Cookbook Competition!

I've got it peeps! I know what the competition for the Monday Morning Cooking Club cookbook is!

It's time to get your creative haiku juices going and submit me the same.  The best haiku will win!  It must follow true haiku form and include either Appliances Online, Breville or how awesome I am.

Here's an example:

Autumn descends, cook
All in one processor WIZZ
The Junkie cooks, meat

See? easy - and deep, profound even.  So, you have until COB Monday 6/5 (that gives me ample opportunity to post it to you so you get it in time for Mother's Day)

I will be posting the best entries (which will probably be all of them, given my following).

You can send your marvellous haiku to thefeatherandbonejunkie[at]gmail[dot]com

Inviting Mr Slow Cooker to Dinner

What a beautiful pic! Had to share it, speaking of cuts and all,
and it kinda looks like a Chianina too!

I’m still banging on about that lovely Chianina box from F&B, but stick with me.  I pulled out a roasting piece to work some magic on it Sunday gone.  I don’t quite get ‘roasting beef’ that’s not eye fillet or a standing rib roast, I think it was topside or silverside (or some other side).  Maybe it’s just me, but they always end up tough and slightly flavourless when just roasted in the oven and the fibres are incredibly coarse, as you will see later.  I think they’re best for pot roasting or corning.  I didn’t feel like corning my haunch of meat (not sure if you can defrost then corn – feedback anyone?)

Instead I sloshed in two almost empty bottles of red wine that had been sitting on the bench for some indeterminable amount of time (only cook with what you’d drink – bah! Use what you’ve got my friends!).  I added some spices thus: cloves, pepper (black and white), mace, star anise and also a quartered onion.  I left it overnight in a bowl in the fridge then came back to it the next morning. 

It’s officially autumn, that’s the start of slow cooking weather, huzzah!  I love my slow cooker, he hasn’t been out all summer and I’ve missed him.  My BFF was telling me about some fancy Breville slow cooker/pressure cooker jobbie that she’s coveting but mine is just the standard slow cooker with the ceramic insert you can take out and put in the oven if you wish to brown the top of whatever you’ve created (and also throw in the dishwasher afterwards – heaven).

I do need to give him a bit of a polish up I think, a little touch of rust from sitting in our damp kitchen cupboards for the last six months – best get to that on the weekend…  So I removed the haunch from the marinade and browned it in a hot pan (setting off all the fire alarms in the process) I really need an industrial strength extractor fan*.  Threw it in the slow cooker and browned my onions and half a head of garlic.

Even though you can put most vegies straight into a slow cooker without browning first I’ve found onion stays really sharp tasting when you do that, so a bit of softening and caramelisation goes a long way.  I tucked mushrooms and cavolo nero around the Chianina and lots of herbs from the garden.  Once the onions were done I deglazed the pan with the leftover marinade and beef stock, brought that to the boil and poured it over the top, set the slow cooker to low and sashayed out of the house.

Nine Hours Later…

Wow! How yum does the house smell? What a beautiful thing! Walking in from a long day at work to know Mr Slow Cooker has cooked you a beautiful meal.  Happy days.  I gave the meat a poke and it was very soft and giving.  I have had problems in the past with my meat going dry and tasteless when I pull it out of a slow cook and could never quite figure out why.  Then I was watching a cooking show and some mad Irishman (chef dude) said it was because the meat steams dry and that undoes all your hard slow cooking work**.  He suggested leaving it in the pot, covered, to come back to room temperature, but who has time for that? Instead I quickly took it out and wrapped it tightly in Alfoil, making sure it was snug.

I then strained the liquid from the veg and went about thickening the sauce.  You know, I listen to all these fancy pants chefs advising to reduce until thick, but when I do that I’m usually left with about a tablespoon of liquid before I’m happy with how thick it’s become, so I am a shameless user of cornflour.  I reduce until I’m happy with the flavour then add enough cornflour mixed with water to get it to the desired thickness.  So did that, added back the veg, lots of pepper and salt then unveiled my haunch.  It was so soft I could shred it with my (asbestos) fingers.  So I did, folded that in with some lemon rind and fresh parsley to lift all the flavours.

