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quiche time

Tonight, I really cooked in my new kitchen for the first time. I made a leftovers quiche, the type of quiche that clears out the crisper drawer in the fridge and is really just a case of throwing it all in a pastry crust. I made some shortcrust pastry and as my pastry blender is at Mum’s I had to use my hands, I haven’t done that since oh Year 9 Home Ec, still it was good fun. When I rolled it out, I rolled it out nice and thick 🙂 I love a good thick pie crust.

The filling consists of capsicum, sun-dried tomatoes, eschallots, mushroom, eggplant and diced chorizo, along with a good handful of rosemary, thyme and basil. The top has slices of blue cheese and then chorizo slices that you can see in the photo.

One of my handy little gadgets is my oven thermometer, I played with placing it various parts of the oven and I discovered whilst cooking the quiche that it seems to be out by about 50 degrees! and it was very very slow to heat up.

Still once the quiche was cooked, I had a slice for dinner and it will give me meals for the next few days.

A quiche to test the oven

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A new baby

Tonight, my favourite store in Brisbane had it’s once yearly 20% off sale for newsletter subscribers. Since Taste open a few years ago, I have often popped in when driving past for a quick browse.

I arrived shortly before 1730 and managed to pop into the shop for about a minute before the closed the doors, myself and another lady had just enough time to confirm what colour KitchenAids were in stock and how many they had (seven and only one of each colour). When we were back outside we quickly formed a little posse at the door with two other ladies who were also in the KitchenAid quest. They were number 1 and 2 in the line, I was number 3 and the other lady was number 4. We started discussing colours and it turned out that lady number 1 and I both wanted Apple Green and number 2 and number 4 both wanted the Imperial Gray. Very democratically I decided that I would get the Ice Blue as that was my 2nd colour pref from what they had in stock (I had wanted Gloss Cinnamon, Tangerine or Yellow but there was none in stock). Number 4 decided she would get Empire Red. Once that was settled we then roped into our posse two other ladies, one who had bought her KitchenAid (Almond) a few months ago and the other who was also in the quest, her first preference was the Empire Red but she quickly settled on the Willow Blue as that would match her Le Creuset.

When they opened the doors, the five of us quickly made our way over to the table where the holy grail was and grabbed our new babies. We then made our way over to the counter where Jodie (the lovely owner) commented on how it was great to see that we had worked as a little team to get what we wanted. As we were walking through the shop some of the other Taste employees made comments as well about our little team forming to get our common goal.

The 20% off made the price very attractive! Taste retails them at $699 and you can get them from the online site round the $630 mark. The 20% off took it to just under $560.

Here is my baby (well my second baby as my first baby is my 5D)
My new baby

My other purchase was a Le Creuset Multifunction Set in Cobalt Blue. I remember the first time I saw the multifunction mentioned on a blog, I thought “that is a very cool idea” over the last year or so I have danced my fingers over them as I have seen them at various places. Tonight I picked up my own 🙂 I had been tossing up between getting a 20cm Le Creuset French Oven as there are times when I find my 24cm too big but since the multifunction set is about the same size and it gives me a saucepan and frypan that works as a lid, I decided that this year that was a better buy. ‘

I’m so excited! I can’t wait to use my new kitchen goodies.

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food dreams

On Saturday when I went to visit Amanda and Madi they were just finishing lunch, it was chicken with salad. I eyed it off with desire. I had an avocado for lunch. It’s not that I don’t like having braces, I do because it means the end is near but it also means that all the things I like eating are off the menu for the current time.
The other day for breakfast all I could think about was how much I would love some poached eggs on toasted sour dough with mushrooms and tomatoes and a tiny side salad of rocket and mizuna. Of that combo I could eat the poached eggs and the mushrooms and the tomatoes, couldn’t eat the toast unless it was french toast and short of swallowing the salad I can’t see that going down my trap. Instead I had some french toast.

We had prawns for lunch for three days at work last week as the Woolies beside where we work had them cheap and they are soo easy to “throw on the sandwich press”. I will admit that they were hard to eat and mainly involved cutting them up in to small enough pieces that I could swallow them. As the days have heated up and the humidity is kicking in I just couldn’t say no to prawns and with all the family coming home for Christmas I can see us eating many many many kilos of prawns.

I made another soup last night for dinner which was quite tasty a mix of green and yellow lentils with sweet potato and capsicum but oh I would like a piece of grilled chicken with salad. I’m hoping that this week I might start making some light stir fries and see how they go.

My mouth is still saw, biting into anything is painful and now I have a tooth ache to add to the haul as well. gah!

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Good Food and Wine Show

Today I went to the show and oh what a day it was.

