Pasta, Pesto et Poisson

As promised, here's my pesto post.  I suppose I can see why pesto is so expensive in the shops, because parmesan and pine nuts are luxury items.  That being said, holy cow!  I'm not sure I can go back to store bough pesto.  The flavour seemed to explode!  It tasted so vivid and fresh... like there was a party in my mouth!  I thought it was a bit too oily yesterday, but when I used it today with pasta, it was perfect.  If making it for a dip with crackers or to eat immediately, I'd suggest a little less oil and salt.  I'm also a bit of a garlic fiend... I think you couldn't go too far wrong with another clove of fresh garlic.

So... here we are:

Basil Pesto - Makes approx 1 1/4 cups - Weight Watchers ProPoints - 3 points per tbsp

• 3 1/2 - 4 cups loosely packed basil leaves (gently washed and dried)
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• 1/2 cup parmesan
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Wash and dry - remove leaves from stalks.

 

Toast pine nuts in a pan with no oil over medium heat until a nice golden brown - then put in food processor.

Not sure if you're meant to use grated parmesan or whole bits, but this is what I had.  I threw it in the food processor before I did all the other parts.

Peeled and tossed in the processor.

Basically, I put all the bits in the processor and whirred it until it made a thick paste.  Delicious!

Most importantly - put it in a cute bottle with an equally as cute label when finished.

A couple of tablespoons of pesto, pasta and the fish from yesterday.  Ridiculously yummy.

Story of a Snapper

As I sat on the sofa, bathed in sunshine and patiently tapping away on my laptop, working on my Year Overview (since school IS starting next week) I heard the familiar noise of our gate clanging.  Wondering who was about to try to sell us something, I jumped up and ran to the door.  Happily, I found the boy from next door on the step, and his father waving a fish at me from across the garden. 

I hastily pulled the boy inside and loaded his arms up with spring onions and tomatoes and followed him outside, to where his father kindly presented me with a beautiful Australian snapper.  He said he'd been out fishing today. 

This is not our actual fish, but a remarkable likeness of it.  I had fishy hands, so could not document the journey of descaling, gutting and cooking the fish - I know you're disappointed. (source)

I thanked him profusely and proceeded to scour the internet for instructions on how to descale and gut the fish (secretly, I was hoping Phillip would say "Don't worry about it dear, just put it on ice and I'll do it when I get home."  No such luck.) 

So I took it outside and the scales flew everywhere!  (Thank you to the website that advised me to do it outside.)  When I took a shower later, I even found one stuck on my chest (ick... that's the last time I wear a summer dress when descaling a fish.) 

Then I gutted it.  Bigger ick.  I could feel my dad looking down at me and shaking his head and laughing at me.  As a child, I enjoyed fishing with my dad.  Some of my fondest memories are of these trips - but I always disappeared when it came to the gutting of the fish.  I remember Dad telling me that I had to learn one day... And I would flippantly respond as I skipped away "Why?  When will I ever need to know how to do this?  You can always do it for me!"  Oh, how I ate my words today.  I yelled up the stairs and begged Mum to come down and watch over me.  She came, advised and I gutted. 

So after all that, I pulled a half-ripe lemon off the tree and rubbed the fish all over with half the lemon (inside and out), scored the fish on both sides, stuffed some butter in the cavity and scores, and rubbed it with some Robertson's Fish Spice (so yummy).  I put some slices of lemon on top, wrapped it up in tinfoil and popped it in the oven at 180 degrees for about 35-40 minutes.  Next time (if they are kind enough to give us another fish) I've already decided that I will rub it with salt, pepper, lemon, crushed garlic and maybe some fish spice.  It just needed a bit extra.  

Here it is - I had to flip it over because we were 'testing' it out of the oven, so it wasn't very pretty, and to be honest, I think the whole fish, head and all is quite terrifying looking and no one needs to see that.  It was REALLY tasty though!

Because today wasn't challenging enough in the kitchen, I decided to make pesto this evening too.  More on that tomorrow - I'm planning to put it with some pasta and what's left of our petit poisson.

Spinach and Strawberry Salad

Phillipa and Truman came over for dinner tonight.

All I have to say is: YUM!

I made a spinach and strawberry salad to serve up with the steak, sausages and other salads... it was so pretty, I meant to take a photo of it before dishing it up, but I quite honestly forgot. The original plan was to make it using the perpetual spinach from our garden - but when I tested it, the leaves were a bit more bitter than regular spinach.  I quickly ran out to the fruit and veg shop to get a bag of baby spinach, but the best I could do was a bunch of whole leaf spinach.  It was still lovely and fresh tasting, but not quite as pretty as usual.

Ooops.  The whole bowl was full of this lovely salad - well worth making when you have guests or fancy a treat.