Check out those man-fibers in the meat!

Served with the Wee Girl’s favourite sour cream mash***, a bit more lemon and parsley over the top.  Got the big thumbs up from Himself.  I had to remind him that licking the bowl after a meal was a bit gauche.

Remember to contact me about the competition to win a competition! The lovely Monday Morning Cooking Club's cookbook is up for grabs!

*There’s a thought for an anniversary gift, Himself!

**What a revelation! Of course!!

***No complaints Wee Girl! You’re in Italy having a great time, you miss out!

I’ve Finally Made It!!

That’s right peeps, I’ve hit the big time! A few weeks ago I was contacted by the lovely PR lady from Appliances Online to invite me to a Morning Tea blogger event at their home in Danks St.  Me?? How on earth do you know about me? I know I’m your Number One Customer – all my household electrical purchases through Applicances Online (including my trusty, beloved chest freezer) BUT HOW DID YOU FIND MY BLOG??

That’s a truth by the way.  I do love them. And not because they’re cheap (which they are) or that they’re convenient (which they definitely are) but because their customer service is exemplary. I love great customer service.  I love people who take pride in what they do, and I will go back to you over and over again just for that experience (take Feather and Bone, for example).

As it turns out Breville, who were also sponsoring the event have an employee/team member/fantastic person who enjoys my blog‽ (OHMIGOD that is so exciting!!! Are you serious???) I still find it amazing that people I don’t know ready my blog.  So along I went (taking BFF for support). 

BFF picked me up at 9am and we drove in.  As we arrived way too early (typical FBJ style) we stopped at a lovely French Café and enjoyed coffee and a pain au chocolat. Yum.

Up to the offices – I knew we were in the right place as there were lots of blogger looking types milling aimlessly around (you can always tell them, floral dresses, big cameras* except for the couple of blogmen, no floral dresses for them).  We had a quick tour of the Winning Group's offices by the MD and then into a room to watch the Monday Morning Cooking Club give some cooking demonstrations.  I’d tell you about the MMCC but you can Google them just as easy as I can so don’t be lazy now.

They cooked a few of their recipes and gave tips on some more from their cookbook.  Alas, what with my attention span of a gnat and the fact they were cooking all sweet things I may have been distracted slightly but tried to remain focussed and not miss anything – the serious bloggers were taking lots of close-ups of the sweet treats being produced and serious looking blogger notes, but as I usually use my iPhone for all my quality photos I thought that I’d let the serious camera peeps get the good pics – to be frank I had camera intimidation. 

As you may have noticed from my cake blog I do not have the patience (or sweet tooth) for that kind of rollie, rollie, mixie, bakie sugary stuff.  I mean, you make a cake, then what? There are only 3 of us in the house; none of us are really into sweets and eating that much cake is the slippery, slippery slope to empty calorie madness.

But they made nice stuff, and part of my distraction was admiring their Breville All-in-One Processor, which they were using for making pastry, mixing mixes etc.  My stick blender died a few years ago – and because I have my amazing Magimix** I couldn’t really justify replacing it.  But god I love kitchen appliances/serving platters/small bowls/ cutlery/wine/plates/pots, well, everything.  I wish I had one of those amazing kitchens where I could have one of everything (including an Aga).  I already have a plan that includes a walk in pantry, camphor laurel bench tops, tons of cupboard space…. Mmmmmm camphor laurel…

But I digress.

After they finished cooking, impressing the importance of letting your chiffon cake cool upside down and waxing lyrical about the provenance of their recipes it was onto networking and trying their goodies (some which they’d prepared earlier).  They did have a couple of savoury dishes that I tried.  There was an egg and onion crumble thingy that was lovely; it put me in the mind of the egg, breadcrumb, garlic and honey crumble I make for my asparagus, which featured when I cooked the pork and prune dish.  As an aside, my Mum made the P&P dish the other day, she didn’t follow the recipe I posted, but just used my loose blog description to great success apparently.  Dad loved it.

They also had prepared a gravlax type salmon with bagels that were a big hit.  I tried their wee raspberry and nutella rolls, crispy macadamia crisps and chiffon cake. Cake. You know how I struggle with cake, especially sponge cake.  Sweet, empty nothing.  I KNOW lots of peeps love cake, I just don’t get it*** what is the attraction?  Give me a big bowl of savoury anything any day.  More meat thanks Mrs Feather!

