Look at my beans!

Monsterous!

These beans are quite tough and need to be well cooked.  I steamed them for 6-7 minutes (much longer than I would ever steam other fresh veg!) and then when cooled, made a simple bean salad with them.  In the salad I used some canned butter beans and chickpeas, finely chopped red onion, red pepper and flat leaf parsley, and dressed it with a basic lemon juice/olive oil dressing.  Delicious and refreshing!

Daring Cooks January Challenge: Pork Satay

I finally completed the January challenge for the Daring Cooks last night - only four days late...

The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppylicious and she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day.

The Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay can be found here.  Satay is not my favourite food of all time however I enjoyed the challenge as it forced me to cook something I never had before AND I discovered Tamarind which is now my new favourite flavour!

You win some and you lose some...

But lately I seem to have been having more loses than wins! 

Last week I had some strawberries that desperately needed using up, and I decided to make muffins with them.  I also had some natural yoghurt that was nearing the end of it's life and decided to adapt the recipe to include that too.  The strawbs were quite old and dry so I cooked them down in some sugar first - so far so good, they came out just the consistency that I wanted and I thought I was on a roll.  I should have left it at that but no, I had to play around with the batter recipe to include the yoghurt.  Big mistake.  While the muffins looked beautiful, they were dense and heavy as rocks!

So, after quite a list of failures (you really don't need to know about them all) I was quite pleased with myself last night when I made this bastardised version of a ratatouille to go with the pork steak we had for dinner.  In the end this turned out more like a warm vegetable chutney than a ratatouille and the flavours, with the slight sweetness from the wine and paprika and heat from the chilli worked beautifully with the pork.  not to mention the lovely colours on the plate!

Warm Vege Chutney
Ingredients
1/2 red capsicum

1/2 yellow capsicum

1/2 large red chilli

1/2 red onion

1 large zucchini

2 cloves garlic

3/4 c red wine

1/2 c thick tomato juice

1 T tomato paste

1/4 t sweet smoked spanish paprika

handful chopped flat leaf

parsley and basil

2 T olive oil

1. Chop capsicums, chilli, onion and zucchini into bite-sized pieces.  I used half of a large red chilli and left the seeds in, which gave the chutney just a hint of mild heat.  Heat oil in saute pan and lightly brown veges.

2.  Finely chop the garlis and add to the pan, along with the wine.  Allow the wine to bubble and reduce slightly and then add the tomato juice and paste.  I had the tomato juice left over from a can of whole peeled tomatoes that I used earlier in the week.

3.  Cook for five to ten minutes so that veges are soft but not mushy and the sauce has thickened and reduced.  Stir through the paprika and herbs and season with salt and freshly cracked black pepper and you're good to go! 

Happy New Year!

It's been a highly relaxing, enjoyable break over the Christmas/New Year period.  I have lurched from one delicious meal to the next without breaking stride and somehow managed to fit in morning and afternoon teas, nibbles and drinks as well!  To me, Christmas is all about good food, shared with good people which is certainly how I spent my holiday!

My husband and father-in-law are keen divers and fishermen so our holidays usually include an abundance of seafood and over the last 10 days I have been spoilt with fresh Crayfish, Paua (Abalone) and Blue Cod, along with all the usual Christmas goodies.

Stand out highlights of my holiday include trying Kina roe for the first time - it was cooked in a risotto, so fairly tame compared to the traditional Maori way of eating it raw, but delicious none-the-less!  A Boxing Day picnic of fresh Paua cooked on the beach (augmented with some bangers!).  A particularly lovely evening spent with friends over roast lamb.  Freshly picked raspberries with cream and home-made mini meringues... heavenly!  And, coming home to see how the garden had fared in our absence to find six huge, beautiful, perfect brocolli ready to be eaten!

THE most exciting thing that happened to me this Christmas though, was receiving Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion!  I have lusted after it from the moment I first saw it in my local bookshop and after dropping several hints to my husband, I actually had to come right out and make a specific request as I was terrified my extrememly subtle hints would be lost on him!  He scored bonus points too for getting me a Chef's Torch, which I have been harping on about with absolutely no subtlety whatsoever, for over a year!

Paua and Sausages cooking on the beach

The Cooks!

Crayfish

Our dog, Wags, was intrigued by the crayfish!

Our Broc!