Category Archives: domesticity

Four weeks already! There was that big bit of exchange in the middle, where I did cook meat, but still. It’s been four weeks since we decided to give this a go. And we’re not sick of it yet. I guess the next goal is to not eat meat for lunch.

We are still crook. I have no tastebuds, so I can’t smell anything and food is very unappealingly flavourless.

Tonight we’ll have either nachos or burritos. Both use the same ingredients, except one involves corn chips and one burritos. This isn’t at all ‘authentic’ Mexican food. It’s basic, easy cooking for when we’re totally buggered.

1. Red slop.
Ah, red slop. Central to all the meals I make. This one is slightly different.

– saute a brown onion til it’s see-through and beginning to change colour. I am going with the Indian approach to onions, where you cook it longer (but don’t let it burn) so it has a stronger flavour.
– add some crushed/chopped garlic. Get the garlic to change colour or whatever.
– add 1tsp ground coriander, 1tsp ground cumin, 1tsp sweet paprika, chilli powder to taste (which I can’t, so whatever). Give this lot 30 seconds or a minute til the flavour rises. …well, I just guessed that bit. Who knows what it smells like.
– add a can of tomatoes and a can of borlotti beans (kidney beans would be the obvious choice, but I don’t like them).

Let all this simmer quietly til you’re ready for it.

As you can see, this is a very simple, very unauthentic red slop. It’s better if it has a rich, red flavour, so you can contrast with fresher salsas.

Now, you’re going to need a salsa. I make a very simple one using:
– chopped tomatoes. Don’t bother with anything other than cherries at the moment, as they’re not in season. Or ditch tomatoes completely.
– some finely chopped onion (green onion, white onion, red onion, whatever).
– some finely chopped garlic.
– some finely chopped capsicum.
– some finely chopped coriander.
– a squeeze of lime juice.

Basically, this is a fresh, bitey ‘salad’ to balance the rich red slop and everything else. To my mind, this is the most important – the essential! – part of the dinner. There are a million different recipes for salsas, using everything from mangoes to olives. Choose one that suits what you have to hand. I think the fresh herbs are an essential part of this – coriander, mint, parsley are all good things.

Make a guacamole. I used to get really fancy with guacamole, but I’ve recently decided that simpler is better.
– mash up an avocado.
– add a bit of very finely chopped (if not grated) onion.
– add a squeeze of lime or lemon juice.
– add some freshly ground salt and pepper.

You’re done. I’d even ditch the onion, or replace it with garlic or just not use it at all. The point is that the avocado is just ripe and perfect. I prefer lime to lemon juice. You could add a smear of very good olive oil if you like, but it’s not really necessary. Make the guac fresh, or not at all. And don’t waste your time with pre-made guacamole. It’s just as cheap to buy an avocado and it will taste a million times better. A pre-made guac doesn’t save you time. Mashing an avocado is as quick as peeling open those annoying plastic containers.

If you’re making burritos, put onto the table a bowl of each of the salsa, the guacamole, the red slop, some baby spinach or other salad greens, some plain yoghurt (I don’t like sour cream as I prefer sharper flavours, but you could use that instead), some cheese (that’s where things get really inauthentic), some finely sliced chillis, anything you think would be nice wrapped into a burrito. I quite like those gherkiny pickle things that you can get from Mexican joints, and I also like those pickled giant yellow chillis.

Now: everyone make their own!

If you’re making nachos, you’re going to need some good corn chips. Nachos is a bit of a lazy/special occasion/holiday alternative for us. I like to get the organic plain corn chips from the deli. Whatever you get, don’t get a flavoured brand, and avoid big brands like Doritos. They are yucky. You want a really corny flavoured corn chip, and it’s best if they use a bit of sea salt and a decent oil. The corn chips are a base for other flavours, not the main event. This will be the most expensive part of the meal if you’re using fresh ingredients.

Spread the chips on a plate, spread some red slop on top, then some cheese. Again, this is inauthentic town. Put the plate under the grill til it goes melty or brown or to your preference.
You have to serve this with salsa, and I like to add gaucamole, yoghurt, spinach, etc. I’m also very conservative with yoghurt. The salsa is the main event.

I never make either of these dishes with meat any more, as I prefer the tasty, thicker flavour of the beans. You could use a pulled pork or grilled fish or chicken instead. But the most important parts are the salsas. You can make more than one. The point is that the rich red stuff or pulled pork or grilled fish or whatever is a base for the exotic, interesting flavours of the salsas. It’s also important to use fresh ingredients. Don’t bother with premade guacamole. If you can’t get a good avocado, ditch it altogether and have yoghurt or sour cream alone. The point is that the flavours are tasty and fresh.

