Macadamia Lemon Slices

get
300 g light wholemeal flour
2 tbsp agave nectar
1 egg
140 g butter

300 g macadamias
5 tbsp agave nectar
4 Meyer lemons

do
Add agave nectar then the egg in the middle of the flour in a large bowl. Mix with a wooden spoon into a paste and then into the flour. Add butter in flakes. Knead to a pastry. If it is sticky add more flour. If it is too dry, add more agave nectar. Cool for 15 minutes covered with a linen cloth (tea towel).

Medium grate the macadamia nuts with a hand grater.
Coarsely grate the lemon peel into the macadamia meal. Add the agave nectar. Add the juice of 3 lemons or as much as necessary to make a wet, sticky paste and mix well.
Preheat the oven to 190°c. Butter a baking tray. Roll out half of the pastry on a linen tea towel. Turn it over from time to time and use the tea towel to fold over and straighten the the edges. Roll out a thin pastry the size of your baking tray and place it on the tray using the tea towel. Adjust the edges. Spread the macadamia paste on the pastry, right to the edges. Roll out the other piece of pastry to the size of the baking tray. Use the tea towel to lift it onto the top so it fits exactly. Use the flat edge of a knife to press the macadamia paste inside the pastry, straightening and closing the edges as much as possible.

Bake for about 25 minutes on the second shelf from the bottom until light brown.
Cool in the turned-off oven with the door open.
When cool, or before serving, cut off edges for private use. Cut into slices about 2 x 6 cm for public presentation. Alternatively leave it as one piece and cut off slices as required when required.
This is a variation on an earlier lemon slices recipe using almonds, honey and icing.

Taro and Red Cabbage

1 Small to medium red cabbage
3 Red onions
1 Sour apple
Olive oil
2 Juniper berries
1 Bay leaf
Pepper
300 ml hot water/ stock
Thyme

1 Large taro corm (Pacific)
Samoan pink variety if available. NB oxalic acid!
or in EU
1 Fresh white celeriac

You might want to use rubber gloves to prepare the cabbage and the taro.
Remove outer leaves from cabbage, quarter and remove core.
Cut onion into wedges and fry in olive oil.
Cut cabbage very finely. Add cabbage when onions are translucent. Boil water or stock and add some so that the cabbage is half covered. Add the spices
Peel the apple and cut into 8 pieces, add, cover and simmer for 30 min.

Wash and peel the taro/celeriac. Cut into big chunks and steam for approx. 25 min.
One could also fry the precooked taro/celeriac in olive oil as chips if one so desired.

Sprinkle cabbage with fresh thyme and serve with the taro/celeriac and a crisp green salad.

Rodenticides With Your Bacon?

On Saturday morning cafes ooze the odour of fried crisp bacon.

Under proposed food law changes in Australia, pork products containing traces of rat poison could be sold legally.

"The discovery of rat bait residues in pig livers at some farms has prompted the nation’s food authority to admit chemicals used to control vermin may “inadvertently” spread to the food chain. Tests at piggeries in January found unharmful traces of coumatetrayl or warfarin at three farms. Federal Department of Agriculture coordinated tests at 23 sites in January uncovered “very low” levels of coumatetralyl in slaughtered pig livers at a Victorian and NSW piggery. Warfarin traces were detected at a South Australian piggery. The chemicals kill rodents through internal bleeding. Pigs potentially ingest them by eating feed contaminated by treated rats." (source)

Update:
Maybe it is good that nearly three quarters of bacon sold in Australia is made from imported pork meat? 

Go vegetarian!

Image:
Gauguin, Paul, The ham, 1889
Graffiti, EU, Banksy?

Siverbeet with feta and pine nuts

get
1 large bunch of silverbeet (chard, perpetual spinach)
1 large red onion
4 tbsp olive oil
goats milk feta
1 cup of pine nuts
All organic

do
Heat olive oil in a large lidded pan.
Peel and chop the onion. Fry in the oil for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile clean the silver beet and dry it. Separate main stems from green leaves.(The stems can be white, red or yellow). Chop the stems and mix into the onion. Fry for a further 5 minutes. Shred the leaves and add to the pot. Simmer with the lid on for another 10 to 15 minutes. The silverbeet should be soft and wilted and change to a dark green colour. Any liquid should have disappeared.

