Preserved lemons, rubbish sleepers and my chiropractors superfund.

I don't get to blog as much as I would like to. Most of my posts are done one handed on my iPhone while I rock my baby to sleep. My babies are rubbish sleepers. It seems the best and only place to be sleeping when you're a bebe - is on top of me. Mr 3 is a good sleeper now, but as a baby - rubbish. Mr 9-months is trying hard to break his brothers record of rubbish-sleeping-ness. It's going to be a close call. I know it won't last long and one day I'm going to look back and miss these days when all they wanted was to be tangled in my arms. <3 ..... although it does get tiresome, especially in the wee hours of the morning.  I bought a giant comfy armchair and ottoman when I was pregnant with my first son,  it's turned out to be a stellar investment as I have spent many a night in it (each one contributing handsomely to my chiropractors superfund) - many hours passed with a little boy tangled in my arms. So tonight, with Spider-man gently snoring on the other side of the room & my littlest super-hero snoozing on my chest, I shall pass on another recipe.

Preserved Lemons. 

I love lemons. LOVE them. Such versatile little things. I love a bit of lemon squeezed into cold water on a hot day. I love the juice of half a lemon in a mug with a tablespoon of honey when I'm feeling average. A couple of slices of lemon, a sprig of mint & a slice of ginger makes for a lovely simple tea. I use them in salad dressing, marinades, dips and desserts. I always have a few in my fruit bowl, even when you have to remortgage your house to buy them just before they come into season again!! As a kid I used to eat bush lemons, peeled like an orange & sprinkled in salt. Yum! Truth be told, I still do occasionally. I was so excited to see them appear on my co-op order list about 4 weeks ago! The first thing I did with my kilo of new season lemons, was preserve them. I was watching an episode of Food Safari ages ago & I saw someone preserve some lemons. I remember thinking how simple it looked. Then, when I paid $14 for a tiny  jar of them  in order to make my favorite chicken, preserved lemon & green olive tagine (that recipe comes later!), I almost died! I came home & promptly made my own. This year I have done several small jars - now you can do the same. 

Preserved lemons

Ingredients

Lemons 

Salt 

Water

*quantities depend on how much you want to make as explained below

You will need some sterile jars - depending on how many lemons you have. You can work on about 4-6 lemons for an average sized jar.

Method

Cut the tops & bottoms off your lemons like so...

Then cut a cross in them, about 3/4 of the way down the lemon.

About this far down..

Then pack a heaped teaspoon of good quality salt into the centre....

.....and then into the other side....

Then pack lemons tightly into a jar. To make them fit better you can cut in half and pack with one heaped teaspoon of salt instead of 2.

Once all your lemons are in, add a couple more heaped teaspoons of salt on top for good luck. Then fill with filtered water. 

Seal tightly, and keep in a cool dark place for a month before using.  The water will 'thicken' when they're ready. Once you break the seal keep in the fridge.

Enjoy! 

Tomato Passata - a chunky homestyle delicious sauce.

I just can't resist home made passata. It's simply sunshine in a bottle. When I lived in Cairns, I used to buy gorgeous plump ruby red tomatoes from the 'Happy tomato plantation' at Rusty's markets every week. These amazing farmers made the trip down from the tablelands each week so we could have the best and freshest produce. God bless farmers!!!!! I used buy kilos of their juicy tomatoes which only continued to get more delicious as they sat in a bowl on my windowsill and ripened further. 

Every time I'm in Cairns, I can't resist a trip to Rusty's markets to reminisce. I try and head in early on a Friday or Saturday morning and enjoy the mixture of tourists, backpackers, locals, farmers, buskers and characters. I buy myself a fresh coconut, a Govinda's yummy samosa or a Hasham's vegetable spring roll and walk around and enjoy. If I'm up home for a while, I usually arrive back at my Mum's house with a bunch of tropical flowers for her and a few bags of happy tomato plantation goodness - hopefully they are still there in the same spot - selling their gorgeous tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis eggplants and other delicious produce!

