Larb Gai

I'm not really a summer person. Like, not at all. The heat and I are not friends. I wondered if my move to a significantly colder climate might make me change my mind, but it doesn't look as though that'll be happening any time soon... There are however, a few positive things that go along with the rise in temperature. This salad is one of them. As soon as the weather begins to heat up, my yearning for all things hearty dissipates (it never disappears completely, but it certainly wanes), and I start craving light, fresh meals. This one is a winner. I feel as though I should be giving credit to someone for the recipe, but I don't know who it is! I've made this quite a few times, and have taken ideas from a bunch of recipes I've found online, tweaking a little each time. This time, I didn't use a recipe.

Larb Gai

Ingredients:

Olive oil

2 tbsp white rice

500g chicken mince

2 tbsp fish sauce

2 limes

4 spring onions

Lebanese cucumber

Small handful of sugar snap peas

Red chillies

Mint leaves

Method:

Start off by toasting the rice in a frypan (without oil) until golden.

Next, grind up the rice (I used my pretendomix, but a mortar and pestle would work too), until is it not quite a powder. You want it to still have some texture about it.

In a large pan, heat up a slurp of olive oil, and throw in the chicken mince. I minced mine myself because I wanted to make sure the meat was really lean -still trying to move that broken-knee-weight...

Let the mince cook for a couple of minutes, breaking it up with a spoon (or more appropriate utensil...any ideas? Potato masher maybe?), then add the fish sauce, and the juice from one of the limes.

While that is cooking through, chop up all of your crunchy bits! I used cucumber, sugar snap peas, chillies and spring onions. Bean sprouts are good too, but I forgot to buy them... Oh, and the mint too! Crucial!

Check on your chicken, when it's done, stir through all the crunchy deliciousness (including your mint and ground rice). Serve with a wedge of lime.

Just try to stop at one bowl! I don't believe it can be done!

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Ginger Maple Banana Bread with Chia

I have a problem.

(Aside from, obviously, having massive commitment trouble when it comes to this blog.)

I am pretty much incapable of naming a recipe without listing all the ingredients in the title. See above.

I guess a girl could have bigger problems...

So anyway, I'm blogging because I'm feeling extremely pleased with myself! Baking and I are not really friends. I rarely do it, and when I do, I fail more often than not. Also it's messy. For some reason, I resent the mess I make baking more than I do any other kind of cooking. I think part of my problem (not with the messiness, with the baking failures), is that when I'm cooking on a stovetop, I can interact with the ingredients more, do lots of sampling, adding, and balancing ingredients. I like the experimentation. The experimentation has rarely translated well when baking.

Despite this, I decided to attempt to make banana bread today, for no reason other than having a wee hankering. Unfortunately, I'm on a bit of a health kick just now...attempting to lose all my broke-knee-stopped-exercise/work-in-an-office-sitting-on-my-ass-all-day weight that I have acquired since moving to Our Nation's Capital. (Ideally before I go home at Christmas, so that no one ever has to know it happened...) So. I tried to make banana bread healthy. And I don't think I did such a bad job!

I shall give Sons of Rico some of the credit, as I was listening to their album 'Reactions' while I threw bits and pieces into the bowl. Have you listened to them? If not, you definitely should. It's not new (I believe there is a new one in the pipeline though), but it's GOOD. You can find out where to grab a copy here.

Right. Recipe. Let's do this.

Ginger Maple Banana Bread with Chia

Ingredients:

Olive oil spray (to grease tin)
1 and 3/4 cups self raising flour
1/4 cup semolina flour
1/8 cup chia seeds (I actually didn't measure this, but it'd have to be close to that)
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon (I used less -I thought it would go well with the other flavours, but I don't actually like it that much)
2/3 cup maple syrup (the real stuff!)
1/2 cup skim milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup olive oil
2 bananas

Method:

I cheated a bit here, and used my Bellini Kitchen Master, affectionately referred to as my Pretendomix. It's Target's rip off of the Thermomix. I adore it. It's nowhere near as impressive as an actual Thermomix, but I just couldn't justify the money and for less than half the price, the Pretendomix is pretty damn remarkable.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC.

If you have a Thermomix or a Pretendomix, throw the milk, eggs, olive oil, and bananas in the bowl, and mix 10 seconds (more if it isn't mixed through) on speed 3.

Add flours, ginger, cinnamon, maple syrup and chia seeds to the bowl and mix for 30 seconds on speed 3 (if you know more about baking than I do, you may want to adjust, I just guessed) or until completely combined. Pour into a greased medium loaf tin.

Bake in preheated oven for 50 minutes, or until a pointy implement inserted into the centre comes out clean. Grab it from the oven and let it sit for about 5 minutes, before turning onto a wire rack to cool.

No Pretendomix? That's okay! This is a bit guessworky, but should work!

Sift both flours with ginger and cinnamon into a large bowl. Add chia seeds and stir to combine, then make a well in the centre.

In a separate bowl, combine milk, mashed banana, whisked eggs, olive oil and maple syrup. Stir until everything is properly combined.

Create a well in the large bowl with the flour etc, and pour the banana mixture into it. Stir until just combined, then spoon into a greased medium loaf tin and follow the baking instructions above.

Ta-dah!

Some Habits Don't Come Easy

It's been a while! Rather a long while, really!

Let's just skip over most of it...I don't like the lime green countertops in my new homestead as a background for food photos (or maybe, I might be a little lazy).

Anyway. New life in Our Nation's Capital is well underway! I'm not feeling as lonely as when I first arrived, partially because I'm getting to know some people, and also because I think I'm learning to like (nay, love) large chunks of time spent on my own. Not entirely sure if it's healthy, but I'm running with it for the minute!