So I chatted to a few nice bloggers and we talked serious blogger business.  You know, camera versus iPhone, the trials and tribulations of remembering to photograph food before devouring it, the ten most popular floral dress designs this autumn…  Then alas, it was time for me to go back to my real job.  Excitingly there were goodie bags which included the all-new soft cover release of the MMCC cookbook and a waterproof iPad protector and also…. A BREVILLE ALL-IN-ONE PROCESSOR – are you serious??? Really?? For me??? THAT IS AWESOME!!! So chuffed.  And now I have to go back to work while the BFF goes home with my processor.  How am I meant to concentrate?? 

Thank you to the aforementioned Breville employee/team member/fantastic person for noticing my blog, the donation of the fantastic gift and Appliances Online for having me.  You are all grouse.

Dinner is on already tonight (more on that later), and no wizzy wizzy required, but I think a soup will be featuring on the menu really soon, so I can stab-blend to my heart’s content.  Awesome.

Also as a one-time-only-special-offer, I am giving away the lovely Monday Morning Cooking Club cookbook to one of you, my intrepid readers.  To win… hmmmm to win… you just…errrr… I’m not sure.  How about, anyone that can make the stupid blogger comment section work give me a suggestion? Who deserves this lovely cookbook? How should I give it away?  If comment doesn’t work, which is often the case, and you have a fabulous idea you could also post a comment on my google+ page (just click on my name under ‘contributors’) – or of course if you actually know me, drop me an email!

I was naughty, and didn’t take photos of the event. Of course, we had to wait 5 minutes before falling on the morning tea for the obligatory blogger photos, by then I was too keen to try the delicious looking spread to bother getting out the iPhone.  But here’s one of me with my new toy.

*Not exactly true, but…

**Thank you Himself, you are the best husband ever.

***Clearly, it must be me as so many peeps love cake – but nothing I can do about that, I am unrepentant.

Occasionally I Can Be Sweet

When I’m doing my real job I am sometimes unlucky enough to work on late night weekend cut-overs.  Today was one of those days.  I decided to bake and bring in a cake to make the whole thing a bit more bearable. 

I’m not really a baker; I don’t have the patience or exacting nature. In a nutshell, I am impatient and slap dash, good for savoury cooking but very, very bad for baking.

But most people love sweet things so I thought I’d give it a go.  Went to Nigella’s Feast cookbook and settled on the chocolate honey cake – what’s not to love, a gooey chocolate and honey cake with charming bees on top.  If you want the recipe – here’s the link: Nigella's Honey Chocolate Cake.  If I’m going to eat a cake it needs to be one with substance, I can never see the point of the airy light ones; it’s like eating fluffy sweetness, what’s the point?

So back to baking.  Checked the ingredients, went to the cupboard, damn, no honey, chocolate or icing sugar.  Himself was off playing football so walked to the veg shop down the road.  Honey, check.  No chocolate, no icing sugar.  Around to the 7 Eleven, they only had the 35g bars of 80% proof chocolate at $3.50 each. Quick brain calculation… hmmm that would be $28 for 275g chocolate.  Maybe not, it ain’t Haighs after all...  Waited for Himself to get home and drove down to the shops for the cheaper option.  Nine dollars for 3 100g blocks seemed a little more reasonable.  After some searching also found the icing sugar, nowhere near the other sugars of course (icing sugar, icing mixture – so many choices!!)

Now back to the important baking concentration stuff.  Butter and eggs at room temperature, check and oven pre-heated, check.  Carefully weigh everything ~sigh~ stupid baking… grease and line spring form pan of correct size... so exacting, how do people enjoy doing this?? Maybe it’s because I’m really not a sweet tooth? And so messy! Cake mix from one end of the kitchen to the other…

The cake mix was looking good, then the recipe asked for 250ml boiling water.  All of a sudden the cake mix is like thin paint! Is this right?? Surely it shouldn’t be so loose?? Re-checked the ingredients, yep, all correct.  Oh well; may as well keep going now.

