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Rosemary raisin slice

Crossposted from here.

When sjkasabi and I were up at the Grampians a couple of weeks ago, there was a party of older women also staying at the YHA hostel. On their last night, one of them offered around some treats she’d baked, which hadn’t been eaten and which she didn’t want to carry home with her. She had baked a sort of fruit and nut slice flavoured with rosemary, and I thought it was amazing. I asked her for the recipe, but neither of us had pen and paper, so she just gave me a rough outline and I said I’d figure it out from there.

  • 125g butter, cubed, at room temperature
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups plain white flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 cup raisins
  • 1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, roughly chopped
  • 1 sprig fresh rosemary, very finely chopped

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and paper a slice tin.

Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs and mix through. Sift flour and baking powder into mixture and combine. Add remaining ingredients and mix through until evenly distributed.

Spread mix in slice pan. Bake at 180C for 20-25 mins.

Smoked trout, fennel, and orange salad

Crossposted from this old LJ post.

To make four serves:

  • 1 smoked trout
  • 2 bulbs of fennel
  • 3 oranges
  • 4 handfuls of mixed salad leaves
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper

Take off the outer layer of the fennel, quarter the bulb, and slice thinly. Saute in a little olive oil until translucent. Flake the trout into sort of bite-sized pieces. Peel two oranges and cut into smallish chunks. Juice the third one (you might not need all the juice). Note: my co-worker’s oranges were smallish, so if you have big supermarket ones you might want to use just two: chop 1 1/2 of them and juice 1/2.

Toss everything together and season with pepper and salt.

I made half this much, and Dad and I shared it for lunch with fresh-baked grainy bread.

Chickpea, pumpkin, and spinach curry

Crossposted from this old LJ post. This is one of the posts where I break down the cost of a meal I cooked.

  • 1/2 large pumpkin, 30c (dad says the whole pumpkin cost 59c)
  • 2 tins chickpeas, $1.98
  • 1 huge bunch spinach, $2
  • 1 large tin (800g) tomatoes ($1.45)
  • 1 sachet tomato paste (4 for $1.75, therefore 46c)
  • 2 onions (20c?)
  • coriander leaves (40c)
  • 2 tsp dried chilli
  • 2 tsp coriander seeds
  • 4 tsp cumin seeds
  • 2 tsp black mustard seeds
  • oil

Chop the onion finely and saute in oil until translucent. Grind the chilli, coriander and cumin and add them to the onions along with the mustard seeds. Stir until it gets kind of smoky and starts to stick to the pan. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, and a bit of water. (Smush up the tomatoes so the whole things aren’t just sitting there.) Bring to the boil.

Chuck in the chickpeas (rinsed) and the pumpkin (in bite-sized chunks). Cook until done. Meanwhile, put some rice on to cook (I used brown rice) and rinse the spinach and chop it up a bit. Chop some coriander (cilantro) too.

When everything’s about done, stir the spinach through. Sprinkle coriander on top. Serve over rice.

I make this out to be about $7.50 including the rice. Looks like 8-10 serves. w00t!

Asian chicken and mango salad

Crossposted from this old LJ post. I’m trying to get all my recipes (well, at least the good ones) in one place.

  • 1 chicken breast, cooked (mine was left over from a chook I roasted last weekend)
  • 1 mango, cubed
  • double handful bean shoots
  • double handful mixed lettuce leaves
  • half a bunch of watercress (mostly just leaves, remove the stems)
  • slosh of rice wine vinegar
  • shake of salt

Chuck it all together and eat. You know the drill. That amount made two enormous bowlfuls. Mine was lunch in its own right; Dad ate his with other stuff, but that’s Dad for you.

Nutty couscous

Crossposted from this old LJ post.

  • 1 cup dry couscous
  • 1 cup and a smidge of boiling water
  • 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
  • 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
  • 1 cup walnuts
  • balsamic vinegar
  • 1/2 cup dried cranberries
  • juice of 1 lemon

Chuck couscous in a bowl and pour boiling water over. Cover and set aside.

In a dry (no oil) frying pan or wok, stir the pumpkin and sunflower seeds over high heat until they’re golden-brown. Set aside.

