My favourite kitchen things ...

For me cooking isn't just about the food. It's also about the cooking. Sometimes I like to create something quick and easy. Other times I like to mess around for hours. But whatever I'm doing in the kitchen, I have certain bits of equipment and other things that I love.

• My camphor wood chopping board - this is a truly beautiful object - naturally anti-bacterial with a beautiful scent
• My pasta machine - because it's so much fun to roll and re-roll and create beautifully thin, silky pasta sheets
• My microplane grater - it's a fine-tooth one which is perfect for grating parmesan and nutmeg
• My Nespresso Pixie - because whenever I'm cooking (and even when I'm not) I need coffee and this one makes it quickly with minimal effort on my part
• My recipe books - food porn - gotta love it. I have the gloriously heavyweight, outrageously striped tome, The Cook's Companion, by Stephanie Alexander, A couple of books by Greg and Lucy Malouf which are definitely more than cook books, Arabesque and Saraban. Then there's Yotam Ottolenghi's beautiful Plenty and Ottolenghi: The Cook Book.
• My personal recipe collections - recipes pasted in from hundreds of magazines, hand-scribbled notes made at cooking demonstrations, courses and masterclasses, and ideas that I've come up with when I've been messing around (at the moment there are 5 books - sadly I haven't tried all the recipes yet)
• My iPhone - because I use Evernote to store recipes I find on the web, or that people email me and I using an off-line notebook, I can access these wherever I have a phone line or wifi connection
• My chef's knife - a sharp, fine blade that does everything I ask it too, and its complement - a small blade which comes into its own when I'm peeling fruit and veg

Finally, perhaps the most important presence in my kitchen is that of someone to eat the food I prepare. I don't mind cooking for one. I like it really. But just sometimes it's truly delightful to have the opportunity to prepare food for another.

Quinoa

Last night I was wondering what I could do with some quinoa I had in the cupboard that needed using up. One of the things I love about quinoa is that it’s a complete protein – brilliant for vegetarians. Anyway, I found inspiration in the June 2012 issue of Australian Good Taste magazine. Of course, being me, I had to mess around with the original recipe. So Melissa’s Quinoa Cakes have metamorphosed into a quinoa frittata. Hope you enjoy it. 

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked quinoa (about 3/4 cup raw)

100 g feta, crumbled

4 eggs, lightly whisked

1 carrot, peeled, coarsely grated

55 g (1/3 cup) toasted pine nuts

20 g baby spinach, chopped

2 Tbs fresh mint, chopped

2 Tbs sultanas

1 tsp finely grated lemon rind

1 tsp each of ground cumin, coriander, turmeric and paprika

Combine quinoa, feta, egg, carrot, pine nuts, spinach, mint, sultanas, spices, and lemon rind (everything really) in a bowl and mix it all up. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat a small amount of oil in a frypan over a low-medium heat. Pour quinoa mixture into pan and cook until base is cooked – probably about 5 minutes. Place under a hot grill to finish cooking.

This is a great way to use up any quinoa leftovers lurking in your fridge, but seriously, don’t wait until you have left-over quinoa. 

Do what I did and use the recipe for inspiration. Vary the spices, maybe add some chilli. Some fried onion and garlic would be great in it. Or ramp up the fresh flavours with loads of fresh herbs. 

(If you’ve never cooked quinoa before, just put 1 part quinoa in with 3 parts of water and simmer it for about 15 minutes. You can also add flavour by using stock, or some wine.)

Loving the Leftovers

Do your leftovers pine away at the back of the fridge, forgotten and unloved, and then get thrown out? Finding new things to do with leftovers not only helps reduce your food bills because you’re not wasting so much, but it’s kinder to the planet. Not to mention that it can be great fun to experiment.

I love roast vegetables. A plate piled high with roasted potatoes, pumpkin, carrots and beetroots is truly delicious. Add some greens – beans, peas, broccoli, broccolini – for a veritable feast.

Thing is, when I roast veggies somehow I always seem to cook too much. Especially with the pumpkin.

Not wanting to waste it, I’ve been messing about and have discovered delicious ways to use any leftover roasted pumpkin. These taste so good that now I deliberately cook too much. I have been using what in Australia is called “butternut pumpkin”. In other places it’s referred to as “butternut squash”. But I figure these recipes should work pretty well with any kind of pumpkin. Sorry I can’t give you accurate quantities. Part of the fun of leftovers is experimenting … if you get really stuck, drop me a line and I’ll help you out.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Fry up diced onion and finely chopped garlic in olive oil. Throw in a teaspoon of cumin seeds and cook until onion is soft and cumin smells lovely. Toss in the roasted pumpkin and some vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for a couple of minutes. Blitz with a stick blender. Check seasoning and serve with a swirl of natural yoghurt.

