Sagey pumpkin pasta

The sage is going OFF in a pot in the backyard. The leaves are enormous. I haven't done a post for a while, and well.... as much as I do love it, sage doesn't come up that often in the cooking repertoire. There's a kind of piggy-earthy- bitterness to sage that is a little bit full on sometimes and means to me it's just not as versatile as other herbs like basil, parsley, rosemary that get used more regularly in my dishes... But wow, it really is wonderful when it's with the right ingredients. It's crying out desperately to be paired with pork and in this dish I would have loved to add something like proscuitto or pancetta if I'd had any on hand. But hey, it goes fantastically well with pumpkin...  I do love to make a burnt butter sauce, pop the sage leaves in and get them crunchy- then pour the sauce over any kind of pork product, pasta, pumpkin or roasted nuts... orrrrr yeeeah.  

sage, sage, sage

Sagey pumpkin pasta

Ingredients

a few good handfuls of sage leaves

one birds eye chilli

half a pumpkin (I used a JAP I think)- reserve the seeds

almonds

a head of garlic

a block of fetta

olive oil

a packet of large pasta shells

butter (optional - for sage sauce)

Method

Scoop out the pumpkin seeds and reserve. Chop up the pumpkin into about 2-cm chunks. I don't bother to de-skin it. If you have a Steve, get him to do it (I hate chopping pumpkin). Chop the bottom off a whole head of garlic... 

Put the pumpkin chunks into a roasting dish, along with the garlic, have the pumpkin seeds and some of the sage leaves scattered throughout the dish. Season with salt and pepper. Douse it with olive oil. 

The roasting tray goodies

Put in the oven at around 170 C. After 30 minutes or so add the almonds- just scattering them throughout. I didn't really keep track of how long it was in there for so I couldn't be exact, I'd say it was an hour or so? just check it periodically to see how it's coming along. When it's done, squeeze out the garlic from it's shell and discard the shell.

When the pumpkin is looking close to being done, cook up your pasta in a large saucepan of salty water. Drain it when done

Chop up the fetta into about 1 cm cubes and slice up the chilli

in the same saucepan as the pasta was in, fry up some butter and add the rest of the sage (use olive oil instead if you prefer).

Toss all the ingredients together.

Squeeze a little lemon juice on this if you want a little sourness to break up that richness!

Get it while it's hot!

Like I said before - pork would be wonderful with this, add in bacon, proscuitto, pancetta at your leisure :-) 

This was a nicely textured dish, with the softness of the pumpkin, slightly melty cheese, and a nice bit of crunch from the almonds and pumpkin seeds. 

Lychee-Lemongrass Lovelies

It's not even the end of January yet and I'm starting to get slack! I think the weather has drained me of ideas.

For a few days there, it was sunny and perfect.  We were out mountain-biking at every opportunity. Great fun- I've got the bruises to prove it! The heat inspired me to make something icy cold to sip on, which I thought would be the perfect thing for the return home at the end of a good ride. My mind went to lychees, delicious and in season... and which I don't think I've ever "cooked" with, only ever eaten them just as they are.

Unfortunately the weather turned monotonously rainy and all of a sudden we were stuck inside unable to hit the trails. Polly has been whining constantly and looking at us miserably... and now, icy treats aren't exactly at the top of the foods I want to eat. Nevertheless, I had all these things frozen and I did want to see how this might turn out. So here is the recipe for a lovely little icy treat that will hit the spot when this rain starts clearing and we start sweltering in the Queensland summer again.

Lychee-Lemongrass Lovelies

Ingredients
10-12 lychees
2-3 stalks of lemon grass
water

Method
Peel and de-seed the lychees, chop them up roughly, and freeze.
Smash up the lemongrass stalks and boil up some water (to make about a cup) and make some lemongrass tea (just sit the stalks into the water and let it sit for 10 minutes).
Discard the stalks and freeze the lemon grass tea. I recommend that you pour it into little ice cubes.
Once it's all frozen, put the lychees and tea in the blender (you'll need a good blender!) to make a frappe-like consistency.
If you like- garnish the top with a little bit of mint.
Spoon or sip through a straw! 
This is pretty subtle but delicious and refreshing. There'd be absolutely nothing wrong with spiking this one with some vodka!
NB: If the heat has left you feeling lazy- I don't blame you- I suspect this would work out well with tinned lychees too.

icy treat

spicy kangaroo with roasted sweet potato mash and mango salad

I'm trying to get a bit more creative than my so far one-pot dishes...