Do the same with the walnuts, except they’ll go kinda speckly black-brown. When they’re about done, turn the heat off and put a few sloshes of balsamic in the pan, continuing to stir, til the walnuts are all kinda covered with it and yummy.

Fluff the couscous with a fork, and add in the various nuts, dried cranberries, and lemon juice. Give it a good stir. Serve it as a side-dish with whatever. I had it with a salad and some grilled chicken.

Lasagna recipe

Crossposted from this old LJ post so I have my recipes in one place on oeconomist.infotrope.net.

Lasagna

Carol at work asked for my lasagna recipe, and since I’m typing it up I figured I’d post it here.

It all starts with my generic spaghetti sauce. The following makes an enormous batch that will serve for much more than just one lasagna, but that’s OK, because it freezes well. Usually I make this first, and use it for spaghetti, then freeze a couple of litres to use for lasagna later.

  • 2kg lean minced beef
  • 3 onions, diced small
  • 1 full head garlic, crushed or chopped small
  • olive oil
  • 1 tsp fresh chilli from a jar (sambal oelek type thing)
  • 1 bottle Italian tomato sauce
  • 1-2 tins tomatoes (diced)
  • 1 cup red wine
  • 1 bag mushrooms (as in, those paper bags they have)
  • 2 tablespoons dried oregano
  • ground black pepper

Brown meat in a frying pan or wok, in small batches, and set aside in a bowl. It’s important to do it over a high heat and in small batches so that it gets brown without too much juice coming out and making it just boil in its own juices. You shouldn’t really need any oil for this, especially if you have a non-stick pan or a well-seasoned wok.

In the pot you’re going to make the pasta sauce in (and it had better be a big one), saute the onions, garlic, and chilli in a little oil until the onions are translucent. Put the meat in with this, including any juices from the bowl it’s been sitting in.

Add tomatoes, Italian tomato sauce, and wine until you have a big sloopy pot-full of proto-spaghetti-sauce. It should be wetter than you want it to be in the end, so that it can cook down a bit. The exact amounts are a bit vague; you might need more or less tomatoes, but it doesn’t matter much. Add in half the oregano at this stage.

Leave it to simmer for a couple of hours over a low heat, stirring occasionally. I usually do this on a weekend afternoon, and just give it a stir from time to time as I wander past.

About half an hour before you want to eat: slice the mushrooms and throw them in along with the rest of the oregano. Add pepper at this stage too, to taste. Maybe a little salt, but I don’t use it — use your own taste.

Boil up some pasta and serve this over it along with parmesan cheese. You should have enough for 4-6 serves of pasta plus two big containers (say, 2L each) to freeze.

Now the actual lasagna recipe.

  • 2L spaghetti sauce, as above
  • 500g ricotta (I get the low fat one)
  • 375g grated mozzarella (I buy the bags they have at the supermarket)
  • 1 packet fresh lasagna sheets from the refrigerated cabinet
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • some pepper

You also need a big lasagna dish for this, obviously.

In a bowl, mix the ricotta, about 1/3 to 1/2 of the mozzarella, the nutmeg, and some pepper by mushing it all together with a fork. The resulting mess should be kind of dry and crumbly — that’s how you estimate how much mozzarella to put in. Don’t use more than half, though.

Layer ingredients in the lasagna dish as follows:

  1. A thin layer of spaghetti sauce — this is just to stop the bottom layer of pasta from sticking
  2. A layer of pasta
  3. Spaghetti sauce
  4. Sprinkle of ricotta cheese mix — I pick it up in my hands and just crumble it all over
  5. Repeat previous 3 layers until you run out of pasta — you’ll probably have 4 pasta layers if you do it the way I do
  6. Spaghetti sauce
  7. Ricotta mix — a thick layer
  8. Remainer of the mozzarella sprinkled on top

    Bake at 180C for 45 mins, approximately, or however long it takes for it to become golden-brown on top. Assuming I’ve got the spaghetti sauce pre-made and defrosted, this whole thing takes about 1 hour from start to finish, and only dirties one bowl plus the lasagna dish itself.