Since I was leaving Himself to his own devices for dinner I decided to make to make him his own individual cake too* so patty cake at the ready.  Poured that first then the rest of the mix into the pre-prepared tin and into the oven.

Hmm I wonder how long for the cupcake? It was a long bake for the real cake – 1 hour! So checked the cupcake at 15 minutes. Nope, I think I’ll go for about 35 minutes. Yep, good call, cupcake done, but real cake still liquid in the middle.  Oh no! I’ve opened the oven! Shouldn’t that be avoided?? I hope I didn’t just make the real cake sink… Nothing to do but wait now…

Since the cupcake was out I decided to make the icing.  I’d already made the bees so I could add their stripes as well.  My biggest issue with cakes is icing before the cake is cool (again, impatience) and then of course the icing slides off the cake and all your hard work is ruined.  I must be strong this time and resist the temptation. Made the super sticky icing and put a tablespoon in a zip-lock bag then cooled it under the tap.  When it was cool I put the stripes and eyes on the bees – success! They’re so cute!!  Then carefully iced the cooled cupcake and popped a bee on top.  Very nice.  By then the cake was finished so time for the true patience test.  20 minutes… hmmm still quite warm… walk away FBJ…  30 minutes, nope ~sigh~ 60 minutes… COME ON CAKE!!! 15 more minutes… yep, I think it’s done, definitely not warm anymore.  Put the cake on a cake board ($4 for 2 at the local variety store) used Nigella’s suggestion of baking paper under the cake for icing.  Carefully iced… looking good! Carefully removed baking paper and artistically placed bees.  Hmmm too many bees, rest of the bees clustered around the bottom – dammit – I should have bought some icing flowers for them to hang out on.

OHMIGOD it looks awesome! I’ve finally succeeded in creating a beautiful cake!**  Himself got home (golf this time) and made all the appropriate noises and was very appreciative of his mini cake.  He couldn’t wait and immediately ate it and gave it the big thumbs up.  So now for my next challenge - how to get it to work without the cake slipping off the cake board.  It’s not like I could cover it with cling wrap, the tacky icing would stick to it and that would ruin my cake!

Carefully drove to work with it on the floor (very slow around corners) and gave the cake to a colleague to take it upstairs while I parked.  Lots of cake cudos when I got upstairs.  You made that?? Yep ~smug~.

Dammit! No-one wants to cut the cake and ‘ruin’ it!  Finally one of the guys caved and the cake was attacked.  It went down very well (huzzah!).  Apparently Sunday night late working cake is the way to go. 

Apparently Honey Cake Trumps Crusty Creams...

Had a quick Skype with the Wee Girl while waiting for defects “YOU MADE THE NIGELLA BEE CAKE???? I’ve always wanted to make that cake and you would never let me!!!” “oh well, if you run away to Italy for 6 months you only have yourself to blame” (tough love).  So here’s the blog and the photos Wee Girl, I promise we’ll make it together once you get home xxx.

* Wife of much awesomeness***

** High fiving myself around the kitchen

***Apparently not so awesome when I leave a leaking water bottle on Himself’s side of the bed

What Prunes?

We often get delicious pork in our F&B box but as I’m slightly pork intolerant and Himself doesn’t really enjoy just eating a neat pork chop I try to find interesting ways to cook it to avoid surcharge de porc as I don’t want it languishing in the freezer.  This in mind I made a delicious slow braised pork belly dish a couple of weeks ago, it was layered with apple and potato and then cooked in the oven for several hours to an unctuous softness.  

When I stumbled on this pork dish I was looking for an alternative to the typical Asian pork belly dishes of which I have many (and are to die for).  As the portion of pork was quite big I cooked it over two nights and didn’t want the same thing twice.  So delicious Asian pork belly on Sunday followed by the French slow braised version on Monday.  Himself loved it so I decided to do that again, but with pork chops, so I figured the cooking time could be cut down to 1 hour.

Himself strolled out of the kitchen and asked what I was doing with the Pork Chops? I said I was going to do that pork and prune dish again.  Pork and Prune* says He?? Oh, did I forget to mention there were prunes in that dish last time? (said innocently). 

