Do yourself a favour

I'm not saying I reinvented the wheel or anything but last week I developed a toasted sandwich that was pretty damn good. Maybe other people have already been making it. I don't know. All I know is that an idea popped into my head and I could not rest until it was in my mouth. And once it had been in my mouth I could not rest until I'd found its best iteration. 

I call it the apple pie toastie. It's like eating apple pie but without all the effort and I guess without so much sugar or fat. It's basically a simple, not too unhealthy sweet treat and I just think if you're into these flavours you may as well give it a go. This is the best way to do it: grate a green apple, mix that with a little sugar and cinnamon to taste (me, I go heavy on the cinnamon) put it in some white bread, butter the outside and sprinkle a little sugar on top to get a nice caramel crust. Toast it in a sandwich maker. Eat it.

In praise of plans (AM)

I used to work with a woman who would always complain about her conservative parents; she thought of herself as very open minded and liberal. She wore red chinoiserie to her wedding. But she used to complain about junkies and youths and other people unlike her in a way that very much reminded me of someone's conservative parents. 

Another of her qualities that could indeed make her seem like an uptight, housewife type was her tendency to plan her weekly meals. She'd cook seafood two nights a week, meat two nights and vegetarian two nights, then she'd plan what she was making and do a weekly shop that she would supplement with biweekly market visits. Although this makes her sound uptight, it is one of the qualities in her I most admired. That and the fact she introduced me to Strawberrynet, a website that used to offer great discounts on beauty products before the Internet realised it could make lots of money in Australia by charging more for things that are expensive here and it became cheaper to buy beauty products from actual shops.

My old pod buddy's meal plans was always inspiring to me, far from creating shackles I think that the meal plan could be very liberating. Rather than pondering daily what to make for dinner and falling back on oft-revisited dinners, the meal plan and subsequent shop would provide a map to deliciousness and newness. I'd be freed from the shackles of pasta and Aussie meals that I fall back on so frequently.

Usually I go to the market on Sunday and that means I buy some fish, LB buys some sausages and that answers a couple of nights' problems, but imagine looking through cookbooks on the weekend, deciding to make things from there, buying the necessary foodstuffs, thereby forcing yourself to make those meals you'd dreamed of. I'm imagining that right now, and I don't know if it's just the energised fervor of the new year, but by god, I'm going to plan my meals next week! And, if I can maintain this new year's fervor, the week after that, and the week after that, and the week after that...

Project Chocolate Cake - The Cakes are Baked (PM)

Well, for me, Sunday was baking day. And I gotta tell ya, things did not go exactly to plan for me either.

Firstly, I'm flipping sick. A motherflipping cold. I can't really taste anything properly.

Secondly, because I only have one 20cm-cake tin and because I also didn't want to have too much cake I decided to halve Nigella's recipe, which, like D.Lebs also called for two cakes to be baked and then sandwiched together with an icing. I even thought to myself as I was measuring up, "Well I guess I will inevitably forget to halve something." And, as it was inevitable, I did. I halved everything except the eggs. Is that so bad? I don't know but I do know my cake didn't rise at all. Then again, neither did K's D.Leb cake, so maybe it was just some par for this weird course. Oh sure the cake got a giant dome, like all cakes (how the eff do you make an even topped cake?!?!?), but the edges, pah like pancakes. Has this got anything to do with the egg double up? Who knows.

Oh, sure I could have made the cake again, you know for science, but I've seen what happens to bloggers that cook and test and cook and test recipes.

Not an actual blogger

But, my own personal fuck-up notwithstanding this is definitely a cake with potential. Chucking a bunch of ingredients in a mixer and mixing them before chucking it in a tin and baking, my kind of cake.

As discussed, Nigella's recipe did not have enough cocoa. I tried her recommended dose but tasting the mix I decided it really needed a double up. So I doubled up.


So Nigella wants you to make two cakes, sandwich them together with icing, and ice, top and sides, with icing. Me, I'm not much of an icing gal. Its too sweet for my tastes so I was gonna kybosh the sandwiching, but after coming up with the flatty cake I decided the sandwich would add some height and substance.

The icing is a mixture of sour cream, butter, chocolate, golden syrup and icing sugar. I used a third of the sugar Nigella suggested, you know for thickness, it was pretty sweet, but also, it was pretty damn delicious.

