Polenta chips

Am I the only person in the world that hasn't been eating polenta chips? (or polenta fries, depending on your hemisphere) In fact, until last week I was a near polenta virgin. I think I have eaten polenta mash as a side dish at a few restaurants, and always liked it, but never really understood how it was prepared or cooked, so it seemed a bit mysterious and fancy schmancy.

I've had a Tupperware container of polenta floating around in my cupboard for years, but have only ever used it for baking corn bread, corn muffins or yummy cakes containing corn meal. Given my love of corn (and let's face it carbohydrates in general), it's surprising I've never tried making my own polenta mash.

Last week when the lovely Mary was down in Melbourne to celebrate her birthday, I was introduced to the wonder of polenta chips at Barney Allens. Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside and with a yummy dipping sauce. An instant win!

Mere days after trying these chips, I've been keen to go back for more. Since that was unlikely to happen, the next best thing to do was to try making them myself. Thanks to the wonders of google I found several not-so-daunting sounding recipes, so went ahead with one from allrecipes.com, with some slight variations, including baking instead of frying. Here's my version.

Baked polenta chips

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup milk
  
• 1 1/2 cups chicken stock
  
• 1 tablespoon butter
  
• 1 cup dry polenta
  
• Small handful Parmesan cheese (next time I would add more
  
• Chopped fresh parsley (grabbed from pot outside, unmeasured
  
• Salt and pepper to taste
  
• Other spices to taste - I added Chilli flakes and paprika

Directions

1. In a large saucepan, combine milk, chicken stock, and butter; bring to rolling boil. Slowly whisk in polenta.
   
2. Turn down heat to medium-low, and continue cooking and stirring until polenta pulls from edge of pan. (I know this sounds confusing, and I had no idea what "pulls from pan" means, but it REALLY DOES!)
   
3. Mix in cheese, parsley, salt and pepper & whatever spices you are adding.
   
4. Spread polenta evenly over a cookie sheet, and refrigerate until cold.
   
5. Preheat oven
   
6. Transfer polenta to cutting board and cut into sticks.
   
7. Place on baking tray, spray with oil and bake in oven until crispy.
   

I served this with a salad and a dipping sauce made of geek yoghurt and chilli jam. It was yum! As I mentioned above next time I'd add more cheese, as I couldn't taste it at all. And don't worry, there will be a next time soon!!

One small step for man

I know the quality of this photo is crap. I lost my camera several weeks ago and this was taken on my iPhone. Eventually I'll get around to getting a new camera. Until then, it's this or nothing!



This may look like a badly photoographed, and inherently unphotogenetic bowl of risotto. And whilst it is that, it's also a lot more. For one, it crosses off one of the items on my Things to Do In Melbourne list I've got stuck up on the fridge; namely "Learn how to make risotto".

Believe it ir not, I've never made risotto before. Whilst I've eaten plenty, they were always made by the now-ex-boyfriend (who from henceforth shall be known as Neb on this blog). Risotto was always one of his special dishes to make, and to be fair he was pretty damn good at it. So learning how to make it myself was something I never had to think about.

Most restaurant risottos are awful - they are either lukewarm, too watery, don't have enough tasty filling bits, or have at least one ingredient that I don't like in them (hello Pumpkin!!!). Unless I have reason to believe a restaurant's risotto is going to be amazing, it's not something I would risk ordering off the menu. Too much of a gamble!

Given that it's now over 6 months since Neb and I have been together, that means that's its been over 6 months since I've eaten risotto. In summertime I didn't even notice the lack of risotto from my diet, but now that we are well and truly in the midst of a freezing cold winter, there are some nights when a warm bowl full of creamy rice and veggies would just hit the spot perfectly.

So I finally decided that the lack of risotto in my diet had gone on far too seriously long enough by half. The only thing for it was to give it a go and just see what happens. I spent some time googling around, and finally came up with a few candidate first-timer risotto recipes from taste.com.au, finally settling on this recipe for Spinach and Sweet Potato Risotto.

The verdict? Yum. I might try a few other recipes before considering making this exact one again, but now that I've gotten over my initial risotto fear, there's no stopping me! Just one more thing I don't need a man in my life for, right?

Pot pie

There aren't many things in life that are more comforting than a pot pie. The most delicious one I've ever had was a sweet potato and chickpea pot pie that I had at a pub at Mount Victoria, whilst driving back from The OC to Sydney one weekend.

I've never seen it on any other menu, and never seen a recipe for such a pie, but I have craved it often. So much in fact that I've searched around on the internet to find something similar. This recipe for Moroccan lamb & chickpea pot pies at Taste is the closest I've seen.

