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you say tomatos i say relish
Well i have had some success in my vegetable patch and some failure.
the biggest under achievers this year has been the Cucumbers and the beetroot. the former just never grew then when i moved them for a better spot they got eaten by snails 
My beetroot started looking a bit dead on top so i harvested them to find four marble sized specimens not even big enough for the baby veg category. my basil disapeared without a trace after planting upward of 30 seedlings in different spots.
On the positive side my zuchini squash and tomatoes are going off. i have already been eating them most meals with a plan to go into tomato relish production in about 2 weeks. My tomatoes have been performing solidly i have been getting some good black russian, cherrys, grape and roma tomatos with my first bullock heart ripening yestoday.
coopers stout
As i said in my last post i have been also brewing my own beer, i am starting a stout this week and am looking at doing the irish stout recipe (a coopers stoout kit with 1kg light dry malt) but reducing the liquid ammount from 23lts down to 16lts. it is my first attempt at any kind of expirementing with the recipe but i have it on good authority that this modification will work no worries. will have update on the brew and the relish when that all comes to be. have a good one, dave.
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Here is a little dish i have recently tried for the first time. bloody simple and very nice. my wife and i have been going to the gorman house markets to eat these delicious pancakes for a while when we decided that they can't be to hard to make.
the recipe i found was
2 cups Masa harina
1 cup warm water
i know sound a bit simple and i am sure it would have worked if i could find masa harina ( it is some kind of corn meal) so i went to a health food store and bought a close approximation being white corn meal. i also used a little whole meal flour and some vegetable oil and salt and pepper along with the water this made quite an acceptable dough, for a gringo i am sure that no respectable cooks from Elsalvadore would agree.
my ingredients:
2 cups corn meal
1 cup wholemeale flour
1/4 cup vegetable oil
salt pepper
enough water to make a loose mix ( 2 to 3 cups)
the next bit of recipe murder i committed was in the method i placed a ball of the mix into a greased cast iron pan ( sitting on a medium to low heat) and flattened it out with a spatula then i placed cheese and creamed corn on top with a little more salt and pepper before spooning on a little more dough. and flipping it. the whole thing cooks in about five minutes and goes really wel with a bit of salsa action the hotter the better. The usaully method involves making a ball then creating a pocket with your fingers, fill the pocket with cheese and corn then close the opening and flatten the ball between your hands, my apologies to Esalvadore, but if any on can point me in the right direction for the masa harina flour then i will most certainly try the traditional method.
other fillings you can try are refried beans, salsa chilli con carne, spinach all of which work with a healthy dose of your favourite mexican style condiments.
if you are simply to lazy to cook this dish your self get down the Elsalvadorean stand at the gorman house markets on any saturday, and for $4.50 you can try the real thing.
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Now here is something all aussies should do around australia day, not for any patriotic purposes, quite simply the price of beer is such that you would have to be pretty well off to spend a whole day playing two up at the bbq with a cold beer constantly in reach. The honourable Kevin Rudd has said this week that everybody needs to tighten their belts to prepare for the economic flow on from the looming American recession, and what better way to curb expenditure, then brewing your own beer.
A friend of mine has lent me a kit, which is lucky as they do cost around 90 bucks ( almost three cases of beer!) that part of the set up does put you in the red for about 2 full brews ( as long as you do pretty standard ones)
coopers Aussie pale ale
The cost to me was:
The wort (you know the cans of stuff you see at the super market) I bought a Coopers Australian pale ale for $9.50
The enhancer, usually the can you buy will make a suggestion as to which one to use, i used coopers brew enhancer 2, cost $5.30
Carbonation drops 100 for $2.50 ( you need around sixty for a brew)
crown seals 100 for $1.73 ( you will use 40 to sixty depending on the size bottle you use)
Unscented bleach $1.28
sterilising solution $2.98
The bleach and sterilising solution will easily do 4 or so brews.
brew enhancer
now the instructions on the kit i used are pretty all inclusive but something s that i found not very clear were as follows.
