Dad's Pea and Ham Soup

Another family recipe, this time from the van der Wel archives. This is Dad's recipe, I'll start with what he wrote:

"If making a big batch with plenty to spare I usually have in it:
750 gms yellow split peas (I buy them at a health food place in the market in the western mall close to Gouger St because they are the freshest I have found)
750 grms bacon
750 grms bacon bones
10 debreziner (hard sausage - source is barossa fine foods stall in market)
3-4 leeks
1 carrot
3-4 sticks of celery
1-2 onion
1-2 potatoes

This quantity fills the large stock pot you bought me - from memory this is about 10 litres"

Great, thanks Dad! I don't remember how big the stockpot is - to be honest, I don't remember buying you a stockpot. Ok, maybe vaguely.

Dad's pea and ham soup is obviously not the normal English pea and ham soup... And certainly not the stuff you could float a pie in. But it's really tasty, and I think he actually normally makes it in a pressure cooker.

Which I'm going to try. I have a pressure cooker, I've had one for a few years now. I'm just not so certain I want to cook in something that's liable to explode if I forget about it. That's not FOOD under pressure, that's ME under pressure.

But then thanks to Liv, I found out about the pressure cooker/slow cooker all in one. That's my kind of thing. Means I can recycle the slow cooker to someone else (thanks for taking it, Dad!) and have a two in one combo that takes up the same amount of space. Anyone want an un-used normal pressure cooker?

Anyway, onwards.  Dad forgot to tell me that he usually does the split peas and ham bones in there, and then once they're done adds all the vegetables to the stockpot and adds more water.

I put it all in the pressure cooker and then watched it, hoping it doesn't explode.  I know you're wondering how long, and truthfully, I don't remember, I just used the guide from my pressure cooker.

Ah hah!  According to the instructions, it was 40 minutes.

So, that's how I did it.  According to Dad's spoken instructions, (ie, when I was telling him about the volcano I had in my kitchen), he does peas/bacon/bones in pressure cooker, then pours in to 10L stockpot, adds more water, vegetables and the rest of the meat.  Until done.  Vegetables should be very soft.

Dairy/Wheat/Sugar* Free Cherry Ripe Muffins

Or in other words, challenge accepted.  With more footnotes than a Terry Pratchett novel.

I was talking about this recipe in another group, and figured I should probably get it down somewhere before I forget it, and get asked for the recipe a week later, at which point I struggle to remember what I put in it.

This is actually mark II of everything free cherry ripe muffins.  The first ones didn't have enough cherries in them.  I've a sneaking suspicion this lot don't either.

1 3/4C Almond meal**
1C dessicated*** coconut
1/2C cocoa
1/2t bicarb soda
pinch of salt
1C + 1/2C cherries
1/2C raisins
1/2C water
1 banana
1/3C liquid coconut oil
1t vanilla essence
1T lemon juice
4 eggs
200g 85%**** chopped***** dark chocolate

Chop up cherries, I put 1 cup in a saucepan, and the other 1/2 cup left to go straight in to mix.  To the saucepan, add raisins and water, and bring to the boil.  Simmer for a minute or so, then remove from heat, leave to cool for about 10 mins.
Preheat oven to 180C.
In a blender, mix the cherry/raisin/water mix, add the banana, coconut oil, vanilla & lemon juice.  Mix until reasonably smooth.
In a large bowl, whisk together almond meal, coconut, cocoa, bicarb soda and salt.
Pour the blended mix in to the bowl, then add the eggs, mixing well.
Fold in the chopped chocolate and cherry pieces.
Pour in to muffin tins.  This mix made 15 muffins.
Bake for 20-25 mins, they're done when a skewer comes out clean.
Cool in tray.

* from title: clearly, 85% chocolate has sugar in it.  I'm still not counting that.
** when I say 1 & 3/4 cups, what really happened is that I ran out of almond meal.  It should have been 2 cups.  I don't think it's suffered.
*** Have I mentioned previously that as a kid I used to call it desecrated coconut?  Couldn't understand why my mother laughed whenever I said it.
**** last time I used 90% dark chocolate.  I didn't have any in my stash this time, so had to go down a level.
***** I chopped up the chocolate quite coarsely this time.  It's got some nice chunks in it, so that if the muffin gets microwaved, it'll have some gooey chocolate in it.  You can thank me later.

Hamburgers

You know, if I were to ever write a cookbook, I reckon I'd call it "random shit I've chucked in and it turned out ok".  Not that I think I'd sell many copies with that name, but you never know.

Hmm, perhaps I should change the name of the blog to that...

Anyway.

Made hamburgers last night.  No, still no photos.  And they turned out well, so I thought I'd write down what I threw in, so, you know, if I want to make it again I've got more of an idea of what was in it.  (When I shared a place with Michelle, everything got described as a "thing".  She'd come home and ask what was for dinner (I wasn't working at the time) and I'd say it's a thing.  With you know, chicken, or mince, or something.  What was in it?  "Stuff".  Very helpful, right?  And if she wanted me to replicate the dish, I couldn't, because it was random things I'd seen in the fridge/pantry, and thrown in.)