A sudden cold snap hit Melbourne a few days ago. Also, I'm starting night shift tonight for 4 nights in a row. So what better time to fill the fridge with a hearty and nourishing pot pie.



I've adapted the taste recipe to take out the lamb. Still not quite at the level of the Mount Victoria pub, but I'm willing to keep working on it over winter!

Morroccan sweet potato & chickpea pot pies

Ingredients

• Olive oil spray
• 1 brown onion, finely chopped
• Half a leek (I happened to have it in the fridge. I wouldn't buy it just for the sake of this recipe if I didn't have it already though)
  
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin (I added this because I always seem to use coriander and cumin together)
  
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 x 400g can no-added-salt tomatoes
• 500g orange sweet potato (kumara), peeled, cut into 1.5cm-pieces (I increased the amount to compensate for the lack of lamb)
  
• 60ml (1/4 cup) water
• 1 x 400g can chickpeas, rinsed, drained
• 1 tsp honey
• 4 sheets filo
• 1 tsp sesame seeds

Method

1. Heat a large non-stick frying pan and then spray with olive oil spray. Add the onion +/- leek to the pan. Cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes or until soft. Stir in the garlic, coriander, cumin and cinnamon. Cook for 1 minute or until aromatic.
2. Add the tomato, sweet potato and water to the pan. Bring to a simmer. Cook for 10 minutes. Add the lamb and chickpeas, and simmer 5 minutes. Stir in the honey. Season with pepper.
3. Preheat oven to 200°C. Divide the pie mixture among four 250ml (1-cup) capacity ovenproof dishes. Spray 1 filo sheet with olive oil spray. Fold in half 4 times to make a square. Place on top of 1 pie. Scrunch the edges. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Repeat with remaining filo sheets and sesame seeds. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden. Serve.

I'm not very good at working with filo, so I kinda mucked this bit up. Still tasted good though. I'm going to have to get some filo lessons from my friend who uses it to make yummy spinach and cheese triangles.

Also I really need to buy some ramekins. I have the small baking tin pictured above, but the rest of the mix just went in a loaf pan since I don't even have any ovenproof bowels. On the todo list!

Chicken & corn chowder

Yesterday I finally cooked one of my favourite soups of all time: Chicken & Corn Chowder.

During some cooler weather, I'd bought leeks from the South Melbourne Markets nearly 2 weeks ago, with the express intention of making this soup. Of course now it's warmed back up, and soup doesn't feel entirely appropriate, but I'm starting working nights again tonight, and sometimes at 4am in the morning you need something nourishing, warm and hearty to remind you that you are human despite being awake at an ungodly hour.

I was planning on cooking this on Monday night, so went to the fruit and veg shop, and the supermarket to pick up the few other bits and bobs apart from leeks that I needed to complete the recipe. Sadly I forgot to buy corn!

Chicken & corn chowder just wouldn't be the same without one of it's eponymous ingredients, so I had to hold off on making it until I had managed to procure that final, but vital ingredient.

Worth the wait though!



Here's the recipe I used. I stumbled across the original at allrecipes.com, and have fiddled with it just a teeny bit.

Zippy Chicken Corn Chowder

Ingredients

• 2-3 chicken breast fillets, cubed
  
• olive oil, small amt for frying
  
• 1 large red capsicum, chopped
• 2 medium leeks, chopped
• 3 tablespoons plain flour
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 2 medium potatoes, cubed
• 4 cups frozen corn
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2-1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• 1 tin light evaporated milk
  

Directions

1. Saute chicken in olive oil in a big soup pot, until lightly browned; set aside and keep warm.
   
2. In the same pan, saute the red pepper until tender. Add the leeks; cook for 1 minute. Stir in the flour and paprika until blended. Gradually stir in the broth. Add the potatoes; bring to a boil.
3. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.
4. Stir in corn, Worcestershire sauce, salt, hot pepper sauce and reserved chicken; bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Cook, uncovered, for 5-8 minutes or until corn is tender, stirring occasionally.
   
5. Stir in cream and heat through (do not boil).

Easy huh? And so yum!

A culinary challenge

In honour of the season finale of Masterchef Australia last night, A and I decided to host our own Masterchef challenge.

We decided each of us should cook a recipe featured on the show for dinner. We flipped a coin, which decided I'd do the main, and A would do dessert. Then we promptly swapped, since my ever-present sweet tooth demands I "specialise" in dessert and he is all about exotic mains.