Tomato Passata - makes 750gms - 1 litre

Ingredients 

1.5 to 1.6kgs ripe red tomatoes (make sure you leave them to ripen until they are red and soft to touch , or get your hands on a box of seconds)
1 brown onion
2-4 large cloves garlic (I use 4 large cloves)
a large hand full of basil leaves (I use the large sweet basil)

50gms olive oil
2 tablespoon of TM vegetable stock
2 tablespoons raw sugar
200-300gms water


a couple of stems of basil leaves for the preserving jars

TM Method

1.Prepare your tomatoes, with a paring knife, cut the core out of the tomato and cut a cross in the bottom of each tomato - this will mean that the skins will slip off easily once boiled. (I don't usually take the core out of mine, but you can)
2. Put the tomatoes in the varoma dish - you should be able to fit 1.5kgs approx at a time. If you are doing more than one batch of tomatoes, second and subsequent batches will only need 10 mins of steaming time. 

top

bottom

3.Cook tomatoes 20 mins | Varoma | Spd 2

4. Remove the varoma and set aside to cool (you may want to place a glass bowl underneath to catch any drips)

5. While the tomatoes are cooling, peel 1 medium brown onion, cut in half and add to TM bowl with peeled garlic cloves and basil. chop 1 sec | Sp 7 scrape down sides with spatula. Chop again 1 sec | Sp 7. 

6. Add 50gms olive oil and cook 4.5 mins | Varoma | Sp 2 with the MC off. Once the tomatoes are cool, peel off the skin off and add to TM bow with 200-300gms of water (if you have collected any cooking liquid in the bowl under the varoma from the tomatoes, you can use this as part of your 200-300gms water. I like 2 add 300gns but 200 with give you a slightly thicker sauce). Add 2 tbsp of TM vegetable stock & 2 tbsp sugar. 

7. Cook 45 mins | Varoma | Sp soft with basket sitting on top to prevent spitting. At the end of the 45 mins, taste and adjust seasoning if need be. If you prefer a thicker sauce you can reduce by cooking for a further 15 mins at varoma Spd soft with the basket on top.

8. Blend 5 secs | Sp 3. If you want a very smooth sauce, you can blend on a higher speed - be warned though, over processing of the tomatoes will cause the sauce to turn orange. 

If I am going to preserve this in bottles, I usually put a sprig of basil in the jar or bottle first and then pour the sauce on top. See below for my preserving tips.

I use this sauce as a base for so many meals - a base for pizza - just spread a little olive oil and then some of this sauce with some chopped garlic and add whatever toppings you please! I also use it for various pasta sauces. For a very quick easy lunchtime pasta, I mix some of this passata with a few tablespoons of smooth ricotta or a handful if crumbled feta and add a pinch of chilli flakes. Heat and stir through pasta (I would use Barilla Conchiglie Rigate for this sauce) with some freshly torn basil. I also use this with my Greek meatballs which are always a hit with my boys. 

Tip - You can freeze this sauce in portions (I always do 2-3 batches in a day) if you want to freeze for pizza, put some into icecube trays so you can take out a few at a time for quickly thawed pizza sauce. You can also bottle it. If you bottle, please follow preserving guidelines, using clean sterile bottles and bottle piping hot sauce into hot bottles.

I generally set my TM bowl of liquid aside after it's cooked and sterilise a 1 Lt bottle and lid in 500 mls water for 12 mins | varoma | sp 2. Then I add hot liquid to hot bottle/jar and seal immediately. Once I've completed all my batches, I boil the jars/bottles in a big pot with water up 3/4 of the side of the bottles or jars for 30 mins on a gentle simmer. 

Enjoy!!!

A quick lunch pasta in progress. 

Spelt pizza with cured salmon, avo & cucumber

My first attempt at curing salmon was a hit! Of course I wanted to try it straight away so I threw together a quick 'salad pizza' for dinner last night.....which was an absolute hit and demolished by Mr Slice of Vi & Mr 3. It was such a hit with Mr 3 that he asked for pizza for breakfast, there was a little flatbread and some salmon and avo left, so he had a brekky version this morning, I did need to do some explaining though when I dropped him off at kindy and he told all his teachers that he had pizza for breakfast...!!!! If you can't be bothered curing salmon, you will achieve a similar result with store bought smoked salmon. 