This salad is awesome on so many levels.  As I mentioned on my other blog, I love different tastes and textures in my food - this is definitely a multifaceted salad.  The sugared almonds add sweetness and crunch, the vinaigrette dressing is both tart and sweet, which brings out the flavour of the strawberries beautifully.  A former workmate of mine sent me this recipe many, many years ago as part of a recipe exchange and it has never (ever) failed me - just as she promised - I have the email saved in one of my webmail accounts so I can access it, wherever I am in the world!

I will not even consider putting this in the Weight Watchers calculator to find the points.  If you want to, feel free (it served the 5 of us quite easily and I had a double helping and there was a bit left over - as you can see from the photo above.  I'd guess around 8 servings.)

Divine Spinach and Strawberry Salad

Dressing - I mix it all up in a little container, and shake it up and pour it on just before serving, so the salad/almonds don't get soggy.

• 1/4 c vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp raspberry vinegar or 4 tbsp red wine vinegar (I used 4 tbsp white wine vinegar tonight and I liked it a bit better than the red - it wasn't as strong.)
• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• 2 tsp poppy seeds
• 1 green onion finely chopped (I used a handful of chives today, also equally as lovely.)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• pinch or two of paprika

Sugared Almonds - Mix ingredients in a bowl; pan fry on medium heat with no oil until golden brown.  Make sure it's not too high or else the sugar will caramelize on the almonds and they'll stick together.  Can also sprinkle these on just before serving, or if the spinach and strawberries are completely dry - you don't want to lose the crunch or the sweetness.

• 1/2 c slivered almonds  (I used a 70g pack today, which is slightly over a 1/2 cup.)
• 1/4 c granulated sugar
• 2 tsp water

Salad - Wash and pat dry the spinach.  Toss the strawberries through it.  Use as many as you like - I think the more the merrier!  I usually make all the bits well ahead of time and assemble just before serving.

• bag of spinach (I prefer baby spinach, but today I used 1 bunch of spinach leaves and chopped them up.)
• 2 c strawberries - hulled and sliced/quartered/halved - whatever you prefer  

Enjoy!

A Change Of Plan(t)s

Yesterday's plan was to pick some of the beautiful basil I've got growing in the vege patch and make some pesto - I'm running out of the store bought stuff in the fridge and it's one of my cooking staples.  I decided to use my own, fresh ingredients to make a batch instead of paying a small fortune to buy the premade stuff. 

But... after a bit of reading about the funny markings on my tomato plants, I found out that they are sick.  With a heavy heart and a pair of secateurs, I mercilessly snipped away at the vines, leaves and stalks.  Where there were six big, bushy, delightful plants, there are now only four tragically thinned out plants.  I'm supposed to remove ALL vines with the awful white fungus stuff on them, but that would have decimated my biggest, most productive plant.  So I took off most of it and I've got my fingers crossed that I can control the rest with one of these home remedies.  I'm a bit worried my tomatoes are going to get a sunburn now.  Sheesh.  Does it never end?

Anywho, enter the next recipe.  Green tomato chutney.  I'm NOT letting all my tomatoes go to waste and I don't think they'll ripen if they're this green, so here goes.  I got this recipe off the internet, like many others.  Sounds pretty standard (check me out, Mrs Tomato Chutney Expert.)  I've halved the original recipe, as I'm short on jars and Mum thinks some of these green babies will ripen up.

Green Tomato Chutney - slightly modified from recipe
Weight Watchers ProPoints = 1 point per serve (based on 50 servings.)

1.3(ish - whatever 2.5 lbs comes out to) kg green tomatoes
500g onions or 1 lg. onion
1/2 tsp. peppercorns
1/2 tsp. salt
just under 500g brown sugar (whatever comes out to 1lb or thereabouts)
3/4 c. malt vinegar
1/4 c. sultanas
2 cloves

1/8ish tsp of cayenne chilli powder

I had to take a photo of the cut tomato - I thought it was so pretty!  (I may have popped a bit in my mouth accidentally... it tasted nice, like tomato obviously, but with a gentler flavour.)

Roughly chop the tomatoes and onions.  Mix them together in a basin/bowl/container (whatever) with the peppercorns and salt. Allow this to stand overnight. 

All mixed up so then I covered it with Glad wrap for the night.

It's a bit late.  I shouldn't have faffed around so much... regardless, it's standing overnight now.

The following day (today), boil the sugar, cloves and cayenne with the vinegar then add the sultanas.

Sometimes Blogger uploads my pictures sideways.  I don't understand why, but I can't fix it - even if I reupload the photo.  Anyhow, keep an eye on it at this stage because it will boil really suddenly and if you don't pay attention will burn and boil over.

