Roladen mit Brodknoedel by Toba Fest

In just over a fortnight, The Bloke and I will be in Munich catching up with my extended family. This excites me for more reasons than I have words, although most of them are focussed around discovering a part of my history which has previously been rendered impossible due to geographical distance. As a first generation Australian German (on my Mum's side) I've always had a yearning to see the places that my family called home before WWII, and the fact that my cousins, aunts and uncles are so excited about our impending visit is just heart-warming.

Thankfully, we've timed our visit to miss the hoardes of American fraternity kids that descend upon the city for Oktoberfest. Instead, we'll be spending the culmination of the festival down at our local Concordia Club in Tempe. This recipe is a fitting tribute for both family and festive occasions. I first came across it when my Oma rustled it up for my Mum and I when we came to stay - I didn't eat pork at the time, so she used marinated roast beef strips in the centre rather than bacon. I think the bacon gives the dish more body (especially if you're using very lean meat) but it's tasty either way, and definitely pays up against the sometimes fiddly nature of roladen construction! You could also serve the roladen with buttered pasta noodles or boiled potatoes if your beer condition prevents you from mucking around with bread dumplings.

Roladen mit Brotknoedel by Toba Fest

Tip: Read the recipe all the way through before starting, as you can actually make the raw roladen and brotknoedel in advance and refrigerate them until required for cooking.

Ingredients (for two)

Roladen
1 schnitzel cut beef steak per person (or one oyster blade steak per person, hammered out to 0.5cm thickness)
Polski ogorki, thinly sliced
German mustard
1 rasher of bacon per person, thinly sliced
Half a brown onion, thinly sliced
2 cups of beef stock
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 teaspoon cornflour, dissolved in enough water to make a paste
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Brotknoedel - this makes about six, which you shouldn't eat all at once as they take up valuable beer space.
1/2 loaf three day old white bread
1 onion, grated
2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
50g butter, softened
1/3-1/2 cup warm milk
Salt and pepper

Method

Roladen
1. Coat one side of each slab of beef in mustard, then evenly distribute the polski ogorki, onion and bacon slices over the mustard side, to make a sort of a meat pizza. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
2. Take one edge of the short ends (given that your meat pizza is probably vaguely oval in shape, this means one of the thinner ends) and tightly roll into an, hmm, trying to think of a witty comparison point - oh yes, like a pirate scroll. A meaty pirate scroll! Roll 'til you can roll no more, then take some tooth picks and secure the scroll so that all the delicious filling is hidden from the world (just shove them in however works, along both the rolled edge and the two ends).
3. Heat a couple of glugs of the oil in an appropriately sized saucepan (one which will allow your meatscrolls to sit on the bottom snuggly but comfortably), then brown the meatscrolls well. Add the beef stock, bring to the boil, then cover and simmer gently for around an hour.
3. When the meatscrolls are nearly done, add the sliced mushrooms to the pan and cook for another ten minutes. Add the cornflour, allow to bubble and thicken for a minute or so, then taste and adjust for seasoning, and remove from heat.

Brotknoedel
1. Cut the bread into 1cm cubes and place in a large bowl. Pour a small amount of milk over the bread and squish it until it is just beginning to bind (it is very important that you don't overdo the cowjuice, if you do you'll be left with a sludgy mess). Beat the egg with the parsley and salt and pepper, then add it to the bowl. Cut the butter into little chunks and add it to the bowl. Give it all a good squish together and allow the mixture to sit for about half an hour.
2. Take a fistful of the mixture and shape it into a smooth ball, repeat with remaining mixture.
3. Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Drop the dumplings in one at a time, making sure they don't stick together. Simmer for around 25 minutes. Remove from pot using a slotted spoon.

Serve the roladen, mushroom sauce and dumplings with steamed vegetables and a stein of whatever wets your moustache.

Pumpkin and Spinach Lasagne

When The Bloke and I got married last year, we were presented with a cookbook. Well, truth be known, we were presented with several cookbooks, but Huey will have to wait his turn, as his coriander and harissa filled concoctions are not on the table for discussion today; and while Damian Pignolet's French is a beautiful read, I'm a bit too rough around the edges for all but the most peasant-y of Gallic gastronomy.

The cookbook I am referring to is a compilation of family recipes from both sides of our families, beautifully put together by my Mum (who even found the same sort of ribbon that we used for our bonbonniere to use in the binding). Its true meaning kinda got lost in the bothers surrounding the wedding day, and although I have used it a number of times since receiving it (mostly in vague attempts to recreate my Oma's blaukraut), it wasn't until the intertwining of The Bloke picking it up for a flick through, and a special on silverbeet at our local market Banana Joes that we talked about how special it is. Go on, everyone say "NAAAAAWWWWW!".

This recipe comes from Scott's Aunty Julie (his Dad's sister). I've tweaked it a bit, as I am wont to do, but the basic skeleton is the same. It was delicious, of course (I wouldn't share a dud with you, would I?) and although my distaste for the combination of spinachy things and cheese as a vegetarian standby is well documented; the substitution of the far-more-ballsy silverbeet, and addition of butternut pumpkin and an aged cheddar to the topping kicks this into the territory of highly acceptable cuisine for my less bloodthirsty friends.