I decided to post today, even without a specific meal to document, because I remembered the dancing component of this blog's title! Two of my favourite things are food and music, so this one is a musical post.

I realised recently that I somewhere over the last couple of years, even more so now that I don't work in a record store, I became a playlist person. This is certainly not a terrible thing, the playlist has its place! It's exceptional for exercise, for when you have people over and don't want to be messing with the music all night, and for soundtracks to all singing, all dancing cooking adventures. I realised though, that I was rarely taking the time to listen to albums the way the artist intended them to be heard. I was also not really falling in love with much new music, and at the same time, starting to get a bit sick of all those favourite songs that seem to find themselves on every playlist, regardless of theme (running to Leonard Cohen singing Suzanne is not super motivating it turns out).

To counter this problem, I have implemented Albums Only Saturday.  Pretty self explanatory really. Aside from listening, obviously, to Albums Only, I must include at least one album that I don't know well, and unless I discover I hate it, I must play it twice. Today's previously unknown album was recommended to me by someone at work: Ekstasis by Julia Holter. 

I was going to attempt to describe it, but I keep coming up with strange thoughts...it sounds as though it was recorded inside a mirror. That sort of thing. Not awfully helpful really. So what I'll do instead, is provide a link to a review by someone far more articulate than I am: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16352-ekstasis/ (8.6 from Pitchfork is pretty impressive, huh?).

Last Salad of the Season

So it turns out that blog-writing is not something a person becomes addicted to overnight...  It may have been a while, but I didn't forget, I just happen to possess mad procrastination skillz.


I made this (DELICIOUS) salad a few weeks (maybe months?) ago and thought I'd better post it before the sunny, salad eating weather leaves us.  *note to sunny, salad eating weather: Please leave us, it is well and truly Autumn and we have had enough of you.*

Panzanella Salad

Salad Ingredients:

Olive Oil

Ciabatta Bread (6 cups, cut into cubes)

2 Lebanese cucumbers 

Yellow Capsicum

Red Capsicum

Punnet of Cherry Tomatoes, halved

1/2 Red Onion

250g Feta Cheese, cubed

Handful of Kalamata Olives, halved

Salt

Vinaigrette:

1 Clove Garlic, crushed,

Pinch of Dried Oregano (I used this because I didn't have any fresh herbs on hand...it was yummy, but is also amazing with fresh basil!)

Tsp Dijon Mustard

1/4 cup Red Wine Vinegar

1/3 cup Olive Oil

Method:

Slurp some olive oil into a large frypan.  When hot, fry ciabatta in batches (with a sprinkling of sea salt) until golden brown, adding more oil as required.

Halve the cucumbers lengthways, and scrape seeds out with a teaspoon.  Chop into slices that are about a centimetre thick.  Chop the capsicums into slices about 2cm by 2cm.  Slice the onion, I like to have fairly large slices so that the bits are easy to pick out.  I love the flavour the red onions gives the salad, just don't get too excited about chomping down on masses of red onion.  Throw the capsicum, onion, cucumber and tomatoes into a large bowl with the olives and feta.

Whisk all the ingredients of the vinaigrette together (or pop them all into a jar and shake!)

Pour the vinaigrette over the vegetables, then add the bread cubes.  Toss to combine and to spread the vinaigrette about, then leave to sit for about thirty minutes.  (This bit is tricky, but definitely worth it...the salad tastes amazing when all of the flavours have had a chance to mingle for a wee while.)

YUM!!!  Cannot get enough of this salad!  

Untitled (Or Warm Cauliflower Salad and I Can't Commit to a First Post Title)

Here I am.  Blogging.  Feeling altogether shy.

I have a new Mac (Hooray!!), an evening to myself, a glass of wine (complete with uncouth icecubes, as it is far, far too hot to keep wine drinkable any other way), the Isbells on my stereo, and no more excuses!

I think I might keep things simple (at least to start with!) and launch right into a recipe.  Focus more on the dinner at this stage, not so much with the dancing.  


I present to you tonight's dinner.....

 Warm Cauliflower Salad

Ingredients:

1.5 cups brown rice
Small handful pecans, chopped and toasted
Butter or olive oil
3 anchovy fillets
4 spring onions, sliced
1/2 head cauliflower
5 reasonably sized mushrooms, diced
tin of brown lentils (I find the organic ones hold their shape better)
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp kecap manis
2 tbsp rice vinegar
cracked pepper to taste

Method:
Cook brown rice according to the instructions on the packet.  It will take around half an hour to cook, so get it started first. 

Heat some olive oil or butter (which I used...it just tastes so goooood!) in a large heavy based pan, then add the anchovy fillets.  With some stirring, they should melt into the butter in a delightful bubbly brown manner.

Once the anchovies have dissolved in a satisfactory manner, turn down the heat a little, then add the spring onions, reserving some of the green part to fold through at the end.

Chop the cauliflower.  I broke off the florets and then sliced them, so that I'd have a mixture of teeny tiny bits which would completely absorb the buttery anchovy goodness and larger pieces which would retain their sweetness and contrast delightfully with the saltiness of the anchovies.  Throw it into the pan with the bay leaves.  Stir for a minute or so, then throw in the diced mushrooms and the lentils (rinsed and drained obviously...).

Stir for a wee while until just softened.  Hopefully, this should come close to coinciding with the rice timer going off (this will depend on how much time you spent chopping and cooking, and how much time you spent deciding on appropriate warm cauliflower salad background music).

Add the rice to the pan, along with light soy sauce, kecap manis, and rice vinegar, and stir well to combine.  Have a little taste to see if you need to add more of anything, then serve and throw spring onions and toasted pecans on top!