Although there aren't any new ingredients for me in this dish, it's definitely a new recipe idea.

Maybe some of you reading this haven't used kangaroo before, if not, I highly recommend it for so many reasons. I don't want to get too preachy on you here but- it's all pretty much organic and free range, kangaroo meat production has much less environmental impact than other red meat, it's really lean, it's high in Omega-3 (because the animals are mostly grass rather than grain fed), but most importantly, it's delicious!!! The things that might take some getting used to are the fact you're eating the coat of arms, it smells kind of funky (I recommend sitting it on some kitchen paper before you cook), and it has a game-y flavour (which personally, I really like but I guess it is an acquired taste for some).

With Roo, I generally buy only the fillet (mainly because it tends to other wise be sold as non-descript cuts, so you don't always know what you're getting). I usually like to leave it sit in a spice rub for a few hours before searing it on both sides for only a few minutes, if it's a chunky piece I'll finish for a few more minutes in the oven, and then lastly and importantly, letting it sit for another 10 minutes before eating.

Can I just say I was pretty proud with this effort. Roo and sweet potato are always a great match for each other, and I discovered that thai flavours and mango are equally fabulous matched with roo. It was all pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Fresh, summery and altogether mod-oz.

Spicy kangaroo with roasted sweet potato mash and mango salad

Spicy kangaroo on a bed of sweet potato mash, and a thai mango salad

Ingredients
- 1 packet of Kangaroo fillet
- salt and pepper for seasoning
- 1 dry chilli  or powdered chilli
- 2 sweet potatoes
- olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves
- one mango
- handful of corriander leaves
- handful of mint
- handful of thai basil
- one cucumber
- 1-2 green shallots
for the salad dressing:
- 2 limes
- sugar
- fish sauce
-soy sauce
-vegetable oil or peanut oil
Top with some roasted, slightly smashed up cashews or peanuts

Method:
I didn't have time to marinate the roo for long so I just seasoned it well with salt and pepper, squeezed some lime juice on it, then as a last minute thought I ground up a whole scotch bonnet chilli and seasoned the roo with that too. It added a bit more heat than I was expecting, but that was a good thing for this dish! The roo sat like that for probably around 30 minutes while I got to work on the sweet potato.

With the sweet potato I started off boiling it and then thought the mash would turn out gross and watery if that's all I did. So I ended up boiling them only until kind of soft, then took them off, drained them, and put them in an oven tray, doused them in olive oil and salt, threw in a couple of heads of garlic (skin and all), and roasted them in the oven. Worth it, so much more delicious. I guess it was around the 170 Celsius mark... After it had roasted for about 20-30minutes, I just mashed it up, retaining a fair bit of the oil, and popped the garlic cloves out of their shell into the mash.

For the mango salsa/salad whatever you want to call it, I diced up one mango. I put in some corriander leaves, thai basil leaves (you could use sweet basil), mint. I cut up some green shallots - for salads I like to have long slices, say 5cm, and then cut it up in quarters down the length... they come out looking pretty, kind of curly looking. I also cut up some cucumber in similar sized julienned slices (scooped out the seeds in the middle). I held off on the chilli this time but go ahead if you're a heat fiend.

Steve made up a nice Thai style dressing for the salad for me, using lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, soy and a touch of peanut oil (or you could use vegetable oil).  I'm not good with saying what the quantities for these dressings are, I always just taste and add bits until it tastes right.

The roo was prepared like I said earlier, in a non stick pan with some olive oil, I just got it brown on each side, then put it in the oven with some foil over it for a few more minutes because the pieces were chunky. You don't want the roo to be cooked too much, trust me!  You want it to be at least medium rare. If it's cooked any more than that it will be dry and tough and inedible really.

While the roo was in the oven, I crushed up some cashews and roasted them on the pan briefly.