Roast pine nuts in a dry pan.

Serve with feta cubes and sprinkle with pine nuts.

When purchasing vegetables tied with rubber bands, take care of them as the plastic debris is often mistaken for earthworms by storks (pdf), ibises, spoonbills and other birds.

Baked Rice Pudding with Pear Compote

GET
1 l milk
250 g rice, round/brown
1 cup of currants or raisins
Some lemon juice
1 vanilla bean
50 g agave syrup
1 pinch of salt
2 Tsp butter
A pinch of cinnamon

6 ripe pears
agave syrup as required
½ cup filtered water
all organic

DO
Rinse the raisins with hot water, then soak in lemon juice and some water.
Wash the rice, heat the milk and add the rice. When it boils, reduce the heat and simmer for 45 min. Take pot from stove and let it stand covered for 15 min.
Add the remaining butter, salt, scraped-out vanilla and the soaked and drained raisins and stir.
Coat the baking dish with some butter and preheat the oven to 200°
Place mixture in the baking dish, sprinkle with a bit of cinnamon and a some of butter. Cook until the crust is golden. Serve hot or cold with pear compote or apple compote.

No Spotted Dick Please, We're British
In England the Spotted Dick is a pudding containing suet and currants or raisins. But rice pudding is enjoyed by many other cultures around the world, even without the kidney fat.

Pear compote

Peel and core pears. Slice into a cooking pot. Add boiling water. Cover. Bring to boil and simmer for a few minutes. Mix in agave syrup while still warm.

Kale, Red Onions, Pine Nuts and Feta Entrée

GET
1 head/bunch of kale
4 red onions
or Höri-Bülle
2 cloves of garlic
150 g goat cheese/ feta
1 cup roasted pine nuts
Olive oil
all organic


DO
Wash the kale leaves well. Discard outer leaves and dry well. Cut the leaves from the stem by sliding a knife along them and keep both parts separate. Peel the onions and the garlic. Heat oil in a large pot as the initial amount can be rather bulky. Cut the onion into wedges, keeping one aside.
Fry the onions golden. Chop the kale leaves and stems rather finely. Add the chopped kale stems and garlic. After 6 min. add the kale leaves. Fry and stir for 5 min. Add a small amount of boiling water to the pot, stir and cover. Add the remaining red onion wedges. Lift the lid after 6 min. and let the moisture evaporate.

Tuscan kale

Roast the pine nuts in a dry pan until they are golden. Place in a bowl and cover.

Place goat cheese on 4 plates.

Once the ingredients are cooked to your liking, place an equal amount on each piece of cheese and sprinkle with the pine nuts.

The tasty red onion 'Höri-Bülle' is grown in the Lake Constance region by the Alamanni tribes. The onion can only be harvested by hand (no fossil fuel machinery!) and the seeds are not on the market, but have been used by the people of this Alpine region since 840. Farmers of the Höri peninsula are the main guardians of this vegetable today. Once rejected by EU norms for its non- standard shape, it is now protected by the EU as a regional slow food with a specific geographical indication in 2014.

Curly kale and savoy cabbage
Curly kale with soba noodles and sesame

Asparagus quiche

get

2 bunches asparagus
200g spelt flour
50g hard mild cheese
100g butter

4 Tbsp olive oil
6 eggs
4 heaped Tbsp spelt flour.
150g hard mild cheese (cheddar, Bergkäse) (grated finely)
2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese (grated finely)
boiling water
1 cup spelt-almond milk

do

Break the hard bottoms off the asparagus stems. Wash them well.
Steam asparagus until soft. Cool and drain well.

Preheat the oven to 190°c.

Put 200g flour in a bowl. Mix in 50g cheese. Cut in 80g butter. Mix together with hands. Add drops of water and continue kneading until the pastry holds together. Cool.

