Paintings that exist only in my head

Tonight I have been going though my old art journals from many years ago finding things I'd forgotten about   and some I can't recall ever doing at all.  Some of it is fascinating; it feels like I am reading the journal of someone I have never met who is slightly insane.

On one page I found these intriguing words, written like this:

They're full of trees, what like like palm trees, not really mostly pines though yeah there might be some palms and other things, and what, just forest still silhouettes shapes of English forests, and the unicorns, what unicorns, I don't know you said, I never said anything about wanting to draw unicorns, oh, but maybe I might they're beautiful, so that's it, yes, is there more to it meaning symbols why do you do it, it's just beauty really, but there's more to it, yes.  

Crab Quiche Extraordinaire!

Seriously, I am very disappointed in the internet's selection of inspired crab quiche recipes. I have never made a quiche before by myself and so, when I was recently gifted with some lovely fresh mud crab, I went looking for a base recipe to start me off.  Everything was lousy.  Here is what I decided to do!

INGREDIENTS:

Pastry:

• 3.5 cups spelt flour
• 250g butter
• 2 table spoons cold water
• 2 cold eggs

Filling:

• 5 eggs 
• 2 spring onions (sliced on diagonal)
• 2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 cup fresh cooked mud crab flesh (or other crab!)
• 1 small wheel of Camembert 
• 1/2 cup double cream
• Rind of a lemon
• 1 celery stalk (thinly sliced on diagonal)
• 1 small sweet potato (thinly sliced)
• 3 good handfuls or so of spinach leaves
• 1 handful of chopped fresh parsley
• 1 handful of chopped fresh dill
• 1/2 nutmeg, grated
• Pinch each of salt and pepper
• Drizzle of olive oil

METHOD:

Pastry:

1. Throw all ingredients in food processor and blitz in short bursts until combined!
2. Roll together into a ball and place in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour
3. Heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
4. Roll out on lightly floured surface to desired thickness (mine was about 0.5cm thick and, even after lining a large flan dish, I had enough left over to line another small flan and use for something else) :)
5. Grease a large flan dish and line with pastry.  Prick some air holes in pastry and weigh down with rice or other grain/weight and bake for 10-15 minutes

Quiche

1. Gently fry the shallots, garlic, celery and sweet potato in the olive oil for a few minutes until softened on a medium heat.
2. Add the spinach and cover, cooking on a low heat until spinach is wilted.
3. Spread the cooked vegetables over the baked pastry.
4. Sprinkle the crab meat over the vegetables.
5. Beat eggs in a bowl and add the cream, salt, pepper, nutmeg, herbs, lemon rind and Camembert.
6. Add the egg mix to the flan dish.
7. Grate a little table cheese on the top
8. Bake for half an hour at 180 degrees Celsius.

My Magical Mango Smoothie

Goodness, I've been so slack!  I've been making lots of lovely things but have been to lazy to post them.  Tsk tsk, I deserve a smack.  Or two.

OH HOW FUNNY!  Believe it or not, but just after I typed that Petey came in and delivered said smack without even knowing what I was writing.  Good work.

In other news, somewhere between my last post and here, the seasons changed and Summer crept in!  Oh, Summer, how I love thee!  Despite my intense love of food, I love how you decrease my appetite so that I can enjoy the lighter meals with satisfaction.  Today's breakfast was time for the first smoothie of the season and what better base flavour for a smoothie than mango!

INGREDIENTS:

• Ripe Bowen mangoes x 2
• Lady finger banana 
• Grapefruit (this provides the liquid element rather than milk or ice)
• Chia seeds (1 tablespoon-ish)
• Natural yoghurt (1/4 cup-ish)
• Seeds of green cardamom pods (5 pods)

METHOD:

1. Fry cardamom pods in dry pan over high heat until you can smell them.
2. Peel mangoes, remove flesh and put in blender.  People have various methods of removing flesh from mangoes but I find it easiest to just hold it over a big dish and use my hands to squeeze everything off the seed manually.  Seriously more fun and more efficient!
3. Peel banana, chop and add to blender.
4. Cut skin and pith off grapefruit, chop roughly, remove seeds and add to blender.
5. Extract seeds from cardamom pods and add to blender.
6. Add yoghurt and chia seeds to blender.
7. Blitz it to hell for a good minute or two.
8. Serves two!

Roast Chook on a Thai Fling

Seriously, who's had a good old Sunday roast and covered it in Thai or other Asian flavours?! I recommend it! This is a really rough recipe because you don't need any thing exact to make this wonderful. I'll just give you the gist of what I did.

Just take a chook (or if there's only two of you, a half bird is enough, that's what I did) and marinade it the day before in a paste of garlic, ginger, chili and lemongrass with a little oil and lime juice. Seal the bird in a fry pan briefly and transfer it to the oven and bake it at 200 degrees celcius until half cooked (maybe 45minutes?).

Halve some carrots and peel a couple of small onions and roll them in the left over oil of the frying pan before adding to the oven tray to bake.

When the chook and carrots/onion are cooked, remove from the oven to rest the meat. Slice up some green beans and broccoli (yes, slice that stem into long thin wedges, don't just use the florets - the stem rocks!) and julienne a big knob of ginger. Using the original fry pan with left over flavours from sealing the chicken, stir fry these together (or use whatever vegetables you like, capsicum would be lovely). When the pan gets dry, add a little water, some fish sauce and a few shakes of Tabasco sauce. I might be crazy but I also threw in a hint of balsamic vinegar. When the greens are perfectly vibrant, remove from the heat.