Julie's Pumpkin and Silverbeet Lasagne

Ingredients
1 butternut pumpkin, seeded, peeled, and sliced thinly.
1 bunch silverbeet, de-stalked, chopped, and washed
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 large brown onion, finely diced
1 clove organic garlic, finely diced
2 400g tins of tomatoes, smashed up with a knife
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 cut water
1 tablespoon balsalmic vinegar
2 teaspoons brown sugar
Two sprigs thyme, washed, de-sprigged and finely chopped
3 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons plain flour
500mL milk
1 bayleaf
1/2 shallot
1 1/2 cups aged cheddar, grated
1/2 cup parmigiano-reggiano, grated
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Method
1. Heat a glug of olive oil in a frypan, the way you always do when you make a red sauce. Add the onion, cook, stirring, until beginning to caramelise, add garlic and cook for a further minute. Add the white wine and cook for a minute, add the tomatoes, tomato paste, thyme, and water, stir. Add the brown sugar and balsalmic, bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer and cook for half an hour. At the end of the cooking time, taste and adjust for seasoning, then remove from heat.

2. Meanwhile, in another frypan, heat some more oil. Fry the pumpkin in batches over a medium heat until soft and beginning to brown, remove from the pan and set aside. Add the silverbeet to the pan, then the nutmeg, and cook, stirring, until wilted. Add salt and pepper to taste, remove from heat.

3. Chuck the pumpkin back into the pan, then add the ricotta and stir until everything is evenly coated with its creamy goodness. Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary, set aside.

4. Bung your oven on - around 200 degrees celcius should do it. Pour yourself a congratulatory glass of wine for reaching the halfway stage of the recipe.

5. In a microwave-safe jug, nuke the milk, shallot and bay leaf for two minutes until steaming, remove the bay leaf and shallot. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan. Add the flour and cook, stirring, until it begins to foam. Add the milk all in one go and whisk rapidly until all lumps have had the bejeezus beaten out of them. Allow to bubble over a medium heat, stirring occasionally so it doesn't burn on the bottom of the pan and annoy The Bloke whose job it is to wash up, until thick. Remove from heat, add 1/3 of the grated cheddar, set aside.

6. To assemble, place 1/3 of the pumpkin mixture in the bottom of a large lasagne dish. Place a layer of lasagne sheet on top, then cover with the red sauce, a thin layer of the bechamel and a light sprinkle of cheddar. Repeat process twice more, making the last layers of red sauce and bechamel thick to use up the last bits in the pans. Top with remaining cheddar and parmesan. Bake in the oven for around 40 minutes, or until cheese is golden and beginning to brown.

7. Serve with a non-sooky white wine, sourdough garlic bread and a garden salad.

Hippy This! Substitute olive oil for the butter (NOT dairy-free marg, unless you particularly enjoy the texture of KY Jelly on your palate), soy milk for the milk, vegan cream cheese (seasoned with yeast extract and pepper if it is too sweet as many of them are) for the ricotta, and vegan hard cheese for the cheddar. Present it to your vegan dining mates on a plate made from bacon.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Ahhh, the much maligned pasta bake. Something that most people have in their arsenal for those lazy weeknights where inspiration is lacking almost as much as motivation. Unfortunately, the invention of pour on sauces has degraded what was formerly an acceptable albeit artless meal, into a construction rather than cuisine. The sad fact of the matter is, there's a component of our society that use the back of a Continental packet as their Escoffier, the label on a Maggi jar as their Larousse. I feel for them, I really do. Food advertising, depicting wonder women brandishing a nutritional substitute on one arm and a flock of glowing children on the other; or clueless blokes saved from singledom by a flavour sachet, has a lot to answer for.

But honestly, what's so hard about chopping up a few veggies, simmering a tin of tomatoes for a couple of minutes, and slapping it into a Pyrex dish with some cooked noodles and sprinkling of pre-grated parmesan? It's not exactly rocket science, is it? You can even slap together the sauce component on a grander scale and freeze batches to stick in the nukebox if you truly don't have a minute spare between Monday and Friday. You don't need those preservative laden timebombs, people! Do you *usually* keep a tub of maltodextrin on hand as a secret ingredient in your cooking? Is lactic acid normally in your pantry? No! So why in the name of Zeus' butthole do you buy food "products" with that crap in it?

Yeah, I'm ranty about this stuff, but only because lazy dinners don't need to be fake dinners. Take this recipe for example. Based on a version that my Mum bakes, only jazzed up a bit with capers, lemon and feta cheese, it contains things that most food-oriented folks would have tucked away at the back of the fridge. And if you're missing a veggie - substitute! A withered head of broccoli, an eggplant that's seen better days, some steamed sweet potato that was starting to grow sentience as well as eyes - any of them could be chucked into this old standby to deliver you from the depression which is a cheese jaffle for supper.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Ingredients
1 red onion, finely diced
1 clove organic garlic, finely diced
1 teaspoon sambal olek
1 400g tin good quality tuna in oil (I use Sirena or Sole Marie)
1/4 red capsicum, diced
1/4 green capsicum, diced
1 zucchini, diced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
10 green olives, sliced
2 teaspoons capers
Juice of half a lemon
1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
3 tablespoons parmesan cheese, grated
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet. Pre-heat oven to 200 degree celcius.

2. Heat a couple of good glugs of olive oil in a frypan. Add the onion, garlic and sambal olek, and cook over a medium heat, stirring, until onion is soft.