    Serves 8, and freezes really well.

    If you want to use the dried lasagna sheets, I believe you have to boil them for about 3 minutes first, just enough to make them pliable but not to totally cook through. But I am too lazy for that.

Knitting update

Wow, it’s been a long time since I updated this. Here are some of my recent knitting projects:

Green hat

This is a top-down hat knitting according to the recipe in Barbara Walker’s “Knitting From the Top Down”. Only I made it too big, so I just kept going and going until it came down to around my chin, then threw it in a hot wash and then tumble-dried it. It felted to a goodish size, perhaps half an inch longer than ideal, but pretty good. The striped yarn is of course Noro Kureyon and the other is Nature Wool by ummmm Brown Sheep? Something like that. I bought a bunch of a dark teal colour cheap from littleknits, intending to make Veronique Avery’s military cardigan from it, and had plenty more than I needed, so used half a ball for this. Ravelry project details.

Cowl

A simple cowl with a seed stitch border and stocking stitch for the body, knitted in the round. Bigger than it needed to be, really, but that’s OK; I just kind of fold it and tuck it in. Ravelry project details.

Purple ribbed vest

I ripped back a scarf I was previously knitting because a) I was bored, and b) the yarn was kind of scratchy for round the neck anyway, and started on this sleeveless vest. As you can see it has ribbed panels up the sides, and my intent is to to into a raglan sort of thingy, with ribbed sleeves, and with a little bit of the ribbing going diagonally up along the raglan decreases. Hard to describe but will be pretty obvious once it’s done. The problem was that I got to the armpits, tried it on, and decided it was about 4″ too big. So it’s been ripped back again, but not before I took a photo. The latest incarnation is the same but smaller. Ravelry project details.

Noro striped scarf

Somewhere in there I knitted a Noro Silk Garden striped scarf a la Brooklyn Tweed. It’s been my bestest summer scarf. Hey, this is San Francisco! It was COLD today! Ravelry project details.

Lizard ridge

I’m also working on a Lizard Ridge blanket. I’ve done 4 squares so far out of 48. That’s where the Kureyon came from for that hat I mentioned up above; it was intended for this blanket but that one particular ball was too dark and didn’t have any purple in it, and this Lizard Ridge is all about the purple, so it got diverted. Ravelry project details.

Pinwheel

Why did this pinwheel dishcloth come out all wrong? I thought 8 increases per round was meant to result in something flat? Is there something wrong with me? It’s all bunched up, and seems like 5-6 increases per round would be more like it. This has really put me off trying one of those pinwheel coats! Ravelry project details.

Hot water bottle cover for Erica

Hot water bottle cosie for my roomie, Erica. Ravelry project details.

Baby socks


Baby tripeak hat

Baby socks and a hat. Ravelry sock details and here’s the hat.

Gah!

Shopping bag. The handles are too long and stretchy, must fix that. Rav.

Submarine cable socks

And I finally finished those bloody socks. Rav.

Note to self: update more often. *headdesk*

No-roux cauliflower cheese

The cauliflower cheese of my childhood had the florets drowning in a bucketful of cheesey sauce, made with a roux of flour and butter, then milk, then cheese. Yum, and yet — a pain in the arse. Especially when there’s no fresh milk in the house (let’s not talk about the state of what’s in the fridge right now).

So tonight I invented a version with no cheesey sauce:

  • good sized knob of butter
  • half head of cauliflower, cut into florets
  • pepper and salt
  • 1 scant cup grated cheese (I used gruyere)
  • 1 scant cup breadcrumbs (I tore up 2 slices of stale bread

(You need about equal volumes, but the actual amount doesn’t matter. Enough to cover the cauliflower, is all.)

Toss the cauliflower in the butter, and season with pepper and salt. Bung it in a small casserole dish. Mix the cheese and breadcrumbs and throw them on top of the cauliflower. Bake at an appropriate temperature until done; I put them in a 400F (200ish C?) oven for 20 mins or so, and found that the breadcrumb mix had browned but the cauliflower was still a bit crunchy, so I covered it in foil and put it back in probably for another 20 mins. I dunno, you figure it out, it’s hardly rocket science.