So let's get down to brass tacks. The cake is moist and chocolatey and basically exactly like a chocolate cake. It's yum. But like the Lebovitz cake, the real chocolate hit comes from the icing, and that is not how I want my cake. Plus with the icing, it really was way to fucking sweet. What I know though is that I have learned some lessons. I'd like to try this cake again, maybe up the rising agents slightly, leave off the icing. Or modify it. 

I know that this is a chocolate cake I could meet again. Is it the one? I don't think so. Plus with this cold so the whole affair has been less scientific than I would have liked, because my taste buds and appetite are all askew. But science isn't made in a day.

Sunday Baking (AM)

Delia Smith is a doyenne of English home cooking who has lately been mouthing off about the fact that cooking shows don't teach people how to cook. Happily, she has a website that does, or she says.  Yesterday, I watched her tutorial on making sponge cakes and then baked a walnut coffee sponge to take to Mum and Dad's for lunch. I felt like the combination of walnut and coffee was nice and autumnal, and had an old school quality that would make it appealing to my pezzies. The idea that I was making something that appealed to their tastes more than mine made me feel like a really great person, so that's what I did.

Here is some of the stuff that goes in the cake. 

Just the usual really. However, Delia uses self raising flour as well as baking powder. That confused me. And she doesn't separate the eggs and whip the egg whites. You know, to make the cake nice and airy. She just whacks them in there holus bolus. The only airiness comes from sifting flour. 

I was dubious about that.

Everything gets mixed together and then chopped walnuts are folded through. 

Then, the mixture is divided by two 18cm cake pans and baked for 25 minutes.  

Here is where my troubles began. In Delia's tutorial, she told me that tin size is very important in making cakes. But she didn't tell me why, nor the likely consequences of deviating from the recommended tin girth, which I was forced to do because I didn't have the right cake tins.

I don't know it was because of the tins or because my butter was melted instead of just being softened, or whether it has something to do with not separating the eggs, but my sponge cakes came out of the oven like pancakes, barely having risen at all. 

It didn't really matter when I sandwiched them together and slathered them with coffee cream. 

But still, I feel like Delia let me down. A sponge's raison d'etre is lightness and airiness. Without that, it's just a cake. Delia's recipe did not make a light airy sponge, and that makes me feel like she let me down. Did we eat it all? Of course we did, we are not crazy. Was it delicious? It was pretty damned delicious. But sheesh, if one of the world's problems is that no one teaches people how to cook anymore,  I'm not sure D-Smithy is the woman for the job. 

Strange baking: Vanilla and coconut cake truffles (PM)

Are you kidding me? You made a cake, smashed it up and mixed it up with icing just so you could taste some blonde balls?! Sister, you is crazy. I do not want to come down on a sister crab, I guess it's not your fault you can't resist the lure of a ball recipe. It's the recipe author that is the idiot here. There is nothing even interesting about that recipe. Sure, I love vanilla , but come on...

You know what is good about cake? Its cakiness. Usually its flavour, very occasionally its icing, but if its a good cake it is also its cakey texture and the whole thing about having a piece of it. Mmmmm, cake. To get blonde balls why wouldn't you just make your Grandma's snowball recipe but replace the cocoa with vanilla or lemon juice and zest or all of that. Now that could make for some delicious balls!

I made donuts (AM)

I think there is something wrong with me. Every time I do something awesome I pretty much love myself sick, even if the thing I did is really easy. Like the time I made croissants. I fully loved myself sick for ages after that. Still do in fact. Love myself more every time I do it. But, as I said at the time it's actually pretty easy.

Why am I so in love with myself this time? Oh, no big deal. Just made some donuts is all.

Happy Chanukah! I made these donuts/ponchkes/sufganiyot for Chanukah. You have to eat fried food. It's a rule. For reals.

But you guys, you can feel as smug as me too! It's totes simple! I know. I know. The deep frying is kind of off-putting. But it's seriously no biggie. Because those dough lumps are such little... dough lumps, the oil stays pretty fresh and totally reuseable. And they were nowhere near as greasy as store bought ones. Here's how you do it:

First put an apron on. I never do this but I can not stress how much better it made the cooking experience! I stayed so neat and could wipe my hands on myself without getting dirty!

Make a yeast dough with some flour, yeast, water, sour cream, egg. 

 

Let it rise. Roll it out, cut circles. Put jam on top. Don't these bastards look delicious already?!

Cut more circles and put on top of the jammed circles. They look messy, but don't worry guys. Just wait and see. Cause you gotta let them rise for a while.