True to form, A cooked up a storm, deciding to do and entree AND a main.



For entree, he made Natural Oysters with Thai Dressing. Simple and delicious. Makes me wonder why we don't have oysters more often at home, especially in summer.



Talk about presentation!!

I scored this dish 7/10. It was light, tangy and delicious but lacked the chilli I demand in pretty much every dish to make it complete.

Between the entree and the main, A sat a while and enjoyed the fruits of his labour.



The main was Baked Lilydale Chicken Breast with Moroccan Spiced Vegetable Stew.



I adored this dish. The stew was perfectly spiced: flavoursome, warming and nourishing, but still light and fresh. The chicken soaked up the yummy flavours of the stew. The chickpeas and all the veggies made it a really healthy dish. 10/10!!

To counteract the healthiness of the dinner, I had to go all out with dessert: Sticky Date Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce & Almond Praline.



Both the pudding and the sauce were simple to make and tasted divine. The praline didn't set properly because I was scared of overcooking it and took it off the heat too early. Freezing made it look presentable for about 1 minute, but the heat of the pudding and sauce soon melted it into a gooopy mess. A delicious, goopy mess, but still a mess. Overall score 8/10.

The most exciting thing: experimenting with some new dishes. Each of these was delicious, not too difficult and tasted amazing.

I'm dead keen to try some more Masterchef pieces now. What a shame the show is over. I miss it already!!!

Not one, but two

Mistakes I made tonight whilst attempting to make this slice:

• Using 1 1/2 cups of both plain and self-raising flour instead of 1/2 cup of each
  
• Using regular sugar instead of brown sugar

The result? A pale glutinous mess that could barely fit inside the mixing bowl or baking dish.

Completely inedible. Ugh!!

back to the fridge

I’m back home now, and back into the fridge!

Last night I felled 2 birds with 1 stone: Thai red curry paste and coconut milk.

What to do with these two was pretty obvious. Combined with a few other ingredients, a tasty red curry was made. Tofu and sweet potato for me, and chicken for A. For both of us, a healthy serving of asparagus, sugar snap peas, mushrooms, coriander and spring onions.

No pictures, because we gobbled it down too fast. Tonight we’re having leftovers, so maybe I can pause before chowing down to take a few pictures.

See more progress on: use up the random ingredients cluttering up our fridge, freezer and kitchen cupboards

An awesome salad

With A down in Melbourne on weekdays (a fact I may have neglected to report here) I'm left alone to fend for myself. My solution to this last week was to catch up with friends for dinner every night, an endeavour that left me well socialed, but tired, poorer and lardier than before.

Thanks to the Melbourne Cup this week, I'm only "home alone" for 3 days. Tomorrow afternoon I'm heading down to Melbourne myself - and hopefully escaping the deluge that has engulfed Sydney for the last week!!

What I have decided is that these 3 days are going to be the start of Operation "Me Time".

I'm going to take advantage of this time to make healthier meals than I might if I was feeding both A and me, and to cook all the things I love, but that he finds less agreeable. Namely a lot of salads and soups - lucky its soup weather at the moment!! A is gradually being converted to soups and salads, but is not the biggest fan. There's also other things he doesn't eat - like tofu, eggs and spinach - that I'm bursting to cook.

As part of this, I want to use up some of the random ingredients cluttering up our fridge, freezer and kitchen cupboards. I've got tapioca that I bought 4 years ago sitting in the pantry, 2 falafels left over from a Lebanese meal in the freezer, and more dried porcini mushrooms than I can poke a stick at. It's all gotta go!!

Apart from food, other things I want to do with this "Me Time" is continue to clean up the mess that is our kitchen cupboards, second bedroom and the verandah. These feel like never-ending tasks, but I hope I can make a dint in them.

Doing some more study, and working on my honours project wouldn't go astray either!!

Before I go, here's the salad I made tonight:

Yummy chicken, sweet potato and haloumi salad

• Lettuce and rocket leaves
  
• 60g chicken
• 90g baked sweet potato
• 15g grilled haloumi
• 1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts
• 4 cherry tomatoes
• sliced red onion
• dressing: 1 teaspoon olive oil, 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar, juice 1/2 lemon, cracked pepper
  

Very tasty, and very filling - in fact next time I might cut down the portions - especially if I'm eating late.

And right now, I need to finish packing!!

Mmmmmmmmmilkshakes!