The kit specifies to add fermentable sugars when you are melting down the wort with hot water ( 2lts boiling or 4 lts hot tap water) this stage is quite important, no sugar no ferment no alcohol, fermentable sugars can include any type of sugar you have in the cupboard ( i plan to muck around with those later) but the information i recieved after much ringing around and discussion was that Dextrose is the sugar of choice ( another coopers product) you can use any sugar but sucrose ( as in most of the stuff we have in our cupboards) gives a cider taste not necessarily desirable in beer. As i said before i used a 1kg enhancer which has the dextrose you need and some extra malt and stuff.
also when it comes to the the sterilising they are not too specific ( probably don't want to be sued) after rincing and draining the bottles i followed the advice of my Father in law and sister and just used the home brand sterilising solution that you can get in the baby section at the super market. Make up the solution to the instructions in a bucket then part fill each bottle giving it a swill then drain thoroughly. i will let you know weather this is an effective method when a open the first bottle. i had a mixture of bottles some crown tops some twist tops and some screw top pet bottles. as i was using the hammer sealing tool it did take a while and the crown tops did seem to seal better then the twist ones, but after seeing my father inlaw do brew after brew in mostly twist tops i see no practicle difference between the two. i Had a lot of fun doing the kit and i involved the family which kept everyone entertained for an hour or two. in the end i got the equivilent of 3 cases of beer from the one kit, cooper pale ale retails at 53 bucks a case so for $23.29 i made $159 bucks worth of beer. any way i will have the first tasting on the 2nd of febuary i will let you know what its worth is then. have a good one, Dave
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Went out to a christmas funtion at the green herring ( yes i know again but i promise they are not paying me to come) it was superb as per usual you could try to get in before christmas but to be honest i don't like your chances click here for the full review and some more links.
I also had the pleasure of dining at the cafe at reid CIT great food and very reasonable prices i have tried the pizzas and their steak sandwich and after you have that you can drop into the regional shop and pick up some great ready made meals and produce
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Well in all my time writting stuff for this site i have not found a cafe so invisible there are no photos on the net and no phone numbers the shop front is tiny and virtually no one has heard of it. sounds like the sort of cafe that will fade off into the distance very quickly if you look it from this angle, but i would have to say that this lack of advertisement has in no way harmed Satis's marketabilty. The sunday myself my wife and kids visited, the place was packed, the coffee was flowing and the food was sizzling. we bunched into the windoor seat (you know the one thats in the window next to the door and could easily be another door) and enjoyed the scene. the heavily timbered room was accented with antique light fittings with some more modern touches such as the arty stainless kitchen hood and funky art works.
now i will warn all you unadventuress carnivores out there that this is a vegetarian cafe, so no asking about the bacon and certainly don't ask for your tofu medium rare. The menu is fantastic and eclectic, the total absence of flesh is both refreshing and most importantly does not limit choice. I have worked in plenty of restaurants where vegetarians are not catered for lightly, but in actual fact cooking with out meat is both simple and varied and after eating at a number of vego places in canberra i would have to disagree with any die hard fan of blood and bone saying they must have meat in every meal.
for my dish i enjoy a wild rice porridge with a fruit compote ( i think it could have been vegan) the rice was cooked just perfectly with the grains not burst and just a touch of a bite with the dark red plum pear and i think berry of the fruit mix it made for a filling and thoughly enjoyable breaky. my wife had the scrambled soft tofu with chilli and basil. i managed to pinch a mouthful and it was also lovely but you have to ask my wife for more details as she did make short work of this tasty morsel
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The sculpture wall
Like mexican food? i don't, not the stuff you generally get in a mexican restaurant, all too much cheese and ground beef no where near enough corriander real chilli guacomole and the thousands of other food innovations and ingredients that were pillaged form south America scant centuries ago. Malibu mex is still pretty much a standard mexican restaurant though it does come in near the top of the category, the food is fresh the helpings are bloody big and there is more ground beef and melted cheese then you would ever have time to poke a stick at. For the food that is all that needs to be said. The main reason people keep coming back is definately the atmosphere, no offence to the food, it's not bad i just think ive said all that needed to be said.