 Fry them bad boys. Look how they look like real donuts!

 Finally, love yourself fully sick!

Stop to smell the roses (AM)

For the last couple of months I've been house sitting. In bigger, nicer houses than mine, and in preferable locations. And not in the kind of proximity to my parents that makes everyday a struggle against regression. And in many ways it has been really nice. All the space, light, effective and thorough heating, kitchen bench space, dish washers, accessible bins. Yep, it has been quite luxurious. But on the weekend we moved home. Home to a freezing kitchen and bathroom, limited space and a daily struggle against regression. But what coming home to all this has shown me, is that despite all these shortcomings, home is pretty good. 

First of all, I was reunited with my beautiful grater, SharpAz.

I stumbled across this grater one day at a time in my life when I was dissatisfied with my grater and this baby was on sale; $10 reduced from $29.95. Well it didn't seem like much of a gamble, and I am telling you that until you have grated with this, well, you haven't grated. It makes grating a pleasure! A pleasure, people! I used to hate grating, but not since SharpAz came into my life. And when I grated my first vegetable in two months on SharpAz last Saturday night, well it was then that I knew I was home. 

You know what else was nice, just being able to wear anything I owned. Just choose any piece of clothing from my wardrobe. Anything at all. It was all at my finger tips.That was pretty luxurious.

Also, my house has a nice view. Out the bathroom window I see cargo ships on the water. They really make my day. I don't know what it is but I effing love the sight of cargo ships. 

Plus, you know that proximity to my parents? Well it also makes me proximal to their 3D TV. Sure, this is usually no big deal, but did you know that the Olympics are being shown in 3D? Do you know how effing good that looks? Apparently my mum saw confetti in 3D during the opening ceremony and thought rain was coming in the roof. 

 HAHAHAHA.

 

I watched some of the men's gymnastics in 3D. Do you know how good at gymnastics those guys are? Really good! But they are so much better in 3D. And when you are watching, say, a guy performing on the rings and then someone else does some handsprings in front of him, you just see that second guy, 3D handspringing away in front of you. Look, this is a really visual experience, it is hard to describe it in words, so let me just say that when I was watching it I just had this big stupid grin on my face the entire time.

I guess that being away from home just made me realise that home is pretty nice, even if you think its not that great.

Loving myself sick (AM)

I'm as full of self-doubt, and at times self-loathing, as the next person. But every now and again I just love myself fully sick.

Like on Sunday for example.

I went to the shops for a few groceries and I had no idea what the eff I would make for dinner. You know, it was Sunday, so I had a little time on my hands, but I felt totally uninspired. And then I realised that the shop nearby would sell all sorts of interesting things. Like giant pasta shells. Which I would show you a picture of but, you know, they look just like regular pasta shells when there is no comparison.

For a long time I've wanted to make some sort of stuffed giant shell pasta bake thing. And on Sunday, I just freaking did it!  

I didn't even follow a recipe. I just made it all up from my brain! Wanna hear about it?

I made a nice rich napoli. Yeah I did.

I cooked and cooled the shells. Then I chopped a bunch of spinach up and mixed it with about 200g ricotta and 200g fetta. Yeah boyeeee.

Then I stuffed all that in the cooked shells. What an effing winning combo.

But check it out you guys, I wanted this bad boy to last a couple of nights and there's no way the yield would have been enough. So then...then! I chopped up a whole lot of mushrooms real small, fried them with some garlic and salt and pepper and stuffed that into the remaining shells! Are you hearing me people? Do you hear how delicious this sounds?

Then I put a little napoli in a baking tray, put in the shells in two layers, covered with napoli and some grated parmesan and baked that bad boy!

Seriously, that shiz was so freaking yummy, and the idea just came like a bolt from the blue. How could  I not love myself sick?!

Happy Mondays (AM)

LB bought me some Global knives for Christmas. After a lifetime of mediocre knives I was not really prepared for their super sharpness. I'd used them before, Global knives, but somehow having them in my own kitchen made it different. I was too relaxed, I guess, and the first time I used them, while chopping some green thing, I sliced off a small piece of the tip of my left pointer finger. Not the tip, exactly, a small piece from the very top right corner of the finger. It started bleeding hard and fast and through the bleeding I couldn't see exactly the damage that had been done. And I couldn't look at it. I wrapped the finger in paper towel and eventually when the sick feeling went away I looked and I guess it wasn't so bad. When it healed it left that part of my finger a little flatter than before.

