I made hippy food and I didn't even know it.

And that upset me.

I scrounged around for food-stuffs in a very lacking home and found some quinoa left from a meal I made a while back there. And it wasn't infested with weevlis. Meh, it was good.
And gluten free.
And egg free.
And vegetarian.

I know...it's horrendous.
I can't even make some sarcastic title about it to make myself feel better. Don't worry, I bathe and use bleached paper when printing assignments.

Quinoa Fritters.
Makes 20-ish.

2 handfuls of white quinoa
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
salt
pepper
1/2 a market bag of baby spinach, washed
1/2 bunch of parsley, finely chopped.
1 medium sized eggplant
2 handfuls of grated parmesan
1-2 handfuls of mungbean sprouts
cashew butter, or a few handfuls of cashews pounded into butter with a mortar and pestle

Cook the quinoa with twice the amount of water as there is quinoa for 15-20 minutes with the sliced garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, grill the eggplant, peel and set aside.
When the quinoa is cooked, add the spinach and parsley and stir till wilted, throw in the parmesan and mungbean sprouts and stir. Add the eggplant while warm with a few tablespoons of cashew butter, to taste. Season with salt and pepper.

You'll have a weird looking mixture like this.
Gross...innit?

Now, heat a skillet on a high heat and fry off the fritters in tablespoons. Make sure the pan is really hot, or they will stick to the pan. You'll need to do them for about 3 minutes on each side. And no, if they stick, it doesn't mean you need more oil, it just means your pan needs to be hotter. Don't be afraid.
Or, alternatively, you could deep fry these fuckers.
But, I didn't...your choice.


Serve with a wedge of lemon.

Oh yeah, and I also bought asparagus.

So, I handed in my last 12,000 words yesterday and celebrated by not exercising, drinking beer and making dinner for the boys and I. I bought three bunches of asparagus at the market and used one of them last night.

Here is how I used the other:


First, broad beans. In their full, unstripped glory.


Then, I took a bunch of asparagus, removed the woody parts, blanched them in boiling water for 60 seconds and refreshed them in iced water.


I did the same to the pods of the broad beans and they sexed it up with the asparagus.


After they chilled, I took of the outer layer from the broad beans. The clothes are in the front and the kids are in the back.


That got set aside and I made a hollandaise with three egg yolks, melted butter, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Oh, who needs a double boiler when you have a giant-ass bowl?
Note to self; tea towels, need to buy more...need to wash some.


And then I put it all together after poaching a few eggs, toasting a few slices of Irrawarra bread and getting my shit together.



And that, kids, is how you do a lazy brunch. Best eaten out the front, in the sun using crates as tables and on the olive couches.

You can use that as dip!

Verde Provedores make a range of organic dips and they have a stall at the Slow Food market. I find it very cute how they prop up a sign saying, "Extend the GM Ban" against their stall.

This week, despite my feelings about buying dips, I got the carrot, parsnip and the harissa. In the past, I found the beetroot dip not beetrooty enough, how sad-face.

I am a big fan of the harissa. It contains roasted red capsicums, carrot, olive oil, lemon, juice, garlic, chili, ground cumin, coriander and sea salt.

I never really thought of harissa as a dip, moreso a condiment. Funnily enough, it seems to go with everything. In complete desperation, I made a salad and slopped on some harissa and yogurt over the top.

I feel like a slob, but that is what humidity does to me.

I'm a fatty
Serves 4

3 ribs of celery, sliced
1/2 spanish onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
2 tomatoes, seeded and diced
1/2 an avocado, diced
1/2 can of canellini beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
extra virgin olive oil
zest and juice of 1 lemon
harissa
yogurt

Mix the celery, onion, carrot, avocado, lemon zest and beans together and season. Add the juice of the lemon and some oil. Plate it out and then put 1-2 tablespoons of the harissa and an equal amount of yogurt over the top and stir it into the salad.

I ate it with a couple of 9 grain vitaweats and a litre of water. I am the ultimate slop-master.

Macbeth Murdered.

I went to see Melbourne Uni's Shakespeare Co.'s version of Macbeth tonight. My friend 'won' free tickets in some essay competition. My first thought when she told me this was worst prize ever. This isn't because I dislike theatre, it is that I already know the quality of it.

We started off with drinks at Markov Place. She got some crazy red girly spritzer thing and I kept to my Shofferhoffer Kristal. She had just come from work and I had come from...well, work and exercise.
Despite my crazy adrenaline, she coaxed me into ordering something with her. She ended up getting the wild mushroom and manchego bruschetta, and I ordered an oyster with a red wine vinegar and shallot dressing.

Go team oyster.

So, then, without the opportunity to get sloshed, we ran off to see Macbeth. The production was very immature. I assumed all the good actors had been exhausted with the recent runs of Zombie State and Botulism. Anyways, the only good actor in the show was Lady Macbeth who was played by Leeor Adar. She was actually able to deliver Shakespeare the way you were to read it, unlike her counterpart, Macbeth (Seamus Barker) who spoke as if he was William Shatner with tourret's if you turned up the volume and broke the knob. I don't understand how a company could possibly make all the characters of Macbeth, who were not Lady Macbeth annoying.
Hats off to you.

I understand now, why Lady Macbeth kills herself.