The coolest seats
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Yes thats right no more apologies, in fact i won't even use the word. i love writting for this site but for the last few monthes i have been doing some really cool stuff at the reid cit. now you have my less divided attention i plan to go over a few other thing i might do. the last post i wrote was a third person piece on the green herring... i realised its been too long between posts when i find myself going back to same restaurant i did my last post on tonite.; so i will do an updated first hand regular style post on the green herring.. if you are looking for a booking they are pretty packed this time of year so dont be surprised if you cant get a table phoning a week before. I am currently learning some cool things to do with on line learning so i will most likely inflict some amatuer mulitimedia on y'all in the near future but have no fear of this becoming a techie kind of site, there will be some links to couple of cool design sites a friend put me onto and some chicken scratch photostories but i won't be posting purely in java script until hell is cold enough for a herd of elephants to ice skate over. i am pretty sure i made some promises about some up coming posts so i promise not to make promises like that again, i will however not apologies (oops there i go again) for making those promises, because i honestly think that lying to you all those monthes ago has kept at least a couple of people checking my site to see if the lying bastard has posted the much awaited post on... well i can't remeber now but i will when i have written it. Regards Dave.
oh by the way heres my animoto thingy i did took about 15 minute and was quite fun to make so have a go if you want
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Hi all here is some of the functions we will be prepping for on Monday and Tuesday this week, our seafood lesson will be held on the following week and I have ordered a few cool things for us to cook up.
The mintrac national conference
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we will be meeting down in the cake decorating room for a quick video session looking at turkey and duck preparation.
after that we will spend the morning cleaning up all the ducks and turkeys for the various tasks. these will include but not be confined to :
duck leg confit
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warm and cosy inside
now i know i have stalled on this one a while, but its for good reason. i didnt eat there as such for the review, it was my wife, but to be fair i asked mr Green to pack me a take home meal . if you havent been to the Green Herring yet then chances are you are walking around with this funny feeling like your life is not quite complete ( this could also mean you need to go out and buy a fancy sports car or go skydiving, but eating at the green herring is alot safer and cheaper then both of these) its a blody good feed and its atmosphere is unique and casual. i reviewed briefly the murrumbateman pub which has a plethora of antiques scattered round its resonably new walls, i mean, thats ok, but the green herring as a whole is an antique. housed inside an 1850's shearers hut it oozes history like some people ooze sex appeal, the many rusty implements on the walls were actually used for their intended purpose at some stage and the two fire places burn real wood rather then being those tacky faux wood gas versions. now thats enough about the look and feel the taste is what this is all about and also what i go back for every time, having worked there i know how ingenious the cooking is, its a small kitchen so everything thats produced has to be done with a bit of flair, and a lot of skill, any fool can produce great meals given a big kitchen and enough staff, but it takes some genius to produce quality where space and staff are scarce (and given the heritage value of the building expanding the kitchen is not an option). now as far as what my wife and her friends ate, there is a possibilty that due to the level of merry making that followed dinner the records are some what garbled. they were however being looked after by one of my favourite floor managers, Jane Herring whose relaxed and friendly service style always puts me in the mood for feast, i can tell you that the two vegetrians were very well catered for, with a variation of the pear and celery leaf salad with hazelnuts and a blue cheese dressing and a hand made parpadelle dish made specially for mains (dietry requirments are all accomodated for at the green herring) i will give you more precise info on what i had after i picked up my wife from the george later that evening. The Kangaroo red wine and garlic pie on swede mash with muscat sage sauce was simply divine. rich succulent and perfectly braised chunks of kangaroo in a rich and morish stew, wrapped in Grahams special shortcrust ( i won't say his secret but go along to one of his classes at cooking coordinates(click here) you might get the info that way) which was baked to golden brown. crisp and yielding with no stodgy bits ( where theres too much pastry somewhere on the pie and it doesn't cook), perched on a pepperery swede mash(bashed neeps for you scots men) and doused with sage muscat sauce, just to bring the last of your taste buds to their knees. i topped this off with a serve of the beetroot and dark chocolate cake,
green herring from the front
a moist and flourless epicenter of meal ending decadence, the texture and structure seems to defy physics in the way it is so moist and dense while still holding itself up on the plate and tasting so superb. sided with the light mousse and thick cream (to balance the yang of the cake) this dish is bound to make people very horny or energetic or both. i think i better leave it there before i invoke some censorship but in parting i thouroughly enjoyed this restaurant and plan to visit there numerous time in the near future (for real this time) i encourage all to give it a go, regards Dave
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Comment by David John Burke
on My produce
culinarian
culinarian ask the chef