3. Add the capsicum, zucchini and tomato paste, cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the drained tuna, olives and capers, stir, then add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste and remove from heat. Chuck the cooked pasta into the frypan and stir until coated by the sauce.

4. Throw the pasta into a baking dish, toss the cheeses on top, slug a little olive oil over the lot of it and bake in the oven for about half an hour.

Serve with a leafy green salad and a smirk. Woah to go in 45 minutes. If you don't have time for that, suck my balls and become a breatharian.

Veal Parmagiana by B.B Kow

Far out. All I wanted to do today was have a faux feminist huff and then sit outside with a Coke Zero and a fresh packet of Marlboros, but no. Some whiny little manbitch had to poke at my pride, much like Jesus being skewered on the cross, and now I'm here, having to update this thing instead.

How did this unjust scenario arise? Whilst perusing the Vogue Forums for new ways to dispose of my non-disposable income, I came across a thread lauding the arrival of a new range of low fat, no sugar icecreams. My hatred of diet products (aside from sugarfree softdrinks for dental reasons) is strong at the best of times, but when they are combined with an insipid marketing campaign involving "fashion launches" supported by Ralph Magazine, and a vacuous "Skinny Cow" diary as part of the branding, my hatred spills across the spectrum of disbelief into Chernobyl territory. Aside from the mindless diary constructions of Modern Woman (TM) dilemmas ("oh gosh, I hope I can stop at one glass of chardy less I end up occy-strapped to some dude's bed with my panties fashioned into a gag whilst he dresses as Big Bird and nibbles at my feet!")*, the prospect of making the exciting choice between sticks or cups reads as less culinary decision and more sheltered workshop training.

Late last year, the same target audience as inhabits the Vogue Forums were getting their miniscule knickers in a knot over Skinny Bitch, a vegan diet book written by a former model and a former modelling agent. Leaving my trainwreck addiction to Australia's Next Top Molehill at the door, the tome of "ethical" weightloss from a couple of washed up clotheshorses really got my goat (and sheep, and bull) up. Taking popularised celebrity diets like Atkins to another level, this book attempts to provide aspiration through insult. The fact that Victoria Beckham perusing a copy was the catalyst for it entering the greater public eye provides a more than adequete summation for its existence.

Skinny Cow. Skinny Bitch. What's next, Dozey Bint, the DIY Guide to Getting a Man in Bed? Pregnant Scrag, the DIY Guide to Keeping Him? Airy Slut, How to Match Your Diet to Your Skull Contents? Honestly, it's enough to send a lady scrabbling for a bottle of gin, a block of gruyere, and a job in an abbatoir.

I'm sure you're wondering where this hysterical ranting fits in with today's recipe. No, I didn't go out and slaughter a few of our four-legged friends in protest. But I did have a think about how my previous blog title, "Cook This, Bitch" fits in with the other appropriations of female insults, and I decided that knowing that I am a self-hating human first and a woman second wasn't going to be apparent in the eyes of casual readers. So to avoid being lumped in with the trash, my new header is "Smoking in the Kitchen." You may read this as you wish (as long as you know that I was considering Smoking in the Girl's Room but it only had double entendres and not triple as per the kitchen reference).

Anyway, on with the show, so I can get back to painting my nails and sticking cut outs of Ann Coulter's head onto knackery horse bodies. Hey, I don't just hate her 'coz she's XY.

Veal Parmagiana by B.B Kow

Ingredients

1 schnitzel-cut slab of veal per person
1 tin of tomatoes, smashed up with a knife
1 tin of water
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 french shallots, finely diced
1 clove organic garlic, finely diced
1 1/2 teaspoons mixed dried Italian herbs
2 tablespoons green olives, chopped
1 eggplant, cut into 5mm slices
3/4 cup mozzarella cheese, grated
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Steamed vegetables to serve

Method

1. In a saucepan, heat a good glug of olive oil, add shallots and garlic, and sweat over a gentle heat until they begin to caramelise. Add the tomato, water, balsamic vinegar and herbs, bring to the boil then reduce heat to a slow simmer and cook for about an hour, until tomatoes are pulpy. Add olives and salt and pepper to taste, remove from heat, set aside.

2. Meanwhile, salt the eggplant slices and allow to sit for 10-15 minutes to draw out any bitterness. Rinse and dry well with a tea towel. Slosh a few glugs of olive oil into a fry pan, heat and fry eggplant slices in batches until golden, turning to cook both sides. Remove from pan and drain on paper towel.

3. Heat grill to hot. Line a shallow baking tray with foil. Season your veal steaks with salt and pepper. Heat some more olive oil in the same pan as used for the eggplant, and cook for about a minute on each side. Remove from pan immediately.

4. To construct your parmagiana - place the veal steaks on the baking tray. Place slices of eggplant evenly over each steak. Top with napoli sauce and mozzarella. Place under grill and cook until cheese is bubbling and golden.

5. Serve with a merlot blend and steamed vegetables. Know that the world is one skinny cow down and better for it.


*Apologies to anyone who actually visited the Skinny Cow website expecting more of such titillations. You didn't really think that people who care about kilojoules would have such depravity contained within them, did you?

A Non-Definitive Top Ten

Of things that I could go without eating again in my lifetime.

1. Chorizo and haloumi. Haloumi is the styrofoam of cheeses. Chorizo is the gourmet meat of choice for wankers who are only eating Mexican because they're told its the next big thing by their friends.

