A hot date with myself

Me: "ahh, that was so nice, thanks for the hot date today!"
Myself: "aw it was sweet. anytime babe. you're so pleasant to waste an afternoon with."
I: *wink* "same time next week then?"

Mental health days. They're good for you. Today I took myself to the park and spent a few hours lazing in the sunshine, staring at clouds, listening to birds, playing progressive metal, eating fresh Lebanese salad, reading a book, dreaming, washing my feet in the creek and watching the eels feeding. I had the pleasure of hanging out with some of my favourite locals including cormorants, maned ducks, currawongs, kookaburras, crows, butcher birds and magpies. Birds make me so happy! :) Also had the pleasure(?) of finding at least 3 types of spiders and 3 types of ants constantly crawling on my legs. Found two more spiders crawling out of my hair and shoes once I got home. Nice one.

It was so therapeutic just to lay on the earth and get all grounded in the sunshine. Wandering though the creek afterward I felt refreshed and cleansed. This is a good thing - it's been a rollercoaster week!

For the first time in my life, I can honestly and suddenly recognise how it feels to actually be a woman with a hormonal cycle. Mine's a bit whack at the moment, as I have just recently gone off the pill for the first time in about 10 years (since I was a teen). My poor body has taken a beating from that thing. I have noticed already that my nigh enormous breasts have actually shrunk slightly which is a bit of a relief. For the past 10 years they have been slowly slowly working their way up to the mighty F cup they are today. I really never want to go beyond F! I have also noticed some weight drop off recently which is a pleasant surprise, seeing as I have not made a single change in my lifestyle to encourage this. Nothing drastic mind you, but definitely something. Perhaps I had mild chronic oedema?

It is kind of exciting tracking my new menstrual cycle (my real menstrual cycle) for the first time. It has been a bit crazy which is to be expected. Some loops are a little short, some a few weeks too long. I think it is starting to settle though. Keen to see how it ends up aligning moonwise. The main thing I have noticed however, is that I have suddenly acquired spontaneous fragility in my emotional states. This is the scary stuff. I'm finding myself reacting completely irrationally, being overly sensitive, feeling particularly insecure and even having little teary eyed moments for no good reason. It is strange being aware of these reactions; it is as though I am outside of my body looking at it, and watching it do things I don't particularly approve of. Then suddenly I'm back in my body and everything switches suddenly back to being fine and I wonder what on earth I was upset about. Perhaps that is even a valid idea, that disrupted hormones might have the power to not only do make chemical changes but energetically alter. It really does feel like I progressively loose touch with reality over time and then when I finally go to town with a wild reaction, I notice that I'm hovering above my own body and forcibly kick myself back in. Perhaps my erratic hormones are disturbing the energetic pattern of my body so much that my consciousness is not sure how to hold onto it as well?

Perhaps I should have a glass of wine now and shut up before I get too carried away with this. ;)

<3

Raspberry Dessert!

This is a light and approachable desert that is pretty easy to whip up and very summertime friendly! I don't have a very sweet tooth which is why I've designed this to be just slightly tart. If you like it sweeeeeeet(!) just add more sugar. Also, I did not have any chocolate when I made them but I strongly recommend (lots) of dark chocolate shavings on the top. Yeah!

I think these turned out so fine that I will experiment with other, more exciting flavours including rose & mint or lime & coconut... can't wait to have an excuse to invent them! Let me know if you make any awesome flavour varieties of these.

INGREDIENTS:

1 tbsp gelatin

2 egg whites

400g Greek yoghurt

100g raspberries (plus extra to stack on top!

3 tbsp lemon juice

4 tsp sugar

Dribble of vanilla essence

Dark chocolate shavings (Green and Black's Organic 70% highly recommended!)

METHOD:

1. Blitz the yoghurt, raspberries and vanilla
2. Wisk the egg white to stiff peaks
3. Wisk the sugar into the egg whites until glossy
4. Melt the gelatin into the lemon juice in a heat safe bowl over a pot of boiling water
5. Mix the lemon juice into the yoghurt
6. Fold the egg whites into the yoghurt
7. Pour into 4 pretty dessert glasses (I used martini glasses)
8. Refrigerate until set (mine were ready about 5 hours later)
9. Stack extra raspberries in top of glass and cover with chocolate shavings. Divine!