(For this recipe I used about 5 pieces of roasted pumpkin with one medium sized onion and 2 cloves of garlic.)

Roast Pumpkin Sauce for Pasta

Years ago I ate pumpkin filled ravioli with pumpkin sauce at a restaurant in Venice. Rather too much pumpkin was my thought at the time, but I did like the idea. So I serve this pumpkin sauce with spinach and ricotta filled ravioli.

Mash pumpkin. Add enough white wine to make a fairly thick sauce. If you think the mix needs too much wine, or if you prefer not to use wine, use vegetable stock or a combination of both. Warm through and season with salt and pepper.

I like the sauce to be quite thick and put it in the bottom of a large bowl. Then arrange pasta on top. When I want a meal to be extra special, and feel that I can survive the additional calories, I serve it with a sage and butter sauce, and grated Parmesan. If you’re not using the sage butter, why not add some chopped sage to the pumpkin mix? The flavours go together wonderfully.

Sage and Butter Sauce

Melt butter in fry pan with sage leaves. When butter starts to turn brown remove from heat and quickly add lemon juice. Make sure your butter doesn't burn.

S is for Salads

Salads are so good for us and they have so much potential. The days of lettuce, tomato and maybe onion and cucumber are long gone. There is nothing as satisfying as a salad when a salad is what you really want to eat. You know those times when you want to feel the crunch of the vegetables, enjoying the different textures and flavours. Add to this the visual delight offered by a multi-hued array of food and what more could you want. By the way, did I mention that they’re mostly quick to prepare as well.

 Salads are a great way to get your five-a-day. And making salads is one area where cooking can be fun. Let your imagination go. Making salads isn’t a precision science. Play around with quantities and ingredients to suit your own tastes. 

Here are some of my favourites.

Spinach, Peas and Feta (thanks to Jamie Oliver for this one)

Make a salad of baby spinach, fresh green peas straight from their pods and bite-size chunks of feta cheese. Dress it with lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil (I use about 2 parts juice to 5 parts oil). Season with pepper. Taste it and add salt if it needs it (remember, the feta is salty).

 

Watermelon and Feta

Toss cubes of watermelon in a bowl with thinly sliced red onion. Throw in chunks of feta. Drizzle some good quality balsamic vinegar over the top – not a lot. 

My Version of Caprese Salad – Mozzarella with Slow Roasted Tomatoes

To slow roast cherry tomatoes, cut them in half and place cut side up on a baking tray. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast in a slow oven , about 100 C for about 90 minutes, until they’ve almost dried out. Tear up a ball of mozzarella cheese. Arrange mozzarella tomatoes and some fresh basil leaves on a plate – mix them together, make nice patterns, whatever you like. Drizzle over some extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. 

ANZAC Biscuits for ANZAC Day

In Australia and New Zealand, ANZAC Day is our day of remembrance. On 25 April 1915 our forces were part of an allied force that landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula. 

It being ANZAC Day I thought I would make some ANZAC Biscuits. The last time I made these was over 20 years ago. On that occasion I was making them to sell for a charity fundraiser and I pretty much felt like never baking ANZAC Biscuits again after making hundreds and packaging them into cellophane bags. But being away from Australia and seeing messages posted on various social media forums by my compatriots put me in the mood for a taste of home ...

The recipe I used today is by Merle Parrish (viewers of the Aussie version of Masterchef might remember her), and I downloaded it from here. I’ve also copied it for you. I made some of mine small and some larger; the photo is of some of the bigger ones. If you make them all small I’m sure the recipe makes 45, but the size I made, I think I made around 30. 

 This is a very simple recipe - great for making with kids. And it's quick so from the time you decide on the spur of the moment that you really want something sweet, to the time you bite into your first warm ANZAC biscuit is about 30 minutes. But a ward of warning, they really are nicer when you give them about 10 or so minutes after taking them out of the oven to crisp up.

Enjoy! 

Merle Parrish's Anzac biscuit recipe

Prep time: 20 mins

Cooking time: 6-7 mins per batch

Makes: 45

1 cup plain flour

2 tsp ground ginger

1 1/2 cups rolled oats

1 cup desiccated coconut

1 cup white sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

2 tbsp boiling water

1 tsp bicarb soda

160g butter, melted

1.      Preheat oven to moderate (170C) and grease two large baking trays.

2.      Sift the flour and ground ginger into a mixing bowl, and add the oats, coconut and sugar. Make a well in the centre.

3.      Stir the golden syrup, boiling water and bicarb in a small bowl until combined. Add to the dry ingredients, along with the melted butter. Mix well.

4.      Take heaped teaspoons of mixture and roll into balls. Place onto trays, and flatten gently. Bake for 6–7 minutes, until lightly golden.