So..  Onwards.

I used (erm, approximately!  I still don't actually measure stuff):
Patties:
500g of Barossa Fine Foods organic mince
1 small diced onion (ok, I didn't, I used some frozen onions which was about equivalent to a whole onion)
1/4 small red capsicum (don't tell Lincoln)
1 red chilli, chopped up finely
1 egg
1/2 piece of multigrain bread, ground in to bread crumbs
small handful of chopped fresh parsley (I was going to put some spinach in, but I forgot.)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
4 rashers of hot pancetta, chopped
1 tablespoon tomato sauce
1/2 cup grated cheese
1 teaspoon mixed herbs

Other stuff:
Pancetta, eggs, bread rolls, onion for onion rings, lettuce, tomato, beetroot, cheese, sauce.

Step 1: tell Lincoln not to worry, the green stuff is parsley, and the red stuff is chilli.

Step 2: mix everything together in a big bowl.  Shape in to 4 BIG patties (I put the two spare in the freezer).  Put the ones you want to use in the fridge for about 15 mins.

To give an idea of the size, I made them about 2cm thick, but about the width of my hand.  So only those who have seen my hand would know what size this is.

I grilled mine on high for 5 minutes on 1 side, then flipped, another 5 minutes, flip again, turned the temperature down, and did another 5 mins each side.

After the 2nd five minutes, so when I turned the grill down, I cooked the onion rings for about 5 minutes, then chucked in some pancetta, did about another 2 minutes, and then the eggs, as Lincoln likes his like rubber, which is just wrong.  Eggs got done for about 3 minutes, mine was whole and flipped, Lincolns was mushed to oblivion and spread thin to make sure it has that rubber consistency.  Oh, and flipped.

Lincoln had his with a bread roll, pancetta, onions, eggs, cheese (on the last flip of the hamburgers, you can put cheese on top of patty and melt it) and sauce.

I had a naked, deconstructed hamburger, so I had it spread out over a plate with onion, lettuce, tomato, red capsicum, beetroot, pickles, egg, pancetta, and a wedge of smoked Dutch cheese.

Gluten Free peanut butter choc chip cookies

Because I have a friend who has gluten issues, I was looking for a good gluten free chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Boy, did I find one.

Check out this recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/the-chewy-gluten-free-recipe/index.html

It's got some fiddly amounts of different flour in it, but it work really well.  I find the consistency of the flour at the end a little different, but that's about all.

So of course, having found the perfect recipe, I modded it.

For those that haven't seen the previous choc chip recipe (not gluten free) it's here.

http://kates-cooking.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/peanut-butter-choc-chip-cookies.html

There's a few differences between the two (besides the flour of course).  One of the concerning things for me was the temperature.  I wasn't sure how the higher temperature in the Alton Brown recipe would go, when I really like the texture of my cookies.

And Alton doesn't seem to have discovered that peanut butter makes almost everything better.  At least according to Lincoln, anyway.  And Trish.

So, I added 2/3s of a container of smooth (morally sound) peanut butter.  I did this at the same stage as previously, just after the eggs and vanilla were added.

I also chilled overnight, due to wanting to have fresh cookies in the morning.

And baked one batch at 165C, the same temperature I do for the original cookies.  Baked them for about 14 mins.  (My cookies were smaller, I ended up with 40 cookies instead of the 24 the recipe says.)

The second batch were done at 170C.  Ish.  For 12 minutes.  Ish.  And I think they turned out better, though I'm not sure if it's because they had time to get closer to room temperature, or what happened there.  What I noticed is that they didn't sink in as much as the first batch.

Anyway, they were all eaten, so it's all good, right?

Winter Salad

So, I got tired of eating salad at lunch for work...  Ok, I lie.  I still love salad, but I wanted something warmer.  I ate soup for a while, but now I have another new recipe that I've randomly put together.  For want of any other name, I'm calling it a winter salad, but really, it's just roasted vegetables.  I've eaten it with left over roast, with charcoal chicken, with lamb yiros meat, and with chicken tikka.  It seems to go with most things.  Or it could just be that I eat random stuff.

1 eggplant
2 zucchini
2 carrots
2 onions
3 sticks of celery
2x 400g tins of crushed tomatoes
Rosemary
Garlic
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 180c.
Cut the vegetables up in to fairly chunky pieces, I tend to do about 3cm pieces, obviously you can do smaller or larger as you prefer, just adjust the cooking time.
Mix the vegetables up in a casserole dish/Dutch oven.  Pour the tomatoes over them, then add a dash of olive oil, the garlic and rosemary (to taste).  If you've used tomatoes that don't have added salt, you'd probably want to put a little salt in there as well, or use garlic salt instead of plain garlic.  Or both.
Cover and roast in oven for an hour or so, until vegetables are soft (in the cast iron Dutch oven I have it takes 1.5 hours).