Pollo alla Cacciatora

Here is a delightful piece of Italian flavour for the cooler times of the year. Apparently, originally, this hunter's style dish was made without tomatoes, relying mostly on the chicken/rabbit, wine, mushrooms, herbs and probably olives (what Italian hunter in their right mind went out without olives and wine??). My take on the dish is decidedly un-Italian in its complexity and long list of ingredients but the result is unashamedly good curl-up-by-the-fire comfort food!

There is the option to make this as hot or as mild as you like. The mild option involves a mild Italian sausage and the seeds scraped out of the chilies; the hot option means a hot Italian sausage and seeds in the chilies; the very hot option would probably involve not frying the chilies and just throwing them straight into the pot with the olives etc. Just tweek this however suits your mood.

Also, I used chicky for this recipe, but I imagine it would be wonderful with rabbit. I shall try it with rabby later in the year!

INGREDIENTS:

Sauce:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion - finely chopped
• 5 cloves garlic - squished up
• 5 roma tomatoes
• 1 cup torn basil
• 1 tsp sugar
• Pinch of salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 3 tbsp lemon juice

The rest of it:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 stalks of celery (you can dice/slice/chunk up these vegetables to whatever level of texture you like to have)
• 1 carrot
• 1 capsicum
• Red chilies (however many you dig)
• 2-3 bay leaves
• 6 chicken thighs (or, even better, just get a whole chook and cleave it into 8 pieces, with bones!)
• 2 field mushrooms
• 1 cup kalamata olives (pitted)
• 2 tsp capers (washed)
• 1 Italian cacciatore sausage (skin removed, sliced)
• Wedge of preserved lemon (washed)
• 1 cup white wine
• Oregano/Rosemary/Thyme (whatever you've got/like)
• Cannellini beans (I cheated and used a tin here - you can soak and cook if you're an organised bunny ;) )
• Some anchovy fillets (I didn't count - let's say between 6 and 8? or whatever you want)
• Fresh Italian parsley (a bunch, roughly chopped - yes that includes the stems. Why wouldn't you use the stems? The stems are delicious, delicious, delicious. DO it.)

METHOD:

Preheat your oven - about 180°C

Sauce:

1. Put the tomatoes under a hot grill until skin starts to blacken, then turn to do the other side, then remove from grill to cool. When cool enough, peel the skin off, remove the core and roughly chop.
2. Fry the onion with the oil in a lidded pan over a low heat - about 10 minutes or so.
3. Stir in garlic and basil, replace lid and fry for another few minutes
4. Add the tomatoes, sugar, wine, and lemon juice, replace the lid and simmer half an hour-ish (if anything starts to burn, your heat is too high; you should not need to caretake this process too much).
5. Pour the sauce into a big oven pot.

Other bits:

1. Add more oil to the same pan you just used and seal those chicky pieces to keep their juices intact. Once lightly browned on each side, add them to the oven pot with the sauce.
2. Straight into the same pan, add the capsicum, celery, carrot, bay and chili. Place a lid on the pan and turn it down to sweat the vege for a while and get the sweetness factor happening. After a few minutes, toss the mushroom though, take the lid off, and let it all fry a few minutes.
3. While this is happening, add all other ingredients except parsley straight into the oven pot.
4. Add the pan veges to the oven pot and gently toss the ingredients all around.
5. Get a lid on that baby and put her in the oven for a couple of hours.
6. Stir though the parsley just before serving with either crusty sourdough or polenta!
   

The meat should be absolutely tender and come away from the bone naturally (if you have boned pieces which I recommend).

Buon appetito! x x x

Murgh Makhini (Butter Chicken)

Last week I had a hankering for butter chicken. While I go out for Indian regularly, I have not ordered butter chicken for many years as, upon arrival to my palate, it always disappoints. I find it overly rich and often lacking actual flavour. It was time to make the butter chicken I've always dreamed of - only I had no idea how!

After some recipe research, I was disappointed at the amount of what I would call lazy and lousy recipes. They tend to rely heavily on cream, sugar and salt and employ little in the way of spices. Gods forbid they include a vegetable! So I cobbled together a recipe prototype with a little (lot of) creative licence and gave it a whirl only to find the resulting dish 'nice'. 'Nice' just doesn't cut it. In fact, I strongly dislike 'nice'. Tonight I tweaked that prototype and came up with 'freaking delicious'. I enjoy 'freaking delicious'. Here it is:

(Keep in mind my measurements are estimated - I generally measure spices by sight as I store them in dark bottles and just tip them into my hand as I go. My advice when in doubt: go for more!)