5.      Cool on the trays for 10 minutes, until they firm up slightly, then lift onto wire racks to cool completely.

Paprika Spiced Cannellini Beans

Have you noticed that there are still people who believe that vegetarians live on salads, or stacks of roasted Mediterranean vegetables? I'm sure at least part of my passion for experimenting with food grew from this and the dire shortage of vegetarian recipe books that were around when I first stopped eating meat many years ago. There are plenty of books and websites around now and they are a constant source of inspiration, but I still love messing around. Especially with different spices and flavours - finding out what works, trying new things. 

So here's one of my favourite recipes. A great storecupboard special.  You can serve this with all kinds of things. Crumble over some feta cheese, add some chunks of avocado, serve with rice, or mop it up with bread. Pile on toast (bruschetta style) or serve with salad. For extra richness top with some sour cream. Use your imagination and have fun. The recipe is just the starting point.

1. Dice an onion and finely chop a couple of cloves of garlic. Cook slowly in olive oil to soften. Cook them until they're soft and pale making sure you don't burn the garlic. 
2. Add about one tablespoon of paprika and the same of ground cumin. Stir and cook for a few minutes. 
3. Then add about one tablespoon of cider vinegar and half a tablespoon of brown sugar. Stir.
4. Add 3 chopped tomatoes. (If you prefer, or don't have fresh tomatoes on hand, use a can of tomatoes). 
5. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. 
6. Add a can of Cannellini beans and heat through - about 10 minutes.

Unlike baking where ratios are important, this kind of dish is easy to adjust to suit your own tastes. Do you prefer more tomatoes, or more beans? Do you want a stronger cumin flavour? More garlic? You can leave out the paprika and cumin and spice it up with some thyme or oregano, or use a different kind of bean.

Remember, recipes aren't prescriptive. Have fun with your food and experiment. Let me know if you come up with something good!

Mushroom and Red Wine Pies

Yesterday mushrooms were on sale at my local store. Without anything clear in mind to do with them (apart from eat them, of course), I bought a bag and then dived in to my extensive selection of recipe books to seek inspiration.

Maggie Beer’s sour-cream pastry is a legend in my home country (Australia) and a photo of an Asparagus and Leek Tart using this pastry attracted my attention in her gorgeous book Maggie’s Kitchen. (The recipe is also on her website along with some other recipes that use it.) A mushroom tart? I continued my search and stumbled across Simon Rimmer’s Peppered Mushroom and Stilton Pie in The Seasoned Vegetarian. Not a tart. A pie. A delicious, warm, wintry pie (it was raining in Prague yesterday.) But here I hit a problem; I didn’t have any Stilton, nor any green peppercorns in brine. 

What the heck? It’s no fun following a recipe, is it? So I played around with and came up with my own delicious mushroom pie. Here’s the recipe.

Mushroom and Red Wine Pies

 

Sour-Cream Pastry (based on Maggie Beer’s recipe, but I substituted some of the plain flour with rye flour)

80 g plain flour

45 g rye flour (or skip this and use 125 g plain flour)

100 g chilled butter

60 ml sour cream

1.      Using a food processor, blitz together the flours and butter until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs

2.      While food processor is running, add about two-thirds of the sour cream at first. If pastry doesn’t come together, add more of the sour cream – but only as much as you need to form a ball. (The amount of liquid you need depends on your flour.)

3.      Form the pastry into a rectangle on a lightly floured board or bench. Wrap it in plastic film and chill for at least 20 minutes.

Mushroom Filling

1 onion, chopped

500 g mushrooms, ripped into pieces

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon tomato puree

1 tablespoon soy sauce

125 mls vegetable stock

125 mls red wine (if you don’t want to use red wine, use 250 mls stock)

Salt/pepper to taste

1.      Fry onions and mushrooms in the oil until soft.

2.      Stir in the tomato puree and cook for about 5 minutes

3.      Add the soy sauce, stock and red wine. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer until liquid has reduced and you have the consistency you want for your pie filling. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

To Make and Bake the Pies

1.      Preheat the oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6.

2.      Divide the mushroom mix between three or four individual pie dishes, or just two if you like big pies with loads of fillings.

3.      Divide the pastry - this recipe is probably about enough for four. I have trouble being more accurate because I made quite small pies … You can freeze the left over pastry

4.      Press or roll the pastry until it’s about 1 mm thick. You want it thin, but you don’t want it breaking because it’s too thin.

5.      Dampen the edge of your pie dishes with water, and then put a piece of pastry on top of the pie. Cut a small hole in the top of the pastry to let steam out while it’s cooking.

6.      Brush each of your pies with whole, beaten egg – this will make sure that your pastry is a rich, golden brown when cooked

7.      Bake the pies for about 20 minutes.

Eat and enjoy with a glass of red. I served mine with green beans. Simon Rimmer serves his mushroom and stilton pie with mashed potato and beans. I’m sure it would go wonderfully with a crisp green salad too.