You could also put in some potatoes if you like, or squash...  I was just randomly throwing stuff in from my fridge (I know, it's so different for me to do that...)

Chicken Soup

I wasn't going to post my chicken soup recipe, I mean, after all, there's got to be like a MILLION (said with the SA accent, not the Eastern states I'm looking at you Eddie Mcguire accent...  We have Ls in SA.  You should try them sometime...) recipes online, right?
About 11,900,000 results (0.32 seconds)
Ok.  Right.
But, I mean, how many of them have chilli in it?
About 5,180,000 results (0.28 seconds) 
Pfft.  What about garlic and chilli?
About 16,000,000 results (0.27 seconds)
... wait.  Why are there more with garlic and chilli, than with just chilli?
About 2,000 results (0.52 seconds)
That's better.
Ok, but what about people who put curry in it, too?
About 784 results (0.32 seconds)
Crap.
Ok, but how many people have a cute dog that eats any vegetables that fall to the floor while making the soup?
No results found for chicken soup recipe +chilli +garlic +curry  +"cute dog eating vegetables"
Right, I win.


So, really, this recipe is all about cleaning out your fridge.  You know those vegetables that are ... well, they're getting elderly.  In their twilight days.  Not quite had it, but definitely looking to move to an assisted living facility.
And as for chicken...  Normally I use a whole free range chicken.  But in honour of the clean out, I checked my freezer yesterday, and I had two free range chicken maryland...  Perfect.
And to this I added:
1 chilli
3 cloves of garlic
2 leeks
1 carrot
1 zucchini
2 stalks of celery (including leaves at the top, they're one of the best bits)
1/2 a bunch of parsley
1/3 cauliflower
1 head of broccoli
1 red capsicum
1/4 small chinese cabbage
1C of beansprouts (those nice ones you get in Chinese cooking, not the evil skinny alfalfa sprouts)
1T (approx) of curry powder (yes all right, the amount was actually "what I had left", there was no measurement)
1L of chicken stock (because I didn't start with 1 whole chicken and making my own stock...)

So, in my majorly large saucepan (which is not my gigantic stockpot, I didn't go that far, not having a full chicken) I fried up the leeks and chilli and garlic, until the leeks were starting to separate.  I added the chicken, and fried that for a little while too, just until the skin wasn't white.  It doesn't really matter, normally I just chuck the whole chicken in water to begin with.  So yes, you can skip the frying part...

And then I added all the vegetables, chopped up of course.  (yes, you can count that as "everything else aside from bean sprouts".)  And then the stock, a bit more water because I didn't have quite enough to cover everything, and the curry powder.

Bring it to the boil, let it boil for about 30-40 mins  however long you like really.  When the meat starts to come off the chicken by itself, and the vegetables are cooked, you're good.

Pull the chicken out of the soup, and put it in a large bowl.  The next step is VERY important.
Allow it to cool a bit before trying to remove the meat.  Or you'll end up with burnt fingers, which is why I'm trying to type this with bandaids on all my fingers.

Add the meat back to the saucepan, add the beansprouts, and bring it to the boil.

Serve!

If you want to add noodles, when you add the meat back in, you can add in some noodles and boil for a bit, but I don't like noodles, so I don't.

And yes, in case you were wondering...  This soup is a spectacular remedy for colds.

Slow cooked lamb chops

I bought some chops at the markets a week ago (they've been in the freezer since!), decided to experiment.

My experiment went thusly:

2 tins of tomatoes (organic, no added anything)
1.5 zucchinis (hey, I had 1/2 left over from another recipe)
0.5 eggplant (see above note)
1.5 carrots
"some" green beans.  I don't know, they were frozen, I poured until it looked right
1 red capsicum
2 stalks of celery
3 sprigs of sprigs of rosemary (sprigs?  Is that right?  I used like 3 twigs of it, each one about 5cm long?)
3 cloves of garlic (I like garlic...)
a bay leaf, I would have used 2 if I'd had more than 1 left...
1t beef stock
6 thin lamb chops.

Chop up vegetables.  Put in to slow cooker with everything else, cook on low for 8 hours.  You could also do high for 4 hours, but as I was going to work for 8 hours, it just seemed right.

You could serve it with mashed potato, or crusty bread...  I just ate it as is, there was a bit of sauce left over at the end.

What I'd do next time: more salt.  Definitely lacking in the salt dept.
I'd probably try frying the chops for a couple of minutes each side, just to see how that went - they tasted good, but as they're not as fatty as shanks, the texture was a bit different.
I'd probably try and reduce the sauce a little at the end, but as I said, it was still nice.

So, random lamb dish achieved!