That amount served me for a Friday night dinner (with seconds), along with a glass of plonk. It’s probably 4 small side-servings. A full head of cauliflower would be 6 decent sized sides, I think.

In conclusion: I seriously think this is better than the kind you need to make a roux for.

This week’s veg box recipes

A bit distracted and flustered tonight but wanted to record what I did with this week’s veg box:

Carrot and ginger soup. I used the potato, the ginger, and yoghurt. Worked out beautifully! Chris at the gym has requested a sample so I’ll take some in for him on Tuesday.

Pasta with rapini from the recipe at the bottom of that linked page. I added a can of cannelini beans and some lemon zest and juice. Tasty!

Black-eyed peas with brown rice and mustard greens. I haven’t cooked this yet, but have cooked the beans so I can do it one weeknight without too much trouble. Quaere: is there a way to cook beans so they’re just perfectly right and don’t fall apart? The gap between “crunchy” and disintegrated seems so small sometimes.

I also made a leek and bacon frittata and will have to find something to do with a bunch of spinach… perhaps saute it for breakfast one day? Maybe tomorrow, even, since we have some bread and eggs and whatnot. Of course that would require getting up early on a Monday. Ha ha ha.

First CSA box, and a stuffed collard greens recipe

So, we got our first CSA box from Two Small Farms. It contained:

* 3 small butternut squash
* bunch of radishes with greens attached
* parsnips
* carrots (multi-coloured)
* spring garlic
* 2 heads escarole
* 1 green cabbage
* celery (no leaves)

I’ve still got some leftovers of last week’s vegies to deal with, so I’m not 100% sure what’ll be happening, but some ideas include:

* Coleslaw, semi-trad but not too heavy a dressing. Make enough to take little containers to work with me. (Uses: cabbage, celery, the last of the bagged carrots in the bottom of the fridge, and a salad onion that’s kicking round the kitchen)

* Roasted vegies with aioli for dipping. We’re having a party tomorrow night so I might do these and put them out for munching. If they don’t get eaten, then they’re lunchable. (Uses: parsnips, carrots)

* Thai red curry (uses: butternut squash; need to buy some green beans or something to go with it.)

I have no idea what to do with the escarole; must look that up. Not too sure about the spring garlic either. Suggestions welcome.

Right now I’m using one of the butternut squash in a dish of my own invention, inspired by a throwaway comment on the veg page of the organic grocery we were using before the CSA started up. They suggested stuffing collard greens, and I went “ooh”. Here’s my recipe:

* 1 large onion, diced.
* 1 very small butternut squash, seeded, peeled, and grated
* 2 cups water
* 1 cup TVP (textured vegetable protein)
* 1 cup cooked brown rice
* 1 tsp cinnamon
* 1 tsp cumin
* pepper and salt to taste
* splosh of olive oil

Saute onion in oil. Add everything else and stir and cook til everything’s blended and there’s no water apparent in the bottom of the pan. Add more water if it gets too dry-looking. This will be your stuffing. Set it aside.

* 1/2 onion, finely diced
* 3 cloves garlic
* 1 large can tomatoes
* 1 cup water
* 1 tblsp sweet paprika

Saute onion and garlic. Add other ingredients. Simmer 15 mins. This is the sauce to go on top.

* 1 bunch collard greens (6-8 leaves)

Rinse the greens and remove the thickest part of the stems. Boil for 5 mins in salted water. Drain.

Now prepare a baking dish. Put a slosh of the tomato sauce in the bottom of the dish, so the stuffed leaves won’t stick. Next roll up the greens with a few spoonfuls of the stuffing inside. Place them in the dish. Pour the rest of the tomato sauce over the top. Cover with aluminium foil and bake for 45 mins at 180C/350F or thereabouts. Temperature/duration is not actually very important here, to be honest.

This dirties a lot of pans but it’s pretty damn tasty in the end.

I should note that I was originally going to do this with ground lamb, but I never managed to get to the good butcher when it was open, so in the end I gave up went veg — vegan, even! — with it.