Heat the olive oil with 20g butter in a small saucepan. When melted mix in 4 Tbsp flour and allow it to cook a little. Add boiling water bit by bit while mixing. The Flour mixture will absorb the water. Continue adding water until the mixture is a thick paste, then gradually stir in the spelt-almond milk. Add enough to make a very thick sauce. Stir occasionally while cooking for about 10 minutes. Then turn of the heat and continue stirring occasionally as it cools.

Roll out the pastry on a cloth. Form it to a pie shell in a 28cm round baking form. Sprinkle a little cheese on the bottom.

Beat the eggs well until foamy. Gradually add the warmish spelt sauce while beating, starting with a small amount. When it is all mixed in, spoon some into the pastry shell to cover the bottom.
Using scissors cut small pieces of asparagus into the pie shell. Discard any woody bottoms. Save the tips for later. Use half the asparagus. Sprinkle some cheese on top and then add more spelt sauce covering the asparagus.
Cut the remaining asparagus on top as before. Sprinkle with Parmesan and then add the remaining spelt sauce evenly on top. Arrange the asparagus tips on top and sprinkle the remaining cheese evenly on them.

Bake the quiche at 190°C on the second shelf from the bottom for 30 minutes.
When you are ready to serve the quiche, bake it for another 60 minutes at 180°C and serve it hot. Test it with a skewer. It can also be eaten cold later.

Jackfruit Dinner Music

The jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) originates from Asia. It is a fruit of the subtropical rain forests.

"The jackfruit is made up of hundreds or even thousands of individual flowers that are fused together. We eat the "fleshy petals" that surround the seed, which is the actual fruit." (source).

The fruit can weigh as much as 35 kg. The flesh has a very strong odour, and oozes a thick white sap. In India various dishes such as pudding are made out of it.

"There is also another tree which is very large and has wonderfully sweet and large fruit; it is used for food by the sages of India who wear no clothes." Theophrastus 300 B.C. (source)

It seems that every part of the tree can be utilised - food, dye and wood for musical instruments. The hardwood from the trunk is used to make drums for the gamelan.

As both the fragrance and taste did not agree with us, we prefer the percussive instruments made of the tree and the music generated on it. Dinner will be accompanied by the traditional ensemble music of Java and Bali, 'reverberations the influence' (video) of Steve Reich. (video)

Davidson's Plums with Cashew Cream

GET
Plums
15 Davidson's plums/ Oorays
1 Vanilla pod (forget extracts)
10 Tbsp maple syrup

Cashew cream:
120 g cashew seeds
5 Tbsp filtered water
3 Tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp cinnamon
A dash of lemon juice
A pinch of salt

Click to enlarge

DO
Soak the cashews 2 - 6 hours before in water. Preheat the oven. Wash plums, cut and remove seeds. Cut the skin very fine and the pulp can be chopped. Mix the content of the vanilla orchid pod and the syrup and add it to the plums. Place in a casserole and roast for 20 - 30 min at 190°C. Keep an eye on the roasting process. Stir if necessary or even add water. It is not to go black!

Place cashews in a sieve and rinse. Pound in a mortar (or blender). Add the remaining ingredients as you go. Taste and add more sweetener or water if necessary.

The plums can be served warm or cold with the cashew cream.

Davidson's plum sauce
Cinnamon biscuits filled with Davidson plum jam

Meat

When you sit before delicacies and fancy foods, you will recognize their nature if you bear in mind that this is the corpse of a fish, that is the corpse of a bird or a pig; or again, that imported wine is merely grape juice, and this purple robe some sheep’s wool dipped in the blood of a shellfish; and as for sexual intercourse, it is the rubbing of a piece of intestine, then a convulsion, and the spurting of some mucus. Thoughts like these go to the heart of actual facts and penetrate them, allowing us to see them as they really are. 

