We're looking back.

I blame Twitter for my slowing down of posts.

That is my excuse and I am sticking to it.
I made this for dinner last Friday out of lots of the things I got given on my birthday. The plan was to have a Jamon party to get rid of all the Jamon before I died of gout on my lonesome.

This seemed like a good alternative.


Baked Mushrooms on Polenta (aka. hamper love)

200-300 grams of mixed mushrooms, chopped
1/2 loaf of olive bread, half of that amount turned into bread crumbs
4 fillets of anchovies, diced
Juice of 1 lemon, zest of 1/2
a few handfuls of grated parmesan
3 cloves of garlic, finely diced
1/2 bunch of parsley, chopped
a few tsp of rosemary, chopped finely
salt
pepper
white wine
olive oil

1/2 cup of polenta
1 cup of milk (I used soy, it was there)
salt
pepper
parmesan to taste, grated

Jamon Iberico to serve

Preheat the oven to 200, combine in one bowl, the mushrooms, lemon juiceanchovies, parmesan, garlic, a few tbs of olive oil, and 1/2 cup of the wine. Season heavily with pepper and some salt. Allow to sit for a few minutes.
Combine the bread crumbs, herbs, lemon zest, olive oil and salt and pepper in another bowl. Then, after a few minutes, combine the two and place in a baking dish.
Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes, and then remove the foil and bake for a further 5.

With the remaining bread, tear into chunks, season and sprinkle some oil over the top, bake for 5 minutes.

Make the polenta by whisking into warmed, seasoned milk for 15-20 minutes. Add the parmesan at the end.

Serve with the mushrooms over the polenta, drizzle a little oil and then top with Jamon slices and with the bread on the side.

When with sister,

two desserts.

You should always remember that equation. So, after my coin stacking incident, I also had to factor in enough for a Zone 1+2 2hr concession. Yeah, outrageous. This is for a train ticket to Mitcham.

I would like to now say I FUCKING HATE PUBLIC TRANSPORT. I guess I can rationalize living so close to the city because my rent more than makes up for all the public transport I would be catching otherwise.

But yesterday was heinous. I changed trains three times for the same line from Melbourne Central, going back and forth from Flinders and Richmond, only to finally leave the loop thirty minutes later.

It is an OUTRAGE: Tony Harrison style.

I would now like to say that my sister's eating habits are totally different from mine, and with my life going the way it is right now, I thrive on small victories. I managed to get her and her husband to eat an entirely vegetarian meal, despite that it definitely isn't the healthiest. But I figure she can afford it when I am cooking and she goes to kickboxing.

My sister also started a Hospitality course a couple of weeks ago, which is the exact same one I did when I was 14/15 and hearing her stories of people burning pasta into the bottom of pots and taking 30 minutes to fillet a fish makes me all nostalgic. Only, she is doing it at Box Hill Tafe, and therefore is doing it with the Fifteen crew and everything is Jamie Oliver (Tefal) branded.

They are also burnt the shit out of.

Me making baked, herbed mushrooms. Later served on the only bread she had in the house with caramelized onions and blue cheese. She hates blue cheese, so...relish.

I made really sad felafels with canned chickpeas. Spiced with cumin, fennel and caraway seeds found in her pantry, heated in a pan till fragrant with black pepper and ground it in a mortar and pestle. Threw in a chili, parsley and mint as well as some stale bread.

Wizz wizz wizz.
Fry Fry Fry.

Oh yeah, I also did this because I wanted to see her beloved deep fryer in action. Her husband got it for her last Valentines and they spent the night making fish and chips together.

The most unphotogenic mushroom ever.

Dishy, dishy, dishy. They weren't greasy at all. Go team deep fryer.

Oh, and I also made a Tzatziki to serve with.

She really also wanted to make a mud cake with me. So, this is the naked boy. Erm, we over baked it by about fifteen minutes because we were walking her dog.

Look. I put clothes on him.
And the blur of my sister in the background.

Then, we gave the boy an enema, or...a colonic irrigation.

You get it. It was tasty, but sadly the sides were overcooked. Stupidly dense and moist.

But before we ate the cake, she wanted a different dessert. I caramelized peeled and cored apples in a pan, made a cake batter and baked the bitches in the oven. Her husband doesn't like cakey things, but he ate this madly...

with cream.

Is it a wonder that I missed the last train home and spent the night on the smallest couch in the world, watching bad TV, crunching sleeping tablets, switching to season two of Twin Peaks and then flicking cockroaches off myself till I finally passed out at half five in the morning?

Only to reawake at half six...


I'm tired.
And I have 3 parties to go to. See you on the flipside.

Sucks to be you at Merideth, hey?

At risk of sounding like a weather report, before 9am today, we have had the most rain since February '06. Then, there is the rest of the day up until now.
I was wandering around the city on Thursday afternoon, along Elizabeth street and everyone had a pair of gumboots with them. I obviously had not put two and two together and checked the weather.
But, I am also not one for Merideth. To everyone who has asked me why, I will say it once again.

