Dat’s nice.

Could be.

Yes.

Preparing a cooked breakfast. . .they seem to be going out of fashion. Anybody make cooked breakfast? Just bacon and eggs or something more fancy? Nothing wrong with b&e but when I make a cooked breakfast I like to do something more.

For breakfast? Recipe?

Jovial Monk wrote on Jul 8^th, 2017 at 6:16pm:


Buffalo have wings?

Jovial Monk wrote on Jul 8^th, 2017 at 10:01pm:


Were they flied buffaro wings?

Bought two cookbooks today:

1. A. A. Davis “25 techniques for Smoking” no, not cigarettes silly.

2. Rick Stein “India” reckon there will be some great curry recipes in there


Pity this place doesn’t have a Food board.

Not joints either

Don’t need chili in every curry.

The heat of a chili is in the membranes, remove them and the seeds should cut the heat down. Chilis are loaded with antioxidants, do persevere and you will get to like them.

Tbsp ground coriander
Tsp ground cumin
Tsp ground tumeric

will give you a nice mild but spicy curry. By spicy I mean the taste of the three spices, not heat.

Cook the curry, near the end remove your portion, sprinkle half a tsp chili flakes into the remainder. Everyone is happy.

Now! Since AGW is belting vignerons around the ears they have had to respond by pulling the original varieties of white wine grapes and plant Italian varieties.

So, Monday I bought a couple bottles Fiano.

Friday I want to showcase Fiano.

So what, in the line of a cold buffet, do I buy to go with a bottle Fiano?

Fish, I suppose? Nice bit of smoked salmon? Or some nice kingfish sashimi? Or both?

Could buy, and steam, some chicken dim sims at the market? I ALWAYS give them the sign of the cross: “In Nominee Patre et Fili” I solemnly intone, squeezing a line of chili sauce North–South across the top of the dimmers. I then pick up the soy sauce bottle and intone “Et Spiritu Sancto, amen” crossing the dimmers E–W with the black stuff. Just my rather adolescent sense of humor/rebellion against Catholic upbringing/whatever. I like it.

So, chicken dim sim, smoked salmon (or rainbow trout) and/or sashimi plus olives, sundried maters, roast peppers & eggplant, falafels etc. What else?

Really looking for food to eat while drinking white wine. Preferably not requiring cooking (steaming some dim sims is OK.) Some marinated sardines, some oysters (really should drink stout or porter, copious malt vinegar splashed about.) Some cooked prawns be nice. Want to get away from seafood tho.

Any suggestions?

Cool, will have a look at it. Thanks!

Have I mentioned my 'to die for' Aberdeen sausage which I have just about ready for tonight, with mash, peas and gravy?

Yum stuff.

Made a quick trip to the market.

Bought some coffee that is to die for! The aroma of that coffee in the car! Hmmmmm! And some ginger and apricot dacquiose to have with the first cup, yum!

Had a look in the fish shop, some nice chunks sashimi kingfish and tuna so will get some of those tomorrow. Some smoked salmon too. Chicken dim sim. Mushroom and tomato salad, couple dips, bewdiful!

Just finishing the meal with a nice double brie and a small glass of Mr Pickwick’s Particular Fine Tawny Port. From Saltrams, of course.

Bloody nice meal.

Was going to work in the garden but it is raining.

So made a lime marmalade instead.

Blood lime and tahitian lime.

Just went by the seat of my pants, no recipe.

Nice! Quite tart, know it is lime.

Tested for the set point, no not quite, 10 minutes later, ah looks good enough. Turned the heat off, let it stand for 10 minutes, oh lovely nice skin on the marmalade. Fished the jars out the waterbath, filled them, got the lids out the waterbath, sealed the jars (2 and a bit) and put the two full ones upside down on the counter.

A little while ago I tilted the part filled jar—marmalade had set!

Tried some on a sandwich. Nice!

Heh, the 2 jars of marmalade look funny: having put them right way up the marmalade is staying put so the bottom cm or so of the jar is empty 

Have been looking through some cookbooks for something hearty to make on the weekend.

Reckon a couple pizzas, nice and simple, get some techniques from the Forkish book right.

The other main meal: butter chicken. This is from one of my latest cookbook acquisitions, Rick Stein’s “India—in search of the perfect curry.”