Divide the rested chicken among the plates with the vegetables, and tip the saucy juices from the greens fry up over them. Oh yeah. This is so simple and surprisingly awesome. Since I was feeling like I needed something awesome fast, very little thought has gone into this but I felt it was good enough to share. Maybe I'll get creative next time and make a proper Thai roast with all the spices...

Chickpea and Cabbage Soup

What do you do with a quarter of a cabbage and not much else? You make soup. Cabbage soup?! Are you serious? Um... Yes, if you use your not-much-else and make it delicious. I just made this up an hour ago and I love it! If you don't like the acidity, maybe you might like to temper it with a little sugar? (pft. just take it.) Ready? Here we go!

If having this as a main, I suggest heavy rye sourdough (maybe with melted parmesan on it if you're not vegan!) to soak up the liquidy goodness.

INGREDIENTS:

• Olive oil
  
• 1 onion (diced)
  
• 3 cloves garlic (diced)
  
• 5 Roma tomatoes (diced)
  
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 lemon (juiced)
• 1/2 cup dried chickpeas (soaked overnight, then boiled until cooked)
• 1/2 cup cooking water from the chickpeas
• 2 cups vegetable stock
  
• 1 - 2 tsp sweet paprika
• 1/4 of a cabbage (finely chopped)
• Big double handful of torn fresh basil leaves
• 1 handful of finely chopped fresh parsley
• Cracked black pepper

METHOD:

• Heat a good swig of olive oil in a medium soup pot and fry onion until clear
• Add garlic and bay, fry until fragrant
  
• Add tomatoes and paprika, fry for a minute or two
• Add cooked chickpeas, chickpea water, stock, lemon juice and cabbage - bring to the boil and then reduce to a slow simmer until cabbage is well cooked.
• Take off the heat and stir in torn basil.
• Serves four as an appertiser or two as a main with chopped parsley and pepper on top.

Moong Dal

Just because one's bank account is starving is no reason for you to! Dal is cheap, easy, nourishing, comforting and can even be delicious (particularly left overs on rye sourdough toast the next day). Obviously you can use whatever leafy vegetables you like in this if you do not have cabbage and spinach on hand. Kale would be awesome.

It is important to serve lentils with brown rice so that you get the benefits of complete protein - anyway, brown rice gives a much better texture and flavour to the dish! If brown rice just doesn't look appetising to you, throw a few teaspoons of tumeric into the cooking water to make it more jolly!

INGREDIENTS:

• Rice bran oil or ghee for frying
• 1.25 cups split moong/mung beans (thoroughly washed)
• 2 or 3 fresh green chilies
• 1 cup of tamarind water
• 6 cloves of garlic (crushed)
• Fresh ginger (thumb-length-ish chunk, finely chopped)
• 1 onion (diced)
  
• 2 tsp tumeric powder
• 3 tsp brown mustard seeds
• 3 tsp cumin seeds
• 6 - 10 curry leaves
• Pinch of asafoetida powder
  
• 1 carrot (diced)
• 1 celery stalk (diced)
• 3 cups of wombok or other cabbage (finely sliced)
• Spinach (couple of handfuls of leaves)
• Bunch of coriander leaf/stem (roughly chopped)

METHOD:

1. Head oil/ghee in a pot and fry curry leaves and mustard seeds until they begin to pop.
2. Add cumin seeds and onion, gently frying until clear
3. Add lentils, carrot, celery, ginger, garlic, tumeric, asafoetita, and chili and stir fry for a couple of minutes.
4. Cover with water (let water level sit about an inch above the contents of the pot), bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer.
   
5. Add cabbage about 15 minutes into cooking when dal is half cooked and continue simmering with lid on until dal is mushy and water is mostly absorbed.
6. Turn off heat and stir in tamarind water, spinach and coriander leaves.

This is wonderful served on brown rice with spicy pappadums and a simple raita. Mmmmmm!

Coconut and Banana Biscuits

This is a recipe that I simply MUST share. This one I found somewhere in the internet and wrote down and have used often however I can no longer find where I originally found it. If this is your recipe, let me know! I love it!

These little bickies keep really well and are so satisfying when you just need a little something. No sugar, no flour and completely vegan. Unfortunately they're not gluten-free due to the oats... but some people who are only slightly gluten sensitive can still tolerate oats!  I've tried them with rolled spelt instead of oats and they are delicious too! Healthy AND delicious. What's not to love?

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 large ripe bananas (mashed)
• 1 tsp vanilla essence (if you can try to use real vanilla bean paste for a far superior result!)
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 2 cups rolled oats (use rolled spelt if gluten intolerant)
• 2/3 cup almond meal (even better with macadamia and walnut meals)
• 1/3 cup shredded coconut (I've done it with fresh coconut and that is seriously ace!)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• OPTIONAL: 200g dark choc bits (I just rough chop a block of Green and Black's 70 or 80%)

METHOD:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
2. Combine banana, vanilla, and coconut oil
3. Combine coconut, oats, almond meal, cinnamon, salt and baking powder
4. Stir dry ingredients into wet
5. Fold in chocolate bits
6. Drop a tablespoon or two of mixture in dollops on a lined baking tray and bake for 12-14 minutes.

Yum. Seriously. And this is coming from a woman who isn't fond of the taste of banana at all! ;)