I'm not normally one for guzzling down too much milk. Sure I have it in coffee, and I have the occasional glass of Milo, but I can easily go a week without consuming more than 500mL of the stuff. Likewise, I'm never really tempted to order a milkshake when out. Unless the magic word "spearmint" appears in the title.

After that, the chances of me *not* ordering it are slim to none.

Ok I must come clean, I'm just generally a mint hussy. And normally the mintier something is, the better^*. But somehow spearmint - the milder cousin of peppermint - works best in these shakes. It gives it a light and sweet taste, that combined with soft bubbles of milk is just pure delight to imbibe.

Unfortunately a spearmint milkshake is not that easy to come by. After more than half a decade's searching, I can still count on one hand the number of establishments I know that serve them. And now that Poppies of Stanmore has closed down, the number within a 20km radius of my house is now zero.

I was once so desperate to obtain some spearmint milk that I cajoled my mother into visiting a wholesale confectioner in her city, and allowing them to sell her a 2L bottle of the mint-flavoured syrup. She succeeded, and that bottle kept us in good supply of milkshakes for well over a year. After that bottle though, our source literally dried up.

When I visited Broken Hill at the end of last year I was delighted to visit Bells Milk Bar; a 50s style milk bar serving a massive variety of flavoured milkshakes.


Image from www.bellsmilkbar.com.au.

I was even more delighted to discover that spearmint was one of those flavours.



I was even more delighted to discover that they sold bottles of their homemade syrups, which I promptly bought. I am ashamed to say that for nearly a year this bottle sat atop my desk, unopened.



But today something cracked, and I decided a spearmint milkshake was in order.

Perhaps it was my anticipation in going to Melbourne next weekend to visit A, and knowing that one of the few reliable spearmint sources resides at the Queen Vic markets there. Perhaps it was just time I cleaned up my desk. Either way, it tasted great. And made me keen to seek out another source for when this 250mL bottle runs out.

If you know of one, please do let me know!!

---

^* The only occasion this has even been shown not to be true is when I accidentally bought mint flavoured water in China. It tasted like I was drinking toothpaste backwash.

Catching up

It's been a busy time since I checked in here last. I don't have the energy to write a long, detailed post describing it all, but here are the highlights of the last week or so of my life, in roughly chronological order.

1. Eating dumplings, drinking much wine and singing lots of Guns 'n Roses at Karaoke.
   
   
2. Waking up still drunk the next morning and having to pack my bags for a morning flight to Cairns.
3. Making it to Cairns in one piece and enjoying a cruisy day wandering the streets, sussing out what had changed in the 5 years since I'd been there.
   
4. Spending 3 days on a boat staring at a view like this non-stop. Note the lack of blue sky.
   
5. Doing 10 dives in 3 days, including 2 night dives. Never done a night dive before and was expecting it to be very scary - it wasn't! Best dive was the last morning - there were 9 sharks right underneath our boat as we descended. Then we saw 7 turtles in the one dive!
   
6. Making it back on dry land and discovering that blue sky still exists.
   
7. Getting home and unpacking. Such fun - not!!!
8. Finding out I passed 3rd year and am now officially in 4th year - woohoo!
9. Realising this now officially means I have 9 weeks before I head to Vietnam for 3 months. Buying a Lonely Planet (still not opened it though)
   
10. Picking out a new pair of glasses. They'll be ready to collect soon.
11. Visiting my Babushka and getting to eat prawn dumplings at the same time. Yum.
    
12. Starting my first 4th year rotation - Obstetrics and Gynaecology. It's going to be an interesting 8 weeks, and I am loving being able to walk to hospital in the mornings.

So I think that pretty much brings us up to date. I need a rest from all this excitement!!

The fate of the rhubarb...

...turned out to be, not as predicted, a crumble.

Instead, after spending the previous two evenings polishing off the apple crumble that Mum gave me, I decided something else was in store for the rhubarb. I did some googling, and flicking through my cookbooks before deciding upon Nigella Lawson's Rhubarb meringue pie.



It was pretty easy to make, though took a while to assemble all the various parts. Due to our lack of food processors and electric beaters, I had to make the pie crust and meringue the old fashioned hand way, making it more time consuming than it otherwise needed to be.

Still, I'm on holidays, so I'm not complaining about the time.

Neither am I complaining about the fact that all I've eaten for lunch today is another slice. Time to go have a sandwich, methinks!

Chilli bean soup with cornbread

I posted a link to this recipe on HealthNuts a while back, so this is nothing really new. Except last night when I made it again I took pictures!

I'm going to repeat the recipe here as well, just so if when I add new recipes here, they'll all be in the one place.