2. Pork broth. Japan was the worst for this, I think because (despite the cuisine's reputation for delicacy) they seem to like a lot of strong flavours (bonito, soy etc.) in their cooking which eliminates chicken stock from their arsenal of ingredients. They don't have a lot of agricultural space, so pigs are the next best (or worst, if you given even the slightest fuck about factory farming) thing to "grow". Japan needs more Muslims. (Gosh there were a lot of brackets in that paragraph.)

3. Whelk. If you don't know what whelk is, I envy you.

4. Any lollies that have a base made from that sweet flavoured white shit. You know, strawberries and cream, racing cars. Wrong.

5. Fruit flavoured hot tea. Most of them don't even contain fruit, they have "fruit flavour" instead. You might as well just chew on a packet of Hubba Bubba and count it as five serves.

6. Mackarel. Revolting, greasy, bastardly fish. It has none of the rustic charm of sardines, none of the salty delight of anchovies - it's just a big lump of sump. Someone should begin investigating methods of turning them into crude oil.

7. Caraway seeds. They have but one place, and that is sporadically sprinkled through sauerkraut. The rest of the time their presence is downright offensive - take this toast I had for breakfast, for example. It looked like a delicious grainy loaf, I was nomming away on it - and all of a sudden, FUCKEN' CARAWAY SEED. IT RUINSES IT!

8. Chicken in pasta, closely followed by chicken on pizza. Chicken is already kinda doughy in texture. Putting it in pasta is like stuffing a cooked potato with rice.

9. Panini. Actually, any sandwich that doesn't involve (a) steak; (b) sausage or (c) being purchased from a roadhouse where the only choice one gets to make for their salad sanga is whether or not one wants salt and pepper (combined in a caterer's shaker, of course).

10. Rocket. In its defence, there are few occasions where rocket is required. One of them is in my dear Cunter's exceptional balsalmic-y, bocconcini-y fettucine sauce. Such is the radness of her cooking skills that she manages to turn the evil weed into a mouth-watering concoction. The other occasion is as an accompaniment to Bosc pears, walnuts, balsalmic, olive oil and reggiano. Aside from these isolated incidences, rocket can go fuck itself.

Actually, on second thought, perhaps it's not the rocket's fault that I dislike it so immensely. In fact, I think the real culprits here are the cafe staff who have replaced their compulsive snow-pea sprout garnishing with piles of rocket on the sides of plates across this wide, brown, unpleasant land of ours. Die cafe staff. Die.

Top Six Fails at Dinner

1. The time I substituted bok choy for silverbeet in a silverbeet, onion and olive bake, not reckoning on how watery that piss poor excuse for greenery is, and ended up with a dish full of vague vegetable-ish water rather than the Balterranean mouth party I was hoping for.


2. The time I added kalamata olives to a soft polenta which I'd been stirring over a hot stove for 45 minutes, and then realised that they tasted like chlorine mixed with seasoned flour, and made the rest of the dish taste like that too, and hence required pizza to be ordered for dinner. Extra points awarded because they'd come from a massive tub that I'd bought from our local fruit shop at the time and had to chuck the rest out.

3. The time when we had no potatoes and no pasta and no rice and no bread I only discovered this AFTER the bloke started cooking roast beef on the Weber for dinner, so substitutional genius that I am, I served the cattleflesh with an Asian noodle and pumpkin salad. This did nothing to convince me of the merits of fusion food, just in case you were wondering. To make matters worse we had a friend around for dinner that time, and it was the first time I'd cooked for him. LUCKY WE HAD HOMEBREW TO WASH IT DOWN WITH.


4. The time where one of the stove elements in our East Sydney terrace exploded, blowing a hole through the paella pan that my parents received as a wedding present and ruining the bolognese sauce cooking within. I don't need to explain to you how terrifying it is to know that your kitchen has the power to blast a hold through half a centimetre of frypan, do I?

5. Any time I've used chorizo. In fact, the other day I put chorizo on my list of five things I could easily go through life without eating again, along with caraway seeds; haloumi; pork broth; and perch.

6. Last night, where after hand-shredding half a kilo of potatoes for kartoffelknoedel, and attempting to overcome my fear of haloumi, I finished dressing one of the dinner plates, turned around and promptly had it take a face plant off the kitchen bench onto the tiled floor. SUCKS. Only the fact that I was hopped up on codiene saved the kitchen from taking a trashing last night. Instead I just stood and looked at the shattered plate on the floor then went and had a sulk in front of the heater.

Beef Goulash by Garry Hun

This year, autumn made a belated appearance in Sydney town. The seasonal distinction is always hard living in a coastal Meditteranean climate, but this time we seem to have had a prolonged spring, with the hot weather only setting in after the calender change at the beginning of March. Last night we had spitting rain and a distinctively cool kick in the pants come through on the wind. Today the bones in my feet are chilly (oh, woe is my aged body!) - perhaps the best indicator that summer is over (or that I'm going to end up a crazy old lady with a hundred rescue dogs gnawing on my corpse, either or).

Being Good Friday (good for the world's Christians as it's an imminent sign that Jebus is coming back, good for the rest of us as we get a public holiday) TheBloke was home from work and we spent the day tackling the masses of boxes that we've carted around through four houses, three years and two storage units. We had a house inspection earlier in the week which was a deciding factor in whether we'd be able to renew our lease for another year (ha, can't escape real estate talk in Sydney even when you're reading a tummy-blog!) - and regardless of the outcome, cutting the crap was something that we desperately needed to do. The idea of living in cardboard shanty town for another year was pretty repugnant, as was the thought of having to cart aforementioned crap through another move.