Himself does not like a lot of dried fruit, especially sultanas, raisins and prunes. I LOVE PRUNES! They are delicious and soak up whatever you cook them in and are especially good soaked in rum, then cooked in a rich chocolate cake.  Happily after 3 hours the prunes had dissolved away, no need to mention the prunes.  I do sneak ‘stuff’ into my food with regularity I must admit, what he doesn’t know… 

The pork is browned (I used lard, who needs oil?) and removed from the pan, then the onions were cooked and the pork put back in to the pot, prunes were nestled in amongst the pork pieces and some juniper berries sprinkled over the top along with fresh thyme, salt and pepper.  Some of my BFF’s home made, spiced still cider was sloshed over the top**, followed by a layer of finely sliced granny smith apple, a sprinkling of sugar then finely sliced potatoes.  The potatoes were dotted with butter, more pepper and salt then into the oven for about an hour until the potatoes were golden.

 I served with white bean mash and steamed asparagus, topped with a garlicky, eggy crumble (because I can).

All delice.  I’ve added the recipe.  If you want to use belly I’ll give the times for that too.

*Nose wrinkling

**A glass of which I’m enjoying whilst typing this blog

An Indian Chianina

I was lucky enough to take delivery of a box full of delicious Chianina beef from my good friends at Feather and Bone last week.  On occasion they do a bit of bulk selling where they'll break up one or two whole carcasses and sell them as a box 'o flesh.  It's always very exciting to see what you'll get, but usually an 80/20 mix of secondary and prime¹ cuts.  For the prime cuts I was lucky enough to get 2 beautiful pieces - a bistecca (thick cut t-bone) and another which will stay between me and my chest freezer for now2.

I cooked the bistecca up last weekend - Himself and I enjoyed it very much, I may have bragged about it on Faceplant.

But! Enough of prime cuts - they're boring (and delicious).  Today I decided to do a curry.  A hot curry.  Hmmmm beef + hot curry = vindaloo! hooray for vindaloo!!  So pulled out one of my trusty Indian cookbooks and mixed up a heady spice mix of cardamom, black pepper, dried chilli, turmeric  cumin, coriander, cinnamon, fenugreek⁴, white vinegar and dark vinegar.  Apparently vindaloo was developed by the Portuguese in Goa and roughly translates to vinegar and garlic (10 cloves no less!! but that's later).

I pulled a 1.5kg bag of meat from Falkor⁵ helpfully labelled 'braising beef' and mixed it into the spice/vinegar mix.  The smell coming off that marinade was absolutely amazing - shame I don't have smell-o-blog here.  I then left it to think about itself while I enjoyed an afternoon at the Art Gallery (as you do).

I'm lucky enough to be in possession  of a pressure cooker which was lent to me by a dear friend⁶ so used that to cook up my soon to be vindaloo, after browning my onion, adding ginger julienne and mountains of garlic.  

Once it was cooked until tender I took the lid off and let it simmer for another hour to develop the flavours (and I may have been busy chatting to the Wee Girl on Skype in Italy).  There was a big look of disgust on her face when she found out it was curry night.  While she's lovin' la bella vita Italiana she's missing the multi-cultural aspect of home where every cuisine is fair go.

I then served with some dal tarka (you have got to try that recipe - it is the shit) and ready made lacha paratha.  I would have loved some rumali roti but can't seem to find any in my neck of the woods - don't these local Indian shops realise I'm in desperate need of some rumali in my life???  

A tip for you all, frozen lacha paratha can be cooked with great success in a sandwich press - we find 2 min 20 sec with the toaster open to the first notch is paratha perfection.

And then we ate it. It was delicious - It was one of those slow burners - okay at the beginning, lip tingling at the end; a sign of excellent hotness. So go get some home made Chianina Vindaloo into ya! Here's the recipe.

¹ Which, incidentally is how it comes on the cow - so all your prime cut eaters are wasting 80% of utter deliciousness... sucks to be you!
2 I'm keeping it close to my chest3
3 See what I did there?
4 Fenugreek is the uber 'curry' smelling spice
5 I mention my chest freezer so much I figured I'd give it a name
6 How good are pressure cookers????