I was pretty careful after that. Yes siree. But yesterday in a hurry, chopping chives, I sliced the tip of my finger off again. Not the tip, exactly, a small piece from the very top right corner of the finger. It didn't bleed at all and it didn't hurt. I just found the the piece of missing finger on the side of the knife. I still haven't looked at the wound but presumably after a a few more slices that part of my finger that keeps getting in the way of the knife won't exist anymore so that tip can't get in the way. I can't wait for that day! Oh yeah, and it hurts like a motherfucker now.

What does it look like under that bandage?!

Happy Monday everyone!

Haiku Thursday (PM)

Autumn 

I 

Of all the seasons 

Autumn is one of the best 

Makes top three, mos def

II 

Lasagne gets made 

The best season for dressing 

Red wine tastes delic 

III 

Colours of autumn 

Are spoken of most fondly 

Because they're lovely

The Time I Made Hot Cross Buns (AM)

I love hot cross buns. Who wouldn't want their buns to be hot, and with a cross on them?
Truly, only a mad person.
Every year, I think about baking my own fresh hot cross buns. Instead, all I do is eat a whole bunch that I buy from the shop. Well god damn it, this year I'm making hot cross buns.
In fact, I made them last night! Here is what happened. 

I looked at a few different recipes but decided on this one, because I love Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and because it seemed straight forward, and because I love Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall. 

Hugh with chicken. One of dozens of photos of Hugh with a chicken on the internet.

I went to Mirimar Nut Shop and bought figs, apricots and sultanas to facilitate the tutti fruttiness of the buns.  What, that's what they're called in the recipe!
I chopped up the fruit, measured out some of the other ingredients and got to work. 

Of course, all dough based baking is really just a sequence of mixing, kneading and waiting for the thing the rise. This one was no different. I mixed, I kneaded, I waited for the thing to rise. The only slightly unusual thing was that the first rise takes place with only half the flour and none of the fruit.
#crazy!
It looked like this. 

So pasty. This is where the phrase 'doughboy' comes from. That is not a a real fact, but it seems possible. Aesthetically, things improved considerably once the other ingredients were added, and the kneading began.

Hugh recommends kneading in the bowl, but I found it annoying and restrictive. I knead to be free.

Ha!


Once the dough was nice and smooth, it went back in the bowl for another prove. 

Before

After

Then it was the moment I had been waiting for: bun formation. Hugh recommends that you divide the dough in half. Then divide each half in half again. Then again, then again, like cell division.  Sure Hugh, I can do that. 

Sixteen candles. I mean, buns. Sixteen buns.

Finally, the crosses. This part was weird. You make a very think paste, then roll it out with a rolling pin, then cut them in to long strips and lay them over the buns. Then one final rise, then brush with egg glaze, then in the oven!

About to go in the oven!

In the oven

Out of the oven!

About to go in my mouth!

 
Hooray! What a piece of cake, right? And take my word for it people, these little babies are the most delicious thing since a piece of cake.  
 
Well, at least I thought so. 
If only I could get a second, objective opinion!

Whatever you do, readers, stay tuned to Miss Soft Crab. 

The Hate (AM)

I don't want to bring a lot of hate to this blog. I try hard not too. Not that I have to try hard all the time, but sometimes I feel it creeping in and I try no push it away. But right now I am weak and I can't do it. I don't want to bring down anyone's day. I really don't. It's Friday, everyone should be feeling great. So if you don't want the hate perhaps you should go and watch some YouTubes instead.

Sometimes shit just gets so effed up you just gotta embrace the hate. I'm just going to do it today and then we can all move on.

Firstly, Labor I blame you for this post. Why you gotta fuck shit up for everybody?! If this leadership bullshit means we are going to get another coalition government next year I am going to be totally effing POed. Why are you doing this? WHY?! Remember the heady days of Kevin07? God, that was the best. But now? Now I don't even want to vote for you. I don't even want my preferences to go to you. You have fucked it.

And while we are on that goddamn party, J.Gill, that time you said it was OK for people to be worried about refugees coming to Australia, you are wrong! You are breeding the hate.

Why can't I buy konbu in this country??? Why can I buy all sorts of seaweed but not effing konbu? WTF? Now I can't make all this stuff I was going to make for dinner on the weekend.

How come my meringues keep failing? I followed two different recipes and neither worked. WHY?