We worked up quite an appetite unpacking, repacking, garbaging and recycling the contents of TheBloke's music studio, and decided to reward ourselves with a movie (Dr Seuss' Horton Hears a Who - 7/10 if you're interested, the CGI is great in parts and almost claymationish in others) and udon noodles at a Japanese restaurant upstairs in Broadway shopping centre. We were sadly disappointed to find that Jebus' demise had resulted in the closure of the food court, and with an hour and a bit to kill and rapidly increasing hunger, we lamented the lack of other decent options for food in the area. Even the Landsdowne's $5 steak couldn't be had on account of Jebus' drinking all the wine in the city at his Last Supper.

And that's when we remembered Unas. Unas, for those of you who don't know, is a continental restaurant which started as a cafe in the 'Cross, and has, since 2000, grown to two other locations in Double Bay and Broadway. We'd eaten at the Cross restaurant before and come away rotund, jolly and full of praise for their massive Austro-Hungarian (plus a liberal sprinkling of Deutsch and Swiss) meals. Driving past the Broadway restaurant I've always been interested in their lunch specials, but have never actually ventured in there. Given the biting weather and lack of other viable options (sorry crepe cafe also serving Japanese ramen, Chinese dumplings and bubble tea) the only thing standing in our way was the possibility that they might not be able to serve us in time for our movie.

We needn't have worried. The service was fantastic, our meals (schnitzels, a fast decision is a good decision!) arrived within ten minutes of ordering, and TheBloke drank half a litre of beer. Life could only be better if we'd had big enough bellies to fit in everything else on the menu. I've not tried the Unas goulash, but I made an executive decision to carry the Euro cuisine along with the weather to tonight, and make a hearty homebound attempt at the famous traditional beef stew.

I'm not making any promises about Hungarian authenticity: this recipe is based on doing a bit of reading (thanks, Wikipedia), a need for warming spice (hence the distinctively Bitchlike addition of chillies) and memories of how my Oma used to make this when I was a kid. I'm pretty certain she used tomatoes (a no-no amongst purists, apparently) and it was definitely more of a stew than a soup. TheBloke and I are hitting Hungary in late October this year so I'll definitely give the national dish a once (twice, thrice, tenth) over to see if there is such a thing as a textbook version. Until then, this rib-sticker will keep you warm.

Beef Goulash by Garry Hun

Ingredients
500g casserole beef, cubed
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/4 red capsicum, roughly diced
1/4 green capsicum, rougly diced
1/2 tin tomatoes, crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
2 bay leaves
2-3 dried chillies, split lengthways
2 cups beef stock
Salt and pepper to taste

Method
1. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan, add onion and cook until it begins to soften. Add paprika and caraway seeds, stir, add garlic and capsicum, stir.
2. Add beef and cook until well browned.
3. Add bay leaves, chillies, beef stock and tomatoes, stir well and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until beef is very tender.
4. Season with salt and pepper and serve with buttered noodles, dumplings, mashed potato or potato rosti and steamed veggies.

Emo Eco

So in my old age, instead of becoming more cynical and bitter (which, come to think of it, was probably an impossibility) I've come to the horrible realisation that I'm turning into a lentil-loving hippie type.

Oh, I can hear your shrieks from here. "Noooo! Not TheBitch! You, our last bastion of all that is wrong in this wide, brown, unpleasant land of ours!"

Alright, so maybe the lentil-loving bit is a slight exaggeration - although TheBloke and I do partake of vegetarian food several times a week, I'm not in any danger of reverting to veganism. I hold the firm belief that said wide, brown unpleasant land is put to much better use as grazing pasture than attempted agriculture. But aside from that, in the last couple of months I've become increasingly, what's the word? Oh, that's right - eco-conscious. (Don't worry, I screwed up my face a little just typing it).

Along with converting our electricity across to 100% renewable (don't ask me how it works though), trying to remember to turn off the lights (not that hard given that my Dad used to scream coal-fuelled murder if we left them on as kids), and visiting an organic market (by and large a massive fail, the stuff that was for sale there was the same as is stocked in our local Woolies), I've been reading up on carbon footprints, green cleaning and other latte-lefty buzzwords de jour.

The somewhat manical attention paid to grocery shopping by my parents in the eighties has actually held me in good stead for the carbon bootprint part of the equation. "Buy Orstrayan Made" was originally an ocker-mantra designed to keep jobs onshore and away from those funny lookin' types north of us but following the principles these days (for both production and manufacture) is a fairly easy way of keeping eco-transport costs down. Of course, you could go a step further and only buy products grown within 100 miles of your home, but that would be kinda hardcore (cool idea though!). Truthbeknown, I'm loathe to purchase shelf products that have been grown in Australian climatic conditions when there's a better alternative elsewhere in the world. Hence, my beloved tins of Homebrand tomatoes (try them, they're awesome!) will still be coming to me on a ship from Italy (like almost all of the tinned tomatoes on your supermarket shelf) and I'll keep buying rice imported from SE Asia. We do plan to reinstate our veggie garden soon so that will cut down some of our fresh food transport to about twenty metres (and I'm quite proud to say that I've managed to resist the gorgeous hues of California-grown navel oranges in the fruit and veggie department... I'm an arsehole, but not so much of an arsehole that I require fruit to be whisked halfway around the world in cold storage for my tummy).