Spelt Pizza with cured salmon, avo & cucumber and lemon yogurt drizzle.

Ingredients 

Pizza dough 

2 cloves garlic

300gms warm water

1pkt of instant yeast

2 teaspoons salt 

30gms oil

260gms plain white bakers flour

240gms spelt flour

Extra few pinches of flour for rolling 

Topping

A few hundred grams of finely sliced cured salmon (see my cured salmon recipe or you can use pre purchased smoked salmon) 

1 ripe avocado sliced - hass is my favorite!

1 cucumber finely sliced

Lemon yogurt drizzle sauce 

4-5 tablespoons thick Greek yogurt (unsweetened) 

Juice of 1/2 lemon

A few pinches of salt - to taste

Freshly cracked black pepper

Method

Add garlic to TM bowl and chop 2 sec | Spd 7 

Add warm water and yeast, salt, oil & then flour. Mix 6 secs | Spd 6.

Kneed for 2 mins and set aside in a bowl covered with cling wrap to rise until doubled in size. 

Pre-heat your oven to 220*c or put your pizza stone in your BBQ on high (or if you're lucky enough to have a pizza oven in your backyard fire it up!!!)

While this is happening you can slice your salmon, cucumber and avo and set aside in fridge until pizza base is cooked. 

In a clean thermomix bowl, mix yogurt, lemon juice and salt and pepper 5 secs | Spd 4 and set aside in fridge.

Once dough is ready, divide the dough into the amount of pizza you want to make (I usually get 3 - 4 thin pizzas out of a batch of dough, as that's what we like, but if you like a thicker crust split the dough in 2) , roll out on a floured board into a round shape and put onto an oven tray. Spread a little olive oil on top and cook on a pizza stone or a hot oven until crunchy & golden. Once out, drizzle a tiny bit more oil (if necessary) and layer salmon, avo, cucumber & drizzle with lemon yogurt sauce.

Enjoy! 

Peppery Cured Salmon

I love salmon. LOVE it. It's one of my favorite things of all time. And smoked & cured salmon - I think I hear Angels calling!!!  I don't know why I've never made it myself - it's probably just never occurred to me that it's something you can easily do yourself.... But boy is it ever! This recipe is based on Fiona Hoskin's recipe from 'Devil of a Cookbook' if you don't have this cookbook I highly recommend you invest in it - it's fantastic. Fiona's original recipe is for 'Anise-scented cured salmon' - as soon as I read 'Anise' I though - I bet this would go beautifully with Szechuan pepper. One of my dearest friends Amy taught me to make this beautiful Chinese chicken dish which uses both Star Anise & Szechuan pepper and I love it - So I changed it a little bit. I hope you enjoy - we certainly did x

Peppery cured salmon

Ingredients

3 whole star anise

2 teaspoons black pepper

2 teaspoons Szechuan pepper

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

250grams rapadura sugar

250grams pink Himalayan rock salt 

a pinch of dried thyme

1 fillet of fresh Tasmanian salmon

Method

1.) Remove the pin bones from the salmon - just run your finger along the salmon to find the strip of bones and pull them out with a pair of tweezers (I bought a new pair specifically for this you can pick then up cheap enough at the supermarket).

2.) places all spices into your thermomix bowl and mill 30 secs | Spd 9

3.) add salt and mill 3 secs | Spd 9

4.) add sugar and thyme and mix 10 secs | Spd 5 

Depending on the size of your fillet of salmon, you may want to divide this mixture in half as this quantity will cure a whole side of salmon. I cured a piece approx 600/700gms with half of the mixture.

5. Evenly coat both sides if the salmon with the mixture patting it down firmly and put it in a Pyrex type dish with glad wrap on in the fridge over night. I did mine mid afternoon & left overnight. In the morning, turn the fish over and leave it until the afternoon evening 6-10ish hours. Time will vary depending on the size & thickness of your piece of fish. Wash the fish under the tap and then pat dry with a paper towel. Slice very thinly and enjoy! 