With many, many, many thanks to taste.com.au (and a few comments by me in italics)...

Ingredients (serves 6)

• 2 tbs olive oil (I just add a small splush)
  
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 roasted capsicums
• 2 small red chillies, seeded, chopped (I normally add 3)
  
• 900ml vegetable stock
• 700ml tomato passata
• 2 tbs sun-dried tomato paste (or some sut up dried sundried tomatoes)
  
• 415g can red kidney beans, drained, washed
• Sour cream and coriander, to serve

Corn bread

• 150g self-raising flour
• 175g instant polenta
• 100g goat's cheese, crumbled (I use half fetta, half cottage cheese normally)
  
• 310g can creamed corn
• 2 red chillies, seeded, diced
• 1 tbs coriander, chopped
• 1 tbs honey
• 175ml buttermilk
• 50g butter, melted (I skip this, or sometimes add a splash of olive oil instead)
  

Method

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan, add onion and cook for 2-3 minutes over medium heat until soft. Add garlic, capsicum, chilli and cook for 1 minute. Add stock, passata, tomato paste and kidney beans. Stir to combine.
2. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat to a simmer for 25 minutes. Set aside to cool slightly, then blend in batches.
3. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
4. To make the corn bread, sift the flour, polenta and 1 teaspoon of salt in a mixing bowl, add goat's cheese, corn, chilli, coriander, honey, buttermilk and butter, and season with black pepper.
5. Stir to combine and transfer to a greased 20cm spring-form pan. Bake for 30 minutes.
6. Swirl sour cream into soup and garnish with coriander. Serve with corn bread.
7. Go to heaven cos it tastes so damn good!
   

Mmmmm....bagels

I tend to go through phases where I really get into a particular food and eat it constantly. After a few months I find another craze, and move on to something else. Sometimes I go back and re-visit previous crazes. I'm doing that right now with bagels.

I think we're a bit bagel-deprived here in Australia. We don't have the plethora of bagel bakeries that they do in NYC or all across Canada. We don't have the opportunity to walk down the street and be tempted by the fragrance of freshly cooked bagels. Nor do we have the sheer variety of flavours available; from plain to seeded to jalapeno-cheese all the way through to chocolate or maple syrup you think of it, Canadians have made a bagel out of it.

The supermarket bought bagels we get here just don't measure up. Bagels are a fleeting treasure; get them fresh and they are chewy on the outside and soft and doughy on the inside. A day later and they are just tough, dry and nasty. Not worth the effort!

So I was delighted to discover that a sourdough bakery just up the road has freshly baked bagels. They also do great take-away coffee. My latest thing has been to go the gym and grab a coffee and bagel on the way home for breakfast or lunch depending on what time it is. But you have to get in quick; their supply of bagels is usually all but gone by mid-morning.



Here's my perfect breakfast: a blueberry bagel with extra light cream cheese and a coffee. What a start to the day.



Another brekky favourite is a cheese bagel with a smidge of cream cheese and vegemite. Divine!!



This creation is superb and does equally well for breakfast or lunch. I'd even eat it for dinner if it had managed to survive the rest of the day uneaten! It's a plain bagel topped with cream cheese, rocket and smoked salmon drizzled with lemon juice and cracked pepper. I now keep some smoked salmon in fridge purposely to make this little treat!!



This one is great for lunch and can be adapted easily with whatever ingredients are on hand. The staples are rocket, tomato and some kind of cheese (preferably haloumi or feta) with chilli. Olives, roasted capsicum and pesto are a great way to liven it up as required.

If anyone else has any great bagel ideas please let me know. I'm always up for another way to celebrate the humble bagel!

UPDATE: Having had a cheese bagel for lunch today I decided to take yet another photo to make my bagel collection complete. I was having trouble capturing the cheese one though - it somehow didn't seem to be as photogenic as the rest. A decided to help me out, but by the time he'd crossed the room I was already stuffing my face!



I'll also come clean with the details of the purveyor of bagely goodness since M asked: they're from rise Newtown (the same shop used to be called d'ough which is just *the* best name for a bakery) on King St Newtown, right next door to Franklins. I'm a bit confused though, because according to yellowpages their name is The Bread Connection, but I'll go with whatever name is on the shopfront.

And yes, I am worried that they'll disappear but every time I go I stock up, making sure I have enough for at least one of every flavour to sit in the freezer. Some days I clear them out of all remaining bagels!! Though having consumed several over the last few days, my supplies have dwindled down to nothing, so looks like I'll be going for a walk tomorrow morning!!