I'm in the process of converting our household products over to less residual cleaners. We were sucked into buying some Method sprays at the supermarket (ooo! a shiny thing!) but overall I've deemed them a craption (crap+option=craption) because (a) they don't work; and (b) they're imported from the UK or US, kinda negating the whole idea of being more green friendly. I picked up a bottle of Earth's Choice floor and surface cleaner after using their dish-washing liquid down at Tuross Heads a couple of weekends ago and lo and behold that shizz is the bomb! It actually works better than the Pine-O-Cleen I was liberally swishing around the place previously, and it's cheaper. Made in Australia and not tested on animals, it's win win (times four) even if you don't give a toss about amphibious life.

Which brings me to the third chardonnay socialist stickler, Fair Trade. It's something I've known about for a long time and agreed with wholeheartedly in principle, but I'm ashamed to say that yesterday was the first time I actually did something about it. On my second ever visit to Aldi I discovered a treasure chest of cheapish organic groceries, and in amongst the tea and coffee section I came across Fair Trade branded green tea and arabica. Being a David Jones food-hall bean whore, I must admit that I ummed and ahhed over the purchase before figuring that if it was godawful I could use the grounds as mulch around my golden cane palms. This morning I braved the espresso machine (not usually my job, TheBloke is designated caffienator in our house) and made myself a brew... and to my surprise, it's actually drinkable. (I've typed this entire entry in thirty seconds, BTW. Buzz buzz!)

With Easter two days away, the other major produce concern of Fair Trade, chocolate , is everywhere. Channel Nine, in conjunction with Tim Costello from World Vision, ran a piece titled "The Darker Side of Chocolate" as part of their Sunday program last weekend which investigated the practices of child trafficking and slavery in the cocoa industry. TheBloke and I don't eat much chocolate at the worse of times, but I'm going to have a closer look at the options available for the odd occasion when I bake cocoa-riffic treats as well as a less tainted replacement for our beloved 85% Lindt. 600 000 kids working on farms in the Cote d'Ivoire isn't something my newfound inner-tree-hugger is down with supporting.

So check out the Fair Trade website and give the chocolate eggs a run if you come across them this season of Jebusless. It's easier to take up uncertified products than it is to stop wearing deodorant and grow armpit dreads, and you'll be supporting better outcomes for the yoof of the world without any extra effort.

Plum Cake by P.Runefais

Excitement in the Bitchin' Kitchen last week, with the belated arrival of our brand-spankin' new Sunbeam Cafe Series 850W MixMaster, a Christmas present from the Parentals de La Bitch. My loveliest Mum justified its purchase with the wisdom that "it's not the sort of thing you'll ever buy for yourself" - which is frankly true. Forking out hundreds of dollars for a kitchen appliance isn't really something that The Bloke and I were likely to do, given the newfound frugalities of deposit-scrounging. Given that I have coveted a stand mixer for about five years now (ever since KitchenAid brought out a supposedly limited edition pink mixer to raise funds for the NBCF) being presented with the infinitely more powerful Sunbeam (325W for the KitchenAid vs. 850W for the MixMaster) as a gift was amazing. Thank you Parentals de La Bitch! We will repay you in Swiss rolls and rye loaves!

Unfortunately, The Bloke's attempt to christen the machine by whipping up some hand-pulled noodles on Sunday night was a little bit o' disastrous fun. Oh, the dough worked just fine once we deciphered the somewhat off kilter instruction booklets. The "noodling" part on the other hand... let's just say that the YouTube videos make it look a helluva lot easier than it is, and that maybe, just maybe, we should've paid attention to the numerous internerd pages reminding us that noodle masters spend decades honing their trade. I think we'll be sticking to our favourite Noodle House in Chinatown to get our fix of wheaten goodness.

But I digress. Attempt number two at creating deliciousness with the MixMaster! And what better dish to get the ball rolling (rather than just warming up ones bowling arm) than a cake! I found the bones of this recipe in the marvellous Cooks Companion by Stephanie Alexander, which is a most excellent book to add to your repertoire as not only is it brainy, the recipes in it actually work. Of course, I got a bit distracted during assembly and thus the top of my version ended up a bit mangled, but eh, it still tastes bloody great. The combination of nut-mealed cake, sweet plums and sticky almost-butterscotch is magic. And it used up the cheap bag of plums I bought from our local fruit market last week, which would otherwise have festered in the bottom of our fruit bowl for all eternity. Who said thriftiness had to equal living on sausages and .... oh wait. OK. Here's the recipe.

Plum Cake by P. Runefais

Ingredients
Cake
180g softened butter
150g white sugar
135g plain flour
135g self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
2 large freerange eggs, lightly beaten
70mL milk
1/2 cup almond meal

10 ripe plums (I used a variety called Black Diamond), washed, halved and seeded
60g butter, melted (extra)
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 large eggs, beaten (extra)

Method
1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcius. Grease a 26cm springform pan with butter.
2. To make the topping, mix the extra melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon and allow to cool slightly. Mix in the extra beaten eggs and set aside.
2. To make the cake, cream the softened butter and white sugar, add the eggs and then both flours and the salt, add the milk and mix well.
3. Spoon the cake batter into the prepared tin and smooth the top (this will take a bit of effort as the batter is quite doughy). Sprinkle the almond meal over the cake then arrange the plums on top, cut side up. Pour over the topping.
4. Bake for about an hour (if you have a normal oven... about a century if you're stuck with our rental-property beast) or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
5. Serve warm with a sticky dessert wine and a dollop of double cream, or perhaps a spicy sherry. (If you made it with a KitchenAid I'd prescribe a cup of tea and a Bex as accompaniments, but as we've got 500W more power than you retro fools we're going to have it with booze... SUCKERS).