Washing glove companies, you should sell gloves in packets of 3 or 4, with extra right hand gloves. Do you know how often I have to buy washing gloves? All the time. My right glove is always getting holes in it and so I have about a million extra lefties.

What is going on in supermarkets? Occasionally when I don't have a bag with me I have to get a plastic bag and the checkout peeps only put about 2 items in each bag. WHY?

I think that is everything. Let's look at these calming clouds now.

Aaaahhhh, that's better.

Advice please (AM)

So, every now and again here at Miss Soft Crab we talk about having an advice column. Mostly we talk about it in the real world, to each other, not the cyber world to you guys. One time a reader asked for some (sorry Mondonna, I promise I will address the boiled fish question one day) and once I brought it up here, asking K for advice. But no-one else has ever taken the bait. What?! Your lives are so perfect?!

And then, over the break a question finally came! 

So Miss Dizzy asks:

Dear Misses Soft Crabs, I know you are on recess but here is someone desperate. I heard that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Tell me quickly what can I feed my boyfriend. And please, none of that oyster rubbish. Waiting with anticipation, yours Dizzy

A little something called tandoori prawns with mango salsa and cocnut rice. A winner every time!

Miss Dizzy, I am so sorry we did not get back to you sooner. I hope your boyfriend hasn’t left you just because we were a bit delayed in responding to your comment. But when I saw this question I really thought that it needed my full attention, not my hiatus-brain attention. Because, gosh, great question, but what do you base your answer on?

I mean, this question is pretty fraught. K’s ex-boyfriend, for example, liked to eat cereal for dinner. Sometimes bangers and mash. K, as she may later chime in, liked to eat delicious things that Rib-Eye was not interested in. No wonder things didn't work out.

My boyfriend, on the other hand, is pretty much delighted when I make anything delicious for dinner. On Sunday in fact I made toasties for dinner (Turkish bread, tasty cheese, cherry tomatoes and some pickled chillies) and he was all, “Yum! We should do this more often.”

And yet some days I make some mind blower and he is all, “Yeah, it’s not bad.” WTF?

I'll tell you what wins every time. Protein. LB likes the meat kind. Red meat, chicken, fish. Now as a vegetarian I don't cook these things often, except for occassionally a bit of seafood. Sometimes I just cook all the accompaniments and tell him what meat I think would be good with it and he cooks the meant and I still get all the kudos. It's awesome.

So I guess what I am sayin is, what does your boyfriend like Miss Dizzy? Find out then cook that thing the most deliciousest way you can. And BAM lasting love.

Good luck.

Haiku Thursday (PM)

That fresh sheet feeling

God damn it, clean sheets,

You do it every time

Make me feel so good

Hand dryer
New Dyson Airblade 

In  my work toilets, you are 

So damn efficient

Ottolenghi

Ingredients lists

Of Ottolenghi, so long

But  so delicious

Hysteria

If hysteria is a 

Travelling womb then my womb

Is rarely at home

Baking failures hurt so bad (PM)

Gosh, I’m sorry your cake was such a disaster! It had so much promise. Didn’t’ we all though, ay?

You know from that picture you really can’t tell that just a little earlier that cake had been a lumpy, sloppy, marscapone mess. It looks fine. Just a little nude. Not that the giant candle is doing it any favours. I’m sure that it's not just me that thinks that large, lone, out-of-context poles/pole-like things seem phallic in a way that in-context poles/pole-like things don’t.

Funnily enough the birthday cake I made for my mother’s birthday last month was also mildly disastrous.  I tried to make this chocolate roll cake. I don’t know if you can be bothered reading a whole other blog post when you’ve got my awesome post right here to read, so I’ll just tell you that basically what the writer, Deb, says is that she has found a great way to ensure that you can roll this cake without breakages. The truth was I didn’t fully trust her and would have made a layer cake if I had more than one round cake tin. But I had no choice. I had to roll.

So I rolled the fresh from the oven cake with cocoa in a tea towel and when I unravelled it cracks galore! But what could I do?! I had to re-roll it with the whipped cream and raspberry as per my original vision because otherwise I just would have a collection of broken bits of cake. Here is out it turned out:

Thanks for nothing, Deb! (Except for a delicious light beautiful chocolate cake recipe that I will totally make again in layers. And frankly I can't freaking wait!)