Marcus Aurelius (Meditations, 6 13)  (source) 

Images:
Tomb of Menna, Scribe of the king, scene: Hunting and fishing, detail: Fishing, Thebes 1422-1411

Corinth, Lovis: Butcher shop, 1913

Bunya Pine Nuts with Sauerkraut and Pasta

Get
650 g organic Sauerkraut
500 g pasta (Spirali, Spiralini or Rotini)
300 g Bunya Nuts 
or chestnuts 
2 onions
1 red capsicum
150 ml cream (optional)
Olive oil
300 ml stock/water
A pinch of caraway
6 juniper berries
2 bay leaves
Parsley

Bunya Pines, Araucaria bidwillii

Do
Chop the onion finely, and fry in olive oil till golden. Drain sauerkraut and add together with some hot stock/water. Add the caraway, juniper berries and bay. The kraut should be covered with liquid. Add the peeled bunya nuts, stir and cook for 30 min.

Bunya 'nuts' with lost cowrie shell

Cook the pasta al dente. Chop the capsicum in small thin strips and add to the dish, keeping a few bits for decorative purposes. Add some of the parsley. Cook for another 15- 20 min.
When the pasta is done, take the sauerkraut off the heat and stir in the cream. Decorate with chopped parsley and the remaining capsicum.

Serve with a rucola salad and slices of Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Baked penne with tomatoes

This dish is a favourite with leftover pasta and tomato sauce from the day before, but can be done from scratch too.

GET
500 g Penne
1 cup of tomato sauce
1 cup of cherry tomatoes
Some basil leaves

Optional
2 cups of cream
1/2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/4 cup rennet-free cooking cheese 
1/4 cup Gorgonzola cheese
1/4 Mozzarella cheese


DO
A)  The leftover option:
The pasta and tomato sauce have been already mixed the day before. Now add the small tomatoes and if you like the cream and cheese mixture. Heat the oven. Grate some of the cooking cheese over the dish and cook till the pasta is hot and the cheese has melted. Decorate with basil.

B)  Without the leftovers
Boil the pasta al dente and drain. Mix all cheeses, cream in a bowl. Mix pasta, dairy and the small tomatoes and place on shallow baking dish. Grate some of the cooking cheese over the dish. Cook till the cheese has melted. Decorate with shredded basil leaves.
   

Butternut Pumpkin Soup

Get
2 butternut pumpkin
8 carrots
10 yellow button squash
4 cloves of garlic 
Some ginger
1 bunch of coriander
Some parsley
4 chillies
6 peppercorns
Olive oil
Stock

Do
Peel and gut pumpkin. Put 1 l of filtered water in a pot and add the pumpkin offcuts. Add the chilies and peppercorn. Peel the carrots, wash the parsley and add to the stock.

Heat some oil in the soup pot. Fry the sliced carrots and ginger. Cut the pumpkin into large chunks (keeping 1/4) and add. Cover all vegetables with the hot (sieved) stock and simmer for 40 min. The cut the remaining pumpkin into mouth-size pieces and the red chili into thin strips. Cut each yellow button squash into 8 parts.  Simmer for another 10 - 20 min. Sprinkle with chopped coriander.

Some people use coconut milk or put the lot through the mixer. It is nice to not have machine noise or tins in the kitchen.

Sweet potato carrot turmeric soup

Mushrooms with pesto

Get
250g large open field mushrooms
100g spelt flour
5 tbsp olive oil
Lemon thyme

1 bunch of basil
200g macadamia nuts
2 large cloves of garlic
1 cup olive oil

Do
Clean and remove the stems from the basil. Chop finely.
Medium grate the macadamia nuts and add to the basil in a bowl. Mix.
Crush the garlic and add.
Add oil bit by bit while stirring until a thick paste forms.
Press into the bowl. Dribble a little oil on top and cover.

Clean the mushrooms, dry them, cut a little off the stem and discard. Cut into thick slices.
Put the flour on a large plate and roll the mushrooms in it. Do this in 2 lots if there are too many mushrooms. Leave for ½ hour so the mushrooms collect lots of flour. Turn from time to time.
Heat olive oil in a stainless steel frying pan and add enough mushrooms when the oil is hot so that they do not touch. Turn when golden.
Push the mushrooms to the side of the pan when they are golden on both sides and fry the remaining mushrooms.
Sprinkle with lemon thyme.

Can be served with potatoes and a salad or with noodles and tomato sauce.