Horse Flesh

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald lamenting the "gruesome trade in horse-flesh"
got me a bit stabby this morning.

I can see how the average punter (both of the restaurant and racetrack variety) could get upset about the practice, really I can. It's probably for the same reason pet owners get squeamish over the eating of dog meat in some parts of the world - the "cute and cuddly factor" has drawn fairly clear boundaries for most of us who have a choice in what goes on our plates.

But is eating horse flesh really any different to eating the flesh of any other four-legged beast?

Seeing as I brought dog meat up as a comparative example, I should probably explain that I object to the practice from an ethical point of view. The excessive cruelty involved in the production goes against my principles of free-range eating, for a start. Yep, I am a meat eater, and yep, many animals have died for my dinners - but the reports of hanging and pre-death electrocution to increase the adrenaline produced by the dogs before they are killed don't really fit in with my idea of keeping slaughter as clean as possible. (Wikipedia says that these practices are being cut down in Korea in favour of mass-electrocution to keep costs down, however, owing to the fact that dog meat is not legislated for human consumption, the industry is completely unregulated).

In contrast, from the article, it appears that horses in Australia are processed in the same way as the rest of our meat. Laura Stoikos, from a sanctuary called Cedar Springs Horses, is quoted as saying: "They are trucked in like cattle in the dead of night, they can smell the blood and they are killed one after another and they can see the horse in front of them killed so they know what is going on." But this is exactly the same thing that happens when your average cow or sheep or pig turns up at the abattoir, how does the fact that the animal being killed is a (perceptably failed) racehorse make a difference to proceedings?

I've known a few "horsey" people in my time, and their dedication to all things equine usually rivals the sport-lust of your most hardened footy fan or V8 SuperCar bogan. I understand why they'd be upset of the slaughter and consumption of their four-legged friends. I also find horse-racing appalling, in all its guises, so the idea that the industry is profiteering off their track off-cuts gets my hackles up. I actually laughed whilst reading the quote from anti-meat advocate Bo Derek in the linked article, suggesting that sporting horses are no longer "beasts of burden" - you only have to look at the injury stats for ex-racehorses and the relatively few years they spend on the track to realise that the only ones getting "sport" out of racing are humans. Owners have been sending old nags to the knackers since the beginning of time. But to suggest that humans eating horse meat is any worse than chowing down on Daisy the De-Milked Dairy Cow, or Mary the Mangey Mutton ... I don't know.

Horse meat has been eaten since pre-Christian times. My relatives ate it in wartime Germany. After a two day ride in the hot rural climes of Katherine in the Northern Territory on an ex bush racehorse, and being bucked off a cranky school horse startled by a motorbike in the pineforests near Joondalup in Western Australia, I don't have a lot of love for the bastard creatures. Having said that, I will admit to pulling a slightly squeamish-ed face when I came across it on a menu at the Tsukiji Fish Markets.


Would you eat horse-flesh, if you knew it had been processed in the same way that "regular" meats like beef and lamb are processed? Or would the cartoon neighs of Flicka and Black Beauty get the better of you?

A New Low?

Massel Easy Onion and Garlic Cubes. Onion. In a cube. Garlic. In a cube.

From the Massel website:

"No Trans Fats
All Natural
No Preservatives
No Frying required
No Peeling required
No Chopping required"

Hear that, guys? NO TRANS FATS! They must be good!

Now I don't actually have a major problem with pre-bought stock, which is what I knew Massel for previous to this ad screening on the telly. Massel's stock powders and cubes aren't actually that bad - and despite what the kitchen nazis will tell you, not everyone has the time or energy to dedicate to making stock themselves. But this is a whole other kettle of fish.

If you don't have time to chop an onion, you don't deserve to cook. These cubes make Rachael Ray look like Escoffier. A new low? A NEW LOW.

Breakfast Buns by Hun Glover

I should preface this entry by saying that normally, I'd stab people who regard the construction of food, rather than the cooking as a "recipe". That's not to say I'm a purist - I can see the need for instruction in toasting bread amongst the kitchen newbs, and certainly wouldn't begrudge such fine publications as the Commonsense Cookery Book or the Australian Women's Weekly for including such simplicities in their breakfast sections. However, it must be said that amongst the published celebrity cooks, there is a disturbing trend for tizzying up a couple of fried eggs with some parsley and passing it off as nouvelle cuisine. FAIL. Let's call a spade a spade and accept that construction and creation are two different things, and be done with it.

So having got that little rant off my chest, I can unashamedly say that this is NOT a recipe, this is a blueprint. Breakfast Buns. Kinda like a hamburger but not. Kinda like a fry up but not. Kinda like the best thing you could ever consume after a big night, but not not. If you can keep this down, you'll be right, and if you can't, you'll be right too.