Baking failures hurt so bad (AM)

It was my Mum's birthday on the weekend. Props to my Mum for totally nailing 67 years of life!
I hope she lives for another 67. Actually, I hope she never ever dies, but 67 more years seems like a good interim target. As a gift, I cooked her a nice lunch comprised of her favourite things: Gnocchi with napoli sauce, followed by lemon cake. I also bought her a pair of socks and a tote bag, but they are not important to the story, because this is a story about disappointment and she really liked the gifts.

In truth, the gnocchi was also very successful, so I won't bother talking about that either.

Delicious little guys

But the cake, guys. The cake was an effing disaster from start to finish.
Because it was Mum's birthday, I wanted it to be super special, and settled on a lemon layer cake, with raspberry jam and marscapone filling, and lemon marscapone icing. It was going to be beautiful and delicious and she was going to love the shit out of it!

My first mistake was made at the pan greasing stage. Even though I thought I was being thorough, I guess I wasn't at all, because the entire bottom  of one of the cakes stuck to the pan. I tried to salvage it and it ended up looking like this:

Yikes.

The other cake came out fine, so at this point I should have just abandoned the layer cake idea but I pressed on. I figured that I could overcome the above mess through creative sandwiching. My fellow cake eaters would be none the wiser. Plus, there was icing and  icing hides a lot of sins, right?

Right, unless icing IS THE SIN.
You guys, when you think that it's fine to replace cream cheese with marscapone in a cream cheese frosting, and you also think that you probs don't need to follow a recipe because you successfully made cream cheese frosting one other time, you are WRONG. Instead of making marscapone lemon icing, I made what looked like curdled lemon slurry. It just did not come together at all. There were lumps galore. Though very concerned about the appearance of this 'icing', I piled it on the cake anyway and hoped it would be OK. It was far from OK. It continued to look like curdled lemon slurry, and refused to adhere to the cake itself. It just slid right off like some sort of curdled lumpy slime. It looked disgusting. It did nothing to patch together my broken cake. 

I really effed it up, people. I stood there for ages wondering what to do and feeling super humiliated because I had effed it up so bad. And all the while the icing kept sliding off the cake and pooling at the bottom of the plate like a moat. Like a moat of shattered dreams. It hurt so bad!

I considered turfing the whole thing but it seemed dramatic, and plus, the cake itself tasted pretty good. And, my Mum is the kind of person who considers making an effort and executing your vision to be completely equal. She's a pretty nice lady.
I ended up wiping every shred of icing off the cake and leaving it nude. It looked terrible, but as predicted, she loved it.

The ugliness continued when we couldn't find any birthday candles and so stuck this giant candle in it and sang happy birthday. Mum said she preferred the big candle, because that way she could be sure she would blow it out. She's such a good sport.

Ew.

Double the freshness (AM)

Last week I invented this awesome new thing I like to call fresh nachos. Like nachos but fresh. And they are effing awesome. Like I said. Basically you make some delicious chilli beans and make a delicious salad then pile it all on a handful of corn chips with some good chilli sauce and sour cream. All the deliciousness of nachos without the gross oily melty cheesiness. I mean I love the gross, stodgy cheesiness of nachos as much as the next person but, you know,  without the grossness and with heaps of freshness they are a whole new kettle of fish. A delicious kettle of fish. Sure, you can't have corn chips in a meal all the time but I am telling you that fresh nachos are very, very special.

One thing that made them so special is my new approach to cooking chilli beans. Two things happened a couple of months ago that changed everything. I don't know which happened first but one thing was that K, Legsly, Blephanie and I made paella. The recipe called for us to make sofrito and add 10 tablespoons to the paella for cooking but didn't mention what to do with the rest. So we added it to our personal serves at the end. Wholly moly! It added this wonderful whole other dimension to it.

The other thing that happened was I listened to all the episodes of Fresh Air's food week and heard people talk about lots of food stuff, including how to do it best, science-wise. And this one guy talked about how adding flavours at the end was important and different to adding things at the start of the cooking process. Sounds self-evident, but I just had never thought about this before in this context. He was basically talking about how cooking your spices and everything for a long time changes and mellows the flavours, of course. So NOW when I make slow cooked things like chilli I add the same flavour profile TWICE. I may fry off some garlic, chilli, cumin and coriander (seeds AND fresh) at the start and cook everything in it. Then I chop up fine those same things and stir it all in at the end. A whole new layer of fresh flavour!

You don't have to thank me, you just have to do it!

Ask Someone Who Knows (PM)

I find what you guys had to say about smells very interesting. You  may not know this about me, but recently I have been regretting my life choice to not be a scientist and so this discussion of smells is doubly interesting to me. Science and smells are two of my favourite things right now!

