunch, you probably don't even need to cook the veggies.



Crunchy Salad with Hot and Sour Dressing - Serves 4-6

Dressing:
2tsp Tom Yum Paste
1tsp Sesame Oil
2Tbs Rice Vinegar
1tsp Honey
2Tbs of Canola or Peanut Oil
Sea Salt to taste

Salad:
125g Broccoli (I used broccolini)
125g Fine Beans (I used sugar snap peas)
125g Baby Corn
25g Button Mushrooms (I forgot them)
100g Chinese Lettuce (I used regular mixed lettuce)
150g Bean Sprouts

Whisk all of the dressing ingredients together

Cook the broccoli, beans and corn in salted boiling water for two minutes then plunge in ice cold water to stop the cooking

Drain them and add the remaining salad ingredients and dressing. Serve.

Tags:Nigella, Nigella Express, Nigella Lawson, Salad, Broccoli, Peas, Asian