The first time I came across the idea of a Breakfast Bun I was hungover to the shizens after being forced to consume vast amounts of red wine and homemade, rubbing-alcohol based limoncello by my best friend. I was also vegetarian at the time, so instead of leftover barbie snags and ham, I padded out my slightly-squashed hamburger roll (probably resultant from shennanigans the night before) with NotBacon and Veggie Sausages. I then drowned the lot in melted cheese and barbecue sauce. Combined with a couple of codiene-heavy painkillers and a strong coffee, it killed off my hangover within minutes of its consumption. Voila! The Breakfast Bun was born.

As I said before, this is not a recipe, it's a blueprint. But instead of being the plans for an architecturally intricate modern building, it's more of a guide to building a humpy. You can include whatever you like on the Breakfast Bun, as long as you follow three set rules.

1. The Breakfast Bun innards must be fried, either on a barbecue plate, stovetop grill or, at a pinch, in a frypan.

2. Anything included in a Breakfast Bun must follow the golden ratio of 1 part charcoal to 2 parts fat to 7 parts other. The "other" can be whatever you can get your hands on during the cold, sad half hour it will take you to shuffle and stagger around making the damn things. (See FAQ for a guide to selection of Breakfast Bun fillings, and for what to do if the shuffle and stagger is too much for your fragile body to deal with).

3. The Breakfast Bun must be buttered and sauced. The spread selection is up to you. Anyone who requests "no butter" should be shown the door.

I can hear the doubters questioning my cooking method as well as the inclusion of fat and charcoal as necessary ingredients. To them I wish a thousand raging hangovers and an overworked emergency department the next time they need a gastric lavage. That's right, charcoal is good for you. Suck it up, follow the rules and you will be well on your way to recovery through deliciousness.

Now you may have gathered that this dish is not going to be particularly complex, however, sometimes the simplest things are those which stump us. And thus, I have put together a Breakfast Bun FAQ to cover any further questions before we get on with the all-important business of construction.

Breakfast Bun FAQ

Q. Must I be hungover to the shizens to partake in Breakfast Buns?

A. No. However, if you are normally a health-conscious consumer, the sense of relief gained from consumption of a Breakfast Bun when sober may be outweighed by terror resultant from mental calculations of caloric intake. Plus, if you're not hungover it's likely you'll be in a state which would be conducive to making a "proper" breakfast rather than this trainwreck. But if you're still up for it - good on you.

Q. If I am normally a health-conscious consumer, can I adjust this recipe to be less of a time bomb and more of a vitamin pill?

A. If you're normally a health-conscious consumer, what are you doing getting so drunk that you're considering eating this at all? Enjoy your branflakes, numbskull.

Q. I have many potential ingredients for Breakfast Bun fillings lying around my kitchen. How do I choose which ones to use?

A. When contemplating the inclusion of ingredients in a Breakfast Bun, you should ask yourself several questions. Firstly, will this hurt if I ralph? Secondly, would I be ashamed if my loved ones saw me eating this? Thirdly, does this ingredient have the ability to meet the golden ratio of Breakfast Bun filling? If a potential ingredient fulfils all three criteria correctly, then go ahead and chuck it in.

Q. What if I am too hungover to contemplate the construction, let alone the consumption, of the Breakfast Bun?

A. This could be a massive fail, but never fear! Unless you're a sad drunk, there should be a couple of semi-comatose comrades passed out around your house. Find the least responsive of these and prod them until they're slightly functional. If they're anything like my friends, you'll then be able to coerce them into making you food whilst still severely limited in their consciousness - and thus unable to fight back. As for the issues of consumption - as detailed earlier, if you can keep this down you'll be right; if you can't you'll be right too.

Now for today's blueprint.

Breakfast Buns by Hun Glover

Ingredients

1 - 2 buns per person (today I used some ciabatta)
1 leftover sausage per person (today I used Bratwurst)
1 egg per bun
Onions and tomatoes, sliced (enough for all the buns - 1 small tomato and half an onion per person should do it)
Butter / spread; sauces of your choice (today I used Berenberg Hahndorf Tomato Sauce)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

(Other suggestions - eggplant, mushrooms, jalapenos, capsicum, zucchini and squash all barbecue well and can be made to fit the golden ratio by dousing them in olive oil. It goes without saying that bacon and other meat products would be a bonzer addition. Cheese of any variety is also good if you have some cut up already. Baby spinach can be a fancy touch if you've got some leftover from dinner the night before. Actually, scrap that - greenery is for sooks at this time of the morning.)

Method

1. Turn the barbecue on. As tempting as it may seem to have the luxury of a pre-heated grill, it is not worth leaving the barbie on overnight if you're running off portables - an empty gas bottle is the last thing you need on a hungover morning.

2. While the barbie is heating up, douse your veggies in a good helping of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Slice the buns in half. Take a couple of the concentrated codiene lollies I referred to earlier. Don't panic.

3. Chuck the onions on the barbie and let them cook until they're beginning to brown. Chuck on the leftover snags (and any other meat you have to go with them). Once the meats are getting near done, chuck on the tomatoes and eggs.

4. Throw the sliced buns on the grill and let them heat through.

5. To construct: liberally butter and sauce each bun. Stack your fillings one on top of the other. Finish with salt and pepper to taste, and more sauce. Serve with the hair of the dog (or strong tea / coffee) and do it all over again.