Be good I reckon, the kitchen will be redolent with the smells of spice.

When it stops bloody raining here will try something from the book I bought at the same time as the Stein book: “25 techniques for Smoking” by Ardie A. Davis. Smoke a nice bit of salmon, maybe? Might be able to add some fennel fronds to the fire chamber of the smoker.

We can talk about food, well, some of us can.

But there is a bloody big black person in the woodpile. AGW.

YAWN! you go, bloody b o r i n g AGW, doesn’t Monk talk about anything else?

Well, the next post in the AGW thread here will bring AGW much closer to home.

Stay tuned!

I have a yen to make some quickbreads. Had a book on muffins that had some quickbread recipes, dunno where it is, think it was given to a niece—I wasn’t using it.

Bought two books just now.

Best Quick Breads: 150 Recipes for Muffins, Scones, Shortcakes, Gingerbreads, Cornbreads, Coffeecakes, and More (Paperback)

And

Southern Biscuits: Quick Comfort with Reinvented Southern Classics (Hardback)

Be good, I reckon.

Puzzled me a bit, reading American fiction talking of cooking the biscuits in the bacon grease 

You can root a beet but you can’t beat a root.

Gawd,  there goes the breakfast of some!

Just ate some tongue in blood. Delicious!

Also called “tongeworst” or “tonguewurst.”


Love that stuff!

Jovial Monk wrote on Jul 22^nd, 2017 at 5:49pm:


I hesitate to think what you might do next with that.

Nah, I kneaded it, let it rise, punched it down and divided it into two balls.

Two lovely pizzas for dinner tonight.

Yeast is a single cell fungus.

Thanks for playing.

Well, the fish soup was very nice, good and hearty. Mussels, squid and fish. Onion, green chili, fennel bulb. Later some white bok choy, mint and parsley. Oh yeah, boiled a spud in some of the stock, added that to the soup. A meal in a bowl. Glass of a kiwi sauv.blanc to go with it.

I have to admit, the kiwis know how to make white wines.

Ribs sound good as do the snags.......

Hmmm as well as feral pork I reckon lamb snags are great.

Lamb + rosemary + semidried tomatoes + garlic be OK.

Lamb korma—in a snag?

Won’t be a snag without that gut, Aussie.

No, but I would like to some day!

I find deer just tastes like inferior mutton. I like the wild piggies! Or goats!

Gordon wrote on Jul 30^th, 2017 at 7:53pm:


Overrated.

I had it in Austria once, from a friend's backyard, and it didn't impress me.

Give me Western Australian beef any day.

Gordon wrote on Aug 3^rd, 2017 at 7:55pm:


Nah.

I had a lot of goose in Austria too, which wasn't my thing.

I'm a beef boy (Booby, settle down).

Going to make pizza tomorrow, make the dough in the morning and let it ferment for 8 hours.

Looking through the Ken Forkish “Elements of Pizza” just saw one I will DEFINITELY make soon! Involves frying some leeks in butter until they get some color, add some non-hoppy (not bitter) beer* reducing that then covering the leeks and let them cook. In another pan over high heat fry some pork belly lardons or pieces of pancetta. Roast a yellow potato then crumb it (reduce to crumbs) and assemble and bake the pizza!

Brekky tomorrow: toasted bagels, cream cheese and either smoked salmon with capers or pastrami.

Sounds OK to me!


* Ken suggests a Belgian Farmhouse Ale or a Saisson. Good choices but if I can’t locate one  a Tripel or a wheat beer will do. At a pinch: Coopers Pale Ale.

Just for Sprinty:
Heh, I brewed a saison. Farmhouse ales were rustic and the farmer–brewers opportunistic so I added a bit of a mix of ingredients (including, so help me, chunks of what were called belgian candy sugar    ) spelt and oats. Brewed it (lengthy process of a cereal mash stepped through 15 minutes at 32°C (degrade the gums in the oats) then heat to 50°C and keep at 50°C to degrade some of the voluminous proteins in the oats and spelt, 15minutes at 65°C to let the enzymes degrade what starch they could then a boil of the mash for 10 minutes, tip into the main mash, let that stand etc. Made a big starter of saison yeast. Had a LOT of yeast left over in the primary fermenter (the saison fermented another month in secondary) what to do. I bottled the yeast, 2 swing cap bottles, made 2 part mash saison Packs and sold the Packs with the yeast a mere $5 extra. Waste not want not!