If you make a heap of red slop, you can freeze it for next time, and it makes an easy, quick dinner at a moment’s notice.

Yes. We had it for dinner AGAIN. Once again substituting a poached egg (c/o Dave the Brilliant) for grilled haloumi.

Roasted veggies:
– eggplant
– carrot
– dark green zucchini
– red capsicum
– cherry tomatoes
– baby white onions
– 1 small potato
– orange sweet potato
– mushrooms

Dressing
– lemon juice
– olive oil
– chopped flat leaf parsley

Mix some salad greens in with roasted veggies, pour over some dressing, Mix.
Plop egg on top.

Tonight: steamed veggies and lasagne.

This is usually a total win dinner, but not so much tonight. I was all ‘WIN!’ because I had a bunch of red slop in the freezer from the Borlotti Bean Moussaka so I could just do all the layers and put it in the oven. But there were problems.

1. We are SICK and TIRED of that particular red slop. I should have made a fresh one with fresh flavours.

2. I didn’t have enough of the red slop to really layer the layers. The red slop is really important for cooking the lasagne sheets.

3. I put the wrong thing on the top layer. I just had slices of tofu with cheese on top. WRONG. It should have been slices of fresh tomato and basil the way we usually do it, but I’d forgotten that.

4. The layers were dull. Baby spinach, slices of firm tofu, red slop, sweet potato. I did the order incorrectly. It was all a bit dry and not so great. I didn’t approve.

But we ate it.

This is where the wheels could come off this thing. A few dud meals, a few boring meals, and we’ll get bored with the whole exercise and fall back on old dinner plans. I think it’s time Dave did actually make those stir fries. That’s his special ninja power.

Other dishes we haven’t made yet:

– Nachos. This is one of our favourite dinners, with a beany sauce (onions, canned borlotti or some bean other than kidney as I don’t like them much, canned tomato, chilli, ground coriander and ground cumin, garlic), decent corn chips (not shitty Doritos), a good salsa (tomato, onion, garlic, coriander, lime juice, etc), a good gaucamole.

– Stir fries of different types.

– Red Thai veggie curry.

– Other Indian curry options, including egg cury.

– Pasta. I’m thinking puttanesca, even though it has anchovies in it. But I love it. Chilli, rich.

Can you see a theme here? Yes. Too many canned tomatoes, you’re right.

…actually, I can’t remember the other dinner ideas. But there were more. We need to get it together in this house, STAT!

Well, breakfast was cheesy bread. Boring. I’m not very good with breakfasts, but it’s when I’m hungriest, so I like to eat big, filling things.

No fruit today, except some apples I’m going to attack in a second.

Dinner was a good one. This is a dish I used to make in Brisbane, but somehow forgot about. I remember it being very time consuming, but tonight it took a lot less time than I’d expected. Which is good, as I am incredibly bad tempered today, and also weepy with random and irritating depressed self-loathing. This sort of craziness smacks of PMS. Great. But it could also be a bit of pre-exchange anxiety. Off to MSF next week, where I’m coordinating DJs. Who are actually all very organised and capable, so it’s not them I’m worried about. Just random travel anxiety probably. Oh, and I’m off to Tasmania a week or two later. Parents. Suddenly, it all makes sense.

Ok, so now that we have that out of the way…. but really, what was I thinking? A complicated dish on a shitty day? Crazy. Crazy.

Borlotti Bean Moussaka. YUM.

These quantities are kind of wacked. Don’t freak if you have extra red slop – freeze it and use it again later. But these quantities need a pretty bloody big dish.

Red slop sauce:
can borlotti beans (I used one can and 1 can of lentils as I didn’t have 2 borlotti bean cans). Borlotti beans are YUMMY.
can tomatoes (I used a big one)
garlic – I used 4 cloves because garlic is the reason we exist
onion – brown, diced
1 cup red wine
2 big tbsp tomato paste
random salad greens
2 big sprigs of oregano

Eggplant layer:
1 big eggplant
1 big zucchini
1 small red capsicum
-> should just have been 2 big eggplants, but I only had one.