I hate nature, and nature hates me.

Apparently, by Friday morning, gumboots were sold out around Melbourne.
To that, I think a record has been set and everyone would be wearing the same footwear. It's like boot-camp without the boots, so to speak.

Funnily enough, this morning, nay, afternoon, my friend made baked eggs while I made a vegetable and lentil soup. I didn't get around to eating the soup since I had to run home, but for a change of pace, I made a stew instead.

I am sufficiently sated and full of gluten.

Mushroom and barley stew
Makes a fuckload

100g pancetta, diced
200g mixed mushrooms, sliced
1 onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, diced
1 leek, finely sliced
2 ribs of celery, diced
4 stalks of silverbeet, ribs diced and leaves sliced
2 fresh tomatoes, diced
1 large zucchini, diced
2 cups of barley
red wine
balsamic vinegar
vegetable stock

polenta
vegetable stock
parmesan


Totally prep-bowl heaven.

Saute off the diced pancetta with the mushrooms, season and set aside.
Sweat off the onion, garlic, silverbeet ribs, leek and celery and season.



Then, add the tomatoes and zucchini and turn up the heat.




When everything is done, return the mushrooms and pancetta to the pan and add the barley. Turn the heat on high and add a generous glug of red wine, a glug of balsamic and enough stock to cover.



Make a cartouche, cover with a lid and allow to simmer for about 40 minutes. Stir in the silverbeet leaves in the last two minutes and season to taste.
Make the polenta by whisking the polenta into boiling vegetable stock for 20-30 minutes, making it dryer or as wet as you want. Season with black pepper and add some parmesan to taste.




Serve the stew on top of the polenta with freshly grated parmesan and herbs if you have any.

The Golden Ging makes a special.

A couple of boys just came back from working in Perth. I don't think words are necessary.


Hmm, green things.


The boys always have a talent for making very crispy potatoes.
All the time. It is their shtick.


These mushrooms were amazing. To quote the Golden Ging, "You see, the trick is to find all the Asian sauces you have, and then, put them all on the mushrooms while you're cooking it, eh?"
It's a good point to note that one day, they were forced to drive to Box Hill and actually buy real Asian sauces.


The fried fish fillets.


And the oven baked fish that got punched in the side by a knife. No, wait, that is called stabbing...
Very tasty.



The aftermath.

I made a rice pudding after wards, but everyone ate it before a photo was taken. And I believe they also consumed a hell of a lot of dark chocolate in the interim.

Well done, Ging.

Special Edition Brunch Bash 2008

Actually, it wasn't that amazing, but the reason why it has the "2008" attached to it is because of how special edition I was.

Special edition= nice way of saying stupidly hung over...over hung and under moist.

I'll stop.

But, you know your friend loves you when you stumble home and ask them to make sure you don't fall asleep in the shower after walking around town in a bra as a top and they end up sticking their fingers down your throat. You see, apparently you were suffering a little too much in the way of spinning rooms and lack of food and they thought the only way to rectify that would be to press the eject button next to your tonsils.

I'll stop there.

But, apparently, after naked vomiting, there was stupid laughter coming from you. Yep, still drunk.

So, in the afternoon, when you looked outside and saw that it was an amazing day where the trees were singing and the birds were swaying, and you felt a little empty, you decide to cook a Brunch/Linner for your friend, housemate and yourself. You just had to make do of your ingredients.

However, unlike your counterparts, you swapped the second espresso for a beer and a couple of Advil. Goddamn, that dog was hairy.

Silverbeet
1/2 bunch of silverbeet, ribs diced, leaves sliced in 1 inch thickness
1/2 clove elephant garlic, minced
salt
1/2 lemon

Wash the silverbeet very well, and fry the ribs first in a medium heat pan, salt generously and add the garlic. Add the sliced leaves and add a few drops of water. Cover to steam and when it is ready, squeeze lemon juice over before serving.

Pathetic guacamole
1 avocado
1/2 spanish onion, diced
1/2 clove garlic, diced
tobasco
salt
pepper
lemon juice

Dice the avocado and combine well with the onion and garlic, mashing the avocado slightly but not turning it into mush. Season with tobasco, salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste.

Mushroom, Leek business
1 large leek, washed and sliced, white part only
200g mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 elephant garlic clove, minced
salt
pepper
balsamic vinegar

In a pan on medium heat, add a generous splash of oil and start cooking the mushrooms, when they start to sweat, add the garlic and leek, salting slightly and adding a generous amount of pepper. When everything is a minute from being ready, add a glug of balsamic vinegar and allow the vinegar to cook off and caramelise.

I served this all on some decent bread, toasted with the guacamole on top, with a poached organic egg. The silverbeet and the mushroom/leek thing was on the side.

It is preferable if you have 3 sets of newspapers, a balcony and good company on a 25 degree day.