Food is more than just “petrol for the body” in that making good food has elements of artistry and artisanship. But a good meal is a way to bring a family together and what better than a cooked breakfast early Sat morning, bring the family together before a hectic 2 days of shopping, sport etc.

Food feeds families, communities, nurtures relationships as well as feed the body.

OK!

Got feral pork and pork back fat, 1.5 and .5Kg. Feral pork and fennel sausages will be made a bit later today.

2.2Kg seville oranges—whiskey marmalade (but with brandy cuz whiskey sux!) and Dundee(?) marmalade, cooked until it is dark.

Bought some lemons for the marmalade and mandarins and oranges to eat. But with a grapefruit tree in the backyard maybe a mixed fruit marmalade.

Just got my copy of “The best quickbreads.”

Be some biscuits and soda bread made here soon!

And the leek cooked in beer pizza!

The pizza is about to go in the oven.

Lovely!

Made the dough early this morning, fermented all day meaning flavor!

Lardons sliced up, potato roasted and crumbled.

Leeks slowly cooking in the last bit of saison.

Damn, forget to look up “raclete” cheese. Nevermind, have some nice cheese to go over the leeks, lardons and potato.

A real winter pizza 

No, can’t say I have.

Most of the local ciders are made with eating apples, desert apples. Definitely lack something flavorwise.

I did like Mercury cider, back in the 70–80s. Did try it again, ohhhh, dunno, 10 years ago? Crap. Must have changed the recipe.

Did try Strongbow cider once—only once.

Will have a look at Uncle Dan’s and the Edinburgh Cellars.

Jovial Monk wrote on Aug 11^th, 2017 at 7:50pm:


Ya reckon cods will like it?

Jovial Monk wrote on Aug 11^th, 2017 at 7:58pm:


I suspect so.

For tomorrows dinner I bought a kangaroo pie and an emu pie.

Will have the coat of arms on my plate, how cool is that?

Ha! At the Adelaide Central Market stall “Wild Oz” saw these big lumps of fat. Camel hump!

Would have bought one, bit different to pork fat but getting late in the season for big roasts.

Will make the Forkish leek cooked in beer pizza again, was really nice. Got a bigger potato to roast this time. Tomorrow on the way back from the Strathalbyn Antiques Fair will buy some saison (French or Belgian Walloon farmhouse ale) and a bottle English cider for the wild rabbit I bought: made this last week but due not reading the recipe properly overcooked the rabbit to buggery. It was nice but a bit dry.

There sure are.  2800+ views say so.

So you never eat butter?

I use duck fat when roasting potatoes, etc.

Nice little freerange duck for dinner. Shoved a blood orange up its arse with a sprig of rosemary. Had some parsley left, quick chop, shoved that into the other end.

A parsnip, diced and some nice (tho large) brussel sprouts went under it.

Not much duck is left. Still have the carcase to pick for lunch tomorrow.

Making Southern style biscuits tomorrow for brekky.

I never suffer indigestion from my own cooking and rarely suffer indigestion at all.

I also never bother reading about much less practising all these idiot weird diets and all that crap! That and some BEER keeps me healthy!

Snickerdoodles were fine, next batch will be bloody excellent!

Seven 150ml jars of blood orange juice resting on the bench after being water bath processed. Be nice in summer: BO gelato, BO sauce, BO juice + gin + sodawater or just as juice.

Bit of a fiddly process: squeeze the oranges (and some lemons, keep the pH of the juice safely low) strain into a jug: it is essential that no bit of pith or pip gets into the juice or the preserved (canned) juice will be bitter as a mother in law’s tongue!

Wash jars, pop into waterbath to sterilise them. Heat to 190°F/90°C. Actually—the bloody juice was starting to boil so I only go to 180°F or so.

Fill into jars, seal, waterbath process for 15 minutes.

i went to my local IGA today for garlic bread amongst other things.. and they didnt have any so I had a moan at the checkout as all they had was garlic ciabatta  and I had to have it at over $6......the lady said...if you buy a french stick you can make your own...

so I said to her  I am a modern women.....  dont tell me anyone  still cooks..

I thought who makes their own...

the stores must love you monk...

Can’t wait to have my own woodfired brick oven for baking pizza and bread!