I can understand this theory, sure, that somehow the stinky bacteria jump around more, carrying the bad smells from someone else's mouth to your hair (ewww). But there are so many unanswered questions. Like, what is it that makes the nice smellecules in flowers and other pretty smelling things, and why aren't they jumping around all over the place?

God, smellecules are really complex. You know when you are cooking something delicious and the smell is delicious but sometimes that smell gets in your hair and it kind of smells bad then. Like barbeque hair. Barbeque smells good, barbeque hair smells bad.Same goes for fried onions. I guess because the smells are gasified when cooking, not just sitting there like in a rose petal, they are more easily transmittable or something. Shit. Now I am regretting my life choices even more! I want to know the secret of smellecules!!!

You know what life decision I am not regretting though? Not being a cook! Today I learned that cooks are not only more likely to have fried onion smelling hair they are also more likely to get lung cancer! From those very fumes that are dispersing the smellecules!!!!

101 Cookbooks

Do you read 101 Cookbooks?

I had a look at it years ago and it didn't really hook me. The recipes looked nice but not mind-bending. And it was just so fucking wholesome. Not just the food but the site, the writer. Heidi, who writes the blog is the sort of person who takes little gifts or baskets of cookies everywhere she goes. She takes photos of flowers and her partner runs marathons. And the food is wholesome. Though I don't have a problem with that at all.

Anyway that first time I just had a look and left never to return... for a while. But then it just got to a point where every other goddamn food blog was going on about it. "Oooooh 101 cookbooks is amaaaaaaazing." "Heidi is such a daaaaaaarling." Blah blah blah. So I went and had another look. Truth is I felt the same way. The recipes still looked nice but not the kind of things I had to rush out and make. And Heidi was still as fucking wholesome. But I just decided I would give it some more time.

I made a few biscuits from the site. And I do kind of love them. Truth is after a bunch of reading of 101CB I was inspired to buy a bunch of cookie cutters. Yeah, I kind of hate myself for it.

Anyway this was all well and good and then a couple of weeks ago I went on and saw this Magic Sauce recipe. This is what the head picture was:


YUM! FRIGGIN YUM! Red oil! God I love red food. It promises tang and sweet, salty, hot deliciousness. Red is my favourite colour of food. Fo shiz!

It was the first time I felt I just had to make something from this site immediately. And I made it and it was yum. SO FRIGGIN YUM! It's basically garlic, sweet paprika, chilli, fresh oregano, rosemary and thyme in olive oil. YUM! Do yourselves a favour people. Make this magic sauce! (FYI I ate it on udon with some spinach and corn. Such a good one!)

Spanagnocchita

You know how some things seem like a really good idea when they are first presented to you and then when you look into the details you realise it isn’t as good an idea as you thought, but because the initial idea was so striking you can’t fight it and go ahead with it anyway?

Meet spanagnocchita. It is actually called baked gnocchi spanakopita with currants and pine nuts (or something). But you get the idea. You better believe when I saw this recipe I got pretty excited. I really love gnocchi. Those chewy little bastards! I wish there were some in my mouth right now! Also I love spanakopita. What a beautiful marriage this would be!

And then I read the recipe. Cook the gnocchs. Cook some silverbeet. Make a shit load of white sauce. Layer the gnocchi, silverbeet, pine nuts and currants in the white sauce. Bake. You may think that inspired by K’s cooking from the old Australia Woman's Weekly Best Ever Recipes that I pulled this recipe from the 80s. You would think that, what with all the white sauce and dried fruit, but I didn’t. It is from a fairly recent issue of delicious! Look, I don’t really like béchamel that much. I mean, I like it in a lasagna, surrounded by other things like tomatoey sauce. And I did eat it in a crepe with mushrooms and spinach just yesterday. But I guess the key is moderation. It could never be the hero of the dish for me. And yet the idea of gnocchi spana kept calling to me with its siren song. I kept telling myself it wouldn't work out. That with all that béchamel the spanakopita name didn't delong anywhere near this thing. But I just kept getting pulled back to the idea of it.

Guys, I wish this story had a happy ending. I mean, I didn't even put the currants in, but that fucking meal was... it was... It wasn't awful. Gnocchi and cheesy sauce and pine nuts and silverbeet... of course it wasn't terrible. The best thing I can say about it is now it is done and I can move on with my life.