Eggy Topping:
4 eggs, beaten a bit
1 cup yoghurt (low fat by accident, but discovering it’s extra sharp and yum = gold)
2 cups milk (use organic whole milk. That shit is SO GOOD)

Cheese. Grated. Intend to use parmesan, but forget and use bullshit tasty instead. Then discover the block of parmesan as you put the tasty away. Sigh in resignation. Fuck you, fromage.

Make the red slop the usual way:
– Saute the onions in some olive oil until they are edging towards brown. This is how you do them for Indian cooking, and that’s how I do them for everything now, as they give a richer, tastier flavour that way. Which could be a bit much if you’re not up for that.

– Saute some crushed up garlic with the onions, but do NOT let it burn.

– Ok, add the tomato. In a sudden rush that leaves the entire kitchen and your favourite jumper splattered in red.
– Stop and have a little weep.
– Get over it.
– Add the beans and lentils. Mix it all in.
– Remember the wine. Add that. And the tomato paste. Just chuck the tomato paste package on the counter when you’re done. Do it roughly, so you feel a bit better.
– Add random salad greens you’ve found in the fridge.
– Chuck in two fairly raggedy looking sprigs of oregano from the garden. Don’t bother looking for grubs. Organic protein is ok.

– Ok, now it’s a bit important to let all this simmer for a while. I didn’t, and it made the moussaka too sloppy. You want it to get thicker. And tastier.

– Put your oven on a moderate heat.

– Grill the eggplant. This bit is annoying. Make sure you brush the slices of eggplant with olive oil. I can’t be bothered salting. But you probably should. Fuck that, hey?
– Grill the zucchini and other capsicum.
– You want them to get brown bits, but not to burn. Except the capsicum. It can singe. Watch it doesn’t spit at you, though.
– When the Capsicum is done, let it sit, skin side down for a few minutes. Or put it in a plastic bag. Then pull the skin off. Get all the black bits off, as it’s bitter and yuck. Slice it thinly.

– Make the topping. I just plopped the milk, the yoghurt, eggs (unbeaten) into a huge jug and then used the stick mixer thing to beat it all up. You’re probably not supposed to do that. Fuck it. I like it to get a bit fluffy, because those air bubbles will be awesome later.

– Now, you have to build this fucker. This bit is surprisingly reassuring.

– Put all the red bean slop at the bottom of a baking dish. I use a deep dish by accident. A wider, shallower one would have been a bit better. 2 inches deep. Maybe 3. A pyrex one is best so you can see it in action. But not necessary.
-Discover that there’s too much red stuff and too much topping. Drink some of the topping, because it is yum.
– Worry about chucking up.
– Get over it.
– Put about half the red stuff in the freezer for later.

– Now you put all the veggies onto the red slop. Lay them all out to make a nice layer with no gaps.

– Now you carefully pour the topping onto all that. It makes a thick layer. I prefer it if it doesn’t seep down past the eggplant. But wtf, it’s no biggie. The eggplant usually floats to the surface. That’s cool. Don’t freak.

– Ok, put this thing in the oven for ages. Until the eggy topping stuff has set. This is where the bubbles are good – it makes a nice fluffy layer. The very top should kind of get crispy, the red slop will be hot all the way through. It takes 40-60 minutes if your oven is shit and you’ve miscalculated the times. You really want the eggy topping set. That’s why it’s eggy. So that it sets. If it’s runny, it’s not so good.

– I added the grated tasty cheese about 10minutes before it was done. This way it melts, browns, but does not form calcified lava yuck. The eggplant + this cheese + the borlotti beans + the rich wine taste is the reason we bother making dinner at all. This is utterly delicious.

We served it with plain old steamed broccoli. A big pile of it.

This is one TASTY dinner.

(NB I just found this egg picture online. Ours were actually better)

Firstly, let me just point out that yesterday we had fish cakes with salty eggs and a veggie/tofu stir fry take away from the brilliant Thai joint in Summer Hill. Not entirely meat free, but better.

Today I had eggs for breakfast then got STRANDED in Alexandria and missed lunch, so I ate hot chips in Ashfield on the walk home. I haven’t hot chips in three hundred years, and they were PERFECT.

Tonight we had something a friend made us for dinner last week: roasted vegetables. Boring. No. DELICIOUS.