If you don't have a thermomix you can use a food processor or mortar & pestle using the above recipe as a guide. 

Bread salad

It's lunchtime on a busy Sunday and I realise I haven't planned anything for lunch... I know I have some probably now stale bread stick in my tiny pantry and 3 ripe tomatoes glistening in the fruit bowl. So I quickly throw together a bread salad. Anything that uses bread and vinegar is usually a hit in this house, and this was no exception! 

Ingredients:

1/4 loaf of stale hard bread - French stick, ciabatta, sourdough ect 

3 ripe tomatoes

1 cucumber

1 garlic clove (I use 2 but we love garlic) 

1/4 red onion

8 slices hot salami

A dozen or so green olives 

2 tbsps capers

3 tbsps olive oil

1 tbspn red wine vinegar

Method:

Roughly chop bread, tomato and cucumber and add to salad bowl.

Crush garlic, fine line slice red onion and roughly chop salami and add to salad bowl. 

Add olives and capers to salad bowl.

Pour over olive oil and red wine vinegar & add salt and pepper to taste. 

Toss and serve immediately.

I add my olive oil and vinegar & taste if it needs more. I didn't have basil or Italuan parsley but both would be beautiful.

Enjoy!  

Zoodles Vs Spoodles

SO after my Spaghetti squash rice paper roll extravaganza on Sunday arvo, I decided to do a Zoodles (Zuchinni noodles) vs Spoodles (spaghetti squash) as a pasta replacement, experiment. I had leftover Spaghetti squash in the fridge that I didn't want to waste, so it made sense! 

It wasn't a hard one, I just made up some puttanesca style sauce with anchovies, red capsicum, olives, chilli, garlic and capers ect. I warmed up the two different batches of noodles slightly and mixed in with the sauce. 

First up: Zoodles. I made these with my Gefu. It's my favorite new toy. Have you seen them? Like a giant pencil sharpener - you put your Zuchinni in one end, twist and it comes out as spaghetti at the other end! (No idea what I'm talking about just google 'Gefu') I loved this! I had a great time doing it too! I steamed mine ever so slightly, it was just enough to soften it a tiny bit. 

Next up - Spoodles. Spaghetti squash noodles:

Totally different texture to the zuchs. The spoodles were nice but i think they are forever going to be 'vermicelli noodles' in my head.....and.... it would be a cold day in hell before I served vermicelli noodles with pasta sauce! 

Verdict - zoodles win in my book as a 'pasta' alternative, but I would definitely use spaghetti squash (experimentally) as a rice 'noodle' replacement. I have some other ideas cooking up in my head, so will give them a whirl when I find some more squash! 

Squash/Zuchinni hating husband verdict: 

He prefers real pasta.

Mushroom and walnut rice paper rolls with spaghetti squash 'noodles'

I was so excited to find spaghetti squash last week. It was a real random find. I quickly ducked into a shop I never go into & found them completely by accident. I love trying out new produce and ingredients so it was a big find for me AND in true EV fashion I've been banging on about it ever since!! So today I finally had some time on my hands to spend experimenting. I only had half a squash to work with as I gave half away to a friend to try.

Luckily my squash came with instructions.... so I had a rough idea on how to prepare it without having to do any research.

I bought two cut halves so I decided instead of boiling (as per above instructions), to steam it. I gave it 25 mins in my Thermomix Varoma, but you could get the same result in a traditional steamer.

After steaming, I used a fork to rake out the strands. It really was amazing the way they separated instantly like noodles!

 The first thing that came to mind, was how much they looked like vermicelli noodles. 

They also had a similar texture, so I decided to make some ricepaper rolls. My fridge is looking a little bare at the moment, so I didn't have many ingredients to work with! This only made the challenge more interesting. The ingredients came about because thats what I found in the bottom of the fridge.

You wouldn't have know that it was spaghetti squash and not vermacilli noodles! We really enjoyed them -  I hope you do too!!

If you can't source spaghetti squash,you can easily replace with vermicelli noodles. For a vegan option swap out oyster sauce for hoisin sauce.