INGREDIENTS:

• 5 chicken thighs (diced into medium sized chunks)
  

• 7 cloves garlic
• thumb-sized piece fresh ginger
• pinch salt
• 2 tsp Kashmiri chili powder (or paprika)
  
• 2 tsp tumeric powder
• tbsp rice bran oil

• 2 tsp corriander seed
• 2 tsp cumin seed
• 7 green cardamom pods
• 5 cloves

• tbsp ghee or butter
  
• 3 tsp cumin seed
• 1 tsp fenugreek seed
  
• 1 brown onion (diced)
• 4 large tomatoes (diced)
• 2-3 green chilies (chopped) (or however many of whatever kind you have on hand)
  
• 1 carrot (diced)
• 1/2 cup tamarind water
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1/2 cup hot water
• 1/2 cup plain yoghurt
• 1/2 cup gram flour (chickpea flour)
• long twig of fresh curry leaves
• green vegetables of choice (I used a bunch of brocolini (chopped) and a cup or so of frozen baby peas)

PREPARATION

1. Marinade: Use a mortar and pestle to make a paste of the garlic, ginger and salt. Add the tumeric, Kashmiri chili powder and oil. Rub this into the chicky thighs. mmm yeah. Let the babies rest somewhere for an hour or so.
   
2. Tamarind Water: Put a good tablespoon or so of tamarind pulp in bowl with half a cup of boiling water and let it steep for a while, breaking up the pulp as much as possible. Strain all the watery goodness just before cooking.
   
3. Garum Masala: Dry fry the corriander, cumin, cardamom pods and cloves. Extract the seeds from the cardamom pods and throw away the shell. Pound all this up in a mortar and pestle to make a powder. Smells goooood!
4. Beat the gram flour into the yoghurt to make an incorporated paste and set aside.
   

COOKING

1. Seal pasty chicky thighs in two batches with a little extra oil if necessary in a hot pan. Once sealed, remove to a plate to await their next exciting role.
2. Add butter/ghee to same pan (hopefully with good brown flavour stuck to the bottom of the pan now). Quickly fry the remaining cumin seeds and fenugreek seeds then add the onion and turn down the heat before the flavour coating left over from the chicken starts to burn. If it's getting black fast, skip to the next step asap!
   
3. Deglaze the pot with the tomatos and tamarind water. Add the chili, carrot, garum masala, honey and cinnamon. Place a lid on the pot and simmer for a while (basically until the tomato starts to break down and the carrot is soft).
   
4. Remove your cinnamon quill. Get out your blitz stick (or use a blender) and blitz the shit outta that sauce. Smooooooth!
5. Replace your cinnamon quill. Add the sealed chicken, curry leaves and hot water. Simmer with a lid until the chicken is cooked though.
6. Add the yoghurt and gram flour combo attack and stir in the green veges. Another 5 minutes of simmer and you're THERE!

I don't tend to make Indian breads unless I'm entertaining so I just served mine with plain brown rice. It was fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. You can be fabulous too.

Opening

I declare this blog open.

After perfecting my own amazing butter chicken recipe this afternoon, I decided it was high time I shared my recipes with the world. Life is too short not to eat well every day - and it is so easy! However, I do find it hard to restrict myself to a single topic of conversation. Personally, cooking is like a kind of alchemy, and that alchemy is no different to other creative activities I employ to bring about nourishment of my body, mind or spirit. Food, good food, made with the earth in mind, love in heart and sharing in spirit, can and should nourish the entire being that we are. There is such magik in food; anything we add to our bodies brings about a process of transformation and, hopefully creation.

Suddenly I find it difficult to distinguish between such topics as nourishment (food, cooking, recipes), spirituality (magik, meditation, philosophy), creativity (art, sewing, magik), health (herbs, food, medicine, exercise, meditation), relationships (love, sex, dinner parties, sharing)... do you see all the possibilities for cross-overs that I do? To me, sometimes, all of these become the same thing. I struggled to come up with a title for this blog that would encompass all of these topics without it becoming too wordy. Salt is a very powerful word for me which covers much of what I have just mentioned. I do not feel the need to really go into it at this stage.

Suffice to say that salt covers the nourishment stuff; the stuff of the Earth that we reap; the wu wei of the Dao. Paper covers the craftier stuff; the creation; the transformation and alchemy; the process. Kisses are the sweet nectar that make life so pleasant; energetic intimacy and exchange.

Plus it just has a nice ring to it. ;) Welcome to my journey. Come with. <3