I got into the spirit of "plating up" and made a little round bed of the mash using a mould, placed the roo on top, the salad to the side, and sprinkled the crushed cashews over the top. Happy summer eating.

Steve's Bastard RataCousBean

This might be cheating... I didn't cook this one and it doesn't have any new ingredients... but  I thought it was deserving of a post because it used cous-cous in a bit of a new way, and, well, it was so damn good I wanted to share!

Cous-Cous

It's often the case that when we have hardly any food left in the house, the best cooking comes out. Steve is the master of this "surprise chef" cooking- making something creative with what's at hand.  I've decided that there's ABSOLUTELY no shame in canned beans and pulses - super-quick and easy. Plus our dog Polly likes to steal the empty tins from our recycling bin and lick out any remaining bean-spooge.

Polly thinks that canned bean-spooge is delicious

Zucchinis are a bit of a staple around our house, and in our (currently very tatty-looking) veggie garden we have loads of eggplant growing, plenty of green chillies that aren't all that hot, and the basil's doing pretty well too....

baby eggplants

green chillis

basil

So there was enough stuff around the house that Steve thought he'd make a kind of bastardised "ratatouille", which we've named "Rata-Cous-Bean".... a slowly cooked vegetable and bean stew that was mighty delicious. The vegetable flavours were rich and the amalgamation of olive oil, garlic, herbs, beans and veggies with the cous-cous made for a lusciously creamy, strangely risotto-like consistency that melted away pleasantly in your mouth. Let me tell you it was satisfying and very easy to eat multiple helpings of it. It's just nutritious, health-giving comfort food. It makes you feel incredibly special to have food like this cooked for you, thanks Steve!

Bastard RataCousBean ... (the photo doesn't do it much justice!)

Bastard RataCousBean
These sorts of bastard peasant dishes are never cooked the same way in our house - it's always ad lib . . .  bit of this, bit of that . . . you develop a feel for the dish, so writing down a recipe is actually quite difficult.  Here goes, with dictation by the surprise chef himself.

Ingredients:

Lots of olive oil
400gm can of canneli beans
400gm can of brown lentils
400gm can of good quality Italian plum tomatoes - whole or diced, makes little difference
A cup of instant cous-cous

As much garlic as you like, finely diced (Steve used 6 cloves)

2 medium brown onions, cut into 8ths lengthwise (Steve thinks this seems to make them sweeter and tastier, might have to put Heston on the case to check this empirically)
1 large eggplant, cut into 2cm cubes
2 zucchinis, also cut into 2cm cubes
A handful of green chillis, finely chopped
8 roma tomatoes, roughly chopped, skins and all
A few bay leaves
A small handful of dried rosemary

A teaspoon of sweet paprika
A good handful of basil leaves, torn

Grated parmesan to serve - best quality of course
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1) Sweat the onions in a good lug of olive oil on medium heat.  When they are translucent, add the garlic, chopped chilli and bay leaves, topping up the oil if it looks a bit mean.  Stir around the pot until the chilli fumes stop hurting your eyes.

2) Add the eggplant and give it all a good stir to get the pieces nicely coated.  Stir around with the onions/garlic/chilli, until the eggplant pieces have taken up most of the oil (around 5 mins).

3) Add the drained can of lentils.  Over the course of cooking the dish, they break down and become saucy.  At this point, turn the heat down to a low flame.  We'll be simmering the rest of the way.

4) Add the tomatoes (fresh and tinned) and about half a cup of warm water, then add the paprika and dried rosemary.  Cook, stirring, for about 15 minutes.

5) Add the canneli beans and zucchini.  Cook for another 15 minutes, stirring often so that nothing sticks to the pan.  By now the eggplant should be cooked through with no more dry, spongy parts.  The stew should still be pretty wet. 

6) At this point, Steve had the unconventional idea of adding the cous-cous instead of simmering the stew down and doing the cous-cous separately as we'd usually do. I think it really added something to the texture of the dish to do it this way. Add the cous-cous and stir until it has taken up the remaining moisture in the stew.  This should take around 5 minutes.  Stir through the chopped basil, scoop into bowls, top with parmesan, salt, pepper and a good squeeze of lemon juice.  Even better the next day (when the chillies started to add a mild kick to the dish).