Simmer for 5ish minutes, then add the tomatoes and onions and simmer until thick.

Again, sideways.  Irritating!

I simmered mine for about an hour and a half.  I think it's because I added the tomatoes and onions AND the water that was in the bowl after it sat all night.  I think if you drained the water and THEN added it, it may take only 40 minutes, as the original recipe says.

I forgot to take a photo when it was done just right.  I used the potato masher to mash it up and make it smaller and more chutnified. 

Pour into hot jars and seal.

I made cute labels yesterday.  I love them!

This chutney is a lot sweeter than the other one, and doesn't have as much of a kick.  I do like it though.  I'm not sure how it tastes with stuff yet, but I imagine it'll be nice with cheese and crackers, sausages and steaks.  If properly sealed and stored, it's meant to keep for up to a year (refrigerate after opening.)

**update - it tastes AWESOME with all of the above suggestions, and I think I like it better than my other tomato chutney... it's also a better consistency than the first batch of chutney (Phill prefers the taste of the first chutney though, so they must both be pretty good.)

original recipe source

Le Jardin

Cucumbers

Garden from upstairs - much fuller than last time.

From left to right - bed 1 - watermelon; bed 2 - tomatoes, spring onion, celery and parsley; bed 3 - potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce; bed 4 - perpetual spinach, oregano, thyme, basil, chilli oregano; bed 5 - cucumber & scarlet runner beans

My tomatoes

Green oak lettuce

Chives

Perpetual spinach

Capsicum

Basil

Scarlet runner beans

Any recipe suggestions will be happily and gratefully received, trialled and blogged!

Tomato Chutney

I kindly liberated a page from my hairdresser's latest Women's Day magazine (with her permission of course!) because I thought this recipe looked the easiest of all chutney recipes I had found.  I halved the recipe given, because I didn't want to use 1 1/2 kg of my tomatoes up.  I'm hoping that I can get really good at this one, because it'd be a cute little gift to give!


Classic Tomato Chutney - from Women's Day
Makes: 2 1/2 cups
Preparation: 35 minutes
Cooking: 2 hours
Weight Watchers ProPoints: 1 point per serving (my logic is as follows: 1 cup = 16 tablespoons, so you'd get about 40 tbsp from this recipe.  1 tbsp = 0 points, but about 1/10th of a bottle is 1 point.  Clear as mud?)

750g ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 1/4 cups white wine vinegar
1/4 cup sultanas
1/2 large onion, chopped
1/2 garlic clove, chopped
1/2 tablespoon salt
2 whole cloves
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (makes it quite spicy!)
2/3 cups caster sugar

(Preparation - Peel the tomatoes by first scoring the base of them with a cross and then blanch in boiling water for 1 minute, then transfer to a bowl of chilled water.  The skin will peel off easy as pie.)

1. In a medium saucepan, combine all ingredients except sugar.  Stir on med-high heat until the mixture comes to the boil.  Reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes soften (long enough to do quite a bit of knitting!) 
2. Stir in sugar until dissolved.  Bring to the boil.  Cook for a further 20-30 minutes, stirring often (but not constantly) until mixture thickens.
3. Pour into sterilized jars and seal (I sterilized mine in the microwave as a helpful website suggested.  Bad idea, they all cracked.  Waste of very cute jars.)  Store in a cool, dry cupboard for up to three months.  Keep in the fridge after opening. 

It's ridiculously tasty on homemade hamburgers (all gourmet-like!) and really good on a hunk of a milder tasting cheese (we've already finished 1 little bottle.)

**update - after making a batch of green tomato chutney, I've realised that this one is still too liquidy.  Next time I make it, I'll let it thicken more - Phill reckons it's more of a sauce.  Nonetheless, I'm still pretty pleased with my first efforts at chutney making.

Welcome To My Kitchen!

Hello and welcome!

I've only just started this blog, having rediscovered my love for baking and cooking.  I've also found a new passion for gardening.  Our garden is lovely, large and highly productive!

Since this photo was taken three weeks ago, everything seems to have exploded!  All the beds are full of veg and we're eating our way through them.

There's been an abundance of fresh fruit and veg filling our kitchen over the past few months and I hate to see it go to waste, so I have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen trying to use it up.  I thought some people may enjoy seeing a range of recipes that are tried, tested, true and tasty.  I'll be the first to admit, I'm no foodie, but I do love food.

Finally, there's the never-ending quest to get fit.  I'll admit, sometimes I'm crap at it and I make things that are not the healthiest, but all things in moderation, right?  Where applicable or useful, I'll put Weight Watchers ProPoints values up with some recipes. 

So... I'd love it if you could stay a while and give some of my bits and bobs a read!