Number 1. Ben O’Donoghue has moved to Brisbane and will be opening a restaurant sometime next year, currently looking for a location. Let me repeat that. Ben O’Donoghue now lives in Brisbane (though he is south sider ….) and will be opening his own place next year. Helen excited much?

Number 2. Matt Moran will open his new restaurant at Eagle St Pier in the Pier 9 space next March. Note to self, could be very very good.

Number 3. Helen somehow managed to win not one but two give aways at the cooking theatre. I won a I.O. Shen 21cm Cooks knife in the Alister Mcleod session and then I won a bottle of heavenly Kailis Extra Virgin Olive Oil during the Ben O’Donoghue session.

Number 4. Dairy, Chocolate and other dry groceries are the things that ended up in my bag. I was also so impressed with the Kailis EVOO that after some serious tasting I picked up a bottle of their Dolce oil which is infused with Blood Oranges – so so yummy, I could just about inhale that stuff.

Number 5. I picked up some PAMA Pomegranate Liqueur. Quite tasty

Number 6. I now have a pair of Crocs – Black Prima ballet shoes. I was looking at the strappy sandals but then I tried on the Primas and I can see them getting a work out at Woodford this year.

Number 7. I ran into a handful of people I know which was great.

Number 8. Tasted lots of yummy things, some not so yummy things, would have liked to have tasted a whole lot more but I still don’t have that whole biting/chewing hard things going with the braces yet.

Number 9. I wished that Karl was already here so he could have come and tasted the various beers/wines and picked the good ones.

Number 10. I did enjoy the show more last year – there were a few producers missing this year which was a bummer – no Zone Fresh stand, no Gympie Goats Cheese, no Curtis Stone….

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Stuffed Eggplants

I picked up a bag of eggplants for a steal at the fruit barn on the weekend and for the last day or two I have have the idea of stuffed eggplants running through my head. We were given an early mark at work today and on the train home all I could think about was that bag of eggplants. Dinner was great tonight and I am so looking forward to leftovers for lunch the next two days.

Stuffed Eggplants

Stuffed Eggplants
4-6 medium eggplants
olive oil
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
3 anchovies
1 carrot
2 eschallots
1 capsicum
100g diced pancetta
1 large field mushroom
1 large tsp pesto
6 sage leaves, torn
3 sprigs thyme, leaves picked
2-4 tbsp tomato passata
1/2 cup white wine
breadcrumbs and a cheese of your choice to top (my choice was pecorino)

Slice the eggplants in half lengthwise. Using a paring knife, slice/scoop the flesh out and dice into 1cm cubes. Finley dice the onion, carrot, garlic, capsicum and mushroom. Slice the eschallots. In a large pot, heat the olive oil and sweat the onion and garlic. Then add the carrot, capsicum, eschallots and sauté for 4-5 minutes. Finely chop the anchovies and with the pancetta add to the pot and continue to cook for a few minutes before adding the mushrooms, pesto and herbs. Cook for a few minutes before adding the wine, allow the wine to cook off for a moments before adding the passata. Allow to cook for a few more minutes. Spoon the filling into the eggplant halves, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and grated cheese. In a moderate oven bake the eggplants for roughly 30 minutes, serve with polenta and salad or just by themselves.

After stuffing the eggplants I had a good amount of filling left over so I roughly chopped up another capsicum, carrot, mushroom, more pancetta and a zucchini and added them to the pot with more wine and pasaata. Season to taste. I brought the pot to a simmer and allowed to cook for a good 30 minutes before freezing into portions to be used for a quick pasta dish.

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Chickpea Mash

Getting braces has meant that I have eaten a lot of sop/mashed foods the last week or so, one of my favourites was this Chickpea Mash I made. Not only was it packed full of goodness but it was a a good dish to use up veggies in the fridge.

Chickpea Mash

Chickpea Mash
2 handfuls chickpeas, rinsed, soaked overnight and rinsed again
1 onion, diced
few cloves of garlic, crushed
olive oil
1/2 capsicum, diced
3 eschallots, diced
1/4 eggplant, cubed
2tsp tumeric
1/2tsp cinnamon
1tsp cumin
1tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ginger
vegetable stock and/or water to cover
natural yoghurt and chives to serve

Sweat the onions and garlic in the oil, add the capsicum and eschallots and sauté for a few minutes, add the spices and stir through. Add the chickpeas and stir over medium heat for a few minutes. The chickpeas should take on a fantastic yellow colour. Add the stock/water and simmer for 35mins stirring every so often. Add the diced eggplant and return to simmer for 20mins. Using a stick blender, blend the chickpea mixture until about 90% of the chickpeas are mashed. Serve with a generous dollop of natural yoghurt and some diced chives.