The thing that rounded it all off was "Love Will Tear Us Apart" playing during the curtain call.

Let's not get started on the three witches.

Alas, I have made it home on a Friday night, and it is before midnight. I somehow don't think an oyster is good as a dinner after only eating a piece of bread and a tomato today. Anyways, it's sultry...it's salad time.

Omnomnomnom
Serves 3

2 ribs of celery, diced
1/2 spanish onion, diced
1/2 punnet of cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 an avocado, diced
2 small cans of Serina chili tuna in oil, drained and flaked
1 can of canellini beans, rinsed
1/2 lemon
salt and pepper
extra virgin olive oil

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl 9up to the lemon)and season to taste. Serve by squeezing the juice of half a lemon over the top with a drizzle of oil and a piece of toast.

It's Friday, have another beer.

Indecision

Not just a good book by Benjamin Kunkle but a great way to cook. That coupled with procrastination makes for a great meal. Assuming that you have read the lead up to this, what I have just cooked really makes me happy that Spring is here.

Yes, that is right, vegetables have personalities, and I am not the only one who thinks that.

I would have taken a photo, but my camera privileges have been revoked.

Broad bean, leek and lemon risotto
Serves at least 4

1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 large leek, sliced, whites only
20g butter, unsalted
extra virgin olive oil
1 cup of carnaroli rice
white wine
zest and juice of 1 lemon
3-4 cups of hot vegetable stock
1 heaped teaspoon of seeded mustard (that's right)
200g double podded broad beans
30g grated parmesan
1/3 barrel of Holy Goat La Luna cheese, diced

Sweat off the onion, garlic and leek in butter and and oil. When it has become translucent, turn the heat up to medium and add the rice. Coat in oil and wait till it also becomes translucent and add around half a cup of white wine. Add the zest. Allow the alcohol to cook off for a minute and add the hot stock, half a cup at a time and stir the rice each time till you need to add more. When the rice is almost al dente, add the juice of the lemon as well as the mustard and mix through. Add the broad beans when it is a minute from being done, just to warm through as they are already cooked. When it is al dente, add the cheeses and stir through. Check for seasoning (I just needed to add pepper because the cheese is quite salty).
Eat very slowly so you don't have to start on that essay of yours.

Well

it seems that options have opened up once more. I found the barrel of La Luna Holy Goat cheese which would go so well with the broad beans.



So, I am tossing up between making a lemon risotto with some stock I have in the freezer and then stirring in the cheese and broad beans at the end.

Sigh, I guess I could always do the same with pasta, but it all depends on time. And time, I don't have.

Ok, essay, ho!

I Just Can't Stay Away

However, there are no photos in this round.

Lots of wine was had and much of a discussion followed.

This is just what happened in between.

Pea pesto Pasta Alliteration
750g fresh peas, shelled
100g romano, grated
1 lemon
1 handful walnuts
extra virgin olive oil
salt
pepper

2 leeks, whites only, sliced
1 spanish onion, sliced
rice bran oil

100g rigatoni
100 ricotta

Cook the peas in salted boiling water, drain and transfer to the food processor, add the walnuts and cheese, as well as a little oil. Pulse. Add the lemon juice to taste (I used a whole lemon) and oil, season and pulse again. Taste and adjust till it suits.
Meanwhile, saute the onion and leek in a pan on a low flame with a generous amount of oil and cook the pasta in a heavily salted pot of water. Reserve some of the cooking water of the pasta when it is almost done. A minute from the pasta being ready, season the leek and onion mix and drain the pasta, add the pesto to the onion mix and stir the pasta in till evenly distributed. Add some of the pasta water to slacken the mix, if need be. Season with salt and pepper, and lemon juice if need be. Serve with ricotta broken over the top and eat with a good friend.

Lunchfast

Weekends are meant to be slow things, where you wake up mid afternoon, naked from the waist down (thank Dylan Moran for that image)and cooking barefoot, despite your brain yelling OH&S at you the whole time, while watching your friend smoke cigarettes outside the kitchen window as they sit in a blue milk crate (one of the old ones, that records can still fit into) and you both drink espressos, clinking demitasse cups above the sill.
Needless to say, the day was disgustingly beautiful, in the traditional and obvious sense. Absolutely pointless for a hangover.

So, make this and listen to CocoRosie's Noah's Ark album.

Take it easy, kids.

Fritters of some sort

1 eggplant, grilled, flesh scooped out and chopped
1/2 bunch of silverbeet slices, ribs removed and diced
5 slices Irrewarra Breakfast Seed Loaf, pulsed to breadcrumbs in a processor
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 egg
100g ricotta

Saute off the silverbeet and cook. Mix together in a bowl with two handfuls of the breadcrumbs, reserving the rest, the eggplant, ricotta, garlic and egg. Season with salt and pepper.
Roll into balls and then coat in remaining breadcrumbs. Place in fridge and allow to firm up while you take a shower. Fry off in batches, five minutes on each side. Serve with a tomato based sauce and a wedge of lemon.

Saucey, Saucey

1 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved
1 clove diced garlic
5-6 marinated olives in oil, pitted and diced
slurp of red wine
balsamic vinegar
passata

saute off the garlic, add the tomatoes and olives, some of the oil and allow to boil. Splash in the wine, add some balsamic and passata to loosen the sauce. Cook for 15 minutes.

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