It's raining, honey.

If you haven't worked out already, I recently inked myself with the phrase "It's raining, honey."

I love it and thought it was cute when people would text me with that line when it has been raining, but now, it's lost its flavour. It seems to be one of those days when it isn't actually dreary and the rain, as false as it may be sometimes, opens up a collective sense of nostalgia and the cliched word that starts with 'P'(and I am not referring to "potential," although it is a synonym).

To tell you the truth, I didn't go to work today because I ended up taking a sleeping tablet that was stronger than I thought, after shoving a few packets into one and not reading the dosage on the foil. It took till midday to get my motor-skills back, and maybe a few too many coffees, but it happened.



Remember when I bought spelt flour? Well, I was going to make my own, but the table which I usually roll out the pasta on went upstairs for the party and that would involve a whole lot of cleaning, disinfecting and bravery for me to knead any form of dough on that.
And yes, I did take a photo of the pasta on my record player.

Oh yeah, to be a responsible blogger: Spelt flour: high in protein, lower in gluten than regular flour, blah blah blah.

Ok?


Unfortunately, I feel as I have fallen into some trap cooking a pumpkin today as it is Thanksgiving or something in the Americatown. But, who cares.



Roasted Pumpkin and Silverbeet with Spelt linguine.
Serves 4, generously.

1/2 Jap pumpkin, skin on, sectioned into 4
chili flakes
sage
milk
100g taleggio cheese
6 slices of prosciutto, sliced
1 onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, finely diced
1 bunch of silverbeet, ribs diced and leaves sliced
100g walnuts, roasted and chopped
1/2 packet of spelt linguine



Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celcuis. Season the pumpkin with salt, pepper, chili flakes and rub in oil. Tear sage leaves over the top and bake for 40-50 minutes, turning half way.
When it is ready, put the pumpkin, skin and all, into a blender with a dash of milk. Blend till you have a thick puree, kind of like a dip.
Season and chop up 50g of the taleggio and stir through till it is melted. Set aside.
Meanwhile, render the fat from the prosciutto and add the onion over a low heat. When it is translucent, add the silverbeet ribs and garlic and continue to cook on low. As this is happening, cook the pasta. If the onion and prosciutto look dry, add some pasta cooking water.
A minute from the pasta being ready, add the silverbeet leaves to the pot.
Add the pumpkin puree to the prosciutto pan and stir through to heat.
Drain the pasta and silverbeet and add the to sauce. Stir to combine.


Serve with a slice of taleggio over the top and sprinkle over the toasted walnuts.




Erm, I guess now, you're ready for beer time.

Oh yes, this meal is best made and eaten while listening to Elbow's Seldom Seen Kid in its entirety. Seriously.

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.

Our Spread



Our View...and the evil pollen. Pretty, pretty pollen...so, so full of bastardo!

Just a Breather

I have somehow thrown myself on a feverent, hyperactive, creative bus for a 10 day getaway to compose a work for TINA (This is Not Art festival) in Newcastle. This means, by default, that I have somehow forced myself to write a presentation and essay in three days, rather than the 14 that I originally allowed myself during the mid-semester break at uni.
This bus will carry 25 people, each with some skill, whether it be writing, bending, building, braining (you get the idea) which will go from Melbourne to Newcastle along the coast-line for the 4 days leading up to TINA and everyone puts as much or as little of themselves into the work that will be 'presented' at the festival.
Erm, woot!
This also means that by default, everyone is also a poor motherfucker and will, undoubtedly go up poor and come back either in debt, someone's bitch, or turning tricks after a unanimously decided stop at Kings Cross to gather money home (this is running off the assumption that we're all attractive individuals with the ability to hook). We're a collective here, so it is like whore money for a socialist bus full of artists (funnily enough, the project is called istuffgreyhounds...oh the puns).
We're dumpster diving for as much food as we can before we go up before we dig into the money gathered and paid for this trip. We have mapped out a route and also gone price-spotting, as well as having devised back-up plans. We're doing this real, fun and unashamed. There will be fridges on the bus powered by generators, as well as gas stoves for the stops. There will be the cooked breakfast and the dinner, devised by a trio...and I have somehow assumed responsibility for being one of the three.
I smell fun.
I smell so much fun.
However, I am still pushing for people providing a list of dietary requirements and allergies before any of us hear bitching.
I am also scared of nature, and therefore, camping...but fuck it. This is for the sake of art, is it not? Strangely enough, my presentation and essay is on the arts and marketing. Oh, evil bureaucrat I may someday be. How stupidly relevant.
Even if the call for contributors wasn't so goddamn amazing, I would still leave my nature-phobia at the door.
I mean, when the bus is described as "an abscess bursting in the festival's brain" where the artists will be making "social cancer", all I can think is BRILLIANT!
Actually, the rant is a little amazingly entertaining and my kind of crazy (and my presentation head is thinking, oh, what a great marketing strategy...it is their point of difference), especially at the guarantee of being able to ride the bus like a giant, drunken lizard.
Finally, when I am told to be more concerned with my costume and equipment than my own health and surviving, and that explosives are wanted, I am reminded of a very good thing a friend (who undoubtedly wrote the release) who turned to me one day and said, "If we're going to follow the arts, we're going to be poor for the rest of our lives, but goddamn, are we going to have fun!"
'nuff said.

So, as I run away as of the 28th for 10 days, I will be blogging elsewhere, documenting the journey for your misguided pleasure. Any who, this may be a premature adios.

Till then, I am back on the societal arts marketing slide show with annotations and notes.

Back of Fridge Goodness
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 bunch rainbow silverbeet, ribs removed and diced, leaves sliced
20 good quality olives, pitted and chopped
a few forkfuls of pickled eggplant in oil
3-4 anchovies, diced
1 punnet cherry tomatoes, quartered
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
short pasta
fresh ricotta

Sweat off the garlic with the silverbeet ribs till transluscent. Turn up the heat and add the anchovies, olives and eggplant. Fry for a few minutes and add the cherry tomatoes with a generous glug of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Lower the heat to medium as you cook the pasta in salted water.
When the pasta is a couple of minutes from being al dente, put the silverbeet leaves into the tomato mixture and toss till they have wilted and cooked. If the sauce looks like it is drying out, add some of the pasta water to the pan.
Drain the pasta and mix through the sauce. Season to taste. Serve with fresh ricotta broken over the top.

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.