Basically:
Chop up a bunch of vegetables. Not small pieces, about an inch and a half. Watch out, though, because the potato will take ages longer than everything else, so should be cut a bit smaller.
I used:
– some blue pumpkin*
– a potato
– a spring onion (the type with the little onion at the end bulbing out like a smallish normal white onion, and the long green bits still on it)
– a zuchini (those kids are over, now, but I LOVE them)
– a chunk of eggplant (looking quite handsomely aubergine in its nice, firm skin)
– a bit of red capsicum
– some mushrooms
– a head of garlic broken into its constituent cloves
– and a punnet of cherry tomatoes, chopped. Yes, I know, tomatoes are over. But cherries are kind of ok.

Just splash on some olive oil and some salt and roast those suckers until they’re cooked. 40minutes if you’ve a rubbishy oven like ours. You want it all cooked, perhaps a bit browned on the outside, but don’t over cook them.

Make a dressing: olive oil (not too much!), lemon juice (mostly lemon juice), chopped up parsley (grow your own if you can – YUM), a bit of salt and pepper.

THEN you mix the roasted veggies in a bowl with some salad greens. Baby spinach, rocket, whatever you’ve got. If that’s too exy or rubbish, use some finely sliced fresh spinach if it’s not too tough. Put the salad dressing on and mix it. Put some in each person’s bowl.

Right, now the hard bit. Poach an egg for each person. As soon as they’re done, plop it on the vegetables in people’s bowls. The veggies should be hot or warm, the greens beginning to wilt.

The important bit: the dressing should be quite lemony and parsleyish. If you make it too oily, it’ll be too rich on your vegetables. I’d perhaps even omit olive oil if you’re generous with it when roasting. You really want the zinginess of the lemon and the freshness of the parsley to complement your beautifully runny, rich egg.

IT IS YUM.

Dave discovered, on his very first try, that he is a brilliant egg poacher. His poached eggs were round, firm yet soft, runny in the middle with slightly thicker edges on the yellow, white all cooked. They were perfectly formed, and also deliciously perfectly cooked.

When we had this at our friend’s place we actually had it with grilled haloumi. I love haloumi a LOT, but it’s quite rich, and we had it earlier this week. It’s also probably not a good idea to eat a whole block of grilled cheese too regularly. The friend had poached an egg for a lactose intolerant guest, so it was in my brain. At any rate, I actually think the eggs were a slightly better idea, because of the way the yolk and lemon and parsley got together and made sweet, sweet yum.

*not actually blue – the one with the blue skin. I prefer it to butternut or even Jap.

1. I had a roast beef and veggies sandwich at the deli while waiting for my doctor’s appointment. I clean forgot about the no meat thing. Dave stated that he had not known that the ‘no meat thing’ was “for lunches too”. Jeez.

2. It’s been raining and raining and fucking RAINING so I haven’t been to the shops in a few days. So when I went to the kitchen to make chickpea curry to eat after dancing THERE WERE NO TOMATOES and I suddenly broke my brain.
We got home from dancing and THERE WERE STILL NOT TOMATOES and my brain was twice as broken and Dave was MAKING THE WRONG SUGGESTIONS so crazy girl suggested take away and then there was Thai take away and it was good.

3. Some days some people are just nuts.

4. I am really really tired of all this carbohydrate action. I do not like the way my belly feels really full. Buggered if I know how to make low-carb veggie meals, though. Perhaps I will figure it out tomorrow…

5. Bloody Dave will make bloody stir fry because it is after Wednesday now, and this is when I run out of shopping and cooking steam.

NO MORE CARBOHYDRATES. MY BELLY IS STRETCHED.

No meat week continues. Tonight we had ‘asian inspired’ pumpkin soup from the Stephanie Alexander orange book. Meh. I reckon it uses too much stock, but we had a Stock Defrosting Mixup and we couldn’t reduce the stock without waste. This recipe isn’t as good as I’d remembered. I’m not even convinced the actual instructions in the book are all that accurate – I think the timing is off a bit.

Anyways, we had a bit of leftover rice and cauliflower from last night, and we ate the soup, even though it was a bit watery. And, to be honest, a bit simple, flavour-wise, especially after working through brilliant Indian recipes. A blob of jarred Thai red curry paste and some onions, a tomato and a heap of pumpkin doesn’t really cut it, I’m afraid. Not even with our brilliant veggie stock.

I had leftover rubbish veggie risotto for lunch. It was as dumb today as it was yesterday. Too much water, too little flavour, overcooked rice. Gu-ross.
Breakfast was scrambled eggs on wholemeal sourdough.
And plenty of grapes and mandarins during the day.

I reckon I needed some serious salad in there today. Or at least a bunch of steamed greens.