Mushroom and walnut rice paper rolls 

Makes 16 - 20 rolls

Ingredients

Mushroom & walnut paste

70 gms walnuts

2cms of leek (white part) OR

half an onion if you don't have any leeks (white onion would be best)

3 large garlic cloves

small knob of peeled ginger (about a teaspoon)

400gms mushroom (mine were field mushrooms, but other varieties or a mixture would work fine)

10gms sesame oil

15gms soy sauce

2 tablespoons oyster sauce - replace with hoisin sauce for a vegetarian/vegan option

freshly chopped chilli or a dash of sweet chilli sauce - optional 

Rice paper roll filling

Steamed spaghetti squash strands - approximately 200gms***

1 large carrot

1 stick of celery

3 shallots sliced finely

1/2 large red capsicum cut into strips

a handful of fresh herbs - coriander, mint, thai basil are my favorities
a pinch of sesame seeds

Dipping sauce

1 clove garlic
1/4 cup of fish sauce 

1/4 cup of fresh lime juice

2 tbsps palm sugar/rapadura sugar/brown sugar

1 fresh chilli sliced

diced coriander leaves

*** My half squash produced approximately 550gms of strands - you you could make a double batch, but may need to adjust cooking time for the mushroom paste - I would continue in 5 min lots until you get the desired paste consistency. 

Thermomix method:

Mushroom walnut paste.
-Add 70gms of walnuts to dry Thermomix bowl. Chop 1 sec | Turbo. Set aside
-Add 2cm of leek, or 1/2 white onion, small knob of ginger and 3 large garlic cloves to bowl and chop 4 secs | Spd 7.
-Add 400gms mushrooms, chop 2 secs | Spd 5
-Add remaining ingredients and cook 8-10 mins | Varoma | Spd 2 with the MC off  the mixture should have a paste like consistency. Remove from the bowl and mix with walnuts. Don't bother cleaning the TM bowl, any residual mushroom paste will dress the carrot and celery and add flavour.
-Peel carrot and roughly chop carrot and celery. Add to TM bowl and chop 4 secs | Spd 5

Dipping sauce
-add 1 clove garlic to TM bowl chop 1 sec | spd 7 scrape down side with spatula
-add remaining ingredients except chilli and mix 5 secs | Spd 4
-remove from bowl and stir in chilli with a teaspoon

Conventional method:

-roughly chop walnuts and set aside
Food processor:
-If you have a food processor, add the following to your food processor bowl - 2cm of leek, or 1/2 white onion, small knob of ginger and 3 large garlic cloves and process until fine. Set aside
-Add 40gms mushrooms to food processor bowl and chop until fine.
By hand:
 If you don't have a food processor, chop onion finely, grate ginger and crush garlic with a garlic crusher. Finely dice 400gms mushrooms.
-heat sesame oil in a wok, add onion/garlic/ginger mix and stir fry until cooked. Add mushrooms and stir fry well, add oyster or hoisin sauce and soy sauce and continue to stirfry until cooked. Depending on how smooth you managed to chop your mushrooms, you might want to add the whole mix back into a food processor or blender to get it into a paste consistency.
-once finished, mix with walnuts
-peel and grate carrot and finely dice celery

Dipping sauce
-crush garlic clove into a bowl
-add sugar, then fish sauce then lime, mix well with a whisk or a fork
-add coriander and chilli

How to wrap your rice paper roll:
- fill a plate with warm water and submerge your rice paper wrap in there until it softens. You need to be careful you don't soften it too much though or it will be too wet to wrap.
-place your wrap down on a board and spread a teaspoon of mushroom mix, and layer on your spaghetti squash (or vermicelli noodles if you can't fine spaghetti squash) followed by carrot and celery mix, slice of capsicum and shallots and fresh herbs.
-wrap as per the photos below - the packet of rice paper wraps will also have instructions.

Don't overfill them is my biggest tip! Or you'll have a big hot mess.

Serve with dipping sauce, fresh lime wedges and green paw paw pickles.... if you're lucky enough to have a jar!

Enjoy!